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THE ADVENTURES 
 OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 The City is a novel of such power as to stand 
 well in a comparison with Zola's "L' Argent." Its 
 subject is the same, but Mr. Frederic Carrel's 
 treatment of it is more expert and spontaneous 
 than M. Zola's. Its exposure of the most inhuman 
 of all vices, gambling as practized in the most 
 demoralizing and ruinous of all " hells," the City, 
 is the work of a man who obviously has seen rather 
 than read the scenes and characters he describes, 
 and who so describes them that you seem rather to 
 see than to read of them. — Illustrated London 
 News. 
 
 Mr. Carrel's ably- written story throws a great 
 deal of new and startling light upon the methods 
 of organizing and conducting financial and com- 
 mercial transactions. — Daily Telegraph, 
 
 Mr. Carrel has given us the most brilliant, the 
 most merciless, and the most sweeping indictment 
 of Stock Exchange gambling that it has ever been 
 our fortune to rt.2A.— Daily Mail. 
 
 No one with any personal or first-hand know- 
 ledge will dispute the substantial accuracy of 
 Mr. Carrel's representation. The scenes descrip- 
 tive of the " markets," the chief operators, the 
 transactions recorded are vivid and "actual." 
 The mysteries of loan issues and company pro- 
 moting; of corners and rigging; of "bulls" and 
 " bears " — these things are set forth with force 
 and fidelity.— Z?az^ Chronicle. 
 
 The City is an admirable piece of work. It 
 is fresh, powerful, and well written. — Literary 
 World. 
 
THE ADVENTURES 
 OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 •By 
 
 FREDERIC CARREL 
 
 Author of The City 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 BLISS SAND5 ^ CO- 
 
 MDCCCXCVII 
 
NEW 6/- 
 NOVELS. 
 
 LADS' LOVE 
 
 By S. R. CROCKETT 
 With 1 6 Illustrations 
 By Warwick Goble 
 
 CHARITY CHANCE 
 By WALTER RAYMOND 
 With a Frontispiece 
 By H. T. Robinson 
 
 MR. PETERS 
 
 By RICCARDO STEPHENS 
 
 ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 By FREDERIC CARREL 
 
 
 BELINDA'S BEAUX 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 
 And other Stories 
 
 
 By ARABELLA KENEALY 
 
 
 ^. 
 
 
 OUR LADDIE 
 
 
 By OLIPHANT SMEATON 
 
 
 With 8 Illustrations 
 
 
 By Anthony Fox 
 
 «4\. 
 
 TRISCOMBE STONE 
 
 By PORTLAND BOARD AKERMAN 
 AND NORMAN HURST 
 
mi 
 
 I DESIRE to say, by way of preface, that my sole 
 endeavour in writing this story has been to mirror, 
 and not to preach. 
 
 F. C. 
 
 5iy 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VAGB 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST I 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND 1 8 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD 34 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH 5 1 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH 65 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH 82 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTH I02 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTH II7 
 
 CHAPTER NINTH 1 32 
 
 CHAPTER TENTH 1 47 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVENTH . . . . . . . 163 
 
 CHAPTER TWELFTH 1 78 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 1 94 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 209 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 22$ 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 239 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 255 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH 274 
 
 CHAPTER NINETEENTH 287 
 
THE ADVENTURES 
 OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 FIRST 
 
 THE train from Tilbury steamed into Fenchurch Street at 
 four o'clock, and John Johns, carrying a black portman- 
 teau, alighted from a third-class carriage. He stood for a 
 moment on the platform of the dingy terminus, amid the 
 crowd of passengers and porters, realizing that he was back 
 again in London, after six years' absence in Australia. Then, 
 as he resented being elbowed, he crossed over to the cab-rank, 
 opened the door of the first hansom he found vacant, and 
 thrust his only piece of luggage into it. 
 
 Whither, in search of lodgings, should he tell the man to 
 drive ? That was a question which he had debated on the 
 journey up. With only five pounds and a few shillings in his 
 pocket, and very uncertain prospects, he needed a cheap neigh- 
 bourhood. After a moment's hesitation, therefore, he decided 
 to try Bloomsbury. 
 
 As the cab passed through the City — still full of life and 
 of activity — the spring sun was shining on the walls of its 
 classic buildings, illumining the streets and the faces of the 
 passers in them. Overhead, the pale blue sky was cloudless, 
 and the outlines of the houses were unusually distinct. 
 London looked bright enough, Johns thought, that after- 
 noon. 
 
 Passing slowly through Cheapside — congested by the traffic 
 — the hansom made its way through Newgate Street and along 
 Holborn. As it passed a colossal draper's shop a few yards 
 from the " Circus," a girl with a slight figure and a pretty baby- 
 face was leaving it. She gave a sidelong look at Johns, and, 
 when he smiled engagingly, she returned his smile. This put 
 him into a good temper, and, instinctively, he cast a glance at 
 his attire, which consisted of a well-worn, lightish overcoat, of 
 
 B 
 
2 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 more or less colonial cut, half covering a brown tweed suit of 
 doubtful quality. Then he drew his soft felt hat a little for- 
 ward, adjusted his red necktie, and looked at the people in the 
 streets with calm assurance, twirling the rather long and dark 
 moustache which relieved, to some extent, the snubness of 
 his nose and the somewhat excessive breadth of a face lit 
 up by a pair of keen black eyes of extraordinary expressive- 
 ness and penetration. He was thinking that he was back 
 again in England furnished with a stock of roughly-bought 
 experience. He was about to test himself in earnest, and to 
 find out whether he possessed the quality which carries a 
 man along to fortune. He was six-and-twenty, and he cal- 
 culated that he had ample time before him — the great thing 
 was to make a lucky start. 
 
 What had he not been in Australia ? Tramp, and cow-boy, 
 broker's clerk, evening lecturer, journalist, and schoolmaster. He 
 had drifted, as most men do who go out *'on spec," from one 
 calling to another in search of the main chance, which he had 
 not found. Still he had managed to enjoy himself sufficiently 
 in spite of his vicissitudes, and of his amorous adventures 
 there was no end. Thanks to the attraction he possessed 
 in women's eyes, his love adventures had been many. 
 Twice he had managed to elude the vengeance of a father 
 and an elder brother, and he had been once victorious in 
 an encounter with a weakly rival who had proved to be no 
 match for him. For although he was below the medium 
 height, he was strongly built and muscular; his roving life 
 had given him a good physique. On the whole, he had taken 
 life out there much as he had found it, and though he had 
 landed almost penniless, he had contrived, by one means' or 
 another, to earn a livelihood. 
 
 The hansom entered Russell Square, which he remem- 
 bered vaguely, for he did not know London well, having 
 only spent a few months there after leaving school while 
 seeking an employment. 
 
 He looked around in search of houses where apartments 
 were to let, when, presently, the words "Bedford Place" 
 caught his eye, and he told the cabman to drive slowly up 
 what seemed to be a long, wide street. Here there was no 
 lack of window cards bearing the inscription, "Apartments 
 to let furnished." Causing the man to stop before the first 
 he saw thus labelled, he alighted. 
 
 The red-faced woman who answered to his knock looked 
 at him suspiciously, as if his somewhat foreign costume 
 made her diffident There was a bed-sitting room just 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 3 
 
 vacant, she said in answer to his enquiry ; but how much 
 did he want to pay? Well, he didn't want to pay much, 
 just then. Six or seven shillings weekly would be about his 
 price, and he didn't care how high up it was. 
 
 Oh, there was nothing for that in the whole neighbour- 
 hood. He might save himself the trouble of going farther. 
 She wanted double for her room. But as he seldom believed 
 any assertion which he had not checked, he walked along the 
 street and knocked at other doors, with much the same result. 
 For a few moments he debated within himself whether he 
 could afford ten shillings, at which price he could 
 have a room on a third floor back. But as he had 
 made a resolution that he would husband his resources, he 
 decided to consult the cabman as to the whereabouts of cheaper 
 quarters. The cabman knew a street off Tottenham Court 
 Road, called Grafton Street, where prices did not run so high, 
 and as the name caught his fancy, he told him at once to drive 
 there. 
 
 Passing out of the quietude of Bloomsbury into a long, 
 noisy thoroughfare, of which Johns had very little recollection, 
 the cab at length turned off to the right, and stopped before 
 one of a row of houses in a quiet street, built in a style 
 which seemed pretentious for the neighbourhood. Johns 
 pulled a bell which was so loose that he drew out a foot of 
 wire before it offered the least resistance. After a few moments, 
 a stout woman, middle-aged, appeared. 
 
 Could he have a room for seven shillings? he enquired. 
 Yes, that was the price she wanted for a nice front room on 
 the third floor. Whereupon, as he asked to see it, she began 
 to roll slowly up the somewhat narrow stairs, requesting him to 
 follow. There was a complex odour in the house, one of those 
 indefinable smells of London lodging-houses composed of 
 emanations from greasy kitchens, defective drains, and musti- 
 ness of furniture. The stair carpets were threadbare in many 
 places, and here and there the wall paper of the staircase was 
 unstuck. 
 
 The stout woman turned the handle of a door on the top of 
 the third flight, and requested Johns to enter. He found 
 himself in a large, low-ceilinged room, in which the musty 
 smell was stronger. In one corner there was a small wash- 
 stand in mahogany, with a marble top, and in another a chest 
 of drawers of painted deal. 
 
 Between the two windows was a much worn horse-hair sofa. 
 A round table, covered with a green cloth stained with ink, 
 stood in the centre, and a large iron bedstead occupied nearly 
 
4 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the whole of the small back room. A few dissimilar chairs 
 were dotted here and there upon a much soiled carpet. 
 
 Johns's first act after casting a look around was to open one of 
 the windows to relieve the stuffiness. He next turned to the 
 woman who was waiting near the door, and said, " All right, 
 this will do, I'll take it." 
 
 Then he went down, paid the cabman, and returned quickly 
 bearing his portmanteau, which he put upon a chair, and began 
 unpacking. He placed his linen in one of the drawers of the 
 chest of drawers, which he noticed was unsteady on its legs, 
 distributed his toilet requisites about the room, and threw a 
 night-shirt on the bed. This done, he drew a volume of 
 Shelley's poems from the pocket of his overcoat (which he had 
 not taken off), and placed it on the table. Then he sat down 
 on the sofa, took a cigarette from a case he produced from an 
 inner pocket, lit it, and began to smoke. 
 
 Here he was at length in London with a long task before 
 him, and but a very hazy notion as to how it was to be begun. 
 For a man who had no footing in any of the professions, 
 and who wanted money badly, there were only two things open 
 — ^journalism or business. One or the other he must adopt. 
 His taste inclined to letters, for which he had a bent, but then 
 business offered a better chance of becoming rich, and his 
 aim was to become rich. But yet, again, how could he do 
 anything in business without capital, and what means had he 
 of obtaining any? None whatever, whereas in journalism 
 the case was different : he might make his head supply the 
 capital, and journalism led to other things. 
 
 Presently, after turning over the question in his mind, he 
 rose, and, taking a sheet of paper from his wallet on the 
 table, began to write a letter to his parents. He had not 
 written to them for a long time, and his return would be a 
 piece of news for the old retired fisherman and his wife in their 
 Guernsey village. No doubt they would be disappointed when 
 they found that he had come away without having accomplished 
 anything, especially as they had stinted themselves sorely, first 
 to give him an education at the College, and then to 
 send him to Australia. He commenced, therefore, with 
 a little explanation of his motives for leaving, and 
 ended by promising that his next letter would contain 
 good news. And they wouldn't, he said, have long to 
 wait for it. When he had finished, he folded the letter, 
 placed it in an envelope, and addressed it in a bold, clear 
 hand to Mrs. David Johns, St. Martin's, adding in the right- 
 hand corner, " Guernsey." This done, he lit another cigarette 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 5 
 
 and looked at his watch. It was half-past five. He rose, put 
 on his hat, and left his room. His landlady, whom he met at 
 the bottom of the stairs, handed him a well-worn latch-key, and 
 having now a roof to shelter him, he sallied forth to post his 
 letter, and to seek a restaurant, for he was feeling hungry, not 
 having eaten since the morning. He walked along Tottenham 
 Court Road, looking at the shops, full of middle-class com- 
 modities, which the last rays of the setting sun were unable to 
 idealise ; at the tawdry women stopped before the windows of 
 cheap bonnet shops; at the ragged females issuing from 
 palatial public houses; at the workmen returning from their 
 work with a jaunty air of self-complacency ; at the pale-faced 
 urchins playing on the pavements ; and at the ceaseless traffic 
 in the road. Into the first pillar-box he saw, he thrust his letter. 
 Then he began to make his way down Shaftesbury Avenue. 
 "This looks dismal," he said to himself, as he noticed the dirty 
 walls of the high buildings and the mean side streets. But he 
 had seen much the same aspects previously in Sydney, and 
 he pursued his way westward, seeking a place at which to 
 dine. 
 
 When he arrived at Piccadilly Circus, and beheld an open 
 space towards which several ends of streets converged at all 
 angles incoherently, and in the centre of which stood a 
 ponderous metal fountain surmounted by a winged figure 
 which, balanced on one leg, was shooting grotesquely with 
 a bow and arrow at the little crowd of arabs gathered 
 round the base, he laughed. "A pretty mess they've made 
 of this," he said, for he was not without taste, and he had 
 acquired as much culture as he was able in the sedentary 
 intervals of his roving life. He crossed to the island add 
 looked about him. Presently the words *'Cafe Monico," in 
 large white letters, on a house, attracted his attention. 
 
 Could he afford to dine at a big restaurant? Well, no, he 
 couldn't, certainly ; but as this was his first day in London, he 
 was inclined to celebrate the circumstance a little lavishly. So 
 he crossed the road again, and entered the place with a firm 
 step and an air of dignified assurance. Passing through the 
 cafe where drinks were being served by Continental waiters to 
 somewhat showily dressed people seated at round tables, he found 
 himself in a vast dining hall, which he recollected for having 
 once had dinner there before. He seated himself on the divan 
 before a vacant table, next to one at which a lady was finishing 
 her dinner, and ordered Soles Colbert, an entrecote, and sweets, 
 as well as a half bottle of Chateau Lafitte. While he was 
 waiting for the meal, he cast a glance at the lady near him, who 
 
6 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 was looking in his direction smiling, but seeing that her face 
 was faded, even jaded, and far from pretty, he took up an 
 evening paper and read it until his dinner came. Then he ate 
 heartily, finding the dishes excellent, and the wine grateful, 
 after the coarse fare he had had on board the liner as a third- 
 class passenger. When he had finished, he called for coffee 
 and a cigar, and sat for more than half an hour watching the 
 diners, and trying to weave plans for future action. When the 
 waiter brought the bill it amounted to seven shillings. Draw- 
 ing out his purse, he tlyew a sovereign upon the table with the 
 air of a man accustomed to spend freely. The waiter quickly 
 produced the change, and Johns left a shilling on the table for 
 him. The man bowed and helped him deferentially to put on 
 his coat. " One gets a lot of politeness in this country for a 
 shilling," he thought, "much more than in Australia." 
 
 As it was still early, he drifted along Piccadilly, making his 
 way against a stream of home-going shop assistants of both 
 sexes. Many of the shops were already shut, and others were 
 being closed, as the noise of roUing shutters indicated. Johns 
 stopped before what seemed to be a French provision shop, 
 with sides of white marble, and a rich collection of braised 
 edibles in the window. A little blonde serving girl had caught 
 his eye, and she seemed so piquante in her black frock and 
 snow-white apron that he debated with himself for a few 
 moments whether he should enter and order something, to 
 have an opportunity of making her acquaintance. But, when 
 he thought of the bill he had just paid, he decided that it 
 would be imprudent, and he resumed his walk with a feeling 
 of annoyance and regret. Certainly he might have entered 
 without buying anything, but of what use would it have been, 
 since he couldn't afford to pursue the adventure further ? And 
 he liked pursuing his adventures to the end. 
 
 When he reached Burlington House, something unusual 
 seemed to be taking place. A little crowd was gathered on 
 either side of the high archway, looking at the private carriages 
 which were entering in quick succession, filled with people in 
 evening dress. Evidently a banquet or a reception was being 
 held. He stood for a few moments amid the crowd, looking 
 also, and the people in the carriages appeared to him so dis- 
 dainful in the display of their wealth that he grew angry with 
 them for possessing it, while he, with a capacity for pleasure as 
 great as theirs, and with brains as good as theirs, was in want 
 of a ten-pound note. This was altogether wrong and contrary 
 to fitness. It must be remedied, and soon. Thinking thus, 
 he took advantage of an interval to cross, and continued his 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 7 
 
 way up Piccadilly. Broughams and hansoms passed him, full 
 of people going out to dinner or to the play, and the lights 
 were lit in the club-houses of St. James', down which he paused 
 to look a moment. When he arrived at the Berkeley Hotel he 
 paused again, for he could see into the dining-room, which was 
 full of men and women in evening dress, dining at little tables, 
 lighted by red-shaded candles. And the same feeling of irrita- 
 tion came over him which he had experienced a few moments 
 before. They looked so surfeited with well being, so comfortable, 
 so calmly, masterfully happy in their luxury, so brilliant, that 
 they excited in him mingled feelings of envy, admiration, and 
 a kind of scorn. Quite close to him, so close that, had the 
 window been open, he might have touched her, a lady was 
 seated with her back towards him, and he looked with admira- 
 tion at the fresh white flesh to which the subdued light of the 
 shaded candles lent a tint of exceeding softness. He could 
 not well see her face, but he noticed that she had light-brown 
 hair, and that she was young and shapely. He scrutinized the 
 others at the table, wondering which of them was her husband, 
 or if she had a husband, or if she was in any way related to 
 the middle-aged, bejewelled lady on her right, or to either of 
 the two men of elderly appearance who made up the party. 
 But, as he was eyeing the stouter of the two — a man some- 
 where between fifty-five and sixty — he fancied he had seen that 
 physiognomy before. He looked again. Yes, certainly, he 
 had seen the man before. But where? He searched his 
 memory for a few moments, when suddenly he recollected. 
 The stout man was the newspaper proprietor from England 
 whom, during his brief career as a journalist in Melbourne, he 
 had been deputed to pilot round the city. There could be no 
 doubt about it. He remembered the double chin, the fat neck, 
 and the little peering eyes, and he told himself that this was 
 an opportunity which was too good to be missed. " By God," 
 he said, " what luck ! " But how was the gentleman to be 
 approached? He couldn't present himself at that moment 
 while they were in the middle of their dinner ! He would wait 
 till they had finished. 
 
 He paced slowly up and down in front of the hotel, keeping 
 his eye upon the little party, and noticing the progress they 
 were making with their dinner by the dishes which the waiters 
 served. The menu seemed inexhaustible, for, when he had 
 been pacing fully half an hour, fresh dishes were still arriving. 
 He muttered, " They take a long time filling ! " 
 
 At length, when his patience was almost at an end, he saw 
 the sweets arrive. It was time to prepare for action. He 
 
8 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 vaguely remembered the name of the man he was going to 
 address. Something hke Lawson; or was it Dawson? Yes, 
 Dawson seemed to be the name. At any rate it was good 
 enough to try. He waited a few more minutes until the waiters 
 brought the dessert, and then he walked up Berkeley Street to 
 the main entrance. The hall porter scanned him narrowly, and 
 asked him, somewhat gruffly, what he wanted. But he drew out 
 his pocket-case, and selecting the cleanest of the few cards he 
 had left, he wrote underneath his name, '■^ of Melbourne^ would 
 like to speak to you on urgent business P 
 
 " There," he said ; " send that in to the gentleman sitting at 
 the table in the left-hand window, opposite a lady with light 
 hair." 
 
 The man looked at the card, and then again at Johns, whose 
 appearance did not seem to please him. " Send it in," Johns 
 repeated, firmly, and with authority; "it's urgent." This time 
 the man obeyed, though churlishly. 
 
 The waiter who had been sent in with the card returned 
 presently. The gentleman, he said, didn't quite remember 
 Mr. Johns, but would see him later in the hall. 
 
 Johns took a seat, congratulating himself on the success of 
 his first move. He waited for nearly half an hour watching the 
 diners leaving the dining room in groups, until at length his 
 man appeared accompanied by the remainder of the party. 
 
 Johns rose at once. 
 
 " I think you must remember me," he said ; " I took you 
 round in Melbourne." 
 
 "Ah, yes, I recollect," the stout man answered, stiffly. And 
 then saying that he had only a few moments to spare, he led 
 Johns to a small parlour which was already occupied by the 
 remainder of the party. " And what, may I ask, is the urgent 
 business ? " 
 
 " There isn't any," Johns said, flatly, and with an intonation 
 peculiar to him, "except that I wanted to see you, and I didn't 
 know how to manage it." 
 
 The stout man frowned. But Johns continued quickly, 
 noticing that the lady with light hair was looking at him. 
 
 " It does seem a strange proceeding, I admit, and I apologise. 
 But the fact is, I've just arrived this morning from Australia, 
 and, as I don't intend to go back again, I want work here. 
 You, sir, I believe, own newspapers, and therefore you can give 
 me work. Pray, don't say you haven't got a vacancy. There 
 are always vacancies, and I'll put life into your paper ; life, sir, 
 and you won't regret it if you take me on." 
 
 The stout man looked at Johns with evident surprise, while 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 9 
 
 the fair-haired lady, who had been listening, smiled encourag- 
 ingly, Johns thought. 
 
 " You've a good opinion of yourself, at all events, young man; 
 but the question is whether others will have the same of you." 
 
 " Try me, and you'll see." 
 
 Again the stout man surveyed Johns, this time with more 
 interest. 
 
 He reflected for a moment, then he said — 
 
 " I don't believe it will be of any use, but if you like to call 
 to-morrow at the office of the Planet at half-past twelve, I may 
 show you to the editor." 
 
 " Thanks, that's all I want. Your name, sir, is Mr. Dawson, 
 I believe." 
 
 " That's my name, and I wish you a good evening." 
 
 Johns rose. He made a bow to the fair-haired lady, includ- 
 ing Dawson in it, and the couple who seemed to be the hosts. 
 Then, without more words, he left. 
 
 He was pleased with himself, and he walked towards Hyde 
 Park Corner with a light step, for he felt that in a few moments, 
 by a lucky chance, the outlook had changed greatly for the 
 better. Dawson, he deemed, was sent him from the skies. 
 He didn't regret his expensive dinner now that he had got so 
 suddenly upon the right tack. It seemed, somehow, to have 
 led to it. 
 
 When he reached the Corner, as the empty park did not 
 look inviting, he turned and retraced his steps, wondering 
 how he was to pass the evening. 
 
 There was a lull in the street traffic. The dinners were 
 over, and London was digesting. The shops were shut, and 
 the streets had assumed their nightly aspect. Johns strolled 
 along until he found himself again before the fountain, where 
 he bought a Planet. Then he crossed to the further pave- 
 ment, and continued his way to Leicester Square. An even- 
 ing's entertainment was offered him at the Empire Theatre, 
 before which he stood reading the long programme displayed 
 upon the walls. Once or twice he was on the point of enter- 
 ing, but when he put his hand into his pocket, and felt the 
 thinness of his purse, in which the sovereigns took up so 
 little room, he abandoned the idea. "No," he said; "I must 
 stick to them like glue." 
 
 Still, the evening had to be spent somehow; so he walked 
 up Regent Street, and, noticing the Caf(6 Royal, entered it. 
 Here he would be able to pass the time. He took a seat 
 in the gilded room, full of foreigners, called for a glass of 
 maraschino, and became much interested in watching two 
 
lo THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Spaniards, next him, playing dominoes. Then, when the 
 clock above the counter was pointing to a quarter before 
 twelve, and the Cafe was emptying, he left. 
 
 As it was a fine night, he thought he would take the 
 longest road home by Regent Street, and he strolled leisurely 
 up the Quadrant, where his seemingly provincial costume 
 singled him out to the nightly promenaders of many 
 nationalities, by several of whom he was accosted. 
 
 But Johns had no taste for deteriorated charms, and he 
 walked along without responding to their overtures, until at 
 length, as he wanted to think, and their chatter prevented him 
 from doing so, he grew impatient, and, when a stout enamelled 
 damsel caught him by the arm, he turned round upon her 
 and told her roughly to be off. She answered with a volley of 
 invectives, which ended with — "You little pauper; you can't 
 even buy yourself a decent coat." He only laughed, and con- 
 tinued on his way, followed, until he was out of hearing, by 
 more abuse of the same kind. 
 
 " They're all alike," he said, " when they're not appre- 
 ciated." 
 
 In Oxford Street, again, he had to run the gauntlet; but as he 
 grunted something like a " No " as soon as he was approached, 
 he was not much molested, and he reached his quarters half an 
 hour after midnight. 
 
 The door of the house was being opened by a rather pretty, 
 fair-haired girl, sufficiently well-dressed, who was followed in by 
 a young man. Johns was the last to enter, and, as he was 
 shutting the door, he heard the lady say, " This way," and saw 
 the couple disappear into a room on the ground floor. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, and, without thinking more about 
 it, took a candle from the table, lit it, mounted the three 
 flights of stairs rapidly, and went to bed. 
 
 The next morning, when he awoke, the sun was shining 
 brightly. He rose quickly, and, in dressing, selected the best 
 of his four shirts, cutting the frayed edge of one of its wrist- 
 bands with a pair of scissors. Then he brushed his clothes, 
 and erased, as best he could, a spot upon the overcoat with the 
 aid of a wet towel. After this he left his room, and hurried to 
 a bread shop in New Oxford Street for breakfast. 
 
 It was scarcely nine o'clock, and the shop was empty. A 
 woman with bare arms was sweeping the floor, while the serving 
 girls were arranging cakes and buns in the high, wide window. 
 On the counter the coffee-urns were smoking fragrantly. Johns 
 ordered a modest breakfast, and began to read the copy of the 
 Planet which he had bought the night before, concentrating 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS ii 
 
 his attention on its contents, so that he might become 
 famiUar with its poUcy. 
 
 His first impression was that it was well written, and 
 he saw some articles which surpassed anything he remem- 
 bered in his Australasian experience, though that, it was 
 true, had not lasted longer than a fortnight. There appeared 
 to be a place for every interest in the yellow sheet, from 
 football to bimetalism, and he noticed that the City Article 
 was long and prominent. As for the paper's politics, he 
 could not quite unravel them, but he gathered that they were 
 radical. 
 
 When he had finished his breakfast and the paper, as he had 
 much time before him, he sauntered slowly towards the Strand, 
 enjoying the fresh morning air. Feeling stimulated by the 
 bustle of the busy streets, he spent the hours before his 
 interview exploring the land of newspapers in the vicinity of 
 Fleet Street, until his watch told him that it was time to present 
 himself at the office of the Planet. 
 
 This was located in the Strand, in a large house possessing 
 a fagade on the street, bearing the name of the journal in large, 
 gilt letters in German text. When he reached it, he pushed 
 one side of the swing door, and entered a long room in which 
 thick parcels of papers were being handed over a counter by 
 clerks to a crowd of newsboys. 
 
 " Could he see Mr. Dawson ? " he enquired. 
 
 " First door round the corner." 
 
 Johns repaired to the side street, where he found a narrow 
 doorway, above which he read The Planet^ Editorial Offices. 
 He ascended the flight of steps before him, and, entering the 
 first room he saw, he told an old man, who was sitting at a 
 table in a small office strewn with papers, that he had come 
 to see Mr. Dawson. 
 
 " Have you an appointment ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then it's the last door on the right, at the bottom of the 
 passage." 
 
 Johns hastened down the corridor, and found himself in an 
 ante-room filled with people who seemed to be waiting for 
 an interview. A young man with a pale face was seated at 
 a table, writing. Johns gave him his card, saying that 
 Mr. Dawson was expecting him. 
 
 " If you'll take a seat, your card shall be sent in." 
 
 Johns looked round the room. All the seats were occupied. 
 So he took up a position near the window, and, leaning against 
 the wall, observed the visitors. They were mostly men 
 
12 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 approaching middle age, pale, and wearing their hair longer than 
 it is generally worn. They had a tired, nervous look, and there 
 were well-marked lines about the lower portion of their faces. 
 Their clothes were rather crumpled, as if they had been travel- 
 ling or sleeping in them, and their neckties were negligently 
 tied. They sat there without speaking to each other. One, a 
 man whose hair was beginning to be silvered, was turning over 
 the pages of a manuscript ; the others were either reading the 
 first edition of the paper, fresh from the printer's hands, or 
 looking on the floor reflectively. There was one woman 
 among them, neither young or old, but singularly plain and 
 eccentrically dressed. She appeared absorbed in the perusal 
 of a letter. But they all wore an expression which seemed to 
 Johns so peculiarly intense and eager, that he reflected, " they 
 take it seriously at all events." 
 
 It was a little time before his card was handed in — not until 
 a clerk returned, whose duty it seemed to be to arrange the 
 interviews. And when, at length, after a long wait, his turn 
 came, he was conducted to a room on the other side of the 
 lengthy passage. 
 
 Here Dawson was seated at a desk in the middle of a 
 spacious, though plainly-furnished room, reading the first edition 
 of the Planet also. As he did not look up or make any sign 
 to welcome him, Johns, after a moment's pause, said in his 
 deep voice — 
 
 " Well, Mr. Dawson, Fm here." 
 
 The stout man started, and put down the paper. 
 
 " I hear you are," he said. " What is it that you really 
 want?" 
 
 " I want to write, as I told you yesterday." 
 
 Dawson smiled. 
 
 " That's not done as easily as you imagine. Who are you ? 
 What are you ? Where did you get your education, and what 
 do you fancy you can do for us ? Tell me as quickly as you 
 can, because I'm busy." 
 
 " My name you know. At present I'm not anything in 
 particular. I was educated at Guernsey College, and I can do 
 whatever there is to do." 
 
 Dawson adjusted his glasses, and inspected Johns anew. 
 Then he said, "It's quite unusual for me to see would-be 
 contributors, but as you appear to have some sort of an idea 
 that you can do something, I suppose I must take you in to 
 Mr. Boyd. HeHl pretty soon get your measure." 
 
 Upon this Dawson rose, and requested Johns to follow him. 
 They re-crossed the passage, passed through the ante-room 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 13 
 
 again, and then into the editor's room, through a baize-covered 
 door. 
 
 This was a long wood-panelled chamber, with a skylight in 
 the ceiling. A middle-aged, somewhat red-faced man, with a 
 short light beard, sat at the head of a long table. He was look- 
 ing at a goif stick which a younger man, with rather long dark 
 hair and a shaven upper lip, was showing him. Two others — 
 young also — of the journalistic stamp, better dressed than those 
 whom Johns had seen in the ante-room, were apparently 
 engaged in a discussion. Book-shelves, filled with books, 
 ran around the room, and on a side-table stood four empty 
 glasses which diffused an odour of stale spirits, mingling with 
 a combined smell of paper, printer's ink, tobacco — a curious 
 indefinable smell, peculiar to the offices of journals. 
 
 Dawson said, addressing the editor at the head of the table — 
 
 " Here's a man, Boyd, I wish you'd try. He fancies he can 
 work for us — says he can do anything." 
 
 The editor put down the golf club, and said discontentedly, 
 " But we're full — ten times over." 
 
 " I know we are, but we're not so crammed with excellence 
 that we couldn't dispense with one or two if we found better. 
 I didn't know whether he might or might not be useful. At all 
 events, I would be glad if you would ascertain." 
 
 The last words sounded somewhat like an order, and so the 
 editor, visibly annoyed, and looking at Johns for the first time, 
 said carelessly — 
 
 " Very well, then, will you be good enough to write me, say, 
 a column on Parker's Education Bill. We slate the Board." 
 
 Johns, who had not followed English questions closely in 
 Australia, neither knew who Parker was nor what his Education 
 Bill might be ; but he answered promptly, " Certainly," adding 
 immediately, " I'll slate the Board." 
 
 Then, as he was preparing to withdraw, Boyd said, turning to 
 one of the young men who had ceased talking, and were look- 
 ing at Johns — 
 
 "Coulston, would you mind showing Mr. Johns to the 
 reporters' room ?" 
 
 Johns asked, " Do you wish me to write it in the office ?" 
 
 " I should prefer it." 
 
 Seeing that there was no alternative, Johns expressed his 
 readiness to follow Coulston, and they withdrew together. 
 
 The reporters' rooms were on the floor above, and as they 
 ascended the stairs, Coulston, a short, stoutish man, of about 
 thirty, with a round face and light, curly hair, remarked, *' I 
 suppose you're new to this sort of thing?" 
 
14 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns answered with assurance, "No; four years on the 
 Melbourne News.^^ 
 
 " Indeed," said Coulston, with consideration. "Are you an 
 Australian ? " 
 
 " No, I'm English. What is your position on the paper ?" 
 
 " Sub-editor." 
 
 They had reached the reporters' room. This was a long, 
 bare room, somewhat resembling a class-room in a school, with 
 a leather-covered table in the centre, at which four individuals 
 of unkempt appearance were writing as if for life, bending over 
 the paper, their arms spread upon the table. One of them was 
 wearing an Inverness cape and a soft felt hat, as if he had come 
 in to write a brief report and were going out again. 
 
 He alone looked up when Johns and Coulston entered. 
 
 " Take a seat here," said Coulston, pointing to a vacant chair, 
 and I'll send you in some paper. If you want Boyd to like 
 your 'stuff' you'd better make it strong." 
 
 Saying this, he left, and a boy in uniform, a moment after 
 wards, brought the paper. 
 
 Johns sat looking at the sheet of foolscap, wondering what he 
 was going to fill it with. His mind was a complete blank upon 
 the subject of Parker's Education Bill, and it was very evident 
 that he couldn't draw on his imagination. He must either 
 confess his ignorance or ask assistance of one of the four 
 reporters so fanatically busy. Of course, he might have told 
 the editor at once that he was unacquainted with the question, 
 but it would have made a bad impression at the outset, and 
 that must be avoided at all costs. He did not take a pen lest 
 the four reporters should notice his hesitation ; but he leaned 
 back in his chair and twisted his moustache as if he were 
 focusing his thoughts, though he knew very well that if he 
 reflected until midnight he would find nothing to say about 
 Parker's Bill. He must be put upon the track by someone. 
 But by whom? The four reporters did not seem helpful 
 people, and they were eyeing him suspiciously, every now and 
 then, as they dipped their pens into the ink. 
 
 Just as he was beginning to think the situation rather 
 desperate, a man entered with a Wellingtonian type of face. 
 He was slight, and rather short, though dignified, with a kind 
 of secretarial air, and he was wearing a long frock coat. Johns 
 recognised him as the old man who had directed him to the 
 ante-room on his arrival. 
 
 "Some more little jobs for you, my boys," he said to the 
 reporters, who, upon his entrance, had immediately looked up. 
 " Maskelyne, you've got to go to the Millwall docks to do the 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 15 
 
 strike. Boyd wants you^ Thomas, to interview Prince Hanawai, 
 who's staying at Long's Hotel. There's a guinea for the inter- 
 preter if you can find one. You, Simson, must go to IsHngton 
 to do the Cattle. There, you won't complain of slackness now." 
 
 "No," said Maskelyne, the gentleman with the Inverness 
 cape, "it's always like that. Nothing to do one day, and 
 twice too much the next." 
 
 " Work, my friend, and don't grumble, and bless your stars 
 that you've got the work to do. Take me as an example. I'm 
 going to work right on to the very end. Why ? Because I 
 respect my body, and the bits of gold I get here allow me to 
 keep it clean and nourished. If they ceased to-morrow I 
 should become an animal, feeding upon garbage. No, no, you 
 can take my advice for it, my boys, work is the only chance we 
 have." 
 
 Saying this, he left. 
 
 " He's in one of his moralising fits to-day," said Maskeljnie, 
 and the others acquiesced. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Johns, "but who is that old 
 gentleman?" 
 
 "That's old Tarte." 
 
 " Is that his real name?" 
 
 "Yes, we have no nicknames here. They're not allowed." 
 
 Johns rose and went out quickly. Descending the flight of 
 stairs rapidly, he overtook the moralist just as he was entering 
 his room. 
 
 " Mr. Tarte," he said, " I would like to speak to you." 
 
 " Step in, sir, step in." 
 
 " Do you know anything about Parker's Education Bill ? " 
 
 "My dear sir, of course I do. Who doesn't?" 
 
 " Well, I don't mind telling you that I'm in the dark, having 
 just come over from Australia, and as I'm going to write about 
 that Bill, I want some help. If you will give me a hint or two, 
 I shall be obliged to you, and depend upon it, I'll remember 
 it, especially if you don't tell anyone you helped me." 
 
 Tarte smiled. 
 
 " Don't make promises, young man. They're never kept. 
 Boyd's trying you, I suppose." 
 
 "That's it." 
 
 " Well, I'm always ready to do a good turn. Parker is the 
 member for North Aldgate, and he brought in a bill the other 
 day to reform the Board and to give the little urchins more to 
 learn. Of course, they've far too much already; but then 
 we're Radicals who cry for progress, and we side with Parker. 
 Do you understand?" 
 
1 6 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 ^'Perfectly." 
 
 *' Here's an article about it by Boyd himself, and here's 
 what was said in the House last night. Now you can set 
 to work." 
 
 Johns seized the cuttings eagerly, and feeling himself on 
 the right track now, he thanked Tarte hurriedly, and left. 
 
 But as he did not want the reporters to see how he got his 
 information, he stopped upon the stairs and read the extracts 
 carefully, repeating the names of the men who had taken a part 
 in the debate so that he might fix them in his memory. When 
 he had done this, he went on to the landing, and there he tarried 
 a few minutes longer to reflect upon what he was going to say. 
 Then, when he had decided, he re-entered the reporters' 
 room, resumed his seat at the table, and began to write. 
 
 Having been a schoolmaster, the subject of education was 
 familiar to him, and now that he possessed his facts, it was 
 not long before he had filled three sheets singularly free 
 from errors or erasures. Parker's scheme, he wrote, was 
 perhaps the most perfect model of legislative skill that had 
 ever been invented. It provided for the boy from the bud- 
 ding of his intellect to the age of adolescence, when it left 
 him fitted for every walk for which he had capacity or taste. 
 The greatness of a nation consisted in the place it held in 
 the van of progress, and England, if she wished to retain 
 her place at the head of nations, should spend more on 
 public education than any other country. The result would 
 be an increased measure of advancement. It was ridiculous 
 to fix a limit to gratuitous instruction, which must be free 
 to extend and to develop to the utmost. If it was the 
 duty of the citizen to educate the children of the citizen, 
 who could say that that duty ended when a mere modicum 
 of learning had been bestowed? And it was not entirely 
 upon the public that the increased expenditure would fall. 
 It must be partly met by an increased economy in the 
 administration of the funds, and in an entire reconstruction 
 of the Board, who had shown themselves to be hopeless 
 blunderers of the worst stamp it was ever the misfortune of 
 education to be burdened with. All this must be changed, 
 and Parker was the man to do it. 
 
 After a great deal more in the same strain, he put down his 
 pen and read his article. It pleased him, for he thought it 
 clear and trenchant. The slating of the Board was about 
 as forcible as he could make it. One adjective only he thought 
 it necessary to change, finding it too strong. 
 
 Then he put the sheets together with the air of a man 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 17 
 
 who has done creditable work; while the reporters, who by 
 this time were preparing to leave, glanced at him curiously. 
 
 The next thing to be done was to take his manuscript to 
 Boyd, and he started for the purpose. He found Coulston 
 in the ante-room, giving directions to the clerk. 
 
 " The editor's gone out," said Coulston, " but you can give 
 me your ' stuff,' and I'll show it to him when he returns. It's 
 too late for to-day, you know, even if it were golden." 
 
 Johns handed him the little roll, remarking carelessly, 
 " You needn't be afraid of it — ifs good, I'll call again to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Then he returned to Grafton Street, and spent the re- 
 mainder of the afternoon in his bed-room, reading a packet 
 of journals he had brought to study their contents. In 
 the evening he dined at a cheap Italian restaurant in the 
 Tottenham Court Road. 
 
CHAPTER 
 SECOND 
 
 THE next morning Johns reached the Strand shortly 
 before mid-day, just as the first editions of the even- 
 ing papers were making their appearance in the streets, 
 and the news-boys were proclaiming them in cavernous 
 and strident tones. The Star^ the Evening Neivs^ the Globe 
 were being borne in piles upon the backs of ragged urchins, 
 some of whom were racing with each other in their eagerness 
 to reach a favoured corner first. The Planet was late that 
 morning, and Johns, as he looked for it, felt his pulse beat 
 faster. Either it contained his article or it did not, and for 
 the moment his prospects were considerably bound up in that. 
 He entered a tobacconist's, bought a cigar and lit it, and as 
 he was leaving, he perceived a man hurrying down the street 
 with a bundle of papers under his arm, holding the contents 
 bill of the Planet before him like an apron. Johns made a 
 sign to him to stop, and bought a copy. Then, with a frown 
 to defy disappointment, he opened it, and the first article which 
 caught his eye was Retrogressive Education — his own article 
 printed in large type on the front page. 
 
 He gave a little whistle, and suddenly became conscious of a 
 sense of increased importance. New vistas seemed to open, 
 new possibilities to dawn. He had got his foot in the stirrup 
 of the horse he meant to ride ! How he would ride that horse ! 
 
 " They must have thought it deuced good," he said, " to put 
 it first." 
 
 As he walked along smoking his cigar, he read his article, 
 noticing with satisfaction that it had been printed as he wrote 
 it, without a single alteration, and pleased with its composition 
 which struck him as forcible and clear. Journalism seemed to 
 him an excellent profession. 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 19 
 
 He walked down one side of the Strand and up another, 
 feeling that he had already played a part in the general activity 
 by providing literary food that day for thousands. When he 
 reached the office he entered it with a firm step, as if his place 
 in it was now assured. In the corridor, he met Coulston, who 
 said at once, " You see, we've printed you. Our leader man 
 dried up, and so we shoved you in. I suppose you want to see 
 the editor ? " 
 
 " I do," said Johns, without noticing the first part of Coulston's 
 sentence. 
 
 "Then step in there." 
 
 Johns entered the ante-room and took a seat. Several of the 
 callers were reading the Planet^ and the one next to him, his 
 article on Parker's Bill. He felt conscious of a certain feeling 
 of superiority over the crowd of postulants, a superiority 
 acquired since his visit of the day before, and he was inclined 
 to say to his neighbour, " / wrote that column, and I flatter 
 myself it's good. I mean to write a great many more in the 
 same style." But he refrained, and said, as soon as the visitor 
 had finished, " What, sir, do you think of that article ? " 
 
 The reader looked up at Johns suspiciously, with a slight 
 start, and said, with an acidulated smile, " I should call it start- 
 ling, most decidedly." 
 
 "Yes," said Johns, "it is startling. The public requires to 
 be startled." 
 
 His neighbour replied with a smile of incredulity, and Johns 
 thought, " the fool's jealous." 
 
 After he had waited a long time, and the ante-room showed 
 no signs of emptying by calls from the editorial room, Johns, 
 whose patience was exhausted, went out to look for Tarte. He 
 found him seated before his table, engaged in the vague kind of 
 paper-sorting which seemed to constitute his usual employment. 
 
 " Well," said Tarte, " what can I do for you to-day ? " 
 
 " You can take me in to Boyd. I want to see him about 
 my article." 
 
 "What article?" 
 
 " The one I spoke to you about yesterday. Surely you read 
 the paper ; it's on the front page ! " 
 
 Tarte smiled. 
 
 "Ah, my friend, when you've journalized for a few years, 
 you'll find that one doesn't trouble one's mind with too much 
 reading. Life is a poor little game for scribblers, and we must 
 make the best of it ! So they put you in, did they ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and, as I don't care to stay in the ante-room all the 
 afternoon, I want you to take me in." 
 
20 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " Well, I've no objection. Til take you in to Csesar." 
 Saying this, he rose and led Johns to the editorial room by 
 a private door. 
 
 Boyd, whose face was redder than the day before, was 
 dictating to a female typist with a pretty face and delicate, 
 tapering fingers. A large empty glass stood on the table at his 
 side. 
 
 Tarte said, apologetically, " I've brought in Mr. Johns, who 
 would like to say a word to you." 
 
 " Well, sir," said Boyd, turning his red, moist eyes on Johns ; 
 " you wrote a damned bad article for the paper yesterday." 
 
 Johns felt the blood rise quickly to his face, and longed to 
 strangle the brutish editor, but he restrained his temper with 
 an effort, and replied — 
 
 " Pardon me, it was good enough for the front page." 
 
 For a moment the two men looked at each other, measuring 
 each other. Boyd glanced down first. 
 
 " If you knew why you appeared in that position," he replied, 
 "you wouldn't be quite so pleased with your performance. 
 But that's nothing to do with the question. You want to know 
 what you are to do. If you wish to work for us, you must 
 join the reporters' staff." 
 
 " The reporters' staff?" repeated Johns, concealing his 
 disappointment with great difficulty. 
 
 "Yes, the reporters' staff. You didn't imagine you were 
 going to fill the first page every day, did you ? " 
 
 Johns saw that there was nothing for it but to submit. 
 Evidently Dawson had instructed Boyd to make the offer, such 
 as it was, and his chief aim, after all, was to gain a footing. 
 
 He answered, "Very well then, Mr. Boyd, I will." 
 
 Upon this the editor went on dictating without taking any 
 further notice of the new reporter. Tarte, however, who had 
 been listening, touched Johns upon the arm, and made a sign 
 to him to follow. As soon as they were in the corridor he 
 said, " It's the old story. You've done something good, and 
 they want to let you down. Sublime humanity, dear sir, is 
 constituted so." 
 
 Johns said, " They'll find, maybe, that they're mistaken." 
 
 He now applied himself to win the friendship of Maskelyne 
 by inviting him, two days following, to a wine shop in the 
 Strand, where wines from the wood were served, and by amusing 
 him with stories of his adventures — stories which he told well, 
 and with a kind of humour somewhat in the manner of Mark 
 Twain. At first Maskelyne was reticent, but at length he 
 yielded to the fascination which Johns, when he liked, was able 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 21 
 
 to exercise, and he was soon willing to impart his knowledge. 
 Thus he confided to Johns the best methods of obtaining 
 interviews, and the ablest means of keeping the interviewed 
 from wandering, and of leading him on by apt suggestion to 
 clear and pertinent replies. 
 
 Some of them, he said, were difficult to tap, and even when 
 tapped afforded but a poor result. Others gave more than was 
 required. Then there were those who thought interviewing an 
 impertinence, and who hadn't realised that they could say just 
 what they liked, and create exactly the impression which they 
 chose upon the public. These must be delicately told that a 
 strict adherence to the truth was by no means indispensable. 
 Again, there was the great question of obtaining interviews with 
 exalted or busy people who had no interest in publicity. 
 Opinions were divided as to the way to deal with them. Some 
 thought it better to " plump " down on them just as they were 
 leaving home or reaching it, others preferred to send an 
 eloquently-worded letter before calling, in the paper's name. 
 But the characters of interviewables were so divergent that no 
 rules could be well laid down. Sometimes a man would prefer 
 to write the interview with himself, himself, and in such cases 
 it was wise to let him. It saved time and trouble, even paper. 
 
 " I've always had a great ambition to do a king," said 
 Maskelyne ; " but in kings I never got beyond a nigger. No 
 one ever has. But that nigger was the only man I ever found 
 who spoke the truth ! You've no idea how people lie before a 
 note-book. But I can't be telling you anything you didn't know 
 before. You must have seen all this in the Melbourne News. 
 
 " No," said Johns, with gravity, " I wrote leaders only." 
 
 The next day Maskelyne, over a second glass of port, was in 
 a particularly communicative mood, and Johns asked him what 
 he knew of Dawson. 
 
 " Dawson," he answered, " was once a wholesale grocer in 
 Upper Thames Street, who retired with a fortune and bought 
 the paper for a song from the man who started it. He's the 
 nearest file on earth. He's had a machine made for him, which 
 we call the columetre, to measure printed matter almost to a 
 pennyworth. Only a few years ago the old devil married a 
 pretty girl, and it won't be long before he gets into Parliament. 
 So you see what grocery can do." 
 
 Johns listened carefully to Maskelyne, and before a week 
 was over, he possessed all the information that he needed — he 
 had taken, as he himself expressed it, all his bearings. Unfor- 
 tunately, although he was nominally upon the staff, he was 
 without fixed salary, his earnings depending wholly on the 
 
22 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 number of the "jobs " that were given him to do. But as those 
 that fell to his share during the first fortnight did not exceed 
 two — a brief report of an Exeter Hall meeting and an account 
 of a prize fight held at Islington; and as these, measured by the 
 columetre, represented little more than half a sovereign, he began 
 to feel that he was being trifled with, and he suspected that 
 Boyd was trying to discourage him by giving him as little work 
 as possible. It was irritating to sit all day in the reporters' 
 room and to see himself passed by in the distribution of the 
 work, and he was determined that he would not stand it. He 
 had made several attempts to have an interview with Dawson, 
 but the great man was always busy, and referred him to the 
 editor, who was even busier. When he spoke to Coulston 
 about his want of work, Coulston told him that new men 
 always had to wait. 
 
 "And supposing they starve in the meanwhile?" Johns said, 
 bluntly. 
 
 " That's their business," was the answer. 
 
 The reporters also were beginning to smile when Johns 
 entered the room ; but he fixed one of them one morning as he 
 caught him in the act, and the expression of his face was so 
 much like that of a bull-dog about to spring that the scribe 
 desisted quickly. To make matters worse, Tarte, for some 
 reason he did not explain, had expressed himself unable to 
 introduce Johns again to the editorial room. In fine, the 
 situation was intolerable. 
 
 One afternoon, however, as he was leaving the office, resolved 
 to assert himself in some way the next day, and to either obtain 
 more recognition or else " chuck the thing " altogether, he saw 
 a landau stopped before the office door, and in it a lady whom 
 he at once recognised as the wife of the proprietor — the lady 
 who had smiled encouragingly that evening at the Berkeley. 
 She was reading, and was evidently waiting for her husband. 
 Johns reflected for a moment. He had been accusing his 
 luck pretty harshly for the last few days, but suddenly he felt 
 inclined to bless it. A woman, young and pretty, to whom he 
 had a right to speak ! What could be more fortunate ? A 
 door seemed opened to him at once. 
 
 Buttoning his coat, because it looked fresher so, and ascer- 
 taining that his necktie was in place, he stepped forward to 
 the carriage door and raised his hat. The lady looked up 
 enquiringly, and as soon as she recognised him, gave him a 
 little nod. 
 
 He said, somewhat deferentially, "I trust you have been 
 well, Mrs. Dawson, since we met." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS jj3 
 
 " Oh, quite well, thank you," she replied, smiling blandly. 
 
 But he fixed his penetrating gaze upon her, and, before it, 
 she looked down. Then, in the deep tone that lent a strange 
 importance to the most commonplace of his remarks, he said — 
 
 " It is not often you grace us with a visit ! " 
 
 " As it was so fine to-day," she answered, " I thought I 
 would call and take my husband for a drive." 
 
 " Yes," he said, earnestly, " to-day there is a fine, clear sky 
 in London, a sky which reminds me of the pure blue stretches 
 of Australia, where life is vigorous and free." 
 
 " You're fond of Australia, I see." 
 
 " Yes, fond of it for its vastness and its beauty ; but glad to 
 return to England, where beauty in its human form is so 
 complete." And, as he said this, he looked at her admiringly. 
 
 " Really," she said, laughing, " you are appreciative. And 
 yet, I thought the Australian ladies " 
 
 He shook his head, and, waving his hand deprecatingly, 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " Comparison is quite impossible ! " 
 
 She laughed again, and, closing her book, smoothed the 
 folds of her brown cloth dress upon her knee. As she did so, 
 he observed her well, deciding in his mind that her face was 
 fairly pretty, although the nose was a little long and the lips a 
 little pale. Upon the whole, though, an attractive blonde, 
 whom he judged to be about thirty. 
 
 " My husband told me you had joined the paper," she said 
 presently ; " I hope you like it." 
 
 " Charming," he replied, " skilfully conducted — admirable." 
 
 " I hope, then, that we shall see you soon at Princes Gate. 
 I'm ' at home ' on Sundays." 
 
 He said, with fervency, " I will not fail to call " ; and as he 
 judged that he had prolonged the interview sufficiently, and 
 produced a good effect, he raised his hat again and bowed 
 impressively. 
 
 This meeting seemed to him to alter the position of affairs. 
 He had now a means of attack, which a few minutes before 
 he certainly did not possess. For he did not doubt that in 
 Mrs. Dawson he would find an ally, and women, he thought, 
 were the surest channels of success. 
 
 As he walked along the Strand, he reflected that it was then 
 Friday, and that Mrs. Dawson had said she would be at home 
 on Sunday. He was quite determined he would go to see her; 
 but he was confronted by a difficulty. The whole of his ward- 
 robe was on his back, and a black coat was not included in it. 
 It would be fatal to present himself in a suit of tweeds. What 
 
24 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 was to be done ? His fortnight's living had reduced his little 
 store by nearly half, and the Planet paid but once a month. 
 
 He stopped before the window of a cheap tailor and in- 
 spected its contents, although he knew that, to purchase even 
 the cheapest garment ticketed, would have emptied his purse 
 completely. And yet he must have a black coat somehow. 
 Again he looked at the sartorial display in the large plate-glass 
 window, in which coats of many shapes were stretched on 
 blocks, without a crease or furrow, exhibiting an apparent 
 excellence of cut, notwithstanding their excessive cheapness. 
 Presently, without exactly knowing what he was going to say 
 or do, he entered the establishment. 
 
 A man, with a coat as creaseless as the models in the window, 
 and an air of bombastic half gentility, asked him what he 
 might require. 
 
 " I want a coat, but to pay for one at once is not con- 
 venient " 
 
 " We only sell for cash," the tailor interrupted. 
 
 " Listen, my friend. I'm on the Planefs staff, as you will 
 ascertain if you send a messenger to inquire at the office. 
 If you let me have what I want, I'll manage a street accident 
 near your shop, which will give you a thundering advertise- 
 ment. Something like this : A gentleman fell, in an apoplectic 
 fit, as he was entering the tailoring establishment of Messrs. 
 Townsend Brothers, in the Strand, at whose hands he received 
 every attention, and who were able, as he was a customer of 
 theirs, to have him conveyed to his own home as soon as 
 medical aid had been obtained." 
 
 The tailor thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his waist- 
 coat, and remarked, " You're a 'cute one, there's no mistake 
 about it, and I don't say we won't come to business. Give me 
 your name, and my brother '11 go and ask about you," 
 
 Johns gave his name, and an individual of the same type 
 as his brother started for the office. 
 
 While he was gone, Johns smoked a cigarette. The tailor gave 
 some finishing touches to the arrangement of his window blocks. 
 
 Presently the messenger returned, and whispered something 
 to his partner, who then said — 
 
 "If we let you have the goods, we must have something 
 down. How much can you pay?" 
 
 "Well, say ten shillings down." 
 
 The brothers consulted together, and informed Johns finally 
 that if he would take a " misfit frock " he might have one on 
 those terms. 
 
 Johns asked to see the garment, and he was brought a coat 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 25 
 
 of a somewhat ancient cut, though sufficiently presentable, 
 which chanced to fit him fairly well. It was without a waist- 
 coat, but, as long as it was kept buttoned, no one would be 
 the wiser. He could wear his tweed vest and his trousers 
 of the same. 
 
 The bargain was forthwith concluded, and Johns, after 
 signing an acknowledgment and promising that the adver- 
 tisement would appear soon, left the shop, carrying the coat 
 in a brown paper parcel under his left arm. He counted 
 this, as he walked home, as not the least piece of good 
 fortune he had Had that day. Now he was properly 
 equipped for the visit to the Dawsons ! He said nothing at 
 the office the next day of what had happened, for he knew 
 that none of the reporters were received at Princes Gate, 
 and he thought it useless to excite jealousies too soon. But 
 he told Maskelyne that in a week or so things would be 
 going well for him. 
 
 When the Sunday came he stayed in bed, reading and 
 smoking cigarettes, till mid-day. Then he dressed with ex- 
 treme care, shaving closely. His coat, though large, looked 
 well enough when it was pulled down from the waist, as he 
 discovered by several trials before the glass in standing and 
 sitting postures. J^ate the night before he had bought a tie, 
 a pair of gloves, and cuffs from a hosier in New Oxford 
 Street who was selling off, and he thought, as he surveyed 
 himself for the last time before going out, that his appearance 
 was by no means bad. No doubt his low soft hat did not 
 quite suit the costume : he would have to leave it in the hall. 
 
 He dined or lunched — the two meals were generally merged 
 — for eighteenpence at the Italian restaurant in Tottenham 
 Court Road, where he was becoming a well-known if not 
 too profitable customer. 
 
 He had no experience of society in England, and he was 
 not quite sure at what hour calls were generally paid, but he 
 judged that it could scarcely be amiss if he presented him- 
 self at four. As it was still early, he took an omnibus to 
 Hyde Park, where he intended to kill some time. 
 
 Near to the entrance of the Marble Arch, where he alighted, 
 he noticed several little crowds at a short distance from each 
 other, and as his curiosity was piqued, he stopped to see what 
 was taking place. In the first group a man, bareheaded, with 
 a shaven upper lip and a dark beard, was preaching Chris- 
 tianity as a panacea against the evil consequences of sin. 
 With great vehemence, though in faulty speech, he was 
 flagellating those whose peccant natures kept them in the 
 
26 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 bondage of the evil one, and quoting text on text to prove 
 the value of repentance. Close to him in the next group, 
 so close that their voices sometimes mingled, an old man, 
 with long white locks and an emaciated face, who seemed 
 to have one foot in his grave, was preaching atheism, deny- 
 ing with as much warmth as his neighbour had asserted it 
 the truth of supernatural belief, and acknowledging alone 
 the evidence of sense. Johns listened to him for a few 
 moments, but finding him no less fanatical than the evan- 
 gelist, he passed on to a third. This was a negro, out of 
 whose wide mouth poured excited words of Messianic praise, 
 delivered with great gusto. He was listened to with marked 
 attention by his audience, who laughed heartily every now and 
 then at his jokes at the expense of Satan. 
 
 A little further on, a socialistic artizan was denouncing capital 
 and monarchies, the misdeeds of the rich, the cruelties inflicted 
 on the poor, and the tyranny of the employer ; while almost 
 back to back, yet a little further down the walk, a man in 
 clerical attire was preaching the doctrine of the Trinity, next 
 to a working man who had read Comte and Kant and Hegel, 
 and who cried, " The man who says as what there is a God is as 
 big a fool as the man who says there ain't." 
 
 A strange discordance caused Johns to turn his head in the 
 direction of the groups he had first seen. The negro's followers 
 and those of the evangelist had each struck up a different 
 hymn, and the socialistic orator was shouting at the top of a 
 stentorian voice, trying to be heard amid the discord. The 
 audiences appeared to find the whole thing natural. 
 
 Johns, as he moved along across the park, reflected, " How 
 they listen to any man who preaches ! It doesn't matter what 
 he says as long as he speaks loudly. And I'll bet they're the 
 same in other spheres." He walked along slowly till he reached 
 the Row, where he took a seat for a few moments to watch the 
 promenaders, after which he pursued his way to Princes Gate. 
 
 As he came in sight of the imposing row of houses, with 
 their high fagades and ornamented windows, he cast a look at 
 his attire, which somehow pleased him less than a few hours 
 previously. Such as it was, however, it must suffice. 
 
 A man in livery opened the door and glanced at Johns 
 somewhat suspiciously. " He did not know if Mrs. Dawson 
 was at home. He would enquire. If so, what name should 
 he announce?" 
 
 " Say Mr. Johns." 
 
 Requested to enter, Johns waited in a spacious hall. 
 Presently the man returned, and, with more consideration than 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 27 
 
 he had shown at first, conducted him to the drawing-room, up 
 a monumental staircase with bronze statues in the niches of 
 the wall. The wife of the proprietor of the Planet was seated 
 before a tea-table in a corner of a large, square room, which 
 seemed to Johns sumptuously furnished. She was surrounded 
 by a little ring of visitors, one or two of whom Johns recognised 
 as frequent callers at the office. 
 
 With the air of grave importance which he knew how to 
 assume at times, holding his gloves in his left hand, he advanced 
 leisurely into the room as soon as he had been announced. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson received him cordially, and pointed to a seat 
 not far from hers. Then, turning to a thin, young man, with 
 longish hair and a shaven face, she said, " You can continue, 
 Mr. Stevenson." 
 
 " The place of woman in our social system," the young man 
 said, " is growing more and more defined. She is no longer 
 an eleemosynary, fettered to the will of man, but a free agent 
 in the disposal of her person and in the employment of her 
 intellect. Under the new conditions which are rapidly extend- 
 ing, the whole fabric of conjugal ethics will be changed. 
 Woman will be man's equal instead of his inferior. She will 
 bring into the life of the family a co-operation hitherto unknown. 
 She will be a second pillar of the household, supporting the 
 same burdens as her husband. In this way there will be a 
 double capital of will and intellect, and the children of such 
 marriages must be the men and women who will guide the 
 world. Does it not stand to reason that, as the true province 
 of woman is to guard and to protect the race, she cannot do so 
 properly unless she has the free exercise of all her faculties ? 
 The Mahommedans have centred the seat of understanding 
 in the male, and have assigned a purely utilitarian place to 
 women. In that they are consistent; but we, who have 
 throughout our system allowed her to have a share with us, 
 are we justified in limiting that share ? No ; depend upon it, 
 justice will not be done until we have given her an equal share 
 with us." 
 
 There was a murmur of approbation as the young man 
 finished his defence of the woman's cause, and he leaned back 
 in his chair with an air of satisfaction. The ladies present, all 
 fashionably dressed and mostly young, looked puzzled, as if 
 they were not quite convinced. 
 
 " For my part," said an older man, who looked like a 
 professor, " I think that Mr. Stevenson's remarks are just. It 
 seems to me that the complete enfranchisement of women is 
 naturally predestined by the developmental principle. The 
 
28 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 position of women must inevitably alter as her capacities are 
 recognised. How long she may have to wait, however, it is 
 difficult to say." 
 
 " I don't fancy I mind waiting," said a lady with an olive- 
 tinted skin and dark eyes and hair, and the other ladies 
 laughed. 
 
 But Mrs. Dawson asked, " And what is your opinion, Mr 
 Johns, of our province ? " 
 
 Johns had been listening attentively to what was being said. 
 Mentally he had voted the thin young champion of the woman's 
 cause a fool, and the man with the professional air a pedant. 
 He had made up his mind that, if his views were asked, he 
 would preach another kind of doctrine. 
 
 So he said, " The province of woman is above all things to 
 charm. She is the first incentive to our acts. Since man is 
 man, we have hoped and feared and fought for her. Her 
 beauty is the salt without which we could not live. Her grace 
 and charm are the perfumes which give zest to life and keep us 
 from ennui. No one has imagined anything more beautiful 
 than woman's beauty, because nature has none greater, and that 
 beauty is preserved to us by giving woman an exceptional 
 position, by relieving her from the drudgery we do, by affording 
 her the ease and comfort in which to cultivate her charms, by 
 allowing her to rest while we are working, by placing her upon 
 a pedestal, and by contemplating her delightfully upon it. I 
 do not know what woman's brains can do, but I do know that 
 if she uses them as we do ours, she will lose a large share of the 
 beauty which we love. There will be lines upon her counte- 
 nance ; the oval of her face will be impaired. We shall grow 
 cold towards her, and then — why, then, we shall retrogade, 
 because the divine spirit of enchantment will have passed away 
 from us. The poetry which decked our lives will have vanished 
 from them. The poets, if there be any left, will only sing of 
 wisdom, and we shall come to hate that word I Ah no, the 
 province of a woman is to bring joy into the life of man, and 
 you may depend upon it she will be well employed in doing so." 
 
 Before Johns had finished speaking, all eyes were turned upon 
 him. His deep voice, the earnest expression of his face, and 
 his unexpected views, had created an impression. 
 
 The ladies, whom he had rightly judged, from their appear- 
 ance, to be contented with the present state of marriage, clapped 
 their hands, while the thin young man and the professor 
 endeavoured to look sceptical. 
 
 " How charming of you, Mr. Johns," the hostess said, " to 
 defend our indolence !" 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 29 
 
 "And how good of you to place us on a pedestal!" the dark- 
 eyed lady added. 
 
 Johns answered, asking, " Was I not especially inspired to 
 do that this afternoon ? " 
 
 " Let me introduce you," Mrs. Dawson said, " to my friend 
 Mrs. Weber," and John bowed to the dark lady, who was 
 smiling at the compliment conveyed by his last words. 
 
 But the thin young man returned to his guns, to the evident 
 regret of everyone. 
 
 He said, " We know this cult of beauty well. It softened 
 the Greeks and killed the Romans. It has permanently 
 demoralized the French. Fortunately, in England we have 
 known how to give it the place it merits. The future of society 
 depends upon the raising of the state of woman." 
 
 "It seems to me," said Johns, "that the future of society 
 depends upon the maintenance of love." 
 
 " And do you say that love will disappear ? " 
 
 "I say that it will freeze — freeze, sir, in your refrigerator." 
 
 Again the ladies laughed approvingly, and the champion of 
 their cause, perceiving that their suffrages by this time were 
 with Johns, gave up the discussion, and went on speaking to the 
 professor. 
 
 Johns was now introduced to the other ladies by Mrs. 
 Dawson, and as she explained that he had lived for some time 
 in Australia, they asked him questions about the life and 
 manners there, which he was naturally well able to reply to. 
 
 " Australia," he said, " is a land of adventurous romance. A 
 man out there is rated for his strength and pluck, and though 
 he may sometimes have to rough it, he always finds a friend in 
 need when his luck's bad. Ah, one has a fine sense of the 
 intensity, the vigour, the masterfulness of life when one's in the 
 saddle from morning until night, in the thin, pure air. Some- 
 times I have almost wished I had been bom a native." 
 
 Johns had a power of investing what he said with interest. 
 When he was speaking, the expression of his face, the intona- 
 tion of his voice, and the gestures with which he accompanied 
 his speech, conspired to produce an effect upon the hearer 
 which was indefinable, but real. 
 
 As he finished his last phrases, he looked towards the 
 window at the London clouds, as if he almost hoped to find 
 in them a reminiscence of Australian skies. 
 
 " How I should like to go there ! " said the young lady, 
 sighing. 
 
 " But it isn't always paradise," continued Johns, " for those 
 who come from England. I remember once in Queensland a 
 
30 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 young couple came into a little town where I was staying. 
 He was a handsome boy of twenty, with a frank and manly 
 face, and she, a pretty little bright-eyed girl, perhaps a twelve- 
 month younger. And they had loved each other in an 
 English country town, and married, and had come to seek their 
 fortune in Australia. He was a tax-collector's son, and she, 
 the daughter of a miller. And they had both a little educa- 
 tion and some pride. And he had spent a month in Mel- 
 bourne trying to get work in ofifices, and failed. And they had 
 spent all their money. And they would not beg, and they 
 found no work to do. Suddenly they disappeared and were for- 
 gotten, till, one day, a boy found a couple tied together drowned 
 in a pool on the Burnett river. Poor little English lovers ! " 
 
 " Poor things ! " the ladies said, compassionately and in 
 chorus. 
 
 While Johns had been speaking, he noticed that the eyes of 
 the dark lady had been fixed upon him with that meditative 
 look which women have when they are weighing in their minds 
 a man's attractiveness, so he preserved his air of quiet pathos, 
 finding it had been well received that afternoon. Mentally he 
 compared the hostess and her friend, coming to the conclusion 
 that both were interesting. 
 
 But other callers came, and the physiognomy of the drawing- 
 room changed. Johns thought it time to retire upon the good 
 impression he had made. 
 
 When he rose to leave, however, Mrs. Dawson asked — 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to see my husband ? " 
 
 " I would, assuredly." 
 
 " Then stay. I am expecting him home from the club soon." 
 
 Thus invited, Johns asked no better than to remain, 
 especially as he wanted very much to see the proprietor in 
 person. 
 
 Gradually the room emptied. Mrs. Weber, as she left, gave 
 Johns her hand, remarking — 
 
 " We shall meet again, perhaps." 
 
 " I trust so, most sincerely." 
 
 Johns was left alone with Mrs. Dawson, who said presently — 
 
 *'I can't think what keeps my husband. He is generally 
 back before." 
 
 " As long as his absence procures me a chat with you^ Mrs. 
 Dawson, I shall not be impatient." 
 
 She gave a little laugh. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " you spoke well this afternoon, and 
 I fancy you made an impression on Mrs. Weber. I was quite of 
 your opinion. I'm sure, for my part, I think our lot delightful."" 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 31 
 
 " Delightful," Johns repeated, as he was fond of doing when 
 he wished to mark his appreciation, " delightful ! " 
 
 While she had been speaking, he was saying to himself, 
 "Thirty, and not bad looking. A little coquetterie, and an 
 old husband. Apparently no children. 
 
 " And do you still like the Planet ? " she asked presently, as 
 if to show that she took an interest in his career. 
 
 Here, he thought, was his opportunity. Bending forward in 
 his chair, he said, " Mrs. Dawson, it is in your power to do me 
 a great service. My position on the paper is untenable. I am 
 relegated to the reporters' room and kept there almost unem- 
 ployed. Now, I didn't come over from Australia for this. I 
 must have a better place or leave. And I should be sorry to 
 leave, very sorry, after this afternoon, when I have had so 
 charming an opportunity of knowing and esteeming you. I 
 have not been able to see Mr. Dawson, and I don't think 
 he knows how I am being treated. May I not count on your 
 support ? " 
 
 " Of course you may ; I'll speak to my husband this very 
 evening." 
 
 " Will you do that for me ? Will you really ? " and he laid 
 a stress of admiration on the " will " and ** really." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " How good of you ! " 
 
 " Not at all. I know how Mr. Boyd is fond of treating 
 people." 
 
 " What sort of a man is Mr. Boyd ? " 
 
 " I mustn't say ; but he isn't to my taste." 
 
 Johns hazarded — 
 
 " His face is rather red." 
 
 " Yes," she said, significantly — " very." 
 
 " But how shall I thank you," he continued, returning to his 
 theme; "how shall I express my gratitude?" and he looked at 
 her with almost tearful sympathy. 
 
 She answered, laughing, " By coming to see me on Sunday 
 afternoons." 
 
 " There could not be a more delightful way." 
 
 They were silent for a moment, until they heard the noise of 
 a cab driving up to the front door. 
 
 She rose and went over to the window. 
 
 "Yes, it's he; I'm going to meet him in the hall. Stay 
 where you are." 
 
 Johns, left alone in the drawing-room, looked about him at 
 the heavy hangings on the doors and windows, at the sumptuous 
 chairs and lounges, at the bronzes and the nicknacks on the 
 
32 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 shelves and in the niches. He thought how pleasant it must be 
 to be the owner of such things, and to hve one's Hfe amid such 
 beautiful surroundings ! A little patience, and perhaps 
 
 It was several moments before the husband and wife ap- 
 peared. Dawson shook hands with Johns heartily. 
 
 *' I read your article the other day," he said, "and found it 
 good." 
 
 Johns expressed his satisfaction. " I am only sorry," he 
 said, "that it has not been the means of bringing me more 
 work. I'm not given any work worth mentioning." 
 
 Dawson reflected for a moment. Then he said, "Come 
 and see me to-morrow morning, and I'll try to put that right for 
 you." 
 
 " Thanks," Johns said, " I will." 
 
 And then, as it was growing late, and Mrs. Dawson looked 
 as if she were waiting for him to go, he took leave of them, 
 expressing his thanks to her by a look as he shook hands. 
 
 When he reached the hall, where the man handed him 
 his hat, there was a strong odour of good cooking, and he 
 thought, "Why couldn't the old devil have invited me to 
 dinner?" 
 
 Still, as he walked along towards Hyde Park Corner for the 
 second time, he fancied he had done pretty well for himself that 
 afternoon. He was delighted to have an ally in Mrs. Dawson. 
 Go to her " at homes " on Sunday ? Of course he would. He 
 would like to confront a dozen pale young men with theories 
 about the enfranchisement of women. "The fool," he said, 
 " as if any but ugly women trouble about their rights ! But I 
 suppose it suits his game to talk like that. It suited mine, at 
 anyrate, to contradict him." 
 
 It was dusk when he reached the Corner, and rain was begin- 
 ning to fall heavily. This annoyed him, for his umbrella was 
 very full of holes, and he had left his overcoat at home. There 
 was a quickening of the traffic and a rush for cabs and omni- 
 buses, and he stood in the midst of it, asking himself what he 
 should do next. 
 
 Evidently he must restore his inner man, so, after a great 
 deal of elbowing, he succeeded in conquering a place in an 
 eastward-going 'bus, which conveyed him to the corner of New 
 Oxford Street. Alighting there, he took a sandwich and a 
 "bock" at the bar of a hotel in the vicinity by way of 
 dinner; and then, as the downpour had abated, he walked 
 slowly home. 
 
 As he entered his lodgings, he saw a light in the room of the 
 lady who occupied the ground floor, and as he passed her door 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 33 
 
 he paused. He had made her acquaintance on the stairs a few 
 days previously, and he thought this might be an opportunity of 
 improving it. 
 
 As he heard no sound, and the door was ajar, he knocked. 
 A woman's voice replied, " Come in." 
 
 A fair-haired girl was sitting at a table in a little parlour 
 divided from a bedroom by folding doors. She was reading by 
 the pale light of a jet of gas. 
 
 " Oh, it's you," she said, " Come in." 
 
 He looked at her in the faint light. Her face was still fresh 
 and almost pretty. She seemed to be scarcely twenty. 
 
 " I'm glad you've come," she said. *' I was feeling lonely by 
 myself to-night." 
 
 " So was I," he said, taking a seat beside her, " very." 
 
 " Then we can console each other," she said, smiling. " I'm 
 going to have supper, and if you like to join me " 
 
 He said, " I'd better tell you I'm down on my luck just now, 
 and so it must be all for love. But I'll make up for it later." 
 
 She looked at him inquiringly as if trying to guess if he spoke 
 the truth ; but he had assumed his earnest air, and, apparently 
 convinced, she said, " So many gentlemen are like that ! But 
 it doesn't matter if you like to stay." 
 
 He supped with her, and it was daylight before he left. 
 
CHAPTER 
 THIRD 
 
 WHEN Johns asked to see Dawson the next morning at 
 the office, he was admitted almost instantly to the 
 private room, and the proprietor received him much more 
 cordially than on his former visit. 
 
 "So you want to push on, I hear," he said, scrutinizing him 
 as if he had not seen him properly before. 
 
 " That is my wish, most certainly." 
 
 "Well, you can easily understand that we can't give you 
 leaders to do every day, whether you are able or not to do 
 them. There are other men to be considered. But, if you 
 care to stick to the reporting for the present, I'll see that you 
 get more of it in future. I've already spoken to Mr. Boyd 
 about you." 
 
 " My dear sir, I'm ready to do anything on earth. I'll do 
 the reporting, and I prophesy that you'll soon find it to your 
 advantage to give me better work." 
 
 " Good," said Dawson ; " we shall see." 
 
 Johns now entered the reporters' room with a different 
 feeling to that which he had hitherto experienced, and he said 
 to Maskelyne carelessly, in the hearing of the others, " It's all 
 right now, I've just seen Dawson." 
 
 And the work was not long coming, for the same morning 
 Tarte, in apportioning the tasks by the editor's instructions, 
 told Johns he was to interview a French exiled politician. 
 Johns, who was a good French scholar, managed, by applying 
 the hints he had obtained from Maskelyne, and by exercising 
 ingenuity, to obtain an interview, and to write an account of his 
 conversation which was fairly creditable, although it contained 
 one or two errors of inexperience, which Boyd corrected with 
 something like an oath when Johns handed him the "copy." 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 35 
 
 A few mornings afterwards, when he reached the office, a 
 letter was awaiting him. On opening it, he found that it 
 was an invitation from Mrs. Dawson to dinner for the next 
 evening. 
 
 At first, the sight of the card containing a few words in a 
 large handwriting in which the wife of the proprietor " hoped 
 he would be able to come," filled him with delight; but when 
 he reflected a moment afterwards that he would have to find 
 a suit of clothes for the occasion, his joy was somewhat marred. 
 He could not go to the Strand tailors again, and to buy all the 
 articles he wanted outright was impossible, seeing that he 
 would not be paid for a week or more, and that Dawson never 
 allowed advances. Well, he would get out of that difficulty, 
 he supposed, somehow, and if it came to the worst, he would 
 have to hire the apparel for the evening. 
 
 He found Maskelyne in the reporters' room, and handed 
 him the note he had just received. When Maskelyne read it, 
 he exclaimed, " lucky person," and turning to the reporters, 
 said, " Here's a man who hasn't been on the paper a month, and 
 he's invited to dine with the Dawsons." The two scribes who 
 were in the room glanced at Johns with a half indifferent, half 
 antagonistic look — one of those looks which drudges have for 
 those who rise above them. 
 
 " I wonder," thought Johns, " if Maskelyne possesses a dress 
 suit. Yes, he must, else how could he report banquets?" But 
 when he measured him with a rapid glance, he soon decided 
 that the reporter not only was too tall, but also much too thin 
 for there to be any likelihood of his clothes fitting him. Besides, 
 to have borrowed from him would have exposed the bareness 
 of the land, and he thought that it was unwise to be too frank 
 about one's means. Another combination must be found, and 
 he resolved to seek it. 
 
 The next morning, having discovered no solution to the 
 problem, he explored the shops in the vicinity of Covent Garden 
 until he found a costumier who, for the deposit of a pound — the 
 last he had left — supplied him with a complete outfit, exclusive 
 of a shirt, which he was forced to buy at a hosier's in the Strand, 
 thus reducing his resources to a perilously low ebb. He was 
 slightly comforted, however, by the reflection that he was 
 owed a little money by the paper : he must manage to hold 
 out on half rations until it became due. In the evening, after 
 his work was over, he called for his parcels and carried them to 
 Grafton Street. 
 
 Many times after he had dressed that evening, he surveyed 
 himself in the little looking-glass which had lost a portion of its 
 
36 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 plating. The coat shone, and was rather tight in several places, 
 but rub the shoes as he might, he could not make the patent 
 leather shine, and yet, the general effect, he thought, was good. 
 By gas-light it might pass muster. He deemed himself pre- 
 sentable. 
 
 It was the first time he had put on a dress coat, and he 
 flattered himself that no one could ever have guessed the fact. 
 " I shall betaken for a rich man indifferent about his dress," he 
 thought. "As to the women, I don't believe they care a fig 
 how a man dresses — if he pleases them." 
 
 By a succession of omnibus routes, which he was obliged to 
 take to avoid soiling his shoes, he arrived at Princes Gate at a 
 little before eight, and was shown at once into the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 The hostess, in black satin, received him almost as an old 
 acquaintance. 
 
 There were few people in the room, and she was speaking to 
 Boyd, who appeared surprised when he saw Johns. 
 
 She said, " Mr. Boyd, I need not introduce Mr. Johns to 
 you. By this time, I am quite sure, he is not only a colleague 
 but a friend." 
 
 Boyd tried to smile, and said, with some consideration, 
 " Good evening, Mr. Johns. We meet again." 
 
 Johns thought, "To your disgust, my friend," but he 
 said, glancing at Mrs. Dawson, "Yes, and under charming 
 auspices." 
 
 Dawson himself came up at this juncture, and Johns shook 
 hands with him. 
 
 Then, as the hostess was busy receiving fresh arrivals, he 
 crossed to the other side of the room, where he had noticed 
 Mrs. Weber sitting. 
 
 "I was wondering," she said, "if you would remember me." 
 
 " My memory would have been abominable if I had not," he 
 answered. 
 
 " Do you know many of the people here ? " she asked. 
 
 " Scarcely any of them ; pray tell me who they are." 
 
 " Well, there is a rather curious medley of letters and finance, 
 and law and politics. Mrs. Dawson likes to have her dinner- 
 table well divided. And I think she's right. One element 
 tones the other down. Do you see that couple coming in ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That's the member for North Aldgate and his wife, nee the 
 Honourable Sophia Curton. I never understood how they 
 settle their politics, but they manage to get along very well 
 apparently. He's a great man among the radicals." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 37 
 
 Johns said, "I'll make a point of speaking to them. I've 
 written about that gentleman ; his name is Parker." 
 
 " Then, that little man yonder who looks contented with 
 himself is a socialist — not of the desperate type, you know — 
 an artistic and luxurious socialist. Another contradiction as 
 you see. Then, the thin lady in green velvet is a journalist or 
 a literary lady of some sort. Do you like literary ladies ? " 
 
 " Are you literary ? " 
 
 " No, of course not." 
 
 " Then, I don't mind confessing that I cannot bear them." 
 
 Mrs. Weber laughed, showing a set of pearly teeth. 
 
 " Near them on the right," she said, " is Mr. Stevenson, the 
 young man whom you rather sat upon the other day. He's 
 the editor of a paper called The Woman's Cause^ and is 
 considered clever in his way, although you mayn't think so." 
 
 "I do, I do, exceedingly." 
 
 "Sarcastic?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 The dinner was announced. 
 
 She said, " It's your duty to take me down. Lucy told me 
 so." 
 
