W. H.Mallock 
 
THE INDIVIDUALIST 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE HEART OF LIFE 
 
 Fifth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 A HUMAN DOCUMENT 
 
 Eighth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 
 
 3S. 6d. 
 
The Individualist 
 
 BV 
 
 W. H. M^ALLOCK^ 
 
 
 LONDON 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL 
 
 LIMITED 
 1899 
 
Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 WHEN portions of this novel, in a more or less connected 
 form, were appearing under a pseudonym in the pages of the 
 Fortnightly Review, an important monthly journal went out 
 of its way to suggest that certain of the events and characters 
 were close copies from life. If the author, this journal said, 
 did not mean his description of Startfield Hall as a descrip- 
 tion of a Settlement founded by Mr. Passmore Edwards, and 
 if he did not mean his description of the earnest persons 
 connected with it ' as an expose of the jealousy, littleness, 
 and special weaknesses ' of a certain well-known lady (whose 
 name I will not reproduce) and her friends, ' he has taken 
 every measure in his power to produce that mistaken impres- 
 sion on his readers.' 
 
 Observations of this kind it is not always possible, or 
 indeed necessary, to disprove. In this case I feel that an 
 answer is desirable ; and it happens to be exceptionally easy. 
 Startfield Hall was suggested to me by a chance paragraph in 
 the Liberty Revieiv, the organ of the Liberty and Property 
 Defence League. The paragraph mentioned the establish- 
 ment of some new 'Settlement,' and quoted a few words 
 used by one of the lecturers, who described the upper classes 
 as ' roaring with delight over the prospect of any new war.' 
 This was the only foot it provided out of which to construct 
 this particular Hercules ; and as to the personalities, and even 
 the names, of the founders and supporters of the enter- 
 prise, I am to this day in complete ignorance of them. If 
 their names were mentioned in the paragraph, they meant 
 absolutely nothing to me. 
 
vi THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Next, with regard to the character of Mrs. Norham in the 
 following novel, which the critic regards as a ' lampoon ' on 
 the lady already referred to, my answer is even more con- 
 clusive. If Mrs. Norham's character can be said to have an 
 original outside this novel, the original is to be found in a 
 Dialogue written by myself for the Nineteenth Century in the 
 year 1880. Mrs. Norham there appeared as the wife of a 
 Broad Church private tutor, who took pupils in a cottage 
 on the banks of Derwentwater. That her character as there 
 described is identical with her character in the present novel 
 will be seen by the words with which she begins the dialogue. 
 ' I have decided,' she says to her husband, ' to resign the sub- 
 editorship of the Agnostic Moralist. I am of course aware it 
 was myself who made the journal, and that it will inevitably 
 suffer by my withdrawing my support from it. But for many 
 reasons I think this the right course to pursue. The editor, Dr. 
 Pearson, was getting anxious to have the chief management 
 a most incapable man, for ever preferring his own opinion to 
 mine ; and I really found at last there was no working with him. 
 However, I was resolved that the rupture between us should 
 have no bitterness, so I have done my best to make the next 
 number a helpful one, and have insisted on contributing the 
 whole matter myself. There will appear in it, my dear, inter 
 atia, these two new papers of mine on "Functional Amusement" 
 and "The Cellular Character of the Individual.'" Mrs. 
 Norham (though I think these were the days before ' Settle- 
 ments ') was represented as endeavouring to diffuse culture 
 amongst the masses by painting pictures herself for them, one 
 of which bore the title of 'A Fugue in Four Colours.' 
 
 This sketch was made by me in 1880; and, so far as my 
 own knowledge goes, the lady to whom the critic alludes was 
 wholly unknown, till seven or eight years later, for any of these 
 views or enterprises which have led him to suppose Mrs. 
 Norham's career to be intended as a ' lampoon ' on hers. But 
 it does happen that I could point out in my early Dialogue 
 two marked, though minute, features which reappear in 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 writings of this lady's, published long afterwards. Just, how- 
 ever, as it would be the height of absurdity to suppose that 
 this lady was an imitator of me she probably never read 
 the Dialogue just referred to, so it is equally absurd to argue 
 that I have attempted any personal reproduction of her. 
 Any one who attempts to draw a typical character, or a typical 
 series of events, is sure, if he achieves any success whatever, 
 to produce a picture containing a number of touches which 
 somewhere or other have their counterpart in reality ; but this 
 will not be because his characters resemble individual men 
 and women, but because individual men and women of 
 similar temperaments and opinions have always a number of 
 traits in which they resemble one another. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 IT was by far the most malignant, though not the severest 
 winter so said aggrieved Londoners that had ever called for 
 their execrations. It brought none of the clearness of frost 
 with it, nor the exhilarating brilliance of snow ; but merely a 
 bitter succession of yellow or slate-coloured days, which turned 
 luncheon into a twilight meal, and made sunshine incredible ; 
 whilst the penetrating dampness, though only just cold enough 
 to congeal the puddles, and put a treacherous glaze on the 
 pavement, stole through men's clothing, and clinging to them 
 like the shirt of Nessus, chilled them as though its temperature 
 were some degrees less than zero. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of the weather, the streets of the West 
 End showed an animation beyond what is common in January. 
 This was due to the fact that Parliament was to meet early, 
 for urgent reasons, which are now matter of history. But 
 in fashionable and valetudinarian circles, unconnected with 
 politics, there was beginning an exodus to the South which 
 had not been equalled for years ; and as soon as the present 
 political crisis should be over, the movement threatened to 
 extend itself to political circles also. At all events it was 
 known that Lord Runcorn, the Tory Prime Minister, had been 
 ordered by his doctors to betake himself to a warmer climate, 
 the very first day that his duties should allow of his departure, 
 and that a villa had already been secured for him, which was 
 somewhere between Hyeres and Cannes, but was far removed 
 from any of the great international watering-places. At present, 
 however, he still remained in London, and London still was a 
 scene, despite the migration southwards, not only of political, 
 but of social activity also. 
 
 That such was the case might have been very easily dis- 
 cerned by any one who had been present one morning, in a 
 boudoir near Berkeley Square, whose windows, though it was 
 
 A 
 
2 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 now mid-day, were sheets of yellowish gloom. It was a room 
 which showed by its own internal evidence that the house it 
 belonged to was one of considerable importance, and was 
 moreover the home of some established and wealthy family. 
 This fact was whispered by the massive mahogany doors, and 
 the high and discoloured cornice, which seemed to tell the 
 observer that it was far too dignified to require so vulgar a pro- 
 cess as cleaning ; whilst the heavy pictures, whose frames 
 glittered against the faded walls, together with some old French 
 commodes and fine ormolu candelabra, seemed to be there as 
 institutions rather than works of art. The room indeed might 
 have been taken for a man's almost as easily as for a woman's, 
 if it had not been for an extraordinary profusion of photo- 
 graphs, catching the eye everywhere on screens or on velvet 
 stands photographs of ladies with long trains and tiaras, of 
 guardsmen, politicians, of members of the Yacht Squadron, and 
 also of a variety of unmistakably Royal personages, the 
 value of these last being heightened by the signatures of the 
 august originals. 
 
 But though the room was less elaborately feminine than the 
 ordinary fashionable boudoir, certainly nothing similar could 
 be said with regard to its present mistress. She was a woman 
 remarkable for a classical and commanding beauty ; but this 
 was softened by a certain esptiglcrie, and a something else in 
 her eyes, as well as by every art known either to maid or 
 modiste. To-day she was clad in some loose garment of silk, 
 which a man perhaps inaccurately would have ventured 
 to describe as a tea-gown. The sleeves, at all events, fell 
 negligently back, so as to show in strong relief the perfection 
 and whiteness of her wrists ; whilst her whole costume, as she 
 sat at a large writing-table, was finished by her embroidered in- 
 steps, and the sharp points of her shoes. 
 
 She was not alone. On the opposite side of the table was 
 another woman, whose bonnet proclaimed her a visitor, and 
 whose cheeks were still flushed by the touch of the air outside. 
 She, too, was in her own way handsome, and a business-like 
 alertness trembled on her lips, and in her eyes. 
 
 ' My dear,' said her hostess, ' I think it is more than good 
 of you to come out on a raw morning like this. But if any- 
 thing is to be done, of course it must be done at once. He's 
 the only man who could make this seat in Manchester safe for 
 us ; and the election can't possibly be much later than Easter. 
 
CHAPTER I. 3 
 
 Well I've been going over all the items to see what money 
 will be required. It's all there, down on that sheet of paper. 
 It's not a case of paying his election expenses merely. The 
 man is virtually a bankrupt, and what we shall have to do will 
 be to provide him with an income I should say for at least 
 three years. This must be twice as much as he has ever had 
 in his life, and very nearly a quarter of what he has been 
 accustomed to spend.' 
 
 The visitor took the paper, and glanced down a line of 
 figures. ' It comes,' she said, ' to a good bit, doesn't it? How- 
 ever, I've been into the question of ways and means ; and as for 
 the money, we can get it from several sources. The only diffi- 
 culty will be how to get him to take it. It must seem to come 
 from the party, or from some influential section of it. He has 
 far too much touchiness I don't say too many principles to 
 consent to save his country as the pensioner of his private 
 friends.' 
 
 'I think,' said the other, 'that between us we ought to 
 manage it. I've got him to dine to-night to meet the Prime 
 Minister quietly ; and my new chef he is really quite first-rate 
 will put him in a good temper, if anything human can.' 
 
 It has often been said that the modern growth of Democracy 
 has been fatal to the influence of the great lady in politics. The 
 observation, however, probably owes more of its plausibility to 
 an over-estimate of what the great lady did in the past than it 
 does to the insignificance of what she still can do in the present. 
 Only let a woman unite in her own person wealth and brilliant 
 rank with ambition, talent, and beauty, and her political influ- 
 ence to-day may be as great, though not quite the same, as it 
 could have been had she lived in the days of her great-grand- 
 mother. Nothing could prove that such is the case more 
 reassuringly than history teaching by example in the person of 
 Lady Tregothran as she sat that morning in conclave with her 
 celebrated friend, Mrs. Tilney, discussing the means by which a 
 popular but spendthrift Tory, whose power in the country had 
 been of an extraordinary kind, might be brought back again to 
 that Parliamentary life from which his own uncertain temper 
 and reckless habits had banished him. 
 
 The discussion was long ; and any listener who had remem- 
 bered that the feminine attention is remarkable for its versatility 
 rather than for its concentration, would have been forced to 
 admit that they kept to their point wonderfully ; for not only 
 
4 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 did they never lose sight of it till they had fully and finally 
 settled everything that by any possibility could have been 
 settled at that moment, but they actually continued their discus- 
 sion for a good twenty minutes afterwards ; and even then what 
 put an end to it was not that it was logically concluded, but 
 that an observation of Lady Tregothran's by accident introduced 
 a subject which, though connected with a politician, was not in 
 itself political, but was of a kind far more exciting to the normal 
 daughters of Eve. 
 
 'I wish,' said Lady Tregothran, with a regretful sigh, ' that 
 Octavius our dear, immoral, accommodating old Octavius 
 had only been spared us by the fates for five or six months 
 longer. He would have managed the whole business at once. 
 There never was a man who greased the wheels of a party as 
 he did.' 
 
 The personage alluded to with so much sincere feeling was a 
 lately deceased partner in a great provincial bank a man of 
 immense wealth and of very eccentric character. For the last 
 twenty-five years, his wife having died early, he had shrunk from 
 most society except that of her irregular successors. He had 
 been, however, little as the ordinary public was aware of it, con- 
 stantly connected with the chiefs of the Tory party, to whom, 
 with a liberality which seemed to be inexhaustible, he had sup- 
 plied money for a variety of political purposes, and several of 
 whose statesmen he had financed when they happened to be in 
 private difficulties. 
 
 ' Yes, indeed,' said Mrs. Tilney, ' we all of us miss him not 
 that I personally ever knew him myself. You, my dear Nita, I 
 believe, were the only woman I mean the only woman in 
 Society who was admitted to the privilege of his friendship ; 
 and you could always get anything out of him you wanted. It 
 was lucky for some Tories that he was so sensitive to the claims 
 of beauty.' 
 
 Lady Tregothran laughed. ' No,' she said, ' no ; you flatter 
 me. His friendship for me was hopelessly indeed, I may say 
 insultingly Platonic. The truth was merely this, and it is 
 really rather amusing. I always took his view of the antiquity 
 of his family seriously. Of course the foundation of that enor- 
 mous fortune of his was laid by his great-grandfather, I think 
 a solicitor at Hull; but his grandfather and father both of 
 them made good marriages, and he had amongst his cousins 
 and connections half-a-dozen earls and countesses. This, how- 
 
CHAPTER I. 5 
 
 ever, did not content him. What he wanted to prove was that 
 his family was of ancient origin that it was one which is men- 
 tioned in the Herald's Visitations of Yorkshire, and that his great- 
 grandfather had not been the founder, but only the restorer of its 
 greatness. I used to listen with all my ears to everything he 
 had to say to me. I pored with him over endless papers and 
 passages in county histories ; I showed myself convinced that 
 he and I had three ancestors in common, and he liked me 
 better for this relationship, which was quite imaginary, than he 
 ever liked his eldest son for one that was presumably real. 
 This, as Othello says, is the only magic I used ; and though it 
 got me whatever I asked him for during his life, it was hardly 
 so successful in determining what he should leave me on his 
 death.' 
 
 ' What did he leave you ? ' said Mrs. Tilney, with inquiring 
 eyes. 
 
 1 I'll tell you,' said Lady Tregothran. ' His old genealogical 
 papers, and the red morocco boxes which he had had made to 
 contain them ; nothing else, not even a five-pound note. He 
 left ten thousand pounds to Phyllis Farrell alone exactly a 
 thousand pounds for each month that she lived with him or 
 probably five thousand for each week she was faithful ; so 
 virtue, you see, must content itself with being its own reward.' 
 
 'Tell me,' said Mrs. Tilney, 'when you used to stay with 
 him, what sort of people did you meet ? Was there any woman 
 to do the honours ? I don't suppose you had Phyllis Farrell 
 scintillating at the head of the table.' 
 
 ' When I used to go there,' Lady Tregothran answered, ' the 
 only woman was a niece a niece in the Papal sense who 
 looked the embodiment of every respectable principle to the 
 violation of which she owed her own existence. But, my dear, 
 it amuses me to see you so very curious.' 
 
 ' I am curious, I admit it,' said Mrs Tilney, laughing. ' But 
 I don't see why that should strike you as being so particularly 
 amusing.' 
 
 Lady Tregothran looked at her friend with a mischievous 
 sparkle in her eyes. 'You are only,' she said, 'one more 
 example of what I observe so often, that good women for 
 you, my dear, are immaculate are so interested in bad men. 
 I am not. I have found them much too common. All the 
 same, I was really fond of Octavius, though his family arrange- 
 ments were so very openly patriarchal, and though he owed 
 
6 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 to his many Hagars so many more descendants than to his 
 Sarah. I should call him a model to all illegitimate fathers. 
 You know, I suppose, the way in which he left his money.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs Tilney, ' I think so. Everything went, 
 didn't it, to Mr Lacy, his wife's nephew ? ' 
 
 ' My dear,' said Lady Tregothran, ' not a bit of it. He not 
 only had by his wife one child, a son, but he had a baker's 
 dozen more by a mixed assortment of mothers ; and to each 
 of these last mothers as well as children who were alive 
 when the will was made, he left a fortune of sixty thou- 
 sand pounds. The remainder would naturally have gone 
 to the legitimate son and heir, if the young man had not been 
 an inveterate gambler, and shown a disposition to marry a 
 burlesque actress. As it was, he quarrelled with his father, 
 and went off in disgrace to America with one of his half- 
 brothers, who was, if possible, more reckless than himself. 
 Well, Octavius, angry and bitterly disappointed in his son 
 I know all this because he himself told me could not find 
 it in his heart to cast off the hope of his family hopeless as 
 he thought him to be with the proverbial shilling ; and so 
 what he did was this. His only other blood relation was an 
 elderly widowed sister, who had no children of her own. 
 Well I can't give you the proper legal phrases, but the kind 
 of arrangement he made in his will was this. Without naming 
 the good lady by name, he arranged that the bulk of his 
 property should go to his next-of-kin, other than his scape- 
 grace son, meaning of course this widow, who might, he 
 thought, live for ten years, and who would, he felt justified in 
 assuming, die without heirs of her body ; and then, should the 
 son be still alive, the property was to pass to him. If, how- 
 ever, the son should have predeceased the aunt, or if both son 
 and aunt should have predeceased the testator I hope you 
 admire my language, though I'm not sure if it's accurate the 
 property was to be divided between the widow woman's step- 
 son, a Mr Millikin he was to have about five thousand a year 
 and Mr Lacy, Octavius's wife's nephew, who was to come in 
 for all the remainder. So your friend, you see, inherits a part 
 of the fortune only I tell you this, my dear, in case you should 
 be thinking of him for Norah and he only inherits that, 
 because a judicious Providence, paying one of its rare visits 
 to Chicago, saw fit to remove his prodigal cousin by a fever, 
 whilst the widow succumbed soon afterwards to the healing 
 
CHAPTER I. 7 
 
 waters of Harrogate. I don't know what Mr Lacy's income 
 may be. But, cheer up, Carlotta. It is certainly something 
 large.' 
 
 Mrs Tilney was one of those people who disliked to be 
 bantered herself, almost as much as she liked to banter others. 
 Moreover, as she saw in herself, although she lived in the 
 world, a peculiar horror of the worldliness that was rampant 
 all around her, she was quite unprepared for this flippant 
 imputation to herself of a weakness so characteristic of her 
 morally inferior friends. 
 
 ' I assure you,' she said, with a moment's viciousness in her 
 voice, ' that if Mr Lacy had twice as much as you say he has, 
 he's one of the last men I should wish to call my son-in-law. 
 Nobody knows exactly what his story has been, but there's 
 been some entanglement every one says that ; and he's still 
 at the tender mercy of any pretty face to-day. He's delightful 
 in every capacity except that of a husband.' 
 
 ' I,' replied Lady Tregothran, ' should set his past to his 
 credit. No man is so likely to be attached to his own wife, 
 as a man who has been previously attached to the wife of 
 another man ; for no one knows so well the misery of all such 
 entanglements. A married woman has, for her unfortunate 
 lover, all the disadvantages of a wife, without any of the advan- 
 tages. She makes all the demands on his constancy that a wife 
 could ever make ; and, unlike a wife, she can't even leave his 
 cards for him. However,' she added with a sharply repressed 
 sigh, ' that's a well-worn subject. There's not much left to be 
 said about it.' 
 
 ' The reason,' said Mrs Tilney, who still stuck to her point, 
 1 the reason, my dear, if you very much wish to know, why Mr 
 I,acy has happened to interest me at this moment, is that 
 I had thought, if our present plan should fail, he'd be the 
 best man available for contesting this seat in Manchester, and 
 I wrote to Lord Runcorn, his uncle, only three days ago, 
 asking him to tell me his own views of the matter. Mr Lacy 
 is, or might be, the rising man of the day. If he fails to be 
 so he will only have himself to thank.' 
 
 ' Well,' replied Lady Tregothran, ' though I do but just 
 know him personally, I know that he ought to be the rising 
 man, as you say. He's a soldier, a scholar, a politician he 
 seems to have all the accomplishments ; and with his fine 
 eyes, and that hair of his a little grizzled on the temples, he's 
 
8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 just the man for women to find interesting. Few men so 
 early have succeeded in so many things. He's had everything 
 in his favour thus far, with the exception of one thing money, 
 and now he's got that also.' 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' said Mrs Tilney, ' that he has had all along 
 another thing against him besides a want of money, and that 
 he has it against him still. This other thing is himself.' 
 
 ' My dear,' said Lady Tregothran, ' you are talking in riddles. 
 What is it the man has done ? You talk of his story. Has 
 he any other story beyond some adventure with the inevitable 
 married woman ? Has he ever forged ? Has he ever cheated 
 at cards ? ' 
 
 ' No,' replied Mrs. Tilney, ' I believe him to be the soul of 
 honour. He is himself an obstacle to his own success simply 
 on account of what he is, not on account of what he has done. 
 He is an obstacle to his own success because he does not care 
 to succeed.' 
 
 ' I was afraid,' said Lady Tregothran, ' when you spoke of 
 him as the soul of honour, you were going to tell me that he 
 had privately married his cook. Ten to one he's suffering 
 from love or liver. We needn't despair of his getting the 
 better of both.' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' said Mrs. Tilney, ' I believe his health 
 to be excellent. His tongue in the morning is probably as 
 pink as yours, and as for his apathy for apathetic he is his 
 symptoms are as different as possible from those of the 
 despairing lover.' 
 
 ' Mr. Lacy, then,' said Lady Tregothran,' ' must be a very 
 mysterious person. But, my dear, may I ask, by the way, how 
 you, who knew so little about his money matters, happen to 
 be so intimately acquainted with his heart, his soul, and his 
 constitution ? ' 
 
 1 Well,' replied Mrs. Tilney, with triumph impending in her 
 eyes, ' would you really like me to tell you ? I said just now 
 that I had written about Mr. Lacy to Lord Runcorn his 
 uncle, who knows him intimately asking him if he thought 
 his nephew might possibly serve our purpose at Manchester. 
 Only an hour before I came here I received Lord Runcorn's 
 answer. You can read it if you like it really is worth 
 looking at and then you will see the source from which I 
 derive my knowledge.' 
 
 Mrs. Tilney produced from a bag an envelope of imposing 
 
CHAPTER I. 9 
 
 aspect and handed it to Lady Tregothran, who proceeded to 
 extract its contents. Mrs. Tilney, with some amusement, saw 
 her soon become absorbed in them. Lord Runcorn's letter 
 was as follows : 
 
 ' Mv DEAR MRS. TILNEY, Attached as I am to my nephew, 
 Tristram Lacy, it gives me pleasure to see that so shrewd a 
 judge of character as yourself should have pitched on him as a 
 hopeful candidate for so important and difficult a constituency ; 
 but I must tell you candidly, since you ask me, that I believe 
 it would be useless to apply to him. I say this for two reasons, 
 and it may interest you to know what they are. 
 
 ' In the first place, so high is the opinion entertained of my 
 nephew's abilities, not by myself only, but by my colleagues, 
 that he is about to be offered a certain post in Egypt a post 
 which I will leave it to your own sagacity to identify. And if 
 he wishes to re-enter public life at all he will certainly prefer a 
 brilliant certainty such as this to the doubtful chance of a seat 
 in the House of Commons an honour which he has enjoyed 
 already, and which he has already relinquished. 
 
 ' But my second reason for thinking that such an application 
 would be useless is stronger still. I do not think he will 
 consent to re-enter public life at all; for, so far as I understand 
 him and of late I have observed him closely he has lost all 
 the personal ambition to which public life appeals. Should 
 this prove to be the case, I shall certainly be disappointed in 
 him as a man ; but he will be all the more interesting to me, 
 who am a philosopher besides being a politician, as a subject of 
 psychological study. 
 
 ' Your letter, my dear friend, reached me this evening ; I am 
 answering it in the dead of night. I am wakeful, and my 
 thoughts are beginning to run away with me. Let me write 
 you a little more about a character which, though in some way 
 exceptional, is, in other ways, representative. 
 
 ' You and I are well enough acquainted better perhaps 
 through literature than through life with the victims of the 
 malady which was once called melancholia, and is now, I believe, 
 called pessimism. Cynicism is one variety of it. Cynicism is 
 pessimism in its most superficial form. The fundamental 
 peculiarity of all these victims is, not an inability to enjoy the 
 smaller things of life, but an inability to believe that there is 
 any true greatness in its great things. Well, with men of this 
 
io THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 kind, as doctors are now very rightly teaching us, pessimism is 
 generally the expression, not of any reasoned theory, but of a 
 diseased temperament, an effeminate nervous system, a feeble 
 will, or the incapacities of a maimed body, the reasoned theory 
 being merely the excuse for it, not its cause. Now Tristram 
 Lacy, my nephew, has come, I think, to regard life with an 
 apathy an acquiescent indifference which resembles that 
 of these helpless decadents and degenerates. But the interest- 
 ing thing with regard to him is this. In his case this apathy- 
 has a totally different origin. He is perfectly healthy, he is 
 good-looking, he is physically brave, his will is strong, his 
 temperament is energetic, his spirits are naturally good, he has 
 a keen sense of the ridiculous, and though he is not perhaps 
 free from some little weaknesses of the flesh, he is not suffering 
 from any wound of the heart. His pessimism, his apathy, his 
 unnerving indifference, is a disease which has nothing to do with 
 his temperament or his physical constitution. It has its origin 
 altogether in the intellect. I mean it is a disease produced by 
 a sane and unimpaired logic working on such premises as are 
 supplied to it by contemporary philosophy. Profoundly re- 
 ligious as he used to be when a boy profoundly impressed as 
 I remember his being by the sublime mysteries of the Christian 
 worship he has gradually come to be a disbeliever in every- 
 thing that disassociates the human destiny from the destiny of 
 the dust ; and having once assented to this universal negation, 
 his mind has done what so many minds are too weak to do he 
 has pushed this negation to its full logical consequences. And 
 he has thus become, as I said just now, representative ; for he 
 represents the effects which the rationalism of the modern world 
 has on men in proportion as they really believe what it teaches 
 them. 
 
 ' Tristram Lacy was born, although you may hardly believe 
 it, with the temperament of a poet, as well as with the vigour of 
 a man of action. He is a poet now in whom the ideal is abso- 
 lutely dead. He is a man of action who would be capable of 
 doing great things if his intellect did not convince him that 
 there is nothing great to do. It is possible that he still retains 
 some romantic feeling for his home in Cheshire a fine old 
 gentleman-like place, though very much dilapidated which, if 
 it had not been for this fortune which has so opportunely come 
 to him, would have probably been already in the hands of the 
 mortgagees. Ever since he succeeded to his inheritance he 
 
CHAPTER I. ii 
 
 has shut himself up there like a hermit. But his home, if he 
 still believes in it, is, 1 fear, the last of his ideals. We shall 
 see, however, if this is so. The offer of Egypt will put our 
 philosopher to the test. 
 
 ' My dear friend, if this tragic paralysis of the imagination 
 and the moral energies is the logical result of the philosophy 
 which is now extending itself throughout the world, I may well 
 be comforted by the thought that my own eyes, at all events, 
 will not look on the evil that is to come. In this, I think, 
 I possess the one advantage which you, whom the Fates have 
 forbidden ever to grow old, need envy me. I am, as you know 
 me to be, your faithful friend, RUNCORN.' 
 
 When Lady Tregothran finished the letter she looked up at 
 her visitor, as if in search of some apology for the interest 
 which she felt she had betrayed in it. But not finding one, 
 she took up a large card which was standing in a rack beside 
 her, and with a laugh pushed it over to Mrs Tilney. 
 
 ' Look,' she said, ' Juliet Scarva is going to have a party to- 
 night. If her party is as large as her card I pity those who are 
 going to it. I am not. Did I tell you that I leave London 
 to-morrow ? I shall be at our house at Ascot till next month, 
 when we go abroad.' 
 
 At this moment the door of the room was opened ; the words, 
 ' Lady Flotsam,' were articulated by a servant's voice ; and there 
 in the doorway appeared a radiant vision, arrayed from head to 
 foot in the scarlet of the brightest poppies. 
 
 ' Oh, Nita,' it cried, advancing, ' you nice, dear, darling thing, 
 how delicious it is to find you in, and have just one sweet, snug 
 crack with you. It's ages let me kiss you on both cheeks 
 since I saw you.' Lady Flotsam, when her long embrace was 
 concluded, grew aware of the presence of Mrs Tilney, and 
 slightly modified the extreme effusiveness of her mannner; 
 Mrs Tilney and she being little more than acquaintances 
 and acquaintances conscious that neither was inclined to adore 
 the other. 
 
 ' I congratulate you on your dress,' said Lady Tregothran. 
 ' Turn round to the light, and show me how it looks behind. 
 That's the most gorgeous thing I shall see till I see the sun rise 
 in Egypt.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Lady Flotsam, 'it's a nice little bit of colour. 
 It's something to cheer up London with on this horrible 
 winter's day.' 
 
12 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs Tilney had risen- ' Nita,' she said, ' I must 
 be off. And so you're leaving London to-morrow, are you ? 
 Write and tell me what happens to-night ; and if you want to 
 meet Mr Lacy, the hero of that interesting letter, only let me 
 know, and I'll ask you both to dinner. Good-bye, my dear,' 
 she said, with an amused glance at Lady Flotsam, who was by 
 this time furtively consulting a mirror, to see if her cheeks had 
 been properly matched with her dress. ' GoocVbye, my dear, I 
 wouldn't interrupt you two for worlds.' 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE raw gloom that evening tasted and smelt of fog, as it 
 filled with its hazy presence one of the thoroughfares of northern 
 London ; and the lines of lamps made it only half-transparent, 
 except where here and there a blinding electric star sent out its 
 daggers naked in all directions. Enormous drays went by, 
 and the varnished bulk of omnibuses, splashing through muddy 
 puddles of yellow and white lamplight, whilst the lumbering 
 roar of traffic was now and again pierced by the shrill note of 
 a railway whistle, followed by faint echoes. Through the 
 baffling atmosphere the huge and fantastic hotel which fronts 
 the St Pancras Station showed clearly enough a vision of its 
 Gothic entrances, and the glow of its lower windows ; but its 
 towers and roofs and pinnacles, and the whole of the upper 
 portion of it, were nothing but phantoms in the smothering 
 density overhead. Amongst these uncertain shapes one thing 
 alone seemed real the illuminated clock, which hung there 
 like a muffled moon, informing the world below that the hour 
 was half-past six. 
 
 It had only just ceased drizzling, as was made evident by the 
 fact that reflections fought with shadows on the wet and glim- 
 mering pavements ; and many of the foot-passengers, as they 
 hurried or loitered by, still held over their heads umbrellas 
 like black mushrooms. The scene was pervaded by a squalid 
 and yet almost romantic mystery, to which the procession of 
 dim figures contributed. Who were these vague multitudes ? 
 To what ranks did they belong ? It was hardly possible to 
 form any conjecture. All had an air of being somehow in- 
 visible, or cloaked, past recognition, in folds of the same 
 obscurity. It was only when groups at a crossing, under 
 one of the electric lights, waited till the policeman's miracle 
 should permit them to pass over, that any distinct details 
 of dress or face revealed themselves. Then for a moment 
 some mechanic carrying a bundle, some tightly-jacketed 
 
i 4 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 music-mistress, with her music-case of American cloth, some 
 bushy-bearded prosperous man in a thick double-breasted over- 
 coat, or some boarding-house Casanova, his eyes gleaming like 
 unclean lanterns, would appear with the crude distinctness of 
 an under-exposed photograph, before the gloom once more en- 
 dued them with its dissolving garments. 
 
 Such a group had formed itself at a crossing near the station 
 gates, when a man joined it who, had anybody cared to notice 
 him, would have been recognised as oddly different from any 
 of his present companions. The poise of his head was different, 
 and the glossiness of his silk hat, and something in the smooth- 
 ness with which his coat adapted itself to his well-shaped 
 shoulders ; whilst an eye that had scrutinised the lower part of 
 his person would have seen in his gloved hand the glimmer of 
 a gold-tipped cane. As the traffic continued to flow without 
 being arrested for their convenience, some members of the 
 group began to express impatience, especially a middle-aged 
 woman with a little girl, who was clinging to her, and who at 
 last plunged into the roadway, calling to her to come along. 
 The man with the glossy hat, who had hitherto stood quite 
 motionless, caught sight of the child just in time to seize her, 
 and drag her from under the heads of the horses of a gigantic 
 van. ' My dear good woman,' he said, with a not unkindly 
 sharpness, ' for heaven's sake keep an eye on your property. 
 This little wretch was as near as possible done for.' 
 
 1 Ah ! God bless 'ee,' said the woman, ' but that was good of 
 'ee,' clutching at the child with a species of castigating affec- 
 tion. ' Here, Ella, come here. You did give me a turn, you 
 did.' 
 
 The little girl looked up and began to cry. The man's eyes 
 fell on the woe-begone bewilderment of her face. ' See,' he 
 said, putting a penny into her hand, ' that is to buy sweetmeats 
 with when you get to the other side ; and this is a sixpence I'm 
 going to give to your mother, which she will keep for you, to 
 buy the black dose afterwards.' There was a passing laugh in 
 his eyes, as he caught those of the woman, who smiled at him 
 first familiarly, and then looked suddenly shy. His face, in 
 repose, had a reserve or hardness which did not invite any 
 further conversation. 
 
 At length the event occurred for which all the group were 
 waiting. The waves of traffic parted, like those of the Red 
 Sea, and the policeman the Moses of the crossing was heard 
 
CHAPTER II. 15 
 
 calling, 'Pass over.' The man with the glossy hat picked his 
 way deliberately, as though he were unaccustomed to dirty 
 boots, and intolerant of them. On reaching the opposite pave- 
 ment he paused, and looked about him, with the air of one but 
 partly acquainted with the locality. Then, with a little hesita- 
 tion, he turned his steps westwards, still scanning his landmarks, 
 so far as the fog allowed him. He was in no great hurry, it 
 seemed, to arrive at his destination ; but though his progress 
 was dilatory, his movements had strength and character in 
 them. When women met him, he made way for them with 
 instinctive courtesy; but if any male pedestrian accidentally 
 jostled him, his shoulders jerked impatiently, as if to shake off 
 the contact ; and before long, when the wheels of an undis- 
 criminating omnibus presumed to plant on his neck a splash of 
 half liquid mud, ' Damn those omnibuses,' he exclaimed, with 
 so frank a want of philosophy, that as he rubbed off the con- 
 tamination with his handkerchief, he laughed to himself at his 
 own vehemence. He chanced at that moment to be at the 
 corner of a dark side street, whose name a corner shop illumi- 
 nated with garish clearness. The white lettering caught the 
 stranger's eye. He paused in his course, and abruptly took the 
 turning. 
 
 It was plain that, in spite of the darkness, he was now confi- 
 dent of his way ; for instead of looking about him, he devoted 
 himself afresh to the task of restoring his outraged neck to its 
 customary sense of cleanliness. The houses on either side were 
 featureless in the sodden air, their sole expression being one of 
 scowling meanness. Reaching the end of this street, the 
 stranger turned into another, where naphtha lamps were flaming 
 on a kind of ghostly market ; then into another, where pawn- 
 brokers' shops abounded, with broken china cups and old con- 
 certinas in the windows ; then again into another, which was 
 bordered with the backs of warehouses and the gates and long 
 blind walls belonging to some builder's yard. When he 
 emerged from this, however, the character of his surroundings 
 changed. There were rows of lofty windows, and at intervals 
 lamp-lit blinds ; in front of one house a private carriage was 
 standing, and through a demure silence went a brisk occasional 
 cab. At the end of this street there was again a change of 
 prospect. There was open darkness, blotted with cloud-like 
 trees, and on either side were the spaces of a really imposing 
 square. Its dim mansions were of almost palatial aspect ; they 
 
1 6 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 had broad steps, railings of ancient ironwork, and noble doors, 
 with fanlights shining serenely over them. 
 
 In the sudden transition from barbarous noise and squalor to 
 this region of secluded and enigmatic magnificence, the stranger 
 was conscious of something that appealed curiously to his 
 imagination. To those who live far west of it, Bloomsbury is a 
 mysterious region, whose very existence would be hardly known 
 to many of them if it did not lie on the way to the stations of 
 three great railways; and its faded, but stately, facades and 
 smoke-begrimed square gardens, islanded far off in the great 
 Maelstrom of business, seem to them like a desolate phantom of 
 Mayfair in Hades. To-night, in the foggy air, this aspect of it 
 was accentuated. The stranger felt himself in some extra- 
 ordinarily remote country, and he began to wonder whether, if 
 one of these great doors opened, the butler might not have the 
 form of some grotesque goblin. But very soon more practical 
 thoughts invaded him. Should he turn to the left or right ? 
 He was once again in perplexity ; and he listened attentively, 
 and looked along the hushed pavements searching for some one 
 of whom he might ask the way. Presently, at a little distance, 
 in the faint penumbra of a gas-lamp, he saw a passing figure 
 which seemed that of a gentleman. He hastened after it. His 
 eyesight had not deceived him. A tall hat was in front of him 
 and an overcoat that exhaled respectability. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir,' he said, overtaking the wearer, 'but, 
 by chance, could you tell me the way to a place called Startfield 
 Hall?' 
 
 The person addressed stood still, and turned to his questioner 
 with a smile. He was a man who was negligently, but by no 
 means ill-attired. His throat was protected by a loosely-folded 
 woollen comforter, and a tall document protruded from one of 
 his greatcoat pockets. His large lips, with a sort of compression 
 at their corners, suggested an easy temper hampered by a cer- 
 tain primness, and through his spectacles twinkled the eyes of 
 good manners and of education. 
 
 ' It is lucky,' he said, in a voice that corresponded with his 
 appearance, ' that you put that question to me, for many people 
 in this neighbourhood might have been unable to answer it. 
 Startfield Hall is a difficult place to find. Were it only a little 
 later, I would show you the way myself.' 
 
 ' I have,' said the other, ' been asked to attend a meeting 
 the,re. I've just been seeing a friend off at St. Pancras Station, 
 
CHAPTER II. 17 
 
 and the meeting not being till seven, I have walked to fill up 
 the time. 
 
 ' Again,' said the gentleman with the comforter, ' I may con- 
 gratulate myself on the fact that you addressed me ; for I can 
 rectify an error which might otherwise have caused you annoy- 
 ance. True, the meeting originally was to have taken place at 
 seven. It has been postponed, however, till nine, so as to 
 secure a larger attendance. In the proper course of things you 
 ought to have received a notice.' 
 
 4 1 am sure,' said the other, ' I sincerely thank you for your 
 information. I think if you would tell me how to get to the 
 Hall from here, I shall, when the time comes, be able to find 
 my way.' 
 
 The gentleman with the comforter hesitated, and looked 
 down. He made a dab at the pavement with an umbrella that 
 had lost all care for its figure. Then he emitted one or two 
 ' hems,' communicating to the atmosphere a slight smell of ether 
 pills. 'Perhaps,' he said at last, 'if you will excuse my liberty 
 in proposing it, you would spend the intervening time in taking 
 dinner with me. My house not,' he said with a slightly ironi- 
 cal gesture, ' not one of these palaces is in the adjoining 
 square. I am going to the meeting afterwards, and could then 
 act as your guide. I may perhaps be allowed to introduce my- 
 self as being, in my official capacity, not wholly unknown to a 
 
 certain section of the public. I edit ,' and here he 
 
 named a high-class monthly review which was widely known by 
 repute, if not very widely circulated. ' Prouse Bousefield my 
 name is, and I'm very much at your service.' The man with 
 the glossy hat answered with a pleasant laugh. ' If it were not 
 for one thing,' he said, ' I would accept your kindness thank- 
 fully. The fact is that you have made yourself a well-known 
 personality to me ; but I even when I have told you that my 
 name is Brandon I am to you a mere ghost out of the dark- 
 ness. I might,' he added, 'be a garotter, or even a Socialist' 
 
 A shade of solemnity passed over the features of Mr Prouse 
 Bousefield. ' I am,' he said gravely, ' not a Socialist myself 
 that is to say in the common, the secular sense of the word ; 
 far from it. But a great deal of earnest work is being done 
 by some Socialists. I hope, my good sir,' he continued, ' that 
 your scruples are not serious. I am not afraid of your levanting 
 with my electro-plate.' 
 
 ' Still,' said the stranger, ' I should like to attest my respect- 
 
 B 
 
i8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ability somehow. I am shy of being taken too completely on 
 trust. How will you prove me ? Shall I go through the 
 Greek declensions, or recite you the names of the kings of 
 Judah backwards ? There were times at Oxford when I was 
 able to do both.' 
 
 ' Ha ! at Oxford were you ? ' said Mr Bousefield. ' I was 
 at the University of London. I think an alumnus of the one 
 institution may break bread with an alumnus of the other with- 
 out putting him through an examination, or asking for testi- 
 monials. Startfield Hall, to a great extent, is a University 
 enterprise.' 
 
 ' Well,' said the stranger, as the two men began walking, 
 ' my scruples yield to your kindness. I must trust to it also 
 to forgive my not being dressed.' 
 
 For the first time during the conversation Mr Prouse Bouse- 
 field laughed, with a little contraction of the mouth as if he 
 had sipped medicine. ' Pray,' he said, ' be quite easy about 
 that. We, I'm afraid, think little about white chokers. This 
 turning, please. There is my house, over yonder. My father, 
 who was a surgeon, practised there for fifty years.' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' said the stranger, as they took the turning indi- 
 cated, ' I ought to tell you that at this meeting I shall be 
 altogether an outsider. My wish to attend it arises from the 
 fact that I happen to be the owner of a few ground rents in 
 the neighbourhood, and if the work to be undertaken at the 
 Hall is of a kind that seems to me useful, I thought I should 
 like to make some contribution to its funds. Before sub- 
 scribing, however, I wished to form some idea of what this 
 work will be, and what kind of men will undertake it. I 
 accordingly asked my solicitors, whose offices are not far off, 
 to procure me a ticket, which they have done, though I'm 
 sure I don't know how.' 
 
 Startfield Hall was a new philanthropic institution, intended 
 to form in a poor and disreputable district the headquarters 
 of a band of social and intellectual missionaries. The building 
 as yet had not been formally opened ; but to-night there was 
 a preliminary meeting, at which the objects and the programme 
 of the founders were to be set forth for the benefit of a 
 specially invited audience. 
 
 k Hum,' said Mr Bousefield solemnly ; ' ground-rents, ground- 
 rents. The holding of all landed property is a very serious 
 thing. I don't wonder you should feel prompted to return 
 
CHAPTER II. 19 
 
 part of its product to the community. Well, who are the men, 
 you ask, who will manage Startfield Hall. Some of the most 
 active of them will perhaps look in after dinner on their way 
 to the meeting. Remarkable most remarkable are many 
 of them, and the women also, one of the women especially. 
 This is my house at last. I must ring, for I've no latchkey.' 
 
 In another moment a well-varnished door was opened by 
 an alert but rather dirty little butler, with a necktie on one 
 side, and the stranger found himself in the interior of Mr 
 Prouse Bousefield's dwelling. As soon as the light of the 
 hall-lamp fell on him, he felt that his host, in spite of the 
 confidence he expressed, was eyeing him as if to see what 
 kind of fish he had caught ; and he for his part took refuge 
 in a similar scrutiny, not of his host, but of the place in which 
 his host lived. It was a house of the last century ; the entrance 
 passage was wide ; beyond was a spacious staircase, and some 
 classical medallions were let here and there into the walls ; 
 but the effect of these last was marred by a singularly 
 unclassical barometer, by a hideous stand on which hats hung 
 like decaying fruit, and by a table of pallid oak supporting a 
 plaster bust, a slate scribbled with engagements, a heap of old 
 worsted gloves, and a tarnished metal tray full of dusty visiting 
 cards. The stranger recollected that this had been the house 
 of a surgeon, and he fancied that there still lingered in it a 
 faint odour of anaesthetics. 
 
 ' Come in here,' said Mr Bousefield, when the two were 
 divested of their overcoats, and he led the way into a firelit 
 apartment at the back, which the stranger felt had been once 
 the surgeon's consulting-room. Mr Bousefield turned up the 
 gas, letting the light fall on rows of bald volumes bound in 
 what is called ' law-calf,' and a wide-spreading desk or table 
 piled with docketed papers. ' If,' he continued, ' you would 
 like a wash and brush-up, this is a dressing-room,' and he 
 opened a door whilst speaking. ' Here are hot water, cold 
 water, towels,' he went on with hospitable complacency, ' hair- 
 brush, nail-brush, everything. And now, if you will excuse 
 me for a moment, I will acquaint Mrs Bousefield with your 
 presence, and then bring you up into the drawing-room.' 
 
 Left alone the stranger found himself confronted by two 
 taps, a basin encrusted with soapsuds, and a limp towel on a 
 roller, like a dirty ghost that had hanged itself. He examined 
 his face in a looking-glass, then looked down at his hands, and 
 
20 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 they both seemed so infinitely cleaner than the means 
 offered for cleaning them, that he just touched his hair with 
 the tip of a worn-out brush, and at last went back to the 
 sitting-room to await the reappearance of its lord. On either 
 side of the fireplace was an arm chair covered in leather, on the 
 back of which some assiduous human head had left its mark 
 as indelibly as the foot of Buddha upon the rock. The 
 chimney-place was adorned with a pair of facetious zinc figures, 
 their bodies being filled with twine, an inch of which protruded 
 from their mouths; near them was an old tooth-pick and a 
 box of liquorice lozenges, and in the middle was a faded 
 photographic group, whose rows of faces suggested a private 
 school, but which on nearer inspection might be recognised as 
 a wedding-party. On the hearthrug, by one of the chairs, was 
 a Report on Secondary Education, and a pair of capacious 
 slippers very much down at heel. 
 
 Before long Mr. Bousefield re-appeared, still in morning 
 dress, clearing his throat like a man who has something im- 
 portant to communicate. He merely said, however : ' Mrs. 
 Bousefield will be in the drawing-room presently, ready and 
 delighted to receive you. Meanwhile, for a minute or two, 
 I will warm my feet at the fire. I hope,' he added with con- 
 fidence, ' you found everything in there that you required ? ' 
 
 The two men could now for the first time arrive at some 
 clear idea of each other's personal aspect. Mr. Bousefield 
 looked an active sixty. Except for some sandy whiskers his 
 face was clean shaved, and he had the mouth of a barrister, 
 his expression being a curious mixture of geniality and 
 ambushed prudery. As for his guest, his age might have 
 been five and thirty possibly more, but quite conceivably 
 less, for there was in his air the unsatisfied and impulsive 
 vigour of youth, though his eyes were marked with the lines 
 of those who have outgrown their dreams. His hands, slim 
 but masculine, were remarkably fine in shape ; and his dress 
 was the perfection of that tailor's art which conceals its art. 
 Mr. Bousefield's clothes, on the contrary, were ill-fitted though 
 not ill-made, and his preparations for dinner had obviously not 
 been elaborate, for his waistcoat, which was creased into little 
 terraces of cloth, still retained some bread-crumbs the deposits 
 of a previous meal. He seemed, indeed, to have made no 
 change except in putting on a pair of boots boots with elastic 
 sides the soles of which he was now engaged in toasting. 
 
CHAPTER II. 21 
 
 ' Quite sure,' he said, with a half-wink at his guest, ' that you 
 won't have yours sent down to be dried? Slippers there, if 
 you will.' Mr. Bousefield, his guest perceived, was a man who 
 had two manners. So long as he was distant or spoke on 
 impersonal subjects his address possessed refinement and a 
 certain unaffected dignity ; but it tended to be a little under- 
 bred the moment it approached intimacy. There was accord- 
 ingly the faintest touch of coldness in the guest's courteous 
 refusal of his host's inviting offer. Mr. Bousefield felt it, being 
 in some ways morbidly sensitive ; but on this occasion he was 
 not to be discomposed by coldness. He had a communication 
 in readiness which would vindicate his own value. He had 
 been longing for five minutes to make it, and now out it came. 
 
 'I find,' he said, 'that this evening you will meet a personage 
 I have only just heard for certain that she could come we 
 are expecting her every moment I think I may call her one 
 of the most famous women in Europe. I mean Mrs. Norham 
 the Mrs. Norham, the authoress. Her person and personality 
 are quite as brilliant as her intellect.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was beyond all doubt a celebrity. She had 
 written a novel with a purpose which, despite its length and 
 its solemnity, had achieved an enormous circulation, and had 
 raised her to the ranks of a prophetess. She was now 
 surrounded by a clique of admiring worshippers who would 
 have taken her, were that possible, even more seriously than 
 she took herself. She was consequently in full career of what 
 may be called ethical dissipation ; and just as a frivolous young 
 lady is miserable if she is not going to a ball, Mrs. Norham 
 was miserable if she was not in some reforming movement. 
 She enjoyed the delightful experience of feeling that the world 
 needed her that the masses needed her help, that statesmen 
 needed her hints, and that the fashionable class, corrupt and 
 frivolous as it was, needed the discipline of her somewhat 
 acidulated contempt. If only her performances had come up 
 to her hopes, she would already have been weeping, like 
 Alexander, because there were no more abuses to conquer. 
 
 Mr. Prouse Bousefield was obviously one of this lady's 
 votaries. His figure appeared to swell as he announced him- 
 self the proprietor of an acquaintance with her. His eyes 
 gleamed, and the radiance of Mrs. Norham's spirit shone on 
 his face in the humble disguise of perspiration. His guest, 
 feeling what was required of him, showed himself much im- 
 
22 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 pressed with the prospect of the honour in store for him ; and 
 in order to prove himself worthy of it, began with a courteous 
 gravity to inquire about Mrs. Norham's religion. Mr. Bouse- 
 lield's mouth became very grave, and he wiped his spectacles. 
 
 'Ah,' he replied reflectively, 'in some of the very highest minds 
 there is a temporary failure to see religious truth completely. 
 And yet we may say that in Mrs. Norham's unbelief there is 
 more of true Christianity than in much that masquerades under 
 the name. ' Indeed,' said Mr. Bousefield, with a long and 
 weighty suspiration, ' it may help her under Providence in being 
 a new apostle to the Gentiles, and in drawing back those, who 
 unhappily have lost faith, to that religion which she imagines to 
 be a substitute for Christianity, but is really only Christianity, if 
 I may say so reverentially, with its face washed. Columbus 
 thought when he had discovered a new world that he had only 
 discovered a new coast of the old. Mrs. Norham has really 
 rediscovered a new side of the old religion when she imagines 
 in her sanguine nobleness that she has discovered one which is 
 new. At all events, she is so near to revealed truth that 
 she represents the very highest which human nature can reach 
 without it, To know her,' he was obviously about to say, ' is 
 a liberal education.' But the sound of a bell arrested him. 
 'Hark!' he said, 'there she is. Yes, yes; you can hear her 
 voice in the passage. We'll let her take off her cloak, and 
 then we will go up.' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE stranger felt some curiosity as he mounted the staircase 
 with his host, and was ushered into a bleak apartment with a 
 rose-wood table in the middle of it, on which, by way of orna- 
 ment, stood a large shining microscope, some empty magenta- 
 coloured glasses meant to contain flowers, and an unfinished 
 stocking transfixed with some steel knitting needles. On the 
 top of a cottage piano stood a row of disused lamps, and in 
 front of each curtained window was a group of stuffed humming 
 birds. He was aware, as he entered, of the presence of three 
 ladies. One of them, whose hair had a false appearance of be- 
 ing in curl-papers, and who wore at her throat a square cameo 
 brooch, advanced to him with a flurried shyness, and said, 
 ' How do you do, Mr. Brandon ? Mr. Bousefield and I are 
 very much pleased to see you. This,' she went on, speaking 
 with a slight Scotch accent, and indicating a little square-faced 
 body, with an artlessly false front, ' is my friend, Miss Brisket ; 
 and '. She paused nervously, like a person awaiting an 
 opportunity. Then, with a gasp, and with more awe than 
 cordiality in her voice, ' Mrs. Norham,' she said, ' allow me to 
 introduce Mr. Brandon. Mr. Brandon Mrs. Norham ; Mrs. 
 Norham Mr. Brandon.' 
 
 The stranger looked, and he saw before him a lady with 
 pretty and penetrating eyes, but a somewhat bony face. Her 
 hair was drawn from her temples with a studied and severe 
 simplicity ; and at the back of her head was a comb with a gilt 
 disc attached to it, which made her face look as though set in 
 a tarnished aureole ; whilst her frame was draped in a species 
 of dim blue bed-gown, of the pattern supposed to be affected 
 by mediasval saints in heaven. 
 
 Mrs. Norham responded to the stranger's bow stiffly. ' Mr. 
 Bousefield tells me,' she said, ' that you are interested in Start- 
 field Hall.' 
 
 'No one,' interrupted Mr. Bousefield, 'can tell you more 
 about it than Mrs. Norham. It's really owing to her that the 
 
24 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 whole thing has been started. These Oxford and Cambridge 
 men have all lit their pipes at hers.' 
 
 Mrs Norham, whilst her praise was in progress, indulged in 
 a modest frown, and pressed against her lips a finger which 
 retained some stains of ink on it. At this moment, however, 
 the little untidy butler announced, with a chirrup, that dinner 
 was ' quite ready ' ; and Mr. Bousefield, giving his arm to the 
 prophetess, was followed by the stranger and his hostess, who 
 carried her knitting with her, Miss Brisket bringing up the 
 rear. The dinner, in spite of the gentilities of Mr. Bousefield's 
 electro-plate, and the splendour of two biscuit-boxes with 
 Japanese fans engraved on them, was better than the stranger 
 anticipated when he seated himself, and extracted his napkin 
 from a curious cloth ring ornamented with patterns in worsted- 
 work. Indeed, presently, when Mrs. Bousefield asked him, ' Is 
 that soup to your taste ? ' he was able to answer without much 
 hypocrisy, ' It is excellent.' ' Mr. Bousefield,' she rejoined 
 archly, ' is very particular with his eating. He does not think 
 he is ; but he is.' 
 
 This struck the stranger as singularly unambitious conversa- 
 tion for a dinner-table graced by the presence of Mrs. Norham ; 
 but he was touched and amused by detecting the reverential 
 and yet protecting affection of his hostess for her intellectual 
 spouse. He was unable, however, to reflect upon this fact 
 long ; for one ear was hardly left vacant by the details of Mr. 
 Bousefield's fastidiousness, before the other was filled with the 
 accents of Mrs. Norham herself, who was excitedly defending, 
 against some amendment suggested by her host, a sentence in 
 an article by herself, which he was about to publish in his 
 Review. ' If you alter my phrase,' she was saying, tapping the 
 table cloth with her finger-tips, ' you destroy the whole point I 
 am elucidating, that all ethical energising is functional that 
 the object of it is altruistic the lightening of the life-burden 
 and the enlarging of the minds of others. The religious theory, 
 or, as I call it, duplicated selfism .' 
 
 The stranger was prevented from hearing the rest of the 
 sentence, for his attention was again arrested by Mrs. Bouse- 
 field, who was saying to her friend Miss Brisket, 'And so, 
 dear, you were dining last night with Dr. Bingin ? And what 
 sort of table does the new Mrs. Bingin keep ? And have they 
 a man, or will they still be going on with a table-maid?' 
 
 Then Mrs. Norham's voice was dominant once again. 'Yes,' 
 
CHAPTER III. 25 
 
 she was exclaiming in inspired and quivering accents, ' the life- 
 long surrender of one's own likes and dislikes, not only to the 
 needs of the great helpless multitudes, but even to the weak 
 likings of our less enlightened equals .' 
 
 The stranger was anxious to hear how this noble self- 
 surrender was to be rewarded ; but his hostess, seeing that he 
 was silent, and fearing he felt neglected, came to his rescue 
 with a question which took his breath away with its seeming 
 irrelevancy. 'Mr. Brandon,' she said, 'are you fond of cats?' 
 He started and turned towards her. She was stroking a coal- 
 black feline head which had lifted itself to the level of the 
 table. ' Look at him,' she said : ' poor pussums, isn't he just a 
 beauty ? Mr. Prouse Bousefield is particularly fond of Tom- 
 kins. Every morning before he begins his breakfast, he always 
 says to me, " Elizabeth, the cat." That means that Tomkins 
 is to have his milk in the slop-basin.' 
 
 Unfortunately, Mr. Bousefield happened to overhear this 
 anecdote. ' Pooh, my dear,' he exclaimed. ' Why do you tell 
 these foolish stories to Mr. Brandon?' Mrs. Norham was 
 interrupted as she was articulating the word ' selflessness.' She 
 turned her head, and exclaimed with a shriek, 'A cat in the 
 room ! Oh, I can't bear cats. Take it away please.' 
 
 'I assure you,' began Mrs. Bousefield, 'that Tomkins will 
 scratch nobody.' But Mrs. Norham had already half risen 
 from her seat. 
 
 'Harry,' cried Mr. Bousefield to his servant, a sudden 
 thunder-storm on his brow, ' take it out of the room. Gently, 
 man. Don't chivy it that's not the way to catch it. There 
 there hold it gently. Now give it to Sarah, and have it 
 locked up in the coal-hole.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, after her outburst of selflessness, sank back 
 appeased into her chair. The whole room recovered as though 
 from a sudden palpitation of the heart ; and presently the sight 
 of a dish of lobster patties restored Mr. Bousefield's face to 
 something like Christian calm. The stranger now seized on a 
 favourable opportunity, while Mr. Bousefield was being asked 
 by his wife 'whether that crust ate crisp enough,' to engage 
 Mrs. Norham in a little conversation on his own account. 
 
 ' Do you think,' he said, ' you would be sufficiently altruistic 
 to enlarge my mind with regard to Startfield Hall ? I have 
 particular reasons for wishing to know what its founders 
 aim at.' 
 
26 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Mrs Norham was horrified by this flippant manner of appeal- 
 ing to her. She turned to her questioner with a lofty and 
 petrifying stare, and said ungraciously, ' May I ask, are you on 
 the press ? ' The stranger answered, ' No,' with an easy laugh 
 of amusement. ' What, then, is he ? ' thought Mrs Norham, 
 puzzled. ' Is he a clerk in some neighbouring bank ? or an 
 impertinent, airified solicitor?' 
 
 The stranger, however, interrupted her speculations by saying 
 in a quiet voice, ' I have been thinking, as I told our host, of 
 becoming a subscriber to the enterprise ; but I want first to be 
 a little more sure of its aims. I might, if these satisfied me, 
 give perhaps a considerable sum.' 
 
 Mrs Norham again stared at him. The rich were amongst 
 the objects of her most systematic satire ; but at the thought 
 that her neighbour might be one of them, her manner instantly 
 softened. 
 
 ' Well,' she said, still with a note of asperity in her voice, 
 ' our aim my aim for the movement is really mine, though 
 other brains more powerful than mine are helping me is to 
 elevate, not by any directly economic means, but by culture, 
 by thought, by varied and multitudinous knowledge, that great 
 blind, dumb, helpless, unthinking, piteously brutalised multi- 
 tude, by whom,' continued Mrs Norham, who, satisfied that the 
 stranger was watching her, fixed a rapt look on the cornice, and 
 cultivated a moisture in her eyes ' by whom,' she continued 
 slowly, ' all the greatness, all the wealth, all the comforts, all 
 the refinements, all the luxury, of this and of all countries are 
 made.' 
 
 ' You should surely add,' said the stranger with courteous 
 gravity, ' all the great poetry, and all the scientific discoveries - r 
 for these are the work of the piteously brutalised multitudes 
 also. I think I follow your meaning. You would impart to 
 them some of the knowledge of which they possess nothing, 
 but which we the educated have nevertheless derived from 
 them. You would give them a taste, I suppose, for political 
 and social speculation, for art, for literature, for languages 
 possibly for the masterpieces of modern Parisian fiction.' 
 
 Mrs Norham never understood and rarely detected badinage. 
 1 1 would teach them,' she began ' But you perhaps you do 
 not realise what we owe them how that we owe them all we 
 enjoy, and how that they are shut out from all how that the 
 only life worthy of being called life is at present confined, by a 
 
CHAPTER III. 27 
 
 mere iniquitous maladjustment, to the few. Oh,' continued 
 Mrs Norham, gasping, and changing the construction of her 
 sentence, ' I would teach them to feel life's unspeakable riches, 
 its deep and profound affections, and to know the glory of its 
 great outlooks. It is early to talk about providing equal wealth 
 tor all ; but our object is to show, by practical demonstration, 
 that it is possible to provide even now equal culture for all. 
 Here we have the religion of pure democracy of the new col- 
 lectivism of the religion that is reforming the world the 
 religion of the coming century. And this,' she added, turning 
 to Mr Bousefield with a smile, ' may be the religion alike of 
 those who believe in dogmas and who disbelieve in them.' 
 
 ' Nobly put,' exclaimed Mr Bousefield, ' nobly put ! ' and he 
 shook Mrs Norham by her hand, which happend to be reposing 
 on the tablecloth. Mrs Bousefield, who had sought refuge in 
 her knitting, glanced with anything but approbation at this 
 religious rite ; but she merely continued the information which 
 she happened to be imparting to Miss Brisket. ' Mr Prouse 
 Bousefield,' she was saying, ' would catch his death of cold if I 
 did not give him his socks of this extra thickness, and always 
 made him change his feet when he came in from walking.' 
 
 The stranger, anxious to draw a veil over these delicate 
 domestic details, addressed himself again to Mrs Norham, 
 speaking a little louder than before. ' But still,' he said, ' for 
 me, so far as Startfield Hall is concerned, a certain practical 
 question remains. Let us grant that it is feasible and desir- 
 able to give all this instruction to the masses. A great deal 
 will depend on the bias and character of the men you select 
 as teachers. May I ask what sort of people people with 
 what sort of talents and sympathies will be the friars of your 
 new order ? ' 
 
 Mrs Norham, who misinterpreted the loudness of the 
 stranger's voice into an attempt to insult herself, or at least to 
 talk her down, exclaimed, ' You had better ask that with regard 
 to the English Episcopate, or the House of Lords, or any 
 other body of which the best that can be said is that it is a 
 fortuitous concurrence of mediocrities. Our coadjutors in the 
 present movement are the picked intelligences of the country 
 masters of the new criticism, the new economics, the new- 
 political philosophy ; the men who are making England the 
 world rather that is to be. To-night, on the platform you 
 will hear a group of them. 
 
28 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 1 Yes,' interrupted Mr Bousefield, ' and you will see one or 
 two before then here, in this room. There's one of them, 
 called Tibbits, a really wonderful genius. He's a little soured 
 perhaps by his failure to get a most remarkable invention, 
 which would quite revolutionise the bicycle trade, taken up by 
 any capitalist I must see myself presently what I can do to 
 help him but really full of noble feeling for the wrongs and 
 aspirations of his class. You'll like to meet him, Mr Brandon, 
 although he's a bit rough. He'll show you what stuff is in the 
 people of this country. There will be a poet Squelch whose 
 genius, under Mrs Norham's encouragement, is really likely to 
 do something very fine indeed. He's a volume of poems com- 
 ing out next month. Hark ! the bell. That's one of them 
 Tibbits, or Poulton, or both ; perhaps Squelch too. Poulton, 
 Mr Brandon, was a scholar of John's, Cambridge. He's our 
 secretary at the Hall, Excuse me, Mrs Norham, I'll go out 
 and bring them in.' 
 
 Mr Bousefield was no sooner gone than Mrs Norham turned 
 to the stranger, and said in a solemn undertone, ' I couldn't 
 speak of it when he was here, for he, you know, is a member 
 of some Nonconformist connection ; but the hope of the most 
 advanced of us is, that by hastening the extinction of fabulous 
 and theistic Christianity, we shall liberate those forces which 
 reside in the passionate brotherliness of man, and have hitherto 
 wasted themselves in beautiful, but useless aspirations.' Mrs. 
 Norham sighed. It was one of her favourite beliefs about her- 
 self that she was secretly broken-hearted, because the fatal 
 strength of her intellect had forced her to abandon the faith 
 which she regarded as so pernicious. 'And,' she continued, 
 'to make this passionate brotherliness the great compelling 
 force which shall vitalize the new movement, which shall, in- 
 deed, make the many new movements one.' 
 
 ' This is right. Here are some of us,' said Mr. Bousefield, 
 re-entering and ushering into the room a short man and a tall 
 one. The former, who was introduced as Mr. Tibbits, was like 
 a pale mechanic in the clothes of a prosperous sea captain, and 
 his face was drawn and haggard with a sense of his own import- 
 ance. The latter, who was sandy-haired, and had an air of 
 tutorial aggressiveness, was arrayed in evening dress, and a red 
 silk handkerchief protruded from between his shirt and waist- 
 coat. The stranger was presently conscious that this exquisite 
 was just behind him, and saying to him, with the brusqueness 
 
CHAPTER III. 20 
 
 of a schoolmaster speaking to a boy, ' Will you move a little, 
 and allow me to get my chair in ? ' The stranger turned, and, 
 eyeing the speaker in astonishment, saw that he was preparing 
 to push himself between him and the prophetess. 
 
 'Here, Poulton,' cried Mr. Bousefield, reddening as he 
 chanced to perceive the situation, ' sit you down between Mrs. 
 Norham and me. And now, Mr. Tibbits, let me give you a 
 glass of wine ; something to take the taste of the fog out of your 
 mouth, eh? Or shall Mrs. Bousefield send you a cup of 
 coffee ? ' 
 
 'Well,' said Mr. Tibbits, with a judicial frown, as if deliberat- 
 ing whether he should confer a favour or no, ' I don't care if I 
 do take a cup of coffee ; ' and he showed his ease by planting, 
 his blue serge elbows on the table. The aspect of the banquet 
 had by this time been changed. Mrs. Bousefield's plate and 
 her wine glasses all except one in which she kept her ball of 
 wool had been removed, and their place was taken by a large 
 japanned tray, on which was a coffee-pot and a phalanx of 
 capacious cups. Whilst Mr. Tibbits was imbibing his coffee 
 with an air of grudging satisfaction, Mr. Poulton had spread a 
 paper in front of him, and was pointing out to Mrs. Norham 
 and Mr. Bousefield the names of the various speakers who had 
 engaged to address the meeting, and was discussing, in a busi- 
 ness-like undertone, the order in which they should do so. 
 ' Bousefield takes the chair,' he was saying. ' Then Mrs. Nor- 
 ham speaks. What will your line be? General, I suppose, 
 rather general ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Mrs. Norham. 'I shall dwell principally on the 
 spirit that animates all of us, and fuses, as I was saying just now, 
 our several endeavours into one.' 
 
 ' In that case,' said Mr. Poulton, ' I think I had better follow 
 you. My idea is to take the present war craze as a text, and to 
 show that war, which is the mere game of aristocracies, repre- 
 sents everything which is antithetic to the new movement.' 
 
 ' Good,' said Mr. Tibbits, who was now leaning across the 
 table to listen, with a strained expression, as if determined not 
 to be left out of the discussion. ' War never did anything for 
 this or for any other country. I have said that often, and I'm 
 not ashamed of saying it.' 
 
 ' And then,' said Mr. Poulton, ' when I have worked that and 
 shown that what really makes a nation is literature, philosophi- 
 cal thought, and the highest culture for all ; you, Tibbits, will 
 
30 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 you come after me, and show ho\v this means the emancipation 
 of labour, and the extinction of all aristocracies, by the process 
 of leaving them behind as a profligate, frivolous, useless, and 
 obviously inferior residuum. Does that suit your book ? ' 
 
 ' It's plain,' said Mr. Tibbits, who was not entirely pleased at 
 having the word put into his mouth so glibly ; ' it's quite plain 
 that you've heard me speak pretty often. Yes, yes, you may 
 trust that matter to me.' 
 
 ' And now,' resumed Mr. Poulton, again addressing Mrs. 
 Norham, ' I thought we would have the specialists, each on his 
 own subjects philosophy, art, poetry, history. Squelch can say 
 something if he is not in too fine a frenzy. Will you glance at 
 the names kindly, and see if you approve the order ? All the 
 speakers, except yourself, are, you see, thus far men. I don't 
 know if you'd care for one or two other women.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham wrinkled her brows, and said, after a moment's 
 thought, ' Perhaps not to-night. In a year or two's time, when 
 the character of all womanhood is changed, our chief speakers 
 will be women, mayhap. At present, except in brilliant, but 
 exceptional cases, there is a tendency in them to wander, to 
 miss the precise issue. Besides, all the vital points, in which 
 women's nature is interested, I shall have touched on myself. 
 On the whole then ' 
 
 As she was speaking the door opened. A breath of scent was 
 perceptible, accompanied by a rustle of flounces, and the voice 
 of the little butler announced 'Mrs. Delia Dickson. 1 The 
 stranger noticed that at the sound Mrs. Norham's countenance 
 underwent a sudden change, and became expressive of a flutter 
 ing something which, whatever it was, was not passionate 
 brotherliness. Mrs. Dickson, like Mrs. Norham, had also 
 achieved celebrity by a novel with a purpose, and was in her 
 own way a prophetess likewise ; but whereas Mrs. Norham pro- 
 posed to reform society by the comparatively simple process of 
 civilising the masses who were the makers of civilisation already, 
 Mrs. Dickson was persuaded that so important a miracle de- 
 pended on nothing less than a revolution in character of the 
 human male, a revolution, however, which she was persuaded 
 would soon be accomplished by Woman if only, as Mrs. Dick- 
 son said, ' the light of her pure eyes ' was shed with sufficient 
 fulness on the dark vices of man. She, at any rate, was un- 
 deserving of Mrs. Norham's late strictures on her sex ; for the 
 vice of man being thus her fundamental theme, in none of her 
 
CHAPTER III. 31 
 
 many pages had she ever for a moment wandered from it. Her 
 appearance was, and was meant to be, in strong contrast to her 
 reputation. Her fair, curling hair was cut short like a boy's ; 
 but in every other respect her aspect was ultra-feminine. She 
 was tall and willowy, and, unlike Mrs. Norham's, her waist was 
 noticeably the slimmest part of her person. Her dress, indeed, 
 was a symbol of fashion chained to the car of virtue ; and as she 
 came into the dining-room, she seemed to fill up three parts of 
 it, she moved with such a noise of silk and such a tinkle of 
 bangles. She held her chin in front of her by means of a long 
 neck, and her eager eyes and her large half-opened mouth 
 conveyed the idea that she was about to gasp with feeling. 
 
 ' Ah, Mr Bousefield,' she exclaimed, ' how good it is to be 
 here. Dear Mrs Bousefield, no, not any coffee, thank you.' 
 
 Half in shyness, and half in sullen protest, Mr Tibbits had 
 edged away from the proximity of this new apparition, and as 
 soon as she and her skirts were seated in the vacancy left by him, 
 ' I've had such a to-do,' she continued, ' to come here on my 
 way, but I thought it best to make quite certain beforehand 
 when I should speak and how long I should have. Then I 
 wanted to tell you that, of course, I would say nothing about 
 organisation and business, and so forth, but confine myself 
 to vital questions. I will simply say a word of appeal to the 
 wives and mothers and, above all, to the girls who are to be 
 wives and mothers some day. I will just stir them up with a 
 few fresh statistics which a cowardly Government won't allow 
 to be printed even in a Blue-Book. That will show them that 
 we mean to go to the root of things.' 
 
 ' We certainly mean to do so much,' said Mrs Norham drily. 
 Mrs Norham was a woman whose temperament inclined her 
 to no frailties ; she had been brought up, moreover, in a strictly 
 puritanical circle ; but a year or two ago she had converted 
 herself into a complete woman of the world by adopting the 
 theory that vice was not wicked but stupid, describing the 
 dramas which had their catastrophes in the Divorce Court as 
 1 poor foolish affairs, with not even novelty to recommend 
 them.' She doubled, by this proceeding, the riches of her 
 inward life, uniting the puritan's pleasure of looking down on 
 the vicious with the worlding's pleasure of looking down on 
 the puritan. Both these feelings combined in a subtle way to 
 fill her with reserved disapproval of Mrs Delia Dickson, which 
 was not diminished by the fact that she saw in her an intruding 
 
32 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 rival, and, what was still worse, an ill-coloured caricature of 
 herself. 
 
 ' Dear Mrs Norham,' said Mrs Dickson, ' it's cheering to- 
 hear you say so. We always have known that you were heart 
 and soul with us.' 
 
 ' The woman,' said Mrs Norham in Mr Poulton's ear, ' must 
 be mad stark, staring mad.' 
 
 ' And so, Mr Bousefield,' continued Mrs Dickson, beaming 
 at him with her ecstatic glance, ' my subject being at the root 
 of things, I suppose I ought to speak early.' 
 
 Mr Bousefield, though^ personally he was the adherent of 
 Mrs Norham, agreed more with Mrs Dickson than with her in 
 his feelings about male depravity. ' Yours is,' he said, ' a most 
 important subject, truly.' 
 
 ' Let her,' whispered Mrs Norham to Mr Poulton, ' have her 
 way and have done with it before you, if you like anything 
 to keep her quiet.' 
 
 Mr Poulton raised his voice. ' I'm afraid,' he said, ' Mrs 
 Dickson, the earlier part of the programme will not bear much 
 alterng. If you speak early, the time we can give you will be 
 limited. Still, if you like to follow directly after me ' 
 
 Here Mr Tibbits, with eyes burning above his hollow cheeks, 
 leaned forward and said, ' As an orator of some slight experi- 
 ence I've been accustomed to address thousands, I have ay r 
 and tens of thousands every one here, I should say, knows that 
 of me I suggest that the speeches be in the order of the 
 urgency of the subjects. Mr Chairman, of course, comes first, 
 then the most important subject, which none of us here deny 
 is the emancipation of labour. I don't say that because it 
 puts me forward.' 
 
 ' Nay,' said Mr Bousefield, mindful of Mrs Norham's pre- 
 cedence, ' but before we touch on the emancipation of labour, 
 we should have what this lady will say as to the motives that 
 lead us to desire it.' 
 
 ' These things,' said Mr Poulton, ' are usually settled by the 
 secretary. It's a pity,' he added, ' that we can't all speak at 
 once.' 
 
 The difficulties of the situation, which threatened to become 
 insuperable, were dissipated for the moment by a very un- 
 expected agency. In the awkward silence that had followed 
 Mr Poulton's sarcasm, Miss Brisket, who was straightening out 
 her hostess's knitted stocking, was overheard saying in an 
 
CHAPTER III. 33 
 
 undertone, ' And if Mr Bousefield would only use that 
 embrocation also, I'm sure he need never be troubled with 
 one chilblain again.' Mrs Bousefield. however, made no direct 
 reply to her. Her eyes had strayed towards a clock on the 
 chimney-piece, and she quietly remarked, ' I'm thinking it's 
 time you were all of you at Startfield Hall. It's just on the 
 stroke of nine, and your friends will be there waiting for you, 
 and shivering in that damp room where the plaster is just 
 weeping, and where Mr Prouse Bousefield caught his last 
 sciatica.' 
 
 Goethe tells us that the cure for "doubt is action, and at 
 Mrs Bousefield's words the reformers started from their seats 
 incontinently, content for the moment to accept the secretary's 
 assurance that he would arrange everything in a way that 
 would satisfy everybody ; though they were, it must be con- 
 fessed, severally haunted by the conviction that it would be 
 easier to satisfy the human race as a whole, than the few select 
 members of it by whom it was then represented. Mrs Delia 
 Dickson, who had a hired carriage in waiting, persuaded Mrs. 
 Bousefield and Miss Brisket to go with her ; whilst Mr Poulton, 
 whose feet were in varnished shoes, begged to be taken with 
 them, in order, he said, that he might have everything ready by 
 the time the chairman, with his influential friends, arrived. 
 These last, it seemed, were, as a matter of course, to walk. 
 ' We all walk in Bloomsbury,' said Mrs Norham severely to 
 the stranger, as she muffled her head and her aureole in a pink 
 and white woollen shawl ; and the front door presently let them 
 into the chilly night, where mud glimmered, and gaslights 
 floated in a bilious haze. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE Hall, which was reached through a maze of intricate 
 alleys, was a pale-coloured brick building, overshadowed by an 
 enormous brewery, and it still filled the street with odours of 
 lime and varnish. A red lamp indicated the private entrance ; 
 a policeman, who stood by it, gravely saluted those who hoped, 
 in a few years' time, to render his profession superfluous ; and 
 the chairman and his friends were soon in a sort of waiting- 
 room, which was hung with hats and cloaks, and filled with 
 dingy individuals obviously impatient to accompany them on 
 to the platform. A stamping of feet was heard in the great 
 lecture-room adjoining, which Mrs. Norham assumed was 
 caused by a rumour of her own advent, till a half-open door 
 gave her a glimpse of the platform, and on the platform Mrs. 
 Delia Dickson bowing. 
 
 ' Mrs. Norham,' cried Mr. Bousefield, pushing his way up to 
 her, and towing after him a tall, bearded individual with 
 cavernous eyes, and a lurking air of opulence, ' will you go 
 with Mr. Hermon and lead the way to the platform ? ' Mr. 
 Hermon was known as an advanced Radical, and he had given 
 the site on which Startfield Hall stood. He had made a large 
 fortune in Manchester, and had now invested it in America, so 
 that none of the base timidities resulting from self-interest 
 should hamper him in his advocacy of experiments on the 
 rights of property at home. The platform, which was occupied 
 by two or three ladies already, was now promptly filled, and 
 Mrs. Norham's ruffled composure was satisfied by seeing Mrs. 
 Dickson obliged to move from her chair to another which was 
 less conspicuous. As for the stranger, he secured a position 
 by the wall, which gave him a comprehensive view alike of the 
 speakers and the audience. The latter was not numerous, but 
 had an air of lugubrious attention. 
 
 Mr. Bousefield, amongst his present surroundings, appeared 
 like a perfect gentleman. Having briefly stated that the purpose 
 of to-night's meeting was to explain to those interested the 
 
CHAPTER IV. 35 
 
 objects of Startfield Hall, that questions and suggestions would 
 be invited at the end of the proceedings, and that something 
 would be said on the subject of subscriptions and donations, 
 he read from a scrap of notepaper the names of a number of 
 persons who had written to express their regret at being unable 
 to be present, winding up with a letter which was evidently 
 his trump card from a bishop, who advocated Socialism from 
 the security of his Episcopal palace, and now briefly alluded to 
 a proposal, recently put forward by him in the Times, that an 
 experiment in Socialism might, at all events, be profitably made 
 by committing the construction of the ships of the British fleet to 
 gangs of co-operative workmen, unhampered by any masters. At 
 this point Mr. Poulton, though the advocate of a Socialism of his 
 own, could not refrain from remarking, in a whisper to Mrs. 
 Norham, that if all the nations of the world would join in the 
 same experiment, naval warfare, at all events, would be happily 
 made impossible. Unconscious of this criticism, Mr. Bousefield 
 went on to say, ' And the letter of this good bishop winds up 
 with a touching passage : " The apostle in Patmos, when he 
 saw the ideal city, did not see the toiling multitudes taken up 
 to it in the heavens. He saw the new Jerusalem coming down 
 out of the heavens to earth." ' Here a little man, like a gipsy 
 till lately an Oxford ' coach ' wjio wore a pilot jacket and a 
 pair of lavender gloves, and who was not only a Socialist, but 
 also, in the opinion of his admirers, the most formidable critic 
 that theism had yet encountered, began humming under his 
 breath, to the tune of an old music hall song, ' Oh, Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem,' and ended with a suppressed giggle. ' And now. 
 Mr. Bousefield proceeded, ' I have only to remind you of this 
 that Startfield Hall is, before all things, a religious institution. 
 Now religion, as we all know, is apt to mean different things 
 for different people who are equally earnest and conscientious ; 
 but there is one part of it which such people, and I hope all 
 of us, all hold in common. This part of religion, which we all 
 hold in common, is the religion of social endeavour, and it is 
 to the practice of this that Startfield Hall will be consecrated, 
 all elements of dispute being left by us in the street outside. 
 Amongst the comrades of the new church there will be one 
 grace, at all events, the beautiful grace of unanimity and 
 fraternal love. I will not, however, trouble you with my own 
 halting words, for in another moment this subject will be 
 eloquently dealt with by one who is not only the clearest of 
 
36 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 modern thinkers, the most incisive of modern writers, the most 
 elevated of modern teachers, the most practical of modern 
 leaders, but is, at the same time, in our present sense of the 
 word, the most religious of modern women. Ladies and 
 gentlemen, helpers and fellow-workers, I now call upon Mrs. 
 Norham to address you.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, who, when Mr. Bousefield began on religion, 
 had at first been afraid that he was taking the bread out of her 
 own mouth, underwent, as he proceeded, a change both of 
 expression and attitude. Her face turned slowly upwards, till 
 it reached the angle of aspiration, and the spirit of truth, as it 
 breathed through Mr. Bousefield's simple mention of her, made 
 her bosom heave like that of the Delphic Pythoness. Her 
 clearness of thought having been adequately vouched for by 
 him, she considered it superfluous to burden her speech with 
 proofs of it. She indulged rather in those generalities which, 
 rich in their possible meanings, find their way to so many more 
 human hearts than the lean and meagre propositions which 
 can signify one thing only. Her speech was an amplification 
 of what she had said to the stranger at dinner. Startfield Hall, 
 she began, was to be a centre of Socialism she was not afraid 
 of the word but of Socialism in its broadest sense. ' Socialism,' 
 she said, ' is not an academic theory of commercial values, nor 
 a fanciful scheme of rules for some imaginary national work- 
 shop. It is a mood of mind or shall I call it a condition of 
 the emotions which reveals to us the great social truth, the 
 truth that all are equal in the deep, the burning sense that all 
 have equal rights in the heritage of personal civilisation, and 
 that all are naturally capable of becoming equally civilised. 
 Some persons think that they can make these rights a reality by 
 political and legislative means, by abolition, for instance, of 
 that absurdity the House of Lords, or by strikes, and so forth. 
 Others, and I confess myself to be one of them, think that all 
 this is putting the cart before the horse. They think that when 
 once men are all equal in culture, caste and privilege will 
 become meaningless, and all degrading labour impossible. 
 Everybody will then realise the very highest of which he or she 
 is capable. However, let those who believe in political means 
 try them. Startfield Hall will work by other means, but it will 
 work for the same end. It will aim at making mental equality 
 a fact so far as its influence goes, trusting that other equalities 
 will follow. We shall not, however, expect to conquer the 
 
CHAPTER IV. 37 
 
 world at a blow. We shall try to make our efforts complete 
 within the circle of our own influence, and others will follow 
 our example. But although you will thus see that we are sober 
 and practical people, and no mere emotional dreamers, we are 
 not for that reason unemotional. Nay,' exclaimed Mrs. Norham, 
 her voice rising, ' emotion is our life. We are instinct with all 
 the burning fire of brotherliness, which some of us think is so 
 inadequately expressed in Christianity, and which for us is 
 baptised with a new and a holier name the holy name of 
 Altruism Altruism, which is merely social emotion made 
 functional, if I may use the technical terms of the theology of 
 the new religion.' Startfield Hall, Mrs. Norham went on to 
 say, was to be a temple of this holy principle, which elsewhere, 
 no doubt, was at present perplexingly conspicuous by its 
 absence, but would here give evidence of its compelling and 
 universal force. Loving cultured men, and palpitating cultured 
 women, would introduce Schiller to the dustman, and Shake- 
 speare's sonnets to the dog-stealer ; whilst the seamstress would 
 be inoculated with those gracious aesthetic appreciations which 
 should make her despise the best lodgings she was ever likely 
 to occupy. ' And thus,' continued Mrs. Norham, ' those who 
 have made for us all our pleasures will receive them back again 
 at our hands, richer for the love that comes with them.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham's voice ceased, as though her speech had come 
 to its conclusion. But to the surprise and perplexity of every 
 one, and more especially of the chairman, she still remained 
 standing, and suddenly she began again. ' I fear,' she said with 
 a peculiarly engaging smile, that was first directed to the audi- 
 ence, and then to the chairman at her side, ' I fear I am going 
 to do something sadly out of order. It is arranged, I see on our 
 programme, that our secretary shall next address you ; but with 
 the chairman's kind permission, I will ask, before sitting down, 
 that one whose presence here I have only this moment per- 
 ceived shall give to my poor words a completeness I cannot 
 give them myself. The person to whom I refer is an example 
 of what I have just been saying. He is an example of the 
 highest and rarest genius bursting at the touch of culture, 
 through the husk of adverse circumstance. I refer to our 
 brother and fellow-labourer, Mr. Squelch, whose wonderful 
 poems, which thus far have been shown to a few friends only, 
 will shortly be given to the world in a volume called Chants 
 of Equality. Just ask him,' whispered Mrs. Norham stooping 
 
38 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 to Mr. Bousefield's ear as she sat down, ' to come forward and 
 say a word or two. It will do them all good to see him.' 
 
 Mrs. Poulton scowled, and then tried to look indifferent. 
 The chairman himself seemed a little taken aback, but he 
 promptly and almost hurriedly did what his Egeria had sug- 
 gested to him, In response to his brief summons, and heralded 
 by some shuffling, a singular object, plainly with his own con- 
 sent, was hustled forward to the brink of the platform. His 
 hair, thrust wildly from his forehead, was of such unrestrained 
 exuberance that it hung on the back of his head like a dilapi- 
 dated lady's chignon. He wore a black velveteen jacket, a 
 low and very dirty collar, and a red necktie, the glorious 
 symbol of revolution. His face, which was white and sodden, 
 suggested a mixture of weakness and self-assertion ; and there 
 was in his eyes a pale and shifting glare. He was so over- 
 powered by feeling that he had some difficulty in steadying 
 himself, but presently found his balance and voice at the same 
 moment, and boldly striking his velveteen breast with his hand, 
 he exclaimed in a voice which seemed to come out of his boots, 
 ' Comrades, camerados mine, as my master, Whitman would 
 call you Walt Whitman the singer of Democracy, Walt 
 every great, glorious revolutionary movement has had its singer, 
 and has gone marching to his songs. You have not heard of 
 me yet, camerados, but you will. To my songs you will march. 
 Ladies and gentlemen, you will hear of me me, the Whitman, 
 the Byron, the Shelley, the Hugo of the new order.' Mr. 
 Squelch suddenly paused. Emotion made him sway once 
 more. ' This glorious thought,' he gasped, ' is too much for 
 me. You will be proud one day you will one day tell your 
 children that you once saw once heard me.' Mr. Squelch's 
 eyes began to overflow with tears. He looked wildly on either 
 side of him. Mr. Hermon, with adroit rapidity, being a wiry 
 man, caught him as he was about to fall, and aided by some 
 other Altruists, restored him to his original seclusion. Mr. 
 Poulton watched his retirement, and sniffed up a certain odour 
 which accompanied it. 
 
 ' It was too much for him,' gasped Mr. Norham. ' Hadn't 
 some one better get him a little brandy.' 
 
 ' Give him some gin,' muttered Mr. Poulton, ' a hair of the 
 dog that bit him.' 
 
 This cynical insinuation, however, was lost upon Mrs. 
 Norham, for her ear had been captured by Mr. Bousefield, 
 
CHAPTER IV. 39 
 
 who was once more on his legs. ' He's all right,' he was 
 saying in good natured and reassuring accents. ' We must all 
 thank him for we must all be encouraged by those feelings 
 whose depth alone has interfered with his expression of them. 
 And now,' Mr. Bousefield continued, resuming his official tone, 
 ' I will call on Mr. Dundas Poulton, of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, our honorary secretary, to address you.' He had 
 hardly finished speaking before Mr. Poulton had risen, belli- 
 gerent superiority on his brow, and had begun with the accents 
 of a schoolmaster lecturing his lowest class. 
 
 ' Mrs. Norham,' he said, ' has told you that we aim at secur- 
 ing equal culture for all. Now, culture, as no doubt you know, 
 means a general appreciation of the higher pleasures, and the 
 higher truths of life. But culture of this general kind, if it is 
 ever to become universal, must be preceded by culture with 
 regard to social conditions ; and the first social truth which we 
 must set ourselves to popularise is this that war, and all that 
 under any circumstances makes for war, form the primary 
 obstacles to the programme so brilliantly sketched out by Mrs. 
 Norham. And why ? The reason is plain. War is the glori- 
 fication, the result, and the prop, of limited class interests. 
 No people, in the true sense of the word, ever willingly fought 
 with another people, or ever has had, or can have, any cause 
 of quarrel with them.' So far Mr. Poulton was rewarded with 
 no other applause than silence, but it was otherwise when he 
 went on to explain who the authors of all war were when he 
 declared that they were none other than the so-called aristo- 
 cratic classes, who wasted, according to him, their non-existent 
 intellectual powers, in those homes of dissipation, of card- 
 sharping, drunkenness, and inane self-indulgence, commonly 
 spoken of as the best clubs in London.' ' Hear, hear,' 
 exclaimed several voices, and there was a distinct clapping of 
 hands, andsome stamping of feet. '.In more senses than one,' said 
 Mr. Poulton, exhibiting the silk facings of his coat as witnesses 
 to his knowledge of the world, ' in more senses than one, the 
 War Office is in Pall Mall.' Here the clapping and stamping 
 became loud and long. ' In these best clubs,' continued Mr. 
 Poulton, with withering irony, ' these best clubs save the 
 mark ! you will find your lords and gentlemen lying on their 
 gilded couches, or straddling on their gilded chairs men with 
 hands hardly steady enough to lift their liqueur brandy to their 
 lips, roaring with delight over the prospect of a new war. And 
 
40 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 why ? They have not even the excuse of possessing the fight- 
 ing instinct of the brutes. They don't like war because they 
 want to fight themselves ; besides an officer, as you know, is 
 rarely within range of a bullet. These drones like war because 
 they believe that war is this a means of distracting the atten- 
 tion of the people as a whole from the real forces on which 
 society rests ; and furthermore, because it presents the people 
 with a false ideal of character that ideal of obedience and 
 so-called bravery which makes the soldier a slave, instead of 
 an ideal of altruistic self-development which will render the 
 meanest incapable of obeying or even of recognising any 
 superior. This latter ideal is the ideal of Startfield Hall, but 
 till military strife is abolished, that ideal will never be realised. 
 Here,' continued Mr. Poulton, adopting a cold, academic 
 manner, ' here we have the reason why a revolt against mili- 
 tarism, and the conception of duty involved in it, is a precedent 
 condition of any true renascence of the people. Here we have 
 the reason why our lecturers in this Hall will devote so much 
 time to the extinction of the military, and even the patriotic 
 spirit. For what is patriotism ? It is a crime of the majeste 
 against man. Make war impracticable then, by the fact that 
 you yourselves see through it. You can do this if you will 
 only believe that you can. If you believe that it is possible 
 to do a thing, you have already more than half done it ; and 
 if you will only believe that it is possible to abolish war, I tell 
 you that then it will be possible for you to believe anything.' 
 
 Mr. Poulton's peroration was received with a burst of enthu- 
 siasm which was well calculated to encourage earnest reformers, 
 though hardly as vehement as that which, a few minutes before, 
 had greeted his description of the ' best clubs in London.' 
 
 The excitement, however, rose again when Mr. Poulton was 
 succeeded by Mr. Tibbits, who, since he was not the first 
 speaker, was determined to be at least the most forcible, and 
 also added to the effect of his words by a remarkable variety of 
 gesticulation. The preceding speakers, he said, had given 
 them noble theories. He, himself, was merely a plain man. 
 It was his humble business to tell them how those theories 
 were to be acted on. ' And yet,' he exclaimed, ' I you all of 
 you know that have been teaching these theories myself 
 well, I won't say to how many thousands, or to how many 
 hundreds of thousands, any time during the past six years. 
 Why, I addressed a mass meeting, only a week ago a meeting 
 
CHAPTER IV. 41 
 
 of men not one of whom had had a job for a twelvemonth ; 
 and I told them that very thing that Mrs. Norham all honour 
 to her for it has just now been a-telling you. I told them 
 plain and straight that it was they, and such as they, that made 
 all the country's wealth, and paid the country's taxes, and 
 supported the army and the police by which the blood-suckers 
 kept them in subjection. And I told them that those that pay 
 the taxes should have the spending of the taxes ; and that we'd 
 have a new army, and that that army should be themselves.' 
 This, he said, brought him to what he most particularly 
 wanted to impress upon them. The previous thinkers had 
 told them that they were to do away with war. That was true : 
 but only of war in the vulgar sense of war waged by one 
 country against another. ' I'm here to tell you,' he said, ' that 
 in helping to abolish war of this kind or rather, I should say, 
 as the first means towards abolishing it for I'm not one of 
 them as are in favour of any waiting we must start a war of 
 another kind a kind that is still more serious. Do you know 
 what I mean ? ' exclaimed Mr. Tibbits, inviting the attention of 
 his audience with an impressive, though somewhat dirty finger. 
 * I reckon some of you do ; but if you don't, I'll tell you. It's 
 the war of the honest men against the thieves. You know who 
 the thieves are. Not the poor fellows in the street. Oh, no, 
 it's not them, who are run in by the policemen for taking the 
 bread their own hands have kneaded. Look here now. When 
 a working-man makes an invention an invention, mind you, 
 that not one of the slave-drivers has the brains to make they 
 all of them conspire, under the stress of cut-throat competition, 
 to keep from him the means of making his invention useful to 
 the community. They thieve his opportunity from him. 
 These are the thieves I speak of. It's war against them, I 
 mean.' Here he was encouraged by the sound of a few claps. 
 ' It's war against privilege,' he continued. Here the clapping 
 grew louder. ' It's war against sin and ignorance.' The 
 clapping became more perfunctory. ' It is,' shouted Mr. 
 Tibbits, rising to the great occasion, 'it is, in a word, war 
 against capitalism it is a war of class against class.' 
 
 At these words the applause became an uproar, emanating, 
 indeed, from a minority of the audience only, but a minority 
 so finely enthusiastic that, instead of clapping his hands, one 
 member of it, a socialistic stripling, thrust them into his mouth 
 and emitted an inspiriting whistle. 
 
42 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Mrs. Norham frowned, and touched Mr. Bousefield's arm. 
 ' This will never do,' she whispered. ' We are fast becoming a 
 bear-garden.' Mr. Bousefield rose, exclaiming, 'Order, if you 
 please ! Order ! We shall never govern the world, if we can't 
 govern ourselves.' Quiet was restored, and Mr. Tibbits pro- 
 ceeded with his speech, of which the upshot was apparently 
 this, that by whatever more practical means the war against 
 Capital might be waged, he and other lecturers were prepared 
 in Startfield Hall to wage it by demonstrating that the capitalist 
 was a superfluity that he acquired his capital simply by being 
 exceptionally foolish and idle, which gave him an unfair ad- 
 vantage in the cut-throat struggle of life ; and that any worker 
 who was contented, under the Capitalist system, however good 
 his wages, was a traitor to his class, and Mr. Tibbits was not 
 ashamed to say it. 
 
 A crusade having thus been declared against war and capital, 
 other speakers followed, each shadowing forth the part he was 
 prepared to play in the new progressive movement. Each was 
 to attack, by his lectures, directly or indirectly, some transitory 
 abuse which has always existed hitherto, or advocate some 
 remedy which has never existed yet ; and though the various 
 speakers agreed in little else, there was an important point as 
 to which they were all unanimous each was convinced that 
 his own remedy must necessarily precede all others, and that 
 until it was applied none of the others could be possible. An 
 economist was prepared to advocate the abolition of all foreign 
 trade ; an historian was going to lecture on the tactics of forc- 
 ible revolution ; and the little gipsy-like man in lavender gloves 
 from Oxford, was to handle the history of marriage, and to show 
 that no social advance was possible unless it started with the 
 abolition of the monogamous family. Nothing indeed was 
 lacking in the programme thus put forward, except the non- 
 controversial culture indicated by Mrs. Norham. 
 
 But the great sensation of the evening was yet to come. 
 Whilst this oratory was in progress, Mr. Bousefield had accom- 
 plished a stroke of diplomacy. He had perceived that Mrs. 
 Dickson, as speaker succeeded speaker, was gradually acquir- 
 ing the fixed expression of a Medusa : and fearing that at any 
 moment she might get up and leave the platform, he hit on the 
 ingenious device of going to her and saying in a whisper, that, 
 as it had been impossible to arrange for her to speak first, they 
 had done the next best thing, and arranged for her to speak 
 
CHAPTER IV. 43 
 
 last 'so that your wholesome words,' said Mr. Bousefield, 
 ' will be in the women's ears when they go.' The effect of this 
 suggestion was magical. Mrs. Dickson's face shone out again ; 
 and so happily absorbed did she become in studying her own 
 notes, that when she heard herself described by the chairman 
 as being the living woman who had made the cause of woman 
 most exclusively her own, she was unaware that the speaker 
 who had just sat down was the little man in lavender gloves, 
 by whom marriage and the family were to be annihilated. Her 
 fluffy hair and her silks, together with an appealing curtsey, 
 secured for her a reception which, as she said herself, 'warmed 
 her heart ' ; and the men amongst the audience were conscious 
 of an agreeable curiosity, when Mrs. Dickson announced that 
 ?-he wished to speak specially to the women, adding, ' I am 
 sure that in a sacred place like this there are no men who will 
 be shamed by anything I have to tell you.' She then laid it 
 down that every reform would be utterly useless unless pre- 
 ceded by a complete reformation of the husband. ' And how 
 are you to reform him ? ' she asked. ' By first knowing 
 horrible though the knowledge may be those details of his 
 life he hides from you. Oh, wives of England, do you know 
 what your husbands are? Daughters of England, have you 
 any exact ideas of what your fathers were before they married 
 your mothers ay, and after ? You have not you cannot 
 have ; but it is your duty to learn. Oh, women and girls, let 
 me give you some outlines of those truths which, if you will 
 let me, I will leach you more fully by-and-by. Here are a 
 few statistics, taken from proceedings in the Divorce Court, 
 from the private memoranda of Vigilance Societies, and from 
 other sources more confidential still. Listen,' she said : ' the 
 following refers to a well-known garrison town. Out of one 
 hundred and twelve married men gentlemen, if you please 
 gentlemen, only fifteen '. 
 
 The announcement which followed these words produced 
 that breathless silence which, on some occasions, is more flat- 
 tering than all applause. In hurried accents Mrs. Dickson 
 proceeded, the silence, as she did so, growing more and more 
 profound. 
 
 Mr. Bousefield's sympathising attention gave way to puzzled 
 anxiety ; he made noises in his throat ; he began to shuffle in 
 his chair; when suddenly there arose a slight disturbance 
 amongst the audience, and a grey-haired man, with a pair of 
 
44 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 smoked spectacles, said something which indicated a wish to 
 address the Chairman. 
 
 Mrs. Dickson paused. Mr. Bousefield, despite the irregu- 
 larity of this appeal, caught at it as a drowning man catches at 
 the proverbial straw. ' Yes,' he said, ' one moment ; will you 
 kindly speak up, please.' 
 
 ' Air. Chairman,' said the man, with all the cares of a family 
 in his voice, ' my sight's sadly defective, and I don't know who 
 the young gentleman is who's speaking, but I happen to have 
 brought here my wife and two daughters, and I would ask you 
 I would demand of you, sir that you remind the young 
 gentleman in question that ladies are present, and that that 
 I say it as a family man, sir, that the ladies should withdraw, or 
 that the young gentleman should be silent.' 
 
 Solemn as the assembly was, some of the less noble members 
 of it still had their nature tainted with a faint sense of humour, 
 and the lecture-room of Startfield Hall was profaned by a slight 
 tittering. Mrs. Delia Dickson underwent a new experience. 
 For the first time in her life she was conscious of what is called 
 -confusion, and she would hardly have known in what manner 
 to comport herself if Mr. Bousefield had not come to her rescue. 
 
 ' I think,' he said, ' and it is doubtless my own fault as chair- 
 man, that this devoted and gifted lady has not been sufficiently 
 informed of the precise scope of our meeting. A detailed 
 treatment of any subject is not part of to-night's programme. I 
 agree, therefore, with the gentleman who has just appealed to 
 me that the great work to which this noble lady has devoted her- 
 self is of too delicate and important a kind to be dealt with 
 advantageously now ; but we will do our best to secure for her 
 special opportunities hereafter of appealing to those who speci- 
 ally need her assistance, and I will ask you meanwhile to pass 
 a vote of thanks to Mrs. Dickson for showing us to-night on 
 what a devoted leader we may rely in extinguishing those evils 
 which for too long indeed, ever since marriage was instituted 
 have been allowed to interfere with the felicity which that 
 institution naturally produces. Those in favour of the motion 
 please hold up your hands. Carried unanimously. And now,' 
 Mr. Bousefield proceeded, ' as I said before, if any of you have 
 suggestions to make with regard to the subjects of the lec- 
 tures ' But Mrs. Norham arrested him. ' If all these 
 
 people,' said this spirit of Democracy in a whisper to him, ' are 
 to be giving us their crude advice, and expecting us seriously 
 
CHAPTER IV. 45 
 
 to consider it, our whole arrangements will again be thrown into 
 the melting-pot. Besides, do you see the time ? ' Mr. Bouse- 
 field glanced at the clock, and then answered her with a nod. 
 ' I have,' he said, turning again to the audience, ' been just 
 reminded that the hour is somewhat advanced. I fear, accord- 
 ingly, that any general tendering of suggestions will not be 
 practicable now ; I will, therefore, confine what I have said to 
 such of you as may feel inclined to offer us, or to secure for us 
 from friends, any contributions to our funds. I feel that any 
 one who is inclined to assist us in this way should, as a matter 
 of business, have a short, but clear, answer with regard to any 
 points as to which he desires to be satisfied.' 
 
 The mention of funds was productive of a leaden silence, and 
 it seemed as if the proceedings would come to an ignominious 
 and premature conclusion, when a figure rose at the far end of 
 the platform, and begged to be heard as a possible subscriber 
 to the Hall. The agreeable modulation of his voice at 
 once drew every eye on him. He was Mr. Bousefield's 
 stranger. 
 
 ' Mr. Chairman,' he began, ' I am not perhaps wholly in 
 agreement with all the objects of your Institution, as they have 
 been set forth to-night. But I should be willing to subscribe to 
 it if, in addition to the purposes just specified, you would allow 
 it to be used for certain others, which, though different from 
 these, are not opposed to them. I, like you, am anxious to help 
 the poor by teaching them ; but whereas you lay great stress, I 
 suppose, on teaching them their natural rights, I should like to 
 provide them with means for teaching them their legal rights ; 
 and whereas you lay stress on teaching the men political 
 economy, I should like to teach their wives and daughters 
 home economy not the fine arts, but the arts of the housewife, 
 the domestic physician, and, if I may venture to say so, of the 
 domestic cook. In other words, I would suggest that instruc- 
 tion should be here provided, by competent teachers, in medi- 
 cine, household management, and cookery ; and, further, that a 
 solicitor should attend here, at stated hours, who would give 
 advice, free of charge, to the poor, who, as lodgers, tenants, or 
 otherwise, might happen to be in legal difficulties.' 
 