 He answered, offering his arm, " How shall I thank her for 
 that privilege ? " 
 
 In the long picture-gallery dining-room they were seated near 
 the end at which Mrs. Dawson was presiding. Opposite to 
 them, the member for North Aldgate was seated next the lady 
 journalist. On the right of the hostess was the socialist- 
 capitalist, and on her left a gentleman whom Mrs. Weber 
 whispered was a magnate in the city. 
 
 Johns calculated rapidly the advantages he might derive from 
 his environment, while he surveyed his neighbour's charms, 
 which seemed to him seductive. He looked also at the menuj 
 which was a lengthy one, and he judged that the dinner would 
 last long. All the more chance of an opportunity arriving of 
 making himself heard. In the meantime he would devote 
 himself to Mrs. Weber, who was listening, with evident ennui, 
 to the desultory remarks of a young man on her left. 
 
 " It seems to me," he said to her, almost in an undertone, 
 " that I have known you so long, so very long, and yet it's 
 only a few days ! You struck me as being a woman who 
 took a sympathetic interest in life, and I told myself that you 
 possessed one of those rich, warm natures of which there are 
 too few." 
 
 " Indeed ? And is your nature like the one you give me ? " 
 
 " It is a sister nature, surely." 
 
38 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 "Are you often serious, Mr. Johns ? " 
 
 '* I never was more serious. Ah ! Mrs. Weber, when you 
 come to know me better, you will find that I can be deeply 
 earnest." 
 
 She said, "You must be interesting so; indeed, I'm not sure 
 that you're not interesting now." 
 
 He looked at the well-moulded arms and at the fingers which, 
 in the soft light from the electric lamps, took a golden colour- 
 ing, then at the faultless curve of the neck and shoulders, and 
 he thought for the second time, " delicious." 
 
 He said, "How well you heal the wounds which you 
 inflict ! " 
 
 She answered, " How prettily you dress your compliments." 
 
 Presently he asked, " Which of the guests is that fortunate 
 man, your husband ? " 
 
 She looked down gravely at her plate. 
 
 " My husband died two years ago." 
 
 He had asked the question to elicit a piece of information, 
 and he said, " I beg your pardon, I did not know. I cannot 
 forgive myself for making you look sad." 
 
 She answered, " Yes, you should have ascertained before you 
 spoke." 
 
 He thought, " She's a little woman liable to turn round on 
 one," and he gave a sympathetic glance in the direction of the 
 hostess, lest she should think he had forgotten her. 
 
 But the member opposite was having a discussion with the 
 lady journaHst upon the subject of education, and Johns at 
 once listened. 
 
 " Your bill," the lady said, " is too ambitious, too gigantic. 
 What you want to do in one reform will require half a dozen, 
 and I'm not quite sure that it ever will be done at all. A 
 century hence perhaps it may." 
 
 She punctuated the enunciation of her opinions with a 
 short nod, which gave her the air of a marionette. 
 
 " But, my dear Miss Noakes, my bill is above all things 
 practical. There is not a single clause in it which cannot 
 be applied in the present day, at the present hour. It is 
 meant to suppress the abuses of the present system, and at 
 the same time to extend the scope of education. In the 
 Planet there was an article a little while ago which put the 
 case for higher education better than I have ever seen it 
 put before. It said that the state of public education was 
 the barometer of the nation's progress, and that to prevent 
 the mercury from rising was to defy a law of nature. I must 
 ask Mr. Dawson who wrote that article." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 39 
 
 Johns thought this was his opportunity. 
 
 " That article was mine." 
 
 " Indeed," said the politician, looking at Johns through his 
 glasses, " then I congratulate you, sincerely." 
 
 And as it happened there was a lull in the conversation 
 at that moment, the congratulation was heard by everybody, 
 even by Dawson at the other end of the table. 
 
 Wishing to make use of so good a chance of being heard, 
 Johns continued — 
 
 " Public education, as your admirable bill regards it, and as 
 I, too, conceive it, should not mean the teaching of mere 
 elements. It should be, to use a metaphor, the sowing of the 
 finest seed broadcast. It is from the lower strata of society 
 that those great rude minds have sprung which have left 
 their stamp indelibly on history. There is a vigour in the 
 minds of children whose parents have led lives of toil. 
 Their constitution is robust and their brains are virgin soil, 
 often of the richest quality. In the higher ranks, where 
 education has exhausted itself for generations, the soil is 
 weakened and impoverished, the vital force is failing. If 
 you wish to bring forth all that the English brain can yield, 
 you must open the gates of higher education to the democracy. 
 Then you will be certain that no capacities are lost, that the 
 best brains among the forty millions of inhabitants will 
 come to the front to advance the work of progress. That 
 principle is unassailable. It is natural. It cannot long be 
 stifled by the egotism of conservative opinion." 
 
 This little speech, pronounced in Johns' penetrating voice, 
 produced a considerable effect, and he fancied that he heard 
 "who's that?" whispered in several quarters. 
 
 Dawson at anyrate smiled appreciatively from the bottom 
 of the table. 
 
 The member said, " Your ideas exactly coincide with mine. 
 I'm glad to have had an opportunity of meeting you." 
 
 But the lady journalist, who was of another way of thinking, 
 said, in her nasal voice, " Your theory is quite against statistics. 
 It has been shown conclusively that the children of the 
 working classes give very poor results for the money which is 
 spent in educating them — very poor results indeed." 
 
 But Johns, having obtained the effect he wanted, and seeing 
 that no one took much notice of the thin lady in peacock 
 green, contented himself with smiling and not answering. 
 
 Presently, however, when Mrs. Dawson said, " You are quite 
 an authority on education, Mr. Johns," he thought that a little 
 show of modesty would not now be out of place. So he 
 
40 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 replied, " Oh ! my contributions to the subject have hitherto 
 been sHght." 
 
 " But I hope," interposed the member, "that in future they 
 will be more numerous." 
 
 " That depends more upon others than upon myself," Johns 
 said, glancing in the direction of Boyd, who was sipping his 
 champagne discontentedly at the other end of the long 
 table. 
 
 Mrs. Weber, who had been listening to the discussion with a 
 smile, said to Johns as soon as the conversation became general 
 again, " And do you really believe all those fine things about 
 the democratic intellect ? " 
 " Oh, absolutely." 
 
 " Yes, but really, truly ? You needn't be afraid to tell me. 
 No one's listening." 
 
 Johns thought, " Smart little woman," but repeated gravely, 
 " Absolutely." 
 
 " I don't believe you." 
 " Oh, how incredulous ! " 
 
 " Yes, I own I am as incredulous as you are discreet." 
 Johns smiled enigmatically, and looked at the roses which 
 decked the table, saying to himself, " Perhaps she's met my 
 type before," and he could not help admitting that the widow 
 was rather puzzling. 
 
 *' You're very silent," she said presently. 
 " I was thinking," he replied, " that you remind me of one 
 of those figures in the Table of Cebes which no one could 
 identify at first sight, but which represented an allegory. I 
 wonder what you represent ? " 
 
 *' You must study me, and find out for yourself" 
 But, as Johns anticipated, the dinner, which he found 
 excellent, lasted a long time, and he began to regret that no 
 other opportunity had come to him of making himself heard. 
 He wished he had spoken longer while he had the ear of the 
 whole table. Still, perhaps he should not grumble. He had 
 astonished Boyd, of that he was quite sure. His attention, 
 however, was diverted from these considerations by a discussion 
 between the sociaHst and the financial baron. 
 
 The baron said, " If your theories had been applied yester- 
 day, you would not be sitting here this evening, you would not 
 have had an extra suit to come in, you would be taking soup 
 in the free larder of the State." 
 
 " My dear sir," the socialist replied, commiseratingly, " you 
 have ideas of socialism of fifty years ago, when it was thought 
 we wanted to divide all property among the population. Of 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 41 
 
 course, that's nonsense, and you might credit us with a little 
 more intelligence. No, what we want to do is in the direction 
 of reform. We want to abolish all extravagance in government. 
 We want to reduce high salaries. We want to clip your wings." 
 
 The baron looked around the table. 
 
 "Is there any one here," he asked, "who wants to have his 
 income reduced by Mr. Brewer's method ? " 
 
 There was a laugh, and a general murmur of dissent. 
 
 Addressing the socialist, Johns said, " In your theories, 
 which I know well, you underrate the worth of that little 
 quality of brain which happens to be a gift of nature. Of 
 course, we, as good radicals, are desirous that the democracy 
 should have all possible advantages, but if you limit the 
 rewards for the best brains, you prevent them from making 
 their best efforts." 
 
 " Quite so," said the baron ; " that is exactly what I think — 
 what we all think, really." 
 
 " Comfort yourselves, then, with that thought," said the 
 socialist, " and go on living in your paradise of misconceptions. 
 This is not the place for me to refute you, as I could ; but I 
 will send you both a copy of my book, although I know that 
 there is no remedy for egoism." 
 
 " Thank you," said Johns ; " I will read it with avidity." 
 
 The socialist smiled feebly, and went on speaking to the 
 hostess. 
 
 " I don't think you're likely to be convinced," said Mrs. 
 Weber. 
 
 Johns answered in a low tone, " I don't fancy there's much 
 chance of it," and they exchanged a look of quick intelligence, 
 a look which meant, " We understand each other." 
 
 As soon as the dessert had been discussed, Mrs. Dawson 
 rose, and the ladies left in the solemn Indian file peculiar to 
 English dinner parties. 
 
 Johns, as soon as they had left, moved round to where Boyd 
 was sitting, thinking that he would lose nothing by endeavour- 
 ing to propitiate the chief. 
 
 " Mr. Boyd," he ventured, " I am delighted to meet you here. 
 In the office our interviews are necessarily short, and we have 
 no opportunity of getting to know each other." 
 
 Boyd, who was unprepared for this, and whose face denoted 
 that he had done justice to his host's vintages, looked 
 embarrassed, thinking, no doubt, that in the house of the 
 proprietor he was bound to treat Johns with some consideration. 
 He hesitated for a moment, then he said, awkwardly, *' Oh, 
 yes. Thanks." 
 
42. THE ADVENTURES 
 
 But Dawson, who had been Hstening, struck in, " All right, 
 Mr. Johns. We won't make you hide your light, you may 
 depend upon it." 
 
 This was all that Johns could wish. He thanked Dawson, 
 and, without troubling more about Boyd, listened to a renewed 
 discussion between the socialist and the financier without 
 joining in it, for he preferred to speak when there were ladies 
 present, finding that he succeeded better then. 
 
 As soon as he reached the drawing-room, shortly afterwards, 
 Johns said, regretfully, to Mrs. Dawson, who was standing near 
 the door — 
 
 " You were so far away at dinner that I could not speak to 
 you." 
 
 She answered, "I don't think you minded much — you 
 seemed to be quite happily engaged." 
 
 " But happiness is apt to be so relative !" 
 
 She laughed and hurried off. 
 
 Johns now surveyed the room. The lady journalist was 
 looking engagingly in his direction, but as she belonged to a 
 category for whom he had no taste, who didn't enter into his 
 combinations, and who seemed to him unprofitable, he decided 
 that he would waste no time in speaking to her. 
 
 As he was looking round, he suddenly perceived that the 
 lady whom he had met before — the bejewelled lady of the 
 Berkeley — was making a sign to him to come to her. 
 
 She was talking to three other ladies, and her daughter was 
 by her side. 
 
 " We want to beg of you," she said, "to give us another of 
 those pretty little stories about Australia like the one you told 
 us here the other day. I'm quite sure you must know some 
 more." 
 
 *' Nothing would give me greater pleasure," Johns answered, 
 and he told them a fresh tale. He told it with humour and 
 a little pathos, and when he finished he was thanked enthusias- 
 tically. A little circle had gathered round him, and he told 
 them another story, and yet another, until he declared that he 
 could tell no more that evening. 
 
 Then, as he perceived Mrs. Weber sipping tea at the further 
 end of the room, and as he thought he had produced a suffi- 
 ciently good effect, he excused himself and crossed to where 
 the widow sat. 
 
 " So you felt no curiosity to hear my little stories ?" 
 
 " I heard them quite well from here. What curious experi- 
 ences you must have had !" 
 
 " But I did not say they were mine." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 43 
 
 " No, but I guessed they were." 
 
 Johns was taken aback, and for a moment almost discon- 
 certed. The way in which this little woman seemed to pene- 
 trate his motives gave him a feeling of insecurity he scarcely 
 liked. 
 
 " Even to please you^'' he said, " I could not father them !" 
 
 " No ? — Oh, you will some day. When are you coming to 
 see me at Carsdale Mansions?" 
 
 " Not later than to-morrow, if you will be at home." 
 
 " Yes, after four." 
 
 " I'll come." 
 
 Their talk was interrupted after this by a succession of duets 
 played by two "professionals" who had appeared suddenly 
 upon the scene, and Johns had no other opportunity of saying 
 much to Mrs. Weber; but twice, when their eyes met, he 
 noticed that she looked down quickly — once with a little smile. 
 Johns thought, " She's the prettiest woman in the room. I'll 
 call at Carsdale Mansions." 
 
 When the party broke up, shortly before midnight, Johns 
 waited till the hostess, having taken leave of most of her guests, 
 was standing on the landing outside the drawing-room door. 
 Seeing his opportunity, he glided quickly up to her and asked, 
 " When can I come and have a chat with you ? I would so 
 much like to come some day when you are free — I mean, when 
 you are not receiving." 
 
 He fancied that the colour of her face heightened as she 
 answered — 
 
 " Come and lunch with me, then, to-morrow." 
 
 "How kind of you!" 
 
 He pressed her hand warmly as he parted with her to express 
 his gratitude, and descended the staircase thinking that his 
 evening had not been spent in vain. 
 
 As he was leaving the house, a lady in a hansom, which was 
 just starting, gave him a little nod, and recognising Mrs. Weber, 
 though her face was partly hidden by a lace mantilla, he made 
 her a profound bow. 
 
 "Yes," he said, as he started on his walk home, "it's been a 
 good evening, and if I don't turn it to account, it won't be my 
 fault." 
 
 An hour's walk through the moonlit streets, still somewhat 
 animated, brought him home again ; and as he entered his 
 abode, he noticed that there was no light in Maggie's room. 
 
 "Still out, I suppose," he said; "bad trade that — deuced 
 bad;" and he climbed the three flights quickly to his room. 
 
 As he undressed he folded the dress clothes as carefully as 
 
44 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 if they had been his own, for he attributed a share of his success 
 that evening to them. They, he thought, had made him accept- 
 able and he them. In bed he remained awake for some time, 
 thinking of the two women to whom he had spoken most, and 
 forming a plan of action for the morrow. He must make an 
 ally of Mrs. Dawson, no matter by what means, and as for her 
 friend, the widow, he must find out exactly who she was, and 
 shape his course accordingly. At all events she was the smartest 
 and the prettiest woman in the room, and he went to sleep 
 with that conviction in his mind. 
 
 The next morning he walked into the office with a loftier 
 air than he had assumed before, and instead of mounting 
 to the reporters' room, he sought that of Tarte. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Tarte," he said, " since yesterday my 
 position has considerably changed. I was dining last night at 
 the Dawsons', and I had a talk vath Dawson and with Boyd. 
 It was understood that my present place upon the paper was 
 only to be temporary. Now, while it is being decided what 
 I am to do, I want you to let me sit here at your table. 
 There's room enough for two, and as I told you before, 
 you'll not regret it if you do me a good turn ! " 
 
 Tarte answered, " When Napoleon wished the State to give 
 him anything, he thought it best to take it first. In journalism 
 that is an admirable system, and it ought to lead you far. 
 Had I adopted it I should now perhaps be editing the Th7ies ; 
 but it was not in my nature. You, young man, seem to me 
 possessed of the spirit which I, alas, did not inherit. I thought, 
 when I was young, of such abstract things as philanthropy, 
 simplicity, sobriety, while you, my friend, are wiser, and only 
 trouble about Johns. Yes, you can sit here ; I want to watch 
 you." 
 
 " Rum old chap," thought Johns, as he divested a chair of 
 its pile of papers and installed himself at Tarte's writing- 
 table ; " at all events he's useful." 
 
 "You won't see Dawson to-day," said Tarte; "he's going 
 to Manchester this morning, and Boyd has come to the office 
 in a demoniacal temper. He's already vented some of it on 
 me ; but I'm old and tough, and it fell like water on a duck's 
 back. His dinner last night doesn't seem to have agreed with 
 him." 
 
 Johns, resisting the temptation of seeking Maskelyne to give 
 him an account of the Dawsons' dinner party because he 
 thought that to do so would be trivial, passed the morning in 
 Tarte's room, preparing a fresh article on education, which was 
 to be an impeachment of the prevailing system. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 45 
 
 Then, when the time arrived, he left for Princes Gate by 
 'bus. 
 
 The first words which Mrs. Dawson said to him, as he came 
 into the room, were — 
 
 "I've been terribly disappointed. I had asked one of 
 those young ladies whom you met last night, and only five 
 minutes ago I had a telegram from her to tell me that 
 she could not come." 
 
 Johns thought, " I wonder if that's true," and he said, " How 
 gladly I can dispense with any other company ! " 
 
 " Yes, but in this way I am receiving you alone." 
 
 " And is that so very wrong ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I'm almost afraid it is." 
 
 Again Johns thought, "I wonder if that's true." 
 
 He said, " I would be very loath to forego the pleasure ; 
 but, of course, if you really think that " 
 
 " Oh, no. It's not so bad as that. Now you have come so 
 far, you certainly must stay." 
 
 Johns bowed. 
 
 " Come and look at my canaries," she said after a moment, 
 and, leaving the drawing-room, she led him to the recess upon 
 the landing, in the centre of which stood a large cage filled 
 with little golden-feathered birds who were chirping merrily 
 while basking in the ray of sunshine that streamed through the 
 high staircase window. 
 
 " Are they not sweet ? " she said, in a girlish tone, which 
 scarcely seemed to suit her. " Unfortunately the mortality 
 among them is quite dreadful, and I am constantly finding, 
 when I come down in the morning, one of the little dears at 
 the bottom of the cage upon his back. It makes me feel 
 quite sad." 
 
 "Ah yes," said Johns, "we must always suffer for our 
 feelings ! The people who are happiest are those who have 
 those flinty hearts so common nowadays." 
 
 " You are not one of them, I hope." 
 
 "Can you ask that question?" and he assumed a look 
 which was so sorrowful and earnest that Mrs. Dawson ex- 
 pressed herself convinced. 
 
 Presently a servant came to announce the lunch, and Johns 
 led his hostess to the dining-room. 
 
 "You see what it is to have no family," she said, as they 
 were sitting down, " when my husband is away I'm quite alone." 
 
 Johns answered sympathetically, "And have you then no 
 family?" 
 
 "No, none." 
 
46 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 During the lunch, as the presence of the servants somewhat 
 disconcerted him, and as Mrs. Dawson seemed to wish it, 
 Johns spoke chiefly of passing topics. He felt relieved when 
 the meal was over and they went back to the drawing-room. 
 
 She took a seat on a long divan-like sofa, and Johns, with- 
 out waiting to be asked, sat next to her. 
 
 " Do you know," she said at once, " I've already spoken to 
 my husband about you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I knew from what he said to me the other day that 
 my good angel had interceded for me. Will you allow me to 
 call you my good angel ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dawson laughed, and Johns continued — 
 
 " And now I feel that I don't know how to thank you ! " 
 
 " I don't want any thanks. I consider it a duty to defend 
 any one against Mr. Boyd." 
 
 ** What a curious individual he is ! Pray tell me what you 
 know about him." 
 
 " I don't suppose I know more than you, only I'm quite 
 sure that I don't like tyrants. Besides, a man who's seldom 
 sober does not seem fit to be an editor. I tell my husband so, 
 but he's afraid to part with him, lest the circulation should 
 diminish." 
 
 " He'll have to go some day," said Johns ; " it's only a 
 question of time;" and he thought, "If / could get his 
 place ! " 
 
 There was a short pause, during which Mrs. Dawson, find- 
 ing that there was too much light, rose and drew down a 
 blind. 
 
 " You haven't told me," she said, as she resumed her seat, 
 " what you think of Mrs. Weber." 
 
 Johns answered, with the air of a man who has not quite made 
 up his mind — 
 
 " Oh, no doubt Mrs. Weber's interesting, and on the whole, 
 I fancy, not bad looking." 
 
 " You're rather lukewarm in your praise, and yet I thought 
 you seemed impressed." 
 
 "Scarcely that," he answered, adding carelessly, "who is 
 Mrs. Weber, by the way ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Weber is the widow of a German military attache who 
 died a few years ago, without, I'm afraid, leaving her very well 
 provided for. She lives in a little flat in Westminster." 
 
 "Ah yes," Johns said, as if he had received a piece of 
 information which was of dubious interest, " it's unfortunate." 
 
 Then, suddenly turning round and facing her as if he were 
 moved by a sudden impulse, he exclaimed, "Do you know, 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 47 
 
 dear Mrs. Dawson, the first time I saw you at the hotel I was 
 reminded of those lines from Haidee : — 
 
 " Her brow was white and low, her cheeks' pure dye 
 Like twilights rosy still with the set sun ; 
 
 Short upper lip — sweet lips ! that make us sigh 
 Ever to have seen such ; for she was one 
 
 Fit for the model of a statuary." 
 
 They were lines which he had used successfully many a time 
 before to farmers' daughters in Australia, and as he thought 
 humanity very much the same in all latitudes, he ventured to 
 use them now, and with a practised intonation. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson, taken by surprise at first, blushed deeply, and 
 then exclaimed in a severe tone, " Mr. Johns ! " 
 
 He thought, " I've gone too quick," and he said at once, 
 " Don't be offended, dear Mrs. Dawson. It's in my nature to 
 be frank and to express my feelings. I only recited the lines 
 of a great poet which came into my head that night. They 
 occurred to me because it was so natural they should. Do not 
 scold me for them ! They are as harmless as they are true ! " 
 
 Partly restored to confidence, she said, "I'm afraid, Mr. 
 Johns, you're a great flatterer." 
 
 He answered, " It is not flattery to speak the truth," and he 
 gazed into her face so searchingly that she moved a little from 
 him, looking down. Then he continued, "Where there is 
 sympathy it cannot be restrained. One nature is drawn 
 towards another as the needle to the pole, and it is beyond the 
 power of either to resist. Ah, Mrs. Dawson, do not try to 
 check that precious sentiment which exists between us, for it is 
 all too rare in life ! Promise me that we shall be always 
 friends." And, as he said this, he stretched out his arms with 
 an imploring gesture. In doing so, his hand touched hers. 
 
 She drew back quickly, and he resumed, " How can I teach 
 you to see in me the sincerest of your admirers, the most 
 devoted of your friends ?" 
 
 " Really, Mr. Johns," she said at length, " I'm quite ready to 
 believe you as long as you talk as a friend should." 
 
 He said, " It's very hard, but I promise that I will." 
 
 " Why should it be hard ? " she asked. 
 
 The question almost made him smile, for he attached great 
 weight to women's questions, thinking them the key to their 
 inner thoughts. 
 
 He answered, " If I were to tell you that, I would break my 
 promise. Will you let me break it ? " 
 
 "No, no," she said, "in that case, please don't answer 
 me." 
 
48 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 But he considered now that he had gone far enough that 
 day. " Dear Mrs. Dawson," he said, " let us not quarrel. I 
 will submit to a hard fate." ^ 
 
 There was a pause, and presently he began to tell her a 
 story of two lovers in Victoria, a pathetic little story describing 
 what he called "a great immeasurable love," such a love as 
 only earnest natures could experience, an invincible absorbing 
 love, which neither calumny nor age could quell, a love which 
 only grew in its intensity when one of the two lovers was dis- 
 figured by an accident for life. 
 
 " Ah," he said, as he concluded, " that is the ideal for which 
 life should be lived." 
 
 With a shade of sadness in her voice, she answered, " Yes, 
 but it's not given to every one to reach it." 
 
 He thought, " You can't have reached it with old Dawson," 
 and he answered, " Alas ! no," after which there was a silence. 
 
 A little later, when he rose to leave, he said, " I trust I am 
 forgiven ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " but another time you must not be so 
 frank." 
 
 " Have I not promised to dissimulate in future ? " 
 
 " Come and see me again soon," she said. 
 
 He left the house with a light heart, humming a tune as he 
 walked along, and thinking, " She's not the smartest woman I 
 ever met, but she may be the most useful." 
 
 The afternoon was advancing, and as he had told Tarte he 
 would not return to the Strand that day, he set out on foot for 
 Westminster to pay his visit to Mrs. Weber, saying to himself, 
 like the porter in the Eastern tale, " Oh, what a blessed day 
 this is !" For he looked forward with a keen sense of anticipa- 
 tion to his meeting with the widow. 
 
 Carsdale Mansions stood, he found, behind Victoria Street, 
 and Mrs. Weber's flat, the porter told him, was on the fourth 
 floor. 
 
 He refused the lift because lifts sometimes broke, and he 
 did not want to run the risk, however slight, of ending or im- 
 peding his career. But he mounted the four flights nimbly. 
 
 A maid opened the door to him almost as soon as he had 
 pressed the knob. 
 
 Mrs. Weber was at home, she said, and she conducted him 
 along a narrow hall to the drawing-room at the extreme end. 
 At once he surveyed the room — a square room furnished 
 modestly but tastefully, as if the owner had more taste than 
 means. Here and there an ornament, a piece, of tapestry, or a 
 work of art seemed to be meant for richer surroundings, and 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 49 
 
 there was a fine Sevres vase in a corner of the room, which 
 seemed out of keeping with the cheap upholstery. 
 
 Johns had scarcely finished making these observations when 
 the door opened and Mrs. Weber entered. 
 
 " So you've kept your word," she said, as she gave her hand. 
 
 " What human power could have made me break it ? " 
 
 " Oh," she said, with a little laugh, " one never knows." 
 
 "You seem to have little confidence in our sex." 
 
 " Only a very little." 
 
 "Your experience has not been bad, I hope." 
 
 " Not worse, I suppose, than most women's." 
 
 He had taken a seat opposite to her in a low chair, and he 
 was admiring the lines of her faultless figure draped in the folds 
 of a soft woollen dress. 
 
 " Mrs. Weber," he said, " I have been thinking of you very 
 often since last night. The first moment I saw you my attention 
 was arrested. I was impressed. You seemed to me to be one 
 of those rare women who embody in themselves all the qualities 
 which we men prize, as well as an indefinable distinctiveness 
 which I had not met before. And now as I see you this after- 
 noon in this charming nook, and I hear you speak in an accent 
 almost of disenchantment, I ask myself — why is this ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid you're asking a question to which there is no 
 answer. And if you please, I don't want to be made out to be 
 peculiar. No, I accept things as they are, and take them at 
 their value." 
 
 " How well I understand you," he exclaimed. " That is just 
 my philosophy ! " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, smiling, " I should think we ought to 
 understand each other." 
 
 " I'm convinced of it." 
 
 He was in reality perplexed. Never having met a woman 
 who resembled her, he felt undecided what method of behaviour 
 to adopt. 
 
 " And so you live alone in this retreat," he said, in order to 
 say something. 
 
 "Quite. I suppose you, also, live alone?" 
 
 " Yes, and that's another point of similarity between us. We 
 neither of us have chains." 
 
 " Except those which society imposes on us, and those which 
 we forge ourselves." 
 
 "Oh, those are easily undone." 
 
 Without noticing his remark, she asked — 
 
 " Are you going to make a stir in journalism ? I like men 
 who make a stir in something." 
 
 E 
 
50 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 Johns thought he now possessed a clue. 
 
 " Certainly," he answered, resolutely, " I mean to try to make 
 a very big stir indeed." 
 
 " That's right. I fancy you'll succeed." 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Weber, you don't know how much it depends on 
 you ! " 
 
 ''On me?" 
 
 " Yes, on you. To conquer, I need sympathy, encourage- 
 ment, and friendship. I need to think, while 1 am fighting, 
 that there is a woman of surpassing charm who understands 
 me, in whom I can confide, in the sunshine of whose beauty I 
 can sometimes bask. And I felt from the moment I beheld 
 you that you were that woman ! Do not say that I was wrong." 
 
 He leaned forward in his chair, and the expression of his 
 face was as eager as if his life had depended on her answer. 
 He was watching her every gesture, to see if she were touched. 
 
 " Of course, I'll promise you my sympathy," she said, " if 
 that is of any use to you." 
 
 "It's everything," he said, triumphantly. ''How shall I 
 thank you?" 
 
 " By being less enthusiastic." 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Weber, Mrs. Weber, you little know the ravage 
 you have made ! You don't suspect that I have not said a 
 tithe of what was in my thoughts. You cannot guess, you 
 cannot guess." 
 
 " Really, Mr. Johns ! " 
 
 " You reminded me last night, when you were sitting in that 
 corner, with the velvet curtain for a background, of one of those 
 portraits of the divine Rembrandt which, once seen, can never 
 be forgotten. If those duettists prevented me from speaking 
 to you, my eyes, I fancy, spoke." 
 
 " They are saying too much now, it seems to me ; too 
 much for sincerity." 
 
 " How cruel you can be. I will swear to my sincerity." 
 
 " Don't," she said. " In these days there's nothing left to 
 swear by." 
 
 A servant entered with a tea table, and she did the honours. 
 
 " At all events," he resumed presently, " I hold you to your 
 promise of sympathy, and, I hope, companionship." 
 
 When he rose to leave, as he wanted to make a supreme 
 demonstration of his sentiments, he held her hand in his a 
 moment, and raised it quickly to his lips before she was able to 
 prevent him. 
 
 Then he withdrew without another word. 
 
CHAPTER 
 FOURTH 
 
 JOHNS was not long mastering the art of interviewing. He 
 had shown a certain talent in questioning the reticent, in 
 worming from them the information which the public wanted, 
 and there was something in his presence, in the intona- 
 tion of his voice, in the expressiveness of his physiognomy 
 which often opened doors to him that were shut even to 
 experienced men like Maskelyne. He had a commanding way 
 of saying "Mr. Johns," in sending in his name, which 
 impressed janitors and clerks. His knowledge of the world, 
 too, stood him in good stead. He possessed the scent, the 
 instinct, which places the journalist on the track of news. 
 
 Still, although his finances were somewhat better since he 
 had received payment from the paper, they were by no means 
 good. For the interviews were far from numerous, and Boyd 
 gave him no other work to do. He had, also, been obliged to 
 buy an evening suit, which he obtained on credit from 
 Townsend Brothers after paying the remainder of his bill. 
 But he made the best of circumstances, and, in his leisure 
 moments, he amused himself by writing articles which he tore 
 up after he had read them out to the approving Tarte, who, to 
 his surprise, seemed to take an interest in his career. '* Some 
 men are born," he thought, " to pave the way for others, and 
 certainly he's one of them." In the meanwhile, fact by fact, 
 he collected all the information he could gather about Boyd — 
 his disposition, character, propensities — and he stored these 
 in his memory, hoping to find use for them later on. 
 
 During Dawson's prolonged absence Johns received no more 
 invitations from his wife. When he called on her on the 
 Sunday following, although she received him cordially, she was 
 reserved, and she glanced down when she spoke to him. 
 
52 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 seeming anxious to avoid looking at him in the face. Prudery 
 or timidity, whichever it might be, he thought it a good sign ; 
 though he was a Httle disappointed that at parting she had not 
 asked him to return soon. Probably the room full of guests 
 prevented her, or she had been reflecting, and he was always 
 distrustful of feminine reflections. 
 
 Might the widow have related his visit to her ? But no, he 
 thought he knew women well enough to know that, where men 
 were concerned, there were certain confidences they preferred 
 avoiding. As he did not find that he was being made much 
 of that afternoon, and as the widow was not there, he did not 
 remain long. 
 
 For a few days after this, however, he was restless and 
 unsettled at the office, beginning to think that, after all, things 
 weren't going so well as he expected, and asking himself what 
 he could do to accelerate their progress, when one morning, as 
 he was sitting at Tarte's table, a clerk brought him a letter 
 addressed in a woman's hand. He opened it and read, 
 " Come and dine with me to-morrow. Shall expect you. 
 Yours, Ellen Weber." 
 
 After reading these few words several times, he seemed so 
 pleased that Tarte looked up enquiringly. But Johns, 
 thrusting the note into his pocket, said calmly, *' It's only a 
 lady who's come back to her senses." 
 
 " Ah," said Tarte, " of women I know nothing. For three 
 and seventy years I have kept my body chaste; and chaste, one 
 of these days, I mean to die." 
 
 ** What ? " said Johns, looking at Tarte with open-mouthed 
 astonishment ; " you don't mean to say that " 
 
 Tarte interrupted with *' Yes, sir ; I do." 
 
 " Extraordinary ! " and Johns contemplated Tarte, feeling 
 more convinced than ever that the man was indeed an oddity. 
 He had thought often of the pretty widow since his visit, and 
 always with increased pleasure. She seemed so self-possessed 
 and so attractive in the reserve which she maintained. He 
 would have called on her again had he not been restrained by 
 a wish to wait until she asked him. Now, she was inviting him 
 to dine with her — no doubt alone — and nothing could possibly 
 be more propitious. 
 
 The next day, at the office, he was afraid lest he might be 
 given some duty which would prevent him reaching Carsdale 
 Mansions in time for dinner ; but the day passed uneventfully, 
 Boyd refusing to see anyone, and mysteriously shutting him- 
 self up in his room, as he was wont to do, after the paper had 
 gone to press. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 53 
 
 At home that evening, as he was putting on his suit, reviling 
 Town send Brothers for the faults he detected in its fit, he was 
 troubled by one consideration. Should he put on a white tie 
 or a black ? He was anxious to do what was strictly right, but 
 his experience was so limited that he did not know which 
 would be most proper for the occasion, and, in spite of his 
 assurance, he had a great dread of ridicule. 
 
 After much wavering, he decided for the white. It would 
 be better to err on the side of too much ceremony than on 
 that of not enough. 
 
 When he had given the last touch to his toilet, he left by 
 omnibus for Westminster. 
 
 He found Mrs. Weber in the drawing-room alone. She 
 received him with familiarity, as if he had been an old 
 acquaintance, and she seemed to him to be less reserved than 
 previously. She gave him her hand with a frank, free gesture. 
 
 " So you have let all that time elapse without even caring to 
 know if I was alive." 
 
 " Only two little weeks ! " 
 
 "Three." 
 
 "Two only by the calendar, and two weeks of happy 
 recollections for me, spoilt only by the petty duties which kept 
 me away from here." 
 
 He looked at her intently, then he asked, "May I be 
 allowed to say what I am thinking at the present moment ? " 
 
 " Yes, if it's nothing too extravagant." 
 
 " Well, then, I was thinking that each time I see you I 
 discover some new charm." 
 
 " Let us lay aside compliments and talk seriously." 
 
 " Very well. Are you alone this evening ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a friend has disappointed me." 
 
 Johns said, " I've no grudge against that friend." 
 
 Then, as she only smiled, he added, " I almost wish that 
 your friend would always disappoint you when I am coming." 
 
 " Do you know," she said, without noticing his remark, 
 " I've been hearing something about you." 
 
 " Indeed," he answered doubtfully, a little apprehensive lest 
 the " something " might relate to his Australian career. 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Dawson was here this afternoon, and she said 
 her husband thought a lot of you, and that you were certain to 
 get on." 
 
 " Oh, she said that, did she ? When Dawson returns, I must 
 make him provide the means." 
 
 "Yes, do. And now what do you think of Mrs. Dawson? 
 Do you think her pretty ?" 
 
54 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns answered with indifference, " There are so many ways 
 of being pretty." 
 
 The dinner was served in a little plainly-furnished room, in 
 which the most conspicuous object was a full-length painting of 
 a German officer in uniform. Johns, on the right of Mrs. 
 Weber, faced this portrait, and the officer's head was turned in 
 such a way that he seemed to be scrutinising him. And Johns, 
 who had a peculiar dislike for soldiers, said to himself, " She 
 makes one dine with the departed ! " 
 
 " This, you see," she said, "is my modest little home;" and 
 she looked round at the two maids who were serving them, as 
 if to say, "You see, I'm served by women," while he was think- 
 ing, " She's asked me here alone, for, of course, no one else was 
 coming," and he concluded that there must be some signifi- 
 cance in the invitation. 
 
 But the dinner had a surprise in store for him. Mrs. Weber, 
 who had hitherto, when he had met her, been somewhat taciturn 
 or rather economical of words, now showed a vivacity, a charm 
 in speaking, which he had not expected. She chatted gaily 
 about the theatres she had been to, the pictures she had seen, 
 and the music she had heard, with taste, giving reasons for her 
 preferences which were always clear and sometimes clever. As 
 she became animated and her cheeks flushed, her ripe beauty 
 was heightened in intensity, and Johns looked at her with un- 
 feigned admiration, wondering for a moment how he had had 
 the boldness, or the simplicity perhaps, to use his ordinary 
 tactics upon such a woman. But he soon told himself that, 
 after all, with a little more, or a little less, intelligence, all 
 women were alike by nature. He hadn't up to then succeeded 
 badly, or he would not have been dining with her at that 
 moment. 
 
 The dinner did not consist of many courses, and Johns 
 was too much engrossed in studying his companion to notice 
 what they were. Throughout he listened to her with the 
 expression of intense interest and sympathy which made him 
 so good a listener. 
 
 At dessert, giving expression to a thought which struck him 
 suddenly, he inquired, "Are you English, may I ask?" 
 
 " Only half. My father was Italian." 
 
 " Ah, now I understand those large dark eyes, and that olive 
 tint which I so much admire." 
 
 "Hush," she said, "you mustn't say those things when my 
 servants are in hearing." 
 
 He bent forward towards her, and said in a low, half-suppli- 
 cating tone, "But may I presently?" 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 55 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " But I must," he said, " I must." 
 
 " Will you take some grapes ?" she asked. 
 
 But he refused, and there was a silence, during which their 
 eyes met frequently. 
 
 At length, pushing her chair from her hastily, she rose. 
 
 "Come," she said, "let us go back to the drawing-room. 
 You can smoke there if you like." 
 
 They passed again into the drawing-room, and sat together 
 on the sofa. 
 
 " Now," she said, " what is it you have to say to me?" 
 
 Johns thought, " This time I must try my best," and he 
 broke out, passionately, "That not one day, not one hour 
 since I saw you first, have I ceased to long for you, to dream 
 of you, to know that no woman I have ever met has realised 
 so perfectly, so sweetly, the ideal I had formed. I scarcely 
 hoped to see that creature of my dreams. She seemed to me 
 too rare to be discovered in a single lifetime. And suddenly 
 one afternoon I met you ! Ah, if you knew how often, since I 
 saw you last, I have been on the point of coming here to tell 
 you how I loved you, how I cursed the slavery that kept me 
 from you ! And now, this evening, you have made me hope 
 that you are not quite insensible to the flame which tortures me. 
 Oh, if I had been mistaken when I thought I read just now a 
 spark of tenderness in those lovely eyes, I would have nothing 
 left to hope for or to live for — nothing ! You have filled me, 
 overwhelmed me, with a profound passion ! " 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, and suiting his action to his 
 words, he seized her in his arms and kissed her twice upon her 
 cheek. 
 
 She disengaged herself, and said, with a slight frown, "I 
 wonder what you think of me, to act like this." 
 
 But he knelt beside her and clasped her round the waist, 
 looking up into her face with an expression of deep earnestness, 
 of intense longing. 
 
 " I think," he said, " that you are a woman destined by all 
 the laws of nature to be the solace of a man who loves you, 
 who adores you, and who finds you living in a cruel solitude, 
 and I think, I think, you love me." 
 
 She did not answer, but her hand played with the lock of 
 hair which fell upon his forehead. 
 
 " You do ! you do !" he cried triumphantly, and as she was 
 still silent, he rose and took her in his arms again. This time 
 she returned his kisses. 
 
 Then, disengaging herself again, she said, " What a subtle 
 
56 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 man you are to have made me be so weak. I would not have 
 thought it possible ! But, remember, if I am to be anything to 
 you, it cannot be your mistress." 
 
 " My wife ? You would consent to be my wife ?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Ah," he said, covering her hand with kisses, *' if that could 
 only be, I would be the happiest man on earth ; but, alas ! at 
 present, I am without means." 
 
 She said, interrupting him, " I know ; and as I myself am 
 barely comfortable, we could not think of marriage yet ; but 
 later, when you have made your way " 
 
 " Ah, then, how gladly !" 
 
 But he drew her near to him again, and whispered in her 
 ear, "Ellen, my sweetest Ellen, nothing shall prevent our 
 union, but have pity on my suffering. Think of me day by 
 day for perhaps a year longing for you, sighing for you, and 
 remember mine is not a cold, patient love, which lets the weeks 
 and months go by with small regret, but a great absorbing 
 passion beyond control, a passion which has taken hold of me 
 for good. Ellen, I implore you to be kind, to have compassion 
 on a man who loves you to distraction." 
 
 She remained silent, turning her head away from him and 
 breathing fast. 
 
 "Ellen, my little Ellen," he continued, "Hsten to me. We 
 will love each other so delightfully, supremely, and the world 
 shall never know until the time arrives. And we shall not have 
 lost a precious year of our lives in anxious waiting, tearing our 
 hearts to pieces and leading an existence of privation. Ellen ! 
 that could not be. It would be beyond nature. I can answer 
 for myself — it would be beyond my powers of endurance." 
 
 For a few moments she reflected. Then, in a low voice, 
 she asked, "But how is it possible? My reputation and the 
 servants " 
 
 " We will be prudent, intensely prudent. I will guard your 
 reputation jealously, so that not a living soul shall know. We 
 will lead a life which will be full of joy, which will be all the 
 sweeter for the need of secrecy." 
 
 She remained silent, thinking. At length she said, "You 
 are a dangerous man, a very dangerous man. Where do you 
 live?" 
 
 Johns thought of his third-floor room, with its dirty carpet 
 and its musty furniture, and for a moment he felt embarrassed. 
 
 " In Grafton Street," he said, finding no better answer. 
 
 " That's close to my dressmaker !" 
 
 He thought it useless to tell her which Grafton Street it was, 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 57 
 
 and he said sorrowfully, " Yes, but I have only a very little box, 
 right up in the skies, and, what is more, the rules of the house 
 are Spartan as to ladies." 
 
 " You see," she said, growing very serious, " that there are 
 all kinds of obstacles. We must wait, we really must." 
 
 But he vowed that he could not live without her; that if 
 obstacles existed, they must be surmounted ; that if they wished, 
 they could find a way to conquer them. 
 
 "Here," she said, "it is impossible." 
 
 As he appeared to wonder why it was impossible, she added — 
 
 "It would get known, and you know what Society is in 
 England." 
 
 He said, still looking at her longingly, " How then ?" 
 
 " Listen," she said, placing her hand upon his shoulder, " if 
 you are very good, we will take a trip into the country now 
 and then." 
 
 " Alas ! I cannot leave the office." 
 
 " But on Sundays." 
 
 " Oh, then, of course ! " 
 
 " Very well, then, let us go next Sunday, say to Seven Oaks. 
 It's quite unfashionable, and we shall meet no one there we 
 know. I've heard there's a delightful little inn, with an old 
 P^nglish garden, which is a perfect Eden." 
 
 For financial reasons, this arrangement was far from pleasing 
 Johns, but he said enthusiastically, " How good you are ! How 
 happy you have made me ! Yes, we will go to that little Eden. 
 I will dream of Sunday." 
 
 " And now," she said, " will you please sit on that chair 
 opposite. We might be surprised at any moment. Don't be 
 afraid of losing me. I'm fonder of you than you fancy. I 
 liked you at once that afternoon at Mrs. Dawson's, though I 
 didn't think I should have given way to you so soon." 
 
 "You will never regret it, never !" 
 
 The rest of the evening was spent in making plans, in chat- 
 ting, and in smoking cigarettes, which Mrs. Weber did 
 gracefully, and without pose. 
 
 When Johns rose to leave, she allowed him to embrace her, 
 saying, "Be punctual at Victoria at half-past one." 
 
 When Johns found himself in the street again, walking up 
 Grosvenor Place, he broke out into a laugh. " By God," he 
 said, " I didn't think it was so easy, with such a woman too ! " 
 
 For he reflected that he was now embarked on an adventure 
 which could only turn out to his advantage, and with a woman 
 of whose beauty any man might feel legitimately proud. He 
 fancied himself lifted into another sphere, protected, in some 
 
•58 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 measure, from the risks and pitfalls of existence. One thing, 
 however, troubled him. This trip into the country could not 
 be made for nothing, and how was he to find the money for it ? 
 That was indeed a problem. But then, had he not already 
 solved that of the two suits ? He would solve this one also ! 
 
 The next morning at the office he consulted the clerk who 
 kept the books as to the possibility of obtaining an advance, 
 but he was at once informed that such a thing was entirely 
 against the rules. 
 
 " Damn the rules," he muttered, as he made for Tarte's 
 room. But as he reached the door a thought struck him. 
 Why not ask old Tarte ? 
 
 " Mr. Tarte," he said, as he took his seat as usual, " I want 
 money. What's the largest sum you can advance me on my 
 month's payment?" 
 
 The old man, who was employed at a fixed salary, was the 
 only person in the office, except the clerks, who was paid 
 weekly, and Johns, for this reason, thought him the most likely 
 to be in funds. 
 
 But Tarte drew a purse from his pocket, the leather of which 
 was greasily dimmed from wear. He opened it, took out its 
 contents, six shillings and a few pence, and placed them in a 
 row upon the table. 
 
 "That," he said, " is what I have to take me on to Saturday, 
 and to-day's Wednesday. And that represents my total 
 funds on earth. Judge for yourself whether I can lend you 
 any." 
 
 "Incumbrances?" asked Johns. 
 
 "A little orphan girl, the fruit of irresponsibility. Ah, my 
 friend, if ever you get into Parliament, for God's sake make a 
 law to prevent the marriage of incapables." 
 
 "Good," said Johns, " I will." 
 
 Evidently there was nothing to be obtained from Tarte, and 
 as to Maskelyne, he had confessed, a few days previously, that 
 he was extraordinarily embarrassed, his wife having recently 
 presented him with twins. 
 
 Altogether the prospects of obtaining the required sum by 
 the week's end were extremely vague. His luck, this time, 
 seemed to be growing dim. 
 
 But chance arranged the difficulty by the return of Dawson 
 on the Friday morning. As soon as Johns heard he had 
 arrived, he went to his room and knocked loudly at his door. 
 Dawson received him almost as a friend, and asked him, in a 
 tone of consideration, what he could do for him. 
 
 " Mr. Dawson," he said, with gravity, " you can do me a great 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 59 
 
 favour. An old friend of mine in Wales, an unfortunate man 
 who married a girl under the blind influence of profound love, 
 is ill and penniless, and he has appealed to me, in a letter of 
 intense despair, imploring me to help him. I can only do this, 
 sir, if you will consent to give me an advance on my current 
 work. It is only a matter of a few pounds, and I hope you 
 will oblige me." 
 
 Although he used this pretext, Johns knew quite well that 
 Dawson was not a man to be affected by a story of distress, 
 and that if he gave him what he asked, it would only be because 
 of the value he had set upon him journalistically. He was 
 doubly pleased, therefore, when Dawson said — 
 
 "Certainly, Mr. Johns, tell the cashier, as from me, to 
 give you what you want." 
 
 Johns thanked him warmly, and Dawson asked, "Have you 
 been doing much for us during my absence?" 
 
 " Much less than I should like." 
 
 " Very well, I will see to that. Mr. Boyd is fond of nursing 
 his dislikes." 
 
 Johns left with a feeling that he had not done badly for 
 himself. He descended the stairs again, and requested the 
 cashier, in the name of the proprietor, to hand him a five- 
 pound note. This the man did, after sending up to know if 
 he was really authorised to give it. 
 
 Thus armed, on the Sunday Johns left his lodgings in a 
 hansom for the station. It was a fine summer morning, and 
 the bright sunshine did its best to enliven the empty streets, 
 and the dulness of the closed shops. Johns had been thinking 
 of the widow since he left her four days before, and his pulse 
 beat faster as he alighted at Victoria and gave his black 
 portmanteau to a porter. The station clock, when he arrived 
 beneath it, after having bought a ticket, pointed to a quarter 
 after one, and the train started at half-past. 
 
 He looked around, but saw no signs of Mrs. Weber. If, 
 after all, she had repented, and were going to disappoint him ! 
 But no, it was still early, and women were always late. He lit 
 a cigar, and began to pace up and down, close to his portman- 
 teau, scrutinizing every woman who came into the station. For 
 although it had been agreed that they should travel, at least as 
 far as the first station, in separate carriages to avoid suspicion, 
 he wanted to see that she was in the train before he started. 
 
 The hands of the clock moved steadily on towards the half- 
 hour, and still she did not come. He was beginning to be 
 uneasy. 
 
 A lady in a travelling cloak and a thick spotted veil appeared. 
 
6o THE ADVENTURES 
 
 and Johns thought she was the widow. When she came 
 nearer to him, he saw that he was mistaken. 
 
 At last, when three minutes only were wanting to the half- 
 hour, and Johns was beginning to despair, he suddenly saw a 
 lady in a tweed costume issue from the doorway and cross the 
 platform hurriedly, followed by a porter with her luggage. 
 
 This time there was no mistake. It was Mrs. Weber. 
 
 She did not appear to see him; but he followed her to the 
 train at once, and took a seat in the carriage next to hers, after 
 making a sign to her as he was entering. 
 
 " Ha," he said, as the train moved off, " it's all right this 
 time." 
 
 At the first station he alighted, and, as she nodded to him to 
 let him know that he might enter, he jumped into her carriage 
 quickly, after the only other passenger alighted. 
 
 " Ellen, my little Ellen, how good, how kind, how sweet 
 of you to keep your promise ! If you knew the moments of 
 suspense I passed when I thought you weren't coming, when 
 I feared you might have changed your mind, or been pre- 
 vented, or I don't know what." 
 ,^. " What would you have done if I hadn't come ? " 
 " " I would have gone home and shot myself." 
 
 She laughed and said, "You know very well you wouldn't." 
 
 But he vowed he would, while he kissed her beneath her 
 veil. 
 
 An hour's ride through the rich Kentish country brought 
 them to Seven Oaks, and, as Johns had telegraphed for rooms 
 the day before, a trap, which was waiting for them at the station, 
 soon brought them to the hotel. They were shown into a 
 little parlour on the first floor, looking out upon the gardens 
 and communicating with the bedroom. Through the open 
 window came a perfume from the large roses which climbed 
 upon the wall outside, and there was a bright sunny view of 
 lawns and trees and hills. 
 
 " At last ! " he said, as soon as they were alone, drawing near 
 to her and assisting her to take off her hat. But she asked, 
 moving a little from him, "What name did you give down- 
 stairs ? " 
 
 " Sir John and Lady Johnson." 
 
 " Capital. And now, Sir John, please go and wait for me 
 in the garden." 
 
 "But, Ellen " 
 
 "You really must let me manage things in my own way. 
 You'll have nothing to regret by waiting." 
 
 Johns had been looking forward the whole time in the train 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 6i 
 
 to the moment when they should be alone, the moment which 
 must, he had calculated, follow their arrival, and he was dis- 
 appointed. But he suspected that some feminine consideration, 
 some scruple of declining virtue, had prompted her to impose 
 upon him this condition, and he thought that it would be more 
 delicate on his part to accede docilely to her wishes. One 
 could not quite behave in the same way towards the widow of 
 a diplomat as to the daughter of a cattle dealer. No, he must 
 be discreet. 
 
 Jle asked, " And must I really go ? " 
 
 " You must really. I'm quite in earnest." 
 
 He took up his hat again, and after a look in which he 
 endeavoured to express his longing, he left and went down to 
 the garden. 
 
 Then, as he walked up and down the gravel paths, between 
 the grass-plots gay with flower-beds, he muttered, " I wonder 
 what this means. She can't be going to play modesty ! " and 
 he reflected on the subtleties of the female conscience. 
 
 A gardener in shirt-sleeves was showering fine spray from a 
 long hose upon the grass which glistened in the sunshine, and 
 the air was cool and fragrant. 
 
 Johns looked about him. The high laurel hedges, which 
 divided the garden from the fields beyond, had deep cut-out 
 recesses furnished with wooden benches, and as he explored 
 further, he saw some secluded arbours formed of trees and 
 bushes, one of which was already occupied by a couple who, 
 he concluded from the peep he caught of them, were lovers. 
 
 " It's curious," he reflected, " that she should have known 
 of the existence of this dove-cot." 
 
 When he had reached the end of the paths, he turned and 
 retraced his steps, walking leisurely along towards the house. 
 As he was reaching it, Mrs. Weber was coming from it. 
 
 " Have you been reflecting on my cruelty ? " she asked, as 
 they met on the gravel path. 
 
 " I have been thinking of the rewards which my obedience 
 certainly will merit." 
 
 They made, as by a tacit understanding, for the last arbour 
 at the extremity of the garden walks — one that had the double 
 advantage of being more shut in than the remainder, and of 
 commanding a fine view of the hills, which rose in a long ridge 
 of purple from a wide stretch of fields and meadows in the 
 foreground. 
 
 In her close-fitting costume, and the light straw hat which 
 rested prettily upon her dark hair, Johns, as they sat down, 
 thought his companion exquisite. He was, therefore, perfectly 
 
62 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 sincere when he exclaimed enthusiastically, " You are a perfect 
 Hebe!" 
 
 She answered, smiling, " I'm going to lecture you. You 
 achieved much too easy a victory the other night, and I'm still 
 wondering how you did it, and how you contrived to make me 
 like you. But now I must ask you to remember that I am 
 not a woman to be trifled with." 
 
 Johns made a sign of protestation. 
 
 " Or to submit to be cast aside lightly if the fancy of my lord 
 should change. So I want you to reflect before you — love. 
 Because, you know, there are plenty trains to town this after- 
 noon, if you feel fickle." 
 
 But Johns, who at that moment would have sworn fidelity 
 by every god he knew, said quickly, " Child of little faith ! 
 How often shall I tell you that I am an anchor of fidelity ! " 
 
 *' If you really are, I warn you I will fix a very strong chain 
 upon that anchor." 
 
 " The stronger it is the better it will please me." 
 
 " Are you quite sure of that ? " 
 
 " As certain as I am that those birds over yonder are flying 
 in the sky." 
 
 As he said this he thought, ** I was too quick the other 
 night ; she's drawing back a bit." 
 
 "Very well. But remember that I can be much more 
 troublesome than you may think if I am played with." 
 
 But he was growing impatient of her warnings, and to put 
 an end to them, he seized her suddenly — almost savagely — 
 and kissed her. 
 
 His sudden act had the effect he wished, for, flushed and 
 evidently pleased, she said, " I want to trust you, and I suppose 
 I must." 
 
 A light breeze was blowing from the hills, and the air, which 
 in London had been warm and heavy, was delightfully 
 refreshing. The spot was full of stillness and repose. 
 
 He said, after a few minutes, " What a charming place this 
 is ! How did you know of it ? " 
 
 She answered, " I was told of it by a pair of little lovers who 
 come here sometimes." 
 
 He thought, " I wonder if that's true." 
 
 " Yes," she continued ; " I feel invigorated already. Is it 
 the air or your society ? " 
 
 He whispered something in her ear which made her give 
 a little laugh, and then presently, as he felt a need for speaking 
 of himself to women, he told her of his doings at the Planet^ 
 describing the people he had interviewed, the types whom 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 63 
 
 he had met with in the ante-room, the bearish ness of Boyd and 
 the eccentricity of Tarte, keeping her amused and interested. 
 
 "And you," she said, looking into his face when he had 
 finished, " are you going to outstrip them all ? " 
 
 " I mean to try," he answered resolutely. 
 
 And she glanced at him again with an expression of half- 
 deferential admiration. 
 
 " How I shall love you if you do." 
 
 "And only if I do ? " 
 
 She answered, with a smile, " No, whether you do or not." 
 
 They remained there till the sun was beginning to decline, 
 and the purple of the distant hills was darkening. 
 
 Then he asked her, in a plaintive tone, "Is my probation 
 nearly ended ? " 
 
 She replied, '■^ Now we're going to have dinner." 
 
 They returned to the hotel, and Johns, after a consultation 
 with the proprietor as to the resources of his larder, ordered 
 the best meal the place could give. For he felt that his five 
 sovereigns were equal to the occasion. 
 
 While he was doing this, she had gone up to her room, 
 and returned quickly before he had time to join her. 
 
 So they dined at a little table before an open window 
 looking on the lawn, in a long dining-room in which three 
 other couples were being served. They both were some- 
 what silent, though their eyes were eloquent, and the 
 brilliancy of hers increased as she sipped the Roederer with 
 which he filled her glass repeatedly. Her beauty was inten- 
 sified as the crimson flushes mounted to her cheeks, and 
 they did so much justice to the Roederer, indeed, that when 
 they rose from the table to take a stroll upon the lawn, they 
 were in that state of triumphant calm which a good vintage, 
 indulged in freely, brings about. 
 
 After strolling arm in arm for a few minutes, they decided 
 that it was time to enter, and they went up to their rooms at 
 once. As soon as the door of the little parlour was closed, 
 Johns took his companion in his arms. 
 
 " Ah, Ellen, cruel Ellen," he exclaimed, " at last my trial is 
 over ! If you knew how I have pined in bondage all the 
 afternoon, how I have counted every moment while we were 
 over yonder in the garden, when I could only gaze upon your 
 beauty and not taste its sweetness ! And now that you have 
 softened and become humane, now that I see you in my arms 
 in all your splendour, I feel that no one happier than I 
 exists. It seems to me as if I were beginning a new chapter 
 in my life, the true, the only chapter. How often in Australia 
 
64 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 on the long rides through territories where a horseman 
 is a solitary speck on a vast track, how often did I dream of 
 meeting, some day in my career, a woman who should resemble 
 you ! I gave her then your eyes, your hair, your features 
 and your form. That was my ideal, and you have incarnated 
 it." 
 
 They moved to the open window, and he drew her to him 
 on the sofa till she sank upon his knee. 
 
 " Ah," she murmured, in a voice which now betrayed emo- 
 tion, " you make love well ! " 
 
 ****** 
 
 The next morning, before breakfast, Johns was walking on 
 the lawn smoking a cigar and indulging in reflections. 
 
 As he paced to and fro alertly with the step of a man who 
 has succeeded in an enterprise, and who is on good terms with 
 himself, he could not help admitting that his expectations had 
 been fully realized, and that Mrs. Weber, by the passion which 
 she had evinced for him, had made amends for the coquetry 
 which she had shown at first. This was his first experience of 
 the kind, and it had been so incontestably superior to any- 
 thing he had known before, that he almost wondered he had 
 ever found it possible to interest himself, even in the most re- 
 mote degree, in the plebeian lasses who had crossed his path. 
 While there were delightful women to be conquered in what 
 was known as good society, why waste one's time in humble 
 wooing ? And he reflected with a feeling of self-congratulation 
 that, unless he was mistaken, he had ignited a considerable 
 flame in the heart of the pretty widow. Of course, there 
 might be a drawback to this some day ; but for the present 
 he was happy, and he was not given to troubling over much 
 about the future. 
 
 Thinking in this way, he continued strolling until at 
 length the noise of a window being opened made him stop 
 and look up at the house. Mrs. Weber was leaning out of the 
 French window, around which the rosebuds formed a kind of 
 garland. 
 
 He kissed his hand to her, and then, contemplating her, 
 exclaimed, " A perfect idyll ! " 
 
 Shortly afterwards they returned by an early train. 
 
CHAPTER 
 FIFTH 
 
 WITH the return of Dawson, Johns' position mended. 
 Not only was he kept more continuously employed 
 with minor tasks of news-collecting in the intervals when 
 there was a dearth of interviews, but another article of his 
 was published in the paper, by order of the proprietor, at 
 the instance of the member for North Aldgate. The enmity 
 of Boyd had become unrelenting, although the chief was forced 
 to make some show of hiding it, since Johns enjoyed the pro- 
 tection of the Dawsons. And Johns, accepting this antagonism, 
 did nothing to conciliate the editor, thinking that as long as he 
 was in favour with the controlling power he had not much to 
 fear. Besides, this attitude of Boyd's gave him more liberty of 
 action. 
 
 On the other hand, although he was receiving larger pay, he 
 was still embarrassed, owing to his intimacy with Mrs. Weber. 
 
 He had succeeded in convincing her that it was absolutely 
 necessary that he should be in London on the Sundays, so 
 that he might pay visits to the Dawsons and to others who 
 received on that especial day ; but she had at once discovered 
 a variety of ways of meeting, now in a hotel at Sydenham or 
 Richmond, now in one of the great caravanserais of the metro- 
 polis, where they arrived in the evening and left again early 
 the next day. Each of these little escapades, however, made 
 a call on Johns' slender purse, and he soon went into debt 
 with his landlady in Grafton Street for the modest rent he 
 owed her. 
 
 Then, on the days when he was most straitened, he would 
 arrive at the place of meeting (generally a railway station) 
 vexed and irritable, vowing he would break with her unless 
 
 F 
 
66 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 she let him visit her at home. But she attributed his peevish- 
 ness to his worries at the office, and increased in tenderness, 
 in graceful little ways which flattered him and soon drove his 
 ill-humour away. 
 
 He soon discovered, also, to his surprise, that she possessed 
 a head far more resourceful and capable of good reasoning 
 than he had at first suspected, and that he could find in her 
 an intelligent and patient hearer whenever he wished to speak 
 about his affairs, as he generally did on the Wednesday even- 
 ings, when he dined with her alone at Carsdale Mansions. 
 
 On one of these evenings, a few weeks after the flight to 
 Seven Oaks, they were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner, 
 talking of the resignation of the Ministry which had surprised 
 all London the day before. The Government had been 
 defeated by a vote of want of confidence, just on the eve of a 
 general election, and there was joy in the ranks of the radicals, 
 who thought their prospects of obtaining a majority in the 
 next Parliament exceptionally good. 
 
 "John," she said, "I've been thinking over it, and I've 
 come to the conclusion that you ought to take some part in 
 the election. Why not offer to help Parker ? " 
 
 " But I can't. I haven't time enough." 
 
 " Why not address meetings of an evening, you who speak 
 so well?" 
 
 Johns, who had been looking at the floor reflectively, glanced 
 up at her. 
 
 " By God," he said, " that's not a bad idea ! " and he 
 resolved that, if it were at all possible, he would put it into 
 execution. 
 
 " You see," she said, " I can be of some use sometimes." 
 
 He answered, " Dear little Ellen, of course you can ; you're 
 the most delightful, precious little woman that was ever born 
 the most admirable companion any man was ever blessed 
 with." But he thought, " You would be if you didn't cost so 
 much." 
 
 She asked, "Will you adopt my plan?" 
 
 " Certainly, if it's at all feasible." 
 
 "I know Parker pretty well," she added; "if you like I'll 
 write to him to tell him he must let you help him." 
 
 But Johns did not fall in with this proposal. He did not 
 want to be so openly patronized or aided by a woman. 
 
 " No, thank you, Ellen, he might then suspect something. I'll 
 go to him myself." 
 
 " Just as you like," she said, with a little disappointment. 
 
 " I didn't know that you knew Parker," he pursued. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 67 
 
 She answered carelessly, " Oh yes, all the Dawsons' friends." 
 
 A little later, as he was leaving, she whispered in his ear, 
 
 To-morrow evening at St. Pancras." 
 
 She had spoken of this meeting once before that evening, 
 but nothing had been fixed, and Johns had tried to avoid the 
 subject. Now, however, when she returned to it, and wanted 
 him to promise, while he knew he hadn't a sovereign in his 
 purse, he said, "No, not to-morrow, I may have to work 
 too late." 
 
 " You didn't say that before," she answered quickly. 
 
 " Probably because I didn't think of it." 
 
 " You were not so forgetful a few weeks ago." 
 
 He thought, " She's showing her claws already," and, as he 
 frowned, she added, putting her arm around his neck — 
 
 " No, John, I didn't mean to be unkind. We'll meet when 
 you are able." 
 
 But as he saw no prospect of an improvement in his finances 
 for some time to come, it seemed to him that the best thing he 
 could do would be to make a clean confession. 
 
 " Ellen, I may as well be frank with you. The truth is, I 
 can't afford it. I didn't want to tell you, but you've forced me 
 to. I'm simply what is called hard up." 
 
 But now she drew him towards her eagerly, exclaiming — 
 
 " Poor little Johnnie ! How could I have been so stupid as 
 not to think of that. How silly, how clumsy of me ! Forgive 
 me, Johnnie, won't you?" 
 
 He kissed her without answering. He was curious to know 
 if she had something to propose. 
 
 " But what is to be done ?" she asked, despondently. 
 
 "Ah! what?" 
 
 She reflected for a moment. 
 
 " In a little flat like this it's impossible to avoid the vigilance 
 of servants. But listen, I've thought of something " 
 
 She hesitated, glancing at him sideways, as if afraid to 
 express her thought. Then she whispered, "You must let 
 me pay the bills." 
 
 But Johns recoiled from her. 
 
 " Never !" he said, in a tone of wounded pride. 
 
 " But, Johnnie, listen to me. It will only be for a little 
 while, only until you are better off". And since we are going to 
 marry, what can it matter?" 
 
 But Johns was obdurate. In refusing, he considered he was 
 acting a remarkably fine part — a part which he remembered 
 having once seen acted on the stage — and he had no intention 
 of spoiling his effect by giving way. 
 
68 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " No," he said firmly, " that is impossible. What would you 
 think of me if I agreed to that ? What would I think of my- 
 self? Never!" 
 
 '' Perhaps you're right," she said, sighing and drawing near 
 to him again. " How chivalrous you are !" 
 
 He answered, " We must have patience. In any case, if I 
 take up this election work, I shall be very busy." 
 
 They spoke no more about it, but later, as he was walking 
 home, he congratulated himself that he had acted prudently. 
 She would be more fond of him than ever now, and for the 
 moment, what more charming mistress could a man have? 
 And who knew ? If it came to the worst, she might be useful 
 in other ways. As to the place of meeting, she would have to 
 conquer her fear of the servants (if that were the real obstacle) 
 and receive him in her flat, which, in reality, was what he 
 wanted. He found himself at home there — was at his ease. At 
 all events, he had broken the ice on the question of his means, 
 and that relieved him of a source of much annoyance. 
 
 The next day, as he was fond of putting his plans into 
 execution quickly, as soon as he had finished his work at the 
 Planet^ he set out for Eaton Square, where the member for 
 North Aldgate lived. 
 
 Parker was at home, and received him in his library, on the 
 ground floor of a large house with a wide Roman portico. 
 
 Without circumlocution, Johns explained the object of his 
 visit. He had come, he said, to offer help in the contest 
 which was to be held shortly, and which promised to be 
 particularly acute, for the Aldgate seat. The Conservative 
 opponent, Parker knew, was popular, and therefore a strong 
 propaganda of radical opinions was essential. He was ready, 
 if Parker wished, to undertake that campaign, and to lay 
 special stress on Education. 
 
 "My dear sir," said Parker, "you're the very man I want, 
 and to tell you the truth I had already thought of asking you. 
 As you say, it is necessary to preach a great deal to the public 
 this time, and I am infinitely obliged to you. You will assist 
 me when I address my constituency, and if you like to lecture 
 them on other nights, the hall will be at your disposal. I will 
 give instructions to my agent." 
 
 Johns said, "Then it's agreed. I prophesy that you'll get 
 in." 
 
 " Thanks. Of course, you're used to speaking?" 
 
 " In Melbourne I have addressed thousands." 
 
 " Quite so. Then it's settled." 
 
 They discussed the situation and the prospects of the party 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 69 
 
 for half an hour, and when Johns left, it was understood that 
 he should speak at the meeting which was to be held in three 
 days' time. 
 
 As he walked through the park afterwards, he said to him- 
 self, " By God, I wonder if I can speak ! " for the Melbourne 
 thousands had existed only in his imagination, and he had 
 dived into this business because he could not resist the tempta- 
 tion to make use of an opportunity whenever one was offered. 
 "But," he soliloquised, "how I shall score with Dawson if I 
 pull through !" 
 
 During the three days which intervened he worked very hard, 
 devoting every minute he could spare to reading up Parker's 
 speeches in the previous session, saturating himself with the 
 nostrums of extreme radicalism, becoming familiar with the 
 aims and routine of the party, and having meetings with Parker 
 and his agent. He had said nothing about the meeting at the 
 office, but when the day arrived Boyd sent for him. 
 
 " You'll be good enough," the editor said, " to go to Aldgate 
 this evening to report the meeting of Parker's constituents." 
 
 " I'm sorry, but I shan't be able to. I'm going to speak 
 myself." 
 
 " You ! " exclaimed Boyd, astounded. 
 
 " Yes, I." 
 
 As soon as Boyd had realised the situation, he said slowly, 
 ** Oh, very well, I'll send Maskelyne." And so it was arranged. 
 
 Tarte, when he heard of it, remarked, "My friend, you're 
 climbing the right ladder," and Johns replied, " I hope so." 
 
 Still, when he was in the cab with Parker's agent later on, 
 bound for Aldgate, he felt uncomfortable, for he could not help 
 confessing to himself that he was ill-equipped for the task he 
 had undertaken. It was true he had arranged with Maskelyne 
 that, if he halted or became confused, the speech would be 
 "touched up"; but he knew that there were half a dozen 
 reporters of other papers who would make capital of it against 
 him. 
 
 After a long drive, partly through the City, they reached a 
 district of sullen slums where Johns wondered that politics, or 
 indeed anything, should have an interest for anyone, and they 
 stopped at a large brick building in what seemed to be the best 
 street of the locality. As Johns and the agent entered, the 
 large bare hall was beginning to fill, although no one as yet 
 , was on the platform. Parker arrived a few moments after- 
 wards, and after him several well-known radicals, most of them 
 in frock coats. 
 
 There was a short consultation in the ante-room. Then 
 
70 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 they mounted to the platform. On the stairs Johns found an 
 opportunity to say to Parker, " If you'll let me speak about 
 your Education Bill io-night^ I should prefer it." 
 
 " That's just as I intended it," the educational reformer 
 answered, and Johns thought he had reason to congratulate 
 himself, as he was well versed in that subject, and knew his 
 telling phrases quite by heart. 
 
 From the platform he looked down on the sea of heads 
 beneath him. The audience seemed to be drawn almost 
 entirely from the lower classes — a rough, untidy audience, 
 who diffused about the room an odour of dirty clothes and 
 stale tobacco. 
 
 As he was contemplating them, and wondering what words 
 and terms would be most likely to attract them, he suddenly 
 perceived, in a row of chairs immediately below the platform, 
 not only the wife of the member, but, to his astonishment, Mrs. 
 Dawson and Mrs. Weber. 
 
 He had not written to Mrs. Weber that the meeting was 
 going to be held, neither had he more than casually mentioned 
 it to Mrs. Dawson. Their presence there among that throng 
 of artizans was certainly remarkable. Whom had they come to 
 listen to? Parker or himself? And had they come together, 
 or had they met there ? He would have to find that out. 
 
 But at that moment they were both looking in his direction, 
 smiling. He bowed and returned their smiles. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson, he noticed, looked away again quickly; but 
 Mrs. Weber kept her eyes fixed upon him so intently that he 
 began to feel annoyed, finding that she was carrying the thing 
 too far, and asking himself why women always ended in 
 exaggeration. 
 
 As soon as the seats were filled, and the clatter of thick boots 
 on the deal floor was over, Parker rose from his chair amid 
 applause, and began his speech. He told his audience that they 
 were on the eve of a great struggle, in which the party of pure 
 egoism, of unjust privileges, of undue wealth, was going to war 
 against the friends of industry, against the champions of the 
 artizan. And he urged on them the need of union, of 
 solidarity in the great effort that radical opinions were about to 
 make against the narrow doctrines of conservatism, which 
 never could be in the van of progress. 
 
 He told them this, and a great deal more, using many of 
 the well-worn phrases which seldom fail to impress the masses, 
 and now and then he was interrupted by applause. Then he 
 alluded to his efforts to give them the inestimable benefits of 
 higher education, and he ended with a promise that he would 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS • 71 
 
 never relax those efforts until he had achieved his purpose. 
 He spoke fluently, and in a manner calculated to flatter hearers 
 of their class. 
 
 But the latter part of his speech fell flat. The gentlemen 
 of North Aldgate did not seem impressed with the educational 
 advantages he wished to offer them, and showed some signs of 
 disapproval. Seeing this, he said, " I hear to my regret some 
 expressions of dissent, and, as it is always difficult to speak in 
 praise of one's own handiwork, I will ask you to listen for a 
 few moments to Mr. Johns, who has made a special study of 
 the subject of higher education, both in this country and in 
 Australia." 
 
 But, as Johns was rising, a voice from the middle of the hall 
 cried out, " It's 'igher wages we wants," and there was a general 
 murmur of approval, which was extremely awkward at that 
 juncture. The moment was somewhat critical for Parker. 
 
 Johns commenced his speech in a voice which was so deep 
 and clear that the hall resounded with it. Standing well 
 forward, with his arms folded, and, looking down upon his 
 audience almost with compassion, he began — 
 
 " I have heard with feelings of profound astonishment some 
 gentleman in this hall say that higher wages and not enlighten- 
 ment were his chief desire, and I have felt sorry for that 
 gentleman, sorry that it should be possible that such a mis- 
 conception in these times of progress should exist. For, do 
 you know what this grave error means ? It means that there 
 is among you — amongst you^ who represent a section of the 
 gallant toilers who make England great, an extraordinary 
 blindness to your own welfare, a lamentable failure to appreciate 
 the noble efforts which are being made by your enlightened 
 representative in Parliament. And I suppose that, if I were 
 to tell you that the murmur of dissent you made just now was 
 a great and flagrant wrong towards your sons — aye, and 
 towards your daughters — you would be incredulous, you would 
 wonder what I meant, you would think I was romancing. And 
 yet such is the case — the wrong is flagrant, the injustice is 
 extreme. What is it, I would ask, that keeps the best 
 intelligences among you from rising to the rank which is their 
 due ? Want of a higher education ! What is it that con- 
 demns you to be the users of mechanical appliances and rarely 
 the inventors ? Want of a higher education ! What is it that 
 gives capital so tyrannous a power over you? Want of a 
 higher education ! You are paid in proportion to the cunning 
 of your brains, and brains do not come into the world 
 equipped. To equip them in accordance with their strength 
 
72 ^ THE ADVENTURES 
 
 costs money, and you cannot afford that money because you 
 are working for employers who do not wish you should. But 
 if the State provides your sons, whose interests you have been 
 ignoring, with the means of rising as far as their brains will 
 carry them, can you not see that there will be an end for ever 
 to the supremacy of class, and that every boy you send to 
 school will carry in his satchel a marshal's staff, a judge's 
 gown, or a statesman's wallet? And those are the supreme 
 advantages you would deny your sons in refusing to take 
 interest in the great question ! " 
 
 Johns paused a moment to gauge his audience, who, in 
 answer to his question, cried " No, no," enthusiastically. 
 
 Then, finding that he had gained their confidence, he con- 
 tinued praising Parker's system, and denouncing the short- 
 comings of the Board, just as he had already done in the 
 columns of the Planet. And as he had the subject at his 
 fingers' ends, as he knew the best terms to employ, the most 
 useful adjectives to use, and as he suited his address to the 
 understanding of his hearers without simplifying it too obviously, 
 he was listened to, throughout, with marked attention, and 
 rewarded, when he sat down again, with a prolonged outburst 
 of applause. He had made them think, had interested them. 
 They were satisfied and grateful after their own manner. 
 
 A few more speeches after this were made by others on 
 the platform, and a concluding one by Parker, who, this time, 
 was loudly cheered. 
 
 When the meeting closed, amid the noise of shuffling 
 feet and shifting chairs, Parker shook hands with Johns. 
 
 " I congratulate you on your speech," the member said. " It 
 was timely and well-made, and I am indebted to you greatly 
 for it." 
 
 Johns thought, " I should think it about stuck you on your 
 legs again." He merely said, " It was lucky they received it 
 well." 
 
 In the ante-room they found the ladies waiting for them. 
 
 Johns said, addressing them, " I was not aware we were to 
 have had this honour." 
 
 Mrs. Weber answered, "You forgot to tell your friends about 
 the meeting, but Mr. Parker was less neglectful." 
 
 Mrs. Dawson said, "We thought you spoke so well, 
 Mr. Johns ! " while the Hon. Mary Parker acquiesced with, 
 "Admirably, I'm sure." 
 
 Johns ventured, " If I said anything worth listening to, I must 
 certainly have been inspired by your presence," and as he said 
 this, he included the three ladies in a single glance. Mrs. Dawson 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 73 
 
 said, *' Mr. Johns is never at a loss for a speech of any 
 kind," and the rest laughed. 
 
 Parker, who had been talking to his agent, now came up and 
 said a few words to his wife and Mrs. Weber. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson took advantage of the opportunity to say to 
 Johns, " You should come to see us oftener, Mr. Johns." 
 
 He answered, in a tone which could not be overheard by the 
 remainder of the party — 
 
 " I'm dying to. If you will tell me when you are at home 
 alone, quite alone you know, I'll come to have a chat." 
 
 She hesitated for a moment. Then she said, " Come on 
 Saturday at four." 
 
 " Depend upon it," he replied, " I won't fail," and he looked 
 into her eyes with that penetrating look the force of which he 
 had often tested. Parker, put into a good temper by the 
 success of the evening's meeting, now invited them to sup at 
 Willis's, and as they all accepted, they left the hall together to 
 proceed to King Street. But as the Dawsons' brougham 
 could naturally only contain four, the party had to separate, 
 and Parker proposed that Johns should escort his wife and 
 Mrs. Dawson, while he would accom^pany Mrs. Weber in 
 a cab. 
 
 It seemed to Johns that this arrangement was not entirely to 
 Mrs. Parker's taste, but as she made no objection, it was carried 
 out. 
 
 During the drive, which was a long one, the two ladies whom 
 Johns accompanied talked together, while he, leaning back in 
 his corner, and thinking over his experience that evening with 
 a warm feeling of satisfaction, kept his eyes fixed on Mrs. 
 Dawson, whose face looked pretty against the dark background 
 of the carriage as the street lights revealed it. Now and then 
 she gave him a rapid glance as if to show that she was 
 conscious he was looking at her, and in this way they reached 
 the Restaurant. 
 
 The supper, which consisted of a few delicacies in season, 
 was served them at a round table in the largest of the rooms. 
 Parker and Johns did their best to enliven the repast, but 
 there was a reserve on the ladies' part, the reason of which 
 was not apparent. Mrs. Parker seemed disinclined to speak, 
 and Mrs. Weber was far less talkative than usual. There was 
 a complete absence of expansion, and instead of being solely 
 interested in the conversation, the ladies looked around them 
 frequently, studying the fit of an evening dress displayed at one 
 of the adjacent tables, or watching a famous actress supping 
 with a Jewish banker. Altogether, the spirit of concord was 
 
74 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 somehow wanting, and no one seemed sorry when an hour 
 afterwards the party ended. 
 
 This time Mrs. Dawson went with the Parkers, and Johns, 
 who had offered to see Mrs. Weber home, entered a hansom 
 with her. 
 
 For some moments neither said a word, each waiting for the 
 other to speak first. 
 
 Presently Johns said, " Ellen, I'm going back with you to- 
 night!" 
 
 But she replied, " What were you saying to Mrs. Dawson in 
 the hall?" 
 
 " Merely that I would call some day." 
 
 " You were saying more than that." 
 
 Johns thought, " She's going to be jealous," and he answered, 
 "Ellen, my little Ellen, don't be foolish, I have no other 
 thought but you. You are my whole life." 
 
 She asked, " Why didn't you let me know that the meeting 
 was coming off?" 
 
 " Because I wanted to surprise you, and I thought you 
 wouldn't care to go to such an unwashed gathering." 
 
 " You might have guessed I would like to hear you speak." 
 
 He kissed her on her ear, yrhispering, "Ellen, I'm going 
 home with you ; I'm going home with you to-night." 
 
 Half conquered by his words and the sensation of his lips 
 and breath upon her face, she leaned towards him, saying, 
 " John, it's quite impossible." 
 
 He answered, " It's going to be done." 
 
 They had reached Victoria Street, and the hansom dashed 
 along the wooden pavement, past the high, gaunt, blackened 
 rows of houses, placid in their sombreness, and in a few minutes 
 it stopped before the door of Carsdale Mansions. 
 
 Johns, to avoid delay, thrust the fare through the trap in the 
 roof of the vehicle and hurried in with his companion, taking 
 her arm to assist her quickly up the stairs. 
 
 When they reached the door of the flat, she said, " Fortunately 
 I told the servants not to wait if I should be late." 
 
 As soon as they were inside, and the door of the drawing- 
 room closed upon them, she threw herself into his arms, 
 exclaiming, " You looked so well when you were speaking that 
 I could not take my eyes away from you for a single instant." 
 
 " And you so charming down below there, that I dared not 
 look lest I should get confused." 
 " Is that the real truth ? " she asked. 
 " Do you doubt me ? " 
 " Oh, no, John dear, I never want to doubt you.' 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 75 
 
 He led her to a seat, and feeling at his ease in the pleasant 
 room in which he seemed to have suddenly acquired a peculiar 
 right of sojourn, he pulled out his cigar case and offered her a 
 cigarette. 
 
 She took one, and they smoked together. 
 
 Presently she said, " I little thought this evening when I 
 started that you would make me break my resolution in this 
 way." 
 
 He answered, "Your resolution was too cruel. It was 
 destined to be broken." 
 