 The previous speakers turned towards the stranger with a 
 scowl. Mr Poulton was whispering to Mr Norham, ' This is 
 simply farcical ; ' and Mrs Norham was answering, ' Do you 
 know who this man is ? ' when a voice from the platform itself 
 
46 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 a voice from the neighbourhood of the chairman exclaimed, 
 1 I'm with him for one. Here's a man who just talks sense. 
 That's what they need, poor bodies ; they need to be taught 
 that.' The stranger recognised the Caledonian accents of Mrs 
 Bousefield, who, inspirited by her own courage, now began 
 clapping enthusiastically ; and, to the horror of Mr Poulton 
 and his allies, some traitors to the new movement in various 
 parts of the lecture room joined in the dastardly acclamation. 
 ' This is merely a capitalist's dodge,' growled Mr Tibbits to his 
 clenched fists ; then, unable to control his exalted feelings, ' We 
 want,' he exclaimed, 'to make the poor not contented, but dis- 
 contented.' ' Startfield Hall,' cried the swarthy little man from 
 Oxford, in a high tinkling voice, ' was not meant for a cookery- 
 school.' The defiant socialistic stripling shouted out, ' Sit 
 down, sir.' ' I will not,' said the stranger, as soon as the storm 
 had spent itself, ' tax your patience longer. The opposition, 
 as well as the sympathy ' he here turned towards Mrs Bouse- 
 field ' which my proposals have excited, shows that I have 
 described them sufficiently.' ' Who's to pay ? ' shouted out 
 several voices. ' I have only to add,' said the stranger, ignor- 
 ing the interruption, ' that if your committee see their way to 
 carrying these proposals into effect, I will give, to start the 
 experiment, fifteen hundred pounds.' 
 
 Mrs Norham's disapproval of the rich had so little narrowness 
 in it, that she again looked at the stranger with an increasingly 
 earnest curiosity, and from several quarters came a murmur of 
 respectful and surprised applause. But Mr Poulton, who was 
 irritated beyond measure, jumped up, and, with a fine gesture 
 of authority, said, ' With the chairman's leave, I must ask if the 
 speaker is serious. He is unknown, I think, to all of us ; and 
 before the committee can consent to devote their time to con- 
 sidering how far this startling programme is practicable, is he 
 prepared to give us any tangible guarantee that the support he 
 promises us will be actually forthcoming if required?' 'Will 
 he put down the money on the chairman's table now ? ' tittered 
 the swarthy little man from Oxford into the collar of his pilot 
 jacket. 'This gentleman,' said the stranger, speaking for the first 
 time sharply, ' asks me if I will deposit at this moment the sum 
 of which I have spoken. His suspicions do honour to him as 
 an astute man of the world.' A slight laugh was raised amongst 
 the audience by this compliment, to which the swarthy little 
 man responded with a goblin frown. ' I hope,' the stranger 
 
CHAPTER IV. 47 
 
 continued, ' to set his suspicions at rest. If your chairman, 
 who has hospitably entertained me to-night at dinner, will per- 
 mit me to return with him to his house, I will give him a letter to 
 my solicitors, who will place the money in his hands, to be 
 held by him whilst your governing body is considering whether 
 it can be used for the purposes I have indicated.' 
 
 This announcement produced a considerable sensation. The 
 question, ' Who is he ? ' was audible in several parts of the 
 hall ; and Mr Bousefield wound up the proceedings by hand- 
 somely thanking Mr Brandon for his magnificent offer, whether 
 or no they might find themselves able to profit by it. 
 
 ' I confess, my dear sir,' he said, a quarter of an hour later, 
 when he was leaning against his own chimney-piece, with the 
 stranger facing him, 'I confess that this offer of yours com- 
 pletely took away my breath. It is, of course,' Mr. Bousefield 
 continued, slightly pursing up his mouth and frowning, ' it is, of 
 course this scheme of yours an entirely new departure. As 
 Mrs. Norham said to me on the way back, it is a little like pro- 
 posing, when some one has built a church, to turn the vestry 
 into a steam laundry.' 
 
 'Well,' said the stranger, 'if you will think the matter over, I 
 will, with your permission, write the letter to my solicitors. 
 You probably know the firm. They are in Bedford Row, close 
 by ; and the sum I spoke of shall be handed over to you by 
 them any time during the next six months, if within that period 
 your committee find themselves able to use it for the purposes 
 I have specified.' 
 
 'My dear sir, 'said Mr. Bousefield, 'whatever our decision may 
 be, we are none the less obliged to you for your great, your ex- 
 traordinary generosity. We will consider the matter as you 
 suggest certainly we will certainly. I should tell you, how- 
 ever, that in coming to a decision there will probably be some 
 delay a delay caused by the fact that I am about, for a short 
 time only, to allow myself an indulgence which I could hardly 
 have reconciled with my conscience if my good wife and my 
 doctor had not, rightly or wrongly, determined that my health 
 required it. We are going abroad to the south not to one 
 of your fashionable centres, but to a little seaside village in Pro- 
 vence, where house-room is to be had cheap. Mrs. Norham, 
 who has been frightfully overtaxing her strength Mrs. Norham 
 never spares herself will join us and share our expenses ; and 
 as we have secured, for a mere nominal rent, three villas about 
 
48 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 as big as dolls' houses standing in the same garden, \ve propose 
 to take in, during the six weeks of our tenancy, a few tired-out 
 brain-workers, on low terms, as paying guests. It is possible, 
 therefore, that I may be unable to settle anything till Easter ; 
 but the moment I have anything to tell you, I will communi- 
 cate with you or your solicitors, and naturally nothing shall be 
 done unless you or they are satisfied.' 
 
 ' I,' said the stranger, ' may be going abroad also. This 
 winter, it seems, there is a general exodus.' 
 
 4 There generally is,' said Mr. Bousefield, ' of the rich and 
 idle.' 
 
 ' My solicitors,' said the stranger, ' would always forward my 
 letters to me. I am sorry not to be a little more communicative 
 about myself, but my slight connection as a landlord with this 
 locality makes me wish, for the present, to remain more or less 
 in the background. And now, thanking you for your kindness, 
 I must say good-bye and go.' 
 
 He had hardly finished speaking, when a voice was heard in 
 the doorway, and Mrs. Norham inserted her face and her 
 aureole, saying, with a valedictory nod, that she must be going 
 also. 
 
 ' Let me escort you,' exclaimed Mr. Bousefield. But he had 
 hardly reached the door when he received an unwelcome 
 check. 'Ye mustn't, ye just mustn't, Mr. Prouse Bouse- 
 field, ye mustn't. Mrs. Norham, don't let him.' The appeal 
 was from Mrs. Bousefield. 'When he spoke to-night, there 
 was a little cold and a snuffle in his voice, and I knew that his 
 uvula was getting relaxed again. Harry shall go with Mrs. 
 Norham, unless she would be liking a cab.' 
 
 ' May I be allowed,' said the stranger, ' to see Mrs. Norham 
 to her door ? ' 
 
 Mr Bousefield was about to protest that Mr Brandon should 
 not be troubled, when the ground was cut from under him, in 
 an unexpected and mortifying manner, by Mrs Norham herself, 
 who accepted the offer eagerly ; and the stranger and she were 
 presently making their way together through the misty silence 
 of the streets, whilst Mr Bousefield, his feet in slippers, was 
 having his equanimity restored by some toddy and a plate of 
 shortbread. 
 
 Ever since the stranger had mentioned the amount of his 
 proposed donation, a conviction had been growing in Mrs 
 Norham's mind that he was at all events, worthy of the salu- 
 
CHAPTER IV. 49 
 
 tary honour of being attacked by her ; and she longed to cement 
 her acquaintance by showing him his inferiority to herself; but 
 now that she had secured a convenient opportunity for doing 
 so, she was conscious of a difficulty in beginning her intended 
 operation. They had, indeed, very nearly reached her house 
 before she unmasked her batteries, and said, with abrupt 
 severity, c If you want to spend money on any teaching of the 
 poor which is not a direct inculcation of intellectual views, 
 you would do far better in helping a certain number of them 
 through our agency to travel. I am going, I hope, with- 
 out seeming to patronise them, to get a few of them to the 
 south for a few weeks this winter not so much for their 
 health's sake, as to get them out of a contented groove out of 
 their narrowness.' 
 
 ' I was,' the stranger answered, as if he were talking to him- 
 self, 'speaking about travel the other day, to my friend the 
 American Ambassador ; and he said to me this I have often 
 thought of it since ' The Devil never found a truer note to 
 his voice than the railway whistle.' I agree with him, Mrs 
 Norham. Happiness requires limitations the very thing that 
 you call narrowness just as wine requires a glass to hold it. 
 I would venture also to give utterance to another benighted 
 sentiment. Until culture makes the higher classes happy, you 
 can no more expect it to bring happiness to the lower, than a 
 man can expect, if all his best claret is corked, to make it a 
 sound wine by distributing it amongst his poor relations. You 
 may possess a receipt for personal happiness, possibly. I, for 
 my part, if I ever had it, have lost it.' 
 
 The stranger's chance mention of the American Ambassador 
 had left Mrs Norham more convinced than ever that he was 
 worth either cultivating or humiliating. She was therefore 
 annoyed to find that she was already at her own door, having 
 been lectured by her companion rather than having lectured 
 him. She was half inclined to ask him in for a little, but her 
 knowledge of the world was, she felt, too considerable to allow 
 her to take a step so open to misconstruction ; she was ac- 
 cordingly obliged to let him go, with the advantage of the 
 last word ; and she entered her dwelling not in the best of 
 tempers. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LADY SCARVA, to whose impending party Lady Tregothran 
 had alluded, was, in her own way, as active on behalf of the 
 Liberals as Lady Tregothran and Mrs. Tilney, in their ways, 
 were on behalf of the Tories ; and she was serving the cause of 
 progress, and was qualifying her husband for a peerage, by 
 demonstrating how false is the idea that the extremest demo- 
 cratic principles can possibly conflict with the aspirations of 
 private life. Whilst proclaiming, as a politician, the rights and 
 the supremacy of the many, it is impossible to imagine anybody 
 in private life more fearless and consistent in admitting the 
 social supremacy of the few. She thus showed how reasonable 
 were her party's principles in reality by her own freedom from 
 any of their apparent consequences ; and she showed at the 
 same time the depth of her own belief in them by invariably 
 losing her temper if anybody questioned her sincerity. She 
 would, indeed, though devoted to her husband and her 
 husband's fortunes, have borne with a better grace that her 
 virtue should be doubted than her Radicalism ; whilst she was 
 pleased, rather than otherwise, when her intimate women friends 
 twitted her confidentially with the excesses of her social fastidious- 
 ness. ' My dears,' she would say, ' that shows how little you 
 know about it. I am obliged to earn for my house a reputation 
 by my small parties in order to give pleasure to those whom I 
 only ask to my large ones.' 
 
 Such was Lady Scarva, a woman who looked so young that, 
 instead of resenting or denying her forty years, she could afford 
 to regard them as a mere foil to her piquancy. The daughter 
 of a Tory squire, once a member of Parliament, and well 
 known as a pillar of the old-fashioned landed interest, she now 
 shone as the wife of an illustrious distiller of whisky. She was 
 slight, small, and possessed of a charming manner. Her house, 
 with three exceptions, was the largest in all Park Lane, and those 
 who knew the sums which Sir John Scarva, her husband, made 
 
CHAPTER V. 51 
 
 each year out of his two Irish distilleries were only surprised 
 that it was not a great deal larger. 
 
 Her party to-night was one of those comprehensive gatherings 
 at which the various groups of Parliamentary reformers were 
 united by a common participation in the privileges which they 
 professed themselves anxious to destroy, and at which she was 
 accustomed to prove by the pressure of her welcoming hands 
 how deeply she valued those with whom this was her only 
 intercourse. Lady Scarva's guests, however, were by no means 
 all Liberals. There were, on the contrary, few political hostesses 
 whose political parties were enlivened by so many fashionable 
 Tories ; and she was eminently successful to-night in making 
 use of these distinguished opponents as the unconscious means 
 of attracting to her the less distinguished of her allies. 
 
 Still, to those who are conversant with the varieties of 
 London entertainments, the political party, though it may wear 
 the trappings of fashion, always has a character of its own, 
 which mere fashion can neither impart nor neutralise. This 
 character is apparent on the staircase or even at the cloakroom 
 door. There is a movement and an energy which in other 
 parties is absent. Amongst figures familiar to half the candles 
 in London, who deposit their coats or cloaks and mount to the 
 upper regions almost as placidly as if they were going to bed, 
 there are others whose faces are flushed and whose eyes are 
 wide with vitality, and who give to the scene the animation, 
 and, indeed, something of the inconvenience, of a railway 
 station on a Bank Holiday. Round-faced men, on whose 
 cheeks the happy dews of excitement are fresh and red in 
 the light of a social sunrise, look for their wives and daughters 
 as if they were lost dressing-bags, or exchange with friends 
 knowing glances of recognition, charged with a patronising 
 surprise at meeting them under such conditions. Wives give 
 purpose to the vagueness of their husbands' movements, whilst 
 severe Jacobins of sixty, mellowed by three years of Parliament, 
 who, next to the destruction of aristocratic manners, have come 
 to the conclusion that the best thing is to annex them, greet 
 each other with the knowingness of mature men of the world. 
 Such was the scene in Lady Scarva's hall to-night from a 
 quarter before, until half-past, eleven, as her guests got rid of 
 their cloaks at the foot of her double staircase. 
 
 ' Well,' said a tall doctrinaire, lean with revolutionary 
 thinking, to a little spectacled man with the figure of a squat 
 
52 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 plum-pudding, ' well, Jackson, and what mischief have you 
 been up to ? ' 
 
 ' Go along,' said the other, feigning an attack on the 
 questioner's ribs ; ' we don't want any of your private de- 
 tectives here. I say, old fellow look do you see the 
 Marchioness ? Have you heard the latest story they are 
 telling about her ? ' 
 
 ' I've heard,' said the other, ' the story they're telling about 
 him. There he is. My dear fellow, don't you know him ? 
 Tristram Lacy, I mean, who was once Conservative whip. 
 Oh, my boy, I was forgetting. You weren't in the House till 
 this year. You wouldn't know him, of course. Well, they 
 say he's been offered but hush, hush, he is close to us. Wait 
 a moment and I'll tell you when he's gone by.' 
 
 The subject of this conversation had only just arrived, and 
 though many of the guests were waiting to go up stairs, a con- 
 siderable number were already coming down to supper. The 
 faces of most of them were apparently as unfamiliar to him as his 
 had just been asserted to be to the general public; but those who 
 did greet him all evinced a pleasure which seemed quite as much 
 due to the sense of being seen talking to him as to any words 
 or ideas that could have possibly passed between them. As for 
 him, though his face lit up when he spoke, it suggested a pond 
 reflecting a clouded sky, which sparkled only if something 
 disturbed its surface ; and yet, when he made his way slowly 
 up the crowded staircase, a gleam of subdued amusement 
 would often float in his eyes as he studied the figures and 
 forms which pushed and perspired on each side of him ; or 
 listened to those fragmentary sounds by which alone, at a 
 crowded party, human intercourse is distinguished from human 
 contact. Those who maintain that only a few exceptional 
 Englishmen possess that gift of society which is ascribed 
 generally to the French, would have found that even the 
 dullest of Lady Scarva's guests were able to-night to vie with 
 the most brilliant and original, and, indeed, that the conversa- 
 tion of both consisted of the same observations. ' How are 
 you ? ' ' What a dismal fog.' ' Considering the fog I thought 
 there would have been fewer people.' Whilst as for Lady 
 Scarva who stood in her white doorway with a smile as varying 
 as the lights on her heliotrope silk dress, she was a living 
 refutation of another of those opinions which are expressed 
 to the disadvantage of English, and, indeed, of all society. 
 
CHAPTER V. 53 
 
 She showed that social charm of the most successful kind is 
 not, for a good woman, incompatible with truthfulness ; for in 
 welcoming those of her guests whom she was now most anxious 
 to conciliate, she never wandered from truth of the most literar 
 kind, as she said with a smile for each, ' It's an age since I saw 
 you last.' Indeed, such was the magic of these words, that the 
 tall revolutionary doctrinaire, whom she actually had seen at a 
 meeting that afternoon, felt when, by accident, she uttered 
 them to him also, that he had inspired her with a romantic 
 attachment, and began, as he held her hand, to wonder whether 
 Robespierre would have neglected such a bonne fortune. Mr. 
 Tristram Lacy appearing at this juncture, she merely kissed 
 to him the hand that was disengaged, and with a little nod told 
 him to pass on. This was easier said than done ; for a stream 
 of emerging guests was impeding the movements of those who 
 were about to enter. Tristram Lacy, however, was presently 
 in the first drawing-room, where he slipped unobserved into a 
 corner near the door, and contented himself with watching the 
 throng that was moving past him. 
 
 Before very long his interest was perceptibly roused by a 
 burst of half-boyish laughter proceeding from some one near 
 him the kind of laughter that is usually the drapery of some 
 humourous indecorum ; and he saw, with a slight start, that it 
 emanated from a curly-headed individual, singularly boyish 
 in aspect, whose face was twitching with a kind of confidential 
 mischief, and who with great volubility was talking to some 
 lady, whom Lacy judged from a back view of her to be elderly. 
 He judged also that the mood in which she listened to the 
 person addressing her was one of condescending and perhaps 
 of amused tolerance, and that she was, in particular, at once 
 flattered and annoyed at his refusal to believe her to be other- 
 wise than in perfect health. 
 
 ' Dear Lady Dovedale,' he was saying to her, ' I'm really not 
 trying to flatter you. You must be as strong as ever or you 
 could never have got in here. I've not the least doubt,' he 
 went on, with an impish twinkle in his eye, ' I've not the 
 least doubt that as soon as you're out at Cannes, you'll find 
 yourself the life of the whole hotel salon.' 
 
 Lacy saw indignation in the jerk of the lady's head, and he 
 heard her reply in a crushing and contemptuous voice, ' Hotel 
 salon, Mr. Brancepeth ! What on earth do you mean ? What 
 do you suppose I should be doing in an hotel salon ? I'm 
 
54 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 going to spend the winter with the Helbecksteins at their new 
 villa the villa which was Prince Ferdinand's.' Having said 
 this, the lady with a peculiar strutting gait pushed herself into 
 the throng, and escaped any further irreverences. 
 
 The laughing young man had his eyes on her disappearing 
 back, when he was, as Lacy saw, addressed by another matron, 
 who had just been announced outside as Mrs. Montagu Beau- 
 clerck a tall personage, with a masculine and determined 
 presence, who went through any crowd like a boat through a 
 bed of bulrushes. 'Well, Mr. Brancepeth,' she said to him, 
 ' and what may you have been doing with yourself lately ? 
 And where did you steal that magnificent orchid in your 
 button-hole ? ' 
 
 ' Oh,' said the laughing young man, whose face saddened 
 suddenly, ' I've been all this afternoon by the bedside of a 
 poor dear old friend of mine who's awfully down on his luck, 
 and who's ill, so ill, into the bargain.' 
 
 Mrs. Montagu Beauclerck did not seem much impressed. 
 ' So,' she said, ' having embodied charity in your own person 
 during the day, you have been talking to it to-night as 
 embodied in the person of Lady Dovedale.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' the young man retorted, his face becoming 
 all animation again, ' if Lady Dovedale is the embodiment of 
 charity ; but I do know she is going to be the recipient of it. 
 All this winter abroad she is going to live on the Helbeck- 
 steins. Isn't it odd to think what ladies and gentlemen are 
 coming to ? ' 
 
 ' Humph,' grunted Mrs. Montagu Beauclerck. ' Poor dear 
 old Dovedale himself is a gentleman, every inch of him that 
 is to say, what's left of him. But Lady Dovedale after all, 
 who was she ? ' 
 
 ' That's the only secret,' said Mr. Brancepeth, ' that Lady 
 Dovedale can keep. I always roar at the airs which that grand 
 lady gives herself.' 
 
 ' Oh,' replied Mrs. Montagu Beauclerck, with an inevitable 
 impulse to contradict. ' I find her always very civil and 
 pleasant.' 
 
 ' Yes, to your face,' said Mr. Brancepeth ; ' but get her 
 behind your back, and I've no doubt she'll say you're the 
 vulgarest woman in London.' 
 
 ' The devil she will ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Montagu Beauclerck. 
 
 ' But what does it matter ? ' said Mr. Brancepeth soothingly. 
 
CHAPTER V. 55 
 
 ' She's civil to you to your face because she wants to be inti- 
 mate with you, and she abuses you behind your back merely 
 to show she is so. What flattery can be more sincere than 
 that ? I say, Mrs. Beauclerck, come down and have supper. 
 It must be twenty minutes, at least, since you finished dinner, 
 and I'll tell you something which I could not possibly breathe 
 unless we were sitting together at a nice little round table 
 where I could whisper it.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs. Montagu Beauclerck, ' come. Everybody 
 seems to be going down. I think on the whole I had better 
 go first and make a way for you.' 
 
 Lacy's eyes followed the two as they disappeared, and then, 
 when he began once more looking about him, he realised that 
 the whole assembly was undergoing a change. The rooms, of 
 which there were several, were becoming much less crowded ; 
 there was a magical disappearance of the people he did not 
 know, and groups were left, which, for the most part, were 
 composed of people whom he did. This subtle change was 
 not wholly fortuitous. It nearly always took place at Lady 
 Scarva's political parties, and was produced, as she told her 
 intimates, by the earliness and the excellence of her supper, 
 which drew her official contingent down stairs at half-past 
 eleven, and , was singularly efficacious in preventing their 
 coming up again. 
 
 Lacy instinctively came forward a little out of his corner ; 
 but he was still looking about him with an absent and un- 
 interested air, when he felt on his arm the light touch of a fan, 
 and turning round he heard a lady saying to him, ' Well, Mr. 
 Lacy, you're not often in these scenes of gaiety. This is your 
 first appearance since the death of Mr. Octavius Brandon.' 
 
 The speaker was a woman with handsome sparkling eyes, 
 full of intelligent sympathy, and a certain mundane deter- 
 mination. If her eldest daughter had not been already out, 
 she might, at a first glance, have passed for no more than 
 thirty. She, too, like Lady Scarva, had a husband in Parlia- 
 ment ; and she, like Lady Scarva, was also engaged in pushing 
 him. She was not so rich as her hostess, but she was, on the 
 other hand, incalculably cleverer ; for whilst Lady Scarva 
 could sympathise and agree with the tenets of those she 
 patronised, her rival, Mrs. Tilney, for this was none other than 
 she, could remember and even frequently understand them. 
 
 ' Come,' she said, ' sit down here, and let us have a talk 
 
56 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 together. You know my girl, I think ? Norah, don't go away. 
 Stay where you are, and presently we'll all go down together. 
 Well, Mr. Lacy, and what have you been doing, tell me ? ' 
 
 ' For the last ten minutes,' he said, ' I've been studying 
 human nature in a corner. I've been studying Lady Dovedale. 
 I heard her informing a friend that she is going to spend the 
 winter with that new social star, Mrs. Helbeckstein, whom I 
 have never had the honour of seeing. I only know of her ex- 
 istence because some of the heavenly bodies whom I do see are 
 visibly deflected from their usual orbits by her neighbourhood.' 
 
 '/know her,' said Mrs. Tilney, with a slight grimace. 'Tell 
 me, do you know what's become of Lady Dovedale's beautiful 
 daughter? I mean Lady Madeline Seaton. Since that mar 
 riage of hers, into which her mother forced her, one has hardly 
 seen or heard of her. But I thought, a day or two ago, I had 
 a glimpse of her in Piccadilly.' 
 
 ' I think,' said Lacy, ' I met her once when she was a girl.' 
 
 'She always,' said Mrs. Tilney, 'interested me. What was 
 the name of that man who was half a Russian who treated 
 her so badly, who had such a desperate flirtation with her, and 
 who all the while had a wife locked up in a mad-house a big 
 man, with long flowing moustaches ? Her mother married her 
 to get her away from him. Perhaps she did right, though Mr. 
 Seaton was deadly dull. I suppose it was to escape from his 
 dulness that she went through the excitement of turning a Roman 
 Catholic. She's a widow now, I believe. What beautiful eyes 
 she had ! Poor Madeleine, I hope she's a good jointure. Mar- 
 riage, Mr. Lacy, though you haven't found that out yet, is a very 
 serious thing.' 
 
 ' You, at all events,' replied Lacy, ' say so in a very serious 
 tone.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs. Tilney, ' with a girl of one's own coming 
 out, one thinks so, without being a match-maker. Of course 
 my great, my first wish for Norah is that she should marry a man 
 she likes. Money is an advantage, and position is an advantage 
 but merely because, in many ways, it makes things so much 
 easier ; and I shall be quite happy more than happy, I'm sure 
 if she can only find some good man who'll be kind to her. 
 However, I'm not going to give you a lecture on marriage. I 
 want you to give me some more of your own biography.' 
 
 ' Well,' said the other laughing, ' here is another chapter of 
 it. Before I began to study human nature here, I was studying 
 
CHAPTER V. 57 
 
 it in a place which I'm certain you'd never guess. Did you 
 ever hear of an institution called Startfield Hall?' 
 
 ' Hear of it,' exclaimed Mrs. Tilney ; ' I've been pestered 
 about nothing else. There's that Mrs. Norham, who has been 
 begging me to come on their committee ; and who tells a friend 
 of hers that she's anxious to make my acquaintance. I think 
 that next week I shall have to ask her to luncheon. But how 
 in the world did you manage to get there ? ' 
 
 ' Oh,' he said. ' I was asked to go, and I went ; and what is 
 more, I sat by Mrs. Norham at dinner.' 
 
 ' You must tell me more in a moment. This really is very 
 interesting,' said Mrs. Tilney, as her attention suddenly strayed, 
 and became fixed on a man with dark glittering eyes and 
 curiously twisted moustaches, who was slowly strolling towards 
 her. There was in his movements a certain repressed swagger 
 which suggested that his manners had been formed not in the 
 most reputable society, and that he submitted for the moment 
 only to the insipid restraints of decency. ' Lord Crowborough.' 
 exclaimed Mrs. Tilney, with the possessive air of a friend, ' will 
 you be very kind? Take Norah, do, and get her some 
 lemonade. She's dying of thirst, poor girl. I shall be here 
 when you come back.' The gentleman addressed undertook 
 the task imposed on him with a creditable assumption of plea- 
 sure, and as he turned to the young lady, a stud of memorable 
 size blazed at her from his shirt-front. Mrs. Tilney devoted 
 herself again to her companion. 'Yes,' she resumed, 'Mrs. 
 Norham and where on earth did you sit by her ? Oh, at Mr. 
 Bousefield's was it ? I know him by name, too. He's a sort 
 of Maecenas amongst the earnest persons of Bloomsbury. But 
 you haven't told me what took you into such brilliant com- 
 pany.' 
 
 'Well,' said Mr. Lacy, 'the real reason that took me was the 
 fact of my being owner of some property near this new hall.' 
 
 ' To be sure,' cried Mrs. Tilney, putting her hand in his arm. 
 ' It is part of what was left you by Mr. Octavius Brandon. By- 
 the-way, you have now become Brandon Lacy, haven't you ? I 
 suppose,' she went on confidentially, 'it is really something 
 very large. I hope you don't think me terribly indiscreet for 
 asking, because I want to ask you something more indiscreet still.' 
 
 ' Let us,' he said, ' have the larger indiscretion first.' 
 
 ' Is it true, then,' she asked, ' that you've been offered a cer- 
 tain post and refused it ? ' 
 
58 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'Must I tell State secrets to Lady Scarva also ?' Mr. Lacy 
 whispered, as their hostess came towards them. 
 
 'My dear Carlotta,' said Lady Scarva, 'at last I can 
 have a word with you. So here you are, holding a little court 
 as usual. I've a young man somewhere who wants to be intro- 
 duced to Norah. He's Patrick Scarva, our nephew my dear, 
 one of the partners.' 
 
 This last piece of information was given in a mock whisper. 
 ' Norah,' said Mrs. Tilney, ' will be here again in a moment. 
 She's gone down stairs with Lord Crowborough to get an ice or 
 something.' 
 
 At the mention of Lord Crowborough's name Lady Scarva 
 pursed her mouth up. 
 
 ' My dear,' said Mrs. Tilney, ' you needn't be doing that at 
 me. I know Lord Crowborough was well, what we all know 
 he was. There was a time, indeed, when I wouldn't have him 
 inside my own door. But he's a good fellow at heart.' 
 
 'Is he ? ' said some one drily, who had come up with Lady 
 Scarva, a tall man with a slightly cynical face, worn with the 
 weather of many a London season. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Tilney stoutly, 'and I won't have him abused. 
 You've no notion how much he's improved since the sad, the 
 terrible death of his elder brother.' 
 
 ' I admit,' said the tall man, ' that a death of that kind is a 
 species of chastening by which most second sons are improved/ 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs Tilney quickly, ' if we are to go on discus- 
 sing him, we had better ask him to assist at his own execution ; 
 for there's Norah I can see her dress in that doorway and, 
 unless we stop, he will hear every word we say of him. They 
 are coming now. I can see Norah move.' 
 
 Whilst she was speaking the young lady advanced, and her 
 attendant cavalier became visible also. Mrs Tilney's fears, 
 however, proved to have been happily groundless, for the 
 cavalier was not Lord Crowboroughj but a musical canon of 
 St Paul's, who had recently sung himself into a cure of Bel- 
 gravian souls. If Mrs Tilney had not been capable of managing 
 the expression of her face almost as well as she managed her hus- 
 band's doubtful voters, the chances are that she might have 
 looked a trifle foolish. She possessed, however, the happy, but 
 unconscious art of always appearing to be mistress of the situa- 
 tion; and she found that the reality generally followed the appear- 
 ance. ' Lord Crowborough,' said the girl, ' was obliged to go 
 
CHAPTER V. 59 
 
 on somewhere.' The tall man looked at Lacy, as if he knew 
 well enough what the kind of somewhere was. As for Mrs 
 Tilney, she looked maternally at her daughter, and, taking her 
 hand, said, ' I think I know somebody who's been out for 
 three nights running, and would like to go somewhere else 
 also. My dear Juliet,' she continued, rising and addressing 
 herself to Lady Scarva, ' good-night, my dear, I must take this 
 young person home. Well, Mr Lacy,' she said, as she drew 
 him aside for a moment, ' you've not even answered the most 
 indiscreet of my questions.' ' Look,' he said, as she began to 
 move away from him, ' look, if you remember to do so, in the 
 papers this day week. You will see the answer there, or some- 
 thing from which you will be able to infer it.' 
 
 As he dropped behind her, the tall man touched his arm, and 
 murmured, ' Look here, Lacy, do you find this party a bore ? 
 If you do, I can make you change your opinion.' 
 
 ' I wish you would,' was the answer. 
 
 ' Well,' said the tall man, ' everything in life is comparative ; 
 and if you care for this ticket, it will admit you to another 
 entertainment which will bore you so much more that you will 
 look back on this as intoxicating. Here, use it or not ; and if 
 you don't use it this evening, it is good for another time. For 
 my sins I am one of the directors. Good-night. I have some- 
 thing to say to Scarva.' 
 
 Lacy thrust a limp and unsealed envelope into his pocket 
 without having looked at it, and went down listlessly to the 
 cloak-room. ' Coming out, coming out,' said the sharp voices 
 of the servants. 'Cab or carriage, my lord?' said the insinuat- 
 ing voice of the linkman ; but Lacy, deaf to his blandishments, 
 went into the fog on foot. He presently stopped short under 
 a gas-lamp, and extracted the mysterious envelope. By strain- 
 ing his eyes, he made out that the contents consisted of a 
 ticket for a private box at a well-known place of entertainment, 
 which was that night to be the scene of a masked ball ; or, as 
 it was called, ' a carnival.' He thrust the ticket and its enve- 
 lope back again into his pocket. ' I will,' he said, ' take his 
 word for it that this would be even duller than Lady Scarva's.' 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN the quiet region at the back of Cavendish Square is a 
 street of houses monumental in their solidity and spaciousness, 
 whose outer aspect has suffered no change whatever since the 
 date of their erection, some time in the eighteenth century. 
 They are houses which, if they had been situated a little nearer 
 to Piccadilly, would have ended inevitably as the quarters of 
 important clubs. One of the most imposing of them had, for 
 something like thirty years, worn an air even gloomier and 
 more antique than its neighbours. All its windows, except 
 those on the ground floor, had displayed the persistent blank- 
 ness of down-drawn and grimy blinds ; whilst the soft darkness 
 which is born of the London winters, and is not unlike the 
 bloom on some spectral grape, had accumulated unchecked 
 on the railings and the deeply- recessed door. It was to this 
 door, which looked as if it had never been opened for a genera- 
 tion, that Tristram Brandon Lacy, having made his way 
 through the fog, at last applied his latch-key. Within was a 
 bare pale vestibule, whose woodwork was the colour of ginger- 
 bread, its sole furniture being a dilapidated porter's chair, 
 whilst beyond was a hall floored with black and white squares 
 of marble, and now dimly illuminated by a ponderous hanging 
 lamp, which showed where a bare stone staircase mounted into 
 echoing shadow. 
 
 From this desolate hall Lacy passed into a long room with 
 a fire in it, and near the fire, on a tray, were some decanters 
 and a bottle of soda water, their brightness alone suggesting 
 the life and habits of to-day. Everything else seemed eloquent 
 of times and tastes gone by the high book-cases with their 
 glimmer of brass lattice-work, the busts of Pitt and Canning, 
 the mahogany desks and tables, and the faded Axminster 
 carpet, with a crest and medallion in the middle of it. Close 
 to the tray a number of letters were lying. He took them up, 
 glanced at them, and passed into the room adjoining. This 
 jalso had been fitted up as a library, its shelves being filled with 
 
CHAPTER VI. 6 1 
 
 rows of old Parliamentary Reports, but it had now been con- 
 verted into a bedroom by the introduction of the necessary 
 furniture, and had a general air of being bivouacked rather 
 than lived in. In one corner, against the book-shelves, 
 was a pile of battered portmanteaus, and parallel to the bed 
 was a wall of japanned deed-boxes, each of which, in white 
 letters, bore the name of Octavius Brandon. 
 
 It was, indeed, to Mr. Brandon Lady Tregothran's ' old 
 Octavius ' that this house had belonged, and to his father and 
 his grandfather before him. Since the death of his wife he 
 had very rarely entered it, but for many years Lacy, his wife's 
 nephew, had been allowed by him to occupy two rooms on the 
 entrance floor". And now of this great house Lacy found him- 
 self to be actually the owner. He had indeed now been its 
 owner for several months, but he had thus far signalised 
 the fact by no alteration in the furniture, and indeed, during 
 that time, he had occupied it only once or twice for a night 
 or two. 
 
 Tristram Lacy, Tristram Brandon Lacy, was the only sur- 
 viving representative of an ancient Cheshire family, which had 
 once been wealthy and influential ; and he, at his father's death 
 about three years ago, had succeeded to some thousands of 
 acres, a beautiful and romantic park, and a mansion which was 
 mentioned with respect in all the local guide-books. But for 
 him these possessions were merely the shell of wealth, almost 
 all the substance of it being eaten out by mortgages, and so 
 well was this fact known that his acquaintances were accus- 
 tomed to wonder at his even having been master of the eight 
 or nine hundred a year required to support him as a bachelor 
 in Parliament and polite society. His acquaintances knew, 
 and he knew better than they, that a very slight fall in agri- 
 cultural rents would rob him of even the semblance of a man 
 of property, and transfer his home and his acres into the hands 
 of the mortgagees. Indeed, this catastrophe would have pro- 
 bably taken place already if it had not been for the sudden 
 accession of fortune, on which he had never counted, and 
 which had never even come within his calculations. 
 
 It was his grandfather who had been guilty of undermining 
 the family fortunes by his repeated successes in securing his 
 own return for his county ; and his loyalty to the Tory party 
 being quite beyond suspicion, the Governments whom he sup- 
 ported had all forborne to affront him by supposing that it 
 
62 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 required to be secured by even a promise of the least reward. 
 His son, on succeeding him, found himself so much embar- 
 rassed that, though his wife, Lady Amelia, brought him, besides 
 her affection, the honour of being brother-in-law to Lord Run- 
 corn, the most remarkable of our modern Prime Ministers, the 
 unfortunate country gentleman could support the Toryism of 
 his neighbourhood, by nothing more substantial, than the wit- 
 ness of his own poverty, which, at all events, showed this 
 how sincere were his convictions that Toryism must some 
 how bring some great benefit to the nation, since, judged by 
 his personal experiences, it brought nothing but ruin to the 
 family. His wife, however, having brought him a portion of 
 fifty thousand pounds, they continued, with the aid of her 
 capital, rather than of the income which it yielded, to spend 
 their lives, without any great discomfort, in the large decaying 
 house whose roofs they could just keep watertight. But though 
 this procedure was naturally not calculated to improve the 
 worldly circumstances of their only son at their death, they 
 treated him throughout their lifetime with a liberality beyond 
 their means ; they maintained him at Eton and Oxford like 
 the heir to a large fortune ; they subsequently made him an 
 allowance somewhat in excess of the income which he found, 
 after their death, accruing to him from the family acres ; and 
 the vigour and versatility of his character, and his brilliant 
 series of successes, formed the greatest pleasure, and the only 
 excitement of their lives. 
 
 Tristram Lacy's character had been not inaccurately de- 
 scribed in his uncle's letter to Mrs. Tilney. He had the tem- 
 perament of a poet and a philosopher, with traces of the 
 temperament of a saint ; but combined with all this were the 
 tastes of the fastidious man of the world, and the ambition and 
 practical energy natural to the man of action. At Oxford, 
 which he left early in order to join the army, he showed him- 
 self not more than moderately accurate in his scholarship, but 
 he developed an extraordinary avidity in the acquisition of all 
 speculative knowledge which seemed to him to have a direct 
 bearing on life especially the discoveries of modern science 
 and criticism with regard to the physiological and religious 
 history of man. In entering the army, his principal aim and 
 wish, as he modestly told his friends, was to see active service, 
 and prove to himself that he was not behind the generality of 
 men in courage, endurance and coolness, when faced by death 
 
CHAPTER VI. 63 
 
 and hardship. His wishes in this respect were, by good luck, 
 soon fulfilled. He saw active service in Egypt ; he received a 
 wound in the hip which ever afterwards caused him to limp 
 slightly ; and his courage, endurance and coolness sent him 
 home with a reputation from which all the newspapers augured 
 for him a brilliant military future. Those auguries, however, 
 he at once proceeded to falsify by giving up a profession he 
 seemed so manifestly qualified to adorn ; and being fortunate 
 in possessing a Prime Minister for his uncle, he was shortly 
 transformed into one of the Prime Minister's secretaries. In 
 this post he acquitted himself so well, owing not only to his 
 general talents, but to his manners and to his accomplishments 
 as a linguist, that he was selected to accompany his Chief to a 
 certain foreign capital on the occasion of a conference of the 
 great European Powers a conference affecting the peace of 
 the whole civilised world. 
 
 A dissolution of Parliament occurring a year after this event, 
 he was, at Mr. Brandon's expense, returned for an important 
 borough. It is true he disappointed the larger part of his 
 constituents, because he never spoke in the House unless he 
 had something to say ; yet in the House itself he was regarded 
 as a rising politician, and being always charming in manner, 
 though often caustic in matter, he rose eventually to be one of 
 the Tory whips. Meanwhile in society he was as much flattered 
 and courted as any young man can be whose income is counted 
 in hundreds, and who finds it, in consequence, a much easier 
 thing to be dreaded by husbands than to be thoroughly 
 esteemed by mothers. But social and political, just like the 
 military life, at length seemed to lose their zest for him, and 
 to lose it when his hopes looked brightest ; for when that 
 Parliament died, having reached its natural term, he steadily 
 refused, though his triumphant return was a certainty, to stand 
 again for his own, or indeed, for any constituency. 
 
 Greatness of any kind is rarely thrust upon anybody, and 
 never on those who do not go half-way to meet it. Speculation, 
 certainly, was excited as to the reasons of his strange conduct ; 
 but the world, having no clue to them, soon ceased to discuss 
 them, and he met with no obstacle, and with very few remon- 
 strances, when he chose for a time to bury himself in his old 
 home in the country ; nor was he, when he absented himself 
 for a whole season from London, followed by more than a few 
 stray cards of invitation. 
 
64 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 But his conduct, though it puzzled his acquaintances, was in a 
 sense consistent from the beginning ; and the clue to it had 
 been discovered by Lord Runcorn's sympathetic sagacity. On 
 Tristram Lacy, as an eager and imaginative boy, life had opened 
 like an illuminated theatre of poetical and spiritual romance. 
 He had knelt before the altar, as a communicant, like a Knight 
 of the Round Table a knight in whose devotions mixed the 
 dreams of the lover and the monk. The world was a wonder- 
 land stained with enchanted sunsets. Juliets leaned from 
 balconies in the King's Road at Brighton. Passion blew to 
 him in the winds like spices from some eastern island ; it 
 floated in the salt air vaguely between the waves and the 
 twilight ; and later on, if he lapsed from the standard of a 
 Galahad, his lapses had all the wonder enveloping those of 
 Tannhauser. Religion, meanwhile, had kept shining like a 
 lantern in a high lighthouse, to which his wildest thoughts 
 would return, and round which they would wheel like sea- 
 birds. 
 
 Such had been his life till the time of his going to Oxford, 
 and there he came in contact with the criticism and scientific 
 thought of to-day, not only in the lecture-rooms, where his 
 tutors treated St. Paul as if they did him too much honour 
 by mentioning him in the same breath with Plato, but even 
 in the pulpit of his lately restored college chapel, where 
 surpliced critics would undermine, in reverential whispers, the 
 very foundations of the faith which it was ostensibly their pro- 
 fession to defend. This brief experience of the University 
 coloured the whole of his subsequent life. His contact with 
 these new views was at once a shock and a stimulus to 
 him ; and it roused his intellect to a state of almost angry 
 activity, as though anxious to revenge itself on the imagination 
 by which it had been too long dominated ; till little by little 
 everything seemed to go on which the faith, the hopes, and 
 the interests of his early life had fed themselves ; and the 
 human race, at last denuded of all its dignity, became a petty 
 and passing phenomenon in a universe of unending forces, of 
 which it was itself an unimportant and seemingly unmeaning 
 by-product. 
 
 He was, however, far from yielding himself without a struggle 
 to this plilosophy of life, which forced itself on him in a 
 hundred different forms. At one time he betook himself to 
 a study of the theology of the Church of Rome, and though 
 
CHAPTER VI. 65 
 
 he failed to find in it the refuge he had at first hoped for, 
 it still retained a fascination for him ; and the writings of 
 Roman Controversialists would constantly draw him away 
 from the allurements of novel or newspaper. He even on one 
 occasion, to the amusement of several of his friends, forgot an 
 appointment at a house of highly reprehensible character, in 
 reading a German history of the growth of the early Church. 
 Something, moreover, of what he had lost with the disturbance 
 of his early faith was replaced by the growing vigour alike of 
 brain and body, the excitement of contact with the world on 
 its most brilliant side, the desire to distinguish himself in some 
 practical way, and also the change from a boy's romantic 
 dreaming to a man's desire for some actual woman's affection 
 a desire which, if tamer than that which the youthful poet 
 dreams of, exerts on the fibres of life a far more compelling 
 force. 
 
 But every promise of distraction, every pursuit and ambition, 
 stimulated him only till its first rewards had been tasted by 
 him. Then his critical intellect, like some malicious spirit, 
 would fasten on his pleasures or his newly-awakened hopes, 
 ]>ick them to pieces, and exhibit them to him as a lifeless 
 skeleton. This happened even in connection with some athletic 
 sports at Oxford, when, being congratulated by a friend on 
 the fine development of his muscles, he answered, ' What 
 of that ? Let a man be as strong as he may be, what are a 
 man's arms when compared with a donkey's legs ? ' But the 
 chief thing in life that failed him was one whose failure was 
 due, not only to theoretical pessimism, but to accidental 
 circumstances also. This was the hope of finding some 
 sympathetic and gifted woman, by whom, as a wife, something 
 of what he had lost might be given back to him. A treasure of 
 this kind he several times thought that he had found. One 
 young lady was actually for several months engaged to him. 
 But the others, under the influence of personal or family 
 prudence, eluded him with gentle dexterity as soon as he 
 became too serious ; whilst his fiancee was obliged by circum- 
 stances to take more abrupt measures. Sufficient simplicity, 
 however, still remained in his nature to prevent his perceiving 
 at the time why his treasure always escaped him ; nor did he 
 perceive why one of a different though allied kind, whilst 
 theoretically more inaccessible, was as a fact less so, in a world 
 where men who cannot marry, but yet have need of affection, 
 
 
 
66 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 meet women who have been obliged to marry, but have not as 
 yet found it. 
 
 Matters had gone thus with him till seven or eight months ago ; 
 and then, though he did not understand them, indications of a 
 change reached him. He was still in the country, postponing 
 his return to London, when he was startled and perplexed by 
 a sudden and unlooked-for influx of missives forwarded from 
 his London quarters cards for balls and parties, and more 
 particularly notes entreating his company at dinner, and inti- 
 mate little parties to the play. And what struck him still more 
 was that many of his would-be entertainers, although they had 
 always been civil to him, were now more effusive than formerly. 
 They seemed anxious to claim him as a friend ; not merely to 
 welcome him as a guest. His surprise was increased when he 
 once more was a Londoner, and found that the popularity 
 which he had earned as a public man was nothing to that 
 which was overwhelming him when he had subsided into pri- 
 vate life. The explanation of this mystery did not dawn on 
 him till many weeks after that season was over, when an event 
 to which he had never looked forward made it sufficiently 
 clear to him. This was the death of Mr Brandon the 
 widower of his father's only sister and the startling revolution 
 which it effected in his own position. He himself had been 
 utterly unaware of the fact that, under any circumstances, he 
 would be amongst Mr Brandon's legatees ; nor had he ever 
 heard, till Mr Brandon was actually dead, that the younger 
 Brandon, his cousin, who had been for many years in America, 
 had been the victim of a fever at Chicago, six months ago. 
 But his uncle, the Prime Minister, was better informed than 
 he. He knew of young Brandon's death, and the details of 
 the father's will ; and he consequently had been aware, in the 
 early spring of that year, that Tristram Lacy, instead of repre- 
 senting a property mortgaged and depreciated, which would 
 shortly have to be sold, had been suddenly metamorphosed 
 into a highly desirable parti. Though he saw no occasion for 
 speaking of this fact to his nephew, he, nevertheless, communi- 
 cated it in confidence to a number of distinguished mothers, 
 whose maternal hearts throbbed and expanded when they heard 
 it, and who began to be angry with themselves when they 
 thought how Lacy's previous poverty had blinded them for so 
 many years to so large a proportion of his merits. Nor, in- 
 deed, was his new popularity confined to one sex only. Men, 
 
CHAPTER VI. 67 
 
 as well as women, saw his value more clearly in the light of his 
 changed prospects, and gave evidence that they did so with an 
 equally engaging candour. Mr Brandon's death, which took 
 place the following autumn, and brought him the inheritance 
 so long foreseen for him by others, solved for him the enigma 
 of his own recent success, and matured his character, besides 
 changing his fortunes. 
 
 The sudden accession to wealth affects different men differ- 
 ently. In some it develops vanity ; in some it develops pride. 
 Its first effect upon Lacy was of a far more salutary kind. It 
 taught him the chastening lesson which vanity prompts us to 
 forget, of how little of the great blessing of our fellow-creatures' 
 good opinion of us is due, in reality, to any merits, or, indeed, 
 to any characteristics of our own. Protected, therefore, by this 
 knowledge, as by a kind of spiritual talisman, he was in very 
 little danger of having his head turned by his increased import- 
 ance, or even by his enlarged opportunities. Nor did he re- 
 gard himself as exceptionally fortunate, when he was offered a 
 post in Egypt which would have made him an object of 
 interest to all the statesmen in Europe, and have invested him 
 with more than the prestige of an average cabinet minister. 
 
 Any one who, acquainted with his outward history merely, 
 could have seen him as he appeared now, and who, watching 
 his face on his pillow, could have noted the melancholy tran- 
 quility that rested on it when he fell asleep, and repeated itself 
 in his voice and gestures when he awoke the following morn- 
 ing, and gave orders to his servant about a journey, on which 
 he was to start in an hour or two, any one who could have 
 seen him thus, would have found some difficulty in believing 
 that this was one of the most successful of the younger men of 
 his time brilliant beyond most of his contemporaries in his 
 talents, and the use he had made of them ; fortunate in respect 
 of his looks, manners, and family ; and now at last endowed 
 with the one gift hitherto wanting to him wealth, which 
 would establish his position, give power and independence to 
 his actions, and enable him to command the world, which it 
 had been hitherto necessary for him to conciliate. 
 
 His orders in the morning to his servant an attentive French- 
 man were simple. ' Breakfast at nine, in the dining-room. We 
 must start for Euston Station not later than twelve.' The dining- 
 room was large and dingy ; it had been decorated by Angelica 
 Kaufmann ; and almost lost in the middle of it was a small 
 
68 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 circular table, surrounded by an ocean of threadbare Turkey 
 carpet. When Lacy entered it on this foggy morning, he 
 found that it was difficult to see from one end of it to the 
 other ; but a shining silver coffee-pot filled it with a hospitable 
 odour, and a glow was radiated through the gloom from the 
 capacious steel grate. 
 
 As he ate his breakfast he examined his correspondence, 
 often forgetting in the process the claims of his toast and 
 sausages. It was observable, however, that what principally 
 arrested his attention was not the letters on stamped and orna- 
 mental paper several of these invitations from friends who 
 had caught sight of him the previous night but bulky blue 
 documents extracted from blue envelopes, and covered with 
 writing in a variety of clerk-like hands. He treated his other 
 letters as many men treat their bills, and read these as eagerly 
 as many men read their love-letters. With an absent gulp he 
 had finished his last cup of coffee ; with an equally absent 
 air had lighted a large cigar, and between the puffs was 
 marking, with a red pencil, a quarto sheet that was full of 
 figures and estimates; when the door was slightly opened, and 
 he heard in the hall outside the voice of his man, Francois, 
 apparently remonstrating with some one, who was plying and 
 apparently disconcerting him with badinage and much laughter. 
 A moment later Francois slipped into the room, so as to avoid 
 exposing his master to the view of the person outside, and clos- 
 ing the door, said, ' Mr Brancepeth is here, sir. He declares he 
 must see you, and would have entered here unannounced, if I 
 had not persuaded him to wait till I inquired whether Monsieur 
 was out of bed.' 
 
 ' What Mr. Brancepeth is it ? ' asked Lacy, putting down his 
 letter. 
 
 Francois grinned. ' I do not know what Mr. Brancepeth,' 
 he said, 'except that is the one whom the gentlemen call 
 Poodelle: 
 
 Lacy first frowned, and then burst into a laugh. ' Show him 
 in,' he said ; and the words were hardly spoken before a figure, 
 instinct with youth and eagerness, had rushed into the room, 
 laughing and almost shouting, and gesticulating wildly with a 
 brilliant-looking hat and cane. 
 
 The new-comer, who was dressed with extreme care, had a 
 beardless face, encircled with short, curly locks, in honour of 
 which he was called by his friends 'Poodle.' He was, indeed, 
 
CHAPTER VI. 69 
 
 the young gentleman for his aspect at least was youthful 
 whom Lacy the night before had watched from his corner at 
 Lady Scarva's. Lacy and he had in former years been 
 intimate. Belonging, though he did, to an old and well- 
 known family, he was himself the poorer son of a poor 
 and deceased Queen's Messenger. He had expended most of 
 the small capital left him in the agreeable process of making 
 his way in society ; and society remaining his one and only pro- 
 fession, the fact that he lived, as a rule, on the best of every- 
 thing, that he invariably drove in the most dazzling of hansom 
 cabs, that the choicest of flowers perennially blossomed in his 
 button-hole, and that he always had some new anecdote of some 
 delicate pecuniary kindness done by himself to some poor 
 friend in distress, was evidence of a skill in the art of polite self- 
 maintenance, the mystery of which was not materially lessened 
 by the further fact that thirty pounds a quarter was allowed 
 him, and would possibly be left him, by a benevolent maiden 
 aunt. With a heart even lighter than his purse, he was the 
 embodiment of everything that is companionable : he was 
 always unfailing in the little kindnesses of the moment : his 
 voice, when he spoke to his entertainers, overflowed with grate- 
 ful affection for them : though he was far too kindly to laugh at 
 their foibles to their faces, he was far too genuine not to do so 
 behind their backs ; and nobody ever lost a reputation, 
 or committed a ridiculous action, without the Poodle being the 
 first person to hear of it, and to give it any completeness it 
 might lack, by his varied modes of narrating it. 
 
 'Hooray,' he shouted. 'Hooray, my dear, dear, dear old 
 boy. I heard that last evening you were at Lady Scarva's. 
 Some one or other told me. I've not set eyes on you since 
 you've become a Rothschild, and your poor old friend is still 
 nothing but a Lazarus. Francois,' he went on, pointing to 
 Lacy's servant, and making a facetious pretence of being 
 about to assault him with his cane, 'Francois thought I 
 was a dun come to serve a little insinuating writ on you. 
 He confuses me with the only people who, he knows, never 
 forget me.' 
 
 It was one of the characteristics of Mr. Poodle Brancepeth 
 that he thought no one too humble to be treated with confi- 
 dential friendship, unless his temper, which was usually admir- 
 able, got the better of his habitual judgment. 
 
 ' I don't forget you at all events,' replied Lacy, with unpre- 
 
70 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 meditated cordiality. ' Come sit down. Have you breakfasted? 
 My dear Poodle, I'm delighted to see you.' 
 
 ' If you are,' said the Poodle, with a laugh which had the air 
 of being at his own expense, ' you won't be delighted long. No 
 breakfast, thank you.' And then, with a kind of sidling action, 
 he drew his chair nearer to his friend, suggesting somehow the 
 engaging behaviour of a cat who is about to rub its ribs against 
 the legs of a human being. ' Look here,' he continued, ' you 
 were always and I ought to know this if anybody does you 
 were always ready to do a great kindness to anybody. But 
 what I want you to do, is to do me a vary leetle one, just one 
 little wee kindness. I want you to cash this cheque for me,' 
 and he placed, as he spoke, a cheque in Lacy's hand. ' I must 
 pay Lewis and Lawrence a hundred and seventeen pounds insove- 
 reigns by half-past eleven this morning, or else it's all up with me.' 
 
 'May I ask,' said Lacy, 'why you don't go to your bankers?' 
 
 ' I don't go to them,' said the Poodle, ' for the inconveniently 
 simple reason that my quarter's money what I have, you know, 
 from my dear old aunt is not paid in till exactly this day fort- 
 night ; and if I sent this cheque to my bankers, it would come 
 back with the words ' no effect ' on it, which would mean that 
 it would have the effect of putting me into the Bankruptcy 
 Court. That's all, old boy. You were awfully good to me 
 when you were poor, and then we used to lend each other five- 
 pound notes so often ; and I don't think you'll be less good- 
 natured to your poor friend now you're rich.' 
 
 Lacy did not answer immediately. He looked down, and 
 over the face of the Poodle watching him there crept an anxiety 
 which seemed ready to transform itself into resentment. Lacy 
 was reflecting on his former money transactions with his friend, 
 to whom he had lent five-pound notes which were never repaid 
 at all, and who sometimes lent him shillings, for which he was 
 invariably dunned next day. 
 
 'Look here,' he said presently, 'when will this cheque be 
 honoured ? ' 
 
 ' I told you,' replied the Poodle, ' two weeks from now.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, producing a stylographic pen, 'alter the date 
 and initial the alteration ; and if you'll wait here while I go into 
 the next room, I'll give you another, which yon will be able to 
 cash this morning. Come, make yourself comfortable, have 
 some breakfast and a cigar.' 
 
 The Poodle's face once more became radiant. ' Dear old 
 
CHAPTER VI. 71 
 
 boy,' he exclaimed, ' how awfully nice and good of you. I can't 
 eat anything. I breakfasted an hour ago. I assure you, I 
 couldn't sleep for thinking about what was going to happen to 
 me.' 
 
 The Poodle, left alone, got up from his chair, and began to 
 dance and whistle like any light-hearted schoolboy. Then he 
 eyed the breakfast-table, on which was some strawberry jam, 
 and after a moment's hesitation he spread some on a piece of 
 toast. He was biting a large crescent out of this luxurious 
 dainty when Lacy re-entered. The Poodle laughed, thus caught 
 in the middle of his refection. 
 
 ' You see I'm still a sweet-tooth,' he said, as he received the 
 coveted document ; and hastily cramming the remainder of 
 the toast into his mouth, in order to hide any difficulty in 
 thanking his friend sufficiently, he reduced his acknowledgments 
 to the syllables ' Dear old boy,' mumbled between sounds 
 which resembled 'yum, yum, yum,' and were meant to in- 
 dicate a burlesque satisfaction with the jam. As soon as ever 
 he became articulate, he delicately put business aside alto- 
 gether; he accepted a cigar, and, walking round the dining 
 room, broke into voluble praise of its dimensions, its proportions, 
 and its decorations. ' I'll tell you what,' he said, ' all these 
 lovely medallions do you know, old boy, these are some of the 
 finest things of their kind ? you should have them cleaned and 
 restored without losing a moment. There's a little Frenchman 
 in a slum near Fitzroy Square famous for touching up decora- 
 tions of that period. I'll hunt him out if you'll let me. I 
 should be quite delighted to take the trouble for you. Oh, by 
 the way,' and here, with explosive merriment, the Poodle- 
 plunged into a new kind of subject altogether, ' you remember 
 Lady Burnley dear old fat Mother Burnley who often gave 
 us dinners when we two wire .living together. Well, what do 
 you think has happened ? She married a curly-headed courier, 
 and has just had a baby as black as a Christy Minstrel.' 
 
 Lacy laughed. The Poodle still excited a certain attach- 
 ment in him, such as might one of the dogs from whom he bor- 
 rowed his nickname. Reassured by the success of this piece of 
 social intelligence, he plunged head foremost into a bewildering 
 variety of others with a bounty that gradually assumed a half- 
 patronising character, as though he were more than repaying the 
 pecuniary obligations that had been conferred on him, and the 
 true debtor were now not himself, but Lacy. Then, checking 
 
72 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 himself, he exclaimed, ' Well, old fellow, I must be off. I shall 
 just have time to administer my sop to Cerberus. And I say,' 
 he continued with evident self-gratulation, ' I'm sure you'll be 
 glad to hear that I'm pulling round generally, and hope by next 
 summer to be quite clear of everything. I was thrown out of 
 my reckoning dreadfully by poor Tom Brancepeth's illness. I 
 provided him with every one of his little comforts, even his 
 doctor. You never saw anything sadder. It makes me cry to 
 think of it sometimes.' The Poodle's voice here became 
 elegaic, and he rubbed the back of his hand hastily across his 
 dancing eyes, his conscience meanwhile applauding him for the 
 devoted kindness with which he had lent a dying cousin a 
 couple of railway novels and recommended a doctor to him to 
 whom he was himself indebted, and whose claims he regarded 
 as cancelled by this act of inexpensive patronage. ' Well, good- 
 bye, old boy, and thanks most awfully for helping me. Are you 
 long in London ? If you are we might do a play together. I 
 can get a box given me any night of the week.' 
 
 ' I'm off to the country,' said Lacy, ' in an hour from now.' 
 And the Poodle, who had been standing for the last minute in 
 the doorway, gave a final wave of his hat and stick and was 
 gone. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NOT long afterwards Lacy was gone also ; the windows of 
 the rooms he occupied were again blank with blinds almost as 
 yellow as the fog in the street outside, and he was speeding to 
 his home in his own north-western county, through half- 
 flooded midland landscapes smothered in wool-white vapour. 
 At a certain point in his journey it was necessary for him to 
 change carriages, waiting for half-an-hour at the junction where 
 the change took place. The station possessed a refreshment 
 room, at which he had resolved to lunch, and in due time he 
 found himself taking his seat at the only table which this place 
 of entertainment boasted ; whilst a tall young lady, with a 
 fringe, impertinent eyes, and half-washed hands a mixture of 
 rings and chilblains condescended to ask him ' what he would 
 wish to take.' It appeared that almost anything might be 
 ready for him in a minute or two, but that nothing was ready 
 now except some chicken bones, a dry ham, and a bottle of 
 brick-red compound, labelled ' Tomato Catsup.' The fare was 
 certainly uninviting enough, but Lacy was a man who, when 
 the best was not to be had, always, with perfect good-nature, 
 made the best of the worst ; and frankly hungry as he was, he 
 was very soon regaling himself with the ham, in spite of its 
 dryness, and with square portions of bread, whose outer crust 
 was as hard as the skin of any rhinoceros. He was thus 
 engaged when two ladies made their way in from the platform, 
 and one of them asked in metallic and half-foreign accents, 
 occasionally seeming to substitute a ' d ' for a ' th,' what they 
 could have to eat fish, soup, or anything. There was some- 
 thing imperious, and almost insolent, in her manner, which 
 reduced the young lady behind the counter to a condition 
 bordering on humility. Lacy turned his head to see who the 
 strangers were. He could realise nothing, except that they 
 were wrapped in furs, till presently they seated themselves at 
 one end of his own table, and a glance at one of them showed 
 him at once that he was in the presence of the utmost value in 
 
74 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 fashion, sealskin and sable, that one woman when travelling 
 could decently carry upon her person. Some slim jewelled 
 bracelets tinkled upon the wrists of both of them, and a faint 
 breath of scent was blown towards him across the forks and 
 cruet-stands. A farther glance at them showed him that they 
 were neither of them young. The lady with the foreign accent 
 had a somewhat Semitic nose, and dark, overbearing eyes. 
 Her companion, evidently her senior, who could not have been 
 less than sixty, had a faded English skin cracked with self- 
 important wrinkles. Of Lacy these ladies hardly took more 
 notice than they did of the bottle of tomato catsup that was 
 before them ; and the younger of the two began, in incisive 
 tones, to express her disgust at the refreshment that would 
 most likely be brought them. It appeared that the footman 
 of one of them, and the French maid of the other, had 
 managed together to leave a luncheon basket behind a basket 
 which had contained, amongst other things, a fresh pate from 
 Strasbourg. ' Well,' said the elder, ' I suppose we must take 
 what we can get.' ' Look,' said her companion in French, 
 with an ironical glance towards Lacy, ' if only we, when we 
 travelled, could borrow an appetite like that ! We atone for 
 our own good cooks by what we suffer from other people's. That 
 is penance, my dear, eh ? It is what we are doing now.' A 
 few minutes later Lacy heard two loud sniffs, and looking up, 
 he perceived that beneath the delicate nostrils of his neigh- 
 bours had been placed two plates, each with an enormous 
 mutton chop on it. The elder of the two ladies, however, 
 having appeased her dissatisfaction by her sniff, proceeded to 
 eat with a hunger which she seemed afraid of her companion's 
 noticing ; for the latter, who supplemented her sniff with a 
 delicate exclamation of ' Pah,' had pushed away her plate and 
 remained a fasting martyr to her fastidiousness. But although 
 she fasted, she did not remain silent ; and Lacy's ears were 
 presently struck by an observation which showed that she was 
 a passenger for the same station as himself. He gradually 
 gathered from a conversation which he could not help over- 
 hearing, that she was, with the help of her friend, engaged in 
 searching for a house in the country ; that she had seen several 
 already, and that she was fast getting impatient at finding that 
 none of them came up to her requirements. 
 
 ' Dat place of Lord Matlock's,' she said, ' yes, it was pretty 
 enough ; but the bedrooms, all told, would hardly take in our 
 
CHAPTER VII. 75 
 
 servants. And the offices, Ach Gott ! our chef would give us 
 warning the first day he saw the kitchen. If dis other house 
 we are going to does not turn out to be suitable, I shall have 
 to wait till the spring, when we come back from the Riviera.' 
 
 At this moment Lacy rose to go. The sharp eyes of the 
 younger of the ladies watched him. They were dark, restless 
 eyes, which nothing seemed to escape. ' Dat man,' she said 
 to her friend, ' has finished his feast at last. He's some 
 squireen, I suppose. He is not a commis voyageur. Did you 
 see the cigar he took out of his case as he was going ? To 
 look at, it was just like some that Alphonse has direct from 
 Havannah ; but those people at Hamburg make horrible things 
 for twopence dat man's case was full of them which look 
 every bit the same.' 
 
 Presently a very tall footman, in all the dignity of powder, 
 entered, and approaching the dark-eyed, fastidious lady, said, 
 ' Madam, the train is now coming into the station.' 
 
 ' Here,' said his mistress, as she and her companion rose, 
 ' pay them for dis at the counter, and bring the change to the 
 carriage.' 
 
 Lacy, with some amusement, and a faint emotion of curiosity, 
 watched, as he stood at the door of his own compartment, the 
 magnificent bags and still more magnificent rugs, which the 
 footman and two maids, presided over by an obsequious guard, 
 were, at a little distance, handing in to their mistresses. A 
 few hours later, in the darkness which had now fallen, he was 
 passing in an old-fashioned brougham through his own rusty 
 gates, and with an odd mixture of feelings was noticing the 
 weedy roadway and its ragged untended borders evidences of 
 his recent poverty which the carriage lamps, with their 
 travelling light, revealed to him. When he reached his own 
 door, however, though weeds and blades of grass still sprouted 
 in the crevices of the stone steps, his new fortunes seemed to 
 be shining on him like a star, from a great lantern under the 
 portico, now brilliantly illuminated ; and a huge fire in the hall, 
 and several well-fed men-servants, gave an air of restored pros- 
 perity to the neglected pictures and furniture. 
 
 In his London house, that morning and the previous night, 
 Lacy had been the recipient of a little budget of letters. What 
 he found here, as he entered, lying on the old billiard-table, 
 whose threadbare cloth was the colour of grass in August, was 
 a large pile, in which long envelopes preponderated, though 
 
76 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 others were intermixed with them of more common proportions. 
 Here again the long envelopes were what claimed his chief 
 attention. He glanced at them as though pleased at the 
 prospect of the work with which they threatened him. He 
 began his work that night as soon as he had finished dinner, 
 conquering, in order to do so, a vehement inclination to sleep ; 
 and the following morning he was up and immersed in business 
 again, examining and marking and answering one lengthy 
 document after another before it was broad daylight, and when 
 his household was but just stirring. By half-past eleven, how- 
 ever, he at length came to a pause. Having thus far had 
 nothing but some coffee, which he had made for himself over 
 a spirit-lamp, he went to breakfast invigorated by a keen 
 appetite ; and, after breakfast, he wandered about the house 
 examining books, pictures, furniture, and other objects, some- 
 times as though he had some practical object in view 
 sometimes as though lost in a reverie. 
 
 The house was a red brick structure of the time of George 
 II. a central block having two wings attached to it, and 
 looking, as such houses do, twice its actual size. Its actual 
 size, however, was very far from inconsiderable ; and except for 
 the minor changes incidental to daily life, it had hardly been 
 changed since the day when it was first inhabited, and its 
 owner had driven to its door in a gilded coach and six, which 
 swung upon leather springs, and had four footmen at the back 
 of it. The past generations of Lacys had had two ruling 
 passions. The one was art and literature, the other, not un- 
 naturally, horses. The walls of the hall and the passages, 
 wherever they were not occupied by ancestors, presented a 
 painting of the winner of some race of the eighteenth century, 
 with an odd little jockey standing at the animal's head, and a 
 rough delineation of Lacy Hall in the background ; whilst in 
 several of the principal rooms were some of the works of 
 Stubbs, full of the atmosphere of the by-gone racing world 
 But books at Lacy Hall were more noticeable even than racing 
 pictures. The smaller sitting-rooms, of which there were many, 
 were lined with them. Old plays and novels overflowed even 
 into the bedrooms, and invited the guest to study Mrs. Behn 
 or Mrs. Contlevre; and wherever between the bookshelves a 
 modest space admitted it, there hung some landscape in water- 
 colours, the work of Lacy's grandfather, who had been one of 
 the most distinguished of the amateur artists of his time, and 
 
CHAPTER VII. 77 
 
 whose drawings were here by hundreds lying in old portfolios. 
 As Lacy roamed from one room to another there was hardly 
 an object which did not speak to his imagination ; for all through 
 his youth his family, with its failing fortunes, had not only made 
 that passionate appeal to him which lost causes make to men 
 of a certain temperament, but it had fired him, like Warren 
 Hastings, with an ambition to restore its grandeur. His medi- 
 tation, however, was interrupted by an event which was that 
 winter a rarity. The weather became comparatively fine. 
 There was vapour enough in the air to give mystery to the 
 bare woods, but now and then there was sun enough to cast 
 an appreciable shadow ; and Lacy, exhilarated by the unlooked- 
 for spectacle, abandoned his rooms and passages and went out 
 into the park. 
 
 The house stood high on some gently undulating ground, 
 which sloped down to a large level expanse, and at an ex- 
 tremity of this, hidden away by trees, was a singular something 
 which rendered the place famous. This was a building which 
 now was called Old Lacy, and had, in former times, been the 
 principal residence of the family. A portion of it had been 
 destroyed, but the rest remained entire ; and in it had also 
 been preserved the ancient fittings and furniture, precisely as 
 they had been in the days of Charles I. The flags even in the 
 hall were still kept strewn with mats woven of fresh rushes by 
 an art that had never been lost there. Its only inhabitants 
 now were an old man and woman, its custodians, who showed 
 the place, at a fixed fee, to visitors. To this interesting 
 memorial of the past Lacy took his way, noticing as he did so 
 the neglected condition of his timber, and debating what he 
 should do for his own dwelling as soon as the claims made on 
 him by his farms and cottages had been satisfied. Old Lacy 
 enjoyed a situation as picturesque as itself. It stood on a 
 small island, in a pond of leaden-coloured water ; and the 
 visitor, as he passed over to it by a mouldering wooden bridge, 
 felt as if he were passing out of real life into the shades. 
 Lacy, when he found himself in front of it, and looked at its 
 gabled front, whose dim and corroded brickwork seemed 
 sodden with the sadness of the past, could hardly believe 
 that what faced him was not a phantom, or perhaps, as he 
 said to himself, a stucco model of antiquity. 
 
 He was about to approach the door and summon the old 
 man and woman when his eye was caught by an umbrella, 
 
7 8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 whose magnificent turquoise-studded handle lay and glittered 
 on an oak bench in the porch. Visitors were rare in the 
 winter, and Lacy was still wondeering who the owner could 
 be of the costly toy before him, when a voice, almost at his 
 ear, made him start by addressing him, and saying, with a 
 certain brusquerie, ' Do you know if we can get in ? ' The 
 voice, slightly foreign in its intonation, did not seem wholly 
 new to him. He turned, and before him were the ladies whom 
 he had seen yesterday in the refreshment -room. The speaker 
 was the younger of the two. Her aquiline nose had displeasure 
 in it, and the face and attitude of her friend were likewise full 
 of a sort of consequential grievance. Lacy was wrapped in an 
 ulster of rough and weather-beaten tweed, a cap of the same 
 material was tilted over his forehead, and neither of the ladies 
 imagined she had ever cast eyes on him before. They both 
 set him down as a keeper, or perhaps a bailiff, and addressed 
 him as though they would visit on him the disappointment 
 from which they were suffering. 
 
 ' The driver,' said the younger of them, ' told us that the 
 place was shown, and a regular charge made. It is wrong- 
 very wrong for such things like dat to be stated ; and then 
 for the place, when we come to it, to be shut up.' 
 
 ' The truth is,' said the other, whose temper was less ruffled, 
 * that the driver made a mistake, and brought us to the wrong 
 house. It was Lacy Hall, not Old Lacy, that we wanted to see.' 
 
 Lacy started slightly at this announcement, and was on the 
 point of making some answer. Then he checked himself, and 
 said, after a short pause, ' I could, at all events, ensure your 
 admission to that.' 
 
 ' What does he say?' said the other lady, turning round. 
 * We shall be much obliged to you if you will. How far is it ? 
 What ? a mile ? ' 
 
 ' It is a mile and a-half to drive,' he said, ' and half a mile 
 to walk. If you will allow me the honour of showing you 
 across the park, your carriage could drive round. You will not 
 find the grass wet.' 
 
 The two ladies assented to this proposal. The younger, 
 however, did so with a very grudging civility ; and as soon as 
 the way across the park began to be tolerably clear, she walked 
 a little ahead of the other two, looking to right and left of her 
 with an air of keen inspection, and applying to her eyes a 
 Jorgnon with a long tortoise-shell handle. The other lady, 
 
CHAPTER VII. 79 
 
 however, now satisfied that she was talking to a superior kind 
 of agent, fell into a mood of easy and condescending affability, 
 and at last, after many questions about rents, farm stock, and 
 farming, elucidated the situation by explaining to him that the 
 lady in front of them was Mrs Helbeckstein, the wife of the 
 great South African millionaire, that she was anxious to rent 
 some suitable house in the country, and that Lacy Hall had 
 been mentioned to them by a well-known London agent. 
 
 ' I fear,' said Lacy, ' the agent has misinformed you. There 
 was a time when the owner entertained the idea of letting the 
 place; but his circumstances have recently undergone some 
 slight change, and a tenant is now the last thing he is looking 
 for.' 
 
 ' Those agents, then, have sent us on a fool's errand again,' 
 the lady exclaimed sharply, fixing her eyes on Lacy. ' I had 
 better at once let Mrs Helbeckstein have the pleasing intelli- 
 gence; though I doubt whether, in any case, this decayed 
 place would have suited her.' As she spoke she saw a smile 
 forming itself on Lacy's lips ' Bless the man,' she exclaimed, 
 ' may I ask you, sir, what you're laughing at ? ' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon,' said Lacy. A slow light has dawned 
 on me. I surely cannot be wrong in thinking you are Lady 
 Dovedale. I have had the pleasure of meeting you once or 
 twice in London.' 
 
 The lady stared at him, a little taken aback. ' Society,' she 
 began, ' is really so large now. One meets so many people of 
 all sorts and kinds. It could not,' she said, ' have been very 
 lately anyhow. I had, till last August, been abroad for nearly 
 two years.' 
 
 ' It was several years,' he said, ' since you were conscious of 
 being in my company ; but I saw you at least I saw your 
 back though I am sure you did not see me, the night before 
 last, at that enormous party of Lady Scarva's. My name,' he 
 continued, ' is Lacy Tristram Lacy ; and if I cannot show you 
 my house with a view to offering it to Mrs Helbeckstein, I hope 
 you will let me show it to both of you with a view to offering 
 you some luncheon.' 
 
 Lady Dovedale, in her confusion, acquired a better com- 
 plexion than she had ever for she did not rouge possessed 
 for five-and-twenty years. ' How stupid of me,' she stammered. 
 ' How stupid of me. I'm afraid you must have thought me 
 very rude. Lord Dovedale's health, you see, has kept me so 
 
8o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 long abroad ; and she Mrs Helbeckstein has been away for 
 a year in Africa.' Then, recovering her self-possession, she 
 called out to her friend, ' Constantia, we know that some people 
 entertain angels unawares. I have just discovered that an 
 angel has been entertaining us. This is Mr Lacy himself; and 
 he will not only show us his house, but is good enough to ask 
 us to luncheon.' 
 
 Mrs Helbeckstein paused and turned, and acknowledged the 
 introduction with a bow. As for her, she was not in the least 
 apologetic or discomposed. Though she was working her way 
 into society, she was as yet but partially familiar with it. Her 
 study of it had been, for some nine months, interrupted ; and 
 though she had often heard Lacy's name in London, she failed 
 to connect him with the person now before her. She did, 
 however, now identify him with the man whom she had noticed 
 in the refreshment-room ; and, instead of thinking more of him 
 because she found he was the owner of the house, her expecta- 
 tions of his house fell because she found that it was owned by 
 him. Indeed, his offer of luncheon, though she found herself 
 unable to decline it, was accepted by her with a slight grimace, 
 as though she had tasted something nasty; and she accom- 
 panied her acceptance by saying, with sublime condescension, 
 ' I'm very much obliged ; I hope we shall not inconvenience 
 you.' It is true that her mood of mind underwent a moment- 
 ary change when she reached the top of a slope, and the house 
 was in view before her, with its long line of windows, the grey 
 pillars of the portico, and the stately classical urns that orna- 
 mented its balustraded parapets. Mrs Helbeckstein, however, 
 had only two standards by which, in her heart, she measured 
 things. One was the standard of London fashion as she knew 
 it, the other their saleable value, which she appreciated with 
 much more accuracy. She knew absolutely nothing of the 
 country life of England, except what she had learned from one 
 or two racing parties, where she made herself the indispensable 
 friend of several ultra-fashionable ladies by the unfailing tact 
 with which she lost her money to them at cards ; but she knew 
 from her recent investigations, and a study of the lists of agents, 
 something of the current prices of country estates and mansions. 
 Lacy Hall exhibited signs of neglect and poverty ; no architect 
 or contractor could have realised this more keenly ; and she 
 said to herself, with a slight sneer on her nostrils, ' Pooh ! fifty 
 thousand or less would buy it all, out and out.' 
 
CHAPTER VII. 8 1 
 
 The trio reached the house, and mounted the steps of the 
 portico. Lady Dovedale, though herself of uncertain breeding, 
 understood the spirit of the place, and appreciated its shabby 
 dignity, but her manner, as she expressed her appreciation, 
 still had a note of patronage. They entered the hall. Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein glanced round her, and the first thing she noticed 
 was a dim round stain on the billiard table, directly under each 
 of the old oil lamps; then she touched the cushions, and 
 found them as hard as iron. The host showed his guests into 
 one of the smaller rooms, which he had occupied that morning, 
 and in which a fire was burning. 
 
 ' I will order,' he said, as he left them, ' luncheon as soon as 
 possible. It ought, I think, to be ready in twenty minutes.' 
 
 ' We shall have a repetition of dose mutton chops at the rail- 
 way station. I fear, my dear, we are putting the poor man out,' 
 said Mrs. Helbeckstein, who, with the aid of her glasses, was 
 already inspecting every object in the room. ' Ach,' she ex- 
 claimed, ' do you see dis chair ? The gilding is half off it, but 
 yet it is quite genuine. How does a country squire come by a 
 chair like dis ? ' 
 
 She was asking this question when Lacy re-entered ; and not 
 feeling equal to applying to him for an answer to it, she said, 
 ' Mr. Lacy, as we have not too much time, perhaps you would 
 allow me to go through the house now.' 
 
 ' Certainly,' he answered, perceiving that she had not been 
 enlightened by her friend, and that she still regarded herself in 
 the light of a possible tenant. He led her from one fireless 
 room to another. Mrs. Helbeckstein commended the size of 
 the two drawing-rooms ; she closely examined with her lorgnon 
 the lacquer of several cabinets ; one or two of the chimney- 
 pieces she pronounced to be ' really nice,' and carelessly ob- 
 served that the library seemed not what she called very 
 ' readable.' ' And the bedrooms,' she said at last, ' how many 
 are there, eh? What; you think thirty-six? Dere's the old diffi- 
 culty again . We want twenty-eight for our own servants alone.' 
 
 ' I am afraid,' said Lacy, ' you have come here under a mis- 
 conception. It was once supposed that this house was to let, 
 but if I ever thought of letting it, I have quite given up the idea.' 
 
 ' Not to let,' exclaimed Mrs. Helbeckstein sharply. ' In dat 
 case you ought to have had it removed from Messrs. Hunter's 
 books.' 
 
 ' It was never on them,' he answered, 'with my knowledge or 
 
 F 
 
82 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 authority. I am sincerely sorry that you should have had so 
 much useless trouble. I only hope you will believe me when I 
 tell you that I am quite guiltless of causing it. But listen, there 
 is the luncheon gong ; and though my house is not to let, I am 
 glad to think that you will let me show you the dining-room.' 
 
 1 Thank you,' she said ungraciously, ' I am not feeling very 
 hungry. Well,' she went on, when she rejoined Lady Dovedale, 
 who had meanwhile been warming her feet at the fire, ' here's 
 another day of house-hunting lost, totally lost.' 
 
 The insolence of this woman, though it amused Lacy, irri- 
 tated him ; but he had now in his mind a secret source of satis- 
 faction, which was not the less satisfactory, because he admitted 
 it was a trifle vulgar. Though his house might be dilapidated, 
 though all its beauty and dignity should excite in Mrs. Helbeck- 
 stein nothing but indifference or contempt, his servants were 
 unexceptionable. The butler was a family patriarch, fit for a 
 duke's establishment. All Mayfair and Belgravia might through 
 a whole season have been searched in vain for two more per- 
 sonable footmen, or for a valet who looked more like the con- 
 fidant of a foreign prince. Lacy noticed how, as they passed 
 into the dining-room, the eyes of Mrs. Helbeckstein fastened on 
 these domestics ; and then, as the party seated themselves, there 
 were further shocks in store for her. In whatever else Lacy Hall 
 might be lacking, it was not lacking in an abundance of old- 
 fashioned silver ; and though Lacy was served to-day as his father 
 had been before him, and just as he would have been if his two 
 guests had been absent, the silver that was now on the table was 
 recognised by Mrs. Helbeckstein, who had the eye of a dealer, 
 and whose father, indeed, had been one, as possessing the 
 highest value ; whilst there was before each of the company an 
 old silver plate-warmer. Her face, as her eye instinctively 
 sought the hall-marks her face, full of half-relenting bewilder- 
 ment, was to Lacy an amusing study ; but the climax of the 
 drama was at the moment when the first dish was handed to 
 her, an omelet which she recognised as the handiwork of a first- 
 rate chef. All the hauteur went from her expression instantly. 
 
 ' Mr. Lacy,' she exclaimed, ' you are a conjuror, a positive 
 conjuror. I have never, except in Paris or at Monte Carlo, had 
 an omelet like dat out of my own house. You have a chef, eh? 
 a Frenchman ? How does a bachelor in de country have a chef 
 like dat, eh ? Mr. Lacy, my dear, is very selfish to keep such a 
 treasure to himself.' 
 
CHAPTER VII. 83 
 
 ' When,' said Lacy, ' my uncle, Mr. Brandon, died, I took his 
 cook into my own service, or perhaps I should say of such an 
 artist, he was good enough to condescend to enter it. He did 
 so only because he is something of an invalid.' 
 
 'Mr. Brandon,' ejaculated Lady Dovedale. 'Yes, yes, yes, 
 to be sure now. Mr. Lacy, I have been very stupid. I have 
 been really intolerably stupid. Lord Dovedale read me the will 
 out of one of the papers at Bellagio. You are that Mr. Lacy, 
 of course. I remember you quite well now, but I hadn't at 
 first put two and two together.' 
 
 After this everything went as smoothly as possible. Lady 
 Dovedale descanted on the beauties of her host's house, and 
 quoted a number of her husband's more important relations as 
 authorities in favour of her suggestions as to alterations and the 
 cleaning of pictures. Mrs. Helbeckstein, who hardly knew one 
 note of music from another, talked with enthusiasm of the 
 opera, and its prospects for the ensuing season ; she alluded 
 familiarly to the best dressed and best known of the ladies, 
 whose eyes and tiaras ornamented the Covent Garden boxes ; 
 she spoke of the concert-room she was building at the back of 
 her own house in Upper Brook Street, and then plunged fear- 
 lessly into the subject of English politics, speaking with an 
 ignorance so masterly that it wore the semblance of knowledge, 
 and mentioning that her concert-room, as soon as the paint was 
 dry, was to be used for a meeting of a great Conservative asso- 
 ciation. When the time arrived for the two ladies to leave, 
 Lacy felt that their esteem and respect for him were quite as 
 marked and sincere as their previous indifference and contempt. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHEN he found himself alone again, he broke into a quiet 
 laugh, as he thought over the incidents of this little trivial 
 comedy. 
 
 But presently his mood changed, and his reflections took a 
 deeper character. ' These people,' he said to himself, ' will do 
 anything because of my wealth ; but what has my wealth done 
 what can it ever do for me ? ' And his thoughts, as he 
 asked this question, went back to his house its relics, its 
 dilapidations, over which he had been brooding in the morn- 
 ing, and to his own early dream of bringing its grandeur back 
 again. He could bring back his grandeur now or what had 
 seemed to him its grandeur when a boy. He fully intended, 
 indeed, to put it into good repair. But to do this seemed to 
 him now such a little, such a commonplace thing. ' What,' 
 he thought, ' is family tradition ? What is a long pedigree ? 
 I only know that I ever set any value on their possession, 
 because I still have a fancied prejudice against people who 
 don't possess them. All my romance of family pride is gone. 
 It was but one form of faith. It has died with all the others. 
 Yes, the loss of faith, as religious people understand it, has 
 affected me, not so much directly by what it has done to myself, 
 as indirectly by what it has done to others, and to the world. 
 It has made everything seem diminutive. It has turned stone 
 buildings into paste-board toys. Modern knowledge and 
 science if indeed they tell us the truth have broken in like 
 daylight, on the stage at an afternoon performance, leaving the 
 scenery, but quite destroying the illusion, and putting our 
 faiths, the footlights of life, out.' 
 
 Then reverting again to a former train of thought, he said to 
 himself, ' It is possible I value wealth more than I think I do, 
 but certainly, so far as my own consciousness can inform me, it 
 has lessened my zest for life, instead of increasing or restoring 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 85 
 
 it. It has taken away the little desire I felt to gain by a public 
 career what are commonly called the objects of ambition ; for 
 the ultimate object with which these objects are sought, if I 
 care for it, may be mine without them. I have seen success- 
 ful generals come back covered with laurels. Why do they 
 value them ? Because they hope that on account of them they 
 will command in the world at home, the consideration of 
 important men, the admiration of brilliant women. But if 
 these heroes are poor, I, being what I am, should receive 
 to-morrow more attention than they. The charming mother, 
 and the beautiful marriageable daughter, will value me more 
 because I have a kitchen with a French cook in it, than they 
 would if I lived in a lodging, and had paddled in blood for 
 weeks.' And then speaking aloud with a bitterness which sur- 
 prised himself, ' No one,' he exclaimed, ' in the old days would 
 marry me for what I was. Anybody now would marry me for 
 what I have. And now, as it happens, I want to marry nobody. 
 What should I gain then for myself by accepting this post in 
 Egypt ? And as for my country's claims on me, half-a-dozen 
 men are wanting it, who would fill it as well, and perhaps 
 better than I should.' 
 
 He was interrupted in these reflections by a servant, who, 
 in that peculiar tone adopted by servants when announcing those 
 for whom they have small respect, informed him that a man 
 from Manchester was in the hall waiting to see him. Lacy at 
 once roused himself. The man had come by appointment. 
 He had come to discuss a business matter, which he wished to 
 explain personally. He proved to be the holder of ferociously 
 radical views, being a secretary of a society for the expropriation 
 of all landlords. He now, it appeared, was endeavouring to 
 provide a kind of club-house as a meeting-place and occasional 
 home for agitators and organisers of strikes ; and his present 
 object was to secure a site from Lacy, at a nominal rent, 
 within easy distance of Manchester. Lacy listened to him 
 patiently, and at last, with sarcastic good-humour, made him 
 understand that his request could not be entertained for a 
 moment. In reply to this the man, with a mixture of scorn 
 and anger, hinted that landlords would, in a very short time, 
 be no longer in a position to refuse or grant anything ; and 
 then, with an abrupt transition, he began descanting on the 
 miseries of the poor, and the luxuries of the rich to which he 
 naturally held them to be due. ' Look you there now,' he 
 
86 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 exclaimed, pointing to a buhl writing-table which certainly 
 occupied a rather obtrusive position, and looked as if awaiting 
 its removal to some other place. The table indeed had formed 
 the sole piece of valuable property belonging to a clergyman's 
 widow who occupied a cottage in the neighbourhood, and Lacy 
 had just bought it from her, with the option of repurchase, as 
 she happened to be at the moment in extreme pecuniary dis- 
 tress. ' Ay,' continued his visitor, ' what you waste in super- 
 fluities like that there would save did you ever, I ask you, 
 put it to yourself, Mr Lacy, how many poor households what 
 you waste would save from ruin ? I've a brother-in-law in the 
 cabinet trade, and I know what a bauble such as that table 
 costs.' ' It cost me,' said Lacy, ' four hundred pounds last 
 week ; one poor family has been saved by it from ruin already. 
 You will see this, if you will listen to the story ; and then I 
 must say good-bye to you.' 
 
 The man retired discomfited as well as sulky, but though 
 I^cy had had the best of this passage-of-arms, he did not get 
 rid of the thoughts which it had indirectly suggested to him. 
 Darkness had now fallen. The fire glowed in his sitting-room, 
 and throwing himself into a chair by the hearth he began com- 
 paring his late visitor, his crude distempered ideas, and the 
 angry clap-trap of his phrases, with Mrs Norham and her 
 friends, and the ideals of Startfield Hall. As soon as the ser- 
 vants had come in with the lamps, he went to an old portfolio 
 which he had glanced at during the morning. It contained 
 some of the drawings of his grandfather's, who had been a 
 great votary of the picturesque ; and these were records of a 
 tour through Great Britain in search of it, made in postchaises 
 at the end of the last century. Here in these drawings, these 
 exquisite wayside sketches, the aspect and spirit of the country 
 came to life again, as it was before railways and democracy had 
 exercised their disturbing influence. Those days were now 
 seen lying like dried rose-petals between the leaves. Here 
 were the old villages, with the towers of their sleepy churches, 
 and their placid rustics who had never listened to an agitator ; 
 the hospitable homely inn, the high-road, with its pack-horses 
 and farmers' wives on pillions, and the wild glen amongst 
 Welsh or Highland mountains, with only a rude cottage or two 
 to break and enhance the solitude, and bare-legged children 
 and women with quaint headgear, whose travels and thoughts 
 were bounded by their own native horizon. These pictures, 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 87 
 
 as he looked at them, seemed to exhale a peace which the 
 world has now lost not the peace of an impossible golden 
 age, but the peace that comes from an instinctive acceptance 
 by each of the outer conditions with which his birth has 
 naturally surrounded him. In those days the problem for each 
 was the adaptation of himself to circumstances, not the frantic 
 attempt to adapt circumstances to himself. Then circum- 
 stances for each were a home, not a prison. ' Mrs Norham 
 and her friends,' he said, ' would represent them as a prison, 
 not a home.' 
 
 A clock struck six. The post went at half-past seven. He 
 closed the portfolio, and seating himself at a large desk set him- 
 self to examine a series of reports and papers, correcting them, 
 adding notes to them, or writing letters to accompany them, 
 and committing the documents when completed to big business- 
 like envelopes. They were addressed to builders, lawyers, 
 agents, clergymen, Nonconformist ministers, farmers, and 
 even farm labourers. This correspondence absorbed him 
 till he was told that the postman was waiting. Then, when 
 his letters were despatched, he leaned back in his chair 
 and laughed. ' Am I, after all,' he said, ' one of Mrs. 
 Norham's disciples ? Do I, in my own way, also find the key 
 to life in what she and her friend Mr. Eousefield call social 
 endeavour ? ' 
 
 He felt that this was a new view of himself. It was one, 
 however, which he might have some grounds for taking. The 
 most definite effect his new wealth had had on him, when the 
 first ferment of spirits produced by its advent had subsided, 
 had been to surround him with a number of practical duties 
 which, if not very stimulating, had the great merit of being 
 obvious. These were duties connected with his family pro- 
 perty duties which hitherto it had been wholly beyond his 
 power to fulfil; and they w r ere rendered now all the more urgent 
 and numerous by the condition into which consequently these 
 impoverished estates had fallen. To such duties he had in- 
 stinctively betaken himself as a refuge ; he had given himself to 
 the performance of them as he might have done had his good 
 luck been a calamity, of which, instead of dwelling on it, he 
 was anxious to drown the memory ; and in this he had found 
 the solace of an artificial forgetfulness of self. No detail with 
 regard to the management of his property had been too trivial 
 to command his keenest attention so long as it affected the life 
 
88 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 of any human being dependent on him ; and for the last three 
 months he had been living what was practically a cloistered 
 life, differing from that of the cloister only in the fact that his 
 cook and his servant were, as has been seen, those of a man of 
 fastidiousness ; and also in the further fact, that overwhelmed 
 by fits of depression, he had once or twice, on the occasion of 
 short visits to London, endeavoured to conjure some excite- 
 ment back into his existence by the aid of a certain priestess 
 who lived in St. John's Wood, and who thought it no simony 
 to be paid for the gifts she gave him. 
 
 What struck him, therefore, as incongruous in his own 
 position was this. Passionately attached as he was if indeed 
 he were attached to anything to all that is stately and sedate 
 and stable in society, he found himself here with movements 
 on all sides of him social movements of one kind or another, 
 and he actually found himself playing an important part in 
 them, and experiencing, moreover, a moral relief in doing so. 
 ' After all,' he said to himself, ' this relief is an anaesthetic only. 
 It is neither pleasure nor happiness. It does not even touch 
 the secret sore of life.' His memory then went back again to 
 the days of his ambitious poverty, when he had for a short 
 time been engaged to a dreamy girl, who having for six months 
 professed her passionate truth to him, showed herself truer still 
 to the duty she owed her parents by allowing them to marry 
 her to the son of a shaggy millionaire from Melbourne. ' No 
 young lady,' he muttered, ' would ever throw me over now. 
 I have no inclination to give any young lady a chance a 
 chance of showing either how false she is or how faithful.' 
 And finally his thoughts returned to the celebrated Mrs. 
 Norham, and to what he had said to her when he parted 
 from her on her own doorstep. ' If the most favourable con- 
 ditions of life,' he now repeated to himself, 'do not bring 
 happiness to the individual man possessing them, he can no 
 more expect them to bring happiness to others than a man can 
 expect, if all his best claret is corked, to make it a sound wine 
 by distributing it amongst his poor relations. If this life,' he 
 continued, ' is the " be-all and the end-all " of existence, in all 
 my best work for the poor I am but playing the part of a 
 steward to the sea-sick passengers on a ship which is inevitably 
 doomed to founder.' 
 
 These reflections, however, failed to affect his conduct. 
 They were but a passing interlude in his round of daily busi- 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 89 
 
 ness of interviews with men in broad-cloth, and men in 
 corduroys and gaiters, of trudging through damp fields, of wait- 
 ing by muddy gates, of inspecting of unhealthy cottages, and of 
 writing unnumbered letters. But on the fifth evening after his 
 arrival, on handing some papers to his agent, he heaved a sigh 
 of relief, and said to him : ' Well, Baker, everything is settled 
 at last that will want my personal presence for the next three 
 months at all events. Anything else that may arise you and I 
 can arrange by letter. I leave to-morrow, and shall hardly be 
 back for a month or two.' 
 
 'Yes,' he said to himself, as soon as the agent had departed, 
 'the end is at last come. For the first time since I have 
 been a rich man, I am free. What shall I do I, to whom 
 the " brave overhanging firmament " has come to be nothing 
 but "a pestilent congregation of vapours?" Perhaps, after 
 all, this is merely some derangement of the nerves. Perhaps 
 I should recover myself in some different and brighter 
 climate. Well the world is all before me where to choose ? 
 I may thank my wealth for that : but I shall not choose Egypt. 
 One more letter,' he continued, 'and only one to write. If 
 I stayed here much longer, I believe I should go mad with 
 melancholy.' 
 
 He wrote his letter, and despatched it. It was directed to 
 Lord Runcorn. 
 
 His work in the country was over; but not the whole of his 
 duties. One duty remained for him before he returned to 
 London ; and this was to pay a visit, which he curtailed to a 
 day and night a visit to his connection Mr. Millikin, who 
 had, along with himself, inherited a part of Mr. Octavius 
 Brandon's property. Mr. Millikin was a manager of the Bux- 
 ton branch of the bank in which Mr. Brandon had been one of 
 the chief partners : and Lacy the following day, with some 
 sinking of the heart, found himself deposited at the portals of 
 Mr. Millikin's Buxton villa. This gentleman, though connected 
 with Lacy, had a very slight acquaintance with him : he had 
 indeed always regarded him with a sort of shy and nervous 
 reprobation ; and the meeting that was to take place now was 
 due only to the fact that some family matters had arisen, 
 which required to be discussed personally. In Mr. Millikin's 
 eyes Lacy represented the world, and something, moreover, of 
 the flesh and the devil into the bargain. Mr. Millikin, on the 
 contrary, was nothing if not immaculate ; and although, as a 
 
90 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 banker, he was not unacquainted with Mammon, of the world, 
 in a social sense, he certainly knew nothing. But if un- 
 acquainted with the world, he was intimately acquainted with 
 the Church. He was indeed the pillar of the Anglican 
 establishment at Buxton. He sang its praises when speaking 
 as chairman at political meetings ; and its spirit appeared to 
 have permeated him so completely, that his customers when 
 consulting him at his bank experienced a sense of surprise at 
 his not intoning his responses to the business questions they 
 put to him. His house resembled himself. It was a villa of 
 an ordinary type; but crosses and ecclesiastical emblems 
 lurked on the porch floor in shining encaustic tiles, pierced 
 through the india-rubber door mat, and sprouted on the 
 dormer windows. In the hall, when Lacy entered it, there 
 were no less than four perambulators, married piety being al- 
 ways philoprogenitive ; and the drawing-room into which he 
 was shown, though its sofas and chairs were angular, was liber- 
 ally furnished with parish magazines and hymn-books. Mrs. 
 Millikin, who came rustling in half a minute after her guest's 
 arrival, was the daughter of a high-church Canon, who had 
 once been a high-church schoolmaster. She was a tall, thin, 
 solemnly-sweet woman, dressed meagrely in black silk, and 
 wearing on her lips a smile of such ecclesiastical chastity, that 
 she seemed to have sprung from the union of a minster with 
 some mortal mother. 
 
 ' How do you do ? ' she said in a low staccato voice, giving 
 Lacy for a shrinking moment a long, limp, cold, pink hand ; 
 and before Lacy had time to answer this searching question, it 
 was repeated to him again in a somewhat brisker voice, and 
 Mr. Millikin stood in the flesh before him. He too had lips 
 smiling, but very prim. They were closely shaved, and flanked 
 by demure whiskers ; and under his dark eyebrows were a pair 
 of little mouse-like eyes. He had something the air of a 
 prayer-book turned into a man ; and a stranger might almost 
 have expected to see a marker hanging out of his pocket. Mr. 
 Millikin was a trifle more voluble than his wife ; for he supple- 
 mented the question of ' How do you do ? ' by a second, which 
 was, ' Did you leave fine weather in Cheshire ? ' Considering 
 the state of the weather at that moment at Buxton, Mr. Milli- 
 kin could have hardly expected any other answer than a nega- 
 tive. He indeed did not wait for any ; but continued with a 
 little sharpness. ' After your journey, I daresay you'll be glad 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 91 
 
 of luncheon.' As he spoke, there came the tinkling of a bell ; 
 and the readiness of the repast in question was announced by 
 a butler who had the aspect of a clergyman in reduced circum- 
 stances. In the dining-room were already assembled five 
 hungry children, whose respective places were marked for them 
 by hve silver mugs. The wants of these innocents having been 
 rirst carefully attended to, Mr. and Mrs. Millikin condescended 
 to give attention to their guest, and endeavoured to make some 
 conversation for him which might be intelligible to a man of 
 the world, and yet severely suitable to the atmosphere of a 
 Christian household. This at first was confined to a number 
 of somewhat disconnected questions, put to him for the most 
 part by the hostess, not the host. She asked him if he had 
 been hearing any good music lately : if there were any good 
 exhibitions of pictures that year in London ; and if he had read 
 what the Bishop had said at the Church House on the subject 
 of begging. All these questions were put to him with the same 
 kind ot starched smile with which she might have asked him in 
 church if he could find his place in his hymn-book. He 
 answered them, however, in so becoming a manner, that Mr. 
 Millikin, who was listening, thawed, and signalized the fact by 
 beginning to indulge with his children in one or two family 
 jokes ; and at last, indeed, he became so daring that turning 
 directly to Lacy, he repeated a story the most reckless in his 
 whole repertoire about Alice Millikin, who, attending her 
 sister's confirmation, found that, instead of her prayer-book, 
 she had brought with her a copy of Pickwick a story which 
 appealed so overwhelmingly to the nursery governess, that her 
 caeeks became mottled with crimson in her efforts to curb her 
 merriment. 
 
 ' Perhaps,' said Mrs Millikin, when, the last fragment of rice 
 pudding having been scraped out of the dish, and having 
 disappeared down her children's throats, she was placing 
 the tips of her long fingers on the tablecloth, preparatory 
 to rising, ' perhaps,' she said, ' Mr Lacy would come out 
 with me in half-an-hour for a drive ; and meanwhile, dear, 
 i will leave you and him to have a talk together over your 
 sherry.' 
 
 Everything, Lacy felt, had been arranged for him, so he sub- 
 mitted to late gracefully. Mr Millikin, who, within his own 
 limits, was a very good man of business, suggested that they 
 should look over some mortgage deeds and some other docu- 
 
92 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ments after tea, and pushing towards Lacy the sherry, and a 
 dish of robust apples, exhibited his friendly feelings by loung- 
 ing a little in his chair, and looking out at the weather with an 
 almost mundane grimace. Unfortunately, now that the chas- 
 tening presence of Mrs Millikin was removed, Lacy nearly 
 undid all the good impression he had produced by adverting 
 to the news which had filled all the papers that morning that 
 the wife of a well-known politician was going to proceed 
 against her husband in the Divorce Court. Mr Millikin's face 
 once again grew rigid. 
 
 ' It's a great mistake,' he said, ' that these pestilent cases 
 are allowed to be reported at all.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, trying to turn the matter off with a laugh, 
 ' unless they were, we should never be able to know which of 
 our friends continued in connubial bliss.' 
 
 ' I'm happy to say,' replied Mr Millikin, with a slight snap 
 of his jaws, ' that such cases don't come our way.' Lacy again 
 attempted to recover his lost ground, by alluding with a kindly 
 regret, which was very far from affected, to the death known 
 to have been a painful one of Mr Octavius Brandon. Mr 
 Millikin, however, for whom, though he was invigorated by the 
 possession of Mr Brandon's thousands, the mention of that 
 most irregular gentleman's name was fraught with suggestions 
 almost as unseemly as was the mention of Divorce Court itself, 
 administered to Lacy a reproof even more crushing than his 
 former one. 
 
 ' I'm afraid,' he said, ' that his life was a very great deal 
 sadder than his death. Shall we come now ? The carriage by 
 this time will be ready.' 
 
 The carriage was a new victoria, bought with Mr Brandon's 
 money ; and if the effect of it had not been somewhat marred 
 by the fact of the coachman's lip being adorned with a black 
 moustache, it might well have justified the humble and secret 
 pride which had made Mrs Millikin so anxious to exhibit its 
 elegance to her visitor. 
 