 Then, sending a puff of smoke upward and watching it as it 
 ascended to the ceiling, he exclaimed, "Ah, Ellen, you don't 
 know what I felt when those worthy men applauded me to- 
 night ! It seemed to me that I had found the road which was 
 to lead me on to fortune. I fancied I heard in the echo of 
 their applause a note which was particularly sweet. Think 
 what they can do for a man who gets their ear. It doesn't 
 matter what you preach to them as long as you manage to catch 
 their fancy. Then they stick to you for ever. Ah ! Ellen, 
 one has only to believe sufficiently in the folly of one's fellows 
 to succeed!" 
 
 She said, " I hope you don't, apply that principle to me." 
 
 He answered, " How often you need to be reassured ! 
 Where is the parallel, I should like to know, between a lovely 
 woman and a populace ? " 
 
 " Forgive me, I was joking. I know you will get on. I can 
 see it in everything you do." 
 
 He answered, " My best achievement will always be to have 
 won you." 
 
 The next morning Johns left Mrs. Weber's flat before the 
 servants were about, and went down the four flights of stairs 
 slowly. 
 
 As he was descending the last flight, he perceived that the 
 porter whom he had hoped to avoid was in the hall polishing 
 the mahogany of the kind of sentry-box in which he generally 
 sat. 
 
 Johns thought, " Here's a man who must be squared," and as 
 he always liked to remove obstacles as soon as they presented 
 themselves, he dived his hand into his pocket and produced a 
 half sovereign — the last that he had. Armed with this, he 
 approached the porter who was looking at him with a half- 
 perplexed smile. Evidently the man had recognized the 
 cavalier who often called on Mrs. Weber. 
 
 " My friend," said Johns, " I shall probably be often leaving 
 this house early in the morning, and I want you to let me make 
 
76 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 you this litttle present — as an earnest of more of the same kind 
 if you appreciate sufficiently how absolutely unnecessary it is to 
 tell anybody that you've seen me." 
 
 The man took the modest offering and said, with a reassuring 
 nod — 
 
 "All right, sir, thank you, you needn't trouble. You can 
 trust to me, sir. My motto is, never let your right 'and 
 know what your left 'and doeth." 
 
 "An excellent motto," said Johns: "it's one I use my- 
 self." 
 
 The man smiled, and Johns left Carsdale Mansions. 
 
 It was so early that the refreshment room at the station, 
 where he wanted to have breakfast, was not open when he 
 reached it, and he was obliged to stroll about in the vicinity 
 while waiting. It was a fresh, bright morning, however, and 
 the time passed pleasantly as he reflected over his expe- 
 riences. There was no doubt about it; things had gone 
 extremely well. If this luck could continue thus, he wouldn't 
 grumble, and as he thought of the many more happy moments 
 he would spend in Carsdale Mansions, he said, "John, my 
 boy, you've not been doing badly." Perhaps it would have 
 been pleasanter not to have been turned out at that early 
 hour amid the dust of doorstep sweepings, but that was a 
 mere trifle. How tender she had been when he had left her ! 
 How pretty she had looked in the faint light of her room, 
 with her long silk-like hair falling over her neck and shoulders, 
 as she had opened him the door, ever so regretfully ! Yes, 
 all that was extremely satisfactory. 
 
 When it was nearly eight, he returned to the station and 
 ordered a modest breakfast — being forced to be economical, 
 not knowing how he was to obtain fresh supplies. This 
 want of money, he knew, was the true weakness of his 
 position, and it was always leading him into awkward 
 straits. 
 
 While he was eating, he unfolded the packet of morning 
 papers, which he had bought at the bookstall, to see what 
 mention had been made of the meeting of the previous 
 evening. All, with the exception of the Standard^ contained 
 accounts of the proceedings, and to his delight he saw that, 
 not only had his little speech on education been reported 
 almost verbatim, but one of the chief liberal organs had 
 devoted a leaderette to it. Unfortunately, to mar his joy, 
 the paragraph ended thus : " We have not heard of this Mr. 
 Johns before, but it must be admitted that his views on 
 education, if somewhat too Utopian, are not deficient either 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 77 
 
 in force or clearness." This last sentence he did not like. 
 It annoyed him to be called "this Mr. Johns," and that it 
 should be published to the world that he was an unknown 
 man. He swore that some day they should hear of him 
 till their ears ached. This Mr. Johns, indeed ! Let them 
 wait till he got a chance ! 
 
 When he had finished his breakfast it was still early ; but he 
 calculated that, if he walked slowly, he would reach the office 
 at a convenient hour, and he would be able to stop at a barber's 
 upon the way in order to be shaved. For it would not do to 
 look disreputable after his success, and a success it was 
 undoubtedly, in spite of the qualified praise of the leaderette. 
 He felt as proud as the day when he had seen his first article 
 in print, and he looked at the people he met, in the face, with 
 the calm denjeanour of a man who has done " something 
 big." 
 
 And then, after ten minutes spent in a hairdresser's shop in 
 the Strand, he made his way to the office of the paper. 
 
 The first to congratulate him was Maskelyne, whom he met 
 upon the stairs. 
 
 " You were splendid," he said. " Voice, gesture, and ideas 
 were all admirable." 
 
 Johns, to whom praise was as ambrosia, said, " I hit it off 
 pretty well, didn't I ? " 
 
 " Couldn't have been better ! I've written it up for you in 
 to-day's, and if Boyd lets all I've written pass, you won't have 
 cause to grumble." 
 
 Johns said, " I'll remember it." 
 
 A little higher up the stairs he met Coulston, who said, in a 
 tone which was not free from sarcasm, " So, I hear you made 
 a remarkable oration last night at Aldgate." 
 
 Johns answered, " I made a speech which has been remarked ; 
 that was all, Coulston." 
 
 He had been in the habit of saying " Mr. Coulston " to the 
 sub-editor, but he intentionally dropped the " Mr. " to mark 
 familiarity, equality, indifference. 
 
 Coulston passed along without answering, and Johns reached 
 Tarte's room. 
 
 The old man was looking over manuscripts. He glanced 
 up as Johns entered. 
 
 " Demosthenes," he said, " spoke only for his country's 
 good. Did you, last night, do likewise ? " 
 
 Johns answered, " Did you think so when you read my 
 speech ? " 
 
 " I haven't read your speech." 
 
78 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 "Then I'll answer you when you have." But he added 
 afterwards, " All right, Tarte ; we understand each other." 
 
 Towards mid-day Dawson sent for Johns, and, when the 
 latter appeared in the private room, the proprietor rose and 
 held out his hand to him." 
 
 " My dear Johns," he said, " a thousand congratulations. I 
 hear you were quite brilliant." 
 
 " They tell me so," said Johns, coolly. 
 
 " I had no idea," the proprietor continued, " you could do 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 Johns smiled. 
 
 " Do you know, I'm afraid we must really find something 
 better for you to do than mere reporting. I will speak to 
 Boyd about it this very day ! " 
 
 In the afternoon Johns was called to the editorial room, 
 where he found the two chiefs. 
 
 "We have decided," Boyd commenced, "to offer you the 
 preparation of the events column, jointly with Mr. Coulston, 
 who has been for some time endeavouring to do it single- 
 handed In this way you will receive a fixed salary of, let us 
 say, sixteen pounds a month. Will that suit you 1 " 
 
 " It will suit me admirably for the present," Johns replied. 
 
 " You see," said Boyd, turning to Dawson, " Mr. Johns is 
 somewhat ambitious." 
 
 " Well," said Dawson, " I don't object to that. It's often 
 good for the paper." 
 
 Johns asked for a few days to study his new duties, and these 
 were granted, as well as an additional advance of which, he 
 told Dawson, he was much in need. He became so much 
 absorbed studying the files of the paper to make himself 
 familiar with the column to which he was henceforth to devote 
 his energies that, when the Saturday came, he was well-nigh 
 forgetting his appointment with Mrs. Dawson. As soon as he 
 remembered it, however, he took a hansom (he could afford 
 one now) and drove to Princes Gate. 
 
 As he approached the house he recalled the few words he 
 had exchanged with the wife of the proprietor after the meet- 
 ing in the hall at Aldgate, and the look of timid, yet ready 
 acquiescence which he had noticed on her face when she had 
 consented to receive him. He thought that he must be very 
 much mistaken if Mrs. Dawson was not seriously inclined to 
 fall in love with him. 
 
 And if so, what could he derive from it ? Nothing perhaps 
 directly, but a great deal indirectly. Did he not want to be 
 editor, and wouldn't this woman's love, if he obtained it,, be a 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 79 
 
 splendid lever ? He knew by past experience what a woman 
 in love could do for the man she loved, and it would be 
 magnificent if he could get rid of the many obstacles which 
 stood between him and the post he coveted. Besides, Mrs. 
 Dawson was a pretty blonde, and he remembered that he had 
 found her particularly attractive that evening at the hall. And 
 then it was impossible that she should be attached to such an 
 old brute as Dawson — quite impossible. These reflections 
 lasted till his hansom stopped before the house. 
 
 The servants knew him now, and had probably, he thought, 
 pardoned the want of orthodoxy in his dress, for he was 
 immediately conducted to the drawing-room, where he found 
 Mrs. Dawson. 
 
 She was sitting near the window reading, and her first words 
 were, as she gave her hand — 
 
 " I was beginning to think you were not coming." 
 
 "Not coming !" he repeated in a tone of sorrowful surprise. 
 " You little know me. You do not know that if Princes Gate 
 had been as difficult of access as the summit of Mont Blanc 
 on a stormy day, I would not have failed to come." 
 
 "You are always so enthusiastic !" 
 
 " Always — when with you ! " 
 
 "I hear," she said, "that you are going to do something 
 more suited to your ability at the office. I told my husband 
 after the meeting the other night that it was ridiculous that you 
 should be a reporter when you can speak so well." 
 
 " And it is then to you that I owe the sudden offer that they 
 made me ! Ah, was I not right a little time ago when I said 
 you were my guardian angel ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid my share in it was very slight. It was your own 
 merit." 
 
 He gazed wistfully into her face. 
 
 " And you really think I have some little merit. Ah, if you 
 knew how your words enchant me, how they give me strength 
 to triumph. I feel, when I hear you speak, that there is 
 comfort in the sound of your soft voice, solace in the very 
 movement of your lips, promise in the words they utter." 
 
 He paused a moment, for, before diving deeper into senti- 
 ment, he wanted to know if the coast was clear. Then he 
 continued, " And when I see your husband this afternoon " 
 
 But she interrupted with — 
 
 "He's gone to Manchester." 
 
 " Oh, then it doesn't matter. Mrs. Dawson, shall I make 
 you a confession ? " 
 
 " If it's not anything I should not hear." 
 
So THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " It is that I am unhappy ! You may see no change in me 
 perhaps ; I may even laugh at times, but I swear to you that I 
 am unhappy, terribly unhappy." 
 
 " May I know the cause ?" 
 
 "Ah yes, you may. I am hopelessly in love !" 
 
 "And may I know with whom?" 
 
 "With you, alas! with you!" 
 
 Her lips quivered, and she moved in her chair nervously. 
 
 " I thought," she said, in a voice which she tried to make 
 severe, " that you had promised not to say such things to me 
 again." 
 
 He reflected, " If she didn't expect it, why was she willing to 
 receive me here alone?" and he said — 
 
 "There are some promises which are against nature, which 
 are beyond the power of the will to keep. I have done my 
 best. I have wrestled with my longing, tried by every means I 
 knew to silence, to subdue it; but in vain, in vain I Lucy — ^oh 
 let me call you Lucy — I told you once that you suggested those 
 fine lines from Haidee, but now, as I see you there with those 
 golden tresses and that perfect face, I say that Byron himself 
 never was inspired by such charms. You asked me the other 
 night why I had not been to see you. Could you not guess 
 why I kept away ? It was because to see you, to speak with 
 you, and to know that you were the wife of another is torture 
 for me — torture and fascination ! Ah, if you only knew how 
 many times I started to come here and then turned back, 
 wretched and discouraged, angry with the fate that had ordained 
 it thus I If you only knew how many sleepless nights I've 
 spent thinking over it, lamenting, wishing I had never left 
 Australia, or that I had found you free ! You appeared to me 
 from the first instant I beheld you as the true realization of my 
 dreams. You do not know the power of your beauty. You do 
 not know how it has taken possession of me, how it has claimed 
 me as its own and fettered me in chains that will never break. 
 No, you do not know. But when I entered this room just 
 now I felt that not another hour should pass before I had told 
 you of my passion, before I had entreated you to show clemency, 
 to have pity, and to be merciful." 
 
 He had pronounced the last words supplicatingly, with his 
 arms stretched out towards her in a practised attitude, but before 
 he had finished speaking, she had risen, and stood undecided, 
 looking away from him, flushed, and with a frown upon her 
 forehead. 
 
 " Mr. Johns, I cannot listen to you. It's not right of you to 
 speak to me like this. It's the first time anyone has said such 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 8i 
 
 things to me. It's wrong. I'm sorry for you, truly sorry, if you 
 are so — I mean if you care for me so much, but in future 
 you must think of me as a friend — a friend who wishes well 
 to you." 
 
 She spoke agitatedly, almost confusedly, and he thought, 
 "If she's on the ^/V«^ tack, it's so much gained." 
 
 He said, " I know I must be mad to hope, to dream, and 
 yet I cannot help it. I am as unable now to cease loving you 
 as the moth to refrain from flying round the flame. If you tell 
 me that we can never be but friends, you crush me. My life 
 henceforth will have no meaning, will be rendered hateful, 
 odious. The woman I adore will be chained to a man she 
 cannot love — for I know you do not love him — while / shall be 
 condemned to be a witness of such sacrilege." 
 
 Quickly he drew near to her and whispered in her ear — 
 
 " Lucy, my darling Lucy, do not take all hope away from me. 
 Leave me a Httle ray so that I may find strength to go on 
 living. Think of the unjust sacrifice you're making, think of 
 its cruelty, its uselessness. I cannot, no, I cannot, look upon 
 that perfect form, those lovely eyes, those perfect lips, without 
 feeling that my reason is deserting me, that I am growing giddy, 
 that I must not, will not, listen to any but the voice of love." 
 
 He saw that she was breathing fast, as if deeply moved. 
 Thinking the moment opportune, he clasped her round the 
 waist, and tried to kiss her. 
 
 But he found, to his disappointment, that he had gone too 
 fast, for, instead of submitting, as he had thought she would, 
 she disengaged herself with sudden energy, and, placing her 
 hand upon the bell knob, said excitedly — 
 
 " If you attempt that, I'll ring." 
 
 He saw that she was in earnest, and that, for the moment, 
 there was nothing to be done. To retrieve himself, he cried in 
 a repentant tone, upon his knees — 
 
 " Oh, forgive me. I was mad and not able to control my 
 passion. It was a sudden fit. I was not responsible. Say 
 that you forgive me." 
 
 " I forgive you," she said slowly, and he fancied that her eyes 
 glistened. 
 
 He rose, and, after pressing her hand in silence, left. 
 
CHAPTER 
 SIXTH 
 
 WHEN Johns left Princes Gate, he felt that he had 
 risked much. He had not expected so much firm- 
 ness on the part of Mrs. Dawson. She had appeared to 
 him in the light of a woman tied to a man much older than 
 herself and of coarser origin. He had considered that she was 
 secretly regretting her enslavement, and would not refuse to 
 avail herself of an opportunity of making it less hard to bear. 
 But instead of that, she had made a show of virtue, had 
 silenced him by threatening to ring the bell ! The mistake was 
 certainly annoying, and he scarcely knew what its effects would 
 be. There was the danger of her refusing to receive him now, 
 and that would seriously upset his plans, impede his progress. 
 Why, then, had he been so hasty? Why had he not shown 
 more patience and more prudence? Why had he not been 
 more skilful ? Well, he hadn't, and that was all about it. He 
 wasn't going to quarrel with himself. 
 
 And as he reflected over it in bed that night, he reviewed 
 the behaviour of the wife of the proprietor towards him since 
 he had known her. He thought of the mildness of her rebuke 
 after his first attack, the readiness with which she had consented 
 to receive him, and he remembered a certain softness in the 
 expression of her eyes when she was speaking. It was not long 
 before he came to the conclusion that after all he had not much 
 to fear. He had studied women well enough to know that his 
 protestations of undying love could not have been entirely in 
 vain; that it was impossible that some of them had not 
 flattered, if they had not moved her. For that reason alone, he 
 was sure that she would refrain from telling her husband a word 
 of what had passed. No, that she would not do. He could 
 feel easy on that score. Perhaps, indeed, she had been more 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 83 
 
 strongly hit than he suspected. Did one ever know with 
 women ? and was not the very moment when they were upon 
 the point of giving way often the time when they seemed most 
 firm ? Who could tell ? The morality of women depended so 
 much on circumstances ! Educate them more ? No, by God, 
 he wasn't in favour of that notion. 
 
 Still, there was no doubt that the method which had suc- 
 ceeded with Mrs. Weber was not the one he ought to have 
 employed with Mrs. Dawson. The conditions were not the 
 same. The wife had more to lose than the widow, and there- 
 fore he should have been more careful. Although in reality, as 
 long as there was no harm done to his own prospects, her 
 severity didn't matter so very much. It would certainly have 
 been easier if he had had chambers somewhere. He could 
 have asked her to come to see his curios, his photographs, his 
 trophies, and if she had come — oh, then, the result would 
 hardly have been doubtful. 
 
 Yes he must move to better quarters as soon as he could 
 afford it. He was sick of the squalid meanness of his surround- 
 ings. He must change them as soon as possible. If he could 
 only raise ;£5o, that would put him on a better footing and 
 enable him to decently equip himself. Of course, his salary 
 would be a little higher now; but he would have so long to 
 wait before he would be paid, and he was weary of the expe- 
 dients he was forced to use. He wanted to be fed decently 
 and to be lodged decently. 
 
 The next morning being Sunday, he asked himself what he 
 should do; whether he should call on Mrs. Dawson in the 
 afternoon as if nothing had occurred, or whether he should let 
 a little time elapse before going to her house again. After 
 mature reflection, he decided to take the latter course. 
 
 In the afternoon, however, he was seized with a sudden 
 
 \ longing to see Mrs. Weber, and although he had made no 
 . appointment for that day, he decided he would call on the 
 chance of finding her at home. He was prompted, also, 
 by a kind of curiosity to know where she was, and if possible 
 what she was doing on an afternoon when she did not expect 
 him. 
 
 When he arrived at Carsdale Mansions he was told that 
 Mrs. Weber was at home, and on entering the drawing-room he 
 found Parker with her. They were seated before a little table 
 on which was a liqueur stand, and were smoking cigarettes. 
 
 Johns fancied that she started slightly when he was an- 
 nounced, but she rose at once and welcomed him as she would 
 have welcomed an acquaintance who had called by chance. 
 
,84 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Parker, although he shook hands cordially with Johns, did not 
 seem to the young man to be much pleased with his visit, and 
 for some time, while they were speaking of the meeting and the 
 prospects of the radicals, there was a reserve which was the 
 more apparent because they did their best to hide it. 
 
 Occasionally the conversation drooped, and there was a 
 silence which Mrs. Weber would break by starting a new topic. 
 Now and then, also, Johns surprised Parker, whom he was 
 watching narrowly, casting a furtive glance at the clock upon 
 the mantelpiece. But Johns, who wanted to remain after 
 Parker left, began an explanation of the lecture he was pre- 
 paring, and which, he said, was to be called The Spirit of the 
 True Radical. He meant to embody in it all the principles of 
 the leaders of the party during the last ten years, and to add 
 some observations of his own. 
 
 " Quite right," said Parker, though with less enthusiasm than 
 he generally evinced. " You can't do better." 
 
 Johns thought, "He's sure of his election, and he doesn't 
 trouble about me now." 
 
 He pretended to be perfectly oblivious that he was in the 
 way, as he suspected that he might be, and when half an hour 
 had been thus spent, Parker left, after ceremoniously taking 
 leave of Mrs. Weber. 
 
 When the door had closed upon the member for North 
 Aldgate, Johns took the seat which he had just vacated. 
 Without alluding to Parker's presence there that afternoon, 
 he said, gravely — 
 
 " I came, Ellen, to tell you something that will trouble you, 
 I fear." 
 
 " Oh, what is it?" she exclaimed, anxiously. 
 
 " I'm thinking of returning to Australia." 
 
 " Of returning to Australia !" she repeated, as if she did not 
 realize his meaning. 
 
 " Listen, Ellen. I've been reflecting since Thursday, when 
 I left you after so much happiness ! so much happiness ! that 
 journalism here is a poor trade, since I'm actually in want of a 
 miserable £^^o to pay my creditors. I feel a strong repugnance 
 to speak of such things to you, but if I did not, you might 
 think I was hiding something from you. When I came over, 
 I had spent nearly all I had, and although I haven't been 
 here many months, I've been obliged to run up bills and to 
 contract debts which must be paid. At present I can't pay 
 them, and for a paltry sum I'm to be condemned to lose, or to 
 no longer see, the only woman I have ever loved. My fate is 
 indeed hard." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS S5 
 
 She burst out laughing. 
 
 " And it's for the enormous sum of ^50 that you, with your 
 abilities, are thinking of giving up the game ! John, you've 
 been too many days away from me, and you've been worrying 
 about trifles as men sometimes do. What is jCs^i I should 
 like to know ? You'll have to let me lend that large amount at 
 25 per shent." 
 
 He answered, still with gravity, "I thought you knew me 
 better, Ellen, than to speak like that." 
 
 " But it's ridiculous. Everybody says that you'll get on. It*s 
 only a question of a little time. You really must let me be 
 your usurer for once." 
 
 But he knit his brow. 
 
 " Ellen, I beg of you not to speak of that again." 
 
 She was silent for a moment ; then she said, " At all events 
 you're not off by the next boat. I'm not going to despair. I 
 know it will be all right. For j£$o ! It's too ridiculous ! No, 
 my Johnnie, you're my property, and all the creditors in the 
 world " 
 
 He seized her in his arms and kissed her. 
 
 " Ellen, my little Ellen, whatever happens I shall always lore 
 you!" 
 
 She whispered presently, " Why didn't you tell me you were 
 coming, John ? I wouldn't have promised to dine this evening 
 with the Dawsons !" 
 
 " Talking of them," she added ; " do you know, I believe 
 you've made an impression on Lucy, you dreadful monster. 
 She looks quite peculiar when I speak of you, and she gener- 
 ally tries to change the subject. That's a pretty sure sign, you 
 know. If she weren't married and so strictly principled, I 
 should be inclined to be a little jealous." 
 
 "Jealous of Mrs. Dawson !" he said, deprecatingly. "That 
 would be indeed folly !" 
 
 " Who knows ! If I were a man, I think she would attract 
 me." 
 
 He stayed with her until it was time for her-to get ready for 
 the Dawsons, but before he left they arranged to dine together 
 on the Wednesday. ^ 
 
 As he was leaving she enquired, " Do you still wish to have 
 your letters addressed to the office of the paper?" 
 
 "It's just as well," he answered, "in fact, it's more con- 
 venient." 
 
 In the street, as he was walking home, thinking over what 
 had passed, he muttered, "What a fool I was not to say a 
 hundred," and he was ill-humoured all the evening at the 
 
86 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 thought. Returning home early, after dinner, he went to bed 
 at once. 
 
 The next morning he began his new work at the office. It 
 was his duty to make comments, chiefly on politicians and 
 political events, in strict accordance with the paper's tone. It 
 was necessary that all the acts, whether good or bad, of the 
 opposition should be held up to ridicule or to contempt ; and 
 that the errors of the radicals should be converted into proofs 
 of wisdom. The theory was that the "party" was never 
 wrong, and its opponents never right, and Johns grasped that 
 readily. Not only did he show ingenuity in working round 
 his subject, but he also evidenced a capacity for " hitting 
 hard," which Tarte prophesied would worry the rival organs. 
 This new employment had the advantage of bringing him 
 into touch with the members of the staff, and it gave him 
 access to the editorial room. Coulston was by no means 
 pleased with it, but Johns performed his work without 
 troubling himself about him, and Boyd, since the Aldgate 
 meeting, seeing the favour in which he was held by Dawson, 
 was forced to be more conciliatory. 
 
 While Johns was engaged in scanning the papers on the 
 Tuesday morning before writing his paragraphs, a messenger 
 came m and handed him a letter, registered. He was not 
 surprised when he recognised the handwriting of Mrs. Weber on 
 the blue-marked envelope. As there was no one in the room he 
 opened it at once, and a piece of paper fell from it, which he 
 picked up and unfolded. It was a Bank of England note bearing 
 the word " fifty " in German text in the right-hand corner. 
 
 He breathed a sigh of satisfaction, and then read the letter, 
 which ran thus — 
 
 "My own Johnnie. It is really too ridiculous that you 
 should be worried for the sake of fifty pounds, and I insist — 
 mind, I insist — on your accepting this little note. If by any 
 chance you were to return it to me, I would be so deeply hurt 
 that I swear I would never speak to you again. 
 
 " Remember, seven o'clock on Wednesday. Ever yours, 
 Ellen." 
 
 He placed the note in his leather letter case, but the letter 
 he tore into small pieces, which he put into his pocket, pre- 
 ferring, as a measure of precaution, not to trust them to the 
 paper basket. 
 
 Then he muttered, "That's all right," for the feel of the 
 crisp bank note had dispelled the regret he had felt at first at 
 not saying he was in need of a larger sum. He experienced a 
 feeling of relief. His road now appeared to him much 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 87 
 
 straighter, and that very evening, when his work was over, he 
 started westward in search of better quarters. 
 
 He would have liked to obtain rooms in the authentic 
 Grafton Street, off Bond Street, in which he was supposed to 
 live, but after a search, as he was unable to find any there, he 
 wandered about until, in Jermyn Street, he discovered two which, 
 though small, seemed suitable. They were furnished with 
 more taste than is usually to be found in what are termed 
 apartments, as though some festive bachelor of taste had 
 furnished them himself. Johns engaged them without hesita- 
 tion, and told the proprietor that he would come in on the 
 morrow. No doubt the rent would make a large inroad on his 
 present income, but the j£s°} judiciously expended, would 
 enable him to hold out until his position mended. He walked 
 down Piccadilly conscious that he had an address of which he 
 need not be ashamed, and feeling several degrees higher in the 
 social scale — now that he was transformed into a fashionable 
 bachelor. He had only to find a trustful tailor, and the 
 transformation would be complete. 
 
 Then, as he was anxious not to remain an hour longer than 
 was needful in Grafton Street, he hurried home to tell his 
 landlady of his departure and to pack up his belongings. As 
 his wardrobe had increased since his arrival, the black port- 
 manteau would not suffice, and on the way he stopped at a 
 shop and ordered a large " Gladstone" to be sent to him 
 immediately. 
 
 His landlady received his announcement that he was going 
 into rooms in Jermyn Street and that he wanted to pay his bill, 
 with some astonishment, for it was not often that her " gentle- 
 men" left her to go to a more expensive neighbourhood. It 
 was generally the other way, she said, with a grin, as she fingered 
 the sovereigns he gave her, but, of course, it was nice to rise 
 in the world, and she hoped he would continue doing so. 
 
 When he had packed everything ready to leave the next 
 morning, and was going out again to dine, he suddenly thought 
 of Maggie, and at once he felt a revival of affection for the pale- 
 faced girl who seemed so lonely. He had not been to see her 
 lately, and he wondered how she was getting on. It was only 
 right that he should say good-bye. 
 
 In answer to his knock, a feeble voice invited him to enter. 
 He entered, and as there was no one in the parlour, he passed 
 on to the next room. 
 
 In the middle of a large bed, at the side of which was a little 
 table bearing a medicine bottle and a glass, Maggie's head 
 appeared above the covers, half hidden in a network of 
 
88 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 dishevelled hair, which spread itself upon the pillow. Her 
 face was thin and colourless, and her eyes sunken. She seemed 
 to be in pain. 
 
 Johns approached the bedside. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " I was going to ask you to come and see 
 me. Ever since Saturday I have been so ill ! " 
 
 She was interrupted by a fit of coughing. 
 
 " I caught a chill, and the doctor says it's settled on my 
 chest, and he won't say when I will be better. Oh, and things 
 have been going bad for me. Nobody seems to like me now. 
 And Mrs. Reid says she can't keep me if I don't pay her, and 
 I've got no money, not a farthing." 
 
 She hid her face in her pillow and began to sob. 
 
 John's features gave a nervous twitch. Women's tears made 
 him feel uncomfortable, and he tried to find a few words of 
 encouragement. 
 
 " Why, Maggie, what is the meaning of all this worry for a 
 cold ? Of course you'll be better in a day or two, and as for 
 the money, my luck's been better lately, and I'm going to make 
 you a little present." 
 
 Saying this, he thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out his 
 purse, and taking two sovereigns from it he placed them on the 
 table by the bedside. 
 
 "Oh, thanks," she murmured, "I thought you would try to 
 help me when you knew." 
 
 He stayed with her a few minutes in the disordered room, 
 with its odour of medicine and its air of misery, and as he 
 looked at her, and listened to her hollow cough, he con- 
 cluded that her spell down here would not be long. Then, as 
 hopeless cases of any kind disturbed him, he left her without 
 saying that he had come to say good-bye. 
 
 When he was outside he said, " She's mistaken her vocation 
 with a vengeance," and he hurried off to dinner without think- 
 ing any more about her. 
 
 Early the next morning he left Grafton Street, with his now 
 respectable new luggage. As the cab moved off he gave a last 
 look at the house and mentally took leave of its genteel 
 shabbiness, he hoped for ever. 
 
 The drive to Jermyn Street represented in his mind a trans- 
 lation to a sphere of respectability, a kind of minor apotheosis 
 presaging a greater one. When he reached the house, he 
 entrusted the luggage to the valet at the door, who received 
 him with much deference. Then he hurried to the Strand, 
 performed his daily task, and in the evening went to Aldgate, 
 where he was advertised to lecture. There he addressed an 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 89 
 
 appreciative audience, in the hall in which the electors' meeting 
 had been held, on The Spirit of the True Radical, and his 
 address was duly reported in the next day's Planet. 
 
 As he had anticipated, Mrs. Dawson had not told her hus- 
 band what had passed, for the proprietor was friendlier than 
 ever, often calling him into his private room to enquire how he 
 was getting on, and chatting with him about his project of 
 enlarging the paper by two sheets. Johns listened attentively, 
 and offered a suggestion now and then, which Dawson received 
 with favour. Sometimes Johns hinted that a larger circulation 
 might be reached under a different system. 
 
 When the Wednesday came, he thought frequently through- 
 out the day about the attitude he was going to adopt towards 
 Mrs. Weber, and when he reached her door that evening, after 
 a meditative walk from Jermyn Street, he delayed ringing until 
 he had composed the countenance he had decided upon 
 wearing. Then he touched the knob, and was admitted. 
 
 He entered the drawing-room, where the widow was waiting 
 for him, with an expression of great solemnity. Advancing 
 slowly towards her, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. 
 
 " Ellen," he said, " since I received your note I have been 
 engaged in a constant struggle with myself. You con- 
 fronted me with two alternatives — I must either accept your 
 misguided offer, or else leave England and no longer see you. 
 Well, Ellen, the trial was too great. I could not bring myself 
 to lose you, and you see me here to-night, convicted in my own 
 eyes and perhaps in yours." 
 
 But she took his hands and said, " My own Johnnie, how 
 can you say that ! I love you more for the confidence you 
 have in me, and for letting me do the little I can for you, but 
 for Heaven's sake say no more about it, or I shall feel that we 
 are greater strangers than I thought." 
 
 He asked no better than to say no more; but he preserved a 
 certain thoughtfulness and reticence all through the evening. 
 He told her that he had removed to a small room in Jermyn 
 Street, where rents were cheaper, because he wanted to econo- 
 mise until he had obtained the post he aimed at. But he 
 could not receive her there, he said. It was too small and too 
 uncomfortable. Besides, had they not found a means of getting 
 over the difficulty of the servants? and as for the porter down 
 below, his discretion was secured. They had nothing to fear 
 — nothing. 
 
 He did not leave, this time, until two hours after daybreak 
 the next morning. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Baxter was holding a reception, and as 
 
90 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Mrs. Weber had told him that Mrs. Dawson would be there, 
 Johns was not a little curious to know what attitude she would 
 adopt towards him. His own behaviour, he decided, must be 
 based on hers, and there was no knowing what it would prove 
 to be : he had a feeling that she would not be too severe, 
 though with women one never knew. Of one thing he fancied 
 he was sure. He thought he knew, with certainty, that when 
 a man persistently made love to any woman, it was almost 
 impossible for that woman to preserve herself from thinking of 
 that man. Involuntary obsessions, such as these, often had an 
 influence upon women of which they were barely conscious. 
 At all events, he was going to have an opportunity of ascer- 
 taining. He really did not care, very much, whether she 
 fell in love with him or not. He only thought of her as a 
 sufficiently attractive blonde, who might advance his interests. 
 
 Although the season was drawing to its close, he was begin- 
 ning to receive invitations from the majority of Mrs. Dawson's 
 friends. Many of these — the unimportant ones — he had 
 declined; for he wanted to increase his social value, and that, 
 he deemed, could be best effected by showing himself exclusive. 
 Among the few invitations that he accepted was that of Mrs. 
 Baxter — the lady whom he had met, that auspicious evening, 
 at the Berkeley. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as he could leave, he made his way to the 
 Baxters' house in Portland Place. 
 
 He found, when he entered the reception-room, after being 
 warmly received by Mrs. Baxter on the threshold, that he had 
 come to one of those crowded gatherings which seem designed 
 to flatten, to compress the unfortunates for whose amusement 
 they are organized, and he was imprisoned, to his disgust, for 
 many minutes in a dense crowd of people vaguely listening to 
 a pianist who was invisible to most of them. Johns, on 
 account of his short stature, felt himself buried in the throng, 
 and it was in vain that he stood upon tip-toes to try to catch 
 a glimpse of either Mrs. Weber or Mrs. Dawson. He could 
 see nothing but the backs of the people immediately before 
 him. This sort of function, in which he had no chance of 
 making himself seen or heard, irritated him extremely, and he 
 swore that he would never come to one again unless it was 
 greatly to his interest to do so. 
 
 When the pianist had finished there was a slight slackening, 
 and it became possible to make an attempt to move. Johns 
 took advantage of it to disengage himself, and he was progress- 
 ing slowly round the room, when, suddenly, he found himself 
 face to face with Mrs. Dawson. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 91 
 
 Gravely, with that impressive gravity which he knew so well 
 how to assume, he held out his hand to her, saying with a long 
 sigh, "Mrs. Dawson!" 
 
 Embarrassed, she said, apparently at random, "Isn't it 
 crowded here to-day?" 
 
 He looked about, and seeing a recess which had been con- 
 structed on the verandah, said, "Oppressively! Let us go 
 over yonder." And perceiving that she seemed inclined to 
 follow, he made a passage for her through the throng. 
 
 A poet of the long-haired tribe was preparing to recite, and 
 the occupants of the recess were coming out to listen. Soon, 
 therefore, they were alone, seated upon a red divan amid the 
 foliage of some giant palms. 
 
 He did not ask her if she wished to listen to the reciter, but 
 exclaimed, "Ah! if you knew!" 
 
 "What?" she asked, timorously. 
 
 "What I have suffered! What I suffer!" 
 
 She looked down quickly, and he continued, " But do not 
 be afraid. I have struggled with myself, and I have succeeded, 
 heaven knows with how much pain, in subduing, not my feel- 
 ings, for that is utterly impossible, but myself! No, you have 
 no need to fear. I have disciplined myself; I have brought 
 myself into subjection. I am the most harmless, the most 
 humble of your admirers. Will you not have confidence in me?" 
 
 " I want to have confidence in you," she said, in a low voice, 
 which seemed to him to tremble. 
 
 The words of the reciter penetrated indistinctly to them in a 
 confused medley of sounds and rhymes and sentiments. 
 
 " Will you give me a proof of that?" he asked. 
 
 "But how can I?" 
 
 "Listen for a moment. I want to speak to you more 
 earnestly, more explicitly, than I can here — in this place, which 
 will be filled again as soon as that poet stops. Not, believe 
 me, to cause you the slightest apprehension — that is all over 
 now — but I entreat you, I implore you, to give me an oppor- 
 tunity of telling you all that I have in my heart to say, all that 
 I must say some day if I am to relieve my mind of the weight 
 which burdens it. I feel that you will not refuse to tell me 
 where to meet you, what day, what hour. Choose the place 
 that suits you best, be it park or picture gallery, or where you 
 will, but tell me quickly where and when. If you refuse, this 
 will be the last time you will see me. Unless I have your 
 friendship, I shall go back to Australia." 
 
 She looked troubled, anxious, and replied, " But it's impos- 
 sible, how can I ? " 
 
92 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 "You can meet me to-morrow at the National Gallery at 
 four." 
 
 "Oh, how could I?" 
 
 " That poet will have finished in a moment. I entreat you, 
 I implore you, to say yes or no." 
 
 " Oh, you must not ask it." 
 
 "Yes or no?" 
 
 " Must I really ? " 
 
 " Ah," he murmured, quickly, " you have taken a sad weight 
 off my mind ! You have given me new hope, you will not 
 regret that you have agreed to come. You will never have 
 reason to regret it — never ! " 
 
 " But remember, if I consent to come, it is only because you 
 have given me your word that you will not speak to me again 
 as you did last time we met." 
 
 He thought, " She's getting tedious with her virtue," and he 
 said, " Alas, yes ! I have bound myself in fetters. Those 
 fetters I shall never break." 
 
 But at that moment there was a slight rustle amid the palms 
 at the entrance of the recess, and Mrs. Weber, escorted by 
 Parker, entered. 
 
 As Johns rose, the widow gave him a sharp glance which, 
 after scrutinizing him, passed on to Mrs. Dawson. Johns met 
 it by a calm smile and a look which included the widow and 
 the politician. 
 
 After greetings had been exchanged, Parker said to Johns, 
 " Mr. Johns, it is often my duty to congratulate you now. I 
 hear your lecture was very well received." 
 
 Johns answered, "Very well. The gentlemen of Aldgate 
 are more appreciative than I thought." 
 
 Then, as by this time the recitation was over and the recess 
 was beginning to be filled, Parker, who seemed to consider it 
 incumbent on him to speak to Mrs. Dawson, took a seat beside 
 her, and Johns another next to Mrs. Weber. And as the con- 
 versation in the already filled recess had become noisy, the 
 widow was able to say to Johns without being overheard, " So 
 you preferred solitude to poetry this afternoon." 
 
 He answered quietly, " Like you." 
 
 She glanced at him enquiringly, suspiciously, and asked, 
 " What do you mean by that? " 
 
 He answered, smiling, " Not more than you, by your first 
 question." 
 
 Then he whispered almost in her ear, "Don't be silly, Ellen!" 
 
 For some moments she was silent, while he was thinking, "I 
 must steer carefully to-day." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 93 
 
 Why Parker was so often with her he did not seek to know. 
 There might be one reason, there might also be another. For 
 the moment it didn't matter. It would be time enough to find 
 out later on. He continued presently, " I was looking for you 
 everywhere, but in that crush I could not find you, and now I'm 
 obliged to get back to the office, as I'm over head and ears in 
 work." 
 
 " Till Wednesday then," she said. 
 
 « Till Wednesday." 
 
 Johns excused himself to Mrs. Dawson and to Parker, and 
 stopped on his way out to say a few words to his hostess and 
 to her ugly daughter. Then he left, and walked home satisfied 
 with his afternoon. 
 
 He scarcely imagined that Mrs. Dawson seriously believed 
 he would have carried out his threat of leaving England if she 
 had refused to meet him, and the fact of her accepting the 
 excuse as easily as she had done proved, he thought, that there 
 was just that balance of desire which he had often remarked 
 on the part of women. 
 
 On the morrow, although he had not had time to be dressed 
 by the tailor in his street from whom he had ordered a com- 
 plete wardrobe, he composed a fairly presentable exterior with 
 a new silk hat and patent boots. Having finished his work 
 early, he left the office shortly after half-past three, and hurried 
 along the Strand. When he reached the Gallery, he mounted 
 the long flight of steps, two at a time, in his anxiety to avoid 
 being recognised by anyone passing in the street. Beneath the 
 peristyle he asked himself whether he should wait for her in the 
 vestibule or at the entrance to the first room, up above. After 
 a moment's reflection he decided on the latter course. He 
 entered, therefore, and mounting to the first floor, took up his 
 position behind a glass-panelled door, whence he could see the 
 entrance wickets. 
 
 His feelings were by no means as intense as the day when he 
 had waited for the widow at Victoria ; but still he watched the 
 entrance narrowly, and scrutinized the ladies who came in alone. 
 Some entered hesitatingly, with the demure air of women going 
 to a rendezvous, casting side-glances as they ascended the 
 marble staircase. Others passed up quickly, looking straight 
 before them and disappearing in the Galleries. Johns thought, 
 " I'm not the only one who's expecting an inamorata^ Bands 
 of foreign tourists, Baedekers in hand, their travelling bags 
 strapped across their shoulders, were ascending the wide stair- 
 case, looking around them with that lost air peculiar to tourists. 
 Little shop assistants, out of work, carrying a book or journal 
 
94 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 with which to pass a quiet hour in the Galleries, were descend- 
 ing leisurely, and a few youths with dirty hands and faces moved 
 along as if in awe at the impressive architecture. Some entered 
 through the entrance above which Johns was standing. Others 
 went in by one of the doors on either side. As Johns was 
 pacing to and fro before the door, one of the custodians in 
 uniform was eyeing him with apparent curiosity, guessing, 
 no doubt, the reason of his presence there ; while from the 
 Galleries beyond came the clattering sound of footsteps on the 
 hard oak floor. 
 
 At length, after he had been waiting for at least ten minutes, 
 he saw a lady pass through the wicket hurriedly, and recog- 
 nizing Mrs. Dawson, he hastened down the stairs to meet her. 
 Without giving him her hand, she said, " Let us go quickly 
 where we won't meet anyone." 
 
 He answered, " I know the exact spot," and he led her in 
 silence through the fine Renaissance galleries to a little room 
 which, being devoted to mediaeval art, attracted but few 
 visitors. 
 
 Around them on the walls were paintings in the strangest 
 of perspective. Knights in armour, lance in hand, were riding 
 towards weird castles which seemed to be suspended from the 
 -clouds of an ultra-marine firmament. Monks on their bended 
 knees were beholding fat-faced angels in the sky. Virgins, with 
 and without the Child, were depicted, some with joyous, some 
 with sorrowful expressions. Martyred Christs and holy men 
 were shown before the farthest of receding backgrounds. There 
 were gilded triptychs and quaint ecclesiastical presentments. 
 
 Leaning against the hand-rail before the portrait of an ascetic 
 saint in a gothic frame, Johns said, pointing to the picture, " Is 
 not this art of the middle ages wonderful? Look at that 
 saintly man, look at the serenity, the magnanimity, the grandeur 
 which is depicted on his placid countenance ! Does he not 
 really seem to be a man far more than human ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, he does," she answered, "but what was it, Mr. 
 Johns, that you were so anxious to see me for to-day ? You 
 said, you know, that you had something to say to me — some- 
 thing that would be different from anything you've said as 
 yet." 
 
 " Eternal curiosity ! " he thought, and answered, " Yes, Mrs. 
 Dawson, yes, I did. I wanted to tell you that from the day I 
 met you, my life, my being has completely changed. Till then 
 I had hovered from one ideal, from one admiration to another, 
 vaguely, wantonly, and lightly — satisfying mere whims and 
 fancies, always realizing their hollowness, their transcience. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 95 
 
 But from the day I met you 1 knew that I was definitely 
 chained to one ideal ; I knew that I should never in the world 
 find one more perfect. What then did I do ? I told you of 
 the love which had come to me, I spoke of the divine feeling 
 of which I had grown conscious, I endeavoured to excite your 
 pity. But you were as inflexible as adamant. You bade me 
 choose one of two sad alternatives. Either I must treat you as 
 a friend, or I must never speak to you again ! Rather than 
 lose the ideal I had found, I accepted the hard conditions, 
 and it is as friends to-day that we are here together. But 
 friendship is of many kinds, and it was to tell you how I 
 understand it that I entreated you to come. Only one great 
 boundless friendship can satisfy, can comfort me. A friend- 
 ship as perfect as you are perfect, indissoluble as long as we 
 have life, a friendship in which a sweet community of thought, 
 a perfect confidence will reign. Convinced as you are now 
 that you can trust me, you will tell me all your cares and I 
 will tell you mine. A rare and beautiful reciprocity of feeling 
 will grow up between us, which will help us both to live, which 
 will relieve the burdens we both have to bear. Whenever we 
 are alone together, and I hope that now it will be often, we will 
 call each other by our Christian names, we will have no secrets 
 from each other, we will live in the firm hope that one day we 
 will be united." 
 
 Unable to think of any more variations of the same air, he 
 stopped, turning the gaze of his piercing eyes upon her. 
 
 "That," he said, "was what I had to tell you ! " 
 
 She continued looking at the picture of the saint, and after 
 a lengthy pause, which Johns refrained from interrupting, said, 
 " Oh, but is not that a dangerous kind of friendship ? " 
 
 " Not now ! Not now ! " 
 
 "I've told you that I want to trust you, haven't I ? " 
 
 " You have, you have." 
 
 " Well, then, I will try to offer you that friendship, and it 
 will be your fault if I don't succeed." 
 
 "Oh, Lucy, Lucy," he exclaimed, "how happy you have 
 made me ! " 
 
 " Have I really ? ^John." 
 
 "That's promising," he thought, and he began to tell her 
 how they would arrange to meet as often as they could, so that 
 the sacred flame of friendship, as he called it, should never for 
 one moment flicker. They would accept the same invitations, 
 go to the same theatres, to the same shows, and there would 
 be a feeling of association, of companionship, which would be 
 subtle and intense — a feeling such as only higher minds could 
 
96 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 know. And then, if they grew tired of meeting always before 
 strangers, before whom they could not talk even in the language 
 of pure friendship lest it might be misconstrued, they might try 
 to meet somewhere where they would not be troubled by, per- 
 haps, malicious listeners. And since he was speaking of such 
 a possibility, why should he not tell her that he had a pleasant 
 little sitting-room in Jermyn Street, where they might meet, 
 and where he had some curiosities he longed to show her, some 
 photographs which he wanted her to see. And after all, why 
 should they hesitate, why should they defer the realization of 
 a project which was harmless and so natural? Why should 
 she not pay him a little visit the very next afternoon — between 
 five and six, as a diversion from her shopping? How she 
 would be welcomed and respected ! And how he would be 
 gladdened ! Oh, why should it not be ? Yes, let it be ! 
 
 For some minutes he waited for her answer, looking intently 
 at her, guessing the struggle which was taking place in her 
 woman's conscience, feeling that success was already half 
 assured. 
 
 Presently she said, " I wonder if I might ! But think how 
 dreadful it would be if I were seen ! Who would believe that 
 it was merely as a friend ? " 
 
 He thought, " Who indeed!" and answered, " But no one will 
 see you, Lucy, no one. A bootmaker has a shop on the ground 
 floor, and one entrance serves for both. The street is as quiet 
 as any in a country town. There's no risk, absolutely none." 
 
 " But someone might call to see you ! " 
 
 " They wouldn't be admitted. Every precaution shall be 
 taken." 
 
 " And do you really think I should ? " 
 
 " Ah, it will be such a charity ! " 
 
 "Well, then," she said, slowly, "I'll try; but mind, if any- 
 thing should happen, I'll never come again." 
 
 He thought, "She's precious willing"; and once again he 
 reassured her, telling her that her reputation would be as dear 
 as her friendship to him ; that he would guard it so jealously — 
 so jealously that not the slightest breath of a suspicion would 
 ever be allowed to tarnish it. Oh, she need not fear. He 
 would promise that she would be without reproach. 
 
 And, either because she was convinced, or because she wished 
 to seem so, she told him that she would place herself confidently 
 in his hands, and that he might rely upon her coming. 
 
 He told her the number of the house, the hour at which he 
 would be there to meet her, and then, as the mediaeval saints 
 possessed no further interest for them, and as Mrs. Dawson had 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 97 
 
 to meet her husband at a jeweller's in Bond Street, after a few 
 more assurances of confidence, he led her back to the great 
 staircase, at the top of which they parted. 
 
 Left alone, Johns, as soon as she had disappeared, gave vent 
 to a little laugh. " And I," he said, " who was almost taking 
 her in earnest the other day. They're all alike — all semi- 
 conscious beings, longing for what they fear, always to be 
 overcome by patience and a few fine words ! " 
 
 As he waited for Mrs. Dawson the next afternoon in his little 
 parlour, he thought over his adventure. Whither would it lead 
 him ? Save that he was confident that the quickest road to 
 fortune was through women, he had no very definite idea. 
 
 Women possessed a power of facilitating men's careers. 
 Their love was often one of the best of levers to success. 
 He was resolved to follow out this episode to its conclusion. 
 
 And then, was not Mrs. Dawson pretty ? And ought he not 
 to think himself extremely fortunate to have won her — or nearly 
 won her — for he hoped she would not weary him with much 
 more virtue now. Virtue was well during the preliminary 
 stages, but it must not be carried to extremes — not certainly 
 after a woman had consented to pay a visit to a man in his own 
 rooms. Surely she would have sense enough to perceive that, 
 and not waste time over that platonic nonsense for which he 
 had no taste — which he held to be one of the inconsistencies 
 of Saxons. 
 
 Surveying his room anew, he rearranged the collection of 
 more or less authentic Indian weapons, which he had bought 
 at an antiquary's in Bloomsbury, and which represented the 
 native curios he was supposed to have brought with him from 
 Australia. Then he sorted and put in order a set of coloured 
 views of places in the island which he had discovered at a 
 stationer's in Regent Street. 
 
 These things would serve as an introduction to more tender 
 themes, and he was glad that he had been able to procure 
 them. 
 
 When the little Buhl clock upon the mantel told him that 
 the hour had arrived, he listened at the door, which he had 
 purposely left ajar, for the sound of ascending footsteps on the 
 staircase. He did not for a moment doubt that she wished to 
 come ; but he had a little apprehension as the minutes passed 
 and the staircase remained silent, lest she had been prevented 
 by one of those many reasons which hinder women who have 
 social ties. 
 
 But presently his apprehension vanished, for he heard a light 
 hurried step upon the stairs, accompanied by the rustle of a 
 
 H 
 
98 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 dress. A moment afterwards the footsteps stopped upon his 
 landing. He opened the door wider, and Mrs. Dawson, 
 dressed in black and wearing a thick veil, entered. 
 
 " Oh," she said, as he led her to a seat, after divesting her 
 of her parasol, " I was so terrified I might be seen." 
 
 He reassured her, and she looked around the room. 
 
 " What a charming little nook you have ! " 
 
 " Lucy, it's a poor place in which to receive you ! " 
 
 She rose and made a tour of scrutiny, and after she had 
 curiously examined the ornaments upon the mantel shelf — some 
 terra-cotta figures of Sicilian peasants — she stopped before the 
 photograph of a lady in evening dress which Johns had placed 
 there purposely. 
 
 " Who is that ? " she asked, quickly, in a tone which did not 
 sound quite free from jealousy. 
 
 " That," said Johns, " is a portrait of my mother when she 
 was young." 
 
 He said this, not from a particular desire to raise himself 
 in the social scale, but because he had remarked that some 
 women have more confidence in men of whose families they 
 know something. 
 
 " Your mother was a pretty woman, then," she said, and he 
 answered with a sigh, "Ah, yes !" 
 
 "Is she living now ? " 
 
 " Do not ask me that ! " 
 
 "Pardon me," she said, "I did not know," and then, 
 noticing the arms displayed upon the table, she exclaimed, 
 " Oh, what savage looking things ! Did you bring them from 
 Australia ? " 
 
 "Yes, I obtained them from the descendant of a chief." 
 
 She took a dagger and drew it from its sheath, then a spear- 
 head black with age, and next a battle-axe, the edge of which 
 was jagged as if it had been used in war. Passing to the 
 photographs, she began to turn them over, but he begged her 
 to allow him to explain them. Leading her to the long straight 
 sofa, covered with a leopard's skin, he took a seat beside her. 
 Then, holding the packet in his left hand, he placed the views, 
 one by one, upon her lap, dealing them out with a short 
 elucidation, and sometimes a little anecdote drawn from his 
 experiences. She listened to him approvingly, asking questions 
 now and then, or expressing her admiration. But gradually, 
 as he held the photographs before her, he allowed his 
 hand to linger on her lap, and as he had observed, while 
 he was doing so, that she looked away and blushed, when 
 he reached the last he tarried longer, leaning slightly over her. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 99 
 
 He saw that she became somewhat flushed, and, thinking 
 the moment opportune, without any preparation, he dropped 
 upon his knees beside her, hiding his face in his hands and 
 heaving a deep sigh. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked, nervously. 
 
 " Oh," he murmured, " it's too much ! " 
 
 " What — John ? " she enquired, timorously. 
 
 " The penance I have imposed upon myself. It's more than 
 human nature can endure, more than a man can bear. It's 
 terrible. It's killing me." 
 
 There was a silence. Then he continued — 
 
 " I thought that I was stronger. I thought that I had dis- 
 ciplined my feelings ; but now I find I cannot conquer them, 
 that they rebel. Ah, you will never know how sorely I am 
 tried!" 
 
 She said, taking up her gloves, " Oh, this is dreadful ! Think 
 of your promise." 
 
 But he had detected a want of firmness in her tone, and 
 raising his head from the sofa and looking up at her implor- 
 ingly, he commenced breathlessly, " Lucy, listen to me ! I had 
 made the firmest resolution that ever a man made to keep my 
 promise, but all my resolutions vanish in your presence. The 
 magic of your beauty, the charm which emanates from you like 
 perfume from a rose, intoxicates and overcomes me. When I 
 look at you so lovely in your pure blonde splendour, I am seized 
 with a subtle feeling as if I were confronted with something 
 irresistible, with an influence which strikes into the depth of 
 my existence, and chains me hopelessly in bonds of the pro- 
 foundest love. Oh, I know it's wrong of me to speak of love 
 again, but there are impulses against which one cannot 
 struggle. You are the only woman I can ever love, for you 
 are the ideal of all my dreams. You are love itself in its most 
 perfect and superb expression." 
 
 He paused a moment to study the effect his words had had, 
 and seeing that she looked away from him, he sprang quickly 
 from his knees to his seat beside her on the sofa. Then, 
 encircling her waist in a passionate embrace, he drew her to him, 
 while the pile of photographs fell clattering upon the floor. 
 "Oh, Lucy, it's useless to go on struggling. We are neither 
 of us strong enough to do it ; we cannot fight against inevit- 
 able things; it's too cruel, it's torture which we should not 
 bear!" 
 
 She had not tried to free herself, but her head was still 
 turned from him. All she seemed able to ejaculate was, " Oh, 
 how dreadful ! " and " you've not kept your promise." 
 
TOO THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Seeing that her presence of mind was fast deserting her, he 
 then continued — 
 
 " Listen to me, my little Lucy ; we could be so happy, so 
 supremely happy ! Our lives would be one long happiness, one 
 constant joy. I believe you love me, yes, I believe that now. 
 Why, then, should we suffer? In the name of what frigid 
 virtue should we go on suffering ? You are married to a man 
 you cannot love, who is unworthy of you, and I am free ! What 
 is to prevent the realization of our dreams ? 
 
 But now she made an effort to move from him. 
 
 "Oh, I cannot listen to such things. I must leave you 
 now — I cannot stay, you promised that you wouldn't, and it's 
 right not of you." 
 
 She spoke disjointedly, and in broken phrases, and, 
 encouraged by her weak resistance, he gathered his forces for 
 a supreme attack. 
 
 " Lucy, it must be, there is no help for it. The power 
 which commands we must obey. We were destined for each 
 other, moulded for each other. We belong by nature to each 
 other. Fate wills it. It must be." 
 
 Without waiting, this time, to see what effect he had pro- 
 duced, he implanted his lips on hers in a long deep kiss. And 
 now he felt that she no longer resisted seriously, and that his 
 triumph was assured. 
 
 But knowing, by this time, the woman with whom he had to 
 deal, he thought it wiser to avoid haste, and he changed his 
 tone of firmness for one of tenderness and gratitude, thanking 
 her for having made him happier than he had ever been in his 
 existence, and asking her to trust to his discretion and his love. 
 But he soon discovered, to his annoyance, for he was tired of 
 inventing epithets of love, that she needed more persuasion 
 still — since she now began to tremble for the consequences, as 
 a woman brought up in principles of strict virtue is wont to do. 
 She asked him if he had reflected how disastrous it would 
 be if they were discovered, declaring that she would kill herself 
 rather than face exposure, and imploring him to reason, to 
 reflect. If he would only think more calmly, he would see 
 that she was right. Oh, why was it she had met him, since he 
 fascinated her so dangerously? And what would he himself 
 think of her if she yielded to him ? He would think, perhaps, 
 that she had already been unfaithful to her husband, while 
 she could swear that she never had. Oh, what was it that 
 attracted her to him so strangely? Why must it be that they 
 could not love — as friends ? " 
 
 But at the word " friends " Johns interposed vehemently — 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS loi 
 
 " No, Lucy, that word must not be used again between us. 
 You are too generous to wish to prolong my penance. You 
 know that there is no escape from the fatality of love," and he 
 caught her in his arms again. 
 
 More than half subdued, she laid her head upon his shoulder, 
 saying — 
 
 " Oh, John, I never thought it would come to this ! " 
 
 " Lucy, it was inevitable." 
 
 " Oh, but I must go, I cannot stay." 
 
 " No, Lucy, you won't go now." 
 
 Then he persuaded her to rise, his arm still encircling 
 her waist. He wanted to show her round his little room 
 again, he said — his little den, where he spent hours thinking 
 of her, in that chair over by the fireplace, dreaming of her 
 beauty. One night, he said, he had come in tired, and had 
 gone to sleep in that same arm-chair, dreaming that she 
 was by his side, and then when he awoke and found that 
 it was but a dream, oh, then the room had seemed so 
 empty and his life so grim ! And now she had come to 
 grace it, and he wanted her gaze to rest on every object, so 
 that when she was not with him, he could look at some- 
 thing on which her eyes had rested. 
 
 As they approached the door which led into the next 
 room, and which was partly hidden by a thick oriental cur- 
 tain, he felt her stiffen in his grasp and try to pass it quickly. 
 He was beginning to lose patience. He asked himself how 
 long she was going to play the maiden. 
 
 This resistance on her part necessitated another journey 
 round the room, which, as there was nothing left to examine 
 or to linger over, soon brought them back to the same 
 spot. 
 
 But Johns now thought the prologue had lasted long 
 enough, so, tightening his hold of his companion's waist, he 
 drew her with him through the curtained doorway, while 
 she murmured plaintively, " Oh John ! oh John ! " 
 
CHAPTER 
 SEVENTH 
 
 TWO hours afterwards Johns, who had just taken a tender 
 leave of Mrs. Dawson, was sitting in his arm-chair, 
 smoking a cigarette and thinking. He could not help 
 admitting that, all things considered, the novel conquest he 
 had made had not been very difficult. No doubt he had had 
 to overcome some final scruples, and to listen, also, to a little 
 exhibition of remorse ; but, in the end, he had obtained the 
 victory. 
 
 Had this new enterprise procured him any satisfaction ? he 
 enquired of himself. Well, it had pleased his amour propre^ 
 and it augured well for future enterprise. But when he came 
 to compare the charms of Mrs. Dawson with those of Mrs. 
 Weber, he was obliged to own that the widow was by far the 
 more delightful. There was a touch of reticence, of Puritanic 
 reticence, about the wife of the proprietor, and, with her, 
 sentiment of the pale, tender kind took the place of passion. 
 Yes, it was undeniable, as far as his feelings were concerned, 
 Mrs. Weber had nothing to lose by the comparison he had 
 had an opportunity of making. And yet, and yet, he could 
 quite imagine that, in certain moods, on certain days, in certain 
 states of the barometer, the blonde would be as acceptable as 
 the brunette. 
 
 Of course there was an element of danger in all this, and it 
 was possible that the day might come when the house he had 
 been building would tumble about his ears. But those were 
 the risks of war, and they couldn't be avoided. Besides, he 
 was scarcely anxious on that score, knowing very well that it 
 wasn't often that women were willing to accuse themselves, and 
 as for the precautions to be taken, well, he meant to take as 
 many as he could. Fancy old Dawson now ! How amusing 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 103 
 
 it would be to study him, to see what a man looked like who 
 was in his shoes. He laughed. How superior he felt to the 
 whole office-full of scribes, now that he shared the wife of the 
 proprietor with the proprietor himself ! It almost seemed to 
 him that he formed part of the proprietary ! And certainly he 
 could not fail to benefit by this. Had she not said, that very 
 afternoon, in a tender moment, succeeding a remorseful one, 
 that she would always have his interest at heart ? Yes, women 
 were made to be helps to men, and he smiled as he thought of 
 the multitudes who toil and drudge for wives who bring them 
 nothing except children and bad temper. 
 
 But the season was drawing to its close, and, though he had 
 arranged to see Mrs. Dawson once again before she left for 
 Homburg with her husband, he knew that the time was coming 
 when he would be left alone ; for even Mrs. Weber talked of 
 going on the river in the autumn. He reflected that he must 
 shape his course accordingly. How pleasant, and amusing, too, 
 it was to think that he was increasing in Dawson's favour. 
 
 For, to the surprise of Maskelyne and the reporting staff, 
 from whom he was now completely severed, he had gained free 
 access to the private room, and he knew that they were not 
 accustomed, at the office, to see men rise so rapidly. They began, 
 he was aware, to look upon him with that kind of half-envious 
 respect with which men of moderate capacity and little luck 
 regard those who soar above them. And, in his own way, he 
 felt a sort of friendship for the proprietor, who had been well 
 advised enough to choose a wife like Lucy. He would do his 
 best to humour him, and to see that his wishes were carried 
 out, now that he had become to a great extent his confidential 
 man. 
 
 At the office, Dawson had never been so affable as the day 
 when, shortly afterwards, he told Johns that he was leaving for 
 Homburg in a week, and that, during his absence, he wanted 
 him to keep a sharp look-out on the Metropolitan Gazette^ a Tory 
 paper, which had lately been established, and which had 
 interfered with the circulation of the Planet, If Johns 
 detected any errors or inconsistencies he was to expose them 
 in his daily paragraphs. 
 
 Johns promised that he would watch the Metropolitan Gazette. 
 It would be hard if he didn't catch it tripping. 
 
 " How long will you be away ? " Johns asked. 
 
 "About two months, I fancy," was the reply, and Johns 
 reflected that that would be a convenient time for the elabora- 
 tion of a little plan he had been forming in his mind. It 
 would also relieve him of the somewhat awkward task of 
 
104 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 conducting two love affairs at once. Everything therefore was 
 for the best. 
 
 On the Wednesday evening when he reached Carsdale 
 Mansions and found Mrs. Weber waiting for him as usual in 
 the drawing-room, his first impression, as he kissed her, was a 
 sense of her superiority over the rival he had given her since 
 their last meeting. 
 
 It was a warm evening ; one of those sultry evenings at the 
 end of a London summer when the air is still and heavy, and 
 a languor seems to rest on everything — when the whole city 
 seems plunged in a hot moist vapour. She was wearing a 
 gauze frock of a delicate cream shade, which matched with her 
 profuse black hair and her olive-tinted skin. 
 
 Johns thought, " If such a woman fancies me, I must be 
 worth it, or there's another reason." 
 
 " How pretty you look this evening, Ellen ! prettier than 
 ever ! " 
 
 " That's just what I hoped you'd say ! I thought you'd like 
 my frock. I've had it for the river." 
 
 " You're going then to leave me in my solitude ! " 
 
 " Yes, but only for a little time, and you'll come down once 
 a week at least. I've taken a little house at Maidenhead, just 
 near to the water's edge, and surrounded by trees and bushes. 
 A little paradise ! " 
 
 " And you've arranged all that since I saw you last ? " 
 
 "Of course! Why not?" 
 
 Johns agreed with her that there was no reason why she 
 should not have done so, although, in his own mind, he 
 thought the circumstance somewhat strange. The arrange- 
 ment suited him extremely well, because it would give him 
 a change of air, of which he was much in want, and some 
 happy hours in a river-side retreat with her. For he had 
 become accustomed to this intimacy now, and there would 
 have been something wanting in his existence if these meetings 
 had been suspended, even for a time. Altogether the plan 
 suited him. 
 
 Presently she said — 
 
 " I've a little quarrel to pick with you. Why did you not 
 tell me you had been promoted ? " 
 
 " Oh," he said, with a shrug of the shoulders ; " can it be 
 called promotion ? " 
 
 " At anyrate it was a change, and you know how interested 
 I am in all that happens to you." 
 
 " I was hoping to surprise you with a greater change later on." 
 
 " Editor ? " she asked. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 105 
 
 " Who knows ! " 
 
 " Oh, my little Johnnie, how I love you for your pluck ! " 
 
 He smiled, and after a moment's reflection, asked, " But how 
 did you know of this ? " 
 
 "Oh, that's my secret, and I'm not going to disclose it. 
 Since you were mysterious, I shall be so too." 
 
 " Mrs. Dawson told you ? " 
 
 "No, you're wrong. On the subject of Mr. Johns, Mrs. 
 Dawson is particularly silent." 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a puzzled air, " I wonder why that is." 
 
 "I suppose she's smitten too. Even old Mrs. Baxter is 
 raving about that Mr. Johns who tells such pretty stories." 
 
 " Ah ! Ellen, as long as you admire me, what matters all the 
 rest?" 
 
 She placed her hands upon his shoulder and looked into his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Oh, those wonderful eyes of yours which no woman can 
 resist. Swear that they are faithful eyes." 
 
 "By all the gods!" 
 
 " My little Johnnie, if they were not, I've told you what an 
 enemy I could become." 
 
 " Fixing the rivets again," he thought. Then, contemplating 
 her, he said, " How pretty you must look when you are angry ! 
 I imagine that your own dark eyes, my Ellen, must flash 
 like a meteor, and the lines of your delicious mouth must 
 curve with a magnificent defiance. You must be superb as 
 Nemesis." 
 
 "John, that's dilletantism." 
 
 " It's admiration ! " 
 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 They both laughed, and the evening passed as other Wed- 
 nesday evenings had. Before he left, Mrs. Weber promised to 
 write, should they not meet before she left, to tell him the exact 
 day and hour when she would expect him on the river. 
 
 A few days afterwards Johns received a letter from Mrs. 
 Dawson. It was merely a line in pencil, and ran thus — 
 
 " I cannot be at Jermyn Street till six to-morrow." 
 
 He looked at this message several times, for its brevity and 
 the haste in which it had apparently been written attracted his 
 attention. He had almost expected an effusion after what 
 had passed, and this laconic note surprised him. However, 
 the important thing was that she was coming. He would wait 
 to see what she had to say. 
 
 On the Saturday at six, therefore, he waited for her in his 
 
io6^ THE ADVENTURES 
 
 rooms. This time there was no need of curios, and he put 
 away the arms and photographs into a corner as likely objects 
 to excite remorse should she be inclined to be remorseful. It 
 was never wise to give women too much opportunity to think ; 
 and little objects of the kind, when they had served their 
 purpose, were best put out of sight. He had had placed, how- 
 ever, upon the table, a vase of large white roses which spread a 
 delicious, almost enervating perfume in the room. 
 
 At a few minutes past the hour she arrived, breathless with 
 the haste with which she had come up the stairs. 
 
 As soon as the door was closed, he tried to seize her in his 
 -arms, but she passed him hurriedly, and making for an arm- 
 chair threw herself into it. Then, without taking off her gloves 
 or veil, she cried excitedly — 
 
 "Oh! if you knew what I have suffered, how I have accused 
 myself for giving way to you, how terrible it was to face my 
 husband when I knew that I had deceived him, and how I 
 trembled lest I should betray myself. I never thought I should 
 feel so guilty! Every moment since I was weak enough to 
 come here, I have realized how guilty I have been. It's 
 terrible! It's terrible! You took advantage of me. It was 
 wrong of you; and I've come to tell you that our intimacy 
 must cease." 
 
 He thought, "And she's come here to tell me that!" and he 
 answered with a superb gesture of calm purpose — 
 
 " So you've come then to tell me, Lucy, that I must end my 
 life because I am unable to refrain from loving you?" 
 
 She looked at him through her veil as he stood before her, 
 with his arms folded, and she seemed to ask herself if he was 
 in earnest. 
 
 "Oh! why," she cried, "did I ever see you? Why did I 
 ever allow you to speak to me of love? I must have been 
 mad, mad. This morning my husband asked me why I 
 seemed so troubled. I almost confessed my fault. It was 
 to save you [that I refrained — not for myself, for I would 
 have felt far happier had I confessed, whatever might have 
 happened." 
 
 Johns by this time was beginning to perceive that the 
 remorse of Mrs. Dawson was not without some danger. If she 
 could even contemplate the possibility of so disastrous a 
 revelation, it was evident that he must arrange things better. 
 How tiresome she was ! Why couldn't she accept the situation 
 quietly? He judged that a change of manner would be 
 expedient, so he said, walking to and fro, looking on the ground, 
 " Lucy, every word which you have uttered has been as a knife 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 107 
 
 cutting me. If your contrition is so great for having loved 
 me, you need fear no more. I will trouble you no longer." 
 
 "What will you do?" she asked. 
 
 He stopped before her and gazed into her face. 
 
 "What will I do?" he repeated. "You will learn that soon 
 enough." 
 
 Again she looked at him as if uncertain. 
 
 "Oh, John, how you torture mel" 
 
 He took a seat beside her and said gravely — 
 
 " Lucy, there is no help for it. You must either be mine 
 unhesitatingly or you must lose me." Then changing his tone 
 quickly, he burst out rapturously. " Lucy, Lucy, let us talk no 
 more of separation. You are mine by all the laws of nature 
 and affinity. It's right and fitting that you should not belong 
 to such a man. You owe it to your beauty to disregard the 
 bond which has been imposed upon you. You must disre- 
 gard it, for you love me. I know you love me. I can see 
 it in the bottom of those deep blue eyes. I can hear it in 
 the echo of that soft, pure voice, in the curve of those 
 lovely lips. You have been fretting because you haven't 
 realized that the tie which binds us is a thousand times 
 more powerful, more beautiful, than that which binds you to 
 your husband. Lucy, your conception of it all is strangely 
 wrong. You must have confidence in me. You shall have 
 confidence in me, and I forbid you henceforth to do outrage 
 to your truest feelings." 
 
 She remained silent, her hands clasped and her gaze fixed 
 upon the floor, while he, with a dexterity acquired by previous 
 experience, began to unpin her veil. 
 
 " Let me divest you," he said, " of that forbidding thing." 
 
 She offered no resistance, but continued to look down. 
 
 " Do I even know," she said, " if you would be true to me ?" 
 
 He answered, " I forbid you to doubt that." 
 
 And the tone in which he said this was so peremptory that 
 she almost started. 
 
 Then, seizing his opportunity as soon as he had removed 
 the veil, he confirmed his words by kissing her. 
 
 " Oh, Lucy, Lucy. No more recriminations, no more self- 
 accusations; there is no law, human or divine, which can 
 reach us now." 
 
 Stimulated by the contact of her lips and the warmth of her 
 half-yielding form, he began to pour into her ears a whole 
 vocabulary of love, of epithets used many times before, of 
 accents meant to penetrate into the very depths of a woman's 
 nature. 
 
io8 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 And she listened to him as she had done before, under the 
 influence, again, of the attraction to which she had before 
 succumbed. 
 
 "Oh!" she said, with a heavy sigh, "I'm too weak, too 
 weak ! " 
 
 And when the inevitable had happened, when he had proved 
 to her that she was indeed too weak, and the time had come 
 for her to leave, her farewell was as tender as her greeting 
 had been cold. She would write to him from Homburg very 
 often, though she feared that he would not be able to reply, 
 because her husband would be with her. But that need not 
 trouble him. He knew now that she was his, and that she 
 trusted him. She wanted him to think of her often, very 
 often, till they met again. And if she had regret in future, 
 she would overcome it. She knew that he would guard her 
 reputation jealously. He was so kind, so good ! 
 
 Suddenly she remembered that she had something she 
 wished to tell him. 
 
 " Do you know, John, my husband said this morning that 
 he was beginning to have had enough of Mr. Boyd." 
 
 " Did he ? " said Johns, quickly. 
 
 "Yes; and if he hadn't had an agreement with him for a 
 year longer, he said he would have dismissed him, because 
 the circulation was diminishing. I thought you'd like to 
 know." 
 
 Johns thanked her for the piece of information, and gave her 
 a parting kiss of unfeigned gratitude. 
 
 " Good bye, John — think of me ! " 
 
 " Good bye, Lucy. You will be always in my thoughts ! " 
 
 Johns returned to his room in a reflective frame of mind. 
 The news which he had learned seemed to him so important 
 that he thought no more of the victory he had just achieved. 
 He knew that the circulation had been going down of late, and 
 that Dawson was annoyed, and now he knew from the best of 
 sources that the proprietor attributed the cause of the falling-off 
 to Boyd. That was a piece of knowledge which might be 
 precious. He resolved for the second time that he would 
 make use of Dawson's absence to prepare his plans. 
 
 Being exceptionally busy at the office, he did not see Mrs. 
 Weber again before her flight to Maidenhead, but in a few days 
 he received a note from her telling him that she would expect 
 him on the Saturday. He was to bring flannels, the note said, 
 because they would have boating, and he was to come by 
 the two o'clock train as she wanted to meet him at the 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 109 
 
 station. Above all, he was to let her know if he would take 
 that train. 
 
 He replied to her note by telegraph, because he preferred to 
 answer women so. It showed solicitude, and was infinitely 
 less compromising than a letter. Besides, it was so much less 
 trouble ! During his intimacy with Mrs. Weber he had seldom 
 communicated with her otherwise, having told her from the 
 commencement that the post was much too slow a medium 
 when he wanted to write to her. 
 
 On the Saturday afternoon he took the train at Paddington, 
 and after a short journey he arrived at Maidenhead, where 
 Mrs. Weber, accompanied by a young girl he had never seen, 
 was waiting for him in the station. 
 
 As soon as she had recognized him she advanced alone to 
 meet him, and whispered, hurriedly, " I've taken a room for you 
 in a house close to mine. A little niece of mine is with me for 
 propriety." 
 
 " Prudent Ellen ! " he answered, smiling. 
 
 She handed him a slip of paper on which was written the 
 address of the house he was to go to, as well as that of her own 
 villa. 
 
 " You had better go there alone, and come afterwards to take 
 us on the river." 
 
 He did as she advised, and in a few minutes he was driven 
 with his luggage, through the shady roads, to a house at the end 
 of the townlet — one of those houses which are let in the summer 
 months to couples seeking the river as the scene of their love 
 episodes. Having been shown into a comfortable bedroom, he 
 quickly changed and left for " The Retreat," which he found, 
 on enquiring, stood only a little further down the road. " The 
 Retreat " was a square white house, more than half hidden by 
 the trees and shrubs with which it was surrounded, and 
 approached by a gravel path between two stretches of green 
 sward. 
 
 Johns opened the wooden gate and made his way along the 
 path to the ivy-mantled door on which the sun was shining 
 gaily. A bright little servant maid opened the door to him 
 and led him to a long narrow drawing-room opening at one 
 end upon the garden, and at the other upon a lawn which 
 sloped to the water's edge. 
 
 Mrs Weber, in boating costume, was waiting for him. 
 
 " Oh," she said, throwing her arms around his neck and kiss- 
 ing him. " How delightful it is to have you here, my Johnnie." 
 
 And she looked at him with the long admiring look of a 
 woman in love — a look of passion and of great longing. 
 
no THE ADVENTURES 
 
 He complimented her upon her costume, vowing that he had 
 never seen her form more perfect than in the soft white flannels, 
 or her face more pretty than surmounted by the wide straw hat 
 she wore. 
 
 " The reason I could not have you here," she said, " is that 
 one is apt to meet people whom one knows, but, of course, you 
 won't lose anything, my Johnnie, for being supposed to sleep 
 out yonder at the lodgings." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " And to show you how careful one has to be," she continued^ 
 " who do you think I have found, to my surprise, has taken a 
 house down here ? " 
 
 " I haven't an idea." 
 
 "The Parkers." 
 
 " The husband and the wife ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 He scarcely thought that the " of course " was obvious, but 
 he said nothing. 
 
 The niece now entered, and was introduced to Johns as Miss 
 Brabant. 
 
 Whenever he made a new acquaintance, Johns surveyed the 
 person narrowly, thinking that every man or woman whom he 
 met might in some way have an influence on his career ; that 
 there was no circumstance in life, however small, that had not 
 its efl'ect on a man's fortunes. 
 
 Thus, while shaking hands with her, he observed her carefully,, 
 settling in his mind that she was plain, that she was thirty, and 
 that she bore the stamp of poverty. Evidently a poor relation, 
 to be treated with politeness, and noted as unimportant. 
 
 The niece, in answer to Mrs. Weber's question, expressing 
 herself ready, they left by the drawing-room exit, and, crossing 
 the lawn, descended to the boat which was moored to the river 
 bank. 
 
 "Are you good at sculling?" Mrs. Dawson asked, and Johns 
 who, when a boy, had rowed his father's boat, with its heavy 
 oars, many a time in a rough sea, replied — 
 
 "You shall judge." 
 
 " That sounds promising." 
 
 The two ladies sat in the stern. Johns, after taking off his 
 coat and tucking up his shirt sleeves, displaying a pair of 
 muscular and hirsute arms, took his seat and put the skulls 
 into position. The sculls, which he had never used before, 
 although of the usual weight, felt to him ridiculously light. He 
 thought it would not be difficult to row for a whole day with 
 such feather-weighted things. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS iii 
 
 And when he began to scull, he did so to such purpose that 
 the boat soon travelled at a pace which Mrs. Weber and the 
 niece declared was quite delicious, as they gave themselves up 
 to the pleasure of being drawn through the thin light air of the 
 summer's afternoon. 
 
 The river looked its best. The reaches were vieing with 
 each other in placid dignity, and the colours of the foliage and 
 meadows were matched in richness by the deep blue of the sky 
 and water. 
 
 The boat, gliding along so quickly, made a crisp rustUng 
 sound, and left a long wake behind it. It seemed as if Johns, 
 angry with the stream, were using his strength to punish it. 
 
 At length Mrs. Weber said, " I'm afraid, Mr. Johns, you'll 
 tire yourself if you row like that." 
 
 But Johns, on looking round, had just perceived a boat a 
 long way up the stream, going in the same direction as them- 
 selves, and at once the spirit of emulation which was in him, 
 and a desire to give a still more abundant proof of his prowess, 
 made him wish to overtake it. 
 
 " I want to catch those people up," he answered. 
 
 ** But they are a mere speck." 
 
 " Oh, they'll soon get larger." 
 
 Whereupon he continued rowing with redoubled vigour, 
 without pausing a minute to regain breath, although, unaccus- 
 tomed as he was to sculling, he was expending much more 
 energy than was really needful. 
 
 Gradually he gained upon the distant boat, until the ladies 
 could discern its occupants, a man rowing and a lady steering. 
 
 "By God," he said, "I must get up to them before they 
 reach the lock," and although he was becoming red in the 
 face, and the muscles of his arms were swollen, he went on 
 steadily. 
 
 But as they crept nearer, the people in the other boat seemed 
 to have understood Johns' intention, for the man now began to 
 ply his sculls more energetically, so that it was problematical 
 who would reach the lock gates first. 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Weber bent forward and said to Johns, in 
 a half whisper, "Good heavens, it's the Parkers. I've made 
 him promise to back you up with Dawson in case they 
 should want another editor. Don't you think you'd best not 
 beat him?" 
 
 There was not a moment for reflection, for Johns, in spite of 
 Parker's renewed efforts, was gaining on him fast. At once he 
 slacked speed, and allowed the boat to glide along towards the 
 lock mainly by its own impetus. 
 
112 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " I grudge him that," he said, " but I suppose there was no 
 help for it." 
 
 It was not long before they reached the lock, where the 
 Parkers, who had by this time recognized them, were waiting. 
 
 There was an exchange of greetings, reserved on the part of 
 the ladies, cordial enough on the part of Johns and Parker. 
 
 "So you were trying to beat us?" the politician said, with a 
 smile of self-complacency. 
 
 "Yes," said Johns, resignedly, "1 tried and failed. You 
 row well, Mr. Parker." 
 
 Evidently pleased at the compliment paid to the prowess of 
 his mature years, Parker enquired how long Johns had come 
 for, where he was staying, and how the Planet was getting on, 
 while the ladies indulged in feminine amenities. 
 
 But, as Mrs. Weber wanted to continue past the lock, and 
 the Parkers were returning, they parted company after their 
 chat was over. 
 
 "He's come on the river with his wife," said Johns, "how 
 excellent a husband !" 
 
 " Perhaps he cannot help himself/' suggested Mrs. Weber. 
 
 "Perhaps not." 
 
 They spent the remainder of the afternoon upon the river, 
 and returned to "The Retreat "as the sun was setting with great 
 splendour over the wooded hills. 
 
 Johns, although he did not own it, was exhausted. On the 
 other reaches he had been unable to refrain from distancing the 
 boats he met, and the exertion had so severely tried his strength 
 that when they reached the bank he was unable, for a few 
 moments, to rise up from his seat. 
 