 All sorrows come to an end at last ; nor was Lacy's drive 
 with Mrs Millikin any exception to the rule. Then followed 
 his hour with the mortgage deeds and with Mr Millikin, which 
 the latter concluded by commenting on the extraordinary state 
 of mind in which a dying man must have been, who could add 
 to his other awful responsibilities by leaving such sums of 
 money 'to those horrible women.' Then followed dinner, 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 95 
 
 which was even more solemn than luncheon ; and at half- 
 past ten, bed which, as Lacy left early next morning, 
 practically concluded the process of moral chastisement to 
 which he had been subjected in this elevated and spotless 
 household. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE following day in the train Lacy said to himself, ' Well, 
 this time to-morrow I shall at last be on my way to a place 
 where I shall be able to possess my soul, for the first time since 
 I have been rich.' As the train carried him into the yellow 
 darkness of London, through which some stray snowflakes were 
 now beginning to fall, he hardly knew which was most repug- 
 nant to him, the thought of the London fog, or the thought of 
 London society. The latter seemed only less wearisome than the 
 society of Mrs. Millikin. And yet, with one of those incon- 
 sistencies from which not even the most logical are free, he was 
 pleased to find awaiting him a note from Mrs. Tilney, asking 
 him, if he could, to dine with her that very night. He de- 
 spatched an acceptance at once, and was even a little dis- 
 appointed when he found that the party, which was avowedly 
 impromptu, was so small. After dinner, however, he had the 
 excitement of finding himself on the defensive, for Mrs. Tilney, 
 drawing him into a corner, reminded him of their conversation 
 at Lady Scarva's, and his promise to let her know within a week 
 whether he was going to Egypt or not. He was not in a mood 
 to discuss with her the decision he had come to ; so, in spite of 
 all her arts, he left her curiosity unsatisfied. ' I think,' he said 
 laughing, 'you forget what I really said to you. I said that if 
 in a week you would look in the evening papers, you would 
 find my decision there. Wait till to-morrow. Look in the 
 papers then.' 
 
 He was putting his greatcoat on with the intention of going 
 straight home, when he felt in his pocket some paper whose 
 presence he was at a loss to account for. He drew it out, and 
 examined it before leaving the house. It was the card of ad- 
 mission to the masked ball, which his friend at Lady Scarva's 
 had given him a week ago, telling him that it would, if he did 
 not use it then, be available this week for another and a 
 similar function. Lacy surprised himself by coming to a 
 
CHAPTER IX. 95 
 
 sudden resolve. 'It's to-night,' he said. 'This ball is to- 
 night. I may as well go there as to bed. I would give any- 
 thing for some amusement which rose even to the rank of 
 folly.' 
 
 The New Rotunda for so was the building named in which 
 his fresh experiment in the resources of life was to be made 
 was a more or less temporary structure in the middle of an 
 unfinished square. It had been built originally for the home 
 of a great moving diorama, which illustrated, in historical 
 sequence, the chief events of early Biblical history. This exhi- 
 bition, however, ultimately became bankrupt ; for, appealing as 
 it did to clerical and scholastic patronage, its failure so the 
 directors informed the Official Receiver was caused by an 
 opinion expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury that it 
 damaged the cause of Revelation by the prominence which it 
 gave to miracles ; for the truth was, according to this admirable 
 Primate, that the inspired writers, of whose authority he was a 
 jealous defender, not only meant alternately much less and 
 much more than they said, but, when they spoke of miracles, 
 something totally different. The Sacred Diorama Company 
 having been accordingly wrecked by the great Broad Church- 
 man's ridicule of its most orthodox and expensive effects, the 
 building was sold, and under the name of the New Rotunda it 
 became a skating-rink with a floor of artificial ice. It may pos- 
 sibly have been with some view to propitiating the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury that the present proprietors, during the early 
 months of the year, arranged a series of what they described as 
 carnivals or masked balls, a carnival, even to an English ear, 
 insinuating a recognition of Lent. 
 
 When Lacy, shivering from the rawness of the night air, was 
 deposited by a cab under a brilliantly-lighted portico, he was 
 surprised at seeing not a single vehicle in waiting, and he began 
 to think that the masked ball must be over, or else that he must 
 have mistaken the night. On making his way, however, into 
 an ante-room, full of seats and palm trees, he found himself in 
 the presence of a number of grotesque figures, suggesting in an 
 equal degree Father Christmas and beefeaters, which a second 
 glance showed him were the door-keepers and other officials of 
 the establishment. One of these having cheered him with the 
 information that he might keep on his greatcoat, and another 
 having looked at his ticket, a third pushed open a pair of swing 
 doors, and admitted him to the heart of the festivity. 
 
96 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 He found himself in a circular hall, round which was a car- 
 peted promenade, with a tier above it of gorgeously curtained 
 boxes, the central space being occupied by a leaden coloured 
 floor of ice. On this were disporting themselves half-a-dozen 
 bizarre objects a bear, a pig, a poodle, a Punch, and a Little 
 Red Riding Hood the last of whom had apparently been for 
 some time at school in Pimlico. Lacy, as he looked, began to 
 be of his friend's opinion, that even Lady Scarva's party was 
 dissipation when compared with this. His eye made a tour of 
 the carpeted promenade, which contained at the utmost a few 
 dozen spectators. At a little distance from him were two 
 female figures in dominoes, who, although they might in reality 
 have represented every temptation which St. Anthony experi- 
 enced so much difficulty in resisting, were now sitting on a sofa 
 in stiff and disconsolate attitudes as if they were waiting to be 
 interviewed at an agency for domestic servants ; whilst a few 
 men, like French commercial travellers, strolled by, conscious 
 of their evening dress, and seeking with sullen hope for some- 
 body who might succumb to its fascinations. 
 
 Somewhat ashamed of his company, Lacy lighted a cigar, 
 and, sinking into a chair by the door, continued his observation. 
 Presently, one after another, some new dominoes, all more or 
 less tawdry, entered; and, having entered, seemed uncertain 
 what to do with themselves. Their advent, however, attracted 
 the lukewarm attention of a knot of men whom Lacy had not at 
 first observed, and who now showed themselves on the outlook 
 for any fresh arrivals. He realised, as he looked, that he was 
 slightly acquainted with some of them. They were men whose 
 overcoats fitted them almost too perfectly ; there was a super- 
 fluous self-assertion in their shirt-cuffs and their gloves, and 
 their hats, which it seemed that their servants must have var- 
 nished together with their boots, had the inclination of the 
 leaning tower of Pisa. 
 
 ' Is any one coming? ' said one of these exquisites to another. 
 
 ' Well,' answered his friend, ' it's a bit early yet. Most of 
 them, last time, didn't turn up till one.' 
 
 ' Who are these two ? ' asked another as two dominoes passed 
 them, who had just accomplished a fruitless round of the 
 building. ' Darlings,' he exclaimed, looking after them, ' is 
 that how you forget your friends ? Not much there,' he con- 
 tinued, as this appeal was neglected. ' I say, Algy, do you see 
 how that near one walks ? ' 
 
CHAPTER IX. 97 
 
 Lacy smiled as these delicate accents reached him ; and he 
 saw that the speaker was none other than Lord Crowborough. 
 If Lord Crowborough had been as much improved by the 
 death of his elder brother as he was changed from what he had 
 been at Lady Scarva's by the atmosphere of the New Rotunda, 
 he would have been by this time far on the road to perfection. 
 He was here like a sailor who, having quitted the uncongenial 
 land, was once more able to exercise his sea-legs on a deck ; 
 and his velvet collar, his gait, and the extraordinary alertness 
 of his eye, were all calculated to flutter the susceptible demi- 
 mondaine heart. 
 
 ' Come along,' he exclaimed suddenly to a friend, ' let us 
 walk once round and see who is really here.' And Lacy 
 beheld him, and a gentleman equally splendid, who seemed 
 to represent the ancient religion of the Jews in the same way 
 as his companion represented that of the Christians, start 
 together on their sauntering pilgrimage of inspection. 
 
 They arrived again, however, at their previous station, 
 seemingly disappointed ; and Lacy was amused to hear Lord 
 Crowborough address himself to a man who was a principal 
 shareholder in the Rotunda, and was calculating how much 
 money the present company represented, and say to him in an 
 aggrieved voice, ' The English never rise to an occasion of this 
 kind. Why, hang it, if you speak to these women they take it 
 into their heads that you're insulting them.' 
 
 He had hardly, however, finished this brief plaint before his 
 countenance underwent a sudden illumination. Two mys- 
 terious visions in black lace and violets were at that moment 
 pushing themselves through the folding-doors. 
 
 ' Ah, my angels,' he exclaimed, drawing his bow at a venture, 
 ' and so you've come at last ' ; and seizing the foremost by 
 both of her consenting hands, he began to examine the tip of 
 her just visible chin, and to turn her to one side, and then a 
 little to the other, repeating at each fresh scrutiny, ' Darling, I 
 knew I knew you,' to which the lady, in tones of muffled arch- 
 ness, replied that she knew he did not, and dropped him so 
 charming a curtsey that, to all appearances, he would have 
 grown even more effusive if he had not, over her shoulder, 
 caught sight of some new goddesses, and left her and her friend 
 to receive the homage of his companions. 
 
 The company now having become a little more numerous, 
 Lacy rose from his seat and himself wandered round the 
 
 G 
 
98 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 building. He saw many scenes being enacted not dissimilar to 
 that of which Lord Crowborough had just now been the hero, 
 and was saying to himself, ' If the flesh and the devil can do no 
 better than this, their resources must have fallen as low as 
 those of the higher life,' when he encountered an acquaintance 
 a young man in the Foreign Office Cyril Watson by name, 
 who was leaning against the wall, and was, as it seemed, 
 looking on at the proceedings with a listless contempt akin 
 to Lacy's own. He was a young man of considerable cultiva- 
 tion, who had published a volume of not unmanly poems. 
 
 'I never,' said Lacy to him, 'was at one of these entertainments 
 before. I should have been more amused at any Free Kirk in 
 Scotland. There's no one here who even piques your curiosity 
 by making you think she could by any possibility be a 
 lady.' 
 
 ' There may be a few in the boxes,' the young man replied. 
 ' But, of course, this weather has kept people away. Ah,' he 
 exclaimed, as he took a bunch of violets from his coat, and 
 threw them gently at a female figure that was passing. The 
 female figure caught them with a not ungraceful acknowledg- 
 ment. She was none other than the recipient of Lord Crow- 
 borough's opening gallantries. 
 
 ' She,' said Lacy, ' thus far seems the great success of the 
 evening.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the other, in a tone of half-ironical sentiment, 
 * she's rather nice. I can't help thinking I have met her 
 somewhere before I can't remember where somewhere or 
 other in Lampsacus.' 
 
 This unlooked-for mention of that ill-famed, old-world city 
 had a curious effect on Lacy's poetic imagination. It filled 
 his mind with a vision of classical streets and temples, of 
 twinkling lights and garlands, and breaths blown from the 
 Euxine, and a night made wild and mystical with vague 
 Priapeian revelry. He became a spectator of the past, not 
 of the present ; and he felt himself roused from a dream when 
 the young man casually observed to him, ' If a lady does come, 
 it's odd how you at once can tell her.' 
 
 ' Where ? What ? ' said Lacy. 
 
 ' These two,' said the other, as with a nod and a pleasant 
 smile he moved away in the direction of the recipient of his own 
 violets. 
 
 Lacy turned and saw at a little distance two figures in black 
 
CHAPTER IX. 99 
 
 who, partly by the perfection of their dress, partly by a some- 
 thing in their movements and carriage generally, convinced 
 him of the accuracy of his young friend's observation. They 
 might or might not be women belonging to the fashionable 
 world, but they belonged, at all events, to the world of social 
 refinement. For the first time since his arrival his interest was 
 really roused. The two black dominoes he could see were 
 looking about them, like people whose position was strange to 
 them, though not exactly embarrassing. Close to where they 
 had paused was a staircase leading to the boxes ; and a 
 moment later, out of the shadow of this, a man appeared, 
 with his face half-hidden in his deep fur collar, over which 
 floated the ends of a long moustache. One of the dominoes 
 instantly took his arm, and, without a word, mounted the 
 staircase in his company. Left alone, the other looked slowly 
 round her, with an air of contemptuous apathy, which even her 
 domino could not hide. At last Lacy was conscious that her 
 eyes were fixing themselves upon his. He returned the look 
 for a moment, and then he went up to her and addressed her. 
 
 ' Unless,' he began, ' you have come here to look for the only 
 two things which up to now I have found, I think I may say, 
 without exorbitant vanity, that you might amuse yourself worse 
 than by talking for five minutes to me.' 
 
 ' Do you limit,' she asked, ' your invitation to five minutes ? ' 
 
 ' If you talk to me all night,' he said, ' it will seem less than 
 five minutes to me.' 
 
 ' You had better,' she retorted, ' tell me first what the only 
 two things are which up to now you have found here.' 
 
 ' Solitude,' he said, ' without any of its compensations de- 
 gradation without any of its excitements.' 
 
 ' I,' she replied, with a little low laugh, ' have no need to come 
 to this place in order to ensure the one. I am not, perhaps, 
 sufficiently modest to think that I can offer you the other.' 
 
 ' I've a box somewhere,' said Lacy. ' I must tell you, in self- 
 defence, it was given me by a friend. I was not fool enough 
 to pay for it. My present feeling is that, unless you go away 
 and leave me which, after our long acquaintance, you will 
 hardly have the heart to do it would be difficult to make an 
 immediate change for the worse. Shall we go to this box, and 
 see if it is a change for the better ? ' 
 
 She took his arm ; they mounted the half-lit staircase ; and 
 an attendant, who informed them that they could have a hot 
 
ioo THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 supper if they rang for it, opened the box-door, and left them 
 in a curtained seclusion, which already contained a table laden 
 with cold refreshments. 
 
 ' I'm thirsty,' she said. ' Give me a little champagne ; but 
 look away whilst I drink it, for I'm not going to let you see 
 me. I've finished,' she resumed in a moment. ' You are per- 
 mitted to turn round. Push these arm-chairs a little more 
 forward will you? so that we can see those mountebanks 
 there below if we want to.' 
 
 They seated themselves as she suggested, and looked idly 
 down on the spectacle. Lacy was puzzled as to what his un- 
 known friend might be ; and began, with a view to arriving at 
 some idea, to talk of the way in which English society amused 
 itself. He spoke of dinners, balls, and parties of various kinds, 
 commenting on the varying degrees of pleasure, ennui, and an- 
 noyance to be found at each of them. His companion listened, 
 and though she did not say very much, she received his obser- 
 vations such was at least his impression like a woman who 
 lived more or less in the world. 
 
 'Just think, now,' he went on, ' of the London garden party. 
 The number of people in London who have gardens is, of 
 course, not great; but still there are certain houses within a 
 few miles of Hyde Park Corner with large and beautiful 
 grounds.' And he mentioned the names of several, adding, 
 ' No doubt you know them.' 
 
 ' I believe,' she said, ' they are described in every guide-book 
 to London.' 
 
 ' Certainly one is,' he said, ' of which I was specially thinking 
 Hammersmith House, I mean. Well, if Hammersmith 
 House was mine, instead of asking some fifteen hundred 
 people to stare at each other, and eat bread and butter from 
 half -past four till seven, I would have an entertainment which 
 should last from seven o'clock till three in the morning. I 
 would convert the grounds into an imitation of the Champs 
 Elyse'es in Paris. I would fill the avenues with a series of 
 Parisian cafe's and restaurants, with singers, dancers, waiters, 
 and bills of fare, at which the guests could make up their own 
 parties, having dinner, or supper, or absinthe, at any hour they 
 chose, and where they might think themselves at the Cafe des 
 Ambassadeurs, if it were not that there was no addition.' 
 
 The unknown lady laughed. The idea of so daring an en- 
 tertainment seemed to tickle her fancy for a moment ; but Lacy 
 
CHAPTER IX. 101 
 
 began to feel, though he did not feel certain why, that she was 
 not anxious to be drawn into these social discussions. In 
 another moment she showed that such was the case. 
 
 ' Look here,' she said abruptly ; ' though the light's none of 
 the best, give me your hands and I will tell you your fortune. 
 I can always tell the fortune of any man I like ; and the truth 
 of what I can tell him is in exact proportion to my liking. So re- 
 member that, when you see what my skill, in your case, comes to.' 
 
 This sudden and reckless overture took Lacy by surprise. 
 His ears weighed the quality of her delicate voice as she ad- 
 dressed him. He was half inclined to resist, half inclined to 
 abandon himself to, the spirit of which she appeared to be pos- 
 sessed. He hesitated a moment. Then he did as she bade 
 him ; and, with a view to testing her character in a new direc- 
 tion, said in a voice which was certainly not impassioned : 
 
 ' If I profane with my unworthiest hand 
 
 This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this 
 My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand 
 
 To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.' 
 
 Without hesitation, and with something of the same coolness, 
 she answered him in the words of Juliet 
 
 ' Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, 
 Which mannerly devotion shows in this.' 
 
 ' But come,' she continued, checking herself, ' that's enough 
 poetry. Let us now go on to truth. Listen ! Yours is the 
 hand of a man of old family ; but you were not born rich I 
 should say very far from it ; but then later not very long ago, 
 things changed, you had a fortune left you, which was quite 
 unexpected by yourself. Is that right, so far? You nod and 
 smile. Then it is right. Well what more can I tell you ? 
 You are a man, I should say, of very varied interests. You 
 have been a scholar. From the line of your head, I should 
 say you were a thinker. You have also been a soldier. My 
 belief is that you have been wounded. You have also been a 
 politician. Up to a certain point you have been brilliantly 
 successful ; and and am I still telling you truly ? you might, 
 if you like it, become more successful still. Now then judg- 
 ing by my skill in cheiromancy, how do you think I like you ? 
 Do I like you much, or little ? ' 
 
 He realised that in her voice there was a peculiarly charming 
 ring, and there was a crystalline clearness in her articulation as 
 
102 THE INDIVIDUALIST, 
 
 she uttered this last question. She spoke, however and this 
 was a thing of which he suddenly became conscious like a 
 woman who was accustomed to command most things, and 
 amongst others her own voice ; and although she now began 
 to convey the impression to her companion that she would 
 grudge him none of the memories that are associated with a 
 complete conquest, she conveyed the impression also that she 
 was by no means the plaything of her impulses, but that they, 
 on the contrary, were hers. He found himself accordingly still 
 more doubtful than before whether to yield to a feeling of 
 awkward and annoyed indifference, or else to accept the situa- 
 tion in the spirit in which it seemed to be offered to him. 
 
 ' My beautiful clairvoyante,' he replied after a short pause 
 ' for I have enough clairvoyance myself to enable me to call 
 you that all you have said about me is true ; but it is only part 
 of the truth, and that part is as small in comparison with the 
 unprofitable whole as your liking for me, if you knew the whole, 
 would be in comparison to your indifference.' 
 
 ' Very well, then,' she said, ' finish your character for your- 
 self. And yet why should you ? When my sisters and I were 
 girls, we were taught a little Greek by my brother's tutor. He 
 was in love with all of us, which was his misfortune, and our 
 fault ; and I remember a Greek saying he translated for us, The 
 part is greater than the whole. I have often been tempted by 
 my own experience to ask myself how many lovers it takes to 
 make up one man, but in talking to you, who are a man, I am 
 rather inclined to remind you how very little of a man it takes 
 to make up one lover.' 
 
 1 1 see,' said Lacy, ' you are a thorough woman of the world. 
 You mean by a lover a man whom you don't love.' 
 
 ' Well,' she retorted, ' and do you, with all your experience, 
 think that to love a lover is a likely way to happiness? If we 
 are loved, we are burdened by another's jealousies or exactions. 
 If we love, we are tortured or made ridiculous by our own. We 
 long again for all the impossible things which a wise woman 
 never thinks about, the lights that have gone out with the burst- 
 ing of her first soap bubble.' 
 
 ' My friend,' exclaimed Lacy, ' if you go on talking like that, 
 you will make me love you, whether you wish it or not. You 
 are talking my own language, not what I talk in society, but the 
 language I talk to my sole companion, who is myself. That is 
 the language of hell.' His companion slightly started. Lacy 
 
CHAPTER IX. 103 
 
 smiled at this example of how women, who take little account 
 of either hell or heaven in their lives, shrink at the mention of 
 them as though it were a kind of blow. ' Don't be afraid,' he 
 said, ' the language is a very gentle one. It is not, as perhaps 
 you fancy, a series of angry oaths. On the contrary, it is 
 the language of those who know that nothing is worth 
 emphasis. It is the language of those who see nothing 
 before them but the night, and to whom body and soul 
 and will, and the passion of which you have so flattering an 
 opinion, love, have come to be nothing more than noises heard 
 in a dream. There I am ; there are my naked thoughts. I 
 don't know why I have told them so plainly to you. I wouldn't 
 have told them to my dearest friend if I had one ; but with you, 
 my masked goddess, who, being a goddess, know me, and who, 
 being a goddess, will not betray your worshipper, with you I 
 have no such reticence. There are my thoughts. They are 
 like a shoreless, unfathomable sea; and, I tell you honestly, 
 the only life I have on which I do not look with horror just 
 floats on their surface in a cockle-shell of illogical protest against 
 them.' 
 
 He could feel that the unknown did not follow all his mean- 
 ing, and his natural reason coming back to him, he began to 
 feel glad she did not. Her good opinion of him, however, did 
 not seem lessened in consequence. 
 
 ' Put out your head,' she said. ' and look at the clock, will 
 you ? I am not staying in my own house. That is wrapped 
 up in brown holland. In fact, none of my friends imagine that 
 I am now in London. I have come up for the night to play 
 the part of a chaperone. A friend of mine has lent me what she 
 calls her maisonnette in Victoria Street, which appears to mean 
 a flat with a street door and a latch-key.' 
 
 Lacy looked at the clock, and told her it was half-past one. 
 
 ' It is time to go,' she said, ' you must come and call a cab 
 for me. I am sorry,' she added, ' that you should have more 
 sources of trouble than even I am able to understand ; but give 
 me your hands again, and I will tell you two things more about 
 yourself. I have told you about your past already. These two 
 things shall be about your immediate future. You will not dis- 
 cover who I am. You will respect my wishes too much to try. 
 This is one thing. I will tell you the other in a whisper. To- 
 night you will forget yourself, and for a day or two you will 
 remember me.' 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHATEVER may have been Lacy's memories some eighteen 
 hours later, he was remembered by the evening papers, as he 
 had told Mrs. Tilney he would be ; and she, as she sat by the 
 library fire with her husband before dressing for dinner, read 
 the following paragraph out to him : ' Mr. Tristram Lacy left 
 London this morning for the Continent. He will remain 
 abroad till after Easter.' 
 
 ' There,' exclaimed Mrs. Tilney, ' that answers the question. 
 He, of course, has refused, and has once more thrown his 
 chances away.' 
 
 Lacy himself, whilst his conduct was being thus discussed, 
 was standing, muffled in furs, on the platform of a Paris rail- 
 way station, the pavement of which was wet with a multitude 
 of slushy footprints, and along which flickered the feathers of a 
 horizontal snowstorm. An hour or so later, when Mr. and 
 Mrs. Tilney had reached the period of quails at a dinner-party 
 of four-and-twenty, Lacy was composing himself to sleep in a 
 coupe-salon which had been engaged for him, whilst a snow- 
 flake now and again, like a sea-bird following the train, peered 
 in through the glass, and vanished into the roaring darkness. 
 Another ten hours went by, and he woke out of a heavy sleep, 
 to find that whilst he had been sleeping, a miracle had taken 
 place. Where were the fogs, where were the snows of yester- 
 day ? The windows of his compartment were fleeces of rosy 
 moisture, bright as though with the light of the first summer 
 morning of the world. 
 
 There are few changes in life, at once so sudden and com- 
 plete, as that experienced by a man who, during a winter night, 
 travels in a quick train from the North of France to the 
 Mediterranean. The evening finds him in an atmosphere 
 saturated with clammy cold in a Europe grey and bitter with 
 death, decrepitude, and desolation. When he wakes, he looks 
 out on a world which seems to have been born again. A new 
 heaven and a new earth are shining for him. Lacy let down 
 
CHAPTER X. 105 
 
 one of the carriage windows, and puffing in at him came a gust 
 of southern air an air that all the winter had known the 
 cheeks of roses, and simmered with heat in the brilliance of 
 cloudless noons. It came to him full of the smells and mists 
 of morning. The dew lay thick on buildings roofed with 
 Roman tiles ; visions flitted past of campanili grey with age ; 
 walled towns slept on the shoulders of craggy mountains. 
 Processional cypresses climbed the bare acclivities, and cloud 
 and mountain mixed on the heights of remote horizons. 
 He put his head out into the cutting and racing freshness. 
 New joys of life, mixed with innummerable memories, seemed 
 steaming up as out of some great censer. Olives were softly 
 swaying, tall reeds were waving, hurrying brooks were flashing, 
 and far away amongst the long streaks of sunrise hung the 
 purple masses of the Papal Palace at Avignon. 
 
 At length the train stopped, and a number of nasal voices 
 sang through the silence the announcement of ' dix minutes 
 d'arret.' There were sounds of luggage-barrows making a 
 metallic clanking along the platform. Doors were flung open, 
 and the passengers in the train descended. Lacy descended 
 also, bathed in the liquid morning. He stretched his legs, and 
 drew in a deep breath, with the air of a man long a stranger to 
 pleasure, and once again meeting it. Close to the carriage 
 was arranged a buffet on trestles, laden with steaming coffee- 
 pots, thick white cups, crescent-shaped rolls, and great bunches 
 of flowers. Towards this the passengers flocked, Lacy adding 
 himself to their number. Amongst these were several ladies, 
 whom, despite the disguising dilapidations of the night, he 
 recognised as ornaments of the polite life of London. He 
 kept at a distance from them, saying to himself contemptuously, 
 ' I feel as if I should never wish to speak to a woman again.' 
 The medley of men, however, he contemplated with calm 
 amusement, until his attention was caught by a forlorn-looking 
 little boy, who, eyeing the cups of coffee, but unable to push 
 his way to them, was struggling in vain to fish his money out of 
 his pocket. Lacy, who occupied at the buffet a position near one 
 of the attendants, at once ordered a second cup, which was 
 handed to him ; and gently putting his hand on the little boy's 
 shoulder, gave him his own place, saying, with a smile, as he 
 did so, ' Quick, drink that. I've paid for it, but I don't 
 want it.' 
 
 An old spectacled Abbe, who had watched the trivial inci- 
 
io6 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 dent, eyed Lacy benignly, and said, 'You are a good man,, 
 monsieur.' 
 
 ' I am,' said Lacy, ' much afraid that your opinion of me 
 says more for your charity than it does for your penetration,' 
 
 The train resumed its course ; the golden sun mounted 
 then came reaches of luminous blue haze, filled with the 
 sparklings of luminous blue water ; Marseilles was left behind, 
 with its suburbs deep in foliage ; and at last the railway slid 
 itself close to breaking waves, and the colour of red promon- 
 tories fledged with heath and pine woods. Loud bells tinkled 
 at little wayside stations stations whose gravelled platforms 
 were glittering and simmering in the heat, and whose chefs de 
 gare stood before glass doors which were hung with white lace 
 curtains, and embowered in Banksia roses. Presently over- 
 looking the line came a villa on a high terrace, and white 
 balustrades festooned with scarlet blossoms ; and a little later, 
 above the vaporous green of olives, rose something feathering 
 in the air the fronds of the first palm-tree. It was near the 
 hour of noon when Lacy, looking at his watch, began hastily 
 to pitch some books and other articles into his dressing-bag, 
 and his task was hardly finished when the train had come to a 
 standstill, and the form of his French servant appeared at the 
 carriage door. Lacy stepped down. He was nearly at his 
 journey's end. 
 
 The asphalte platform on which he found himself was 
 bordered by a line of offices, whose size and florid ornamenta- 
 tions presented a marked contrast to the fewness of the pas- 
 sengers who had left the train, or were entering it. Beyond 
 the palings, indeed, there was an array of hotel omnibuses ; 
 but if it had not been for these, and one well-dressed bourgeois 
 group, the whole station would have seemed to be enjoying a 
 sunny sleep. There was no hurrying noise of any adjacent 
 traffic. Only on one side above the placid tops of some 
 pepper-trees, a few white modern buildings with mansarde roofs 
 showed themselves; and on the other side, to the landward, was a 
 little Provengal town, with its old-world streets, and its crumbling 
 mediaeval belfry. This was St. Este"phe-sur-Mer, which a com- 
 pany of Parisian speculators, by adding to it a boulevard, some 
 hotels, and some villas by the sea, had endeavoured, but not 
 very successfully, to turn into a fashionable watering-place. 
 Lacy's destination, however, was quieter even than this. 
 
 At the station gate a light carriage was awaiting him, and 
 
CHAPTER X. 107 
 
 having left his servant to follow with his luggage in an omnibus, 
 he was soon being driven rapidly through the streets of the 
 little town, whose echoes replied to nothing but the sound of 
 his own wheels. The mid-day hush had settled down over 
 everything, and the only signs of life which greeted him as he 
 went by were straying smells of wood smoke and occasional 
 whiffs of garlic, and now and again the face of some white- 
 capped crone, who, seated within her doorway, peered at him 
 out of velvety darkness. Leaving the town behind him, he 
 passed through a belt of little gardens, protected from the road 
 by glittering zinc rails, and each having within its precincts its 
 bastide, like a coloured toy. Then came open spaces, tufted 
 with heather and myrtle ; then a stream, and then the spurs of 
 a great pine forest. The forest rose before him in long and 
 irregular ascents, till it reached the ragged summits of a long 
 range of mountains, and a mile-and-a-half away, half submerged 
 in this sea of greenness, lay a line of scattered villas, and a 
 building which was obviously an hotel. This hotel and these 
 villas formed the winter station of St. Laurent-les-pins, which, 
 though founded, like St. Estephe, by speculators twenty years 
 ago, has for some reason never grown ; and as if to show its 
 superiority to human beings, retains in its stunted maturity all 
 the charms of childhood. 
 
 Lacy had been led to select it as his present place of retreat 
 partly because he knew it to be very little frequented ; partly 
 because he understood that somewhere or other in the neigh- 
 bourhood was the villa which sooner or later would be occupied 
 by his uncle, the Prime Minister. He had accordingly ordered 
 by telegraph rooms in the hotel just mentioned, the charms of 
 which were duly recorded in the pages of the Continental 
 Bradshaw ; and he found when he reached its door that it 
 more than answered to his hopes. It was entered through a 
 portico from a hedgeless public road, on the other side of 
 which were the wild fringes of the forest, whilst its principal 
 frontage looked over its own gardens. When he entered it, it 
 was pervaded by an almost monastic hush ; nor did he, as he 
 was conducted through echoing passages to his room, see any 
 human being except the landlord, a waiter, and a chamber- 
 maid. The prevalent hush, indeed, was not much to be 
 wondered at, as he found, when some hours later he went 
 down stairs to dinner. The hotel, which was remarkable for 
 the fewness as it was for the great size of its rooms, appeared 
 
io8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 to be only half full ; and a table, which ran down the middle 
 of a salk-a-manger frescoed with hunting scenes, was occupied 
 when he entered by but seven or eight guests most of them 
 elderly ladies, who might have been cousins of Mrs. Prouse 
 Bousefield, and who each sat down, accompanied by a piece of 
 knitting, in a place which was duly marked by her half-drunk 
 bottle of St. Galmier water. At one or two separate tables 
 were subdued family parties a German couple, with a trio of 
 weak-eyed children ; an English clergyman, with a high com- 
 plexioned, spectacled daughter, who talked in audible tones 
 about university extension lectures ; and a thin Frenchwoman, 
 facing a tall, coughing husband, who had evidently learned 
 from his illness the comforting moral lesson, that it was not 
 incumbent on him to consider anybody's requirements but his 
 own. Lacy's table was placed near one of the windows, and 
 he ate his dinner in a fit of odd abstraction, his ears being half- 
 amused by chance fragments of conversation, and his eyes 
 straying over masses of sloping pine woods to the sea, on whose 
 face the moonlight was showing its first sparkles. 
 
 After dinner, when most of the company had congregated in 
 an adjoining salon, and were settling themselves to games of 
 dominoes, or to a pretence of reading crumpled newspapers, 
 most of them ten days' old, he went outside, invited by a 
 glimmering terrace, whence a flight of steps descended to the 
 untidy garden below ; and the solitude of the scented forest 
 seemed to surround and press on him. He felt that he had 
 taken some great and decided step in life. He had put aside 
 his chances of a great public career, and he asked himself, 
 ' Why ? and for what ? And is it really true that I have done 
 so ? ' Absorbed in these thoughts he could very soon have 
 persuaded himself that his presence there on that terrace of 
 wan marble, with the endless forest round him, and the clear 
 air, so unnaturally soft, fanning him, was merely a dream, and 
 that he would wake in another moment to find himself in 
 wintry London, and its old problems and perplexities hanging 
 about his neck like lead. ' Perhaps, after all,' he replied, 'even 
 that would be better than this fanciful and idle isolation for 
 which I now feel I have exchanged it.' The first excitement 
 attending on a change of scene had subsided ; and he went to 
 sleep under his mosquito curtains, hoping that to morrow's 
 sunlight would bring him something of the peace which he had 
 travelled so far to look for. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE brilliancy of the morning, as it shone into his bedroom 
 through his balcony, and awoke the roses and lilacs abundantly 
 frescoed on his ceiling, did all and more than he had hoped it 
 would ; it thrilled him with vigour and spirits, and sent expecta- 
 tion through him as though it were an electric current. He 
 drank his coffee, such coffee as never is drunk in England ; his 
 bath sponge seemed to drench him with some cool water of 
 life. As soon as he was dressed he wandered out into the 
 forest, itself a second bath of invigorating air and odours. Bells 
 of flowering heather showed their transparent wax to him, 
 glossy myrtles made thickets of aromatic shadow, and a little 
 chapel, with its antique tiled roof and a grating in its white- 
 washed wall, through which he could see the altar, touched his 
 soul with a vision from that age of faith which he and others 
 like him have known at least in childhood. Ultimately, with a 
 healthy appetite, he came back to luncheon ; and in the after- 
 noon he made enquiries of the landlord as to the villa that had 
 been taken in the neighbourhood for the Prime Minister of 
 England. The landlord, however, knew nothing at all about 
 it, but advised Lacy to consult the principal house-agents at St. 
 Estephe. Lacy did so. By devious by-paths with which he 
 soon grew intimately acquainted, he wandered down to the 
 half-finished boulevards by the sea; he looked at the little 
 kiosques, the pretentious but half-empty shops, and the large 
 semi-animate hotels ; he, moreover, consulted the house-agents, 
 but they, too, could tell him nothing. He was amused by his 
 quest for information, without being disappointed by its failure. 
 The evening he devoted, at his ease, to some book which he 
 had brought with him, and his hopes for the days that were to 
 come were stimulated by the day just ended. 
 
 His whole being for the time had subsided on a sense of 
 spacious rest, which had all the stingless excitement of a happy 
 school-boy's holiday, or of romance as a youth knows it, when 
 
no THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 romance is still a dream. He ceased to think He resigned 
 himself to the pleasure of feeling ; and old feelings, which he 
 had long thought dead, revived in him. 
 
 The very view from his bedroom windows was each morning 
 a new experience to him. Towards Cannes the Esterel Moun- 
 tains ran their wooded barriers into the sea ; towards Toulon 
 were the violet undulations of endless high horizons ; and all the 
 south-west was full of the mysterious Mountains of the Moors, 
 with a great crescent of the Mediterranean washing them, and 
 far off at their feet St. Tropez, like a white star. A new experi- 
 ence was also his each evening, when the glow of the west 
 turned the mountain pine-woods purple, and made the pink 
 crags among them shine like rose petals. 
 
 Generally, after his early breakfast, when the day was still 
 young, he would saunter through the fields to the old unaltered 
 St. Estephe. The soft wind would imperceptibly take his 
 thoughts, and lift them with it into the air like thistledown ; 
 and all the idylls of the world seemed to meet in the little 
 market place, full of flowers and of the morning, with its brim- 
 ming basin of old marble in the middle of it, and jets of water 
 splashing the floating sunlight. Wherever he went, he was 
 pricked by the consciousness of some fresh beauty. Sometimes 
 he would pause fascinated by an old bridge, under the sepia- 
 coloured shadows of whose arches groups of girls, like Nausicaa, 
 would be engaged in washing clothes, making the water milky 
 with moving soap-suds, or spreading their fabrics to dry upon 
 bleached pebbles. Sometimes what arrested him would be a 
 grass-plot dusted with daisies, and occasionally it would be the 
 sudden advent of a soft silvery dimness, as a diaphanous cloud 
 sailed by with its passing shower, which freckled the milk-white 
 dust with spots of fading fawn-colour. Nothing was too 
 minute to escape his delighted notice. The anemones at the 
 edge of the woods touched him like notes of music as he 
 watched them blowing their globules of blue and crimson. He 
 would even peer into the ditches by which the rich fields were 
 separated, and would note how they were filled with the blue of 
 gleaming sky, and how the tall, limp grasses, as they lay and 
 floated along the water, had little diamond sparkles moored to 
 their green borders. 
 
 And through all these minute experiences, the climate, that 
 undying siren, sang its eternal song of the passion that under- 
 lies life, a passion that breathed in the faint breath of the myrtles, 
 
CHAPTER XL in 
 
 that seemed to sigh in the blueness of the blinding seas and 
 skies, and even kept holiday in the front of wayside cafes, 
 where sun-browned Provencals refreshed themselves under 
 shade-flecked pergolas. 
 
 So the days went by, each with its quiet vitality, giving him 
 back an almost childlike feeling of innocence, which made 
 such adventures as that of the New Rotunda incredible to him. 
 But this state of things had the seeds of its own change in it. 
 Before a fortnight was over, the pleasure which he continued 
 to experience began of itself to generate a discontent and rest- 
 lessness, by making him wish for some one, with whom the plea- 
 sure might be shared ; and his thoughts were running again 
 on the coming of Lord Runcorn, who, whatever he might think 
 of his nephew's recent conduct, had always been to him a 
 sympathetic and fascinating companion. One of the first 
 symptoms by which this discontent showed itself was the grow- 
 ing annoyance he felt at the sight of the visitors who were stay- 
 ing at his hotel, or of such occupants of the neighbouring villas 
 as he encountered straying along the roads. Most of these last 
 were French people, apparently, of dreary and unfashionable 
 opulence ; and the aspect of two of them in particular began to 
 be unspeakably depressing to him two fat old ladies, with 
 white puffy faces, who used to frequent the forest, swaddled in 
 loose black garments, and who were to be seen in the paths 
 squatting together on two camp stools, each with a sketching- 
 block on her knees, and one artist's umbrella over the two of 
 them. The sight of these people made him home-sick for 
 something different, for some one who, more or less, belonged 
 to his own world. He was, indeed, thinking of leaving St. 
 Laurent for Nice, or else of writing to Lord Runcorn which 
 he had hitherto forborne to do and asking him when he was 
 coming, and where his villa was ; when one morning something 
 happened which induced him to change his mind. 
 
 In the forest, near the hotel, he discovered, as he looked 
 down one of the paths, the familiar seated forms of the two old 
 ladies, blocking it. There was a side path close to him, little 
 more than a burrow amongst the brushwood ; and in order to 
 avoid them he turned off into this. The world of St. Laurent, 
 however, seemed bent that day on pursuing him ; for very soon 
 through the leaves he saw signs of another figure moving along 
 a similar path, towards a spot where the two joined. A glimpse 
 of something pink led him to identify this apparition with the 
 
ii2 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 clergyman's daughter, whom he had heard in the salle-a-manger 
 discussing university extension, and who often appeared in a 
 wonderful hat alive with cherry coloured ribbons. Not being 
 anxious to encounter her, he began to walk very slowly, so that 
 she, when he reached the junction of the two paths, might be 
 ahead of him. In this manoeuvre he was so far successful that 
 the figure, when he reached that spot, was disappearing be- 
 tween some myrtle-bushes beyond. He saw, to his surprise, 
 however, that he had been quite mistaken as to her identity. 
 The slim figure before him was remarkable for her graceful 
 carriage ; the colour in her hat was the colour of the daintiest 
 Parisian roses, and Paris alone could have produced a jacket 
 like her's, which bespoke such admiration at once for its 
 wearer's outlines and for its own. He trod on and crushed a 
 dry stick in his path ; and the sound, as he expected, caused 
 the stranger to look round. He saw through her veil a pair of 
 velvety eyes, a mouth that was very red, and cheeks with a 
 faint flush on them, the rest of her skin having the sallow 
 clearness of ivory. This was all he could see before the 
 myrtles and brushwood hid her ; but the sight was enough to 
 impregnate, in a single moment, St Laurent and all its neigh- 
 bourhood with a new and disquieting interest; and without 
 being himself entirely conscious of what had happened, his 
 thoughts of Lord Runcorn and his dream of departure had 
 vanished. 
 
 We all know the proverb ' It never rains but it pours ; ' and 
 that morning seemed destined to show Lacy the truth of it. 
 When he returned to his hotel as the hour for dejeuner ap- 
 proached, the hall had subtle suggestions of something beyond 
 the common. On one of the tables was lying a collection of 
 unfamiliar sunshades, an assortment of straw hats, and some 
 little canvas hand-bags ; and an odour floated in the air of pat- 
 chouli and half-washed womanhood, which generally accom- 
 panies the presence of the provincial bourgeoisie in France. 
 As he was entering the salle-a-manger, the head waiter, who 
 saw him through the glass door, approached him with an apolo- 
 getic smile, and asked him if he would allow one of the gentle- 
 men in the hotel to share his table, for that occasion only ; the 
 reason being that a holiday party from Toulon had arrived for 
 the day, and the room was consequently overcrowded. The 
 gentleman in question, said the waiter, was the English clergy- 
 man ; adding, ' He quite alone. The young lady she gone to 
 
CHAPTER XL 113 
 
 St Este"phe this morning for a music-lesson.' Had Lacy been 
 ill-natured enough to wish to refuse this request, he could 
 hardly have done so without ceasing to be human; for the 
 clergyman himself had advanced to second the waiter's over- 
 tures, and was bowing and rubbing his hands, all explanation 
 and apology. Lacy instantly put him at his ease, and they 
 proceeded to take their places. The clergyman had long ago 
 discovered, and explained to the table d'hote who Lacy, as a 
 public character, was ; and was delighted with the chance of thus 
 becoming acquainted with him. He was a pleasant brisk-look- 
 ing man, in the prime of middle-age, with an orthodox clerical 
 collar, a valuable gold watch-chain, and trousers the signs of 
 his holiday lighter than his black waistcoat. It appeared 
 that in his own way he was something of an enlightened 
 thinker, and was endeavouring on behalf of the church to make 
 friends with science by an ardent devotion to the catching and 
 classification of butterflies; and he opened his conversation 
 with Lacy, as soon as they were both seated, by pulling from 
 his pocket a box labelled ' Black currant lozenges,' and extract- 
 ing a fritillary of an excessively rare kind, which he said he had 
 caught in the forest that very morning. 
 
 ' I have,' he went on, ' been here for nearly six weeks ; and 
 there are few localities within reach which I have not visited in 
 search of specimens.' 
 
 Lacy saw that his new acquaintance was in that state of ex- 
 treme volubility which so often results from a certain kind of 
 shyness ; and judged that it was kinder to him, as well as 
 less trouble to himself, to let him run on, and himself remain a 
 listener. 
 
 ' This is,' resumed the clergyman, ' a singularly favoured 
 spot singularly beautiful, and singularly healthful to boot. I 
 marvel I positively marvel, that it is not more frequented 
 especially in view of the fact that the sanitation is alleged to 
 be perfect.' 
 
 ' Certainly,' replied Lacy civilly, ' St Laurent has the merit 
 of being healthy.' 
 
 The clergyman leaned forward, with a smile of experimental 
 worldliness, and said, playing nervously with his fork, ' We may 
 congratulate ourselves that our Prime Minister is shortly coming 
 to this neighbourhood, and not to Cannes or Nice. You have 
 heard of that, I suppose ? ' 
 
ii 4 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Lacy. ' It happens he is some sort of a relation 
 of mine.' 
 
 ' Indeed ! ' exclaimed the clergyman, with an abrupt gesture 
 of deference. 
 
 ' But where his villa is,' continued Lacy, ' I have not been 
 able to discover. I have inquired of the agents at St Estephe, 
 and of several other people ; but nobody is able to tell me.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' replied the clergyman, with an air of superior know- 
 ledge. ' I can well believe that. The local people here know 
 very little about the visitors. To tell you the truth, this whole 
 neighbourhood is in a curious condition. Almost twenty years 
 ago, when the building mania was at its height, villas and hotels 
 were run up, not only at St Estephe and here, but at several 
 other little places between this and St Tropez St Antoine, for 
 instance, and some little place beyond I think its name is St 
 Hilaire. At St Hilaire I'm told there's an hotel, and a regular 
 little colony of villas ; but hardly one of them has ever been 
 taken, and even about those that have been, the people at St 
 Estephe know, or pretend to know, nothing. There are local 
 jealousies, I fancy local jealousies. I should not be surprised 
 if his lordship had taken some house in that neigbourhood. 
 Would you allow me,' he continued, ' to give you a little piece 
 of practical advice ? As for St Hilaire, it is somewhere off the 
 line ; but I should advise you, Mr Lacy, take the train to St 
 Antoine, and ask the stationmaster if he knows Lord Runcorn's 
 villa. He is an intelligent man, and he directed me in St 
 Antoine itself to a house which I certainly should never have 
 found without him. I can only say that if Lord Runcorn is to 
 establish himself in these parts, he will be as safe, quite as safe, 
 as he would be if he were here.' 
 
 1 What do you mean ? ' exclaimed Lacy. ' Safe ? Safe from 
 what ? ' 
 
 The possession of important news, as it is often amusing to 
 observe, swells even the meekest man beyond his normal pro- 
 portions. At Lacy's bewildered question, the figure of the 
 clergyman distended itself. 
 
 ' Is it possible,' he said, ' that you have not heard that you 
 have not heard the alarming news from Cannes ? A friend of 
 my daughter's tells her there can be no doubt about it, though 
 the papers try to hush it up. There is a regular epidemic 
 of typhoid there three new cases this morning this very 
 morning ; and the town, it is said, has not been so full for years.' 
 
CHAPTER XL 115 
 
 Lacy, on hearing this, expressed the proper concern ; and 
 the clergyman, rejoicing in his sense of worldly knowledge, pro- 
 ceeded to name the villas of several Royal and Serene High- 
 nesses which he heard, to his extreme grief, had long been con- 
 sidered unhealthy, and whose owners he could not but fear 
 might be very possibly victims. ' It is dreadful to think,' he 
 said, ' that such precious lives should be in danger connected 
 as so many of them are with our own Royal Family.' To 
 these alarming items of information Lacy paid little attention. 
 But what the clergyman had said with regard to Lord Run- 
 corn's villa remained in his mind, and, as soon as the repast 
 was over, he hastened to the St. Este"phe Station, and caught a 
 train to St. Antoine. On descending at the latter place, he at 
 once addressed himself to the stationmaster, who was not 
 difficult to find, as he was the only person on the platform ; 
 and asked him if he knew where the villa was which the 
 English milor had taken. The stationmaster, shrugging his 
 shoulders, said he had heard such a villa spoken of; and 
 pointed in the direction of a rocky and wooded headland 
 which ran into the sea, at a distance of some two miles. 
 Looking towards it Lacy espied above the trees something that 
 seemed a turret, surmounted by a gilded vane. ' Is that the 
 house ? ' he asked. The stationmaster shook his head. 
 1 That,' he said, ' is the house of the Comte de Villebois. The 
 house of the English milor must be somewhere beyond that ; 
 but I could not say where. I am a stranger here. I am from 
 Marseilles.' 
 
 The information was meagre enough ; but just outside the 
 station was a well-kept road, which, extending itself along the 
 sea-shore, led in the direction which the stationmaster had 
 pointed out. This road Lacy accordingly took. For a couple 
 of miles it lay between the pebbly beach and some meadows 
 just beginning to be sprinkled with red anemones. Then it 
 mounted into a region of sloping woodlands. Groves of cork- 
 trees and ilex-trees clothed the abrupt slopes ; and presently, 
 by the wayside, Lacy's eyes were greeted by a wooden crucifix, 
 which imparted a romantic primitiveness to the scene. He 
 paused to scrutinize this ; and then, on looking ahead of him, 
 he saw at an angle of the road a pair of turreted lodges, a 
 battlemented arch connecting them, and gilded gates between, 
 twisted into coronets and monograms. He approached, and 
 looking in through the bars, saw a sight which aroused his in- 
 
n6 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 terest. He saw that the road within led directly over a bridge, 
 which spanned a profound ravine, and led on the farther side 
 to two elaborately antique towers, these also having gates be- 
 tween them. Beyond these second gates the road could be 
 seen continuing itself, shadowed by myrtles and tall umbrella- 
 pines, whilst here and there was a glimpse of scarlet and white 
 camellia-trees ; and garden flowers, with a somewhat meretrici- 
 ous prettiness, peered and glistened along the ledges of many of 
 the overhanging rocks. Lacy stood at the gates fascinated by 
 this strange spectacle, and wondering whether he had come 
 upon Lord Runcorn's villa at last. He rang the bell, and was 
 waiting for the emergence of the concierge, when his eye was 
 caught by a notice-board, on which were the words, ' A Louer.' 
 There presently appeared a woman of about thirty, with the 
 look of a Parisian, who, quickly glancing at the stranger, 
 seemed to see in him a person worthy of her best civility. 
 ' Has this house been taken,' he asked ; ' or is it still to let ? ' 
 'Still to let, Monsieur,' she answered, with a pleasant laugh. 
 ' Would Monsieur like to enter and see it ? He would be very 
 welcome.' 
 
 Lacy gladly accepted the suggestion. The woman fetched a 
 hat, and a moment later he was crossing the bridge under her 
 guidance. His feeling of disappointment at finding that the 
 house was not Lord Runcorn's was entirely lost in pleasure as 
 he cast his eyes around him. The ravine which the bridge 
 spanned was even more striking than he had anticipated. It 
 was of great depth ; a rivulet splashed at the bottom of it ; at 
 one end of it, fretted by pines and palm-trees, there twinkled in 
 the distance a torquoise-tinted triangle of sea ; and the gro.und 
 beyond appeared to be a kind of island which the deep ravine 
 completely separated from the world. The farther gates were 
 opened, and he entered this mysterious region. The road 
 climbed and twisted between masses of artificial rock-work, 
 which in such a place had by contrast its own charm. Every- 
 where there was a sense of ancient and secluded woodland ; 
 and yet hidden away amongst this were hints of the most 
 elaborate civilisation. At last amongst the leafage came a 
 white flashing of balustrades, and after the balustrades a cap- 
 tivating monstrosity in architecture a toy chateau, with a 
 multitude of carved balconies, bracketed out against a declivity, 
 on a mass of stone substructures, and almost lost in masses of 
 flowering creepers. Down in the depths below was the glitter 
 
CHAPTER XL 117 
 
 of more gardens, little fantastic temples, and the basins of 
 white fountains. 
 
 Lacy first thought the place was the caprice of some opulent 
 cocotte, which nature and chance had invested with a beauty 
 entirely unintended by her : nor indeed when he was taken in- 
 doors was this first impression obliterated. It was a house full 
 of Aubusson carpets, china, and gilded chairs. Everywhere 
 was colour and prettiness in a bewildering demi-mondaine 
 medley. So at least thought Lacy, till he saw on one of the 
 tables a little collection of books in the daintiest of modern 
 bindings. Certain of these belonged to what may be called 
 the belles kttres of devotion : the rest were the works of Ger- 
 man, Italian, and English poets ; and amongst these last was a 
 small volume of Shelley. He took this up, and saw that many 
 of the poems were underlined ; and between two of the pages 
 were the dried leaves of a heartsease. 'Would Monsieur,' 
 said the woman, who was watching him, ' like to see Madame's 
 boudoir ? ' He assented. The boudoir was even richer in 
 ornament than the drawing-room : but here the books which 
 he noticed made an even deeper impression on him. Here 
 were the works of Heine, of George Sand, and of Leopardi ; 
 and there lay on a beautiful writing-table a copy of Wilhelm 
 Meister. On the wall above it hung a small drawing in water- 
 colours, representing some scene characteristic of Southern 
 Europe ; and under it was a translation in English of one line 
 of Mignon's song : 
 
 ' Thither, ah, thither, I with thee would go.' 
 
 ' Whose house is this ? ' said Lacy abruptly. ' As you see, I 
 am a stranger here ; so you will not be surprised by my 
 ignorance.' 
 
 1 It is the house,' she said, ' of the Comte de Villebois. He 
 built it for Madame, who has been dead since fourteen years. 
 Madame was beautiful in her youth. Princes desired to marry 
 her. Her mother was English a lady of noble family, who 
 ran away with a Venetian ; and Madame had been a great 
 singer. The house is kept as it was at Madame's death ; and 
 Monsieur le Comte has decided to let it, only because he has 
 lost much money in speculations connected with building. 
 Monsieur perhaps would like to visit the gardens. One can 
 descend to them from the balcony outside the window.' 
 
 Lacy accepted the suggestion. ' I shall be quicker,' he said, 
 
n8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ' if I go alone ' ; and the woman answered that she would wait 
 for him there at the window. He went down a flight of stone 
 steps so fantastic, that he felt like a tenor descending from a 
 castle in the side scenes at an opera. There were mazes of 
 silvery walks amongst orange-trees, palms, and aloes ; there 
 were more flights of steps, twisting through rocks and leafage ; 
 and in a few minutes' time he found himself on the confines of 
 the artificial, and before him was a path which led into the un- 
 touched woodland. This presently emerged as a cornice high 
 on a line of cliffs, along which it ran for possibly half a mile. 
 There were trees above it, a cataract of trees below ; and far 
 down at the bottom the lazy murmurings of the sea. There 
 was a sense of space here, combined with a sense of seclusion, 
 and also subtly flavoured with suggestions of possible society, 
 which made him draw a deep breath for the sudden pleasure it 
 gave him ; and he went back to St. Laurent filled with 
 thoughts of the Chateau, mixed thoughts of the lady whom he 
 had seen that morning amongst the myrtles. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE following day was Sunday ; and when, according to his 
 usual custom, he went out for his morning walk in the forest, 
 he was conscious that his pleasure in existence had suddenly 
 become deeper than it had been even during the past cloudless 
 fortnight, for now its depths were stirred by some vague trouble 
 and expectancy. Excitement floated in the resinous breath of 
 the pine trees, and seemed to lie ambushed round him amongst 
 the heather and in the myrtle thickets. Mermaids sat on the 
 shining rocks of memory and sang of delights drowned in the 
 waves under them. He thought of the Italian landscape in 
 Madame de Villebois' boudoir, and kept murmuring the verse, 
 hardly knowing what he meant by it, ' Thither, ah thither, I 
 with thee would go.' 
 
 Such was his mood when his steps by accident led him 
 towards the chapel close by in the forest, the bell of which was 
 now tinkling. He paused at a little distance and watched the 
 figures of some peasants as, moving through the clear sunshine, 
 they followed one another into the building. A sudden impulse 
 prompted him to imitate their example. The interior had 
 something plaintive in its simplicity, with its rudely white- 
 washed walls and its shabbily-gilded altar-piece, and its votive 
 pictures grotesque as the daubs of children, in which gawky 
 Madonnas saved sailors in the midst of shipwrecks, or extracted 
 travellers uninjured from the debris of capsized diligences. The 
 sudden change from the outside world was extraordinary. 
 What was this austere dimness, this solemn murmuring silence, 
 pungent with the scent of evaporated incense, this secret core 
 of a life so alien to the world outside to the world of myrtles 
 and blue voluptuous skies the world of seas as blue, and 
 limitless marine sparklings ? Was there here, after all, the true 
 key to existence the little leaven that leavens the whole 
 universe the supernatural in the heart of the natural, without 
 which the world of myrtles could be merely a barren vision, 
 and the blue of the skies and seas a tantalization of the wasted 
 
120 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 spirit ? Lacy stood by the old stone font and watched the 
 service beginning. His heart went out to the husbandmen 
 with their bowed heads, and the old wrinkled women with 
 cheeks and hands like parchment ; and he said to himself, 
 hardly conscious that he did so, ' We are all brothers in Christ.' 
 The service proceeded. He realised few of its details, but 
 none the less it had an accumulating influence on his mind. 
 It began by bringing to him a profound sense of rest a sense 
 that at last he had deposed some weary burden ; and then on 
 this sense of rest supervened a stirring of the imagination. It 
 was as if the life, which for all these years had been so blank 
 and grey for him, had now new lights in it, which were not of 
 the sun or sea, but were rather such as in old Italian towns 
 shine at street corners before the shrines of saints. Through 
 the outer world a spiritual world seemed breaking, much as the 
 realities of that outer world themselves break through the 
 reflections in the window panes of a fire-lit room. All the 
 issues of man's existence seemed to become vaster. His own 
 soul was once more the theatre of a tremendous battle, whilst 
 the pride and prizes of the world, strange to say, assumed a 
 new importance, though the eternal issues to which they were 
 all subordinated, reduced them at the same time to a kind of 
 solemn insignificance. Then these profound mysteries, as 
 Lacy continued his meditations, seemed to turn round on 
 themselves and carry him back to the world, with its myrtle- 
 scented air, from which they had at first rapt him. They 
 seemed to shoot themselves like pulses through all the passions 
 and affections, staining them with fresh colours, and associating 
 them by some hidden sympathy with the pink of the oleanders, 
 and the rustle of the crisp myrtle leaves, and giving a deeper 
 note to serenades in gardens of moonlit cypresses. 
 
 He was still absorbed in this dream when a movement 
 amongst the congregation roused him, and he realised that 
 the service was over, and that the worshippers were about to 
 go. He now, on turning round, perceived for the first time 
 that a female figure, very different from her neighbours, was 
 standing, prayer-book in hand, not very far away from him. 
 She was beautifully dressed in black. There was a diamond 
 amongst the laces about her throat, but her aspect was colour- 
 less, except for her half-parted lips. Lacy's eyes had hardly 
 rested on her before they were encountered by her own. She 
 was the lady who, a few days ago, he had seen for a moment in 
 
CHAPTER XII. 121 
 
 the forest. He thought that her face assumed an expression of 
 recognition, and as he stood aside to let her go out before him, 
 he made a movement that might be called an undeveloped bow. 
 He saw that, as she went by him, a picture fell from her prayer- 
 book. He picked it up, but by the time he had done so an old 
 man with a crutch had intervened between her and him ; so she 
 was already on the path outside before he was able to restore 
 it to her. Instead of merely thanking him, she looked him full 
 in the eyes and said, as she took the picture, 'I am glad that it 
 has not been trodden upon. ' There was something in her manner 
 which prevented his leaving her at the moment. They walked 
 on a step or two farther, and then immediate parting was more 
 than ever impossible. At last she said, laughing, ' Though I 
 am sure you don't remember me, I met you once in London. 
 I sat opposite to you at dinner at The Chilterns. Shall I tell 
 you who I am, for you needn't tell me who you are ? I am a 
 daughter of Lord Dovedale, and my name is Madeleine Seaton. 
 I was married for a year, and for five years I have been 
 a widow. My widowhood has most of it been spent away 
 from London, not because my husband is dead, but because 
 my father is ill. He has had to be continually abroad ; and 
 . my mother is too energetic to be much of a companion to an 
 invalid.' 
 
 ' When I met you,' said Lacy, you were still Lady Madeleine 
 Marston. I saw Lady Dovedale just before 1 left England. 
 She is coming to the Riviera, isn't she ? I think I was told to 
 Cannes.' 
 
 Lady Madeleine laughed a little. ' Yes,' she said. ' I 
 suppose she will stay at Cannes, or in the Salle de Jeu at 
 Monte Carlo. Of one thing I am sure, she will not come to 
 St. Laurent. Well, and so now we know each other : but 
 there was one thing I did not know that you were a Catholic. 
 Are you one ? ' 
 
 She uttered these last three words with the sudden simplicity 
 of a child, looking full at him with her dark eyes. 
 
 ' Do you remember,' he answered, ' a story told, I think, of the 
 poet Rogers, when some lady asked him what was his religion. 
 He said that his religion was that of all sensible men, and when 
 she asked him what the religion of all sensible men was, " That," 
 he replied, " no sensible man ever tells." I am not going to 
 answer your question like the poet Rogers. I will answer it 
 more frankly, and yet perhaps not more clearly. I don't even 
 
122 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 know whether such a thing as a Deity exists ; and yet for the 
 past hour I have been in the presence of God.' 
 
 She made no direct answer to this curiously intimate con- 
 fession, but when she next spoke her voice had the note in it 
 of old acquaintanceship. 
 
 ' Where are you staying ? ' she asked him. ' I mustn't take 
 you out of your way.' He told her that he was staying in the 
 hotel. 'So, too,' she said, 'am I. I arrived a week ago. I 
 don't however wonder that we have never met till now, for my 
 rooms are in one of the wings, which has a door of its own ; 
 and I am practically living with some friends, whose garden 
 touches that of the hotel. I have been in England lately,' she 
 went on, her voice sinking. ' I went there for the purpose of 
 saying good-bye to something which I once valued, but which 
 I found out to be valueless. That is the best of all " Good- 
 byes " or the worst. But it wasn't,' she went on, with a slight 
 smile at him, ' my religion that I said " Good-bye " to. Look 
 that is the villa where my friends the St. Germains live. 
 To-day, however, they are away, and I shall appear at the hotel 
 luncheon. Who shall I see ? Will the company make me shy ?' 
 
 ' I don't think so,' he said, ' but as a precaution against such 
 a contingency, will you sit at my table, and I will keep you in 
 countenance ? ' 
 
 ' Do let me,' she exclaimed. ' That will be really a relief. 
 In ten minutes' time will you come to my sitting-room, and 
 then we will go in and confront the world together.' 
 
 A considerable sensation was caused at the table d'hote by 
 the entrance of the tall lady, who carried herself with such 
 natural grace, and whose dress was a loadstone for every female 
 eye in the room. A consciousness that she was the object of 
 this very ill-concealed observation, impelled her to seek shelter 
 in conversation with her companion, which thus, with abnormal 
 rapidity, ripened into ease and intimacy. They were both of 
 them aware of the fact, and they were also both of them 
 amused at it ; and Lacy, who had confided to her his dis- 
 covery of the Chateau des Fleurs, and had seen that his descrip- 
 tion interested her, at last exclaimed, ' It is only twelve miles off. 
 Let me order a carriage, and drive you there this afternoon.' 
 
 Lady Madeleine leaped at the proposal, and the two were 
 presently on the road, being hurried along by a pair of little 
 jingling horses. Their drive was marked by one incident only, 
 and this for Lacy was one of considerable interest. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 123 
 
 Their road for most of the way ran close to the St. Tropez 
 line, and just as they were approaching one of the side stations, 
 a train went sliding past them, and gradually pulled up at it. 
 ' What an odd train,' exclaimed Lady Madeleine. ' I never 
 saw one like it. Ah ! now I see what is the matter with it. 
 Except for the toy engine, and those two cars with balconies, 
 it is all made up of trucks with private carriages on them.' 
 
 ' Upon my word,' said Lacy, and so it is. Where in the 
 world can these magnificent vehicles be going ? Stay I know 
 the colours. It is so. They are his they are his. You 
 wonder who I mean by his. I mean Lord Runcorn's my 
 illustrious uncle's. Let me try and catch one of his servants, 
 and I'll find out where his villa is. I'm anxious to see,' he 
 went on, as he lashed the horses, in hopes of reaching the 
 station before the train should have left it, ' what the house 
 will be like which has been thought grand enough to receive 
 him. He's the sort of man who feels he ought always to be 
 housed in a palace.' He was still speaking, when there rose a 
 feather of steam from the engine. The train was again in 
 motion. ' Well, anyhow,' Lacy continued, ' his house is in this 
 direction. Fancy coming abroad with all those broughams and 
 barouches. To tell you the truth, if he were not a great genius 
 there's a vein in his character which an enemy would call 
 vulgar.' 
 
 Lady Madeleine, however, could by no means admit this. 
 It appeared that Lord Runcorn was numbered amongst her 
 personal friends, she having met him some years ago in Italy, 
 and having so Lacy gathered excited his discriminating 
 admiration. Lord Runcorn was a man who continued, even 
 in his old age, to rouse in women a curious romantic interest, 
 which was certainly not diminished by the legends of his 
 romantic youth. 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, ' when he arrives, he will no doubt con- 
 descend to lunch with me, though I am only living in an hotel, 
 and then you must come to meet him.' 
 
 In half-an-hour more they found themselves at the lodge- 
 gate of the Chateau. The same woman as before came to 
 answer the bell, and seeing Lacy again, and this time accom- 
 panied by a lady, concluded that the lady was his wife, and 
 that he was presenting himself as a possible tenant. The 
 consciousness of this fact ripened their intimacy yet farther, 
 and they found themselves talking together in precisely the 
 
124 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 confidential undertone which they would have employed had 
 they been what the woman thought them. Lady Madeleine 
 was as delighted with the house as Lacy was himself, and very 
 soon she was in intimate conversation with their guide. Pre- 
 sently Lacy heard an exclamation escape her. She was looking 
 at a miniature of the late Madame de Villebois. ' To be sure,' 
 she said, turning to Lacy, ' I remember the story now. 
 Madame de Villebois' mother was a Miss Hartland, of Homeby 
 and Mrs. St. Germans my friend at St. Laurent, whom I men- 
 tioned to you is her cousin. I remember now, I have heard 
 about this place, too. Madame de Villebois was a great friend 
 of George Sand's, and was supposed by many people to have 
 been the original of her " Consuelo." ' 
 
 They lingered for some time at the Chateau. They strolled 
 through the gardens, and loitered together in the long walk 
 above the sea ; and he all the while was haunted by some words, 
 then unregarded, which Mrs. Tilney had said to him casually 
 at Lady Scarva's party. Lady Madeleine Seaton certainly was 
 beautiful ; but what interested him more than her beauty was 
 her history, whatever it might be, at which Mrs. Tilney had 
 hinted, and which seemed, so Lacy thought, to have left its 
 traces on her whole manner and bearing. How must those 
 eyes have looked those eyes so tranquil now those shining 
 eyes so full of regretful kindness when the man with the long 
 moustache, the foreigner with the mad wife, woke in her that 
 futile passion for which Mrs. Tilney pitied her ! And was he 
 the something which she said that she once had valued, and to 
 which so lately she had been saying Good-bye in London ? 
 Having thoughts like these in his mind, which gave interest to 
 her most trivial observations, he looked out with her from their 
 height at the glittering solitudes of the sea, the shining lateen 
 sails, and the phantoms of far-off promontories. They saw the 
 headlong foliage outlined against the moving waves waves that 
 curled and broke perpetually amongst the grey rocks far below, 
 and listened to the murmur that rose to them from those rest- 
 less threshing-floors of the foam. 
 
 1 1 shall,' said Lady Madeleine, on their return, when she was 
 parting from him in the hall of the hotel, ' be dining to-night 
 with Mrs. St. Germans. I shall tell her you will come to- 
 morrow. She will like to hear about the Chateau, which I 
 know she has never seen.' 
 
 The events of the day, as Lacy looked back on them, not 
 
CHAPTER XII. 125 
 
 only distracted his mind from a book which he was reading 
 that evening, but invaded his dreams in a manner that was far 
 from disagreeable. Despite her physical charms, and the 
 pathetic romance of her personality, Lady Madeleine Seaton had 
 excited in him none of those emotions which, as long experience 
 had taught him, ultimately lead to love-making. On the con- 
 trary, what drew him to her was a feeling that she and he had 
 both known romance, and had left it both behind them, though 
 its wasted spikenard, for both of them, gave a fragrance to life 
 still ; whilst the impression which he had derived from seeing 
 her in the chapel that morning made him envy her as one whose 
 being was still enriched by a faith in the value of things which 
 was not any longer his. 
 
 With memories such as these there also mixed others, 
 memories of Lord Runcorn's carriages, and the direction in 
 which the train was taking them. ' His house,' he said to him- 
 self, ' cannot be far off,' and the thought of meeting him brought 
 with it its own excitements. These last, indeed, stimulated 
 Lacy so far as to send him down next morning into the modern 
 quarter of St. Estephe with a new and practical resolution half 
 formed in his mind. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE amiable janitress of the Chateau, in the course of her 
 conversation with Lacy, had mentioned that the letting of it was 
 in the hands of the agents at St. Estephe, and what he had half 
 resolved to do was to make an offer for the place himself. The 
 rent, he ascertained, would be reasonable, though the owner 
 would not let it at all unless he were personally satisfied as to 
 the character of the proposed tenant. Lacy explained accord- 
 ingly who and what he was, and desired the agents to ascertain 
 whether an offer for the Chateau would be accepted from him 
 if within the next day or two he found himself disposed to 
 make it. The agents assured him that he need not fear a re- 
 fusal, and engaged to telegraph to Monsieur le Comte at once. 
 
 He had quitted the office, and was walking along the empty 
 boulevard which leads from the new town of St. Este'phe to the 
 old, when he saw a solitary figure rapidly advancing towards 
 him. For some reason which he could not explain, this figure 
 caught his attention. It was that of a man in a very well-made 
 brown suit. His hat was jaunty ; he had a cane whose handle 
 flashed, and in his footsteps was an elastic spring. As he neared 
 Lacy, he came to a sudden halt, and there passed over his face 
 for a second a slight expression of embarrassment. But this 
 lasted for a second only. Then his face became one enormous 
 smile, and throwing his hat into the air, he ejaculated a loud 
 ' hurrah.' ' Dear old boy,' he exclaimed. ' By all that's won- 
 derful, you don't mean to say that's you. Well, this beats cock- 
 fighting. What on earth has brought you out here ? ' 
 
 The speaker, in fact, was none other than Mr. Poodle 
 Brancepeth, whose eyes by this time were dancing with enthusi- 
 astic friendship. ' Of all the people in the world,' he went on, 
 ' I wanted to see you most. You must be as surprised at find- 
 ing me here as I am at finding you.' 
 
 Lacy admitted that this was the case, and explained where he 
 himself was staying. Then the Poodle breathlessly went on 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 127 
 
 again. ' I've got such news to tell you. I've almost weathered 
 the point, that awful cape whose rocks are composed of credi- 
 tors ; and dear old boy, hooray, I'll pay you all you lent me, 
 and sixty per shent in the way of thanks into the bargain.' 
 
 Lacy expressed in appropriate terms congratulation mixed 
 with curiosity. 
 
 'Yes,' said the Poodle, ' such a bit of luck I've had. There's 
 typhoid you know positively awful at Cannes, and the people 
 there will soon be dying like flies. The authorities have been 
 hushing it up, but old Sam Davis, who's been awfully good to 
 me ' 
 
 ' Do you mean,' asked Lacy, ' Sam Davis the money-lender? 
 He's the same person, isn't he, as your friends Lewis and 
 Lawrence ? ' 
 
 The Poodle reddened, and for one second looked a little con- 
 fused. ' Oh,' he said, ' he's a member of the same firm, but as 
 different from the others as chalk is from cheese. I know him 
 as a personal friend. I've done a lot of good turns for Sam. 
 Well, old boy, about the typhoid, as I was telling you. Sam 
 Davis got wind of this ten days ago, and he knew that very soon 
 there'd be a panic amongst the rich visitors, and amongst the 
 others too, no doubt. But that's nothing to Sam. Well, what 
 Sam does is this, for he knows this coast thoroughly. He sends 
 me out to snap up all the decent villas in this neighbourhood ; 
 you can get them for a mere song ; and he'll let them again to 
 the fugitives from the plague at Cannes, getting, I need hardly 
 tell you, three times the rent he pays. On every villa let I'm 
 to have 20 per cent, commission, besides my out-of-pocket ex- 
 penses. I'm going to have a bit of lunch now at the Hotel des 
 Quatres Saisons, and then back I rush by the very next train to 
 Cannes. Come,' he said, putting his arm in Lacy's, ' come and 
 have lunch with me for the sake of the good old times.' 
 
 Lacy could not refuse. He was touched by his friend's 
 cordiality, though he could not help saying to himself, as he 
 went along with him, ' I wonder if my lunch will be one of your 
 out-of pocket expenses.' The Poodle tripped up the steps of 
 the hotel ; he exchanged some jest with the concierge, and then, 
 with the air of an intimate and favoured habitue, plunged into 
 the office of the manager, whom he seemed first to be rallying 
 on his relations with some lady, and then consulting earnestly 
 with reference to food and wine. ' Now,' said the Poodle 
 emerging, ' will you wait in the reading-room you don't mind, 
 
128 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 do you ? whilst I am busy for a few minutes.' It was half-an- 
 hour before he again made his appearance. He then skipped 
 in to Lacy, holding a letter in his hand, and having but this 
 did not catch Lacy's attention a trace of ink on one of his 
 fingers, which, before he had disappeared, was wanting. 'More 
 business,' he said, as he stuck the letter into his pocket ; ' but 
 this won't spoil by keeping, and the omelette will. Luncheon 
 is ready, and I am famishing.' 
 
 Lacy was surprised, and not altogether pleased, at the ex- 
 cellence and obvious expense of the repast furnished for him ; 
 and this feeling was increased as soon as he tasted the wine, 
 which he at once recognised as Burgundy of the finest kind. 
 ' There are only two good bottles in this hotel,' said the Poodle, 
 ' and they're half-bottles. This is one, and we'll top up with 
 the other.' He then resumed his account of his present 
 mission, and explained that one of the reasons that made him 
 so valuable an intermediary was the fact that he knew so many 
 of the fashionable visitors on the Riviera, and that, in addition 
 to securing villas in St. Este"phe and the neighbouring district, 
 he was to secure a certain number of distinguished individuals 
 as tenants for them. ' You see,' he went on, ' that's where I 
 come in useful. Cannes is full just now of timid and distin- 
 guished ladies, who must remain in the south, and will be 
 frightened to remain in Cannes. I've half-a-dozen on the books 
 for Sam's villas already, and when once they're landed, the 
 whole business is done. Others will follow. You know what 
 snobs the English are. It's too awful, isn't it ? But I say, old 
 boy, will you think me awfully rude if I just glance at this letter ? 
 It may, perhaps, want answering.' 
 
 He tore the envelope open, and appeared to be lost in its 
 contents. As he read his face grew cloudy ; he thrust the 
 letter into his pocket, and then with a gaiety almost obtrusively 
 artificial he went on to retail some of the current gossip of 
 Cannes. Presently he stammered ; he grew more and more 
 inconsequent. At last he checked himself. ' What in the 
 world,' he exclaimed, ' have I been saying ? Would you mind 
 if for a moment I looked at that letter again ? ' He again ex- 
 tracted it from its envelope, and again appeared lost in thought. 
 ' Fill up,' he said, absently, and pushing the bottle towards 
 Lacy, leaned his chin on his elbow and stared blankly before him. 
 
 ' What's the matter ? ' asked Lacy. ' You have had, I hope,, 
 no bad news.' 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 129 
 
 ' No,' said the Poodle, with an air of heroic struggle against 
 misfortune. ' Only just, old boy, as I was getting along so 
 beautifully, it is a little hard to miss one of the plums of the 
 whole business.' 
 
 Lacy asked how matters stood. The Poodle at first was 
 reticent, but at last, with a desponding gesture, tossed the 
 letter across the table. Lacy looked at it. It was in French ; 
 and though it was not entirely self-explanatory, the upshot of it 
 seemed to be that unless a deposit was paid of five thousand 
 francs on Monday, and another five thousand on Wednesday, 
 it would be impossible to reserve certain properties, not speci- 
 fied, on the chance that Mr. Davis would ultimately decide on 
 taking them. 
 
 ' These,' said the Poodle mournfully, ' are the best villas of 
 the lot, and now I shall lose them simply because old Sam 
 Davis has only given me just enough money to go on with. 
 I can't even get at him by telegraph ; and as for this deposit, 
 I can no more pay it by Monday morning than I can fly. 
 This will mean to me the loss of a hundred and fifty pounds. 
 However, it can't be helped. At the worst, I've dropped in 
 for something that's very much better than anything I'd any 
 right to expect.' 
 
 Lacy looked thoughtful ; but his lips struggled with a smile. 
 The Poodle watched his face as a dog watches for a bone. 
 
 ' I suppose,' exclaimed the Poodle at last ' but no, after all 
 you've done for me, I couldn't ask you dear old boy, I should 
 hate it to help me just once more. I couldn't ask it, only 
 for just this once. Of course it would be only for three days 
 at the very farthest, and I'd pay you faithfully every halfpenny- 
 back again.' 
 
 For a moment Lacy was silent. The Poodle began to frown 
 nervously. At last Lacy said : ' You must explain the matter 
 a little more to me. And yet no. Look here. Let me put 
 the matter plainly to you. You think I am a rich man. 
 Well, if I wasn't richer than I used to be, it would be absurd 
 even to ask me for the kind of help you want. But many 
 people have claims on me ; and whatever I do with my money 
 I must know what I am doing.' The Poodle's face assumed a 
 a sort of frosty seriousness. ' Now you tell me,' Lacy con- 
 tinued, ' you want this money for a specified purpose, and for 
 a specified time. Well, Poodle, I'll take your word for it 
 your word as a man of business, and a man of honour as well. 
 
 i 
 
1 3 o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 I'll post you a cheque for five thousand francs this evening, and 
 that will give you time to telegraph to Mr. Davis for the remainder.' 
 
 ' Three cheers,' exclaimed the Poodle, with his face suddenly 
 irradiated. ' Dear old boy, of course I'll remember everything. 
 You're something like a friend, and no mistake. You don't 
 know what this help is to me. In three weeks' time I shall be 
 able to pay off everybody. Do you know,' the Poodle con- 
 tinued, leaning across the table, and speaking in a voice of 
 deep feeling, ' it's an awful thing to be in debt to feel you're 
 keeping anybody out of any mortal thing that belongs to him. 
 Sometimes at night I could almost cry for thinking about it. I 
 say, old boy, what on earth is the waiter about ? Why doesn't he 
 bring the little gigot (fagneau they promised us ? What have 
 we got here? Do they want us to eat toothpicks? Hallo, 
 Gar(0n, what's the next thing on the menu ? Are you going 
 to give us an entree of cure- dents farcies ? ' 
 
 The Poodle's spirits were rising with a most delightful 
 rapidity. 
 
 1 Mary had a little lamb,' he recited, as the waiter put down 
 the expected dish on the table. ' Be like Mary, old boy, have 
 a little lamb. I say, are you going to stop on here ? For if 
 you are, I can promise you that Sam and I shall very soon be 
 waking up the neighbourhood. We're snapping up villas not 
 only at St. Laurent and here, but we've collared a whole nest of 
 them at a little place by the sea, with a brand new casino that 
 has never been used yet. One of our tenants is who do you 
 think ? Mrs. Helbeckstein. Mrs. Helbeckstein with old 
 Mother Dovedale in tow. I ran Mrs. Helbeckstein when first 
 she came to London. I sent out all her cards for the first 
 concert she gave. I've done her a lot of good turns, and now 
 my bread's coming back to me. But about these villas, old 
 boy, at present this is all in confidence ; for if the owners of 
 some on which we still have our eyes knew Sam Davis's game 
 they'd spring their prices immediately. There actually "is a 
 proprietor, a certain Comte de Villebois, who has a chateau 
 which I meant to look at ; but he's heard something and 
 declines to deal with what he calls speculators. Well,' the 
 Poodle continued, ' I've my work at Cannes cut out for me. 
 I dine with Mrs. Helbeckstein to-night. You never saw in 
 your life a place like Cannes this winter. You'd think half 
 London was there, a third of Paris, and the whole of Jerusalem. 
 But what ! who would have thought it ? It's half-past three 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 131 
 
 already. I ought to be off. You won't forget about the petit 
 checque, will you ? Here's my address at Cannes on this 
 envelope, in Sam Davis's own hand-writing. The autograph 
 alone is worth all the money.' 
 
 Lacy when he left his friend was haunted by some mis- 
 givings as to the wisdom of his new loan to that very un- 
 methodical gentleman ; but what chiefly occupied his mind 
 was the enterprise of Mr. Samuel Davis, and a fear that M. de 
 Villebois, in spite of his objection to speculators, might allow 
 the Chateau des Fleurs to slip into Mr. Davis's hands. His 
 own resolution therefore to take it, which an hour ago was 
 vacillating, was now confirmed by a process with which most 
 minds are familiar ; and he at once went back to the agents to 
 make his offer absolute. The agents assured him that he 
 might regard the matter as concluded ; and he hastened back 
 to St. Laurent in a condition of unexpected exhilaration, partly 
 caused by the prospect of communicating his news about the 
 chateau to Lady Madeleine and Mrs. St. Germans, on the 
 occasion of the visit which he was now about to make to the 
 latter. 
 
 The villa of Mrs. St. Germans, though not in itself remark- 
 able, presented to his eyes as he entered it one interesting 
 feature. This was a number of water-colour drawings on the 
 walls, which seemed to him, as he passed them, to possess 
 signal merit. In the drawing-room was Lady Madeleine, wait- 
 ing to introduce him to her hostess, by whose manner and 
 appearance he was instantly prepossessed and captivated. Mrs. 
 St. Germans, whose father had been British Ambassador in 
 Paris, had lived much abroad a fact of which her personality 
 gave some evidence. Her wrinkled face still had a delicate 
 pink in it ; her white, closely curled hair had the effect of 
 powder ; her dress conveyed an impression of brocade and 
 black lace drapery, and she talked with a slight, but a very 
 slight, foreign accent. 
 
 She was greatly interested in what Lacy had to tell her about 
 the Chateau des Fleurs, whilst the news that he had himself 
 taken it for the rest of the season, excited Lady Madeleine no 
 less than her. ' Monsieur de Villebois,' said Mrs. St. Germans, 
 ' has of late been seldom there, though he has had a fancy, I 
 believe, for keeping the house and garden just as they were on 
 the day when his wife died. He and I had a little family 
 quarrel ; and I have not been very anxious to seek him in his ' 
 
i 3 2 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 own domains. With my grand-daughter, however, the Chateau 
 des Fleurs is a dream. She fancies it is some impossible 
 romance come true.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, ' when I am there, I hope you will let me 
 show it to you, and to your grand-daughter also, if she is 
 here.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes,' said Mrs. St. Germans laughing, ' she's here.' 
 And then the conversation turned off to a topic the interest of 
 which seemed to be growing general. This was the spread of 
 typhoid fever at Cannes, and the news, which, despite the 
 Poodle's secrecy, had apparently begun to diffuse itself, that a 
 number of empty villas near St. Laurent had been taken by an 
 English speculator, and that several had been re-let already. 
 
 ' By the way, Madeleine,' said Mrs. St. Germans presently, 
 ' what has become of Estelle ? I daresay she would like to 
 show Mr. Lacy the garden. The child believes she manages 
 it. She is passionately fond of flowers.' 
 
 ' And so,' thought Lacy, ' there is a child here who grubs in 
 flower-beds, with broken nails and a hot freckled complexion.' 
 T\\Q jeune jfille had never been a very interesting character to 
 him, and he would far sooner have remained with his present 
 companions than waste his admirations on rose-bushes, and his 
 good-nature on a young lady in her teens. He could not, how- 
 ever, help himself; for Lady Madeleine had risen from her 
 seat, and, standing in the window, was calling to somebody 
 she had seen outside. In another moment her voice had the 
 desired effect. Pushing the lace curtains apart with a gesture 
 of mimic petulance, there entered from the sunshine a figure 
 clothed all in white, with a skin like a pale begonia, and eyes 
 like a purple heartsease. For a moment, with a slight undula- 
 tion, her figure poised itself in the window. Then she 
 advanced into the room, as if asking for what reason she had 
 been summoned. 
 
 ' Here is some one, dear,' said her grandmother, ' who is 
 anxious to see your garden. It is Mr. Lacy ; and you will be 
 interested to hear what he has done. What do you think ? 
 He has taken the Chateau des Fleurs. Show him your own 
 flowers, and get him to tell you about his.' 
 
 The girl fixed on Lacy a long, wondering glance. He rose 
 and bowed to her, and she said quietly, ' Will you come, then ? ' 
 He followed her out of doors. She was wholly devoid of shy- 
 ness, because, as Lacy judged, she was a stranger to all self- 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 133 
 
 consciousness. He was beginning to deliver himself of such 
 civil phrases of admiration as he thought she would consider 
 the due of her beds and blossoms, but she presently checked 
 him by asking, ' Are you the Mr. Lacy who fought in Egypt, 
 and was present at the signing of the . . . Treaty ? And have 
 you not also been in the House of Commons ? ' 
 
 Lacy laughed, and admitted that he was the distinguished 
 person in question. They happened to be standing near an 
 upright pole or stick, evidently placed where it was in order to 
 support a rose-bush. She folded her hands on the top of this, 
 and resting her cheek against them, looked at him with her 
 head a little on one side. Her large hat framed her face in 
 delicate shadows. The hands of the young gardener had the 
 texture of satin. 
 
 He was so lost in a mixture of admiration and amusement, 
 that he did not attempt to speak, but let her look on in silence. 
 Presently she said, as if she had finished her inspection of him, 
 ' And is it true that you have taken the Chateau des Fleurs ? 
 And do you intend to live in it ? ' He answered laughingly 
 both of her questions with a ' Yes.' Her lips sharpened them- 
 selves into a half-mischievous smile, and she said presently, 
 ' Which is it most like ? Is it most like a poem or a pan- 
 tomime ? ' 
 
 ' You,' he heard himself answering her, much to his own sur- 
 prise, ' must come and see it for yourself, and, if it is not a 
 poem, you will make it one.' Then repenting of having paid 
 such a compliment to a sensitive girl, he turned the conversa- 
 tion by pointing to a bush of roses, and asking her what her 
 share in the management of the garden was. Her answer 
 showed that she had some real knowledge of the matter. 
 4 But,' she continued, ' I like other things better than garden- 
 ing ; I like painting.' 
 
 Lacy asked her what she painted. ' If you will look,' she 
 said, ' I can show you my attempts indoors. They are all on 
 the walls.' 
 
 1 What ! ' exclaimed Lacy, ' are those beautiful drawings 
 yours ? ' 
 
 At the question she blushed with pleasure. ' Oh,' she said, 
 ' I wish they really were what you call them. Such as they 
 are, the best are in my own sitting-room. It is over there. 
 We can get in by the window.' 
 
 He followed her, and with an air of humility rather than 
 
134 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 diffidence, she showed him a collection of landscapes, garden- 
 scenes, sea-pieces, and various other studies of nature. He 
 was astonished at the perfection of her technique, and the pene- 
 trating accuracy of her detail. But what struck him still more 
 was her singular and almost startling originality ; for in spite of 
 the accuracy of their detail, her pictures gave the impression 
 that she had been painting her own mind, rather than the 
 scenes which she appeared to paint that the mornings 
 were her own gladness, the twilights her own melancholy. 
 Lacy expressed by the tone of his voice more clearly than 
 by his words, his appreciation of her work and his sympathy 
 with it. 
 
 ' I often feel,' she said, ' that I could pour out my whole life 
 in painting in painting even one bough of an almond tree 
 with its pink blossoms against the sky five or six pink blossoms, 
 as if they and the sky were everything. I go about in the 
 woods sometimes, thinking of nothing else but painting. And 
 yet, if one could paint no matter how well, it would only be, I 
 suppose, a little bit of oneself one could put into it.' 
 
 ' If you want certain flowers,' said Lacy, ' to be of the largest 
 size possible, you cut off many in the bud, and prevent them 
 from blossoming at all. So I've been told ; and our talents, I'm 
 afraid, are like these flowers.' 
 
 ' You,' she replied, looking at him, ' have not acted on that 
 principle. You have seen so much, and you have done so 
 many things, and you are certain to do so many more. Look 
 at this ; it is something I want to show you. Here is my book 
 of photographs of people who have done a great deal. You see 
 the binding is covered with flowers, because it refreshes me to 
 look into it.' 
 
 She put the book in his hands, and seating herself close by 
 on the arm of a heavy chair, watched him turn the pages, over- 
 looking him as if she were a schoolmistress. The brim of her 
 hat for a moment just touched his hair. Her photographs, no 
 doubt, were of people who had done great things statesmen, 
 soldiers, thinkers, poets, and artists. ' I have often tried,' she 
 said to him, ' to get a photograph of you. But I couldn't. If 
 you have one, will you give it me, unless you would dislike your 
 company ? ' 
 
 ' You propose,' said Lacy, ' to do my photograph too high an 
 honour. But if I have a copy, it shall be yours. Listen, here 
 is a bargain. I will give it you when you come to see the 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 135 
 
 Chateau des Fleurs. And now,' he went on, with the kindli- 
 ness of an elder brother, c I must go back now and say good- 
 bye to your grandmother. By-and-by we will talk of these 
 things again.' 
 
 'Thank you,' she said, 'thank you very much for promising 
 me your photograph, and for not thinking that my sketches 
 hare absolutely nothing in them. They have me in them, 
 that's all.' 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LACY found himself accepted as a tenant by M. de Villebois 
 without delay, and at once sent to England for such servants as 
 he required, and, together with these, for a large number of 
 books. He could not, however, before some days had elapsed, 
 move to his new abode without inconvenience to himself. He 
 accordingly meanwhile remained in his present quarters, dining 
 once or twice at the villa of Mrs. St. Germans, with whom he 
 cemented a friendship that promised to ripen into intimacy. 
 
 He had duly despatched to Cannes the five thousand francs 
 which the Poodle had begged should be lent him for three days 
 only, but those three days went by, and he heard nothing from 
 the Poodle about repayment. His affectionate debtor was, 
 however, kept in his remembrance by other means than by a 
 failure to fulfil his solemn engagements. The London papers, 
 which reached Lacy at his hotel regularly, began now to contain 
 paragraphs which not only announced that at Cannes the out- 
 break of typhoid fever was growing more and more alarming, 
 but also gave glowing accounts of the charms and extreme salu- 
 brity of St. Estephe and the coast adjoining it, mentioning at 
 the same time that in this delightful neighbourhood there were 
 furnished villas as beautiful as any to be found on the Riviera, 
 and congratulating England on the fact that this neighbourhood, 
 hitherto so neglected, had been chosen for his winter sojourn 
 by the invalided Prime Minister. Lacy, in these and other 
 similar passages, detected the hand of his enterprising friend 
 the Poodle, and could not but admire the dexterity with 
 which Mr. Sam Davis and he were turning the press into an 
 unpaid-for advertisement for themselves. 
 
 Thus a week went by ; the day of his migration came, and 
 leaving his valet in the morning to superintend the transporta- 
 tion of his luggage, he went himself into Cannes to see about 
 jobbing some horses. This matter having been arranged, he 
 was beguiling his spare time, before his return to the station, by 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 137 
 
 sauntering along the principal street. In spite of the alarm of 
 fever the place was gay and full, and he had not gone far before 
 he met several acquaintances. He was talking to one of them, 
 a man, at the corner of a side street, when a sound came sweep 
 ing towards them of hoofs and jangling bells ; and a phaeton 
 went glancing by, with a pair of high-stepping horses. This 
 phaeton was driven by a lady, whose striking aspect showed that 
 a variety of men must have entertained the opinion that she was 
 beautiful, and that they had all been prepared to back this 
 opinion with their money. She was not alone. There was 
 seated by her side a man, whose face was radiant with anima- 
 tion and a composite kind of happiness due to a sense of being 
 near her, and pride in being seen to be so. The quiet perfec- 
 tion of his dress made him worthy of the position which he 
 occupied. He looked as if his maintenance cost almost as 
 much as hers. 
 
 ' Did you see that young ass ? ' said Lacy's friend contemp- 
 tuously. ' Where does the money come from ? That's what 
 beats me.' 
 
 'Who is it,' asked Lacy, 'that you are talking of?' 
 
 ' The man,' said his friend, ' who just went by this moment 
 that young Brancepeth, whom his friends, I think, call the 
 Poodle.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me that he's throwing away money on 
 these women ? ' exclaimed Lacy, turning to look at the fast 
 disappearing carriage. 
 
 ' There can be no doubt,' said his friend, ' about the fact of 
 his throwing it away. The only w r onder is that he has any to 
 throw. Of course that woman, as you know, is supported by 
 the Prince de . . . . He, however, happens to be in Algeria, 
 and this young fellow is keeping the house warm for him. But 
 even such temporary happiness is not to be had for nothing. 
 It was only last night that he was giving her a dinner at Nice, 
 her and a dozen others, that must have cost him a thousand 
 francs.' 
 
 When Lacy shortly afterwards was once more in the train, 
 his thoughts of the Chateau des Fleurs, for which he was now 
 bound, were not unnaturally chequered by thoughts of Mr. 
 Poodle Brancepeth. The coldest philosophy and the warmest 
 charity combined could hardly prevent these last from having a 
 somewhat angry character ; nor, indeed, when he reached the 
 Chateau were matters very much mended. Lacy was a man 
 
138 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 who always, even against his judgment, was prone to make 
 excuses for any one who had done him wrong. His conduct in 
 this respect was a result of the forlorn creed which had robbed 
 life of all that he once thought best in it. It was the charity 
 of fatalism the charity which rests on a sense that whatever 
 the badness or baseness of a man's behaviour, he could not 
 have behaved better than he did, or indeed have behaved 
 differently. Just, however, as his charity of this cynical kind 
 was allied with and reinforced by a natural kindness of heart, 
 so on occasions was it illogically broken through by an equally 
 natural outburst of ordinary human indignation. It was so on 
 this present occasion when he reached the Chateau, and it was 
 so for the following cause. After his departure from St. 
 Laurent that morning a letter had come for him at the hotel ; 
 his servant brought it on to the Chateau, and it was there to 
 greet him on his arrival. He recognised on the envelope the 
 well-known caligraphy of the Poodle, and at once, before open- 
 ing it, jumped to a conclusion as to its contents. ' The 
 Poodle,' he said to himself, ' has had his remittances from Mr. 
 Davis, and is not only with very fair punctuality paying his 
 debts to me, but is celebrating his prosperity by sharing it with 
 that delightful lady.' 
 
 In this charitable mood he broke open the envelope, and he 
 found that its contents consisted of these few, but pathetic, 
 words : 
 
 ' Dearest old boy, The whole ten thousand will be sent me 
 by Davis from London this day week. Do be a brick once 
 more, and let me have the other five thousand till then. 
 Everything goes through my fingers in deposits to these agents, 
 and I have a most awful struggle to make both ends meet each 
 day. Please wire reply. Your grateful, affectionate, but 
 dreadfully anxious Poodle.' 
 
 As Lacy read this, the fashion of his countenance changed. 
 He rang the bell, and enquired at what time the post went. 
 He ascertained from a servant who had been left by the Comte 
 de Villebois that a letter, if sent in to St. Antoine before eight 
 o'clock, would be delivered at Cannes the first thing the 
 following morning. He at once sat down at a writing-table 
 and answered the Poodle thus : 
 
 1 Dear Poodle, It is a pity, since time is so precious, that 
 you did not see me this afternoon at Cannes. If the friend, 
 with whom you were driving, would have stopped her horses 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 139 
 
 for a moment, you might have made your request verbally, and 
 have had my answer on the spot. It would have been easy 
 then to have made both ends of the situation meet.' 
 
 When he had got thus far, however, his philosophy or his 
 natural kindliness began playing their old tricks with him ; 
 and, though they did not dissipate his anger, they very con- 
 siderably modified it. He tore up what he had written, and 
 after a few moments' reflection, contented himself with sending 
 the following few words instead of it : 'I fear it is quite 
 impossible for me to send you the sum you asked for. I am 
 sorry you did not see me when you drove past me to-day at 
 Cannes, as, in that case, I could have told you so then, and saved 
 you some hours of anxiety.' 
 
 Having despatched this he felt his mind grow easier, and 
 resolutely putting all thoughts of the Poodle away from him, 
 he abandoned himself to the pleasure of finding himself in his 
 new abode, of tasting a good dinner after weeks of hotel 
 cookery, of arranging some of his books, of looking out at the 
 moonlight, and of thinking of the impression which at some 
 not distant time the Chateau des Fleurs would make on his 
 new friends at St. Laurent. 
 
 His bedroom windows next morning were wide open, he was 
 dressed, had breakfasted, and had been out of doors for two 
 hours, when the sunshine was still unable to make its way into 
 another bedroom at Cannes, except through the closed persiennes. 
 The twilight of this apartment was pervaded by a subtle and 
 composite odour, suggestive of hair-wash, Ess bouquet and 
 cigarette smoke. The carpet, though not very clean, had a 
 thick and luxurious pile. On a dressing-table were ivory 
 brushes, and bottles with silver tops ; and a bed, whose 
 mosquito curtains depended from a gilded cornice, was covered 
 with the silken sheen of a sky-blue eider down quilt. Beyond 
 the sky-blue quilt rose mountains of white pillow, and in the 
 middle of this whiteness was a certain curly head, whose soft 
 eyes were surveying the prospect with a grave semi-somnolent 
 satisfaction. Close to his bolster, on a little marble table, were 
 several French novels, an elegant gold watch, and a tumbler 
 from which overnight the owner of the head must have quaffed 
 some refreshing beverage, but which now was grey with the 
 ashes of several recently consumed cigarettes. 
 
 ' By Jove,' said the Poodle to himself, as his gaze wandered 
 round the room, ' in what luxury we smart young fellows live 
 
i 4 o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 now.' And as if to give force to his reflection he stroked the 
 silken surface of his quilt. Facing him was an overcoat thrown 
 over the back of a chair in such a way as to expose the whole 
 of its rich fur lining, and on this lay a gold cigarette case, 
 .adorned with a large monogram, whilst not very far away was a 
 red Russia-leather dressing bag. The Poodle dwelt lovingly on 
 the combined effect of these objects. He had carefully arranged 
 them himself in their present positions in order that his waking 
 eyes might feast on them as he lay in bed. ' Upon my word,' he 
 murmured, ' I look just like a Rothschild en voyage] and all 
 the room became, as it were, a mirror to him, in which he saw 
 sumptuous reflections of his own imaginary self. He had, how- 
 ever, in his own mind causes for self-respect even deeper than 
 fur coats and dressing bags, and one of the best bedrooms that 
 money could procure him in the Hotel Splendide ; for on the 
 same floor, and not very far removed from him, were the quarters 
 of a lady who was renowned for her high-stepping horses, and 
 to whom, during the absence of her professional protector 
 in Algeria, the enterprising Poodle had, about a week ago, 
 successfully introduced himself by the vivacious lingua franca. 
 of his eyes. The acquaintance which was thus begun in the 
 lift, in the passages and in the restaurant, had ripened with 
 surprising rapidity ; and the Poodle would by this time have 
 been completely happy in the sense that she had left him nothing 
 new to hope for if he had not been incommoded by certain 
 unavoidable fears that he might l>e unable to secure a con- 
 tinuance of what he enjoyed at present, for already he found 
 his finances in such a state that he could entertain her at 
 dinner in his own hotel only, where he still could do so on 
 credit ; and he was daily anticipating that even his credit 
 would fail him with the florists who had been daily sending her 
 fifty francs' worth of their choicest bouquets and boutonnieres, 
 partly to thank her for her favours to him, and partly also to 
 .advertise them. 
 
 The Poodle, who on waking had, for a time, forgotten these 
 difficulties, was at last beginning to reflect upon them, and to 
 wonder with some irritation at the inconsiderateness shown by 
 Lacy in not having answered his latest appeal by telegram, 
 when a knock was heard at the door, and the valet de chambre 
 of the hotel, in a soiled red jacket, entered bringing in his 
 coffee. Between the cup and the coffee-pot two letters were 
 lying. One was directed in a thin feminine hand, the colour 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 141 
 
 was saffron, and it smelt strongly of heliotrope. On this he 
 implanted a kiss ; he tossed it into the air and caught it ; he 
 then seized the other, glanced at it, and tore it open. 
 
 As he read it, his face grew rigid. He raised himself on his 
 pillow, and re-read it with a stare. It was the letter which 
 Lacy had written to him the previous evening. ' Alfonse,' he 
 exclaimed, ' for the love of heaven be quiet. Don't make that 
 damned sacr'e clattering with the window shutters. Do be quick 
 and go. Can't you see that my nerves are out of order.' 
 
 The man went. He had hardly closed the door before a 
 voice, which seemed calculated to startle even the very bed- 
 clothes, exclaimed, ' Well, I'm blowed if that doesn't beat cock- 
 fighting.' Then followed a silence, during which on the 
 Poodle's face a gathering thunderstorm of angry and plaintive 
 thoughts seemed slowly to be marshalling its forces. At last 
 he began muttering, 'And after all I've done for him, too.' 
 But he had not repeated this ejaculation more than twice when 
 the door resounded to a sharp, familiar rap, and into the room, 
 without waiting for an answer, there burst a tall, young man 
 with a thin, dissipated face, and an air of rakish fashion in his 
 clothes, his scarf-pin, and his sleeve-links. 
 
 ' Well,' he said briskly, with a very faint American accent, 
 ' well, Mr. Poodle, how goes it ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, old boy,' replied the Poodle, with a voice between a 
 yawn and a groan, ' I'm so awfully hurt and miserable. Take 
 a cigarette and sit down a minute, whilst I just read this.' And 
 the Poodle who, despite his present tribulation of spirit, saw no 
 reason for letting an opportunity slip of showing himself to his 
 friend in the best light possible, took up the scented letter, 
 which he had not yet read, and opened it with a great display 
 of its brilliant demi-mondaine monogram. ' Well,' he said pre- 
 sently with another groaning yawn, feeling himself as he did so 
 to be Lord Chesterfield and Don Juan in one, ' women are an 
 awful bore. Here's my little friend next door wants me to 
 take her to Monte Carlo again to-night.' 
 
 ' And is that,' said his friend, with a voice of agreeable irony, 
 ' is that, may I ask, the reason why you look so spry ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed it's not,' replied the Poodle. ' That's neither here 
 nor there. I'm so awfully hurt I can't tell you. What do 
 you think of this ? Sam Davis by this time owes me thousands 
 of francs as commission ; and what do you think he does ? He 
 keeps all this back as fast as it becomes due, in order to repay 
 
1 42 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 himself a little trifle that I owe him already ; and merely allows 
 me my hotel bills, and a wretched little trifle for travelling. 
 But that's not the worst. It's not that that hurts me so. You 
 know, your name being George Brandon Parker, something of 
 a gentleman called Tristram Brandon Lacy, though I daresay 
 you've never seen him. He's your financial brother, in fact ; 
 for he's inherited your father's money. Well, in old days he 
 and I were the greatest pals in the world in the days when he 
 was much poorer than I am ; and in those days, George B., I 
 was awfully good to him. I lent him money; I got him invita- 
 tions in London ; I can't tell you how much I did for him. 
 And now, what do you think? I asked him, with all his 
 millions and it's the first time I ever asked him for such a 
 thing to lend me for a week or two a petty two hundred 
 pounds ; and he writes me a damned letter to refuse me, as if 
 I were some common swindler.' 
 
 Mr. Parker looked at the Poodle, with an expression of pene- 
 trating cameraderie. ' I reckon,' he said, ' you've many friends 
 who have given you a different answer.' 
 