 Noticing his paleness, Mrs. Weber enquired quickly, " What 
 is the matter, Mr. Johns ? " 
 
 The question made him rouse himself. Pulling himself 
 together with a great effort, he rose and stepped on to the bank 
 to help the ladies out. 
 
 But his hand trembled as he did so, and Mrs. Weber gave 
 him an anxious look. 
 
 "You're ill," she whispered; but he shook his head and 
 smiled. 
 
 A moment after, the niece having discreetly left them alone 
 together in the drawing-room, Mrs. Weber, seizing Johns' hand, 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " My Johnnie, why are you so pale ? You've strained your- 
 self. I know you have," and she flew to the door to order a 
 servant to bring some wine. 
 
 " Oh, my little Johnnie, you must not be so imprudent. You 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 113 
 
 rowed splendidly this afternoon, but it was too much for any 
 man. I'll never allow you to do that again, never." 
 
 He smiled again, feeling a calm pleasure in being pitied. 
 
 A large glass of sherry, swallowed almost in one gulp, revived 
 him somewhat, and he was able, although giddy, and with a 
 droning in his ears, to walk back to his lodgings. 
 
 While he was changing, after having rested a few minutes upon 
 his bed to endeavour to regain his faculties, he cursed his folly. 
 To run the risk of being ill, and obliged to give up the game 
 for the sake of showing two women what he could do in sculling, 
 was nothing less than rank stupidity. He would not try that 
 again unless for some reason more important than the present 
 one. No matter, he had shown them that he could beat that 
 old ass Parker, and there was some satisfaction in the thought. 
 
 When he had finished dressing, he still felt so weak that he 
 was obliged to take a draught of brandy from the flask which 
 he had brought in his portmanteau — a draught that would have 
 been sufficient to stagger a man with a less resistant head. 
 
 After this, he felt somewhat revived, and leaving presently, 
 he walked along in the twilight to "The Retreat." 
 
 As he approached the place, and was thinking over his 
 afternoon's experiences, the thought struck him that this house 
 upon the river, considering the sum she had already given him, 
 was a rather large expense for a widow who was supposed to be 
 in straitened circumstances. For it was a pretty villa, and he 
 knew that its rent in the summer months could not but be high. 
 There was something in this which he did not understand, and 
 when he came to think of it, it was a curious coincidence that 
 Parker should be at Maidenhead at the same time as Mrs. 
 Weber, even though his wife was with him. Was it possible 
 that the widow was Parker's mistress ? What reason had he to 
 suppose so ? None that was at all definite, no doubt, and yet 
 all the little indications which he had noticed, put together, 
 amounted to a suspicion, to a feeling that there was something 
 to be observed, something perhaps to be discovered. He was 
 guided by his instinct chiefly, but in these affairs it had seldom 
 led him wrong. But then, if there was really anything between 
 them, why should she have taken so violent a fancy to him ? 
 Why should she continue to talk of marriage ? Marriage ! He 
 didn't think much of that idea ! As if it was usual to marry in 
 that way ! But perhaps Parker wanted to shift his burden on 
 to other shoulders, or perhaps, again, she thought him a good 
 speculation — a man likely to get on. Perhaps there was an 
 understanding between them ! Oh, by God, they'd find, if that 
 were so, that they'd counted without their host. But why 
 I 
 
114 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 should he trouble himself about that now, when for the moment 
 everything he wanted fell into his mouth so easily ? She was 
 fond of him, of that he had no doubt. What his own feelings 
 were towards her he didn't care to analyse. He only knew she 
 was a damned fine woman. 
 
 Thinking thus, he unlatched the garden gate and ascended 
 the gravel path again. Mrs. Weber met him in the hall, and 
 led him to a little room but a few yards square on the right 
 of the front door where, she said, they could be quiet for a 
 few moments before dinner. 
 
 As soon as the door was closed, she threw her arms around 
 him, crying — 
 
 " My poor Johnnie, who looked so pale just now ! And is 
 he better now ? Oh, how he frightened me ! " 
 
 "Don't be silly, Ellen,'yie said, laughing; "I'm all right now." 
 " But you don't look it, my poor John. You look terribly 
 fatigued. You shall rest here to-night. I'll be your nurse, and 
 you shall be kissed to sleep." 
 
 But the prospect did not please him. He felt that he was 
 tired out, and he wanted to get back to his own rooms as soon 
 as he was able. 
 
 " No, Ellen, I must go back to-night. I'm too tired, much 
 too tired." 
 
 " Oh, but that doesn't matter. Say you'll stay, my Johnnie." 
 
 But he shook his head, thinking it well that she should long 
 
 in vain for once, and by no means reconciled to the idea of 
 
 leaving early the next morning, as he thought he would have 
 
 to do. 
 
 As if she guessed his thought, she said — 
 " You won't have to leave early to-morrow morning. I'll say 
 that you're too tired to go home, and you shall have the most 
 charming little room and the softest little bed you ever slept in 
 in your life." 
 
 " Ellen," he answered, " your prudence is deserting you. As 
 if anyone would believe that I was so tired that I couldn't walk 
 a few hundred yards. No, it can't be managed." 
 
 " As you wish then, John," she said, with a sigh of disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 " But it won't matter," he added, presently ; " I'm thinking 
 of stopping here a week." 
 
 As he said this, he watched her narrowly, detecting, he was 
 certain, a passing look of perplexed anxiety upon her face. 
 "Oh," she said, somewhat confusedly, "that would be 
 
 delightful, but " 
 
 "But what, Nellie?" 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS iij 
 
 " But I've promised to go to stay with — with some friends 
 at Henley, on Monday, for a few days ; until you come back 
 again at the end of the week, you know." 
 
 "Can't you put them off?" 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't. They would be terribly offended." 
 
 "Who are they?" 
 
 " The , some relations of my husband's." 
 
 He thought, "I'd bet they don't exist," and said, "Well, 
 never mind, we've yet to-morrow, Nellie. I shall be all right 
 then." 
 
 Her face brightened, and she said, " Oh, yes, to-morrow you 
 must, you will come to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I mean to." 
 
 The dinner bell then rang. He offered her his arm, and 
 they passed into a modest little dining-room on the same floor, 
 the walls of which were hung with portraits of the owner's 
 family. Miss Brabant was waiting for them. 
 
 An English dinner was served them on a table decorated 
 with a profusion of pink roses ; but as the niece spoke little, 
 and Johns, still tired, was somewhat taciturn, it fell to Mrs. 
 Weber to sustain the conversation. 
 
 This, however, she appeared to find it difficult to do, and 
 she seemed to Johns to be not quite at her ease. 
 
 While the dessert was being served a servant handed her a 
 note. After looking at the address she put it in her pocket, 
 which she seemed annoyed at not finding quickly, hidden as 
 it was in the folds of her gauze dress. 
 
 But Johns had caught a rapid glimpse of the handwriting, 
 although the widow had held the note before her only for a 
 moment, and he felt as certain that it was that of Parker, as a 
 little while before he had been convinced that she was invent- 
 ing an excuse. 
 
 All this, he thought, would have to be dexterously sifted. 
 
 The niece, who it seemed was musical, played them some 
 symphonies after dinner. 
 
 Before the clock struck ten Johns left. 
 
 When the Monday morning came, after a Sunday passed in 
 quiet ease upon the lawn under the shade of the thick trees, 
 Johns, who had reached his rooms at dawn, was lying on his 
 bed reflecting. 
 
 As he had kissed her while taking leave, he had told her that 
 he intended to take an early train to town, and as the morning 
 light came streaming through his window, he was asking him- 
 self whether he would return that day or whether he would 
 remain yet one day longer. 
 
ii6 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 She had been to him all that a women could be to a man, 
 and yet, all the time, he had suspected that she was hiding 
 something from him. He had a very strong suspicion that 
 there was something of interest to learn by staying. But 
 if he were to stay and watch, there would be considerable 
 danger of being seen, and that must be avoided. After much 
 deliberation, therefore, he decided that the best plan was to go 
 to town and to return by an evening train. 
 
 Accordingly, having settled upon this course, he rested for a 
 few hours longer. Then he rose and left for Paddington at 
 eight. At the office he wrote all day, and in the evening, when 
 his work was finished and he had dined, he left again for 
 Maidenhead. 
 
 It was dark as he aHghted from the train at the little station, 
 and he made his way towards " The Retreat " with a curious feel- 
 ing of expectancy, with which was mingled a little jealousy — 
 just so much as he permitted himself to indulge in sometimes. 
 
 There was no moon, but the sky was lit up brilliantly with 
 stars ; and Johns, invigorated by the cool night air, charged 
 with the aroma of the laurels in the shrubberies, walked along 
 reflectively. 
 
 Keeping close to the wooden palings, he slowly approached 
 the house. If what Mrs. Weber had said were true, the place 
 would be in darkness, but if, on the contrary, she had not left, 
 there would be lights, as usual, in all the windows. 
 
 The trees and bushes prevented him from ascertaining until 
 he had almost reached the gate; but as soon as the square 
 white house came into view, his curiosity was quickly satisfied. 
 There were lights in all the rooms ! 
 
 He gave a little laugh, and then, as he fancied he perceived 
 a blind being drawn aside in the drawing-room window, he 
 withdrew again into the darkness of the palings. 
 
 But he had not remained there more than a few minutes 
 reflecting on the discovery he had made, when he heard a foot- 
 step in the road. It was coming towards the house from the 
 opposite direction. 
 
 Moving up as close as he dared to the garden gate, Johns 
 waited until, presently, he saw a thick-set figure looming into 
 view. Soon he recognised the conical felt hat which Parker 
 wore, and an instant afterwards, the round fat face of Parker, as 
 he turned it in his direction while stooping to unlatch the gate. 
 
 " By God," said Johns, as he watched the form retreating 
 along the path, " I know this time." 
 
 He turned on his heels, and walked back to the station. 
 
CHAPTER 
 EIGHTH 
 
 DURING the absence of the Dawsons on the Continent, 
 Johns was not idle. Not only did he watch the ATetro- 
 politan Gazette as he had been asked to do, but he also 
 watched, and closely, the doings of the Planefs chief. 
 
 He had noticed, in the afternoons after the first editions had 
 been sent out, that Boyd, who was supposed then to receive 
 callers, shut himself up in his room, refusing to see anyone save 
 Coulston, and he had perceived that even Coulston, who he had 
 learnt was a relative of Boyd's, never entered the editorial room 
 without previously knocking loudly at the door, and waiting till 
 he was asked to enter. If there were any orders to be given 
 during the latter part of the afternoon, they were sent through 
 Coulston, who was Boyd's lieutenant in the same way as Johns 
 was latterly, to a great extent, the right-hand man of Dawson. 
 And sometimes Johns would go into the ante-room, filled with 
 people waiting for an interview which they had little chance of 
 having, and sympathise with them. He would tell them that 
 he for one was truly sorry to see them wasting so much valuable 
 time. But what was to be done ? Some editors had curious 
 notions of exclusiveness, notions which he, personally, did 
 not like. It seemed to him, he told them, that the more 
 fresh blood was let into a paper, the better it progressed. 
 And then, were they not all brother journalists and entitled 
 to consideration? The)- listened to him eagerly, for they 
 knew that he was on the staff and regarded as a man with 
 a good future — a man to be conciliated, especially as he often 
 hinted that, if he were editor, the whole literary republic 
 would have access to him. And they felt that, although he 
 was powerless to help them then, he might, later, be a useful 
 man to know. 
 
ii8 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " How hungry they must be !" Johns would say to himself as 
 he saw some of them come, day by day, on the bare hope that 
 Boyd would see them for a minute in the ante-room on his way 
 out, and he would laugh at the tenacity with which they re- 
 turned to such a hopeless market for the product of their 
 brains. And how cheap brains were, how cheap ! And how 
 great the gain for those who knew how to exploit them well ! 
 All this was a lesson for the future. 
 
 One day he asked Tarte if he knew why Boyd closeted him- 
 self in the afternoons of late, but the old man smiled enigma- 
 tically, saying, " Must not an editor indulge once a day in the 
 delights of correspondence ? He's answering his letters." 
 
 " Oh, answering his letters, is he ? " Johns repeated, trying to 
 guess the meaning which seemed to lurk behind the old man's 
 words. 
 
 " And is that so engrossing an occupation ? Are you sure 
 you don't mean drinking whisky?" 
 
 *' He might be doing both. He may find one as pleasant as 
 the other. Ah, what a mighty thing it is to be an editor !" 
 
 " Why are you so mysterious, Tarte? Don't you trust me?" 
 
 " You'd think me foolish if I did." 
 
 " Curious old chap," thought Johns, " but smarter than I 
 fancied." 
 
 He reflected over this for a few days, not knowing what to 
 think of it, but terribly desirous of making a discovery which 
 might enable him to put a spoke in the editor's wheel ; and one 
 morning, as he lay in bed waiting for the valet, he had a 
 sudden inspiration. Yes, of course, why not ? Why had 
 he not thought of that before ? Did he not know from the 
 best of sources that Boyd's position was a weak one ? Yes, 
 he could safely try. Perhaps he would discover something, 
 perhaps there was nothing to discover. At anyrate his curio- 
 sity would be appeased. "Tarte," he said, in the afternoon, 
 as he was sitting before him at the same table, "I've a 
 question to ask Boyd about this par on the Metropolitan 
 Gazette^ and I'm damned if I'll ask Coulston. I'm going 
 into the sacred presence myself at once." 
 
 Tarte gave a grin and an approving nod. 
 
 " I congratulate you on your intrepidity, my friend. You're 
 what the French call 2^ struggle-for-Ufeury 
 
 " Yes, by God, I am." 
 
 Saying this, he rose from his chair, buttoned his frock-coat, 
 and, taking the slip of paper with him, made for the private 
 door of the editorial room. When he reached the threshold, 
 as there was no one in the passage, he stopped to listen. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 119 
 
 But as he could hear no sound coming from within, he seized 
 the handle of the door, turned it rapidly, and entered. 
 
 What he saw repaid him for his trouble. 
 
 Boyd, seated next the typist at the long table, was reading 
 a letter which he was holding in his left hand, while his 
 right hand was encircling the waist of the fair-haired amanu- 
 ensis, whose head was resting on his shoulder. Johns had 
 appeared so suddenly, that he had been able to take in the 
 little scene before the surprised pair had time to move. 
 
 Abruptly, and with flushed faces as soon as they became 
 aware that Johns was looking at them, they separated. The 
 lady remained in her seat in a rigid posture, her face wear- 
 ing an expression of outraged modesty. Boyd, however, 
 started to his, feet, and turning his pair of vinous eyes angrily 
 upon Johns, exclaimed — 
 
 " What do you mean, sir, by coming here against my orders ?" 
 
 " I meant," said Johns, with perfect equanimity, " to consult 
 you, Mr. Boyd, about something of importance to the paper ; 
 but as I see you're particularly busy, 111 take another oppor- 
 tunity." 
 
 And without waiting for an answer from Boyd, who, speech- 
 less with rage, stood glaring at him, he retired as quickly as 
 he had entered. 
 
 When he returned to Tarte's room, he resumed his seat as 
 if nothing had occurred, and when Tarte asked, " Well, was your 
 interview a pleasant one ? " he answered, " It's my turn, Tarte, 
 to be mysterious." 
 
 But when the day's work was over, he strolled homewards in 
 a happy frame of mind. " With the little typist ! " he muttered, 
 as he walked up the Strand. This was the little blonde, 
 with a plump figure, whom, at one time, he had thought of 
 conquering himself ! How fortunate that a prudential instinct 
 had restrained him, for now he possessed knowledge which 
 he intended to make use of. It was plain that Boyd was 
 hurrying to his own destruction. He had heard it whispered 
 that he had been drinking hard of late, and now he had 
 taken to make love to typists in the editorial room ! Such 
 shocking immorality must not be permitted to continue ! 
 
 From this day onwards he worked with an increased zest, 
 not because he liked work, for in reality he hated it, but 
 because he was sustained by the hope of attaining an ambi- 
 tion soon. Boyd had not referred to his intrusion when he 
 met him the next morning, and had affected not to see 
 him. That alone, he thought, was a sign of fear. 
 
 In the meantime he went to Maidenhead as usual at the 
 
I20 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 week's end, and though he carefully refrained from saying a 
 word to the widow of what he had seen that night in the 
 shadow of the paling, his manner towards her changed. 
 Knowing that his position was a good one, he became less 
 tender, troubled himself less to make love speeches, was 
 more exacting and more hard to please. Grumbling at the 
 precautions which they had to take to keep their intimacy 
 secret, he vowed that he was tired of the river, and that he 
 wouldn't be sorry when she returned to town. For now he 
 could not kiss her without thinking of the burly politician 
 to whom she would offer those same lips as soon as he had 
 left her, and who, perhaps, was paying the rent of this 
 riverside retreat. How the arrangement was conducted ; 
 whether Parker was aware or not that he was anything more 
 to her than a possible husband to take her off his hands, 
 Johns had no means of knowing. In reality he scarcely 
 cared. Things would work themselves out by themselves, he 
 thought. 
 
 And she, perceiving the change in his behaviour, pretended 
 to attribute it to overwork, and increased in kindness and 
 attention, spoiling him in every way she could imagine, trying 
 to bring a smile upon his face. Why was he so preoccupied, 
 so serious ? What was there she could do for him ? Was he 
 pressed again for money? What was it that was troubling him ? 
 
 But even these questions, proofs as they were of her solici- 
 tude, annoyed him, and he would tell her curtly that he was 
 well, that he wanted no more money, and that he would 
 be much obliged to her if she wouldn't scrutinize his looks 
 so narrowly. He didn't like it. No man liked it, and he least 
 of all. And he would sit smoking the Havanas which she 
 always kept for him, in moody silence, or sometimes, when 
 they were alone, he would rise suddenly from his chair, and 
 going up to her, would kiss her violently, almost brutally, and 
 then resume his seat and continue smoking. 
 
 And she would contemplate him gravely, wonderingly, as if 
 trying to divine the reason for this inequality of temper, and 
 there was a feeling of constraint between them which only 
 disappeared during the moments of strong passion. 
 
 One Sunday in the middle of September, as he was sitting 
 smoking on a garden seat beneath the low verandah, looking 
 at the passing boats with their freights of pretty women in 
 dazzling light costumes, she came and sat beside him. They 
 had spent the morning on the river, and had returned for 
 luncheon. Throughout the trip he had been taciturn and 
 moody, rowing leisurely and without spirit. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 121 
 
 " John," she said, in a soft tone, " why won't you tell me 
 what is on your mind? I cannot bear to see you so changed 
 towards me." 
 
 But he wasn't in a humour to be conciliated. He had had 
 enough of those eternal questions. He had nothing on his 
 mind, he said bluntly — nothing but his work. 
 
 "It's not true," she said, with a sudden flash of anger, 
 "you have. I know you have, or you wouldn't sit there 
 thinking gloomily as you're doing now. You're treating me as 
 I don't deserve." 
 
 He looked up at her sharply to guage the extent of her 
 indignation, and to determine whether it was menacing. 
 
 " I've done all a woman can for you," she continued, " and 
 this is how I am repaid." 
 
 There was no doubt about it — this time he had gone too far. 
 She was getting vexed, and as he stood towards her at that 
 moment, he didn't want her to be vexed. 
 
 " My dear Ellen," he replied, " you are quite wrong. If I 
 have hurt your feelings in any way, believe me it was uncon- 
 sciously. I've been overworked for the last six weeks. I fear 
 that's made me bearish, and, perhaps, neglectful." 
 
 He felt that this was rather weak, but he could think of 
 nothing better. 
 
 " Is that the real reason ? " she asked, suspiciously, and he 
 assured her that it was. 
 
 " Oh, forgive me, then, my Johnnie; I ought to have known 
 that you were working hard." And she looked into his eyes 
 with an expression of subdued passion. 
 
 " There's no one in the house this afternoon," she whispered. 
 " Come, let us make it up." 
 
 " Now ? " he asked. 
 
 "Oh yes, now." 
 
 And they disappeared into the house. 
 
 During the absence of the Dawsons, Johns had received 
 several letters from the wife of the proprietor, letters which 
 gave him considerable satisfaction to receive. They stirred 
 up recollections which he prized, because they seemed to him 
 to be a link with the people on whom his career depended. 
 And what serious compositions these notes were ! He never 
 read them without smiling. They were variations on every 
 chord of sentiment, by a woman whose illicit love struggled 
 against the principles of virtue in which she had been 
 trained, and who by nature had never been intended for the 
 part she had been made to play. Now they were warm and 
 
_^^ 
 
 122 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 hopeful, now sorrowful and timorous; but in none of them 
 did she repeat the recriminations which she had made at her 
 last visit. Her chief solicitude was to know if he were 
 thinking of her, if he would be always good to her, and 
 careful of her fame. And as she had asked him not to 
 answer her — a request he was only too anxious to comply 
 with — he was relieved of even the trouble of writing letters. 
 " But what I ask myself a hundred times a day," she wrote, 
 "is by what magic you make me love you. I had never 
 thought it possible to love a man as I love you. What 
 women say of you is true. You charm them by your voice, 
 your look, your presence. And I ask myself how long you 
 will continue loving me, you whom so many women like. 
 John, shall I confess it ? I am dreaming of the day when we 
 shall be back in London, when I can come and see you in 
 your little room in Jermyn Street ! " 
 
 Then followed tender injunctions for his health, and hopes 
 that he would not work too hard. 
 
 And though, as a last precaution of departed virtue, she 
 omitted to sign her name, he did not fail to preserve these 
 letters carefully. The mere possession of them seemed to him 
 a guarantee for his own future. 
 
 At length, one morning at the end of the month, he received 
 a note from her announcing her return in a few days. She 
 was tired of Homburg and the people she had met. She was 
 dying to be home again. Previously she had enjoyed her stay 
 at Homburg, had interested herself in its life and gaiety, but 
 now she could only think of him. All else seemed to have 
 grown pale and colourless. Oh, how she longed for the day 
 when they would be together once again ! And at the bottom 
 of the note he read, in a hastily-added postscript, " My 
 husband says he is not pleased with the way the paper has 
 been managed in his absence." 
 
 Johns thoughtfully replaced the letter in its envelope, and 
 muttered to himself, "That's my chance; if I don't seize it 
 I'm a fool." And he went down to the office the same 
 morning with a determination to make a decisive effort as 
 soon as the proprietor returned. 
 
 In the meantime he clearly realized the riskiness of his 
 position. In a few days his two inamoratas would be back 
 again, for Mrs. Weber was also returning at the week's end, 
 and he would have to exercise all the caution he could 
 command to avoid a blunder or an accident. He fancied 
 he had studied women well enough to be aware that too 
 much skill in dealing with them could not be employed, 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 123 
 
 because one never knew what they might do when they 
 thought themselves deceived or injured. He was playing 
 for high stakes, and his play must accordingly be good. 
 Now, however, that he was well clothed, well fed, well 
 lodged, he felt himself equal to all emergencies. It was 
 magnificent, he thought, to be so prized by women. How 
 far could not a man go who was so favoured ! And some- 
 times in the morning, as he was dressing, he would stand 
 before his looking-glass studying his features, practising some 
 subtleties of smile, now bright and gay, now full of changing 
 shades of pathos. But the expression which he cultivated 
 most was that intensely earnest, almost sorrowful arrange- 
 ment of the muscles of his countenance which had so often 
 proved successful in the course of his career. It was an 
 expression which seemed to embody in itself a world of 
 sadness for the ills of life, a longing for the ideal, a simple 
 innocence with a calm dignity. It rendered all the emotions 
 he was capable of feeling in his transient, objective way, and 
 it was always at his command whenever he wished to make 
 others think that he was feeling them. He thought, indeed, 
 that the majority of men neglect to study their natural 
 advantages; that many possess gifts which they fail to utilize 
 from the want of the knack of introspection. 
 
 Yes, there was nothing like studying oneself! He knew 
 himself^ as Americans said, "derned" well. He knew, too, 
 what he wanted, and he fancied he knew what he could do 
 to reach it. 
 
 All through the autumn he had been reading steadily, 
 filling up gaps in his knowledge and forming literary opinions, 
 which he put into sonorous phrases and committed to memory, 
 so that he might use them at a moment's notice before any- 
 one he wanted to impress. Many of these he had tried on 
 Maskelyne and the reporters. He had found they had produced 
 a better effect than even he anticipated. Encouraged by his 
 success, he learned by heart impressive passages from master- 
 pieces, and he settled his likes and dislikes in literature so 
 that he might appear to have decided tastes, resolved to extol 
 enthusiastically the authors who took his fancy and to condemn 
 uncompromisingly those who did not. It was no use having 
 half opinions, and seeking the truth between two opposites. 
 One must be either for or against a book or a work of art— 
 unhesitatingly. That was the only way in which one could be 
 striking. 
 
 Now and then, when he wanted to read books which he 
 could not afford to buy, he would go to the Museum and 
 
124 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 consult them in the reading-room, but the sight of the circular 
 maze-like room, with its population of emaciated literary hacks, 
 working like slaves at their melancholy drudgery, gave him a 
 cold shiver down his back. The place seemed to him danger- 
 ous to frequent. For he felt instinctively it was the refuge of 
 the unsuccessful, and unsuccess in some way seemed to him 
 contagious. He felt imprisoned under the great dome, and as 
 if cut off from the life of the outer world. He spent as little 
 time there as he could. It was a place of poverty, and he had 
 seen enough of poverty. His appetite was whetted for better 
 things. Literature, if taken too seriously to heart, seemed to 
 him a pitfall; but as a means to attain an end, he had a high 
 opinion of it. He devoted as much time as he was able to 
 French literature, with which his semi-Gallic nature was in 
 sympathy. A good acquaintance with it, he considered, lent 
 distinction and a certain superiority. 
 
 At length the Monday morning came when Dawson was 
 expected in the Strand. Everybody in the office felt that their 
 fates were in his hands, and as he had hitherto been in the 
 habit, after his summer holiday, of making changes in the staff, 
 his return was awaited with a general trepidation. 
 
 Johns left home earlier than usual that morning, and reached 
 the Planet before Dawson had arrived. He had deliberated 
 whether he should attack the proprietor on his entrance to the 
 office, or wait till the latter had had an interview with Boyd. He 
 decided, eventually, that he would see Dawson as soon as possible. 
 
 He thought it probable that the proprietor would first enter 
 his own room before calling for or going to see the editor, 
 and therefore he seated himself upon the sofa of that room, 
 reading a morning paper. 
 
 It was not long before Dawson, brisk and florid, walked in 
 with the firm step of a master. He seemed surprised when 
 Johns rose and advanced to meet him. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Johns," he said, in an official tone, 
 ** you see I'm back. I'll speak to you about your column later 
 on. It was well done. I was pleased with it." 
 
 Saying this, he looked at the letters on his table as a signal 
 to Johns that he wished to be alone. 
 
 "Pardon me," said Johns, gravely, taking a seat near 
 Dawson's desk, "if you find me in this room, it's not by 
 accident. I've come here with a purpose. I've come in the 
 interest of the paper." 
 
 Dawson began, " I'm sorry, Mr. Johns, but this morning I'm 
 too busy." 
 
 Johns, however, did not move. He knew there was going 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 125 
 
 to be a struggle of will between them, and the sooner it began 
 the better. He continued, " I'm sorry also, Mr. Dawson, but 
 what I have to say cannot be deferred." 
 
 Dawson moved impatiently in his chair, and Johns pursued — 
 
 " During your absence, I've been studying the way in which 
 your paper is conducted, and I've come to the conclusion that 
 unless it's bettered, you will see the Planet sink — sink, sir, to a 
 few miserable thousands daily." 
 
 Roused at length, Dawson answered — 
 
 " Explain yourself, Mr. Johns." 
 
 " Ever since the Metropolitan Gazette was started, our circu- 
 lation has been dwindling week by week, day by day. In the 
 last three months it has been tumbling down at a break-neck 
 pace. The paper's on the road to ruin, to extinction. It's falling 
 from the place it held to the level of a murder sheet, and that 
 not popular. And what are the reasons for this disaster ? They 
 are two, Mr. Dawson, two. The first is that the Metropolitan 
 Gazette is a great deal better at the same price, and the second 
 that your editor is unfitted for his post." 
 
 Dawson, during this speech, had been showing signs of alarm 
 and irritation. 
 
 "This is a grave accusation," he said, "to make against 
 Mr. Boyd." 
 
 "It would be, if I were not prepared to prove it." 
 
 "That's the only thing left for you to do." 
 
 Johns perceived the threat which Dawson's words conveyed, 
 but he was fairly launched on his enterprise now, and he must 
 go on to the end. 
 
 "An editor," he said, "who for the last two months has 
 refused to see all callers, and who has shut himself in his own 
 room, making love to his own typist, oblivious to the peril 
 which besets the paper, is totally unfit to be at the head of a 
 journal such as this." 
 
 " Do you mean to insinuate ," Dawson began, but Johns 
 
 stopped him. 
 
 " I insinuate nothing — I state what I have seen." 
 
 " What you have seen ? " said Dawson, fairly starting from 
 his seat 
 
 " It's the least thing one can expect of an editor," Johns 
 continued, "to have some sense of decency, and this man, 
 whose drunken tendencies cannot be unknown to you, is 
 destitute of any." 
 
 Then Johns related carefully the scene which he had 
 witnessed — the editor surprised with his arm round the 
 typist's waist during the business of the afternoon. 
 
126 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 He spoke, he said, with great reluctance, and solely in the 
 interest of the paper. 
 
 Dawson, when he had finished, was silent for a moment. 
 Then he said, "And you affirm that you saw this? " 
 
 " I am ready to take my oath before Boyd himself." 
 
 Dawson was again silent. 
 
 Johns, thinking that he had gained a point, resumed, 
 " And that is not all I have to tell you. I have to say that 
 I, personally, cannot continue to serve under such a man. If 
 Boyd is to remain, I must ask you to accept my resignation." 
 
 This was a bold stroke, as he knew well, and if he had not 
 had information from the best of sources that Dawson was 
 dissatisfied with Boyd, be probably would not have made it. 
 Dawson said — 
 
 " I don't know that there's any hurry about your resignation. 
 I should advise you to wait to see what changes may take 
 place between this and a few months hence. 
 
 "A few months !" repeated Johns; "in a few months the 
 harm done to the paper will be irretrievable." 
 
 " You don't suppose that, even if what you say were true, I 
 should be likely to dismiss Boyd at once." 
 
 Johns rose from his chair. He could speak better standing. 
 
 "Listen, Mr. Dawson," he began, "/offer myself as editor." 
 
 " You?'^ said Dawson, with astonishment. 
 
 " Yes, I ! I am ready to guarantee that, if you appoint me 
 editor, your circulation will not only regain its former figure in 
 three months' time, but will go beyond it. The paper wants 
 fresh blood, fresh life. It has been going too long upon its old 
 lines, and the public has found something better for its money. 
 Dismiss that drunken fool, entrust me with his post, and I'll 
 turn you out the smartest thing in London, sound and bright,, 
 written by younger men, and a thousand times more interesting 
 than the flimsy stuff he's been producing." 
 
 Dawson stared at Johns as he had stared at him when he 
 had first asserted that he could do anything. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," he said, "that you think you could 
 edit the paper with the experience you have?" 
 
 " I don't think ; I'm sure." 
 
 Dawson smiled. 
 
 Johns said, sharply, " I've made an offer, Mr. Dawson, and a 
 serious one. It's for you to consider whether you accept or not. 
 All I can tell you is that if you don't, I'm going to start a paper 
 of my own. I'm promised strong support from Australian 
 capitalists." 
 
 And seeing that Dawson still looked sceptical, he continued — 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 127 
 
 " You think perhaps that is a mere boast, but you'll find it's 
 not, and to be frank with you, if I have not already closed with 
 them, it is because I don't consider there is room for another 
 evening paper. I would prefer to edit yours, which is properly 
 established. Remember what I have said. I undertake to 
 resuscitate your paper." 
 
 Then, bringing his fist down upon the desk with a loud 
 thump, he said — 
 
 "By God, sir, I'm the man you want. I've got the *grit' 
 you want, the brains you want. I'm not one of those kid-glove 
 journalists with their academic snobbery, but a man who knows 
 his public and how to please them. I've taken the measure of 
 every available editor in London, and there isn't one, not one, 
 that is of any value who would leave his post to come to you 
 unless you offered him the salary of an ambassador. If you, to 
 your misfortune, got in one of those sublime asses from the 
 universities who emprison journalism within the bounds of their 
 own narrowness, the fate of the Planet would be sealed." 
 
 " Perhaps you're not aware," said Dawson, " that I'm offered 
 the services of Briton Howard, who conducted the Evening 
 Herald for six years, and who is now editing a weekly paper." 
 
 But at this name Johns made a bound across the room that 
 caused Dawson to start half out of his arm-chair. 
 
 " Of Briton Howard !" he cried, contemptuously. "A man 
 whose habits are those of a street cur, a vapid mediocrity who 
 killed the Evening Herald as everybody knows, and who is 
 killing the Weekly Journal! Why, you might as well appoint 
 oldTarte." 
 
 Dawson said, " I'm learning something new," and for a few 
 moments there was a silence which Dawson was the first to 
 break. 
 
 " Boyd has an agreement to the end of the year," he said. 
 
 "And what of that? Wouldn't it be a thousand times 
 cheaper to pay him off than to let him ruin you ?" 
 
 Dawson's air of scepticism had now changed to one of 
 thoughtfulness. He said, " You arrange things very easily, Mr. 
 Johns." 
 
 " I can carry them out as easily." 
 
 " But you have no plan to offer, no programme?" 
 
 "No programme!" Johns repeated. "Haven't I!" And 
 then he proceeded to unfold a whole scheme of ameliorations, 
 partly drawn from his imagination. More room would be given 
 to foreign news and to literature. The personal gossip would 
 be made more accurate, interviewing would be conducted on 
 more skilful lines, the financial column was to be made a gold 
 
128 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 mine by a method he had seen practised in Australia, and, 
 above all, new blood was to be introduced. 
 
 He continued to develop his ideas for at least ten minutes, 
 and when he finished, Dawson, rising, said — 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Johns, I see you at least know what you 
 want to do. I'm going to make inquiries, and I'll let you know 
 about your offer in a day or two." 
 
 Johns said, " As you please," and left the proprietor to his 
 correspondence. 
 
 He had launched his venture, and it remained to be seen 
 now whether it would be successful. He believed that Dawson 
 was alarmed, and he counted upon that as a factor in his favour. 
 He also thought he had impressed him, but of course it was 
 impossible to be sure. All through the day he was restless, 
 unable to chain his thoughts to work, and he paced up and 
 down Tarte's room until the old man asked him what the 
 matter was. 
 
 " You'll know that soon enough, Tarte. I've run a chance 
 for all it's worth— that's all." 
 
 In the evening when he reached his rooms, two letters were 
 awaiting him. One was from Mrs. Weber, to whom he had 
 been obliged to give his new address, and the other from Mrs. 
 Dawson. He opened the latter first. It ran — 
 
 " Dearest, — I am coming to you at half-past five to-morrow. — 
 Lucy." 
 
 "Good," he thought; "she'll bring some news." 
 
 Then he opened the other — 
 
 " My own Johnnie, — I expect you to dinner to-morrow night 
 as usual. Yours ever, Ellen." 
 
 "Damn it," he said, "why couldn't she choose another day?" 
 
 He replaced both notes in their envelopes and put them in 
 his pocket, feeling nervous and unsettled. 
 
 The next day he reached the Strand in a peculiar state of 
 mind, not knowing whether this was going to be his last upon 
 the paper, or whether he was suddenly to find himself its editor. 
 He had slept little the previous night, for he had been revolving 
 in his mind what he would do in this case, and what in that, 
 and as he mounted the office stairs he tried to discipline him- 
 self by giving himself a hit in the chest with his clenched 
 fist. In the morning he saw neither Dawson nor the editor, 
 but he heard that they had been closeted together for a long 
 time. No one in the office knew what was happening, but it 
 was the general impression that there was " something up." 
 
 Towards two o'clock, however, as Johns was passing through 
 the corridor, he saw Boyd leaving Dawson's room. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 129 
 
 His face was flushed, and he seemed excited. He almost 
 stumbled against Johns in passing. 
 
 "Oh, that's you, is it?" he said, as he perceived him — "you 
 cursed sneak ! " 
 
 Johns's face lit up with a sudden gleam of pleasure. If Boyd 
 called him a cursed sneak, certainly he must have had a row 
 with Dawson, and if so, who knew ? perhaps the chief had taken 
 his advice. 
 
 " Fool ! " he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, and then, as 
 Boyd was already half down the stairs, he turned upon his heel 
 and re-entered his own room. Here he sat waiting in a kind 
 of dogged calm succeeding to the agitation of the morning, 
 forcing his mind to remain in a sort of vague suspense, so that 
 he might keep his coolness for whatever might occur. And he 
 sat there digging holes in his blotting pad with a pair of scissors, 
 to the surprise of his companion, who looked up at him now and 
 then above his glasses. At length, as the clock struck four, the 
 acoustic tube gave a shrill whistle, and Tarte, after replying 
 " Yes " through it, applied it to his ear. A moment afterwards 
 the old man answered, "Yes, Mr. Dawson," and replaced the 
 tube upon its rest. Then, turning to Johns, he said, " Dawson 
 wants to speak to you." 
 
 Johns rose at once. Now he would know something. 
 
 With a firm step he crossed to Dawson's room and entered. 
 
 "Good afternoon," the proprietor said, with something like a 
 smile. " You may be surprised to hear that Mr. Boyd and I 
 have fallen out." 
 
 "No, not surprised," said Johns, imperturbably ; "it was 
 inevitable." 
 
 " Therefore, as I have decided to dispense at once with his 
 services at a considerable expense to me, the editorship is 
 vacant." 
 
 " I have already asked for it, and I ask for it again." 
 
 " And do you mean to tell me that you feel yourself equal to 
 the task of conducting the paper ? " 
 
 " Really, Mr. Dawson, this is not serious ! Not only am I 
 capable of conducting it, but I will pledge myself to save it." 
 
 " But are you certain that you can do all you say ? " 
 
 Johns thought, "He's in a fearful funk," and said, "I can 
 only repeat that, should you not appoint me, I should be 
 compelled to leave you." 
 
 For some moments Dawson remained silent, moving a paper 
 weight upon his desk from one side to the other, as if in 
 thought. 
 
 Johns stood motionless before him, with his arms folded. 
 
 K 
 
I30 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 At length Dawson rose, and, facing Johns, said slowly, 
 and as if with effort, " Very well, then, I'll try you for three 
 months." 
 
 " No," said Johns," I can't undertake to do it in three months. 
 I must have six." 
 
 " Must you, really?" asked Dawson, nervously, again reflecting. 
 
 " I must." 
 
 " Then I suppose I must say yes." 
 
 "That," said Johns, without moving a muscle of his face, 
 " is satisfactory. When do I commence ? " 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 " Very good." 
 
 Then they settled details, and decided upon the course to 
 be pursued, and when Johns left Dawson's room it was past 
 five. 
 
 Suddenly he remembered, as he looked at his watch, that 
 Lucy was coming to his rooms that afternoon, and, without 
 stopping to tell the news of his appointment, he rushed down 
 to the street and, jumping into a passing hansom, was driven 
 to Jermyn Street at once. 
 
 Editor ! He, John Johns, was editor of a London " daily," 
 with that delicious sense of power, and more than two sovereigns 
 a day ! How easy it was, after all, to make the world believe 
 in you ! How men, and women too, were influenced by talk ! 
 Oh, it was a fine thing to understand humanity — a fine thing 
 indeed ! 
 
 As he drove along, the shops, the people in the streets, even 
 the autumn sky, seemed to smile on him. There was a 
 glamour of success in everything. An editor ! Tvhere was an 
 editor driving in that hansom, and he almost felt that the 
 people in the streets should know it. Now that he had got his 
 foot in the stirrup in real earnest, a hundred new horizons 
 revealed themselves to him in the rosy future. His life seemed 
 suddenly to have a higher value in the world's plan. He was 
 a master now in one of the fields of intellect. He was a 
 personage ; he was somebody. 
 
 The hansom stopped before his house, and, throwing the 
 man twice his fare, he rushed up the stairs to his own rooms. 
 
 He had not long to wait. A minute afterwards Mrs. Dawson 
 came. 
 
 " And has he told you, John ? " she enquired, breathlessly, 
 after the first embrace. 
 
 " That I'm to be the editor ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Yes, Lucy, it's all settled." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 131 
 
 " Oh," she said, joyfully ,* " do you know it was all decided 
 last night when Mr. Parker came to dinner. It was he advised 
 my husband to appoint you. I said as much as I dared about 
 you too, and then he hesitated and said he didn't know if you 
 were fit. As if my John isn't fit for anything ! At last, when 
 Mr. Parker spoke so highly of you, he said he thought he 
 would. How can I tell you how pleased I was when he said 
 this morning, before he left, that he had decided in your 
 favour ! I knew you were anxious to be editor, and I wanted 
 you to have this news to-day on my return." 
 
 " Oh, Lucy," he exclaimed in an enthusiasm of unfeigned 
 gratitude ; " how much I owe to you ! " 
 
 An hour afterwards, when she had left, he went to the nearest 
 telegraph office and telegraphed to Mrs. Weber — 
 
 "Sorry, too busy to come to-night," after which he dined 
 quietly at Verry's. 
 
CHAPTER 
 NINTH 
 
 SINCE his promotion, a new life had commenced for 
 Johns. It was no longer his duty to please others, but 
 it behoved others to please him, and, from the day he took up 
 the reins, he showed that he was not to be pleased easily. He 
 had undertaken to revive the paper, and he thought that this 
 could be done only by the strongest efforts of all connected 
 with it. Therefore he made them work at fever heat, never 
 satisfied with their performances until they had given all that 
 their brains could furnish. He forced Coulston to resign, 
 and appointed Maskelyne, whom he knew to be without too 
 much ambition, in his stead. The typist he sent away, as he 
 wanted no petticoats about him. To the frequenters of the 
 ante-room he kept his promise, and gave each of them a few 
 minutes' interview ; but, as he rarely saw the same man twice 
 after he had, as he expressed it, got his measure and found him 
 wanting, the ranks were considerably thinned, and the 
 unappreciated were more disaffected than before. " It's the 
 old story," Tarte would say to them as a sort of consolation, 
 " and they're all alike. You'd do the same, my friends, if you 
 got upon that perch." With Dawson he had assumed, from 
 the first day, an attitude of independence, totally refusing to 
 be controlled or checked, as Boyd had been, and forcing the 
 proprietor to pay prices for good articles which made him 
 tremble. But as, during the first month, the god of circulation 
 whom Dawson worshipped showed signs of clemency — that is, 
 as the sale increased in an appreciable measure — he made no 
 objection, and was, indeed, beginning to have a kind of timid 
 respect for Johns. 
 
 But Johns thought that a paper wasn't to be recruited by 
 merely sitting in an office chair, and he set out in pursuit of 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 133 
 
 journalistic talent, frequenting the circles where he could meet 
 it best, and seizing upon it when he found it. 
 
 Since he had been made editor, invitations rained upon him 
 from people he had once met casually, and who now were 
 anxious to see the young and brilliant editor who had sprung 
 up quickly in their midst. Rumours had been spread of his 
 extraordinary adventures in Australia, and every one wanted to 
 see the man who was also said by some to possess a remark- 
 able attraction in women's eyes. And, as he was receiving 
 a fair salary, he was in a much better position than previously 
 to meet the calls upon his purse which society now made, and 
 to return the hospitality of useful people in a variety of ways. 
 
 For Mrs. Weber his promotion meant a disappointment, 
 since he had told her that, far from getting married immediately, 
 as she had anticipated, they would have to wait until his 
 position was assured, at least until the six months of his 
 probation had expired. And she was still more disappointed 
 when he declared to her that his work would now prevent him 
 from coming to her house as often as he wished. He continued 
 to pay his weekly visit, most weeks, although he left long before 
 the morning ; but the extra visits in the afternoon, or on odd 
 evenings — those that were arranged from day to day at the 
 hazard of events, the meetings that she prized the most — he 
 had said he would be forced to discontinue now. And she 
 would ask why this should be. She knew that he went to 
 see other people. Why should he not come to her ? But he 
 explained that, in his new capacity, he was forced to go as 
 much as possible into society, especially into political and 
 journalistic sets, where he had a chance of recruiting writers 
 and of learning news. She was obliged to accept these 
 reasons, the truth of which it was so difficult to test. 
 
 One day he said, " Do you know, Ellen, that there are a 
 hundred hungry dogs watching me, to see how I get on, and 
 ready to scramble for my place ? " 
 
 " Oh, but you are so clever and so well supported," she 
 replied. 
 
 But he said hastily, thinking of Parker, " I don't want to be 
 supported, Ellen. I intend to fare da se." 
 
 She said, " Do you know, my Johnnie, that when I hear 
 everybody talking of you I feel as if they were trying to steal 
 you from me ? If any woman dared ! " 
 
 And she frowned, while her eyes flashed. 
 
 At other times she would question him narrowly upon his 
 doings since their last meeting, the people he had met, and the 
 invitations he received, with a minuteness savouring of suspicion. 
 
134 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 which annoyed him, and made him declare, each time he left 
 her, that he wouldn't stand it long — pretty and enticing as she 
 was. He would have wished to give her back the money she 
 had lent him, although, to do that, he would have had to stint 
 himself, his expenses having already risen beyond his income. 
 But she had told him once that she would take it as a sign of 
 rupture if he did so, and he didn't want to go so far as that. 
 For he knew very well he would seek long before he found her 
 equal. Only she took it much too seriously. Why could she 
 not be like the wife of the proprietor, who trusted him and did 
 not give him half that trouble, and who, since her return from 
 Homburg, had improved both in beauty and in common 
 sense ? 
 
 The winter passed in this way, and at the commencement of 
 the new year Johns had already lifted the Planet a long way 
 out of the mire into which it had fallen. Dawson, now entirely 
 subdued, allowed him a free hand, and when the spring came, 
 thanks to the talent he had been able to recruit, and to a series 
 of stirring events which he had known how to take advantage 
 of, the paper had regained its old position. 
 
 In the meanwhile he had made the acquaintance, at a lun- 
 cheon of journalists, of a young man called St. George, a young 
 man of means, who, having some literary leanings, affected the 
 society of journalists and authors. From the first Johns had 
 been interested in him. His quiet, well-bred air, the faultless 
 way in which he dressed, the old Norfolk family from which he 
 came, and above all, the entree which he had to some of the 
 most exclusive sets in London, made him of especial interest to 
 Johns, who had been thinking for some time that the society 
 he moved in was not the only one to which he might attain. 
 He commenced, therefore, to cultivate St. George's friendship, 
 and as few resisted him when he laid siege to their affections, 
 it was not long before St. George and he were friends. He 
 would allow the young man to sit with him in the editorial 
 room in the afternoon whenever he liked to come, and once 
 he had flattered him considerably by publishing a short 
 poem which St. George had written. Often they would dine 
 together, and Johns soon became a candidate for election at 
 one of St. George's clubs, where politics were not a bar to 
 his admission. In a remarkably short space of time they 
 had become firm friends. 
 
 One evening, while Johns was with St. George in his 
 bachelor flat in Piccadilly, smoking in a little warmly-draped 
 recess, carpeted and lined with Persian rugs, and lit by an 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 135 
 
 Oriental lamp hanging from the ceiling, the young man said, 
 after a puff of smoke — 
 
 "Who do you think was asking me about you, Johns?" 
 
 " I can't guess." 
 
 "LordStanfield." 
 
 Johns knew vaguely that Lord Stanfield was a kind of patron 
 of literaiy men, a sort of Maecenas who was fond of inviting 
 men of letters to his house, and who was reputed to have shares 
 in periodicals. 
 
 He said, " I shall be glad to know him." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I should be delighted to introduce you. 
 There is only one slight difficulty. Lord Stanfield is interested 
 in you, ana has a wish to see you. He was only afraid that 
 your democratic notions, such as you made known in some 
 speech or other once, might be a little obstacle." 
 
 "Oh," said Johns, laughing, "that's nothing. I don't 
 preach democracy in private life, and I've given up platform 
 politics." 
 
 " Well, if you think you can put politics aside, I'll take you 
 to Berkeley Square to-morrow." 
 
 " My dear St. George," said Johns, with a discreet smile, 
 " there's nothing so adaptable as politics." 
 
 St. George laughed; and it was agreed that they should call 
 the next day, which happened to be that on which Lady 
 Stanfield was at home. 
 
 Accordingly, on the morrow, at five o'clock, Johns and his 
 friend drove tc the Stanfields in Berkeley Square. 
 
 It was a large brick house, wearing that air of sober dignity, 
 indifferent to outward show, which characterises the houses of 
 a London square. They were at once admitted and shown 
 up to the drawing-room. This was a large and lofty room, 
 furnished in the style of twenty years ago, with gilded chairs and 
 tables, gilded mirrors, and crimson hangings and chair cover- 
 ings — a room vhich seemed to mark an antipathy to change, a 
 contentment with the tastes of formerly. 
 
 Lady Stanfeld was sitting near the fireplace in a high- 
 backed arm-chair. She was a thin woman of about fifty, with 
 a narrow face and a pair of lifeless eyes, though she wore an 
 unmistakable air of dignity and breeding. She was surrounded 
 by a ring of visitors, in which the male element predominated. 
 Her husband, who rose on the entrance of St. George and 
 Johns, was a tall man of about sixty, with iron-grey hair and a 
 short beard. His face was intelligent and thoughtful, his 
 carriage graceful. As St. George had seen him at his club the 
 night before, he was quite prepared for the visit. He advanced 
 
136 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 and shook hands cordially with Johns as his friend introduced 
 them. 
 
 " Mr. Johns," he said, leading him to Lady Stanfield, * Mr. 
 Johns, the young and brilliant editor of whom we have some- 
 times heard." 
 
 Lady Stanfield made a slight bow to Johns, and shook hands 
 with his companion, after which her husband led the former to 
 a seat and began to talk to him. 
 
 " Mr. Johns," he said, " you're no stranger to me by repu- 
 tation." 
 
 Johns answered, "Reputation, Lord Stanfield, is a mis- 
 leading jade." 
 
 "Even when she's favourable?" 
 
 " Often even then." ^1 
 
 Lord Stanfield laughed. 
 
 " We have heard of you, Mr. Johns, in a vague kind of way 
 as a meteor in our midst. It has been said that yoa came, you 
 saw, and you conquered. Is rumour right?" 
 
 " Oh," said Johns, with a broad smile, " I came, certainly — 
 and saw, but I don't consider that I've conquered." 
 
 "That sounds almost ambitious. An editorship in the 
 flower of youth is rather difficult to get, I fancy. At least, I'm 
 told so." 
 
 Johns said, " Mine is a modest post. Our strength lies in 
 numbers ; but, alas ! we are tied to the tastes of a certain 
 public." 
 
 Then suddenly assuming his earnest air, he said, "Ah, Lord 
 Stanfield, if you only knew what it is to have a longing for a 
 standard which one cannot reach, to feel a craving for good 
 literature, and to be condemned to produce nothing but mere 
 journalism ! I have naturally tried to group around me as 
 much talent as I could, but I am obliged to adapt it to the 
 needs of our readers. It is no light task, I can assure you, to 
 conduct a paper under such conditions." 
 
 Lord Stanfield said, with a shade of malice in his voice, " I 
 can understand that readily, but I suppose it is one of the con- 
 ditions of the radical press. You've perhaps not chosen the 
 field best suited to your tastes." 
 
 Johns said, "In following one's destiny, one does not always 
 choose." 
 
 "I suppose not," Lord Stanfield answered, reflectively, 
 adding a moment afterwards — 
 
 "Did you not help Mr. Parker some time ago with his 
 Education Bill?" 
 
 Johns thought, " How well these lords are posted"; and he 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS i37 
 
 answered carelessly, " I did. Mr. Parker explained his views 
 to me and I applied them — that was all." 
 
 Lord Stanfield gave a reflective "Oh." 
 
 " But," said Johns, " what, after all, are these views of politi- 
 cians which differ in each camp ? They're held to-day, and 
 to-morrow they're abandoned. We live in a constant world of 
 change." 
 
 Before Lord Stanfield could reply, the door was opened, and 
 a lady entered, who was announced as Mrs. Humphreys. 
 
 Johns looked at the new arrival, whom Lord Stanfield had 
 advanced to meet. She was a woman whom he judged to be 
 about forty, or perhaps a little older, and she was rather 
 stout. Fair, with regular features which had been handsome 
 once, but which suggested now the sad fugacity of things, her 
 face, beneath the rouge it bore, seemed by its surfeited expres- 
 sion to denote a life of ease, of opulence, of satisfaction. She 
 appeared to Johns, as he noticed the studied, almost juvenile, 
 simplicity of her little brown cloth jacket, and the plainness 
 of her dress, to belong to that class of women who are 
 never reconciled to growing old, and as something about 
 her, he could scarcely tell what — an aroma of wealth perhaps 
 — excited his curiosity, he resolved to observe her closely, 
 fancying that she would be worth the trouble. She was 
 evidently a welcome guest, for Lady Stanfield asked her to take 
 a chair at the side of hers, and they appeared to be on terms of 
 intimacy. St. George seemed to know her also, for he had 
 shaken hands with her. 
 
 As soon as the peer returned to his seat, Johns continued 
 speaking to him. What subject could he start, he asked 
 himself, so that he might attract attention to himself? For 
 he thought it was not much use to come to such a house 
 and remain unrecognized by the majority. So, trusting to 
 his voice to create its usual effect, and to literature to do 
 the rest, he forced Lord Stanfield into a discussion of the 
 works of a young poet who had lately come somewhat into 
 notice and whom Johns had met. Having first ascertained 
 that Lord Stanfield did not think this young aspirant, with an 
 exotic name, a genius, he broke out into a sudden diatribe 
 against his verse. 
 
 "Never," he said, in a deep tone, "surely never has a 
 more vapid mediocrity tried to foist his imbecilities upon the 
 public. His doggerel is an insult to English letters, and it's 
 marvellous to me that even a printer should have been found to 
 print it." 
 
 Then, seeing that the visitors were beginning to look round, 
 
138 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 and thinking that he had perhaps been too crushing, had 
 seemed perhaps too trenchant, he softened his tone, continuing — 
 
 "And when one thinks that this is the country of the divine 
 Shelley, who left behind him so beautiful a model for all who 
 were to follow him, one can but pity this innocent young man. 
 Ah, Shelley was a great magician ! Surely he was the truest 
 poet of this century!" 
 
 He had assumed so sorrowful a countenance, he seemed to 
 realize so deeply the loss which the nation made when it lost 
 Shelley, that several of the visitors were still looking at him, 
 and Mrs. Humphreys turned to Lady Stanfield, seemingly to 
 ask a question. 
 
 But Lord Stanfield said, "No doubt Shelley was a great poet, 
 but he was singularly ignorant of the nature of the ills which he 
 deplored." 
 
 And suddenly Johns thought of the " Masque of Anarchy" 
 and the "Ode to Liberty," and said, "Of course, I know that 
 Shelley was a visionary at times, that his imagination led him 
 beyond the bounds of sober reason; but how superb he was in 
 his illusions ! In what inimitable notes he scourged the tyrants 
 which his brain created!" 
 
 As Lord Stanfield assented by an "Oh, no doubt," there was 
 a pause, during which the conversation was resumed among the 
 visitors. 
 
 Presently Johns said, as he perceived Lord Stanfield rising, 
 "Who, might I ask, is that lady speaking to Lady Stanfield? 
 Her face reminds me of a lady I once knew." 
 
 " Her name is Mrs. Humphreys. Would you like to speak 
 to her?" 
 
 "I would." 
 
 They crossed the room to the fireplace, and Lord Stanfield 
 said, " Mrs. Humphreys, here is Mr. Johns, of whom you may 
 have heard." 
 
 Johns bowed, while Lady Stanfield said, by way of explana- 
 tion, and in a tone which was not quite free from condescension, 
 " Mr. Johns is the editor — the young editor, I should say — of a 
 paper called the Planet.^'' 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys said, "Oh, yes, Fve read of Mr. Johns. 
 The Sphere had several paragraphs about him the other day." 
 
 "Yes," said Johns, with a quiet smile, "they are good 
 enough to trouble themselves about me. It amuses them to 
 make of me a kind of legendary person." 
 
 " Indeed," said Mrs. Humphreys, laughing, and showing a 
 set of faultless teeth, which somehow scarcely seemed to Johns 
 quite natural. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 139 
 
 And as he thought that women are always a little grateful to 
 those who take the trouble to interest and to amuse them, he 
 exerted himself to obtain the suffrages of his two hearers. 
 Speaking without ceasing, passing from one topic to another 
 without pausing, so that they might continue to give him their 
 attention, presenting many pictures to their imagination, he did 
 his best to dazzle them, studying their faces all the time as if 
 they were barometers to indicate the effect he was producing. 
 Theatres, novels, art — the trinity on which social conversation 
 lives — he attacked them all with lightness and originality, 
 although somewhat dogmatically and with many gestures. 
 From the first he saw that he could amuse Mrs. Humphreys 
 easily, but to do the same with Lady Stanfield was more 
 difficult. He guessed that those cold grey eyes of hers had 
 seen a great deal of life, and he fancied she possessed that 
 British aversion to over-demonstrativeness which made him 
 always feel uncomfortable when he came across it. So he 
 moderated his tones, towards the end, lest she should think him 
 " loud " — a thing which would have touched his amour propre 
 considerably. At length, when by a queer turn of phrase he 
 was able to raise a smile upon her serious face, he esteemed it 
 a little victory. She was evidently thawing. 
 
 Presently, however, he was forced to give up his place to a 
 new arrival, and as Lady Stanfield was busy taking leave of an 
 old man, with white hair and a bent back, and two ladies who 
 seemed to be his daughters, he was unable to come to the 
 front again, and for some time was forced to become a 
 listener. 
 
 But a little later, as he was looking towards his friend — who 
 was chatting with a pale-faced girl in black — to see if he were 
 inclined to leave, Mrs. Humphreys, from whom he had been 
 separated in the change of seats, passed him on her way out. 
 
 She said, in passing, " I'm always at home on Wednesdays, 
 Mr. Johns, at 60 Grosvenor Place." 
 
 He replied, with a low bow, " Not another week shall pass 
 then, before I give myself the pleasure of a visit." 
 
 He spent a few more minutes speaking to a young man, 
 whom he did not know, about the change of government. 
 Then he left w^ith his friend St. George, promising Lord 
 Stanfield that he would come again, since he was good enough 
 to ask him. 
 
 When they reached the street, St. George enquired, " What 
 do you think of them ? " 
 
 Johns answered, "A remarkably nice family; I'm much 
 obliged to you, St. George, for introducing me." 
 
140 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 St. George said, " They're inclined to be rather sleepy, and I 
 think you woke them up." 
 
 " I didn't say too much, did I ? " 
 
 " No, not a bit, although at one time I was getting rather 
 fidgety." 
 
 " Yes, of course, because of Shelley's anarchy ; but I made 
 up for that, I hope. By the way, who is Mrs. Humphreys ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Humphreys is the widow of a Mr. Humphreys, which 
 Mr. Humphreys was a wealthy man, who left his widow some- 
 thing like six or seven thousand a year in consols, besides a 
 house in Grosvenor Place." 
 
 " Oh indeed," Johns said, much more impressed than he 
 cared to let his companion see, "and is she a friend of yours?" 
 
 *' Not exactly that, but I go to see her now and then." 
 
 "That means, I suppose, that you've no desire to take 
 the place of the late Mr. Humphreys?" 
 
 " None whatever. Fifty if she's a day. No, my boy, I 
 want something fresher, and thirty years less ancient. 
 
 "Yes," said Johns, "all that is very nice — when one can 
 afford it." 
 
 Then, to change the subject, he continued, "And what is 
 it that Lord Stanfield has a share in?" 
 
 " He's the principal owner of the Centenary Review. ^^ 
 
 "Oh," said Johns, reflectively, "influential in every way." 
 
 "Yes, very. You won't regret your visit." 
 
 Johns answered, "I should say not." 
 
 They had reached Hyde Park Corner. The sun was 
 setting over the Roman arch, tinting the wall of the hospital 
 with a soft shade and reflecting its fire in the window- 
 panes, while some pure white clouds were floating calmly 
 over the great park. 
 
 St. George said, " I must leave you now, as I've got to call 
 on a friend at the Bachelors', but remember, you're coming to 
 my rooms to-night at ten. I've my little actress and her sister 
 coming in to supper. We shall be only four." 
 
 " Is the sister nice ?" 
 
 " You shall see. I promise you you'll not be disappointed." 
 
 "Then I'll come, St. George," and upon this they parted. 
 
 Johns walked down Piccadilly slowly. He was in a some- 
 what uncertain frame of mind, for he was asking himself whether 
 he had made a good impression at the Stanfields. Those big 
 people were so reserved, so enigmatic, that one could not read 
 them as easily as others. And yet he thought he had made 
 the most of the opportunity, and it was a fine thing to have 
 gained admittance into that set — a fine thing indeed. For, after 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 141 
 
 all, these were the people who ruled England, who held all that 
 was worth having in their hands, whose influence was in reality 
 as great now as ever it was, although their titles were but 
 nominal. As if anything ever really changed in England i 
 Never ! And it was evident that a man had much to gain by 
 frequenting such favoured people. Already he felt himself a 
 degree higher in the social scale than he had the day before, 
 now that he numbered a peer among his friends. And when 
 one thought that democrats in England were only too delighted, 
 as a rule, to be hoisted to a title ! Down with the House of 
 Lords, they cried, and they wanted to be Lords themselves. 
 Of course, and quite right too. It was necessary to have a 
 higher caste than the mere peddling middle classes. It was 
 necessary there should be a set of men who were held to be the 
 flower of the race, the " cream," as the French had it, the pick 
 of its men and women. And whether it was necessary or not, 
 these Lords existed, and that was enough for him. 
 
 And what about this widow, with her house and consols, her 
 girlish manner, her little waist and ample bust ? Surely she, too, 
 was somebody worth knowing. A woman who moved in such 
 society as that, was not the widow of a soap boiler. No, 
 evidently she belonged to the authentic aristocracy, the real 
 aristocracy, that into which he had so much wished of late to 
 enter — a very different sort from that represented by the 
 Dawsons and the Parkers. Faugh, the Parkers ! What if they 
 did live in a big house ; they could only get a few rough politi- 
 cians like Parker himself to come to it. And the Dawsons 
 too ! Was not Dawson an old grocer who had wanted to rise 
 a peg by owning his own newspaper ? What a set of nobodies ! 
 Perhaps some day he'd be able to do without them. 
 
 And as he walked along he continued to speculate upon the 
 possible usefulness of the people he had met that afternoon, 
 letting his imagination take him into ambitious places. How 
 full of opportunities London seemed that evening in the fading 
 light ! How alert and pleasant was the aspect of the streets, 
 how gay the traffic gliding through this thoroughfare of opulence, 
 with its tasteful shops and its palatial clubs ! How admirably 
 it was all arranged for a man who could help himself! There 
 were so many fools who couldn't, who thought and toiled and 
 yet were never ready at the proper time, who were obliged to 
 eat the bread of poverty. By God, he'd eaten that bread once, 
 and its taste remained in his mouth still. There should be no 
 more of tkat for him if he could help it. 
 
 Three days afterwards, upon the Wednesday, Johns, scrupu- 
 lously shaved, and wearing an immaculate frock coat, with a 
 
142 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 flower in the button-hole, knocked at the door of Mrs. 
 Humphreys' house in Grosvenor Place at five o'clock. He 
 was not doubtful as to the reception which awaited him. The 
 invitation the widow had given him was too cordial for there 
 to be any chance of its being bad, and it was with an air of 
 calm assurance that he gave his name to the man who opened 
 the door to him. 
 
 "A fine house," he muttered to himself, as he mounted the 
 wide stone staircase and noticed the Corinthian pillars of red 
 marble on either side of the recess, and the high stately doors 
 of walnut wood, surmounted by deep mouldings serving as 
 pedestals for sculptured busts, "a monumental house." 
 
 St. George had given him some further information about 
 Mrs. Humphreys since the visit to Berkeley Square. His 
 friend had told him that she was a widow for the second time ; 
 that her last husband, the son of a large landowner, had died 
 two years previously, and that Society had had something to 
 say about the way in which Mrs. Humphreys had observed 
 the marriage vow. There was a story of a certain captain, and 
 another of a foreign count, for whom she was said to have been 
 by no means adamantine, and there were other little anecdotes 
 of less importance, which St. George had said he had forgotten. 
 One thing was certain, she was left exceedingly well off. She 
 was also without children. 
 
 Johns had expected to find a drawing-room filled with 
 visitors, and he was somewhat surprised when he saw that Mrs. 
 Humphreys was alone. 
 
 Almost hidden in the corner of a couch, near the high French 
 window in a spacious room which was a model of harmonious 
 elegance — a room suggestive of warmth, well-being, comfort — 
 the fair-haired widow was seated reading. She wore a thin 
 black muslin dress (although the weather scarcely seemed to 
 warrant it) which was simply made and gathered round the 
 waist by a silk band. The only jewelry she wore, besides 
 a diamond ring, was a pearl-headed pin, which was passed 
 through the knot of her hair. 
 
 " How good of you to come to-day," she said as Johns 
 advanced towards her. " Very few of my friends know that I'm 
 back in town, and I've only had two visitors this afternoon." 
 
 Taking the exceedingly white hand she held out to him in 
 his, Johns said, " I'm delighted to have come so opportunely, 
 Mrs. Humphreys, and all the more delighted to find you quite 
 alone, because it affords me a better chance of making myself 
 known to you. Had I come when you were surrounded by 
 your friends, I would have been one among a number, and I 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 143 
 
 should have had to be content with only speaking to you for a 
 few moments. But that would not have pleased me. For do 
 you know, dear Mrs. Humphreys, that when we met the other 
 day, I had a quick presentiment that we should soon become 
 acquainted, that we should soon perhaps be — may I say it ? — 
 friends. For I have always realized that there are natures with 
 whom I have immediate sympathy, faces that interest me, that 
 attract me at first sight, and need I say that when I saw you 
 this phenomenon occurred?" 
 
 " Really?" she answered, with a smile of pleasure, " it's kind 
 of you to say so, and I must confess, on my part, that when I 
 heard you were Mr. Johns the editor, I also felt I should like to 
 know you." 
 
 Johns looked grave. 
 
 " Only because I was Mr. Johns the editor?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, no," she explained, with a little laugh which exposed 
 a row of wrinkles, " perhaps not on that account alone." 
 
 " Ah, I trust not ! " 
 
 " But you really do ask curious questions." 
 
 " Prompted, I assure you, by a sincere motive." 
 
 " Mr. Johns, I've been told that you're a great flatterer. Is 
 it true?" 
 
 " No, it is certainly not. I never flatter unless I can admire. 
 Then it's no longer flattery." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys smiled again without replying, and Johns 
 thought, "She can't talk much at anyrate." 
 
 Presently he continued, " Ah, Mrs. Humphreys, if you only 
 knew," and then he paused a moment, for he had brought out 
 this phrase, which had stood him in good stead before, without 
 having decided what was to follow after. 
 
 " If you only knew," he pursued, "how gladly I came here 
 this afternoon, knowing that I would meet sympathy ! As I 
 told our friend St. George, if I had forty papers to attend to, 
 that would not prevent me keeping my promise not to let a 
 week pass by before I came to see you." 
 
 And then, feeling that he was perhaps carrying the sympathy 
 motive too far, he said, " What a charming house you live in, 
 and what perfect taste the arrangement of this drawing-room 
 shows ! There are some people who are born with the instinct 
 for the beautiful ! They embellish everything they touch ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid," she said, " that a great deal of the credit is 
 due to the decorator. I only gave a few directions — ^just a few, 
 you know." 
 
 "Ah, but it is just those few that give the cachet^ as the 
 French say, to the whole room. That magnificent rich piano- 
 
144 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 covering, with its delicate gold-embroidery contrasting so finely 
 with its crimson velvet ! It was not the decorator who chose that 
 chaste design. No, Mrs. Humphreys, it was the owner's taste ! " 
 
 " Really, Mr. Johns, you will soon make me believe that I'm 
 a born artist." 
 
 " You would be believing nothing but the truth." 
 
 She gave a little ringing laugh which sounded too young 
 for her. 
 
 But Johns, noticing an indifferent piece of work which 
 seemed hardly in keeping with the remainder of the furniture, 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " And that beautiful tapestry over yonder against the wall, 
 you will not tell me that that was chosen by a decorator ! " 
 
 "Oh that,''' she said, "I worked myself when I was quite a 
 little girl." 
 
 " You did ? You really did ? Marvellous ! It's the finest 
 piece I have seen for years. The colours are blended with 
 the greatest skill, the execution's admirable. I have never seen 
 Mary Stuart look more queenly. It's truly a work of art." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys could only murmur, "Really, Mr. Johns !" 
 though she was evidently pleased. 
 
 "Ah," he said, "you love art! You have that aspiration 
 towards art which gives zest to life and lifts us out of the 
 banality of things. You have travelled and compared. The 
 art treasures of the world have no secrets for you, and if I am 
 not mistaken, those lovely glasses on that little Louis XVL 
 table are from the land of Dante." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys hesitated, looking somewhat puzzled. 
 
 "Yes," she said at length, "I think we did buy them at 
 Madrid — or somewhere like that, you know." 
 
 Johns with difficulty suppressed a smile. He made a 
 mental note — "Art and literature, blanks." 
 
 Then he attacked other subjects — their mutual friends the 
 Stanfields, and St. George — finding, as he suspected, that on 
 those subjects, as well as on the general doings of society, Mrs. 
 Humphreys had a store of knowledge which she imparted in 
 the easy, discreet tone of a woman of the world. Whether her 
 education in her youth had been neglected, or she had little 
 aptitude for learning, Johns did not know, but he was 
 nevertheless quite sure, both from the way she spoke and 
 from a certain something in her manners, that she had always 
 moved in the best circles. 
 
 She said presently, "I met Lord Stanfield yesterday in 
 Bond Street, and he spoke of you. I fancy he thinks highly 
 of you. He said you were likely to make a mark." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 145 
 
 " It's very kind of him," said Johns, " and I've quite made 
 up my mind to try." 
 
 She continued, "Only if I might ask a question, why are 
 you editor of one of those papers that — well, that no one 
 sees ? " 
 
 This time Johns smiled openly. 
 
 " It isn't given to every one, Mrs. Humphreys, to choose his 
 lot in life. When I came over from Australia, that was what 
 fell to me, and I couldn't consult my tastes." 
 
 The widow almost seemed surprised, but after a moment's 
 reflection she said, "No, I suppose one can't very well in those 
 cases, but of course you won't remain for ever at the — the " 
 
 "The Planet,'' Johns interposed. 
 
 " Pardon me, I could not recollect the name." 
 
 " One cannot see into one's own fate," he said. 
 
 With something like a sigh she answered, "Ah, no, one 
 cannot ! No one knows that so well as I," and there was a 
 pause which Johns thought it better not to interrupt. Possibly 
 she was trying to think of the late Mr. Humphreys. 
 
 The pause was interrupted by the entrance of a servant with 
 a tea tray. Mrs. Humphreys poured Johns out a cup of 
 fragrant tea in a chaste Sevres cup. After he had taken a few 
 sips, feeling stimulated, he recommenced — 
 
 " I once knew a man who said he could control his fate, and 
 how do you think he tried to do it ? " 
 
 " Really, I have no idea." 
 
 " By simply doing the opposite of what he wished to do. If 
 he felt inclined to take a walk, he stopped at home; if he 
 wanted to stay in, he took a walk ; if he wanted to smoke, he 
 didn't; if he didn't want to smoke, he did, and so on — 
 contradicting all his tastes. Only the worst of it was, when he 
 didn't want to die — he did." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys laughed. 
 
 "Well, now, I," continued Johns, "don't believe that fate 
 can be controlled, and I am perfectly convinced that I was 
 predestined to meet you, Mrs. Humphreys; I am perfectly 
 convinced that I made the acquaintance of St. George and 
 that he took me to Berkeley Square the other afternoon, all 
 because it was arranged by fate. Nothing will take that little 
 superstition from me." 
 
 " Well, really, Mr. Johns, perhaps it was. We have already 
 made so much progress in our acquaintance that it does seem 
 as if we were meant to meet. I have always liked to know 
 people like you who direct papers. The Press is such a 
 power ! " 
 
 L 
 
146 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 Johns thought, "Where did she pick that phrase up, I 
 wonder?" and he said with gravity, "Yes, Mrs. Humphreys, 
 journahsm can be made to lead a long way, a very long 
 way, indeed, but it's a life of many worries." 
 
 Then, putting down the tea cup, and suddenly bending 
 forward in his chair as if he were moved by an earnest thought, 
 he said, " Mrs. Humphreys, I've known you only a little while, 
 and yet I feel extraordinarily tempted to ask a favour of you." 
 
 " Please do, I'm sure I shall be delighted." 
 
 " Will you let me come and see you sometimes when you're 
 not surrounded by your friends, just like to-day, so that I may 
 have something to look forward to in the struggle of the week, 
 so that I may be able to tell myself that at least one hour of it 
 will be free from worry, will be full of charm ? " 
 
 "Oh," she said, smiling, "if that's all you ask, it's easily 
 granted. The only little difficulty is that my friends, as soon 
 as they know I'm in town, so seldom let me have an hour to 
 myself." 
 
 " Ah ! you are such a favourite ! " 
 
 " But still if you will come and lunch with me sometimes, 
 there will be no one then but my companion. Miss Sinclair, 
 who is spending two days in the country. For you know I 
 must have her by me: you're such a dangerous man, I'm 
 told." 
 
 "No, no, not dangerous, and thank you infinitely. Yes, I 
 will come to lunch with all the pleasure in the world. How 
 I shall look forward to those days ! " 
 
 " Don't thank me, but come on Saturday." 
 
 "On Saturday!" 
 
 So it was arranged, and Johns shortly afterwards withdrew. 
 
 As he walked home he said to himself, " They're all alike, 
 those women. That one has quite enough experience of life 
 to know that I was talking rot^ and yet she liked it hugely. 
 Yes, they're all the same. The most sagacious of them is 
 delighted by a comphment, and the silliest goes simply into 
 ecstacy. By God ! though, seven thousand pounds a year, 
 and only such a head to manage it ! It isn't right. Some 
 
 body's wanted to put order there. I wonder if . Why 
 
 not ? " and he sauntered through the Green Park homewards, 
 indulging in a golden dream. 
 
CHAPTER 
 TENTH 
 
 AS the summer progressed, Johns's popularity among his 
 new friends rapidly increased. His little stories, which 
 he had endeavoured to make humorous, knowing that humour 
 is always popular, had iDeen pronounced inimitable. He had 
 varied them with trite sayings and peculiar epigrams, which 
 were soon repeated from house to house as examples of a novel 
 kind of wit. 
 
 At the Stanfields he had become a frequent visitor, and by 
 dint of perseverance he had succeeded in overcoming the 
 frigidity of even Lady Stanfield. But what gave him the 
 greatest satisfaction, the most pleasant feeling of security, was 
 the advances he had made in the good graces of Mrs. 
 Humphreys, who received him now as an old acquaintance. 
 It was true that she continued to disapprove of the Evening 
 Planet, as she called it, and had asked him questions about 
 his family which he had found it difl&cult to answer, but he 
 believed so strongly in the power of human nature to conquer 
 prejudice that he still nourished certain hopes which he con- 
 fessed to no one, but which grew stronger as the days went by. 
 
 Unfortunately for their realization, two women somewhat 
 blocked the way. Mrs. Weber was growing difficult to quiet. 
 It was useless now for him to tell her that they must wait until 
 the paper had outstripped its rivals; she knew from Parker that 
 it was flourishing, and that Dawson had increased Johns's 
 salary, declaring that he was simply indispensable. And some- 
 times, when she was particularly bitter and reproached him 
 with not keeping his promise to her, he would be on the point 
 of telling her that he didn't intend to listen any longer to her 
 lamentations. But always that seductive beauty, which he had 
 not yet seen equalled, even in the circles he now moved in, 
 
148 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 restrained him. Twice when she had wished to make a scene 
 while he was with her, he had left the house suddenly without 
 a word, and each time he had received a letter the next 
 morning imploring pardon and promising reform. He had 
 irritated her by refusing to introduce her to the Stanfields, on 
 the plea that as a bachelor he could not do so, and by always 
 objecting to her coming to see him in his rooms. She was 
 nervous and excitable, tender and irritable in turns, and her 
 thoughts, he knew, were always centred in the marriage 
 question. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson, although more reasonable and resigned to 
 seeing him only once a fortnight, since he had said his work 
 prevented him from devoting more time to her, was so hope- 
 lessly engrossed in her passion for him that he was almost 
 inclined to feel some little pity for her when she gazed into his 
 eyes or nestled like a child in his arms, with the infatuation of 
 a woman in love for the first time. And even on the days 
 when he found her tiresome and burdensome, he could not 
 help admitting that she possessed a certain naiveness in her 
 love which was not without its charm. Besides, she never 
 worried him like Mrs. Weber. 
 
 There were days, however, when both his mistresses annoyed 
 and wearied him ; days when he wanted to think of his own 
 plans which he could not mention to them, and when he 
 merely saw in them the means of a passing gratification ; days 
 when he wished, as soon as he was no longer with them, that 
 they might each fall in love with other men, who would take 
 them off his hands. Why couldn't they see that all irregular 
 love affairs are doomed to fizzle out ? How dense these women 
 were! 
 
 One afternoon in June, however, an event occurred which 
 brought matters to a crisis. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson had been spending an hour with him in his 
 rooms in Jermyn Street. While she was putting on her gloves 
 to leave, she paused to look at him admiringly, as he sat 
 languidly in his arm-chair, sending puffs of smoke from his 
 cigar upwards to the ceiling. 
 
 "Ah, Johnnie," she said, " you will never know how much I 
 love you." 
 
 " Well," he answered, ill-humouredly, without looking at her> 
 " I ought to know it, you tell me often enough." 
 
 She stopped in the act of buttoning her glove, and her 
 expression changed. 
 
 "Oh, how unkind that sounds !" 
 
 " You think everything one says unkind." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 149 
 
 She said, drawing nearer, "You are worried to-day about 
 something — is that why you seem so cold ?" 
 
 " Perhaps it is. I've more worries than you think." 
 
 "Why not tell me? You know my husband would do 
 anything for you now." 
 
 " I should rather think he would, after I've stuck his paper 
 on its legs again; but I don't trouble much about him now, I 
 can tell you. He has to trouble about me. I should be 
 curious to know," he added, glancing at Mrs. Dawson side- 
 ways, " what he would say if he happened to appear at the 
 present moment." 
 
 But she shook her head and answered, " Don't let us talk of 
 that. It's too dreadful." 
 
 " It isn't so impossible either. He came here one evening 
 last week to see me — the old fool." 
 
 " Oh, John, please don't speak of him like that. I never 
 loved him, never; but I can't forget that he married me without 
 a penny." 
 
 Johns thought, "And this is the way you show your 
 gratitude ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid, John," she continued, " that those new people 
 you have met have made you think less of us than you did 
 before." 
 
 In spite of the mildness of the reproach, and the timid 
 way in which it was made, Johns was vexed. In his irritable 
 state of mind he construed this into a reflection upon his 
 origin. 
 
 " Why not say at once," he said, sharply, " that you think 
 I'm snobbish." 
 
 "No, John, I didn't mean that. You know I didn't." 
 
 " It sounded like it." 
 
 She could only sigh, " How unkind you are to-day!" 
 
 But he was anxious to get rid of her, and, instead of replying, 
 looked at the clock upon the mantel-piece. After all, she was 
 another man's wife, and therefore a dangerous person to be 
 discovered on the premises in a country where the divorce 
 laws were so stupid. He didn't want to spoil his chances by a 
 public scandal, the damaging effect of which he knew. It was 
 foolish of him to receive her there at all, and he made up his 
 mind at once that before their next meeting he would write and 
 tell her so. He had been acting with too much indecision, 
 with a great deal too much imprudence. All that must be 
 remedied — now that circumstances were changed. 
 
 After a few moments, as she did not move, he said, " I 
 should think you'd better be going home ; it's getting late." 
 
ISO THE ADVENTURES 
 
 But she still stood motionless, looking on the ground, and 
 slowly a tear trickled down her cheek. 
 
 He rose now, and, approaching her, took one of her gloved 
 hands in his. 
 
 "Come, Lucy," he said, in a voice that was rather softer, 
 " what is all this about } You know we must be prudent." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose we must," she said, sadly; "I suppose I 
 must go. Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye, Lucy, don't be upset. I'll write to you again 
 soon." 
 
 With a faint smile she left. 
 
 " Ouf," he said, as soon as the door was closed ; " she has 
 taken it in earnest ! " 
 
 He took a cigar from an open box upon the table, and was 
 in the act of lighting it before sitting down to think over the 
 situation, when the door was suddenly burst open, and Mrs. 
 Weber, flushed and excited, rushed into the room. 
 
 Placing herself before him defiantly, her eyes flashing as he 
 had never seen them flash before, she began — 
 
 ^^ Now I understand your hesitation, you treacherous little 
 cad ! You wanted to wait until the paper had done this, until 
 the paper had done that. You thought it better to be prudent; 
 it wasn't the right month, and a hundred other lies. And all 
 the time you had been stealing the wife of your own master. 
 Oh, you little wretch, you dirty little wretch ! " 
 
 Johns, who had turned pale, summoned all the dignity he 
 could command. 
 