 The Poodle was saved the trouble of noticing this subtle 
 inuendo by the advent of a new idea, which made him sit up 
 in bed. ' I say,' he exclaimed, ' and I'll tell you what he's done 
 besides. I told him of a house, a place called the Chateau dcs 
 Fleurs one of the best of all the villas we've been after I told 
 him in strict confidence ; and now I'm jiggered if he hasn't 
 gone and taken the place himself, and done me out of two 
 hundred pounds commission. Look here, old boy, put your 
 hand on the bell. Have a pint of champagne. It all goes 
 down in the bill. Sam's bound by his agreement to pay for all 
 my necessaries, and when everything's said and done, what's 
 more necessary than a friend ? ' 
 
 The Poodle was so pleased with this sally that his spirits 
 began to revive a little, and by the time that Mr. Parker was 
 quaffing a beaker of matutinal Clicquot, and he himself had his 
 nose in another, which he seemed to prefer to his cold and un- 
 tasted coffee, he had already thought out a way from his 
 immediate difficulties. 
 
 ' I say,' he exclaimed, ' are you game for a real bit of enter- 
 prise this evening, this very evening. This little friend of mine 
 Madame Manuelos, vous savez wants me to teach her a 
 system to-night at Monte Carlo. I've never tried it yet ; I've 
 not had enough capital, and, indeed, not enough time ; but if 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 143 
 
 she is willing to risk five thousand francs, you and I could add 
 to it a little something. You could be my t/tiseur, and, of 
 course, if we made anything, you and I should earn a good per 
 centage of the winnings this is an understood thing quite 
 apart from any capital we contributed, which might after all 
 really never be wanted. In fact,' said the Poodle, his prin- 
 ciples suddenly rising, under the rapid illumination of a new 
 and ingenious thought, ' such is my faith in the system, that I 
 don't mind promising a second five thousand myself it will 
 never be wanted and simply going share and share with her, 
 without claiming anything as the owner of the system, or as 
 the player of it. Perhaps, however, George B., you'd rather 
 wait a bit, and see how our luck goes. I'll send a little note 
 in to Madame Manuelos at once. Dear old chap give me, 
 will you, my writing things. There they are between the 
 cigarette-boxes and that case of goodies. Have a goody, do 
 now, to correct the acidity of the champagne.' 
 
 The Poodle's elastic temperament helped him over many 
 troubles ; and the gaiety of this last suggestion showed that he 
 was at length himself again. 
 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WHATEVER were the results of the Poodle's excursion 
 to Monte Carlo, and whatever were his feelings towards 
 the friend, who had, with sweet black ingratitude, refused 
 to supply him with the last small sum he had asked for, he 
 forbore to trouble him with any further letters. He wrapped 
 himself silently in the dignity of his own injuries, and neither 
 repeated his request for a new loan, nor made any allusions 
 to the old ones. 
 
 Lacy for his part reciprocated this forbearance of the 
 Poodle's, by severely putting him out of his thoughts, and 
 devoting himself to his own pursuits. These were, for a day 
 or two longer, of a sufficiently engrossing kind. He had books 
 to arrange, letters from home to answer (for business connected 
 with his property was once more pursuing him), and certain 
 plans to settle with regard to the immediate future. 
 
 A few such days of occupied solitude had elapsed, when his 
 steps, one brilliant afternoon, took him towards St Antoine ; 
 and he found himself wondering whether that singularly un- 
 pretentious watering place was by this time the home of 
 any clients of Mr. Samuel Davis. He was lazily pacing the 
 road by the sea-shore, when the sound of weighty footsteps on 
 the rough shingle roused him ; and looking up he saw a 
 female figure approaching him, whose aspect struck him as not 
 altogether unfamiliar. Gradually as it came nearer and nearer, 
 it assumed the likeness of Mrs Norham. Mrs Norham, though 
 the lines of her drapery were somewhat less mediaeval than they 
 had been when she showed herself on the platform of Startfield 
 Hall, was still like an embodied rebuke to mundane fashion in 
 general, and she looked at Lacy with severe superiority in her eyes. 
 
 ' Mr Brandon, I think,' she said, as he raised his hat and 
 addressed her. 
 
 Lacy smiled as he perceived that she was still unaware of his 
 identity. 'I never expected,' he said, 'to have the pleasure of 
 meeting you here.' 
 
CHAPTER XV. 145 
 
 'Really,' said Mrs. Norham stiffly, 'since the newspapers 
 for the last few days have done little else than busy them- 
 selves with the unimportant fact of my whereabouts, it 's 
 refreshing to find that my presence here is still a surprise to 
 anybody. My meeting you, however, is hardly a surprise to 
 me. I saw you drive by with a lady, not many days ago ; so 
 I knew you were in the neighbourhood, although, I may safely 
 assume that you are not honouring this simple little village 
 with your residence. I 've no doubt you are enjoying a very 
 idle and agreeable time, as I presume you belong to that 
 delightful and useful class which goes by the name of "people 
 of independent means." But my world, Mr. Brandon, is a 
 very different one from yours. I am here on these coasts of 
 idleness for the sake, not of idleness but of work.' 
 
 ' I remember,' said Lacy ; ' you told me of your plans in 
 London. And how are your paying guests? Have you 
 carried out that idea?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mrs. Norham ; ' and we chose this little homely 
 place precisely because it is homely and remote from the 
 fashionable world. One of our main objects in coming here 
 has been to provide a change of scene for some of our worn- 
 out helpers in the cause of social progress. Our house, or 
 our houses for we have three tiny villas are yonder. If our 
 abode is not too humble for you, I could give you a cup of tea.' 
 
 Lacy accepted the offer, and committed himself to Mrs. 
 Norham's guidance. 
 
 ' And your pensionairesj he said, ' what sort of people are 
 they ? ' 
 
 ' You need not be afraid,' replied Mrs. Norham. ' We 
 shall not ask you to meet them. I and the Bousefields 
 occupy a house by ourselves, though all our party have 
 lunch and dinner in common. No you would not think 
 our pensionaires at all elegant people. One is a tailor, who 
 wears long hair. You would not get over that, even if I were 
 to tell you, as I might, that this long-haired tailor has written a 
 volume of poems called Chants of Equality, which is worthy of 
 Walt Whitman. Then there is a farmer's son, who like Elisha 
 has left his oxen, in order to devote himself to a series of 
 New Tracts for the Times, to which he has given the title of 
 The Inferiority of our so-called Superiors. We have earnest 
 women too young women who for most of the year 
 are forced to waste their faculties as post-office clerks or 
 
 K 
 
146 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 accountants, but who are, under our guidance, becoming 
 leaders in the new movement. There are others, too, whom 
 you may have seen on the platform of Startfield Hall. It is 
 amongst these people, Mr. Brandon, not in what you call 
 Society, that you find the real forces which are moving the 
 world onwards : and it is when living amongst them, and 
 influencing them, that I am living my deepest life.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was thus discoursing in low but intense tones, 
 when she and her companion, as they were taking a short 
 cut across the shingle, were suddenly brought to a standstill 
 by a shining and yellowish object, which signalised its 
 presence, as they approached, by an abrupt and alarming 
 movement. This object turned out to be a large umbrella, 
 under the shade of which somebody had been reposing on 
 the warm stones ; and a moment later th^e umbrella was 
 nervously jerked aside, and the somebody reposing beneath 
 it was seen to be Mr. Prouse Bousefield. On recognising 
 Mrs. Norham he scrambled up with alacrity, brushing the 
 sand as he did so from the baggy knees of his trousers. His 
 attention then turned to Lacy, on whom he gazed for a 
 moment, and then, with a half shy cordiality, greeted him 
 as Mr. Brandon. 'Mrs. Norham,' he said, 'told me she 
 thought she had seen you the other day. We should never 
 have expected to find you in so quiet a place as this. I 
 hope it is not ill-health that has brought you here nothing 
 pulmonary.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield presented a highly characteristic appearance. 
 His hat was a soft wideawake, which had lost all permanent 
 shape ; and his black alpaca coat had its pockets so stuffed 
 with letters that it made him appear as though his body were 
 a mass of portentous tumours. 
 
 'I've asked Mr. Brandon,' said Mrs. Norham, 'to have 
 some tea with us. He 's not living here, but in the neighbour- 
 hood.' 
 
 ' Capital,' said Mr. Bousefield ; ' capital ! I '11 turn in and 
 have some too. Mrs. Norham has, I have no doubt, told 
 you, Mr. Brandon, about our little colony here our little 
 nest of social workers. The thought that the climate is 
 doing them a world of good is what reconciles me to the 
 self-indulgence of basking in the sun myself. I can tell you 
 also, so that you may not think too ill of me, that when I 
 seemed to be lying there like a lotus-eater, thinking about the 
 
CHAPTER XV. 147 
 
 sea and so forth, I was correcting the proofs of an article on 
 the " Expansion of Wesleyanism in England." And then 
 there's Tibbits you remember Tibbits, don't you? well, 
 Tibbits and I are very busy together patenting and bringing 
 out a really wonderful invention of his. It will be a very big 
 thing indeed.' 
 
 'I should have thought,' said Lacy, 'that according to the 
 principles which I heard Mr. Tibbits enunciate at Startfield 
 Hall, to patent an invention at all was simply to rob society, 
 which had far more to do with the inventing of it than Mr. 
 Tibbits himself.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield laughed genially. 'Surely,' he said, con- 
 veniently eluding the objection, 'if any kind of possession is 
 justifiable, a man is justified in possessing the work of his 
 own brains.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield was a person who, like many others of his 
 class, sympathised with socialism as a protest, but not as a 
 practical programme. It supplied him with a number of 
 phrases by which he expressed his sympathy with the poor, 
 but not with any measures by which he proposed to benefit 
 them. Indeed, Christian nonconformity excepted, and the 
 virtue of male chastity, there were few things so sacred to him 
 as property other than landed ; and landed property even he 
 regarded as an institution which deserved to be reprobated 
 far more than to be tampered with. 
 
 ' And may I ask,' said Lacy, by way of changing the subject, 
 ' if you have come to any conclusion as to the practicability 
 of the scheme I suggested to you my scheme for enlarging 
 the programme of Startfield Hall?' 
 
 ' No,' said Mrs. Norham, interposing with an air of authority. 
 'Something might be done of the kind you suggest; but I 
 doubt if it would quite satisfy you : and as we hope soon to 
 have considerable resources of our own, we think it would be 
 better, while thanking you for your most generous offer, to 
 decline a gift which, if accepted, we should be probably obliged 
 to use in a way that was contrary either to its donor's wishes, 
 or to our own.' 
 
 'Well,' said Lacy, 'the matter of course must rest with 
 you. And Mrs. Prouse Bousefield, I hope she is quite well. 
 She, if I recollect rightly, was rather of my way of thinking.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said Mr. Bousefield, without very much 
 enthusiasm ; ' thank you. Mrs. Prouse Bousefield is in 
 
148 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 excellent health. I believe I owe my holiday here to her 
 fears that I am not. Mrs. Bousefield,' he continued, 'is 
 having a famous time. She does not, perhaps, take the 
 same active interest in the work and the aspirations of our 
 guests that Mrs. Norham and I do ; but she naturally has 
 charge of the commissariat and capitally well she caters for 
 us. Out in the market she is, at eight o'clock every morning, 
 rubbing her French up, and managing to cheapen primeurs? 
 
 1 I think,' said Mrs. Norham, looking across Lacy at 
 Mr. Bousefield, 'we'll have tea in our sitting-room. If we 
 went into the dining-room we should disturb Mrs. Bousefield 
 at her accounts. Mr. Brandon, in our little organism we are 
 obliged to have separate cells, where the various parts exercise 
 their several functions. Here we are. This is our garden 
 door.' 
 
 A door in a wall admitted them to a plot of sandy grass, 
 traversed by some weedy walks. It was shaded in one corner 
 by a group of starveling pine-trees; and was shared as a 
 pleasure-ground by a block consisting of three dwarf villas, 
 shining with crude plaster, and roofed with the reddest of 
 tiles. Coarse net curtains whitened the lower windows, and 
 out of those above hung bedding in the process of being 
 aired. 
 
 From under the shade of the pine-trees came a sound of 
 excited voices. Lacy looked, and saw some men sprawling 
 in wicker chairs, whilst two young women, one of whom was 
 indulging in a loud and uncovered yawn, were lying at their 
 length in hammocks, their laps littered with papers. 
 
 1 Well, Lizzie and Louise,' said Mr. Bousefield, nodding 
 cheerfully to them; 'both your articles finished, I suppose, 
 by this time? These two,' he said to Lacy, 'are the brightest 
 little bodies imaginable. One is a Christian Socialist; the 
 other, who is writing some papers on the Abolition of 
 Class Distinctions, devotes herself in London to introducing, 
 amongst the female employees of the post-office, a proper 
 independence of manner when dealing with the general 
 public. Look, Mr. Brandon that man's our tailor poet. 
 A capital head of hair eh ? He 's a fine fellow, every inch 
 of him. This is the house,' he continued, 'which we my 
 wife, myself, and Mrs. Norham occupy between us. The 
 rest of the party have the others ; though we breakfast and 
 dine together. Ah,' cried Mr. Bousefield, with a geniality 
 
CHAPTER XV. 149 
 
 which seemed somewhat strained, as a figure in stiff black silk 
 emerged from one of the windows, 'here's Mrs. Bousefield. 
 My dear, we are bringing you an acquaintance. You remem- 
 ber Mr. Brandon, who pleased you so with his scheme of 
 cookery-classes ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield's kindly lips puckered themselves into a 
 shy smile; and she greeted Lacy with what seemed an 
 incipient curtsey. Lacy was startled by a change in the 
 poor lady's aspect. She seemed thinner and sadder than 
 she had done when he first saw her in London ; and her eye- 
 lids had a piteous look, as though tears were not far off from 
 them. 
 
 ' I 'm delighted to see you,' he said, shaking her by the 
 hand warmly. ' This air is better isn't it than that even of 
 Startfield Hall ? ' 
 
 'It's just a lovely climate,' she answered; 'I can at all 
 events say that for it. I can't say so much for the way in 
 which the French build their houses ; and as for their French 
 cooks, and especially their French stoves ' 
 
 ' I,' interposed Mrs. Norham, with a certain annoyance in 
 her voice as she saw how readily Lacy allowed Mrs. Bouse- 
 field to engross him, ' will order tea, and you will come to us, 
 perhaps, when it is ready. 1 
 
 He acquiesced with a promptitude which annoyed her all 
 the more. 
 
 ' I see,' he said, turning to Mrs. Bousefield, and slightly 
 dropping his voice, 'that your cook and your stove have a 
 large party to provide for.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Mrs. Bousefield, ' they 're a queer lot ; though I '11 
 not say but that many of them will be meaning well ; and Mr. 
 Prouse Bousefield sees only what is best in everybody in 
 Mrs. Norham and in all. But they're difficult to content. 
 I 've often noticed, when I Ve been staying at a hydropathic or 
 elsewhere, that no people in the world are so difficult to please 
 at table as those who don't know good food when they see it.' 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield was rendered so voluble by the presence of 
 a sympathetic listener, that Lacy might have experienced some 
 difficulty in leaving her, if she had not happened to look up 
 at the bedroom windows, and seen the barefaced expose of 
 blankets, quilts, and mattresses. Mrs. Bousefield belonged to 
 that admirable section of society which regards even the 
 mention of a bed as something which trenches onjndecency ; 
 
150 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 and the foreign custom of exposing a bed's actual furniture 
 brought all the blood of her father, who was a Free Kirk 
 minister, to her cheeks. 
 
 'Mr. Brandon,' she said hurriedly, 'I must beg you to have 
 the goodness to excuse me. Mrs. Norham does not mind it. 
 I don't understand her feelings. It 's something these French 
 servants have done. I must go and speak to them again. 
 You will find Mrs. Norham, and, I suppose, Mr. Bousefield 
 too, in there.' 
 
 Liberated thus, though he could not conceive why, Lacy 
 entered the sitting-room, in which Mrs. Norham was await- 
 ing him an apartment with a red-tiled floor and a distorting 
 looking-glass over the chimney-piece. Mrs. Norham was 
 already seated with a tray of tea-things before her; and Mr. 
 Bousefield, on the opposite side of it, was scratching his head 
 with a pencil, and contemplating a sketch of a bicycle fitted 
 with the new invention the ' Tibbits Auxiliary Auto-Electric 
 Motor.' 
 
 ' When we parted last in London,' said Mrs. Norham to her 
 guest as he entered, ' we left unfinished a very interesting dis- 
 cussion. I hope there is your tea ; will you give yourself 
 milk and sugar I hope, if you should be walking or driving 
 this way again, that you will allow me the opportunity of 
 resuming it, and of showing you, now I am surrounded by 
 this little altruistic colony, the reason of the faith that is in us, 
 the soldiers of social progress.' 
 
 Lacy was not at the moment particularly anxious to betray 
 the fact that he was living within a couple of miles of this 
 centre of spiritual influence : so he contented himself with saying 
 that as he was a great walker, he hoped soon to be again at 
 St. Antoine, and to avail himself of Mrs. Norham's suggestion. 
 Mrs. Norham was gratified by this answer, but she was far 
 from completely satisfied. She was like an intellectual war- 
 horse, longing for instant battle; and she felt that Lacy ought 
 not to quit her roof without one or two arrows of her wisdom 
 sticking in him, by which to remember her. 
 
 'Of course,' she said presently, speaking with a kind of 
 gasp, and brushing some crumbs from her lips with the back 
 of a reddish hand, 'of course' and Mr. Bousefield looked 
 up at her with solemn admiration ' altruism, which we some- 
 times speak of as new, is, like Darwinism, new only as a 
 doctrine : it is not new as a fact. That all our deepest 
 
CHAPTER XV. 151 
 
 pleasures do as an actual fact arise from giving pleasure to 
 others, and from a passionate consideration of their happiness, 
 is one of the great discoveries of positive moral science ; and 
 we can no more get rid of this fact by saying that it is not 
 reasonable than we can rid ourselves, by the same argument, 
 of our belief in the external world.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield here made an indrawn sound of apprecia- 
 tion, something like that which a man makes who has 
 suddenly cut his finger. 
 
 'What I,' Mrs. Norham continued, 'should wish to urge 
 upon you is, that old facts become dynamically new ones, 
 by our arriving at a conscious recognition of them : and the 
 altruism of to-day, springing from such a recognition, is 
 becoming virtually a new force in the world. One of these 
 days, Mr. Brandon, I shall be able to tell you, as an 
 example, the effect which it has had on my poor humble 
 self how it has enlarged my personal consciousness till it 
 includes the loves of others, and makes their joys and sorrows, 
 in the truest sense, my own.' 
 
 Lacy was by this time on the watch for an opportunity of 
 making a civil escape ; and replying, as seriously as he could, 
 to Mrs. Norham's account of herself, that she must, on her 
 own showing, be a very happy person, he made a forward 
 movement in his chair, indicative of a wish to rise. But Mrs. 
 Norham still held him a prisoner. 
 
 ' Ah !' she exclaimed, with a nervous contraction of her brows ; 
 ' but it is not all happiness, in the common acceptation of the 
 word. Thomas Carlyle would perhaps have called it blessedness : 
 but it brings with it its pain its aching pain at least to some 
 of us. For instance, half my own pleasure in looking at these 
 seas and skies is made bitterness for me by the thought of the 
 soiled, the blinded, the depraved, who are shut out from the 
 vision of them from the purifying influence of their beauty.' 
 
 ' If you will come with me,' said Lacy, ' during the week of 
 the Carnival, to Monte Carlo, I will show you train-loads of 
 the most depraved people in Europe, all of whom are free to 
 enjoy as much of the vision as they desire. The perception 
 that it does them no appreciable good might lessen your 
 anxiety for those who have not a similar privilege.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham's face gave signs of such anger at this flip- 
 pancy as to suggest that there were some kinds of pain not 
 felt by her to be parts of blessedness ; and Lacy's visit might 
 
152 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 have ended with some awkwardness if a deus ex machina had 
 not at this crisis pushed himself in from the garden, in the 
 shape of a dirty-looking man, whose eyes flamed with 
 eagerness. 
 
 ' You '11 excuse me, Mrs. Norham,' he said, with an awkward 
 bow to her; 'but I must it's of urgent importance say 
 something to Mr. Bousefield. It's all right. The whole 
 thing 's going like a house on fire. You 've made it all straight, 
 I suppose, about them Founders' Shares ? ' 
 
 'Forgive me, Mr. Brandon,' said Mr. Bousefield, rising, 
 ' I must bid you good-bye. Mrs. Norham, I hope, will induce 
 you to call again on us. All right, Tibbits I '11 be with you 
 in one instant.' 
 
 Lacy himself had risen from his seat also, and was hoping to 
 make his adieus to Mrs. Norham and Mr. Bousefield simultane- 
 ously. Mrs. Norham, however, detained him. ' I should like,' 
 she said, ' to have one word more with you. Mr. Brandon, the 
 right way to understand what I have just been saying to you, 
 is not to receive it with flippant and smart retorts. They are 
 like a schoolboy's squibs, which prevent his seeing anything 
 but themselves. No ; the way to understand what I have been 
 saying to you is to live amongst earnest people not the idle, 
 the empty, the fashionable, who are really the true vulgar, 
 with their veneer of spurious culture ; but that great strenuous 
 class by which the work of the world is done. Mark these 
 two men, for instance, who have just left this room. There is 
 hardly an idea of mine to which they do not respond ; and in 
 them you have two practical, hard-headed citizens. They may 
 perhaps be a lesson to you. As for Mr. Bousefield critic, 
 scholar, thinker his talents speak for themselves ; whilst as for 
 Mr. Tibbits I daresay you don't know this, he is one of the 
 most remarkable inventive geniuses of the day. I may venture 
 to tell you, in fact,' said Mrs. Norham, speaking very gravely, 
 'though the invention is not made public yet, that he has 
 gone far, in this new machine of his, to solve the problem of 
 perpetual motion.' 
 
 ' No doubt,' said Lacy, ' you see deeper into the forces of 
 life than I do ; but you, with your natural fastidiousness as a 
 well-born and cultivated woman, must admit that Mr. Tibbits 
 externally is not an impressive personality.' 
 
 This was a very inadequate reply to Mrs. Norham's over- 
 whelming announcement ; nevertheless at the insidious com- 
 
CHAPTER XV. 153 
 
 pliment her prophetic lips relented. A moment later, when 
 Lacy rose to go, she held his hand with an almost sympathetic 
 pressure ; and the door had hardly closed on him before she 
 began to reproach herself with not having extracted from him 
 his address, so that she might secure his return to her 
 ministrations. 
 
 As for him, though Mrs. Norham would hardly have been 
 so satisfied had she known the effect which in reality she 
 produced upon him, the feverish energy of her life, and her 
 solemn belief in herself, had a sort of exasperating interest for 
 him which stimulated his own faculties. She set him thinking 
 afresh over the baffling problems of existence by means of the 
 contempt she excited in him for her own solutions. But as 
 he sat down to dinner that night a letter was placed before 
 him, which completely put Mrs. Norham's, and indeed all 
 philosophy, out of his head. It was a letter in a woman's 
 handwriting writing that was graceful, but un-English in its 
 aspect, and also a little tremulous. The first few words of it 
 told him all he wanted to know. " ' We have talked it over, 
 and we will all three of us come ; but we will not be a burden 
 on you beyond the end of the following week.' 
 
 The air was so warm that the windows had been left open ; 
 and straying scents and a soft splash of fountains stole in 
 through the lace curtains, inviting him to go outside. When 
 his meal was over he yielded to these vague blandishments. 
 He stood on one of the balconies, submitting himself to the 
 influences of the night. The air just made the leaves of the 
 banksia roses whisper ; the gardens below were like a censer, 
 from which rose a faint incense. He rang for his hat and coat, 
 and made his way to the walk which ran along the neighbour- 
 ing cliff-side, and was now a favourite resort with him. His mind 
 was possessed by a singularly pleasing tumult, and the dark- 
 ness, just lit by a slowly rising moon, was in keeping with it. A 
 gust of returning youth went whispering and tingling through 
 his nerves. The sea sang to him as it had done at his private 
 tutor's at Brighton where Juliets leaned from balconies on the 
 King's Road, and every other pretty woman in the street had 
 the beacon of Hero in her eyes. 
 
 At the far end of this walk was a thick wall of arbutus, 
 which, so he had thought hitherto, formed the boundary of 
 his domain. To-night, however, the rising moonlight hap- 
 pened to strike with its glitter a narrow foot-path, of the kind 
 
154 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 used by coast-guards, which led into the rough woodland, and 
 disappeared round a promontory. The spirit of adventure 
 was awake in him, and he resolved to see whither it would 
 lead him. He followed it for half a mile ; then he left the 
 coast, climbing across a ridge of pine woods, and he was on 
 the point of turning back, when he found himself at the 
 summit of the slope, and was looking down on a sight which 
 made him fancy at first that he was not awake, but dreaming. 
 Below him was a wooded cove, with a beach white in the 
 moonlight, and a number of white houses, from whose windows 
 lights were shining; whilst close to the sea was a building 
 brilliantly illuminated, and from the building presently came 
 the notes of a string band. Nor was this all. On the farther 
 side of the cove the ground rose not in cliffs, but a series of 
 gentle acclivities, and half-way up the ascent he descried a 
 building even more romantic than the Chateau which he him- 
 self inhabited. This was a long villa of the true Palladian 
 pattern, having a temple-like centre, balanced by two colon- 
 naded wings ; and below were several lines of terraces bordered 
 with balustrades, connected with each other by steps, and 
 terminated by white pavilions. Lacy sat down on a rock 
 and stared at the scene before him. 
 
 As soon as his first emotion of surprise had subsided, it 
 occurred to him what this place must be. It must be the 
 little watering-place of St. Hilaire, about which the clergyman 
 had spoken to him, and which the enterprise of Mr. Davis 
 and the Poodle had already been galvanising into life. ' And 
 that villa up there,' Lacy said to himself with a slight laugh, 
 ' can be nothing else than the house that has been taken for 
 my palatial uncle.' 
 
 When he was once more indoors he re-read the letter which 
 had reached him .it dinner, and which had originated his 
 present mood : and the thought of the words, ' We will all 
 three of us come,' was the last thought in his consciousness 
 before going to sleep. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE following day there was a stir in the CMteau des Fleurs 
 of the kind which, in a bachelor establishment, precedes the 
 arrival of visitors. Dainty curtains, in bedrooms which had 
 long been unoccupied, were being unfolded, and hung up ; 
 and there was much mysterious agitation amongst mattresses 
 and bedroom furniture. As for Lacy, as early as he could in 
 the morning, he escaped from his disturbed abode, and 
 retracing his last night's footsteps, went to see if the little 
 watering-place he had lit upon was really what he had guessed 
 it must be. He found that he had guessed correctly ; and 
 St. Hilaire seen by daylight was even prettier, and far more 
 lively-looking than St. Hilaire seen under the moon. It 
 consisted of some thirty villas surrounding a miniature bay, 
 and grouped at low elevations on the horse-shoe of wooded 
 hills. In addition to the villas were some shops, and a neat 
 hotel ; and between the sea and the promenade, by which the 
 bay was bordered, there glittered, with its feet in the waves, a 
 trim little pert casino. 
 
 There were signs in all directions that the place had been long 
 neglected ; but there were signs also that the neglect was being 
 at last repaired. Windows were being cleaned; persiennes 
 were being thrown open ; several of the shops were being 
 rapidly stocked with goods. One or two well-dressed people, 
 including some men with golf-clubs, were straying along the 
 roadway. Two open carriages were waiting patiently for hire ; 
 and at the door of the hotel stood a concierge shining with 
 brass buttons, with whom the manager, in a smart frock coat, 
 was condescending to carry on a conversation. 
 
 Of all these matters Lacy took leisurely notice ; and then his 
 observation fixed itself on the great Palladian structure, which 
 was looking down in the background, over its terraced gardens, 
 upon the scene. The manager of the hotel had noticed him 
 as he twice passed by slowly, and at length, on his third 
 
 155 
 
156 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 appearance, greeted him with a slight bow. It was now about 
 mid-day, and the action determined Lacy. He mounted the 
 hotel steps, and asked if he could have dejeuner. The 
 manager, with obsequious politeness, made the reply of 
 ' Certainly ' ; and whilst the repast was in preparation, Lacy 
 began to talk to him. He had, so he said, spent several years 
 in London ; and he presently exhibited his knowledge of the 
 London world by mentioning Mr. Brancepeth, who had 
 engaged him for his present post, and who seemed to be 
 regarded by him as the glass of English fashion. ' I know 
 Mr. Brancepeth also,' said Lacy, laughing. The manager 
 bowed with a sudden accession of respect, and Lacy proceeded 
 to ask him what he thought about the prospects of the place. 
 
 ' Look there, Monsieur,' he answered, pointing to the back of 
 the hall, which, as Lacy now saw, was blocked with a pile of 
 luggage. 'We have at present,' he proceeded, 'two guests 
 only, but half the rooms have been taken in advance already. 
 Over there are the boxes of the Earl and Countess of 
 Tregothran, of Sir Flotsam and Lady Flotsam, and of other 
 English families. We expect they will come soon after the 
 arrival of Milor Runcorn.' 
 
 ' And so,' exclaimed Lacy, ' that is his villa on the hill 
 there ! Do you know how soon he is expected ? ' 
 
 ' I think,' said the manager, ' about ten days fourteen days 
 from now. I saw M. Martin's r'egisseur the villa is M. 
 Martin's yesterday ; and he said Milor's sister, Miladi 
 Leyton, was going to arrive first, so as to have the house 
 ready for his reception. It is a great advertisement for St. 
 Hilaire his presence here. The place, too, has its own 
 attractions, greater than those of Cannes. There is a river, 
 with fishing ; there are wild boar in the woods. The forest 
 from here stretches for twenty-five kilometres ; and one kilo- 
 metre from here is a ground quite splendid for golf. You see, 
 Monsieur, that large villa opposite ? That has been taken by 
 the great richard Monsieur Helbechstein.' 
 
 The manager's communication was here brought to an end 
 by the announcement that Lacy's dejeuner was served in the 
 salle-ti-manger. Its excellence augured well for the future of 
 St. Hilaire ; and Lacy ate it, half-pleased, and half-annoyed by 
 the thought that the solitude of the Chateau des Fleurs 
 would so soon have society for its neighbour. He had hoped 
 to enjoy the company of his expected guests undisturbed. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 157 
 
 He comforted himself, however, with the thought that St. 
 Hilaire was at present empty ; and he and his guests, for a 
 time at least, would have all the neighbourhood to them- 
 selves. 
 
 One of these guests one of the three persons referred to 
 in his last night's letter had a literary gift, of which Lacy 
 was ignorant; and whilst he was looking forward to the 
 pleasure of entertaining her, she had been confiding to paper 
 her own impressions of him, expressing herself in language 
 more formed than her handwriting. 
 
 ' I have,' she wrote in a beautiful blank volume, bound in 
 vellum and tied with rose-coloured ribbons, ' I have conceived 
 a new idea. Already I have a portrait gallery of men whom 
 I consider great. I am going to supplement my portraits of 
 the faces of some of them by attempting myself some short 
 studies of their characters. I have been prompted to make 
 this experiment by a new and interesting experience, with a 
 description of which I shall begin, as a preface to what I am 
 attempting, and as a specimen of it. 
 
 ' But this preface must have another preface of its own ; 
 and this other preface, as I am a woman, will be, naturally, 
 about myself. I start then with asking myself why men interest 
 me more than women do. And my answer to myself is this : 
 They interest me more than women, because they rise higher 
 into the air of life's possibilities, like birds of stronger flight 
 like eagles that out-soar larks: and new lights, as they mount, 
 seem to shine and glitter on their wings. 
 
 ' But in saying this, I am speaking with a certain essential 
 reservation. I am speaking of great men only. I am not 
 speaking of the common run of my acquaintance the men 
 who are typical of the society in which I have been myself 
 brought up. But of these men too I must speak before I 
 can go farther. I have not as yet seen very much of the 
 world ; but still, at my grandmother's house, and occasionally 
 elsewhere, I have seen something of it in Paris, Rome, and 
 Florence : and these ordinary men of society principally, no 
 doubt, for my grandparents' sake have treated me with 
 much attention. They have been well-born, well-bred men, 
 distinguished, even when not handsome, in appearance. They 
 have had a very varied, if not very deep, knowledge of 
 things, which has seemed instinctive in them ; and they have 
 had an unerring ease and refinement of manner, which is like 
 
158 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 a language when talked by a man with a charming voice, and 
 with a perfect accent, even though what he says may hardly 
 be worth saying. But not one of these men has struck me as 
 being personally very interesting. 
 
 ' In addition, however, to these men, I have known others. 
 I mean great men. I have not only known many I have, of 
 course, done this by reading about them but I have actually 
 met a certain number men who have accomplished great 
 and admirable things. I have met soldiers, statesmen, thinkers, 
 painters, singers ; and when I think of what they are doing or 
 have done, I feel my whole life expanding. But now comes 
 my confession. When, instead of thinking about them, I have 
 seen them, I have been disappointed, indeed almost shocked. 
 Admiring what they have done, I have been disappointed in 
 what they are. In respect of what they are, they compare as 
 unfavourably with ordinary men, as, in respect of what they 
 do, ordinary men compare with them. 
 
 1 In the first place, it has seemed to me that their greatness, 
 which I admire so, narrows them. The statesman knows nothing 
 of poetry ; the painter knows nothing of politics ; the philo- 
 sopher, whose thought is able to scale the heavens, hardly 
 knows how to come into a drawing-room. The singer, who 
 sings like an angel, talks like an Italian-warehouseman ; and 
 if he presumes to be easy, he is far more offensive than if he 
 is dull. And then, in one way or other, these people are all 
 peculiar. I see them, in my photographs of them, with neck- 
 ties that make me shudder. Nothing in the world is so 
 underbred as peculiarity : and I have been tempted at times 
 to feel that of all genius or greatness some element of under- 
 breeding forms a necessary part. 
 
 ' I am almost ashamed to write this profane feeling down. 
 Still I must do so ; for the fact that I have felt it so strongly 
 forms one of the reasons that have prompted me to write 
 down what follows. For a little while ago I had a new ex- 
 perience. I met a man of whom I had often heard a man 
 great in the sense that he has already done great things, and 
 is capable of doing greater so at least it is said : but in meet- 
 ing him I have met with nothing of the disappointment I have 
 just described ; and I am going to begin my studies by 
 recording my impressions of him. 
 
 ' When I ask myself why this man does not disappoint me, 
 the answer that comes first to me is this : his manners are as 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 159 
 
 charming as they could be if he had done nothing. But this 
 answer is not satisfactory, and I must put it in another way. 
 His manners and personality are such as to make me forget 
 what he has done, and to see an equivalent, or far more than 
 an equivalent, to it, in himself. What he has done as a 
 soldier, or what he has done in political life, seems only an 
 accidental result of one small part of his character, and a 
 result of which he is hardly conscious. What he has done is 
 interesting, because it makes me think about what he is what 
 he has thought, and suffered, and hoped for what he feels to 
 be beautiful and true. 
 
 ' 1 can hardly describe the effect which my first conversa- 
 tion with him produced on me. It was an experience which 
 I can compare only to another, utterly and ridiculously unlike 
 it : I mean the excitement which I have known once or twice 
 in ball-rooms. The lights, the diamonds, the uniforms, the 
 shining floor, and the fiddles, have gone to my nerves or 
 head, and have made me mad to dance. And my partners 
 have danced how well ; and they have some of them had 
 charming voices. I have felt as if I were living in an hour or 
 two stolen from the Arabian Nights. But then then then 
 when we have got into the carriage and gone home, the 
 excitement has gone down as quickly as the foam of cham- 
 pagne does in a wine-glass ; and next day my painting has 
 seemed flat and dull, till I have forced myself to begin again 
 at it ; and then the ball has been forgotten. But when Mr. 
 Lacy talked to me, I felt at the same time all the excitement 
 of the ball, and all the excitement of my painting ; and, un- 
 like the foam in the wine-glass, this, instead of disappearing, 
 has perpetuated itself like a new vitality given to my whole 
 mind. 
 
 'The explanation of this is, I think, very simple. Mr. 
 Lacy's conversation affected me personally as it did, because 
 it made me feel that for him too, no less than for me, all the 
 things of my own mental world are realities, not the mere day- 
 dreams of the poor morbid girl. I have never anywhere seen 
 a man with finer manners ; but if I met him at a ball, I should 
 never wish that he should dance with me. His presence 
 would make me feel all dancing childish. I would sooner 
 see him in the garden of this Castle of Flowers which he has 
 taken, where there would be time and quiet for thinking. 
 
 ' Since the first time he called on us, I have never seen him 
 
160 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 alone : but he has dined with us several times ; and once or 
 twice, when he has been talking, he has looked at me for 
 a moment only, as if he were thinking of more than he could 
 say, and as if I could guess what he was thinking of.' 
 
 The writer a day later added the following paragraph to 
 her ' Study ' a ' Study ' which showed a curious tendency 
 to metamorphose itself into a young lady's diary. 
 
 'We are going to stay with him my grandmother, 
 Madeleine, and myself and the Chateau des Fleurs, where 
 that beautiful and unhappy singer lived, who seems, from 
 what Madeleine tells me, to have ended, like a day in summer, 
 in a kind of religious melancholy.' 
 
 In due time the expected trio arrived; and the Chateau 
 des Fleurs, under their influence, was turned into a different 
 place. The fanciful beauty of it, which had endeared it to 
 its tenant when he was solitary, was a fanciful beauty still, 
 but it now became warm and human. The very ornaments 
 in the drawing-room looked brighter, like flowers revived by 
 water; and the dinner-table had a friendly sparkle beyond 
 what the lamps gave it. 
 
 Mrs. St. Germans was a woman who had seen much of the 
 world. Half French, half English, in her youth she had 
 known London. As the daughter of a diplomatist, she had 
 known other capitals even better; and for many years she 
 had had a house of her own in Florence, which had been a 
 meeting-place of society Florentian, Russian, and English. 
 She was placidly and equally appreciative of the humorous, 
 the beautiful, and the good ; and her slightly cynical amuse- 
 ment at certain of the frailties of her friends, did but glitter 
 like threads of silver on a ground of general excellence, 
 and of genuine affection and anxious thought for her grand- 
 daughter. 
 
 As for Lady Madeleine, now she was under his own roof, 
 Lacy began to be struck by what was winning in her kindly 
 frankness, as much as he had been interested by the con- 
 jectured romance attached to her. He had begun, since his 
 renewed acquaintance with her, to remember something of 
 what she had been before her marriage. She had been one of 
 those girls who create surprise in London, because, in spite 
 of their extreme beauty, they never take rank among the 
 beauties they never become what is called the fashion. The 
 reason of this in her case as we should find it to be in many 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 161 
 
 others was simply that her own life, her inner tastes and in- 
 terests, had appealed to her far more strongly than the triumphs 
 and excitements of society; and she had entered the social 
 arena with a listlessness with an indifference to success, 
 which is, unless a girl be a great heiress, certain to secure 
 for her comparative social failure. To win the successes of 
 the moment, the heart must be in the moment : and a girl 
 is hardly likely to hold her own in a ballroom, if, while her 
 eyes are fixed on her partners, her heart is on a Highland 
 hill, or amongst the cypresses in the Boboli gardens. But what 
 diminishes a woman's attractiveness to the world in general, 
 from which she hides her interests, increases her attractiveness 
 to those whom she may happen to select for intimacy. Her 
 mind and her beauty are like a garden which charms those 
 who are familiar to it, all the more because its walks are 
 untrodden by the general public. And to Lacy, Lady 
 Madeleine was an example of this fact. She was a garden 
 enclosed, from whose leaves the dews had not yet been 
 brushed ; and which still was an Eden, though the serpent 
 had once entered it, and though all the air was still sad with 
 his memory. This mixture of sadness and freshness was to 
 him one of her chief charms ; and if it had not been for the 
 fact that she was a woman whose religious belief had never 
 been obscured by the smallest inclination to doubt, he could 
 have felt that he and she were two augurs who might laugh 
 at life together. As it was, she excited in him a disposition 
 of intimate frankness, which, unhampered by any of the 
 anxieties or vanities of the would-be lover, was very much 
 what might have been excited in him by a sympathetic foster- 
 sister. 
 
 The remaining member of the party Miss St. Germans 
 was a striking contrast to her. Just as the nature of the 
 widow, though comparatively still so young, seemed to derive 
 all its light from the past, that of the girl seemed to be 
 glistening in the light of the untried future. Her thoughts 
 were like crystal pools left by the tide at morning, or like 
 buds whose closed petals were just unlocking themselves into 
 flowers. 
 
 The three guests, however, had all one feeling in common. 
 They were delighted with their host ; they were delighted with 
 their present situation ; and when Lacy, on the evening of 
 their arrival, expressed a hope that they would not be dull, 
 
 L 
 
162 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 and suggested that they might possibly in a day or two find 
 some society at St. Hilaire, they declared their unwilling- 
 ness even to visit that gay resort, for fear they might 
 encounter acquaintances by whom their seclusion would be 
 disturbed. 
 
 The conversation then turned to the late Madame de 
 Villebois; nor was this unnatural, as they were surrounded 
 by memorials of her life and taste : and a copy of Consuelo 
 being one of the books in the drawing-room ' Consuelo ' of 
 which Madame de Villebois was said to have been herself 
 the heroine, Lacy, at Mrs. St. Germans' suggestion, read 
 them some of its delightful chapters; nor did he stop till 
 a clock, from its bower of Dresden china roses, chimed the 
 hour of eleven, and the little company separated. 
 
 The following days of the visit were not less successful than 
 the first. Plans were formed for excursions in the wild 
 neighbouring country, where there was little chance of their 
 meeting any clients of Mr. Samuel Davis. The inland dis- 
 trict, lying to the west of the Chateau, was one less known 
 to strangers than any other in the south of France, and at 
 the same time more various in its beauty. They picnicked 
 in woods of chestnut, ash, or ilex, where streams splashed in 
 the bottoms, and mouldering abbeys hid themselves. They 
 came, in the open country, on drowsy, warm hill-villages, 
 capped with feudal castles, and having arcaded streets. They 
 drove through valleys full of secluded sunshine ovens of 
 vegetation, where from the ruddy clods almond-trees were 
 lifting their candelabra of milk-white blossoms ; and where 
 rural groups mothers with blue skirts, and children with 
 poppy : coloured caps made pictures bright as those in a 
 mediaeval missal. They loitered on foot by the banks of 
 willow-fringed streams streams coloured in the sunshine with 
 their own amber gravel, and painted, where the shadows fell 
 on them, with the ultramarine of the sky. They strayed for 
 a leisurely hour through the little town of St. Tropez, where 
 fishermen, against the walls of old Genoese palaces, bask lazy 
 as the swell that floats and flashes in their harbour ; and every 
 day between the palms of the Chateau Garden, between the 
 spikes of its aloes, or the glowing globes of its oranges, the 
 life of the electric mornings, or the golden languor of the 
 afternoons, lay laughing or dreaming on the sea, out to its 
 blue horizon. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 163 
 
 To all of them this existence was delightful; but it was 
 the delight of the youngest of the party which gave to that of 
 the others its peculiar and surprising freshness. The hours, 
 as they shone on her, seemed to produce a rainbow, which 
 threw its transparent colours over each day's experiences for 
 her friends. The garden, when she sat in it sketching v as 
 she often did in the morning, was as much changed by her 
 presence, as a lantern by a lamp inside it. Sometimes she 
 would lie in a deep chair, with her hat tipped over her eyes, 
 making in the green shadow a flower-bed of coloured chiffon, 
 and would learn by heart a poem by one of her favourite 
 writers ; and whenever Lacy came, as he now frequently 
 did, out into the garden to refresh himself during his 
 morning's work of letter-writing, she would for she was 
 sure to see him invite him to inspect her sketch, or discuss 
 what she had just been learning. He was at once re- 
 freshed by the eagerness, and much touched by the trust, 
 with which she looked to him for. his criticism of her draw- 
 ings, or his sympathy with her appreciation of her poets. 
 Once, indeed, she showed him some verses written by her- 
 self, which were graceful in language, and musical and 
 correct in rhythm. There was a good deal of reference in 
 them to some unspecified sorrow; but the thought, to say 
 the least of it, was not particularly clear. Lacy sat down by 
 her, and read the verses over. He praised what he considered 
 their merits, explaining to her what these were; and then 
 patiently inquired of her the meaning which she had intended 
 to express. He suggested several meanings, which her words 
 would perhaps bear ; but these she disclaimed, saying, ' I had 
 never thought of all that. Whenever I write verses, they 
 somehow are always melancholy. It is so : but I don't know 
 the reason. How kind of you to talk to me about this poor 
 nonsense seriously ! ' 
 
 ' My dear,' he said, ' if you are melancholy when you are 
 as old as I am, your difficulty will be not to find a reason 
 for being so, but to say which reason is the strongest.' 
 
 She looked up at him with the anxiety of a child who sees 
 its father suffering ; but there was something of a look in her 
 eyes which was not wholly filial. Then still scanning his 
 face with her young, unabashed scrutiny, she said : ' Hear 
 me a poem of Robert Browning's, which I learnt yesterday 
 morning. I learnt it when I was sitting on the rocks below, 
 
164 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 by the boat-house. Will you take me out on the sea, one 
 day you and me by ourselves, I mean? I longed to be 
 going yesterday, and to have you to talk to me. There is 
 the poem where the mark is. Now, see if I say it properly.' 
 
 The poem was ' The Englishman in Italy J one of the 
 writer's earlier lyrics. The girl repeated it with an accentua- 
 tion correct by instinct ; but in many passages she stumbled, 
 and was dissatisfied with her own performance. ' There 's a 
 lot of it,' she said, when she had finished, ' which I find I 
 can't remember. What I wanted to repeat was really only 
 one bit, where the man describes his feelings on the cliff-path 
 by the sea. Listen just once more. These are the lines 
 I mean : 
 
 Oh heaven and the terrible crystal ! 
 
 No rampart excludes 
 Your life from the life to be lived 
 
 In the blue solitudes 
 Oh these mountains, their infinite movement, 
 
 Still moving with you 
 For ever some new head and breast of theirs 
 Thrusts into view ! 
 
 I was thinking of all that, as I sat by the sea down there. 
 
 No rampart excludes 
 Your life from the life to be lived 
 In the blue solitudes. 
 
 That is how I feel, in the life I am leading here, when I look 
 at the blue solitudes, from your boat-house, or from your 
 garden.' 
 
 'And that is how I feel,' he answered, 'my dear, when I 
 look at you.' 
 
 He was a little startled when he realised the words that 
 had slipped from him all the more so when he saw on 
 the child's cheek a curious agitation of colour, and he at 
 first thought he must be mistaken a something as she turned 
 away from him, which dropped glittering from her eyes. 
 
 At that moment from above came the sharp reverberations 
 of a gong. 
 
 ' There 's luncheon,' he said, in a voice not quite his own. 
 
 Without replying, or looking at him, she sprang up from 
 her seat, and ran off in the direction of the house. His eyes 
 followed the white of her flying dress, held at the waist by a 
 ribbon of red silk ; and her young figure presently, like a feather 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 165 
 
 blown upwards by the wind, was mounting the steps to one 
 of the balconies of the chateau, and disappeared. 
 
 Lacy, for a minute or two, remained sitting where he was 
 motionless, his eyes upon the grass. ' I must never,' he said 
 to himself presently, ' speak to her like that again. Ah, my 
 dear, if I could only come over to you come to you across 
 the Hellespont of the years ! ' 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ONE day, whilst matters were proceeding at the Chateau 
 thus, Mrs. Norham had had occasion to pay a visit to Cannes, 
 for the purpose of securing some treatises on moral and 
 social philosophy. One of these was a volume of the works 
 of Comte a writer from whom Mrs. Norham was trans- 
 lating certain passages for devotional use by persons too wise 
 to believe in a Deity : and as she reached the station at 
 Cannes on her way home, half an hour before her train was 
 due, she sat herself down on a sofa in the first-class waiting 
 room, where, hearing some well-dressed travellers talking about 
 the tables at Monte Carlo, she proceeded to make herself 
 illustrious by burying herself in the pages of the philosopher. 
 
 Mrs. Norham's mind was, however, so many-sided, that she 
 could read philosophy, could make other people see she was 
 reading it, and could attend to other people's conversation at 
 one and the same time; and presently, in her capacity of 
 observer of human nature, she was giving as much of her 
 sarcastic attention to the conversation of two young men, as 
 she was giving of her earnest attention to Comte on the 
 solidarity of mankind. One of the young men was dark, and 
 had a slightly American accent. The other was fair, and 
 spoke excellent and gentlemanly English. Both wore clothes 
 which had not a single crease in them, except such as seemed 
 to have been formed by their first folding. 
 
 ' But my dear George B.,' the fair man was saying to the 
 dark one, ' I tell you, you 're risking nothing. It 's a certainty 
 this is a mathematical certainty. I don't pretend that you 
 go in for any sudden and enormous winning. That 's gam- 
 bling, if you like. With this system you can't count on getting 
 more I mean at each seance than twenty per cent, on your 
 capital. My little friend and I with her two hundred and 
 fifty louis to start with and my two hundred and fifty never 
 had to be called up with two hundred and fifty louis, each 
 
 160 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 167 
 
 of the ten evenings we 've played we 've come off, as regularly 
 as clock-work, with a solid benefice of fifty. Well,' the fair 
 man went on, dropping his voice slightly, ' we 've had for the 
 present to dissolve our little partnership ; for a certain person 
 has just come back from Algeria he 's the most awful fellow 
 you ever saw in your life, with his hair en brosse, and a frock- 
 coat that makes your flesh creep so if you '11 cut in, instead 
 of her, with another two hundred and fifty, we'll pool our 
 winnings, and although the system is mine, you shall have 
 old boy the same profit as I do.' 
 
 ' What 's your game ? ' said the other. ' Do you back the 
 voisins of zero ? Or do you play against a douze dernier, or a 
 douzc milieu ? Or is it one of your old dodges with the trans- 
 ver sales ? ' 
 
 'No No No,' said the fair man, 'this is a scientific 
 martingale. You can work it, if you like, at roulette on the 
 simple chances ; but you do it best at trente et quarante 
 where the coups go quickest. Just look here, George B., you 
 begin to work it like this. You write down the figures in a 
 column. The two terminals are the amount of your first stake. 
 Now here 's a card pricked with the play of last night four 
 reds and a black a series of six reds then an intermittence 
 a refait four blacks and a red. Now, you back either colour, 
 and I '11 work the system out for you.' 
 
 'I'll tell you what,' said the dark man; Til come to the 
 blessed place to-night with you, and act as your misettr, and 
 have a look at the thing. But as to adding another capital to 
 
 yours ' Here his voice sank to a murmur that ended in a 
 
 sarcastic laugh. 
 
 ' Why not get it from him ? ' said the fair man, in a confi- 
 dential mumble. ' You know who I mean. He 'd be sure to 
 give it to you, if you take him the right way. He ought to 
 do so, at all events ; for the money he 's got is, by rights, far 
 more yours than his.' 
 
 'And if I only were my dead half-brother, it would be. 
 There 's a bull for you. But, my dear chap, I don't know 
 him.' 
 
 ' Leave it to me,' said the fair man ; ' I'll manage it for you. 
 He 's living at a place about an hour from here by rail. I 've 
 some business to do next week within a mile of his house. 
 I '11 see our friend. In the days when he was poorer than I 
 am, I Ve done a lot for him ; and I think he owes me some- 
 
i68 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 thing. I '11 make interest with him for you, and get him to 
 fork out handsomely. Of course, George B., if I do this, 
 it 's understood that we join our capitals and go in for the 
 system.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham listened to all this with a feeling of dreamy 
 exasperation, partly caused by her disapproval of gambling, 
 partly by the conviction which the language of the young 
 man forced upon her, that this pursuit, which she disapproved 
 of, not only as a moral teacher, but also so she told herself 
 as a complete woman of the world, was, after all, very im- 
 perfectly understood by her. Her thoughts, however, were 
 diverted into another channel by a rustle of silk and the 
 stately entrance into the waiting-room of a grey-haired lady, 
 followed by a reverential maid. The lady looked about her 
 for a seat, with a smile which had considerable sweetness 
 in it, but which seemed at the same time to express a belief 
 that she had only to wait for one to have one offered to 
 or vacated for her. The maid, who spoke French with an 
 unmistakably English accent, rapidly approached Mrs. Norham, 
 and asked her, with an air of importance, if she would have 
 the kindness to move the books which were on the cushion 
 beside her. Mrs. Norham did so ; and the maid, returning to 
 her mistress, said, ' Here, my lady ; I have got you a seat here.' 
 The lady sat down, and in a voice as sweet as her smile, said 
 to her maid, 'You may give me my work, dear Martin. 
 We 've fifteen minutes to wait, and I can't bear to be idle.' 
 She took, as she spoke, a bag from her maid's hands, and, 
 producing from it a piece of gorgeous embroidery, which 
 seemed like a copy of some portion of an antique ecclesiastical 
 vestment, proceeded to add a petal to a delicate silken rose. 
 
 Mrs. Norham stared at her, actually forgetting, as she did 
 so, the far superior claims of Comte and collective humanity. 
 The lady, however, at first took no more notice of Mrs. Norham 
 than she might have done had Mrs. Norham been some 
 travelling stranger's bonnet-box. Little did she conjecture 
 the piercing and mordant judgments which the lofty thinker 
 at her side was passing upon her secretly. 'A true type of 
 her class,' Mrs. Norham was saying to herself. ' There is 
 something almost comic in her insolent self-sufficiency in her 
 evident belief in her superiority to the whole workaday world, 
 of which she is merely a parasite, and which is absolutely 
 indifferent to her existence the supreme vulgarity of the 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 169 
 
 pose of the whole thing this tawdry trifling with silk and 
 with gold thread. If she only knew what she seems to us of 
 the larger life ! ' 
 
 And Mrs. Norham, as her thoughts reached this point, began 
 putting her books together with a little vindictive emphasis, 
 and fastening round them a strap, to which was attached a 
 label bearing, in printed letters, her own illustrious name. 
 
 In the performance of this task, the sharp point of her elbow 
 happened to come into contact with her objectionable neigh- 
 bour's arm. Her neighbour, however, instead of resenting 
 the attack, seemed to fancy herself the aggressor ; and turning 
 on Mrs. Norham a look full of gracious apology, asked her 
 pardon with a courtesy so extreme, that Mrs. Norham was 
 unable to answer with as much hauteur as she intended. At 
 the same moment, moreover, she became agreeably anxious 
 that the lady's eyes had caught her name on the label, and 
 had rested on it with an expression of surprise, recognition, 
 and interest. ' Ah,' thought Mrs. Norham to herself, ' it is we 
 who are the true aristocracy.' Rising, she made the lady a 
 slight and condescending bow ; and the door being now open, 
 she passed out on to the platform. 
 
 A moment later the train came drifting in. It was much 
 crowded ; and Mrs. Norham's brain, which not all the problems 
 of man's spiritual destiny could bewilder, became painfully 
 agitated by the problem of how she should find a place. She 
 was indeed, if such a word may be applied to her without 
 irreverence, flustered. Whilst in this condition she became 
 aware of a voice addressing her, and saying to her in a tone 
 melodious with considerate kindness, ' In this coupe there is 
 nobody but my maid and me. The train is crammed. Perhaps 
 you will get in with us.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham started, and saw that the person addressing 
 her was none other than the woman whose insolence, insigni- 
 ficance, and vulgarity had just been exciting her contempt. She 
 had, however, no time to think about moral consistency ; and 
 she not only got into the coupe with a feeling of great relief, 
 but was actually surprised into being flattered by this vulgar 
 woman's civility to her. 
 
 'Are you going far?' said the lady, when the train had 
 resumed its course. 
 
 Mrs. Norham, who doubted whether this inoffensive question 
 might not mean in reality, ' How soon shall I be rid of you ? ' 
 
170 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 answered with a certain brusquerie that she was going to get 
 out at St. Estephe. 
 
 'Indeed,' said the lady pleasantly, 'and I get out there 
 also. And now,' she went on, turning on Mrs. Norham her 
 eyes, which still were charming, and which must have once 
 been beautiful, ' I am going to ask you a very impertinent 
 question. I have seen in the paper that the greatest of our lady 
 novelists is spending the winter near here ; and I saw your 
 name on your label. Am I right in thinking that it is the 
 famous Mrs. Norham to whom I am speaking ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Norham had begun by detecting in the softly flowing 
 syllables of the speaker a note of patronage against which all 
 her nerves protested. The speech, however, thus addressed 
 to her was but half concluded before what she had taken for 
 patronage seemed transformed into the most fitting reverence. 
 Mrs. Norham felt suddenly re-elevated to her own proper posi- 
 tion, and enjoyed a satisfaction with herself fuller and more 
 exquisite than any which she remembered to have ever experi- 
 enced previously. 
 
 ' I suppose,' she said to her companion, blushing with an 
 angelic modesty, ' that I am the person of whom you speak so 
 kindly.' 
 
 'Oh,' said the other, 'I have read you with so much 
 interest. We were talking your characters over at a country 
 house last week just before I left England. Some of the 
 cleverest men, and the best judges of the day, were staying 
 there.' And she mentioned the names of several states- 
 men, adding the name of the house a house which proved 
 to be that of a great political Duke, and was even more 
 celebrated than its owner. She repeated to Mrs. Norham 
 several of the things that had been said of her amongst them 
 the declaration of a literary Cabinet Minister that since the 
 days of Miss Austen there had been nobody to equal Mrs. 
 Norham. 
 
 Mrs. Norham would presently have quite lost her head, if 
 it had not been for this compliment, which seemed to her 
 somewhat inadequate, and restored her to composure like a 
 douche of tepid water. But things were presently going more 
 smoothly than ever; for Mrs. Norham's new acquaintance 
 began expressing a hope that she and Mrs. Norham might 
 before long meet again. Mrs. Norham said that she was 
 living at St. Antoine. 'By an odd coincidence,' said her 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 171 
 
 companion, 'so am I or near it. My brother, I am sure, 
 would be delighted to make your acquaintance. By the way, 
 you don't know who I am. I ought to introduce myself. My 
 name is written on that.' And she handed Mrs. Norham a 
 card, which bore the inscription, 'Lady Cornelia Ley ton.' 
 ' And as to my brother,' the proprietress of the card continued, 
 ' with whom I am staying I hope you will think that I ought 
 to be very proud of him he is Lord Runcorn. I don't 
 know if you like his politics, but I think you will like him.' 
 
 ' I am sure,' said Mrs. Norham, struggling after a sufficiently 
 cold composure, ' to meet Lord Runcorn will be at once an 
 interest and a privilege. My time, at the present moment, is 
 not altogether my own, as I have some poor people here who 
 are more or less dependent on me. I and a friend have secured 
 them a holiday in this beautiful country.' 
 
 'Well,' said Lady Cornelia, 'you must give me your 
 address and let me write to you. I have no doubt you are 
 always doing some kind, in addition to some intellectual 
 work. Martin,' she said to her maid, 'you must once more 
 give me my embroidery ' ; and then turning to Mrs. Norham 
 with a pleasant and companionable smile, said, 'I, no more 
 than you, can bear to have my hands idle.' 
 
 'Ah,' exclaimed Mrs. Norham, as the embroidery was 
 again produced, and the silken flowers were laid on Lady 
 Cornelia's lap. 'Ah,' she exclaimed, clasping her hands 
 earnestly, ' how lovely how truly lovely ! May I see it nearer ? 
 Is this your own design ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Lady Cornelia, ' it is taken from an old Sicilian 
 chasuble. I 've a school for embroidery amongst my villagers.' 
 
 "And you teach them,' said Mrs. Norham, 'to create things 
 of beauty like that ? Ah, some day I might ask you for one 
 or two hints ! I, too, in London, have started, with the help 
 of others, an institution whose sole object is to civilise the 
 uncivilised ; and if only I could rouse the latent faculties of 
 my girls, and make them appreciate art by actually turning 
 them into artists ! Now, to embroider a rose like that would, 
 to many a poor girl I know give a far more educating pleasure 
 than to have a dozen flower-pots in her window.' 
 
 ' I wonder,' said Lady Cornelia, ' that, considering how you 
 work for us with your pen, you can find any time to work 
 for us in other ways.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was now in one of her best altitudes. Her 
 
172 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 upturned eyes were fixed on the ventilator in one of the 
 carriage doors. Her chin was strained forward. Her hands 
 were clasped about her knees. ' My pen ! ' she exclaimed, 
 ' I have written simply because I could not help it. But 
 my life-work is in what I do, not write. Perhaps, Lady 
 Cornelia, you may not yet have heard of my of our new 
 institution of Startfield Hall ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Lady Cornelia, in a manner so absent, that 
 Mrs. Norham came down from her altitudes to see what 
 was the matter. The train was slackening its speed ; and 
 Lady Cornelia was looking out of the window. 'Is this 
 St. Estephe?' she was saying, in a voice that might have 
 been addressed either to her maid or to Mrs. Norham. ' It 
 is yes we are coming to it. It is possible we may find 
 him on the platform.' 
 
 'Who?' asked Mrs. Norham. But she received no reply : 
 for the train was by this time stopping at St. Este"phe station, 
 and the head of her new friend was still at the carriage- 
 window. 
 
 Happiness is always uncertain ; and the ladies had no 
 sooner descended than that of Mrs. Norham underwent a 
 short eclipse; for Lady Cornelia, who was helped down by 
 her maid, instead of waiting for Mrs. Norham, seemed 
 suddenly to have forgotten her existence. In a few 
 moments her gaze traversed the station ; and then, slightly 
 starting, she moved away down the platform with as much 
 haste as was compatible with her weight and dignity. Mrs. 
 Norham's eyes followed her with a certain perplexed resent- 
 ment ; but that feeling presently gave way to curiosity, when 
 she perceived a group of persons to which Lady Cornelia 
 was advancing. One of these she recognised as the chef de 
 gare, who was alternately bowing and holding himself 
 unusually upright. A few paces off, by a pile of small 
 articles of luggage, amongst which were conspicuous some 
 red leather despatch-boxes, stood a clean-shaven English 
 valet, and a courier with floating whiskers; whilst close to 
 the chef dc gare, though in the act of moving away from him, 
 was a man wearing a coat magnificently lined with sable, 
 and a Tyrolese hat with a rakish curl in its brim. This 
 man, who was elderly, was leaning on a young man's arm. 
 The young man was good-looking and had an air of distinc- 
 tion; but for all that Mrs. Norham noticed of him, he 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 173 
 
 might have been ugly, and utterly insignificant. All her 
 attention was taken up by his senior, and this was a man 
 whose appearance was indeed remarkable. 
 
 Any one who dispassionately had taken stock of his 
 costume his varnished boots, the large pattern of his trousers, 
 his braided coat, his scarf and his large pearl pin might 
 have been tempted to ask for what elusive reason he failed to 
 look like some over-dressed manager of a circus. The fact 
 remained, however, that he certainly did not do so. In his 
 whole carriage and movements there was a dignity, and a 
 suggestion of power, which the slight stoop and the slowness 
 resulting from age accentuated. The pecularities of his dress 
 were so dominated and transfigured by his personality, that 
 they made his appearance not vulgar but interesting, and gave 
 a curious touch of mystery to a face deeply-lined, whose beard 
 and moustache curled something like an Assyrian king's, and 
 whose luminous eyes had the fierce keenness of an eagle's, 
 combined with the meditative depth of the dreamer's, the 
 philosopher's, and the lover's. Mrs. Norham perceived in a 
 moment that this man was Lord Runcorn. 
 
 He and his sister talked together for some moments. Then 
 Mrs. Norham saw the face of Lady Cornelia turned slightly 
 in her own direction ; and she realised immediately afterwards, 
 though she had modestly averted her own, that the eyes of 
 Lord Runcorn had followed those of his sister ; and that 
 herself, her celebrated self, was forming the subject of their 
 conversation. The seconds went tingling by, and, with an 
 air of deepening abstraction, she began to read and re-read 
 an advertisement of a new restaurant at Monte Carlo, open at 
 all hours, famous for its wines and oysters, and offering the 
 convenience of cabinets particuliers to its patrons. The words 
 cabinets particuliers were making a kind of sing-song in her 
 brain, when she heard steps approaching her, and then Lady 
 Cornelia's voice, saying, ' My brother, Lord Runcorn, is very 
 anxious to be introduced to you.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham descended like Athene coming down from 
 Olympus. The great Prime Minister was raising his Tyrolese 
 hat to her, and his hand, in another moment, was pressing 
 and caressing hers, as if the goddess she resembled were not 
 Athene but Aphrodite. There are few women who, whatever 
 their resemblance to the former goddess, are not flattered at 
 finding it mistaken for a resemblance to the latter ; and Mrs. 
 
174 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Norham became suddenly conscious that she was not only 
 great but fascinating. She was happily ignorant that Lord 
 Runcorn, from long habit, could hardly have shaken hands 
 with even the Witch of Endor, without imparting to the 
 ceremony the accumulated tendernesses of a lifetime. 
 
 ' My brother,' said Lady Cornelia, ' has only just arrived 
 from Marseilles. I have been here for some days, getting his 
 house ready for him.' She then explained to Mrs. Norham 
 that a great French maker of chocolate, who was a political 
 admirer of her brother, and who owned the villa which he 
 had taken, had placed at his disposal his private saloon- 
 carriage. ' See,' she said, ' it is now being shunted into the 
 station. They have given us a special engine ; and we hope 
 you will come on with us.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was delighted ; and Lady Cornelia moved 
 away. Lord Runcorn at once drew confidentially close to 
 Mrs. Norham, and said, ' It is impossible here to plunge into 
 the mysteries of literature ; but you must allow me to say, 
 what I have long wished to say to you that no Englishwoman, 
 not even George Eliot, has ever written our language with 
 such vigour and purity as yourself.' 
 
 Mrs. Norman was beginning to deprecate this praise, which 
 nevertheless was, she sincerely felt, the first adequate criticism 
 which her work had yet met with, when Lord Runcorn, touch- 
 ing her arm with a sort of reverential intimacy, said, ' Here is 
 my secretary, coming to tell us that our train is ready. You 
 will like him. He is something of a poet. I only fear that 
 in this intoxicating air, and with you in the neighbourhood to 
 stimulate him, I shall find him 
 
 " Penning a stanza when he should engross.'" 
 
 The saloon-carriage of M. Monier Martin was upholstered in 
 satin, which, with true republican taste, had been enriched with 
 an ornament, as strongly as possible suggesting, without actually 
 representing, the royal Crown of France, and all the brackets 
 were in the shape of armorial bearings. When the party had 
 entered, Lord Runcorn drew Mrs. Norham into an inner com- 
 partment. ' I want,' he replied, ' to finish what I began saying 
 to you about your style ' ; and Lady Cornelia and the secretary 
 were left to themselves outside. Whatever were Lord Run- 
 corn's faults, he was the most generous of literary critics ; and 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 175 
 
 Mrs. Norham, as he talked, had the delightful experience of 
 discovering more merits in herself than even she herself had 
 suspected. The time had been all too short, when a slacken- 
 ing of the train's speed warned her that they must be nearing 
 St. Antoine, at which station she was to be set down, w r hilst 
 the others would proceed a few miles farther along the line. 
 Even this moment, however, w r as not without its compensating 
 sweetness. Lord Runcorn had turned away and was looking 
 out of the window, in order to see if they were really about 
 to stop ; and Mrs. Norham, in the silence that ensued, caught 
 in the next compartment a few words of Lady Cornelia's, 
 uttered to the secretary, her companion. ' I like her ways,' 
 she was saying. ' She 's so original, and yet so perfectly 
 natural. I like that trick she has, when she 's carried away 
 by anything, of looking upwards, with her head a little on 
 one side. One sees something like it in old pictures of 
 saints ' 
 
 A sudden jolt put an end to Lady Cornelia's utterance. 
 The saloon had come to a standstill by the little platform of 
 St. Antoine ; and Mrs. Norham descended, having bidden 
 adieu to her friends, conscious that Lady Cornelia, in a 
 woman's delicate way, appreciated her almost as truly as did 
 her illustrious brother. As she walked from the station to 
 her dwelling, she felt as if she had grown taller, more noble, 
 and, after all, fuller of power. What might not be expected 
 for the cause of altruism and social progress, when she, its 
 leader, after a moment's chance acquaintance with them, had 
 the men and women of the most inaccessible class at her 
 feet! 
 
 At dinner that evening Mr. Bousefield asked her if her 
 train had been before its time, as he had seen her entering the 
 house twenty minutes before she had been expected. 
 
 ' I had a curious meeting,' she said, laughing a little, 
 and producing her words with a careful air of indifference. 
 ' Who should introduce themselves to me but the Prime 
 Minister and his sister; and they civilly brought me with 
 them from St. Estephe in their special train. He, of course, 
 is a very interesting study ; and she is a nice enough woman, 
 not devoid of intelligence. She is interested in our work, and 
 anxious to know more about it.' 
 
 'Gammon,' muttered Mr. Tibbits at the far end of the 
 table. 
 
1 76 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ' Mrs. Norham,' said Mrs. Bousefield, as the repast drew to 
 an end, ' I hope ye Ve not suffered from sitting in those 
 draughty foreign railway-carriages. I Ve just noticed ye 
 holding your head a little on one side. If you 're neck is stiff 
 I can give ye a cold compress.' 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE pleasure Mrs. Norham had received from the praises of 
 Lord Runcorn was not due merely to the fact that he was a 
 Prime Minister and a social magnate. He was more than 
 this. Among the great statesmen of England he stood almost 
 alone in being a poet and a great imaginative writer. As a 
 writer he might perhaps have been greater had he devoted 
 himself less to politics ; but a translation of the Odyssey, made 
 by him into English verse, and some early poems fantastic, 
 epigrammatic, and passionate showed that he had something 
 of the genius, and not merely the temperament, of a poet; 
 whilst his novels, most of them written whilst he was making 
 his way to power, though one or two of the best succeeded 
 his full possession of it novels in which politics were whim- 
 sically blended with romance, and both were interwoven with 
 the mysticism of the mesmerist and the modern medium 
 possessed a vitality, and evinced a knowledge of life, which 
 had made them part of the classical literature of the century. 
 
 The character of this singular man was largely to be ex- 
 plained by his antecedents. He represented a family which, 
 though at once ancient and historical, would have been ruined 
 completely by the infatuated career of his grandfather, if his 
 father, who thought that the best founded family pride was 
 scarcely satisfactory unless allied with something more material 
 than itself, had not decided to love, to woo, and to marry, a 
 dark-eyed young lady of highly romantic aspect, whose father, 
 an Italian, had fixed himself at Nottingham as a stocking- 
 maker, and who settled on his daughter, in gratitude to her 
 for becoming a countess, a fortune then thought enormous, of 
 two hundred thousand pounds. This fortune her husband, 
 with a sagacity which the stocking-maker might have envied, 
 invested in land adjacent to his alienated family acres, and 
 adjacent also to a village which was beginning to be a manu- 
 
 M 
 
178 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 facturing town. His prescience was rewarded. Ten years 
 went by, and his outlying fields had ceased to bear corn and 
 turnips. They bore instead factories, streets, and chimneys. 
 In another ten years this golden crop had trebled itself, and 
 he thus found himself, in the days before the first Reform 
 Bill, one of the most influential of the magnates of the North 
 of England, besides being one of the shrewdest of the de- 
 baters in the House of Lords. His only act of folly was to 
 build for himself a Gothic castle, with groined roofs made up 
 of gilding and stucco, and windows whose glass, in the most 
 glaring of modern colours, exhibited impossible knights, in 
 wildernesses of shields and mottoes. 
 
 The present Lord Runcorn was the son of the builder of this 
 edifice. He was a younger son till he reached his thirtieth 
 year, and a son who had quarrelled with his father ever since 
 his twenty-first, when he left Cambridge, encumbered with 
 grotesque debts, eloped with a penniless young lady, and 
 married her at Gretna Green. His father paid his debts, 
 settled on him three hundred a year, and told him that if he 
 wished for anything more, he must work for it. Confident in 
 his own genius, and laughing at his present poverty, the young 
 man became a contributor to a rising weekly review, and began 
 a series of novels which took the world by storm, and enabled 
 himself and his wife to confront and court society from the 
 vantage ground of a house, which, although it was small, was 
 in Curzon Street. Some eight years later he succeeded in enter- 
 ing Parliament ; and shortly afterwards the death of his elder 
 brother made him his father's heir, and effected a reconcilia- 
 tion between them. Ultimately, though by slow degrees, his 
 discovery of his political talents led to his subordinating his 
 literary ambition to his political ; but his earlier reputation as 
 a poet and a master of romance still clung to him, a result to 
 which his private life had contributed. His marriage, after a 
 year of dreams, began to be a notoriously unhappy one. This 
 was partly due to his own poetic infidelities, but much was 
 due also to the exasperating temper of his wife, which was 
 such that she ended in transferring to her peccant husband 
 that sympathy of the world which she so loudly claimed for 
 herself. As for him, the charm of his personality increased 
 rather than diminished with age. Nor was he, in the eyes of 
 women, any the less interesting from the fact that his wife and 
 he had been long since legally separated; and his figure 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 179 
 
 seemed, accordingly, very much like that of Byron, to be 
 moving against the background of a picturesquely desolated 
 hearth. 
 
 To these characteristics and qualities there was added a 
 certain sense of the grandiose in himself, and a taste for the 
 grandiose in his surroundings. At his home this taste showed 
 itself in the number of new antiquities which he added to 
 those with which Wardour Street had supplied his father. He 
 doubled the number of imaginary coats of arms which he 
 found emblazoned on the doors, or obstructing the daylight in 
 the window-panes ; and he supplied his dining-hall with a dai's 
 and a minstrels' gallery, and a set of knightly banners, em- 
 broidered in his sister's school. This same taste made his 
 present abode, which he had till now seen only in photo- 
 graphs, appear, in his own estimation, eminently suitable to 
 himself. The situation was really as beautiful as a poet's 
 imagination could have conceived. Its external architecture, 
 admirably copied from Palladio, made Lord Runcorn feel as if 
 he were being welcomed by the spirit of the Italian Renais- 
 sance ; whilst the marble and gilding of the absurdly over- 
 decorated interior, seemed to him as satisfactory as it did to 
 M. Monier Martin himself. It is, however, but fair to him to 
 add that within twelve hours after his arrival, the appearance 
 on shelves and elsewhere of a multitude of books he had 
 brought with him, gave to the rooms a refinement they had 
 never possessed before. 
 
 ' Mrs. Tilney,' he said to his sister the following day, ' Mrs. 
 Tilney and her daughter will come to us next week if they 
 can. Mrs. Tilney has some one in her eye, or I am much 
 mistaken, for the young lady ; and the he, I suspect, must at 
 present be nearer the Mediterranean than the Thames.' 
 
 ' Dear Carlotta,' said Lady Cornelia, ' I 'm sure she '11 be 
 always welcome. I often think of her as she was, when she 
 was a bright little brown baby. Why doesn't she try to set 
 Norah's cap at Tristram ? ' 
 
 ' She '11 have to discover first where Tristram is,' said Lord 
 Runcorn. ' I suppose, by the way, you know that Mrs. Mor- 
 daunt arrives to-morrow ? ' Lady Cornelia replied with a faint 
 affirmative smile, which had in it a flavour though the flavour 
 was very slight of malice and resignation. 'It would, I 
 think, interest her,' Lord Runcorn continued, 'to meet this 
 new Muse, whose acquaintance we have just made Mrs. 
 
1 8o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Norham. To-day is Tuesday ; let us ask her to lunch on 
 Thursday. It will be a new inspiration to her to hear Mrs. 
 Mordaunt sing.' 
 
 Mrs. Mordaunt was a lady who owed her popularity in 
 London to her plainness, which conciliated other attractive 
 women, coupled with a singular and caressing charm of 
 manner, which, for men and women alike, had all the mag- 
 netism of beauty, and secured for her male admirers without 
 alienating female friends with the exception of one or two 
 who had been known to speak of her as 'a cat.' She had, 
 moreover, a voice in singing which made a simple ballad seem 
 the voice of every joy that had been lost, or every woman's 
 heart that had been broken. Her husband was a Yorkshire 
 squire a typical M.F.H. ; and she showed her devotion to 
 him by insisting, when, for the sake of her delicate lungs, she 
 wintered in London or abroad, as the case might happen to 
 be, that he should not, in order to be with her, abandon the 
 one chase, and indeed the one pursuit, which he regarded as 
 worthy of a man. Her own latest interest was an enthusiastic 
 appreciation of Lord Runcorn, whose warm and immediate 
 response to it lifted her life to a level it had never before 
 attained, and gave her a cachet amongst all her female friends, 
 which a more common attachment could by no possibility 
 have secured for her. So sympathetic was her nature to his, 
 that even the state of her lungs exhibited a tendency to vary 
 in accordance with his movements, and had taken her on 
 more than one occasion to Bournemouth, and on more than 
 one occasion detained her in Grosvenor Place. This year it 
 necessitated a residence in the south of France ; and she now 
 was doubly fortunate, as, owing to Lord Runcorn's kindness, 
 she would not only share a climate with him, but be under 
 the same roof. 
 
 Lady Cornelia assented to the suggestion that Mrs. Norham 
 should be invited. An invitation was despatched to her by a 
 groom ; and an answer was brought back from her accepting it. 
 
 On the day and at the hour appointed Mrs. Mordaunt 
 arrived, and she and her exquisite tea-gown added a new 
 feature at dinner to the party which had consisted on the pre- 
 vious night only of three persons Lord Runcorn, his sister, 
 and his secretary. Mrs. Mordaunt, with her velvety voice, 
 bestowed her praises on nearly everything, and did but heighten 
 their value by an occasional interlude of blame. Her blame, 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 181 
 
 indeed, had a peculiar fascination of its own. ' I can't allow 
 you,' she said to Lord Runcorn at dinner, laying her hand 
 gently as she did so on his wrist ; ' I can't allow you to keep 
 those dreadful curtains. They are beautiful work, but they 
 don't go with the walls. Cornelia and I will choose some 
 others for you in Cannes ; and, if you like, I will make you a 
 present of them.' 
 
 After dinner, she and Lady Cornelia, any secret jealousies 
 being buried in a tranquil sleep, discussed, enjoyed, and 
 deplored the mistakes and failings of their friends. Mrs. 
 Mordaunt used her probe with a sure, but gentle delicacy. 
 She tempered the causticity of a woman with the accents of a 
 sorrowing angel ; and it would have been hard to tell from 
 her manner which she thought saddest and most amusing 
 the elopement of one lady with a rich lover, or the infatuated 
 selection by another of a poor husband. Presently Lord 
 Runcorn entered, leaning on his secretary's arm. With a 
 delicate adoration in them Mrs. Mordaunt's eyes sought his. 
 ' Are we,' he asked her gravely, ' going to have some music 
 from the one woman in England who knows how to sing ? ' 
 With a deprecating gesture she moved softly towards the 
 piano ; and, Lady Cornelia and the secretary adding their 
 persuasions to Lord Runcorn's, she was soon bringing the 
 tears to their eyes and her own by the passionate and 
 mournful undertones in which she sang to them Auld Robin 
 Gray. 
 
 As for her the giver of so many pleasant sensations to 
 others she was the only person that evening to experience 
 any that were not pleasant. When the singing was over, and 
 the feelings produced by it were evaporating, Lady Cornelia, 
 by way of introducing a new interest, mentioned to Mrs. 
 Mordaunt that she was, on the following day, to meet at 
 luncheon a very distinguished personage Mrs. Norham, 
 the novelist. 
 
 'Ah,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, 'that will be very charming. 
 Parts of that book of hers I thought were beautiful ; but 
 others well, they jarred on me they struck me as almost 
 irreverent. Still, my dear, it will be delightful to meet her. 
 Is she ladylike ? I suppose not very.' 
 
 'You should ask my brother,' Lady Cornelia answered. 
 ' Since he met her the day before yesterday he has done 
 nothing but celebrate her praises.' 
 
182 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Lady Cornelia was rewarded for her skill in this delicate 
 reference, by the shade of anxious annoyance which spread 
 itself over her friend's face. 'Tell us, Runcorn,' she said, 
 ' what is your opinion of Mrs. Norham ? Mrs. Mordaunt 
 wants to know.' 
 
 ' You are talking of Mrs. Norham, are you ? ' said Lord 
 Runcorn unsuspiciously ; and he seated himself on a sofa by 
 Mrs. Mordaunt's side. ' No one,' he said, ' would be better 
 able to appreciate her talent than you. It is more than 
 talent it is genius. And genius, in her case, has been more 
 forbearing than it generally is. It has not robbed her of her 
 virtue I mean the virtue of simplicity.' 
 
 ' She must then,' said Mrs. Mordaunt sweetly, ' be delight- 
 ful : I am longing to see her. Cornelia dear, it is late. Will 
 some one ring for a candle for me? I am tired after my 
 journey. I must go and dream about Mrs. Norham.' 
 
 And this, indeed, was precisely what Mrs. Mordaunt did. 
 She was haunted all night by visions of an underbred woman, 
 with provocative eyes, and a waist absurdly small, who would 
 tempt Lord Runcorn to waste his valuable time in showing a 
 preference for her which she could not possibly feel. ' Why,' 
 she asked herself, ' will men even the greatest men be so 
 weak where a woman is concerned ? ' To this appropriate, but 
 difficult question, she was unable to find an answer. She was 
 pleased to discover subsequently that it was not only difficult 
 but superfluous. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AT noon the following day the gates of the Villa Martin 
 were opened, by a concierge in the newest and most glossy of 
 liveries, to admit a hired pony-carriage, the springs of which 
 creaked wearily, but to which a lady who sat upright in it 
 gave the dignity of a triumphal car. It is needless to say 
 that this lady was Mrs. Norham, who felt like a princess of 
 the powers of spiritual progress, condescending to pay a visit 
 to the kingdom of outworn privilege. M. Monier Martin had 
 not made his millions for nothing. His approach, which went 
 for half a mile amongst pine-woods, was so wide and so care- 
 fully kept that it formed in itself an advertisement of the 
 mastery of this world's goods, with which the Chocolat Martin 
 had invested him ; and the wondrous tale was taken up in a 
 louder tone by the palms and aloes, which presently took the 
 place of pine-trees, and by the gardeners in blue blouses 
 watering emerald turf. Menacing echoes from the platform 
 of Startfield Hall began to reverberate vaguely in Mrs. 
 Norham's mind. She thought of the true leaders of progress, 
 such as Mr. Poulton and Mr. Tibbits, who would soon burst 
 from their obscurity, and make things like this impossible ; 
 and then resolving that, of whatever excusable exaggeration 
 men like Mr. Poulton and Mr. Tibbits might be guilty, she, 
 at all events, would be severely cold and judicial, she curbed 
 her feelings so far as to look at the luxurious scene surround- 
 ing her merely as a governess might look at a naughty child 
 who, if not quelled by her glance, would affront her with some 
 impertinence. So successful was she in her self-discipline, 
 that when the villa itself burst upon her, with its long white 
 fagade a really beautiful work she was able to keep her- 
 self calm by murmuring, ' What wretched taste ! ' till the doors 
 were opened, even before the bell had been rung, and her 
 high contempt, as she entered the offensive portals, gave way 
 to a healing, though shy, sense of satisfaction. 
 
 183 
 
184 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 But whatever might be her own satisfaction, it was not for 
 a moment comparable to that which, when she entered the draw- 
 ing-room, was produced by her in the breast of Mrs. Mordaunt. 
 Mrs. Mordaunt's eyes at a glance took her in from head to 
 foot the somewhat mediasval bonnet, the hair drawn straight 
 from her temples, the square toes of her boots, the self-conscious 
 severity of her deportment. The idea of Mrs. Norham as a 
 rival faded out of her mind instantly, and its place was taken 
 by a spirit of angelically sweet patronage that patronage 
 which a woman who knows herself to be sympathetic and 
 fascinating is always ready to bestow on one who is only 
 intellectual. Lady Cornelia welcomed her guest, as though 
 taste and high-thinking had, by a kind of freemasonry, made 
 them already intimates ; but her welcome was cold in com- 
 parison with the exquisite sympathy which expressed" itself in 
 the clasp of Mrs. Mordaunt's lingering hand. 
 
 'I've so long wished to meet you,' Mrs. Mordaunt began 
 cooing. ' I think you are a great friend of a great friend of 
 mine Muriel Carlton aren't you ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Norham replied, with some unintentional brusqucrie, 
 that the lady in question was altogether unknown to her. 
 
 'Ah, then,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, with the music of her 
 manner unruffled, ' it must have been that she is so anxious 
 to be a very great friend of yours. She has talked of you to 
 me sometimes for hours together. There is one scene, I 
 should like to tell you, that has always touched her especially.' 
 And Mrs. Mordaunt's voice sank to that sisterly whisper 
 in which one lady confides to another the expectations at 
 which Sarah laughed. ' It 's the scene in which Constance 
 waits for the clergyman in the vestry, resolved to seek comfort 
 by confessing to him the infidelities of her husband.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham drew back as though a poisonous snake had 
 stung her. ' I think,' she said, ' you must be doing me the 
 honour of making a slight mistake, and attributing to me one 
 of the novels of Mrs. Delia Dickson. No doubt they are 
 cleverer far than anything I have written : but it so happens, 
 that of all modern writers she is the one who in tone and 
 
 style is the most repug ' Mrs. Norham was going to have 
 
 said ' repugnant,' but she changed the word, and said ' is the 
 most opposed to me.' 
 
 'Do you know,' replied Mrs. Mordaunt, with one of her 
 most fascinating smiles, 'I've been wondering all the time 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 185 
 
 we Ve been talking, how a book like that of Mrs. Dickson's 
 which so far as its English goes, might have been written 
 by an ignorant school-girl could have come from the same 
 pen that gave us The Disinherited, Lord Runcorn thinks the 
 style of that so finished, that it must have taken you years of 
 work.' 
 
 The face of the prophetess relaxed ; and Mrs. Mordaunt 
 went on to inquire whether Mrs. Norham invented her 
 characters, or took them from real life; whether she found 
 she could work best at night, or in the morning, and whether 
 she was preparing to give the world something more. 
 
 Mrs. Norham, who at first was flattered by this enthusiastic 
 catechism, gradually began to experience a sensation wholly 
 new to her. She had a suspicion that Mrs. Mordaunt, 
 though talking up to her intellectually, was talking down 
 to her socially was treating her, in fact, as a mere professional 
 person. She accordingly began planning some adroit conver- 
 sational manoeuvre which should carry the war into the enemy's 
 country ; and after a little hesitation proceeded to put it into 
 execution. 
 
 'Do tell me,' she said, leaning slightly forward, 'where one 
 can get sleeve-links beautiful sleeve-links like that ? ' 
 
 'These,' said Mrs. Mordaunt with a sigh, 'were given me 
 by a dear old great-aunt of mine. They were a present to her 
 from Marie Antoinette.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham felt that her onslaught had been somehow 
 far from successful; but Lady Cornelia, who had left the 
 room whilst the preceding conversation was in progress, 
 returned fortunately at this precise moment, and she had 
 hardly done so when two great folding-doors were simultane- 
 ously thrown open, and Lord Runcorn made his entry. His 
 black hair was curling ; his luminous eyes flashed ; he walked 
 with his stateliest stoop ; and his coat was of black velvet. 
 
 He made amends to Mrs. Norham for all that had gone 
 before by greeting her with as much courtly empressement as he 
 could have manifested had she been a princess, or any other 
 of those kindred beings whom she despised ; and he seated 
 himself on a low chair opposite to her in an attitude of grave 
 devotion, indolently folding over his knees his beautifully 
 shaped hands. 
 
 ' You have been,' he said, ' in the company of one of your 
 most appreciative admirers. Otherwise I should have felt 
 
186 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 more need to apologise for my late appearance. The fact is, 
 I have been detained by some sordid political business, which 
 is at its best merely the scaffolding of life. I am now escaping 
 to you, whose interests are in life itself. I congratulate you 
 on having come to the land of imagination and poetry. After 
 luncheon I must show you this house and gardens. Can any- 
 thing,' he continued, as he waved his hand towards the window, 
 ' be lovelier than that expanse of sea, shining between those 
 marble vases, whose outlines it seems to chisel? Were it 
 possible for me to choose my own career over again, I would 
 choose the life which could be lived in a Mediterranean 
 villa, sooner than that which imprisons me in the air of 
 Downing Street.' Whilst making these observations he kept 
 looking at Mrs. Norham, as though sure that a woman like 
 herself would appreciate their profound suggestiveness. ' The 
 politician,' he resumed, 'even in his greatest moments, is 
 merely solving some problem which, as soon as it is solved, is 
 meaningless. The poet deals and we novelists may call our- 
 selves poets with problems which are never old, however 
 often we solve them, and which each year of our lives we are 
 asking to be solved anew. Horace and Virgil,' said Lord 
 Runcorn rising, and moving meditatively towards the window, 
 though still talking at Mrs. Norham ' Horace and Virgil are 
 our familiar friends to-day, whilst Consuls and Triumvirs are 
 remembered only by undergraduates, and remembered by 
 them only till they have deposited their memories on their 
 examination-papers. ' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, though she was more accustomed to be the 
 dispenser than the recipient of aphorisms, was nevertheless 
 much flattered by Lord Runcorn's intellectual attentions, and 
 all the more so because she felt that she was having social 
 worship in the eyes of one who just now had accidentally got 
 the better of her. ' He values my books,' she said to herself, 
 ' because they are a part of me not me because I happen to 
 have written my books.' 
 
 This sustaining conviction was subtly permeating her mind, 
 and giving added vitality to her sense of herself as a social 
 and religious leader, when luncheon was announced, and Lord 
 Runcorn, in indolent accents, suggested that they and their 
 philosophy should make their way to the dining-room. 
 
 Mrs. Norham, who had done much to elevate her earnest 
 disciples by her inculcation of plain living as an adjunct to 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 187 
 
 high thinking, was affected by the niceties of Lord Runcorn's 
 epicurean board, in a manner which she had never anticipated. 
 Instead of being conscious of a disapproval, which should gnaw 
 at her like the Spartan's fox, she found herself becoming un- 
 expectedly and irresistibly genteel ; so much so, that in look- 
 ing for her napkin, which had furtively left her knees, she 
 explained the situation to Lord Runcorn by saying that ' she 
 had dropped her serviette ' ; and accounted for her rejection of 
 a nice little jam tart by confiding to Lady Cornelia that ' she 
 never touched patisserie? 
 
 Her mood being such, she was gratified by the turn of the 
 conversation, which, without losing altogether its philosophic 
 flavour, became largely personal, and gave Mrs. Norham the 
 impression that the representatives of out-worn privilege were 
 recognising her as one of themselves. Indeed, when Mrs. 
 Mordaunt, at the conclusion of some trifling anecdote, said to 
 her, ' I 'm afraid you must think us all very frivolous,' Mrs. 
 Norham, who had hitherto denounced personal conversation 
 as the surest sign of moral and intellectual emptiness, felt 
 inclined to resent the suggestion with all the emphasis at her 
 command, and to declare that gossip was her own favourite 
 recreation. Her host, however, saved her that trouble by 
 sententiously declaring that 'gossip, no less than history, is 
 philosophy teaching us by example.' ' It is only frivolous,' 
 he said, 'to people who can learn nothing from it; and 
 history, to the same kind of people, only escapes being 
 frivolous by being meaningless. For instance,' he went on, 
 turning directly to Mrs. Norham, ' that subject which you and 
 I were discussing just now a subject which interests you and 
 me particularly the relative merits of the political life and 
 the literary if we want to understand these, we naturally 
 refer, in our minds, to individuals who have chosen or rejected 
 one life or the other. The individuals from whom we shall 
 learn most are those whom we ourselves know; and when 
 we talk about them and compare them, what is that but 
 gossip ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, who had been somewhat silent hitherto, now 
 felt that she had found an appropriate opening. ' I have been 
 wishing,' she said, ' to ask Lord Runcorn if he thinks that the 
 life of the politician is the only kind of practical life that we 
 can put in contrast to the literary. Does he not recognise,' 
 she continued with a note of subtle irony, ' those unclassified 
 
i88 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 social activities, which the most careless of us cannot ignore 
 for they are rife on every side of us and which some 
 think are destined to change the entire configuration of 
 society ? ' 
 
 Lord Runcorn, in spite of his literary admiration for Mrs. 
 Norham, had formed no distinct idea of what her principles 
 as a reformer were. Her subtle irony was therefore wholly 
 lost on him ; and instead of inviting her to prophesy a social 
 revolution, he hastened to reassure her by informing her that 
 she had no reason to fear one. ' The idea,' he said, ' of a social 
 dispensation that shall be radically different from the present, 
 has always been peculiar to persons unable to succeed under 
 any. The typical social revolutionists of the modern world 
 are essentially men of the lower middle classes, who are 
 fevered with ambitions out of all proportion to their powers. 
 Such men, as history shows, are capable of doing much 
 mischief, and the statesman is bound to watch them. The 
 idea that a socialistic society is possible is an idea that has to 
 be reckoned with. Such a society, conceived as an actuality, 
 is a mere chimera.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was rallying her forces to combat these 
 atrocious views, and was burning to unfurl the standard of 
 Startfield Hall on the luncheon table, when again her oppor- 
 tunity was taken from her, and this time by Mrs. Mordaunt, 
 who asked Lord Runcorn if he did not recognise the soldier 
 as a man of action equal in importance to the politician. 
 
 ' Well,' said Lord Runcorn, ' let us consider that question. 
 Let us take the greatest soldiers the world has known. Let 
 us take the Caesars, the Wellingtons, the Napoleons. Men 
 like these are either politicians themselves, or else they affect 
 history by being the politician's tools. The general is at the 
 back of the army ; but we have, at the back of the general, 
 men who, as often as not, have never known the smell of 
 powder. Politics, therefore, may be taken as a type of 
 action generally, just as literature stands, not only for 
 the writing of books, but for all that life of reflection, 
 speculation, and feeling, of which the writing of books is the 
 expression.' 
 
 'Poets,' said Mrs. Norham, 'have often politicians for 
 heroes.' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied Lord Runcorn ; ' but when the poet deals 
 with the fortunes of a politician, he treats politics merely as 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 189 
 
 one form of emotion. What interest do we take in the 
 fortunes of Shakespeare's Caesar, except in so far as they 
 affected Ca;sar himself ? Politics and literature,' he continued 
 ' these are the two masters. Happy the man who is able 
 to serve both.' 
 
 Mrs. Mordaunt whispered, ' You are able.' 
 
 ' Since we are talking,' he replied, ' of gossip being philo- 
 sophy teaching by example, I may tell you of one person who 
 has lately shown that he is not able. He is some one,' he said, 
 turning to Mrs. Norham, ' whom we all of us know, or know 
 about. The man I mean, Mrs. Norham, is my nephew, 
 Tristram Lacy, who refused the post in Egypt which, as it 
 will be in the papers to-morrow, I may tell you has just been 
 accepted by Sir John Chandler Maitland.' 
 
 'Of course,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, with a smile of secret 
 intelligence ; ' Tristram Lacy yes. How much you must 
 be disappointed ! He 's so handsome, I think. But I never 
 saw anybody who looked so bored with everything.' 
 
 'That,' said Lord Runcorn, 'is just what makes him inter- 
 esting. To be bored with life is in most cases a sign of 
 weakness. It is like an indifference to horsemanship in a 
 man who cannot ride. But in him it arises from quite another 
 cause. He is naturally a man of action, and would like to do 
 something great : but he suffers from the intellectual disease 
 of finding nothing worth doing.' 
 
 ' Poor man,' said Mrs. Norham, with a sarcastic shrug of 
 the shoulders. 
 
 ' No one,' continued Lord Runcorn, ' ever had less to sour 
 him. Women have been devoted to him women married 
 and unmarried.' 
 
 ' I wish,' said Lady Cornelia, 'he would devote himself to 
 one married woman more ; and that this time she might be 
 his wife.' 
 
 'There is no devotion,' said Lord Runcorn, not much 
 attending to this 'there is no devotion so disinterested as 
 that of a married woman. She runs the risk of losing by it 
 everything except her lover, and,' he added in a sardonic 
 undertone, ' generally him into the bargain.' 
 
 'Hush,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, with a whisper of intimate 
 reproof, and a momentary glance in the direction of Mrs. 
 Norham. Mrs. Norham was conscious of the glance. She 
 had heard the reproof also ; and just as a little while ago Mrs. 
 
i 9 o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Mordaunt's unasked solicitude for her had almost converted 
 her into an enthusiastic defender of gossip, so on the present 
 occasion it filled her with a momentary desire to demonstrate 
 that she could hold her own with anybody in bandying wit 
 and wisdom at the expense of the marital tie. She paused, 
 however, before proceeding to this new trial of her powers ; 
 and Mrs. Mordaunt, continuing her misplaced kindness, had 
 given meanwhile a new turn to the conversation by say- 
 ing, ' And your fascinating nephew what has become of him 
 now?' 
 
 ' That,' said Lord Runcorn, ' I am quite unable to tell you ; 
 and for all we know it may be safer not to inquire. I suppose, 
 Cornelia, we may as well have coffee on the terrace ; and then, 
 if Mrs. Norham and Mrs. Mordaunt are not indisposed to 
 walk, I will show them the gardens, which I have only half 
 seen myself.' 
 
 ' Let us go,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, ' by the path which we 
 noticed after breakfast, which takes one through the woods, 
 along the side of that enchanting hill.' 
 
 Lord Runcorn's eyes intimated that a word from Mrs. 
 Mordaunt was a command; so he, she, and Mrs. Norham 
 presently set out in the direction indicated. The path 
 through the sloping woods did credit to their expectations of 
 its beauty, though the minds of the two ladies were a little 
 distracted from the enjoyment of it, by a desire on the part of 
 each to put the other in her right place. At last, however, 
 they came to a prospect of sea and violet mountains so 
 brilliant in its beauty that both of them burst into cries of 
 admiration, and admitted that Lord Runcorn expressed 
 nothing but their own sentiments when he said that for living 
 the life which a scene like that suggested, the world of public 
 life and its prizes might well be lost. He had hardly finished 
 speaking when a sudden turn in the path brought them in 
 sight of a tall and graceful woman, whose carriage, whose 
 dress, and whose parasol overcame Mrs. Mordaunt with a 
 pang of sympathetic, yet almost envious curiosity. She also 
 was enjoying the sea and mountains; and beyond her, 
 nearly hidden by her, was a companion, who appeared to be 
 similarly occupied. The attitude of the two, and the fact that 
 they seemed almost silent, suggested an intimacy curiously in 
 keeping with the scene. The sound, however, of the others 
 approaching presently made them turn ; and as they did so, 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 191 
 
 Mrs. Norham half audibly ejaculated, ' Mr. Brandon ! ' Then 
 there followed from Lord Runcorn exclamations of amused 
 surprise ; and presently Mrs. Norham was bewildered by 
 hearing her old acquaintance introduced to her, not as Mr. 
 Brandon, but as Mr. Tristram Lacy. 
 
 'I ought,' he said to her, laughing, and not in the least 
 abashed, ' to apologise for having introduced myself before to 
 you by one of my names only.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was considering what answer she would deign 
 to make, when she was saved the trouble of coming to any 
 decision by the fact that Lacy, together with his fair com- 
 panion, were incontinently monopolised by Lord Runcorn 
 and Mrs. Mordaunt, and Mrs. Norham for the moment was 
 altogether forgotten. All she could do was to look on at the 
 group, and she did this with a feeling of severe, not to say 
 angry, detachment, which whispered to her how superior 
 was her conception of life to theirs. She heard Lacy's 
 companion addressed by Mrs. Mordaunt as Lady Madeleine. 
 She saw Lord Runcorn holding the delicate hand of this 
 stranger in a manner which made Mrs. Mordaunt regard it 
 with uneasy attention. She heard Lacy and Lady Madeleine 
 both being plied with a variety of laughing questions ; and 
 then, not knowing precisely what had happened, she saw the 
 whole party preparing themselves to go forward. Mrs. 
 Norham was beginning to sulk violently, and was asking 
 herself, ' Is it credible that they will actually go on without 
 me ? If they do I shall certainly .not follow them ' when 
 Mrs. Mordaunt, with the sweetest smile in the world, turned 
 to her and said, ' Dear Mrs. Norham, I don't know if you are 
 much of a walker, but it 's not much farther that we are going. 
 It 's to Mr. Lacy's house. I am sure you would like to see it. 
 Lord Runcorn, or Mr. Lacy, if you 're tired, will give you an 
 arm. I and Lady Madeleine Seaton are going to walk on in 
 front.' 
 
 Having thus separated Lord Runcorn from the only rival 
 whom she feared, Mrs. Mordaunt claimed her companion, and 
 set out with such unusual briskness that Lord Runcorn's eyes 
 were very soon deprived of even a back view of Lady 
 Madeleine's well-made dress, and Mrs. Norham was left with 
 the two gentlemen to herself. She was conciliated by this 
 arrangement, which she took for a compliment to herself, and 
 which she welcomed also as affording her a good opportunity 
 
192 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 of exhibiting herself to Mr. Lacy as the admired friend of his 
 uncle. She had ample time given her to mature her plans ; 
 for, during the first five minutes of their progress, Lord 
 Runcorn never ceased to praise Lady Madeleine Seaton, and 
 to ask Lacy questions with regard to her where he had met 
 her, when she had come to stay with him, and what was her 
 precise connection with his other guests, the St. Germans. 
 This discourse, however, came to an end, and then Lord 
 Runcorn began in his best manner to hold forth on the 
 elevating influence of such scenery as that which now sur- 
 rounded them, shutting them out, as it did, with its woods 
 and mountains, together with its concealed fences, from all 
 those sounds and activities of the great human multitude, 
 which, according to Mrs. Norham's philosophy, were the 
 only things worth thinking about. Presently, with a some- 
 what pompous and yet beautiful modulation of his voice, 
 he summed up his meaning, as they were entering Lacy's 
 grounds, by repeating the opening lines of a well-known 
 sonnet of Wordsworth's 
 
 There are two voices one is of the sea, 
 And one is of the mountains both divine. 
 They were thy chosen music, Liberty. 
 
 ' It is such sublime voices,' he went on, ' that we can listen to 
 in these gorgeous solitudes.' 
 
 ' Yes,' retorted Mrs. Norham ; ' but it behoves us not to 
 forget that such voices are sublime only because they speak 
 to us about the lot of crowds.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, though not alluringly beautiful, was at all 
 events female ; and actuated partly by an impulse of ineradi- 
 cable gallantry, partly by an effusive desire to pay homage to 
 literary merit, Lord Runcorn seized her hand. 'That is a 
 truth,' he said, ' I was forgetting, but ought not to have for- 
 gotten. I could forget many more, and ones of even greater 
 importance, for the pleasure of having them pointed out to me 
 by Mrs. Norham.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was reddening and hesitating, as if doubtful 
 what to reply, when, pointing to his favourite walk, which was 
 now lying before them, Lacy said, ' It is here that my own 
 grounds begin.' 
 
 ' My dear Tristram,' exclaimed Lord Runcorn, striking his 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 193 
 
 stick in the ground, and looking down the vista with solemn 
 and admiring eyes, 'have you too, like myself, discovered 
 some fairy palace ? ' 
 
 'You will, perhaps, think that it is more nearly like a 
 tea-garden,' said Lacy, when they reached the end of the 
 long walk, and saw below them the artificial amphitheatre of 
 gardens, with their spouting fountains, the grottoes, balustrades, 
 and statues, and, rising above them, the Chateau, embowered 
 in creepers, with gilded vanes on its turrets, and gay awnings 
 at its windows. Mrs. Norham had expected nothing of this 
 kind. Her face grew solemn, and by the time she had 
 entered the house each glance she cast at Lacy was a kind 
 of unspoken sermon. The two ladies who had preceded 
 them were already seated in the drawing-room, with Mrs. St. 
 Germans between them, looking like an old French miniature, 
 and before them a cluster of the daintiest teacups imaginable. 
 She and Lord Runcorn, who had known each other in old 
 days, met with mutual recognitions, which were like the 
 meeting of two waters. Lord Runcorn, for whose taste few 
 things were too ornate, thought the Chateau des Fleurs more 
 fascinating even than the Villa Martin, and much more 
 exciting than the voices of the sea and mountains. He 
 wandered about the rooms inspecting ornaments and pictures, 
 now calling Mrs. Mordaunt to his side, now Lady Madeleine, 
 and now appealing with grave deference to Mrs. St. Germans, 
 till he finally learnt who Madame de Villebois had been, 
 when at once he proceeded to electrify all his audience by 
 declaring that in his youth he had known her intimately, and 
 had offered her the incense of a boy's poetic passion. Then, 
 in the midst of this, there glided into the room a new feminine 
 something dazzling, dainty, irresolute a figure with a white 
 hat, and cheeks like a pink begonia, the figure of Estelle St. 
 Germans. Mrs. Mordaunt, when she saw her, gave a gasp 
 of sympathetic admiration ; and Lord Runcorn had eyes no 
 longer for miniatures or Sevres china. For the first time in 
 her life Mrs. Norham felt utterly bewildered, and all the con- 
 versation, all the movement round her, became for her like a 
 scene in a play the plot of which she could not follow, and in 
 which, what was worse, she herself could play no part. In 
 especial, the beauty of Miss St. Germans, her mixture of 
 simplicity and aplomb^ were like nothing Mrs. Norham had 
 ever seen before ; and as she watched Lacy moving in this 
 
 N 
 
194 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 unfamiliar milieu, addressed by these women with intimate 
 inflections of the voice, and constantly followed by the eyes of 
 the young girl, her anger with him grew more acute, and not 
 her anger only, but her desire to dominate his will and person- 
 ality with her own. These feelings, and the awkwardness which 
 accompanied them, reached their climax when she suddenly 
 saw this provokingly dainty figure standing by Lacy's chair, 
 with her hands resting on the back of it, her face bent down 
 to whisper something in his ear, and her eyes looking furtively 
 in Mrs. Norham's own direction. Mrs. Norham's cheeks 
 flamed. The girl's attitude, she told herself, was indecent 
 and worse, the little impudent minx was presuming to laugh 
 at her \ The thought was becoming intolerable, when Lacy, 
 coming towards her, said, ' Miss St. Germans has a great 
 request to make of you. She wants to know if you would 
 write your name in her album. She has your picture in it 
 already. Her book is in the next room.' 
 
 This act of childish homage acted on Mrs. Norham like 
 sal volatile. It not only restored her to her self-importance, 
 but at the moment she felt grateful for it, and gladly went 
 off under the guidance of her petitioner. When she returned, 
 she found a carriage had been ordered which would take Mrs. 
 Mordaunt and presumably Lord Runcorn back; and Lacy 
 suggested that Mrs. Norham's pony-chair should be sent 
 on to the Chateau, in order to pick her up. ' Pray,' said 
 Mrs. Norham, 'let it be sent straight back to St. Antoine. 
 I should prefer to walk.' ' Then let me,' said Lacy, ' come 
 with you.' 
 
 She assented with an ill grace, but with considerable in- 
 ward satisfaction. She saw at last the exact opportunity she 
 had been coveting. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Lacy, or Mr. Brandon,' she began, when they 
 had left the house together, 'for I hardly know by which 
 
 name to call you ' And she paused abruptly, as if she 
 
 had uttered a kind of challenge. 
 
 Lacy, however, only laughed. 'I have,' he answered, 'an 
 equal right to both.' 
 
 'After all,' said Mrs. Norham, 'what does a name matter? 
 I know now not only what you are called, but what you are. 
 I know the life you lead, the mental atmosphere you breathe ; 
 and I cease to wonder at your failure to find happiness in the 
 struggle to secure the good things of life for others. I cease 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 195 
 
 to wonder at your doubting if any good things exist. I don't 
 know if you object to my speaking plainly.' 
 
 'Not in the least,' he answered. 'Your plain speaking 
 interests me.' 
 
 ' Let me tell you, then,' Mrs. Norham resumed, ' that you 
 despair of life in your own case, and consequently in the case 
 of others, because you live shut off from all functional activity. 
 Your life and, if you will let me say so, the life of those 
 surrounding you no more resembles the life proper for a 
 human being than the foot of a Chinese woman resembles 
 a foot as it ought to be. You have even rejected so your 
 uncle tells me that poor and commonplace imitation of true 
 social duty which is vulgarly called serving your country 
 in a high public capacity. How is it possible that you can 
 understand social duty in its more important forms, the 
 practice of which constitutes the pure religion of altruism ? ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, pausing to open the gilded gates, through 
 which they passed from the grounds of the Chateau into the 
 public road, 'do you think you could tell me what I must 
 do to be saved ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, with her umbrella, struck viciously at the 
 iron-work. 'You must,' she said, 'break through bars like 
 these. It may be pardoned in men like your uncle men 
 of an elder generation that they should continue to live 
 surrounded by an anti-social luxury, and a ritual of pomp 
 which is not only anti-social, but forgive me for saying so 
 is at this time of day as absurd as would be the wearing of 
 armour. Men like him women like your aunt are charming 
 not because of these surroundings, but in spite of them. 
 They are like children so pretty that no dressing-up can spoil 
 them. But to you you who belong by rights to the new 
 generation of progress my counsel of perfection is this : 
 learn to prize nothing, to use nothing, to enjoy nothing I 
 will not say which is not enjoyed by all men but which may 
 not conceivably be enjoyed by all men some day. Mr. Lacy,' 
 said Mrs. Norham solemnly, ' if you can tear yourself away 
 for an hour from this false and lifeless life in which you live, 
 will you come one evening to us at St. Antoine, and be 
 present at a kind of service which we and our friends hold 
 together once a fortnight? You will then be in vitalising 
 contact with the thoughts, the feelings, and the classes that 
 really move the world. At all events, I will write you a line 
 
196 THE INDIVIDUALIST, 
 
 when our next meeting is arranged ; and you can take what 
 I offer you, or leave it, as you see fit. I can only add that 
 the true treasure of life is before you. I we put it before 
 your eyes. If you do not find it and take it, it is your own 
 fault.' 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SUCH is the perversity of the unregenerate human heart, that 
 Lacy, when he returned to his friends, felt that they and the 
 Chateau des Fleurs had an added value in his eyes on account 
 of Mrs. Norham's denunciation of them ; and, indeed, the 
 happy mood which was secretly developing itself within him 
 was mainly due to a certain condition of things by the 
 outer signs of which Mrs. Norham had been specially 
 piqued. 
 
 A calmer observer than she might have seen much more 
 than she did in the attitude of Miss St. Germans as she had 
 stood by Lacy's chair, and had stooped unabashed to whisper 
 her secret in his ear. It was an attitude that by this time 
 had come to be frequent and natural with her. Often, when 
 she showed him her sketches, she would find him sitting in 
 his library, and she would stand and bend over him whilst 
 he examined and discussed her work. In this respect her 
 conduct had an aspect that was entirely childish ; but in her 
 clinging to his neighbourhood, even in her tendency to lean 
 slightly against the chair by which she stood, an acute observer 
 might have detected that the ways and the consciousness of 
 childhood were fostering, by hiding, a feeling with which a 
 girl's childhood ends. And with regard to him, too, an acute 
 observer might have argued, that a man of his age, under 
 such circumstances, would never have looked so young and 
 so well pleased if he had not himself something of the feeling 
 which he had unintentionally roused. That neither of them 
 knew their condition would have been no proof that it was 
 not theirs ; for many people find that love is never so happy 
 as it is when it is alive and growing, but does not yet know 
 its own name. 
 
 To Lacy, at all events, if that name was what his feelings 
 
 197 
 
198 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 deserved, they had not as yet showed themselves to him in their 
 true character. They presented themselves to him rather as 
 an extraordinary revival of his youth, by sympathy with this 
 child for whom he acknowledged an affectionate friendship. 
 The cares and doubts of maturer life fell from him, as they 
 do from grown-up people who join in the games of children. 
 The shining freshness of her appreciations flashed their light 
 upon his. The murmuring sea renewed for him its old 
 prophecies. The chalice of every flower became a Pandora's 
 box, its scents or its dews being the disguised spirit of hope. 
 All life was like a novel which he had read through and dis- 
 carded, but which he had now taken up again, and which, 
 reading it aloud to her, was once more as fresh as he found 
 the chapters of Consnelo, with which he still continued to 
 entertain his guests in the evening. 
 
 The effect thus produced on him was all the deeper, 
 and was deprived of the unreality of the ordinary fool's 
 paradise by the fact that it did not distract him from the 
 calls of prosaic business ; and it deepened, instead of 
 diminishing, the pleasure he felt in the graver company of 
 Lady Madeleine Seaton. For without ever alluding to his 
 present condition of happiness, she seemed to him to be 
 aware of it, and to encourage his happiness by her sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 He had never been conscious of this fact so keenly as he was 
 on the morning that succeeded Mrs. Norham's visit. It was 
 Sunday ; and he proposed to Lady Madeleine to walk with her 
 when she went to Mass. He had, since she had been staying 
 with him, made a new discovery. In the forest near the 
 Chateau, beyond the public road, there was a little chapel 
 built by Madame de Villebois, at which Mass was said every 
 alternate Sunday. It was to be said there this morning, and 
 he and Lady Madeleine set out together. He had never 
 forgotten his meeting with her in that other chapel in a 
 forest also at St. Laurent; and just as Miss St. Germans 
 gave him back something of his lost youth, so did Lady 
 Madeleine give him back something of his lost religion. 
 She did not do this, so far as he was himself aware, by 
 turning his mind towards any object of religious worship ; 
 but her influence invested the passions and vicissitudes of 
 life with something of the mysterious light which religious 
 belief throws on them ; and as he stood or knelt by her 
 
CHAPTER XX. 199 
 
 side that morning, he was conscious of this in a new way. 
 This chapel was, to his mind, far less devotional than the 
 other. It was a specimen of the smartest Gothic which 
 a modern architect could produce ; and the brightest object 
 visible, in its artificial twilight, was Madame de Villebois in 
 alabaster, recumbent on her own tomb. But these exotic 
 fineries were toned down by the simplicity of the primitive 
 worshippers; and Lacy's thoughts, as before on a similar 
 occasion, though not occupied with the service, were in some 
 measure in tune with it. 
 
 They dwelt now, for the first time, on a change which had, 
 during his guest's stay with him, been taking place in his own 
 disposition. He recognised, that in all the many discussions 
 he had had with them, the only opinions he had himself 
 expressed had been those which he most sincerely respected, 
 or most sincerely wished might be his own. He heard himself 
 condemning things which for years he had been accustomed 
 to condone, and treating with reverence scruples which had 
 long seemed meaningless to him. His mind became like a 
 church which echoed only to noble music; and he could 
 hardly believe that he was really the same man who so short 
 a time ago could hardly think a thought which was not stained 
 or warped by some bitter or desponding spirit. So he seemed 
 to himself, viewed from these mental elevations to which he 
 had been wafted by the rhythm of the worship and the 
 vapours from the clanking thurible; and when he emerged 
 into the light of day again, and found his companion at his 
 side, his exaltation of spirits remained, though it somewhat 
 changed its character. 
 
 As he and Lady Madeleine went home together through the 
 pine-wood, as he noticed her graceful walk, and her eyes that 
 seemed charged with memories, his thoughts went back to a 
 long-past love-affair of his own the one that had ploughed 
 the most painful furrow in his memory. It had begun on 
 the Riviera ; and, as Lady Tregothran would have said of it, 
 the heroine of it had been 'the inevitable married woman.' 
 He thought of his own passion that had idealised and 
 redeemed the situation ; and the efforts he made, as the 
 situation became more difficult, to prop up its threatened 
 dignity by idealising it yet more completely ; and he thought 
 of how he had gone through the shadows with a pathway of 
 sunshine in his heart. He thought, moreover, of the way 
 
200 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 in which this woman had cast him off; of his own ambitions 
 which he had hoped would make up for the loss of her ; of 
 the way in which these had failed him almost as completely 
 as she had ; and, finally, of how the memory of her had 
 become almost degrading to him, precisely because it had 
 utterly lost its sting. 
 
 But now these thoughts came back to him like some 
 pungent aroma from the soil, which, though they saddened 
 him a little, yet stimulated him, and mixed themselves with 
 his consciousness of the companionship of Lady Madeleine, 
 whose experiences he vaguely felt must have had some resem- 
 blance to his own. As he walked with her, all his senses were 
 like an orchestra whose different instruments were softly play- 
 ing their accompaniment to this agitation of his mind. There 
 was the blue of the sky shining between the dark foliage, 
 the elastic spring of the pine-needles beneath his feet, the 
 remembered fumes of the incense he had just been breath- 
 ing, the thrilling touch of the clear forest air, and the faint 
 and delicate scent from the pocket-handkerchief of his 
 companion. 
 
 Presently he said to her, 'This is the most enchanting 
 country in the world.' 
 
 'And yet,' she answered, 'when I first met you here, it did 
 not seem to have put you in the very best of spirits. I think 
 you are happier now. Surely, as people say, you have every- 
 thing that can make you happy. If any one ought to be 
 happy, you ought to be.' 
 
 'Happiness,' he said, 'can never be independent of circum- 
 stances ; but the best of circumstances do not create happiness. 
 The kingdom of happiness, like the kingdom of God, is within 
 us. I suppose,' he continued, ' that a man's keenest happiness 
 is successfully and permanently to idealise some woman and 
 to marry her. For in spite of all people may say, who fancy 
 that they know the world, no one who has tasted to its dregs 
 a union that is not legitimate, can believe that complete 
 happiness is possible in any liaison which marriage does not 
 confirm. It is made impossible, in the long-run, by the mere 
 conditions of the society round us.' 
 
 ' Yes,' she said, ' women know that quite as well as men. 
 They have more temptation to find it out by experience. Do 
 men ever suffer, in our class, as the almost portionless girls 
 do, to whom marriage offers the sole means of subsistence ; 
 
CHAPTER XX. 201 
 
 and who, in nine cases out of ten, must, if they are true to 
 their husbands, sacrifice all the poetry of life, and if they are 
 not true, all its peace ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Lacy, 'some men suffer more. Look at me, 
 now. I was sufficiently well born. I was brought up in the 
 heart of what is called the world. Within limits, I was 
 successful, and made much of; and I never was so poor that 
 I hadn't a good coat to my back, and a servant to varnish my 
 boots. But there my resources ended. And as for men such 
 as I was, however superficially prosperous, there is one relation 
 in life and that relation is the most important in which 
 they find themselves to be pariahs. That relation is marriage. 
 Every form of intimacy is open to them except that.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lady Madeleine, adopting a line of reply which 
 to a man, though not to a woman, might perhaps have seemed 
 inconsequent, 'you are, at all events, in a different position 
 now.' 
 
 ' Yes,' he replied, ' that is true enough. You mean, of course, 
 that I am rich now. Well, to many men who have been 
 poor, wealth may come like a non-diabolic Mephistopheles, 
 offering them the enchanted broth that is'to make them young 
 again. But it must find them wiser or more ignorant, when 
 it comes to them, than it has found me. I begin with my 
 new riches, where Faust in his new youth ended. I had found 
 life out before I had the golden key to it. I am a Faust who 
 cannot even be taken in by a Marguerite.' 
 
 ' Do you,' said his companion, ' really mean that? For my 
 part, I think there 's a Marguerite not very far off, who might 
 easily find a soft place in your heart.' 
 
 ' Do you mean,' said Lacy, ' that child ? My dear friend, 
 her presence in the house is delightful, to you, I think, no 
 less than to me. It is like water in a landscape. And for 
 me do you know what her society is to me ? It is a kind 
 of hashish, which gives me back all my youth its interests, 
 its illusions, its high spirits in a dream. But I know it to 
 be a dream, all the same. Do not let us put it to flight by 
 talking about it. If the girl bears any relation to me at all, 
 she is my child or my little sister. By the way,' he went on, 
 abruptly changing the subject, 'that reminds me. I am glad 
 to gather from what Mrs. St. Germans says, that you will not 
 be in a hurry to go back to St. Laurent.' 
 
 The subject they were just discussing was thus for the time 
 
202 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 closed, though it was destined to be opened again at no very 
 distant period ; and Lacy, though it had not been altogether 
 disagreeable to him, had it put out of his head completely 
 during the course of the afternoon, by two incidents of a sur- 
 prising but essentially unromantic character. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 MRS. ST. GERMANS and her granddaughter had gone in 
 the afternoon to St. Hilaire to attend the English service, 
 for the weekly performance of which, in the public salon of the 
 hotel, Mr. Sam Davis, zealous for the souls of the visitors, 
 had engaged, through the Poodle, a very personable English 
 clergyman. Lacy, meanwhile, was occupied with some busi- 
 ness in his library, when the door was abruptly opened, and a 
 servant announced a visitor. Lacy started, looked up, and 
 before him stood the Poodle himself. 
 
 Lacy rose to greet him with a face that was grave rather 
 than cordial, nor was this certainly to be wondered at. The 
 Poodle, though he could find money for giving dinners to 
 the objects of his affection, had made no attempt to repay 
 the five thousand francs, which he had, with such solemn pro- 
 testations, borrowed for three days only ; nor even the other 
 sum which had been lent him by his friend in London. 
 He perceived at a glance the expression of his friend's 
 face. At such observations nobody could be quicker than 
 he ; and his own expression and demeanour were likewise 
 different from their wont. He was indeed as smart as ever, or, 
 if possible, smarter; for his hands were adorned with one 
 or two new rings, his linen shone with the luminous glaze 
 of porcelain, and his person exhaled a fragrance of Ess 
 bouquet. But there was no eager laughter. There was no 
 flourishing of his stick. He was a little flushed; there 
 was a slight frown on his forehead; and he stood there 
 like injured innocence, expecting to be injured further, 
 and yet magnanimously restraining the reproaches it was 
 his right to utter. 
 
 Matters stood like this for a few seconds only. Lacy then 
 forced a smile, pushed a chair towards him, and began, as he 
 
 203 
 
204 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 did so, an attempt at conversation, by saying, ' Since I saw 
 you last, your operations have been indeed successful. I 
 suppose you are at St. Hilaire, busy with your new watering- 
 place, which seems, like heaven and earth, to have been 
 created in six days.' 
 
 To this, however, the Poodle made no reply. He remained 
 standing, and his eyes, as he now fixed them on Lacy, seemed 
 slowly to be protruded farther and farther out of his eyelids, 
 as if pushed forward by the weight of repressed feelings behind 
 them. At last, thrusting his hand into an inner pocket of his 
 coat, he pulled out a leather case, and took from it, with 
 trembling fingers, a number of bank-notes, which he laid 
 down emphatically on a table. 
 
 'There, old boy,' he said at last, his voice halting with 
 emotion, ' now I can look you in the face again ! If it had 
 not been that I 've tried your patience too long already, I 'd have 
 asked you to help me for just a few weeks longer. But that 
 would be too much to expect. Old boy, I must tell you I 
 quite understood that letter of yours. I could see just what 
 you felt ; and, by Jove, I wasn't surprised at it. You didn't 
 trust me. That was the long and the short of it ; and I said 
 to myself, " Before another fortnight 's out, he shall have 
 his own again, if I have to sell the coat off my back for it." 
 However, old boy, I 've done better even than I expected ; 
 and here 's what you lent me a fortnight ago at St. Laurent, 
 and the other sum you lent me in London, too. It's 
 three seventeen in all. I suppose you will take French 
 money ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly,' said Lacy kindly, though not effusively ; ' and 
 I must thank you for taking the trouble to bring it up here 
 yourself.' 
 
 'I was determined,' said the Poodle, who looked a little 
 disappointed at not having roused his friend to a greater 
 warmth of manner, 'that you shouldn't go on thinking as 
 you did of me for one moment longer than I could help. 
 So I just put by every five-franc piece I could spare, 
 and have managed to do it a month sooner than I expected. 
 Just count the money, will you, that you may see I have 
 not cheated you. There should be eight notes there for a 
 thousand francs, nine for a hundred, and twenty-five francs in 
 silver.' 
 
 Lacy shook out the coins on to the table, counted the notes 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 205 
 
 themselves, said carelessly, 'It is all right,' and showed an 
 inclination to turn to some other subject. But at this the 
 Poodle looked oddly worried and disappointed. 'You'd 
 better,' he said, ' see also that I have done the sum rightly, 
 and given you back for your sovereigns the proper amount of 
 francs.' 
 
 'There can't,' said Lacy, 'be much doubt about that. 
 Still, if you wish it, I will do the sum myself.' He took 
 a pencil and began to put down the figures. 'The 
 sum in pounds,' he said, 'is three hundred and seventeen. 
 Three, one, seven, multiplied by twenty-five why, hang it, 
 my dear fellow, you've given me a thousand francs too 
 much ! ' 
 
 Lacy was not at that moment watching the Poodle's face. 
 Had he been doing so, he would have seen an irrepressible 
 expression of satisfaction in it, as if something which had 
 nearly failed had succeeded admirably at last. His whole 
 manner underwent a complete change. 
 
 ' Dear old boy,' he exclaimed, sinking familiarly into a chair, 
 ' it can't be so. Give me hold of the pencil. Just look here 
 now ! well ! if this doesn't beat cock-fighting ! You 're 
 right. It 's seven thousand. So much the better for me. I 
 know what happened. I got into the habit of putting these 
 thousand-franc notes by for you; and from always being 
 haunted by the thought that there were still too few of 
 them, I ended it 's a funny thing by slipping in one too 
 many.' 
 
 Lacy, though distrustful of human nature in general, 
 was easily inspired with a belief in particular specimens 
 of it. 
 
 'Well,' he said, his manner recovering its accustomed 
 cordiality, ' here are your thousand francs back again. As for 
 the rest, I must once more thank you for it.' 
 
 'Dear old boy,' exclaimed the Poodle, recovering all his 
 effusiveness, ' I was awfully ashamed to ask you for it, but I 
 never can tell you what it did for me. If it hadn't been for 
 you, I should be in a debtor's prison. Your poor friend 
 would, at this moment, be in brown hollands. As it is, this 
 business will end in being a famous thing for me ; though, of 
 course, in my present position I can't do so well as I might 
 do, and I don't touch much of the solid profits till settling 
 day. That's where the rub is.' 
 
206 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 An inward voice, articulate as the Demon of Socrates, 
 warned Lacy to take no notice of this remark ; but the 
 Poodle's pathos had touched him, and the warning was 
 disregarded. 
 
 ' I had hoped,' he said, ' from what you told me, that you 
 were doing even better than you expected.' He might well 
 have been in doubt as to the Poodle's precise position ; for 
 the Poodle all through his life had kept at his disposal two 
 alternative views of his circumstances at one moment insist- 
 ing on his poverty, when he was hoping for a loan from the 
 benevolent; at another insisting on his solvency, when he 
 was hoping for a loan from the prudent. 
 
 ' Old boy,' said the Poodle, with a sudden spasm of frank- 
 ness, 'after what you've been tempted to think of me, I 
 couldn't again take any help from you not help of that sort 
 even if you offered it. But one sort of help I will ask of 
 you your advice. Just look here now. The position in 
 which I am is this. I get at present, for doing Sam's dirty 
 work, just enough to keep me from day to day, and the lump 
 sum due to me does not come till the end. But if I could 
 raise about fifteen thousand francs, I could buy a business 
 something like what I've been doing and work it with a 
 friend of mine an awfully good chap. I say,' exclaimed the 
 Poodle suddenly, as his eyes fell on a photograph which stood 
 on a table near him, ' who 's that ? ' 
 
 'It's my cousin,' said Lacy, 'Mr. Octavius Brandon's son, 
 who died of a fever last year at Chicago.' 
 
 ' Oh,' said the Poodle, still eyeing the portrait. ' Well, old 
 boy, as I was saying, this friend of mine talking of America, 
 he's been out there too, and made a nice little pile, every 
 dollar of which he lost in a silver mine. He has to begin 
 the whole long struggle again. I've done a little for him, 
 and I 've got him a billet under Sam. His share alone, at 
 the end of the season, will be something like a thousand 
 pounds, and mine will be three times that; and if only 
 meanwhile we could clap hands on this six hundred pounds 
 well, there this business is for us, which would set us up for 
 life.' 
 
 Lacy looked down silently at a bit of writing-paper, and 
 began, as though in meditation, scribbling aimless lines on it. 
 1 1 don't think,' he at last said slowly, ' that there ought to be 
 any difficulty about raising this money.' 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 207 
 
 The Poodle leaned eagerly towards him. 
 
 'I think,' Lacy continued, 'Mr. Davis himself would 
 advance it to you, on the security of the sum which you 
 say he already owes you.' 
 
 ' That shows,' exclaimed the Poodle, suddenly drawing back, 
 'that shows, old boy, how little you know of Sam. Of 
 course but it's no good talking of that if you had had 
 enough confidence in me to have taken my word and I 
 think, after all, I 've shown myself not untrustworthy come, 
 old boy, have not I made a gallant fight for it paying you 
 back every penny like this ? However, no matter. I 'm 
 awfully sorry I troubled you. I '11 go to Sam, as you suggest. 
 He '11 chuck me but what 's the odds ! ' 
 
 'You go too fast,' said Lacy. 'Let me talk a bit of plain 
 sense to you. You tell me you want a sum of money for a 
 certain specified purpose that you would engage to repay 
 it when certain payments are made to yourself, but that you 
 have no security on which to raise it which a business man 
 would look at. Nor is it quite possible that I may be able to 
 advance you this sum myself; and, so far as security goes, I 
 shall be willing to take your word. But if you want me to do 
 anything, you must let me have full particulars of the business 
 you want to buy its nature, the name of the firm, its present 
 condition, and so on. If you '11 write me out a memorandum, 
 and give me time to make inquiries myself, I '11 see what I 
 can do to help you.' 
 
 The Poodle's face, as he listened, grew extremely red. 
 ' Well, old boy,' he said, ' if you can't trust me altogether, don't 
 trust me at all. It so happens that I 'm bound by the most 
 solemn engagement to reveal no details about this business 
 to anybody. I confess I think you might have taken my 
 word for it that it 's a sound paying thing. I think my acts 
 have spoken for themselves. The moment I had money 
 enough, I Ve rushed off to pay you. I stopped here on my 
 journey for I 'm going back to London for a week ; and I 
 should have come to you with my pennies a week sooner, if 
 I hadn't been so much in earnest that I fancied I owed you 
 more than I did.' 
 
 ' My dear Poodle,' said Lacy, ' your indignation is a little 
 unreasonable. You want money to be advanced to you on 
 the specific ground that you mean to invest it in a certain 
 established business ; and I say you shall have the money, if 
 
208 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 you will only let me assure myself that this business is worth 
 buying. But I 'm not going to throw away six hundred pounds 
 in the dark for a purpose which might possibly profit you as 
 little as it did me. And there 's another thing I must mention, 
 for you really force me to do so. You have paid me back two 
 sums you borrowed of me, and you have done so, you tell me, 
 a month sooner than you expected.' 
 
 ' I have,' said the Poodle, with sulky emphasis. 
 
 ' Very well, then,' said Lacy, ' the first sum you borrowed 
 was for a fortnight. Your cheque was sent back dishonoured. 
 The second was for three days ; you repay it after as many 
 weeks ; and you tell me that though you have been late in 
 making both repayments, you never expected to have made 
 them till a month later. Now, had these delays been due 
 to any inability on your part to repay me, I should have 
 said nothing about the matter. I should not even have 
 thought about it. But it is nonsense to pretend that you Ve 
 repaid me at the earliest moment possible, when for the 
 last fortnight money, which you admit was mine, you've 
 been throwing away on a cocotte, and on absurd dinners to 
 her friends.' 
 
 At these words the Poodle rose from his seat. ' Well,' he 
 said, in a voice which quivered with scornful indignation, ' if 
 you 're going to talk to me about a delicate thing like that 
 if you think it 's gentlemanly if you think it 's honourable 
 to drag in a woman's name I must say good-bye to 
 you. I can't stop any longer to be insulted; and I can 
 only tell you now, after what you have just said, that I 
 wouldn't touch a penny of your dirty money if you gave it to 
 me.' 
 
 By the time he had finished speaking he had managed to 
 reach the door. Before Lacy could follow him, or ring for a 
 servant, he was gone ; and the front door a moment later was 
 heard banging behind him. 
 
 The face of the Poodle, as he thus beat retreat, was a 
 study ; and as he went down the approach, making vindictive 
 flourishes with his stick, his voice, no less than his face, gave 
 hints as to his state of mind. ' I like that,' he muttered. 
 ' That 's the way to treat one, when one brings him back not 
 his own dirty money only, but two thousand francs besides ! ' 
 The Poodle could not be accurate even when he was harangu- 
 ing himself. ' Why, hang it, with his memoranda, he 's a greater 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 209 
 
 Shylock than Sam ! ' Presently he added, in a quieter and 
 more reflective voice, ' I was a fool to flare up at him. I did 
 not play my cards well. That extra bank-note it ought to 
 have been an ace of trumps. And now ' he stopped 
 short, and gnawed his lips with vexation ' two-thirds of my 
 winnings,' he moaned, ' are gone in paying a man who ought 
 to be only too thankful if he got his money back in a year. 
 A year ! in two years, three years, five years. What is money 
 to him? Why, if that poor cousin of his hadn't died in 
 Chicago, he'd have been borrowing of me, not I of him.' 
 As he said those words the Poodle stood stock still. Then 
 he suddenly stuck his stick in the ground, gave a little skip 
 in the air, and exclaimed aloud, ' I have it ! That will make 
 my friend sit up ! By George,' he added with a laugh, ' I 'd 
 give twice the money he 's refused me for the fun of a lark 
 like this ! ' 
 
 He quickened his pace to something very like a run ; and 
 he soon had reached the lodge, and passed into the public 
 road. Here he began to look about him ; and he had not 
 proceeded far before he was joined by a man, young and 
 elaborately dressed, who lightly leaped into the roadway from 
 one of the wooded banks. 
 
 ' Well,' he said with a drawl and a slightly nasal accent, 'and 
 what luck ? Is the millionaire mad to be stumping up ? He 
 won't be a millionaire very long if he is.' 
 
 ' My dear George B.,' said the Poodle, ' I Ve done all I 
 could for you. But it's no go. When I said you wanted 
 capital to join with me in buying a business for, after all, to 
 find capital for a system is to buy a business in a sense he 
 wanted me to draw up a memorandum of what the business 
 was. Damn it, George B., I 'm too indignant just now to talk 
 about it. I '11 tell you all by and by. But I Ve thought of a way 
 by which we can be even with him yet, and pay him off with 
 a fright which he won't forget in a hurry. Look here, George 
 B., I Ve just seen a photograph in there of your poor brother. 
 By Jove, it 's the living image of you. Now you told me that 
 he, just before his last illness I hope I 'm not hurting your 
 feelings by talking of what must have been so fearfully sad for 
 you had a leetle trouble with some brute of a pig-killing 
 husband, over a dear, fluffy little woman, who unluckily was 
 the brute's wife. Why is it, George B., that husbands are 
 always brutes ? And why are the wives, who think so, always 
 
 o 
 
2io THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 so much too good for them ? Anyhow, your poor brother 
 found there was the very devil to pay.' 
 
 ' He did,' said George B., in not very broken-hearted tones ; 
 ' and he 'd hardly found this out before he went direct to his 
 creditor. That 's a thing, Mr. Poodle, I guess, which you 
 don't do over-frequently.' 
 
 ' Well,' resumed the Poodle, ' why shouldn't you and I 
 But wait here 's somebody coming. I '11 tell you when he 's 
 gone by. Who in the world is that ? Is he a doctor, or a 
 Methodist parson ? ' 
 
 The person who was mounting the hill which the Poodle and 
 his friend were descending, might, to judge from appearances, 
 have been either one or the other. He strode up the ascent 
 with an air of severe strenuousness, as though he were elevated 
 by the sense of performing a somewhat distasteful duty ; and 
 now and again he raised his wide-awake hat and mopped his 
 forehead with a handkerchief as big as a towel. When he 
 reached the lodge-gates of the Chateau des Fleurs, he stood 
 still, and made a long and scrutinising grimace at them. 
 Then he rang the bell, and was presently admitted within the 
 precincts. 
 
 Lacy was still in his library, thinking over his interview 
 with the Poodle, when a letter was brought to him, which 
 contained, in addition to the signature, these few words : 
 ' Dear Mr. Lacy, before venturing to intrude on you, I 
 send this in to ask for a short interview, about a matter 
 which is really important. I otherwise should not have 
 troubled you.' 
 
 ' Show the gentleman in,' Lacy said to the servant ; and a 
 moment later, in the doorway, appeared Mr. Prouse Bousefield. 
 Mr. Bousefield's expression and bearing, though staid, were 
 naturally genial; but his whole air, at this moment, had a 
 hardness, and a certain suggestion of defiance, which made 
 Lacy think he must have come to him to complain of some 
 unknown injury. His first words, however, dissipated this 
 impression. 
 
 ' Mr. Lacy,' he said, looking about him furtively, ' my 
 world is a very different world from yours ; and I hope 
 you won't think my presenting myself in this way an 
 intrusion.' 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Bousefield,' exclaimed Lacy, who now 
 perceived that his visitor was merely suffering from an acute 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 211 
 
 form of shyness, ' come and sit down, do. I am more than 
 pleased to see you.' 
 
 ' I am,' said Mr. Bousefield, subsiding on the edge of a 
 chair, and leaning forward as if to indicate that his stay would 
 be of the very briefest ' I am not come to inflict an idle call 
 on you, but to talk to you about a piece of business which I 
 think might really interest you. It happens, moreover, to be 
 urgent. Else I need hardly tell you that I shouldn't though 
 I am no bigot have troubled you about it on the Lord's day. 
 And will you first,' he continued, gradually becoming more at 
 his ease, ' let me explain that though I am going to ask you 
 if you would like to take some shares in a certain commercial 
 enterprise, I don't want you to do it, unless you yourself 
 should want to. The shares I would offer to you, if you 
 yourself don't take them, will be taken to-morrow by a certain 
 friend of my own ; but you, Mr. Lacy, made us so generous 
 an offer in connection with Startfield Hall, that I should like 
 to give you a chance of having an interest in something which 
 I myself believe will, though the beginnings are small, be one 
 of the great successes of the century.' 
 
 Though Mr. Bousefield's language thus far had been almost 
 as vague as the Poodle's, there was something in his manner 
 and himself which inspired a belief in his integrity ; and Lacy, 
 though he began to smile with a faint perception of what 
 was coming, settled himself to listen with a becoming air of 
 attention. 
 
 'Well,' Mr. Bousefield resumed, 'I think we have both men- 
 tioned to you Mrs. Norham and I that one of our little 
 colony has hit on an invention which is nothing short of 
 marvellous. At first it will be used for bicycles ; but I 
 shrewdly suspect it is capable of much wider application. 
 The principle is simplicity itself. Allow me to show you this 
 diagram. You are aware, no doubt, that there is already 
 an electric lamp in the market, the current for which is 
 generated by the motion of the bicycle itself. Well, what 
 does our friend Tibbits do, but conceive the grand idea of 
 using this current to propel the bicycle instead of lighting the 
 rider ! ' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield here, with the aid of his printed diagram, 
 proceeded to explain the details of the great invention, the 
 advantages of which he finally summed up thus : ' Each push, 
 you see, which the rider gives to the pedal, not only propels 
 
212 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 the bicycle in proportion to the strength of that stroke, but 
 stores up an amount of propulsive electric force, which adds 
 itself to the stroke succeeding. Tibbits has worked the whole 
 thing out mathematically, and he says that for every pound of 
 pressure put on the pedal by the rider, the electric motor, 
 allowing for friction and so forth, will add decimal three, 
 seven, nine, six, nine of a pound.' 
 
 ' I see,' said Lacy. ' The principle, I take it, is this that 
 you get out of each stroke about a third more than you put 
 into it.' 
 
 ' Precisely,' said Mr. Bousefield. ' You Ve grasped the very 
 idea : and, as I say, if this invention succeeds with a bicycle, 
 it will probably be capable of application to other machines 
 as well.' 
 
 ' Indeed I should think it will,' said Lacy with accents of 
 conviction. 
 
 'And now,' said Mr. Bousefield eagerly, as he produced 
 some more papers, ' let us go for a moment to the business 
 side of the matter. We 're starting the thing by a little private 
 syndicate, with a capital of seven thousand, which seven 
 people contribute. But the bulk of this sum comes really 
 from myself, from Mrs. Norham, and from Poulton. I 'm down 
 for three thousand, Mrs. Norham for two thousand, and 
 Poulton I didn't know he was such a capitalist for the rest, 
 minus some few pounds. Well, Poulton, not being a man of 
 much means, is willing, so he has just written to me, to dis- 
 pose at par of one-quarter of his shares. Mrs. Bousefield, 
 who has means of her own, has offered to take the whole of 
 them ; but it occurred both to her and to myself that, in re- 
 cognition of your kindness to us, we should like, as this 
 is a great opportunity, to offer them to you first. Every- 
 thing 's under way. Our offices are taken in Queen Victoria 
 Street, for, as Poulton says, a fine position is everything. 
 We 're just concluding the purchase of some engineering shops 
 in Lambeth, and Tibbits goes back shortly to superintend 
 the practical part of the business. I don't,' said Mr. Bouse- 
 field, with genuine delicacy of feeling, 'want to press you 
 for an answer at this moment : but the matter must be 
 settled by to-morrow ; so, if you would think it over, I would 
 ask you to send me a line to-morrow, not later than four 
 o'clock. And now, Mr. Lacy, you know, I must really 
 be off.' 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 213 
 
 Mr. Bousefield glanced round the room, and his shyness 
 seemed once more returning to him. Lacy begged him to 
 come into the drawing-room, where they would probably find 
 tea; but this only rendered his agitation greater, bringing 
 back into his manner a trace of its former brusquerie. 
 'Thank you, sir thank you, sir,' he said, with a nervous 
 movement of his hands, which resulted in his unconsciously 
 drawing on a capacious black kid glove. ' Don't trouble to 
 ring. You will perhaps let me out by the window.' 
 
 Mrs. St. Germans that evening, though she was not a rigid 
 Sabbatarian, gave a turn to the conversation at dinner, un- 
 mistakably distinctive of the day. She discussed the con- 
 gregation, with whose devotions she had joined her own ; and 
 her own, it appeared, had endued her with one of the most 
 difficult of Christian virtues, and had made her think of her 
 neighbours a great deal more than of herself. ' I,' she said, 
 ' have so long been out of London, that I only recognised one 
 or two of the people. Mrs. Mordaunt was there, with a muff 
 of blue fox, and a prayer-book which must have cost almost 
 as much as her muff. And who do you think preached the 
 sermon ? Why, the Dean of Northampton. And a very nice 
 sermon it was, too, on the influence of scenery on the moral 
 and spiritual life. The text was from Solomon's Song " I 
 said, I will go up to the palm-tree." Mrs. Mordaunt said the 
 rest of the verse, which she looked out in her Bible, was not 
 very convetlable. Then there was of course a collection ; and 
 the plate was carried round by a millionaire your mother's 
 friend, Madeleine, Mr. Helbeckstein. His wife and your 
 mother, Mrs. Mordaunt says, will not be here for a day or 
 two : and meanwhile Mr. Helbeckstein has been keep- 
 ing the bank at baccarat. They Ve a casino and baccarat 
 already. I call it disgusting. Mrs. Mordaunt told me all 
 this ; and she said to me after the service, " My dear, doesn't 
 this surprise you ? We might really have been in Berkely 
 Chapel."' 
 
 Mrs. St. Germans, however, paid for the pleasures and pro- 
 fits of the afternoon by a headache in the evening, which sent 
 her to bed early; and her grand-daughter, Lacy and Lady 
 Madeleine, left to themselves in the drawing-room, were 
 tempted by the warmth of the night to go out on to one of 
 the balconies. 
 
 The three exchanged some of those flat and fragmentary 
 
214 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 observations, which the beauty of the scene would have 
 elicited from ninety-nine people out of a hundred. Then, for 
 the sake of a change, they began to pace the balcony. As 
 they passed one of the drawing-room windows, Lady Madeleine 
 disappeared, and Lacy and Miss St. Germans were left alone 
 with the moonlight. They were for a moment or two not 
 aware of this. Then the girl perceived it. 
 
 ' Madeleine has gone in,' she said, and made a slight move- 
 ment as though she would follow her example. 
 
 ' Don't go away,' said Lacy, hardly conscious of what he 
 uttered, but seeming to himself to be following the dictates 
 of mere politeness. The effect of his words, however, slight 
 as it was, and unnoticed as it would have been by any ordin- 
 ary observer, startled him and roused him with something 
 like a thrill of pain. When he said to her, ' Don't go away,' 
 she turned again towards him with the willing obedience of a 
 petal responding to some slightest breath of wind. There was 
 a slow dignity in her movement; but, delicately disguised 
 though it was, he saw, or thought he saw, in it an unconscious 
 self-surrender. He had been willing enough that this girl 
 should influence and freshen his life. He had never coveted 
 the responsibility of exercising any influence over hers. Up 
 to the present moment he had been delightfully at ease in her 
 company. He was now surprised by a sudden consciousness 
 of embarrassment. The consequence was that, after one or 
 two repetitions of the platitudes they had already uttered in 
 conventional honour of the moonlight, they stood together 
 leaning on the stone balustrade in silence. 
 
 He was roused from his reflections by her voice. ' Grand- 
 mamma tells me,' she said, ' that you are going and I too 
 to a dinner at your uncle's, and that there is to be a party 
 afterwards.' 
 
 ' She told me to accept for you,' he answered. ' I hope 
 you don't object.' 
 
 1 We've been so happy,' she said ; ' and now all our pleasant 
 days will be over. You have liked to talk to me when there 
 was no one else to talk to; but when once you are back 
 amongst all these other people, of course you won't care to 
 talk to me any more.' 
 
 His heart went out towards her ; but this time he was on 
 his guard ; and he merely said laughingly, ' That shows how 
 little you know about it.' 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 215 
 
 But if he was on his guard then, the next moment she took 
 him by surprise. She put her hand out to him. He could 
 not avoid taking it. ' I am saying,' she whispered, 'good-bye 
 to the old days the happiest days I have ever had in my 
 life.' And then abruptly disengaging herself, she slipped back 
 like a shadow into the lamplight. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THOUGH Lacy had assured Miss St. Germans that their 
 impending plunge into society would do nothing to alter the 
 quiet tenor of their existence, he found himself looking forward 
 to it, with the hope that it would really do so, and rouse the 
 young girl, from what he feared might be a foolish dream, to 
 interests more in accordance with her years, and with practical 
 possibilities. He even 'counted the hours, next day, till the 
 carriage should be standing at the door to carry them off to 
 the gaieties of the Villa Martin. 
 
 In this mood of expectancy Lacy was not alone. It was 
 shared by another, though for different and loftier reasons. 
 Successful as Mrs. Norham had been, when she was under 
 Lord Runcorn's roof, she was haunted, saddened, and indeed 
 irritated by a sense that she had not ended the day of her 
 visit to him nearly as brilliantly as she began it ; and that at 
 the Chateau des Fleurs, she, the most remarkable woman of 
 the century, would have been utterly ignored and neglected, 
 if a useless little doll of a girl had not recognised her for what 
 she was. She felt that if she must mix with the idle and the 
 fashionable at all, who were, as she again told herself, the 
 true vulgar, it was her duty to show them, by impressing on 
 them her own personality, what paltry creatures they were, 
 when measured by any true standard ; and she longed for a 
 recurrence of the opportunity which at the Chateau des Fleurs 
 had been let slip by her. Accordingly when a letter, adorned 
 with a gilt monogram, was brought her that morning by 
 one of Lord Runcorn's servants, her heart beat itself against 
 her corset with a vehemence almost painful ; but pleasure, 
 when she read its contents, left no room in her for pain. 
 
 1 Dear Mrs. Norham,' Lady Cornelia wrote, ' If the many 
 claims on your time should by accident leave you free this 
 
 216 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 217 
 
 evening, my brother Lord Runcorn has asked me to say how 
 grateful he would be to you if you would join us at a little 
 impromptu dinner, and allow him the privilege of introducing 
 you to a few intellectual friends. If your answer is Yes, as I 
 hope it will be, I shall be equally pleased on my own account ; 
 and we will, in that case, send a closed carriage for you, which 
 will bring you and take you back again. I am, dear Mrs. 
 Norham, yours sincerely, CORNELIA LEYTON. 
 
 ' P.S. My brother has this moment come into the room, 
 in order to suggest that it would be a much better plan 
 for you to come to-day at tea-time, and not go back till 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 To this missive Mrs. Norham returned the answer which 
 she judged to be most consistent with her character and her 
 high calling ; and shortly afterwards encountering Mr. Bouse- 
 field, she mentioned the invitation she had received, and the 
 manner in which she had replied to it. There had been 
 only one subject namely that of revealed religion as to 
 which Mr. Bousefield hitherto had ventured to differ from 
 Mrs. Norham. What he said to her now, therefore, was all 
 the more remarkable. He said to her, pursing up his mouth, 
 and contracting his sandy eyebrows, 'I think you have decided 
 wrongly.' 
 
 Lord Runcorn's dinner was nominally at a quarter to eight 
 o'clock ; but Lacy, when his guests came rustling down from 
 their bedrooms, having kept the carriage waiting for twenty 
 minutes at least, felt justified in assuring them that with Lord 
 Runcorn, who had all the irregularities of a poet, a quarter to 
 eight would certainly mean a quarter after. They were there- 
 fore somewhat surprised, on reaching the Villa Martin, to find 
 all the party already in the drawing-room before them. The 
 number of people present was not more than nine or ten ; but 
 they were too numerous for Lacy to take in at a glance. One 
 figure, however, at once caught his attention. This was the 
 figure of Mrs. Norham, who was, when he entered the room, 
 sitting on a stool at the feet of Lady Cornelia, casting at her 
 an upward glance, and helping her to wind some wool. It 
 happened that at this moment the ball tumbled on the floor. 
 Lady Cornelia stooped to arrest it ; but it eluded her and ran 
 under a chair. Lady Cornelia was about to rise, in order to 
 
2i8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 catch the truant; but Mrs. Norham anticipated her. She 
 skipped up from her stool, dived for the ball, reclaimed it, 
 and then, with a filial smile, placed it in Lady Cornelia's 
 hands. Lady Cornelia looked down at her, her eyes swim- 
 ming with benignity. ' Thank you, dear, 5 she said : and Mrs. 
 Norham was happy. Lacy, whose observation was at times 
 abnormally quick, took in the whole incident at a glance ; 
 although, not knowing that Mrs. Norham had come ' to dine 
 and sleep,' and had ever since five o'clock been converting 
 Lady Cornelia to the cause of social equality by waiting on 
 her, he was somehow at a loss to conjecture how the Church 
 of the future had achieved such rapid success in subjugating 
 the World of the present. He had no time, however, to con- 
 tinue his speculations on the subject ; for he had no sooner 
 exchanged a word or two with his aunt and with Mrs. 
 Mordaunt, than his attention was caught by Lord Runcorn's 
 good-looking secretary. This young man proved to be none 
 other than Mr. Cyril Watson, whom Lacy had last seen in the 
 lamplight of the New Rotunda, disappearing with the lady 
 whom he had known already in Lampsacus. 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' he exclaimed, grasping the young man's 
 hand, ' this is an unexpected pleasure.' 
 
 A moment or two later, however, his pleasure was slightly 
 modified, when, on dinner being announced, he saw his 
 attractive friend his friend so susceptible to beauty in all its 
 forms intrusted with the duty of taking in Miss St. Germans. 
 As for himself, his companion was Mrs. Mordaunt. Mrs. 
 Norham fell to the lot of the eloquent and liberal Dean, who 
 had preached the day before on scenery and Christian morals, 
 and who was celebrated for having said from the pulpit of 
 St. Paul's Cathedral that the reading of good novels was a 
 religious service in itself, much of the Bible showing us that 
 discursive fiction was the favourite form in which the Spirit 
 of Truth revealed itself; whilst Lady Cornelia, as she brought 
 up the rear, leaned on the arm of a literary ex-Ambassador. 
 In inviting Mrs. Norham, therefore, to meet ' some intel- 
 lectual friends,' she had not been indulging in a mere figure 
 of speech. It was indeed the appearance of the Dean as 
 an afternoon caller, and the supervening necessity of asking 
 him one day to dinner, that had prompted the sudden and 
 pressing invitation to Mrs. Norham. The distinguished 
 Churchman, having at his host's solemn request, articulated 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 219 
 
 a short grace, had hardly begun his soup before, with a 
 smile of brotherly and confidential patronage, he was ex- 
 pressing to Mrs. Norham his extreme pleasure in meeting 
 her ; and was congratulating her on the noble moral tone of 
 her writings. 
 
 The table was round ; the decorations were low ; and the 
 party was of a size which allowed conversation to become 
 general. The ex-Ambassador perceiving that the Dean was 
 already discussing with the novelist the nature of her message 
 to the world, leaned forward with a flattering attention, and, 
 catching Mrs. Norham's eye, said, ' I fear I am not qualified 
 to judge of the moral of your book ; but what I admire is 
 the art which has enabled you to give it a moral, without 
 making it dull.' 
 
 ' That,' said Lord Runcorn, ' is because Mrs. Norham knows 
 that whatever moral the artist may wish to teach, he must 
 make his work true to human nature first.' 
 
 'Precisely,' said the ex- Ambassador, still looking at Mrs. 
 Norham. 'And this suggests a question I have very often 
 discussed both with authors and ordinary mortals. I mean, 
 What ranks of society supply the novelist with the material 
 which enables him to represent human nature most com- 
 pletely? You would say the humbler ranks, I suppose, 
 judging from your practice ? ' 
 
 No question could have delighted Mrs. Norham more. It 
 enabled her to chastise the society around her, whilst 
 shining in it. 'Whatever kind of life,' she said, 'yields 
 material for a good novel, there is one kind of life which 
 does not; and that is the life of fashion. Any kind of novel 
 may be without serious meaning. The fashionable novel 
 must be.' 
 
 ' It must,' said Lord Runcorn, looking at Mrs. Norham 
 with so much consideration in his eyes that she felt it would 
 be an honour to be contradicted by him, 'it must, as you 
 truly observe, be without serious meaning, if it deals only with 
 those points in which the fashionable class differs from other 
 classes. But the same holds good of the novel of humble life 
 also ; for the peculiarities of no class form more than a small 
 part of its life. The life of every class is, in a sense, its 
 language ; but it is a very poor novel which has the mere 
 dialect for its hero. This, I presume, is what Mrs. Norham 
 means.' 
 
220 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 c No,' said Mrs. Norham, with a brusquerie which surprised 
 the company. The spirit of opposition was rising in her, and 
 she felt it her delightful duty to convince herself and others 
 of her high and noble independence. ' I don't mean that. 
 I mean something, I fear, more sweeping. I mean that the life 
 
 of the fashionable classes the life which ' Mrs. Norham 
 
 began to say ' we,' but corrected herself and substituted ' you ' 
 ' the life which you all lead, refined and brilliant though it 
 may be, does not contain in itself that fulness of human 
 nature which is found in the life of those who do the real 
 work of the world.' 
 
 ' Dear Mrs. Norham,' murmured Lady Cornelia caressingly, 
 ' I like you for saying bravely what you think to be true. 
 Did you see how her brown eyes flashed ? ' she added 
 in an audible whisper to her neighbour. Mrs. Norham 
 heard the whisper, and the flashings became still more 
 brilliant. 
 
 ' Literature,' said Lord Runcorn, ' has this advantage over 
 politics and religion, that we may differ from one another 
 about it without disrespect or animosity. Were such not 
 the case, I should hardly venture to state my own view 
 of the matter; for it happens to be the precise opposite 
 of Mrs. Norham's. If we mean by fashionable life the 
 whole life of the highest classes not merely the fraction 
 of it which is made up of balls and parties I should say 
 that this was the life which affords the novelist or the poet 
 the best and richest, instead of the poorest, material, for 
 representing what is most profound and universal in human 
 nature. Look at all the great dramas of the world, from 
 those of Sophocles to those of Shakespeare. The principal 
 characters in them have been kings, queens, and nobles. 
 And what is the reason ? The reason is that we see in the 
 upper ranks the universal elements of human nature exhibited 
 with exceptional clearness, and less obscured than elsewhere 
 by what is accidental and unimportant. When a queen loses 
 a son, why does a nation mourn? Not because a queen's 
 sorrow is greater than that of any other bereaved mother; 
 but because her elevation makes her an exceptionally striking 
 type not of what is peculiar, but of what is common. She is 
 for her subjects the image of all sorrow; and the tears 
 that are shed for her are shed for every hearth that is 
 desolate.' 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 221 
 
 Mrs. Mordaunt laid her hand on Lord Runcorn's cuff, and 
 with swimming eyes, said, 'Beautiful.' 
 
 Lord Runcorn looked at her for a moment, and again 
 turned towards Mrs. Norham. 
 
 'And the same criticism,' he continued, 'if Mrs. Norham 
 will let me say so, applies to human nature as we see it in 
 polite society. What all classes feel and struggle for their 
 thoughts, their satisfactions, their disillusions we find there 
 in their clearest and most complete development. We have 
 the same pebble everywhere ; but there we have the pebble 
 polished, and we see veins in it which escape our eyes else- 
 where.' 
 
 The spirit of opposition in Mrs. Norham became now 
 stronger than ever. 
 
 'Yes,' she exclaimed, 'and that is the very thing against 
 which I, and those who work and who think with me protest. 
 Why should these thoughts, desires, feelings what you will 
 reach a development which is relatively complete in one class, 
 whilst they are hardly allowed, in others, to show themselves 
 above the surface? Your theory might have held good in 
 former days, when aristocracies, whatever their faults, were to 
 some extent really functional ; but what we call aristocracies 
 to-day are founded only on money.' 
 
 ' Every aristocracy,' said Lord Runcorn, ' has been founded 
 on the same thing that is, on a power over the material 
 resources of life. The lord of the manor, whose rents were 
 paid in services, may have had few coins in his purse fewer 
 than the ordinary artisan of to-day ; but though he had not 
 the coins, he had what the coins buy.' 
 
 ' Do you mean,' exclaimed Mrs. Norham, ' that in the old 
 days of functional feudalism, no one was a gentleman who 
 was not rich, and that every one was a gentleman in exact 
 proportion to his riches ? ' 
 
 'No,' said Lord Runcorn, with a smile so courteous 
 that it brought to Mrs. Norham a sense of some crudity 
 in her own behaviour, ' I do not mean precisely that. An 
 aristocracy in any country wants more than money could 
 buy ; but it is absolutely necessary that it should have as 
 much. I speak of the class. I do not speak of individuals. 
 In any state of society you can have poor aristocrats ; but 
 you cannot, in a rich country, have a poor aristocracy. If 
 it is permanently impoverished, it is dead.' 
 
222 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'But surely,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, in a tone of tender 
 remonstrance, ' you don't mean to say that you think nothing 
 of old family ? ' 
 
 Lord Runcorn leaned back in his chair, and looked round 
 him with a genial laugh, which relieved the conversation from 
 the strain which' Mrs. Norham had put on it. ' I feel,' he said, 
 ' for old families just as I do for old houses. Other things 
 being equal, I prefer the old house to the new ; but I prefer a 
 new house which is habitable to an old one which is beyond 
 repair.' 
 
 ' My dear,' said Lady Cornelia, catching Lady Madeleine's 
 eye, ' we must be going, or our gentlemen will never have 
 finished their cigarettes ; and we 've one or two people coming 
 to us this evening friends who have arrived suddenly at this 
 strange little watering-place close by.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, though she felt that towards the end of 
 dinner the leadership of the conversation had very nearly 
 escaped her, was radiantly conscious of having thus far enjoyed 
 a most successful evening. She was warmed with the new 
 thought that in her crusade against privilege, she was attacking 
 the class to which she herself belonged ; and she confided to 
 Lady Cornelia, in an ingratiating whisper over her coffee-cup, 
 that she meant to migrate to Mayfair from the quarter in 
 which she at present dwelt, ' because,' she said, ' you know 
 one must live near one's friends.' 
 
 'Come, dear,' said Lady Cornelia, 'and take yourself a 
 house near me.' 
 
 ' I should love to,' said Mrs. Norham, with her head a little 
 on one side, at the angle which she remembered Lady Cornelia 
 had so much appreciated. Then, whilst this scene was in 
 progress, the gentlemen of the party reappeared ; and all of 
 them, Lord Runcorn included, seemed anxious to hang upon 
 her words. Mrs. Norham was so triumphant that she felt she 
 could afford to be generous; so turning to Lord Runcorn, 
 and making her first effort at archness, ' Lord Runcorn,' she 
 said, 'you treated me very badly at dinner. You did what 
 no woman forgives. You completely got the better of me. 
 However ' 
 
 But Mrs. Norham's sentence was unfortunately cut short. 
 The door was thrown open ; the first guests of the evening 
 ' Captain and Mrs. Algernon Kirby ' were announced by a 
 superb domestic; and a tall young man, with a quiet, well- 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 223 
 
 bred mouth, entered, accompanied by the most dazzling of 
 imaginable wives, whose dark eyes shone with the happy 
 sense that wedded life was fulfilling her fondest hopes of it, 
 and that she already was becoming rapidly recognised as 
 one of the most dangerous of the young married women of 
 London. 
 
 The effect was magical. Lord Runcorn and Lady Cornelia 
 both turned away from Mrs. Norham. Her incipient archness 
 was left a forlorn torso. 
 
 ' My dearest Algy,' Lady Cornelia exclaimed, overwhelming 
 him with all the banalities which make up an intimate wel- 
 come, ' when I Ve said a word to Zoe, you must come and 
 tell me everything about yourself.' 
 
 To say a word to Zoe, however, was not so easy a task, 
 as her hand was already in the possession of Lord Runcorn, 
 who was pouring into her ears a series of those compliments 
 which are absolutely unsuitable for the ears of more than one 
 woman at a time, and which always delight the women who 
 for a moment will consent to tolerate them. At first Mrs. 
 Norham stood waiting for the time to come when she herself 
 would again be the centre of attention ; but other guests began 
 presently arriving in quick succession ; and Mrs. Norham was 
 left with nothing to do but watch them, and wonder when the 
 process of introducing the most distinguished of them to 
 herself would begin. Meanwhile, for want of anything better 
 to do, she listened to the kind of conversation for which her 
 own had been thus abandoned. Her feelings were too deep 
 for tears. She saw Mrs. Mordaunt, who had been hanging 
 on her accents during dinner, float softly up to Mrs. Kirby, 
 detach her dexterously from Lord Runcorn, and flutter her 
 pulses with a caressing praise of her toilette, which Mrs. 
 Kirby valued even more than Lord Runcorn's praise of her 
 person. 
 
 ' And tell me, dear,' Mrs. Norham heard her saying, ' was 
 the fancy ball at Carterton really a great success ? ' To which 
 Mrs. Kirby was heard to reply volubly that nothing in the 
 world had ever gone off better, and that there had been a party 
 of thirty-eight in the house. 
 
 Then, when this colloquy came, as it soon did, to an end, 
 Mrs. Norham saw Mrs. Mordaunt attach herself to a mature 
 dowager, and heard her say, ' So Mrs. Kirby was at Carterton 
 after all. Now, how was that done, do you think ? For, to 
 
224 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 my certain knowledge, she hadn't been asked a week before 
 the ball.' 
 
 'What makes you think that?' Mrs. Mordaunt's friend 
 asked. 
 
 ' Why, this,' Mrs. Mordaunt answered. ' I met her at 
 luncheon at the Macdonalds' ; and I heard her saying to 
 somebody that the Duchess " was a very odd woman." When 
 any one says that of any one who is going to give a. party, 
 I always know that the person who says it is not invited.' 
 
 ' I can tell you,' said another lady, ' exactly how Mrs. Algy 
 got there. She asked Jenny Horton to get her an invitation. 
 And Jenny did; but she now goes about telling everybody 
 that she never hated doing anything so much in her whole 
 life, and that she '11 never speak to Mrs. Algy again, for having 
 made her do it.' 
 
 'And next season,' said the dowager, 'they'll be hunting 
 again in couples unless well unless the bone of contention 
 separates them.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham listened with horror to these frivolities. Was 
 it possible, she asked herself, that a man like Lord Runcorn, 
 who not only had talent enough to misgovern an empire, but 
 enough of the higher insight to appreciate her own abilities, 
 should think that a society which could occupy itself with 
 such degrading gossip was the society in which the novelist 
 could best study human nature ? What to her were these 
 pitiable and pigmy jealousies these heart-burnings hardly 
 worthy of a lap-dog these ambitions worthy only of a child ! 
 Why had she condescended to dine and not only dine but 
 sleep at a house like this, where almost every sentence 
 uttered was an implied neglect of herself? She was busy 
 asking her heart this poignant question, when Lord Runcorn 
 approached, with purpose in his eyes and movements. Was 
 it she whom he was seeking out ? Was his truer judgment 
 returning to him? Her heart gave a solemn flutter. Events 
 answered her in the negative. Lord Runcorn was in quest 
 of Mrs. Mordaunt. With ready response she turned to him, 
 as he murmured some request to her ; and with a moment's 
 protest, which was consent in its most obvious form, she 
 moved away with him to some distant part of the room. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Norham's ear was invaded by a friendly 
 voice saying, 'I gather we are to have some vocal and 
 instrumental music.' 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 225 
 
 Mrs. Norham looked, and saw that the speaker was the 
 liberal dean She experienced a disappointment which she 
 had not time to analyse ; but as any one to talk to was, she 
 felt, better than nobody, and as the dean was at that moment 
 of precisely the same opinion, these two distinguished persons 
 kept one another in countenance, being held together by the 
 link of a common sorrow a sorrow at not being able to talk 
 to somebody else. Presently, however, even the prophetess 
 of love for others was startled into forgetfulness of her own 
 social claims. There was launched on the air a low, vibrating 
 sound, more beautiful than anything she had ever heard before. 
 This was the voice of Mrs. Mordaunt singing. If ever woman 
 had tears in her voice she had ; and what she was singing 
 now was written by an English poet, whose extraordinarily 
 simple and wholly peculiar pathos affects the reader like a 
 knife touching an unhealed wound. The song was 'Airley 
 Beacon,' and its author was Charles Kingsley. The company, 
 which numbered now something like fifty people, crowded 
 round the piano, all absolutely silent ; and when Mrs. Mordaunt 
 sang the two concluding lines 
 
 All alone on Airley Beacon, 
 With his baby on my knee, 
 
 the only applause or thanks she received for a few minutes 
 was the deep breathing of listeners who could hardly trust 
 themselves to speak. 
 
 Meanwhile one of the windows of the lighted room had 
 been opened, and beyond were the blue and the cypresses of 
 the warm, moonstruck night, a gleam of balustrades and 
 marble, and a far-off shimmering of the sea. Lacy was stand- 
 ing by himself at one of the open windows, lost in his own 
 thoughts. Something suddenly roused him ; and he became 
 aware that Mrs. Norham, still under the escort of her dean, 
 was about to step out of doors and have a look at the garden. 
 Catching his eye, she gave him a steadfast look which con- 
 veyed to him an invitation indeed something like a command 
 to join her. He showed no inclination to obey, but he 
 leaned towards her as she was passing, and said : ' These 
 are the feelings that give life its meaning, if it mean any- 
 thing.' 
 
 He spoke with an emotion which Mrs. Norham had never 
 before seen exhibited by him. She gave up the pretence of 
 
 p 
 
226 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 following the dean through the window, and allowed that 
 dignitary to wait for her, solitary, in the open air, and doing 
 his best to prevent himself looking foolish, by scrutinising 
 everything with an intellectual Broad-Church smile. 
 
 ' What feelings do you mean ? ' said Mrs. Norham, with a 
 growing intensity, which was due almost as much to her own 
 personal sufferings as to a sense that in Lacy's words there 
 was an intellectual challenge to herself. 
 
 ' Did you,' said Lacy, ' not listen to that song ? The heroine 
 of Airley Beacon knew nothing about progress or altruism. 
 She had none of the educational advantages offered by Start- 
 field Hall. But one song like that touches me far more than 
 all the volumes ever written about humanity. What is the 
 master-passion of all ages and nations? Lofe affection 
 whatever you like to call it which, although its object is 
 another, yet springs from and returns to self. If it doesn't 
 do that, what is the meaning of jealousy ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Norham, wringing her hands. She 
 was in a mood which obliged her to be emphatic, if she wished 
 to avoid being hysterical. ' Come to us will you to one of 
 our meetings our services and learn something of that 
 spirit of altruism before which jealousy dies. The day is not 
 quite fixed yet. We are expecting friends from a distance. I 
 will write ' 
 
 She looked up at Lacy, and saw that he had ceased to 
 listen. The group round the piano had again been growing 
 animated. Another song from Mrs. Mordaunt, it was quite 
 evident, was impending. The strings of the piano sounded, 
 and in another moment the air was silent except for the 
 words 
 
 I arise from dreams of thee. 
 
 Lacy stood where he was, himself like a man dreaming. If 
 Mrs. Norham's evening had been, since dinner, unfortunate, 
 Lacy's had not been less so, though for very different reasons. 
 At dinner he had been slightly annoyed though hardly con- 
 scious that he was so by noticing the attentions which his 
 uncle's attractive secretary, full of animation and poetry, was 
 bestowing on Miss St. Germans. He experienced the absurd 
 sensation of having been separated from her for a long time ; 
 and he had been looking forward to the moment when the 
 drawing-room should re-unite them. But in the drawing-room 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 227 
 
 every attempt to address her, or even to approach her, had 
 been frustrated. One of Lord Runcorn's guests after another 
 had taken possession of him. Several mothers had inflicted 
 their daughters on his aggrieved attention ; Mrs. Algernon 
 Kirby had bestowed on him such flattering glances, that he 
 felt as if she was pinning her eyes, like a choice flower, into 
 his buttonhole. The ex-ambassador had prosed to him about 
 Continental politics. Except at Lady Scavva's party, this was 
 his first appearance in public since he had actually been a 
 rich man ; and here he was the hero of the evening. He was 
 conscious of his consequence, but ungratefully impatient of its 
 results. He had seen out of the corner of his eye several of 
 the younger men, and several of the girls also, introduced to 
 Miss St. Germans, and in quick succession engrossing her. 
 His only comfort had been that young Mr. Cyril Watson had 
 had various duties to perform which kept him, at all events, at 
 a distance ; but this was to Lacy a negative comfort merely ; 
 and when Mrs. Mordaunt's singing dissolved the ties of con- 
 versation by which he had been bound to people with whom 
 he did not wish to converse, he retired to the window, and 
 was engaged in scanning the company, anxious to see where 
 Miss St. Germans was. It was in this occupation that Mrs. 
 Norham had interrupted him. Something of his mood had 
 betrayed itself in his manner of replying to her ; and now that 
 Mrs. Mordaunt had again begun to sing, his eyes anu thoughts 
 had gone back to their quest. They had not to continue it 
 long. Many of the guests, as the song began, had seated 
 themselves, and left a vista, through which, at its farther end, 
 a gilt settee revealed itself to Lacy's vision, which at this 
 moment was supporting Miss St. Germans and Mr. Cyril 
 Watson. 
 
 He suddenly became conscious of a pain as sharp and 
 unmistakable as that which is inflicted by the bite of a 
 poisonous snake. He became in a moment as a man whose 
 eyes are opened. The girl whom he had been seeing and 
 conversing with every day, whom he had viewed with no feel- 
 ings stronger than a manageable and imaginative interest, 
 except perhaps for two moments, of which he had at once 
 repented, was now transfigured as he looked at her ; and as he 
 looked at her, the thrilling voice of the singer, though he 
 hardly knew that he heard it, was touching his nerves, and was 
 adding its own passion to his. 
 
228 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 His eyes were still resting on her when this song came to 
 an end. Then she turned her head, and her eyes encountered 
 his. There was no shyness in her look. There was some- 
 thing sad in it, and curiously mature. It was a mixture of 
 petition and command. *At this moment Lord Runcorn 
 beckoned to his secretary, and the young man had to get up 
 and go to him to go and to leave his beautiful companion 
 unprotected. Now was Lacy's opportunity. Before any one 
 else could approach, he was standing by her, and was saying 
 abruptly, ' Will you come out into the garden ? ' 
 
 She rose from her seat instantly, and followed him towards 
 the same window at which, a moment ago, he had been talking 
 to Mrs. Norham. 
 
 Just as the blossoming of a passion may turn a woman into 
 a girl, so will it turn a young girl into a woman. But in the 
 case of the young girl, this change has a curious incongruity 
 which invests it with a special interest. There is, indeed, to 
 change the metaphor, something almost appalling in the con- 
 trast between the mystical wine the ageless vintage trodden 
 from unknown grapes, which is the sacrament, the poison, 
 the life, of all living human things and the fragile and tender 
 chalice which holds it, and in which it trembles. It gives to 
 her, in Byron's words, ' an aspect beyond time ' an aspect, 
 moreover, which has in it a suggestion of tragedy, like that 
 of a woman who stands on a midnight bridge, and looks at 
 the waters with eyes full of her own fate. 
 
 Such was the change which, for Lacy's eyes at all events, 
 had come over Estelle St. Germans as he and she, with Mrs. 
 Mordaunt's music in their ears, at last went out together from 
 the lamplight into the world of shade and silver, where the 
 flowers were dark in the moonlight, and the gravelled walks 
 were white, and a furlong of balustrades and statues glimmered 
 like glossy steel. 
 
 ' Do you think,' he said, ' now you have seen me with all 
 these people, that I want to talk to them instead of talking to 
 you ? Since I have talked to them, I find that I like your 
 company even better than I did.' 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MRS. NORHAM, when she started for St. Antoine the morning 
 after Lord Runcorn's party, had been by no means wholly 
 restored, by the attentions she received at breakfast, to the 
 self-complacency which she had lost the night before. She 
 had even said to herself, though she could not bear to repeat 
 it, that the effusive caresses which Lady Cornelia bestowed 
 on her were not dissimilar to those which she might have 
 bestowed on a pet dog. Still, Mrs. Norham contrived to 
 think pretty well of herself, when Lady Cornelia accompanied 
 her good-bye with a kiss ; and her mental stature rose in a yet 
 more appreciable degree when she found herself sitting on the 
 cushions of Lord Runcorn's carriage, and looking forward 
 to her arrival being witnessed by the eyes of her altruistic 
 colony. 
 
 Her peace of mind, however, only partially restored as it was, 
 was destined to be ruffled afresh, by her meeting with Mr. 
 Bousefield. When she entered the sitting-room which she and 
 he shared, using it as a study in a kind of platonic privacy, 
 she found him with a grim frown on his face, putting the last 
 words, as she saw by the dash that followed them, to some- 
 thing or other which he had been writing. Mrs. Norham 
 carefully adopted her most ordinary and unexcited manner. 
 ' Good-morning,' she said. ' I was in such a hurry to get 
 away from that place that I hardly had time for my breakfast, 
 and must ask for a cup of coffee.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield looked up, and said ' Good-morning,' with 
 a forced smile. 'I hope,' he added, 'you've been having a 
 happy time among your grandees. Were they all of them 
 lords and ladies ? Or was there any common clay amongst 
 them ? ' 
 
 'Oh,' said Mrs. Norham, 'the party was nice enough 
 very much the sort of thing you would find any evening in 
 London.' 
 
2 3 o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ' I apprehend,' said Mr. Bousefield, ' it must have been 
 very different from anything / should find there a humble 
 plebeian like myself. It has always,' he went on, leaning 
 back in his chair, and pushing his hands deep into his trousers 
 
 pockets, ' it has always ' Then he paused. He coughed 
 
 two or three times ominously ; and at last, as though with an 
 effort, he said, ' It has always been my rule one, I must say, 
 which I have been very seldom asked to break never to 
 enter the house of any titled person.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham affected to see in this observation nothing 
 that had any particular application to the moment. ' I can 
 quite understand your feeling,' she said. ' But your rule is, I 
 think, too rigid. A few of these people I have been seeing 
 are inclined and are able to be useful to us. I suppose, from 
 the look of your manuscript, you have been writing your 
 article for The Chairman? The Chairman was a weekly 
 review, sedately and yet burningly Liberal, to which Mr. 
 Bousefield was a valuable and weighty contributor. ' What,' 
 Mrs. Norham continued, ' is your subject for this week ? ' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield had begun to gather his brood of sheets 
 under the motherly bosom of his waistcoat, as though fearful 
 lest Mrs. Norham's eyes should pounce, like a hawk, upon 
 the heading of them. He was, however, too slow for her ; 
 for this is just what her eyes did do. The heading of his 
 article, written in bold letters, was, ' Titles under Modern 
 Democracy.' 
 
 He had of late been accustomed to submit these composi- 
 tions to her ; and so little did false' modesty obscure the 
 clarity of her judgment that, although they we're usually full 
 of reverential references to herself, she had told him with 
 perfect candour that she considered them very good. Accord- 
 ingly, in spite of some obvious reluctance on his part, she 
 took his manuscript from him, and proceeded to look 
 through it. 
 
 Mr. Bousefield, whose disposition was naturally genial, un- 
 less he were called on to consider the one species of failing 
 to which he and his friends applied the term ' immorality,' 
 had never manifested hitherto anything like a gift for satire ; 
 but nobody knows his talents till occasion calls for their 
 employment, and Mrs. Norham, as she ran her eye over his 
 manuscript, perceived that something or other had transformed 
 her friend into a Juvenal. Titles, he said, at this time of 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 231 
 
 day, whatever they might have been once, were now perceived 
 by all sensible persons to unite the contemptible character of 
 those paper crowns which children find in crackers with the 
 pestilent character of an unacknowledged poison. Then 
 leaping with the agility of a poet to another set of similitudes, 
 he declared that they, with all the ideas involved in them, 
 threw a false and misleading light over the whole social land- 
 scape. In fact, they created a series of social mirages ; and 
 they did this, said Mr. Bousefield, precisely in those places 
 where the social soil was most nearly a desert. If a really 
 earnest mind, he proceeded, might see a comedy in anything, 
 few spectacles were more comic than that of human beings 
 mistaking these visions for realities ; and were it only the base 
 and the foolish who were thus deceived, we might be content 
 to laugh and leave fools to their folly. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, this was very far from being the case. Grievous though 
 it might be to say so, these visions, at times, deceived loftier 
 souls those even who were, in other respects, the loftiest ; 
 and then, though the comedy of the situation became so 
 broad as to lose itself in the farcical, it became also a tragedy 
 a multiplied tragedy which involved not only the heroes or 
 the heroines of it, but those who had admired and believed in 
 them, and had been sustained by their high example. Such 
 was the outline of Mr. Bousefield's argument. Mrs. Norham 
 bit her lip, and gave the manuscript back to him. 
 
 ' It is a pity,' she said coldly, ' that you should have written 
 a thing like that. I fail to see the point of it.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield, who felt like a schoolboy detected in some 
 misdemeanour, and was endeavouring to hide his confusion 
 by lounging awkwardly in his chair, and eyeing the undulations 
 of his watch-chain as it lay amongst the valleys of his waist- 
 coat, here weakly committed the greatest blunder that was 
 possible for him. ' I hope,' he said, ' you don't think that the 
 article has any ahem any personal application ? ' 
 
 1 Personal ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Norham, in a voice of wither- 
 ing scorn. ' Do you think I am in any danger of applying 
 such remarks as those to myself? Is that, may I ask, what 
 you insinuate ? No ! if I have spoken strongly if I feel 
 strongly about the matter my feeling, I assure you, is on 
 your account, not on my own. An article like that is alto- 
 gether unworthy of you. It is unworthy of your taste ; it is 
 unworthy of your knowledge of the world ; and if you will 
 
232 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 allow me to give you a hint which may save you some 
 mortification, the editor will think it unworthy of the paper to 
 which you propose to send it. I say this for your own good. 
 You may believe me or not, as you like. I will not disturb 
 you or your work. I must go now and speak to your wife.' 
 
 Had Mrs. Norham's observation ever condescended to busy 
 itself with the ways of irregular affection amongst ordinary 
 and erring mortals, she might have noticed that when a 
 married man discards an old mistress for a new one, the old 
 one not infrequently makes common cause with the wife, and 
 unites with her in lamenting how the husband ' has been 
 got hold of by that dreadful woman.' Mrs. Norham's conduct, 
 allowing for the differences of the case, was a sort of celestial 
 reproduction of the conduct of those below her. Mrs. Bouse- 
 field was found by her in the dining-room, sitting alone as 
 usual, with some letters, some accounts, a Bible, and The 
 Glasgow Herald, together with her spectacles, disposed before 
 her on the table ; there was also an orange amongst these 
 objects, which it seemed that the poor lady had been sucking. 
 ' Dear Mrs. Bousefield,' exclaimed Mrs. Norham, ' I have 
 asked for a cup of coffee. I 'm only just back. Do let me 
 have it here.' 
 
 This greeting of the prophetess was so astoundingly frank 
 and genial that Mrs. Bousefield fancied herself dreaming. 
 ' Surely,' she said to Mrs. Norham. ' Will ye put your hand 
 to the bell ? I 'm just glad of a little company. It 's not so 
 often I have it. And I hope you enjoyed your outing amongst 
 the fine folks at the Villa Martin. I suppose the earl keeps a 
 very liberal table. I 'd be glad to hear about that, and the 
 ladies' dresses, if ye 're sure,' said Mrs. Bousefield, with a 
 faint but irrepressible accent of sarcasm, 'that you'd not 
 sooner be having your coffee at your own desk in the library.' 
 
 ' Indeed, no ! ' replied Mrs. Norham with emphasis, ' your 
 husband is there at present, and of this you may be quite 
 sure, that he finds my room a great deal better than my 
 company. Men, as you and I know, never really understand 
 women; and when they don't understand them, they take 
 refuge in finding them in the way.' 
 
 Some women's hearts are won by praise of their husbands, 
 but never was wife's heart won with so much suddenness and 
 completeness as Mrs. Bousefield's was by this contemptuous 
 reference to hers. In the space of a moment a load was 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 233 
 
 lifted from her heart, and had she only been less shy she 
 would have saluted Mrs. Norham with a kiss. A white-capped 
 maid was ordered to bring the coffee to the dining-room, and 
 meanwhile Mrs. Bousefield, in the confiding gladness of her 
 heart, ventured to submit to Mrs. Norham some patterns of 
 Scotch home-spun, which were lying on the table by her side 
 ' which seem to me,' she said, ' I don't know what you '11 
 think so flimsy like. And yet they 've been sent me here by 
 Stuart and Maclehose of Sauchiehall Street.' 
 
 The peace which brooded over these ladies seemed little 
 short of miraculous ; but Mrs. Bousefield's beatitude was not 
 of very long duration. For its ending, however, she had only 
 herself to thank. On Mrs. Norham's retiring to her bedroom, 
 Mrs. Bousefield made her way, with a new warmth in her 
 heart, to the apartment that had been named the library ; and 
 delighted with the thought that the link between her husband 
 and Mrs. Norham was broken, and that he was once more 
 given back to her own conjugal heart, she bestowed on his 
 forehead, as he sat, what she had wished to bestow upon Mrs. 
 Norham's namely, a kiss. Mr. Bousefield received it with 
 what he himself thought was resignation, and what he hoped 
 Mrs. Bousefield would take for proper marital amity. But 
 Mrs. Bousefield felt the skin of his forehead flinch a little ; 
 and her ears caught in his voice a note of suppressed irritation 
 as he said to her, without rising, ' Well, my dear, and what is 
 it?' 
 
 ' I thought,' she said, struggling with an unacknowledged 
 sense of disappointment, 'that perhaps you'd be liking to hear 
 some of the news that I 've had this forenoon,' and she took 
 a chair near with the wifeliness of former days. This speech, 
 to her delight, was far more successful than her kiss. Mr. 
 Bousefield put down the pen which till now he had continued 
 to hold, and he leaned forward with a smile which betokened 
 genuine interest. 'What could have happened?' he asked 
 himself. ' It must be something exciting, or else she would 
 never have invaded his morning privacy.' Any excitement 
 would be welcome to him at that moment. 
 
 ' By all means tell me,' he said. ' Come, my dear, I am 
 listening.' 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield, thus encouraged, smiled and opened a 
 reticule, which formed an invariable and characteristic feature 
 of her person, and proceeded to extract from it the letter which 
 
234 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 she had just been reading. ' The Donald Macleods,' she said, 
 ' have just gone to St. Andrews for a fortnight's golf. Ye '11 
 be glad to hear that she 's perfectly convalescent, and she 's 
 fairly delighted with the christening gift you sent for her little 
 boy. She says he 's so bonny, you never saw the like of him. 
 You can read what she says yourself; and oh/ Mrs. Bousefield 
 proceeded, putting one letter aside and opening out another, 
 ' here 's a line from Annie Richardson, and she says that her 
 poor mother nearly caught her death of a chill, by a very 
 strange accident. The cork of the hot-water bottle in her 
 bed at Edinburgh came out while she was asleep, and she 
 woke up, Annie says, a regular sop stone cold and coughing. 
 Well, you can just fancy it ; and Annie says that the cough 
 hasn't left her yet. Poor body she was always frail. How- 
 ever, she 's fast mending. They 're to be in Edinburgh all the 
 winter, and Annie will be having some dances.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield all this while had been gradually growing 
 fidgety, as though annoyed at so aimless a preamble to some- 
 thing important that was in store for him. He now heard the 
 crackle of sheets of paper as his wife folded one letter and then 
 opened another. 'Yes, my dear yes?' he said, in a tone which 
 meant, ' Is it impossible for you to come to the point ? ' 
 
 'Ah,' said Mrs. Bousefield, smiling, 'here's what I was 
 wishing to show you. I 'm sure you '11 be pleased to hear 
 about little Sandy, your godchild he's only four and his 
 battle with his aunt's turkey " the naughty bubbly-jock "- 
 that was what Sandy called him.' 
 
 But Mr. Bousefield's patience was exhausted. ' My dear,' 
 he exclaimed, pronouncing the word ' dear ' with that intensity 
 which converts it into an equivalent for 'you absolutely in- 
 tolerable person.' 'My dear,' he said, 'do you seriously 
 mean to tell me that you have come here and interrupted me 
 in the middle of most important work most arduous work 
 that you have made me lose the thread of my calculations, 
 and forced me to add up again three columns of figures, merely 
 for the sake of telling me about Sandy MacPherson and a 
 bubbly-jock? No doubt it's very amusing, but I wish, my 
 dear, you could manage to teach yourself that I have many 
 serious duties and many subjects of thought, which are none 
 the less important to me and, indeed, to others because you 
 would find them uninteresting, and because I forbear to inflict 
 them on you. I must really beg you, my dear, to leave me 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 235 
 
 undisturbed till luncheon, and if you will tell me about the 
 bubbly-jock then, I will listen without wincing.' So saying, 
 Mr. Bousefield took up his pen, dipped it in the ink, and bent 
 over a sheet of foolscap. His wife looked at him for a moment. 
 Her lips quivered a little, something began to glisten in her 
 eyes. She rose and hurried from the room. 
 
 The situation thus created lasted for two days. Mrs. 
 Norham remained, so far as Mr. Bousefield was concerned, 
 shut up in her own dignity ; whilst he, for his part, did his 
 best to appear preoccupied, and to have forgotten Mrs. 
 Norham in the details of the Tibbits' Motor, drawings of 
 which he pretended to be always studying. This, however, 
 was a game at which Mrs. Norham could play better than he. 
 She began to affect more than usual the society of Mr. 
 Squelch, whose volume of immortal poems was just about to 
 be published, and who was consequently so agitated at the 
 thought of his own greatness, that he had had to seek support 
 in the absinthe of a neighbouring cabaret. His palate being 
 spoilt for anything less fiery, he had been wholly unable to 
 attend to the conversation of anybody, till Mrs. Norham's 
 praise of his genius made absinthe seem as weak as tea. Mrs. 
 Norham, moreover, had got another arrow in her quiver, Mr. 
 Bousefield having but one, and this was her effusiveness to 
 his wife; whilst as for Mrs. Bousefield herself, though her 
 husband was still estranged from her, and though her late 
 visions of happiness had been so instantly clouded over, she 
 was still able to perceive that he was estranged from Mrs. 
 Norham also, and had thus more to console her than either 
 of the two others. 
 
 So long, however, as matters remained in this position, they 
 were in unstable equilibrium. They were bound to rearrange 
 themselves ; and in due time they did so. The change, like 
 most moral changes, was due to two sets of causes the first, 
 and naturally the most powerful, being considerations of the 
 highest kind ; whilst the second were considerations of poor 
 human convenience, which happened to coincide with the 
 first, and lent them their humble aid without even wishing 
 to be recognised. In other words, Mr. Bousefield and Mrs. 
 Norham each began to reflect, when alone with their respec- 
 tive consciences, that those whose distinctive creed was a 
 passionate love of everybody a love passing that which 
 forms the poor ideal of the Christian were hardly acting up 
 
236 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 to their own lofty standard by indulging, on account of a trifle, 
 in a childish hatred of one another. But the workings of 
 conscience, which, however sure, were slow, were accelerated, 
 and were that possible, made even more efficacious, by motives 
 belonging to a somewhat less exalted plane. 
 
 In the first place, as had appeared from Mr. Bousefield's 
 communication to Lacy, events were proceeding rapidly in 
 connection with the Tibbits' Motor. Mr. Dundas Poulton 
 having been made secretary of the Syndicate, he had not only 
 refused, on high socialistic grounds, to receive as salary more 
 than five hundred a year, though he actually engaged to work 
 for four hours a day the ideal maximum, so he put it, of 
 daily human effort ; but he had, also, secured a magnificent 
 suite of offices, these comprising two rooms for himself, so 
 that he might always be on the spot to spend and be spent 
 for others ; and he had actually not shrunk from the labour 
 of choosing the furniture himself even such uninteresting 
 articles as his own Indian carpets. The patenting of the 
 great invention, with all its subordinate details, had by this 
 time been completed ; and one of the highest legal authorities 
 had given his written opinion that of all the patents which he 
 had ever been called upon to consider, he had come across none 
 so safe from all danger of being infringed or contested. Mr. 
 Tibbits was not only ready with a number of working draw- 
 ings, but he had made a small model of a bicycle, fitted with 
 his auxiliary motor, the wheels of which spun deliciously with 
 mysterious little electrical crepitations, and which his hands, 
 hollowed by having been clenched so frequently in defiance 
 of capital, were never weary of turning. The workshops for 
 the provisional manufacture of the epoch-making invention 
 were secured ; and Mr. Tibbits in a few days would have to 
 return to London, in order to engage workmen, and superin- 
 tend some alterations in the plant. Matters are not pushed 
 forward thus without a liberal expenditure of money; and 
 there would, it appeared, be shortly a fresh call on the share- 
 holders. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance that 
 Mr. Bousefield and Mrs. Norham should consult each other ; 
 and this was the case more especially because Mr. Bousefield 
 was coming to the conclusion that it would shortly be advis- 
 able for him to return to London himself, and leave the 
 altruists at St. Antoine under the charge of Mrs. Norham 
 and of his wife. But there was another matter of yet more 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 237 
 
 pressing, if not of greater importance, which required con- 
 sultation also, of an equally intimate kind. This was the 
 forthcoming service, which was to be held under exceptional 
 circumstances. Two of the most solemn and altruistic of the 
 friends of Mr. Bousefield and Mrs. Norham were a briefless 
 barrister and a doctor without patients, whose eyes had 
 been sufficiently purged by the discipline of professional 
 disappointment to discern that the whole body of society 
 required some organic change. These gentlemen, having 
 each a small independence, on which they could cultivate at 
 leisure the higher forms of discontent, had not only engaged 
 to lecture at Startfield Hall, but had also seen their way to 
 secure for themselves a well-earned holiday, without the 
 extravagance of paying for it, by arranging, and personally 
 conducting, a party of some thirty altruists on a strictly 
 economical tour through the cities of Northern Italy; and 
 they proposed on their homeward journey to give their clients 
 a sight of the Riviera, by halting them for a night at St. 
 Estephe, and bringing them on a pilgrimage to Mrs. Norham. 
 This Mrs. Norham and Mr. Bousefield both recognised as 
 a great opportunity for the sublime church of the future ; and 
 Mrs. Norham was dreaming of improving the occasion further 
 by inveigling, by Lacy's aid, a fashionable contingent from 
 St. Hilaire, on whom, as she towered before them, as the 
 youngest daughter of fame, she might avenge herself, by her 
 sacred ministrations, for the slights they had presumed to put 
 upon her. About all these points it was essential that she and 
 Mr. Bousefield should take counsel. 
 
 Such being the case, then, both of them came to feel what 
 an inconvenient thing it was to be out of temper with the person 
 with whom, for practical reasons, confidential intercourse was 
 most desirable. It happened, therefore, that one morning Mr. 
 Bousefield, whose strong vein of gentlemanly feeling urged him 
 to take on himself the humiliation of the first overture, came 
 into the sitting-room which he had been accustomed to share 
 with Mrs. Norham, but which of late they had never occupied 
 at the same moment. He came into the room, having seen 
 her through the window at her desk ; and, all his pockets 
 swelling with letters about the Tibbits' Motor, he said, ' Mrs. 
 Norham, there is something I Ve been desirous of telling you. 
 I 've committed that article of mine, on which you passed such 
 severe strictures, to the flames. I will be honest with you, 
 
238 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 though it goes against myself. I have realised that your 
 strictures were just. For certain persons persons such as 
 yourself, for instance it is right that they should see and study 
 every kind of society even that lowest section of it which is 
 ironically called the highest. You, for instance, can move in 
 it with profound dignity, never forgetting your own superiority 
 to every member of it ; and I am convinced that if any tuft- 
 hunting takes place at all, it is society what will be toadying 
 you, not you who will be toadying society. Mrs. Norham, will 
 you shake hands with me, and let bygones be bygones ? ' 
 
 Mrs. Norham rose and faced him. An honest and relent- 
 ing light dawned slowly in her brown eyes. Her large lips 
 smiled and then trembled into a pleasant laugh. She held 
 out her hand to him. He grasped it; and the act of 
 reconciliation was accomplished. 
 
 'Well,' began Mr. Bousefield, settling himself amicably in a 
 chair, ' I told you I 'd heard from Mr. Lacy. He would 
 rather not have those shares. I 'm sorry for it for his own 
 sake. I don't think he understands what an opportunity he 
 is letting slip.' 
 
 ' Mr. Lacy,' said Mrs. Norham, ' is, of course, not a man of 
 science.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Mr. Bousefield, ' they will be taken up by my 
 wife. I've got to the end of my tether, so far as my own 
 means go especially as Poulton he's working as hard as 
 he can for us wants time, he says, for paying his second 
 call.' 
 
 More discourse followed with regard to the same subject ; 
 and they then addressed themselves to the question of the 
 impending service. A day was readily settled, which they 
 gathered would suit their friends that is to say, the band of 
 travelling altruists. Mrs. Norham, however, though she had 
 others in view also, yet dreading to discompose Mr. Bouse- 
 field by the mention of what he called ' titled ' persons, 
 determined to introduce her contingent without alarming and 
 forewarning him. 
 
 ' I suppose,' she said, with an air of heroic resignation, ' you 
 will desire, as heretofore, the introduction of some theistic 
 prayers.' 
 
 ' For my wife's sake,' said Mr. Bousefield gravely, ' and for 
 the sake of many others, I should be very loth to dispense 
 with them. Mrs. Bousefield has never been divided from me 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 239 
 
 in religious worship yet. So long as I respect her wishes in 
 this high matter indeed, they are my own also I shall never 
 have to reproach myself with not having done my duty to 
 her.' 
 
 That day, at luncheon-time, Mrs. Bousefield, who was 
 already in the dining-room, felt her temples grow suddenly 
 cold as she saw Mrs. Norham and her husband enter, not, 
 indeed, with their arms round each other's waists, but still so 
 objectionably near to each other that it seemed as if Mrs. 
 Norham was being gently propelled into the room by the 
 pressure of Mr. Bousefield behind her ; whilst she was speak- 
 ing to him over her shoulder, with a kind of private animation 
 which proclaimed their intimate partnership in a hoard of 
 private interests. 
 
 ' Well, my dear,' said Mr. Bousefield cheerily to his wife, 
 ' and what dainties, I wonder, are you going to give us to-day ? 
 Something good, I '11 be bound something good, as usual, or 
 even better, perhaps.' 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield was very far from being a woman of the 
 world. She knew nothing about lovers and liaisons in the 
 common acceptation of the words ; but she divined as clearly 
 as she could have done, had she been the heroine of a Parisian 
 novel, what the source of Mr. Bousefield's geniality was ; and 
 a piece of knowledge became hers, to which Balzac could have 
 added nothing that no unkindness from a husband to a wife 
 is so wounding as the kindness which springs out of the happi- 
 ness brought to him by another woman. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 WHILE all these momentous events had been taking place 
 at St. Antoine, the drama of Lacy's life had been not less 
 marked in its development. As soon as he had found 
 himself alone on Lord Runcorn's terrace with Miss St. 
 Germans, the many things which he had fancied he was 
 longing to say to her had dwindled into nothing but expres- 
 sions of protecting and sympathetic friendship. How could 
 he, he asked himself, being what he was, offer himself to one 
 so fresh and so young as she ? It was not his age that gave 
 him this recurring sense of unfitness for her ; nor the sense that 
 she was innocent whilst he was much the reverse. His errors 
 might have sullied him for the time, but they certainly had 
 not stained him. What he saw and feared in himself was 
 a blackness far deeper than the frailties of the flesh can pro- 
 duce on any but the most depraved. It was not the blackness 
 of a stain, but the blackness of a gaping chasm. Such a 
 chasm, it seemed to him, was his own heart of hearts, rilled 
 with the worst of darkness the darkness of blank indiffer- 
 ence ; and if to a heart like this he were really to bring a 
 child, he would be playing the part reversed of the spectre 
 in the German ballad, and carrying off a faithful bride, not 
 a faithless lover, to a tomb. 
 
 Such, at least, were his misgivings with regard to his own 
 character. He accordingly had shrunk with a sensitiveness 
 which the most immaculate of his sex might have envied, 
 from taking the least advantage of the feelings of a girl so 
 young, or of yielding to his own till he more thoroughly 
 understood them ; and he hailed with delight the events of 
 the next two or three days, as they had the precise effect which 
 the girl had foreseen and dreaded, of making any private com- 
 panionship between him and her impracticable. 
 
 240 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 241 
 
 On the morning after Lord Runcorn's party, luncheon at the 
 Chateau des Fleurs was hardly over before at the front door was 
 heard the stamping of horses and the loud ringing of a bell ; 
 and presently Lady Madeleine was informed that Lady Dove- 
 dale wished to speak to her. 'I will go to her,' said Lacy, 'and 
 ask her to come in ' ; and a minute later, puffing a little with 
 the exertion of getting out of the carriage, and saying to her 
 conductor, ' I can smell how good your coffee is : I positively 
 insist on having some,' Lady Dovedale was introduced into 
 the dining-room. ' Madeleine, you old dear,' said her mother, 
 still breathless, 'I'm glad to see you. Yes, dear; take off 
 my boa. Ah, Mrs. St. Germans, to see you makes me feel quite 
 young again. We haven't met since the year of the exhibi- 
 tion in Paris. And who 's this young lady ? What do you 
 say ? Estelle ? My dear, when I saw you last, you were an 
 awkward little thing, that high. You 're not awkward now.' 
 'Well,' Lady Dovedale continued, beginning to drink her coffee, 
 ' we only arrived last night Mrs. Helbeckstein and myself. 
 I hear you 'd a party last night in the Villa Martin ; and it 
 seems to me that we've seen half London already. By the way, 
 Madeleine, you'll be filling Mr. Lacy's house with visitors. 
 Who should meet me on the way here but Lady Tregothran ? 
 She too arrived last night, and she's coming this afternoon 
 to see you.' When they went into the drawing-room, Lady 
 Dovedale inspected the view ; and informed Lacy in her level 
 but jerky tones, that he must let her one day bring her host 
 and hostess to look at it. 'They are naturally,' she said, 
 laughing, 'particular about scenery. I suppose they could 
 buy all the finest views in Europe.' 
 
 She had hardly finished speaking when one of the servants 
 entered, following and announced by whom was the literary ex- 
 Ambassador. He was in his turn succeeded by other callers, 
 amongst them being Lady Cornelia, with Cyril Watson in 
 attendance on her. A Sunday afternoon in London could 
 have been scarcely more alive with conversation : and Lady 
 Madeleine, after half an hour's absence, re-entered the drawing- 
 room at tea-time, said a few words to her host, and brought in 
 Lady Tregothran. 
 
 The following day Lacy gave an impromptu lunch. Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein, hearing of this, insisted that Lady Dovedale 
 should take her to see the Chateau before the party had 
 separated ; and, although she missed the Prime Minister, who 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 had had to depart early, she successfully forced herself on 
 the acquaintance of his sister and of Lady Tregothran ; whilst 
 she ended by inviting the whole of the company present 
 to a picnic which her husband had been arranging for some 
 days past. 
 
 The Helbecksteins, indeed, became the life of the little 
 colony at St. Hilaire ; and there was no one who in the future 
 might be of any possible use to them whom they did not do 
 their best, to court, to flatter, or to patronise. Lacy, whom Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein had so despised when she had first seen him in the 
 refreshment-room, now stood high amongst those who, for the 
 present at all events, should be courted. For Mrs. Helbeck- 
 stein was a woman who willingly wronged no one. If she 
 had snubbed a man for a whole season, not thinking it worth 
 while to be civil to him, yet the moment she discovered him 
 to be a little more fashionable than she imagined, she at once 
 divested herself of every previous prejudice against him, and 
 began to behave to him in accordance with his true deserts. 
 Lacy received the full benefit of this fine trait in her character ; 
 and her attentions to himself and to his friends were soon 
 even greater than he desired. 
 
 Here, at St. Hilaire, she began to feel that she had fallen 
 on her feet. The beautiful mistress of Tregothran House 
 the entertainer of so many royalties was at last numbered 
 amongst her acquaintances. So also was the great Prime 
 Minister's sister, whom, with true impartiality, she admired first 
 for her rudeness to herself, and a day later for her civility, on 
 receiving a note from her in which, on Lord Runcorn's behalf, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Helbeckstein were invited to the Villa Martin. 
 All this had happened within twenty-four hours of her arrival. 
 Mrs. Helbeckstein yielded to the spell of the enchanting 
 climate, and in the little leisure she allowed herself enjoyed a 
 succession of day-dreams, in which one by one she struck 
 her old friends out of her visiting-list, and felt herself able 
 to wonder how such people had ever dared to speak to 
 her. 
 
 Nor was Mr. Helbeckstein employed less felicitously. The 
 two had the same spirit. They had, however, a diversity of 
 gifts. Whilst she pushed the family fortunes with the tact 
 of a social diplomatist, he, ever since he had bought his 
 house in London, had been seeking to second her endeavours 
 by the arts of a man of gallantry : for long meditation had 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 243 
 
 convinced him that the best way to assist his wife was to 
 shine himself as the lover of the ladies whom she desired as 
 friends. If he could not be well-born, he might at least 
 become well-connected. Nor indeed for a beginner had he 
 been thus far unsuccessful. During his second London 
 season one of the most beautiful women of the day was so far 
 won by the dangerous charm of his personality as to consent 
 to make use of his carriage, to appear with him in his box at 
 the opera, and to let it be known that she was in the habit of 
 dining tete-a-tete with him, in return for an adherence on his 
 part to the rules of the Platonic philosophy, and a present, 
 delicately made her, of six thousand pounds. Aided by the 
 prestige of this partial conquest, he proceeded to attempt 
 others, which he hoped to render more complete; and the 
 following season the box-seat of his coach was occupied in 
 rotation by three fashionable ladies, who, if not exactly 
 without visible means of subsistence, were at all events 
 without visible means of dressing as they habitually did. A 
 less sensible man than he might have been made vain 
 by such a series of successes, especially as, in spite of his 
 sixty years, and his large financial nose, he was, with his 
 well-trimmed moustache, sufficiently removed from ugliness 
 to enable him, when he stood before the glass, to fancy that 
 he was good-looking. But the modest opinion he retained of 
 his own personal fascinations was evidenced by the fact that, 
 not even in his most impassioned wooings, did he presume 
 to rely on these personal fascinations alone. He invariably 
 supplemented them by such gifts or services as great wealth 
 enables a man to offer to those he loves. He acquired, 
 moreover, in offering these, very considerable skill, or what 
 came to the same thing, as much skill as was requisite ; and 
 he had soon thoroughly convinced himself that when these 
 were not taken amiss, the time would presently arrive when 
 very little else would be. 
 
 A couple such as this, whose one immediate object was to 
 make themselves indispensable to as many important people 
 as happened at the time to be within the reach of their in- 
 fluence, gave an instant vitality to social life at St. Hilaire. 
 The picnic was as great a success as beautiful weather and 
 scenery, the finest wines, the freshest pate defoie gras, and the 
 labour-saving attentions of Mrs. Helbeckstein's footmen could 
 make it. And to this entertainment various others succeeded. 
 
244 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 At Mrs. Helbeckstein's villa was an excellent lawn-tennis court, 
 which she placed at the disposal of everybody whom she knew 
 or wished to know. She begged them to lunch with her when- 
 ever they were disposed to play, and to dine with her when- 
 ever they were not disposed to lunch; and she spoke of a 
 concert and a possible cotillon at the casino. This movement 
 naturally extended itself to the inhabitants of the Chateau des 
 Fleurs ; nor did Miss St. Germans, after she had experienced 
 a little of it, find it quite so distasteful as she had anticipated. 
 She enjoyed the picnic; she enjoyed the lawn-tennis even 
 more ; and the mention of the cotillon made her feel in her 
 feet a longing to dance which had for some time been for- 
 gotten by them. 
 