 " I don't understand you. What do you mean ? " 
 
 Stamping her foot, she said, " You're not going to deny, I 
 should imagine. It would be too feeble of you, since I've 
 seen with my own eyes." 
 
 "Seen what?" 
 
 " Seen Lucy Dawson go away from here only a minute 
 ago. I didn't think it possible you could have been such 
 a sneak." 
 
 Johns was silent for a moment, counting up the issues. Then, 
 when he had made up his mind as to the attitude he should 
 adopt, he quietly struck another match and went on lighting 
 his cigar. 
 
 Exasperated by his silence and this indifference, she almost 
 shrieked — 
 
 " Well, have you become dumb as well ? '* 
 
 He answered, "Of your abuse I take no notice; you may 
 think just what you please." 
 
 " Ha, you can't deny it ! you can't deny it ! To think that 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 151 
 
 I took pity on you when you were only a bit of a reporter, and 
 did for you what no other woman would, and " 
 
 She paused a moment to reflect, and then, as if struck by a 
 sudden thought, began again — " Oh, I see it all now. Long 
 ago, when you were half-starving, when I spoke to her of you, 
 she got confused, and would say nothing. No, because she 
 was coming to these rooms to visit you, and all the time 
 you were paying for them with my money ! Oh you — you 
 hypocrite ! " 
 
 Johns had winced several times under the violence of the 
 abuse, but maintaining, with an effort, his calm demeanour, he 
 replied, " If it's the poor little fifty pounds that you're alluding 
 to, my fine Ellen, I'll give you a cheque at once." 
 
 " I don't want your money, I won't touch it. You needn't 
 think you're going to get off like that. I warned you once that 
 if you deceived me, you'd repent it, and I intend to keep 
 my word. Dawson shall know the kind of editor he has 
 to-raoiTOw." 
 
 But this time he was roused. " You'd better not," he said, 
 " and if you'll wait a moment, I'll tell you why." 
 
 Saying this, he crossed the room to a secretaire which stood 
 in the window, and unlocked one of its drawers by means of a 
 key which he drew from his pocket. Then he took from it a 
 piece of paper, which he unfolded. 
 
 "On the 15th, 19th, 2 1 St, 25th, and 31st of August," he 
 said, glancing at the paper, " Parker was with you at Maiden- 
 head under circumstances which it's needless for me to mention. 
 From September of last year to the present time he has been 
 a frequent visitor at Carsdale Mansions — never on Wednesdays 
 — and at certain times he has stayed till the next morning. The 
 dates are all carefully noted on this piece of paper, and I think 
 it's useless to make any remark about it ; only remember — that 
 when I'm threatened, I know how to defend myself." 
 
 She remained speechless with astonishment, glancing alter- 
 nately at Johns and at the paper he was holding in his hand. 
 
 " Oh," she said at length, " you've even been mean enough to 
 have me watched." 
 
 " So you see," he continued, quietly folding up the slip and 
 putting it in his pocket, " we can both denounce." 
 
 " You've no proof," slie said. 
 
 *' I've more than you," he answered, and for a few minutes 
 they stood facing each other without speaking. 
 
 "After all," she continued presently, "what do I care? 
 I've less to lose than you, and whatever you choose to do won't 
 prevent me from acting as I please." 
 
152 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " Very well, we shall see who gets the best of it." 
 
 But as she stood before him in her defiant attitude, her eyes 
 flashing, it seemed to him that she had never looked so hand- 
 some, and he advanced towards her and seized her arm. Then, 
 drawing her towards him before she could resist, he said 
 roughly — 
 
 " That's enough of that cursed nonsense. You know per- 
 fectly well we want each other ! " 
 
 " Don't be brutal," she said, holding herself away from him. 
 " Will you keep your promise ? Yes or no ? " 
 
 Before answering, he looked into her face, and his peering 
 eyes met hers in a gaze of mingled passion and defiance. 
 Then, in a firm tone, he answered " No ! I won't." 
 
 " Ah," she said, after a deep breath, " now you come out in 
 your true colours. You refuse now, not because of Parker — 
 what would he matter if you thought it to your interest to marry 
 me ? — but because you think that, now you've got in with those 
 big people, you can do better. Oh, you little cad! " 
 
 "You'd better not irritate me," he said, beginning to lose 
 patience, and stung by the reiteration of the word cad. 
 
 " Let go my arm, you brute ! " 
 
 He released his hold, but with a push which sent her violently 
 backwards. 
 
 " That's right," she said, defying him ; ** it's just what one 
 might expect from a man of your origin. As if I didn't know 
 that you were the son of an old fisherman. I've my sources of 
 information, too." 
 
 " By God," said Johns, thoroughly roused this time, " if you 
 don't stop I'll, I'll " 
 
 He faltered in the middle of his sentence, for his indignation 
 was so great that it confused his thoughts. 
 
 ** What will you do ? " she asked, sneeringly; " I'm not afraid 
 of you, you Guernseyman." 
 
 Johns, for reasons which he could scarcely have defined, had 
 a particular dislike to be called a Guernseyman, and this last 
 insult added gall to wormwood. 
 
 "What will I do?" he repeated; "I'll , by God, I'll put 
 
 you out of here." 
 
 " You'd better wait till I go of my own free will, which won't 
 be long, unless you want to make a scandal on the landing." 
 
 " What are you waiting for ? " he muttered. 
 
 " To take a last look at an adventurer such as one doesn't 
 often meet." 
 
 He sprang upon her, and, seizing her by the waist, dragged her 
 to the sofa, and there they struggled with each other for a few 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 153 
 
 moments, he, in a fit of exasperation, trying to force her into 
 subjection, she battUng against him with strength he had never 
 known her to possess. At length, seeing a heavy paper-knife 
 which was lying on the sofa, she seized it before he could 
 prevent her and struck him heavily across the face. Then, as 
 he released his hold, she sprang to her feet, and in another 
 instant she was gone. 
 
 Johns, half-stunned at first by the blow he had received, and 
 suffering pain from a contusion of his left eye, rose muttering 
 an oath and went up to the glass. A round, red mark showed 
 the place upon the high cheek-bone where the handle of the 
 paper-knife had struck, and his eye, which he could only open 
 with some difficulty, was inflamed and infused with blood. 
 
 " Curse her," he said, " she's bruised me for a week ! " 
 
 As he was smarting with pain, he rang the bell, and presently 
 the valet came. 
 
 " Edward," he said, " I've fallen on that damned fender. Go 
 and get me something for a bruised eye." 
 
 ** Yes, sir," the man said, and vanished. 
 
 While he was gone, Johns, holding his handkerchief to his 
 face, indulged in his reflections. What a devil she had shown 
 herself as she stood there taunting him ! How her eyes had 
 flashed with fire as she had called him every name she could 
 invent ! Yes, she was a woman of the kind he liked, and yet 
 henceforth she was going to be an enemy — curse her! For 
 there was no doubt about it, she was quite capable of carrying out 
 her threat. In fact, there were nine chances to one she would. 
 She had been smart enough to see that the consequences would 
 fall heavier on him than they would on her in case of an 
 exposure. He was quite alive to the danger of the situation, 
 and he knew that his position was not yet so solidly established 
 that a scandal, particularly one of this character, might not 
 make the whole fabric tumble about his ears. Yes, he had got 
 into an awkward corner when he least expected to, and there 
 was no knowing how he was to get out. Although he had not 
 told her lately much of his affairs, still she knew enough of 
 them to do considerable harm. And the more he thought of 
 it, the more numerous the weak points in his position seemed, 
 and he began to call himself a fool for having delayed so long 
 in breaking with her. It would have been so easy to have got 
 up a quarrel about some trifle, and then refused to be propi- 
 tiated, while now he had stupidly exposed himself to danger. 
 Excited as he was by what had happened that afternoon, his 
 imagination got the better of his reason and magnified the 
 peril. Clearly he fancied he could see what was going to take 
 
154 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 place in the exact order of its happening. First, Dawson would 
 learn from Mrs. Weber his intimacy with his wife; then he 
 would lose his post of editor, finally a divorce suit would achieve 
 his ruin, materially and socially. And the fond dreams he had 
 been dreaming would vanish into thin air. Ah, that was a fine 
 ending to a career which had begun so brilliantly, to success 
 that had made all London talk ! A pretty chance he'd have of 
 beginning life again under such auspices ! There would be 
 little left for him to do but to go back to Australia and live 
 again upon his wits. How was it possible he had been such a 
 fool? As for Mrs. Dawson, whether she had seen her rival 
 coming up the stairs or not he did not know ; but he imagined 
 that one woman under such circumstances would scarcely fail 
 to see another. He felt quite sure that she would not be vin- 
 dictive; but who knew whether she might not, conscience- 
 struck, confess — as she had been on the point of doing once — 
 when questioned by her husband? Oh, it was a fine imbroglio ! 
 He was sick of his own stupidity. He sat in his arm-chair 
 thinking gloomily until the man returned with a lotion from 
 the chemist, with which he at once began to bath his eye and 
 his bruised cheek. 
 
 When he had finished doing this, he returned to the parlour. 
 Pouring himself out a glass of Kiimmel from the liqueur 
 stand on the sideboard, he drank it, and then sat down to 
 think. 
 
 Gradually now, as he felt a little calmer, his ideas began to 
 form themselves into plans of self-defence. Perhaps after all 
 things might not go so badly for him as he had thought at 
 first, and in any case, if she accused him, it would be very 
 difficult for her to furnish proof. He had never received Mrs. 
 Dawson anywhere but in his own rooms, and as he had given 
 her a key of the glass door on the ground floor (the front door 
 was always kept open), no one, he thought, not even the valet 
 of the place, had seen her — no one but Mrs. Weber, who, now 
 he came to think of it, must have had the door opened for her 
 by her rival as she was going out. It was thus they must have 
 met. 
 
 Well, the first thing to be done was to send her back her 
 money, and the next was to deny consistently, since so little 
 proof could be brought against him, unless it were in the form 
 of a few letters in ambiguous terms which he had been obliged 
 to write to Mrs. Dawson at different times. 
 
 Yes, that was the only course open to him to pursue if Mrs. 
 Weber carried out her threat, which, on the other hand, it was 
 just possible she might refrain from doing when she reflected 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 155 
 
 that she herself could not come out unscathed from any 
 exposure she might provoke. Having resolved upon this 
 course, he went to his desk, took a cheque-book from a drawer, 
 wrote out a cheque for ;!^5o to "self or bearer," and wrapped it 
 in a blank piece of paper. This he placed in an envelope 
 which he addressed to Mrs. Weber. Then he rang the bell 
 again, and when the valet came he gave the letter to him to 
 post, telling him that he would have dinner that evening in 
 his rooms, and that he was not at home for anyone. 
 
 The evening was the gloomiest he had passed since he had 
 been in Jermyn Street. In spite of himself he was tortured 
 by a sense of insecurity, by an acute feeling of uncertainty. 
 He could not read, for his eye still troubled him, and he sat in 
 his chair after dinner unable to take his thoughts from the one 
 question on which they were now centred — what was going to 
 happen on the morrow ? Tired of turning it over and over in 
 his mind, he went to bed shortly after ten. But to his surprise 
 he found that he could not sleep. It was the first time in his 
 life that any mishap of his had been able to keep him awake, 
 and he asked himself why it was so this time. He supposed 
 it was because he'd never before been playing for such high 
 stakes. Yes, that must be the reason. He hated suspense of 
 any kind, and it had a great effect upon his nerves. When the 
 morning came he jumped, out of bed and looked at himself in 
 the glass. The contusion round the cheek-bone was less 
 inflamed, and his eye was rather better. He was not quite 
 presentable, he knew, but still he thought that, even as he was, 
 he had better go to the office to defend himself if needful, on 
 the principle that the absent are always wrong. 
 
 He dressed slowly and carefully, and after he had taken a 
 cup of coifee and a roll, he left for the Strand on foot. It was 
 still early; the fresh morning air invigorated him and made 
 him feel that his old spirit of combativeness was coming back 
 to him. Nothing perhaps would happen that day; but if it 
 did, he was now prepared to face it. He didn't want to think 
 of the possibility of things going wrong. He would not think 
 of it. And with this resolve he took his seat in the editorial 
 chair and began his work, calling Maskelyne to help him and 
 issuing his orders to the whole staff unmercifully, giving each 
 at least three days' work to perform in as many hours. The 
 Conservative Report had dared to sneer at them the day before, 
 had it? Then Maskelyne was to write a paragraph which 
 would make the whole stafT of the rival paper smart and gnash 
 their teeth. And Maskelyne, who knew very well from past 
 experience that Johns would strike out the wrathful par from 
 
156 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 prudence before the paper went to press, smiled and began to 
 scribble something. Towards eleven Tarte came into Johns's 
 room with the face of an ambassador. His right hand resting 
 on the top button of his long frock coat in a Beaconsfieldian 
 attitude, his left placed upon the desk, he said, with his usual 
 calm precision, " Mr. Dawson asks if you will be kind enough 
 to step into his room." 
 
 Johns turned round quickly in his chair as though he had 
 been struck, and faced the old man so savagely that the 
 latter drew back a step, amazed. But Johns, after the first 
 impression which the words had caused, had suddenly turned 
 pale. He rose at once and said, " All right, I'm going." 
 
 Of late it had been Dawson's habit to come in to Johns's 
 room when he had anything to say. The change that day 
 evidently meant that Mrs. Weber had kept her word. 
 
 But from the moment he stepped into the room, he saw 
 that his apprehensions were unfounded. Dawson received 
 him as affably as usual, and requesting him to take a seat, 
 began — 
 
 " I've asked you to come in here because I had to speak to 
 you of something which is best mentioned where we are in 
 private." 
 
 Saying this, he drew from his pocket one of those envelopes 
 of a peculiar terra-cotta colour which are used to enclose 
 telegrams, and drew a message from it. 
 
 Unfolding the pink sheet, he handed it to Johns who read, 
 " Your wife is the mistress of your editor. This very day she 
 left his rooms in Jermyn Street at six. Well informed." 
 
 "I need scarcely tell you," continued Dawson, "that this 
 scandalous accusation took us by surprise. My wife, who is 
 so sensitive on these matters, has been greatly affected. The 
 mere thought that any aspersion should be put upon her 
 reputation has upset her terribly. The reason I have men- 
 tioned this disgusting slander to you is in order that you may 
 know that you have an enemy, as well as to give you an 
 opportunity of perhaps discovering the author." 
 
 Johns, who had begun to breathe again, exclaimed — 
 
 " It seems incredible that there should be such blackguards ! 
 I am very grateful to you, Mr. Dawson, for showing me this so 
 frankly. I have only a vague suspicion as to the author or 
 the authoress; but until I have found out, I prefer not to 
 mention names. It's the most odious piece of slander that 
 ever was invented, and I'm deeply sorry that Mrs. Dawson 
 should be so much disturbed. I hope that you will tell her 
 that it should be treated as beneath contempt, and that if I 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 157 
 
 am successful in discovering the perpetrator, he or she shall 
 be punished." 
 
 "I thank you," said Dawson; "I have already told her 
 that she must not trouble herself; but, of course, sensitive as 
 she is, it affects her greatly." 
 
 Johns thought, "It must," and said, "Yes, no doubt, and 
 I hope you will tell her how much I sympathize with her, and 
 how much I regret the incident." 
 
 "I won't fail to do so," Dawson answered, "and now, let's 
 talk no more about the wretched thing." 
 
 Then, noticing suddenly the mark on Johns's cheek, he asked, 
 " But what's the matter with your face ? " 
 
 Johns answered, " A stupid fall I had yesterday afternoon in 
 Berkeley Square. Just as I was going to make a call I slipped 
 on the pavement and fell upon the door-step. But it's nothing 
 — a mere bruise." 
 
 Dawson's curiosity being satisfied, he said no more, and 
 Johns, declaring that he was very busy, went back to his own 
 room. 
 
 He was delighted at the turn things had taken, and amused 
 at the credulity of the proprietor. 
 
 " Ha, my fine Ellen," he chuckled, " your telegram wasn't of 
 much good. If you don't do better than that, you're not 
 dangerous." 
 
 As long, he thought, as Mrs. Dawson was only " upset," as 
 her husband called it, and didn't let her feelings get the better 
 of her discretion, there was nothing lost. In fact, since the 
 husband refused to listen, like the silly man he was, everything 
 was for the best, and Johns indulged in reflections which were 
 scarcely flattering to the intelligence of Dawson. 
 
 When he returned that evening, a letter was awaiting him. 
 It was from Mrs. Dawson, and it began — 
 
 "Dear John." 
 
 " Oh," he thought, " if she begins like that it's all right." 
 
 " I cannot express the fearful trouble which has come upon 
 me since I left you yesterday. I am so heart-broken that I 
 can scarcely write. There is no need for me to tell you what 
 has happened. You will have known it from her and from my 
 husband. It was cruel to deceive me so ! I, who trusted you 
 implicitly, and who loved you as no woman ever loved before, 
 I who would have shielded you from harm ! How could I 
 have ever thought that you would have been so faithless! 
 Even now I can scarcely realize that you have been (perhaps 
 for many months) deceiving me with my best friend ! If you 
 had seen the look she gave me as she opened the door, and 
 
158 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 heard the tone in which she asked me what I was doing there ! 
 I knew at once that she was going to see you, and when that 
 telegram was brought, I knew her jealousy had made her send 
 it. And I was forced to lie and act a part when my husband 
 handed it to me across the table. I was certain then that 
 you had been false to me, and the tears came into my eyes 
 as he said it was a shameful slander, while I knew that it was 
 true ! Oh, how I wish that it were not ! 
 
 "And now the past cannot be undone, and what has happened 
 has quelled the love I had for you, and made me one of the 
 most unfortunate of women. For I am unable to forget you, 
 although everything is at an end between us. To deceive 
 my husband pained me as you always knew, but to be 
 deceived by the man I loved was terrible. Ah, if I could 
 have foreseen all this that day when I was weak enough to 
 come to see you in your rooms, and when you swore you 
 would be true ! but it is the fate of us women to trust, to 
 love, and then to suffer. Good-bye, John, may you never 
 make another woman so wretched as you have made your 
 once loving Lucy." 
 
 "Your once loving Lucy," he repeated, slowly and 
 approvingly, made rather serious by the tenour of the letter. 
 " She's taken it exactly as I thought. Good little Lucy 
 after all." 
 
 Had it been possible to dive into his thoughts at that moment, 
 a curious medley would have been seen of satisfaction and 
 assuaged fear, alternating with a few twinges of remorse, which 
 assumed the shape of a vague feeling of discomfort. But the 
 main thought which filled his mind was that the sky was clear 
 again apparently, and that he could continue his career. That 
 thought filled him with a calm sense of alleviation, and the 
 same evening he dined pleasantly with St. George at a new 
 restaurant in Regent Street. 
 
 The morning after this, as his eye was better and the round 
 mark on his face had almost disappeared, he resolved to take 
 a step which he had been contemplating for the last three 
 months. 
 
 Towards five o'clock, accordingly, he left the Strand in a 
 hansom for Grosvenor Place, where Mrs. Humphreys was 
 expecting him. It was a fine summer's afternoon, and, as the 
 air was clear, the London streets were looking as well as the 
 disfigurement of their huge advertisements permitted. In 
 passing the National Gallery, sombre in its besmeared grandeur, 
 he saw a girl with a fresh and pretty face coming down the 
 steps. And suddenly the sight caused him a sharp pang of 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 159 
 
 envious regret. For Johns, like most men, had dreamed of an 
 alliance some day with youth and candour, while now — well, 
 he must take things as he found them, and make the best of 
 his opportunities. 
 
 As he approached the house he thought of the baronet who 
 was so assiduous in his attentions to the widow, and who had 
 been a formidable thorn in his side throughout his acquaintance 
 with Mrs. Humphreys. The baronet, he knew, had been 
 ruined on the turf, and was past middle age, but belonged to 
 a family which had been founded during the crusades, and 
 Johns thought that, notwithstanding the widow's evident 
 inclination for him, this baronet was still a rival against whom 
 he must be on his guard. Whenever they had met at the 
 house together, there had been passages of arms between them, 
 in which Johns, more ready with his tongue, had generally 
 been the victor. Undoubtedly the favour of the lady was on 
 his side, on the side of his youth and dash, but then there was 
 his origin, which he always felt had been an obstacle. No 
 matter, men were strong and women weak. There were few 
 exceptions to that rule, and certainly Mrs. Humphreys had 
 never seemed to be one of them. It was, perhaps, after all, 
 like so many other things, a question of pure will, and he 
 intended to use his power of willing to the utmost. 
 
 Thinking thus, he reached the house. 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys received him in a little boudoir on the 
 ground floor, the walls and ceiling of which were lined with a 
 dark crimson cloth, festooned — the red shade predominating 
 throughout the room, as if the widow had thought a red 
 background the most suited to her complexion. 
 
 " You see," she said, with a coquettish air, " how good I am ; 
 I've given up a concert simply because you said in your letter 
 you wanted so much to see me." 
 
 He answered, in a voice full of restrained emotion, " An 
 angel is not better ! " 
 
 " And now," she continued, " I hope you have something 
 very interesting to tell me." 
 
 He said, " I have something on which the whole of my 
 future life depends." 
 
 " Indeed," she said, moving a little, " what is it ? " 
 
 He rose from the chair which he had taken on his entrance, 
 and quickly, with a nimbleness which experience had taught 
 him, took another and placed it at the side of hers. 
 
 "Can you not guess?" he asked. "Have you not been 
 conscious that ever since the day when we made a pact of 
 friendship there has grown between us a feeling which is some- 
 
i6o THE ADVENTURES 
 
 thing more, something greater than mere friendship. You 
 remember how it happened that we met, and that immediately 
 we both experienced one of those magnetic sympathies which 
 are sometimes felt by two persons thrown together in the race 
 of life. Ah, that day when we first met ! I have thought of it 
 so often since, so often ! And what has happened ? Oh, let 
 me tell you. I have become conscious of a deep conviction that 
 I have never met a woman who embodied so supremely the 
 qualities of charm and grace which we men prize. You, 
 Mrs. Humphreys — ah, why may I not call you Rose ? — have 
 fascinated, have impressed me so completely, that I am unable 
 now to find pleasure in the society of other women. You 
 have shown me that there is one woman in the world who 
 can make me feel that it is good to live, that there is joy 
 and satisfaction in existence." 
 
 He moved a little closer to her, and murmured almost in her 
 ear, " I fancy I detect in the expression of that pure Greek 
 face a lovely sign of reciprocity. Ah, Rose — I must, I will call 
 you Rose — as the divine Shakespeare says, ivhat love can do, 
 that dares love attempt, and what I dare attempt is to ask you 
 if you will be my wife." 
 
 She looked away from him with the air of a maiden whose 
 hand is sought for the first time, and, as she did not answer, 
 he continued — 
 
 " You are silent ; you are perhaps weighing me in the balance 
 with another ; but let me tell you. Rose, that there is no other 
 man among your friends who is so worthy of you, who would 
 be so devoted to you as I. I am something better than a 
 ruined baronet, for I am an actor on the world's stage, and my 
 present avocation is only a stepping-stone to something higher. 
 A baronet, indeed ! / am on the path which leads much 
 farther. /, only, can make you as happy as you deserve to be. 
 Rose, do not keep me in suspense ! Tell me if I am to be 
 your husband ! " 
 
 She answered, " But are you not afraid that I am perhaps 
 not quite — that you are perhaps a little young to be my 
 husband ? " 
 
 " A little young ! " he repeated, as if surprised. " Oh, there 
 may be a few years' difference between us, but what of that, 
 when nothing shows it, when you look as fresh and comely as 
 your own sweet name? Rose, we should be an admirable 
 match ! You, with your dignity and beauty ; I, with what they 
 call my individuality. We should impress society. We should 
 be the most prominent couple in all London ! " 
 
 Then, putting his arm around the slender waist, he whispered 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS i6i 
 
 gently, " Rose, my little Rose, I feel that you are going to 
 consent. I see it in the tremor of those dainty lips, in the 
 lustre of those matchless eyes. Say yes, and put an end to my 
 suspense." 
 
 She said, "You were quite right when you thought that there 
 was more than sympathy between us, for, shall I confess it ? I, 
 too, have always liked you. You are so clever, everybody 
 says so, and so manly, and your face is more than handsome. 
 If you really are quite sure that you would make a good 
 husband " 
 
 But before she had completed the sentence he had imprinted 
 a chaste kiss upon her forehead. 
 
 " Rose, my dearest Rose, how happy you have made me ; 
 why, there shall not be a more devoted husband in the world ! 
 You shall be my care, my whole solicitude !" 
 
 "Only," she added, presently, " there are some little things 
 we must arrange. First of all there's the Evening — whatever 
 it is — the paper. I shouldn't like you to continue doing that. 
 It wouldn't do, you know, considering the set we should want 
 to move in." 
 
 " Oh," said Johns, " of course I'll change it for something 
 more congenial to our party as soon as I get an opportunity." 
 
 He said " our party " as if he had been born in it, and she 
 pursued — 
 
 " Lord Stanfield could arrange that for you, I'm quite sure. 
 He owns Reviews and things, and he's always so very kind when 
 one asks him to do anything." 
 
 " Of course," Johns said, " of course, that can be settled 
 easily." 
 
 What did editorships matter to him now ? 
 
 " And then there's a question which is a little dehcate. It's 
 about your family, you know. I think you gave me to under- 
 stand that they weren't — well, not the people one is quite 
 accustomed to." 
 
 Johns waved his hand to reassure her. 
 
 " Don't be anxious on that score ; my progenitors, excellent 
 souls, shall never trouble us." 
 
 " Quite so," she said, approvingly, " and, of course, if you are 
 asked, you might say they lived on their estates somewhere. 
 People are so inquisitive, you know." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Johns, smiling, "my father does live on his 
 estate of about a quarter of an acre, so it would be strictly 
 accurate to say so." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys laughed, and then they commenced a long 
 chat about the future. Nothing should be changed in their 
 
1 62 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 existence. They would be married in a month, and they would 
 travel. Then they would come back to Grosvenor Place, and 
 everything would be well -ordered and satisfactory. Their 
 engagement could be given out at once. Johns said that it 
 would be quite unnecessary that his parents should be present 
 at the wedding. No mention need be made of them unless 
 it were to say that they were ill, and could not come, or any 
 other little fiction of the kind, and no time would be lost in 
 seeing Lord Stanfield about the change in his position. Mrs. 
 Humphreys also thought that they might buy a Magazine, 
 " or something," and that in that way her Johnnie would be 
 his own master, and of course he acquiesced readily in such 
 a proposition. And every day now, she told him tenderly, 
 he must come to see her, without missing a single day, and 
 he must go to her photographer and have a portrait taken of 
 himself, so that she might keep it by her when he was absent, 
 and she was going to give a big dinner to celebrate their 
 engagement. She formed a host of projects of the kind, with 
 all of which Johns expressed himself delighted. 
 
 Then, as he was leaving, with a touching coyness, she 
 whispered softly, " Johns, you naughty man, you can give me a 
 nice kiss." 
 
 He did not need to be asked twice, and with all the enthu- 
 siasm he could command, he pressed his lips on hers, thus 
 sealing the bargain he had just concluded. 
 
CHAPTER 
 ELEVENTH 
 
 JOHNS left his rooms the next morning with a superb feeling 
 of power and intensity. He was a new man. He was 
 lifted an immeasurable distance above the heads of those he 
 had come in contact with at the start of his career. In a little 
 while he was going to control the revenue of an ambassador, to 
 enjoy the independence of a capitalist. In another month he 
 would be an important figure in society. All the luxuries and 
 satisfactions a man can wish for would be his, together with a 
 wife who, though certainly not quite the incarnation of his 
 youthful dreams, looked well at times, and had that air of 
 unmistakable good breeding which he admired. That morning 
 at the office, as soon as he had heard that Dawson had arrived, 
 he rang for Tarte. 
 
 " Tarte, ask Dawson to come in to me." 
 
 The old man asked, " Must the mountain now come to 
 Mohammed?" 
 
 " Perhaps so, Tarte." 
 
 "Has Mohammed then married the rich widow?" 
 
 " No, but he's going to, my worthy Tarte." 
 
 "Ah," the old man said, as he moved away, " you're one of 
 the great men of the earth." 
 
 Presently, after he had been gone a few minutes, Dawson 
 entered. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Dawson," Johns said, without rising or 
 excusing himself for asking the proprietor to come, "I've a 
 little piece of news this morning." 
 
 "Indeed?" said Dawson, rubbing his hands, "something 
 good for the paper, I hope ? " 
 
 " I don't know about that," Johns answered, " I'm going to 
 be married." 
 
1 64 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " I congratulate you. To whom ? " 
 
 ** To Mrs. Humphreys, of Grosvenor Place. 
 
 *' What ! not the widow of Stephen Humphreys?" 
 
 " The same." And he looked at the proprietor to study the 
 efifect the news had. 
 
 " Dawson in his surprise could only ejaculate — 
 
 ** Well you are — you are a lucky man. They say she's worth 
 three hundred thousand pounds !" 
 
 "About that," Johns answered, calmly. 
 
 Dawson reflected for a moment. 
 
 " Well, that is a piece of news, but I hope you don't intend 
 to leave the paper." 
 
 " Not immediately, perhaps, but I shall want a big holiday 
 to get married." 
 
 " Oh, of course, of course. A month, or even two." 
 
 " Most likely three." 
 
 "Three then it shall be," Dawson answered in his eagerness 
 to keep so powerful a man. 
 
 "And now," said Johns, "I'm busy," upon which the 
 proprietor was obliged to leave, which he did after repeating 
 his congratulations. 
 
 In the office the news caused a great stir, and Johns was 
 henceforth looked upon as a sort of superhuman person who 
 could achieve anything he liked. Even the jealousies which 
 his rapid rise had at first called forth disappeared before the 
 magnitude of his success. Henceforth he was a man who could 
 do something for his friends, and all wished to obtain his 
 favour. 
 
 Everything went well until the night of the dinner party. 
 When Johns arrived at Grosvenor Place that evening, half 
 an hour before the time, as had been arranged, he found 
 Mrs. Humphreys in a handsome and extremely low-necked 
 dress waiting for him in the little boudoir which had witnessed 
 their betrothal. From the moment he stepped in, he saw from 
 the expression of her face that something was amiss. 
 
 "Why Rose," he said, "what is the meaning of this solemn 
 face to-night?" 
 
 She handed him a telegram and said, " Read that." 
 
 He read, " You're going to marry a man who does not even 
 respect the wife of his own master, who only sees in you a 
 silly old woman with a money bag. Be warned before it is 
 too late — One of his many victims." 
 
 " Who is this woman ? " she asked rather sharply, as soon as 
 he had finished reading. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 165 
 
 Perfectly unmoved, he answered, " iVn adventuress with 
 whom I was somewhat intimate before I became engaged to 
 you, but whose acquaintance I have dropped. The telegram 
 is a mere piece of jealousy, only worthy of contempt." 
 
 "But is what she says true about the wife of of the 
 
 person, I suppose, who owns the paper ? " 
 
 " It's a contemptible lie, as Dawson himself would tell you. 
 I repeat, she's a mere adventuress, and this is not the first 
 telegram she's sent to friends of mine." 
 
 " At all events," she said, " it's very disagreeable." 
 He had never seen her so annoyed, and he thought that he 
 must make amends. 
 
 " Rose," he said, " do not be troubled for such trifles. 
 Since I have been engaged to you, I have thought of no one 
 but your own sweet self I have banished from my mind all 
 the women who used to pester me. You only. Rose, have 
 shown me how great it is to love ! " 
 
 "Still," she said a little softened, "you've been a reprobate." 
 " Oh," he answered, laughing, " my wild oats are all, all sown !" 
 Then, as usual, he began to chant the song of love, eternally 
 the same, he thought, " Rose, my little Rose, can't you see that 
 no other woman can exist for me? Can't you see that my 
 whole thoughts, my whole life are centred in you? Do 
 you not know that every moment of the day wherever I may 
 be, your face, so perfect in its blonde repose, is with 
 me? What can separate us now? Are we not destined 
 for each other by all the laws of destiny and of affinity? 
 What does it matter now what envy says of us? Are not 
 happy people always envied ? My little Rose, there will be no 
 happier pair on all the earth. Ah, if I could express all I 
 feel ! But no, there are no words for it. Give me a kiss, my 
 Rose." 
 
 And then, her serenity returning, she allowed him to kiss 
 her, saying — 
 
 " Really, John, you're a great flatterer ! A great flatterer !" 
 Presently, as the guests were beginning to arrive, they went 
 up to the drawing-room, where Johns helped his affianced 
 bride to welcome the party she had gathered round her to 
 celebrate the third incursion into the married state she was 
 on the eve of making. Amongst them were the Stanfields 
 and St. George ; a portly dean — a brother-in-law of Mrs. 
 Humphreys, with his thin and ugly wife — a middle-aged 
 relative ; a judge and a general, both accompanied by their 
 wives; and others whom Johns had never met before. As 
 he exchanged a few words with each, acknowledging their 
 
i66 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 congratulations, he was conscious of a delicious feeling of 
 achievement. It gratified him greatly to feel that he had 
 definitely forced these people to accept him as their equal, 
 and the feeling was intensified, when, a little later, he descended 
 the sumptuous staircase with Lady Stanfield on his arm. 
 At dinner in the lofty dining-room, with its marble pillars and 
 Pompeian air, its paintings by old masters, its luxuriously- 
 appointed table, Johns was in a state of calm exuberance, 
 and when a German lady with blue eyes and flaxen hair, 
 who had a taste for social questions, started the subject of 
 "the unfit," he said, "You say truly there is an infinite 
 pathos in those wasted lives one meets with sometimes, in 
 those half intelligences too good for common drudgery and 
 yet not good enough for higher things. Think of the anguish 
 wifli which they climb and climb, sometimes getting near the 
 summit, only to drop back again into the pit of their own 
 incompetence; think of the hope which dances before them 
 like a delusive marsh light, of the chimera which yet allures 
 them, because they prefer to be eternally deceived rather than 
 give up the chase ! And remember that it is all through no 
 fault of theirs, but through an accident of birth !" 
 
 '* Yes," said Princess Roltzau ; " and it is for them that I 
 would like to found an institution — an institution which 
 would be a sort of Providence for the unfit." 
 
 Johns said, " The idea is noble, but impossible. There is 
 no Providence for the unfit. They are as inseparable from 
 their illusions as a drunkard from his bottle ! No, Princess, 
 the revolver is their only providence I " 
 
 He had pronounced these words with calm serenity, and 
 when he ceased speaking, his hearers for a moment remained 
 silent. He was conscious of a grateful sense of triumph. 
 Was he not soon to be master of this palatial house? Had 
 he not shown conclusively his own fitness ? 
 
 He looked at his affianced bride at the head of the long 
 table as if to offer her the homage of the impression he had 
 made. 
 
 "Yes," said Lord Stanfield, who was seated opposite, "unfor- 
 tunately that is true. Charity is powerless against ambitious 
 incapacity." 
 
 Seated nearly opposite to him, next to his friend St. George, 
 was a girl of twenty, with a beautiful fresh face and large 
 thoughtful eyes fringed with long silk-like lashes, whom he 
 had noticed when she came in with her father, a man of 
 military bearing, whom Johns knew was a retired colonel. 
 
 During the time that Johns had been speaking, he had 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 167 
 
 noticed that her gaze had been fixed upon him. In her 
 virginal white dress she looked, he thought, particularly lovely, 
 and for a moment, in spite of his satisfaction, he felt a sudden 
 pang of regret such as he had experienced that afternoon when 
 passing the steps of the National Gallery. Oh, if that sweet 
 young face had been his lot ; if that dainty little hand, playing 
 so delicately with a lily which had fallen from the vase upon 
 the table had owned the thousands, and had been Yivs, fiancee^ 
 then would complete happiness have been attained ! And 
 when he glanced again at the end of the table, at the mature 
 charms of Mrs. Humphreys, he was conscious of a sudden 
 feeling of oppression, of a foretaste of something disagreeable 
 with which he was henceforth to become familiar. 
 
 " By God, he mustn't think of it," and he took two mouth- 
 fuls of champagne to chase away the skeleton which had 
 arisen. 
 
 Still he could not help remarking that St. George was 
 assiduous in his attentions to his neighbour, and he wondered 
 if this time his friend had found the ideal of his dreams. Ah, 
 well, St. George could afford ideals, he supposed. He couldn't, 
 and that was all about it, and as he looked down the table at 
 the brilliant gathering of peers and heroes and law-givers, 
 assembled chiefly in his honour, he could not help admitting 
 that there were compensations for the part he was about to 
 play. 
 
 When the ladies had retired Johns had plenty of work to do 
 to enter into the good graces of his future relative the Dean, 
 an ecclesiastic of great proportions, and with the other relative, 
 a landowner in the North. They couldn't like his marriage, 
 he knew that well, for it disappointed expectations which they 
 certainly must have entertained. No doubt they had antici- 
 pated that, after having lost two husbands, the widow would 
 not try again. 
 
 To the Dean he talked of chapters and convocations, giving 
 him to understand that he had a high opinion of church 
 charities, and that he looked upon the Church as the true 
 distributor of alms, while to the other relative he spoke, to 
 the best of his ability, of agriculture. He succeeded so well, 
 indeed, that by the time they left to join the ladies, he had 
 won approving smiles from both of them. 
 
 On the way up the stairs St. George whispered — 
 
 " I'll bet you were envying me at dinner." 
 
 " No," was the reply, " I've nothing now to envy anyone." 
 
 St. George gave a little laugh, and they reached the drawing 
 room. 
 
1 68 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns went about from group to group, basking in the 
 women's smiles which greeted him. Already he felt that he 
 was looked upon, no longer as a scribbler, but as a man of 
 means and station whose acquaintance was to be cultivated 
 for something more than it was worth in little tales and 
 epigrams. Many of the ladies wanted to know what Mr. Johns 
 thought of this and what he thought of that, what were his 
 favourite books, and if he considered the latest play of Ibsen 
 was equal to his former ones, and they even went so far as to 
 enquire his opinion as to the best places on the Continent in 
 which to spend the summer months, although Johns had never 
 been to one of them. But he was ready with an answer to 
 all they asked, and he spoke with calm assurance, well knowing 
 that his words and acts had now a golden prestige. Presently 
 he found himself next to the young girl who had been his 
 vis-a-vis at table. She gave him an engaging smile. 
 
 "I don't think you remember," she said, "that we've met 
 once before at Lady Stanfield's." 
 
 Johns did not remember, but he replied, " You are wrong, 
 very wrong, to think that, my dear Miss Miss " 
 
 "Douglas." 
 
 " My dear Miss Douglas. When I saw you opposite to me 
 at dinner playing so daintily with that lily, I recalled your face 
 at once. I take no credit for it. Who that has once seen you 
 could forget ? " 
 
 " You're quite equal to your reputation, Mr. Johns." 
 
 " I hope I am much better." 
 
 And he was about to begin, "Ah, if you only knew," 
 mechanically, when he perceived Mrs. Humphreys glancing 
 at him from the other side of the room with an uneasy look, 
 a look of incipient jealousy perhaps. 
 
 Prudence bade him check himself, and instead of bringing 
 out his phrase, he merely said, "and I'll come round presently 
 to prove it." 
 
 Then, making his way to where hh fiancee was sitting, he took 
 a place beside her, murmuring with deep solicitude, " I hope 
 you're not feeling tired. Rose." 
 
 With a look of tender gratitude, she answered, " No, John, 
 thank you." 
 
 For the rest of the evening he remained near her, attentive 
 to her every want, assisting her to entertain, and he was much 
 amused when he heard a lady near him whisper to a friend 
 during a lull in the conversation, "How devoted to her he 
 seems." Yes, he was devoted, and not all the fair Miss 
 Douglas's upon the earth would make him swerve in his 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 169 
 
 allegiance to the woman who was going to endow him. His 
 motto for the present was " Rose Humphreys," shortly to be 
 called " Rose Johns." Rose Johns ! It didn't sound very 
 well; but that was of no consequence. 
 
 Before the party separated, Mrs. Humphreys whispered to 
 him — 
 
 " Go and speak to Lord Stanfield about the Magazine. I've 
 mentioned it to him already." 
 
 Lord Stanfield had just finished talking to the Dean, and 
 he hailed Johns when he came up to him as the " hero of the 
 hour." 
 
 "Well, what news has the hero of the hour? " he enquired. 
 
 "None, Lord Stanfield. The hero of the hour is rather 
 sick of news." 
 
 " Of news, or of the democratic news sheet ? " 
 
 "Of both, perhaps." 
 
 "Well, then, my dear Johns, you must join our camp." 
 
 " That is far from being an impossibility. I am convinced 
 now that the largest quantity of intellect is on your side." 
 
 Smiling, Lord Stanfield said, "I thought you would come 
 round to our views." 
 
 " But that is not all," continued Johns ; " my future wife does 
 not care for the Planet^ and she would like me to have more 
 leisure than it allows me." 
 
 " And you would like to edit a Review?" 
 
 " I think it would be more congenial." 
 
 " Come and lunch with me to-morrow, and perhaps some- 
 thing may be managed." 
 
 " With pleasure ! " 
 
 And then as Lord Stanfield, who was leaving, held out his 
 hand to say good-night, Johns said in a low tone, " If a trustee 
 were required for our marriage settlement, would you be kind 
 enough to act ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, willingly." 
 
 When the party broke up Johns was the last to leave. 
 Gradually the great drawing-room had emptied until the last 
 black coat and the last bare shoulders had disappeared. Then 
 the discreet httle Miss Sinclair, whose engagement as com- 
 panion was nearly over, having followed the retiring guests, 
 Johns and \i\^ fiancee were left alone in the great drawing-room. 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys was standing in the middle of the room, 
 and as soon as the door was closed, she said, " Oh, I'm so glad 
 they're gone ; come and let me look at you, my Johnnie." And 
 then, seizing his hands, she scrutinized him narrowly as a mother 
 would her child, while he looked into her face adoringly. 
 
170^ THE ADVENTURES 
 
 They remained in this posture for some minutes until he, 
 wishing to play his part as well as it could be played, drew her 
 towards him, whispering " My little Rose, I have never seen you 
 look so queenly as you did to-night. In that lovely dress, 
 showing that faultless neck and those matchless arms, you 
 looked a perfect Hebe." 
 
 "Oh, did you think so, John?" she asked, crimson with 
 delight. " It was only a little dinner frock of mine." Then 
 continuing, "And you, my Johnnie, how well you spoke! 
 How proud I was of you when they hstened to you. You 
 are so clever ! " 
 
 "Ah, Rose, their admiration is my homage to your own 
 sweet self ! " 
 
 Presently, after he had kissed her with all the warmth he 
 could conjure up, she queried, "And did you ask Lord 
 Stanfield, my own Johnnie ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to see him about the Review to-morrow at 
 his club." 
 
 " That's excellent." 
 
 They chatted for a little while until Mrs. Humphreys declared, 
 with a laugh, that for the sake of her reputation he must leave. 
 Then, as he was going, she said tenderly, " It won't be long 
 now, Johnnie ! " 
 
 He repeated, with an earnest glance, " It won't be long ! " 
 
 Another kiss and he departed. 
 
 As he descended the broad staircase he felt himself a king ; 
 he felt that nothing now was wanting to his complete felicity. 
 The little cloud which the telegram had raised was more than 
 dissipated, and the horizon was serenely clear. The servants 
 in the hall, knowing that he was soon to be their master, showed 
 him to the door with infinite respect, and as his hansom was 
 moving off, he gave a look at the lofty mansion with its 
 imposing front, murmuring with pride, " My house." 
 
 And, as the day fixed for the marriage was approaching, 
 Johns increased in his solicitude, sending his fiancee the 
 choicest flowers he could find at Covent Garden, and calling 
 twice a day to see her. 
 
 One thing, however, was still wanting to make his situation 
 stable, and on the Monday preceding the wedding (which was 
 to take place on the Saturday) he came to Grosvenor Place in 
 the afternoon. He had a little business which he wanted to 
 arrange, and he came as early as his work, which he still con- 
 tinued during the negotiations for the purchase of the Review, 
 permitted. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS ryi 
 
 " Rose," he said, "there's still a little matter which we have 
 to settle." 
 
 " What is it, John ? " she asked, indulgently, leaning back in 
 the thickly-padded sofa. " What can I do to please you ? " 
 
 " You can do this, my Rose. You can come with me into 
 a dingy little office in Lincoln's Inn, and go through a matter 
 of form with a grumpy old solicitor." 
 
 "With a solicitor?" she asked, with a slight movement of 
 alarm. "What for?" 
 
 Johns felt a presentiment that he was going to have some 
 trouble. He answered, gravely, "You see. Rose, a man is 
 nothing without dignity, and you would not wish your husband 
 to be in a monetary position inferior to yourself. My theory of 
 married life is that all property should be held in common, so 
 that the married couple may live together without having to 
 discuss vulgar questions of self-interest. It gives the household. 
 Rose, a better tone; it is more fitting, more becoming. My 
 ideas of what I can achieve in the future are very great, and 
 our fortune may be doubled. Whatever happens, I desire that 
 there should be only one rule by which all money questions 
 may be settled. As we have implicit trust in each other, there 
 can be no objection to our signing a short deed which will settle 
 things for the remainder of our lives." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys was silent for a few moments, looking 
 serious and thoughtful. Presently she said, "You want me to 
 divide with you. But I have relatives." 
 
 He answered, " I see, Rose, that you misunderstand my 
 meaning. It is not a question of division, but of apportion- 
 ment. You, of course, will be at liberty, to make whatever 
 will you like, and I, on my side, will be free to do the same. 
 There will be nothing changed, only our relative positions will 
 be clear, and mine will be more dignified than if there were 
 no such settlement. You, on the other hand, will enjoy the 
 extra revenue which I will bring. Lord Stanfield has consented 
 to be trustee." 
 
 He continued a little longer in this strain until she, wearied 
 by reasons which made her exert herself to think, and favour- 
 ably impressed by the mention of Lord Stanfield's name, ended 
 by saying — 
 
 " Oh, John, of course, what you say will be all right." 
 
 Delighted by this easy victory, he kissed her tenderly. 
 
 " Thanks, Rose. If you'll drive to Lincoln's Inn to-morrow, 
 I'll meet you there at four, and it will be all arranged." 
 
 "Johnny," she said, plaintively, "Say you'll be always 
 faithful to me!" 
 
172 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " Faithful," he repeated, "faithful until death ! " 
 
 " Stay a moment," she said, rising and going to the other 
 end of the room. 
 
 From a Louis XVI. writing table, the drawer of which she 
 unlocked with a little key she produced from her pocket, she 
 took a slip of paper. 
 
 " This," she said, handing it to Johns, " is what I have. I 
 thought it might perhaps be wanted." 
 
 Johns glanced at the slip of paper rapidly, and saw that it was 
 a banker's memorandum stating that Mrs. Stephen Humphreys 
 possessed ;^i56,75o in Consols and ^59,000 6s. 8d. in 
 India Stock. 
 
 Although dazzled at the simple eloquence of such figures, 
 Johns nevertheless said, carelessly — 
 
 " Thanks. I'll give it to the solicitor. All in these two funds 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes, all. My late husband left it so." 
 
 Upon this Johns quitted her in an exulting frame of mind. 
 
 The next morning he telegraphed to the paper that he could 
 not be there that day, and at ten o'clock he drove to Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 The solicitor he had selected for the work was a man who 
 had a special reputation. His office on the first floor of a 
 sombre building had been the birthplace of untold actions 
 for divorce and slander and disputed wills. Everybody knew 
 that he stretched the law to its utmost limits, and he was one 
 of the busiest of London lawyers. He was considered to be 
 certainly upon the road to knighthoo,d. 
 
 Johns ascended the flight of stairs worn by the feet of 
 htigants, and entered the outer office. He wanted to see 
 Mr. Drew at once, he told the clerk — "at once." 
 
 "But he's very busy, sir," the clerk rephed, "and there are 
 some people already waiting." 
 
 "Tell him that I'm here, and that I must see him. Say 
 it's a matter of Hfe and death." 
 
 The clerk retired, and presently returned, requesting Johns 
 to follow him. Drew was in an inner room, divided from the 
 outer by a green baize-covered door. 
 
 He was a short thin man of about fifty, with a face expressive 
 of great keenness and penetration. 
 
 " Did you imagine I was a doctor ? " he asked, " to send such 
 a message." 
 
 " No," said Johns, " I wanted to convey a notion of the 
 urgency of the case and knew no other way." 
 
 " Well, the deed is ready with the exception of the amounts. 
 Here it is." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS * 173 
 
 Drew produced a document which Johns scanned rapidly 
 and eagerly. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that's pretty well. That gives me half the 
 property ; but don't you think, with a little more of your legal 
 phraseology, we might go one better ? " 
 
 "I'm open to a suggestion." 
 
 " Well, why could you not make it out in such a way that in 
 case of the death of one of us, the whole fortune would go to 
 the survivor ? " 
 
 " Yes, it might be done. But would the lady sign it ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, she'll sign anything. You've only got to read it 
 out in one of those legal monotones, and cram it with law 
 phrases, and she'll sign it fast enough. The fee I intend to 
 give, Mr. Drew, is a hundred guineas." 
 
 " Very well. But a new trust deed will have to be prepared. 
 When do you want to sign ? " 
 
 " This very afternoon at four. Here is a list of the amounts. 
 Only two, you see. It's beautifully simple." 
 
 Drew took the slip, while saying, " But, my dear sir, there 
 isn't time for it to be engrossed." 
 
 " It must be done," said Johns. " The clerk who does it 
 shall be rewarded." 
 
 " Well, of course we'll try." 
 
 " And you'll succeed, I know, for you're a man of genius. 
 I shall be back at four." 
 
 Saying this, he left precipitately. 
 
 At four o'clock, after having spent the intervening hours in 
 the Strand, he returned to Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 After waiting a few moments outside the office, he perceived 
 Mrs. Humphreys' carriage with its pair of bays and its men in 
 dark green livery. 
 
 In spite of his assurance to the solicitor that all would go 
 well, he was not without misgivings. He was conscious of a 
 vague fear that all might still be spoiled by a mishap. 
 
 He was delighted, therefore, when Mrs. Humphreys in a dainty 
 mantle and a bonnet surcharged with flowers, alighted gaily, 
 giving him a sweet smile as she stepped upon the pavement. 
 
 " That's the prettiest bonnet that was surely ever seen," he 
 said. 
 
 She whispered, " I chose it, John, because I knew you were 
 fond of violets." 
 
 As they ascended the creaking stairs, he took her arm and 
 pressed it tenderly, murmuring, " How much I love you ! How 
 infinitely happy you have made me ! Only a few days more, 
 my Rose ! Only a few more days !" 
 
174 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 They reached the office. 
 
 The clerk who had seen Johns in the morning advanced 
 towards them, saying, " The deed is being finished now, sir. 
 If you will kindly wait a moment, Mr. Drew will soon« attend 
 to you." 
 
 They followed the clerk to a little waiting-room, in which 
 they were left alone. 
 
 Johns sat beside his future wife and took her hand. 
 
 " Rose," he said, " last night I had a frightful dream. I 
 dreamt that I had fallen in the street, and that one of those 
 gigantic waggons had passed over me. The horse's hoofs had 
 struck me; I was dying. As my breath was leaving me, I 
 murmured — what else could I murmur ? — I murmured. Rose ! 
 Then when I awoke and found that it was nothing but a dream, 
 that I was going to behold you, once again, this very day, I 
 veritably cried with joy ! " 
 
 " Poor Johnnie," she said tenderly, gazing into his face with 
 the eager look of mature passion, "poor Johnnie !" 
 
 And he continued to chant the hymn of praise of which he 
 knew she never tired. He was not fearful, now that he had 
 guaged her character, lest he might go too far. He was quite 
 certain that a woman so much in love, a woman, above all, who 
 was so thoroughly an Eve, could not weary of the balm of 
 flattery even if her inner conscience told her that it wasn't 
 genuine. 
 
 When they had been there half an hour, no one had come 
 to summon them. Johns continued talking, to prevent Mrs. 
 Humphreys from thinking of the object of their visit; but he 
 was secretly anathematising Drew for keeping him so long there 
 in suspense — in suspense which was telling on his nerves. 
 Unable any longer to remain still, he now walked round the 
 room and examined the old French clock upon the mantel- 
 piece, asking her if she admired it. Then he called her to see 
 the sparrows which were flying to and fro from the window 
 ledge to the roofs of the adjoining houses. "Poor little 
 London sparrows ! " he exclaimed. " See, Rose, how black 
 they are!" She went up to the window and looked at the 
 sparrows and remarked, "poor things," and then they turned 
 over the pages of an illustrated paper which was on the table. 
 At length, after another quarter of an hour had been spent 
 thus, the door was opened and the clerk entered to ask them 
 to step in to Mr. Drew. 
 
 Crossing through the outer office, they were soon in the 
 solicitor's private room. Johns introduced \\\s fiancee, 
 
 " I'm truly sorry," Drew began, " to have kept you waiting 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 175 
 
 so very long, but the fact is, I was not quite ready for you 
 when you arrived." 
 
 "Oh," said Johns, "we have been amusing ourselves by 
 looking at the sparrows." 
 
 They took seats in two high-backed chairs which were placed 
 in front of the solicitor's table, and Drew continued — 
 
 " It's a pleasure for me to arrange these little matters, 
 especially under such pleasant circumstances as the present. 
 I feel sometimes as if I were a kind of parson, since it is my 
 duty to marry the worldly interests of happy couples. Some- 
 times where there are differences of opinion between what we 
 call 'the parties,' my task is by no means light; but in the 
 present case it's very evident that we have perfect unity of 
 views. By this deed, Mrs. Humphreys, you are placed on a 
 footing of equality with your husband before the law, and you 
 are relieved, for good, from troubling about your affairs. It is a 
 deed of which I personally thoroughly approve, because it 
 creates an honourable understanding between you, and puts an 
 end to all uncertainty as to respective rights, if ever (though I 
 do not think it possible) you were to have the smallest need to 
 think of them." 
 
 Johns thought, "He's on the right tack," and remained 
 silent. 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys was smiling pleasantly. 
 
 " I'm afraid what's written on this piece of parchment isn't 
 exactly interesting literature, and if I could dispense with 
 reading it to you, I would. But the law compels and I must 
 obey. I will try, however, not to spend more time over it 
 than is absolutely necessary since, as I said just now, there 
 is in this case perfect harmony." 
 
 This remark was again received in silence, and presently 
 Drew began to read, in a dry, professional tone of voice, a deed 
 of settlement which, with a wealth of legal terms, gave Johns 
 half the fortune under the trusteeship of Lord Stanfield, and 
 the whole of it if his wife should die before him. 
 
 When, towards the end. Drew reached the portion in which 
 the " demise " of one of the two parties was alluded to, Mrs. 
 Humphreys looked up enquiringly, and Johns felt his pulse 
 beat faster. But neither made a remark until Drew had 
 finished reading. 
 
 Then Mrs. Humphreys said, somewhat timidly, " I'm afraid 
 I don't very well understand these things. I always show 
 them to my old family solicitor. Would there be any 
 objection to my doing so with this?" 
 
 Drew tossed the deed upon the table, and said, with an 
 
176 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 unmistakable air of offended dignity, "My dear madam, you 
 have a perfect right to show it to whom you please ; but I was 
 under the impression that you came here to sign." 
 
 Mrs. Humphreys had become very red, and in her em- 
 barrassment looked at Johns as if she hoped that he might 
 come to her assistance, but he, although in an agony of 
 suspense, seeing that she had understood the sense of the 
 last clauses, remained impassive. 
 
 For some moments there was a silence, and at length Mrs. 
 Humphreys said, " Don't you think, John, that there's some- 
 thing at the end which is not quite right ? " 
 
 She spoke slowly, and was evidently exceedingly embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 He replied, " My dear Rose, I really know nothing about it. 
 I believe Mr. Drew has drawn up this deed in strict conformity 
 with equity and custom. Of course, if you do not approve of 
 it, that's another matter." 
 
 Torturing her gloves which she had taken off, Mrs. 
 Humphreys said, "It's very awkward"; and Johns thought, 
 " She's terribly perplexed." 
 
 He added presently, " I don't want to influence you. Rose, 
 in any way ; but it seems to me that now the deed has been 
 prepared, and everything is arranged with Lord Stanfield, it 
 would look somewhat odd if we were to change it — at least at 
 present. Of course, you know we can make other deeds 
 subsequently, and, as for your relatives, I'll take care that 
 they're provided for — especially the poor ones. You won't 
 find me wanting in good-heartedness." 
 
 She hesitated, looking alternately at Johns and at the 
 solicitor, who, seizing the moment, bent forward, and said, 
 insinuatingly — 
 
 " Then, do I understand you wish to sign ? " 
 
 The unfortunate woman, whose feelings were being acted on 
 by so many conflicting causes, stammered — 
 
 " Well — yes — I suppose it will be all right." 
 
 Drew pressed a nob upon his table, and, almost immediately, 
 two clerks appeared. 
 
 " Just witness the signatures," he said to them, " of Mrs. 
 Humphreys and Mr. Johns." 
 
 Then, handing a pen to the widow, he said, confidentially, 
 " I really think you're wise." 
 
 She took the pen and wrote in the place marked in pencil, 
 " Rosalind Humphreys," and the two clerks witnessed. 
 
 Johns, in the space assigned to him, wrote " John Johns," 
 and again the clerks attested. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 177 
 
 "There," said Drew, with a smile of satisfaction, as the 
 scribes retired ; " there's a tiresome formaUty over, and it only- 
 remains for me to wish you an extremely long and happy 
 married life. I must ask you to excuse me now, for I've still 
 many clients waiting." 
 
 So saying, he showed them politely to the door. 
 
 As they were going down the stairs, it was she now who 
 clasped his arm. 
 
 " Promise me, John, that you'll be a good husband." 
 
 " Rose, can you for a moment doubt it ? " 
 
 " No, John, I can't." 
 
 He saw her into her carriage, and, after promising to come to 
 Grosvenor Place for dinner, he stood on the pavement for a 
 moment, watching the retreating trap and murmuring, " Is it 
 possible, at that age, to be so amorous?" 
 
 The woman who had driven off with her bonnet full of 
 violets had made his fortune. Henceforth he was sure of 
 living all his life in ease ! Not only, by the arrangement, had 
 he in reality conceded nothing of his own, but after her death, 
 which, in the ordinary course of things, must take place before 
 his, he was to inherit the remaining half of her hundred 
 thousand. Oh, what a lucky day ! oh, what a glorious day ! 
 
 Whistling a tune, he jumped into a hansom and drove to 
 Berkeley Square to tell Lord Stanfield what had been arranged. 
 
 N 
 
CHAPTER 
 TWELFTH 
 
 ON the morning of the wedding, Johns awoke with a feeling 
 of intense felicity. As he jumped out of bed, a ray of 
 sunshine was streaming through the window, and he hailed it 
 as a happy omen. Men and nature smiled upon him now. 
 His path was henceforth to be strewn with roses. He spent a 
 long time dressing, longer than he had ever spent before, for 
 his person, he considered, had acquired worth, and called for 
 much solicitude. He had become a personage whose life was 
 of some value in the world. If he were ill, he could rest and 
 be tended like a prince ; even if he died, he would be buried 
 with great pomp. In short, he counted for something ; he was 
 somebody. When he had finished dressing, he surveyed him- 
 self in the long glass of the wardrobe in his bedroom, and felt 
 satisfied. The lilac trousers of faultless cut were without a 
 crease, and fell gracefully upon a pair of patent boots, the 
 heels of which he had had made higher to increase his stature. 
 The frock coat was not less perfect than the trousers, and the 
 white silk tie, attached with a pearl pin, gave a delicate finish 
 to the general appearance. Yes, he was satisfied ; quite 
 satisfied. From his bedroom he passed into the parlour, and 
 sat down at his desk to write. 
 
 " My dear parents," he began, " When I wrote you last I 
 told you that I was boss of a newspaper, and that things were 
 going well. To-day I've gone one better. In an hour I'm to 
 be married to a widow with lots of money and a big house to 
 live in. She's a little older than I am, but that doesn't matter 
 much. What I wanted was to be set up in life. My wife, 
 whose name is Rose, is a fine woman with light hair and a 
 pretty figure. She's a swell, too, by birth. So you see I've 
 done well for myself, and I don't think you'll regret the money 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 179 
 
 now for my education. In another week I'll send you a cheque 
 to pay it back. In the meantime here is a note for ^50. 
 Rose sends you her love, and we both hope that you'll leave 
 the old house and take a better one upon the hill, over by 
 Grosmont, where we used to mend the nets in the old times 
 before I went to school. Just say how much you want, and it 
 shall be sent. Good-bye, my dear parents, I'll try to come and 
 see you some day. Tell cousin Kate to let me know when she 
 gets married, as I want to make her a little present. My 
 address after this will be 60 Grosvenor Place. Your affectionate 
 son, John Johns." 
 
 He had scarcely sealed this letter when there was a knock at 
 the door, and St. George, irreproachably dressed in a frock coat, 
 with a large gardenia in his button-hole, came in. 
 
 "Well, happy bridegroom," he said, taking a seat at the 
 table on which the cloth was laid, " is breakfast ready ? I'm 
 very hungry." 
 
 Johns rang the bell. 
 
 " It shall be brought at once. It's very good of you to 
 come so early." 
 
 St. George replied, " It's part of a best man's duty to be 
 early." Then, scrutinizing Johns, he added — 
 
 " Why, Johns, you look superb-— as well as an heir apparent ! " 
 
 " That's what I am" Johns answered, with a grin, and St. 
 George gave a discreet smile to show that he understood. 
 
 "Who ever would have thought that you would have 
 married Mrs. Humphreys ? I couldn't have done it myself, old 
 chap." 
 
 " Why ? " Johns asked, indulgently. " Is she not a remark- 
 ably fine woman ? " 
 
 " She was one once." 
 
 " Oh, she's all right still, and surely it's no duty of a best man 
 to criticise the bride." 
 
 " Pardon me," St. George said, laughing, " I'll say no more 
 about it. In one way, too, I envy you; we all envy you. 
 You're going to be such a big capitalist." 
 
 Johns answered, carelessly, "Yes, St. George, there's 
 nothing disagreeable about f/iat." 
 
 The breakfast arrived, and they chatted gaily over it. 
 
 St. George said presently, "I should think Miss Douglas 
 will look pretty as a bridesmaid." 
 
 Johns gave his friend a sidelong glance. 
 
 " Exquisite. Do you mean to marry her, St. George ? " 
 
 The directness of the question took the young man by 
 surprise. 
 
i8o THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " I would to-morrow, if she would consent." 
 
 No more was said upon the subject, and they finished 
 breakfast. 
 
 Then, as Edwards had announced that the carriage was at 
 the door, they left together, after Johns had placed a white 
 camelia in his button-hole. A short drive brought them to St. 
 Margaret's at Westminster, in which the wedding was to take 
 place. 
 
 On the journey Johns was taciturn, replying to his friend by 
 nods and monosyllables, for suddenly he had been troubled by 
 the feeling of regret which had once or twice before come over 
 him. As he looked out of the carriage window at the busy 
 streets, full of life and vigour on the summer's morning, he 
 could not refrain from thinking how delightful it would have 
 been if youth and beauty, as they were embodied in Miss 
 Douglas, had been about to meet him at the church. But, 
 alas ! youth and beauty were seldom to be found in company 
 with consols, and he might have spent his own youth seeking 
 them ! After all, he believed in fate, in the absolute necessity 
 for accepting the good things which were offered in the shuffle 
 of existence, without pausing to reflect whether they were pre- 
 cisely those one would have chosen. And yet ! 
 
 Outside the grey gothic building nestling so curiously in the 
 shadow of the high black Abbey, a crowd of the strange nonde- 
 scripts who linger in church porches to witness the entry or the 
 egress of a bride had gathered on either side of the red carpet 
 which stretched from the outer railings to the door. Carriages 
 were driving up in quick succession. As Johns stepped out 
 of the brougham a dirty youth exclaimed, "'Ooray for the 
 Planet P^ and Johns acknowledged the greeting with a smile. 
 
 The church, as St. George and he walked up the aisle, was 
 nearly full. A brilliant throng, drawn from the upper strata of 
 society, had assembled to witness the marriage of the famous 
 Mrs. Humphreys with the none less famous Mr. Johns. On 
 all sides there were whispers as the two friends advanced, and 
 Johns, conscious that all eyes were upon him, assumed his most 
 dignified demeanour. 
 
 It was almost the first time he had entered a church of the 
 Church of England. In his boyhood he had attended chapel 
 with his parents, and sometimes in Australia while he had been 
 a schoolmaster, but this was the first time he had taken part 
 in any service of the Anglican community. The place, with its 
 fluted columns, its gothic arches, and its stained-glass windows, 
 had a certain stately harmony he liked. 
 
 When they reached the raiHngs which divided the clergy 
 
 i 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS i8i 
 
 from the laity, and on the steps of which were placed four red 
 cushions, St. George stopped and whispered — 
 
 " We must wait here for the lady." 
 
 Johns made use of the opportunity to look around. The 
 church was already full. He saw before him a sea of women's 
 faces, amid a wealth of colour, softened by the light which 
 streamed through the high church windows revealing the black 
 patches made by the sombre costume of the men. 
 
 Turning round again, he examined the choir full of boys in 
 white, and he was looking at the organ when he suddenly per- 
 ceived the portly Dean — Mrs. Humphreys' relative, who was to 
 perform the service — standing at the extreme end, with his hands 
 crossed, and motionless, in a devout attitude. 
 
 " That's the old chap who's going to join us," thought Johns. 
 " Mustn't he detest me ! " 
 
 He wondered if the Dean was going to give them much divinity 
 to listen to. What a funny joke it was that that rotund old person 
 should imagine that the road to righteousness lay through him, 
 and that he was charged to unite him to Mrs. Humphreys. 
 Charged by whom ? Did anybody know ? Could anybody 
 say ? except by pronouncing a name in three letters which had 
 never conveyed anything definite to his mind. What a farce it all 
 was after all, and what a set of simpletons the people were who 
 could be impressed by that old fellow, in his white gown, with his 
 well-fed frame and his seasoned nose ! No matter, that dean 
 was going to be useful. 
 
 Tired of looking at the Dean, he turned round again towards 
 the people. In one of the front pews he recognised Dawson, who 
 was looking at him with an expression of conscious approbation, 
 as if to let the congregation know that he, and he alone, was the 
 discoverer, the inventor of the bridegroom. Johns thought, 
 " He's come alone; Lucy couldn't face it. Poor little Lucy ! She 
 wasn't so bad after all." A few rows lower down was seated 
 Maskelyne, with his hair cut short as he had worn it since he 
 had been promoted, and smiling sympathetically. Next to him 
 old Tarte was looking on with a saint-like look of aloofness 
 from the considerations of this world. " Poor devils," thought 
 Johns, " ready to serve their master with the fidelity of slaves 
 for the wages of mechanics." 
 
 Suddenly, however, his nerves underwent a little shock. 
 
 Seated in the front row within a few yards of him and 
 watching him with a fixed stare, was Mrs. Weber. Instinctively 
 he turned away, for there was something in the look she gave 
 him which made him feel uncomfortable. He remained for a 
 moment glancing down the aisle ; then summoning his courage, 
 
1 82 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 he faced her and boldly returned her stare. But now, after 
 a defiant gesture and a faint smile, she turned her head 
 away. 
 
 Johns was thinking, " What pluck the woman has to put 
 herself in the front row," when he caught sight of Lord Stanfield 
 and his wife seated in the next pew with a whole bevy of 
 acquaintances behind them. He bowed to the Stanfields 
 deferentially, and he was about to turn a second time when St. 
 George whispered in his ear, " She's coming." 
 
 Suddenly, in the lofty building there was a complete silence, 
 and presently a noise of footsteps proceeding from the entrance. 
 Then for a moment there was a lull, followed by a continuous 
 rustle, as the bride, in a simple costume of light grey silk, came 
 into view. 
 
 Leaning on the Judge's arm and looking down, the widow 
 advanced slowly up the aisle followed by her bridesmaids — two 
 winsome girls in pink, one of whom was Edith Douglas, the 
 other a niece of Lady Stanfield. 
 
 " How innocent she looks ! " Johns thought, although he 
 was beginning to feel, in spite of himself, the impressiveness 
 of the marriage scene. 
 
 Soon the bridal party reached the place where the two friends 
 stood. Johns, who had been instructed as to what he had to 
 do, after bowing to the smiling Mrs. Humphreys, turned and 
 knelt beside her on the velvet cushion placed upon the step. 
 St. George knelt on the right of Johns, and the Judge on the 
 left of the bride. 
 
 The Dean, in the meantime, had reached the place where 
 they were kneeling, and stood before them like a monument 
 of sanction. Almost immediately, in a tedious drawl, he began 
 to read aloud from a prayer-book which he held before him 
 with both hands. 
 
 They were made acquainted in old English with the origin 
 of marriage, its gravity, its mystical signification, the concession 
 which was made by it to human frailty, the various reasons why 
 it was ordained, and the respective parts devolving on the 
 husband and the wife in the married state. 
 
 While the Dean was rolling out his periods, Johns amused 
 himself by counting the buttons on his boots and the folds of 
 his ample surplice, wondering how much of the conjugal 
 doctrines he was giving forth the old man himself believed, but 
 experiencing, at the same time, a vaguely soothing feeling, a 
 sensation of a spiritual douche. The reading over, the Dean 
 turned his back to the bride and bridegroom and walked up to 
 the table in the apse with dignity. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 183 
 
 St. George whispered, " You must follow," and Johns, with 
 his bride and her relatives, advanced. 
 
 They were joined together by the Dean. Then, after the 
 marriage questions had been asked and answered, after the 
 Judge had made a gift to Johns of the person of the widow, 
 after Johns had placed the ring on the finger of his bride, a 
 short allocution followed. 
 
 Johns was to remember that marriage was a very sacred 
 thing ; that the duties of the husband were to protect the wife 
 from the sorrows of existence, and to use the authority which 
 was given him, with wise and tender moderation. Above all 
 things he was to be unselfish and considerate, he was to avoid 
 false pride in the commerce of domestic life, to pardon readily, 
 to chide with kindness, and to be always faithful and sincere. 
 Nothing militated more against the life of the family, as it was 
 divmely constituted, than distrust. Perfect confidence must 
 reign between man and wife so that conjugal ethics should be 
 as pure and calm as a cloudless sky. These were the bases of 
 the Christian family, wisely designed for the welfare of the 
 human race. " You, Rosalind," he said to the bride, " I would 
 exhort to prudence and to patience in the new life you are now 
 entering. It will be your duty henceforth to be the solace and 
 support of a husband whom you have promised to obey. In 
 the hour of affliction, should it ever come to him, you will be 
 his truest friend, and you will seek counsel of him in uncertainty 
 and doubt. Blessed as you are with this world's wealth, 
 it behoves you, more than many others, to be wise in the 
 conduct of your daily life, and to remember that charity was 
 ever the first of virtues. Banish from your heart all pride. 
 Be just and faithful always. Let your union be a model of 
 right living. Remember, my daughter, that life has but a 
 transitory span, and that the time afforded us in which to do 
 good works is brief." 
 
 He continued a little longer in this strain, and after he had 
 ended his address the bridal party remained for some moments 
 on their knees. 
 
 Then, as the first notes of the organ resounded in the vaulted 
 church, ascending in a wave of triumphal sound, Johns and his 
 wife rose, and moved slowly arm-in-arm towards the vestry, 
 followed by the Judge, St. George, and the two bridesmaids. 
 
 But at that moment, as the nuptial march re-echoed in his 
 ears, as he saw the sea of heads outstretched to catch a glimpse 
 of them, his feelings underwent a change. Suddenly he felt 
 that all this was admirable, that the Dean himself was the best 
 of deans, the Church the best of churches, since in the brief 
 
1 84 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 space of half an hour they had made his fortune. It was well 
 after all that there should be fat old deans to admonish people 
 on their marriage day ; it gave a peculiar kind of stamp to 
 matrimony. It was all very right and proper, and the rich full 
 strains which were coming from the organ seemed to him the 
 most delightful he had ever heard. In the enthusiasm of the 
 moment he was barely conscious that his wife was leaning on 
 his arm. He was moving along in a state of high sublimity, 
 with a delicious consciousness of power, a delightful sense of 
 superiority. What a pleasant thing life was ! How well he 
 meant to explore and to enjoy it ! 
 
 They reached the vestry and took up a position opposite the 
 door to receive their friends, who immediately began to crowd 
 around them. 
 
 Johns, in the enthusiasm of the moment, had a word for each, 
 pressing their hands and looking into their faces with that 
 expression of faithful-dog sincerity which had done so much 
 for him in life. He would say to the men as they shook hands 
 with him, " Oh, Sir James," or " Oh, Lord — promise me that we 
 shall see you often in Grosvenor Place," or " I shall remember 
 your presence here to-day a happy omen," or to others of small 
 importance, " How kind of you to come ! how glad I am to see 
 you ! " To the ladies he said, " And so you really have been 
 good enough to grace our wedding ?" or " How charming of you 
 to be here ! " and there was something in his manner which 
 seemed to indicate protection, patronage, approval, as though 
 he had been a royal personage wishing to be gracious to his 
 subjects. He, and not his wife, was the centre of attraction. 
 
 One by one his friends shook hands with him, and for 
 each he found a different kind of greeting. When Dawson 
 approached with an air of familiarity and said loudly enough 
 for those around to hear, while he pressed his hand, " I con- 
 gratulate you in the name of the whole staff," he merely 
 answered, *' Thanks, Dawson," and turned to someone else. 
 To Maskelyne, who approached him almost timidly, he said 
 approvingly, "Well Maskelyne, so you've come to see me 
 married ! " while to old Tarte, who approached him saying, 
 with a faint smile, " I always knew that you would be numbered 
 among the great," he answered, " My worthy Tarte, you are a 
 true philosopher." 
 
 When the Dean himself came in he said to him, "Sir, I 
 thank you for your admirable discourse. I shall long remember 
 it." To the Stanfields he showed much deference, appearing 
 not to notice the curious smile with which the peer regarded 
 him, the smile of a man of assured position studying a nouveau 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 185 
 
 riche. Lord Stanfield, as trustee, knew the whole position of 
 affairs, and was, Johns thought, in many ways a person to be 
 cultivated always. 
 
 St. George had been so much occupied in talking to Miss 
 Douglas that Johns had not exchanged a word with him, and 
 he was about to cross to them so that he might thank them 
 for their kind offices, when suddenly, to his astonishment, he 
 saw before him Mrs. Weber ! 
 
 Her presence in the church had seemed to him audacious, 
 but that she should come into the vestry whither only those who 
 had been invited to the wedding had repaired, seemed to him 
 extraordinarily bold. Surely she didn't mean to make a scandal ! 
 And for a moment he felt alarmed. 
 
 But Mrs. Weber put an end to his apprehension by offering 
 her hand and saying with a calm smile, and as if confident in 
 the power of her beauty, "We shall meet again." 
 
 Johns glanced in the direction of his wife, and seeing 
 that she was surrounded by a group of ladies, he pressed the 
 daintily-gloved hand, and, brought suddenly again under the 
 influence of the companion of his early days, he murmured in 
 a low tone, " We shall." 
 
 No one was near them at the time, and Mrs.. Weber moved 
 away after giving Johns a penetrating glance. 
 
 With a sigh of satisfaction he pursued his original intention of 
 crossing to Miss Douglas and St. George. 
 
 " Miss Douglas," he said, " and you St. George, how can I 
 thank you ? " 
 
 St. George answered, "For me it has been an intense 
 pleasure," and he looked at the young girl in a pretty pink 
 silk dress. As she played with her bouquet of white roses, her 
 pure young face seemed to Johns more lovable than ever. 
 
 Glancing up, she said in a tone which scarcely seemed free 
 from malice, " I hope, Mr. Johns, you're very happy." 
 
 Somewhat surprised at the singularity of the remark, Johns 
 answered, " Ah ! " in a way which left it doubtful whether he 
 was rejoicing or deploring. "I hope," he added, "that we 
 shall see you often, very often, in Grosvenor Place." 
 
 She nodded without answering, and St. George said, " I 
 think, Johns, your bride is caUing you," and Johns, looking 
 round, realized for the first time, thoroughly, that he was not 
 free. 
 
 Yes, his wife wanted him. It was time to go. It was all over. 
 They were man and wife. Arm-in-arm they left the church. 
 
 What a triumphant drive back it 'was for Johns, in his own 
 carriage, to his own house, at the side of his bride, who sat 
 
1 86 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 smiling placidly, apparently contented, happy! What a glorious 
 feeling of possession and of power ! How great it was to be 
 definitely classed high up above the heads of untold thousands 
 in this monster city ! And, after all, how good of this woman 
 to have placed him on this pinnacle ! 
 
 When they reached the bottom of Victoria Street, his wife 
 said, "Oh, Johnnie, at last we're married!" and he replied, 
 " At last ! " wondering if she had used that phrase before to 
 either of her former husbands. 
 
 And then again, a few minutes later, as he ascended the fine 
 broad staircase, followed by the congratulations of the friends 
 who had already reached the house, he fairly swelled with 
 pride. All this was his ! 
 
 As they were going to leave by an early train for Dover, 
 en route for Biarritz, it had been decided that there should be 
 no reception. Mrs. Johns had wished the wedding to be a 
 quiet one, and Johns had acquiesced. It was therefore only the 
 bride's relatives and the intimate friends who were invited to 
 the luncheon. These included Lord and Lady Stanfield, the 
 Dean, the Judge, St. George, and the two bridesmaids, besides 
 a few other friends and distant relatives. 
 
 With great dignity Johns took his place opposite his wife. 
 Listening to Lord Stanfield's conversation, and refraining from 
 looking towards Miss Douglas and St. George, he remained 
 somewhat silent, with the air of a man who has no longer any 
 need to talk to be appreciated. But when Lord Stanfield 
 drank the health of the happy pair and congratulated Johns 
 on his conversion to the cause of order (the name he gave his 
 own party), Johns, who had now resigned his post on the 
 radical print and who was to assume the conduct of the tory 
 review on his return, in replying said, "It is indeed to you. 
 Lord Stanfield, that I owe my conversion to the party of 
 intelligence and of integrity. Henceforth I intend to battle 
 in real earnest for it." 
 
 As everybody at the table were of conservative opinions, and 
 would have thought it little short of madness to hold any other 
 views, this announcement was received with a murmur of 
 approval. 
 
 Lord Stanfield said, "We want your talent, Mr. Johns"; and 
 Johns answered reassuringly, without any attempt at modesty,, 
 " Then you shall have it." 
 
 The Dean said, "It seems incomprehensible to me that 
 there should be any other party," and the Judge agreed that he 
 saw no necessity for any other. 
 
 Johns echoed, " No necessity whatever." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 187 
 
 The luncheon lasted but an hour, and shortly after it the 
 bride and bridegroom, in travelling costume, were seen into 
 their carriage by the guests. 
 
 A week afterwards Johns and his wife were sitting after 
 dinner on the terrace of the Casino at Biarritz. Johns, 
 smoking a cigar, was looking up at the pure cloudless sky 
 ^tinted with the last of the sun's rays. The air had a delicious 
 coolness after a hot day, and from the building came the strains 
 of a waltz performed upon an orchestra. Mrs. Johns, in a light 
 muslin dress, with a light cloak thrown over her shoulders, was 
 watching her husband as he sent the puffs of smoke curling 
 skyward. 
 
 Johns himself would have found it no easy matter to describe 
 his state of mind. He was conscious of two feelings which 
 conflicted with each other — a delicious sense of immunity from 
 future risks, and, at the same time, the sensation of a man in 
 chains. 
 
 His experiences of the last three days had given him food 
 for much reflection. He had had numerous occasions of 
 knowing the nature of the bargain he had made. His wife 
 adored him, idolized him, gratified his every whim, anticipated 
 his smallest wish, but, alas! expected in return practical proofs 
 of his affection which he was loath to give — which he gave 
 with a reluctance he found it difficult to hide. Oh, the sense 
 of a possibility of something better than this autumnal honey- 
 moon, than this union of pure reason on the one side, and 
 pure folly on the other ! How could he help seeing constantly 
 that his wife, with her cajolery unfitted for her age, must always 
 be ridiculous ? How was he to live day by day, week by week, 
 and month by month in the presence of this woman who would 
 not yield to the inevitable and accept the course of nature ? 
 
 Was there, after all, anything more stupid than this eternal 
 female instinct to combat decay, than this girlishness in evident 
 maturity, this fierce tenacious egoism in decline? Ah ! humanity 
 was a very little thing indeed, and his view of it had been the 
 right one ! But now that he had made his compact, now that 
 he had sold his youth for so magnificent a price, it was of no 
 use to recriminate ; he must steel himself in some way for the 
 sacrifice he was called upon to make. After all, it wasn't so 
 very terrible to feign a little love for a few years longer. There 
 must be a natural conclusion even to the fiercest flame at an 
 advanced period. And then, when this tedious honeymoon 
 was over, would there not be compensations ? Were there not 
 always compensations for the man whose wallet was teeming 
 
1 88 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 with bank notes? Above all things, he must always be courteous 
 to the woman who had given him so much. How grateful he 
 would have been to her if she would only have considered him 
 merely as an ornament, as a husband to be proud of, instead of 
 wanting him to love her ! But these were the circumstances, 
 and he could not change them. 
 