 It was this sort of life which enabled Lacy's intimacy with 
 her to prolong itself, and retain its freshness, without changing 
 its character. And yet at the same time, in various subtle 
 ways, it tended to strengthen the hold which she had already 
 acquired on his imagination. In the first place it restored him 
 himself to a healthier mood of mind. It closed the mouth, 
 if it did not actually fill up, the chasm of indifference, whose 
 existence he had been so painfully conscious of in himself. It 
 placed him in constant contact with the common things of life ; 
 and as he still found Miss St. Germans just as attractive as 
 ever, he began to feel greater respect for the feelings he was 
 tempted to entertain for her. There were other influences 
 also which contributed to the same result. As he watched the 
 girl moving amongst new acquaintances, he saw new images 
 of her reflected in the impression she made on others. He 
 had never, he felt, realised how exceptional was her mere 
 worldly gracefulness till he saw the stare of admiration with 
 which Mrs. Helbeckstein, that keen social valuer, had greeted 
 her when she first set eyes on her in the drawing-room of the 
 Chateau des Fleurs. 
 
 But there was somebody else whose appreciation of the 
 young lady stimulated Lacy's feelings for her, even more than 
 did Mrs. Helbeckstein. This was Cyril Watson. He was a 
 young man with that natural charm of manner which Ministers 
 for Foreign Affairs find so invaluable in a secretary. In 
 Cyril Watson's attentions to Miss St. Germans, Lacy detected, 
 or thought he detected, a feeling with which he could well 
 sympathise, and which only needed encouragement to turn 
 into one which would resemble his own, and be fresher, 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 245 
 
 though less deep. The encouragement, however, so far as 
 he could see, was wanting; and yet when at luncheon or 
 dinner, as very frequently happened, the girl was by the young 
 man's side, and he was himself at some distance from her, he 
 would find himself, if her voice reached him, almost incapable 
 of hearing anything else, and wholly incapable of conversing 
 coherently with his neighbours. 
 
 And then, when he and his little party were once more by 
 themselves, when the woods of the Chateau des Fleurs, and 
 the gorge spanned by its bridge, shut them out from the world, 
 and left them with no other companions than the sea which 
 murmured below them, and the flowers of their headlong 
 garden, his chosen companion would seem to him more his 
 own than ever, because of the chance suggested that others might 
 take her from him. Whilst never allowing himself to neglect 
 his work for her sake and business of all kinds pursued him 
 here from England, demanding from him week by week in- 
 creasing care and attention it yet became part of his regular 
 morning programme to sit with her for an hour or so, whilst 
 she painted in the garden, or on one of the balconies. As 
 she worked he would talk to her : and her few days of inter- 
 course with the world seemed to him to have added a new 
 charm to her, and to have given her a mental self-confidence 
 which he had not perceived before. 
 
 One day he said to her, ' Of course we have all experienced 
 that nothing brings back the past to us like the recurrence of 
 some remembered smell of wall-flowers, of dried rose-leaves, 
 or the peat-smoke of some Highland cottage. Could you 
 only paint smells as well as colours, you might make pictures 
 from which all our past would always come floating back to us, 
 as if your paper or canvas were a sort of inexhaustible censer.' 
 
 In his own observation there was nothing particularly original, 
 but her answer seemed to show in her a precocious stimulation 
 of thought. 'I wish I could tell,' she said, 'what painting 
 means for me. When people try to describe in words the 
 meanings that are conveyed to them by music, they tell you 
 about scenery, sunsets, colours the things that are expressed 
 by painting. When they try to describe to you the meanings 
 that are conveyed to them by painting, they begin, and so 
 should I, to talk to you in terms of music. If you question 
 one art, it sends you on to another. Then this second art 
 refers you back to the first ; and there always remains some 
 
246 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 secret, which they seem sworn to conceal between them. 
 Is life like that ? I sometimes think it must be. Is it always 
 a chase for something which you cannot find, and which, when 
 you have chased it till you are old, doubles back again and 
 hides itself in youth ? ' 
 
 ' I think,' said Lacy, in a tone which he tried now to make 
 too serious, ' there is one perhaps there are two experiences 
 in which it may be run to earth. One is religion.' 
 
 ' And the other ? ' she said. 
 
 He looked up at her and answered, 'You will perhaps 
 know that some day.' 
 
 After all, he told himself, she might be less a child than he 
 had thought, and the void in his own heart might be less in- 
 capable of being filled. He looked back over his past life, 
 and saw, in the days of his poverty, how often he had longed 
 to marry, could he have given a wife a home. He saw him- 
 self watching his friends, as they married, one by one, and re- 
 garding them like a beggar who passes along a wintry street, 
 and peers through the windows at the lighted hearths within. 
 But now fortune had at last worked in his favour. Now at 
 last could he find a woman to marry him, incredible as it 
 seemed, he had actually a home to offer her a home and a 
 lot which no one need disdain to share with him. Owing to 
 the necessity which circumstances had lately imposed on him 
 of passing much of his time on the social surface of life, where 
 the sunny ripples prevented him from examining what lay below, 
 he had been but imperfectly conscious of how these thoughts 
 had been maturing in him. But the same day on which she 
 had exchanged with him her ideas about the meaning of art 
 a day, it may be added, on which Mr. Cyril Watson had quoted 
 to her more poetry than Lacy thought strictly necessary that 
 same day saw him come at last to a resolution. He would on 
 the first opportunity ask the girl to marry him. He would do 
 so that very evening, so he at first promised himself, but he 
 suddenly recollected that unfortunately on that evening he and 
 his three guests were to dine at the Villa Martin. However, 
 he reflected, that next morning would do equally well; and 
 such was his mood of mind when he betook himself to his 
 uncle's party. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE guests that night were such and were so numerous that, 
 when the Poodle, who heard everything, sent an account of 
 the dinner to the papers, it formed the best advertisement for 
 St. Hilaire that had yet appeared anywhere ; and Mr. Davis 
 gave him a cheque for twenty-five pounds, as an acknowledg- 
 ment. Lady Tregothran was there, queenly with her cele- 
 brated tiara. Lady Flotsam was there, with a lovelier 
 complexion than ever, which threw a dazzling veil over the 
 reluctant operations of the years. There also were Lady 
 Scarva and her husband the millionaire representatives of 
 equality, who were now on their way to the restorative air of 
 Monte Carlo, in order to nerve themselves for new battles 
 against privilege ; whilst better dressed than anybody, holding 
 herself more upright, and looking about her with more super- 
 cilious eyes, was Mrs. Helbeckstein, ably supported by her 
 husband, whose evening clothes were of an almost supernatural 
 neatness, and who, having had in his youth clean linen but 
 once a week, now, wherever he went, had his shirts washed in 
 Paris. Together with them, Lady Dovedale was naturally 
 present also ; though Mrs. Helbeckstein having heard some- 
 body say that Lady Dovedale was vulgar, was already looking 
 forward to the time when she would be able to repeat the 
 observation. 
 
 But charming and distinguished as all these guests were, 
 they were in some respects thrown into the shade by another 
 a lady, who that very afternoon had arrived at the Villa 
 Martin, bringing with her a well-dressed and attractive daughter. 
 This lady was none other than Mrs. Tilney, who appeared to 
 know most of those present better than they knew themselves, 
 and who moved amongst them cementing them with a kind of 
 social mortar. Little as many of them had really in common 
 with herself, she was always ready with some pertinent ques- 
 
 247 
 
24 8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 tion, which at once put her en rapport with any one man or 
 woman whom interest, civility, or kindness prompted her to 
 address. Though absolutely ignorant of racing, she remem- 
 bered the names of racehorses and the dates of various meet- 
 ings well enough to talk scandal intelligibly to any of those 
 brilliant beings whose heart's home is at Newmarket ; and she 
 was able, within the same ten minutes, to discuss the same 
 elopement gravely and sadly with a bishop, and gaily with Lady 
 Tregothran. And yet all the while those who knew her were 
 well aware that she preserved a persistent and unimpeachable 
 character of her own. No one could have been more shocked 
 at the thought of being suspected of any of the frailties which, 
 when her friends were guilty of them, she treated with such 
 vivacious leniency ; nor could any one, who knew anything of 
 Mrs. Tilney's dealings with the poor and few women were 
 more philanthropic than she have set down this leniency as a 
 sign of moral indifference ; for treating the poor as she did, 
 with the feelings of the ideal Christian that is to say, treating 
 them precisely as she would treat herself she was as severe 
 upon their moral failings as she would have been on her own, 
 had she had any, and as active as she could have been in her 
 own case, in attempting to mitigate their consequences. Her 
 charity indeed was so great that she found it necessary to 
 divide it giving her charity of action to the poor, and her 
 charity of judgment to the rich. 
 
 It fell to Lacy this evening to take her in to dinner ; and, 
 as at the other side of her sat Sir Reginald Flotsam, he could 
 realise, when she talked to Sir Reginald, the versatility of her 
 character, and when she talked to himself, its beauty. 
 
 Sir Reginald was one of those happy men who reach the age 
 of seventy without any suspicion that they are a day over five- 
 and-thirty. Next to his judgment on matters connected with 
 the turf, the quality in which he most prided himself was his 
 judgment of female beauty ; and as he drove down Piccadilly 
 the highest-stepping horse in London, there was hardly a 
 female face or a female waist worth looking at, which escaped 
 the eyes that glittered under the curved brim of his hat. 
 He was also in his own estimation one of the most accom- 
 plished epicures of the day, and was much addicted, when 
 not dining at home, to confidential, but caustic, criticisms of 
 the delicacies put before him. Accordingly, when he had 
 swallowed two spoonfuls of soup, he muttered to Mrs. Tilney, 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 249 
 
 ' Excellent, if it weren't half cold. It's curious how many 
 good dinners are spoilt shall I tell you why ? simply 
 because architects can't plan a good serving-room. By the 
 way,' he continued, when by this penetrating observation he 
 had, as he felt, done himself justice as a gourmet, ' who 
 in the world is that the beautiful apparition in white ? 
 There she is there two from your other neighbour. Did 
 you ever see such a complexion ? And it 's every bit of 
 it real. I can tell that from here,' he added, with the air 
 of an expert. 
 
 1 It 's more than I can,' said Mrs. Tilney ; and she pro- 
 ceeded to finish her rejoinder with a remark which exhibited 
 one of the defects of her qualities. She had so many re- 
 joinders ready for every occasion that she would sometimes 
 slip one out without sufficient selection. She did so now. 
 ' But you,' she said, ' know so much more about false com- 
 plexions than I do that I really will not presume to dispute the 
 matter with you.' Mrs. Tilney was aware that a man of Sir 
 Reginald's character means, generally, by knowledge of women, 
 a knowledge of what is false in them ; and she intended to 
 pay him a compliment, such as his soul loved. It was not till 
 the words were well out of her mouth that she remembered 
 the complexion of Sir Reginald's own wife. Sir Reginald 
 remembered it too, so Mrs. Tilney saw. He was angrily 
 uncertain as to whether she had meant to remind him of it. 
 He could hardly believe she had ; but she had reminded him 
 that he was a married man, and he disliked this even more 
 than reflections on his wife's colouring. So with one or two 
 clearings of his throat he let the conversation drop, and turned 
 to Lady Dovedale, whom he had taken in to dinner, and who 
 was already avenging his neglect of her by reciting to herself 
 his faults and foibles a process which had placed her on a 
 frozen moral pinnacle, from which she experienced some dif- 
 ficulty in descending. 
 
 Mrs. Tilney thus freed from the attention of Sir Reginald, 
 turned to Lacy and murmured, ' He really is too dread- 
 ful.' 
 
 ' I couldn't help,' replied Lacy, ' catching something of what 
 he was saying. Wasn't he asking you something about Miss 
 St. Germans ? ' 
 
 ' Is that Miss St. Germans ? ' said Mrs. Tilney, with quiet 
 curiosity. ( I Ve been hearing about her already from Cornelia 
 
250 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 and Lord Runcorn both. How beautiful she is, and what a 
 charming expression ! Well, Mr. Lacy, I now no longer 
 wonder that you should think a post on the Riviera better 
 than a post in Egypt.' 
 
 ' I have never,' said Lacy, ' met with a girl so young, who is 
 at once so mature and so innocent. Indeed, when you are 
 with her, you forget you are talking to a child. You only re- 
 member that she is a child because she has none of the faults 
 of age.' 
 
 ' It seems to me,' said Mrs. Tilney, c that the young ladies 
 of the present day only differ from children because they have 
 all the faults of age.' 
 
 She paused for a moment after this caustic utterance, and 
 then went on softly : ' Nora is naturally so sympathetic that, 
 going about in the world as much as she does, I am specially 
 anxious about the girls with whom she may form intimacies. 
 It 's from girls in these days, far more than from men, that girls 
 get the ideas which so often make marriages miserable. Many 
 people, of course, declaim against marrying early ; but I con- 
 fess I think that if a girl can find a nice good man for a hus- 
 band, the sooner she marries and has a home of her own the 
 better. When she is able to exert her proper influence in 
 society, when she has friends and dependants to whom she 
 owes constant duties, it is absurd to say, as so many people 
 whom we know do say, that her life can ever be empty, or that 
 she will require any of the wicked excitements wicked is an 
 old-fashioned word, but I really can use no other to which 
 even girls nowadays avow that they look forward.' 
 
 ' I,' said Lacy, ' should argue for a late marriage rather 
 than an early one ; because the later, within reason, an 
 imaginative woman marries, the less time is left her to out- 
 grow her illusions with regard to it.' 
 
 Something of the bitterness secreted during his unhappy 
 years made itself audible in Lacy's voice as he spoke ; and he 
 had hardly ceased before he became aware that the eyes of 
 Miss St. Germans were fixed on him, full of a vague inquiry. 
 Confused by a fear that she had overheard him, he gave all his 
 attention to Mrs. Tilney. 
 
 1 Yes,' she answered him ; ' but the marriages you speak of 
 are the very marriages which I say do all the mischief. They 
 are the worldly marriages the marriages of sale and barter ; 
 and it 's from girls, I say, far more than from men, that girls 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 251 
 
 learn their worldliness. My own child has never been spoilt 
 in that way. She will be quite content to pass two-thirds of 
 the year entertaining her friends at her husband's place in the 
 country, and doing her duty in a quiet and useful way ; and 
 four months' racket in London or even less will more than 
 satisfy her simple taste for society.' 
 
 ' At all events,' said Lacy, ' you may rest satisfied that your 
 daughter's unworldliness will be never corrupted by Miss St. 
 Germans.' 
 
 ' Let us all have a talk after dinner,' said Mrs. Tilney some- 
 what hastily, as with a pleasant, intimate smile she turned away 
 from Lacy, and said across the table, which was not a very wide 
 one, to Lord Tregothran : ' Did I hear you say you were 
 going to Monte Carlo ? So are we, next week. Let us make 
 an expedition together ; and Lord Crowborough shall give us 
 luncheon at the last new thing in restaurants.' 
 
 Lacy, left to himself, for his other neighbour was occupied, 
 found his attention fixing itself on Miss St. Germans, who was 
 separated from him only by a yard and a half of tablecloth. 
 It was but now and then that he allowed himself to look 
 directly at her. He feared to embarrass her by making her 
 feel that she was being watched by him, but once or twice, 
 for a moment, he caught her eyes, and in these brief glances 
 of hers he thought he detected something of that perplexed 
 inquiry with which she had regarded him a little while ago. 
 He felt that she had seen in him, when he was talking to Mrs. 
 Tilney, some new side to his character of which she herself 
 knew nothing. At the same time also, he, with regard to 
 her, was conscious of a feeling not wholly dissimilar. She 
 had to-night, as had often happened of late, been taken in to 
 dinner by Cyril Watson an event the recurrence of which 
 was partially explicable by the fact that the arrangement 
 of such matters was in the hands of the young secretary 
 himself; and he was talking to her in a manner which, in 
 spite of its diplomatic restraint, hinted that for him she was 
 the only woman in the room. Lacy had no wish to overhear 
 them ; but his ears, without his leave, acquired an abnormal 
 sharpness, and would now and then inform him that Cyril 
 Watson was talking to her about poetry, art, travelling, or the 
 ruined cities of antiquity topics which, with a girl like her, 
 were all conducive to intimacy questioning her as to her 
 tastes, when not describing his own ; whilst one or two of his 
 
252 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 observations showed that he had arrived at the point of 
 offering to throw light on his by lending her his own poems. 
 
 Lacy's attention, however, was by and by distracted by 
 events which were taking place in a different quarter of the 
 table. On one side of Lord Tregothran, and opposite Mrs. 
 Tilney, was Mrs. Helbeckstein, who had been making such 
 good use of her opportunities that she had created in her 
 neighbourhood a silence of which she was herself the heroine, 
 and which served as a background to her own incisive voice. 
 She had apparently been consulting Lord Tregothran about 
 something which she was anxious to secure a nice house, 
 and a little shooting, near London. Lord Tregothran men- 
 tioned to her several well-known properties ; but she treated 
 them all with such supreme contempt that at last in despair 
 he referred her to her other neighbour. The conversation 
 that ensued attracted a number of listeners. Various 'nice 
 houses, with a little shooting, near London,' were suggested 
 to her by various voices. But she had the satisfaction 
 of ultimately silencing them all, by leaving them with the 
 conviction that of the sort of nice house she wanted there 
 could be but one specimen, and that this must be Windsor 
 Castle. Lord Tregothran, however, who was a famous 
 shot, made a note in his mind of her ideas about the shoot- 
 ing; and foreseeing himself a conqueror in a new world 
 of pheasants, offered her his services in securing for her some- 
 thing satisfactory. It occurred to him, indeed, that he had 
 a property of his own in Kent; and he began to wonder 
 whether, as he phrased it, ' he could not stick her with that.' 
 Delighted at having enrolled in her train a person of such social 
 importance, Mrs. Helbeckstein went on to consult him about 
 the arrangement of houses in London ; she described her own, 
 mentioned the dimensions of her concert-room, and hinted at 
 the entertainments which would next season be given in it. 
 
 Lord Tregothran, however, owing to the ceaseless activity 
 of his wife, saw so much society that he was himself heartily 
 sick of it ; and he answered Mrs. Helbeckstein with an almost 
 contemptuous apathy, that people in search of gaiety might 
 find the coming season dull, as events seemed to portend that 
 the Court would be then in mourning. 
 
 ' Oh,' said Mrs. Helbeckstein, shrugging her shoulders, ' de 
 Court ! What does de Court ever do ? De Royalties should 
 give more entertainments balls, fetes, garden-parties. Dat 's 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 253 
 
 what I say, Lord Runcorn. I should like to know what else 
 we pay dem for.' 
 
 Mrs. Helbeckstein had just enunciated this piece of 
 political philosophy, when Lady Cornelia caught Lady Trego- 
 thran's eye. Chairs were then pushed back, to the music of 
 rustling trains, and the two sexes separated, each to enjoy the 
 discussion of that diminishing number of topics which they 
 do not discuss together. 
 
 When the men re-entered the drawing-room, they saw 
 it gracefully decorated by ladies clustered in two or three 
 coloured groups, like flowers arranged artlessly in so many 
 separate glasses. One of these groups was composed of 
 Lady Tregothran and Mrs. Tilney, in filial proximity to the 
 latter of whom was her daughter, and closely attached to her 
 daughter, by a ligament of whispers, was Miss St. Germans. 
 But as Lacy slowly approached them, a figure glided before him 
 the figure of Mr. Cyril Watson ; and Mr. Cyril Watson, 
 stooping to the two seated young ladies, breathed some potent 
 spell in their ears, at which they jumped up and followed him. 
 The eyes, though not the feet of Lacy, followed Mr. Watson 
 also, and he saw, in a second drawing-room, a bevy of other 
 girls who looked as if they had just arrived ; and beyond them 
 was Lady Cornelia, standing at one of the doors, and welcom- 
 ing some young men, who were in the very act of arriving. 
 As Lacy saw Miss St. Germans join her sisters in age, she 
 seemed to him to become years younger, and to have almost 
 slipped back to the schoolroom. 
 
 ' Mr. Watson,' he heard somebody say close to him, ' has 
 been getting up a little dance, as a surprise for Miss Tilney 
 and Miss St. Germans. He has scraped together a dozen 
 couples, and Lady Cornelia is going to play for them.' 
 
 ' Damn Mr. Watson,' said Lacy under his breath ; but he 
 was saved from the sin of repeating the imprecation by the 
 voice of Lady Tregothran, who had been watching him for 
 the last few moments. 
 
 ' Here, Mr. Lacy,' she said, her usually haughty mouth 
 assuming an expression of camaraderie, 'here is a chair for 
 you. Come and tell us all about it.' 
 
 ' About what ? ' asked Lacy, drawing the chair towards her. 
 
 ' Is it true,' said Lady Tregothran, ' as Mrs. Tilney tells us, 
 that you have given up politics because you feel you have 
 exhausted life ? ' 
 
254 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'What part of life do you mean?' Lacy retorted 'its 
 realities or its dreams ? ' 
 
 ' As for its dreams,' said Lady Tregothran, ' we have all of 
 us done with them. What we want to talk to you about is a 
 most prosaic reality. Will you stand for the seat that will be 
 vacant next June in Manchester ? The present member has 
 agreed to hold on for a month or two ; so you won't be hurried. 
 Of course you Ve not heard what has happened to our poor 
 friend,' and she named the Tory politician whose restoration 
 to Parliament she and Mrs. Tilney had been plotting before 
 they left London. ' He has had Mrs. Tilney heard it a 
 few minutes ago by telegram a stroke of paralysis, and will 
 never poor fellow be himself again.' 
 
 ' It 's terribly sad,' said Mrs. Tilney, with genuine feeling. 
 
 1 Of course,' said Lady Tregothran, ' we know what finished 
 him up. It was neither more nor less than that new restau- 
 rant in St. James's Street. It 's a pity that a man's mouth, 
 which made his fortune when he spoke with it, should have 
 unmade his fortune when he ate with it. And now the 
 question is, will you step into his shoes ? ' 
 
 ' If it's merely a question of my own pleasure,' said Lacy, 
 ' I should certainly answer No. But if it should turn out that 
 there was nobody else forthcoming ' 
 
 ' My dear man,' interposed Lady Tregothran, ' there '11 be 
 three or four people forthcoming, if you Ve no wish that the 
 party should choose you first. But tell me have you no 
 ambition? Hark there's that wretched piano. Come out 
 on the terrace with me. Mrs. Tilney 's so upset by this news, 
 that she's hardly up to talking about it.' 
 
 She rose, and he followed her ; but turned to cast, as he 
 did so, a glance at Miss St. Germans, as though taking an 
 unwilling leave of her. 
 
 ' Look here,' said Lady Tregothran, when he and she were 
 on the terrace, ' I am going to do you a kindness which you 
 will look in vain for from anybody else in the world. I am 
 going to speak to you plainly.' She fixed her brilliant eyes 
 on him. ' Will you,' she said, c object to me, if I announce 
 myself as your candid friend ? Your uncle, my dear man, is 
 a very old friend of mine ; and, through him, I know more 
 about you and your character than you suppose. You are a 
 mental invalid. You are capable of doing anything, but you 
 have managed to persuade yourself that nothing is worth doing; 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 255 
 
 and now that you are rich, and fancy you have the world 
 at your feet, you are more confirmed in this idea than ever. 
 From some points of view, no doubt you are right enough ; 
 but from another, which is bound sooner or later to be your 
 own, you will find, unless you get the better of your present 
 mood, that you have been wrong. Look at me am I inactive ? 
 Do I allow my husband to be inactive? And yet, do you 
 think that any one of the things we aim at seems to me, in 
 itself, to be worth the trouble it costs us ? It does not ; but 
 I can tell you this, that if you take a back seat in life, simply 
 because you despise the play which you would look at if you 
 took a front one, you will find that the heads which impede 
 your view are a prospect compared with which the worst play 
 is a masterpiece. Think of your uncle. His judgment of 
 human life, as a whole, is not more flattering, I daresay, than 
 yours or mine; but still every moment of his life is full, is 
 vivid blood beats in it. It is enlarged by the interests and 
 issues, of which he knows himself to be the centre, even when 
 he is patting my hand, and fancying that I am half in love 
 with him. Well, you don't say anything, but you show your 
 sense by listening to me ; and if you want me to appeal to 
 your vanity as well as to your ambition, I don't mind telling 
 you this that of all possible candidates, our poor friend being 
 incapacitated, you would be by far the best. In a constituency 
 like this, where there is a good deal of radical feeling, it of 
 course was a great point immensely in his favour that he was 
 a lord ; but Lacy of Lacy, within twelve miles of Manchester, 
 would be as good any day as the younger son of a duke. 
 Think, then, of this new opportunity of entering public life ; 
 and you and I will talk of it again in a day or two. And 
 now, as we are enjoying ourselves by the light of this romantic 
 moon, if you are anxious, as I think you are, in spite of all 
 disillusion, to weave into the pattern of your career some of 
 the tinsel or some of the silver of romance, I could one of 
 these days put my hand on a wife who would just suit you ; 
 but but but come, let us go back to the drawing-room 
 that wife should not be a child.' 
 
 The sudden confusion caused in him by this last observa- 
 tion made him only too glad to obey her, and he followed 
 her, making no reply. But instead of forgetting her words he 
 was destined, a moment later, to have them burnt into his mind, 
 as though traced in it by a hot needle. On re-entering the 
 
256 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 drawing-room, he saw that in the room beyond it some dance 
 was already over ; and presently, seated on a sofa, and distinct 
 in the brilliant candlelight, he saw two figures laughing together 
 like boy and girl, and engaged in a fight, only visible to an 
 interested eye, with the cushions. All the freshness, the irre- 
 pressible spirits of youth were in both of them in the boy, 
 who was Cyril Watson, in the girl, who was Miss St. Germans. 
 Each seemed to Lacy to be talking some language to the 
 other which he had once known himself but had by this 
 time utterly forgotten. In the girl's face was an animation 
 he had never seen before in it. In that of the young man 
 there was something deeper. Of this, as Lacy observed, 
 she was to all appearance unconscious ; but he saw she was 
 conscious of one thing and this was of complete enjoy- 
 ment. He sank into a chair between Mrs. Tilney and Lady 
 Madeleine ; and affected presently to have forgotten the 
 dancers altogether. 
 
 'I have been trying to persuade Lady Madeleine,' Mrs. 
 Tilney said to him, who had partially recovered her animation, 
 ' to come over with us one day to Monte Carlo, and you and 
 the rest of your party we want to come also. The Trego- 
 thrans, who are going to Nice, will give us dinner on our 
 way back ; and Lord Crowborough, if the night is fine, will 
 bring us all home in his yacht.' 
 
 ' I have a friend here,' said Lacy, looking towards Lady 
 Madeleine, ' by whom I will be guided in everything. If she 
 and my other guests like to go, I shall like to do so too.' 
 There was a vague pain in his heart, which he made no 
 attempt to analyse ; but he felt that, whatever it was, he 
 might be sure of Lady Madeleine's sympathy. Whatever 
 other women might be to him, she at all events was his friend. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 WHATEVER effect the dissipations of the Villa Martin might 
 have had on Miss St. Germans' mind, they so far affected her 
 body that she found herself unable to appear next morning at 
 breakfast ; and half an hour later Lacy and Lady Madeleine, 
 who were standing on one of the balconies, saw her with her 
 sketching things, as if eager to avoid observation, stealing 
 away to some hidden spot in the garden. 
 
 Lacy turned to his companion, and in a voice between 
 jest and sadness, ' I am going,' he said, ' to prefer a com- 
 plaint against you. When we walked home from church 
 together, you gave me some bad advice. You tried to en- 
 courage me and, I will confess to you, you did encourage 
 me to think about a something as possible, which otherwise 
 I should have thought absurd. It is absurd. I discovered 
 that it is so last night.' 
 
 'What!' replied Lady Madeleine, 'are you talking about 
 Estelle ? Whatever I may have said to you was very good 
 sense indeed. You don't/ she suddenly added, 'you don't 
 mean to tell me and yet I believe you do that you're 
 jealous of young Cyril Watson ? ' 
 
 Lacy laughed. ' I ought,' he said, 'to be flattered by the 
 question which you at once, by instinct, put to me, for it 
 proves how completely right I am. You saw how eagerly 
 she joined with him in the happiness of all those children. 
 You must have noticed it, or you wouldn't have asked me 
 that. But you 're wrong if you think I am jealous of Cyril 
 Watson. I certainly did begin with being jealous of some- 
 thing, but that something was not he. It was those thoughts 
 of my own which I knew she could never share with me. 
 That jealousy I had partially got over. But seeing her last 
 night has made me jealous of another thing. It is those 
 thoughts, those spirits, those happinesses, which I never 
 
258 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 can share with her. I could as soon have joined with her 
 in her last night's pleasures as I could turn head over heels 
 in the gutter like a street arab.' 
 
 'Believe me,' said Lady Madeleine, 'you make too much 
 out of little. Let me give you my advice once more. Go to 
 her now in the garden ; pretend to look at her drawing ; talk 
 to her for ten minutes or five will be quite enough ; and 
 then come to me you will find me on the long terrace and 
 tell me that all your fancies have been puffed away like 
 cobwebs.' 
 
 'Well,' replied Lacy, 'you shall once more be my coun- 
 sellor. I will go and look at her drawing as soon as the post 
 has come. If there are any letters for you, I will bring them 
 together with my news.' 
 
 He was as good as his word. As soon as he received his 
 letters, one of which he opened at once and read with an 
 amused laugh, he went into the garden to look for the young 
 artist. He found her at last in a corner, which was sheltered 
 by a hedge of myrtles and commanded a view of the sea and 
 some distant violet mountains. She had her sketching-block 
 on her knee, she poised a pencil in her hand ; but instead 
 of sketching she was looking out straight before her. At the 
 sound of Lacy's footsteps she started, and turned her head. 
 Her eyes had a welcome in them ; and yet instantly she cast 
 them down again. ' Don't look,' she said. ' I 've been long- 
 ing to try this view ; but you mustn't see it, please, till I 've 
 got on a little further with it.' She had not got on far as yet. 
 There was on her paper, excepting a few faint lines, only a 
 blister or two, which shone in the morning sunlight. ' Come 
 back,' she continued, ' a little later, and see what I have done 
 will you ? I like oh, I like painting better than balls and 
 parties.' She looked up quickly again, as if to give him his 
 dismissal for the present. Her eyes had a trace of tears in 
 them, and a flush of trouble was on her cheeks. 
 
 Lacy affected to have noticed nothing unusual, and saying 
 in a cheerful voice that he would come back later, made 
 his way to his own terrace on the cliff-side. The figure of a 
 woman was there moving slowly away from him ; she seemed 
 less fit to be the confidante of a lover's passion than the 
 recipient of it. With all the grace of outline which artifice 
 aims at producing, and with all the grace of movement which 
 artifice generally destroys, Lady Madeleine's appearance was 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 259 
 
 one which might easily have been too noticeable, if it had not 
 been for her own complete unconsciousness of it, and for the 
 pensive, refined, and often abstracted air which surrounded 
 her with an invisible barrier against all male presumption. 
 There was some truth, indeed, in what a candid cousin had 
 said of her, ' that she had the aspect of a coquette without 
 the air of one.' 
 
 ' You have not been long,' she said to her friend, as he over- 
 took her. 
 
 ' No,' he replied. 'The young lady was much preoccupied. 
 She had drawn three lines, and had dropped three tears on 
 her sketching-block ; and she told me she liked drawing much 
 better than dancing. She also told me to go away, and to 
 call again later. She is quite different this morning from what 
 I have ever known her before ; and I think I understand her 
 better than she understands herself.' 
 
 ' I 'm perfectly sure,' said Lady Madeleine, ' that this child 
 is fond of you.' 
 
 ' That may be,' replied Lacy. ' But that is not my point. 
 She is fond of something I don't say somebody else. And 
 this is a something which some day somebody else will em- 
 body for her, and which I never shall. By the way,' he went 
 on, as if anxious to change the subject, ' there were no letters 
 for you ; but I 've got one I want to show you, and while you 
 are reading it, I will read another.' 
 
 They seated themselves on a sunny bench. The letter 
 which he gave to Lady Madeleine was the one at which he 
 had lately laughed. 
 
 ' Dear Mr. Lacy,' it ran, c A number of our fellow-workers, 
 on their way back to England, have halted for a night in our 
 neighbourhood for the express purpose of being present at 
 one of those meetings or services of which I spoke to you. 
 There has been a difficulty in fixing the date, or I would have 
 given you longer notice ; but we have suddenly been obliged 
 to arrange that it shall take place this evening. If you or any 
 of your friends who take an interest if only a critical interest 
 in our cause, care to be present, I write to say that we shall 
 be very glad to receive you. I have not written to Lord 
 Runcorn, knowing that he is something of an invalid ; but it 
 might interest him, as a statesman, to have some direct insight 
 into what is, beyond all comparison, the most important 
 
260 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 movement of to-day. If he would come, we should, of course, 
 cordially welcome him. 
 
 ' Our service, if I may so call it, begins at eight o'clock. 
 
 ' One word more. I have consented, for the sake of 
 our weaker brethren, to sanction and be present at the 
 recitation of some theistic indeed, Christian prayers, 
 thus bowing myself in the House of Rimmon. The old 
 words, however, may be accepted as symbols of a newer and 
 larger meaning ; and you will not think the worse of those 
 who know no religion other than self-devotion to the great 
 Social Whole, if they kneel when these prayers are being 
 repeated, and listen to them without overt protest. If you 
 can, will you arrive five minutes before the time, and ask 
 for me? I will arrange suitable seats for you. The bearer, 
 should this find you at home, will wait to bring back an 
 answer. I am, truly yours, SELINA NORHAM.' 
 
 ' I see,' said Lady Madeleine, ' that this has come by hand. 
 Have you sent your answer yet ? ' 
 
 Her companion, however, did not speak. He seemed not 
 to have heard her. She turned to look at him, and saw him, 
 with his face like a statue, staring at a letter in his hand, 
 though he hardly seemed to be reading it. Presently, as if 
 waking from a dream, he gave a little dry laugh, and said, 
 with an odd placidity, 'If Mrs. Norham's letter amuses 
 you, I have something else to show you which will amuse 
 you perhaps still more. Will you read that ? ' he continued, 
 and he placed his letter in her hand. 
 
 This document, which was written on blue official paper, 
 bore a printed address, ' Bankside, South Road, Baling.' Its 
 contents were as follows : 
 
 1 Dear Sir, We take the earliest opportunity of bringing 
 to your notice a fact which nearly concerns yourself. You 
 have succeeded to certain properties under the will of the 
 late Octavius Brandon, Esq., in consequence of the death, re- 
 ported from America, of that gentleman's sole legitimate son. 
 Evidence, however, has been recently placed in our hands 
 which goes to show that the person whose death was reported 
 was not Mr. Octavius Brandon, Junior, but his half-brother, 
 known by the name of George Brandon Parker, with whom 
 he is known to have been living on terms of intimacy. 
 Certain painful circumstances, into which we need not at this 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 261 
 
 stage enter, rendered it advisable that Mr. Brandon should 
 for a time disappear from observation; and the evidence 
 placed in our hands is such as to show conclusively that he 
 availed himself of the demise of Mr. Parker, to whom he bore 
 a strong resemblance, to assume the character of that gentle- 
 man, and to represent himself as being the party deceased. 
 The matter has been placed in our hands ; and as our client, 
 Mr. O. Brandon at present going under the name of 
 George Brandon Parker intends to prosecute his claim to 
 the property to which he is legally entitled, we have been 
 instructed to consult you with a view to ascertaining what is 
 likely to be your own attitude ; and whether you would be 
 disposed to push the matter to litigation, or on inspection of 
 the conclusive evidence in our possession, you would prefer 
 that it should be settled privately. Awaiting your early reply, 
 we beg to remain, dear sir, your obedient servants, 
 
 ' JAMES, HAWKINS, & JAMES, Solicitors.' 
 
 When Lady Madeleine had finished her reading there fol- 
 lowed a short silence. Then she said falteringly, ' Do you 
 believe there 's a word of truth in it ? ' 
 
 Lacy by this time had recovered his usual manner. ' There 
 may be,' he said, as though he were speaking of something 
 wholly indifferent to him. ' It 's at all events true thus far 
 that these two half-brothers, as I know, had a striking family 
 likeness to each other. Anyhow, until I hear something more, 
 even you would hardly advise me to be snatching at a bride 
 to my uncertainties. Well who said on his deathbed, 
 " Come and see how a Christian can die " ? I may soon be 
 asking you to see how a philosopher can lose a fortune. But 
 all this while as I think you reminded me, only I didn't 
 answer you Mrs. Norham's Mercury is waiting. I had 
 rather, for several reasons, not be at home this evening. 
 We '11 get Miss Tilney to come and amuse Miss St. Germans ; 
 and you will you keep me in countenance and come to Mrs. 
 Norham's vespers ? ' 
 
 Lady Madeleine assented ; and as she did so, put her hand 
 on Lacy's. ' I am very sorry,' she said, ' believe me that 
 you should have all this anxiety.' Her hand lay on his with 
 the peculiar touch of a woman who has known what it is to 
 share secret trouble with a man ; and her dark eyes, as they 
 looked at him from the ivory paleness of her face her dark 
 
262 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 eyes, undershadowed by streaks of transparent purple, looked 
 at him like a night of stars seen though a rainy window-pane. 
 Any stranger who, watching the demeanour of these two 
 friends that day, had been told that one of them was threatened 
 with some grave misfortune, would have judged that the 
 person threatened was Lady Madeleine, not Lacy. In the 
 afternoon there were callers ; but, so far as she could, she 
 avoided them, escaping, at the first opportunity, to the solitude 
 of her own room. Here, before dressing for dinner, she went 
 to a locked despatch-box. She opened it, and from one 
 corner took a tied-up packet of letters. The knot of the 
 ribbon which tied them came undone in her hands. She 
 glanced at them with a kind of sad indifference. Some dried 
 flowers were seen lying between the pages, and a faint scent 
 breathed from them. She took one of the letters at haphazard, 
 like a card from a pack, and looked down at it with the kind 
 of experimental flinching with which a child puts its foot into 
 water too hot or too cold for it. Without unfolding the page 
 she read what came uppermost, and what came uppermost 
 chanced to be the following fragment : ' But you who are 
 English can but half understand what you are to a man who 
 is more than half a Slav. You can never understand that, 
 in my mind, by the right of my own memories of you, you 
 are mine you are mine by the flower of your mouth, with all 
 its crimson petals, in which my lips have been buried, and 
 which my lips first unfolded. You are mine by the night 
 when the lamps were shining through the wet orange-trees 
 when my arm was round you when your face was lifted 
 when I kissed away the rain-drops from your cheeks.' As she 
 read, her expression of sadness became mixed with an ex- 
 pression of contempt. From a box by the fireplace she 
 extracted a few fir-cones. She set them blazing with a match, 
 and on the top of them she placed the letters. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 WHILST the Chateau des Fleurs was the scene of these poor 
 private vicissitudes, events on a much grander scale had been 
 taking place at St. Antoine. 
 
 Mrs. Norham, stimulated by the thoughts of the increased 
 audience she was to address, and by an arrangement made 
 that her words should be reported in the English papers, felt 
 herself raised to heights of social enthusiasm, which would 
 render her more than ever the envy of her beloved equals. 
 But, as has been hinted already, the fire of her lofty zeal was not 
 fanned only by the thought of communicating her selfless spirit 
 to the band of itinerant altruists her fellow-workers whom 
 she respected. It was raised to an even whiter heat by the 
 prospect of recommending altruism, through her own inimitable 
 embodiment of it, to the fashionable classes whom she 
 despised. At first, however, in composing the impromptu 
 address, which was to form, as it usually did, the principal 
 feature of the service, she had been embarrassed, in arrang- 
 ing some of the finest of her intended flights, by a fear that 
 they might wound the deplorable and diseased prejudices of 
 those strangers to the fold whose salvation depended on their 
 not being shocked by her strangers who were evidently not 
 beyond salvation's reach, since they had had grace enough 
 to invite her to their houses, and would shortly again do so. 
 The difficulty, however, which was thus presented to her 
 mind, was removed in a manner entirely unexpected by 
 herself. The strangers, as represented by Lord Runcorn and 
 Lady Cornelia, showed themselves, as the days went on, to be 
 much less sensitive than she imagined. They failed altogether 
 to seek for a renewal of the privilege of her company. Indeed, 
 had such a contingency been possible, it might have almost 
 seemed that they had forgotten her. Accordingly, as she 
 reflected on these damaging traits in their character, she 
 
 2C3 
 
264 THE INDIVIDUALIST 
 
 began to regard her former scruples as superfluous, and to 
 see that persons so callous and insensible to others' greatness 
 required to have their feelings pricked, or even wounded, 
 rather than spared. This important conclusion was still in 
 process of forming itself, when suddenly, in two short minutes, 
 it was turned into a burning certainty. What produced this 
 result was a paragraph in a London paper, which informed 
 Mrs. Norham, for the first time, that a brilliant dinner and 
 dance had taken place at the Villa Martin, giving the brilliant 
 names of the guests, amongst whom she was not one. This 
 incident, she felt, would have the same effect on her eloquence 
 that the burning coal had on the prophet Isaiah. The whole 
 of average humanity the humble multitudes she loved 
 had, she felt, been insulted by this insult put on herself, 
 who represented these poor equals of hers, by being so 
 far above them. Let her only entice to her service some 
 of the ' fops and fribbles ' the words brought solace to 
 Mrs. Norham's heart who formed the society thought bril- 
 liant at the Villa Martin, and she would soon redeem them by 
 reducing them to a sense of their insignificance. 
 
 But it was not Mrs. Norham only who, by a power even 
 greater than herself, was being thus hallowed anew for the 
 forthcoming holy function. The spirit of Mr. Bousefield, who, 
 as usual, was to be the other performer, was also, unsuspected 
 by himself, undergoing an analogous preparation, and the 
 instrument employed for this purpose was none other than his 
 wife. Ever since the reconciliation which had taken place 
 between Mr. Bousefield and Mrs. Norham, after the rupture 
 on which Mrs. Bousefield had founded so many vain hopes, 
 the reconciled parties had been more united than ever ; for, 
 in addition to their prospects of redeeming the world generally, 
 another and nearer vision was hovering now before them 
 the resources which would accrue to them as shareholders 
 in the Tibbits' Motor resources which would enable Mr. 
 Bousefield to be the patron of countless movements, and 
 which, by endowing Mrs. Norham with a victoria and other 
 gentilities, would enable her, on behalf of the many, to 
 fight wealth with its own weapons. In proportion, how- 
 ever, as this spiritual partnership became sweeter and more 
 perfect, the distress of Mrs. Bousefield increased a dis- 
 tress which, though she tried to hide it, Mrs. Norham's 
 sharp eyes recognised, and which, fortified by her snow-pure 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 265 
 
 conscience, she resented as an indecent insult an aggravated 
 protest of out-worn selfism. What could a woman of that 
 kind possibly have to complain of ? Mrs. Norham was as 
 incapable of being partner to any marital ' infidelity ' as she 
 was of dancing a can-can or jumping over the moon ; whilst as 
 for Mr. Bousefield, every night of his life since his marriage, 
 he and Mrs. Bousefield, in respectable juxtaposition, had 
 snored over the same counterpane, under two adjacent watch- 
 pockets. They did so still ; but from that day of the recon- 
 ciliation onwards, Mr. Bousefield's slumbers had been not 
 infrequently disturbed by a restlessness on the part of his 
 wife, which, as he said to himself, tried him sorely ; and he 
 sometimes also had detected a slight sniffling sound, which he 
 would, as became a Christian, bear as long as he could ; but 
 at last, when his fallen nature had got the better of grace, he 
 would say, 'My dear, if you've a cold, do blow your nose, 
 and have done with it.' ' I '11 try,' the poor lady would say, 
 heroically forcing herself to be silent. ' I '11 have plenty of 
 time to-morrow, or for matter of that any day.' At this 
 response Mr. Bousefield would laugh sleepily. ' My dear,' he 
 would murmur, 'you haven't an idea what you're talking 
 about ' ; and he would close his eyes again in the peace of 
 the consciously immaculate. 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield's education having been rigidly puritanical, 
 she ought to have known that there is no kind of marital 
 infidelity, really worthy of the name, other than that of which 
 she did not suspect her husband ; and that she had no right 
 to remember anything against him, so long as he did not do 
 her the wrong which a man most easily forgets. Indeed, 
 theoretically, this was doubtless her own conviction still ; but 
 her inability to formulate any ground for her grief or griev- 
 ance, instead of soothing it, only added to its acerbity ; and 
 during the night preceding the service, it reached its culmi- 
 nating point, driving her to extremities of which she never 
 had imagined herself capable. Mr. Bousefield, after a well- 
 spent day of spiritual and financial exercise, felt that he 
 required, and indeed deserved, even sounder repose than 
 usual. His wife was possibly not less tired than he; but 
 never had she found unbroken repose more hopeless. Her 
 turnings to and fro woke her husband several times ; and 
 each time he was irritated by the same sound of sniffling. 
 He expostulated as usual first with an easy patience. The 
 
266 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 second time he was more severe. The third time he was 
 really angry. ' My dear,' he exclaimed, ' do be quiet ! ' 
 Instead of being quiet, Mrs. Bousefield ceased sniffling and 
 began to sob. 'This is indeed too bad,' said her husband. 
 ' How on earth am I to get my needed rest, if you can't lie 
 still like a quiet, Christian woman, but must wake me 
 up with this childishness the moment I close my eyes? 
 What is it all about ? It passes my comprehension to 
 conjecture.' Then at last Mrs. Bousefield's feelings ran 
 away with her. ' I wish,' she exclaimed between her 
 tears, 'you'd Mrs. Norham lying where I am. She's not 
 a Christian woman; but she wouldn't disturb you as your 
 wife does.' 
 
 Had the archangel Michael blown his trumpet into Mr. 
 Bousefield's ear, he could not have experienced greater sur- 
 prise and horror than he did on hearing these shameless 
 these unrepeatable words. Had some evil spirit, while he 
 slept, taken his own good wife away, and put Aholah or 
 Aholibah, or perhaps both of them, in her place ? His 
 cheeks flamed in the darkness ; or at all events he felt as if 
 they did so. ' My dear,' he exclaimed, in a voice not his own, 
 ' I ask you, in the name of God, have you any idea of what 
 you are saying ? Is it my own wife whom I hear bringing out 
 of her mouth moral garbage moral abomination, such as 
 that ? Is it my own modest, faithful, decent, Christian 
 wife?' 
 
 'Thank you, Mr. Bousefield,' she whimpered; 'thank you 
 at least for calling me that. I hardly knew what I said. I 
 must just ask you to forgive me.' 
 
 ' With God's help,' said Mr. Bousefield, ' I will do my best 
 to forget it.' 
 
 So tremendous a scene, however, was not to be forgotten 
 easily. It had two results on the following eventful day. 
 One of these was that, at Mr. Bousefield's request, Mrs. 
 Norham sought out his wife the first thing after breakfast, and 
 begged her, in her most conciliating tones, to choose the 
 psalm or hymn which she liked best, for the Theistic part 
 of their service. ' I think,' said Mrs. Norham, ' you Ve a 
 partiality for the Scottish version of the Psalms. Mr. Bouse- 
 field,' she added, ' was particularly anxious about this.' Such 
 was one result of Mr. Bousefield's memories of the night. 
 The other for they still caused him agitation of an acute 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 267 
 
 kind appeared later on, during the progress of the sacred 
 service itself. 
 
 Mrs. Norham, meanwhile, who had had a letter from Lacy 
 to say that he and another friend at all events would attend, 
 though she was dissatisfied with so scanty a response, yet 
 hoped that it meant more than it seemed to mean ; and had 
 utilised the gratitude which she had earned, in connection 
 with the psalm, from Mrs. Bousefield, to persuade her to pro- 
 vide for Lacy, and the contingent that might possibly be 
 brought by him, some slight refreshment, to follow the even- 
 ing's service, of a more recherchk character than that which 
 was sufficient for the elect. 
 
 The solemn hour drew on. The evening train from St. 
 Estephe was safely delivered at St. Antoine of the doctor, the 
 barrister, and the personally conducted altruists, who were 
 met by some of the paying guests, and conducted by them to 
 the sacred colony. The ladies were most of them distinguished 
 by wearing their hair short, the gentlemen by wearing it long, 
 and the faces of all of them had the peculiar and fixed ex- 
 pression of earnest persons at a meeting convoked to denounce 
 something. The repast partaken of by this flock was some- 
 what of the nature of a passover. It was eaten in haste, in 
 order that the two rooms, thrown together to accommodate so 
 large a party, might be rearranged for the purposes of social 
 worship. The business of preparation was performed by Mr. 
 Bousefield and Mrs. Norham, whilst the congregation solaced 
 themselves by sucking oranges outside in the moonlight. The 
 table was pushed aside ; chairs were arranged in rows ; and at 
 one end of the room, where a sideboard with a few syphons 
 on it bore a certain resemblance to an altar, a space was left 
 with a sofa on one side of it, an American organ, which had 
 been dragged out of a corner, on the other, and two chairs in 
 the middle, facing those placed for the congregation. 
 
 These arrangements were hardly completed when the front- 
 door bell rattled. Then Mrs. Norham for the first time in- 
 formed Mr. Bousefield that Mr. Lacy, with perhaps a friend 
 or two, had begged permission to be present. ' That must be 
 them,' she continued, forgetting her grammar. ' I must go 
 and see who he 's brought. That sofa will do for them, and a 
 few chairs in the front, as they won't like to be conspicuous. 
 Ring the dinner-bell in the garden, and get the others in. 
 Then, when they 're settled, come round and join me in the 
 
268 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 salon} Mr. Bousefield nodded, though he looked a little dis- 
 composed, and Mrs. Norham disappeared through a door that 
 was near the sideboard. 
 
 Ten minutes later the place of worship was full, except the 
 space at the end of it a space brightly lighted, all the rest of 
 the room being left in comparative darkness. And now at last 
 the door near the sideboard opened again, and Mrs. Norham 
 re-entered, with a beautiful lady following her, tall, dark-eyed, 
 graceful, and exhaling from every detail of her toilette the pre- 
 cise charm which the reformers were to banish from an im- 
 proved world. The eyes of all the earnest females fixed 
 themselves on this apparition with the eager and observant 
 animosity which is half-sister to admiration ; whilst behind 
 Lady Madeleine some of the luminaries of Startfield Hall re- 
 cognised the insolent stranger who had proposed to pervert 
 the Institution from a school of noble discontent into a school 
 of domestic economy. Mrs. Norham, who had been indulg- 
 ing in visions of Lord Runcorn and Lady Cornelia, and had 
 been disappointed at finding that Lacy had brought Lady 
 Madeleine only, was comforted by observing that the presence 
 of even these two strangers had produced amongst her flock 
 a general and profound sensation ; and she was determined 
 that it should not be lessened by any want of her own efforts 
 to heighten it. Turning therefore to Mr. Bousefield, who had 
 deposited himself on one of the central chairs, she breathed a 
 word in his ear, she herself still standing. Then facing the 
 congregation, in crisp and business-like accents, accompanied 
 by an engaging smile, she said, 'It has been our custom 
 hitherto to confine these meetings to those who are completely 
 acquainted, and are in active sympathy, with our principles. 
 But I am sure we shall all of us welcome the presence of any 
 persons, who, belonging by training and tradition to the ranks 
 of those opposed to us, have yet been sufficiently touched by 
 an interest in the social movement, to desire to see in action 
 the real motive forces of the world. Accordingly to-night we 
 are happy to have amongst us a lady who has been educated 
 amongst the old ideas of privilege, and a gentleman whose 
 presence is not rendered less significant by the fact that for 
 years he was a Tory Member of Parliament, and is nearly 
 related to the present Tory Premier. Mr. Bousefield will now, 
 as usual, proceed with that portion of our service, to the literal 
 sense of which we do not all of us subscribe, but the inner 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 269 
 
 spirit of which is our common bond of union. He will 
 begin,' said Mrs. Norham, ' with giving out a psalm or hymn 
 I am not responsible for its selection of which type-written 
 copies I hope as many as will be wanted have been placed 
 on some of the seats, so that those who are disposed to do so, 
 may take part in the singing of it.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham sat down, and Mr. Bousefield got up. His 
 spectacles were on his nose, and he was scrutinising a piece of 
 paper. He had not been aware till that moment what sacred 
 song had been chosen ; and as he now gave it out, conscious 
 that the choice of it was his wife's, the exceedingly painful 
 feelings which had been excited in him during the previous 
 night became more displeasing and more acute than ever. 
 He went, however, through his work bravely. ' We will com- 
 mence our proceedings,' he said, 'with singing the fifth, sixth, 
 and seventh verses of the Scottish metrical version of the 
 hundred-and-second psalm, and the eighty-third verse of the 
 hundred-and-nineteenth psalm Tune, "Edinburgh."' 
 
 Then his wife, who meanwhile had seated herself at the 
 American organ, with tremulous but devout fingers drew forth 
 sounds from its entrails which at once filled the room with 
 the atmosphere of a northern kirk ; and presently some dozen 
 voices were giving forth the following words, which the organist 
 had selfishly chosen with reference rather to herself than to 
 the congregation : 
 
 1 By reason of my groaning voice 
 My bones cleave to my skin. 
 Like pelican in wilderness 
 Forsaken I have been.' 
 
 Even Mr. Bousefield himself, hurt and indignant as he was, 
 had so strong a taste for psalmody that he could not refrain 
 from joining, and revenged himself on the words by shouting 
 them more loudly than anybody. Indeed, no precentor in 
 Scotland could have rendered with more sonorous unction the 
 concluding verses, which were these : 
 
 ' I like unto a bottle am 
 
 That in the smoke is set ; 
 I 'm black, and parch'd with grief; yet I 
 Thy statutes don't forget.' 
 
 His wife for a moment looked round at him with tears of 
 gratification in her eyes. Her look, however, quite escaped 
 
270 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 him : but when the singing came to an end ; she received 
 a touch of comfort, this time from Mr. Tibbits, who 
 muttered what was in reality his favourite word ' Gammon,' 
 but what Mrs. Bousefield and others imagined to be ' Amen.' 
 This was repeated by almost the whole of the congrega- 
 tion, with some of whom it was as it seems to be with 
 many people a decent synonym for ' I am glad tbat that is 
 over.' 
 
 Then Mr. Bousefield, solemnly retreating to the sideboard, 
 sank on his knees, and, in his refined and well-modulated 
 voice, began one of those extempore prayers, which tend to 
 address themselves to the congregation quite as often as to 
 the Deity, and when addressed to the latter, seem designed 
 by their authors to convey information rather than to proffer 
 requests. He started with informing Omniscience that though 
 many of those present considered themselves not to be Chris- 
 tians, and indeed not even Theists, they were Theists and 
 Christians in reality, and only failed to perceive the fact, owing 
 to some deficiency for which their brethren forbore to blame 
 them ; and for which Mr. Bousefield was confident that Om- 
 niscience would make due allowance. Having thus gathered 
 all his friends into one spiritual fold, he continued his course 
 of information by explaining that their common desire was to 
 realise socially the true Christian life ; and this was to be done 
 by diffusing amongst all their brethren an equality of those 
 highest blessings that precious moral culture those noble 
 self-respects which would rebuke the unchasteness, and 
 mortify the pride of the aristocracy, without diminishing the 
 mercies and responsibilities, by which Mr. Bousefield meant 
 the incomes, vouchsafed to and enjoyed by the virtuous middle- 
 class. 'Wherefore,' Mr. Bousefield continued, 'in order that 
 this end may be achieved, do Thou, who art teaching us to 
 read thy Gospels in the fuller light now thrown on them by the 
 doctrines of social evolution, endow us Thy servants with all 
 necessary gifts. Temper the zeal,' he went on, remembering 
 the ferocity of Mr. Tibbits, who demanded that everything 
 should be nationalised, with the exception of the Tibbits' Motor, 
 ' temper the zeal of certain of us, which is not according to 
 knowledge. Illuminate their darkness with some slight 
 glimmering of sense. Vouchsafe,' he proceeded, recollecting 
 how two of his lady boarders, who proposed to reform the 
 entire legal system of England, had presumed to contradict 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 271 
 
 him when he corrected their misconceptions as to Judge and 
 Jury, 'vouchsafe a suitable sense of their own ignorance to 
 any of us who may be debarred from learning by a false belief 
 that they understand subjects already which they have never 
 studied. Confirm to us the blessings of lofty and sustaining 
 friendships ; and even as the man in many fields labours for 
 the woman, so may the companionship of lofty and inspired 
 women be as a lantern to the man's feet.' Mr. Bousefield, 
 whose eyes here strayed in the direction of Mrs. Norham, 
 found that he had accidentally struck on a new method of 
 devotion a method which combined the advantages of re- 
 proof, satire, and the poetry of Platonic affection, and from 
 which he derived so much unexpected comfort, that he was 
 suddenly led by all the stored-up feelings of the day to 
 pursue it in one petition more. 'We beseech Thee further,' 
 he said, ' to quench all unreasonable, unworthy, irritating, 
 and degrading jealousies which may be entertained by 
 some of Thine handmaids of the pure influences of others, 
 and which interfere more than anything else' his eyes 
 here rested on the tortoise-shell comb of his wife 'with 
 the peace of the domestic, and the nobility of the intel- 
 lectual life.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield was so completely carried away by his own 
 fervour, that he buried his face in his hands, nearly knocking 
 over one of the syphons, and abruptly became silent. Had 
 he been listening, he would have heard a sound, which he 
 might, for a moment, have regarded as a remarkable answer 
 to prayer. This was a faint sob, proceeding from Mrs. 
 Bousefield, who, kneeling by the American organ, had not 
 missed one of his words; but what immediately followed 
 would have made him reconsider his opinion. Hastily press- 
 ing the back of her hand against her eyes, Mrs. Bousefield 
 rose in agitation ; and hardly aware of what she did, took 
 refuge in the instrument before her, struck a few chords at 
 random, and finally drifted into the Old Hundredth Psalm. 
 Her husband and Mrs. Norham both stared at her with 
 horror. It was too late, however, to mend matters. At the 
 first musical sound the entire congregation had risen. It was 
 hopeless to bring them to their knees again ; and thus the 
 essentially Christian portion of the social service ended. Mr. 
 Bousefield saved the situation by his own inability to cope 
 with it. He remained kneeling for a few moments longer, 
 
272 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 for the simple reason that he was doubtful how to get up with 
 dignity. Mrs. Norham perceived this ; and her quick artistic 
 eye recognising that his devotional attitude was a suitable 
 finale in itself, she gave to his ministrations an impressive- 
 ness which intrinsically, she thought, was wanting to them, 
 by beginning, whilst he still was on his knees, her own part 
 of the proceedings. 
 
 She rose, and faced the congregation ; but before she could 
 open her lips, she was welcomed and kept silent for a moment 
 or two by a sound of reverential clapping. She waved her 
 hand, as though to deprecate this ovation, and scanned the 
 faces before her apparently in search of somebody. Mr. 
 Bousefield meanwhile having seated himself rather shame- 
 facedly at her side, she bent down to him and whispered, 
 ' Is Squelch here ? ' 'I believe not,' Mr. Bousefield answered. 
 ' He 's so highly strung just now, he felt he could not stand 
 the excitement ' : the actual fact being that the author of 
 Chants of Equality was carousing in the village with a young 
 lady whom he said he reverenced as a priestess of manhood, 
 and whom several times of late he had, by his modest 
 bounties, roused to outbursts of close, though perhaps 
 spasmodic, affection for him. 'Well,' Mrs. Norham whis- 
 pered, 'perhaps it is better so.' Then straightening her- 
 self, quiet being now restored, she clasped her hands 
 before her, holding them so that the two forefingers, 
 pointing downwards, formed the sides of an isosceles 
 triangle; and fixing her favourite rapt look on the cornice, 
 she began. 
 
 The early Christians, she said, when they met in their 
 days of struggle, could surely have had no more vitalising, 
 more spiritually nutritive exercise, than the recitation of the 
 creed or symbol which reminded them of what they held in 
 common the holy secret that was to leaven the entire world. 
 'And we too,' she continued, 'have our creed or symbol 
 likewise our secret yet more holy, which will leaven a wider 
 world than the apostle of the Gentiles dreamed of : and for 
 us too, surely, there can on an occasion like this, be no more 
 vitalising exercise than to examine this creed together our 
 secret so profound, and yet, ah, so simple ! Nothing shows 
 the fact and the law of progress more plainly than the 
 superiority of this altruistic Credo of ours to even the simplest 
 of the Credos of Christianity. The simplest of these what 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 273 
 
 is it? A series of historical or pseudo-historical assertions 
 imbedded in philosophical hypotheses which are stated as 
 ascertained truths, but which, except in so far as they imply 
 a geocentric theory of the universe, have no point of contact 
 with the ascertainable facts of life. But with our Credo nay, 
 should we not rather call it our Scio for it is not an / believe 
 any longer, but an / know the case is very different. Our 
 creed concerns itself not with remote occurrences, not with 
 theories of things which are for ever beyond our ken. It 
 concerns itself solely with the living heart of man : and the 
 first article of this creed, which by implication contains the 
 whole of it is, that happiness the pearl of price, to which all 
 human circumstance is the setting, is to be found in working 
 for the enjoyment, the convenience, the social well-to-do-ness, 
 not of ourselves, but of others. 
 
 ' Oh, the newness, the shining newness, of this great truth ! 
 The world never heard anything even remotely resembling it 
 before. But it is not new,' Mrs. Norham continued and 
 Lacy perceived that with a wise economy she was repeating 
 some sacred words which she had once uttered to himself; 'it 
 is not new in one sense, any more than the law of gravitation 
 was new, when Sir Isaac Newton discovered it. Rather, it 
 is as old as the human race is. But old truths become 
 dynamically new ones, by our arriving at a conscious recogni- 
 tion of them : and we of the new faith find actually lying in 
 our hands the treasure which, for all these centuries, we have 
 been vainly looking for in the clouds. 
 
 ' Sublime mystery ! Holy and saving paradox ! We for 
 we, delivered from the mists of selfism, are individually no 
 less humble than the humblest Christian hermit we see that 
 all the enjoyments, luxuries, pleasures, of this life, mental and 
 physical, are nothing as viewed in connection with, and 
 enjoyed by, ourselves : but what we should despise ourselves 
 for enjoying, delights us gives us the true saint's rapture 
 when we witness it being enjoyed by our brother. If I give 
 to myself a glass of the rarest wine, the satisfaction which it 
 gives to me is contemptible. If, instead of drinking it myself, 
 I pour it down my brother's throat, his sensations are for me 
 a sacrament. A pleasure which for me is as valueless as 
 a forged bank-note, becomes a genuine one, when I palm it 
 off on my friend; and the larger the number of these to 
 you worthless notes you can palm off on your neighbours, 
 
 s 
 
274 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 the more incalculable will become your true riches and 
 theirs. 
 
 'And now let me impress yet another thought on you, to 
 your exceeding comfort. The happiness you derive from this 
 altruistic process of passing on your own waste paper to others, 
 being multiplied by the number of those which it directly or 
 indirectly reaches, you must learn to realise that each smallest 
 action of your own, has its influence on all men who are now 
 living, or who shall live in the remotest ages. Accordingly, if 
 you do a kindness to, and deny yourself for the sake of, some 
 relation or acquaintance whom you know, and if you feel, 
 as you may feel, that your reward is of a moderate character, 
 think that you are really doing it to millions whom you have 
 never seen or heard of; and what an intoxicating rapture will 
 visit your hearts then ! 
 
 ' Against this divine paradox logic fights in vain ; for it is 
 founded on and is ever re-attested by something greater than 
 logic namely experience; and we can no more get rid of 
 this fact by proving that it cannot be true, than we can,' said 
 Mrs. Norham, again repeating a previous observation, 'rid 
 ourselves by the same process of our belief in the external 
 world. 
 
 'So much, then,' she continued, slightly changing her tone, 
 'for generalities. I have just spoken of experience. Let 
 us consult our own experiences. This creed of ours, as I 
 of course need not remind you, is valuable only because it 
 is directly translatable into action, and into the feelings from 
 which action springs : and I will ask you to consider two things 
 our own common workaday feelings as altruists, and our 
 actions as a practical Church. 
 
 'Let us take then those so-called good things which so 
 many at present covet for themselves, or bow down to, in 
 servile worship, when they are possessed by others. Let us 
 take inordinate riches, the empty snobbery of rank, or so- 
 called pedigree, hereditary privilege, or the trappings and 
 dissipations of fashion. For us for you for me for all of 
 us these things would be nothingness, if it were not for the 
 contemptuous amusement they excite in us, when we regard 
 them in connection with ourselves ; and for our determination 
 to put an end to them, on account of the mischief they do to 
 others. No feelings are more vivid, more vital, in the hearts 
 of all of us than these.' 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 275 
 
 Mr. Bousefield here looked up at Mrs. Norham with eyes 
 of admiring amazement, and then looked down at his knees, 
 and beat time on them to her periods with his hands. But 
 Mr. Bousefield's silent tribute was not her sole applause. As 
 soon as the congregation realised that the liveliness of their 
 faith in altruism was shown by their antipathy to all social 
 advantages to which they themselves could never hope to 
 attain, the very floor of the room cried out in Mrs. Norham's 
 honour, responsive to the feet of her solemn and stirred 
 disciples. 
 
 And now, rising from strength to strength, she went on to 
 her second point. She passed from feelings to actions. She 
 described the course of action by which these loving feel- 
 ings could be satisfied namely, by the diffusion amongst all 
 of equal tastes, equal aptitudes, equal culture. Nor must the 
 more ardent spirits amongst her hearers, Mrs. Norham said, 
 think that this educational work had no direct social results. 
 ' You may know,' she said, ' how practical is our work by one 
 sign more than any other namely, the irritation which every 
 effort on our part to equalise human culture excites in those 
 classes, or that World, with which we, the New Church, are at 
 war. Whatever is irritating to them, is gain unspeakable to 
 us. Let us give to the humblest labourer the education of 
 the most fastidious lord : and the lord will no longer be able 
 to despise the labourer ; whilst the labourer will be freed from 
 the yoke of degrading labour, for it will be intolerable to him. 
 And then, in spite of those incidental superiorities of fortune 
 with which the spirit of individual enterprise will always be 
 rewarded, we shall all be able to look one another fairly and 
 equally in the face. Nor must you think that the spread of 
 education is confined to the traditional methods of teaching. 
 It is spread by the public meeting as much as by the class or 
 the lecture. Every earnest meeting convoked to protest 
 against almost anything whether it be titular distinctions, 
 or vaccination, or the right of employers to combine, or 
 ostentatious fancy-balls, or the laws which would deprive 
 vice of its consequences ' 
 
 ' Hear, HEAR ! ' exclaimed Mr. Bousefield, in a voice 
 of such enthusiasm that the conclusion of Mrs. Norham's 
 sentence was lost in the solemn echoes which responded to 
 him : and when she was next audible, it was evident that she 
 was approaching her peroration. 
 
276 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'Our efforts/ she was saying, 'have already borne fruit. 
 Already we have shown the efficacy of our equality of culture, 
 by our having elicited from our infant Church a signal equality 
 of achievement. Already one of our members, who owes 
 nothing to privilege, has shown himself one of the most 
 marvellous inventors of this or of any age : but he is present, 
 and his modesty forbids me to speak of him in such terms as 
 he deserves. Another, whom we took from the humblest and 
 most galling of occupations, has shown himself to his friends, 
 and will shortly be showing himself to the world as one of 
 our greatest poets. He is not with us at this moment, 
 although he is not far off. His sensitive body, easily tired 
 and shaken by the exercise of his master faculty, is unequal 
 to the agitation incident to a meeting such as this of ours. 
 Of him, therefore, I may speak freely. Leonard Squelch, 
 who was till lately a journeyman tailor, will in a day or two 
 give a volume of poems to the public, which will make every 
 critic acclaim him as the greatest of our existing singers. 
 Those of you who are returning to London will find this 
 volume published when you arrive. Six copies of it will be 
 presented to Startfield Hall, these forming, with a poor work 
 by myself, the nucleus of our library that is to be. 
 
 'Surely the new Church, then, is already justified by her 
 children ; and may be content to be known and judged by 
 first fruits such as these. What are the affectations and 
 exclusiveness of empty aristocrats and plutocrats, what are 
 ranks, titles distinctions which can never be universal, and 
 are valued only because they cannot what are they, and the 
 artificial world in which they are to be found ? Do we covet 
 them ? Do we desire that they should be ours ? No a 
 thousand times no. They are merely a tumour on the 
 mystical body of Humanity a sign and a cause of an anti- 
 social malady which it is the mission of us, who have been 
 baptized into the Socialistic Church, to cure. The life of 
 Humanity is in the masses of Humanity : and for us, the great 
 sin against the new, and the holier spirit, is a yielding to that 
 concupiscence for any exceptional lot by which we, from that 
 life-giving common mass, may be separated.' 
 
 Here Mrs. Norham ceased, and for a moment or two hid 
 her face in her hands ; then suddenly resuming her every-day 
 manner, she said with a sisterly smile to the audience : ' Our 
 meeting to-night is over. Some tea and sandwiches will be 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 277 
 
 brought into this room presently, for those of you who are 
 going back to St. Estephe by train. The train leaves the 
 station at eleven minutes after ten.' Having thus, with an 
 implied benediction, dismissed the body of the faithful, she 
 turned to Lady Madeleine, and said, bending down graciously 
 to her, ' Will you and Mr. Lacy come with us into the drawing- 
 room ; and let us, whilst your carriage is being ordered, 
 refresh your bodies, since we have so ruthlessly wearied 
 your minds.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham in one part of her address had been hampered 
 by a delicacy of feeling which was superfluous. The part in 
 question was her reference to Mr. Tibbits ; for when she men- 
 tioned him, he was in the room no longer. Mr. Tibbits for 
 some years had abstained from the use of alcohol; but the 
 mental strain involved in bringing out his great invention, 
 together with the dazzling prospects which its imminent 
 success opened out to him, had made something stronger 
 than Mrs. Norham's claret, which he called ' swipes,' as 
 essential to him as it was to the altruistic poet. He had 
 therefore, as early as he could, escaped to the same place of 
 entertainment at which Mr. Squelch and the priestess of man- 
 hood were leaving preliminary kisses in their cups together ; 
 and finding the two still seated at a marble table, had joined 
 them, undeterred by a certain coldness in their demeanour, 
 which vanished, to say the truth, when he proposed to treat 
 both of them. Mr. Tibbits, however, being no proficient in 
 French, was obliged to direct his conversation to the poet, 
 rather than to the lady ; and the kindly beverage brought to 
 him having readily loosened his tongue, he was soon expressing, 
 with a rude but honest eloquence, his thoughts on the subject 
 that lay most near to his heart. 
 
 ' Can't fail,' he said. ' Science shows that it can't. This 
 motor of mine, if it 's worth a tanner, is worth at the very least 
 two hundred thousand pounds ; and my share, which in justice 
 ought to be nine-tenths of it, can't be less than a hundred and 
 twenty thousand. The Tibbits' Motor will defy all competi- 
 tion. Haven't I all along been saying that competition was 
 the cause of poverty ? Well so it is ; and in the Motor 
 business Tibbits will put an end to it. I '11 show the working- 
 man what is the proper reward of labour. I '11 show him, not 
 by talking about it, but by getting it. I '11 show him Labour 
 riding in its own carriage, waited on by its own servants, em- 
 
278 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ploying its own workmen. Two horses ! not a bit of it. I '11 
 ride in a coach and four. Ay when Mark Tibbits is riding 
 in his coach and four, the cause of labour against capital will 
 be won, and no mistake about it ! And I '11 tell you what, my 
 boy, when that day comes, I '11 treat you every night to some 
 proper stuff like this.' 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 LACY, on leaving Lady Madeleine after his morning's inter- 
 view with her on the terrace, had returned to Miss St. Germans, 
 and talked to her for a few minutes. She had made some 
 progress with her sketch, which he examined and criticised 
 carefully. As she was doing this she looked up at him once ; 
 and a girl's first love was floating visibly in her eyes. When 
 he gave the sketch back to her, he laid his hand on her 
 shoulder. He had never before touched her in such a 
 familiar way; but there was something in the action an 
 austere and regretful something which made the girl feel 
 that he had put some gulf between them. 
 
 He did not believe that Miss St. Germans actually, at that 
 present moment, preferred his uncle's young secretary to 
 himself, but that she inevitably would do so should she 
 ever come to know him him, Tristram Lacy, as at heart 
 he really was. And the reason, so he told himself, was this : 
 The very life of her life the source of all that was beauti- 
 ful and attractive in her was a belief in life's possibilities 
 in an unknown beautiful something which lay behind, and 
 which was constantly shining through the material and mental 
 things, which broke it into prismatic colour. This belief, so 
 he told himself, young Watson still possessed ; and it was this 
 belief that he himself had lost. ' She may think she likes 
 me,' he said to himself, 'but the me she likes is a sham. 
 Come, my young friend Cyril, you shall teach her that it 
 is so.' 
 
 Occupied by this last thought, and recollecting the wish, 
 often expressed by Miss St. Germans, to be taken out in 
 the boat, he wrote to Cyril Watson asking him to come next 
 morning for a row before luncheon, or a sail, as the case 
 might be. The bearer of this note took another to Lady 
 Tregothran, in which he told her that he felt disposed to 
 act on her late advice, and would call on her, some time next 
 
 279 
 
28o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 morning, to discuss with her affairs at Manchester. His 
 next step was to send a telegram to his London lawyers, 
 desiring them to find out who were Messrs. James, Hawkins, 
 & James, describing themselves as solicitors of Bankside, 
 South Road, Baling. 
 
 Cyril Watson's answer was satisfactory ; and accordingly, at 
 dinner that night, before setting out for Mrs. Norham's, Lacy 
 asked Miss St. Germans if she would care to go next day on 
 the water. The proposal called back to her face an animation 
 which had since the morning deserted it, and she looked as 
 if her late low spirits were a cloud that had passed away. 
 
 When the next day came, however, a certain disappoint- 
 ment was in store for her. Mr. Cyril Watson, who, exhibiting 
 the virtue of punctuality, arrived just in time to meet Miss 
 St. Germans in the hall as she came downstairs arrayed for 
 the expedition, brought with him a note for Lacy from Lady 
 Tregothran, which conveyed a suggestion, as Lacy had 
 meant it should, that he should go down to her and discuss 
 the Manchester election at once. 
 
 ' Look,' he said, as he gave it to Miss St. Germans, ' you 
 must forgive me for failing you. I will take you down to the 
 boat-house, and hand you over to the boatman ; but then I 
 must leave you in Mr. Watson's care and his.' 
 
 The boat-house was a shining toy, painted blue and yellow ; 
 coils of light from the waves came leaping gaily into its 
 shadow, and all the morning sang in the voice of the lapping 
 water. The girl, the boy, and the boatman were presently 
 shooting from the shore, whilst purple seaweed and coral- 
 coloured sea-anemones shone and wavered in the green 
 transparence under them. Lacy turned when he had climbed 
 again to the garden, and for some minutes looked down at a 
 pair of dipping oars and a bright red parasol spread like a 
 floating poppy. From the oars in their rowlocks a faint 
 sound rose to him. He turned away ; and, with blankness 
 rather than pain in his heart, he walked through the woods to 
 St. Hilaire, and found Lady Tregothran at her hotel. 
 
 ' Well,' she said to him, ' it is a good sign that you have 
 come to me. I hope you are going to tell me that my 
 sermon has had a good effect on you. Depend upon it, if 
 you don't think very much of life, you won't think any the 
 better of it by keeping out of the game.' 
 
 ' I am,' replied Lacy, laughing, 'by no means so sure of that. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 281 
 
 No labour in the world is harder or more degrading than 
 playing a game, if games don't happen to interest you.' 
 
 ' No position in the world,' replied Lady Tregothran, ' is more 
 intolerable than that of a man who might be distinguished, 
 and who deliberately courts obscurity. I spoke just now of 
 playing the game or keeping out of it ; but in reality life is a 
 game at which you must play, whether you want to do so or 
 no. The only question is, will you win at the game or lose? I 
 don't know you very well ; but, believe me, I am really your friend 
 when I urge you not to lose this new chance that offers itself of 
 coming back with honour into public life. You won't remain a 
 mere private member long. Your activity, your power of speak- 
 ing, your social advantages will tell. You will be admired, you 
 will be feared, you will be hated ; or, to put all success into one 
 word, you will be felt. You will tell me that success such as 
 this is a despicable thing when it is won. That may be so. 
 Well good people are anxious to get to heaven, not because 
 they think it at all an eligible place, but because they think it 
 less ineligible than hell. In the same way, success may be as 
 despicable a thing as you like, but you ought to aim at it 
 because it is incalculably less despicable than failure.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, laughing, ' my one object in coming to 
 you was to tell you that your persuasions had made a convert 
 of me already. I have almost decided to do what you suggest 
 I should do. By to-morrow or next day I can give you a 
 positive answer ; and as you and Mrs. Tilney seem to know 
 the whole state of affairs better than I do, though I live but 
 twelve miles from the spot, you can give me, perhaps, some 
 idea ' 
 
 'Oh,' she said, interrupting him, 'wait till to-morrow or 
 next day, when you have quite made up your mind. I am 
 delighted to hear what you tell me ; and I don't fear a refusal. 
 To-morrow, by the way, we 're all going to Monte Carlo and 
 as for ourselves, we remain at Nice for a day or two. But our 
 omniscient friend, Mrs. Tilney, has the particulars at her finger- 
 ends. Talk to her when you 've quite made up your mind, 
 and see that you flatter me by making it up the right way.' 
 
 Before Lacy could reply, there came a waiter's rap at the 
 door. Lady Tregothran said ' Entrez,' and closely following 
 on the waiter's heels, as though unembarrassed by any doubt 
 of his welcome, a gentleman made his appearance, dressed 
 quite as carefully as the Poodle, though something like twice 
 
282 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 his age. His nose was aquiline, his bald forehead was efful- 
 gent, his neat little dyed moustache betrayed the delicate 
 application of curling-tongs, and his bearing was so happy a 
 mean between the extremes of cringing and confidence that 
 Aristotle himself would have been puzzled to prove that it 
 was not perfection. 
 
 ' Ah, miladi \ ' he exclaimed, ' I have come to tell you we 
 have only just now heard it that our yacht, the Outlander, 
 will be in here to-morrow morning, and Mrs. Helbeckstein is 
 very anxious to know if we could be of any service in taking 
 your party over to Monte Carlo. She is not a big boat just 
 six hundred and fifty, but you would not find her roll. We 
 are going in her ourselves anyhow.' 
 
 The truth of the matter was that Mrs. Helbeckstein, the 
 day before, had heard of the projected expedition, and hoping 
 to take part in it, but having failed to secure an invitation, 
 she had telegraphed to Toulon, where their yacht was under- 
 going some slight repairs, ordering it to be sent to St. Hilaire 
 without an hour's delay. An answer had come from the 
 captain ten minutes ago, and her husband had at once been 
 despatched on his present mission. 
 
 ' I 'm sorry,' said Lady Tregothran, with a kind of patron- 
 ising familiarity, ' but all our plans, I 'm afraid, are already 
 settled. If we go on a yacht at all, it will be, I believe, on 
 Lord Crowborough's. What ! Mr. Lacy, are you going ? 
 Well, we shall meet to-morrow.' 
 
 As Lacy left the room he heard Mr. Helbeckstein informing 
 Lady Tregothran, in a tone of disappointed satisfaction, that, 
 whatever else might happen, Lady Flotsam was coming on 
 their yacht with them. ' Well,' Lady Tregothran was answer- 
 ing, ' sit down for a minute or two. I hope if she comes you 
 will be very careful of her complexion. She is my dearest 
 friend, and I should be sorry if anything belonging to her 
 should suffer.' 
 
 Lacy, with all his philosophy, when he got back to the 
 Chateau, was a little disappointed at finding how complete 
 and cloudless a success the boating excursion had proved 
 which he had himself devised. His depression, however, 
 found some sort of corrective in a telegram which reached 
 him that evening in the middle of dinner. It was an answer 
 to that which he had sent the day before to his lawyers. Its 
 contents were these 'No such firm of solicitors either in 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 283 
 
 London or Ealing. Any letter so signed obviously an impos- 
 ture. Bankside, Ealing, is a private residence, known to us.' 
 As Lacy read this a load was lifted from his mind. Lady 
 Madeleine, who was watching him, saw his face brighten ; and 
 her own showed signs of a satisfaction not less sincere than 
 his. They were both, therefore, in a better frame of mind 
 than they might have been to enjoy the forthcoming expedition 
 to Monte Carlo. Lacy was now even able to be amused at 
 one of the signs by which Cyril Watson had betrayed the 
 prosperity of his morning namely, a doubt, which he expressed 
 with much solicitous feeling, whether Monte Carlo were not 
 a place to which no girl should be taken. ' Well,' Lacy had 
 said to him, 'our two young ladies, it happens, will have 
 plenty of chaperons, and if there are not enough for both, I, 
 as her host, will commit Miss St. Germans to your care.' 
 
 The morning of the expedition came ; and whilst the Out- 
 lander, white as a swan, was floating with its steam up in 
 front of Mrs. Helbeckstein's villa, the party at whose disposal 
 she had been so anxious to place it had assembled at the 
 neighbouring station on the St. Tropez line, from whence they 
 were to start for Monte Carlo in the saloon-carriage of M. 
 Martin. The Tregothrans, Mrs. Tilney and her daughter, 
 Lacy, Cyril Watson, Lady Madeleine, and Miss St. Germans 
 five ladies and only three men the party was composed of 
 these, when it began its pursuit of pleasure ; but on reaching 
 Monte Carlo the balance of the sexes would be redressed by 
 the addition of Lord Crowborough, their prospective host, 
 and an intimate friend of his a Mr. Reuben Quixano, whom 
 he was said to have found by experience to be worth his 
 weight in gold. 
 
 Lord Crowborough, whilst his guests were on their way to 
 him, was expecting them with mixed feelings. If an experi- 
 ence of wives tends to make a man a good husband, his well- 
 known experience of the wives of three of his friends would 
 have certainly fitted him, by this time, for the condition of 
 holy matrimony ; but whether it fitted for it or no, it had 
 given him no inclination for it. It happened, however, that 
 his succession to an aged uncle's fortune was dependent on his 
 marrying with that uncle's approval ; and of the many possible 
 wives that under these circumstances would be suitable, Miss 
 Tilney had caught his attention as being less objectionable 
 than the rest. She was tall, she was handsome, and though 
 
284 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 she had all the ways of the world with her, she was what he 
 considered as the next best thing to being vicious she was 
 perfectly innocent, or as he called it 'perfectly straight.' 
 That very morning, to his friend Mr. Quixano, he had said 
 with covert reference to her, ' My dear fellow, the thing 's this. 
 A woman you like can't know too much. The woman you 
 marry can't know too little.' Mr. Quixano, who had almond- 
 shaped eyes and a fine olive complexion, made a half-articulate 
 sound expressive of meditative dissent; and Lord Crowborough 
 replied with an observation which threw perhaps as much 
 light on his own delicate nature as on that of women in 
 general. ' You see,' he said, ' if she 's innocent, you can easily 
 make her t' other thing ; but if she 's t' other thing, you never 
 can make her innocent.' 
 
 The two philosophers were engaged in this high discourse 
 whilst waiting till it should be time to meet their friends at 
 the station. Of women, whom Lord Crowborough elegantly 
 described as ' t' other thing,' Mr. Reuben Quixano knew almost 
 as much as his friend. He was, indeed, the companion of 
 his gallantries at the New Rotunda on the night of the Carnival 
 at which Lacy had assisted ; and they both had been refresh- 
 ing themselves with draughts of the same knowledge every 
 evening since their arrival at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless, 
 with an effort, they were both of them fully equal to comport- 
 ing themselves in a manner consistent with the common 
 traditions of decency ; and this effort to-day they were both 
 of them prepared to make Lord Crowborough because he 
 was serious in his resolution to recommend himself to Miss 
 Tilney, and Mr. Reuben Quixano because he was, if possible, 
 even more serious in his anxiety to recommend himself to 
 polite society, with which his acquaintance hitherto had been 
 of a scanty kind, though he had, in such places as the Park, 
 Henlingham, and the Opera, assiduously exhibited to its 
 notice his coats, his shirt-fronts, and his jewelry. As for 
 Lord Crowborough, indeed, when having met his party at the 
 station, he found himself mounting with Mrs. Tilney the path 
 to the Casino Gardens, he felt as proud of being seen with a 
 woman who had preserved her reputation as he ever had been, 
 during the most innocent portion of his life, of being seen 
 with a woman who had lost it. Mrs. Tilney rejoiced like an 
 angel over this repentant sinner an angel who might possibly 
 rise to the yet higher dignity of a mother-in-law. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 285 
 
 Everything proceeded to happen precisely as might have 
 been wished and expected. The two young ladies, who had 
 never seen Monte Carlo before, admired the glittering vision 
 of mountains and white villas. Every one admired the luncheon, 
 which was provided at a celebrated cafe, where even a saint 
 in holy-week could hardly have kept his fast at anything less 
 than twenty-five francs a meal; and every one a matter more 
 important still sat in the place which the promoters of the 
 entertainment desired. Lord Crowborough, who was seated 
 between Mrs. and Miss Tilney, talked to the daughter with 
 some real knowledge about music, speaking of the Casino as 
 an establishment desirable only on account of its concerts ; 
 and deplored, in the ear of the mother, the general tone of 
 the place, advising her with almost paternal solicitude to take 
 neither of her young ladies into the gaming-rooms. And in 
 these dissuasions he was altogether sincere. He was afraid 
 that amongst the company which encircled the various tables 
 he would be betrayed to Mrs. Tilney as the possessor of a 
 larger circle of acquaintances than he was, at the moment, 
 at all disposed to own. Cyril Watson, on account of Miss 
 St. Germans, was delighted by these views of Lord Crow- 
 borough's, though he was in his heart of hearts a little dis- 
 appointed that the protection of maidenhood from contamina- 
 tion had not been left wholly to himself; and as he sat by 
 her at the concert, and listened to the finest string-band in 
 Europe, he enjoyed a happiness greater than any which mere 
 music ever conferred on anybody. 
 
 The concert being over, a stroll on the Terrace followed. 
 The appearance on the scene of the Tregothrans and Mrs. 
 Tilney was almost at once signalised by an eager competition 
 to address them amongst various members of the social 
 world of London, who soon surrounded them, full of smiles 
 and welcome; whilst Lord Tregothran was buttonholed by 
 some gentlemen whose faces bore the stamp of thought of 
 thought, that is to say, when it is concentrated on the shoot- 
 ing of pigeons. He had not conversed with them long before 
 he turned to his wife, who had by this time annexed Mr. 
 Reuben Quixano as her squire, and asked her, with careless 
 good-humour, if she would go back to Nice without him, and 
 take charge of their guests and the dinner which had been 
 ordered at London House. ' I Ve just arranged,' he said, 
 ' with George Elwes to shoot to-morrow ; and it suits me 
 
286 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 better to dine and sleep here to-night. I shall telegraph to 
 Johnson to come on with my things ; and you perhaps will 
 turn up and see the match.' 
 
 'My dear,' said Lady Tregothran coolly, 'do just as you 
 like. I daresay I shall not collapse under the responsibility 
 of entertaining a party of eight or nine friends at a restaurant ; 
 but no doubt, if I feel myself liking to give way, Mr. Quixano 
 will take your place and support me. Ah, Captain Elwes, 
 how are you ? Take care of Tregothran.' 
 
 ' Nita ! you naughty, haughty, nasty, disagreeable thing, 
 what do you mean by cutting me? Oh, my dear, what a 
 diviney-winey hat ! ' The speaker was Lady Flotsam, in the 
 most dazzling of marine toilettes, who had both Lady Tre- 
 gothran's hands by this time in hers. 
 
 Lady Tregothran's nostril curled a little. ' And oh, my 
 dear,' she said, 'what an infernal-pernal monkey you have 
 got there grinning at me on the handle of that new umbrella 
 of yours.' 
 
 ' Rather tweet, isn't he ! ' said Lady Flotsam in a caressing 
 voice. ' I 've come over in Mr. Helbeckstein's darling yacht ; 
 and, you sweet thing, what do you think? Mr. Helbeckstein 
 has played for me, and I 've just won a hundred louis.' 
 
 ' I wish,' said Lady Tregothran, ' Mr. Helbeckstein would 
 do the same for me.' 
 
 ' Ah, miladi ! ' said a voice at Lady Flotsam's back a voice 
 that was none other than Mr. Helbeckstein's own, ' I could 
 ask for nothing better than to be allowed to do so. I always,' 
 he continued, pushing himself dexterously forward and fixing 
 on Lady Tregothran an enterprising pair of eyes, with a mean- 
 ing in them which he kept for such occasions, like a sort of 
 amatory circular ' I always,' he continued, slightly dropping 
 his voice, ' am in luck at the tables when I play for a pretty 
 lady.' 
 
 ' I 'm afraid,' said Lady Tregothran, ' I can't bring you luck 
 to-day; for we're just going back to Nice on Lord Crow- 
 borough's yacht.' 
 
 ' Well, then,' said Mr. Helbeckstein, with a courtly shrug 
 of his shoulders, ' some oder day any day.' But he was here 
 interrupted by a lady a lady who was his own wife. Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein's appearance was attributable to no vulgar 
 jealousy. She was as pleased, indeed, with her husband's 
 conquests as if they were her own, and would have been 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 287 
 
 delighted to have seen him a co-respondent in any sufficiently 
 fashionable divorce case. Her motive was merely a desire to 
 be seen amongst Lady Tregothran's party ; and as she had 
 just been introduced to a Russian Grand Duke, she felt 
 herself to be shining with a kind of reflected royalty, and 
 capable of pushing her way into the private apartments of an 
 Emperor. She was, moreover, armed with a definite excuse 
 for her invasion. She was the bearer of a piece of news for 
 Lady Tregothran and Mrs. Tilney, which secured her, as she 
 knew it would do, the civil attention of everybody. It 
 appeared that Lady Dovedale, who had come with them to 
 Nice on their yacht, had been taken ill on the voyage. She 
 had to be left on board ; and was, Mrs. Helbeckstein was 
 very sorry to say, at this moment spitting blood in her cabin. 
 ' I have just,' she said, ' seen Lady Madeleine Seaton ; and 
 with very nice feeling she has gone off to her mother not 
 that dere is anything in the very least to be alarmed at and 
 Mr. Lacy has gone to de train with her. They asked me to 
 say that they would join you at London House. I wish I 
 could have tempted you all to dine with us instead on the 
 Outtander.' 
 
 This temptation, however, Lady Tregothran and Mrs. Tilney 
 resisted. Lord Crowborough meanwhile had been pacing 
 the terrace with Miss Tilney ; and Cyril Watson, leaning on 
 the white balustrade, had been quoting Shelley to Miss St. 
 Germans, and carrying back her mind to the days when a 
 temple of Isis stood on one of the heights behind them, or, 
 when earlier still, the prows of Phoenician galleys glittered in 
 the harbour below them the harbour where now Lord Crow- 
 borough's equally glittering yacht awaited them floating on 
 the sewage of modern Monaco. 
 
 Both the young ladies had been sufficiently pleased with their 
 experiences ; for Lord Crowborough was carried away by the 
 novelty of talking to a woman in a way that was calculated 
 neither to disgust nor corrupt her ; and the extreme difficulty 
 of the process only piqued him into continuing it ; whilst as 
 for Miss St. Germans, though Lacy had said but little to her, 
 what he had said had been so kind that she felt herself happy 
 and contented, in listening to his substitute who was nearer 
 her own age, and who seemed to her in some ways to stand 
 more on her own level. 
 
 Nor, when the party repaired to Lord Crowborough's yacht, 
 
288 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 which, though not so large as the Outlander, was of very 
 creditable size, was the satisfaction of Mrs. Tilney inferior 
 to that of any of her companions. The vessel strengthened 
 her in the opinion that Lord Crowborough's affairs were, like 
 his moral character, better than people thought them. We 
 are often as ignorant of the means by which our impressions 
 of our friends are formed, as we are of the means by which 
 our dinners are cooked; and Mrs. Tilney would have been 
 surprised to learn that her present impression of Lord Crow- 
 borough was largely due to the astute and delicate tact of 
 Mr. Reuben Quixano a gentleman whom she had never 
 seen before. The yacht, in reality, was an embodiment of his 
 own wealth, not Lord Crowborough's ; but he had come to 
 the conclusion that it would say more for his social qualities 
 to appear before the world as a guest whom Lord Crowborough 
 wanted, than it would to appear as a host whom Lord Crow- 
 borough condescended to make use of. He posed, therefore, 
 as a pensioner on what was really his own munificence, though 
 he let it be known, by a few modest hints, that he could easily 
 himself have a yacht if he wished it ; and so successful was 
 he in thus serving both his friend's interest and his own, that, 
 whilst Mrs. Tilney was regarding Lord Crowborough with 
 growing moral approbation, Mr. Reuben Quixano, as he 
 leaned over the bulwarks with Lady Tregothran, found himself 
 in the gathering twilight giving force to his observations by 
 laying his hand occasionally unrebuked on hers. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 LACY and Lady Madeleine meanwhile had arrived at Nice, 
 each of them glad to have escaped from the party of pleasure, 
 and to be with a companion by whom that feeling was shared. 
 There was a considerable crowd on the platform, and their 
 progress through it was slow. At last, however, they drew 
 near the exit, and thought themselves on the point of escaping, 
 when Lacy found himself impeded by an entirely unexpected 
 obstacle. This was a man in a high state of excitement, who 
 not only addressed him, but actually clutched him by the 
 sleeve, as though determined at all costs to tell him or ask 
 him something. Lacy shook himself free, and stared angrily 
 at the stranger's face. It was a face that was pale and worried, 
 and expressed exasperation at circumstances. He looked at 
 it a second time ; and then a light burst on him. It was the 
 face of Mr. Millikin, who was indeed incongruously situated, 
 being wedged in at that moment between two struggling 
 cocottes. 
 
 ' One word,' cried Mr. Millikin ' one word I must beg 
 of you I have come here on purpose to see you. I have 
 just come straight from London.' 
 
 'All right,' said Lacy, 'I'll wait outside'; and he briefly 
 explained to Lady Madeleine who this gentleman was. He 
 was hailing a cab when Mr. Millikin emerged, scented with 
 patchouli for the first time in his life, puffing and panting, and 
 too much preoccupied to be shy when he saw that Lacy had a 
 lady under his charge. ' When can I see you ? ' he said ; 
 ' where can I have a talk with you ? ' 
 
 'Well,' said Lacy, rather tartly, 'I'm afraid neither now 
 nor here. I must take this lady at once down to the harbour, 
 to see some one on a yacht who is ill. It is utterly impossible 
 that I should wait a moment now. Are you staying here ? 
 If so, I will call on you after dinner.' 
 
2 9 o THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'I want to see you,' said Mr. Millikin, 'about something 
 which concerns you even more than me. I arrived from 
 England only ten minutes ago. I have telegraphed for a 
 room at the Angleterre, which I 'm told is quiet and respect- 
 able. I '11 wait for you there. I shan't leave the house till 
 you come.' 
 
 When Lacy and Lady Madeleine went off to the yacht 
 together and inquired for Lady Dovedale, they experienced 
 what was almost a shock on hearing that she was perfectly 
 well again, and was having tea in the saloon. And there 
 beyond doubt she was, looking indeed a little white, but, 
 upon the whole, indignant rather than ill, as though the 
 attack from which she had suffered had been a servant whom 
 she had just dismissed for impertinence. 
 
 c My dear child,' she exclaimed as Lady Madeleine entered, 
 ' what on earth can have brought you here ? You come in 
 like a ghost. And who 's that ? Mr. Lacy ? Have you all 
 come back with the Helbecksteins ? ' 
 
 Lady Madeleine explained how Mrs. Helbeckstein's report 
 had alarmed her. ' I remember,' she said, ' how you suffered 
 from one of these attacks before ; so Mr. Lacy and I, ' she 
 continued, trying to laugh off the matter, ' thought we would 
 come and see how you were getting on.' 
 
 ' I wonder,' said Lady Dovedale, 'how Mrs. Helbeckstein 
 could be so ridiculous ! My lungs are a little delicate. 
 That 's the reason I 'm out here ; but you and Mrs. Helbeck- 
 stein are worse than that impertinent little Poodle Brancepeth, 
 who told me in London I was in perfectly rude health. Here, 
 Mr. Lacy, touch that electric bell; you and Madeleine will 
 want some tea for your trouble.' 
 
 Having cleared her character from the imputation of any 
 serious illness, Lady Dovedale's manner lost something of its 
 asperity ; and though she was conscious of an inclination to 
 cough if she talked too much or too fast, she contrived to 
 extract from the others a considerable amount of information 
 about the events of the day, and their programme for that 
 evening. 
 
 'Would you like me,' said Lady Madeleine at last, 'to stay 
 here and keep you company at dinner, as you tell me that 
 the Helbecksteins are dining at Monte Carlo ? ' 
 
 Lady Dovedale, though by no means passionately attached 
 to her daughter, would have thought even her company rather 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 291 
 
 better than none, if she had not fancied she detected in Lady 
 Madeleine's voice something of the patronising solicitude due 
 to an invalid. She repelled the suggestion, therefore, in her 
 briskest and curtest manner. ' Certainly not,' she said ; ' I 
 shall be perfectly happy playing Patience ; and you mustn't 
 think of being so rude as to desert Lady Tregothran. Do 
 you know, you two, that it 's very nearly half-past six ? Lord 
 Crowborough's yacht ought to be here by seven ; and it 's 
 high time for you to take yourself off to London House.' 
 
 Lady Dovedale's anxiety to speed the parting guests proved 
 to have been not untimely, for Lord Crowborough's yacht was 
 in the harbour already ; and when Lacy and Lady Madeleine 
 reached the restaurant, they found that the others had just 
 arrived before them. The dinner passed off as such dinners 
 usually do. The saloon carriage of M. Monier Martin was to 
 be attached to the train that left Nice for St. Estephe at nine ; 
 and, such being the case, Lacy's promise to Mr. Millikin 
 necessitated his waiting for the Paris express at midnight. 
 Mr. Cyril Watson was only too delighted to find Lacy's 
 responsibilities transferred to his own shoulders ; though, 
 for the matter of that, any party which contained Mrs. Tilney 
 might have safely gone to Kamschatka without any other 
 conductor. Lacy had expected that Lord Crowborough would 
 have proposed to take them home in his yacht, and had 
 wondered to find that the project had not been so much 
 as mooted, till he heard Lord Crowborough, when he had 
 finished his farewells to Miss Tilney, say something in a tone 
 of relief to Mr. Reuben Quixano, which showed that the two 
 had some other plan for amusing themselves a masked ball, 
 so it seemed, at some new pavilion near the sea. ' And so,' 
 thought Lacy as he went off to the Hotel d'Angleterre, ' their 
 appetite for pleasure has survived even their surfeit of it at 
 the New Rotunda.' 
 
 On reaching the hotel he was inquiring for Mr. Millikin of 
 the concierge, but he had hardly made his question intelligible 
 before it was made superfluous by the rapid and agitated 
 advance of Mr. Millikin himself, who it seemed had been wait- 
 ing in the hall, so that Lacy should not possibly escape him. 
 
 'Come here,' said Mr. Millikin, drawing him to a seat in 
 the corner and frowning as though Lacy had committed some 
 misdemeanour ; ' have you had any letter relating to Mr. 
 Octavius Brandon's will ? ' 
 
292 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 He asked this question with a solemnity so extreme, that 
 Lacy, fortified by the telegram he had received the previous 
 night, felt his lips distending themselves into a smile which 
 he could not resist. ' Yes,' he said, ' to tell you the truth, I 
 have.' 
 
 'You astonish me,' said Mr. Millikin. 'This is anything 
 but a laughing matter. It is one of the most serious matters 
 for yourself, as well as for me, that is conceivable.' 
 
 ' I conclude,' said Lacy, ' your letter was a duplicate of 
 mine, hinting that young Brandon, my cousin, was not really 
 dead that the person who really died was his illegitimate 
 brother, and that the true heir was coming to turn us both 
 out of our property.' 
 
 ' What ! ' exclaimed Mr. Millikin, with an astonished drop- 
 ping of his jaw. ' You got a letter telling you that ? ' 
 
 'I did,' replied Lacy. 'I got it the day before yesterday, 
 though it seemed to have been written three or four days 
 before. It was signed, "James, Hawkins, and James, Solici- 
 tors." I telegraphed to my own lawyers to find out who these 
 men were ; and I got an answer last night to say that no such 
 firm existed. I can reassure you by telling you that the whole 
 thing is a hoax whose hoax I can't guess ; but the letter 
 was dated Baling, so if we cared to find out, that might give 
 us a clue.' 
 
 ' Baling ! ' exclaimed Mr. Millikin. ' Baling Baling 
 Baling ! And you were threatened, you say, with young 
 Brandon come to life again ? Was it Bankside, Baling ? 
 Did your letter bear that address ? ' 
 
 ' It did,' said Lacy. 
 
 ' My own,' said Mr. Millikin, ' bears that address also ; but 
 mine is signed by a firm whose existence is real enough. It 's 
 in the London Law Directory, and in the Suburban Directory 
 also ; and Bankside, Baling, is the residence of one of the 
 partners. I 've not answered the letter. I determined to see 
 you first. It 's some plot some infamous plot. Allow me, 
 if you please, to call your attention to this. It means trouble 
 of some sort, unless I am much mistaken.' 
 
 So saying, Mr. Millikin, with trembling hands, gave a letter 
 to Lacy, which shook as he did so like an aspen-leaf. The 
 printed address and the paper, Lacy at once saw, were 
 precisely similar to those of the letter he had himself received ; 
 but the writing and the signature were different; and so in 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 293 
 
 their details were the contents, though, strangely enough, their 
 practical upshot was the same. This letter, which was signed 
 ' C. and J. W. Fox,' recalled to Mr. Millikin, with brief and 
 businesslike accuracy, the fact that under the will of the late 
 Mr. Octavius Brandon, he succeeded to such and such 
 properties only because Mr. Brandon's sole legitimate son 
 being dead, no other blood-relation of his was forthcoming, 
 or believed to be in existence. The writer then proceeded to 
 say that by a singular train of circumstances, a blood-relation 
 had been discovered, of whose kinship to the deceased gentle- 
 man they had abundant evidence in their possession. The 
 nature of the case, however, was, so they hinted, such that 
 the expense of legally substantiating, and also of contesting 
 it, would be enormous ; and it was hinted that if a compro- 
 mise could be effected, without going to law, such a method 
 of settlement might be advantageous to both parties. If, 
 therefore, Mr. Millikin would be inclined to entertain such 
 a suggestion, Messrs. C. and J. W. Fox would communicate 
 further details. 
 
 When Lacy had read this through, he looked up and saw 
 Mr. Millikin eyeing him with a mute interrogation almost 
 ghastly in its anxious eagerness. This had on himself the 
 effect of making him perversely calm. ' The whole matter,' 
 he said, ' I confess, is extremely odd ; but the first letter 
 being obviously not genuine I mean the one sent to me 
 it is possible, of course, that in this there may be no truth 
 either.' 
 
 'Possible!' said Mr. Millikin. 'Do you say it is only 
 possible ? It is plain that the whole thing is a monstrous, in- 
 famous plot. It 's a case vamped up by these lawyers, and one 
 of these horrible women, or a child of one of them a case of 
 a pretended marriage vamped up for the sake of extorting 
 money from me and you. That is patent upon the face 
 of it.' 
 
 ' Upon my word,' said Lacy, ' I can hardly see that. It is 
 possible, though not likely, that Mr. Brandon may have 
 had some cousin of whose existence he was not aware 
 himself.' 
 
 'Any thing's possible,' said Mr. Millikin bitterly ; 'but this 
 is a fraud on the face of it a palpable and impudent fraud. 
 The question for us is how we can most promptly crush it. 
 You take the matter so coolly, one would think that you were 
 
2 9 4 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 not concerned in it. Do you realise what it would mean to 
 you if there were any truth in this letter ? You stand exactly 
 in the same pair of shoes as I do. ' 
 
 'Look here,' said Lacy, 'will you come and see me to- 
 morrow ? Or I will come over to you. We can do nothing 
 now. To-morrow we can settle what is to be done if 
 anything.' 
 
 ' MY DEAR KITTEN,' Mr. Millikin wrote that night to his 
 wife, exhibiting in his use of this graceful term of endearment 
 a side of his character so sacred that it was hidden from the 
 world at large ' I have reached this place this abominable 
 place in safety. For the first time in my life I am thankful 
 you are not with me. It is not a place fit for a modest woman. 
 On arriving at the station, the first person I saw was Mr. 
 Lacy. He was in the company of some over-dressed, and I 
 have no doubt painted, woman. She was a lady ; if she had 
 not been, I should not, of course, have mentioned her. I 
 could barely succeed in getting him to grant me a five- 
 minutes' interview. He is so besotted by this worldly life he 
 is leading I shrink from applying to it any harsher word 
 that he hardly appears to realise the magnitude of the interests 
 that are threatened. But I am going to-morrow to see him 
 at his house, and confer with him. Never doubt that all will 
 go well. He has plenty of shrewd sense and promptitude, 
 if he would only apply them to serious and sacred subjects. 
 Dearest love to the chicks from their loving father, and your 
 loving husband ' and here followed Mr. Millikin's pet name 
 'MousiE.' 
 
 Whilst Mr. Millikin was penning this touching epistle, Lacy 
 found himself pacing the illuminated streets of Nice, and 
 wondering what he should do with himself for the next two 
 weary hours. The sight of a huge structure, composed 
 principally of glass and iron, and now shining with lamplight, 
 as if it were a white-hot furnace, supplied him with an answer 
 to his question. This was the Pavilion, in which the masked 
 ball was taking place; and his eyes, as he passed by the door, 
 were caught by a shop, or office, at which costumes for the 
 occasion could be hired. He had thought, not so long ago, 
 when he emerged from the New Rotunda, that he would 
 never take part in a function of this kind again. But Mr. 
 Millikin's news had had a more powerful effect on him than 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 295 
 
 similar news, or news of a similar purport, had had, whilst he 
 thought it might be genuine, a few days ago. Though he did not, 
 even now, seriously accept it as true, it had produced in his mind 
 a curious forlorn blankness, as though over all his prospects 
 there had descended a sudden fog. In this mood he welcomed 
 anything that offered him the semblance of distraction ; and, 
 hiring a monk's dress, with a cowl that would obscure, without 
 hiding his face, he bought a ticket and made his way into the 
 Pavilion. The scene bore a family likeness to that presented 
 by the New Rotunda ; but it differed from it in being more 
 crowded, and incalculably more lively. He had hardly been 
 in the place five minutes before several pairs of lips, with eyes 
 above them glittering through velvet masks, had assailed his 
 ear with the blandishments of their metallic voices. He had 
 already repelled laughingly several of these overtures, and was 
 beginning to doubt whether he would not be more complaisant 
 to a slim little Watteau shepherdess whom he saw moving 
 towards him, when he suddenly became aware of the presence 
 of Mr. Reuben Quixano, whose dark complexion and eyes 
 were set off by the costume of a bull-fighter. But Mr. 
 Quixano himself had occupied him for a moment only, when 
 his attention was caught by a figure enveloped in a black 
 domino. Lacy felt at once that he had seen this apparition 
 before. Could it be? it must be yes, it was his fortune- 
 teller of the New Rotunda. So at least he told himself; and, 
 dominated by this impression, he stood rooted to the spot, 
 staring at his supposed friend. His scrutiny had not lasted 
 for more than a few seconds when he realised that the black 
 domino was paying him the same attention, which, if his 
 surmise were correct, was not altogether inexplicable. A 
 moment later he felt that he had not been deceived, for he 
 saw the black domino beckoning to him with an unmistakable 
 gesture, and she began herself to move a little towards him. 
 Had his mind and spirits been less perturbed than they were, 
 his impulse would have been to avoid her. As it was, he was 
 presently at her side; and he heard her say to him in her 
 delicate and well-remembered voice : ' My pilgrim has become 
 a monk since I told his fortune last. Will his vows prevent 
 him from showing me his hand once more ? If they will not, 
 let him follow me. I think that Nice, like London, can give 
 us solitude in the middle of a crowd.' 
 
 She made her way, as though the building were familiar to 
 
296 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 her, to a staircase which mounted to a passage lit with rose- 
 coloured lights. ' It is my turn,' she said to Lacy, ' to provide 
 a box to-night.' She opened a door with a key, and they 
 found themselves in a discreet twilight, which the half-drawn 
 curtains produced in spite of the blazing ball-room. 
 
 ' I am sorry,' began Lacy, ' to have met you, for I must leave 
 you almost directly. I should have to leave you, even if you 
 did not dismiss me.' 
 
 ' Give me your hands once more,' the unknown said to him. 
 1 Let me see if even in this twilight I cannot read something 
 new in them. Yes I can read this. A line which was 
 almost obliterated is now growing firmer and clearer. That 
 is the line of success. The change in it is strongly marked. 
 And now what is this ? In the line of the heart too there 
 is some slight change there. But this change means some- 
 thing of which you are not as yet conscious. Let me look 
 again. No, no. I see nothing else that is new ; but I have 
 seen enough to make me wish to congratulate you on your 
 improved fortunes.' 
 
 'You have read my hands,' said Lacy. ' Let me hold yours. 
 As long as I hold them, I don't care what I say to you. My 
 beautiful clairvoyante, there is something you have not read. 
 You have looked at my line of fortune. You promise me 
 some near success. I think now I may achieve it, for I won't 
 let circumstances get the better of me. I shall probably exert 
 myself and succeed. But if I do so, it will be for a reason of 
 which you know nothing, and which, till an hour ago, I hardly 
 believed myself. It has not had time yet to leave a scar on my 
 hand ; and I certainly shall not allow it to leave a scar on my 
 life. You speak of my fortunes ; but you but you say nothing 
 about my fortune ; and to judge from something which I heard 
 an hour ago, my fortune exists no longer. It has left me even 
 more quickly than it came to me. News has reached me 
 from England that the person whose wealth I inherited has 
 left relations who are his legal heirs. One letter told me that 
 his son, who was supposed to be dead, is living. Another tells 
 me that, even if the son is dead, there is some next-of-kin to 
 be produced, whose rights will extinguish mine.' 
 
 The unknown clasped his hands as if his communication 
 startled her, and dragging him a little towards the light, with a 
 force that was almost roughness, affected to be once more 
 absorbed in the examination of his palms. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 297 
 
 ' I see,' she said, ' not all you have told me ; but I see some 
 of it. Two dangers threaten your property. Both dangers 
 may be shadows. One certainly is so. It is a shadow that 
 threatens you from across the sea. You need, I think, not 
 fear that. I won't ask for your name ; but I will ask for one 
 thing, which your hand does not reveal to me. Give me an 
 address an initial, if you like, at a post-office; and I may, 
 next week, have something more to communicate to you. 
 You may find me possessed of still stranger powers of clair- 
 voyance than those which you have already experienced ; but 
 which, in spite of that, you don't believe in. Here, write the 
 address on this ticket. I will slip it inside my glove. And 
 now I am going to make one short prophecy more. You will 
 say good-bye to me at once ; you will leave me in this box, 
 and, without losing a moment, you will take a cab to the 
 station.' 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 LACY reached home at four o'clock in the morning, having 
 driven from St. Estephe station. His temperament was one 
 in which optimism and pessimism were curiously united, not 
 as antagonists but as allies. Whenever he was threatened by 
 the possibility of any misfortune or inconvenience, from the 
 loss of a pleasure to the treachery of a trusted friend, without 
 believing the worst, his instinct was to assume it, and having 
 assumed it, to prepare himself for bearing it in the best way. 
 
 He rose early and went out into the garden. Do what he 
 could to control his thoughts and feelings, the scenery and the 
 climate seemed to have undergone some change ; but instead 
 of dwelling on his perception of this fact, he concentrated his 
 mind on the practical details of the situation. Starting with 
 the supposition that the worst which could happen to him was 
 about to happen, he made a mental calculation of what his 
 own position would be. He was an excellent man of busi- 
 ness; but in order to be sure of his arithmetic, he at last 
 stood still, and breaking a twig from a bush, did a short sum 
 with it on the dewy blade of an aloe. 
 
 'What a mercy,' he said to himself, 'that I am not married 
 that I have no children. Most people's misfortunes, like 
 most people, I should bear better than my own. My wife's 
 and children's I should bear a great deal worse. In any case, 
 I shall not be reduced to going about in rags ; and I shall 
 manage, through my uncle, to get my election expenses paid. 
 Such poverty I can bear. From this moment I put off all 
 thoughts of myself as a rich man, like a coat not mine which 
 I had put on by mistake.' 
 
 And then, through all these reflections, which had sadness 
 in them, despite their fortitude, the young moist air of the 
 morning found its way into his consciousness. It came to 
 him fresh from the secret heart of Nature sad also, but 
 passionate with its whisper of unfulfilled possibilities. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 299 
 
 As he stood there he was startled by a slight stir of the 
 gravel. He looked up and before him was Lady Madeleine 
 Seaton. 
 
 'I'm sure,' he said to her, laughing, 'dissipation must be a 
 good tonic, since it got us both out of bed so much sooner 
 than usual.' 
 
 ' I 'm afraid,' she replied, looking closely at him, ' that if one 
 judged by your face, one would think you wanted a tonic 
 rather than that you had had one. Is anything the matter? 
 Is it anything about that letter? Or is it, perhaps may I ask 
 you anything about Estelle ? ' 
 
 He put his arm in hers and drew her towards the aloe. 
 ' Do you see these figures,' he said, ' written there in the wet ? 
 I 've been doing a sum. I Ve been counting up how much I 
 shall probably have to live upon. As for the letter, that one I 
 showed you is nothing. But the man who spoke to me at 
 Nice there is something behind it all he has had a letter 
 of a very different kind, which comes, however, to the same 
 thing. Let us walk on, and I will tell you about it.' 
 
 She listened to him in absolute silence ; and then, when he 
 had finished, she said, speaking with difficulty, ' Does it make 
 you very anxious ? Tell me tell me tell me ! ' 
 
 'Your kindness,' he answered, 'touches me more than I 
 know how to tell you. Any uncertainty of this kind is a 
 strain ; but the worst that is possible, when I know it, will be 
 hardly even a burden. At the worst I shall merely be what I 
 was some months ago, with some pleasant memories added ; 
 and amongst those memories will be you.' 
 
 'There is a grey, wet spider's web,' she said, 'on the collar 
 of your coat. Stand still for a moment, and I will brush it off 
 for you.' 
 
 At breakfast Lacy had recovered his usual manner. To all 
 appearances he was in better spirits than usual. And yet, on 
 the sideboard was something which wore an ominous aspect. 
 It was a letter directed in a handwriting which he had seen 
 the night before. He put off opening it until he should be 
 again alone, and discussed with his friends gaily the expedition 
 of yesterday. 
 
 Shortly after breakfast Mr. Millikin was to arrive at the 
 Chateau. He preferred to visit Lacy there, rather than to 
 receive him at Nice, partly because he had, with an ingrained 
 
300 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 asceticism, denied himself at his hotel the luxury of a private 
 sitting-room," and partly because, as soon as he had seen 
 Lacy, he intended to return to England, and consequently 
 the Chateau was on his way. 
 
 Lacy, whilst waiting for his arrival, opened the ominous 
 letter. The address and the signature was the same as in that 
 shown him by Mr. Millikin. It was not, however, a duplicate. 
 It was dated some days later. It contained, moreover, an 
 additional piece of intelligence, which was indeed not more 
 than partially new to him, but which, coming from the 
 present quarter, instead of disarming his apprehensions, 
 seemed to give to the rest of the letter a more menacing char- 
 acter. It also recalled to his mind, with an added sense of 
 mystery, the strange decision of tone in which the unknown 
 clairvoyante had told him that one of his dangers was nothing 
 more than a shadow. He was still reflecting in his library on 
 the strange facts of the situation when Mr. Millikin was 
 announced, and entered, pale and soured with care. The lines 
 in his face, which usually expressed sanctity, seemed to have 
 hired themselves out for the occasion to the service of mundane 
 anxiety. 
 
 Lacy asked him if he had breakfast. ' Yes yes thank 
 you,' he answered, with nervous asperity ; ' I 've had every- 
 thing, thank you, that I want.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Lacy, ' then let me read you this.' 
 
 ' You have had a letter, then ? ' exclaimed Mr. Millikin 
 eagerly. 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Lacy, ' it has just come. Will you listen 
 toil?' 
 
 ' SIR, We wrote you a letter four days ago, a copy being sent 
 at the same time to Charles James Millikin, of Buxton, Esq., 
 whose position, in reference to the matter, we 'believe to be 
 identical with your own ; but the letter addressed to yourself 
 has been returned to us, owing to an error in the direction. 
 In case you should not have heard with regard to it from Mr. 
 C. J. Millikin, we shall presently recapitulate our advices to 
 that gentleman. It is necessary for us first, however, in our 
 own defence, to mention to you, and apologise for, an 
 occurrence which we need describe no further than by saying 
 that it was no more than an indecent practical joke, perpetrated, 
 as we deem, at our expense, no less than at yours, and one of 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 301 
 
 which no member or employee of our firm had cognisance. 
 We refer to a letter, written on our paper, containing some 
 story of the supposed survival of the late Octavius Brandon, 
 Junior, Esq., whose death, we may mention, is as certain as 
 that of the late Queen Anne. 
 
 ' But whilst expressing our regret that such a letter should 
 have reached you from our address, we fear it is our duty to 
 repeat and confirm the intelligence, which we fear you will 
 not find more welcome, already communicated by us to Mr. 
 C. J. Millikin. The will of Mr. Octavius Brandon has been 
 carefully examined by us. It provides, as you are aware, that 
 such of his property as remained, after the payment of the 
 legacies to certain specified persons, should go to his next-of- 
 kin, other than his eldest son, if any such should be surviving. 
 Failing such next-of-kin, it was to go to the said eldest son ; 
 and in the event of the eldest son dying without issue, it was 
 to go as we need hardly say to Mr. C. J. Millikin and 
 yourself. 
 
 ' Matters standing thus, it is our duty to advise you that, 
 owing to a train of remarkable circumstances, which we cannot 
 at this moment disclose, evidence has been placed in our 
 hands which renders it morally certain that a kinsman of Mr. 
 Brandon's is still living, and will, if the relationship can be 
 established, be heir to those portions of the property now held 
 respectively by Mr. C. J. Millikin and yourself. 
 
 ' The evidence already in our hands is of the strongest 
 possible character, and we shall, at the proper moment, be 
 able to submit it to your examination. There are in it, how- 
 ever, certain technical flaws which would render the establish- 
 ment of the claim now referred to a matter of great expense ; 
 and we believe that the claimant, on whose behalf we are 
 speaking, would be willing, in consideration of this fact, to 
 settle the matter by some kind of compromise. Before asking 
 you to come to any decision, we shall be prepared to submit 
 to you and your legal advisers the entire evidence in our 
 hands, so that you may judge whether the strength of our case 
 warrants the above proposal. Your housekeeper in London 
 has communicated to us your present address, we therefore 
 send you this direct. Awaiting the favour of an early reply, 
 we are, sir, your obedient servants, 
 
 'C. & J. W. Fox, 
 ' Bankside Road, Baling.' 
 
302 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Mr. Millikin's hand descended heavily on the table by which 
 he was seated. 
 
 Lacy offered him a cigar. Mr. Millikin refused it with a 
 pettish gesture of aversion. Lacy took one himself, and 
 began slowly to light it. 
 
 ' Well,' said Mr. Millikin presently, with a squeak of irrita- 
 tion in his voice, ' may I ask what you propose to do ? My 
 position is this that though this fraudulent and absurd claim 
 can naturally never be proved, it might, in consequence of 
 Mr. Brandon's abominable life, cost us a great deal of money 
 and much stirring up of mud to disprove it.' 
 
 ' I fear,' said Lacy, ' that I differ from you as to one point. 
 I do not myself feel by any means able to dismiss this claim 
 as fraudulent before we've heard more about it.' 
 
 'Very well, then,' said Mr. Millikin, with ironical calm, ' let 
 us throw up the sponge at once. Let us write to this unknown 
 swindler, and say what shall we say? here, I will compose 
 the letter " Dear Swindler," suppose we begin like that 
 " We are in receipt of your letter, and are struck dumb by 
 being convicted of the guilt of possessing property to which 
 we know we have no claim. We beg you will instruct us how 
 to make over the same to you, which we will do on hearing 
 from you, and by return of post. There is one point we 
 would beg you not to forget, and that is, to inform us of your 
 name and sex not that this has anything to do with our 
 recognition of your claim, but merely that we ought to know 
 it, so as to insert it in the necessary documents.'" 
 
 ' I doubt if we gain much,' said Lacy, ' by taking the matter 
 in this way. Even if all this money goes, we are neither of 
 us worse off than we were before it came to us.' 
 
 'You have no wife and children,' replied Mr. Millikin. 
 ' You have no sense of responsibility. If you had, you could 
 not possibly possibly possibly talk in this insensate, this 
 cynical, this mad, this unprincipled way. Do you propose 
 to sit still, with your hands folded, and to do absolutely 
 nothing ? ' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' said Lacy, ' I propose if you will give 
 me time to speak to write to these gentlemen, Messrs. C. and 
 J. W. Fox, on your behalf and mine, and ask them to com- 
 municate with my lawyers and yours as soon as they are in 
 a position to put their case before us. I should tell them 
 that till they could do that, we could give them no answer of 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 303 
 
 any kind, beyond acknowledging and thanking them for their 
 communication. Then I propose, for my own part, to make 
 an inquiry by telegram, which you, if you are returning to 
 London, will be able to make personally. I propose to 
 inquire of my own lawyers who Messrs. C. and J. W. Fox are, 
 and what kind of character they bear. I agree with you that 
 they have most probably taken up this case as a speculation, 
 and that they are feeling their way by writing to us from their 
 private address. As to the letter, we may as well compose it 
 now. If you will let me sit at the table, I will show you what 
 I propose to say. Five lines will be sufficient. There,' he 
 said presently, ' I think that is civil and to the point. We 
 will, if you approve, send it by the mid-day post.' 
 
 ' I '11 post it myself,' said Mr. Millikin, who now looked 
 nervously at his watch. ' I must be going back to the station. 
 I promised to return to Mrs. Millikin at the earliest moment 
 possible. I went to Nice because I fancied that your house 
 was in that neighbourhood. Your address was sent after me 
 by telegraph, and I did not get it till this morning. I have 
 brought my luggage with me, and have left it at St. 
 Estephe.' 
 
 1 Well, then,' said Lacy, c I will come to St. Antoine with 
 you, and send off my own telegram. If you will wait for a 
 minute or two, I will tell my friends I shall be out. I will 
 lunch at the hotel in the village. I will also, with your permis- 
 sion, write one short note, which I will post when I send my 
 telegram.' He seated himself again at the table, and wrote 
 the following lines : 
 
 ' DEAR LADY TREGOTHRAN, I have fully considered your 
 suggestion that I should stand next June at Manchester ; and 
 I need not wait to discuss it with you till you come back from 
 Nice. So far as my own willingness is concerned, your advice 
 has already made a convert of me. Certain difficulties have 
 arisen, however, of which I was unaware when you spoke to 
 me; but they are difficulties which my uncle could, and I 
 think will be willing to, remove. I am going this afternoon 
 to put the whole matter before him ; and I hope when we 
 meet again that I may appear to you as a satisfactory specimen 
 of the result of your influence and your very undeserved kind- 
 ness. I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 'TRISTRAM BRANDON LACY.' 
 
304 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 He then repaired to the drawing-room, where he found Mr. 
 Cyril Watson, who had a general invitation to present himself 
 whenever he liked. From him Lacy learned that Lord Runcorn 
 had driven to St. Tropez with Mrs. Mordaunt, and, in all 
 probability, would not return till sunset. It would, there- 
 fore, be useless to go to the Villa Martin earlier. Lacy's 
 manner, as he mixed in the conversation, was pleasant and 
 composed as usual, but everything about him seemed some- 
 how to be far away. He saw Mrs. St. Germans, her grand- 
 daughter, and the young secretary as if he were looking at 
 them through the wrong end of a telescope. Lady Madeleine 
 alone retained her accustomed aspect for him. But, in spite 
 of her presence, he felt that he would sooner be alone. He 
 was glad of the excuse for absenting himself which Mr. 
 Millikin's presence offered ; and he set out with him resolving 
 that he would not return till dinner-time. 
 
 From the foot of the hills, amongst the woods of which the 
 Chateau stood, the village of St. Antoine could be reached in 
 two ways by taking the road to the station, or by walking 
 along the broad white beach. Of these Lacy chose the 
 latter, as it had the considerable advantage of hastening his 
 liberation from the company of Mr. Millikin; and he was 
 presently walking across the strip of sandy common by which 
 the beach was separated from the road, his eyes, as he went, 
 fixing themselves now and then on the roofs and the garden 
 walls of Mrs. Norham's Utopia. 
 
 A quarter of a mile beyond this, a few rocks rose out of 
 the sand, and received, when the wind was easterly, some 
 stray splashes from the waves. Over these rocks lay the way 
 to the seaward end of St. Antoine. The scene to-day, 
 though it was somewhat bare, was brilliant. The rocks 
 were tepid with sunshine ; the water laughed between them 
 in ultramarine pools ; on the shoulder of land above the 
 little white houses glittered. As Lacy approached this spot, 
 he became conscious of a faint noise, which seemed at first 
 like a whisper of the sea drawn faintly back amongst pebbles, 
 then like a dog snuffing with it nose amongst damp seaweed. 
 He stopped to listen. He heard it several times, but could 
 not discover its origin, till resuming his course, and beginning 
 to climb the rocks, he suddenly saw before him, amongst their 
 medley of dazzling greyness, a blot of absolute blackness, with 
 the outlines of a human form. The form was that of a woman. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 305 
 
 By her side was a basket, filled with some small paper 
 parcels. 
 
 Involuntarily Lacy stood still and looked at her. His 
 eyes caught her in the act of being shaken with a sob against 
 which she struggled. The sound of his footsteps, or the 
 sudden cessation of the sound, roused her. She looked up 
 with a shamefaced effort to assume an indifferent smile. 
 Lacy realised, with surprise and concern, that he was in the 
 presence of Mrs. Prouse Bousefield. Her eyes, unless she 
 had been crying, did her a grave injustice ; but she managed 
 to bring her mouth into a shape suitable to conversation, and 
 sought to cover her confusion in the bustle of an attempt 
 to rise. Lacy affected a total unconsciousness of anything 
 unusual in her aspect, and greeted her with demonstrative 
 cordiality, himself sitting down near her. 
 
 She seemed pleased with this attention ; and when he said, 
 with a glance at her basket, 'You have, I suppose, been 
 marketing for the benefit of your whole colony,' she answered 
 him with a fluttering laugh, as if he had achieved a witticism. 
 ' If I 'm not good for much else,' she said, ' I can give myself 
 a testimonial for my power of marketing, at all events. But 
 it is a queer French indeed that they talk in the market here. 
 It makes me laugh to listen to it. And the flowers are 
 beautiful ; but frequently you will hardly be smelling them 
 for the garlic.' She laughed again ; and Lacy was wondering 
 why, when she solved the question by suddenly breaking 
 down, and pressed against her eyes a pocket-handkerchief 
 already damp. 'Forgive me, Mr. Lacy,' she faltered, 'but 
 I 'm not just myself this morning.' 
 
 'I hope,' said Lacy kindly, 'that you have had no bad 
 news. I fear I have done wrong in disturbing you. You 
 would like, perhaps, to be left by yourself. When I have 
 had things to trouble me, I have often felt the same ; and, 
 indeed, I must be going anyhow, for I am on my way to the 
 telegraph-office.' 
 
 She looked at him with eyes that thanked him, though 
 still brimming with tears. He had hardly risen and turned 
 his back on her when she seemed to have forgotten him 
 altogether. Her head fell forward, and he heard her mutter- 
 ing to herself, ' I 've been used by him very badly. I don't 
 see the good of living and that woman ! that woman ! 
 that woman ! that hateful, hateful woman ! ' As these words 
 
306 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 reached him his thoughts went back to the occasion on which 
 first he met her, when happiness pursing itself on her lips, 
 she chronicled for his benefit Mr. Bousefield's domestic tastes, 
 her pride in his greatness betraying itself even through her 
 mention of his affection for his cat. 
 
 When Lacy reached the telegraph-office, and composed and 
 despatched his message, his own anxieties reasserted them- 
 selves, and, indeed, they were not allayed when a clerk 
 delivered to him an unusually bulky letter, which, in the 
 ordinary course of events, would not have reached him till 
 the evening. He put it into his pocket, meaning to read it 
 while he had his luncheon, and was wondering what could 
 be contained in it, when all thoughts of his own affairs were 
 disturbed by a fragment of conversation to which he found 
 himself an unwilling listener. 
 
 He was walking along a street of the village, on one side 
 of which was a bank ; and along the bank to the street 
 descended a slanting pathway, hidden by a parapet from 
 the sight of those below. Suddenly, through the silence, 
 which seemed to pervade everything, he heard a sound 
 of voices proceeding from the heights above, which grew 
 rapidly clearer, till they were recognisable as the voices of 
 a man and woman. They were not loud voices, but they 
 were charged with an earnest emphasis which soon rendered 
 distinct every syllable uttered by them. The speakers were 
 now directly over Lacy's head; and before he knew where 
 he was, he heard a man's voice, speaking thus 
 
 'Jealousy, my dear friend jealousy the jealousy of an 
 excellent, a God-fearing, but imperfectly educated woman 
 that 's what the trouble comes from ! I pray every night to 
 God that both she and we may be relieved from it ; but if 
 this is not to be, you and I must help each other to bear our 
 burdens. You yourself have often told us that those who work 
 for others must be prepared to suffer from misunderstandings. 
 Here is our cross ; let us carry its weight between us.' 
 
 Then came another voice, obviously a woman's, in answer. 
 ' The most painful part of the whole affair is that this this 
 mad if I may call it so this mad outburst of selfism comes 
 from the very heart of what I, more than all women, regard as 
 a holy sacrament namely, marriage. But I even I can 
 hardly speak of this to you. To you the pain of it must be 
 so intimate so exquisite.' 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 307 
 
 In order to avoid being an eavesdropper, Lacy had first 
 quickened his pace, then he had somewhat slackened it, and 
 finally he had stood still ; but he had heard enough to reveal 
 to him who the hidden speakers were. Presently, as he 
 looked in front of him, their two heads became visible the 
 one adorned with a bonnet severely plain, the other with a 
 soft and shapeless wide-awake hat. At length they had 
 reached the roadway in which he himself stood, and he 
 felt himself free to go forward. They seemed, however, 
 determined to have him as their auditor in spite of himself; 
 for at the bottom of the descending path they paused till he 
 came close to them, and once again a part of their conversa- 
 tion reached him. 
 
 'You had better go,' said the lady. 'Yes go and find her. 
 Treat her as if nothing had happened. Exert for her benefit 
 your admirable gift of temper. Ask her the price of vegetables. 
 Remember indeed, you never forget your sacred marriage- 
 debt to her, not least sacred when heaviest ; and oh, if you 
 feel it hard to bear and to forbear if you feel it hard 
 call to mind what I said only the other night, and think that 
 what you are doing to her, you are really doing to Humanity. 
 Go I say go. I will walk home by myself.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield was turning, in obedience to this high 
 bidding, when he saw Lacy, who was now but a feet off. 
 He pulled himself together, and spoke with a semblance of 
 his accustomed geniality. 
 
 ' Ha, Mr. Lacy,' he exclaimed, ' what a capital day for 
 exercise. We're all out this morning Mrs. Norham, Mrs. 
 Bousefield, and myself making the best of our time before 
 we pack up our traps. Very soon in detachments we begin 
 going back to London. You didn't happen to see my good 
 wife in the village, did you ? ' 
 
 ' I did,' Lacy answered, ' I saw her over there, by the 
 shore.' 
 
 ' Ah,' cried Mr. Bousefield, ' capital ! Off I must go to 
 look for her.' 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Lacy,' said Mrs. Norham, when Mr. Bousefield 
 had left them, ' and how have you been since I last had the 
 pleasure of seeing you ? ' There was in her face and manner 
 a certain repellent grimness, under which, only half-disguised, 
 lay an acidulated desire to converse. 'Are you going my 
 way ? ' she continued. ' If so, we might walk together.' 
 
3 o8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 He expressed his willingness to accompany her as far as the 
 little hotel, where he told her he was going to lunch. 
 
 ' Our own dejeuner] Mrs. Norham replied, ' is over ; but if 
 you would put up with Marsala and some humble sandwiches, 
 I can give you that in my sitting-room. I should be glad to talk 
 to you for a little, and ask you what impression you received 
 the other night from our gathering. There was a good account 
 of it both in the Daily News and the Agnostic Moralist? 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 MRS. NORHAM, although, when she gave her invitation to 
 Lacy, there was nothing very effusive, or indeed very gracious 
 in her manner, was at heart eager for his company. Her 
 passionate sense of the gloriousness of the altruistic secret, and 
 the organic functionalism of herself as its most gifted ex- 
 ponent, her passionate love of the human kind in general, 
 and her passionate contempt of the fashionable classes in 
 particular, had all been kept at fever-heat, since the day of 
 her service, by the incredible deficiency which the fashionable 
 classes at St. Hilaire had shown by their continued neglect to 
 pay her the least attention ; and she longed to discover how 
 Lacy had been impressed by her ministrations, and to hear 
 the impression which his account of them must have produced 
 at the Villa Martin. As for him personally, she was piqued 
 by him as much as ever. If he was so hardened in heart that 
 she could not communicate the truth to him, she would at 
 all events chasten him by showing him that he did not possess 
 it, and that he cut a very miserable figure in comparison with 
 herself who did. By such discipline, she thought, his soul 
 might be saved at last. 
 
 Accordingly, no sooner had he accepted her invitation, than 
 she at once began her attack on him ; and now that she was 
 secure of his company, she allowed the tone of her voice to 
 convey to him how much she despised it. 
 
 'And so,' she said, giving her words the edge of a fine 
 irony, ' you have been having, I hear, a most delightful and 
 satisfactory time, with your dinner-parties, your dances after- 
 wards, and so forth. You will hardly tell me that you have 
 not found happiness now, since you pass your days amongst 
 people whose sole occupation is to look for it, and who 
 I must say this for them find pleasure in trifles which the 
 children of the functional classes outgrow before they leave 
 the schoolroom.' 
 
 309 
 
3io THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'I told you once before,' he replied, 'that I find no 
 materials for anything like reasonable happiness in myself; 
 and such being the case, I am not likely to find them else- 
 where. But if the society to which you refer, and in which 
 I was born and bred, fails to make me regard life with any 
 serious satisfaction, society of any other kind would supply 
 my want better. It would alter my feelings only, by adding 
 to them those of an exile.' 
 
 This observation brought them to Mrs. Norham's door. 
 'Come in,' she said, 'and let me have all this out with 
 you.' 
 
 She took him into her library ; she seated herself on a chair 
 opposite him, and resumed with increased solemnity. ' Mr. 
 Lacy, I talk like this to you because I see glimpses in you 
 of better things, better than this mood of pessimism this 
 indifference, which I may call the foppery of the intellect 
 this mooning and effeminate sadness.' 
 
 ' I assure you,' said Lacy, ' if I am a pessimist, I don't take 
 my pessimism sadly. I have stayed sometimes at a dozen 
 country-houses in succession, and no one has ever heard me 
 so much as heave a sigh.' 
 
 ' Country-houses ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Norham. ' Yes / 
 know your country-houses. The Villa Martin is one of them. 
 No wonder you are sad, if you spend your life there places 
 where a functional observation is uttered only to be dis- 
 regarded. The only wonder is you do not feel mentally 
 dead. Mr. Lacy, let me plead with you. You know the 
 inward change which Christians call conversion. It is a 
 genuine change, but they have called it by a wrong name, 
 and diverted it to mistaken purposes. We of the new 
 Church have our own conversions likewise ; but they are 
 conversions not to the contemplation of Heaven, but to the 
 service of social man. Let me, like a moral physician, lay 
 my finger on that which ails you. You think you are un- 
 happy in spite of the world you live in. You are really 
 unhappy because of it. What I said the other night might 
 surely have whispered this to you. You are unhappy because 
 the world you live in cuts you off, as it cuts off all its other 
 members, from all organic connection with the great social 
 whole. Ah, Mr. Lacy, let me tempt you to make the experi- 
 ment of doing something for those outside your own circle 
 of giving to those in want just some few crumbs of the 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 311 
 
 talents which at present fall unregarded from your intellectual 
 table.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham here found that the words 'crumbs' and 
 ' table ' reminded her of her promise to provide some refresh- 
 ment for her visitor, and fearful that if she failed to do so, 
 he might leave her before his regeneration was complete, she 
 interrupted herself in her arguments, and with an almost 
 maternal smile, said, ' Well and now I will go and order 
 your luncheon.' 
 
 When she had left the room, Lacy took the opportunity of 
 glancing at the letter which he had just received at the 
 post-office. It was from his agent at home, and contained a 
 voluminous enclosure. He was still engaged in examining it, 
 when his hostess once more appeared, actually deigning to 
 bring with her his luncheon in her own hands. ' I will spare 
 you,' she said, ' while you 're eating ; but I have not half done 
 with you. That idle life of yours will have to feel my lash 
 again that idle life which, making you miserable yourself, 
 makes you regard misery as the natural condition of mankind.' 
 
 'Well,' said Lacy, laughing, 'as you are not going to attack 
 me while I eat, I will at least keep myself in countenance, by 
 defending myself against this last thrust of yours. I am not 
 miserable. I am as far from misery as from happiness. Just 
 as Christians have been known, in the daily work of the 
 world, to forget the glories of heaven, so do I, for my part, 
 forget the emptiness of the earth. The Christian and I 
 differ only in moments of reflection. The more he reflects, 
 the more significant life seems to him. The more I reflect, 
 the less significant it seems to me. When we both of us look 
 at the surface of it, it seems much the same to both of us 
 except that I, as I have seen during the past few days, can 
 take its troubles with more resignation than he. And now, 
 my dear Mrs. Norham,' Lacy continued, 'whilst I am en- 
 trenched behind this rampart of sandwiches, I am going to 
 fire a shot in defence of my idle life before it quivers again 
 under the further terrors of your lash.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham thought Lacy's tone was most unbecomingly 
 confident, for one whom she had been exhibiting to himself 
 as a pitiable moral invalid. But she forbore to interrupt him, 
 and contented herself with a solemn gaze at him. ' I am,' 
 he continued, ' grateful for the interest which you take in my 
 life ; but you are only, permit me to say so, acquainted with 
 
312 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 a few weeks of it. You see me here enjoying a short holiday ; 
 and even here you know little of the way in which I spend 
 my days. Even here nearly every morning I work as hard 
 as you do, and most of my work is connected with the social 
 welfare of others. As for the rest of my life, ever since I 
 left Oxford, whether as a soldier, a secretary, or a member 
 of Parliament, though many men may have worked better, 
 few have worked harder than I. And now, since I came into 
 some money, my work has been harder still not for people 
 of my own world, but for people quite outside it. Two 
 hundred and ten labourers' cottages have been or are being 
 rebuilt, redrained, or repaired by me. In three villages which 
 I own, I have laid out recreation grounds, with little club- 
 houses attached to them for the use of cricketers and football 
 players. Perhaps, without vanity, I may be allowed to show 
 you this, which I have but this moment received, and which 
 has come to me as a complete surprise.' 
 
 He handed to Mrs. Norham the letter which he had just 
 been reading; and Mrs. Norham, with a grudging acquies- 
 cence, took it and deigned to examine it. Her expression 
 was like that of a school-mistress looking over an exercise, 
 which she feared or hoped to find full of gross mistakes. The 
 letter, written by Lacy's agent, was as follows : 
 
 ' DEAR SIR, A spontaneous movement is on foot amongst 
 the labourers and other cottagers on the Lacy, the Abbot's 
 Lacy, and the Southwick properties, to present an Address to 
 you on your return to England, thanking you for the minute 
 and unremitting care you have shown for their wants and 
 welfare, from the first moment that you had the means of 
 doing so. They desire to do also, what I believe will be even 
 more pleasing to yourself to express their sense not only 
 of your liberality as a landlord, but of the personal kindness 
 and consideration which you have shown to each one of them 
 individually. The women, in particular, are anxious to add 
 their own names to those of their husbands : and I have been 
 asked to inquire of you when you may likely be again at 
 home, with a view to inducing you to name some date on 
 which you would allow the Address to be presented to you. 
 I enclose herewith a list of the names, which it may interest 
 you to look over.' 
 
 When Mrs. Norham had finished reading this, she looked 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 313 
 
 as though she had swallowed a disagreeable dose of medicine ; 
 but her natural candour had presently a hard-won triumph, 
 and she said to Lacy, as she handed the letter back to him, 
 ' So you act on our doctrine after all, though you have not 
 the courage to confess it ? ' ' Do you mean to tell me that 
 you derive no pleasure from learning that all these poor 
 people have derived some benefit from your action ? ' 
 
 ' I am touched by this letter,' he said, ' more perhaps than 
 you suspect. I had long been unhappy at the thought that 
 these people were so ill-housed. But why should a sense on 
 my part that I have helped to house them well give me any 
 serious belief in the value of human life, when I know how 
 easy it is for the best-housed men to be miserable ? ' 
 
 'Ah,' exclaimed Mrs. Norham eagerly, having now quite re- 
 covered herself, ' I have run you to earth at last. You are near 
 the truth ; but you have missed it thus far completely. The 
 aim of your cottage-building and so forth is not to give your 
 cottagers culture to make them mentally your own equals. 
 It is to make them content with their inferiority. This is not 
 altruism, my friend. It is the mere Theistic duty to your 
 neighbour, which is the very negation of altruism. If you 
 would be an altruist, try, when you go back to your depen- 
 dants, to make them as good as you, to endow them with the 
 same tastes and appreciations. To do this will, indeed, lead 
 ultimately to some rather strange social changes. The labourer 
 will no longer then be hat in hand to the squire. But you 
 you surely can rise superior to the poor selfism of class. Sacri- 
 fice that and oh, what a world of blessedness will be open to 
 you ! Mr. Lacy,' said Mrs. Norham very soberly, ' I am not 
 speaking at random. I have to-day, in spite of certain annoy- 
 ances, caused by the moral selfism of one nearly, though not 
 functionally, associated with us I have experienced myself 
 some of that blessedness which I am promising you. I have 
 witnessed the birth to the world of my young tailor poet. He 
 is my Aaron's rod that has budded. His book came out two 
 or three days ago ; but our own copies have only just arrived : 
 and this morning he has received a little sheaf of reviews. 
 My influence and Mr. Bousefield's have secured him early 
 notices ; and he 's gone off somewhere by himself to read 
 them. How I envy him the passion of feeling, the exquisite 
 fresh thrill which will be his on realising how the finest spirits 
 of the time recognise his genius and respond to it, like the 
 
314 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 sea under a breeze that touches it. Here for me is a realisa- 
 tion of altruistic blessedness, if you like, when I think that 
 but for me he still might be stitching trousers. We Mr. 
 Bousefield and I have guaranteed him for two years the 
 income he was making by his trade, in order to give him time 
 to develop himself. Mr. Lacy, it is by works like these that 
 you may know the Church of the Future the Church of the 
 New Discovery. See,' Mrs. Norham continued, plunging her 
 hand into a half-opened paper parcel, and extracting a volume 
 brilliant in crimson cloth, ' here is a copy of his book. Take 
 it with you and read it ; and as you read it, think not only 
 of it, but of the world-promise which perfumes this blossom. 
 Yet a little while, Mr. Lacy, and I think you will know us 
 better.' 
 
 Lacy put the book in his pocket, and was just rising to go, 
 when the door was pushed violently open, and a French maid- 
 servant entered. She was a girl of the country, and her cheeks 
 were naturally a sun-burnt olive ; but now they were strikingly 
 pale, and her eyes were round with agitation. ' Madame,' she 
 gasped, ' could I see madame for a moment ? ' In response to 
 her tone and look, Mrs. Norham started up, and hastily retreated 
 with the maid to the little vestibule outside. Lacy presently 
 heard her exclaiming in her best French accent, ' Mon Dieu, 
 mon Dieu ! Mais c'est terrible. Le pauvre garon le pauvre 
 garc.on ! ' A moment later he was conscious of a man's voice, 
 addressing Mrs. Norham in a tone of official gravity. The 
 door had been left open, and as the speaker proceeded, his 
 words, at each sentence, became more emphatic and audible. 
 He was evidently a Commissary of Police, and he was show- 
 ing Mrs. Norham some papers. Presently it seemed that 
 he called forward a companion ; and then, another voice 
 more distinct than his own, recited a narrative of which Lacy 
 heard every word. The man had, he said, witnessed the 
 event himself. The deceased, whose appearance struck him 
 as that of a madman, had been seated on a slope overlooking 
 the St. Tropez line, and was reading various papers, which at 
 first seemed to excite him, for he had gesticulated wildly with 
 his hands; but he subsequently became quite still. The 
 speaker had not been twenty yards away from him, and was 
 still observing him with curiosity when the engine of the train 
 from St. Estephe, puffing and steaming, showed itself round 
 the corner. Before he realised what had happened, the subject 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 315 
 
 of his observations had risen, and, with the nimbleness of a 
 rabbit, had darted down the bank. ' I blinked,' said the man, 
 'to assure myself that my eyes had not deceived me. By 
 the time I had blinked twice the last of the carriages had 
 gone over him, and he was lying by the permanent way like a 
 torn bundle of rags.' 
 
 On this there followed a series of solemn whisperings ; and 
 then in another moment Mrs. Norham re-entered. Her face 
 wore an expression of a very peculiar kind. It was full of 
 unspeakable tragedy, and yet it was touched with a certain 
 kind of sheepishness. Lacy was horrified to find that, for 
 some subtle reason, it filled him with a most undignified and 
 inappropriate desire to laugh. 
 
 'There has been an accident,' said Mrs. Norham, 'a 
 terrible, a ghastly accident. It appears that Mr. Squelch has 
 just been killed by the train. They are bringing the body 
 here. There can be no doubt that it is he. Here are all 
 his reviews. Here you will see his name at the top of them.' 
 
 She threw down by Lacy some cuttings from several news- 
 papers ; and planting her elbow on the chimney-piece, and 
 burying her forehead in her hand, she stood there rigid in a 
 majesty of marble calm. Lacy meanwhile began casting his 
 eye over the reviews ; and a suspicion which was already in 
 his mind at once turned into a certainty. The reviews, which 
 were taken from leading literary journals, instead of contain- 
 ing astonished and reverential praise, treated the tailor's verse 
 in a spirit of caustic merriment, compared with which the tone 
 of the article which killed Keats was fulsome. Lacy, as he 
 read, was in a state of extreme distress. Do what he would 
 to banish it, the memory of Mrs. Norham's face, with its 
 mixture of tragedy and sheepishness, would intervene between 
 him and the paper ; and though he bit his lip and struggled 
 to obtain control of himself, his muscles at last gave way, and 
 laughter began to break from him. It was at first a sound 
 which might have passed muster as sobbing ; but, as it always 
 does in such cases, it nourished itself on its own enormity, 
 and presently when Mrs. Norham, for some reason relapsing 
 into French, repeated her ejaculation of ' Le pauvre garden 
 le pauvre garc.cn,' Lacy's self-control altogether gave way, and 
 his laughter broke from him in all its naked hideousness. 
 
 For a few moments not a single word was uttered. Then, 
 pulling himself together, Lacy rose from his seat, and said 
 
316 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 gravely, ' Mrs. Norham, I am deeply I am profoundly sorry. 
 I am not in the habit of laughing at any serious trouble.' 
 But here, raising his eye to Mrs. Norham's awful face, he felt 
 himself in danger of breaking down again. 
 
 ' May I ask you,' said Mrs. Norham, in whom grief had for 
 the moment given place to indignation, ' may I ask you, Mr. 
 Lacy, the reason of this brutal outburst? Is there any- 
 thing humorous in the death of the young the gifted ? 
 Before you go and I beg you will go instantly answer me 
 that ! ' 
 
 'As for my laughter,' said Lacy, 'it was a mere accident of 
 the nerves. But, if you insist on my explaining how it arose, 
 it must have arisen, I suppose, from the thought that whilst 
 three or four months of duty towards our neighbour is enough 
 to make seven hundred cottagers comfortable, altruism in as 
 many years can do nothing but kill one tailor. Read these 
 reviews. You will then see what I mean. As for me, I now 
 beg leave to say that I am far less sorry for that wretched 
 young man's death than I am for having laughed about it, 
 and having laughed about it in your presence.' 
 
 ' Go,' said Mrs. Norham ; ' go to the Chateau des Fleurs or 
 the Villa Martin. Tell the merry story there, and you can 
 laugh at it all together. It is with such laughter that houses 
 like the Villa Martin were made to ring ! ' 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 MRS. NORHAM, as soon as she was left alone, took up the 
 reviews, glanced over them, and threw them down like a sting- 
 nettle. ' The dastards ! ' she exclaimed. ' The dastards ! 
 But it was ever so ! It is thus they always murder genius ! ' 
 In spite, however, of this outburst, she now grew rapidly 
 calmer, and her face came to express calculation rather than 
 agony. She was unable to pretend to herself that she did not 
 know what had happened. She was now overwhelmed by the 
 difficulty of not knowing how to take it ; and to this was added 
 the difficulty of breaking the news to Mr. Bousefield. 
 
 The latter of these she was compelled to solve immediately, 
 for she saw Mr. Bousefield and his wife coming slowly towards 
 the house across the garden. Mrs. Bousefield looked hardly 
 less sad than she had done when she was sitting on the rocks ; 
 but she was making a series of woe-begone efforts to smile ; 
 whilst Mr. Bousefield, who had chivalrously possessed himself 
 of her basket, was talking to her with a condescending cheer- 
 fulness, as though she were a fractious child, whom he would 
 coax into a better humour. Mrs. Norham, judging it best to 
 take her bull by the horns, rushed out to meet them, with a 
 face so appropriate to the occasion that both Mr. and Mrs. 
 Bousefield divined that something was the matter Mr. 
 Bousefield's thoughts flying off to the Tibbits' Motor, Mrs. 
 Bousefield's to the cook, a break-down of the stove, or the pos- 
 sible exploits of a horrid French cat in the larder. ' Oh ! ' 
 exclaimed Mrs. Norham, ' poor Squelch he has had an acci- 
 dent. He's been knocked down by the train.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield experienced an unacknowledged sense of 
 relief, which left him free to be shocked and helpfully self- 
 possessed. ' Hurt ? ' he asked sharply. Mrs. Norham looked 
 at him, paused, and under her breath said, 'Killed.' Mr. 
 Bousefield, with a protecting gesture, turned round to his 
 
 317 
 
3 i8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 wife. ' My dear,' he said, ' this is very dreadful news. You 
 have not been well this morning. Let me beg you to go in 
 and rest. I must inquire into all the details, and see what 
 practical steps are to be taken.' He put his arm within hers. 
 The poor lady convulsively pressed it ; and he having thus a 
 certain grip on her, drew her quickly in the direction of the 
 house. Having gone a few yards, however, he very adroitly 
 detached himself, and encouraging her to continue her course 
 by a gentle touch on her shoulder, rejoined Mrs. Norham, 
 with whom he soon was in earnest intercourse. As for Mrs. 
 Bousefield, who like Lot's wife looked back, she felt herself 
 turning, as she did so, into a fountain of salt tears, and had 
 one solace only left her namely, to communicate the news 
 to the household. The three domestics, together with the 
 paying guests, were soon in possession of all that she was able 
 to tell them, and were, by experience, learning the blessed 
 truth that the excitement of a tragedy tends to render its sad- 
 ness bearable. 
 
 Mr. Bousefield, meanwhile, had undertaken to see the 
 authorities, and ascertain what would be done with regard to 
 the burial of the body, begging Mrs. Norham not to attempt 
 to see it till he should be able to accompany her, and support 
 her at such a painful moment. Mrs. Norham, accordingly, 
 being liberated from all thoughts as to what she should do, 
 was confronted by the question of what it was becoming that 
 she should feel. She fortunately recollected that, in her great 
 novel, one of the most tragic and moving incidents had been 
 a death something like the poet's ; the agony produced by 
 which in the compassionate heart of the heroine, had been 
 admired, quoted, and wept over, by the earnest women of 
 Bloomsbury. Hurrying, therefore, to her bedroom, she re- 
 ferred to her own pages. She perused them with rapt atten- 
 tion ; she blistered them, as she felt herself bound to do, with 
 a great passion of tears ; and feeling that her mind had now 
 been pitched in a right key, she wandered out alone to the 
 tract outside the garden, with the road on one side and the 
 pebbles of the beach on the other, bearing her grief with her 
 so she beautifully told herself like a mother who had 
 wandered out, bearing her own dead baby. 
 
 As for Lacy, he dismissed the matter with the thought that, 
 ' If anybody in this neighbourhood had to make away with 
 himself, nobody could be better spared than this vain and 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 319 
 
 miserable creature'; and his thoughts forthwith returned to 
 his own concerns. When he looked, however, at his watch, 
 in order to see how soon he might reasonably expect his 
 uncle's return from driving, he found he had still a good hour 
 to spare, before it would be any use for him to be walking 
 towards the Villa Martin. Accordingly, for want of anything 
 else to do, he turned his steps in the direction of his own 
 dwelling, and began, as he went, to glance at the tailor's 
 poems. They were, indeed, pitiable performances confused 
 reverberations of writers such as Walt Whitman, with only one 
 original idea in the whole of them. This was the writer's idea 
 of the magnitude of his own genius, which seemed to inflate 
 his verbiage, like a bubble blown in mud, ' How infinitely 
 happier,' thought Lacy, 'would this poor fellow have been 
 had he never seen had he never been able to read a book ! ' 
 He was by this time in his own library ; and he extracted his 
 cheque-book from a drawer. He wrote a cheque, with a short 
 note to accompany it, and placing this in an envelope, directed 
 it, and rang the bell. Let this be taken,' he said, when a ser- 
 vant entered, 'to Mrs. Prouse Bousefield, in St. Antoine.' 
 The contents of his note were these : 
 
 'DEAR MRS. BOUSEFIELD, Though this death of one of 
 your household must, of course, be a considerable shock to 
 you, you, no more than I do, will feel it as a personal loss. 
 But I have just remembered hearing that this poor wretch 
 had a mother an old washerwoman ; and if our gentleman's 
 love of Humanity extended as far as his mother, he may it 
 is just possible have contributed something to her support ; 
 and his death may be an appreciable loss to her. Do find 
 out ; and in case this should be so, I enclose a cheque for 
 ;io towards a fund for assisting her. If there is no occasion 
 for the money you can tear the cheque up.' 
 
 Lacy, when this was despatched, consulted his watch again. 
 He at once left the house, and set off for the Villa Martin. 
 Lord Runcorn, he heard, on reaching it, was out driving still ; 
 but Lady Cornelia, who had been to St. Antoine in her pony- 
 carriage, had been back for twenty minutes. The butler, who 
 knew Lacy well, imparted this piece of gossip as he took him 
 across the hall to one of the smaller sitting-rooms. It was a 
 room that had been appropriated to Lady Cornelia's own use ; 
 
320 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 and Lacy fancied, as he was taken there, that he should find 
 his aunt alone. He was surprised, therefore, on entering, to 
 discover another lady with her a lady not staying in the 
 house, for she was cloaked and veiled and bonneted. Lady 
 Cornelia, moreover, who, whenever she could patronise, was 
 effusive, was standing with an arm round her waist, in the 
 act of bidding good-bye to her. ' Dear Lady Cornelia,' the 
 visitor's voice was saying, ' good-bye good-bye good-bye. 
 I shall never forget your sympathy shown me at this awful 
 moment ! ' and the speaker advanced her face towards her 
 friend's at the peculiar angle which shows the expectation of a 
 kiss, and would render its refusal a brutality. The kiss was 
 given ; and Lacy, with some amazement, realised that its re- 
 cipient was none other than Mrs. Norham. Mrs. Norham, 
 however, had been so occupied with the agony of her grief, 
 and the sweetness of Lady Cornelia's sympathy, that although 
 she was conscious of the entrance of some stranger, she de- 
 parted without having noticed who the stranger was. 
 
 ' My dear Tristram,' said Lady Cornelia, when she and her 
 nephew were alone, 'just move that jar of narcissus to the 
 table over there by the piano. I don't like strong scents so 
 near me. Thank you. Now sit down. Do you know,' she 
 went on, gathering up her embroidery, and comparing two 
 skeins of silk before threading her needle, ' that poor thing 
 who 's just gone out has had such a dreadful shock. One of 
 those people she has had living with her has been run over by 
 the train. I 'm afraid there 's no doubt that he killed himself; 
 and I found little Mrs. Norham wandering alone along the 
 road, sobbing and half distracted. I made her get into the 
 pony-carriage and tell me all the story. Then I brought her 
 back here, and gave her some warm tea, and I think she made 
 herself better by having a good cry. Tell me do for your 
 eyes are better than mine which of these two pink silks is 
 the darkest. And now, what did you think of your expedition 
 to Monte Carlo? I think it's a dreadful place. It was 
 always a bad place, and now it's a vulgar place as well. 
 Listen that 's your uncle's voice. There '11 be more tea in 
 the drawing-room for him. Let us go in there ; and you shall 
 have some also.' 
 
 In the drawing-room they found the tea-table already 
 spread, with nothing wanting but the tea and the hot tea-cake: 
 and there, too, was Mrs. Tilney, bright and alert as usual. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 32! 
 
 ' My dear Cornelia,' she exclaimed, ' when first the door 
 opened, I expected to see Mrs. Helbeckstein. She 's coming 
 up here some time. She announced that she was going to do 
 so, to tell us about Lady Dovedale. Depend upon it, now 
 she 's once been inside the house, you '11 never again be able 
 to keep her out of it.' 
 
 Another door opened as she spoke, and admitted, not Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein, but Lord Runcorn and Mrs. Mordaunt, fresh 
 from their long drive. A little bubbling effervescence of 
 laughter and conversation ensued ; till Lady Cornelia, with a 
 delicate pathos in her voice, which seemed to remove the 
 event to a decent distance, mentioned the tragedy of which 
 she had just been hearing. The voices of the company went 
 at once into half mourning, which they continued to wear till 
 the teapot and a dish of tea-cake afforded an excuse for a 
 change of tone and topics, and the tailor and Mrs. Norham 
 were dismissed, like tea-things being sent away. 
 
 Lacy, as soon as his uncle's ears were left disengaged by 
 Mrs. Mordaunt, who had been dissuading him from eating 
 tea-cake, found an opportunity of asking him for a moment's 
 conversation on business. Lord Runcorn at once rose and 
 drew his nephew into the library. 
 
 'Here,' he said, 'is a cigar which I'm quite sure you will 
 appreciate.' 
 
 Lacy briefly explained his readiness to re-enter Parliament, 
 and also the grave uncertainty in which his affairs had so 
 suddenly become involved. He then wound up by saying, 
 ' You have on former occasions offered, with great kindness, 
 to pay my election expenses. Supposing I find myself stripped 
 of the money that has lately come to me, will you pay them 
 for me now if I settle to stand at Manchester ? ' 
 
 Lord Runcorn took his cigar from his mouth, lazily blowing 
 out the smoke ; and fixed his nephew, meanwhile, with the 
 gaze of his hollow eyes. Then he laid on his arm a long, 
 delicate hand. 
 
 ' My dear boy,' he said in a cavernous whisper, ' of course 
 I will of course. We will take that for settled. And now 
 tell me more about this mysterious claimant. The whole 
 thing, we will hope, is a mere flash in the pan ; but I must say 
 this you take your possible loss like a true stoic philo- 
 sopher.' 
 
 The uncle and nephew were still engrossed in their conver- 
 
 x 
 
322 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 sation, when the door was opened with apologetic gentleness, 
 and Lady Cornelia appeared, saying 
 
 ' I am sorry to interrupt you ; but before Tristram goes, will 
 he come into the drawing-room ? Mrs. Helbeckstein is here, 
 and she has an important message for him.' 
 
 Mrs. Helbeckstein's condition of mind was, in some respects, 
 like Mrs. Norham's. Her life, too, had been visited with a 
 touch of tragedy ; and for her, too, the tragedy had brought 
 with it its consolations. Lady Dovedale's indisposition had 
 become suddenly more pronounced, and Mrs. Helbeckstein, 
 with the far-seeing wisdom that was characteristic of her, had 
 found herself confronted by three possible inconveniences. 
 One was that Lady Dovedale might die in her house ; another 
 was that she might be laid up there, with some lingering 
 illness; the third was that her illness, whether lingering or 
 not, might be infectious. Any one of these contingencies 
 would be injurious to Mrs. Helbeckstein's social campaign 
 the last of the three might be even dangerous to herself; and 
 yet, after seriously weighing the matter, she decided that Lady 
 Dovedale's position was sufficient to give considerable im- 
 portance to the friend in whose house the newspapers should 
 mention her as suffering, or as breathing her last. One thing 
 only she could not put up with namely infection ; she had 
 therefore already begun to devise means by which Lady 
 Dovedale, if necessary, might be got rid of in good time. She 
 had decided that the best thing to do would be to hand her 
 over to Lady Madeleine ; and hearing that Lacy was, at that 
 moment, in the Villa Martin, she was determined through him 
 to communicate to her a preliminary alarm. 
 
 'Of course,' she said to Lacy, when he appeared in response 
 to her message, ' there may be nothing really the matter with 
 her, but I don't like that cough ; and I 'm terribly afraid that 
 our villa here, being so near the sea, mayn't suit her. I should 
 be so glad,' she continued, looking round her for sympathy, 
 1 if Lady Madeleine would come over to-morrow morning and 
 see her. I am never nervous for myself never ; but for my 
 friends,' she said, holding up a gloved hand, and shaking it as 
 if to exemplify her involuntary tremors, ' I am all so I am, 
 for all the world, like dat.' 
 
 Lacy promised to convey her message to Lady Madeleine, 
 suggesting that he and she should walk over to St. Hilaire 
 that evening ; but Mrs. Helbeckstein would not hear of this, 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 323 
 
 as she was expecting Sir John and Lady Scarva to dinner, 
 and was unwilling to disfigure her party by anything so 
 unbecoming as anxiety. ' Let her come in the morning,' she 
 said ; ' dat will be more natural.' 
 
 That evening, when Lacy returned to the Chateau, the first 
 object that greeted his eyes in the hall was a telegram lying 
 on the table. It was from his lawyers, in answer to his own ; 
 and its contents were as follows : ' C. and J. W. Fox, name of 
 firm of solicitors, Suffolk Street. Ealing private address of 
 Davis, one of partners, cousin or brother of Samuel Davis, 
 bill-discounter.' 
 
 This gave Lacy a good deal to think about. The sudden 
 appearance on the scene of the family of Mr. Samuel Davis 
 naturally recalled to him a certain curly-headed friend of his 
 own ; and began to throw a gleam of light in his mind on the 
 first letter he had received, though it did nothing to explain 
 the others. His mind, perhaps, would have become some- 
 what clearer could he have read a letter received that day by 
 a gentleman who had recently won several hundred pounds 
 at baccarat, and was now living at Nice in very comfortable 
 quarters. The letter in question was as follows : 
 
 ' My DEAR OLD GEORGE B., It was lucky that Sam had to 
 see me in London. T. L. hasn't even answered our letter 
 the one I wrote as I said I would. It must, however, have 
 given him a mauvais quart (Fheure. The only pity is we were 
 not there to see it. What fun it would have been watching 
 his jaw drop ! But the long and short of it is, the details of 
 your brother's death are too well known : so that cock won't 
 fight quite as well as we hoped it would. I must tell you 
 also, old boy, that we might very easily have got ourselves 
 into a hell of a mess over the matter. But, by Jove, as things 
 have turned out, the game was worth the candle ; for I 've hit 
 upon something by the most lucky accident something that 
 will make T. L. sit up, and no mistake a something, old 
 boy, that is genuine business too. 
 
 'As to that first letter, about you and your brother, I made 
 I 'm sure you won't mind a clean breast of the matter to 
 Sam, and told him that the whole thing was a harmless little 
 joke of yours, for all the world like dressing up as a ghost ; 
 and that I joined in with you to get a rise out of T. L. Well, 
 Sam at first blew me up sky-high, and did, what I '11 bet you 
 
324 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 he never did before dropped one of his half-crown cigars 
 into his tumbler of whisky and soda. What really made him 
 angry was my having written that preliminary little letter of 
 ours, on a sheet of notepaper belonging to John Davis, at 
 Ealing. However, all 's well that ends well ; and as soon 
 as Sam had calmed down, what do you think happened ? 
 Guess ! But you '11 never guess right. I '11 tell you. Sam 
 scratched his head, sank back in his chair, lit another cigar 
 and I sat counting his rings. At last he said you know how 
 damned familiar such beasts as Sam are he said, " Look 
 here, young shaver, though you 've nearly made as confounded 
 a fool of yourself as any of the young gentlemen who come to 
 borrow money of me, I shouldn't be surprised, after what you 
 have just told me, if we shouldn't find out for old Brandon 
 some next-of-kin after all. I know something or other about 
 old Brandon's family, and I think well look you, I '11 see 
 my brother to-morrow. Let me have a copy of that nonsense 
 you were mad enough to write on his notepaper, and he and 
 I will write something that will take out the taste of it." I 
 shall see Sam again to-morrow. This happened some days 
 ago. He has evidently something in his eye. But you and 
 I, mind you, must be as mum as a couple of dormice. 
 Discretion, in Sam's estimation, has sometimes a market 
 value. Will write again. Yours ever, P.' 
 
 As Lacy, however, was not privileged to see this interesting 
 document, it naturally had no effect, either disquieting or 
 otherwise, on his feelings ; and as he had already prepared 
 his mind for the worst, certain incidents which took place the 
 following day made him forget for the time his personal 
 circumstances altogether. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE first of the incidents referred to originated with Mrs. 
 St. Germans, who recurred at breakfast to a subject which 
 had been broached by her some days ago. This subject was 
 the return of herself and her grand-daughter to St. Laurent, 
 and, as a matter of course, of Lady Madeleine also. 
 
 The second originated with Lady Madeleine herself, when 
 she began to examine her letters, and to communicate the 
 contents of them to her friends. The first she opened was 
 from her mother ; and in it, Lady Dovedale declared that her 
 illness had been much exaggerated. 'In fact,' she said, 'it is 
 so trifling that I won't even see a doctor. All the same, my 
 dear child, if you will look in in the morning, I shall be 
 delighted to have a little chat with you ; but I 've no notion 
 of being told by Mrs. Helbeckstein how to manage my own 
 health.' 
 
 This was reassuring enough, and Lady Madeleine was con- 
 gratulated on the news; but when she turned to another 
 letter, which dealt with the same subject, its contents were 
 found to be of a very different character. It was a letter from 
 Lady Tregothran ; and though she subsequently showed it to 
 Lacy, she now merely mentioned the parts of it that related 
 to Lady Dovedale. It was dated from Nice, and ran thus : 
 
 ' MY DEAREST MADELEINE, I think it only right to tell you 
 that I have reason to fear that your mother is more seriously 
 ill than she thinks she is. Sir James Mabberly her doctor 
 and mine has just arrived at Nice, and is staying at this 
 hotel. He is an intimate acquaintance of mine, and I men- 
 tioned your mother's attack. He is the most discreet of 
 doctors ; but having lately seen your mother in London, the 
 little he said to me was quite enough to make it clear that 
 the best thing she could do would be to see him again here. 
 
 325 
 
326 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 He evidently believes that, in spite of her apparent strength, 
 a very little thing might I don't know what I '11 leave you 
 to finish the sentence. Get her to be careful not to exert 
 herself. But I need not instruct you ; you will be sure to do 
 the right thing. And now, my dear, one word more about 
 a quite different matter. I come back to-morrow to St. 
 Hilaire ; and I want you to spend a whole morning or after- 
 noon with me, to help me about a bit of work which I can 
 discuss with nobody except yourself. So keep yourself at the 
 disposition of your affectionate friend, NITA.' 
 
 ' Do you think,' said Lacy, ' of going to St. Hilaire this 
 morning ? If so, I will come with you.' 
 
 She assented, and they went together. She handed to him, 
 on the way, Lady Tregothran's letter. ' I did not know,' he 
 said, 'that you and she were so intimate.' 
 
 'We were good friends,' she replied, 'when we were girls 
 together; and on some of the chance occasions when we 
 meet now, her eternal friendship suddenly comes to life 
 again.' 
 
 Lady Madeleine's visit to her mother lasted so short a time, 
 that when Lacy, who waited for her in the little esplanade of 
 St. Hilaire, saw her emerging from Mrs. Helbeckstein's portals, 
 he took it for granted that the invalid was much better. But 
 the moment she spoke to him his first impression was dis- 
 pelled. 
 
 'I am afraid,' she said, 'that Nita Tregothran was right. 
 Come with me to the telegraph-office, and I '11 tell you every- 
 thing by the way. There's a local doctor I don't know 
 where he comes from but Mrs. Helbeckstein has produced 
 him for the occasion from somewhere. He and she were in 
 deep consultation when I arrived. To speak the plain truth, 
 I 've no doubt in my own mind that Mrs. Helbeckstein's 
 wishes are father to the doctor's thoughts ; but at any rate the 
 doctor declares that Mrs. Helbeckstein's villa is the very worst 
 place in the world for a person in my mother's condition. 
 That means that Mrs. Helbeckstein wants to get rid of her, 
 before she is too far gone to be moved. Now, there 's a reason 
 for this; and I don't think the reason is imaginary. They 
 believe my mother is going to be laid up with something I 
 don't know what possibly scarlatina, or measles. Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein otherwise wouldn't be so anxious to be quit 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 327 
 
 of her. Well I 'm going at once to telegraph to Sir James 
 Mabberly. I shall beg him to come over here this afternoon, 
 and call on my mother, as if he were a chance visitor. I sup- 
 pose I may ask him to meet me on the Chateau mayn't I ? 
 What this is the office ? The message won't take a moment.' 
 
 ' I 've been thinking,' said Lacy, as they turned to walk back 
 together, ' what, if she really has to be moved, would be the 
 best place to take her to. Bring her to the Chateau, and you 
 stay on to look after her.' 
 
 His companion turned and looked at him. Of late he had 
 been coming to realise, whenever her eyes' met his, that he 
 was in the presence of that magnetic mystery, which is for 
 certain women at once their charm and their fate, and which 
 is, perhaps, best described by saying that it agitates their 
 prayers and pervades with its secret the atmosphere of dim 
 confessionals. He had taken to noticing also small details of 
 her aspect and her movements, and now, he could not tell why, 
 her lips impressed themselves on his memory, and he found 
 himself wondering for a moment by what men they had been 
 kissed. There was a noble refinement in them ; and yet there 
 was that sadness which some lips never lose when they have 
 eaten of the tree of knowledge. 
 
 4 You think of everything,' she said. ' I do not know how 
 to thank you. You are the most unselfish man I know. I 
 have known many selfish ones. Let us wait and see what Sir 
 James Mabberly says.' 
 
 The distinguished physician came. Lady Dovedale, though 
 restive in the matter of seeing a doctor, had no objection to 
 receiving Sir James as a visitor ; and events conspired to 
 make her not only willing but pleased to give him the oppor- 
 tunity he desired of discussing her symptoms with her in 
 private. Sir James was the keeper of the health of so many 
 Royal personages, that Mrs. Helbeckstein received him with 
 extreme civility. She indeed seemed inclined to regard his 
 visit as a compliment to herself. Accordingly Lady Dove- 
 dale, who had, during the past fortnight, been arriving at the 
 opinion that she wanted to be taken down a little, saw an 
 opportunity which her womanhood would not suffer her to 
 miss, when her hostess was engrossing the caller with her 
 best fashionable conversation. 
 
 ' Sir James,' she said to him from her sofa, speaking with 
 her accustomed bntsquerie, ' I 've got a little matter about 
 
328 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 which I should like to talk to you, if you wouldn't mind com- 
 ing with me into the next room for a moment. You '11 have 
 to give me your arm.' 
 
 She had the satisfaction of seeing how her word of power 
 nipped one of Mrs. Helbeckstein's finest anecdotes in the 
 bud, and brought Sir James to her side, all attention and 
 deference. Mrs. Helbeckstein watched the two as they 
 slowly left the room, her heart divided between resentment 
 at Lady Dovedale's rudeness and admiration of it, and both 
 emotions complicated by a growing doubt as to whether she 
 would profit most by keeping, or getting rid of her. Lady 
 Dovedale meanwhile, without waiting to be catechised, ex- 
 claimed, as soon as the door had closed upon them, ' My dear 
 Sir James, I 'm really delighted to see you. I 'm delighted to 
 do that always I mean as a personal friend as you know, 
 who so very often have dined with us. But I 'm delighted at 
 this moment for another a very selfish reason. All these 
 good people here are trying to turn me into an interesting 
 invalid a victim to I don't really know what horror they Ve 
 invented for me. Now, you be a good man, and just have 
 a look at me ; and, before you go, take Mrs. Helbeckstein 
 down, by giving me a sensible, clean bill of health. It 's true, 
 the other day I may as well tell you that I had a little 
 attack of coughing; but that was because I went on that 
 yacht of theirs to Monte Carlo with them. What they ever 
 want a yacht for here, except to show that they 've got one, it 
 passes my wit to tell. I oughtn't to have gone that 's the 
 long and short of it. However, that 's over ; but Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein, unfortunately, saw a little spot of red on my 
 handkerchief, and made up her mind that I should be dead 
 in her best cabin before she'd finished her adventures at 
 trente et quarante. And now, no sooner does my cough go 
 away completely than just because for a day or two I 'm not 
 quite up to the mark, she talks to me, and fusses about me, 
 as if she thought I was going to have the plague; and is 
 begging me to send for some doctor or I think it must be 
 half a dozen doctors from Cannes. And all the while, as 
 you can see, there is nothing the matter with me at all. The 
 real thing is, that I have not been sleeping very well lately, 
 and, not unnaturally, I 'm rather tired during the day, and a 
 bit headachey. Just look at my face. I haven't had a better 
 colour for years.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 329 
 
 1 Let me look,' said Sir James blandly. ' Turn a leetle bit 
 towards the window, please. Yes yes I hadn't noticed 
 that. You 've certainly more colour than you have had for 
 some years past.' 
 
 'And then,' said Lady Dovedale, 'as for pains, I tell you 
 I 've positively none.' 
 
 ' To be sure,' said Sir James. ' I can perfectly well believe 
 you ; and I daresay if you have a little headache now and then, 
 this only troubles you in the evening, when I daresay you 're 
 a little feverish. This would be quite natural only what I 
 should expect.' 
 
 ' Exactly,' said Lady Dovedale. ' I always said you were 
 a wonderful man. It 's only in the evening I feel in 
 the least feverish. It will all pass off in a day or two. 
 Well, now, you 've put me through my facings. I consider 
 you a real good friend : and there 's one thing more which 
 I want you to do immediately. Leave me here, and say 
 I'm writing a letter; and tell Mrs. Helbeckstein, civilly, 
 what a goose she 's been making of herself. If you 're staying 
 on at St. Hilaire, do come and see me again ; or I '11 tell 
 Mrs. Helbeckstein to ask you to dinner or luncheon.' 
 
 ' I 'm afraid,' said Sir James ; ' I 'm going to Nice this 
 evening. But I '11 go back to Mrs. Helbeckstein, and I '11 do 
 you the fullest justice.' 
 
 When Sir James returned to the room in which Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein was still expecting him, beguiling the time by 
 watching two huge English footmen put wood on the fire, and 
 arrange an elaborate tea-table, the expression of his face was 
 not by any means the same as it had been a moment ago 
 in the presence of his sanguine patient. 
 
 'Lady Dovedale,' he began, 'is writing some letters, and 
 has sent me back again by myself.' 
 
 Mrs. Helbeckstein looked to see that the door was closed. 
 'Come here, Sir James,' she cried. 'Come here and have 
 some tea. Now, tell me Lady Dovedale don't you think 
 her looking very ill ? She is ill ? She is going to have some- 
 thing or other dat is bad eh ? ' 
 
 'That,' said Sir James, in precise and deliberate accents, 
 ' is more than I can say with certainty ; but I feel bound to 
 tell you, both in her interest, and your own, that her indis- 
 position is, in all probability, the beginning of typhoid fever. 
 The attack may be very slight. There would be no cause for 
 
330 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 alarm if it were not for the fact of her lungs being well not 
 all we could wish them. In a few days' time she will have 
 left her sofa for her bed ; and the great thing is to protect her 
 from draughts and chills.' 
 
 'Could anything,' exclaimed Mrs. Helbeckstein, 'be more 
 unlucky than dat ! Why, dis house is full of draughts. It is 
 positively a temple of de winds. Don't you tink we should 
 find her a lodging in some more sheltered spot? I assure 
 you, except Mr. Helbeckstein's room and mine, dere 's not a 
 room in the house fit for an invalid to occupy. Her daughter, 
 who was here dis morning, could easily find some place for 
 her.' 
 
 ' My dear madam,' said Sir James, ' I may be mistaken 
 about Lady Dovedale's condition. To-morrow, or next day, 
 will show whether I am or no ; but my own opinion I am 
 not speaking professionally would be that she would run 
 more risks by being removed from your house than by re- 
 maining in it. As I shall not be here, however, to back my 
 opinion, I must ask you to take it for what it is worth ; and I 
 would strongly advise your sending for some physician from 
 Cannes. If he comes to-morrow, he will probably be able to 
 speak without hesitation. Considering that there is still some 
 doubt about the matter, I have not told Lady Dovedale my 
 opinion my strong suspicions. But if my suspicions are 
 verified, 'the truth should be at once made known to her.' 
 
 'And now tell me frankly,' said Mrs. Helbeckstein, 'is dere 
 any danger of infection, supposing that this is typhoid ? We 
 have here so many friends coming constantly to de house ; 
 and should we have with us a case of infectious illness, I 
 should think it wrong positively and horribly wrong to let 
 them continue coming, without giving full warning to them.' 
 
 ' Certainly,' said Sir James, ' had I a typhoid patient in my 
 own house, I should, for several reasons, refrain from enter- 
 taining society.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE following day the anticipations of Sir James were veri- 
 fied. By half-past nine in the morning, with a most mysterious 
 promptitude, one of the best-known doctors at Cannes pre- 
 sented himself at Mrs. Helbeckstein's villa, and pronounced 
 that her dear friend's symptoms were undoubtedly those of 
 typhoid. Mrs. Helbeckstein had been already apprised of 
 Lacy's opportune offer to receive the invalid under his own 
 roof during her illness, and had welcomed it with a heart-felt 
 satisfaction which it would be almost impossible to exaggerate. 
 The Chateau des Fleurs was the very house for a hospital. 
 Lady Dovedale would there be free from the coming and 
 going of visitors. She would not be disturbed by them, and 
 she would not drive them away. With eager solicitude Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein argued that her removal, since it was unfortu- 
 nately necessary, should take place as soon as possible. She 
 had, indeed, overnight, with truly admirable forethought, made 
 every arrangement that could hasten it, and obviate its con- 
 tingent difficulties. She had not only telegraphed, on her 
 own account, for the doctor ; but she had sent to Cannes a 
 discreet and confidential servant, with carte blanche as to 
 payment, to secure and to bring back with him two unim- 
 peachable nurses, who were to be kept in a lodging close by, 
 on the chance of their services being necessary. The doctor, 
 accordingly, had no sooner given his verdict, than two notes 
 were despatched to the Chateau des Fleurs, one to Lady 
 Madeleine, the other to Mr. Tristram Lacy, in which Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein announced that, acting under the doctor's 
 orders, she would accept Mr. Lacy's offer, with she could not 
 say how much gratitude, and would send Lady Dovedale to 
 the Chateau in the course of a few hours. ' I have secured,' 
 she said, 'the best landau in the place, and by the best of 
 good luck have secured two nurses also. They are here now 
 
 831 
 
332 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 in St. Hilaire. There is no obligation to keep them if they 
 do not prove satisfactory; but I hear they are first-rate 
 women, quite up to their work. Dear Lady Madeleine,' Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein went on, ' I hope you will not think I have 
 presumed. But I have engaged them for a week, on my own 
 account, and at my own expense, as the last little hospitality 
 I can pay to your dear mother, whom we had hoped to have 
 had with us till we all went back to England. All my parties 
 without her will quite have their life gone out of them.' 
 
 This sudden development of events did not end with itself. 
 It had the effect of accelerating the departure of Mrs. St. 
 Germans and her grand-daughter, who left the Chateau on the 
 morning which followed the invalid's arrival. On that morning 
 Lady Dovedale took to, or rather kept to, her bed ; but the 
 evening before, in spite of her increasing weakness, she lay on 
 a sofa, and still retained spirit enough to say to her daughter, 
 as her eyes travelled round the room, ' What a comfort it is to 
 be in a gentleman's house once more ! ' 
 
 And now, with the departure of the St. Germans, there 
 began a new life at the Chateau, inaugurated by the luncheon 
 at which, with no other companions, Lacy and Lady Made- 
 leine met and discussed Lady Dovedale's symptoms. 
 
 ' I think,' said Lady Madeleine, ' that her cough is a 
 little worse ; but anything was better for her than to remain 
 on with the Helbecksteins. Of course, she's weaker and 
 more languid than she was. That, the doctor tells me, is part 
 of the course of the fever. But the nurse who is with her 
 now, says she is going on most satisfactorily. She's half 
 asleep now, and my being there irritates her, because she 
 thinks it shows I consider her case serious. I 'm going off 
 presently to see Nita Tregothran, who was to come back this 
 afternoon. You remember she told me, in her letter, that she 
 wanted my help about something. 
 
 Had nothing taken place to prevent him, Lacy would have 
 offered to go with her ; but this new chapter of life had already 
 been marked by an incident which would take him, that after- 
 noon, in quite another direction. Just before luncheon he 
 had been the recipient of a telegram which caused him to 
 exclaim when he read it, ' And so she knows my address ! I 
 concluded she knew my name. But why, then, make all this 
 mystery? And yet,' he continued, as he looked at the message 
 once again, ' she may not have known the address when the 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 333 
 
 letter was sent off.' The message in question was this: 'A 
 letter awaits you at St. Antoine, addressed L., Poste Restante. 
 Inquire at once for it, if you have not yet done so. 
 Clairvoyante.' 
 
 To St. Antoine he accordingly betook himself as soon as 
 the meal was over; and there, at the post-office, the mysterious 
 letter was delivered to him. The contents, which he at once 
 inspected, were written in a disguised hand. If not entirely 
 lucid, they had the merit of brevity. They bore no address, 
 and consisted of these few lines : 
 
 'Had I been able to meet you again, I might give you 
 further news ; but my art enables me to predict that what- 
 ever I might have been able to tell you, you will in the course 
 of a week or ten days, at farthest, hear with more authority 
 from a quite unexpected quarter. The worst you can hear 
 will be certainly much better than the worst you dread. It 
 may possibly, if you choose to make it so, be better than at 
 present you can imagine. When events explain my meaning, 
 think of your veiled CLAIRVOYANTE.' 
 
 This letter left Lacy even more bewildered than before; but 
 it had the effect of slightly raising his spirits. It at all events 
 relieved him for the time of a not unnatural tendency to 
 brood, when he was alone, over his own financial future. 
 Indeed, it so far restored him to himself as to suggest a visit 
 to Mrs. Bousefield, from whom, to his surprise, he had had 
 no acknowledgment of his cheque, and of whom he pro- 
 posed to inquire, rather than of her husband or of Mrs. 
 Norham, whether anything could be done for the mother of 
 the deceased genius. 
 
 But when he reached the door of the altruist, and, inquiring 
 if Mrs. Bousefield was in, was admitted, with a doubtful stare, 
 by the somewhat slatternly maid, he had a vague sense that 
 something had taken place that the Holy Church of Humanity 
 had experienced some change or other beyond what could be 
 accounted for by the loss of its first singer. And such had 
 indeed been the case. It was but the day before yesterday 
 that the poet of self-forgetfulness had precipitately taken leave 
 of a world in which the newspaper critics were so unworthy of 
 him ; it was but the day before yesterday that this particular 
 news had been received by Lacy in a manner so infelicitous ; 
 
334 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 yet the sacred temples of love had, during that brief time, been 
 not only shadowed by sorrow, but had actually been torn by 
 schism ; and the sacred agonies which Mrs. Norham voluntarily 
 courted had been supplemented by others which were not by 
 any means so sustaining. 
 
 The priestess of altruism, the defier of rank and fashion, 
 had no sooner left the embraces of her friend Lady Cornelia, 
 than she had risen to emotional altitudes higher and more 
 satisfactory than any she remembered ever to have reached 
 before. In this condition of mind, despite Mr. Bousefield's 
 protest, she had determined to see alone the mutilated body 
 of one whom she described to herself as Startfield Hall's first 
 martyr; and entering the room in which the remains were 
 lying, she indulged in a vigil of two hours' duration, during 
 which she muttered and felt enough beautiful and torturing 
 things to make the fortune of a new altruistic novel part of 
 which, indeed, she composed unconsciously on the spot. 
 ' Oh the pity of it ! ' she exclaimed. ' Oh for the great, baffling, 
 seemingly aimless waste of all that is most sublimely struggling 
 in this our common manhood ! Oh for those rare souls who 
 alone feel all the tragedy of it ! ' 
 
 All this was satisfactory as far as it went ; and a greater 
 satisfaction awaited her upstairs in her bedroom, where she 
 found that the reflection of her own face in the glass, with all 
 the woe of womanhood swimming in her tear-dimmed eyes, 
 was a more inspiring object than even the disjecta membra of 
 her poet. But when next morning she came down, ready to 
 attend the funeral, feeling that she alone could appreciate its 
 full sadness, and looking as though she were a widow and a 
 bereaved mother in one, she was irritated at finding the face 
 of Mrs. Prouse Bousefield looking not only as sad, but almost 
 as solemn as her own. The sadness Mrs. Norham was 
 accustomed to, and had long explained it to herself as temper ; 
 but what right had Mrs. Bousefield to that look of moving 
 solemnity? That was bad; but matters became worse still 
 when Mrs. Bousefield mentioned the letter she had had from 
 Lacy, and the money enclosed in it, for the help of Mr. 
 Squelch's mother. Mrs. Norham's sorrow for a moment was 
 almost forgotten in displeasure. 
 
 ' As the cheque,' she said, ' seems intended for a fund, in 
 case we should raise one, I daresay Mrs. Bousefield will 
 commit it to my keeping.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 335 
 
 ' Certainly certainly,' said Mr. Bousefield, gravely frowning. 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield, with a helpless hand, passed the cheque 
 over to Mrs. Norham. Mrs. Norham, with frigid calm, passed 
 it over to Mr. Bousefield. ' Send it back to him, will you,' 
 she said, ' with our compliments. We are capable of bearing 
 the responsibilities of our own dead. Intruding his money on 
 us at this moment was in the worst taste, to say the least of 
 it. Mrs. Bousefield,' she continued, ' you will excuse Mr. 
 Bousefield and me. He and I must start now for the burying- 
 ground.' 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield, with a sudden movement, applied her 
 handkerchief to her eyes. ' I Ve quite done breakfast myself,' 
 she said in a quick, half-audible whisper, and starting from 
 her seat she hastily left the room. Her breakfast had been 
 merely one bite at the apex of a triangle of toast. 
 
 In her bedroom was a small writing-table ; and on the 
 writing-table was a blotting-book bound in Stuart tartan, and 
 ornamented on the back with a vignette of the Wallace 
 Memorial at Stirling. Opening this, she wrote the following 
 letter : 
 
 ' MY DEAREST HUSBAND, We are all in the Lord's hands, 
 and we none of us quite know what may happen to us. I 
 have been thinking this lately more often than usual ; so 
 I have been led to do the first important thing which, ever 
 since our wedding-day, I have done without telling you. You 
 know the ten thousand pounds that came to me five years back 
 from the Maclarens. I was not rightly sure what would 
 happen about it if I went ; so I got my cousin in Edinburgh to 
 draw me out a new will, in order to make sure that every- 
 thing should go to you. I sent it back to him, properly 
 signed and witnessed, yesterday forenoon. I am happier now 
 I have done this, and have told my dearest husband, over 
 whose welfare I pray that the Lord may ever watch, better 
 than any feeble human vessel which is liable to shipwreck. I 
 had best say no more, except that I am your loving wife, 
 
 ' ELIZABETH PROUSE BOUSEFIELD.' 
 
 f P.S. Will you think unkindly of me if I just say one 
 thing more. I would not, if I were you, put any more money 
 into that Motor. I 'm sure it 's a foolish business, and never 
 can come to good.' 
 
336 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Mrs. Bousefield having finished her letter, and sealed it 
 up in its envelope, inquired of the French domestic, whom 
 she usually described as ' the table-maid,' if Mr. Bousefield 
 had gone out; and hearing that he had done so a few 
 minutes ago, she confided the letter to the girl, enjoining 
 her to give it to Mr. Bousefield if he should come home 
 earlier than herself. ' It 's to tell him,' Mrs. Bousefield 
 explained, ' that I may be kept out later than usual.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield and Mrs. Norham were meanwhile proceed- 
 ing in a cab to the scene of the poet's funeral, Mrs. Norham 
 on her coal-black knees carrying a dark green something, at 
 which Mr. Bousefield looked askance, not daring to ask what 
 it was, and discovered to be a crown of bay-leaves. Some of 
 the paying guests, moreover, had also set forth on foot ; though 
 their grief for their lost brother was modified by some want of 
 respect for him, and also by some thoughts of a bicycle-ride, 
 which they were to start on as soon as the ceremony 
 was over. 
 
 The ceremony proved to be of the very scantiest kind ; for, 
 beyond the mere act of standing and watching the coffin lowered, 
 it consisted in Mrs. Norham's raising her two black arms, 
 casting her crown on the coffin-lid, and ejaculating something 
 which began with ' Good-bye, my brother.' 
 
 The moment Mrs. Norham was out of breath the paying 
 guests departed, alternately discussing the expedition on which 
 they were at once to start, and denouncing the system of 
 privilege, capitalism and competition which had driven their 
 gifted, if unpopular, brother to his fate. Mrs. Norham, how- 
 ever, still lingered by the grave; and Mr. Bousefield was 
 exhibiting an inclination to linger by Mrs. Norham, when she 
 turned to him with rigid features, and waved him imperiously 
 away. ' Go away, do, and leave me,' she said ; ' I must be 
 alone for a little. I '11 walk home by myself.' Mr. Bousefield 
 unwillingly turned his back and went ; and Mrs. Norham 
 remained, with the words, ' Oh the pity of it,' on her lips, in 
 order to refresh herself with one more draught of agony. 
 
 Mr. Bousefield's sorrow was not perhaps greater than Mrs. 
 Norham's, but it was more like the vulgar feeling which 
 common people know by this name. Mr. Squelch's merits 
 as a poet he accepted on Mrs. Norham's authority ; but the 
 fact that Mr. Squelch had not recognised revealed truth 
 saddened him more than the fact that the world had not 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 337 
 
 recognised Mr. Squelch : and he went slowly homewards, with 
 his wide-awake pulled over his eyes, chewing his under lip, and 
 meditatively slashing with his walking-stick any weeds that 
 were growing beside his path. When he reached the level 
 crossing near the station, he came to an involuntary standstill. 
 From thence, at a distance of not more than forty yards, the 
 spot was visible at which the poet's career had ended. The 
 line there ran through a cutting with sloping banks, and these 
 were tufted with heather and bog-myrtle. The spot irresistibly 
 attracted Mr. Bousefield's eyes. He was prepared, as his 
 attention became fixed on it, for a painful increase of his 
 melancholy ; but he was not prepared for the prickly chill of 
 horror which diffused itself suddenly over his limbs, and made 
 him feel as if he were turning into an icicle. For on the 
 heathery bank, just where the poet must have been seated, 
 he saw something more than heather a sinister, black some- 
 thing a crouching something which had the semblance of a 
 human form, and seemed to his appalled imagination like the 
 very demon of suicide. With a desperate effort, which did him 
 considerable credit, he shook off this first access of unreason- 
 ing and unnerving terror, and without asking himself why he 
 did so, he hastened towards the spot. But midway in his 
 course he again came to a standstill. The black crouching 
 object was no longer a mystery. It was an object very familiar 
 to him. It was his wife. 
 
 Her face, strained and changed though so familiar, was 
 resting heavily on her hands ; and her eyes, as though she 
 were hypnotised, were fixed immovably on the rails. A slight 
 cry escaped him. He began to run wildly forward. Mrs. 
 Bousefield heard nothing until he was quite close to her. 
 She started, looked round, and gave an odd wavering scream. 
 The sound had not ceased when her husband had thrown 
 himself by her side ; and, after many long months, during 
 which such demonstrations had ceased, he once more had 
 thrown his arms about her, and had drawn her closely to 
 himself. ' My wife, my dearest wife,' he exclaimed, ' for God's 
 sake come away come away from this ghastly place.' For 
 answer, his wife's head sank limply upon his shoulder ; then 
 her lips shook with a little whimpering laugh, and this ended 
 in a series of muffled sobs, as her face sought to hide itself in 
 the folds of his marital coat. Mr. Bousefield said nothing until 
 this paroxysm had exhausted itself, and judiciously rested 
 
33 8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 content with the sustained eloquence of his arm. At length, 
 with an abrupt movement, like that of a sleeper waking herself, 
 Mrs. Bousefield sat upright, and looked with a timid smile at 
 her husband. 
 
 ' I 'd just a foolish fancy,' she said, in a tone of explana- 
 tion. ' I thought I 'd like to see the place where the poor 
 lad met his death. He was a sullen-tempered lad, and 
 conceited. Never did I see the likes of him ; but I 'm sorry 
 he came to so bad an end as this. It was just that nonsense 
 they puffed him up with that worried him into his grave. All 
 the same, this has made me feel quite queer. I 'm better now ; 
 and yet still I 'm a little weak like. Do you think, Mr. Prouse 
 Bousefield, ye 'd be good enough to help me home ? ' 
 
 All Mr. Bousefield's natural kindliness was aroused ; and 
 with a gesture which, if it hardly resembled that of an im- 
 passioned Romeo, had all the tenderness of a father bending 
 over a wounded child, he lifted his wife up. He drew her 
 arm within his ; and with slow steps they began walking 
 homewards. Their progress was satisfactory till they reached 
 the sandy tract on which the door of the garden of the villa 
 opened ; and then Mrs. Bousefield showed symptoms of such 
 exhaustion that her husband could but just support her until 
 they were in their own domain, where he placed her in a wicker 
 chair under one of the stunted pine-trees, and hurried into the 
 house himself to get her a glass of brandy. He shouted for 
 the maid, with a vehemence quite unusual with him. She 
 hurriedly made her appearance, with Mrs. Bousefield's letter 
 to him in her hand, and left him to beguile the time with it, 
 whilst she went to fetch the brandy bottle and a wine-glass. 
 He had no sooner read it, than he let it fall to the ground. 
 With an effort he braced himself to stoop and pick it up ; and 
 as soon as the brandy was brought, he, somewhat to the 
 maid's surprise, swallowed a glass himself, preparatory to 
 taking it to his wife. 
 
 As he was in the act of going back to her, he saw another 
 letter on a table a letter directed to himself, which had just 
 arrived from England. He snatched this up, and hurried 
 across the sandy grass. Kneeling by his wife's side, he applied 
 the glass to her lips. Her eyes were closed ; but his voice 
 and his touch roused her. She swallowed a little brandy ; sat 
 up, and looking at him with a reviving smile, said ' Thank ye, 
 Mr. Prouse Bousefield. I will soon be feeling better now. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 339 
 
 Ye won't go away just yet, will you ? ' He drew a chair close 
 to her, sat down by her, and patted her hand. ' Keep quite 
 quiet, my dear,' he said. 'I'll stay here and read my letter. 
 This afternoon I '11 take you out for a drive.' 
 
 This enchanting and unexpected promise did her even more 
 good than the brandy. She sank back in the chair, looking 
 happy, though still faint. Mr. Bousefield, whose heart was 
 weak and was still throbbing painfully, did not dare to look 
 steadily in the face the events which had just happened. He 
 could not have been more upset had he been capsized in an 
 omnibus. He turned, therefore, with a feeling of relief to his 
 hitherto unopened letter. Anything, he felt, would relieve 
 him that in any way would distract his thoughts ; and if he 
 hoped for distraction, he was certainly not disappointed. 
 
 He opened his letter. Having read a few words he frowned. 
 Then he put on his spectacles. Then he bit his lip, and 
 sharply changed his attitude. Then he drew in his breath as 
 if he had pricked his finger. Having read the letter through 
 once, he began to pore over it again. At the top of the paper 
 was an elaborately engraved address ' Tibbits' Auxiliary Auto- 
 Electric Motor Company, 480 Queen Victoria Street ; Works, 
 South Lambeth Road, S.W. ; Telephone Number, 0028 ; 
 Telegraphic Address, Revolution.' 
 
 Mr. Bousefield was still sitting with this document on his 
 knee when the garden door was abruptly pushed open, and 
 Mrs. Norham, who had had enough by this time of altruistic 
 agony, entered. At the sight of the group before her the 
 prophetess gave a start, and all the agony which had just 
 been dismissed from her face came back again in the form of 
 perplexed displeasure. ' What could it mean ? ' she asked her- 
 self, ' this unusual outburst of philandering ? ' And she strode 
 towards the husband and wife like a kind of moral policeman, 
 as if she would take them into custody, or order them to 
 move on. 
 
 ' Is Mrs. Bousefield not well ? ' she asked in frigid accents, 
 scanning Mr. Bousefield's left hand, which was resting pro- 
 tectingly on one of the unaltruistic hands of his wife. ' In 
 that case you should take her to her bedroom, out of this hot 
 sun.' 
 
 ' Hush ! ' said Mr. Bousefield ; ' she 's asleep.' And his voice, 
 though it was but a whisper, had a tone of command which 
 Mrs. Norham had never heard in it before. She could hardly 
 
340 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 believe her ears, and only a moment later she had a difficulty 
 in believing her eyes. Mr. Bousefield, using great caution, 
 bent over his wife's chair and kissed her hand, having gently 
 removed his own from it. Then he got up himself with as 
 little noise as he could, and beckoning Mrs. Norham to come 
 with him to a little distance, said, ' She has had more to try 
 her far more than you think. You and I have been so busy 
 with sufferings which are far off, that we have both of us been 
 blind to sufferings which have been very near to us, and which 
 we could not only have cured, but which/ he went on, his 
 voice growing somewhat tremulous, ' we have caused.' 
 
 ' Mr. Bousefield,' said Mrs. Norham, ' I am entirely at a loss 
 to understand you. What you may have done to ruffle Mrs. 
 Bousefield's nerves, I do not presume to guess ; but I will ask 
 you not to speak of " we." I think also it might have occurred 
 to you that on this day of my great sorrow, you might have 
 forborne to inflict on me these petty ' 
 
 But Mr. Bousefield stopped her. ' Hush ! ' he whispered ; 
 ' not so loud. Let her stay there completely quiet. She has 
 been suffering in a way which you I hope will never know by 
 experience.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham, who thought herself a very Sinbad in the 
 land of sorrows, and whose eyes, as she hoped, were still red 
 with weeping, was so indignant at the suggestion that Mrs. 
 Bousefield could suffer more deeply than herself, that, although 
 she had been silenced for the moment by the vehemence of 
 Mr. Bousefield's whisper, she was evidently on the point of 
 replying to him in a tone more sonorous than his own, when 
 he checked her effectually by putting into her hands the letter 
 which he had just been reading himself. ' There are many 
 matters/ he said, ' which we shall have to discuss shortly. I 
 have now something to think of that is more important than 
 any of them. Meanwhile, I will ask you to peruse that letter 
 carefully. It will give both of us sorrows, I fear, of a new 
 kind to think about.' So saying, he returned to the chair 
 which he had just vacated ; and, as though Mrs. Norham were 
 forgotten by him, again bent over his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Norham watched this behaviour with an astonishment 
 that was touched by pity. ' In spite of his talents/ she said 
 to herself, 'he was always at heart a bourgeois J and slowly 
 stalking towards the house she began to read the letter. The 
 writer was Mr. Dundas Poulton ; and she found in it, as she 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 341 
 
 read it, an unwelcome and wholly superfluous proof of how 
 superior were the agonies of altruism to those of egoistic 
 business. The Tibbits' Motor, Mr. Poulton began by saying, 
 was bound, beyond all doubt, to be the great success of the 
 century. There was literally a fortune in it beyond the dreams 
 of avarice. A rough working model of it had been already 
 fitted to a bicycle, which Mr. Tibbits had ridden yesterday for 
 two hours on a cinder-track, to the extreme admiration of five 
 hundred spectators. Favourable notices had appeared in fifty 
 different newspapers. But in spite of the brilliant prospects 
 which were thus waiting to be realised, the whole concern was 
 in danger of being completely wrecked, unless more money 
 should be forthcoming at a very early date. The office ex- 
 penses had been naturally very great. Fittings, carpets, safes, 
 the necessaries for the secretary's private rooms, copying 
 presses, stationery, and so forth, would all have to be paid for 
 in the course of the coming week, the firm which supplied 
 them declining to give extended credit. The workshops and 
 plant a really wonderful bargain had cost alone about four 
 thousand pounds, of which half had been paid already, the 
 balance being due in a fortnight. Another thousand would be 
 wanted to complete the alterations in the machinery, and for 
 these Mr. Tibbits already had given orders ; ' whilst Tibbits 
 and myself,' Mr. Poulton continued, 'have been put ourselves 
 to so many inevitable expenses that we have been compelled 
 each to draw a six months' salary in advance ; and the syndi- 
 cate has at the bank at this moment a balance of only fifty-five 
 pounds five. I had hoped that I might, when you received 
 my last communication, have had a remittance from yourself 
 and Mrs. Norham, amounting to at least fifteen hundred 
 pounds. Two thousand will settle all the most urgent claims ; 
 and I could have met the larger part of them by paying in my 
 own contribution, if it were not that the friend on whose be- 
 half I became responsible for it is at this moment in America, 
 and does not return till June. Unless you desire to see an 
 entire enterprise collapse, I would beg that you should return 
 to London without a moment's unnecessary delay, and that 
 you should also represent to Mrs. Norham the extreme gravity 
 of the situation.' 
 
 Here, indeed, was an unexpected blow. With heroic and 
 tragical self-control, Mrs. Norham, for the time being, reso- 
 lutely thrust from her mind all that was most dear and sacred 
 
342 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 to her, and condescended to brood over pounds, shillings, and 
 pence. She indulged in the reflection which was, perhaps, 
 not unnatural, that Mr. Poulton and Mr. Tibbits the one 
 the secretary, the other the Boanerges of altruism might 
 have forborne, at so critical a moment, from helping themselves 
 to their own salaries. She did, however, but partially realise 
 how urgent their expenses were, and that men, in positions 
 such as theirs, with a great future before them, are apt to 
 require exceptional relaxations, in order to relieve the tension 
 of their mental and nervous systems. Mr. Tibbits, for example, 
 the intrepid opponent of capitalism, had been so profoundly 
 moved by the sight of the Motor workshops, of which he, the 
 representative of labour, was to be one of the chief masters, 
 that he had been driven to celebrate the approach of the social 
 millennium by taking what he called ' a gurl ' with him to the 
 Metropole Hotel at Brighton, and giving her a taste of the 
 luxuries that would soon be common to all ; whilst Mr. 
 Poulton had been endeavouring to establish the credit of the 
 Motor Syndicate by showing to the city friends with whom he 
 had had dealings, the hospitable elegance with which its 
 secretary could entertain them in his own rooms. Mrs. Nor- 
 ham, however, though she was acquainted with all that is 
 greatest in human nature, was less familiar with its minor 
 characteristics, which are not, perhaps, less important. Hence 
 she allowed herself to think of Mr. Tibbits and Mr. Poulton 
 with an acerbity which they themselves would have resented 
 as undeserved. This trifling circumstance gave an added 
 gloom to her thoughts, which was still further enhanced by a 
 consciousness that she was too much of a genius to be altogether 
 a good woman of business. Accordingly, when she looked 
 from the library, to which she had now betaken herself, and 
 saw Mr. Bousefield still occupied with his wife, and at last 
 lifting her from her seat, and escorting her tenderly towards 
 the house, her indignation renewed itself at the unworthy 
 bourgeois selfism, aggravated as it was by the unfunctional 
 ethics of theism, which could allow a man, who at heart had 
 business capacities, to forget in mere domestic sentiment, 
 matters really requiring his attention. She must see him, she 
 felt, at once and at all costs. How should she seek him out, 
 without sacrificing her proper pride ? She rang for one of the 
 domestics, and sent by her some pencilled words to him. ' I 
 am in the library. I have read the letter. I must talk to 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 343 
 
 you about it immediately.' But to this message came back 
 the incredible answer hastily written on Mrs. Norham's own 
 scrap of paper, ' I am taking Mrs. Bousefield out for a short 
 drive. She is still painfully ill. I will see you the moment I 
 come in.' 
 