 " What are you thinking of, my Johnnie ?" she asked tenderly. 
 
 " Of nothing, Rose. I was enjoying the coolness of this 
 terrace after the heat we had to-day at St. Jean de Luz. 
 Look at those golden tints in that cloudless sky ! They remind 
 me of Australian sunsets which give one such a sense of 
 infinite expansion ! " 
 
 But the ideal side of his wife's nature had been left 
 undeveloped, and she answered, in an ordinary tone of 
 confirmation — 
 
 " Yes, it's very pretty, John, but aren't you afraid of taking 
 cold in that thin jacket?" 
 
 " No," he said, with an almost imperceptible sigh of 
 resignation, " I don't take cold so easily." 
 
 The light was waning and the calm was broken only by the 
 distant sound of the waves of the Gulf of Gascony breaking 
 upon the beach, and by the footsteps of the visitors going to 
 the gaming tables. 
 
 Johns said almost to himself, and in one of the poetic 
 moods which now and then came over him after too much 
 materiality, "How beautiful the twilight is! Does it not 
 always seem as though the day were dying for the last time, 
 as though the darkness which is coming were to be eternal ? " 
 
 His wife did not answer, and they remained seated there in 
 silence until at length, when Johns threw his cigar stump from 
 him, she whispered, " It's getting late, John ; shall we look in 
 at the tables before going back ? " 
 
 He had an inward feeling of rebellion, for "going back" 
 meant something very different for him from what it meant for 
 her, but he replied, "Just as you like. Rose." 
 
 They crossed the terrace and entered the corridor of the 
 Casino, from whence they reached the gaming room. 
 
 In a long lofty room some twenty persons — Spanish, French, 
 and English — were assembled round a table at which the game 
 of little horses was being played. There was not much 
 animation, and the croupier, a stout man with his hair 
 brushed up en brosse, was encouraging the lookers-on to stake. 
 Two showily-dressed women of doubtful nationality, much 
 past middle age, and belonging to the strange vague class 
 that frequent casinos, were watching the game narrowly, side 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 189 
 
 by side, each with a pile of silver and a few gold pieces before 
 her. A young Spaniard, with a dark, short-cut beard and an 
 olive-tinted skin, was staking with an air of unconcern. An 
 old man, with white hair and clean-shaved face and a bent back, 
 was placing his franc pieces philosophically, while a few 
 amateurs contented themselves by staking now and then as 
 their fancy guided them. Immediately Johns and his wife 
 were offered seats, and they sat down at one end of the green 
 cloth-covered table. To Johns a game which was limited to a 
 few francs seemed petty now, and he watched the players with 
 an amused smile, allowing his wife to stake instead of him. 
 She, he soon rsaw, was in her element. She liked the sen- 
 sation of gambling, he observed, for when, after a few losses, 
 she won a little heap of silver, decided pleasure was depicted 
 on her face. Johns, as he watched her, thought, "She's as I 
 always knew her — matter, gilded no doubt, but matter." 
 
 Lazily he looked on as she played, troubled somewhat by 
 the presence near him of a Spanish lady with a fine oval face and 
 passionate dark eyes, who had just come in accompanied by a 
 tall man who seemed to be her husband. Why were young and 
 pretty women always to be seen so temptingly in the possession 
 of other men ? But the excitement of the game did not last, and 
 after a tiresome series of alternate gains and losses, Mrs. Johns 
 declared that the room was stifling, and that she would like to 
 leave. Johns, resigned to his fate, rose slowly and they left. 
 When they found themselves again upon the terrace, the moon 
 was shining brightly, lighting up the facade of the building and 
 throwing shadows upon the pavement. 
 
 " Let us go home by the sea," she said, " it's so nice to be 
 alone, Johnnie, on a night like this," and Johns said, lighting 
 his cigar, " As you please, Rose." 
 
 They took the path along the beach to the hotel, and when 
 they reached a part which was deserted at that hour, she 
 exclaimed lovingly, "Oh, my Johnnie, put your arm around 
 my waist." 
 
 He did as he was bid, thinking that that, alas, was included 
 in the bargain. Leaning with the stiff weight of her mature 
 frame towards him, she murmured, " I never knew, Johnnie, 
 what it was to love before, to love as you have made me love. 
 How I shall care for you, how I shall cherish you, my prince^ 
 my pride, my darling clever boy, so strong, so handsome ! 
 Johnnie, you must tell me all you do and think, and I will tell 
 you all / do and think. Oh, Johnnie, I'm afraid you've been 
 a dreadfully bad boy, but now you'll be faithful to your little 
 wife and never give her pain ? " 
 
190 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " Yes, Rose," he said ; " you won't have to complain of me, I 
 fancy." 
 
 "You have such wicked, and yet such faithful eyes, my 
 John!" 
 
 The waves were breaking proudly on the white sandy beach, 
 the sea glittered like silver in the moonlight, and the high rocks 
 at either end of the little bay were bathed in brightness. 
 
 As they were drawing near the road which led up to the 
 hotel she stopped and said, " Kiss me, Johnnie ! I like being 
 kissed out here ! " 
 
 Again he was forced to do as he was bid, saying to himself 
 as he kissed her cheek, " It can't go on like this for ever though." 
 
 They walked up the lane in silence, and Johns asked himself 
 a question. How old might his wife be ? It was stupid of him 
 not to have found out, but he had been so busy, and she so 
 reticent, that the fact was he did not know. No doubt he 
 could make a guess which had a good chance of being accurate, 
 but then it would only be a guess, and he must, for many 
 reasons, ascertain exactly. On his return he would make 
 inquiries. 
 
 How long, he asked himself, could a woman keep up the 
 illusion of love ? How long could she expect to be attractive 
 to a man ? And the answer seemed to be — for ever ! Yes, 
 just as there were no bounds to female vanity, so there were no 
 limits to a woman's faculty of self-delusion. Wonderful 
 humanity ! 
 
 They reached the end of the long lane and entered the hotel, 
 a fine, square building standing in its own grounds on a slight 
 eminence. 
 
 Crossing the spacious hall in which a few visitors in rocking- 
 chairs were enjoying the cool air near the open door, they 
 passed along a passage to their rooms. 
 
 On the table in the sitting-room, a small room furnished 
 warmly with red velvet covering and hangings, they found a 
 packet of letters from their friends. Mrs. Johns, to whom 
 the majority had been addressed, took up the packet and 
 glanced at the writing on the envelopes. Then she put it 
 down again. 
 
 " What do they matter to me now ? I'll read them some 
 time to-morrow. To-night I don't want to think of anyone but 
 you, my John, of no one but you, my darling boy ! " 
 
 And she made him sit beside her on the sofa, placing his 
 arm around her. 
 
 But he, glad of a pretext to postpone the inevitable sequel to 
 her tenderness, replied, " There's plenty of time before us. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 191 
 
 Rose. Just open some of your letters and see what they're 
 about." 
 
 Reluctantly she rose and took the packet from the table. 
 
 " It seems so strange," she said, as she broke an envelope 
 with a monogram, " to see Mrs. Johns." 
 
 He thought, " Very strange, when she's had three names 
 already ! " 
 
 " Yes, it's one syllable less," he said. 
 
 " Oh, but I'm so proud of it. Everybody knows of you, my 
 Johnnie, and your name is better than many titles." 
 
 He thought, " What close appraisers women are ! " 
 
 " Here's one from Edith Douglas. She says they're starting 
 this week for Switzerland, and she asks to be remembered to 
 you." 
 
 " Ah," he thought, " if she were only sitting next me at the 
 present moment ! " 
 
 "And here's one," she continued, handing him a letter, 
 " addressed to you. I think it's from St. George." 
 
 Johns opened the note and read it. 
 
 St. George, after a few good wishes expressed in carefully 
 chosen words, not altogether free from a delicately -veiled 
 sarcasm, apprised his friend that he, too, was going to spend 
 a month in Switzerland. 
 
 " That's curious," said Johns, "Miss Douglas and St. George 
 are both going to the Alps." 
 
 She answered, " Perhaps they'll make a match there. What 
 a nice couple they would make ! " 
 
 " Oh," said Johns, shrugging his shoulders, ** St. George is 
 decorative enough, but he's a great noodle. I should think 
 Miss Douglas had perceived it by this time." 
 
 " Ah ! there are so few like you, my Johnnie ! " 
 
 She went on opening the letters and glancing over their 
 contents. 
 
 Presently she said, " Here's one from the Dean." 
 
 " What has the worthy man to say ? " Johns asked. 
 
 Gradually, as she read, her face grew serious. When she had 
 finished, she let the letter drop upon her lap and looked 
 reflective. 
 
 Then, without replying to his question, she handed the letter 
 to Johns. 
 
 In acid terms the Dean expressed surprise, astonishment, 
 at having learnt from Lord Stanfield that Mrs. Johns had 
 disinherited his children by a marriage settlement of so unusual 
 a nature. Of course, she had a perfect right to dispose of her 
 fortune as she chose, but it had always been understood that 
 
192 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 his sons were to be remembered in her will. There was no 
 legal obligation, he pointed out, but there was a moral one, and 
 moral obligations were binding on persons of their rank. He 
 trusted that both her husband and herself would take such 
 measures as would insure some fulfilment of the promises which 
 had been made. Any other course of conduct he could not 
 conceive. He expected an answer to reassure him without 
 loss of time. 
 
 When Johns had finished reading the rounded sentences of 
 the irate Dean, he said, " Oh, that's nothing. All you have to 
 do is to write and tell him that his progeny won't be forgotten." 
 
 " Yes, but don't you think he'll want something more than 
 an assurance ? " 
 
 " Perhaps he may, but he can't have it. What business, I 
 should like to know, has he to have nine children ? It's rank 
 improvidence !" 
 
 She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "Oh, my 
 Johnnie, say you'll be faithful to me always ! " 
 
 " Always, Rose, of course." 
 
 " I've read enough letters for to-night," she said softly, 
 looking at the clock. " It's getting late." 
 
 He thought, " She means to have her money's worth." 
 
 Rising, he said, " I just want to smoke a last cigar outside." 
 
 She gave him a tender look and said, " Don't be long, my 
 Johnnie." 
 
 He left, and in the hall he met the proprietor of the hotel 
 who had shown him, ever since his arrival, a great deal of 
 attention. 
 
 The little man, with a round jovial face, remarked, " Monsieur 
 is going to smoke upon the terrace. It's a good idea. The 
 night is perfect." 
 
 Then he added, with an air of great concern, *' I trust 
 Madame is quite well. I was afraid Madame was tired this 
 evening after the drive to St. Jean de Luz." 
 
 " I wish she was," thought Johns. 
 
 He answered, " No, thank you. Monsieur Bouchard; Madame 
 is always well." 
 
 " Ah, I am so glad. It causes me the greatest trouble when 
 any of my visitors are ill. I have always been like that. I 
 only have the pleasure of seeing them for a few weeks ; but 
 I am only happy when I think they are enjoying themselves as 
 much as possible at Biarritz." 
 
 Johns, after lighting his cigar, left the hotel to stroll upon 
 the gravelled paths in front of it. 
 
 There, in the stillness of the grounds — a stillness broken 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 193 
 
 only by the closing of a window or by the footsteps of an 
 occasional visitor returning from the Casino — he indulged in 
 his reflections. 
 
 He was rich beyond all the dreams he had ever formed, but, 
 alas ! he had parted with his liberty ; he owed allegiance to the 
 woman who had become his wife, and who no more satisfied 
 his longings than a stale crust does the hunger of a hungry 
 man. Ah ! life that evening seemed to him less roseate than 
 it had seemed upon his wedding-day. It appeared to him 
 more dreary than he had ever thought it could be for a man 
 as rich as he, and for a moment he stopped to ask himself 
 whether he might not, by waiting, have done better. But no, 
 hesitation in these things was fatal. He must reconcile himself 
 to the existence which was offered him. 
 
 Thinking what a lottery life was, he walked many times up 
 and down the path in the day-like brightness of the moonlight. 
 Just as he had finished his cigar, a window on the ground floor 
 opened. 
 
 Presently a voice called softly, " Johnnie." 
 
 He threw away the end of his cigar, and with a sigh went in. 
 
CHAPTER 
 THIRTEENTH 
 
 IN September, after a journey through the Basque country, 
 the Johns's returned to town. The remainder of their 
 wedding trip had been much the same as its commencement, 
 and Johns had contrived to discipHne himself into some sort 
 of resignation to his lot/ 
 
 It was a fine sensation, after all, to find himself installed in 
 the great house in Grosvenor Place as master, to awake each 
 morning in the luxurious bedroom with its damask hangings, 
 its carved oak wardrobes and its satin-covered chairs, to exist 
 in beautiful surroundings, with a dozen servants at command. 
 It was no less pleasant, also, to assume the direction of the 
 Review of which he had become editor and part proprietor, 
 and for many weeks he was busily engaged making arrange- 
 ments and studying editorships, such as those of Mr. 
 Morley and Mr. Harris on the Fortnightly. He wanted to 
 dazzle the literary world by the originality and force of his 
 direction, and in order to achieve his purpose, he applied him- 
 self, as he had done before, with zeal, to the task of recruiting 
 the best brains. The Centenary^ he said, must have the highest 
 talent in the land; it must stand at the head of all the 
 periodicals. It must surpass them all. And either owing to 
 the personal attraction which he exercised or to the curiosity 
 which he excited, it was not long before his office in Bedford 
 Street became the rendezvous of many of the best intellects in 
 London. Johns, without a tithe of the knowledge his con- 
 tributors possessed, would sit in his office chair and pontificate 
 to them with a peculiar emphasis, with a quaint philosophy 
 drawn from his experience of life, with a vigour which left his 
 hearers wondering whether he was a charlatan or a great man, 
 and generally inclined, they scarcely could tell why, to the 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 195 
 
 latter view. Without ever saying anything that was absolutely 
 new, he continued to give an impressiveness and interest to 
 what he said, and, above all, he was careful never to make an 
 error of fact, possessing a talent for working round a subject 
 and not committing himself to statements whenever he was 
 ignorant. They listened to him because he found the means 
 to interest them, and they gave their articles to him in preference 
 to giving them to editors who were less brilliant and less 
 entertaining. In this way, by exercising a severe eclecticism, 
 and by ruthlessly dispensing with the services of former writers, 
 he soon raised the Magazine, if not exactly to the heights he 
 wished, at all events to a fair position amongst its competitors 
 
 Mrs. Johns's drawing-room now became thronged by many 
 of the aristocrats of intellect, who at times embarrassed her, and 
 to whom she found it difficult to speak — an aristocracy among 
 which her old friends were as strangers. She did her best, 
 however, and had sense enough not to pretend to knowledge 
 which she did not possess. There were amenities and satis- 
 factions also for feminine vanity in the position she now 
 occupied. It was amusing, too, to invite the aspirants she met 
 to come and see her husband, and it pleased her vanity to 
 notice how nervous they often were before him. Often she 
 would promise her intercession to obtain an interview, like 
 Josephine interceding with Napoleon for a protege^ or she 
 would show commiseration for a candidate whose work had 
 been rejected, although she would cease inviting him to call. 
 While Johns was at her side, it was easy to manage the conver- 
 sation; but when he was not there, she was forced to have 
 recourse to — " My husband could tell you that," or "John would 
 be sure to know," even when it was a question of what they had 
 seen abroad, or the names of the places they had visited. For 
 her mental indolence was such that she never troubled to 
 burden her memory with foreign names. She had always 
 found that wealth atoned so well for ignorance! 
 
 Henceforth she basked in the sunshine of her husband's 
 fame, and seemed perfectly contented with the part she played, 
 enjoying the sense of being the wife of a man whom everyone 
 around him seemed to consider as a force of nature. It was 
 true that some of her intimate friends were given to chaffing 
 her at times for idolizing Johns, but she would answer, " Oh, 
 but he is such a clever boy ! Everybody says so." And what 
 everybody said was always a law for her. 
 
 During the winter the Johns's, reserving themselves for the 
 season when people more worth inviting than men of letters 
 were in town, received little. Johns wanted to establish his 
 
196 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Review upon a proper footing, and the winter months were 
 convenient for so doing. 
 
 One day, however, towards the end of December, when he 
 was in his office talking to his secretary, a clerk came in and 
 announced that a lady wished to speak to him. 
 
 *' A lady ? " said Johns. " It's one of those damned writing 
 women ! I won't have them at any price. Tell her I'm 
 engaged ! " 
 
 The clerk retired, but presently returned to say that the lady 
 had not come on business. 
 
 " What is her name ? " asked Johns. 
 
 "She won't give her name, sir. She says she must see 
 you personally." 
 
 "Is she dark?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " And pretty, Simpson ? " 
 
 " I should say so, sir." 
 
 "Show her in." 
 
 Johns had a strong presentiment as to who the dark and 
 pretty lady was, and he said to his secretary as the latter was 
 retiring, " I'm not in, Vaughan, for anyone." 
 
 Johns had had his room furnished with more elegance than is 
 usually to be met with in editorial rooms. He meant not only 
 to receive men who live by writing, but celebrities of all kinds 
 anxious to see their names in print. He meant the Review to 
 serve his purposes in many more ways than one. Thus, instead 
 of the long table or the hard chairs usually to be seen in 
 editorial rooms, he had a carved oak writing desk and a suite 
 of red leather arm-chairs and divans. 
 
 Almost immediately a lady wrapped in furs was shown in by 
 the clerk. 
 
 " I guessed it was you, Ellen," he said, as he recognized Mrs. 
 Weber, " no one else would have such cheek." 
 
 She tossed her muff upon the sofa with a contemptuous 
 laugh, and stood before him in a defiant attitude. 
 
 " I'm not so easy to get rid of as you think," she said. " I 
 told you we should meet again." 
 
 " I don't want to get rid of you, Ellen, if you're reason- 
 able." 
 
 " What do you mean by being reasonable ? " 
 
 " Well, I can't marry you now^ can I ? " 
 
 "That's evident." 
 
 " But," he added, in a low voice, " if you are willing to be a 
 good little woman again, why shouldn't things be as they were 
 before?" 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 197 
 
 "Ha, ha," she laughed; "have you had enough of your 
 antiquity ? " 
 
 " My wife," he said, smiling, " is a charming woman." 
 
 " What a fearful hu»mbug you are, John." 
 
 "What about Parker, Ellen?" 
 
 " I never see him now. He found out about us somehow 
 and we quarrelled." 
 
 Johns thought, "And he's withdrawn supplies." He said, 
 " And so you're a little lonely widow ? " 
 
 " Yes, for the present. When will you come to see me ? " 
 
 "By God," he said, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm 
 aroused by her triumphant beauty, " I'll come to-morrow ! " 
 
 " I thought you would," she said, with a quiet laugh. " I 
 knew that that old woman wouldn't keep you from me long. 
 It's no use to try to struggle against nature. It can't be done.'* 
 
 " No, Ellen, it can't." 
 
 Consoling themselves with this reflection, they were silent for 
 a few minutes. Then he rose, and, darting quickly to the sofa, 
 took a seat close beside her, and placed his arm around her 
 waist. She was the sweetest, prettiest, most lovable of women, 
 the only woman he had ever loved, he whispered, the only 
 woman he could ever love. Of course he had had to marry. 
 In certain cases a man couldn't go against his luck, but what of 
 that? Everything could be so easily arranged w^hen people 
 made up their minds to be reasonable. They had many happy 
 days before them now ! Then, as there was a knock at the 
 door, he left her quickly and resumed his seat before his table. 
 
 The clerk who entered said, " Mrs. Johns has called for you 
 in the carriage, sir." 
 
 Johns answered, " Tell her I'll be with her in a minute," 
 and then, turning to his companion as soon as the clerk had 
 left, he said, "You see, Ellen, it's dangerous to come here. 
 Don't come again." 
 
 "I won't now," she answered; "I'll expect you at four 
 to-morrow." 
 
 After pressing her hand warmly, he took his hat and left 
 before her, to drive home with his wife. 
 
 And in this way an existence soon commenced for Johns 
 which was full of satisfactions, the drawbacks of which were 
 so well compensated for that they ceased to be so hard 
 to bear. 
 
 To avoid giving rise to comment on the part of servants, 
 Johns engaged rooms in Pimlico, not far from Carsdale 
 Mansions, where Mrs. Weber met him by appointment, and 
 where, at each meeting, they would spend a few hours in the 
 
198 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 afternoon or sometimes in the evening, though not often, as 
 Mrs. Johns always Hked to spend the evening in her husband's 
 company, whether they stayed at home or whether they 
 went out. 
 
 And thus the months passed for Johns, who divided his 
 time between his house, his office, and the daintily-furnished 
 pair of rooms, which he kept filled with flowers so that it might 
 seem, as he told Ellen, a true love's arbour. In her he found 
 a companion to whom he could speak of his aims and projects 
 with a chance of being understood, and gradually he fell into 
 the way of discussing delicate questions with her, and of merely 
 telling his wife the plain results of things. For he had soon 
 perceived that the powers of comprehension of Mrs. Johns 
 were equal to no greater task. 
 
 And for a time he took delight in making costly presents 
 to Ellenita, as he now sometimes called her — presents of 
 jewellery, which, considering the amount he had had to pay 
 out of his current income for the purchase of the shares in the 
 Magazine, were almost a strain upon his purse. 
 
 But he wanted Ellenita to be happy, and he thought that 
 women are ever made so by the possession of these things. 
 To relieve her of money troubles also, he had undertaken to 
 pay the rent of her flat in Carsdale Mansions in remembrance, 
 as he told her, of the joyful hours they had passed together 
 there. 
 
 Never, in his life, had he been so happy. 
 
 When the season commenced, the Johns's inaugurated it with 
 a series of receptions. The doors of the great drawing-room 
 were thrown open once a fortnight to all who had a name in 
 art and letters, as well as to the patrons by whom art and letters 
 live. Johns's ambition was to become known to everyone 
 worth knowing, so that when his name was mentioned, no 
 matter in what circle, everybody should know the personality 
 expressed by it. He had divided their acquaintances into three 
 classes. The first was composed of those who were only to be 
 invited to select dinners, such as titled persons, heroes, states- 
 men, or distinguished artists ; the second consisted of relatives 
 and friends, and of people whom it might be of temporary 
 interest to know ; and the third of minor personages, vaguely 
 met and imperfectly remembered, but whom it was politic to 
 invite to general receptions. 
 
 One day, as they were sending out the invitations for a 
 reception of the latter kind, Johns remarked, " I should think, 
 Rose, we might send one to the Dawsons. It's true that 
 he owns a halfpenny print, but I assure you he's quite 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 199 
 
 presentable, and his wife is a remarkably nice and rather 
 pretty woman." 
 
 Mrs. Johns, who could not endure hearing other women 
 praised, and who was inclined to be alarmed at her husband's 
 extraordinary popularity with all the ladies of their acquaintance, 
 answered, "They're rather vulgar people, I've been told." 
 
 " Ah ! my dear Rose, no one who is rich is really vulgar 
 now. Of course they don't belong to our class, but I assure 
 you they'll do for a reception. Besides, who knows? we might 
 convert old Dawson." 
 
 His wife replied, without the least enthusiasm, " Very well 
 then. Send them an invitation." 
 
 Johns had absolutely refused to invite Mrs. Weber to his 
 house on the pretext that his wife was terribly suspicious ; but 
 a feeling of curiosity, a desire to be seen in his present splendour, 
 prompted him to invite the Dawsons. 
 
 Mrs. Dawson was a woman who could be relied upon, and 
 who would never become troublesome, while with Mrs. Weber 
 one never could be sure. It was not that he wished to 
 recommence an intimacy with Lucy, but he had not met her 
 since their rupture, and he thought he would like to see how 
 she was getting on. He felt so secure in his position that he 
 had no fear now of committing an imprudence. 
 
 In the drawing-room, on the first of these receptions, the 
 Johns's were awaiting, at ten o'clock, the arrival of the guests. 
 
 Johns, who had been a little remiss in his attentions to his 
 wife of late — staying with Mrs. Weber under pretence of dining 
 at the club — wanted to make amends. 
 
 Approaching her, therefore, as she was reclining in a low arm- 
 chair, he took her hand. 
 
 " You look a little tired. Rose. Are you not quite well ?" 
 
 " Yes, thanks, John," she said, with a look of gratitude, " I 
 only hope there won't be too great a crush this evening, And, 
 oh, my Johnnie ! all those women who flatter you so much, 
 don't let them turn your head. Do you know that when I see 
 them almost making love to you, I can't help feeling jealous ? 
 You mustn't listen to them, Johnnie." 
 
 " Don't be anxious, Rose," he said, with a quiet smile ; 
 " I'm steeled against their darts." 
 
 "Yes," she said reassured; "I've noticed that you don't 
 encourage them. I know that I can trust you." 
 
 Then, reassured and brightened, she exclaimed, " Look, 
 Johnnie, at my lamps ! You haven't seen them properly." 
 
 And she showed him the new arrangement of the lights 
 along the walls — a whim of her's to have little gilded cupids. 
 
200 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 perfect little gems of art, all round the room, each holding by 
 the stem an orange which gave forth a soft pale yellow light, 
 harmonizing with the furniture and decoration. " Aren't they 
 pretty?" 
 
 But Johns, whom nothing, however small, escaped, had 
 noticed them when coming into the room, and they had met 
 with his entire disapproval. They were, he knew, terribly 
 expensive, and they might, moreover, give rise to comments. 
 Cupids, indeed, under such circumstances ! But it was no 
 use, women were eternally and irremediably foolish. To 
 please her he rose and examined the metal figures with 
 attention. 
 
 Then he said, " Charming, Rose. They are a proof of your 
 good taste." 
 
 " You're quite delightful to-night, Johnnie." 
 
 Perceiving that the bunch of white carnations he was 
 wearing was not well fixed, she rose and fastened it with a 
 little diamond-headed pin which she drew from her own bodice. 
 Then, retreating a little from him to judge the general effect, 
 she exclaimed rapturously, " I never saw you look so nice, my 
 Johnnie — my own prince ! " and mentally he shrugged his 
 shoulders, thinking " What an ass the woman is." 
 
 But the guests were beginning to arrive, and Mrs. Johns, 
 adjusting her low-necked dress of yellow silk, took up her 
 position on the threshold to receive them. Johns hovered 
 about from door to door. 
 
 It was evident from the commencement that there was going 
 to be a crush. Everybody who had been invited seemed to 
 be arriving. It was to be one of those receptions to which 
 people eager to be seen at the house of a celebrity come 
 in shoals. 
 
 As he watched them trooping in, Johns thought, "What 
 sheep they are ! " for, in spite of his elevation to the upper 
 strata of society, he had scarcely lost the secret rancour of his 
 class against the aristocracy. 
 
 Oh, it was a delightful thought to think that he, John Johns, 
 had forced these buckramed mortals to open their doors to 
 him, to provide him with a wife, and to shower wealth 
 upon him ! 
 
 One by one he heard announced the names of men who had 
 done vastly more than he to earn their meed of fame — names 
 of officers who had served their country or whose ancestors 
 had done so, of scientists who had made discoveries, of 
 statesmen who had governed England, of writers who had 
 written masterpieces, of painters who had painted them, of 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 201 
 
 eminent ecclesiastics of whose dogmas he didn't believe a word, 
 and of famous doctors whom he wouldn't trust. And they all 
 came to his house (for it was his house) simply because he, the 
 son of old David Johns, had managed to fascinate a silly 
 woman ! Well, it was a curious world, and what a lot of 
 puppets these people seemed to him as they made their little 
 bow, and then disappeared amid the crowd ! Life was full of 
 contrasts and of contradictions ! 
 
 Lord Stanfield arrived early, accompanied, not by his wife — 
 his wife never went to receptions of this kind — but by a 
 dark -haired young man with a thin face of some intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 " I have taken the liberty," the peer said, " of bringing 
 Mr. Le Neve, of whom I spoke to you a little while ago." 
 
 Johns shook hands with the young man. 
 
 " My dear Lord Stanfield," he said, " I'm only too delighted 
 and too charmed." 
 
 They chatted for a few moments, and presently Le Neve 
 recognized a friend with whom he spoke. 
 
 Lord Stanfield took advantage of the opportunity to say to 
 Johns, "Mr. Le Neve has just left the University and is in 
 want of an employment. You would confer a great favour on 
 me if you would take him into your office as a species of 
 sub-editor. I think he would be quite competent." 
 
 Johns answered, "Certainly, if you recommend him, I will 
 at once. You can tell him to come to me to-morrow." 
 
 Evidently anxious to obtain a post for the young man. Lord 
 Stanfield thanked Johns warmly, and as they separated after a 
 few moments, Johns reflected, " I can even oblige a lord 
 to-night ! " 
 
 The guests continued to arrive. The bare arms and necks 
 of the women vied with each other in a contest of pink beauty. 
 It seemed as if the women, by a tacit understanding, had, 
 in dress and looks, done their utmost to dazzle and to charm. 
 Had the sombre coats of the men been absent, the room 
 would have seemed ablaze with brightness and with colour. 
 Presently Miss Douglas, tenderly graceful in her simple frock 
 of white surah silk, came in, accompanied by her father. 
 
 Johns had heard what had occurred in Switzerland. St. 
 George had met them there, had asked her hand and been 
 rejected, and ever since, the poor fellow had been looking thin 
 and miserable. As soon as he caught sight of them, Johns 
 abruptly left three American ladies who had attacked him, and 
 advanced to meet the old Colonel and his daughter. 
 
 " How kind, how charming of you to come ! Colonel, I 
 
202 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 have never seen you look so well, and you, Miss Douglas, it 
 is so long since you have graced us with a visit ! " 
 
 The Colonel, a tall, erect old man, with snow-white hair, 
 replied, " I have the greatest trouble, Mr. Johns, to induce my 
 daughter to pay visits. She's terribly remiss in what seems to 
 me to be the first of social duties." 
 
 Miss Douglas, without answering, glanced at Johns with a 
 meditative smile. 
 
 Johns thought, " I must separate them." 
 
 " Colonel," he said, " I'm going to take your daughter from 
 you. I want to introduce her to some people who will perhaps 
 induce her to be less cruel. Come, Miss Douglas, you are in 
 my hands to-night." 
 
 As soon as they had left the Colonel, he said, quickly, " Let 
 us go downstairs to the refreshment room; I want to speak 
 to you." 
 
 Without answering, she let him lead her to a room on the 
 ground floor where a long table full of delicacies was being 
 served by half a dozen solemn waiters. 
 
 At one end of the room was a small recess which was 
 furnished with a velvet-cushioned bench. 
 
 Johns said, as they sat down, "Miss Douglas, now that I 
 am married, I'm privileged to speak paternally." 
 
 Then, lowering his tone, he asked, " Couldn't you like St. 
 George ? " 
 
 Startled by the directness of the question, for which she was 
 unprepared, she answered, " I didn't know that marriage gave 
 a right to ask such questions." 
 
 " It does to me, Miss Douglas, because I take an interest in 
 your welfare, a greater interest than you imagine." 
 
 She gave him a rapid glance. 
 
 ** Ah, your interests are very wide." 
 
 Without appearing to perceive the drift of this remark, he 
 said, " Do you know. Miss Douglas, that when I saw you for 
 the first time, I was reminded of one of those perfect models of 
 Greek art which have come down to us from the time of Phidias? 
 It seemed to me that you were the true expression of that great 
 man's brain, the incarnation of his rich fancy. Later I heard 
 that my friend St. George had been as deeply struck as I. When 
 he told me that he meant to ask your hand, I thought him 
 the most enviable man in the whole world, for I imagined that 
 he would find favour in your eyes. But it seems I was mistaken. 
 It seems that poor St. George had built his hopes in vain, and 
 that now he is obliged to live with his regrets. And what 
 regrets ! Ah, were there ever such regrets?" 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 205 
 
 ** Are you grieving for your friend ? " she asked. 
 
 " For my friend ?" he repeated, " I scarcely know ; I scarcely 
 like to think"; and he gazed at her deeply, earnestly. 
 
 She said, " Two years ago if I had asked you that question, 
 would you have known what to answer ?" 
 
 " Two years ago I would have pleaded for myself." 
 
 She said, " Fate settles things so badly." 
 
 " It does," he echoed, sorrowfully. 
 
 " And some day," he added, with a sigh, " you will meet the 
 man who will be more fortunate than St. George, and then we 
 will be divided by a double bar." 
 
 She was silent. Presently she said, " I don't know why we 
 have talked of this." 
 
 He answered, "I will tell you why. It was because we 
 were impelled to by that fatal magnetism which no one can 
 escape, which no one can resist. I felt when I saw you enter 
 this evening that I should betray myself ; I knew that I was 
 under the influence of a great, an irresistible attraction. Ah, 
 Miss Douglas, the fire that I see in those beautiful dark 
 eyes of yours, tells me plainly why St. George was unsuccessful. 
 St. George, with his leisurely and quiet ways, was not the 
 husband you deserve. You were born to be the solace of a 
 man of action, of a man who can force his way to the 
 position which he wants. And some day perhaps, you will 
 meet that man, you will marry him, and I shall be obliged 
 to be a mere witness to the marrying ! " 
 
 *' Who knows ! " she said, " things happen strangely some- 
 times." 
 
 He glanced up at her suddenly and searchingly, seeking to 
 guess her meaning. Then they were both silent for some 
 minutes. 
 
 Presently the strains of a violin penetrated to the recess 
 where they were sitting, in irregular cadences of sound, now 
 plainly audible, now dying away completely in the passage from 
 the floor above. 
 
 Johns, who was beginning to fear that his absence from the 
 drawing-room might be remarked, explained, "That's Senor 
 Fernaflor, whom my wife enlisted the other day at the Duke 
 of Dorset's. He's a prince of violinists. I suppose we must 
 go up to hear him." 
 
 " As you wish," she said, listlessly. 
 
 But as they were going up the stairs, he whispered, "Will 
 you come and see us often ?" 
 
 She answered, " VVhat would be the use?" 
 
 He said, " Come all the same," and then, stopping suddenly 
 
204 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 before they reached the last stair, he murmured, " Promise me 
 that you will consult me before you accept another man ?" 
 
 Again she answered, "What would be the use?" 
 
 " I don't know. I can't quite say. I might advise you. I 
 scarcely like to think. But promise me, I entreat you ; 
 promise me.** 
 
 " Very well," she said, " I will." 
 
 As they reached the door the violinist, a thin man with a 
 fine thoughtful face surrounded by a thick mass of brown 
 waving hair, had just finished the first part of his performance, 
 and was bowing to acknowledge the applause which greeted 
 him. Johns took advantage of the interval to conduct Miss 
 Douglas to her father, where he left her. 
 
 " I guessed as much," he said to himself, as he moved away 
 from them. "What a wife she would have made !" 
 
 He had embarked on the little intrigue from his natural 
 liking for such things, from a real admiration for the beautiful 
 young girl, and in obedience to his principle of never neglecting 
 an opportunity. He felt regret that so much beauty should be 
 beyond his reach, and also a vague desire to speculate upon the 
 future. But at that moment he was recalled to a sense of his 
 host's duties by his wife, who was making him a sign to come 
 to her. 
 
 As he reached the place where she was ^standing, the 
 violinist resumed his playing. Mrs. Johns whispered in his 
 ear — 
 
 " Those Dawsons have arrived, John. You had better help 
 me to speak to them." 
 
 Suddenly, as he looked up, he saw Dawson and his wife upon 
 the landing, listening to the performer. 
 
 But what a change in Lucy ! Instead of the florid, healthy 
 blonde, with her fresh face and her almost girlish look, he saw 
 a woman with drawn pale features and an air of languor. She 
 was standing at her husband's side, listening to the music, and 
 looking down. Her hands were crossed over her black dress. 
 Johns thought, " Lucy has changed." 
 
 The Spanish artist was playing a rhapsody with great feeling 
 and expression, and the whole room was visibly impressed. 
 Johns himself, as he listened to the rich sounds which were 
 being given out with masterly precision, muttered, " Poor little 
 Lucy, how thin she's looking !" 
 
 When the piece and the prolonged applause which it elicited 
 were over, Johns advanced to receive the Dawsons, and to 
 introduce them to his wife. 
 
 As he shook hands with Lucy she looked away from him and 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 205 
 
 returned his greeting with a mere word. Even Dawson, 
 apparently impressed by the splendour of his ex-reporter, seemed 
 subdued. The two ladies spoke together, and Johns said to 
 Dawson — 
 
 " You've often received me at your house, Dawson ; now I'm 
 pleased to be able to welcome you to mine." 
 
 "And what a house !" said Dawson. 
 
 Johns smiled complacently. 
 
 "Ah," said Dawson, "we've missed you in the Strand. The 
 man who followed you I didn't keep a month; and the present 
 one — well, I won't mention him." They talked about the paper 
 for a few minutes, and then Johns whispered, " Speak to my 
 wife, Dawson, and I'll take yours down to the refreshment 
 room." Johns offered his arm to Lucy, who took it half- 
 reluctantly, and they went down. Neither spoke. When they 
 reached the room, as she declared she would take nothing, he 
 led her to the small conservatory which was entered from the 
 extreme end, and which was lit with coloured lamps. 
 
 They were alone, and he said at once, " It was good of you 
 to come to-night." 
 
 " I came," she answered as if with an eflfort, " to please my 
 husband." 
 
 "Only for that?" he said, adding, after a slight pause, 
 "you're not looking well. What has been the matter?" 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " Have you been ill, Lucy ? Tell me !" 
 
 She answered, " Do not be more cruel than you've already 
 been !" 
 
 " Cruel ? Was I really cruel ?" 
 
 " Oh, how can you ask that !" 
 
 " I was obliged to marry, Lucy." 
 
 "Were you obliged to deceive two women at the same 
 time?" 
 
 " There were circumstances which prevented me from being 
 frank." 
 
 "Ah yes," she said bitterly, "men say those things !" 
 
 "Come, come Lucy, this will never do. This solemn tone, 
 these sombre looks ! You must forget all about the past and 
 think only of the present. You must not spoil that pretty face 
 by melancholy." 
 
 " Yes, you've taught me to be callous." 
 
 "Lucy, you're mistaken. I acted really for your good, as 
 some day you'll understand. There was no issue from the 
 position in which we found ourselves. It was bound to come 
 to an end some day." 
 
2o6 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " That, then, was the kind of love you had for me !" 
 
 "Oh, but, Lucy, all that's over now !" 
 
 "It is indeed!" 
 
 " And perhaps I can do something for you. I'm able now 
 to help my friends, and if you wanted to go into society, for 
 instance, where you might meet someone who would love you 
 more than you imagine I did " 
 
 But she interrupted him — 
 
 " Oh, this is too much ! I have loved you with all my heart 
 and soul. I've dreamt of you, I've even prayed for you. I 
 would have given up my life for you, and you talk to me of 
 another man ! I don't want to upbraid you. You have done 
 what your inclination made you do ; you have followed your 
 ambition, but do not speak to me of a second treachery 
 towards my husband, who was so good and kind to me when 
 I was ill." 
 
 "Have you been ill, Lucy?" 
 
 "Yes, very ill; but do not let us talk of that. I'm better 
 now, and all I desire is to make the man who loves me happy." 
 
 He looked at her attentively. Her face was so intensely 
 sorrowful that suddenly he grew serious himself. 
 
 "And do you think," he asked, "that Fm completely 
 happy ? " 
 
 " Have you not all that should make you so ? " 
 
 " It would seem so," he said, meditatively, with a sigh. " But 
 it doesn't matter about me. I am of the more common clay, 
 a servant of ambition. I can only live as long as I can climb, 
 and if there were nothing left to climb for, I could not go on 
 living. Don't regret me, Lucy, I wouldn't have made you 
 happy." 
 
 " You're a strange man ! " 
 
 " I am, Lucy, I am ; but you must forget all about me and 
 my strangeness." 
 
 "Ah! if I only could!" 
 
 " You can do it, Lucy, if you try. All women can. What, 
 after all, is this love but an illusion of the senses, a matter of 
 chance and circumstance, of time and latitude and opportunity? 
 The lovers of to-day, for all their youth and ardour, are the old 
 men and women of to-morrow ! We are all of us undergoing 
 change. It's not a year since you quitted me that afternoon in 
 Jermyn Street, and yet we are both changed already. We could 
 no longer, if we wished, love with the same feelings as before. 
 Time has already altered us. Love is of the present — of the 
 present only. Think of the countless couples who marry in 
 the enthusiasm of a brief moment of delusive passion. All the 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 207 
 
 world is love for them. Nothing else exists ! And yet in a 
 few short years they have settled down to a vulgar life of 
 egoism, and their love has cooled into a mere feeling of con- 
 jugal companionship. Sometimes it has changed to enmity. 
 We are all the sport of chance ! What do you think that 
 room-full of people up above are doing? They are existing 
 merely for the pleasures of the hour. Some have not yet 
 experienced love ; some are tasting its delights. For others it 
 is a mere memory. But all are hving on the solace of some 
 present pleasure, well knowing that present pleasures are the 
 only ones that count. Lucy, there's a law in nature which 
 makes us hedonists — all hedonists !" 
 
 She said, " How different our natures are ! You little know 
 a woman's heart." 
 
 Johns thought, "I do, though"; and he answered, "No, 
 Lucy, I'm afraid I don't." 
 
 By this time he had satisfied his curiosity. He had felt her 
 pulse, and had poured what little balm he could upon her 
 troubled feelings, and now he was getting tired. There wasn't 
 enough variety in Lucy. She was too much of a piece. The 
 best thing she could do was to go on consoling Dawson. That 
 w^as in reality the part she was fitted for, and it was weak of 
 him to waste philosophy upon her. She had had a shock, no 
 doubt, but she would easily recover now. There were no such 
 things as broken hearts except in the imagination of the senti- 
 mental novelist. 
 
 " Well then, Lucy," he said, " it's understood. You're going 
 to be reasonable; you're going to devote yourself to that 
 estimable man your husband. In a few years you'll tell me 
 that everything has happened for the best, and that you're very 
 happy." 
 
 " In a few years ! " she repeated slowly. " Ah, yes, in a few 
 years ! " 
 
 " And now," said Johns, rising, " we had better perhaps go 
 back." 
 
 She rose at once. He offered her his arm, and they returned 
 in silence. 
 
 Mrs. Johns, as they entered the room together, gave them a 
 sharp, somewhat suspicious glance, which Johns did not fail to 
 notice. 
 
 Leaving Mrs. Dawson, therefore, with her husband, whom he 
 discovered speaking to an acquaintance, he returned to his 
 wife's side. 
 
 " Oh, John, everybody is asking for you. How long you've 
 been ! " 
 
2o8 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 And Johns, who had by this time satisfied all his curiosity, 
 and who was now disposed to enter heartily into his duties of 
 host, replied,"! couldn't get rid of that Mrs. Dawson, but now 
 I'm at your service." 
 
 The evening progressed brilliantly, and the violinist was twice 
 again applauded. The room was animated, the reception was 
 successful. The guests seemed pleased to find themselves 
 together under the Johns's roof 
 
 Johns occupied the remainder of the time in chatting with 
 them, and he noticed with satisfaction that the merest witticism 
 he made, was received with twice the favour it deserved. 
 
 ** What sheep they are !" he thought again, and as he moved 
 about the room, greeted by smiles and compliments, he felt as 
 he fancied Napoleon must have felt when the women waited 
 for him in the corridors and the men coveted his merest 
 word. 
 
 " How they worship their God — success ! " he thought, as he 
 stood amongst the bevy of bare, sparkling necks and listened to 
 fair literary aspirants, distributing the while encouragements 
 and smiles. 
 
 When it was all over, when the last couple had departed and 
 the last leave-taking over, Johns and his wife were left alone in 
 the great empty drawing-room. 
 
 Leaning her head upon his shoulder, and with her eyes 
 half closed, she murmured — 
 
 " Oh my darling Johnnie, how proud I was of you to-night. 
 How well you looked and spoke. If you had been born a 
 prince you could not have seemed more princely!" 
 
 Then, placing her arms around his neck, she drew his 
 face towards her and kissed him gently on his eyelids. 
 
CHAPTER 
 FOURTEENTH 
 
 THE season was drawing to its close. The series of receptions 
 which the Johns had given had been entirely successful, 
 and the newly-married couple had continued to mount so rapidly 
 the social ladder, that Mrs. Johns herself, whose circle of 
 acquaintances had been singularly enlarged by the attraction 
 which her husband exercised, had been surprised. Although 
 Johns took very little trouble now to court society, he was 
 always in demand, and hostesses considered themselves 
 fortunate when they had been able to secure him. They even 
 pardoned him his rudeness in failing to appear when a superior 
 interest prevented him. 
 
 One afternoon, however, in the middle of July, the Stanfields, 
 St. George, and a few intimate friends had been lunching at 
 Grosvenor Place, and were sitting chatting in the drawing-room. 
 Johns, who had partaken freely of his own champagne at lun- 
 cheon, was in one of his expansive moods. He was describing to 
 his guests the visit he had had the previous day. A man had 
 come to him with an introduction from a friend, and had wished 
 to write in his Review to prove that the curse from which the 
 nation suffered was the hereditary Chamber, which stifled 
 progress and imposed upon the people the will of a degenerated 
 aristocracy whose minds and bodies were alike corrupt. And 
 Johns applied himself to show that the mainstay of the nation 
 was the caste which had made it great, the caste whose moral 
 influence was still enormous, the caste which in reality was the 
 greatest friend of progress. 
 
 His guests were naturally of his opinion. 
 
 " When I was a boy at school," Johns commenced 
 
 " At Harrow," Mrs. Johns explained, drawing on her 
 imagination for the benefit of those present. 
 
210 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " I remember," continued Johns, without taking any notice 
 of his wife's elucidation, " the son of a commoner who used to 
 preach democracy as he had learned it from his father " 
 
 But he had scarcely pronounced the last word when the door 
 was opened and a servant entered. 
 
 " Mr. David Johns has called to see you, sir." 
 
 Johns stopped short and turned at once towards the man who 
 brought him so extraordinary a piece of information. 
 
 " Mr. who ? " he asked in a low voice. 
 
 " Mr. David Johns, sir. I told him you were engaged, but — 
 
 he says he is your father, sir, from I didn't catch the 
 
 name, sir." 
 
 The man, whom Johns had found wanting in intelligence and 
 who was about to leave, spoke loudly enough for everyone to 
 hear. 
 
 The Stanfields and the other guests looked up at once, while 
 Mrs. Johns grew serious. 
 
 Johns, who thought his father safely at St. Martin, was com- 
 pletely taken by surprise. Quickly he realized that he could 
 not refuse to see his father. Yet it was impossible to ask him 
 in. In his embarrassment, he hit upon the expedient of going 
 down to see him. 
 
 Excusing himself, therefore, to his guests, he hurried to the 
 door. But he had no sooner opened it, than he found his 
 father waiting on the threshold. The elder Johns was a short, 
 thick-set man, with a round face the upper lip of which was 
 shaved. He wore whiskers that curled like short crisp waves 
 on a sea-shore, and stretched from ear to ear, passing beneath 
 the chin. His little peering eyes stood out in relief upon the 
 weather-reddened skin, and his reddish curly locks, which 
 were becoming white in patches, although he scarcely seemed 
 more than fifty, completed an essentially seafaring counte- 
 nance. He was dressed in a suit of black glossy cloth, the vest 
 of which was adorned by a thick watch-chain of pale gold. 
 In his brown freckled hand he was holding a round and 
 soft felt hat. 
 
 He had followed the man upstairs and was standing on 
 the landing looking about him at the vastness of the place, 
 apparently abashed at his temerity. 
 
 " Well, John, my boy, 'ow arr you ? You're surprised to see 
 me, but you know there was an excursion from St. Peter's Port, 
 and the missis said " 
 
 But in the middle of his speech he suddenly perceived the 
 majestic drawing-room in the background with its velvet 
 hangings, its air of greatness, and in it the group of guests who 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 211 
 
 were looking towards the door with faces of amused wonder- 
 ment. Abruptly he ceased speaking. 
 
 Johns, who felt himself between two fires, and who realized 
 intensely the awkwardness of the situation, paused a moment 
 to collect his thoughts after pressing his father's hard brown 
 hand. He knew that it had been given out industriously by 
 his wife that his father was a gentleman who never left his 
 property in Guernsey, and this apparition of the old mariner 
 was therefore doubly disagreeable. 
 
 But there was no time for much reflection. Everybody in 
 the room had heard and seen. It would look worse now to try 
 to hide his sire than to produce him. He would produce him. 
 He was strong enough to do so now, and it would be amusing 
 to force the old man upon them. If they came to his house, 
 the silly fools, they must take it as they found it. 
 
 Having arrived at this determination, he said, loudly enough 
 for all to hear, " Come in, father." 
 
 But the elder Johns remained upon the landing hesitating, 
 glancing alternately at Johns and at the guests, uncertain what 
 to do. 
 
 Johns, seeing his embarrassment, encouraged him. 
 
 " Come along, father, it's all right." 
 
 Slowly, then, the old man followed his son into the room. 
 
 As they were advancing, the expression of Mrs. Johns's face 
 would have formed a study for a physiognomist. Fear, offended 
 pride, humiliation, were all depicted on her countenance, which 
 had become as red as the silk bodice she was wearing. 
 
 Johns, who by this time had quite regained composure, 
 assumed his most Napoleonic attitude, and, designating his 
 father with a wave of his hand, he addressed his wife. 
 
 " This, Rose, is my father, whom you have not yet seen, and 
 who has wished to give us a surprise." 
 
 Then, turning to the old mariner, he said — 
 
 " Father, this lady is my wife." 
 
 The old man timidly held out his hand to Mrs. Johns. 
 
 " Good afternoon, ma'm." 
 
 Mrs. Johns gave him the tips of her fingers without replying. 
 
 But Johns, taking no notice of his wife's evident disgust, now 
 introduced his father to the other guests, and to each of them 
 the old man said, " 'ow arr you, sir," or " I 'ope you arr quite 
 well, ma'm." When, however, it came to the Stanfields' turn, 
 and Johns said, "Lady Stanfield, Lord Stanfield, let me 
 introduce my father who has just come from Guernsey," the 
 old man looked bewildered. Never having been in the presence 
 of nobility before, he fumbled nervously with his hat, and 
 
212 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 finally made a species of obeisance which raised a smile on the 
 lips of Lord Stanfield and his wife. 
 
 " I'm pleased to see you, sir," Lord Stanfield said, with an 
 amused expression, which further disconcerted the old mariner, 
 and then, addressing Johns with an almost imperceptible touch 
 of irony, " I didn't know, Johns, that your father was so hale 
 and hearty." 
 
 But Johns, unwilling to be outdone, replied — 
 " My father has a constitution of iron, Lord Stanfield; neither 
 heat nor cold affects it. I have seen him lie on the deck of his 
 boat at night in mid-winter with nothing but an oilskin over 
 him to protect him from the cold. I have seen him remain 
 a whole night at the helm when the wind was blowing in a 
 hurricane, and the waves were soaring as high as mountains. 
 In the whole island there isn't a man so hardy. Shall I tell 
 you a story which his modesty prefers to hide? One night, 
 which is still fresh in my memory, although I was then a lad, a 
 terrific storm burst upon our coast. It wasn't a mere gale of 
 wind, but one of those hurricanes which carry all before 
 them. Suddenly it was rumoured that a ship was in the bay 
 struggling in the dark heaving mass of water. The whole 
 parish gathered on the beach, and soon we saw a rocket dart 
 into the inky sky. There was no doubt then. A ship was 
 there, and in distress. But who could render her assistance 
 on such a night? The men who were accustomed to man 
 the life -boat looked at the night, and shook their heads ! 
 They couldn't go! It was nothing short of madness to 
 attempt it. It was risking their lives in vain, they said. 
 No, it could not be done. My father then appeared among 
 them. He listened a moment to their talk, and then he said, 
 * We must do that job, boys,' and he persuaded them to do it ! 
 They got the boat and manned her, and my father took the 
 helm. The first push was unsuccessful : the boat was filled by 
 the huge crashing waves. They tried again and yet again until 
 at length she was launched on the mad sea. Then they rowed 
 as galley slaves have never rowed. Ah, how they rowed ! And 
 my father cheered and steered them, although his voice was 
 often drowned in the great roar. The rockets continued to 
 ascend. The ship was drifting rapidly towards them, but the 
 battle with the waves was terrible. The boat was like an ant 
 trying to fight an elephant. All on shore were certain she 
 must be destroyed. It was so dark, so wild ! But suddenly 
 the moon came out from behind a bank of clouds just as 
 they reached the ship, and they were able, after a struggle 
 as heroic as an epic combat, as fierce as a death duel, to 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 213 
 
 rescue, how many do you think? to rescue fifteen of the 
 crew ! " 
 
 A murmur of admiration greeted this anecdote, and Mr. 
 David Johns, surprised at the praise which was being bestowed 
 upon him by his son for an act which he had well-nigh for- 
 gotten, was more confused than ever. St. George, however, 
 out of friendship for his son, endeavoured to encourage the 
 old man by asking him a question. 
 
 " Do you get many such storms, Mr. Johns ? " he asked. 
 
 The old man, so questioned, and finding himself entirely in 
 his element, replied — 
 
 " Well, not often such as that, sir, but it do blow 'ard in the 
 winter time. I've seen as many as three ships ashore one 
 Christmas." 
 
 The guests looked at each other and agreed that that was 
 a great many. 
 
 Mrs. Johns maintained a rigid silence. 
 
 "Take a seat, father," Johns said, noticing that his father 
 remained standing. 
 
 The elder Johns turned and looked at several vacant chairs, 
 but no doubt thinking them too gorgeous with their gilt and 
 their crimson velvet, he chose a kind of stool of inlaid oriental 
 make, and slowly lowered himself into it, as if doubtful if it 
 would bear his weight. As it was very low, and as his legs 
 were short and thick, he had a doubled-up appearance which 
 added nothing to his dignity. 
 
 But the conversation, which had been interrupted by his 
 arrival, now continued on other topics, and he became a listener. 
 
 A fair young man, with a blank ugly face and an exceed- 
 ingly high collar, whom Johns invited because he was known 
 to be phenomenally rich (the possession of great wealth placed 
 a man, Johns thought, on a kind of level with intelligences 
 higher than his own), began to relate to Lord Stanfield a 
 carriage accident he had had a few days previously. Johns 
 and St. George chatted about art. David Johns and his 
 daughter-in-law were silent. 
 
 Thus the time was reached when luncheon parties which 
 have extended far into the afternoon break up. 
 
 Lady Stanfield was the first to rise, and the others followed 
 her example. 
 
 In a few moments they had all left. Mrs. Johns had dis- 
 appeared, and the father and son were alone together. 
 
 Johns said, " I'm glad to see you, dad, but you should have 
 written that you were coming. My wife, you know, is a big 
 swell, and doesn't like to be surprised — swells don't." 
 
214 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 ** I didn't know, Johnnie. It was the missis made me come 
 on that excursion boat. I didn't want to, Lord knows." 
 
 " When does it return, dad ? " 
 
 " In fourr days." 
 
 " Where are you staying ? " 
 
 "Well, you see, Johnnie, it was very late when we got to 
 London, and some of 'em were going to the Cooper's Arms — • 
 that's over by the station — so I went along with 'em." 
 
 The old man spoke slowly and with hesitation, in a kind 
 of half French accent. He looked down most of the time, 
 seeming timid in the presence of his son. 
 
 " And how are you off for coin, dad ? " 
 
 "I've lots of that, Johnnie, thanks to you, my boy." 
 
 " And how are mother and cousin Kate ? " 
 
 "The missis has had rheumatics, but Katie's very well." 
 
 Then he went on to tell his son all the village news, the 
 marriage of Peter Luce, and the death of John Lebas, men- 
 tioning a host of names half English and half French, which 
 Johns remembered hazily, and speaking in English, either 
 because he guessed that his son had forgotten the Guernsey 
 patois, or because, being in reality of Welsh origin as his name 
 implied, the English tongue was equally familiar to him. 
 
 When he had finished, Johns said, calmly, " Well, now, dad, 
 I must go out. I'll come and see you to-morrow at the 
 Cooper's Arms to take you out to dinner. But look here, 
 dad, don't come here again. The missis mightn't like it. Do 
 you understand ? " 
 
 "All right, my boy, don't mind me. I won't trouble the 
 good lady." 
 
 Johns led his father to the front door, and they parted, after 
 agreeing to meet again next day. 
 
 Then he returned to the drawing-room, where his wife was 
 now awaiting him. Immediately, as he glanced at her face, 
 he saw that she was in high dudgeon. He had never seen 
 her look so glum. 
 
 Preparing himself for a contest which seemed inevitable, he 
 took a seat and waited for her to commence. She was not 
 long in doing so. 
 
 " John," she said, " before our marriage it was agreed that 
 your family should never come here, and yet just now, when 
 your father appeared upon that landing in an incomprehensible 
 kind of way, you actually brought him in, and introduced him 
 to our friends. I have never felt so frightfully ridiculous 
 before. You know as well as I that we gave out he was a 
 country gentleman, and yet, in the face of that, you delibe- 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 215 
 
 rately tell everybody that he is a — a seafaring person. It's 
 monstrous. I shall never recover the humiliation ! " 
 
 Johns, who was rather in a bad humour himself at what had 
 happened, answered rather sharply, " It was the fault of that 
 fool, James. What was I to do, I should like to know, when 
 he said, before everybody, that he was my father ? " 
 
 " You should have said he wasn't and refused to see him, or 
 something of the sort. Anything, I should think, would be 
 better than making your wife ridiculous ! " 
 
 Vexed at the tone she had suddenly adopted, he replied, 
 " I did what occurred to me to do, and after all it wasn't so 
 very terrible^ 
 
 " It was a perfect scandal ! You had no right to bring such 
 a person here." 
 
 Johns was stung to the quick this time. His father was his 
 father, and if he chose to acknowledge him, by God his friends 
 must accept him, and his wife too ! 
 
 He said, " Is that the first scandal, Rose, in which you have 
 been concerned ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asked, angrily. " What do you 
 insinuate ? " 
 
 " Nothing in particular ; only I've been accustomed to think 
 that one scandal is as good or as bad as another, that's all." 
 
 " Oh ! " she muttered, I didn't expect that of you ! " 
 
 He answered, " Everything is to be expected from every- 
 body." 
 
 " It seems so, indeed !" 
 
 Presently she added, "After what has happened I should 
 think you would see the necessity of our going away from 
 London for a time." 
 
 " I see no such necessity, and I don't intend to go." 
 
 " Ah," she exclaimed, " I'm beginning to think I didn't 
 know you." 
 
 " Perhaps not," he answered, carelessly. " As for my father, 
 whom you are pleased to call a seafaring person, I may tell you 
 that he won't come here again. I shall lunch with him at a 
 restaurant to-morrow." 
 
 Saying this, to put an end to the discussion he rose and left 
 the room with a decided step. 
 
 This was their first quarrel of any gravity. They had had 
 some little scenes of jealousy at different times, when Johns had 
 been too attentive to his wife's lady friends, but they had led to 
 nothing since there was nothing to be discovered in that 
 direction. 
 
2i6 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 But this time Mrs. Johns had been deeply wounded in her 
 pride of caste, and for some time afterwards, although she had 
 not reverted to the old man's visit, she was colder towards her 
 husband, less demonstrative in the cult which she professed 
 for him. Frequently a troubled, almost sorrowful expression 
 would cross her face, and she would look at Johns as he sat 
 opposite to her at table. 
 
 Johns, who wished to commence asserting his independence, 
 did nothing to restore her peace of mind. He regarded the 
 visit of his father as a fortunate event, since it had caused the 
 exact measure of estrangement between his wife and him, 
 which he found necessary to his own comfort, and which he 
 was quite resolved to endeavour to maintain. 
 
 It was so delightful now, to indulge his liking for Mrs. Weber 
 to its full extent without having to render an account of the 
 hours which he spent while doing so — the happiest in his 
 existence, and so different from those conjugal moments which 
 he considered as official or as a tax that he had to pay for the 
 position he had reached. As long as his wife would be satisfied 
 with the present state of things, they might go on living 
 pleasantly together, for, after all, she was a necessary factor in 
 his life, and she gave him a social status which he would not 
 care to lose, even in order to gain his liberty. 
 
 He made it a rule, also, to be excessively polite to her, and 
 to speak well of her before strangers. So that, when Mrs. 
 Weber would jestingly allude to "his antiquity," he would 
 merely remark gravely that Mrs. Johns was very well preserved, 
 and he would refrain from joining in the laugh which greeted 
 this description of his helpmate. " She's not an Ellen," he 
 would say, *' but she's Mrs. Johns, and there's no getting over 
 that." 
 
 And she would answer, " And I, who am an Ellen, am not 
 Mrs. Johns ! " and as that was equally undeniable, Johns would 
 content himself with smiling. 
 
 In the meantime he had become a frequent visitor at the 
 house of Colonel Douglas in Lexham Gardens. On Sunday 
 afternoons he would spend an hour there, taking, as he called 
 it, a bath of freshness in the beauty of the Colonel's daughter. 
 These visits afforded him a weekly taste of pure idealism, of a 
 different, more interesting feeling, in a sense, to that which he 
 experienced in the society of Mrs. Weber, and they were 
 undoubtedly a great relief from the companionship of Mrs. 
 Johns. He would keep some of his best anecdotes for the 
 young girl, and, when with her, would exert himself to be 
 particularly brilliant. As his wife never came with him, pre- 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 217 
 
 ferring to remain at home to receive her friends on Sundays, he 
 was the more free. Thus an intimacy grew up between them 
 which increased as the months went by, and, faithful to his 
 combative instincts, Johns would make a point of being dis- 
 agreeable to the aspirants (and they were many) for the young 
 girl's hand, defeating them in argument, using against them the 
 power of words which he now possessed, to their discomfiture, 
 so that they went out vowing that he was the worst cad they 
 had ever met, and strongly regretful that duels had been 
 abolished in this country. 
 
 Colonel Francis Douglas, her father, was a retired engineer 
 who had left the service with the rank of captain after inheriting 
 a little fortune, which permitted him to live in moderate ease 
 and comfort. His wife had died a few years before Johns's 
 marriage. His only son had been killed in Africa, and Edith 
 Douglas was now his only child. He allowed his daughter a 
 certain amount of liberty, but as he was adverse to the modern 
 notions of emancipation for unmarried women, he generally 
 accompanied her when she went into society. Several times, 
 incited by her beauty, Johns had hinted at a meeting in a 
 church or picture gallery, for the sake of music or of art, but 
 each time she had told him that it was impossible. And her 
 inability or unwillingness only served to whet his appetite. 
 She was the first woman he had met who took the kind of 
 interest in him he liked — a sensible, consistent interest which 
 never flagged, which could not fail to be sincere, since not only 
 he could not wed her, but he was really standing in the way of 
 her matrimonial prospects. 
 
 He loved her youth and her girlish ways, and he recognized 
 in her a bright intelligence, perceptions quite beyond her years. 
 What a wife she would have made! Ah, if Rose, by some 
 enchantment, could be transformed into such an Edith ! 
 
 One Sunday afternoon at the end of July he was with her 
 in Lexham Gardens. The father had left the drawing-room 
 to show an old friend of his his trophies. Edith and Johns 
 were left alone together. 
 
 " And so," he said, " you're going off to Switzerland ! " 
 
 " Yes, but why that solemn tone ? " 
 
 " Each time you go away, I think of you so often ! I 
 imagine that you are surrounded by a bevy of admirers, and 
 that one perhaps will carry off the prize ! " 
 
 " Have not I promised to let you know before that happens ? " 
 
 " You have, you have, I know, and yet I dread to receive a 
 letter telling me that the time has come for you to make a 
 choice. I scarcely like to think what I shall answer ! " 
 
2i8 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " You had better wait until the day arrives," she said, with a 
 little laugh. 
 
 " Ah, but it will come. It cannot always be delayed." 
 
 " It may. I have no wish to marry unless Must I 
 
 tell you?" 
 
 " I entreat you." 
 
 " Unless I meet someone who resembles you." 
 
 He cried with rapture, " I feel like a man who has suddenly 
 been saved from drowning, who has suddenly been brought 
 back to life ! Ah, why is there that cruel bar between us ? 
 True, the time may come when I shall be free ; but years may 
 then have passed, and we shall both have entered deeper into 
 the cave of life. It is now when we are in the full possession, 
 of divine youth, when we are, as the poet says, in the aurora of 
 existence, that we should taste the ineffable delight of love. 
 Forgive me if I speak like this, but I know that with you I 
 may be frank." 
 
 " You must not," she said, with a quiet smile, " make love to 
 me. You must wait, Mr. Johns, you must wait with a great 
 deal of patience. You may think me very visionary; but I 
 have a kind of presentiment that if we wait we shall be 
 rewarded." 
 
 She seemed perfectly collected as she sat there facing him in 
 the declining light of the afternoon, and she appeared to him so 
 perfectly, so overwhelmingly ideal, so absolutely beautiful, that 
 with difficulty he restrained himself from rising to seize her in 
 his arms. 
 
 "You are," he said, in an outburst of enthusiasm, "the most 
 marvellous expression, the most perfect incarnation I have ever 
 met of all that is bright and sweet and lovable. Oh, if I said 
 all that I have at heart to say ! But no, I must not, I must go 
 on living with your image stamped indelibly upon my mind 
 and heart." 
 
 "Oh," she said, "with me it is not necessary to be quite so 
 enthusiastic, although of course it's very kind of you. Yes, I 
 will confess I like you for your brilliancy and pluck, and I want 
 to see you rise to the height of your ambition. You will always 
 find a sympathizer in me — always." 
 
 " By God !" he said, in his bluff way, "with you I could have 
 gained an empire ! " 
 
 At that moment her handkerchief fell from her lap upon 
 the floor, and before she had time to stoop to pick it up, he 
 sprang upon it with a sudden bound. 
 
 " Oh, let me keep it," he exclaimed, as he pressed it to his 
 lips ; "let me have it with me always as a souvenir of you ! " 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 219 
 
 " You may have it if you like, but I warn you I don't care 
 for you in a sentimental vein." 
 
 Johns was not abashed. He knew women well enough, he 
 thought, to know that no admiration, homage, no matter how 
 excessive, was ever really uncongenial to them. This girl 
 might be one of those rare exceptions which are sometimes 
 heard of but never met, yet he didn't think so, and he continued 
 to pour out the hyperbolic phrases which flowed from his lips 
 so readily, until he was interrupted by the entrance of the 
 Colonel. Then, after a few words with the old engineer, he 
 left, saying good-bye until the winter. 
 
 When the time arrived for leaving town, Johns and his wife 
 had a serious discussion. 
 
 Johns suggested Switzerland, but immediately she said, ill- 
 humouredly, " I will not go to Switzerland." 
 
 " May I know why ? " 
 
 " I have my reasons." 
 
 Johns bit his lip, thinking, " She's jealous now of Edith." 
 
 He said, " Then where will you go ? " 
 
 " I should prefer Bath, where I want to take the waters." * 
 
 Johns answered, "Then I'm afraid, my dear Rose, I 
 shan't be able to accompany you. I would die of ennui in 
 a week." 
 
 "Ah," she said, bitterly, "a year ago you wouldn't have 
 talked of ennui." 
 
 " Probably not, but honeymoons cannot last for ever. There 
 must be reason in all things. We cannot be always as young 
 doves." 
 
 As he said this he glanced at his wife's face, and scarcely 
 repressed a smile as he noticed the skin which shone in some 
 places with the shine of maturity, and the furrows which endless 
 massage had been unable to remove. 
 
 " You lose no opportunity of reminding me of it," she said. 
 • " My dear Rose, one must think of these things." 
 
 " And you mean to say that if I go to Bath you will not come?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Yes, now I'm beginning to understand you! You're acting 
 just as I might have expected a man like you would act." 
 
 " What do you mean by a man like me ? " 
 
 " I mean a man of your — well, since you must have it — a 
 man of your class^ you know." 
 
 Johns, who had been leaning against the mantel, drew himself 
 up with great dignity. It was time, he thought, to assert himself. 
 This time he would bid for his independence. 
 
220 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 "If you've made up your mind to be rude," he said, "the 
 less we say to each other in future the better it will be, as I 
 don't intend to be insulted. We'll travel separately." 
 
 Saying this, he made for the door, striding with an air of 
 offended pride. But just as he was going out, she cried — 
 
 " Oh, Johnnie, this is impossible ! We cannot live like 
 strangers and go to different places. It would be too dreadful. 
 I could not do it. I should be always thinking of my Johnnie. 
 You know I don't want to say unkind things, but my nerves 
 are bad to-day, and you were not very kind, perhaps, just now, 
 and I felt a little hurt, and I Oh, forgive me, Johnnie." 
 
 The poor woman was sorely troubled, and the words came 
 out with difficulty. She seemed in pain. 
 
 Johns hesitated, with his hand on the handle of the door. 
 He did not want to quarrel outright with his wife just then, 
 neither did he wish to be too easily conciliated. He waited to 
 hear more. 
 
 " Don't go, my Johnnie," she said, supplicatingly. " Come 
 and sit here near me as you used to do — at first. I've been 
 feeling so weak and ill for the last few days. 
 
 And he, with a half-reluctant air, went back to her and took 
 a seat upon a low stool beside her, looking up and noticing the 
 paleness of her face. 
 
 " We'll make it up," he said ; " but you must go to Bath. 
 Your health needs it. Rose. I won't go to Switzerland, since 
 you don't like my going there, but somewhere else, and I'll 
 come to fetch you when the treatment's over." 
 
 "Very well, then," she answered, sorrowfully, "if it must 
 be so ! " 
 
 And she tried to look contented. 
 
 When the time arrived, Johns, after seeing his wife off at 
 Paddington, started for Dieppe, the next day, with Mrs. Weber. 
 He would, no doubt, have liked to go to Switzerland alone, 
 but he had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser to 
 refrain from doing so. Miss Douglas, whom he would have 
 met there, would, he knew, be closely guarded by her father, 
 and he might not enjoy himself at all. All things considered, 
 Mrs. Weber would be the best companion he could have 
 just then. 
 
 They crossed together from Newhaven, and arrived at Dieppe 
 after a calm trip across the channel. 
 
 In order that they might not run the risk of meeting friends, 
 Johns had engaged, by letter, a villa on the cliffs, at some 
 distance from the town, and thither they repaired at once. It 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 221 
 
 was a bright and pleasant little house — one of the many let to- 
 bathers for the season — and it was surrounded by a garden 
 railed off from the road on one side, and from the downs upon 
 the other by a high railing. 
 
 Here the time passed peaceably enough in bathing, readings 
 and in idling. 
 
 Johns, however, after a few weeks of this secluded life, began 
 to feel a lassitude, a langour. Whether it was that they were 
 too constantly together, that he was growing hypercritical, or 
 that the beauty of Miss Douglas haunted him, he was beginning 
 to find defects in his companion. She was older than he had 
 at first thought, and though she had never confessed her age, 
 he had a strong suspicion that she was within a measurable 
 distance of five-and-thirty. It was particularly after bathing, 
 when they returned home by the cliffs, that he noticed how 
 fatigued she looked, and how her features had become accen- 
 tuated, and he would think, " My worthy Ellen, you're going 
 down the hill." 
 
 One afternoon they were sitting together in the little salon of 
 the villa, rocking themselves in rocking-chairs before the open 
 window. The day had been fine and warm, and the channel 
 sea was stretched before them like a placid lake. Insects were 
 flying about the room buzzing loudly. 
 
 Johns, who was affected by the heat, was in one of those 
 tempers which made him feel inclined to vent his spleen on 
 somebody. He was smoking cigarettes, with his feet upon a 
 chair, contemplating Ellen as she turned over the pages of a 
 French novel. 
 
 "Ellen," he said suddenly, with a curious smile, "what's 
 your game in life ? " 
 
 She looked up suddenly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked quickly. 
 
 " I mean, how do you intend to finish up ?" 
 
 "To finish up?" 
 
 "Yes ! Some day or other, I suppose, we shall have a row,, 
 or get separated in one way or another. Then what do you 
 intend to do?" 
 
 " What a question ! " she said, frowning. " Why should we 
 quarrel, why should we separate ? I presume you're not con- 
 templating our separation?" 
 
 " Of course not, Ellen ; but I've always noticed that unless 
 men and women are linked together by the law, they invariably 
 fall asunder. I don't know why it should be, but they do — 
 always." 
 
 " Always when one of them desires it." 
 
222 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 There was a silence. Johns went on smoking his cigarette. 
 
 Presently she said, " I suppose you mean to play me a trick, 
 as you play everyone who knows you." 
 
 " My dear Ellen, you're getting as bad as if you were 
 my wife." 
 
 "That is what I should have been, had I not been so 
 foolish." 
 
 "Don't regret it, Ellen. It's a queer sort of post to be 
 Mrs. Johns." 
 
 " How well you know yourself! You know how treacherous 
 you are." 
 
 " You know very well that it's just because I'm not a silly 
 fool you like me. You yourself, dear Ellen, once wanted to 
 play me a little trick, you may remember." 
 
 " I wish I had." 
 
 " Of course you do ; but the combination fell through 
 lamentably. I wasn't to be fooled so easily." 
 
 And they continued in this strain, half in earnest, half in 
 bandinage, until they both grew tired of it. 
 
 "The fact is," Johns said at length, "we're like two augurs 
 meeting. We can't take each other seriously." 
 
 Although they bathed together daily, they refrained from 
 being seen together on the promenade or in the town, because 
 both were afraid of meeting English friends ; but the day after 
 this little argument, they were sitting under a kind of awning in 
 front of the villa before the garden and not far from the long 
 white road which led from the town. It was five o'clock in 
 the afternoon, and they were enjoying the cool breeze which 
 had sprung up since the previous day. Mrs. Weber was 
 making cigarettes of a special blend of tobacco of which 
 Johns was fond. There were few passers-by in the road 
 beyond, but those there were, could see into the garden 
 through the railings. 
 
 Suddenly a portly figure, dressed in a dark grey suit with the 
 clerical collar of an English clergyman, and accompanied by 
 two blonde young ladies with thin, narrow faces, and mouths 
 which did not close sufficiently, appeared on the other side of 
 the high railings. 
 
 The portly person adjusted his eye-glass, stood still for a 
 moment looking first at Mrs. Weber, then at Johns, after which 
 he moved off with great dignity to overtake the ladies, who had 
 continued on their road. 
 
 " By God," said Johns, "it's that old sneak the Dean ! " 
 
 " Well," she answered, " and if it is, you needn't be so over- 
 powered." 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 223 
 
 " It's very fine for you to talk," he said, roughly, " but it's a 
 damned nuisance. He'll go and write it to my wife, as certain 
 as he's a dean." 
 
 " Well it's as bad for me as for you, I fancy." 
 
 "/jr it?" he said, sneeringly. "What have you to lose 
 beyond a pennyworth of reputation, I should like to know? 
 With me it's a matter of three thousand pounds a year." 
 
 " Ha, ha," she laughed derisively, " it would be too funny 
 if you were to figure in a divorce case." 
 
 " Perhaps you wouldn't find it quite so funny when you 
 were called upon to explain in Court the nature of our arrange- 
 ment." 
 
 " Oh," she answered, carelessly, " nothing matters much now 
 to me. Once I thought that I could some day have been your 
 wife, but all that's over now. You're not the kind of man to 
 marry for anything but a heap of gold, my rapacious Johnnie. 
 I know you well. You'd imagine yourself a poor man if you 
 were a Rothschild ! " 
 
 He said, " You think it's wealth alone I want ? " 
 
 " I'm sure of it." 
 
 " Just as you like, Ellen; since you know me so well I won't 
 contradict you. It doesn't alter the fact that I'm going to have 
 the devil's own trouble with my wife, and all on account of that 
 silly mania of yours for sitting out here in public. He didn't 
 even bow ! " 
 
 She said, " You're making a great deal out of nothing. As 
 if you mightn't have been calling on me as a friend ! " 
 
 "Ah, yes, that's one of those Saxon notions for which 
 they've tried to make Plato responsible, and which they don't 
 really believe themselves. Anybody who knows me knows 
 that I don't indulge in vagaries of tJiat sort. Remember that 
 that old person has been disinherited, and he's ready to be 
 spiteful." 
 
 " Well," she said, composedly, " that's what comes of what 
 is called an irregular position." But Johns burst out — 
 
 " An irregular position ! As if anyone cared for regular 
 positions except mediocrities. I should have thought you'd 
 seen enough of life to be aware of that. Regularity means 
 stagnation, and only fools stagnate. Life isn't long enough for 
 that. We've got to get the best we can out of it before we're 
 fifty. It's a rum sort of farce afterwards. Up to thirty a man's 
 groping, so he's only got just twenty years of strength. Do you 
 think that if he shuts himself up in a regular position, as some 
 people call it, he ever gets a chance of knowing what life is ? 
 Never. Life, my worthy Ellen, is infinite, and no one ever 
 
2 24 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 gets to know it thoroughly. The man who explores it, best is 
 he who takes a crooked course and forces it to tell its secrets ! 
 What do those staid and sober puritans who form the majority 
 of the inhabitants of that island over yonder know of the 
 plenitude, the magnitude of life ? They treat it as if it were a 
 great, dull, lumbering machine, which could only go on one 
 changeless plan. They know about as much of their existence 
 as the cab horse of the people in the cab he draws. Well, that 
 sort of life wasn't made for me. I want emotions. I want my 
 pulse to beat a little faster than the snail's pace of mediocrity. 
 / want to take a deeper draught of the liquor of existence ! " 
 
 " Well, my dear John," she said, "you're likely to have plenty 
 of emotions if the Dean acts as you think he will." 
 
 But Johns had risen from his chair. 
 
 " Come, Ellen, let's go in, I want emotions now." 
 
CHAPTER 
 FIFTEENTH 
 
 TWO years elapsed. After many bickerings, Mrs. Johns, 
 who had lost her last illusions as to her husband's 
 conduct, had resigned herself at length to a life of passive 
 acquiescence, conscious of the legal strength of her position, 
 which not all the rivals in the world could injure. 
 
 As can easily be imagined, she was not happy. Every day, 
 almost every hour, she was reminded by the smiles, the 
 reticences, the hesitations of her friends that the sad collapse 
 of her married life was known, and though with a touching 
 display of ingenuity she endeavoured sometimes to invent 
 excuses for her husband's absences at times when his place was 
 at her side, the excuses were generally so manifestly weak, that 
 she felt that no one was deceived by them. And yet in spite 
 of all she loved her husband, and when she spoke of him to 
 others it was in a tone of admiration, almost of respect 
 Whatever Johns did or said that was fit to be repeated, such 
 as his editorial work or the latest of his epigrams, she would 
 relate with pleasure, deriving a kind of satisfaction from being 
 the wife of a man whose strength of character and natural ability 
 seemed to be so universally admitted. 
 
 But now, however, a little fearful for the future, she evinced 
 for her friends — for those who had known her almost from her 
 youth — much more affection than she had shown before. 
 
 With feminine prudence she endeavoured to conciliate them, 
 lest she might some day find herself alone, and even the Dean 
 (who had been so instrumental after the discovery he had 
 made at Dieppe in opening her eyes as to her husband's 
 conduct) she managed to appease by paying for the education 
 of one of his many sons. 
 
 Gradually she had come to be somewhat pitied, to be 
 Q 
 
2 26 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 considered as a woman undeservedly in an unfortunate 
 position, and tliis was the view taken of the case by both Lord 
 Stanfield and his wife, in whose estimation Johns had fallen, 
 as they did not fail to make him realize. 
 
 In the meantime Johns had gratified his wish to test and to 
 explore life fully. His ample means permitted him to take 
 pleasures which previously had been denied him, and for some 
 time he indulged in every hedonistic freak his fancy could suggest. 
 Not only did he become an epicure, a connoisseur of wines — 
 in which at one time he indulged so freely as to come 
 perilously near earning the reputation of a drunkard — but he 
 led for a period somewhat the life of a Turkish Pasha, with 
 Mrs. Weber, who had resigned herself to the inevitable like 
 Mrs. Johns, as his chief lady. 
 
 It was not that he cared for the facile conquests which he 
 made, or found much pleasure in moments passed in the 
 company of the flatterers and boon companions he had 
 grouped around him, but he was travailed by a strange desire 
 to show society — and especially that section of it which had 
 been the means of elevating him to the prosperity, the 
 eminence, he now enjoyed — that he was superior to the laws 
 of conduct governing ordinary mortals, and that his will was 
 the only master of his acts. If he wished to leave his house in 
 the afternoon and not return till the next morning with dirty linen 
 and reddened eyes, it was not the same as if an ordinary man 
 had done so. If he chose to give luncheon parties which 
 lasted from two o'clock till midnight, it was because he, John 
 Johns, the editor of the Centenary Review^ for high reasons of 
 his own, thought fit to do so. And hence he came to be 
 considered as an exceptional personality to whom the ordinary' 
 rules of life did not apply, who possessed a genius for 
 singularity which was not to be disputed. 
 
 All kinds of legends were gradually formed as to his career 
 in the past and in the present, and these (as usually happens) 
 were full of errors and exaggerations which caused him to 
 exclaim, when he heard of them from a friend, " The fools ; 
 they've the impudence to judge me by their own standards !" 
 
 But when he had tasted every pleasure which came within 
 his means, exhausted every source of novelty, he relapsed into 
 a satiated state of disenchantment. His body wanted nothing, 
 but his mind was filled with a great vague longing, and with a 
 huge contempt for the men and women whom he saw around 
 him, and whose vanities and vices he knew so well. He had 
 tested the virtue of the women, and he knew the value of the 
 men and the price at which they could be bought. He had 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 227 
 
 explored the aristocracy and found it not one bit more scrupu- 
 lous in actual reality than he, and if he was to have respect for 
 people, they must not be his counterparts. Those men and 
 women, too, had no reason for not leading an ideal life, such 
 as he deemed might perhaps be possible, for they had their 
 places in the social scale all ready found for them, while he 
 had had to conquer his by his own "grit." It was thus 
 impossible to have respect for anybody in this world of cant 
 and ignorance, in which men were but mere clothed animals 
 with a gift of thought and speech, serving to render them the 
 more worthy of contempt. The earth would roll eternally and 
 they would know no more about their origin, or about right 
 and wrong, than a nigger knows of Botticelli or a Bedouin of 
 Wagner. 
 
 And his lassitude and discontent extended now to art and 
 literature, and he waged a war in his Review against the British 
 public, which by its want of taste and of discernment had 
 allowed bad paintings and bad books to multiply. He did 
 this with so much spirit, too, and showed so much discernment 
 in selecting writers capable of laying on the lash with firmness 
 and ability, that, instead of alienating, he gained readers, 
 owing, he thought, to the public's fondness for strong criticism, 
 even at its own expense. Foreign art and letters he alone 
 permitted to be praised, and the resentment he excited in 
 the breasts of English writers of the Saxon school, was very 
 bitter, although it could not be expressed, since Johns held 
 the literary reputation of most of them in a great measure at 
 his mercy. 
 
 If he chose to be convinced that contemporary art was an 
 abomination, and that English fiction had been gradually 
 declining since the time of Shakespeare till it had descended 
 to the lowest depth of artificiality and incoherence, all w^ho 
 wished to gain his favour must profess to think so too. One, 
 indeed, of the few satisfactions which remained to him was his 
 sense of power. But even this satisfaction paled when he 
 reflected that it was only in one rather narrow sphere that 
 he could make his power felt. At one time he had thought 
 of trying to obtain a seat in Parliament, but after a few 
 evenings spent in the press gallery, he made up his mind 
 that politics were almost as great a weariness as acting the 
 part of husband to an ancient wife. No, he wouldn't be the 
 servant of a lot of fools who might criticize his acts. Ah, if he 
 had a young and pretty wife to return to after a midnight brawl 
 at Westminster, after he had told them plainly what he thought 
 of them, it would have been very different. But, with Mrs. 
 
228 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns, all the poetry would disappear, and, after all, there was 
 poetry, he found, in his composition. He couldn't climb with 
 a perspective such as that. His wife ! Really it was perfectly 
 ridiculous to see the care she bestowed upon her person. Her 
 diet was a complex study, and all the morning the house was 
 full of manicures and pedicures and masseuses and complexion 
 quacks, and once a week her doctor called, whether she were ill 
 or not. To what age would she live, he wondered? How 
 perpetual she seemed in spite of the wrinkles which massage 
 could not conquer, and the voice which had grown too deep ! 
 How eternally he seemed linked to her ! For now that they 
 had settled down to a life of conjugal aloofness, now that 
 she had ceased to question him as to his doings, and that a 
 semblance of married harmony was maintained before strangers, 
 for some reason which he could scarcely have defined, he felt 
 himself to be more than ever tied to her. There she was with 
 her constant smile of half- sorrowful indulgence, and her little 
 simpering ways, ready to receive the prodigal in her arms again 
 should he become repentant, and resolved to go on living in 
 the comfort to which she had been accustomed. At the 
 dinner table, no doubt, she was an attentive listener when it 
 pleased him to be expansive, to talk of men and books ; but he 
 knew full well that as she looked at him while he spoke, her 
 thoughts were occupied with something of a diiferent nature to 
 the genius of a French writer, or the literary style of a review 
 contributor. She was a woman, a typical and ordinary woman 
 with all the little vanities distinctive of her sex, and with 
 an intellect which did not stretch beyond the limits of 
 the strictly commonplace. On her, his eloquence was wasted ; 
 her mind was practically nil. " She has intuitions, the 
 good woman," Johns muttered to himself one evening as 
 he strolled down Piccadilly, " but not an ounce of brains." 
 He compared himself sometimes to a wandering knight upon 
 a chessboard unable to escape a queen, or his wife to a 
 sentinel in permanence at Grosvenor Place. And when he 
 thought of Edith Douglas, who had not married, though she 
 had had offers, and who was in the full blossom of her beauty, 
 he felt that, rich though he might be, his lot was hard. 
 
 Most men who fall into disorder endeavour to preserve some 
 kind of an ideal, some friend whose life is the opposite of theirs, 
 and Johns found in the Colonel's daughter the ideal influence 
 he needed. In the midst of his gallant adventures, whether he 
 was gratifying a passing fancy for an actress or laying siege to 
 the affections of a duchess, he never failed to spend three, 
 sometimes four hours every Sunday with Miss Douglas, to the 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 229 
 
 annoyance of her father, who had warned his daughter unavail- 
 ingly of the imprudence of receiving such a man so often. 
 Johns would tell her all his little worries, and endeavour to 
 enlist her sympathy for him in the helplessness of his position, 
 fettered as he was to a wife who could not understand him, who 
 loved him chiefly for his fame. And she would listen smilingly 
 to all he said, and give him her advice on questions of literary 
 policy — advice which he often acted on out of compliment to 
 her. Sometimes, however, she was serious and inchned to fret 
 as if she had at length begun, as season followed season, to 
 realize the hopelessness of their relations to each other, and 
 was taking leave of the illusions which girlhood forms of the 
 destinies of men and women in the world, and the fatality of 
 marriage. 
 
 At other times, when they were alone, she would tell him 
 that she had heard some ugly stories of his gallantry. He would 
 reply that they were partly false, that she was the only woman 
 in the world who could force him to be faithful ; that if ever 
 they once were married, he would be the most perfect of 
 reformed prodigals. He knew very well that he liked her all 
 the more because she resisted him, and the regret he felt at not 
 being able to possess her, drove him sometimes well-nigh into a 
 frenzy. 
 
 No, there was no way out of the situation — no way whatever 
 unless — unlesss the illness of which his wife had complained 
 now and then of late were really serious. Oh, but she was so 
 robust, so remarkably robust, and there was nothing but divorce 
 to have recourse to. And to obtain that, his wife must bring a 
 charge against him, which was precisely what she would not do. 
 Had she not told him so one day with that air of settled purpose 
 which he knew from long experience a woman never used 
 except when resolute ? He couldn't force an issue by being 
 brutal. It wasn't in his character. For, after all, the poor old 
 girl had been very good to him, and even now cared for him 
 as a mother, showing herself untiring when he was unwell, 
 spoiling him by every means she could devise. Yes, undoubt- 
 edly, that increased the difficulty of the position. 
 
 Then, again, there was the question of finance. If he were 
 divorced from her, half the fortune would remain to him, no 
 doubt, but the household would be broken up, and he could 
 not, on his own share, afford to live in such a house or upon so 
 large a scale. He would have to reduce his style of living, and 
 that was a thing he was very much disinclined to do. Life 
 was dreary and dull enough even when one lived it in the 
 fulness of its possibilities, but when lived otherwise it was a 
 
230 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 very poor game indeed. And then, as he reflected over the 
 position, and realized how thoroughly checkmated he now was, 
 he fell to making accusations against society in general, creating 
 a sort of virtue for himself by exposing its shortcomings in a 
 Socratic kind of way, but becoming cordially detested, and 
 dubbed a bore, a cad, by those who accepted society as it is 
 constituted. 
 
 But for them Johns cared nothing. He knew that by giving 
 frequent luncheons, fastuous dinners, he could always chain to 
 him a number of acquaintances whose stomach-gratitude would 
 at least prevent them from becoming enemies. He could 
 always count upon a band of staunch supporters who were, 
 from long practice, habituated to listen patiently to enunciations 
 of opinions which grew less and less orthodox as the time went 
 on. Often, indeed, for the mere delight of "startling the 
 Saxon," as he called it, he would propound some theory sub- 
 versive of one or many of the rules by which society is governed. 
 He would try to prove the necessity for what is known as sin, 
 showing how wrong it was to think that sin was not a useful 
 factor in the world since it preserved it from the calm stupidity 
 of universal goodness. What was there that was great which 
 had not sprung from sin ? When sin had been successful it 
 grew respectable, underwent a metamorphosis, became virtue. 
 The world without it would be a mill-pond of sobriety and of 
 inanity. Sin was the salt of life. It required twice as much 
 pluck to practise it as it did to lead an exemplary existence. 
 All who had made a deep mark in history had recognized this 
 principle from Hannibal to Napoleon. And then sometimes he 
 would tilt at received religion, lapsing into bad taste, calling 
 the Trinity a one-legged tripod, enquiring the composition of 
 an angel's wings, attacking bishops and tutti quanti, pro- 
 claiming himself a devout materialist. 
 
 It seemed as though some demon of combativeness were 
 prompting him to act as he was doing, were pushing him on to 
 fly in the face of received opinions. Whither this tendency 
 would lead him, he did not care. He felt he was a power, and 
 he wanted to impose himself upon society as such. 
 
 Matters had been going thus at Grosvenor Place all through 
 the winter when one day, in the early spring, an incident 
 occurred which gave Johns a sudden thrill, and awakened him 
 from the state of lethargic indifference into which he had been 
 drifting. 
 
 He had gathered round him four friends at luncheon. All 
 save one, who was a needy Viscount whom he sometimes helped, 
 were journalists more or less of the second magnitude. Two 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 231 
 
 of them were men of about his own age, and one, a dramatic 
 critic, was ten years older. He had met them all while he 
 conducted Dawson's journal, and of late he had shown a 
 temporary affection for old friends, many of the new ones having 
 recently shown signs of shyness. Mrs. Johns, looking somewhat 
 pale, occupied the end of the table, and was doing her best to 
 smile pleasantly upon her guests, and to listen with them to the 
 praise which Johns was bestowing upon Spanish art, of which 
 he spoke almost as if he had discovered it. " Velazquez," he 
 was saying, as if he were for ever consecrating him, " was a 
 giant, a colossus, a genius of superhuman strength ! Spain 
 must have been steeped in art to bring forth such a prodigy !" 
 And he was in the act of casting his eyes upwards to emphasize 
 his admiration when, suddenly, a stifled cry was heard, and 
 Mrs. Johns fell backward in her chair. 
 
 " By God !" Johns muttered, as he rushed to his wife's side, 
 "she's fainted!" 
 
 The three journalists and the Viscount rose at once. 
 
 " Ring the bell," Johns said, and the youngest journalist 
 touched the knob in the chimney corner, while the Viscount 
 dipped his finger- napkin into water and handed it to Johns, 
 who applied it to the lips and forehead of the unconscious 
 woman. 
 
 The others, rigid in their long frock coats, looked on in 
 silence. 
 
 Presently the servants came, and Johns, who was in a state 
 of great excitement, seeing that, in spite of the Viscount's 
 endeavours and his own, his wife did not return to consciousness, 
 cried out to them — 
 
 " Go one of you and fetch Dr. Mead." 
 
 But presently, when the lady's-maid had unfastened the 
 collar of her mistress's dress and chafed her hands, Mrs. Johns's 
 face became less convulsed, a little colour came back to her 
 lips, and her eyes slowly opened. 
 
 Her gaze rested first on the pictures on the walls, then on 
 the round silly face of the young Viscount, and at length upon 
 her husband's. 
 
 " Oh, my Johnnie," she sighed, feebly ; " oh, my John ! " 
 
 And Johns, whose excitement had suddenly subsided, pressed 
 her hand, exclaiming kindly — 
 
 " Why, Rose, what is all this about ? You weren't tired of 
 listening to me, were you ? " 
 
 A faint smile overspread her countenance, accentuating the 
 lines of age. 
 
 While leaning back against the woodwork of the high chair 
 
232 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 in which she generally sat, because it formed a dark back- 
 ground for her face, her hair had been disarranged, and one 
 short lock, released from the knot which held it, was hanging 
 down above her ear. In it a few grey hairs were visible. 
 
 But soon, with a woman's apprehension, she raised her hand 
 and tried to adjust the wandering lock which the maid at once 
 attached. She was better ; but as she complained of nausea, 
 Johns urged her to retire to her room, whither he promised he 
 would follow her. Almost reluctantly she consented, leaving 
 slowly with her maid. 
 
 The party upon this broke up, and the guests, as they left, 
 pressed Johns's hand as if to show their sympathy. Johns, 
 with an expression suited to the occasion, took leave of them, 
 saying, with an air of quiet patronage, " Good-bye, Jameson, 
 good-bye, Charlton ; I'll see you again soon, my boys." 
 
 When his guests had left, Johns went up to his wife's room. 
 He seldom entered this room now (for more than a year had 
 passed since his wife and he had lived conjugally together), and 
 as he crossed the threshold he thought of the first days of their 
 marriage, of the parody of love he had had to play there. Two 
 objects caught his eye — the vast carved oak bed in which his 
 wife now dreamed of her lost illusions, and above the mantel a 
 portrait of himself in water-colours which he had given her before 
 their marriage. 
 
 Stretched in a sofa-chair, Mrs. Johns, wrapped in a rich, pale 
 orange gown, surcharged with lace, was inhaling salts. Her 
 maid was spreading a covering over her feet. 
 
 Presently the maid withdrew, and they were left alone. 
 
 " Come and sit near me, John," she said in a low voice, as if 
 she were still suffering ; " I've something I want to tell you." 
 
 He took a chair and placed it near the head of his wife's 
 couch. 
 
 " What is it. Rose ? " he asked indulgently, almost tenderly, 
 as he sat down. 
 
 "Ah," she said, "how I love to hear you speak to me 
 like that ! " 
 
 The poor woman was so much in need of kindness, that a 
 kindly spoken word came like balm to her troubled feelings. 
 It was a few moments before she said — 
 
 " Come closer, my own John, and listen. You remember 
 that I've sometimes told you I was not well." 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "Well, my John^ I'm afraid it's more serious than I 
 thought." 
 
 She paused a moment, glancing at him as if seeking to read 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 233 
 
 his thoughts, but his face betrayed nothing of what was passing 
 in his mind. 
 
 He made a gesture which was meant to reassure her. He 
 was waiting to hear more. 
 
 " John, I'm in great trouble," she ejaculated ; " I don't know 
 how to tell you what it is. I can't believe it possible ! Dr. 
 Mead has not told me all, but I fear it is not difficult to 
 guess." 
 
 He looked at her with a glance of rapid scrutiny. Taking 
 her hand, he said, in a serious tone, *' What is it. Rose ? Tell 
 me all about it. You're needlessly alarmed, perhaps." 
 
 " No, John," she answered, sorrowfully, " I fear not." 
 
 Still she hesitated, reluctant to speak plainly. 
 
 At length, almost in a whisper, as if she feared that someone 
 might overhear her woman's secret, she told him of her grief. 
 
 Yes, she had sensations which were unmistakable. The 
 malady had taken root, and already, in spite of the treatment 
 she had undergone, it was making itself felt ; it was asserting its 
 power over her. Soon perhaps — ah, must she confess it ? soon 
 she would be unable to wear a low-necked dress ! 
 
 " Really ! " said Johns, astonished beyond measure. " I'm 
 sure. Rose, you exaggerate. It's not so bad as that. I'm sure 
 it can't be." 
 
 In the surprise which the news caused him, he forgot to show 
 more sympathy, and she glanced at him with tearful eyes. 
 
 " Ah," she said, " how I wish it were not ! " 
 
 " But this is all so sudden, so unexpected, that I cannot 
 realize it, Rose. Tell me more about it. Show me." 
 
 But she shook her head regretfully. 
 
 " No, John, don't ask me that, not yet ! " 
 
 He guessed that one of those instinctive feelings which no 
 woman is without caused her to shrink from saying more. He 
 thought it best not to insist. He would know the truth in 
 another way. 
 
 " Perhaps," she said, " it may not be so bad as I imagine ; 
 but, John, some fearful operation will have to be performed." 
 
 He answered, somewhat dubiously, " No, Rose, I shouldn't 
 think so." 
 
 But raising herself in her couch and turning towards him, she 
 exclaimed, " John, promise me that whatever happens you will 
 be good to me ! It would be too terrible to suffer without a 
 little sympathy, a little love. It's not much I ask you, John, 
 but I want a little, just a little ! For the last year I have been 
 so unhappy, for you have turned away from me, from me who 
 loved you so ! I have said nothing, believing that my Johnnie 
 
234 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 would come back to me when he had found that there was no 
 woman in the world who could do so much for him as I, and 
 now, who knows what is to be my fate ! " 
 
 Suddenly, as she sank back again, her eyes filled with tears 
 and her breast began to heave with suppressed emotion, the 
 muscles of Johns's face gave a nervous twitch. 
 
 " Rose," he said, kissing the hand he held in his, " I don't 
 believe you're half so bad as you suppose. In any case, you 
 know that I'm your husband, and that, of course, you can rely 
 upon my care. It would be a little too bad if it were 
 otherwise." 
 
 She took a sidelong glance at him again as if trying for the 
 second time to guage his thoughts, but he had no intention of 
 betraying them, and for many minutes they remained silent. 
 Johns was thinking of the new aspect which things had taken. 
 His wife was going to be an invalid, and possibly to 
 
 Suddenly he had a kind of foretaste of approaching freedom, 
 such as prisoners experience on the merest rumour of release, 
 and he closed his eyes, indulging in a dream which, though 
 vague and a little sombre, was yet strangely soothing. Life, 
 after all, was planned for the benefit of those who could enjoy 
 it best. It was singular how mundane matters were ordained. 
 Singular indeed ! And his musing ended in a vision of the 
 Colonel's daughter as she had appeared to him on his last visit 
 in the richness of her beauty. 
 
 But when he opened his eyes again, and saw his wife pale and 
 sorrowful before him, he thought, " Poor woman ! " 
 
 And as if she had divined the passing feeling of compassion, 
 she whispered softly, " Kiss me, Johnnie." 
 
 He bent over her and placed his lips upon her forehead ; but 
 eagerly, as though she wished to prolong the pleasure so visible 
 upon her countenance, she offered him her lips. This time, 
 after a little pause, he kissed them. If what she said were 
 true, he could afford to be more clement now. A knock at the 
 door was heard and a servant entered. He came to say that 
 Dr. Mead was out. But Mrs. Johns declared that she no 
 longer needed him. 
 
 As soon as the servant left, Johns said, " Rose, we must see 
 a specialist." 
 
 " Oh John," she answered, " I'm so afraid to learn the 
 truth!" 
 
 And Johns, who wanted to ascertain, replied, "I'm afraid 
 there is no help for it." 
 
 Throughout that evening Johns was untiring in his attention 
 to his wife, dining with her alone in the little boudoir on the 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 235 
 
 ground floor, spending the evening in her company instead of 
 going to the club, answering some letters for her, and speaking 
 to her kindly. 
 
 He did this so well, indeed, that Mrs. Johns seemed almost 
 to forget her trouble in the joy of this reconciliation, and when 
 they parted for the night at the door of her own room — for 
 Johns slept on the floor above — she whispered, "Perhaps, John, 
 I may get better." 
 
 And Johns thought, as he mounted the flight of stairs, "How 
 they love illusions ! " 
 
 Yes, it was always so. There was eternally the same 
 striving on the woman's part to obtain man's sympathy, to 
 occupy a man's attention, to bask in the sunshine of a man's 
 tenderness and care. Here was this poor old woman who, by 
 this little kindness, had been made to forget his infidelity and 
 her own ills ! Really she was touching in her naiveness and 
 the adoration which she showed him. But it was the old 
 story, the constant striving of Nature to assert herself, the 
 undeviating bent of the woman's mind, filled ever with one 
 central thought to which all others gravitated ! All, from the 
 highest to the lowest, wanted to be loved, to be caressed. 
 Incapable of taking any real interest in what men do to 
 become heroes or to earn fame, they rejoiced to be the wives 
 of heroes or celebrities, chiefly because the world envied and 
 admired them. And the love of being envied and admired was 
 sister to the love of being loved. Strange instinctive creatures 
 were these women ; but, by God, how useful ! 
 
 Busied with these reflections, he went to bed. 
 
 The next morning he rose earlier than usual. As soon as 
 his valet came, he sent him to inquire if Mrs. Johns had 
 passed a good night, and as the reply was that she had, and 
 would like to see him before he left, he dressed and went 
 down to his wife's room. 
 
 He found her still in bed, although a glance told him 
 that her facial toilet had been made in anticipation of his 
 coming. 
 
 "And how goes it, Rose, this morning?" he inquired, as he 
 took a seat upon the counterpane. 
 
 She had slept, she told him, but was still in pain. Why did 
 he not kiss her? 
 
 "She wants," he thought, "to go on where we left off 
 yesterday," and he gave her a kiss upon her forehead. 
 
 "I'm going to see the doctor this afternoon," she said, "and 
 entreat him to tell me the whole truth." 
 
 " It won't be as bad as you think. Rose, I promise you," he 
 
236 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 answered by way of saying something, for his own plan was 
 formed. 
 
 " Do you know, John," she said, " I dreamed of you last 
 night. I dreamed I was very, very ill, and that you were 
 nursing me so tenderly that I felt it was almost pleasant to be 
 ill ! Say, my John, that if I am to be an invalid, my dream 
 will have come true ! Tell me again, with that beautiful deep 
 voice of yours, that if the worst should happen, you will not 
 desert me ! " 
 
 He thought, "She really gives too much of that," and 
 answered, "Have confidence in me, dear Rose. Have 
 confidence ! " 
 
 Then, as he was afraid of being forced to listen to more 
 sentiment, he told her he must be at his office early, and left 
 her to her thoughts. 
 
 Quickly he breakfasted in the great dining-room, and then 
 left in a hansom, not for Bedford, but for Harley Street. 
 
 He wanted to see his wife's practitioner himself, and he 
 thought that at this early hour he had the greatest chance of 
 finding him. 
 
 Somehow or other the streets looked gayer, brighter, than 
 they had seemed to him of late. There was a mysterious air 
 of promise in the aspect of the thoroughfares, almost as in the 
 days of his first successes when he began to feel that he was 
 on the road to fortune. 
 
 There was promise in the delicious air of spring, promise in 
 the bright blue sky above. Even the loaded omnibuses going 
 citywards with their freight of clerks seemed full of life and 
 action. As he passed a flower shop, a girl with a pretty face 
 and a lithe figure, was arranging bouquets of delicate white roses 
 in the window, and he was about to stop his hansom and 
 alight, so that he might ask the maiden to fill his button-hole 
 when he reflected that, for the visit he was about to pay, a 
 flowered button-hole would be out of place. No, there was a 
 fitness and a time for all things. As the hansom, passing 
 through Cavendish Square, entered the long and sombre street 
 which the Faculty have chosen as their abode, he wondered 
 what this medicine man was going to say. Was his wife 
 attacked as she supposed? Yes, he fancied women did not 
 often make mistakes in matters of that kind. But what, after 
 all, if she were ? Those doctors had brought their art to such 
 perfection now that very few people died except from accidents 
 or from old age. 
 
 The hansom stopped before a house in the middle of the 
 street, and Johns alighted. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 237 
 
 The servant who answered the door said that the doctor 
 was at home, and would see Johns presently. 
 
 He was shown into a lofty waiting-room furnished with a 
 wealth of morocco and mahogany. A Turkey carpet lay upon 
 the floor, and the walls were hung with mezzo-tints. He took 
 up a copy of the Times which was on the table. But almost 
 immediately he threw it down again. 
 
 " Curse him, it's yesterday's," he muttered. 
 
 And then, thrown into a bad temper by the disappointment, 
 he occupied the time as best he could by walking up and 
 down the gloomy room, swearing that it was a dungeon, vexed 
 that he should be imprisoned in it, thinking that he should 
 not be made to wait like the merest mediocrity. 
 
 And at length when, after half an hour, he was ushered into 
 the study of the ^sculapius, he was by no means in an even 
 frame of mind. 
 
 Without preamble, after a mere good morning to the tall 
 elderly man with a shaven face who received him affably, he 
 said, " I've not come for myself, doctor, but for my wife. I want 
 to know just what's the matter with her. She says you don't 
 care to tell her." 
 
 The doctor, who seemed surprised at the peremptory tone 
 of Johns, opened a book which was before him on his table, 
 and turned over a few pages. He stopped at one which he 
 read over to himself. 
 
 " Am I to tell you the exact nature of the case ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Johns answered, " If you please." 
 
 Johns had taken a chair opposite the window from which a 
 ray of sunlight streamed, brightening the bindings of the books 
 with which the room was lined. The doctor scrutinized him 
 closely as he continued slowly — 
 . " Has Mrs. Johns told you what it is she fears ? " 
 
 "She has." 
 
 " Then I'm afraid I must confirm her apprehensions. The 
 case is serious, and I am glad you've come to see me, for some- 
 thing should undoubtedly be done and soon. We have a rapid 
 growth which it may be possible to eliminate, though I am by 
 no means confident. Without telling her the exact nature of the 
 disease, I have mentioned the necessity for an opergition. She 
 recoils from the idea." 
 
 Not a muscle of Johns's face moved. It was quite useless, he 
 thought, before this scientist, who was a man of the world as 
 well, and who had once dined with them at Grosvenor Place,, 
 to simulate emotion. 
 
238 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 He answered, " Of course, doctor, whatever you advise will 
 have to be done." 
 
 " Quite so, I take it that you will obtain your wife's consent." 
 
 "She will give it of her own accord if you explain the 
 danger to her," 
 
 " Very well then, Mr. Johns, if you prefer it so, I shall speak 
 to her to-day, when I notice she is coming here to see me. It 
 would be well if you could accompany her." 
 
 " I'll come." 
 
 And the physician rose to intimate that he was busy, that 
 the interview was over. 
 
 Johns, as he was going, asked, "Are such operations 
 dangerous ? " 
 
 " To be frank with you, they are, although in this case 
 I hope we shall be successful. Whether the operation 
 will be effectual or not, is another matter." 
 
 Thus enlightened, Johns left the study. 
 
 In a meditative mood he walked to the nearest post office to 
 send a telegram to Rose. He would call for her, he tele- 
 graphed, at three. 
 
 " By God," he muttered, as he made for Bedford Street, 
 "Rose is in a bad way, a damned bad way!" 
 
 Life, he reflected, was marvellously full of change ! Who 
 would have suspected, a few days previously, when his wife 
 appeared to him in the light of a perennial tree destined to 
 resist the blight of years, that on this fine spring morning he 
 would be returning from a visit to a doctor who had given 
 him to understand that her life was jeopardised? Ah, well, 
 things were moving quickly for him now ! 
 
CHAPTER 
 SIXTEENTH 
 
 JOHNS'S uncertainty was set at rest a few weeks afterwards. 
 The operation performed upon his wife had been so far 
 successful that it had not ended fatally, although the doctors 
 had expressed some doubts whether it had proved effectual. 
 
 During the days immediately preceding it, Johns had been 
 unremitting in his solicitude. But when the ordeal had been 
 gone through, when it was known that the issue was not destined 
 to be fatal, when he had seen his wife restored to consciousness 
 and heard her murmur, with livid lips and gasping breath, 
 " Oh, John ! " he felt as though something had suddenly gone 
 wrong with him, as if some spring of his organization had given 
 way. Ah, there had been strange moments ! When the life 
 of the woman to whom his own was linked was trembling in 
 the balance, when none of those who were standing at her 
 bedside, not even the doctors who had used their skill, knew 
 whether she would live or die, he had gone through many a 
 sensation, had experienced many an emotion ! And when the 
 result was known, when it was decided that Rose was going to 
 continue living, he had felt but one desire — that of fleeing from 
 the house, of getting away from there ! As soon as he had 
 beheld his wife, haggard and aged, as she appeared after she 
 returned to consciousness, he could no longer stay beside 
 her. Quickly he had fled, and had spent the evening with a 
 band of journalists at a tavern in the heart of Fleet Street, 
 celebrating, as he told them with a dubious grin, his wife's 
 recovery. And he had done so with so much vigour, that they 
 had brought him home long after midnight in a state of 
 alcoholic torpor. 
 
 The next day, with an aching head, he realized the situation. 
 Now he would have to lead the same old life with a wife who 
 
240 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 would think herself more interesting than she did before, and 
 who would imagine, like the naive and silly woman that she was, 
 that her illness had been the means of uniting them again. As 
 if he could ever really be the husband of a dilapidation ! She 
 would understand that when she recovered, surely. The 
 doctor, no doubt, had said that she was not completely out of 
 danger; but who could tell? Doctors were so often wrong ! 
 
 All through the summer, Johns, tired of making love, sought 
 new sensations in old vintages, and he soon became renowned 
 among his cup companions for his extraordinary capacity for 
 ingurgitation. After a little practice and a strong exercise of 
 will, he was able to absorb large quantities of alcohol without 
 apparent inconvenience. He wanted to be remarkable even in 
 insobriety. For it marked superiority, according to his way of 
 thinking, to have the power of resisting the effect of alcohol. 
 " By God," he would say to those who endeavoured to keep 
 pace with him, " your heads, my friends, are made of a rum 
 sort of stuff!" 
 
 One evening, however, he was leaving a restaurant on the 
 Embankment in the company of an erotic poet whose mind was 
 a strange mixture of wit and incoherence, and who had attracted 
 the attention of the public by his eccentricities. Both had 
 been indulging freely, and as they walked arm-in-arm, leaning 
 affectionately towards each other, they indulged in rhetoric. 
 
 The evening sun was shedding a mellow light upon the 
 Thames, softening the outlines of the buildings on its banks. 
 The air, after the rain which had fallen in the morning, was 
 light and fresh. It was an ideal afternoon. Pointing to the 
 left bank of the river, Johns, in a tender mood, was saying — 
 
 " I tell you, Horace, that there is beauty in those chimneys 
 over yonder ! Look at them. Behold the gentle smoke issuing 
 in majestic clouds from the stately orifice. See how it ascends 
 upwards in the most beautiful of spirals, soft and delicate in its 
 shade of tender grey. Horace, why are there no poets to sing 
 the beauties of that smoke, to immortalize that land of industry 
 which looks from here so placid? Ah, Horace, Horace, why 
 is it that you never paint the real, the incomparable real ? " 
 
 But the friend whom Johns addressed as Horace, a tall man 
 with long curled hair and a shaven face, beside whom he looked 
 strangely dwarfed, replied — 
 
 "John, dear John, reality does not exist. Reality is one of 
 those chimeras which are forged by the middle classes to 
 account for elephantine dulness. Reality, dear John, is like 
 that obelisk, an ugly thing, a thing inimical to art. Do you 
 think Praxiteles or any of the divine Greeks descended to the: 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 241 
 
 real ? No, dear John, they worshipped at the perennial font of 
 fantasy. Ah, no ! ah, no ! In this land of grocerdom it is 
 not substance we must cultivate, but artifice. We are surfeited 
 with realism. Our lives in this city of brute commerce are 
 made burdensome with the hideousness of trade; we are 
 submerged in a repugnant sea of barter. Our sense of beauty 
 is ever lacerated. Look at the lovely flower which for a brief 
 day is living with me in my button -hole ! Do not its tender 
 petals, so reposeful in their pallor, seem to shrink from the 
 crude brutality of yonder land of ugliness ? Is it not so perfect 
 that it deserves the praise of being called unreal?" 
 
 As he said this, he thrust his large fleshy hand beneath 
 the lappet of his coat, and raised the flower to his lips, 
 exclaiming rapturously — 
 
 "Sweet emblem of immaculate perfection, no stockbroker 
 possesses you ! You are resting your sweet beauty on the 
 breast of culture ! Your radiance is enjoyed by one whose 
 senses vibrate only for true loveliness, whose soul lives on 
 Parnassian slopes, for whom the common herd must ever be as 
 dross ! Ah, there's nothing in the world so beautiful as the 
 unreal ! " 
 
 Johns had listened to this panegyric patiently. He knew, 
 like everybody, the nature of the man ; that he had a band of 
 followers who worshipped him, a woman here and there in 
 London whose thoughts and feelings he had utterly capsized, 
 and for some reason which no one had ever clearly understood, 
 he professed to think him a great genius, and supported him in 
 his habitual arraignment of the middle classes, at whom he had, 
 himself, so often tilted. He answered — 
 
 " My good Horace, I agree with you. In principle I myself 
 detest vulgarity, but what I meant to say was that there was 
 beauty in that Turneresqueness. Those chimneys, as I see 
 them now, seem anything but mean. Look at them once again, 
 Horace. Observe the majesty with which they rise up to the 
 sky, the grand unrolling of the smoke-cloud which issues from 
 the orifice, and tell me if you do not think those chimneys are 
 suggestive of idealisms such as not even that narcissus in your 
 button-hole can give." 
 
 As he said this, Johns made the poet stop. Then, waving his 
 hand in a wave which embraced all that was visible of the 
 other bank, he cried in a vinous voice — 
 
 " Say, is it not superb ? " 
 
 The poet, clutching his companion's arm and leaning on it, 
 looked across the river, down which a steamer, full of passengers, 
 was gliding rapidly. 
 
 R 
 
242 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 "John, dear John, I see but chimneys, chimneys — ugly 
 chimneys and a nasty boat." 
 
 "Then, to-day you're blind, Horace." 
 
 " I'm not bhnd, John, to-day." 
 
 " I say that they're ideal chimneys !" 
 
 " And I that they are not ! " 
 
 They stood gazing at the river, unable to proceed further 
 with their argument, when they suddenly became conscious 
 that an old man in black, with white hair and a shrunk face, 
 carrying a volume under his left arm, was contemplating them. 
 
 Recognizing Tarte, Johns said — 
 
 " Well, Tarte, what do you think of the artistic merit of those 
 chimneys?" 
 
 " I think," the old man said, " that you're both looking at 
 them through the spectacles of Bacchus." 
 
 " Ancient," the poet said, " you may be right, but know that 
 the rare Falernian we have both been quaffing at that palace of 
 delights above, is of such potent virtue that its effect should be 
 to call forth from its votaries the choicest of their faculties. 
 To-day, I regret to say, its effect upon my friend has not been 
 good. This afternoon it has impaired his vision. Mine, 
 worthy ancient, it has improved." 
 
 The old man looked at them for a moment silently. Then, 
 with his arms crossed and the volume brought more forward, 
 he commenced — 
 
 " Oh, Sybarites ! Oh, Sybarites ! You for whom life is one 
 long fete, you who taste the pleasures which are said to make 
 life sweet, do you know that I, an ancient as you call me, 
 hanging on to life by the slender thread of a daily wage, am 
 inclined to pity you ? 
 
 . " I find you here on this sunny afternoon, with your faces 
 flushed and your minds adrift, disputing about chimneys ! 
 
 " Blind ? Yes, certainly you're blind. You can see no 
 farther than the narrow bounds of your magnificence. You 
 can conceive nothing which exists outside your luxury. It has 
 never occurred to you, my friends, to go into that land of 
 industry to see how life is lived there. You have never guessed 
 that there is poetry in that place of toil. No, you could not 
 see it if you went. You could not see it, because you have 
 not measured life with the true measure — the measure of 
 necessity. To you it seems of moment whether there is or is 
 not an artistic motive in that smoke, but I tell you that life, 
 hard, struggling life is there, that poverty is there, that misery 
 is there, and that is what makes it of more interest than 
 smoke. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 243 
 
 " Will you ever learn that there is something more than art 
 in life, that the vast majority of men and women do not know 
 it, that they only live to feed and clothe their bodies ? Ah, 
 yes, I say to you that if you let art take too much room in life, 
 you will fall victims to it. When the tree of culture has been 
 climbed until the top is reached, a fall is imminent, and that 
 fall is often into the pond of incoherence. Sometimes the 
 road of the cultured hedonist leads to Bedlam, sometimes it 
 leads to Newgate, and in neither of those places are the muses 
 wooed, my friends. If either of you take one or the other of 
 those roads, you'll be worse off than I, the Philistine, whose 
 days are destined to be ended in a select establishment of 
 paupers. 
 
 " If you knew how empty life can seem to a man like me 
 who knows it ! If you knew how useless all of you appear to 
 me, and how I see the pleasures which you prize — I who yet 
 have never tasted one of them ! Do not think that envy 
 prompts me. I envy no man. Life passes before my eyes as 
 a race to annihilation. I don't know whence I came ; I have 
 no knowledge whither I may go when my organism ends. I 
 desire nothing, I hope nothing, and I fear nothing. Long 
 ago I would have retired from the game had not my 
 meagre pittance served to keep alive another, more attached 
 to life than I. 
 
 " But yesterday I buried her, and now death is not far from 
 me. I feel it in the air, it whispers warnings in my ears. I 
 see it in my mirror, and I feel it in my gait. Perhaps it will 
 overtake me before I reach that home of indigence in the 
 sweet Surrey hills where a man can feel himself decay in ease. 
 Whenever it may be, I'm ready. If there be a God, as this 
 old missal, which I've bought for sixpence, says there is, he 
 ought to think me a deserving person ; for I have never 
 sinned. My body will leave the world as pure as it came into 
 it. Oh, Sybarites, remember that pleasure, culture, art, are mere 
 delusions fraught with peril ! " 
 
 Saying this, without even taking leave, and after placing his 
 russet volume under his arm again, he moved away, leaving 
 them to their reflections. After a moment the poet asked — 
 
 " Who is that melancholy person ? " 
 
 Johns answered, "Oh, only an old devil on an evening 
 paper." 
 
 " He is an example," pursued the poet, " of the infirmity of 
 sense - perception which afflicts some men who have never 
 known the higher things. I shall write a poem on his singular 
 perversity." 
 
244 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns did not reply, and they resumed their walk. 
 In a few moments they reached a turning leading to the 
 Strand, and here they parted. 
 
 But the words of Tarte had caused Johns to stop and think, 
 and to take himself to task. He was slipping into foolish 
 habits, into habits which, if not stopped in time, might make a 
 slave of him. Rather than be tied to liquor, he would put 
 himself upon cold water. There was some truth in what old 
 Tarte had said ; there was a danger of getting soft in leading 
 this emollient life of pleasure. He must pull himself together, 
 discipline himself. He wanted to climb higher, not to descend 
 lower. He realized that there was something wise enough in 
 the practice of respectability, and that Bohemianism was a 
 dissolvent he would do better to avoid. 
 
 Horace was very well in his own way, but he wasn't a man 
 to be seen with often, for though he had the thoughts and 
 bearing of a genius, and though he (Johns) had pronounced 
 him to be one, there was an instability about the man which 
 made him a person to be frequented with caution. Moral 
 unconsciousness might be very well, but there was a way in 
 things, and Horace, with his vices and his mannerisms, went 
 too far. In short, he recognized that there was danger not 
 only in the companionship of Horace, but also in the band of 
 casual inebriates whom, in his tcedium vUce, he had gathered 
 round him. A change there must be. Johns ordered it, and 
 it was Johns's duty to obey. 
 
 Henceforward he placed himself upon a regime of a pint of 
 claret daily, and when his cup companions called, he was 
 invariably "out." 
 
 In the meantime his wife's convalescence proceeded slowly. 
 Each day he was forced to spend a few hours with her, 
 listening to the projects for the future which she was always 
 making as she lay upon her back in the French sofa- chair. 
 They would not leave England for the Continent until the 
 winter, when they would spend six months on the Riviera. 
 There she would soon regain her strength, and he would see 
 how much better she would look now that a weight was off her 
 mind. He had not known her as she could be, because, at first, 
 she had fancied he was cold towards her, and a woman never 
 looked her best when she was troubled. But he had been so 
 good when she was ill that she forgave him gladly now. She 
 felt that he would never be unkind again. He knew how much 
 she loved him. And he would listen to her, smoking indolently, 
 wondering whether there were any bounds to the credulity of 
 women, and thinking that, after all, it was not a very great 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 245 
 
 achievement on his part, to have persuaded such a silly woman 
 to become his wife. 
 
 And during the weeks which, at the end of the summer, he 
 was obliged to pass at Eastbourne with his wife, Johns occupied 
 himself in riding, in conducting his Review, and in writing long 
 letters in his finest prose to Edith Douglas, whose father had 
 taken her suddenly to Norway before they had had time to say 
 good-bye. He put into those letters all his admiration, all the 
 longing of his youth for a consort who should be young and 
 beautiful. He told her of the illness of his wife, but without 
 exulting over it, and with good taste, letting it be seen, how- 
 ever, that he was sorrowful and lonely. And as he poured into 
 these letters all the tenderness he knew, and as in writing he 
 could be particularly tender, he produced epistles that were 
 calculated to arouse the young girl's feelings to the utmost. 
 He told her he was jealous of the people she would meet in her 
 journey to the North, jealous of the merest stranger who would 
 be struck with admiration at her beauty, jealous of the midnight 
 sun which was destined to behold it. Ah, why had he not met 
 her sooner ? Why was there this barrier between them ? For 
 how long would they be separated thus ? He was tortured at 
 the thought that she would be induced to become engaged in 
 spite of her resolve, and he vowed that if she did, he would 
 
 break his bonds, and then — ah, then ! But yet there might 
 
 be happiness in store for them. It was not certain that he 
 would be for ever tied. He had some information which he 
 could not well impart, but which contained a possibility of 
 something happening which would make him free. But he 
 scarcely dared to think of it. The issue was too great. 
 
 And in reality he was in love with her, far more in love than 
 he had ever been before, chiefly because she resisted him, 
 because of her quiet air of candour, and of her bright intelli- 
 gence, which was so distinctly feminine. Yes, she was the true 
 embodiment of the ideal he had always formed. 
 
 She answered him with more fervour than she had shown 
 before, letting her strong attachment be apparent in every line 
 she wrote, but delicately, and with a half malicious coyness. 
 Her descriptions of the places she had visited and the incidents 
 of the journey they were making were full of charm and fresh- 
 ness, and they were made with that woman's touch which men 
 can never imitate. This correspondence was a change for 
 Johns, tired as he was of easy conquests, and it served to 
 render life endurable at an hotel full of uninteresting people. 
 His wife, delighted at the resignation which he showed, made 
 brave attempts to regain her health. But her recovery was 
 
246 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 slow, and neither the long drives she took each day on the 
 coast roads and along the front nor the care she bestowed 
 upon herself advanced it much. She still looked aged and 
 worn, and she was so well aware of this that when Johns 
 assured her she was looking better, she shook her head — a 
 circumstance which caused him to reflect, " She canH be well if 
 she isn't ready to admit it." But after they had passed six 
 weeks thus, Mrs. Johns declared that Eastbourne did not suit 
 her, and that she would like to return to town. Johns 
 acquiesced, the more readily as Edith Douglas was returning 
 the same week, and he wanted to see her before he left with 
 his wife for the Riviera. 
 
 They returned, therefore, in the middle of September, and 
 during the month preceding their departure, they lived very 
 quietly, receiving only their most intimate friends. Mrs. Johns 
 did not want to undergo fatigue, and Johns was busy with his own 
 affairs. He had consented to this long absence, partly because 
 the idea of the Riviera pleased him, partly because he did not 
 know how he could decently refuse to accompany his wife in 
 her condition. There were always the Stanfields to be thought 
 of, and though, at the bottom of his heart he cordially detested 
 them, he recognized that they were a power, and he had a kind of 
 respect for them as such. 
 
 But Edith Douglas did not return as soon as he had expected. 
 Her father had been taken ill on the journey home, and she 
 had had to remain many weeks at Christiania with him. Johns, 
 in the meantime, consoled himself in the society of Mrs. Weber, 
 whom he was always glad to see after an absence of some length, 
 although he tired of her when he saw her too repeatedly. She, 
 on her part, had become reconciled to his infidelity, and would 
 often say to him, " John, you're a faithless wretch, but you'll 
 always return to me." And he would answer, when he was 
 in a mood to be pleased with her, " By God, Ellen, I believe 
 you're right." 
 
 She represented to him the perfection of ripe womanhood, 
 and by comparison he had come to know her staple value. 
 She knew his habits also, and he was well aware that she 
 admired him sincerely. Altogether he was glad when the 
 Wednesday came — the day when they generally met. Was 
 she faithful to him? He didn't know. He had been told 
 that an ancient baronet was a frequent caller at her house, and 
 that they had been seen together in the summer on the river ; 
 in fact, that the baronet had succeeded Parker. But he 
 refrained from asking her, feeling that, after all, she had a 
 right to make provision for herself. He didn't want to stand in 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 247 
 
 the way of her doing it. Besides, a man of over sixty ! What 
 did it matter ? 
 
 The remainder of the time preceding his departure for the 
 South was occupied in making arrangements for a lengthy 
 absence, in giving instructions to his lieutenants for the conduct 
 of the Review, and in winding up some little love affairs which 
 had previously diverted him in moments of caprice. 
 
 At length, shortly before the day fixed for the flight to the 
 Riviera, he received a note from the Colonel's daughter, 
 acquainting him with her return, and bidding him come to see 
 her on the Sunday. 
 
 Johns did not need to be asked twice, and when the Sunday 
 came, scrupulously dressed, after a lengthy consultation with 
 his valet, for whose experience in great houses he had respect, 
 he jumped into a hansom and was driven to Lexham Gardens. 
 
 As he ascended the stairs, preceded by the maid, his quick 
 eye was attracted by the threadbare patches in the stair carpets 
 which were more or less in keeping with the want of luxury he 
 had previously observed throughout the house, and he reflected, 
 " It's a pity they're so poor." But the thought was soon dis- 
 pelled when he reached the drawing-room and found the young 
 girl waiting for him alone. 
 
 Never, since he had known her, had she looked so beautiful. 
 A flush of health was on her slightly sun-browned cheeks ; the 
 oval of her face was firm and perfect; her eyes were full of 
 lustre, and her figure, which had been somewhat over slight 
 before, had become a little rounder, a little more pronounced. 
 She seemed to Johns the fairest woman he had ever seen. 
 
 Advancing to where she was seated on a low sofa, he took 
 her hand and pressed it to his lips. She said, with a happy 
 smile, " I'm truly glad to see you. My father is in his room, 
 and I expect no visitors, so we can have a long, long chat." 
 
 " For ten weeks," he answered, " I have been looking for- 
 ward to this day." Then they exchanged confidences. She 
 told him all the little incidents of travel which she had omitted 
 to narrate in writing, and of the indisposition of her father — a 
 chill caught in an excursion — which had detained them at 
 Christiania, and she ended by confessing that the day when 
 she had found his letters waiting for her there, was not the 
 least delightful of the trip. He wrote such admirable ones ! 
 She liked his letters as much as his little tales. They were 
 full of the same personality and the same charm. It was alone 
 worth travelling to receive such treats. 
 
 Then he told her of his wife's convalescence, of his projects 
 for the conduct of his magazine, of his resolve to drop his 
 
248 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 bibulous companions as she herself had advised him once to 
 do. But when he announced to her that he was leaving with 
 his wife next day for the whole winter, a look of disappointment 
 overspread her face. 
 
 " For the whole winter !" she repeated. 
 
 Yes, they would not return until the spring. What was he 
 to do ? His wife was still an invalid, and had entreated him 
 not to leave her to the care of strangers. And his wife was 
 his wife, and had, he supposed, some claim upon him. But 
 perhaps he would come back before her. Perhaps, if she 
 made progress, he would return alone in a few months' time, 
 and then they would see each other often. Then he would 
 give a party at his house — an original kind of party, at which 
 there would be no hostess, only a dowager for propriety — but 
 to which he would invite none but pretty women, so that she 
 might be the queen among them — she whose beauty was so 
 unsurpassable. But whether he returned or not, she must not 
 despair. He had written her that he possessed some knowledge 
 which might alter destiny for them, and she would understand 
 its nature when he told her that it proceeded from the doctor. 
 He knew she would not like him to say more. 
 
 "You understand me, Edith, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes," she said, reflectively, "I understand, and you need 
 not explain. But, tell me, supposing that that ' something ' 
 happened, will you promise faithfully that you would marry 
 me?" 
 
 "Promise you?" he repeated, bending forward and speaking 
 low, "I pledge my life that nothing upon earth would then 
 prevent me from making you my wife." 
 
 Then, drawing nearer, he continued — 
 
 "Could you for a moment doubt it? Ah, you do not know 
 how I have thought and dreamed of you as the only woman 
 who could complete my life, the only woman I could ever 
 love ! You do not realize that you have chained me with the 
 gentlest, yet the strongest of all chains, to break which would 
 be a crime ! You have not learnt how deep my passion is, or 
 you would not ask me that ! " 
 
 He looked so earnest, so sincere, as he murmured this in 
 impressive tones, that, apparently convinced of his sincerity, 
 she said — 
 
 " Forgive me, I believe you ! You need fear nothing while 
 you are away. No one shall supplant you, John." 
 
 Oh, how he wanted to thank her for that word ! What could 
 he do to express his gratitude? How could he put it into 
 words ? 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 249 
 
 Had she been an ordinary woman, he would have been 
 already by her side reciting his little formula, but Edith 
 Douglas was not an ordinary woman, and he feared lest he 
 might spoil all by a false move. He looked at the vacant 
 place upon the sofa, and then entreatingly at the young girl ; 
 but she, interpreting his gestures, rose from the place of danger 
 on the couch and took a chair, in which she seemed to feel in 
 safety. 
 
 "Why are you so hard?" he asked, his face convulsed with 
 unassumed emotion. " Why, on this last evening for so long, 
 am I not allowed a respite from that cruel discipline ? " 
 
 "Simply because I happen to possess my own notions of 
 some things, and they forbid me to become what is called a 
 semi-maiden. It may be that I'm old-fashioned, but I've made 
 a very firm resolve, if I ever marry, to do so without a single 
 active flirt upon my conscience." 
 
 He knew these cases of feminine scrupulosity, and was aware 
 how hard they were to deal with. 
 
 " Well, well," he said, " I must continue to regard you as a 
 picture too rare and beautiful to touch." 
 
 Without noticing this last remark otherwise than by a little 
 frown, she said, " Tell me, have you been good to your wife 
 while she was ill ? I could not bear to think that you were 
 not. Poor woman, I have felt so sorry for her ! " 
 
 But he protested that he had done all that a model husband 
 could, "even," he said, "at the risk of earning too much 
 gratitude." 
 
 " How she must love you ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes," Johns answered, with a queer expression, "and that's 
 the worst of it." 
 
 She said, "You see ambition must be paid for." 
 
 " It must indeed ! When I was younger I imagined that 
 wealth could give me happiness, but I was quickly undeceived. 
 Since I met you, Edith, I have realized that money counts for 
 very little, that beauty such as yours is the only good. Ah, 
 why did we not meet sooner?" 
 
 There was a pause, during which she looked into his face 
 intently as if she were trying to gather an impression from it. 
 At length she said, "I hope that those strange dark eyes of 
 yours are truthful." 
 
 And he remembered that evening in the early days when 
 Mrs. Weber had asked him the same question. It was curious 
 how women's minds all ran in the same groove. 
 
 "Is it possible," he answered, "that you should still have 
 doubts ? " 
 
250 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Again she asked him to forgive her. She ought not to be 
 so distrustful. She would try to mend. She wanted earnestly 
 to have confidence. 
 
 Then, in an accent of subdued passion he began to tell her 
 of the bright dreams he sometimes formed. With her as his 
 wife, he dreamed of a great political career, of places conquered 
 rapidly and brilliantly, of the delights of power, of the joys of 
 influence, of distinctions which would shed a halo round her 
 beauty, which would make her the most envied of the women 
 of her time. Oh, it was all planned ! Their party wanted a 
 man like him, a man who wasn't afraid to speak his mind, who 
 could hit hard when hard hitting was required, who could 
 beard the lions of democracy and socialism. And in the life 
 which he imagined, it would not be all work. They would 
 travel frequently and far — not as mere superficial tourists, but 
 as persons to whom all doors were open, for whose intelli- 
 gence there were no sealed books. He would show her 
 the old world and the new — Italy with her Caesarean and her 
 Papal Rome, her Veroneses and her Botticellis ; Greece with her 
 memories, her inalienable classicity ; Spain with her semi-Moor- 
 ishness, her marvellous Escorial, her Murillos, her Velazquez. 
 Later, when the conquest of a great position was achieved, they 
 would explore the East and make it yield to them its secrets 
 and its charms. What a life of infinite expansion, of boundless 
 satisfaction, it would be, and how he loved to dream of it ! 
 
 She closed her eyes as if to realize the picture he had drawn, 
 and then she answered, thoughtfully — 
 
 " Yes, it would be glorious ! " 
 
 " It will happen, Edith. I have a presentiment it will." 
 
 " Perhaps," she murmured, dreamily. 
 
 Johns stayed talking to her until late in the afternoon, and 
 when at length, his rhetoric exhausted, he was leaving, she said 
 with more earnestness than he had seen her show before — 
 
 " Write to me often, very often ! " 
 
 Keeping her hand a prisoner in his, he promised that he 
 would. He would tell her everything, his thoughts, his acts, 
 his joys, his sorrows — every little incident, all that happened, 
 and as often as he dared he would send her roses from that 
 land of flowers. 
 
 But just as he was bidding her adieu for the last time, he 
 fancied suddenly he detected something in the lustre of her 
 eye, in the intense expression of her face, which seemed 
 encouraging. 
 
 Then suddenly, without a word of warning, and before she 
 could resist, he caught her in his arms and kissed her. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 251 
 
 "Now," he exclaimed, as she disengaged herself, "now, 
 whatever fate may have in store for us, I shall know that I 
 have been the first to press those lips." 
 
 Flushed and serious, she said — 
 
 "You would have done better to have refrained." 
 
 " You're not angry with me, Edith ! " 
 
 " Not as angry as I should be, but not pleased, and don't 
 think you have gained anything. My resolution is unchanged." 
 
 Falling on his knees before her, he implored forgiveness. He 
 had been unable to resist a sudden impulse which had come 
 upon him like an avalanche, against which his will was power- 
 less. Ah, the fault was not altogether his. Beauty such as 
 hers was not without its perils. It could not be always 
 passively beheld. But he would place a curb upon himself in 
 future. She would have nothing more to fear. Only he would 
 not go from there until she had absolved him. 
 
 With a smile she told him that she would not absolve him 
 unless he rose at once. Then, springing to his feet again, he 
 thanked her warmly, and, after pressing her hand for the last 
 time, he left. 
 
 A few minutes later, as he was rolling in a hansom back to 
 Grosvenor Place, he thought, " I have been laying it on thickly 
 this time. She's so superb ! It's a pity, though, that they're so 
 poor ! " 
 
 The next day Johns and his wife crossed the Channel. 
 
 After a night spent in Paris, where Mrs. Johns wished to 
 rest, they took the train the next evening at the Lyons terminus 
 for Cannes. 
 
 Carefully wrapped in furs, although the weather was not cold, 
 and thickly veiled, Mrs. Johns, as she stood upon the platform, 
 looked more than matronly, and Johns thought, as he glanced 
 at her amid the gay and fashionable crowd of people fleeing 
 from northern skies to the land of sunshine, that everyone must 
 take her for his mother. Well, so much the better if they did ! 
 
 The platform teemed with notabilities in travelling costume. 
 Near them Johns recognized the tall figure of an ambassador 
 whom he had once met, and who returned his bow with cold 
 politeness. A little further ofi", he saw an eminent French, 
 novelist whose works of keen analysis he knew. He was 
 accompanied by a young and rising poet of whom the French 
 Parnassus had great hopes. An English lord, with a numerous 
 family of sons and daughters, was standing before the book- 
 stall, gay with its wealth of yellow covers, and was buying the 
 London papers. An English general, who had lately earned 
 
252 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 distinction in South Africa, accompanied by a young and 
 pretty wife, was surveying the scene with an expression of 
 amused contentment. At the carriage doors, friends and 
 relatives were taking leave in many languages, and amid the 
 bevy of French ladies, fitly and elegantly dressed for travel- 
 ling, there were one or two whose grace and beauty made 
 Johns sigh. What would he have given at that moment to 
 have been standing on that station with a young and pretty 
 woman with whom he was to spend some happy months at 
 Cannes ! 
 
 But the hour of departure was at hand, and the officials were 
 calling upon the travellers to take their seats. Those who had 
 lingered on the platform now clambered up to the high 
 carriages to take their seats. In a few minutes, after a brief 
 discussion between the stationmaster and the guard, the signal 
 was given, and the train crept slowly off. 
 
 Johns, who had been looking out of the window, amused at 
 a parting scene between a young Frenchman and his wife or 
 mistress, felt himself touched upon the shoulder. It was Rose 
 who wanted to know which of the berths in the sleeping-car he 
 wished to occupy. What did it matter to him ? he answered, 
 rather roughly. She must take the one she liked. And then, 
 as they were alone in the compartment, he sat down dis- 
 contentedly, and watched her make her preparations for the 
 night. The sight of the fair women on the station had put 
 him into a bad temper, and he saw her open her dressing- 
 case and take from it an infinity of pins and puffs and 
 cosmetics, which told their tale so plainly, with a feeling of 
 irritation. Truly, he thought with bitterness, truly it was 
 lamentable to see her thus exhibiting the accessories she used 
 to hide her age, which he had ascertained was nearly fifty, just 
 as though he had been a husband who had grown old with her, 
 and from whom she did not take the trouble to hide anything. 
 Oh, what tactless creatures, after all, these women were ! But 
 she, as if she had guessed his thoughts, suddenly replaced the 
 objects in the dressing-case, and continued to prepare for the 
 night's journey by taking off her cloak and shoes, loosening 
 her corset, and taking off her skirt. She had refused to let her 
 maid travel with her in the sleeping-car, and therefore she was 
 obliged to assist herself. 
 
 Presently, when she had loosened her golden locks and 
 sprinkled some scent upon the pillow, she laid herself in her 
 berth, and, with a tender accent, asked Johns to spread a rug 
 upon her. 
 
 Slowly he arranged the rug, and as he was doing so she 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 255 
 
 gazed at him tenderly, saying in the voice which since her 
 illness had grown weaker — 
 
 " Ah, John, I feel I shall get strong again down there." 
 
 He answered carelessly, " Why not 1 " 
 
 He resumed his seat, and, drawing from his pocket a packet 
 of Parisian newspapers, began to read them by the faint light 
 to put an end to further conversation. 
 
 But after a while she said, " I feel so sleepy, Johnnie. Kiss 
 me before I go to sleep," and he, suppressing an imprecation, 
 was obliged to rise again and pretend to touch her forehead 
 with his Hps. He knew that he might have refused to do so, 
 but his experience had convinced him that nothing is more 
 foolish than to offend a women for a trifling cause. There was 
 always danger enough in doing so when great issues were at 
 stake. For the second time he resumed his seat, and as the 
 train, which had now acquired speed, was flying southward, 
 shrieking in its course, he was left to his reflections. 
 
 This, then, was the kind of happiness which was to be 
 derived from a marriage such as his ! Here he was, in the full 
 vigour of his manhood, condemned to travel and to live with 
 a woman who seemed to become more frivolous, more stupid, 
 as the days went by. This was what riches without liberty 
 implied ! If she only had been young, he would have forgiven 
 her, even if she had been plain ! A young woman had always 
 freshness in her favour; she spread around her the subtle 
 perfume of her youth, was never altogether without charm, 
 while Rose, that faded rose whose bloom had lasted for so long, 
 was wearisome to see. And riches were, after all, so relative ! 
 It was true that he possessed enough to gratify his minor 
 whims and fancies ; it was true he lived in a big house and 
 was waited on by many servants, but he knew scores of richer 
 men than he, whose scope of influence was immeasurably 
 greater than his own. Had /le that potent prestige which men 
 possessed whose fortunes caused them to be respected, flattered, 
 feared for the benefits that they were able to bestow on those 
 who won their favour? Did he enjoy that kind of second 
 royalty which enabled such to force their tastes, their prejudices, 
 upon the crowd ? No, certainly, he didn't — he who could not 
 properly afford a yacht ! 
 
 Tired at length of these reflections, he continued reading 
 the Gt7 Bias, a journal whose Gallic salt amused him ; and as 
 he read, he became engrossed in a little story of Parisian life 
 told by one of those brilliant artists of the salacious style who 
 weave impressionisms on the theme of love. The writer had 
 depicted in vivid and alluring colours an episode in the 
 
254 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 existence of a beautiful young peasant girl in one of the 
 valleys of Touraine, a lass who had conceived a passion for 
 a mere lad too young and naive at first to be responsive to her 
 longing, but whom, by displaying all the grace and beauty with 
 which she had been gifted, she succeeded at length in dazzling 
 and winning. The little narrative breathed nature in its most 
 unvarnished state, and had a flavour of rustic freshness which, 
 rendered with unerring skill, threw Johns into a pleasant reverie, 
 from which he was aroused by a dry, grunting sound he knew 
 too well. 
 
 His wife had fallen into a profound sleep, and in spite of the 
 noise which the train was making as it rattled on the rails, her 
 snore was audible. 
 
 " Sweet soul ! " he muttered, as he folded up the paper, 
 glancing at his wife, who was breathing with her mouth wide 
 open ; " truly she's divine." 
 
 Upon this, with a smile of irony upon his lips, he divested 
 himself of his outer garments and turned into his own berth. 
 
 The next morning when he awoke he looked out of the 
 window of the car. 
 
 The dawn had broken over the brown land of Provence, and 
 the first rays of the rising sun were shedding a weird light upon 
 the olive groves, upon the pale-grey rocks and wastes of the 
 fleeting landscape, upon the leaves of the giant aloes. Dis- 
 pelling the dark shadows projected by the trees and hedges, 
 the rays increased in their intensity until the whole country was 
 bathed in light — in light which was softened by the sombre 
 green of the dark foliage and the brown parched vegetation. 
 
 Now it was a peaceful village — stone-walled, red-tiled — which 
 the train flew past with a rapid whisk, now the ancient town of 
 Provence with its fortress, its cathedral, and its bridge, then the 
 country appeared again. 
 
 Upon Johns, who found himself in it for the first time, this 
 land of troubadours and eclogues produced a great impression. 
 He felt as if he had emerged into a region full of promise. It 
 seemed to him as if the swift express were bearing him towards 
 joys he had not known before, towards some new and bright 
 experience which had not come to him as yet. Illusion, it 
 might be, but as he gazed at these southern landscapes, he felt 
 himself invigorated. 
 
 But the spell, alas ! was broken when a familiar voice in the 
 jiext berth murmured — 
 
 " Where are we, Johnnie ? " 
 
CHAPTER 
 SEVENTEENTH 
 
 ON the afternoon of their arrival, Johns, leaning over the 
 railing of the balcony of a suite of rooms on the first 
 floor of the hotel, was looking at the scene before him. 
 
 At his feet were the grounds of the palatial building, with 
 their tall, thick pine trees diffusing aromatic freshness, their 
 fan-shaped palms glistening in the sun, their flower-beds and 
 lawns. Beyond, and plainly visible through the opening amid 
 the trees, the great calm lake, placid as a mirror, vied with the 
 sky in blueness. At a short distance from the land, the island 
 of St. Marguerite, with its romantic castle, its air of solitude 
 and mystery, was peacefully reposing in the waveless sea, 
 oblivious of the white-sailed fishing-boat beneath it, waiting for 
 a breeze to take it past the group of the Lerins. A little to the 
 right, the mountains of the Esterel, partly hidden by the foliage, 
 exhibited their peaks bathed in a thousand shades of purple 
 and of blue. The air was full of fragrance, and a grateful 
 stillness reigned. 
 
 To Johns, this azure coast appeared as an earthly paradise. 
 It was the spot designed, he thought, by nature, to be the most 
 perfect of all lover's nooks — a spot where life could be enjoyed 
 by all the senses in the highest measure of enjoyment, where 
 women's beauty must be doubly beautiful, where the tedium 
 and the banality of life must be unfelt. Ah, if ever he were 
 free, how often he would seek this favoured corner of the 
 world ! 
 
 As his wife, indisposed after the night journey, had retired, 
 he entered the room again, intending to take a stroll, when a 
 servant came to say that a gentleman named St. George had 
 called. Somewhat surprised, Johns said that he would see the 
 gentleman at once. The man left, and a moment afterwards 
 
256 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 St. George, attired in a light grey suit, appeared. He said, as 
 he advanced into the room — 
 
 " I saw your name just now, dear Johns, on the hst of visitors 
 downstairs, and I came up." 
 
 Johns, who had not seen or heard of his friend for many 
 months, pointing to a seat, repUed — 
 
 " So this was where you were, you truant ! What are you 
 doing here ? " 
 
 " I'm merely basking in the sun like everyone." 
 
 But Johns eyed him narrowly. 
 
 " I don't believe, St. George, you're only here for that. Are 
 you sure you're quite alone ? " 
 
 " Oh, quite." 
 
 "You're mysterious, St. George!" 
 
 The young man laughed, and by way of answer, asked^ 
 " How is Mrs. Johns ? " 
 
 "She's pretty well, thanks. She's resting after last night's 
 journey. But you've not yet told me what you're doing here, 
 you rogue ! " 
 
 St. George looked round the little room, with its gilded clock 
 upon the mantel, its fluted ceiling, and its yellow hangings and 
 upholstery. Then, after a few moments' hesitation, he burst 
 out — 
 
 "Why should I hesitate to tell you, Johns? We're old 
 friends and can trust each other. Listen. Things have not been 
 going very well for me of late. Since I was refused by Edith 
 Douglas, I've been floating about the world in a rather moody 
 frame of mind, and spending and losing a lot of money. At 
 Monte Carlo I lost j^yooo, and a dramatic lady, of whom I was 
 naive enough to be enamoured, relieved me, in one way and 
 another, of nearly half as much again, so that, as I was never a 
 rich man, I'm reduced now to the bare necessities. But a 
 little while ago, as I was finishing the summer at Montreux, 
 thinking what a fool I'd been, I met a family who interested 
 me greatly. The family was composed of two — a father and an 
 only daughter. The father, I soon learnt, was a financial 
 person who had retired from business with a million. The 
 daughter was a little girl of about twenty, with a pleasant face 
 and plenty of accomplishments. Well, to cut my story short, I 
 did my best at once to enter into the good graces of these 
 favoured people, and I was so successful, that when they 
 announced their intention of passing the winter at Cannes, I 
 announced mine of following their example. At the present 
 moment we're all staying at this hotel, and as I've become a 
 convert to your doctrines about money, and the little heiress is. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 257 
 
 not altogether unattractive, I'm laying a patient siege to her 
 affections. Now you know why I am here." 
 
 Johns had been listening to this speech with marked attention, 
 moving once or twice in his chair restlessly while doing so, con- 
 scious of a feeling of uneasiness, almost of envy, for the prize 
 which was perhaps about to fall to his friend St. George. 
 Without letting his thoughts betray themselves, however, he 
 said — 
 
 " Well, St. George, I wish you luck." 
 
 " I knew you would, Johns. But not a word to anyone of 
 what I've told you." 
 
 " Of course not. Not a syllable." ' X' 
 
 And then St. George, carried away by his enthusiasm, told 
 his friend of the excursions he had made with Miss Wilson and 
 her father, of the evening talks upon the terrace, and of their 
 games of draughts in the salon afterwards — of his hopes, in short, 
 that he would be accepted when he judged the moment 
 opportune to ask her hand. Johns smiled approvingly, and 
 remarked with apparent unconcern — 
 
 " And you say the father is a millionaire ? " 
 
 " More than a millionaire. He made a colossal stroke ten 
 years ago, and he's lived like a prince since then. Besides a 
 fine house in Park Lane, they've a perfect castle in North- 
 amptonshire, and she's the only child." 
 
 " And so you think you're on the right track, St. George ? " 
 
 " I hope so, Johns ; there's only the father, who is a little 
 hard to please." 
 
 For a few moments Johns was silent. Then he handed 
 to his friend the box of cigarettes which was lying on the 
 table. St. George took a cigarette, and they resumed the 
 conversation, which drifted to other subjects. But when 
 St. George had been there half an hour, he looked up 
 suddenly at the clock upon the mantel and exclaimed, as 
 he rose from his chair — 
 
 " It's time for the promenade. She's sure to be there this 
 afternoon, and I wouldn't miss her for the world." 
 
 Johns, rising also, answered — 
 
 " I'll go with you, St. George. I'm curious to see this little 
 person." 
 
 St. George expressed himself delighted, although he scarcely 
 looked so, and they left. 
 
 Passing out by the side door of the hotel, they took the road 
 which led to the old town, and walked along arm-in-arm. St. 
 George, chatting gaily, pointed out the celebrities they met — the 
 princes, the grand dukes, and the heirs -apparent (some of 
 
258 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 whom Johns knew by sight), and the galaxy of minor stars who 
 follow in their wake. 
 
 About each he had an anecdote to tell, some little scandal 
 he had heard since he had been at Cannes, or some gossip he 
 had gleaned about the Prince. 
 
 And Johns Ustened, interested, for, at the bottom of his heart, 
 he had a lurking admiration for royal persons — the respectful 
 admiration of the lower classes for people of high birth. At 
 the street corners, and at different points along the route, they 
 met ambassadors and statesmen, potentates and artists, poets 
 and financiers, some accompanied by ladies, and all wearing 
 that indulgent, self- contented air which the Riviera seems to 
 lend. 
 
 Johns, amid this collection of celebrities, felt himself 
 suddenly belittled, and realized acutely, for a moment, how 
 very small his own position was, compared with that of the 
 majority of these great people. If he were only really rich as 
 they ! But no, he felt he was a very minor figure there. 
 
 Passing by the old harbour, they reached the commencement 
 of the Croisette, the crescent-shaped promenade which curves 
 so picturesquely. 
 
 The first person whom they met was a lady they both knew 
 well. She was middle-aged, rigid in her bearing, and her face, 
 the colour of old parchment, wore a judicial look about its lower 
 portion and was curiously relieved by a pair of light blue eyes. 
 The two friends recognized the semi -comic physiognomy of 
 Lady Vieille, who, they both knew, bore a well-earned reputa- 
 tion for excessive rudeness. She was accompanied by a girl 
 of about sixteen, who seemed to be her daughter. 
 
 Johns whispered to his companion, " Don't stop," and they 
 passed along, raising their hats and bowing rather low, for they 
 both knew that Lady Vieille, who dabbled in literature and 
 who had some sort of a literary drawing-room, was apt to be 
 vindicitive. 
 
 And St. George, after they had passed, told Johns laughingly 
 of the lady's latest freak, that of inviting stray acquaintances to 
 lunch any day they liked to choose, and then, when any- 
 body not of primary importance was foolish enough to go to 
 Harvey Street on such an invitation, to request him, through 
 the butler, to be good enough to come again another day. 
 
 Johns shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 Then they met the owner of a New York journal, a tall man 
 with a red face, who was leading by a string a little dog whose 
 body-cloth was studded with precious stones. St. George 
 explained that if this eccentric millionaire was there that 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 259 
 
 evening, "the Prince," whom he worshipped, must be expected 
 on the promenade. 
 
 Contemptuously, Johns said, " Poor snob ! " 
 
 But the sun had begun to set in a conflagration of intense 
 beauty. Its glowing rays penetrated far into the deep blue 
 sky above, and were reflected on the leaves of the palm trees 
 in the plantations, upon the walls of the old fortress in the 
 distance, and upon the faces of the promenaders. Everything 
 which met the eye was softened, was transfigured. For a few 
 moments of extreme splendour the scene was of such striking 
 beauty that it caused Johns to ejaculate — 
 
 " By God, how fine ! " 
 
 St. George said, " Isn't it ! " and they walked along in silence 
 for some distance. Then, as they were approaching the 
 extremity of the Croisette, St. George suddenly pressed his 
 friend's arm and said in a low though excited tone — 
 
 " Here they are. They're coming." 
 
 A few yards in front of them, a young girl, rather below the 
 average height, with a round healthy face, a little nose inclining 
 upwards, a small and rather well-arched mouth, a pair of inex- 
 pressive dark-brown eyes and hair to match, was accompanying 
 a short stout man of about sixty, whose light, pointed beard, was 
 turning grey and beginning to give a stamp of age to a some- 
 what plebeian set of features, mainly expressive of prudent 
 foresight. The daughter was admirably dressed in a perfectly- 
 fitting brown costume, with a straw hat of the same colour 
 half-hidden beneath a veritable garden of well-blended flowers. 
 The father wore a short dark double-breasted coat, rather light 
 check trousers, and a soft felt hat. St. George shook hands 
 with each in turn, cordially with the young girl, but rather 
 timidly with the father. After this he introduced his friend. 
 
 " My friend, Mr. Johns, the editor of the Centenary Review." 
 
 Johns made a profound bow to the father and the daughter, 
 which was returned politely. Then, after a few words, as they 
 were all returning the same way, the party divided itself 
 naturally into pairs. St. George and the young girl went on in 
 front ; Johns and the father followed. 
 
 Johns, not knowing with what theme to break the ice, started 
 that of Cannes, asking the father's opinion of the hotel at which 
 they were both staying, what he thought of the climate of the 
 Riviera, and which were the best drives in the vicinity. He 
 appeared to attach much weight to the answers he received, 
 although he kept his eyes fixed upon St. George and his com- 
 panion, trying to discover, from what he could see of the 
 expressions of their faces, on what terms they were. The 
 
26o THE ADVENTURES 
 
 father, Johns noticed, maintained a species of reserve which 
 somewhat disconcerted him, and made him wonder if the 
 milUonaire had heard any of the stories which he knew were 
 floating about London as to his career. But no, most 
 probably he was a dry Saxon whose words had to be pulled 
 out of him one by one. He knew the type, he fancied. 
 
 " Are you here alone ? " the elderly man inquired, after they 
 had exhausted local topics. 
 
 "No," Johns answered calmly, watching the effect his words 
 produced, " my wife is with me, only she's somewhat indis- 
 posed this afternoon." 
 
 After a moment, when he had seen Miss Wilson look up at 
 St. George with a glance of sympathy, he added — 
 
 "My wife, Mr. Wilson, is very fond of young society, she 
 will be glad to make the acquaintance of your daughter." 
 
 Wilson answered, in a more amiable tone than he had 
 hitherto adopted — 
 
 " My daughter will, I'm sure, be pleased." 
 
 They continued thus, until they reached the end of the 
 Croisette. By this time the promenade was nearly empty, and 
 the island of St. Honorat was beginning to look dark in the 
 waning light. 
 
 Consulting his watch, Wilson said that it was growing late, 
 and they started on their way back to the hotel still in the 
 same order. During the walk Wilson sufficiently unbended 
 to give Johns a description of the visit he had paid to Egypt 
 the previous winter, when he had been decorated by the 
 Khedive for the presents he had made of English cattle to 
 improve the native breed, and Johns, who knew something 
 about cattle, was able to make apposite remarks. 
 
 When they reached the hall of the hotel they separated, 
 agreeing to meet again at dinner. 
 
 "Well," said St. George, as soon as they were alone, "what 
 do you think of them ? " 
 
 "Oh, merely ordinary people, apart from what you say 
 they're worth. I should think, St. George, she'd be an easy 
 conquest." 
 
 St. George looked slightly dubious. He said, "With the 
 daughter I'm getting on very well, but the father's a terrible 
 old man, and gives me hints sometimes that he has higher 
 aims. He positively makes me nervous." 
 
 " Timid fool ! " thought Johns, and saying that he must go 
 up to his wife, he left St. George to his reflections. 
 
 Johns found his wife still in her room, a large square room, 
 elegantly furnished, where he had left her in the afternoon. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 261 
 
 She was lying on her bed covered over with a rug, and her 
 face, as Johns observed it against the dark red curtains of 
 the French bedstead, looked pale and worn. 
 
 " Well, Rose," he said, indulgently, " how are you feeling 
 now?" 
 
 She said that she was better, that she would be quite well 
 the next day. But she would not dine with him at the 
 table d'hote that evening, as her mirror told her she was 
 not looking at her best. 
 
 "We women, you know, dear John, are a little sensitive 
 about our looks." 
 
 He said, "Quite right. Rose, it's better to rest to-day, and 
 surprise us all to-morrow." 
 
 Then he told her of St. George's visit, of his walk with him, 
 and of these Wilsons to whom he had been introduced, whom 
 he was certain she would like, and who owned one of those 
 fine fortunes which gave them, in spite of their mediocrity, a 
 certain standing. The little girl was not exactly pretty, but 
 she seemed to have pleasant manners. It would be well to 
 make friends with them. 
 
 Mrs. Johns said she would be glad to know the Wilsons, 
 especially as they were staying at the hotel. 
 
 Johns then passed into his own room. There he dressed. 
 And he hurried down again as the hall bell was ringing. 
 
 At the entrance to the long and lofty dining-room, with its 
 high curtained windows, its palms, and its lengthy table decked 
 with fruit and flowers, Johns met the Wilsons and St. George. 
 He explained his wife's absence on the score of slight 
 indisposition, and Wilson said — 
 
 " We have a reserved table in the corner, Mr. Johns, and if 
 you will share it with us we shall be pleased." 
 
 The daughter, with a pleasant smile, seemed to second her 
 father's invitation, and Johns readily accepted. The Wilsons' 
 table was a small one at the extreme end of the long room. 
 Johns, seated on the right hand of Wilson, faced the dark 
 young girl, who was tastefully attired in a high dinner dress 
 with a profusion of bows and ribbons. From where he was 
 was placed, he could see the entire room. More than two- 
 thirds of the visitors, he perceived at once, were English. 
 The remainder, chiefly French, were clustered together as if for 
 mutual support at the end of the table near the door, looking 
 like travellers in a strange country — the sound of their native 
 tongue being drowned in the greater din of English voices. 
 The men among them were particularized by being in frock 
 coats, while the Englishmen were nearly all in evening dress. 
 
262 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns saw, to his satisfaction, that a little sensation had been 
 caused in the English section on his entrance, and that many 
 a glance was directed towards him. He had been recognized, 
 was known. Nothing could cause him greater satisfaction. 
 
 During the dinner, while the long menu was being served 
 under the stern eye of the maitre d'hotel^ Johns allowed the 
 conversation to drift on generalities, often engaging in a 
 colloquy with Wilson upon finance or agriculture, while 
 St. George talked with his neighbour upon what was happening 
 at Cannes. 
 
 Throughout the meal, however, Johns glanced at Miss 
 Wilson, now and then with a sympathetic, half- melancholy 
 reflective glance, as if he were thinking over the destiny in 
 store for her in life, and sometimes, as their eyes met, she 
 would look down quickly, shyly. Johns had come to the 
 conclusion that the nature of the ordinary woman resembled 
 that of the well-bred domestic cat, wrongly considered spiteful. 
 The furry puss was charming; exhibited her playfulness and 
 pretty ways to those who took the pains to win her 
 confidence by appearing to be kind and just to her, not 
 disturbing her too much in any of her little comforts, never 
 being harsh or boisterous, always natural. But if by chance 
 she once lost confidence, then she recoiled into her own self 
 like a snail into its shell, and it was a hard matter to win back 
 her favour. And so, Johns had come to think, it was with 
 women who were really women — women who had the instincts 
 and the foibles of their sex. So, at least, he had always 
 found them. 
 
 To create a good impression, and in some speculative way he 
 wanted that evening to create one, was always a delicate, nice 
 task. A single error, a single breath of ridicule was often fatal 
 — so intuitive were women. Thus he desired to tread cautiously, 
 and it was not until the dessert appeared, and the theme of 
 books had been introduced, that an opportunity occurred. 
 
 Miss Wilson, in her little girlish voice, had laughingly enquired 
 of anyone who cared to answer, what was thought of Clara 
 Baroletti's novels. She, for one, did not like such visionary 
 books. She had plainly told the authoress as much when she 
 had met her a few days before in the villa of some friends, and 
 she feared she had offended her. 
 
 Johns, sitting upright in his chair, as he did when he meant 
 to be impressive, said, "Ah, Miss Wilson, how well can I 
 understand that you, with your evident good sense and clear 
 perceptions, should repudiate such mystic vagaries. For you, 
 as I judge you, there can only be one style, the old and ever 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 263 
 
 new, the bright and charming tale of nature. You love the 
 style which elegantly renders all the primary affections, joys, 
 and sorrows of our lives, always without affectation, without 
 pose. Your taste enables you to readily distinguish what is 
 frank and fresh, sincere, harmonious in art, from what is 
 artificial, forced, unfelt. You are able to enjoy the perfume 
 which all real works of art give forth as surely as a rose 
 gives forth its scent. Ah, Miss Wilson, that style will live 
 when the books of all the Barolettis that our island rears, are 
 relegated to the Umbo of forgotten things !" 
 
 " Oh !" exclaimed the young girl, with a smile of pleasure on 
 her face, " you say exactly what I think, but so much better 
 than I could say it ! " 
 
 Johns, once started, was in no mood to stop. 
 
 " Yes, we should seek the natural, and cast aside the weird, 
 the ghostly, the fantastic, as too facile and too tame, not fit 
 even for the nursery. If I wrote novels instead of spending 
 my time in the ungrateful task of conducting a Review, I 
 should love to draw a graceful and bright-witted girl with a 
 charming nature like your own. Miss Wilson." 
 
 He glanced at the father as if to ask permission to take his 
 daughter as a type, and then continued — 
 
 " I would paint her mischievous, delightful, coy, always with 
 a laugh upon her lips, gay, light-hearted, young, and yet with a 
 little head which knew well what it wanted, with a judgment 
 which wasn't to be imposed upon. 
 