 During his drive with his wife, Mr. Bousefield unconsciously 
 realised that Mr. Poulton's letter had been a cloud with a 
 silver lining. It not only prevented him from perceiving with 
 too great clearness to how near the brink of a tragedy his 
 respectable feet had brought him, but it gave him an engross- 
 ing subject which he could talk over with his wife, and on 
 which this was better still he could ask for her prudent 
 counsel. Mrs. Bousefield had not been born north of the 
 Tweed for nothing. She was full of a considerable, though 
 somewhat uninstructed shrewdness ; and she could not have 
 found a kindlier shelter for her reviving conjugal happiness 
 than she did in asking her husband for an account of the 
 financial crisis, and giving advice to him as to how it might 
 best be met. By the time, therefore, that Mr. Bousefield had 
 come back from his drive, and found himself at last in Mrs. 
 Norham's offended presence, he had the novel consciousness 
 of being less her confidant than his wife's. He had also the 
 consciousness, not perhaps less novel, of being a man who, on 
 short notice, had decided what he meant to do. What he 
 meant to do was to Mrs. Norham at once a shock and a relief 
 a relief because his decision commended itself to her egoistic 
 prudence, a shock because he had arrived at it without con- 
 sulting her. It was one which was very soon made known to 
 the whole household, and it resulted in an immediate bustle, 
 a dragging about of boxes, and great collecting of miscellaneous 
 property. 
 
 This bustle was not over, although it was gradually sub- 
 siding, by the middle of the following day, when an elderly 
 portmanteau, two dress-baskets, and a very remarkable collec- 
 tion of dwarf bundles held together by prim little leather 
 straps, were taken down the tiled staircase of one of the three 
 villas and deposited near the front door. Mrs. Bousefield, 
 her head garnished with a bonnet in which jet beads twinkled, 
 was looking over the banisters, and was counting the parcels 
 on her fingers ; and Mr. Bousefield, arrayed in a loose black 
 overcoat, with a time-table in one hand, and a packet of 
 sandwiches in another, and some bills and the top of his cheque- 
 
344 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 book peeping from his stuffed pockets, was in the act of 
 descending, when he realised that the front door was open, 
 and perceived the presence of Lacy, who was in the act of 
 inquiring for his wife. 
 
 ' I called,' said Lacy, ' hoping that I might see Mrs. Bouse- 
 field, and ask whether anything could be done for the mother 
 of the poor wretch who has made away with himself. She 
 told you, I daresay, that I had written to her.' 
 
 ' To be sure,' said Mr. Bousefield, ' to be sure. Mr. Lacy, 
 we must both beg your pardon. But to tell you the truth, we 
 have had so much to think about, quite apart from this tragic 
 incident, that the matter I hope you will pardon us passed 
 out of our minds. Mrs. Bousefield and I, in fact, are return- 
 ing at once to London, leaving Mrs. Norham to look after 
 our guests till our term is up till the end, that is, of the 
 month. We are called away by business rather troublesome 
 business ; but we both shall be delighted to be at home. If 
 you '11 allow me, I '11 retain your cheque, and Mrs. Bousefield 
 shall see the woman. She 's always glad, my good wife is, to 
 do a true kindness to anybody ; and when she has seen her, 
 she shall write to you and tell you the result. I 'm sorry to 
 seem so inhospitable ; but I really feel, Mr. Lacy, that all I 
 can do this moment is to say good-bye to you, and to express 
 a hope that ahem should you ever in the future find your- 
 self ahem in Bloomsbury on your way, perhaps, to the 
 station, you will, if not otherwise engaged, look in, and take 
 pot-luck with us.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 WHEN Lacy and Lady Madeleine met again that evening at 
 dinner, Lady Dovedale was appreciably worse. -But in most 
 illnesses patients must be worse before they are better ; and 
 as Lady Dovedale's cough was her only unusual symptom, he 
 was puzzled to account for a certain abstraction of mind, 
 seemingly caused by anxiety, which Lady Madeleine betrayed, 
 and which he certainly had not noticed in her when he parted 
 with her earlier in the day. As the evening wore on, however, 
 he began to suspect, as a possibility, that her anxiety had its 
 source in her sympathy with his own position ; for as they sat 
 together in the drawing-room, she showed a persistent tendency, 
 embarrassed by shyness though it was, to ask him questions 
 about himself. Had he heard from Messrs. Fox again ? Had 
 he heard again from Mr. Millikin? How did he learn to 
 bear with such seeming indifference suspense with regard to 
 a matter concerning himself so nearly ? He was not as a rule 
 patient of intrusion with his own affairs ; but Lady Madeleine's 
 curiosity appealed to him not as curiosity but as interest ; and 
 he answered her, if not with openness, yet with a certain air 
 of gratitude. Indeed, before the evening closed, he made her 
 a short confession, which he had not till that moment made 
 even to himself. 'There is one thing in this uncertainty 
 which does give me real pain. Since I have been here I have 
 had many letters from home about the things I was doing on 
 my property, and others which I had meant to do. I turned 
 to few things with more interest than these. Piles of these 
 letters, and notes of my intended answers to them, are lying 
 on my desk now. Well, now I can't even bear to look at 
 them. That 'sail.' 
 
 He spoke with a feeling which he struggled, but not success- 
 fully, to conceal ; and then, with a desire to show that he was 
 not afraid of the topic, and yet to get upon ground which 
 
 345 
 
346 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 would offer him firmer footing, he proceeded to tell her of an 
 idea which had that day occurred to him, and which rose out 
 of the scene which he had witnessed on his recent visit to 
 Mrs. Bousefield. He described Mr. Bousefield's appearance, 
 and his air of hurry and agitation ; and enlivened his account 
 with reminiscences of his own last interview with Mrs. Norham, 
 including the tragical incident of his inappropriate laughter. 
 Having thus recovered his equanimity, he went on to say that 
 he suspected that the altruists were overtaken by some finan- 
 cial crisis ; and that if only this should happen to involve the 
 insolvency of Startfield Hall, he would, if it were not for a 
 financial crisis of his own, have tried to buy the building 
 himself, and turn it to some useful purpose driving out fine 
 culture, and bringing in plain cooking. 
 
 They both laughed at the scheme, and they parted not too 
 seriously; and the intimacy thus inaugurated grew through 
 the following days, extending itself gradually to a widening 
 range of subjects. They would walk together in the garden, 
 where the blue mornings glittered, and the powdery gold of 
 the mimosas was now fretting the sky. They would sit 
 together on the long terrace, whilst the sea sighed below 
 them, chafing the shore with its soft intermittent murmurs, 
 or bordering some island rock with a vanishing fringe of 
 swan's-down. Under influences such as these, Lady Madeleine 
 ventured to recur to the subject of Miss St. Germans, which 
 the objects around recalled to them ; and seeing that in spite 
 of his sympathetic admiration for the girl, the mention of her 
 name neither pained nor even embarrassed him, she was led 
 little by little to speak to him about her own life. She alluded 
 to her husband, who had died a year after their marriage 
 a great invalid, and a great collector of antiquities. He had 
 died, it appeared, in Italy, in a villa on the hills near Florence 
 a villa at which his widow had subsequently received her 
 invalided father. Italy, Lacy gathered, had excited in her 
 mind an affection which had not been happy in bestowing itself 
 on any more human object. He saw, as she talked to him, 
 vistas of pearly Italian mornings, when she had wandered out, 
 as she told him, alone amongst the dewy freshness, ' which,' 
 she said, ' despite all that my life was, made me always feel 
 as if I were breathing undestroyed hopes.' He saw the villa, 
 with its white and blistered walls, and the cypresses standing 
 round it, folding themselves in their dark cloaks. He saw 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 347 
 
 another villa, in which she had lived also, half a day's drive 
 from Siena a villa lost in enormous ilex-woods, where swine- 
 herds sang through the warm nights of mid-summer, and 
 crossed themselves at the sight of colossal pagan statues. 
 And through all these scenes Lady Madeleine seemed to 
 move alone, except for her father, and sometimes for her 
 mother or a younger sister, and on one occasion this 
 was at Venice for Lord Runcorn. Of her husband she 
 said little; and only on one occasion did any mention of 
 him escape her which breathed anything but calm regard. 
 Some chance allusion had been made to marriages for mere 
 money. 'My husband,' said Lady Madeleine, laughing, 
 'must have had a very poor opinion of them. He deter- 
 mined that no one should marry me except for my own sake ; 
 for he arranged that, if I married again, I should lose nearly 
 all my jointure.' 
 
 Conversations of this kind were of daily occurrence between 
 them ; but they both had other interests and other occupa- 
 tions also. Whenever Lady Dovedale desired or would 
 endure her presence, Lady Madeleine was always at her 
 service ; but several times, when she knew that her mother 
 would not require her, she betook herself to Lady Tregothran, 
 who was still anxious for her help ; whilst as for Lacy, he was 
 frequently at the Villa Martin, discussing the situation of 
 affairs at Manchester with Mrs. Tilney, to whose guidance 
 Lady Tregothran had now handed him over, and who seemed 
 to be as well acquainted with all the salient facts as her 
 intimate friend, who was at the head of the Central Conserva- 
 tive Association. 
 
 With regard to his candidature, indeed, matters had been 
 making progress somewhat faster than he himself suspected ; 
 for one morning at the Chateau a line from Mrs. Tilney 
 reached him, in which she informed him that she and the 
 officials at headquarters had by this time settled all the 
 preliminaries between them ; that his candidature would be 
 approved of by all sections of the party, and that he would 
 shortly receive a letter from the Central Conservative office, 
 to inform him that nothing was wanting but his own formal 
 assent. 'You will,' Mrs. Tilney continued, 'be probably 
 informed also that your return to England in a few weeks' 
 time will be desirable, and I hope you will not think this too 
 heavy a sacrifice.' 
 
348 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 The letter reached him at breakfast. That morning he 
 happened to be alone, Lady Dovedale's cough having been 
 troublesome during the night, and Lady Madeleine now being 
 with her at Lady Dovedale's own request. He was wishing 
 for his companion in order that he might tell his news to her, 
 when a servant entered the dining-room, who informed him 
 that she desired to see him, and begged that till she had done 
 so, he would kindly not leave the house. The man was still 
 speaking when Lady Madeleine entered. 
 
 ' My mother,' she said, ' is very unwell. Dr. Mercier 
 ought to be here from St. Hilaire presently ; but I should 
 like to telegraph for other advice from Cannes. If we 
 sent at once, Dr. Fairleigh could be here by one. She 
 breathes with so much difficulty, and I think she has begun 
 to wander.' 
 
 The telegram was sent with the utmost despatch possible. 
 Dr. Mercier arrived meanwhile ; and on quitting the patient's 
 room exhibited an expression which he reserved for the most 
 grave occasions. He agreed to return a couple of hours later 
 to meet Dr. Fairleigh, in case, on so short a notice, his 
 distinguished colleague should find it possible to arrive ; and 
 Lacy and Lady Madeleine were left in that state of suspense 
 which makes silence a burden, and ordinary conversation an 
 impertinence. Presently she went up to her mother's room 
 once more, and Lacy betook himself to the garden, a prey to 
 that vague depression which is caused in a house by the sense 
 that death may be about to enter it. With the aid of a news- 
 paper he had managed to beguile an hour, when he was 
 interrupted by the sight of Lady Madeleine herself approach- 
 ing him. The expression of her face surprised him. It was 
 one he had been expecting to see on it before the evening. 
 He was startled to see it there so soon. He knew what had 
 happened before she had said a word to him. He knew that 
 Lady Dovedale had passed beyond the ken of Mrs. Helbeck- 
 stein's visiting-list. Dr. Fairleigh arrived earlier than they 
 had dared to hope ; but all he could do, in acknowledgment 
 of his fee of thirty louis, was to eat an excellent luncheon, and 
 pronounce, after consultation with Dr. Mercier, that death had 
 evidently been due to pulmonary complications. ' Of these,' 
 he said, ' the cause was probably some recent chill ' ; nor when 
 he heard of Mrs. Helbeckstein's great but mistaken kindness 
 in removing Lady Dovedale to a house where she would not 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 349 
 
 be disturbed by dinner-parties, did he see any reason for re- 
 considering his opinion. 
 
 ' I have,' said Lady Madeleine to Lacy, later on in the after- 
 noon, ' telegraphed to my brother, asking whether my mother 
 should be buried at home or here. He and his wife are with 
 my father. My father will know nothing of this. His facul- 
 ties are completely gone. I shall probably get an answer this 
 evening. And I want to tell you another thing. I have just 
 had a note from Mrs. Tilney. That woman is kindness itself. 
 She has offered to come over and stay with me till all this is 
 over, supposing, of course, that you should be willing to 
 receive her.' 
 
 This last suggestion was to Lacy specially welcome, as he 
 already had been asking himself whether Lady Dovedale's 
 remains were a chaperon sufficient for even a widow, when she 
 was so young and so attractive as Lady Madeleine. Mrs. Tilney 
 accordingly made her appearance by dinner-time; and her 
 presence filled the Chateau with precisely the right combina- 
 tion of gloom, animation, and sympathy, which at once pays a 
 tribute to the seriousness of bereavement, and mitigates it. 
 On the present occasion, indeed, she was in better condition 
 than usual for playing this difficult part, being full of political 
 news of a grave and confidential kind, in which interest 
 might be decently shown, even under the shadow of recent 
 loss. 
 
 Lady Madeleine's telegram to her brother or rather her 
 half-brother, Lord Darley had its answer in the course of the 
 evening. This gentleman, by the fact of his being only Lady 
 Dovedale's stepson, was fortified in an opinion which he 
 would have probably entertained in any case, that few forms 
 of unnecessary expenditure have so little justification as 
 unnecessary expenditure on the dead. He accordingly would 
 not hear of the body being brought to England, and without 
 hesitation named Cannes as the most suitable place of inter- 
 ment. He at the same time engaged to be present at the 
 funeral himself; nor was there the slightest doubt that he 
 meant to fulfil his engagement, as he hoped to unite with his 
 duty a little melancholy pleasure. 
 
 Cannes, therefore, was to have the honour of receiving all 
 of Lady Dovedale that was mortal. Mrs. Helbeckstein ordered 
 a magnificent funeral wreath for the occasion ; and as Lord 
 Runcorn put the saloon-carriage of M. Martin at the disposal 
 
350 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 of the intending mourners, Mrs. Helbeckstein went herself, 
 with various fashionable companions in grief, to pay one last 
 attention to her dear and intimate friend. She was gratified 
 by perceiving that no wreath was comparable to her own ; but 
 so many of these tributes of affection were deposited on the 
 coffin by ladies who, during her lifetime, had snubbed Lady 
 Dovedale's pretensions, that if her liberated soul was permitted 
 to be present at her own obsequies, she must have been 
 pleasantly disappointed in finding that the other world was 
 in some respects superior to this. Lord Darley was asked by 
 Lacy to sleep at the Chateau des Fleurs ; but having a delicate 
 unwillingness to obtrude himself on the hospitalities of a 
 stranger, he preferred to put up with what Monte Carlo could 
 do for him at the Hotel Metropole. 
 
 Life at the Chateau de Fleurs, as is usual in such cases, 
 grew perceptibly brighter as soon as the funeral was over. 
 The party at the Villa Martin, and also Lady Tregothran, 
 paid frequent visits there, but all other callers were denied ; 
 and Mrs. Helbeckstein's opinion of Lacy and his immediate 
 friends rose in proportion as she perceived how little they 
 desired her company. As for Lady Madeleine, though her 
 mother had never loved her, she had always treated her with 
 respect, consideration, and forbearance, and felt for her loss 
 a grief which, though not ovenvhelming, was sincere, and said 
 more for her own nature than it did for her mother's deserts. 
 This being the case, Lacy was a little perplexed by an 
 impression, which after the funeral was very frequently forced 
 on him, that Lady Madeleine, when she seemed gravest, was 
 preoccupied by some trouble or interest with which the 
 decease of Lady Dovedale had very little to do ; and he could 
 not help connecting this mysterious fact with Lady Tregothran, 
 who, whenever she came to the Chateau, would retire with 
 Lady Madeleine to some room where they could talk alone. 
 
 The days, however, had gone on without anything further 
 having come for Lacy from Messrs. C. and J. W. Fox, except- 
 ing an acknowledgment of his answer, and an intimation 
 that they would write again. Mr. Millikin, it appeared, had 
 been left in precisely the same situation; and a letter of 
 his to Lacy indicated that he was more alarmed by the 
 quiescence of his unknown enemies than he had been by 
 their preliminary attack. But at length their silence was 
 broken, at least so far as Lacy was concerned ; and another 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 351 
 
 communication from the Messrs. Fox reached him. This 
 time it bore the address of their regular place of business. 
 
 'SiR,' so the letter ran, 'Since last informally writing to 
 you, we have been commissioned by our client to convey to 
 you, without prejudice, an intimation which you may deem im- 
 portant. He is, we take leave to mention, whatever may be 
 the issue of his claim, desirous of treating you with every 
 possible consideration. He not only entertains an admiration 
 for you as a public man, but he has some knowledge of your 
 character as a philanthropist and a liberal landlord ; and he 
 desires us to inform you that his claim will not, in any case, 
 be brought forward before the autumn of the present year. 
 Such being the case, he desires to inform you also, that any 
 work of a charitable or philanthropic nature which you have 
 already inaugurated, or may see fit to inaugurate, will be, 
 should the case be decided in his favour, carried on by him- 
 self in accordance with your wishes. We regret that we are 
 unable to write to you in more explicit terms. Our client forbids 
 us to do so for reasons of a personal, rather than a legal, 
 character ; but should you care to convince yourself that he 
 has a strong prima facie case, and that the intimation now 
 conveyed to you is intended and should be accepted seriously, 
 he is willing that we should, in strict confidence, disclose his 
 name and the entire basis of his claim to one of the members 
 of the firm of lawyers employed by you, in order that he may 
 satisfy you that we have represented his position rightly.' 
 
 This letter at once made Lacy think of his veiled Clair- 
 voyante. It increased his bewilderment, but it certainly raised 
 his spirits. He confided its contents to Lady Madeleine, and 
 then despatched it to his lawyers, asking the senior partner to 
 consult with Messrs. Fox, as suggested by them. The senior 
 partner's answer came by return of post. He informed Lacy 
 that the case, which was a very peculiar one, was beyond all 
 doubt such as the Messrs. Fox had represented it, adding that 
 the circumstances were very peculiar also under which it had 
 come into the Messrs. Fox's hands. ' In the present instance,' 
 the writer continued, ' you may be assured that they are acting 
 with perfect bona fides, and they have deposited with me their 
 client's own letter, in which he assures you that any work of a 
 charitable or philanthropic nature inaugurated by yourself will 
 
352 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 be continued by him, should the property change hands. It 
 is his evident wish that you should not be deterred from any 
 present expenditure by a fear either that you might not be able 
 to continue it, or be held responsible for such expenditure to 
 him ; and I will, on my own responsibility, advise you to act 
 accordingly.' 
 
 This letter Lacy showed to Lady Madeleine, who, remem- 
 bering what had been said to her some days ago, suggested to 
 him that there was one of his schemes which, at all events, it 
 might be in his power to realise namely, the purchase of 
 Startfield Hall. ' I 'm surprised,' she said, ' at your hesitation. 
 Write to some one in London, and discover how matters stand. 
 I 'm amused at finding myself, who am nothing if not un- 
 practical, urging activity on a practical man like you.' 
 
 ' That,' he replied, with a laugh, ' would be going a little too 
 far. What I said to you was only an idea of mine. Still,' he 
 continued, as if a new thought had struck him, ' I might find 
 out something about it by writing to Mrs. Bousefield.' 
 
 This Lady Madeleine strongly urged him to do ; but an 
 incident occurred which prevented him from following her 
 advice namely, the arrival of the following letter from Mrs. 
 Bousefield herself : 
 
 ' DEAR MR. LACY, I am just writing to tell you that I have 
 seen that poor body, the mother of the young man that died. 
 Let us think gently of his act, and not presume to judge him for 
 it. Indeed, it makes me think of him more kindly than I did. 
 If it were not for the Lord's mercies, what might not become 
 of any one of us ? Well, as I was to tell you, I saw the poor 
 old woman. She 's a decent body enough ; and as for washing, 
 she gets the napery up better than any of these steam laundries. 
 But she 's frail now ; and Mr. Bousefield and I will be glad to 
 add each of us ten pounds to your ten, and let her have it, if 
 you approve, according to her real necessities. 
 
 ' And now, if you will allow me to do so, I must congratulate 
 you on your prudent refusal to have anything to do with that 
 invention of Mr. Tibbits. It was indeed a bad business from 
 the beginning ; and Mr. Poulton and he have, like two babies, 
 or worse, just been playing at ducks and drakes with the 
 money. The hard part of it is that Mr. Bousefield will be 
 liable for the whole deficiency, unless Mrs. Norham should be 
 able to contribute anything; and he will probably have to 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 353 
 
 sacrifice a sum which he had set aside to meet the debt that 
 will be upon Startfield Hall, the subscriptions having fallen 
 short of what he had been led to anticipate. To my mind, 
 however, it would be no bad job if the place were sold, con- 
 sidering the management under which it must else fall. If it 
 were mine, I would do what you yourself suggested, and make 
 a cookery-school of it, and a school of washing and scrubbing, 
 and decent living generally. You must forgive me, if you 
 please, for having troubled you with so long a letter, and 
 believe me to remain, yours truly, 
 
 'ELIZABETH PROUSE BOUSEFIELD.' 
 
 This letter he showed to Lady Madeleine also ; but before 
 making any comment on it, she said to him, with a certain 
 abruptness, ' This mysterious claimant of yours has it never 
 struck you how curious it is that he knows such a number of 
 private things about you ? What should you say but I must 
 tell you I 've no shadow of proof the whole thing is a mere 
 idea that has lately flitted across my mind what should you 
 say if the claimant should be the father of Miss St. Germans' 
 mother an old man who knows Mrs. St. Germans well, and 
 who would have had from her the latest possible news of you ? 
 Whatever he's got, he means to leave to his grand-daughter ; 
 and he might, if there is anything in this claim, bring it for- 
 ward for her sake.' 
 
 Lacy started, and looked at her incredulously. And yet, 
 though the question had the air of being asked in banter, he 
 could not help fancying there was a certain note in her voice 
 which betrayed more knowledge of the matter than she 
 admitted she possessed, or than she wished him to suspect her 
 of possessing. 
 
 ' If my money is to be lost to me,' he answered, ' I do not 
 think there is any one to whom I would lose it sooner than to 
 the young lady you mention, and to a very promising young 
 man, who, I should hope, would share it with her.' 
 
 ' If you feel like that,' said Lady Madeleine, ' I must say 
 you are very generous. And now,' she went on, hurriedly 
 changing the subject, ' since we 're talking of your gene- 
 rosity, let us talk about Startfield Hall. Here is everything 
 happening exactly as you yourself wished. You should find 
 out all about it the moment you return to London ; for duty 
 will be calling you back in a very short time now.' 
 
 z 
 
354 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 'Are you, then,' he asked, ' in so great a hurry to get rid of 
 me?' 
 
 1 1 want you to do,' she answered, ' what is best for your 
 own future. It is not for my own sake that I am anxious for 
 you to go or it is,' she added ' it is, at all events, not for my 
 own pleasure.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE ordinary cynicism, which is somewhat stale with repeti- 
 tion, but is supposed by many people to be the quintessence 
 of knowledge of the world, has found no better subject for its 
 wit than the condition of holy matrimony, which it always 
 contrasts by implication with these other tender relation- 
 ships not hampered by bonds and not vulgarised by insipid 
 respectability. Lacy, who knew as much of the world as the 
 wittiest cynic in Europe, and who had tested relationships of 
 this latter kind by experience, had arrived at a complete and 
 sincere cynicism of his own. The object of his contempt, 
 however, was not the condition of matrimony, but any serious 
 attachment between the sexes which attempted to exist out- 
 side it. He knew, moreover, that such attachments, though it 
 might be difficult to prevent their existence, remain sufficiently 
 manageable so long as they are under lock and key ; and he 
 began now daily to have stronger reasons for congratulating 
 himself on the fact that his departure from the Chateau des 
 Fleurs was approaching. When he left for England, Mrs. 
 Tilney was to return to the Villa Martin, and Lady Made- 
 leine was to stay for a week or two at St. Hilaire with Lady 
 Tregothran. 
 
 The eve of his departure came. In another twenty-four 
 hours he and his guests would be separated, and the Chateau 
 des Fleurs tenantless ; and late in the afternoon he walked to 
 the Villa Martin in order to say good-bye to his aunt and 
 uncle. But he was not alone in his preparations. Another 
 and more eminent personage was also at the same time taking 
 a last look at the neighbourhood. 
 
 This personage was Mrs. Norham, who had on the day 
 previous despatched the paying guests in a through carriage to 
 Calais, hoping that the gentlemen of the party, who were 
 advocates of an international Socialism, would be able to 
 disguise, on the journey, their extreme antipathy to foreigners. 
 
 355 
 
356 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Mrs. Norham remained to go over the inventory; and the 
 Hegira of the prophetess was to take place on the morrow. 
 Since the departure of the Bousefields her mind had been 
 not inactive. She had suffered, and ' Oh, how greatly ! ' as 
 she not infrequently said to herself; but she recognised that 
 her sufferings were those attendant on mental growth. She 
 was rising through them, and, in spite of them, to a higher 
 plane of knowledge. Lady Cornelia Leyton had one day 
 left a card for her. On the card was written, 'With kind 
 inquiries ' ; and Mrs. Norham, unaware that amongst those 
 kind inquiries there had not been any inquiry as to whether 
 Mrs. Norham were at home, regretted with much sincerity 
 the fact that she had been out walking. These kind inquiries, 
 indeed, touched her very deeply ; and as she thought of 
 Lady Cornelia, of her warm sympathy, of her suavity, of her 
 breadth of view, and of the practical influence she might 
 have, from the fact of being her brother's sister, Mrs. Norham 
 was conscious that a subtle change was being accelerated, 
 which had begun in her at the moment when Mr. Prouse Bouse- 
 field, forgetful of his high calling as her moral and intellectual 
 henchman, had unaccountably surrendered himself to the 
 claims and domestic selfisms of his wife. ' Yes,' she said to 
 herself, 'he's a sensible business man. As the editor of a 
 Review he is probably better than most. But, after all, it 
 appears to me gravely doubtful whether my own work in the 
 world will not be better accomplished by attempting to 
 functionalise the best elements in the upper classes, rather 
 than by allying myself too exclusively with those who, owing 
 to the very fact of their being functional to some extent 
 already, are content to run in grooves. It may, perhaps, be 
 that true altruistic equality is to be realised by the aid of those 
 who would seem to be most opposed to it. If only I could 
 manage them if I could only get them to understand me ! 
 For instance,' Mrs. Norham went on to say to her soul, 
 ' some of them have great houses, with rooms made for meet- 
 ings. They lend them for such purposes. They secure on 
 proper occasions the presence of Royal personages. What 
 sounding-boards for the new gospel would assemblages such as 
 these be ! One would have, no doubt, to get over some of 
 one's nearest prejudices, but in the cause of altruistic equality 
 one must be prepared to sacrifice what is nearest to one.' 
 'In such access of mind, in such high hour,' Mr. Bousefield 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 357 
 
 and Bloomsbury, even Startfield Hall itself, began to wear for 
 Mrs. Norham a distant and tarnished aspect; and were only 
 brought back again into the foreground of her serious interests, 
 by practical considerations which at intervals would necessarily 
 reassert themselves. Mrs. Bousefield's letter to Lacy had con- 
 tained no more than the truth in its reference to the Tibbits' 
 Motor and the debt on Startfield Hall. Mrs. Norham, whose in- 
 stincts as to money matters were of a very honourable kind, 
 was anxious to meet her liabilities, but without any needless 
 inconvenience ; and her hopes of extricating herself from her 
 embarrassment on tolerably easy terms lay entirely in Mr. 
 Bousefield's prudence and fraternal zeal for her interests. It 
 would be wrong, therefore, she felt, to do anything that might 
 possibly alienate him ; and this view was commended to her 
 on yet higher grounds, by the reflection that the cause of 
 altruism might be very appreciably injured should Mr. Bouse- 
 field see fit to close his Review to her lucubrations. Whilst 
 thoughts like these were occupying Mrs. Norham's mind, the 
 great impersonal Power, which makes for human progress, had 
 ordained if a word may be used so full of anthropomorphic 
 suggestion that a Bloomsbury house-agent should write Mrs. 
 Norham a letter asking if she would be disposed to part with 
 the lease of her present house, for which he could secure her 
 an offer of three hundred pounds more than she had paid for 
 it. Had Mrs. Norham been a theist she would, when she 
 received this letter, have offered up to Providence an ecstatic 
 and heartfelt thanksgiving ; but as the only power which she 
 recognised was far too superior to be personal, and was con- 
 sequently unapproachable by such trivialities as prayer and 
 praise, she had to content herself with feeling very much 
 relieved. Three hundred pounds would do something to 
 liquidate her impending liabilities ; and the link would be cut 
 which bound her to the West Central District. Her mind, as 
 she thus reflected, acquired fresh elasticity, and a new plan 
 occurred to her by which her financial difficulties might be yet 
 further ameliorated, and her literary influence placed beyond 
 reach of Mr. Bousefield's captiousness. If Mr. Bousefield would 
 on her account pay five hundred pounds now, she would 
 repay him by writing for his Review an article every month for 
 a year ; and as each article, she estimated, would be worth 
 fifty pounds at least, her loan would be repaid him with 
 twenty per cent, interest, and would not thus place her under 
 
3$8 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 any degrading obligation to him. Mr. Bousefield, though he 
 regarded Mrs. Norham's altruistic essays as spiritually beyond 
 price, had not found their value, estimated in mere money, 
 quite as great as their authoress herself fancied it. He never- 
 theless at once accepted Mrs. Norham's proposal, feeling, to 
 say the truth, all the more anxious to help her, on account 
 of a certain coolness which seemed to have crept between 
 them. Mrs. Norham, therefore, on the eve of her return to 
 England, was, for various reasons, not so unhappy as she 
 might have been : and a gleam of the most hopeful sunlight 
 cheered her on her last day. Mrs. Norham the day before 
 had, after some hesitation, written a note to Lady Cornelia, 
 filial, plaintive, caressing, and very grateful, to ask her if 
 before departing she might come and see her just once more ; 
 and an answer had now come to tell her that on this last 
 afternoon Lady Cornelia would be at home, and pleased to 
 see her at tea-time. 
 
 Mrs. Norham arrived, and when she entered the drawing- 
 room her solemn heart swelled with a mixture of pleasure and 
 apprehension ; for she found herself confronted, not by Lady 
 Cornelia only, but by Lord Runcorn, by Mrs. Mordaunt, 
 by Miss Tilney, and by Lady Tregothran also. She was 
 conscious as she entered that her advent had produced an 
 awkward hush : but when Lady Cornelia rose, held out both 
 her hands to her, called her 'Dear Mrs. Norham' with the 
 most ornamental emphasis, and said, pointing to the tea-table, 
 ' Sit yourself down here,' Mrs. Norham began to feel that she 
 had done the right thing in coming. The feeling was enhanced 
 when Lord Runcorn, who a moment before had been dis- 
 cussing with Lady Tregothran the details of a current divorce 
 case, said to her, ' Mrs. Norham, I know you are an Italian 
 scholar. I have been longing to consult you about the 
 meaning of a passage in the Vita Nuova.' 1 Still Mrs. Norham 
 felt that, in spite of all these attentions, the situation had a 
 certain flatness ; and presently something happened which 
 threatened to render it even less satisfactory. This was the 
 entrance of Lacy, who, like Mrs. Norham herself, had come for 
 the purpose of paying his parting call. Mrs. Norham had 
 never forgotten her last unfortunate scene with him ; and his 
 offences were aggravated by the fact that this most inopportune 
 appearance of his had the effect, for the moment, of throwing 
 her completely into the background. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 359 
 
 From this mortifying situation, however, she was rescued in 
 an unexpected way. One of the ladies present, seeing her 
 thus neglected, rose from her own seat, took one by Mrs. 
 Norham's side, and began to talk to her with so much in- 
 telligent interest, that Mrs. Norham's visit was presently 
 exceeding her expectations as much as a moment ago it 
 had threatened to fall below them. The person who had 
 worked this change in her was none other than Lady 
 Tregothran. Lady Tregothran, though no woman in London 
 was a greater proficient in the art of snubbing than she, con- 
 fined her employment of it to the world to which she herself 
 belonged ; and was quite above the vulgarity of neglecting 
 any man or woman who was thrown into her company as 
 a stranger from some different social region. To such persons 
 her manner was instinctively charming and gracious. Her 
 political interests in London brought her into contact with many 
 of them ; and her quick and strong understanding enabled 
 her to talk to each with real comprehension of the movements 
 with which he or she was associated. Accordingly Mrs. 
 Norham found, to her surprise and her unspeakable delight, 
 that this woman whose face, whose trains, whose tiaras, had 
 roused her antipathy in the windows of so many photo- 
 graphers' shops, was intimately acquainted with her great 
 novel, The Disinlierited not only with the story of it, but 
 with the whole social teaching, and actually appeared to be 
 much touched and impressed by it. 'Ah,' thought Mrs. 
 Norham, ' what a field for my influence ! ' And then Lady 
 Tregothran, when she got up to go, said to the prophetess 
 these delightful words, ' Mrs. Norham, when you are in 
 London, I hope you will come and see me.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham was still dizzy with a sense of this brilliant 
 triumph, when a further tribute to her greatness was she 
 realised being laid at her feet. Lady Cornelia was saying to 
 her, ' Mrs. Norham, as you are quite alone, and as this is your 
 last night, I wonder if you would there will be no one here but 
 ourselves stay and dine with us. Pray do not think of dress- 
 ing ; and after dinner we will send you back in the brougham.' 
 
 With as much hesitation as was dignified, and no more, 
 Mrs. Norham accepted the invitation ; though it must be 
 admitted her exultation was a little damped by Lady Cornelia's 
 saying, ' That 's right. I 'm glad of that. My nephew, Tristram 
 Lacy, is going to do the same.' But the sting of this intelli- 
 
360 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 gence was presently quite forgotten when Lord Runcorn 
 said, ' I am glad to think that we shall once again meet 
 quietly, and shall be able to talk of things that really are 
 worth talking about.' 
 
 Nor did this forecast deceive her ; and although its fulfil- 
 ment was accompanied by sensations of unexpected pain, 
 these were ultimately lost in pleasure, and actually helped to 
 ennoble it. 
 
 Lord Runcorn's conversation was at first entirely literary ; 
 and Mrs. Norham was honestly amazed at the wide extent 
 of his reading, his extraordinary memory, and the minute 
 delicacy of his criticisms. There were moments even when, 
 in listening to him, she would have felt herself ignorant by 
 comparison, if it had not been for the grave deference with 
 which, in every sentence, he seemed to be appealing to her 
 own taste and judgment. Thus the time passed by agreeably 
 to all present. Mrs. Mordaunt even was a delighted listener, 
 as Lord Runcorn was the chief speaker, and as her jealousy 
 had been long since quieted by the size of Mrs. Norham's 
 waist. Mrs. Norham, however, though she felt herself the 
 undoubted queen of the evening, became gradually conscious 
 that a something was wanting to her complete beatitude. It 
 was all very well for her, as a woman of unique accomplish- 
 ments, to be giving her opinion of the works of other people ; 
 but her great mission, after all, was to express her own 
 personality partly as an authoress, but principally as the 
 hierophant of a great movement. She accordingly began 
 attempting, with all the skill at her command, to turn the 
 conversation from literature to life and civilisation generally ; 
 and at last by an adroit, though perhaps rather brusque, 
 manoeuvre, she brought into the highroad of their discussion, 
 as it were out of a side lane, the great new forces by which litera- 
 ture, so she said, was being affected democracy, socialism, 
 the denial of Theistic religion, the dawn of the love for others, 
 1 in fact,' she said, ' lateral religionism, as I call it, taking 
 the place of vertical.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham hardly knew whether to be most pleased or 
 mortified by the readiness with which Lord Runcorn took up 
 the idea suggested by her. It was a tribute, no doubt, to the 
 extreme lucidity of her expression ; but yet it somehow seemed 
 an affront to the burning novelty of her thought. 
 
 ' In the first romance I ever wrote,' said Lord Runcorn ' I 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 361 
 
 wrote it as a mere boy I remember saying that religion had 
 three dimensions.' 
 
 1 Indeed ! ' said Mrs. Norham. 'And did you use such an 
 expression ? That is really interesting. But since you used 
 it for in the new ethical world events have been advancing 
 with a rapidity which has no parallel in history thoughts 
 have come into being which no one could have attached to 
 the words then. When those words were written by yourself, 
 the new socialism was unborn. No one then burned with 
 the enthusiasm of equal culture. No one thought of altruism 
 as a triumphant substitute for Theism. The very word altruism 
 was in those days unknown.' 
 
 'Surely, dear Mrs. Norham,' interposed Lady Cornelia, 'at 
 the time of the French Revolution these wild ideas were 
 everywhere.' 
 
 ' Not,' said Mrs. Norham, ' as they are held now. They are 
 now wild no longer. The peculiar factor in the new social 
 situation is this : that these ideas, instead of being left to the 
 ignorant with whom, to say the truth, they were a mere form 
 of selfism have now been taken up, developed, and promul- 
 gated, by a large and growing section of the propertied and 
 cultured classes. That surely is a strange sign of the times ; 
 and I think Lord Runcorn must have seen it reflected in 
 literature, even if he has not had leisure to examine it at first 
 hand in life.' 
 
 'On the contrary,' said Lord Runcorn, who was still as 
 completely ignorant, as he was on the day of Mrs. Norham's 
 first visit to the Villa, of her claim to be anything more than 
 an accomplished and scholarly novelist; 'on the contrary,' he 
 said, ' I have observed it with some interest ; but you seem to 
 attribute to it more importance than I do. The middle-class 
 socialism, or quasi-socialism of which you speak, has really no 
 intellectual or moral origin at all. It has the same origin as 
 that grotesque middle-class medievalism, which was respon- 
 sible some years ago for so many absurd villas, so much bad 
 furniture, and for the monstrous dresses and coiffures, by 
 which women of a certain class who were doubtless meant by 
 Providence to have great attractions were to be seen disfigured 
 at such places as the Royal Academy. I declare I have seen 
 the wives of some artists make themselves such objects by 
 what they called their aesthetic costumes, that I have honestly 
 come to think their husbands' pictures, by comparison, almost 
 
362 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 as beautiful as I said they were in my after-dinner speech. 
 Well, what do you suppose was the origin of that solemn 
 efflorescence of folly ? It originated in the fact that, alone of 
 all classes, during the past forty years, the middle-class has 
 increased out of all proportion to the population. It has 
 grown, in fact, too fast to be civilised by its own traditions : 
 and there has come into existence a multitude of well-to-do 
 families who have had, as best they could, to manufacture 
 some tradition for themselves. Many of them, for this purpose, 
 had recourse to what they called aestheticism ; and for pre- 
 cisely the same reason others have taken to socialism 
 socialism doing for their political opinions the same service 
 that mediaevalism did for their manners. Both will pass. 
 We need not take either too seriously the suburban enthu- 
 siasm for Humanity, or the suburban enthusiasm for Botticelli. 
 How I wish that Mrs. Norham, who is undoubtedly our 
 
 greatest living novelist ' Lord Runcorn, as he pronounced 
 
 these words saw a change in Mrs. Norham's face. A moment 
 ago it was chilly and blank as a northern night. It was now 
 suddenly flushed with an aurora of tumultuous pleasure. The 
 habits of a lifetime had rendered him quite incapable of 
 ceasing to please a woman, when the process of pleasing her 
 had begun. Carried away therefore by the impetus of his 
 own generous praise, Lord Runcorn continued, ' I wish, I say, 
 that Mrs. Norham, with her quite unrivalled gifts of intellect, 
 of observation, of social description, and of satire, would help 
 to reduce the ideas and feelings of this highly important class 
 to some sober and really useful form. It's what only one 
 woman in a hundred years could do : but if any woman could 
 do it, that woman is Mrs. Norham.' 
 
 ' For shame ! ' said Lady Cornelia to her brother, when 
 Mrs. Norham had gone. 'You'll quite turn that poor little 
 woman's head.' 
 
 'Mrs. Norham,' said Lord Runcorn, 'is a woman of 
 exquisite modesty. She is so deaf to her own praises that, 
 unless you over-praised her a little, she never would imagine 
 she was being praised at all.' 
 
 However that might be, Lady Cornelia need not have been 
 anxious with regard to the condition of Mrs. Norham's head. 
 Lord Runcorn's praises, it is true, had had a momentous effect 
 on it ; but instead of disturbing her mind, they merely enabled 
 her to see with a quite new clearness the extent of her own 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 363 
 
 greatness, and the true manner in which it might best be 
 used. ' Yes,' she said to herself, as she sat in Lord Runcorn's 
 brougham, ' the middle-classes are further from social truth than 
 I had fancied. The upper-classes are more near to it. I need 
 only see a little more of Lord Runcorn ; and that man, about 
 social subjects, will think just what I choose to make him. 
 Lady Tregothran, too,' Mrs. Norham continued, ' is more than 
 half mine already ! If the Church of the Future were to meet 
 weekly in her drawing-room, such meetings would be more 
 widely functional than those even at Startfield Hall.' And 
 then there came back to her mind a few lines she had read 
 that morning lines which had appealed deeply to her, though 
 of no great literary merit. They occurred in a London paper, 
 and were these : ' Suitable for Bachelor or Lady without 
 Encumbrances. A unique opportunity offers of securing, on 
 low terms, the lease of a Maisonette between Oxford Street 
 and Grosvenor Square. Three sitting-rooms, three bed-rooms. 
 Usual offices. Address to Owner, 102 North Audley Street.' 
 
 ' Well, my dear Tristram,' Lord Runcorn had meanwhile 
 been saying, ' one reason why my praise of our fair Muse was 
 so undiluted, was that her great defect is one which I could 
 not even hint to her. She may have known what it is to feel 
 love ; but never what it is to excite it. The consequence is,' 
 he went on, turning to Mrs. Mordaunt, ' that she is in an awk- 
 ward attitude with regard to human life. She has a grudge 
 against its crowning passion.' 
 
 Mrs. Mordaunt looked up at him with an interested and half 
 sad tenderness. ' And is that,' she said, ' really the crowning 
 passion of life ? Do you think ambition is nothing ? ' 
 
 ' Ambition,' said Lord Runcorn, ' may be a servant or sup- 
 plement to love ; but it is never a substitute for it. The con- 
 tempt felt for Napoleon by the old noblesse of France was a 
 greater defeat for him than was that of Moscow or Waterloo. 
 All conquests are valueless without the personal conquest ; 
 and personal conquest, for a woman, means one thing before 
 all others. Even a man feels this with his vanity, if not with 
 his heart. The greatest conqueror, if women of the highest 
 class despise him, will always feel that he has conquered the 
 world in vain. You have read, I dare say, the poems of 
 Arthur Hugh dough. They contain, at all events, one admir- 
 able verse : 
 
364 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Ah, years may come, and years may bring 
 
 The truth that is not bliss. 
 But will they bring another thing 
 
 To be compared with this? 
 
 What, my dear fellow,' he exclaimed, as he saw his nephew 
 rising, 'and you must be going must you? Well good-bye 
 God bless you ! If you 're walking, you 've a brilliant night.' 
 
 When Lacy returned to the Chateau it was not yet half-past 
 ten. He had sent a message to say that he was going to dine 
 at the Villa ; and Mrs. Tilney and Lady Madeleine were still 
 sitting in the drawing-room. Mrs. Tilney, however, presently 
 went to bed ; and he and Lady Madeleine were left together 
 for one last interview. 
 
 ' My uncle,' he said, ' kept me till dinner-time talking about 
 political business. I was resolved not to follow the advice 
 you gave me by halves : and it was perhaps some comfort to 
 me to feel that my last dinner was one from which from 
 which I could rise without regret.' 
 
 'I can't allow you,' she said, laughing, 'to talk in this 
 desponding way. One would think you were never going to 
 eat a dinner again.' 
 
 'There are many things,' he said quietly, 'which I shall 
 never do or, at all events, never hope again. Look at the 
 sea ! Was anything ever so brilliant ? Since we are doing 
 last things, let us have a last look at it from the balcony.' 
 
 She followed him to one of the windows, and they went out 
 together. 
 
 'You,' he began again, when they had stood for some 
 moments in silence ; ' you, whatever happens to you, have a 
 something to which you may look forward, or which even now 
 shines for you through joy and through loss alike. I remem- 
 ber the hour I spent near you in the little chapel at St. Laurent. 
 I shall never venture to go I shall never have the opportunity 
 of going in the same company to such a place again. That 's 
 another of the things I have done for the last time. As for 
 me, I shall work, I shall laugh, I shall perhaps succeed in the 
 world ; but it is a world which for me means nothing beyond 
 its vanishing moments. The brightest of them are empty 
 bubbles, which burst on the unmeaning stream. And yet, 
 do you know, I have come to believe in one thing. I believe 
 in you. But,' he added, with a short laugh, 'what it is I be- 
 lieve I really could hardly say.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 365 
 
 Lady Madeleine was for some moments silent. She was a 
 woman who very rarely betrayed the least agitation ; but a 
 white flower, which she wore in her black dress, and was seen 
 by her companion to rise and fall in the moonlight, showed 
 that her silence was not the result of apathy. At last she 
 found her voice, though not her customary command of it. 
 
 ' I am sorry,' she said, ' that under the surface everything 
 seems so empty to you. You must let me preach you one 
 little parting sermon. You need not be afraid of it. It was 
 written, not by a clergyman, but by Goethe. Do you remem- 
 ber these lines in Faust ? Aren't they something like this ? 
 
 Woe ! Woe ! 
 
 Thou hast destroyed it, 
 
 This beautiful world, 
 
 With powerful blow. 
 
 Build it anew ! 
 
 In thine own bosom build it anew ! ' 
 
 ' Whether I ever do that or not,' said Lacy, ' I thank you all 
 the same for your last advice to me. Last moments,' he 
 added, looking at her, ' have their privileges. I am tempted 
 now to abuse them ; but we are both of us too wise for that.' 
 
 The following day, as he was about to start for the train, 
 which was to take him back to England, he had one more 
 opportunity of speaking a word to her alone. ' There is one 
 proverb,' he said, ' of which I have learnt the meaning Beggars 
 must not be choosers.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE brilliant weather which Lacy had left behind him on the 
 Riviera, some two or three months before, had found its way to 
 London ; and as one day in June he travelled to Euston from 
 Manchester, the sun once more beheld him as a member of 
 the British Parliament. His own name greeted him on the 
 placards at all the railway bookstalls. A leading article in the 
 Times did him ample and friendly honour. But in his own 
 face there were no signs of exhilaration. ' Here,' he said to 
 himself, 'is the weary round beginning again.' And then his 
 thoughts went back to the Chateau des Fleurs to its shining 
 skies, to the colours of its glittering garden, to a little chapel 
 that stood amongst pines and myrtles, and to a woman to 
 whom he had said at parting, ' Beggars must not be choosers.' 
 
 Such as his prospects were, however, he accepted them with 
 a frank philosophy, and on certain recent incidents he reflected 
 with considerable satisfaction. He had pushed forward the 
 improvements on his Cheshire estates rapidly, supported by the 
 thought that if the money expended on them should not be 
 his, it was at all events well invested for whoever might be the 
 legal owner ; whilst as for his personal expenses, he had re- 
 trenched these as far as possible, so that his own habits might 
 be proof against the blows of fate. A still further satisfaction 
 was awaiting him on the way from Euston to his house. It 
 was now about half-past one. He went from the station on 
 foot, and gradually found his way to a certain dwelling in 
 Bloomsbury. He rang the bell, and a little untidy butler, 
 with a manner which showed he was expected, admitted him 
 to a passage, adorned with a pale oak table, a plaster bust, 
 and a tray of dusty visiting-cards. From this the little butler 
 at once admitted him to a dining-room, where, between the 
 fireplace and a table already laid for luncheon, two persons 
 were seated in happy and domestic propinquity a lady with 
 
 SCO 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 367 
 
 a grey stocking steadily growing under her knitting needles, 
 and a gentleman on whose knee was reposing a placid and 
 sleek black cat. 
 
 On Lacy's entrance they both rose from their seats, the 
 lady exclaiming, 'Ah, but I'm just glad to see you,' and the 
 gentleman preparing for his guest a welcome equally cordial 
 by ejaculating to his cat, ' Now then, get down, Tompkins.' 
 
 ' Tompkins,' said Lacy ; ' and how may you be, my 
 friend ? ' 
 
 'Ah,' said Mrs. Bousefield, 'so you haven't forgot his 
 name. People say, Mr. Lacy, that cats are attached, not to 
 people, but places : but I don't think that's so with Tomp- 
 kins. When we got back from the South he was just wild 
 with delight to see us again ; and he slept all the first night in 
 one of Mr. Prouse Bousefield's waistcoats. We 've been sitting 
 in here this forenoon,' Mrs. Bousefield continued, 'because 
 the chimney is being swept in Mr. Prouse Bousefield's library. 
 Dearie,' she said to her husband, ' luncheon is in see. Mr. 
 Lacy, will you sit there? Mr. Bousefield, will you give a 
 blessing ? Which will ye have, Mr. Lacy mince collops, or 
 singed head ? ' 
 
 Then, as soon as this weighty question was settled, Mr. 
 Bousefield began on the subject which his guest had called to 
 discuss. ' I have,' he said, ' Mr. Lacy, according to your 
 request, completed in my own name the purchase of Start- 
 field Hall for you, and my dear wife will express to you better 
 than I can the pleasure she will have in superintending the 
 working out of your scheme. I may mention that I have 
 kept the transaction secret from our friend Mrs. Norham, who 
 lives now in a quarter of the town which is to me a terra 
 incognita. You will, perhaps, according to your judgment, 
 transmit to her the news yourself.' 
 
 'Dearie,' interrupted Mrs. Prouse Bousefield, 'I'm sure 
 ye 're feeling that draught. Don't you think, till your skull- 
 cap is ready for you, ye'd just better put on the tea-cosy 
 again ? ' 
 
 Lacy's own house, when he reached it, was dingy and dim 
 as ever ; nor did he expect to find anything there to cheer 
 him, beyond the commonplace letters that would congratulate 
 him on his recent victor}-. Of such communications he found 
 the expected number, supplemented by a dozen telegrams, 
 and by cards for several parties. But there was besides these 
 
368 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 another letter an unexpected one a letter written in an 
 evidently feigned hand, but a hand with which he was already 
 familiar. His cheek flushed as he saw it. He opened it, and 
 read as follows : 
 
 ' Your Clairvoyante has to communicate to you urgent and 
 important news, which must begin with an explanation. A 
 friend of yours a Mr. Brancepeth, on whom, judging from 
 his conduct towards you, I should suppose you had conferred 
 some favour managed to direct the attention of a certain 
 firm of lawyers to the family and the connections of Mr. 
 Octavius Brandon, with a view to discovering if there were no 
 next-of-kin. They shortly saw reason to believe that such 
 next-of-kin existed ; but as the investigations proceeded it 
 appeared that two persons were alive, of whom it was doubt- 
 ful which was the heir-at-law. One of these was a person 
 well disposed towards yourself, and anxious that the claim, 
 however valid, should be abandoned. It was necessary, 
 therefore, to sift the matter to the bottom, in order that the 
 legal position of this person might be established ; for, unless 
 the evidence to this effect were complete, the lawyers were 
 prepared to bring the other claimant forward, whose address, 
 at Sydney or Melbourne, had been already ascertained by 
 them. It is only twelve hours ago that the last evidence came 
 to hand, which completely substantiates the case of the other 
 party ; and had it not been for one unfortunate circumstance, 
 you would probably never have heard anything more of the 
 matter. The circumstance in question is this : The friend of 
 yours, whose name has been already mentioned, was employed 
 by the lawyers at one stage of the investigations ; and having 
 learnt that one of the claimants desired not to come forward, 
 but to leave you instead in undisturbed possession of the pro- 
 perty, he has threatened to communicate this person's legal 
 position to the newspapers presumably with a view to in- 
 flicting an injury on yourself; for you would not be able, 
 were the facts of the case known, to enjoy your present pos- 
 sessions on the sufferance of their legal owner. This friend of 
 yours, however, has been bribed to keep silence for a few days 
 longer, in order that meanwhile one or other of two solutions 
 may be arrived at. Seeing that undoubtedly Mr. Octavius 
 Brandon believed himself to have no blood-relatives living, 
 other than his sister and his son, and intended that the pro- 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 369 
 
 perty now possessed by you should go, in the event of their 
 death, to you and to no other person, and that the present 
 claimant is entitled to it contrary to Mr. Brandon's wishes, it 
 is thought that a compromise may be effected, and in equity 
 ought to be effected, which would leave your estates in 
 Cheshire free of all encumbrances. It seems possible, how- 
 ever, that there may be another way of settling the matter of a 
 character still more satisfactory. Your Clairvoyante has thus 
 far expressed herself as a lawyer or a precis-writer rather than 
 as a prophetess : but she will close her letter with a prophecy, 
 and will beg you not to disregard it. The decision between 
 these two methods of settling your affairs will be made by you 
 to-night; and you will find in your house, at your return, 
 together with this letter, another communication, which will 
 direct you to the place at which your decision is to be made.' 
 
 Having finished this, he turned to his other letters, and 
 began again to examine them this time with more attention. 
 But except congratulations on his success at Manchester, there 
 was nothing but invitations to a dinner or two, and to four or 
 five evening parties. Of these entertainments one only was 
 to take place that evening. He looked at the card carefully, 
 which conveyed the request that he would assist at it. Presently 
 he went to his bedroom with a somewhat abstracted air ; and 
 half an hour afterwards, having freed himself of the dust of 
 travel, went out to confront the afternoon of a London June, 
 dressed, perhaps, with a little more care than usual. 
 
 Ascot week had just drawn to an end ; and Piccadilly, after 
 its short parenthesis of quiet, was, not indeed fuller, but gayer 
 and more animated than before. Carriages went glancing by, 
 with blossoms of brilliant parasols. Men, of finished appear- 
 ance, with shining hats and boots, moved along the sunny 
 pavement ; and Sir Reginald Flotsam, as he talked to some 
 choice spirits, was impeding pedestrian traffic in front of the 
 Turf Club. But no man, walking or driving, presented an 
 appearance so brilliant as one who was watching the scene 
 from a certain club window. His collar, his necktie, and the 
 delicate little flower in his buttonhole, were as near perfection 
 as anything on earth can be ; and the fit of his coat was dis- 
 turbed by one thing only some cards and notes, the tips of 
 which protruded from his breast pocket. Any one who, having 
 ever seen him before, failed to recognise him by characteristic 
 
 2 A 
 
370 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 signs like these, would at all events have known by his hair 
 that this was Mr. Poodle Brancepeth. 
 
 The Poodle was not alone. Seated directly opposite to him, 
 almost as well dressed, but considerably more haggard, was 
 the gentleman whom, with endearing familiarity, he was 
 accustomed to call George B. The face of the latter wore a 
 somewhat ambiguous expression, as though he were doubtful 
 whether to look on the Poodle as his closest friend, or as an 
 enemy. ' Well,' he said rather sharply, ' and what 's the news 
 from Sam ? ' 
 
 ' Dear old boy,' said the Poodle, ' Sam 's as hard as a rock. 
 If Moses had struck him he might have got water or perspira- 
 tion out of him, but Moses himself wouldn't have got money.' 
 
 George B. drew his chair a little nearer to the Poodle's, and 
 there came over his lean face a vicious shadow of determina- 
 tion. ' Look here, Mr. Poodle,' he said, ' let 's have none of 
 your blarney. You and I are very good pals and all that, but 
 I 've got a bone to pick with you, and I do it before we go 
 further.' 
 
 ' Dear old boy,' exclaimed the Poodle, in a tone of surprised 
 solicitude, ' what have I done now ? I couldn't have seen you 
 before to-day now could I ? You 've only been in London 
 for a few days ; and as for me, I 've been working like a 
 nigger in Yorkshire, looking at Parish Registers till I felt 
 myself turning into a vestry-man. I hope that I 've said or 
 done nothing to hurt your feelings.' 
 
 ' Feelings be damned,' said George B. drily. ' You slipped 
 out in a letter you wrote me at Nice that you 'd been a bit 
 too free in the use you made of my name that you 'd said this 
 precious hoax was not your plan but mine. Well, Mr. Poodle, 
 that statement was not what gentlemen commonly call the 
 truth. The plan was yours, and you started playing your 
 game to get off a grudge against a man who had lent you 
 money. I 've got that down in your own writing also ; and if 
 other people happened to know that, it would not increase their 
 appreciation of Mr. Poodle Brancepeth. However, I '11 say 
 nothing more about these matters, unless you make free with 
 my name, or my claims on yourself, again. Now in considera- 
 tion of a little accident at Monte Carlo, which resulted in 
 your spending by mistake something like half my winnings, 
 and in consideration also of a little information I gave you 
 about the Brandon family, you agreed that I should go shares 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 371 
 
 with you at anything, and in everything which you might get out 
 of Sam or otherwise, in connection with this business. So come, 
 Poodle, don't let 's quarrel. What will Sam plank down ? ' 
 
 'My dear George B.,' said the Poodle, blushing and speak- 
 ing hastily, ' I don't know what I 've done that you talk in 
 that tone to me. I was just going to tell you the very thing 
 you asked me ; but you jump down my throat, and won't give 
 me time to speak. The fact is, everything's upside down. 
 The true claimant whatever we do don't let us mention any 
 names here well, old boy, I told you who that was, as soon 
 as ever I knew ; so don't say that I haven't played the 
 game with you well, we didn't know it up to the day I 
 wrote to you. But meanwhile what happened was this. I 
 didn't tell you before, because at first there seemed to be 
 nothing in it. Sam applied to somebody, whom he believed 
 to have some necessary papers. This person goes through the 
 papers in question, finds out the whole thing, and proves, if 
 you please, to be a person who is the claimant's intimate 
 friend. And now the claimant turns round upon Sam, and 
 does not want to go on with the case at all. Well, Sam 's 
 been squared somehow ; but as for me and you well, all I 
 get is a cheque for two hundred pounds here it is you may 
 see it, if you don't believe me and a written engagement to 
 pay me three hundred this day month, if the claimant's name 
 is kept secret till then.' 
 
 ' What 's the meaning of that ? ' said George B. suspiciously. 
 
 'Well,' replied the Poodle, 'a bit of the meaning is this 
 that if only T. L. knew who the claimant was, he 'd be forced, 
 for shame's sake, to give the property up. That 's a bit of the 
 meaning ; but I 'm hanged if I know what the rest is. But 
 one thing I do know that as soon as the month 's expired, 
 we '11 have a little paragraph in one or two of the papers. I 
 mean to be even with our friend T. L. yet. I never saw in 
 my life so ungrateful a brute as he is and after all I Ve done 
 for him, too ! Why, five minutes ago you 'd hardly believe it 
 he cut me dead in the street. Well, George B., that is the 
 long and short of it. If you and I are mum for another 
 thirty days, we shall have three hundred to divide fairly between 
 us ; and as for the two hundred, if you don't think you can 
 trust me, come with me to Sam's banker to-morrow, and I '11 
 hand you over one-half on the spot. As for the rest, if you 
 like it, I '11 give you an I.O.U.' 
 
372 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 ' My dear chap,' said George B. drily, ' never mind about 
 your I.O.U. I 've got one or two of your bits of paper, Mr. 
 Poodle, already one or two letters, as I told you ; and when 
 our accounts are squared, I '11 burn them or give them back to 
 you, whichever you like best.' 
 
 Though the Poodle had not made quite so good a bargain 
 as he had hoped to do, he had yet contrived to do better for 
 himself than his intimate friend suspected ; as Mr. Davis had, 
 in addition to the cheque, been obliging enough to give him a 
 hundred pounds in cash. Accordingly, the moment this busi- 
 ness was settled, he started another topic, so as to prevent the 
 question being reopened. 
 
 ' I say,' he said, looking out of the window, ' There they go ! 
 See the stream is beginning ! ' 
 
 'What do you mean?' asked George B., looking out of the 
 window also. 
 
 ' The people,' replied the Poodle, ' who are going to Lady 
 Tregothran's. Look look ! That 's the old Duchess of 
 Warbey and her daughters. Dear old girl, she was awfully 
 kind to me when I first came to London. And there 's Hugo 
 Surtees,' he exclaimed with extreme vivacity, as he gesticu- 
 lated wildly to a gentleman of fashionable aspect, who was 
 driving by in a phaeton, with a large flower in his buttonhole. 
 
 George B. looked at the Poodle with a certain mischievous 
 malice. ' Well,. Mr. Poodle,' he said, ' I suppose I shouldn't 
 be detaining you longer. You '11 be going off presently to 
 this tine fete yourself.' 
 
 The Poodle was about to say, 'I'm not going till much 
 later ' ; but remembering that the names of the guests would 
 be certainly in next day's newspapers, he came to the conclu- 
 sion that an answer having an element of truth in it might be 
 better than pure fiction. Accordingly he said, ' Not I. The 
 fact is, I and that lady have quarrelled. I threw her over 
 once, when she asked me to go to the play ; and the conse- 
 quence is she 's never sent me a card since.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 MEANTIME the stream of carriages, the beginning of which 
 had been remarked by the Poodle, continued to flow towards 
 the scene of Lady Tregothran's entertainment. This was not 
 her house contiguous to Berkeley Square, in which she and 
 Mrs. Tilney had discussed the secret of Lacy's character. It 
 was another in a western suburb, about five miles from Hyde 
 Park Corner, and itself and its surroundings were of a very 
 different kind. It was a classical villa which taste, in the 
 reign of George n., had placed on the site of a gabled 
 Jacobean manor-house. The manor-house was gone, but its 
 old gardens remained, with their ruddy brick walls, their 
 quaint pillared pavilions, and box-bordered walks and flower- 
 beds arranged in formal patterns. Beyond the garden and 
 all around the house were lawns and glades, shadowed by 
 enormous elm-trees ; whilst from two lodges, which fronted a 
 noisy thoroughfare, a long avenue led through reaches of 
 quiet park, to a gravelled expanse flanked by balustrades and 
 urns, and to two flights of steps that mounted to the great 
 front door. Such was Hammersmith House, which, in addi- 
 tion to its other attractions, was haunted by a century's 
 memories of wit, beauty, and statesmanship. The kins- 
 woman, however, from whom Lord Tregothran had inherited 
 it, had, during her widowhood, which lasted for thirty years, 
 lived there in a seclusion so complete and unbroken, that its 
 former social glories had become a tradition only ; and the 
 party now being given was heralded as a gallant attempt on 
 the part of Lady Tregothran to bring the old times back again. 
 
 But the old times, if brought back, were to be brought back 
 with a difference ; for Lady Tregothran's party was, in some 
 respects, wholly novel. It was to be a garden-party ; but it 
 was to be a garden-party of a kind with which London had 
 not hitherto been familiar. In the first place, the hours of 
 
 373 
 
374 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 the entertainment were altogether original. They were not 
 from the conventional 4.30 to 7. They were from 7.30 to 5 
 o'clock in the morning ; and how the guests would be enter- 
 tained during this long period was a secret which, up to the 
 last, had been so well kept that they enjoyed on arriving all 
 the vicissitudes of surprise. 
 
 As they passed through two halls, from the door at which 
 they arrived to the door opening on the garden, at which their 
 hostess received them, their eyes were caught by a notice at 
 the entrance to one of the side-rooms, announcing that 
 dominoes would be procurable there any time after ten. This 
 caused at once a delightful flutter of spirits, supplying every- 
 body with an absorbing subject of conversation ; so that the 
 party was already a success almost before it could be said 
 to have begun. Never had Lady Tregothran looked more 
 brilliant and beautiful than she did, when, shadowed by a 
 large picturesque hat, she administered her greetings to the 
 ceaseless procession of her friends, imparting a freshness by 
 the magic of her eyes and manner to phrases which would 
 otherwise have lost all their life by use. At the lower left- 
 hand corner of the cards of invitation had been written the 
 words, 'Morning or Evening Dress.' The men had, with one 
 accord, accepted the former alternative. The ladies had 
 arrayed themselves in a variety of bewildering toilets, which 
 suggested to the dazzled and undiscriminating eyes of man the 
 lawn at Goodwood, the illuminated boxes of the opera, the 
 concert-room at Monte Carlo, and the Battle of Flowers at 
 Nice. The day had been very hot ; but now, in the golden 
 evening, the air, till lately oppressive, caressed and refreshed 
 the senses. 
 
 For a quarter of an hour or so, the guests, as is usual on 
 such occasions, hung round the place of arrival, as though 
 afraid to disperse themselves. But gradually adventurers, in 
 groups of twos and threes, detached themselves from the mass, 
 setting forth on voyages of exploration ; and soon the bulk of 
 the company began to distribute itself similarly. From various 
 parts of the grounds the sounds of bands were audible, inviting 
 uncertain feet to wander in their direction. Presently it was 
 perceived that in the shadow of a line of trees were certain 
 little shows and shooting-galleries, gaudy with paint and gild- 
 ing ; whilst here and there, discreetly embowered in leafage, 
 were pavilions no less gaudy, ornamented with innumerable 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 375 
 
 lamps, and bearing over their closed doors announcements in 
 French that they were dancing-saloons, and would be open 
 at ten o'clock. But the central wonder of the entertainment 
 was discovered in a broad horse-chestnut avenue, the long 
 vista of which was not visible from the house. As the 
 company gradually found their way into this, they fancied that 
 they had been transported to the Champs Elysees in Paris. 
 Along this avenue had been arranged a succession of cafes, 
 cafes chantants, and beer-gardens. Open spaces were dis- 
 cernible, enclosed by green hedges, and filled with chairs, and 
 little tables with marble tops, fronting which were the stages 
 for singers and other artists ; whilst in close neighbourhood to 
 these were other places of entertainment buildings of two 
 stories, having balconies before their upper windows, and lace 
 curtains and lighted chandeliers within. Each of these estab- 
 lishments had emblazoned over its entrance its name, such as 
 Cafe des Princes or Cafe des Ambassadeurs, under which were 
 the words, Diners et Soupers a la Carte ; whilst two of them 
 added to this the announcement, Cabinets Particuliers. 
 
 Slowly, but surely, Lady Tregothran's guests realised that 
 here, in these cafes, they were to partake of their evening's 
 meal that they were to order their dinners as they pleased, 
 make up their own parties, and subsequently to arrange for 
 themselves their programmes for the night's dissipation. The 
 idea, when once it was grasped, seemed to diffuse everywhere a 
 spirit of gaiety that was French rather than English. First one 
 party, then another, shyly made its way into one of the cafes 
 or another. Then their example was followed by the company 
 generally. The dining-rooms seemed as if they were made out 
 of the very substance of the French capital. The waiters were 
 true Parisians; and many of them added to the delightful 
 illusion by their ignorance of any language except that of their 
 own land, which made not a few of the guests feel that they 
 were abroad indeed. As champagne corks popped, as dishes 
 were ordered and presented, and finally, when coffee appearing, 
 cigars and cigarettes came forth, and sent up their silvery 
 incense between the hats and laces of the ladies, the spirit 
 of Paris communicated even its odour to the air. 
 
 Meanwhile without, the innumerable lamps had been lighted. 
 There was a glimmering in the trees above. There was a 
 glimmering amongst the chairs and the marble-topped tables 
 below. Footlights were glowing before the little open stages ; 
 
376 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 and there came a twanging and scraping as of stringed in- 
 struments being tuned. Messengers were despatched with 
 tickets to the cloak-room in the house itself, and presently 
 returned with cloaks, in which some of the ladies arrayed 
 themselves. There was a sound of parties rising, and of 
 chairs being pushed back. Here and there a group would go 
 out on to a balcony, and look down on the movement which 
 was now beginning below. In the garden of the Cafe des Am- 
 bassadeurs, a music-hall singer from Paris, who had evoked 
 the rapturous blushes of every city in Europe, was about to 
 make her appearance. Soon every seat was occupied. The 
 orchestra burst forth; and after performances by some con- 
 jurors and artists of lesser note, there advanced at last, to a 
 sound of tumultuous clapping, a thin serpentine woman, with 
 sombre, sparkling eyes, abnormally long black gloves, and a 
 voice so deep in its resonance that it seemed to rise out of 
 the bowels of the earth. Her song was greeted by a frantic 
 storm of applause, in which those who could not understand 
 her, and were not in a position to be shocked at her, out- 
 rivalled the minority who could, and who were not to be 
 shocked at anything. 
 
 Similar scenes were being enacted elsewhere also. The 
 great singer indeed was to make the tour of the cafes. But 
 besides this movement in the purely musical world, there 
 was a sense in the air of some wider and more general stir. 
 All the little shows and shooting-galleries, which the guests 
 had noticed on their arrival, were now open and illuminated, 
 and were beginning to attract patrons. Laughing groups, 
 or discreetly whispering couples, were now dimly discerned 
 strolling in all directions, some seeking the illuminations, 
 some endeavouring to escape from them. Then presently the 
 faint volume of music which had been reaching the ears of 
 the strollers from the precincts of the cafes chantants, was 
 reinforced by strains of a different character. New lights 
 were seen streaming across the shorn turf, and new glimmer- 
 ings mounted into the greenness of the high trees. These 
 were the signs which indicated that the dancing-saloons 
 were open, and that the lamps which festooned their 
 doorways and fringed their roofs were lighted. At the same 
 time, amongst the guests, who were still habited as they had 
 been, there began to appear mysterious forms in dominoes. 
 The sight of these suggested to a number of others the 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 377 
 
 stimulating announcement which they had seen in the hall 
 on entering. It was found that the arrangements for supplying 
 the ladies, who wished for this, with disguises, had been of the 
 most complete and ingenious kind imaginable ; and any lady 
 who was anxious to lose her identity could enter at one door 
 and return to the gardens by another, in a garment which 
 rendered her unrecognisable by the nearest and dearest of her 
 acquaintances. Under such circumstances the dancing-saloons 
 vindicated their powers of seduction by being rapidly filled 
 with adventurous crowds of pleasure-seekers, whose members 
 felt, as they watched or took part in the revelry, that the 
 ordinary London ball would be insipid for ever afterwards. 
 
 All, or at any rate two-thirds, of the fashionable world was 
 present, from Royalty downwards ; for Lady Tregothran had 
 judged rightly that a party such as this would be ruined by 
 being too exclusive. She would probably, indeed, had she 
 seen her way to doing so, have invited a few members of the 
 demi-monde, to add to the mystery, and perhaps to the interest 
 of the proceedings ; but this kindness to the unfortunate was 
 checked by its practical difficulties. She had, however, as 
 it was, sufficient social variety; and the inclusiveness of her 
 hospitality was such as to give pleasure to all of her guests 
 but one. This sole exception was Mrs. Helbeckstein, who, 
 sailing majestically past a quiet-looking family group near 
 relations to a celebrated Highland chieftain felt the blood 
 of her father, the pawnbroker, boil in her purple veins, and 
 exclaimed, ' Dese English upstarts ! how do dey manage to 
 get here?' 
 
 Of this happy and privileged crowd Lacy formed a member. 
 The fact that his possession of his fortune was not so secure 
 as it might be, had been kept so carefully secret by the 
 few persons who were aware of it, that the kindness and 
 appreciation of his friends remained as great as ever ; and 
 few people amongst the crowd in the entrance-halls had been 
 greeted with such intimate smiles and such emulous cordiality 
 as he. It was also noticed by several vigilant ladies on their 
 promotion, whose minds were mainly occupied with solving 
 the nice question of whether this person or that person were 
 really what they called ' smart,' that Lady Tregothran, when 
 Lacy made his appearance, received him with a welcome more 
 intimate than she was according to the majority of her ac- 
 quaintances ; and that for ten seconds she detained him in 
 
378 THE INDIVIDUALIST 
 
 whispered conversation. The observers saw this; but there 
 was something else which they did not see that Lady 
 Tregothran slipped a note into Lacy's hand as she greeted 
 him, saying, ' Some one, who will be here to-night, has asked 
 me to give this to you.' 
 
 Lacy having received this, not without a sensation of 
 surprise, had as soon as possible made his way through the 
 crowd, and escaped to one of the walks, where he could 
 examine the missive unobserved. It was written in a hand 
 unknown to him, and its brief contents were as follows 
 
 ' Our hostess, whom I have known from a child, has pro- 
 mised to give you this. The pavilion, in the old garden, will 
 be occupied to-night by a fortune-teller. Be there punctually 
 at half-past twelve. Say to the attendant at the door, "I 
 come here by appointment," and then see what happens to 
 you. It will be something which you will neither forget nor 
 regret. Make no engagement for supper.' 
 
 Having digested these instructions, and made up his mind 
 to follow them, he went back to the crowd in that agitation of 
 spirits which demands some excitement other than that which 
 has caused it. He soon found one of a singularly unexpected 
 kind. As he returned to the neighbourhood of his fellow- 
 creatures, the first thing that caught his eye was a female figure 
 standing solitary on the confines of the crowd, and looking 
 about her with an air of singular and complete detachment. 
 He was bearing straight in the direction of this phenomenon 
 when he checked his steps involuntarily and perceived that it 
 was Mrs. Norham. 
 
 Mrs. Norham had, half an hour ago, been wishing that an 
 impertinent critic who had called her, in irony, ' one of our 
 greatest women,' and had presumed to add, ' how little do our 
 greatest women know of the world,' could only have set eyes 
 on her as she was driving towards Hammersmith House ; and 
 now she had arrived there, she had sought refuge by inverting 
 this criticism, and reflecting ' how little the world knows of its 
 greatest women ! ' She was engaged in this spiritual exercise 
 when her eye fell upon Lacy the one familiar object in a 
 universe of entire strangers. In a single sublime moment she 
 forgave him for the wound he had inflicted on the mystical 
 body of Humanity by his laughter at the poet's tragedy. In 
 the name of Humanity she forgave him ; and having greeted 
 him before he could escape her, she began with inexhaustible 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 379 
 
 condescension to converse with him about a succession of 
 trifles, beginning with climate as related to open-air festivities 
 in general, and ending with the date of the gardens gardens, 
 as she vainly hinted, in which she was much interested, and 
 was particularly anxious to examine. Lacy listened as well as 
 he could, his eyes being occupied as he did so with wondering 
 at the fashionable garden which had developed itself in Mrs. 
 Norham's bonnet ; but as soon as civility would permit him, 
 he detached himself from the magnetism of her presence. 
 Mrs. Norham, who never in her life had felt more strongly the 
 drawing, the compelling power of that altruism whose apostle 
 she was, was burning to be organically functional to give 
 herself to the service of anybody besides herself to walk with, 
 to lecture, to impress, to dine with anybody. But finding no 
 one on which her enthusiasm for others might be wreaked, and 
 fearing that unless she did so she might fall into the sin of 
 selfism, she determined to take her departure with all the 
 dignity she could muster. Nor in doing this was she without 
 a companion to sustain her. In her own breast she carried 
 the secret consciousness that the following night she was to 
 dine with Lady Cornelia Leyton, for the purpose of meeting a 
 party of very particular friends, and one friend who could it 
 be ? more particular than all, in whom Mrs. Norham would 
 find a particularly congenial spirit. 
 
 Lacy meanwhile had attached himself to friends of his own, 
 with whom he secured a table at one of the Parisian cafes, 
 and at half-past eight they sat down to a meal with which 
 even Mrs. Helbeckstein would have not been able to quarrel. 
 As soon as the dinner was over they visited the cafes chantants 
 and listened to the singers, and admired the dancers and 
 conjurors, while waiters moved through the lamplight with coffee 
 and fine champagne. Then they looked in at one after another 
 of the dancing-saloons, and finally Lacy, who was rapidly 
 becoming distrait, managed to find some excuse which enabled 
 him to detach himself from his companions. 
 
 It was as yet but a quarter of an hour past midnight ; but 
 nevertheless he hurried to the neighbourhood of his rendez- 
 vouz in order to examine the pavilion and make sure of the 
 door. He kept on the confines of the lamplight, walking like 
 a shadow between the flower-beds. There the pavilion was. 
 The door he was to enter by was unmistakable. It was 
 draped with crimson curtains, which, being half-drawn, 
 
380 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 revealed an interior lighted by a Moorish lamp, and under the 
 lamp a girl, hung all over with sequins, keeping guard before a 
 horse-shoe arch and a gorgeous oriental portiere. Various 
 adventurers were entering, whilst others waited outside ; but 
 beyond the horse-shoe arch only one at a time might pass. 
 Some distant stable clock at last struck the half-hour; and 
 Lacy, feeling somewhat as if he were going to his dentist, 
 entered the pavilion, where he found the wearer of *he sequins 
 informing several gentlemen and ladies that the Sibyl was 
 engaged at present. As Lacy approached her she began, in a 
 mixture of French and English, to gabble this information 
 over again to him, as if irritated at him for not having already 
 mastered at. With an uneasy feeling that he was possibly 
 making a fool of himself, he said in a low tone, ' I come here 
 by appointment.' The girl's face assumed a look of sudden 
 intelligence. She quickly drew the portiere sufficiently far 
 aside to allow Lacy to pass, and touched a button, in response 
 to which an electric bell rang twice. Lacy found himself in 
 a half-lit ante-chamber pervaded by a smell of incense. A 
 copper-coloured Indian woman, without asking his name, 
 bowed to him, opened a door, and he, in obedience to a sign 
 from her, passed into a room beyond. It was seemingly hung 
 in black, as the whole of it was utter darkness, except two 
 candles, which burned on an oak table, and a lady in white, 
 with bare and well-shaped arms, and a face which paint and 
 masses of artificial hair succeeded, under the present circum- 
 stances, in investing with a certain beauty. ' Mr. Lacy,' she 
 said, ' if you want to be told your fortune, I must refer you to 
 another clairvoyante of higher power than mine. Go,' she 
 said, waving one of her fine arms, ' to that door there is a 
 door there in the darkness and pass through. It is not 
 locked.' 
 
 Murmuring his thanks for these directions, and still feeling 
 half-ashamed of himself, he sought the door indicated, dis- 
 covered it, pushed it open, and had the relief of finding 
 himself in a room of ordinary aspect. Against the walls were 
 some boxes full of croquet-balls. A family of croquet mallets 
 were leaning together in a corner; and on a plain wooden 
 table in the middle was a most prosaic petroleum lamp. But 
 in another moment he realised that there was mystery even 
 here. Beyond the lamp was a figure, in a black domino, which 
 rose as he entered from a seat on the far side of the table, and 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 381 
 
 silently held out to him a hand gloved in black. In obedience 
 to a gesture from the unknown, he took a seat close to her. 
 Then from the folds of her robe she took out a roll of paper, 
 which she spread flat on the table, placing it between herself 
 and him. He saw that it was covered with writing, divided 
 by thick lines into paragraphs. At last his unknown com- 
 panion began to address him in a whisper, from which he 
 could form no conjecture as to her identity, or even as to her 
 age. 
 
 ' Look,' she said, ' at this, and attend to me whilst I explain 
 it to you. It is a curious and interesting pedigree. Here,' 
 she continued, pointing to the first paragraph, 'we have an 
 account of a certain James Noel Smithers. He was born in 
 1820, and he died in 1870. He was a grocer at Hull look, 
 here are the dates. He married Janet, daughter of James 
 Pocock, innkeeper of the same city. Shortly afterwards he 
 sold his business, retired to a small villa in the neighbourhood, 
 became a captain of volunteers, and called himself Captain 
 Noel Smithers. He had a daughter, who was well educated, 
 and went out as a governess. Remember her name, please 
 Miss Noel Smithers. We shall return to her by and by she 
 is a very important person ; but meanwhile we will go back to 
 her mother. 
 
 ' This mother of hers Mrs. Noel Smithers nee Pocock 
 had for father the landlord of the Strickland Arms a com- 
 mercial inn. Here are the dates of his birth, marriage, and 
 death. But we need not trouble about him. Let us see who 
 was Mrs. Pocock's mother that is to say, Miss Noel Smithers's 
 grandmother. 
 
 ' Mrs. Pocock was the only legitimate child of James 
 Sturrock a veterinary surgeon. He died before his child was 
 born. The veterinary surgeon's wife, it appears, was not 
 quite as good as she might have been, for she had presented 
 Mr. Sturrock with a son without the sanction of the Church ; 
 and the son has apparently descendants in Australia. The 
 evidences with regard to all this are complete ; but there was 
 at first some difficulty in arriving at them. Well Mrs. 
 Sturrock, Mrs. Pocock's legitimate mother, and grandmother, 
 as we have seen already, of Miss Noel Smithers, our friend, 
 became afterwards a dressmaker in York Road, Beverley, and 
 died at Market Weighton, in somewhat reduced circumstances. 
 Well now comes the final question who was Mrs. James 
 
382 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 Sturrock? for, in spite of her frailties, she must have had 
 parents like the best of us. In her case, the parent that 
 concerns us is not the mother but the father. 
 
 ' Mrs. James Sturrock's father began as an exceedingly small 
 yeoman, and he rejoiced in the euphonious Christian name of 
 Zechariah. For the details of his life we must turn over the 
 page. Look here it is the year of Zechariah's birth the 
 year of Zechariah's death. Now, Zechariah I 'm sure I wish 
 we were all like him was very much richer at the end of his 
 life that at the beginning; and now, if you'll look here at 
 something I was covering up, you '11 see something that will 
 throw a little more light on the matter. The other name of 
 our Zechariah was neither more nor less than Brandon. He 
 was the founder of the fortune, and the great-grandfather, of 
 your late friend Octavius. Mrs. Sturrock was his sixth and 
 only surviving daughter ; and letters exist which show that on 
 her marriage with the veterinary surgeon, her father, who was 
 rising in life, altogether repudiated her. His son, and his 
 grandson, did more. They did all they could to destroy every 
 record which might show that so low a person had ever been 
 in existence; and the late Mr. Octavius Brandon never so 
 much as suspected it. Well, what we now see is this that 
 Mrs. Noel Smithers, wife of the Captain and ex-grocer of 
 Hull, was the great-granddaughter of Mr. Zechariah Brandon. 
 I.iet us go back to the Captain. He married Miss Pocock, of 
 the Strickland Arms, Hull, in 1841, when he himself was just 
 of age ; and six months afterwards those people never waste 
 time their union was blessed with its one and only result 
 the daughter who, as we saw, began life as a governess. In 
 1866 Mrs. Noel Smithers died; but the year before, she had 
 inherited from her father, the publican, a snug little fortune of 
 twelve thousand pounds. This she left to her husband, who, 
 with the aid of it, became quite the gentleman. Dropping the 
 name of Smithers, he styled himself Captain Noel, and recall- 
 ing his daughter from her situation, determined to make her 
 quite the lady. Her own determination in the matter had long 
 ago anticipated her parents ; and in order to wash themselves 
 clean of all humiliating antecedents, Captain Noel and his 
 daughter started on a career of foreign travel. Needless to 
 say they frequented table-tfhotcs, and hotel salons, scraped 
 acquaintances, as often as they could, with what they called 
 "people of title," and boasted of these feats afterwards. The 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 383 
 
 daughter was endowed with much natural savoir faire. One 
 fine day, at Grenada, she found herself sitting at dinner by a 
 white-bearded widower of sixty, who had the helplessness of 
 an infirm seventy. Her helpfulness, her vivacity, and her 
 attentions so touched his heart that he married her ; and she 
 in return presented him with one child. The mother is dead; 
 the child is still alive. This person, if he chose to assert his 
 rights, is undoubtedly the heir of the fortunes to which you 
 have succeeded ; but, before taking any steps in this matter, 
 he is very anxious to see you, as he thinks that a personal 
 interview may get rid of many difficulties. Judging from 
 what you have heard of his parentage, you would, perhaps, 
 hardly expect to meet him at a party such as this. A friend 
 of his has procured for him an invitation ; but in order to 
 avoid observation, he was not to arrive till late. I have 
 helped him so far as to arrange a meeting-place, to which I 
 have engaged to bring you ; but you must first have supper 
 with me. This has been arranged also. Genealogical research 
 is an exhausting thing. Genealogical explanations are very 
 nearly as exhausting.' 
 
 She returned the paper to some mysterious pocket, and still 
 continuing her low, but clear, whisper, said, 'Come.' He 
 followed her through a door, facing that by which he had 
 entered. They passed along a path amongst some laurels, and 
 emerged on the lamp-lit festival. Glimmering forms were 
 moving hither and thither; the warm air was alive with whispers 
 and strains of music. Lacy's mysterious guide conducted him 
 into the very heart of the revelry to the great horse-chestnut 
 avenue, with all its glittering cafes. These seemed now to be 
 more busy than ever. Parties were entering fresh from the 
 excitements of the dancing-saloons or of the concerts, or 
 perhaps of idyllic whispers exchanged under the chaperonage 
 of the trees. Figures in dominoes, however, were by this 
 time so plentiful that Lacy's companion attracted no obser- 
 vation. She went to the door of the shining Cafe des 
 Ambassadeurs. She mounted a staircase, amongst odours of 
 champagne and soup, followed by Lacy. At the top a maltre 
 d'hote!, with a bow and a wave of his hand, indicated a public 
 room. She replied to him with two words. The words were 
 ' Numero Quatre ' ; at which, with a deeper bow, and an air 
 of confidential discretion, he opened a side door, through 
 which, by a narrow passage, Lacy's guide conducted 
 
384 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 him to a small room containing a table laid for two 
 persons. 
 
 ' We will ring for supper,' said the unknown to him, ' in a 
 a few minutes. You must first tell me what you think of this 
 party.' 
 
 To this unexpectedly commonplace question Lacy knew 
 not how to reply. As he said nothing, the unknown came 
 closer to him, and taking him by the hand, whispered 
 hurriedly, and almost tremulously, in his ear, ' Do you think 
 this party has been pleasanter than the carnival at the New 
 Rotunda, and as pleasant as a party which somebody, who 
 was at the carnival, said to somebody else might be given at 
 Hammersmith House ? ' 
 
 Then with a quick laugh, and a sudden movement of her 
 hands, the speaker disarrayed herself of the laces and the 
 draperies which had enveloped her ; and before him in all her 
 beauty Lacy saw Lady Tregothran. Lady Tregothran's face, 
 as seen by the world in general, seemed almost too com- 
 manding for perfect feminine beauty ; but as Lacy looked at 
 it, he saw it relax and soften. Her lips trembled, she reddened, 
 she pressed her hands to her eyes ; and sinking her forehead 
 timidly on Lacy's shoulder, gave utterance to a sound between 
 laughter and nervous tears. ' Except,' she said, ' the first man 
 and the only man I ever loved, you 're the only man who has 
 ever made me feel shy. However,' she went on, after a 
 moment, recovering herself, and laughing again with her usual 
 easy laugh, which had always in it a trace of sarcasm, ' how- 
 ever, we all of us have our moments of weakness ; but with 
 good women I mean good women of business, like myself 
 they are only passing lapses. Listen I must explain to you 
 what a good woman of business I am. A friend of yours a 
 mischievous little brat called Brancepeth wanted to play 
 some trick on you, by dressing up one of old Brandon's 
 illegitimates as your cousin, and pretending that he was not 
 dead. Mr. Sam Davis and his brother, who is really the 
 Messrs. Fox, got wind of this, and were led by this accident 
 to examine old Brandon's will. Mr. Sam Davis had known 
 Mr. Brandon well, who was himself a money-lender in a more 
 dignified way ; and Mr. Sam Davis, going over some papers in 
 his possession, was confirmed in the suspicion that there 
 might be in existence some blood-relations of Mr. Brandon's, 
 whose connection with him was as unsuspected by them as it 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 385 
 
 had been by himself. Having learned by the will that Mr. 
 Brandon's family documents had been all left to me, he applied 
 to me for leave to inspect them, mentioning some of the 
 names which occur in the paper which I showed you. Before 
 giving him any answer, I telegraphed from St. Hilaire for the 
 despatch-boxes which contained his legacy; and, tied up in 
 a packet, which Mr. Brandon had never examined, I found 
 quite enough to show me that Mr. Davis was probably right. 
 Lady Madeleine Seaton helped me. She was the only person 
 I could trust ; and she and I got at the claimant between us. 
 I call him the claimant. I should say the legal heir ; for a 
 claimant was the very thing he wanted not to be. His hand, 
 however, had been forced by that enterprising Mr. Brancepeth 
 of yours, who was determined, for reasons of his own, to let 
 the whole secret out. We have made it, however, worth his 
 while to hold his tongue for a week or two, so that you and 
 the legal heir should have an opportunity of meeting an 
 opportunity which has come sooner than we thought we had 
 a right to count upon. Well I Ve no time to tell you more. I 
 learned that you meant to come back to London to-day ; and 
 so I engaged to bring about the meeting here. And now you 
 must forgive me for one white lie I have told you. I asked 
 you to come and have supper with me. What you really will 
 have to do is to have supper with him.' 
 
 Lacy looked at her, considerably taken aback. Then he 
 laughed. ' I feel,' he said, 'as if you had suddenly brought me 
 to my execution. Won't you stay with me, and support me 
 as the axe falls ? I must tell you, I should feel most abomin- 
 ably foolish, if that feeling weren't lost in another my extreme 
 gratitude to you.' 
 
 ' Look here,' she said, laughing and coming close to him, 
 ' I '11 take your gratitude for granted. Don't embarrass me by 
 expressing it. And now, to stop your mouth, let me tell you 
 a story, quite d propos de bottes, except that it is about this 
 party, and about myself, and against myself. But first,' she 
 continued, ' I must protect my character in advance. You 
 know how careful I am of it. You must not think what you 
 might for a moment be inclined to think. This party of mine 
 who do you think pays for it ? Not I, though my brilliant 
 Tregothran thinks it is. I must tell you, that I may have 
 some one to laugh with. Two people pay for it ; and these 
 two people are Mr. Helbeckstein and Mr. Reuben Quixano. 
 
 2 B 
 
386 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 But they do it for value received, or for value to be received 
 presently. I am going to them now to my two Romeos. 
 They are so much alike in some ways that I might call them 
 my two Dromios. And what do you think is the favour the 
 priceless favour I am to bestow on them ? There is a certain 
 supper-party to-night, at which I must act as hostess, for the 
 principal guests are personages of what is called the very 
 highest distinction; and the names of those present will be 
 prominent in all the newspapers. Well Mr. Quixano, Mr. 
 Helbeckstein, and Mr. Helbeckstein's wife all the three 
 will be blazoned amongst those elect. Mr. Helbeckstein, I Ve 
 no doubt, will soon be a British Peer indeed, in ten years' 
 time he may be one of our oldest creations if the police of a 
 certain foreign country don't get hold of him first. Well I 
 must be off. As for you, I don't much pity you. My own 
 belief is that you will soon marry an heiress.' 
 
 ' I don't think so,' said Lacy, his face suddenly clouding. 
 ' There is one woman only I want to marry ; and if I married 
 her ' 
 
 'If you married her,' said Lady Tregothran, interrupting 
 him 'see, I am a clairvoyante still she would, by her 
 husband's will, lose most of her jointure.' Lady Tregothran 
 looked at him with curiously sparkling eyes. ' Good-night,' 
 she said, moving suddenly to the door. ' But just a word more. 
 I Ve told you two white lies, not one ; and I 'm going to tell 
 you the second over again now. As soon as I leave the room 
 the rightful heir will enter it. See I'm touching the bell. 
 That bell is for your supper. By the way you needn't be 
 afraid that the rightful heir is the waiter.' 
 
 She had hardly finished speaking before a waiter had 
 entered, and, slipping through the open door, Lady Tregothran 
 had gone. Lacy, taken aback, and not knowing what to do, 
 was watching the man as he brought in a silver tureen, when 
 another door, concealed by the pattern of the paper, opened, 
 and a figure in a domino, so like Lady Tregothran that he 
 thought at first it was she herself come back again, appeared 
 and stood silently at the other side of the table. The waiter 
 came and went, bringing in plates and bottles, and was 
 evidently preparing to remain till the guests should seat them- 
 selves, when Lacy dismissed him, and he and the stranger 
 were alone. 
 
 The door had hardly closed when the stranger raised her 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 387 
 
 hands to her throat as though preparing to remove her domino ; 
 but she seemed to be baffled by some elusive or refractory 
 pin. 'Let me help you,' said Lacy. These were the first 
 words that had been spoken by either. He had been looking 
 hard at her, as though to see whether her outline suggested 
 any one of his acquaintances ; but they told him nothing. 
 As he spoke she moved towards him. She walked gracefully, 
 at all events. Then his eyes fell on her ungloved hands. 
 There was grace in them too ; they were slim, with tapering 
 fingers. As he looked for the pin, he could hear the unknown 
 breathing. He found it at last, he extracted it ; the domino 
 fell away, and there before him, with her shining eyes on his, 
 and her lips slightly parted, stood Lady Madeleine Seaton. 
 In a single moment the whole of the truth burst on him ; and 
 he thought of the Poodle, who had said that Lady Dove- 
 dale's birth was the only secret that Lady Dovedale could 
 keep. He held out both his hands to her. She took them 
 silently in her own. Then, without any preface, and speaking 
 with a slight effort, ' Nita,' she said, ' has been telling you all 
 my maternal pedigree.' He held her hands still. He drew 
 her a little closer to him ; and as he did so he saw her eyes 
 growing dim with tears. ' You have received me,' she said 
 quickly, 'into your house. Do you think I would turn you 
 out of it ? Will you play at thinking that I am the hostess, 
 and that I ask you to stay on for always ? ' 
 
 'My dear,' he replied, 'I will stay on for always, if you 
 are not ashamed of inviting so inveterate a fortune-hunter 
 as myself.' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' she said, ' as we live in a material world, there 
 is some comfort in thinking that choosers need not be 
 beggars.' 
 
 An hour later they were walking together on one of the 
 wide lawns. Though the company was more sparse than it 
 had been, there were many figures in sight ; but he and she to 
 all intents and purposes were wandering as much alone as 
 if they had been on the long terrace overlooking the Mediter- 
 ranean waves, or emerging into the scent of the pine-trees from 
 the incense of the Provencal Chapel. In the East, towards 
 London, there was a faint tint of primrose, and the lamps were 
 slowly beginning to ' pale their ineffectual fires.' 
 
 ' There are,' she said, ' two things which I think I should 
 like to tell you. When we met you remember the morning 
 
3 88 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 outside the St. Laurent Chapel, we agreed that the last time we 
 had seen each other was at a certain dinner-party in London. 
 That was not quite true. For I had really seen you since 
 then. I saw you at the New Rotunda. I came there per- 
 haps I ought not to have done so to say good-bye in words 
 to some one to whom in my mind I had long said good-bye 
 already. Let me talk on a little. I want you to think of me 
 not more ill than I deserve. My marriage, as you may have 
 guessed, was not a love-match : and there was offered me you 
 may have guessed this too, or other kind people may have 
 hinted at it there was offered me once a short cut to happi- 
 ness. Once must I say twice ? I was nearly off the rails. 
 Had I gone well, I'm not a woman who could ever do 
 things by halves. As it was, I contrived to fulfil my duties 
 as a wife. I certainly did not violate them. For me, they 
 were not great. They were the duties of a nurse and a com- 
 panion. Except for these, I have been a wife only in name.' 
 
 ' I wish,' said Lacy, after a long pause, ' I could make you 
 a confession that was a fitting return for yours. But perhaps 
 you will help me to carry out your own advice, and build in 
 my own mind the destroyed world anew. Teach me to believe 
 in myself. If one does not do that, how shall one believe in 
 others ? Look,' he went on abruptly, ' another day is begin- 
 ning. This evening you and I are to dine at the same 
 place.' 
 
 It was by a curious irony of fate that these two persons, 
 who thus sought satisfaction in the depths of ' duplicated 
 selfism,' and assumed that the ordinary duties attached to their 
 position would be sufficient for them, were destined to meet, 
 at the rendezvous thus alluded to, one who was illuminated by 
 knowledge of a higher kind who knew that duty in its only 
 vital sense was a discovery as recent as the telephone and the 
 electric light, and that those only can realise the gloriousness 
 of human existence as a whole, who ignore the particular parts 
 of it with which they are best acquainted. 
 
 Mrs. Norham, in a passion of happy and expectant self- 
 forgetfulness, stepped from her door in North Audley Street 
 into a very neat hired brougham, which she preferred to a 
 four-wheeled cab, because it rendered her less conspicuous, 
 and was deposited not many hundred yards away in Portman 
 Square, at the door of Lady Cornelia. Who were those others 
 to be those others she was to meet to-night those others 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 389 
 
 whose wealth, whose rank, whose fashion, whose influence, 
 she valued only for the use she might make of them in Man's 
 service ? Such were the thoughts that filled her, as she entered 
 the wide passage which had not been painted since Mr. Leyton's 
 death, but the walls of which were adorned with enough 
 beautiful pictures most of them collected by Lady Cornelia 
 herself to explain the recurring embarrassments for which she 
 was celebrated in her family circle. In a room on the ground 
 floor large and dimly lighted, with a chimneypiece once part of 
 a florid Italian altar, Mrs. Norham discovered Lady Cornelia 
 alone, dressed in black, unenlivened with any jewelry, and 
 having on her head a species of lace mantilla. Mrs. Norham 
 admired the dignity of the true grande dame, who could afford 
 to habit herself thus for the reception of silks and diamonds. 
 
 'Dear Mrs. Norham,' she exclaimed, 'this is indeed nice. 
 It 's so good of you to come to me like this, on such short 
 notice. Sit down,' she said, herself subsiding into a chair, 
 which was a species of high-backed throne, protected by a 
 glass screen. On one side of her was a picture by Burne Jones, 
 on an easel ; on the other a piece of old Italian embroidery, 
 like that which Mrs. Norham had admired on the journey to 
 St. Estephe from Cannes. Mrs. Norham, however, took notice 
 of neither of these objects. Her glance fell on a glass full of 
 crimson flowers. 
 
 ' Ah,' she cried, ' how sweet ! They are like some at 
 Hammersmith House.' 
 
 'Very likely, my dear,' said Lady Cornelia. 'They are 
 just our summer roses. But I want you to look now at this 
 piece of work. You wanted some one, so I remember your 
 telling me, who would teach your poor girls to do something 
 of the same kind. Miriam, dear,' said Lady Cornelia, slightly 
 raising her voice. And as she spoke, from a shadowy room 
 beyond there came forward a person of middle age, meek, 
 demure, and grave, whom Lady Cornelia introduced by 
 saying, ' This is Miss Minden, who helps me with my own 
 embroidery school. Indeed, she manages it entirely, and has 
 made it what it is.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham hardly knew if she were awake or dreaming. 
 Miss Minden was just the sort of woman she might have met 
 any day in Bloomsbury. This reflection was causing a knot 
 in Mrs. Norham's throat, when Lady Cornelia continued, in 
 her bland and musical accents, ' She will help you to start a 
 
390 THE INDIVIDUALIST. 
 
 class at that place of yours Startfield Hall. But no I 
 forgot. Your Startfield Hall has been sold.' 
 
 'It has,' said Mrs. Norham, suddenly pulling herself 
 together, ' had to be put on a new financial basis : but I shall 
 always be able to secure it for any object that may interest 
 us.' 
 
 ' My dear,' replied Lady Cornelia, ' I fear that is hardly so. 
 It has been bought by my nephew Tristram, who is going to 
 turn it into a cookery school. By the way do you know ? 
 very probably not it 's a piece of family news my nephew is 
 going to be married to Lady Madeleine Seaton. They are 
 both coming here to-night. My brother is coming too in fact, 
 he 's in the house now. He 's staying with me, whilst some- 
 thing is being done to his own drains. It 's very naughty of 
 him not to be down already. However, we know what keeps 
 him. He is talking upstairs to some one to whom you will be 
 talking presently.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham could hardly speak such a storm of emotions 
 swept through her. Startfield Hall in the hands of Mr. 
 Tristram Lacy ! But the mention of Lacy's name, in one way 
 at all events, revived her. He would see her shining amongst 
 the other impending guests. He would see her once more 
 swaying the mind of the Prime Minister a mind, thought 
 Mrs. Norham, which, this evening, would be decorated by a 
 blue ribbon. Her spirit was thus occupied when Lacy and 
 Lady Madeleine entered, both of them looking cooler and 
 more placid than usual. 
 
 'My dear,' said Lady Cornelia, touching Mrs. Norham's 
 shoulder, ' you and Miss Minden have your little talk together. 
 I 've several things I must say to these two surprising young 
 people.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham resigned herself to her fate, feeling, as she 
 did so, that she was for the moment entering into the shadow 
 of a great sorrow. She little knew what more was in store for 
 her, and that the chalice of altruistic martyrdom was as yet 
 only half drained. The laughter and conversation of the 
 others was still occupying her ears, somewhat incapacitating 
 them for the reception of Miss Minden's wisdom, when she 
 was conscious that the door had opened. She heard Lady 
 Cornelia utter her brother's name ; she also heard a rustle of 
 silken skirts ; she also heard Lady Cornelia saying to a 
 servant, ' Dinner.' Then, with a quick movement, Lady 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 391 
 
 Cornelia came back to her and said, ' She's come down at last. 
 She 's staying with me for a meeting. Here 's your particular 
 friend the friend I Ve been saving for you a little surprise 
 for both. You and she will have so much to say to each 
 other.' 
 
 Mrs. Norham looked up. The feelings of Macbeth when 
 he saw the ghost of Banquo were placidity when compared 
 with hers when she saw the apparition before her the 
 bangles, the rings, the silk, and the short fair hair. Mrs. 
 Norham found herself in the presence of Mrs. Delia Dickson. 
 
 'Mrs. Norham,' said Lady Cornelia affectionately to this 
 portent, ' I 'm sure will do all she can for us. She 's so 
 interested in social matters.' 
 
 At dinner there was no blue ribbon ; there were no tiaras, 
 except one which was invisible a tiara of the selfless suffer- 
 ings known only to those who, feeling themselves the life of 
 thousands, feel that thousands are wounded when they are 
 themselves unrecognised, or when, worse still, they are affronted 
 by the successes of a despised rival. Even so, however, at 
 this supreme moment, Mrs. Norham was not left without 
 some secret comfort. Three weeks later she was to address 
 a select meeting, the object of which was the protection of 
 female purity a meeting which was to take place in Mrs. 
 Helbeckstein's gilded concert-room, and at which Mr. Hel- 
 beckstein himself had consented to take the chair. 
 
 Printed by T.and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press 
 
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