 " Then, as nothing is of greater interest, of greater charm in 
 life than a love's idyll, I would create for her a handsome 
 cavalier, one after my own heart, with dash and spirit, who 
 knew his own mind well, and who, being very much in love, 
 meant to win her in spite of all the obstacles which I, as 
 novelist, would place before him. And in the end they would 
 be happy, extraordinarily happy, and their lives would be 
 destined afterwards to flow as smoothly as a summer's dream. 
 That would be all my story !" 
 
 In drawing this portrait of what he meant to be an idealised 
 Miss Wilson, Johns had glanced alternately from the father to 
 the daughter, apparently oblivious of the presence of St. George 
 (who was listening ^vith a half-satisfied expression), and his eyes 
 had become moist with the enthusiasm he had contrived to 
 conjure up. Miss Wilson, when he had finished, looked more 
 pleased than ever, and exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Johns, how 
 charming of you ! That's just the kind of book I like." 
 
 Johns said, "I thought it was; I guessed it must be from 
 your face." 
 
264 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Then, turning his gaze upon St. George as if he had but now 
 perceived him, he exclaimed — 
 
 " But here we have, if not a novelist, at least a poet whose 
 modesty I must unveil. St. George, do you remember those 
 bucolic poems I published for you in the Planet V 
 
 St. George had been endeavouring to make a sign to Johns 
 to stop, but seeing that he would not, he expostulated — 
 
 " Oh, don't let us talk of those /" 
 
 Miss Wilson said, " I didn't know, Mr. St. George, you were 
 a poet!" 
 
 St. George declared that he had merely written a few verses 
 which were not worth speaking of, but the young girl said — 
 
 ' Oh, but I want to see them ! I'm curious to see them." 
 
 St. George protested that he hadn't kept them, that he 
 would not know where to find them even if he were in 
 London. 
 
 But Johns gave out that he knew how to procure the pieces. 
 He would write to the office for the numbers of the paper. 
 
 " Do, Mr. Johns," the young girl cried, apparently enjoying 
 St. George's evident confusion. "That will be fun. I'm 
 dying to read your friend's poetry. Fancy being a poet and 
 keeping it so secret ! Mr. Johns, I shall rely upon you to get 
 the verses." 
 
 St. George, seeing that it was useless to object, was silent, 
 trying to look pleased in spite of his evident annoyance. 
 After this, the dinner was soon over. The party rose at the 
 same time as the other diners at the long table, and left the 
 room with them. 
 
 In the vestibule — a large hall paved with marble and furnished 
 with basket chairs and little bamboo tables — they took seats, 
 and were served with coffee. But they had not been there 
 more than a few minutes when Miss Wilson, whose chair 
 happened to be a httle apart from the rest, found herself 
 surrounded by three young Englishmen whom Johns judged 
 quickly to belong to the money-seeking class for whom the 
 Riviera has always been a hunting ground. 
 
 Sipping his coffee leisurely, and smoking a cigar, Johns 
 amused himself by watching them, speculating on their chances, 
 glancing at St. George occasionally to study his discomfiture. 
 To do her justice, Johns admitted that Miss Wilson did not 
 seem to give any of them much encouragement, and she 
 answered a dark man of about forty, with a scar upon a rather 
 handsome face, with much indifference. 
 
 "Who is that man ?" Johns asked St. George in a low tone. 
 
 "His name is Blanchamp. He's a baronet," St. George 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 265 
 
 replied, with evident disgust. The other two were younger 
 and somewhat less assiduous. 
 
 But after listening to their conversation for a little while, 
 Johns came to the conclusion that they were very clumsy, and, 
 setting down their chances as extremely slight, he began to 
 talk to Wilson about the state of trade. 
 
 A little later, however, Miss Wilson, having dismissed her 
 trio without much ceremony, exclaimed — 
 
 " Oh, father, we don't want to speak of business. We want 
 to settle what we're going to do this evening." 
 
 St. George at once proposed a walk, but Wilson shook his 
 head. He had walked enough that day. St. George next 
 proposed the Casino, but the young girl declared she was tired 
 of the Casino. Nothing that evening was taking place there. 
 Johns made no proposal, and there was a short pause. 
 
 At length Miss Wilson, who had been reflecting, suddenly 
 clapped her hands. 
 
 " I have it ! Mr. Johns will tell us one of his little stories. 
 I've heard so much about them from a friend, and I'm dying 
 to hear one of them. Now, Mr. Johns, you won't refuse me, 
 will you ? " 
 
 Johns, thus appealed to, said that nothing would give him 
 greater pleasure, and, after a moment to collect his thoughts, 
 he told them the best of his little narratives, one that he knew 
 by heart, and which he related with so much skill, alternating 
 so cleverly between humour and subdued pathos as he pro- 
 gressed, that the end was greeted by a prolonged murmur 
 of admiration on the part, not only of the young girl, but of 
 her father also. 
 
 "Oh," said Miss Wilson, naively, "how I wish I could tell 
 such beautiful, such charming little stories ! " and she looked 
 at Johns half-shyly, as if impressed by his subtlety, his knowledge 
 of human nature. 
 
 And Johns, who felt as though he had returned to the early 
 days when his little stories were his only capital, pleased at the 
 effect he had produced, told another tale, which was received 
 with almost as much favour as the former. 
 
 This occupied the greater portion of the evening, and after 
 half an hour spent in the little salon which adjoined the hall, 
 the party separated. The Wilsons retired to their rooms, and 
 the two friends were left together. 
 
 St. George, who had plainly not enjoyed himself all through 
 the evening, said — 
 
 " I do think, Johns, that you needn't have promised Miss 
 Wilson you would show my verses to her. It wasn't exactly 
 
266 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 kind. It might prejudice her against me. Girls are so 
 pecuHar ! " 
 
 Johns, who remembered the amateurish lines he had pub- 
 lished once when he wanted to oblige St. George, replied — 
 
 " My dear St. George, believe me, there is a flavour, a 
 literary merit, in those verses which cannot fail to advance 
 your cause. You saw how my little compositions pleased. 
 Yours, which are better, will be even more appreciated." 
 
 But St. George was not convinced. He said — 
 
 " At all events, of you I've no reason to be jealous. You're 
 married, my boy, as married as you can be." 
 
 Johns repeated, thoughtfully, "As married as I can be, 
 St. George, as married as I can be ! " 
 
 Then they chatted, and after a last cigar each retired to his 
 room. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Johns made the acquaintance of the 
 Wilsons. The young girl was not sufficiently good-looking to 
 cause Mrs. Johns the uneasiness she felt when in the presence 
 of a beauty, and as her manners were pleasant and engaging, 
 they were soon on the best of terms. The acquaintance 
 ripened. Mrs. Johns, in her delicate state of health, was not 
 able to accompany her young friend for walks, but Miss Wilson, 
 from the first, evinced a readiness to sacrifice her inclinations 
 to the comforts of the invalid — for such she still remained — 
 driving with her when she would have preferred to ride or walk, 
 staying with her often in her room — in this way winning her 
 affection. The father was not too much pleased with the 
 arrangement, which deprived him of some of his daughter's 
 company ; but as it kept her out of danger, he refrained from 
 making an objection. St. George, seeing the course which 
 things had taken, at once endeavoured to enter into the good 
 graces of Mrs. Johns. 
 
 Thus, life at Cannes for the little party was soon organized 
 upon a more or less settled plan. In the morning, before the 
 mid-day breakfast, and after the visit of the doctor, Mrs. Johns 
 would take a drive, either through the town when she wanted 
 to make purchases, or along the sea front, or a short way into 
 the adjoining country. Frequently Miss Wilson would accom- 
 pany her, and sometimes, too, St. George would be invited, 
 though not often, for Johns had told his wife that, as Wilson 
 was entirely opposed to the notion of a marriage between his 
 daughter and St. George, they must be careful not to give the 
 young people too many opportunities to meet. In the after- 
 noon the programme was generally undecided. On certain 
 days the Wilsons had to visit friends, or the father wanted to 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 267 
 
 take a ride in the country with his daughter, or, if Mrs. Johns 
 was not indisposed, a drive was organized in the Johns' or the 
 Wilsons' landau, both of which being constructed only to 
 contain four, St. George was excluded by the mere force of 
 circumstances. The evenings were spent in the drawing-room, 
 where Johns was soon a favourite with both the English and 
 the French, or at the Casino where Mrs. Johns indulged her 
 fondness for mild gambling. 
 
 Johns, in the meantime, watched events in a curious, un- 
 decided, speculative, semi-philosophical frame of mind. A 
 portion of his days was devoted to his Review, and he spent 
 the remainder in answering the long and admirably-written 
 letters which he frequently received from Edith Douglas, and 
 in amusing himself as well as he was able under the circum- 
 stances in which he found himself. 
 
 One day, after they had been a few weeks at Cannes, the 
 Wilsons asked St. George and Johns if they would ride with 
 them that afternoon. Miss Wilson had heard of some new 
 views, and she wanted very much to see them. Mrs. Johns 
 would come a part of the way with them in the carriage, and 
 they would have a pleasant afternoon. 
 
 The invitation was at once accepted with enthusiasm by 
 St. George, whose chances that week had been growing some- 
 what dim, and who hailed this opportunity to endeavour to 
 advance them. 
 
 The Wilsons had had their saddle horses sent from England, 
 but the two friends were obliged to hire the best that could be 
 procured in Cannes, from stables which had previously supplied 
 them with fair mounts. 
 
 After breakfast, therefore, the party assembled in the hall 
 before the start. Miss Wilson wore a light grey habit which 
 showed her small, though well-proportioned figure to the best 
 advantage, and on her happy little face the glow of health was 
 softened by a coat of down which lay upon it like the bloom 
 upon a peach. She was looking at her best, and her points of 
 modest beauty were admirably shown, as her mirror, to judge 
 by her high spirits, must have told her. 
 
 Mrs. Johns, on whose face the powder puff had been exten- 
 sively employed, whose cheeks were drawn and pale, whose 
 eyes seemed to betray the artificial means that had been 
 used to give them brilliancy, made a sad contrast to this youth 
 and freshness. In spite of her desire to appear light-hearted, 
 there was an anxious look upon her countenance which her 
 smiles could not dispel. 
 
 Wilson, somewhat indisposed that afternoon, had decided 
 
26d> THE ADVENTURES 
 
 that he would not join the party, but he was in the hall to 
 witness the departure. 
 
 When the trap and the horses came, Johns, St. George, and 
 Miss Wilson mounted, while Mrs. Johns took her seat in the 
 landau with the wife of an English general who was staying at 
 the hotel. 
 
 While they were going through the town, Miss Wilson, St. 
 George, and Johns, riding side by side, followed the carriage, 
 trotting a few yards behind, and in this order they reached the 
 Antibes road. 
 
 But it soon became apparent that the original order could 
 not be maintained. The long and parched white road was 
 covered with a thick layer of fine dust, which rose in such 
 dense clouds as the carriage dashed along, that the riders 
 following, soon became as white as millers, and were well-nigh 
 choked and blinded. They tried to ride in front, but the cloud 
 raised by their horses' hoofs was again so great that Mrs. 
 Johns in the landau, distressed by it, made her coachman stop. 
 The rest turned back and came to see if anything had happened, 
 and she asked them to take their ride independently of her. 
 The roads were far too dusty for them to keep company, she 
 said. They would meet when they reached the forest. Miss 
 Wilson was quite safe in her husband's hands. 
 
 The riding party therefore halted for a few minutes until the 
 landau was nearly out of sight. Then they continued at a 
 walk. 
 
 But it seemed that the commencement of their ride was not 
 destined to be without interruptions, for the horse St. George 
 was riding — a tall lean bay, with a long sinewy neck, which, in 
 starting, had shown signs of restlessness — now began to give 
 him trouble, and to take him away frequently from his com- 
 panions for a mad gallop upon the hard road, the dust rising 
 after him like a long wall of cloud. St. George was a good 
 rider, but he was mounted on an imperfectly-trained beast 
 which required his whole attention, and prevented him from 
 remaining long at Miss Wilson's side. 
 
 Johns, who was riding a fine Norman mare, reflected that St. 
 George had got no luck, for he knew well that Wilson's sudden 
 resolution to stay at home that afternoon had deprived his 
 friend of an opportunity of riding alone with the young girl, 
 since four might have paired and three could not — three 
 certainly could not. Presently, as Johns and Miss Wilson 
 were advancing, looking in front of them at the place where St. 
 George had disappeared in a cloud of dust, they reached a 
 turning which the young girl said was the best to take. Mr. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 269 
 
 St. George, she said, would know that road, and would see that 
 they had taken it. If not, they would meet when they reached 
 the forest. 
 
 " Poor Mr. St. George," she said, laughing, as she turned her 
 horse's head, " he's so unfortunate to-day ! " 
 
 Then, confidentially, as if she had been speaking to an 
 accomplice, she continued, "It was such fun to read his 
 poems. I had no idea he could be so sentimental. 'The 
 marriage of Belinda' was wonderfully soulful." 
 
 Johns asked, smiling, " What did you think of them ? " 
 
 " Shall I confess ? I will if you promise not to tell." 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 " Well, then, I think they're rather silly ! " 
 
 They both laughed, and Johns replied, " You're a sagacious 
 critic ! " Then he pursued, in a comiserating tone, " Poor 
 St. George, he's got no luck to-day, and yet in some respects I 
 envy him. If his poetry is bad, perhaps he is appreciated for 
 other qualities he may be thought to have, by one whom every 
 man must wish to please. And St. George is free, a bachelor, 
 while I — oh, I — well, never mind, /do not count." 
 
 "Why do you speak so regretfully?" she asked, becoming 
 serious. 
 
 He gave her a rapid glance, and as he fancied he detected 
 the trace of an incipient emotion on her countenance, he asked 
 himself, " Why not ? " and after a moment's pause, exclaimed — 
 "Miss Wilson, I feel impelled to ask you, to entreat you to 
 allow me to confide in you. You are one of those rare persons 
 who call forth confidence." 
 
 He looked round quickly to ascertain if St. George were 
 coming, and, seeing no one in the narrow lane they were passing 
 along, continued — 
 
 " We are such good friends now that I am going to confide 
 in you as I have never yet confided in anyone before. I have 
 such absolute reliance on your discretion ! " 
 
 "Of course," she said, deeply interested, "whatever you tell 
 me I will not repeat." 
 
 " I know it ! Well, then. Miss Wilson, dear Miss Wilson, let 
 me tell you what you may have guessed — I am not happy ; no, 
 not happy ! " 
 
 He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. Then 
 resuming — 
 
 "A few years ago I married a woman whose kindness 
 touched me, whose great solicitude for me, coming at a time 
 when I was fighting against many obstacles in my profession, 
 and had need of sympathy, caused me to feel doubly grateful,. 
 
270 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 and at last to mistake my gratitude for love. My friends 
 persuaded me that the difference in our ages need be no bar to 
 happiness, and as I was then inclined to be convinced, I 
 married. Our married life flowed smoothly. My wife con- 
 tinued to be kind and — motherly. I endeavoured, as you may 
 have seen, to make her life (that of an invalid) as pleasant as I 
 could, but, alas ! I have gradually and painfully become aware 
 that I was reckoning without human nature, that I had linked 
 myself to one who could never be more than a friend to me, a 
 companion. And day by day the dismal thought has grown 
 upon me that I had made one of those mistakes which cannot be 
 repaired, which embitter a career. For at last I came to own that 
 my ideal, the ideal which we all form, had not been achieved, 
 and that I could only dream in vain of a young wife, bright and 
 gay and sympathetic, without too much sentiment, but with 
 that charming magnetism which one feels so subtly, with that 
 delightful little girlish malice, those delicious ways which are 
 the salt of feminine attractiveness, above all possessing a 
 character, a nature akin to mine, linked to it by mutual affinity. 
 And I have been living with a great regret, trying to forget it by 
 hard work, disdainful of the lying stories, some of which you 
 may have heard, invented by jealous mediocrities about me. 
 And so the time has passed, until at length fate willed that my 
 wife's health should bring us to this place, and that here I 
 should meet one who, from the moment I beheld her, seemed 
 to be the absolute realization of the ideal I had formed ! And 
 then my trouble was increased a hundred-fold. Never had I 
 felt so keenly that I was not free ! " 
 
 They had passed the little chapel of St. Antoine, and a 
 turning of the road had brought them to an eminence com- 
 manding a superb view of the azure coast. Before them lay 
 the Gulf of La Napoule, slightly ruffled by a light breeze, and 
 presided over by the town of Cannes, gleaming white in the 
 strong sunlight. Farther still, the islands of St. Marguerite and 
 St. Honorat were dotted as if fallen from the sky. A little to 
 the right, appeared the iridescent peaks of the changeful 
 Esterel. In the same direction as far as Bordighera, the rocks 
 and promontories alternated in bewildering succession, and on 
 the other side, across Cape Antibes, Nice, whiter still than 
 Cannes, was resting calmly, as if protected by warlike Toulon, 
 a speck in the far distance. In the rear, the snow-clad summits 
 <)f the Alps lent to the scene a note of peaceful dignity. 
 
 After Johns had finished speaking there was a pause. Miss 
 Wilson, playing with her reins, was looking seawards thoughtfully. 
 
 At length she asked, with a slight tremor in her voice — 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 271 
 
 "Who was she?" 
 
 " Oh ! can you ask me that ? " he cried. " Who might she be 
 but you ? You and you alone." 
 
 Looking away from him, she said — 
 
 " You ought not to have told me !" 
 
 " It was inevitable ! I knew that I should tell you the first 
 time we were alone. There are inclinations which can never 
 be controlled. I felt, I knew, that there was sympathy between 
 us, and that must be my excuse." 
 
 ** How did you know I hked you ?" she asked, ingenuously. 
 
 " Then you do ! you do ! " he cried. " Oh, I was not quite 
 certain, but now that you have told me so, I almost feel as if, in 
 spite of all, I could be happy ! " 
 
 " Of course I do," she said, in a low tone. Then she 
 added — 
 
 " Why is it, I wonder, that nice people are always married ? 
 Since I have been out, I've had eight offers, and not one of the 
 men was as nice as you, not one. Most of them wanted to 
 marry me simply for my money." 
 
 " The curs ! " said Johns, with a deep frown. 
 
 " And I hate a man who only worships that ! Money isn't 
 everything ! " 
 
 "No one knows as well as I how true that is ! " 
 
 They rode along in silence for some distance in the direction 
 of the pine woods, and just as these were coming into sight, 
 darkly green against the blue, cloudless sky, she said — 
 
 " But it's no use to think of impossibilities. We ought to 
 have met before." 
 
 He answered, " 1 shall never cease to regret we did not." 
 
 Presently they reached a cluster of old pines spread like 
 panoplies between the earth and sky, giving the impression of 
 huge black mushrooms guarding the entrance of the woods. 
 
 She said, as they passed into the shade — 
 
 " But we must not be miserable about it, and you must be 
 very good to poor Mrs. Johns, who seems so ill ! " 
 
 He reflected once again that they all said the same things, 
 and then replied — 
 
 " I shall never forget that she is my wife ; but, oh, if I could 
 see into futurity ! " 
 
 The young girl was silent, and they advanced along a narrow 
 forest path, barely wide enough for their horses to walk abreast. 
 Johns hesitated for a moment, undecided upon what chord to 
 strike. The situation was extremely delicate. She was not of 
 a sentimental nature, he knew that well, but yet experience had 
 taught him that women are apt to judge men sometimes by the 
 
272 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 way they act towards the weaker sex. He must be cautious, 
 therefore, as to what he said about the future. Several times 
 the word divorce was on his hps, but when he thought of his 
 wife's health, and of the extreme measures he would have to 
 take to force her to break the marriage, of the scandal which 
 must inevitably be caused, he quickly saw that the idea must 
 be abandoned. And yet what a prize she was ! And how 
 neat her little figure looked in that grey habit ! Above all, 
 how young ! Presently an inspiration came to him. 
 
 Leaning towards her in his saddle, he gently placed his arm 
 around her waist, and murmured — 
 
 " Gwen, my little Gwen, promise me, at least, that while we 
 are here together, you won't accept another man. It may be 
 selfish, but I could not bear to see another win you. We 
 shall only be together for a few months, and I am so fond of 
 you, so fond ! Oh, promise ! " 
 
 Disengaging herself quietly, she said — 
 
 " Of course I will, with pleasure. I'm not in a hurry to get 
 married, and none of the marriageables here can tempt me." 
 
 He thanked her warmly, vowing she was the kindest and 
 the most delightful nature in the world, the sweetest and 
 the best. 
 
 Then he said, " I almost feared, you know, St. George had 
 been successful." 
 
 But she gave a little laugh. 
 
 " Oh no, good Mr. St. George is rather nice, and at first I 
 might have had a little liking for him, but lately — well perhaps, 
 he doesn't bear comparison. Besides," she added, "pa has 
 some notion in his head about a title." 
 
 " A title," he repeated, " and do you care for that ? " 
 
 " Scarcely a bit." 
 
 "How quickly I would have obtained one for you had I 
 been your husband ! There is nothing I would not do, no 
 place I would not conquer ! " 
 
 She answered, enthusiastically — 
 
 "I'm sure you would, and if you had been free, no one 
 would have prevented me from marrying you. I don't believe 
 what people say about you." 
 
 " How good, how kind you are !" 
 
 They had reached the end of the narrow path and were 
 emerging from amid the trees into an open space which joined 
 the road beyond when they perceived the carriage. St. George,, 
 his horse still foaming at the mouth, was at the side of it. 
 
 The young man was speaking to Mrs. Johns as they came 
 up. He repUed to Johns's "Well, St. George, have you 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 273 
 
 tamed your steed?" by a mere " yes, thank you," in a dry tone, 
 without looking at his friend. 
 
 But Mrs. Johns exclaimed — 
 
 " Oh, John, I was so afraid you might have had a horrid 
 beast like poor Mr. St. George, and that something might have 
 happened ! " 
 
 Johns answered, with a laugh, that his mount was a pretty 
 good one, and that they had left the road to see the delightful 
 view from the heights beyond. 
 
 Then, presently, after a little conversation, as no one wanted 
 to dismount, and as Mrs. Johns confessed that she was not 
 feeling well that afternoon, the party started homewards. 
 
 The riders took the lead, but owing to St. George's taciturnity, 
 the ride back was an almost silent one. 
 
CHAPTER 
 EIGHTEENTH 
 
 TWO months after the visit to the pine woods, Johns was 
 sitting by his wife's bed-side, watching her features as she 
 slept. It was the afternoon, and the window shutters, closed to 
 exclude the sunlight, had plunged the room into a half obscurity, 
 throwing into cold relief the pallor of the bed-clothes, and the 
 white wimple of the grave Sister watching on the other side. 
 On a table near the bed, a large bouquet of red roses in a vase, 
 diffused their perfume. The stillness was unbroken, save for 
 the faint sound of a distant piano, and now and then the noise 
 of carriage wheels on the gravel path below. 
 
 The fears of the London doctors had been realized. Sud- 
 denly the disease which women shrink from naming, had 
 re-appeared, this time with redoubled force, and the poor 
 woman, after concealing its recrudescence with untold suffering 
 for many days, had been at length obliged to yield to the 
 inevitable and to confess. The local doctors, and an eminent 
 practitioner from London, who was then in Cannes, had held a 
 consultation, and had declared that another operation could 
 not be attempted. All that could be done, they said, must be 
 in the way of palliation. They could alleviate the suffering, 
 they could not conquer the disease. 
 
 And what a change had taken place ! Instead of the woman, 
 half-girlish in her carefully preserved maturity, whom Johns 
 had married but a few years since at Westminster, a patient, 
 aged and worn, was sleeping a narcotic sleep in the large white 
 bed. The lines upon her face had become deep furrows, 
 rendered the more apparent by the congested aspect of her 
 features. The mouth had sunk, and the chin rested upon the 
 somewhat swollen neck. The golden locks, carefully waved 
 and dressed, contrasted strangely with the ravaged face. Johns, 
 
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 275 
 
 as he looked at her, muttered, "Poor old Rose," for even he, 
 had been surprised at the rapidity of the decay, and at the 
 suddenness with which his own prospects had been altered. 
 Truly, it seemed, he thought, as if fate worked for him, as if 
 whenever he had an end in view everything conspired to help 
 him to attain it. " Poor old Rose," he repeated. " If she only 
 knew !" For it had been thought humane to refrain from 
 telling her how hopeless her condition was. 
 
 Presently the patient moved. She turned her head slightly 
 towards Johns, and her eyes slowly opened. 
 
 A forced, sad smile overspread her face as she enquired — 
 
 "Have I been long asleep, Johnnie?" 
 
 " Only a few hours. Rose ; how are you feeling now?" 
 
 She shook her head with a mournful gesture. 
 
 " I'm very ill, my John ! I'm very ill ! The doctors have 
 not done me any good. No good at all !" 
 
 Johns answered, " You must have patience, Rose." 
 
 But again she shook her head. 
 
 " I love so much to see you near me when I wake, to look 
 at your dear face while I am a little calm, before the dreadful 
 pains return. Ah, how sweet it is to have a husband !" 
 
 And she gave him a long glance of despairing love, while the 
 Sister, who had been listening, cast her eyelids down. 
 
 But presently she said, " Open the window, John. I cannot 
 breathe." 
 
 Johns rose and turned the latch of the folding window 
 opposite the bed. At once a current of pure air, fragrant 
 with the first scents of spring, came into the room as if to give 
 fresh life to the sick woman. 
 
 She took a long deep breath. 
 
 "How delicious!" she exclaimed. "Do you know, my 
 John, that when I am well again we must take a trip on 
 the Atlantic to breathe the salt sea air? Oh, when shall I 
 be well again?" 
 
 As she said this she passed her hands before her eyes as if 
 to exclude a sombre thought, and presently a tear emerged 
 from between the fingers and trickled slowly down her cheek. 
 
 " Don't worry. Rose. The doctors say you won't continue 
 as you are." 
 
 " Ah, no ! Perhaps I may be worse !" 
 
 Through the open window now came the sound of singing. 
 A man's and a woman's voices were mingling in a duet, accom- 
 panied by the notes of a soft-toned piano. The voices were 
 young and pure, and they thrilled with earnestness and passion 
 as they rose and fell in the cadences of a French love song. It 
 
276 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 seemed as though the singers must themselves be lovers, and 
 were singing under the influence of love. 
 
 The voices were so fine and the song so tender, that they 
 listened silently, attentively, until the last note had died away. 
 Then, heaving a deep sigh, Mrs. Johns exclaimed — 
 " Oh, John, how happy they must be !" 
 And Johns answered simply — 
 "Yes, Rose!" 
 
 But he was thinking, " Ah, yes, happiness — always happiness. 
 They crave for it. They live for it. They give their bodies up 
 to it. They sell their souls for it. And, by God, they're right ! 
 Pleasure is the only certain good, the only reason for continuing 
 the dull farce of life. Rose didn't get much of it when she 
 married me, yet now she's bitterly regretting the little she 
 obtained. If she had lived to sixty she would still have pined 
 for it. Pleasure ! Pleasure, held before each one of us like a 
 bag of hay before an ass to make him go ! Nothing else can 
 make us live. Egoism will ever be the law of life." 
 
 Then, moved by a sudden fancy, he drew a full-blown rose 
 from the vase upon the table, and placed it gently in his wife's 
 hair. 
 
 And she, oblivious to the incongruity, said almost in a 
 whisper — 
 
 "Oh, thank you, John!" 
 
 But at that moment there was a gentle knock at the bedroom 
 door. 
 
 The Sister rose to open it. Gwendoline, bearing a large 
 basket of flowers, entered. 
 
 During the illness of Mrs. Johns she had been untiring in 
 her kindness to the condemned woman. Sitting at her bedside 
 in the afternoon, and attending to her wants with a woman's 
 patience, she had become almost the only stranger whom Mrs. 
 Johns would see, and, severed as the latter was from relatives 
 and friends in Cannes, the kindness of the young girl was 
 doubly grateful. 
 
 Johns rose and, giving up his place to her, relieved her of 
 her burden. 
 
 " Oh, the lovely flowers ! " Mrs. Johns exclaimed, " how kind 
 of you, dear Gwendoline !" 
 
 And her eyes filled with moisture, for in her, state her sense 
 of gratitude was strong. Johns held the basket near her that 
 she might inhale the perfume of the stephanotis. 
 
 "Ah," he said, "we have to thank Miss Wilson for so 
 much!" 
 
 The young girl chatted gaily, trying to amuse the sufferer by 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 277 
 
 telling her whom she had met that morning on the promenade — 
 Lady Vieille with the Poet Laureate, the Prince with a young 
 French Jew, the Serene Highness from Monte Carlo with his 
 wife. Then followed a minute description of the gowns and 
 bonnets she had seen, intermingled with a little scandal. 
 
 Mrs. Johns listened somewhat absent-mindedly. 
 
 "Ah !" she said, with a deep sigh, when Gwen had finished, 
 " I wonder if I shall see all that again ! " 
 
 Both hastened to reassure her. 
 
 But Johns, seated at a little distance from them while they 
 had been speaking, had been glancing, now at his wife with 
 her careworn face and golden hair decked with the large red 
 rose, now at the fresh young girl not ungraceful in her light 
 cloth dress. And he had muttered to himself, "Two provi- 
 dences, but, by God, how different ! " 
 
 During his wife's illness he had seen much of Gwen, but the 
 young girl, as if guided by a scruple of feminine conscience, 
 had maintained a slight reserve, avoiding as much as possible 
 finding herself alone with him, and telling him, when they met 
 by accident upon the landing or in the corridor, that he must 
 be very good to his poor wife who was so ill, and escaping 
 quickly with a little smile at his discomfiture. And even now, 
 when their eyes met while speaking, she quickly looked away. 
 
 Johns understood her feeling and did little to dispel it. He 
 was certain he could count upon her, and events must take 
 their course. 
 
 But as the afternoon advanced, the patient's face began to 
 show signs of pain, and she no longer listened to the conver- 
 sation. A sad, obliterated look came over her, and her head 
 sank deeper into the hollow of the pillow. 
 
 " Oh," she said, in anguish, " it's coming on again ! " 
 
 At once the Sister rose and, going to a side table on which was 
 a phial and a small glass, poured out a potion which diffused a 
 smell of ether in the room. Then, coming back to the bedside, 
 she placed the glass to the patient's lips, who drank its contents 
 eagerly, lapsing shortly afterwards into a quiet sleep. 
 
 Gwendoline and Johns then rose and left. 
 
 "Oh, Gwen," Johns murmured when they were outside, 
 "she's very bad!" 
 
 "Yes," said the young girl, gravely, " it's terrible to see her.'* 
 
 " Gwen, she won't get over it, the doctors all say so." 
 
 "I know they do, you need not tell me. Poor, poor 
 woman ! " 
 
 " Believe me, Gwen, I'm sorry for her too ! " 
 
 "I'm glad to hear you say so," she replied, and without 
 
278 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 waiting to hear more, she left him, disappearing down the 
 passage rapidly. 
 
 When Johns reached his room he threw himself into an 
 arm-chair, and, after lighting a cigarette, he opened the letter 
 which he had received that afternoon from Edith. She asked 
 him the reason of his long silence, wondering if he might 
 be ill, telling him how much she missed him, how she hoped 
 he would be returning soon. She had never in any letter she 
 had written him allowed her feelings to betray themselves so 
 plainly, and Johns, after he had finished reading, asked himself 
 what he should do, whether he should answer her or not. 
 Edith Douglas, he began to argue, was certainly the most 
 beautiful of all the women he had met, and even then, as he 
 shut his eyes and saw her in imagination, lithe and graceful, 
 perfect, he could not banish feelings of regret. Why was it 
 that he was always forced to make a choice between material 
 things and beauty? His luck even now was not without 
 a flaw. 
 
 For a few moments he enquired of himself whether he 
 should write to tell her of the hopelessness of his wife's con- 
 dition ; but he soon decided that he would not. It was never 
 wise to impart knowledge without a purpose, and in this case 
 it would be specially unwise. No, certainly, he would not, and 
 he sat down at his table and wrote a letter full of well-turned 
 sentences which committed him to nothing. His wife was still 
 unwell, he told her in a postscript, and he did not think they 
 would be back again till May. 
 
 "Poor Edith," he said, as he sealed the envelope, "she 
 won't like it when she knows ! " But what was he to do ? 
 Every man was meant to carry out his destiny. The destiny 
 of a man like him was to constantly ascend, and life was much 
 too short to do so when the nerve of war was absent. 
 
 Ah yes ! the nerve of war ! The mighty power of the age, 
 the subtle influence before which conscience, virtue bowed; 
 the all-excusing salve; the talisman before which no doors 
 were closed ! There might have been a time when other 
 powers reigned, love, rehgion, and such things, when men 
 fought for something else but gold. That time had passed, 
 and one must be of one's period ! 
 
 Thinking thus, he lit a fresh cigar, and went out for a stroll 
 upon the terrace. 
 
 The days succeeded each other now in the same way, and 
 each day the condition of the afflicted woman grew more grave, 
 each day her sufferings increased. Gradually the definite 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 279 
 
 decline set in. Gwendoline and Johns, as they watched at the 
 bedside in the afternoons, witnessed the progress of the sinking, 
 and at length the poor woman's realization of her state. 
 
 By degrees, as the truth dawned upon her, she sank into a 
 dull lethargy, and her face, discoloured and congested, lost all 
 traces of good looks, became forbidding, ugly. Her hair, which 
 she refused now to have manipulated by her maid, was losing 
 its golden hue and turning grey in patches. She was relaxing 
 her hold on life. 
 
 One morning, as Johns lay in bed, reading with great interest 
 " Bel Ami " of Maupassant — a story in which the hero's 
 character, he was forced to own, somewhat resembled his — he 
 heard a knock at his bedroom door. A servant entered — a 
 pretty Niceoise, with an Italian face — and told him that the 
 Sister begged of him to come to his wife's room, as madame 
 was much worse. 
 
 Jumping out of bed, as soon as the girl had left, he dressed 
 in haste and passed into his wife's room. 
 
 As he went in, he heard a low, moaning sound, and a glance 
 at the face upon the pillow convinced him that his wife was 
 within a measurable distance of her end. 
 
 The Sister rose and met him before he reached the bed, 
 whispering in French, "The night, monsieur, has been very 
 bad. I fear the end is not far off. You should warn a minister 
 of her religion." 
 
 Johns advanced gravely to the bedside. 
 
 Taking his wife's hand, which rested inertly on the bed-clothes, 
 he said kindly — 
 
 "Well, Rose!" 
 
 Slowly her eyes opened, and casting a look of sorrow upon 
 her husband, she murmured in a hollow voice — 
 
 " Oh, John ! oh, John ! " 
 
 In the disordered room there was an odour of disease 
 mingled with narcotic fumes. On a side table stood an array 
 of medicine bottles, cups, and glasses, a heap of lints and 
 bandages. The place had an air of gloom, disintegration, and 
 the rays of the morning sun which streamed through the upper 
 rafters of the shutters, fell upon the dark red curtains of the bed 
 almost sacrilegiously. 
 
 Johns asked, " And are you suifering, my Rose ? " 
 
 But she scarcely seemed to hear, for she answered feebly, 
 " Oh, John, I'm going from you now ! I did not think that it 
 would be so soon ! " 
 
 Johns pressed her hand in silence, finding no words for the 
 occasion, and she continued to moan piteously. 
 
28o THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Presently the door was opened, and the English doctor, a 
 tall man, with a thoughtful shaven face, came in. 
 
 A brief examination of the patient was sufficient. He 
 requested Johns to follow him to the adjoining room. There 
 he said, " I'm sorry to have to tell you that your wife is 
 sinking. She may linger for a few days, but the break-up has 
 commenced." 
 
 " Indeed, doctor." 
 
 "So that, if you wish to summon relatives or an English 
 clergyman, there's no time to be lost." 
 
 " I shall see to it at once." 
 
 The doctor left, promising to return later in the day. 
 
 " Summon the relatives ! " Johns muttered, " the Dean and 
 all the meddling tribe ! " No, he didn't intend to do it. The 
 clergyman might come, but the rest might stay in their cloudy 
 England. He didn't want them. 
 
 Thinking thus, he took up his hat and left the room. 
 
 On the landing he met St. George, and he said at once — 
 
 " St. George, go, like a good chap, to fetch the English 
 parson. Rose is getting worse." 
 
 St. George, who had been employed of late on a number of 
 errands for Mrs. Johns, chiefly under instructions from Miss 
 Wilson, at once expressed his readiness to go. The unlucky 
 youth had found a further obstacle to his matrimonial prospects 
 in the illness of Mrs. Johns, for he had been excluded from 
 the sick room in which Miss Wilson now passed so many hours 
 of the day. And although, since the visit to the pine woods, 
 he had watched Johns's behaviour towards Miss Wilson rather 
 narrowly, he had not been able to discover anything that might 
 confirm his incipient suspicion. He was waiting patiently for 
 the denouement to make a supreme attempt. 
 
 " It's hopeless, then ? " he asked. 
 
 " Quite hopeless ! " 
 
 St. George said, "Poor woman!" and went off upon his 
 errand. 
 
 In the afternoon, Johns and Miss Wilson were sitting in the 
 room witnessing the sufferings of the condemned woman, and 
 waiting for the arrival of the clergyman. The Sister, not 
 wishing to be present when the latter came, had just retired. 
 
 Johns, thinking his wife asleep, was saying, " The morphia 
 no longer seems to give her much relief, Gwen ! " when his 
 wife's eyes opened and her gaze wandered from the young girl 
 to him. Whether she had heard her husband call the young 
 girl by her Christian name, or whether her impression was 
 instinctive, she murmured in a voice that was scarcely audible — 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 281 
 
 "Ah, yes, you're both so young! You'll be so happy 
 soon ! " 
 
 Then she continued, plaintively, " But oh, John, say that 
 you are my own husband while I'm here ! " 
 
 He answered gravely, " Always your devoted husband." 
 
 She gave a sigh as of relief, and said, " I have not always 
 been considerate for you, my John. I ought to have 
 remembered that we were not — of the same age ; that I ought 
 not to have expected — ought not to have hoped for all your 
 love ! But a woman cannot help yearning for her husband's 
 love, and you, my John, have always seemed to me so wonder- 
 ful, so perfect ! Will you forgive me, John, if I have been unkind 
 to you ? " 
 
 That his wife should ask his pardon seemed to him 
 astonishing, but he replied — 
 
 " Yes, Rose, with all my heart." 
 
 Gwendoline, on hearing this, rose from her seat, saying that 
 she thought they would prefer to be alone ; but Johns, who, for 
 some reason he could scarcely have explained, had a strong 
 disinclination to be left alone, entreated her to stay. 
 
 " And, John," the sufferer continued, still in the same weak 
 voice, " I would like the Dean to have a little money." 
 
 " He shall have some, Rose, I promise you." 
 
 " If I really cannot live. Oh, John, can nothing else be 
 done? I did not want to die so soon. Is there no other 
 doctor can be called ? " 
 
 Johns pretended to reflect for a moment, then he said, " We 
 might send to London for another, but those you've seen are 
 very good physicians." 
 
 But the poor woman, again tortured by her pain, had ceased 
 to listen. Her face had assumed an almost livid hue, and she 
 sank back on her pillow with a stifled cry. Gwen's eyes filled 
 with tears. 
 
 " How she must be suffering ! " she said, and Johns, casting 
 his eyes upwards, answered, " Yes, Gwen !" 
 
 Presently the curate came. He was a thin young man, with 
 light hair and a light moustache, having nothing ecclesiastical 
 in his appearance except his clothes. Taking a seat which 
 Johns offered him by the bedside, after a few words exchanged 
 in a low voice, he asked the patient several questions to which 
 she replied somewhat vaguely, although his presence did not 
 seem to cause her much alarm. In a few minutes he produced 
 a morocco-covered book from an inner pocket, opened it at a 
 place marked by a blue band, and began to read a chapter from 
 the Epistle of St. Paul upon the vanity of the present life and 
 
282 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the superiority of that to come. Johns, while he read, looked 
 blankly at the floor. Gwendoline kept her eyes fixed upon the 
 sufferer. 
 
 When he had finished reading, suddenly, and with some 
 agility, the curate turned in his chair and dropped upon his 
 knees. Johns and Gwen followed his example. 
 
 Then, in a drawling monotone, which reminded Johns some- 
 what of the Dean's, he prayed for Mrs. Johns, asking that her 
 life might be eternally continued up above, and that the good 
 works she had done might be remembered. We poor mortals 
 knew, he said, that the flesh was transient and dust-composed, 
 a garb to be exchanged for a more etherial raiment in a world 
 of light and joy. The pleasures of the world were vain allure- 
 ments which no good Christian should regret. He entreated 
 the Divinity to show clemency towards their sister lying there 
 upon her bed of pain. As surely as the world had been 
 redeemed, their trust was that her sins would be forgiven. All 
 there that afternoon, he said, had confidence in the divine 
 compassion. 
 
 After he had finished praying, he remained so long upon his 
 knees that Johns could not refrain from looking through his 
 fingers to see if he were not about to give the signal to get up. 
 For the moments passed in genuflexion, with his elbows on 
 the cushion of his chair, seemed long to Johns, and he was 
 beginning to wonder if the young man had not gone to sleep. 
 
 At length the latter rose ; Gwendoline and Johns rose also. 
 
 " Good-bye," the curate said to Mrs. Johns, bending slightly 
 over her ; " I'll come again to-morrow." 
 
 The suffering woman moved her head as a sign that she had 
 understood, and the fair young man withdrew. 
 
 Mrs. Johns lingered after this for many days. She declined 
 indeed so slowly that Johns began to feel the strain the daily 
 watching placed upon his nerves. The silence of the sick room 
 depressed him. He shrugged his shoulders at the queer 
 humanity of keeping so long alive a being hopelessly con- 
 demned. For his part, had he been in his wife's condition, the 
 sooner he could have ended the better he would have liked it. 
 But no, there was some sort of a tradition that life must be pre- 
 served to the last gasp, even at the expense of suffering. It was 
 in conformity with custom to go on giving medicines to prolong 
 the miserable existence of a decayed and useless body. Well, 
 the genus homo had its superstitions he supposed, and one 
 must manage to have patience with them. 
 
 And yet, when he would awaken in the morning and open 
 his window to the soothing breath of spring, full of fragrance 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 283 
 
 and of promise, he would readily forget that his wife was dying 
 in the adjacent room. The birds were always singing in the 
 pine trees a loud song of love, and the sea was sparkling 
 joyously. A flood of imperious desires, aims, ambitions, would 
 mount up to his brain in a confused medley of aspirations. 
 
 Riches, power, station, all seemed wafted on the breeze. 
 Life in its fullest plenitude smiled at him seductively. 
 
 Then, when he would remember that his wife was leaving 
 him, a vaguely tender melancholy would come to cast a 
 temporary gloom upon his feelings. It was a slight ordeal 
 to go through, and there were always compensations in this 
 world of accident and chance. 
 
 Still, the ordeal was not to be short, for Mrs. Johns, day 
 after day, though sinking visibly, continued to exist, and each 
 day Johns had to listen to the reading and the praying of the 
 curate, to see Gwendoline before him at the bedside, always 
 reserved and thoughtful, and to be present during the brief 
 visit of the doctor. 
 
 But the dying woman, in her waking moments, murmured 
 constantly the same two words — 
 
 " Oh, John ! oh, John ! " 
 
 And throughout the day they sounded in Johns's ears until 
 he grew well nigh sick of his own name, so greatly the endless 
 repetition increased the tension of his nerves. Sometimes the 
 words seemed almost to be pronounced reproachfully, at others 
 it was as though they were merely an expression of her pain. 
 Whatever they might mean, they disconcerted him, and once, 
 giving way to a semi-conscious feeling of retaliation, he replied, 
 "Ah, Rose! ah, Rose!" 
 
 It was not until the tenth day after she had been pronounced 
 to be declining that the ultimate break-up took place. 
 
 In the morning, as if she felt that her end was near, she had 
 made a last appeal to Johns in favour of her relatives, and 
 mentioned the names of two distant cousins to whom she 
 desired to make gifts. 
 
 "Oh, John," she said, when she had finished, "how hard it 
 is to leave ! Pray for me if you can, John ; Vm afraid I've 
 not been too good a woman. Try to pray for me, my 
 John I " 
 
 There was no one in the room except the Sister, and Johns 
 replied— 
 
 " Sister Marthe will pray for you better far than I." 
 
 And turning to the Sister, who as usual was looking on in 
 silence, he said — 
 
 " Pray for her, Sister Marthe." 
 
284 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 The Sister knelt and prayed. 
 
 But in the afternoon she sank into a state of torpor, which 
 the doctor, when he called, pronounced to be the last. 
 
 Her features towards six o'clock, when Johns, Miss Wilson, 
 and her father and St. George were gathered at the bedside, 
 had assumed the desperate expression which sometimes precedes 
 death. The skin had taken a dark, bluish colour, and the 
 cheeks were hanging flaccidly. The weary face told plainly of 
 the struggle which was nearly over, and the disordered hair, 
 undyed now and streaked with grey, of the abdication of her 
 female vanity. 
 
 Already the breathing had become uncertain, hard and deep 
 at times, at others so imperceptible that for a moment once, 
 Johns thought life extinct. 
 
 Through the half-closed curtains, the rays of the setting sun 
 were streaming, shedding a golden light upon the face of the 
 dying woman, and the fresh spring flowers, dispersed on every 
 niche and table in the room, lent a note of poetry to the last 
 moments. Gradually the breathing became more intermittent, 
 the features more definitely rigid, and at length, after a supreme 
 convulsion, as if it were taking a last leave of the exhausted 
 body, the breath ceased. 
 
 All remained seated, watching. The nurse prayed audibly 
 in Latin. Gwendoline's eyes were filled with tears. 
 
 Johns's face betrayed no sign of what he felt. 
 
 But finally, when the suspense had lasted many minutes, 
 rising to his feet, he said impressively — 
 
 " My friends, the end has come ! " 
 
 St. George, Gwen, and her father rose, and crossing to where 
 Johns was standing, pressed his hand in turn, as a sign of 
 sympathy. Then, after a last look at the dead woman, they 
 silently withdrew — Gwen, as she reached the door, exchanging 
 an earnest glance with Johns. 
 
 As soon as they had left, Johns turned to the Sister, 
 saying — 
 
 " Close her eyes, please. Sister Marthe," for the fixed stare 
 of his wife's eyes disconcerted him, and, besides, it was the 
 custom. 
 
 When the nurse had complied with his request, he stood for 
 a few minutes by the bedside, thinking. 
 
 Yes, it was all over, Rose had left for good. She had 
 departed upon that grim, vague journey from which there was 
 no coming back. She, and all her little troubles and her 
 love, had passed for ever from the world. And whither had 
 she gone ? Into that conjectured second state which no one 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 285 
 
 could describe, which none had ever seen? or simply into 
 nothingness — the state to which, for his part, he believed he 
 would return ? Ah, the huge stupidity of not knowing, of 
 belonging to a race of imbeciles, coming they know not whence, 
 going they know not whither, blindly driven by their instincts ! 
 And there she lay, this partner of his life, dissolving rapidly, a 
 mere object, a mass of bones and tissues, soon to be taken 
 away from that large white bed and buried. 
 
 Well, she had had her share of pleasure in the world — she 
 had had more husbands than are given to the majority of 
 women. She had known the true beatitude of wealth, and 
 she had gratified a last ambition, a last vanity, when she had 
 married him. Yes, she had had her little strut, and now she 
 had reached the goal — the goal that he would reach in time, 
 after he had made life yield all that it had worth having. Life 
 for anyone who was not influenced by the traditions, who did 
 not allow himself to be allured by the chimeras, who possessed 
 the means of gratifying the greatest of all instincts, the love of 
 power, was acceptable enough, even if it must end in nothing- 
 ness. It was a wonderful arrangement of human things that 
 Roses were supplied to men like him, Roses who withered 
 in their season ! 
 
 These reflections over, he looked around, asking himself 
 what was to be done next, when he became aware that the eyes 
 of the pale Sister — large thoughtful eyes which seemed to- 
 search humanity — were fixed upon him. Quickly, as they met 
 his, they were cast down. 
 
 What was she thinking of, he wondered ? What could be 
 the thoughts of this voluntary celibate, this constant witness of 
 the end of human joys, this chaste associate of human misery? 
 Was she comparing his demeanour now with that of other 
 husbands she had seen in the course of her career ? If so, he 
 would be curious to know the impression she derived. Pro- 
 bably she thought him callous, but why should he feign grief 
 which he did not feel ? And, indeed, if he had yielded to his 
 inclinations, he would have lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. 
 But no, he owed it to the memory of Rose to suffer a little for 
 her sake, and the Sister might nourish whatever thoughts were 
 capable of germinating in her pious brain. Whatever they 
 might be, it mattered very little. The thoughts of a humble 
 Sister were of no value in the world. 
 
 Asking the nun to tell a servant to summon the French 
 doctor to witness the decease, he passed into his room. 
 
 There he took some sheets of paper from a drawer, and, 
 throwing himself into an arm-chair, began to scribble telegrams. 
 
286 THE ADVENTUE.es OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 Although he knew the interment must take place within 
 eight-and-forty hours, he calculated that there would be time 
 for the Dean to come to Cannes if he wanted to, so he added 
 at the end of the telegram, "Funeral to-morrow." 
 
 That would settle it. He could not come in a single day, 
 and thus he wouldn't be there to meddle. He might think 
 himself extremely fortunate if one of his extensive brood was 
 sent to Eton. 
 
 Two days afterwards, Johns, accompanied by Wilson, St. 
 George, and the curate who had said the customary prayers, 
 followed what was left of his wife to the cemetery of Cannes. 
 As in this town of vaunted healthfulness and pleasure death is 
 concealed as much as possible, the rules of the hotel required 
 that the remains of Mrs. Johns, covered though they were with 
 flowers, should go out by the back door, and thence, accord- 
 ingly, on a sunny morning, the little party left, marshalled by 
 an official oi ihQ pompes funhbres in beadle's uniform. 
 
 Johns and Wilson occupied the hind part of the carriage, 
 and St. George faced them. 
 
 On the journey Johns was silent. He was thinking of the 
 brief meeting he had had that morning on the stairs with 
 Gwendoline, and the plan he was elaborating in his mind 
 entirely engrossed his thoughts. His friends were silent also. 
 
 A short drive through back streets and suburbs brought them 
 to the cemetery, and there, in the English portion, in a spot 
 surrounded on all sides by the graves of consumptives from the 
 British Isles, Mrs. Johns was laid to rest by the fair young 
 curate in a white surplice. 
 
 The return journey, after the brief ceremony, save for a casual 
 remark made by Wilson and St. George, was as silent as the 
 coming ; but when they reached the hotel again, Johns, having 
 parted with St. George, saying that he was tired and wished to 
 rest, followed Wilson up the stairs as he was going to his room. 
 
 " Mr. Wilson," he said, "to-morrow I would like to speak to 
 you in private. May I come to you at ten ? " 
 
 Wilson, who seemed somewhat surprised, replied — 
 
 " I shall be pleased to see you, Mr. Johns, at ten." 
 
CHAPTER 
 NINETEENTH 
 
 THE next morning when Johns awoke, he was conscious of 
 a delicious sense of freedom. Already Rose had become 
 a figure of the past, and life, that endless chapter which he 
 loved to read, appeared to him, as he lay in bed, in its most 
 alluring aspects. To realize his dream of wealth and influence, 
 the first thing to be done was to make a move at once in 
 Gwen's affair ; otherwise, if he delayed, there was a chance not 
 only that the beauty of Edith Douglas, of which his recollections 
 were still vivid, might cause him to neglect his duty to himself, 
 but also that Wilson might take his daughter suddenly away, 
 now that the season was nearly ended. During his wife's, 
 illness he had obtained precise information about the Wilsons. 
 He had learned that the fortune of the father, who was already 
 a millionaire, was increasing daily owing to the productiveness 
 of his land investments in America, and that the daughter 
 herself, when she reached the age of twenty-one, would be 
 entitled to a considerable dowry under the terms of her mother's 
 marriage settlement. Everything, therefore, in that quarter was 
 satisfactory. It only remained for him to play his cards with skill. 
 
 Leaping out of bed with the air of a man who has important 
 business to transact, he dressed carefully and without haste, 
 thinking, as he surveyed himself in the wardrobe glass, that he 
 looked extremely well in black, that his well-cut suit of mourning 
 gave him a sober air of reticence that might tend perhaps to 
 mitigate the somewhat bad impression which, he thought, the 
 current rumours had made Wilson form of him. 
 
 A waiter brought him coffee as soon as he had finished 
 dressing. He poured out a large cupful and sipped it leisurely. 
 
 Then, as the clock upon the mantel pointed to a few minutes 
 before ten, he rose and left. 
 
288 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 The Wilsons occupied a suite of rooms on the floor below, 
 and as he descended the stairs, he settled in his mind the way 
 he would commence the interview, the exact words he would 
 employ. He had not had an opportunity of seeing Gwen since 
 the funeral, but he felt quite sure of her. The look which she 
 had given him that day, was too eloquent to be mistaken. 
 Probably her father would have mentioned his request for a 
 private interview, and she would know what to expect. Passing 
 along the corridor, he reached a door bearing the Wilsons' 
 number. He paused a moment to button his frock-coat, then 
 he knocked. 
 
 A scarcely audible " Come in " invited him to enter. 
 
 Wilson was waiting for him in a parlour furnished like most 
 of the rooms of the hotel in the Louis XVI. style, and draped 
 with yellow damask. There was a round table in the centre, a 
 high-backed sofa against the wall, and a few fauteuils and chairs. 
 The room had the conventional appearance which hotel rooms 
 possess. 
 
 Wilson shook hands with Johns affably enough, though his 
 manner was reserved. They took seats upon the sofa, and 
 Johns commenced at once. 
 
 "Unusual circumstances, Mr. Wilson, have always seemed 
 to me to necessitate unusual methods. I hope, therefore, that 
 when I tell you what it is that brings me, you will understand 
 my motives and excuse my want of orthodoxy. I know I can 
 be frank with you, and I'm going to speak freely. It would be 
 mere hypocrisy on my part were I to pretend that there existed, 
 between my late wife and myself, anything more than friendly 
 feelings. She was many years my senior, and she was quite 
 reconciled to the life of mere companionship we led. We came 
 here, as you know, because she thought she would recover from 
 her malady. As you are aware, she has succumbed. During 
 our stay, however, we were fortunate enough to make the 
 acquaintance of yourself and of your daughter." 
 
 He dwelt a moment upon the word "daughter," and as 
 Wilson remained impassive, he continued — 
 
 " For the last few months I have been privileged to meet 
 Miss Wilson often, and I have been able to appreciate her 
 qualities, her graceful nature, her intelligence, her charm. 
 There has grown up between us a tender feeling which could 
 not be expressed for the reason that I was not free. Day by 
 day I saw her watching at poor Rose's bedside with touching, 
 patience and devotion, and gradually I became so much 
 attached to her that I resolved, if my wife should die, I would 
 ask her hand. I don't think I am wrong in believing that my 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 289 
 
 affection is returned. When speaking to Miss Wilson, I have 
 always felt that there was a community of tastes, an unfailing 
 sympathy between us. I will go further and confess that, as 
 far as I was able in the circumstances in which I found 
 myself, I have ascertained her feelings. As regards my 
 income, I may say that, though scarcely rich, I am not poor. 
 I have between six and seven thousand pounds a year. 
 Mr. Wilson, you are leaving soon, and there is urgency. I 
 ask you for your daughter's hand ! " 
 
 A frown had been gathering on Wilson's face while Johns 
 was speaking. Without a moment's hesitation he replied in a 
 firm voice — 
 
 " I am sorry, Mr. Johns, but I have other views." 
 
 Johns was not altogether unprepared for a refusal, but he 
 did not expect that it would be so decided. 
 
 "You have other views," he repeated, slowly, "and you 
 refuse ? " 
 
 " I regret to say I do." 
 
 "You have heard, perhaps, one of the many calumnies which 
 jealous people circulate about me?" 
 
 "I'm sorry, Mr. Johns, that I cannot enter into further 
 reasons." 
 
 Johns, vexed and baffled, eyed Wilson narrowly. What did 
 this old nobody with his enigmatic answers mean ? By God, 
 he'd soon find out the kind of man he had to deal with ! He 
 wasn't going to mystify him in that way for nothing. 
 
 " But," he said, with emphasis, " what if Miss Wilson 
 doesn't share those views ? I suppose you would not thwart 
 her wishes ! " 
 
 Wilson grew very red. 
 
 " I refuse," he said, " to consider such a possibility." 
 
 " I think you'll find she'll tell you it's the case." 
 
 Wilson rose. 
 
 "Have you by chance been working on my daughter's 
 feelings ? " 
 
 Johns, rising also, answered — 
 
 " I have been fortunate enough to be preferred by her." 
 
 Wilson reflected for a moment. 
 
 "All I have to tell you, Mr. Johns, is that I refuse my 
 sanction." 
 
 " That is your final answer ? " 
 
 "It is." 
 
 " Very well, then, Mr. Wilson, we need say no more about 
 it. I'm leaving Cannes to-morrow, and as I shall probably not 
 have another opportunity of seeing you, for the present I will 
 u 
 
290 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 say good-bye. Perhaps the day may come when you'll regret 
 having been so obdurate." 
 
 Wilson did not answer, and, after a slight bow, Johns 
 withdrew. 
 
 He returned to his room to think. The refusal had been 
 absolute. The taciturn old fellow had simply shown him to 
 the door. Well, that being so, the time had come to act. He 
 had told Wilson he was leaving the next day merely to prevent 
 him from taking Gwendoline away, as he might, under the 
 circumstances, have been inclined to do ; but now the plan, of 
 which this announcement was only the forerunner, had to be 
 elaborated. 
 
 He thought for half an hour, and at length he went to the 
 writing table in the corner and began to write — 
 
 " Gwendoline ! This morning I asked your father for your 
 hand. He refused me flatly ! Something must be done ! I 
 told him I was leaving Cannes to-morrow, but I'm only leaving 
 the hotel. As I don't want to appear at meals to-day, I 
 entreat you to meet me this evening on the terrace after your 
 father has retired. Don't fail to come, my Gwen, my life, 
 my joy! My thoughts are full of you from morning until 
 night." 
 
 After he had written this little note, he read it over twice and 
 it seemed to him to contain that mixture of circumstance and 
 naive enthusiasm which, to a woman much in love, he believed 
 to be more eloquent than the finest phrases. 
 
 Feeling satisfied, he folded up the missive and enclosed it 
 in an envelope. 
 
 Then, after a few more moments of reflection, he thrust it 
 into his pocket and left his room. 
 
 Going down the stairs again, he wandered about the passages, 
 passing the open doors of rooms which were being cleaned, and 
 at length, as he was turning a corner of the corridor, he sud- 
 denly found himself face to face with an elderly chambermaid 
 in coiffe and apron. As he looked as though he wished to speak 
 to her, she said — 
 
 "Monsieur desires something?" 
 
 He answered, "Are you not the chambermaid who waits 
 upon the Wilson family?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur." 
 
 " Then," he said, putting a louis in her hand and producing 
 his note, " I want you to give this, in private, to Miss Wilson 
 on the first opportunity you get to-day. But, remember, no 
 one must see you give it." 
 
 The woman took the note. 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 291 
 
 " Monsieur can be quite easy. I'll do exactly as monsieur 
 wishes." 
 
 Having thus taken the first step in the execution of his plan, 
 he left the hotel by the side door to avoid meeting St. George 
 or being seen by anyone. The morning was somewhat dull. 
 Large white clouds surcharged with moisture had obscured the 
 sun, and Johns walked to and fro at the side of the hotel for a 
 few minutes, enjoying the cool freshness of the morning air. 
 Presently he hailed a fly that was passing on the front, but just 
 as he was getting into it he was accosted, to his surprise, by a 
 stout man in mourning. 
 
 Recognizing Dawson, he exclaimed — 
 
 " What, you here, Dawson !" 
 
 " Yes," Dawson answered, dolefully. " You know, I suppose, 
 the loss I have sustained." 
 
 " How should I ?" 
 
 "My poor wife!" 
 
 " Dead, Dawson ?" 
 
 "Yes, Johns ! A month ago." 
 
 " Indeed," said Johns, gravely, noticing the man's downcast 
 look, "I'm very sorry." 
 
 Dawson then explained that his wife had been a sufferer for 
 some time from an affection of the heart, to which she had at 
 length succumbed. He had sent no cards, but an announce- 
 ment in the papers had been made. 
 
 " Well," said Johns, when he had finished, " we're brothers 
 in misfortune. My wife has left me also." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that Mrs. Johns is " 
 
 "Dead, Dawson!" 
 
 Dawson's face expressed a mixture of surprise and half-sincere 
 condolence. 
 
 It was evident that he was thinking of Johns's stupendous 
 luck. 
 
 He merely said, " Dear me, how sad !" 
 
 Johns, however, was in a hurry to attend to his own business, 
 and he said good-bye, after telling Dawson that he was leaving 
 probably the next day. His parting admonition, as he shook 
 his hand, was, "Cheer up, Dawson!" 
 
 Then, giving an address to the driver of his fly, he took his 
 seat and was driven off. 
 
 Poor little Lucy ! he reflected. Truly it was a pity, for she 
 was a good little woman after all, and he almost wished he had 
 more time to feel a little sorry for her. Only, she wasn't meant 
 to fall in love with anybody but a husband. She took it all too 
 seriously, and perhaps, who knew ? she had fretted herself into 
 
292 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 the illness by which she had been carried off! Women 
 were fragile creatures sometimes ! There was only Ellen who 
 took things with philosophy. What a woman Ellen was, in spite 
 of the mellowness by which she had been overtaken, perhaps 
 because of it ! When he returned to town he would see her 
 with a great deal of pleasure. For the present, however, he 
 must not think of Edith. Ah, Edith was going to be lost to 
 him if his plan succeeded ! 
 
 The carriage followed the Antibes road for a considerable 
 distance until, at length, it stopped before a square white villa 
 in a garden half-hidden by the trees surrounding it. Upon a 
 a board fixed to the railings was inscribed. Villa Celli, Apparte- 
 ments garnis a louer. Johns alighted and unlatched the gate. 
 Passing up the gravel path, he knocked at the front door. He 
 was admitted by a stout woman in a dressing-gown, who, on 
 learning that he had come to see the house, showed him into 
 a little parlour filled almost to repletion with ebony and gold 
 furniture, the walls being hung with mirrors, the hangings being 
 of red velvet. 
 
 Johns looked around and asked, " Are all the rooms furnished 
 like this one, madame?" 
 
 The woman with much volubility assured him that they 
 were, as he would see if he gave himself the trouble to go 
 round. 
 
 Johns passed into the adjoining bedroom, also draped through- 
 out with red. 
 
 Being satisfied, he said, " I'll take the house." 
 
 Then, after agreeing as to the terms, paying a week's rent in 
 advance and glancing at the other rooms, he left, saying that he 
 would arrive next day. 
 
 Jumping into his trap again, he was driven back to the hotel. 
 
 For the remainder of the day he stayed in his own rooms, 
 causing his meals to be served him there, and telling the waiter 
 to say he was unwell to anyone who called. He wished 
 especially to avoid St. George. 
 
 The day passed tediously and rather anxiously. He felt that 
 everything was still uncertain, and that failure in the enterprise 
 he had in hand was quite within the bounds of possibility. 
 Much depended on his meeting with Gwendoline that night. 
 
 He wiled away the hours, reading, until dinner time. After 
 dinner he smoked numerous cigars, reclining in an arm-chair 
 with his feet upon the sofa in transatlantic fashion, until the 
 clock struck ten. Then he rose, put on his overcoat and a soft 
 felt hat, and left his rooms. 
 
 Descending by a little staircase used chiefly by the servants, 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 293 
 
 he found himself in a courtyard paved with stones and dimly 
 lit by the lights from the windows of the house. He crossed 
 this rapidly, and worked round the building by the shrubbery 
 until he reached the walk in front of the hotel which was called 
 the terrace. 
 
 As it was a dark night he was able to place himself in an 
 angle of the building, out of the stream of light which issued 
 from the door of the hotel. He knew he was too early, for 
 although Wilson generally retired at about ten to his own 
 sitting-room whenever they did not spend the evening at the 
 Casino, yet some time must elapse before Gwendoline would be 
 able to quit her father. What if her courage failed her at the 
 last moment! But no, she seemed a pretty resolute young 
 lady, and after all there was nothing so very terrible in the pro- 
 ceeding. The only danger was that in passing through the hall 
 she might meet friends. Surely she would have sense enough 
 to come out by the back door. 
 
 He waited for some time, listening to the sound of footsteps, 
 but the hotel was unusally quiet, and the only sounds he heard 
 were an occasional note of music from the drawing-room or a 
 peal of laughter from an open window up above. Had some- 
 thing happened to prevent her coming ? He was beginning to 
 grow anxious. 
 
 Suddenly, when he had been there nearly half an hour, he 
 heard the rustle of a dress, and a light tread upon the path. In 
 another moment Gwen, her head wrapped in a lace mantilla 
 which almost hid her face, appeared. 
 
 "Not here," he whispered, "it's too near the house," and he 
 led her quickly to a dark place beneath the pine trees in the 
 grounds. 
 
 " Oh, Gwen," he whispered, encircling her waist, "if you only 
 knew how I have been waiting for this moment ! The day has 
 seemed so long, so long ! I feared that something might pre- 
 vent your coming — that your father might have taken you away ; 
 I feared a thousand things." 
 
 " My father stayed up later than he generally does, and so I 
 could not leave." 
 
 " But now you've come, my Gwen. Now I have you near 
 me, now I can hear your voice, now I can tell you all I have to 
 say ! Has your father told you of our interview ? " 
 
 " Yes, he came to me this morning in a dreadful rage and 
 told me that such a reprobate as you, who had only buried his 
 wife the day before, had had the impudence to ask him for me. 
 He warned me that, if by chance I liked you, he would never 
 give us his consent. I said that you were not a reprobate, that 
 
294 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 I liked you very much, and that I would marry no one else but 
 you." 
 
 " You said that, Gwen ! " 
 
 " I should think I did." 
 
 " And what did he reply ? " 
 
 " He said that in that case I should have to remain single." 
 
 ** Gwen, are you ready to take a bold step ? " 
 
 "What, John?" 
 
 " Listen. Your father is a very obstinate old gentleman, and 
 it's no use to try persuasion with him. We must take our 
 destinies into our own hands. Nothing was ever gained, 
 Gwen, by submitting patiently to tyranny. Your dear papa 
 refuses ; we must force him to consent ! " 
 
 "Oh, but how?" 
 
 " I'm going to tell you. This very morning I drove out on 
 the Antibes road — the road we took that day when I first 
 told you how you had enchanted me — and I found the prettiest 
 of little villas, a perfect paradise, hidden in a nest of trees, in 
 the quaintest of French gardens, in the quietest of nooks. 
 
 " Immediately, as it was to let, I took it, and now I entreat 
 you, I implore you, Gwen, to come with me to-morrow night. 
 No one shall see you come. I will wait for you here at the 
 same time, and we will walk there like two lovers arm-in-arm 
 so joyfully. The people of the house will be bribed to secrecy, 
 and there you will remain with me as though you were my 
 sister for a week — perhaps only for a day — until your father 
 yields, as he will to prevent a scandal. And we will be so 
 happy there, so happy, and not a soul will be allowed to 
 interrupt our happiness. Gwen, say that you will come ! " 
 
 But Gwen was silent. 
 
 " Oh," she said at length, " that I could not do. Fancy the 
 scandal there would be in the hotel and among our friends in 
 Cannes ! " 
 
 " You won't brave it for my sake ? " 
 
 But she repeated, "Not in Cannes ! Oh, not in Cannes ! " 
 
 An inspiration came to Johns. Why had he not thought of 
 it before ? Of course, like all her sex, the little girl had local 
 prejudices, as he termed those scruples of environment which 
 sometimes have an influence on women's acts, and she shrank 
 from taking so bold a step, in a place where she was known. 
 Perhaps, with her woman's instinct, she was right, and his little 
 scheme was short-sighted after all ! Cannes was not large 
 enough for that. Quickly, another plan suggested itself to him. 
 
 Drawing her nearer to him, and whispering softly in her ear, 
 he said — 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 295 
 
 " Gwen, my little Gwen, I have no other thought in life but 
 to make you happy. If you think you would not like the Villa 
 we'll go to Paris ! There, in that great city, where we are 
 unknown, we shall be free. Oh, and it will be so delightful ! 
 I will show you a thousand things you've never seen. I will 
 take you through old Paris, with its quaint old houses and its 
 fine old churches. We will explore the students' quarter, we 
 will go to places where we shouldn't, we will see everything, 
 have constant fun. Say, Gwen, you'll come." 
 
 " To Paris ! " she repeated, *' oh, how could I ? " 
 
 He felt that she would yield, and he continued — 
 
 " So easily ! We would take the night express, my Gwen, 
 when everyone had gone to bed, and the next evening we would 
 be in Paris ! It would be all done so quietly, so well, and 
 afterwards your father would be obliged to give us his consent. 
 There would be no help for it ! " 
 
 For a few moments Gwen reflected. Presently she said — 
 
 " I should like to, for I know that he would never give it 
 otherwise. But do you think I really could ? " 
 
 " I'm absolutely certain." 
 
 " And you would promise that, however long we might be 
 together, you would treat me as a sister?" 
 
 " Gwen, I promise." 
 
 " Then I suppose I must say yes. But not for a little while. 
 It would be too dreadful, only a few days after your poor wife's 
 funeral." 
 
 Rapidly Johns counted up the issues. On the one hand, all 
 delay was dangerous ; on the other, a woman's scruples could 
 not quite be set aside. Still, as the balance of advantage in 
 such cases must always be upon the side of actuality, he 
 resolved to urge the need for immediate flight again. 
 
 He said, " I'm so distrustful of delay. Your father might 
 suddenly leave Cannes, or something unforeseen might happen. 
 Gwen, let us go to-morrow night ? " 
 
 But he felt that she recoiled. 
 
 " Oh, no, not so soon as that," she cried. 
 
 From the instinctive movement she had made, and from her 
 tone, he judged that it would be better to eflect a compromise. 
 
 " Well, then," he said, decisively, " let us arrange it for a week 
 hence." 
 
 " Oh, that's my birthday ! " 
 
 " Your twenty-first, Gwen ? " 
 
 " How did you know ? " 
 
 *' I guessed. But then, so much the better." 
 
 She reflected, and at length she murmured with a sigh — 
 
296 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 " Next Friday, then ! " 
 
 " And will you promise faithfully you'll come? " 
 
 " I promise faithfully ! " 
 
 Then, feeling satisfied at the firmness with which she had 
 said this, he told her how it would be arranged. She would 
 leave the house in the same way as she had left that night, and 
 he would meet her in the road. Together they would walk up 
 to the station. She would be careful to put on her thickest 
 veil and a long cloak. She would want no luggage. Every- 
 thing would be provided at their journey's end. Each day she 
 would write to him at the Villa Celli, where he intended to 
 remain in strict seclusion the whole week, and he would answer 
 her poste restante. Relying on her promise, he was certain, 
 absolutely certain of success. 
 
 She answered that she would do exactly as he wished. He 
 need have no fear. She would keep her promise. 
 
 He thanked her, earnestly vowing that his gratitude was too 
 great for words, that her happiness would be the study of his 
 life. And how happy they would be ! How kind she was, 
 how good ! 
 
 To seal the compact they had made, he kissed her gently. 
 They lingered for a few moments, during which both were 
 silent, and at length she whispered — 
 
 " I must leave you now. It's getting late." 
 
 He murmured, " Must you, Gwendoline ? " and slowly he 
 released her from his arms. She quitted him after a last 
 assurance that she would keep her promise, and in the dim 
 light he watched her retreating form until it disappeared into 
 the house. 
 
 Then, after lighting a cigar, he strolled up and down the 
 lawn. He scarcely knew if he was satisfied. It was a great 
 thing to have induced her to consent; but the week's delay 
 which she demanded would be hard to pass, and there was 
 just a possibility of something happening on which he did 
 not count. On the other hand, on that day she would be 
 entitled to her mother's legacy, and that was a consideration. 
 By God, what a prize she was ! Fancy that fool St. George 
 thinking he could win her! No, such windfalls weren't for 
 St. Georges. There was nothing to do for it but to wait. 
 The little girl was thoroughly in love with him, and he was 
 certain she would keep her word. He knew her character, and 
 that it was not wanting in decision. He finished his cigar and 
 then went in to give notice of his leaving the next day. 
 
 The next morning he rose early. As soon as he had dressed, 
 and while his late wife's luggage and his own was being taken 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 297 
 
 down to the carriage which was to convey him to the station, 
 he thought he would amuse himself by paying a parting visit to 
 St. George. 
 
 He found the young man still in bed. 
 
 " I'm in a great hurry," Johns exclaimed, as St. George was 
 opening his eyes, "I'm off at once, and I just came in to 
 say good-bye." 
 
 St. George started up in bed and looked at Johns enquiringly 
 at first, and then with a satisfied expression. 
 
 " Oh, you're going, Johns ! " 
 
 " The carriage is waiting for me at this very moment, and as 
 I'm late I haven't time to talk. Good-bye, St. George, and good 
 luck with the little heiress. You'll be a rich man yet, my boy." 
 
 St. George smiled half complacently and half sceptically. 
 Johns, who did not want to prolong the interview, pressed his 
 friend's hand, saying that they would meet again in London, 
 and left him to his reflections. 
 
 A few minutes later Johns was in the hotel omnibus. As 
 the vehicle was being driven off, he thrust his head out of 
 the window and looked up towards Wilson's suite of rooms 
 on the first floor of the hotel building, in the hope that he 
 might catch a glimpse of Gwen. He saw, to his delight, the 
 young girl standing at her window leaning on the rail. She 
 kissed her hand to him, and in acknowledgment he raised his 
 hat, giving her an earnest glance. 
 
 When he reached the station, whither, in order to maintain 
 the fiction that he was leaving Cannes, he had thought it 
 prudent to repair, he told the porters that he would not leave 
 before the evening train, and he ordered them to place his 
 luggage in the cloak-room. Then, after waiting until the train 
 had left, and the station had become empty, he set out on 
 foot for the Villa Celli by the least-frequented road. 
 
 Here, for a week, he lived in absolute seclusion under an 
 assumed name, obtaining what he needed from the town in the 
 way of books and linen through a messenger, and keeping up a 
 correspondence with his fiancee^ who wrote to him each day. 
 The time in this pleasant villa passed more quickly than he had 
 anticipated, and as the letters he had received from Gwen 
 denoted no change in her intentions, he continued to feel 
 confident of the success of his undertaking. No doubt she 
 showed herself a little timorous, and had some qualms of 
 conscience, but then he knew that he was asking her to 
 take a very bold step indeed. The qualms of the female 
 conscience, he considered, seldom prevented women from 
 following what were called the dictates of their hearts, 
 
298 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 especially when they desired to obey them. What wonderful 
 contrivances for self-deception women were! How admirably 
 they were designed by nature to gratify a man's desires ! On the 
 fifth day of his sojourn, the post brought him a letter from 
 Gwendoline which related, humorously, the way in which 
 St. George had made his last proposal. The previous evening 
 after dinner on the terrace, he had unburdened to her his 
 pent-up feelings, and she had answered in her father's words 
 that she had other views. 
 
 "Poor St. George," she said, "he looks so sad, and he is 
 going to leave at once." 
 
 She told him also in the same letter that her father, although 
 he seemed relieved when he heard that Johns had left, had 
 been very bearish, and had watched her since so narrowly that 
 she had only once been able to call for letters at the post-office. 
 Ah, well, there would be an end of all that soon ; but what a 
 daring thing it was to do ! 
 
 Johns smiled when he had read the note, and as the time 
 of their flight was drawing near, he sat down and indited a 
 letter full of love and promise and enthusiasm, well calculated 
 to sustain her courage. 
 
 At length the appointed evening came. 
 
 As soon as it was dark, Johns, impressed with a full sense of 
 the importance of the venture, left his villa and set out for the 
 hotel. He had preferred to walk, partly because he had time 
 to spare, partly because the hire of a carriage might afford a 
 clue if an enquiry were made next day, and in cases such as 
 this, it was impossible to be too cautious. 
 
 It was a moonlight night, as he saw with dissatisfaction, and 
 the villas which he passed were looking snow-white amid the 
 trees. Cannes appeared proud and peaceful in the day-like 
 brightness. Johns, however, was thinking little of the scene, 
 and scarcely heeded his surroundings. His thoughts were 
 concentrated on the business of the evening. 
 
 When he reached the precincts of the hotel, he found, on 
 looking at his watch, that it was still early, and therefore, 
 putting up the collar of his overcoat and bringing his soft felt 
 hat well forward over his eyes to avoid being recognized, he 
 passed the time in walking up and down a lane of aloe trees in 
 the rear of the hotel. 
 
 At length, when another consultation of his watch had told him 
 that the time of the meeting was drawing near, he left the lane 
 to saunter round the entrance of the grounds. To his annoy- 
 ance, when he reached the gate and looked towards the terrace 
 he recognized St. George, who was walking slowly to and fro as 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 299 
 
 if in thought. This threatened to complicate affairs, for how, 
 he asked himself, was Gwen to leave as long as that idiot 
 remained there? He was beginning to feel uneasy, and 
 heartily cursed St. George. 
 
 The time appointed soon arrived, and yet there were no 
 signs of Gwen, and still St. George continued to pace the 
 path. Johns felt he could have choked him. Really it would 
 be too much if the plan fell through on his account. Of 
 course, Gwen might come out by the back door ; but he knew 
 that that was sometimes closed rather early in the evening. 
 There was very little time to lose. The train would leave at 
 nineteen minutes past eleven, and unless she came at once, 
 there would not be time to walk up to the station. Surely his 
 luck wasn't going to desert him now ! 
 
 His perturbation became so great, that, unable to remain 
 still, he paced up and down in the shadow of the wall. At 
 length as he was looking up at the young girl's room, he 
 perceived a light, as of a candle, held suddenly before the 
 window for a moment. This made his pulse beat faster, 
 though it left him in perplexity. What did the signal mean ? 
 That she was, or that she was not coming? He was not able 
 to determine, though it seemed to augur well. 
 
 A few moments elapsed, during which the room was lit as 
 by a faint light ; then it relapsed again into darkness. 
 
 " Now," thought Johns, " if she means to come, she'll come, 
 though it's deuced late." 
 
 Waiting until St. George had nearly reached the remote end 
 of the gravel walk, he quitted his place of ambush and ran 
 round quickly, passing over the grass of the flower-beds to 
 avoid noise, to a corner of the building where he had waited 
 once before. If Gwen should come he would thus be able to 
 encourage her. 
 
 Almost as he arrived there he heard a hurried footstep on 
 the path. He looked in the direction whence it came, and 
 saw Gwen turning the corner of the house. There was not a 
 moment to be lost. He glanced in the direction of St. George, 
 and seeing that he had stopped at the end of his walk and was 
 lighting a cigar, he darted quickly to the young girl's side and 
 whispered, " It's all right, Gwen. Now, follow me." 
 
 He led the way to the entrance gate, and she followed at a 
 few yards' distance. Then, when they reached the road, he 
 seized her arm and whispered — 
 
 " Gwen, it's very late, we must simply fly up to the station." 
 
 " Oh," she said, " it was so dreadful ! A visitor came in and 
 I could not get away. I feared it was too late. Oh, what 
 should we do, then ? " 
 
300 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 Johns reassured her, and they walked so fast that they had 
 no breath left to speak. It seemed to both of them that they 
 would never walk fast enough ; that the houses and the villas 
 they had to pass would never end. 
 
 Gwen, being short, could not take long steps, and the road 
 appeared interminable. Carriages passed them, bound also for 
 the station, and each time they were forced to turn away their 
 faces to avoid being recognized. Johns, inwardly, was cursing 
 his bad luck. 
 
 Gwen's strength was failing, and he was beginning to bitterly 
 regret that he had not procured a carriage, when suddenly he 
 perceived an empty fly going in the same direction as them- 
 selves. 
 
 In a moment Johns had hailed it, promised the man a louis 
 if he arrived in time for the express, and was being driven with 
 his companion furiously along the dusty road. 
 
 The man lashed his horse to so much purpose, that they 
 reached the station five minutes before the hour of departure. 
 
 Quickly Johns caused his luggage to be reclaimed, while 
 Gwen, who had drawn down her veil, waited for him on the 
 platform. Johns took the tickets, and, with Gwen leaning on 
 his arm, soon forced his way through the throng in the 
 station to the coupe which a porter had retained. They entered 
 quickly, took their seats, and, after drawing down the blinds, 
 waited in suspense, with their hands joined, for the train to 
 start. 
 
 Soon they heard the signal given, and in another instant 
 they were conscious, to their intense delight, that the train was 
 moving off. 
 
 Johns, drawing the young girl to him, said exultingly — 
 
 "iV<?z£/, my little Gwen, we're safe !" 
 
 "Oh," she murmured, "how I love to trust you !" 
 
 In a few more minutes, as the express sped on, they were 
 chatting gaily, just as though the journey they were making was 
 in the ordinary course of things. 
 
 Johns preserved a tenderly protecting attitude, resolved as 
 he was to respect Gwen's scruples as long as she herself should 
 seem to wish it. She scarcely appeared to realize the step which 
 she had taken, and he, on his part, refrained as much as possible 
 from speaking of her father or their flight. 
 
 And thus, after a few hours had elapsed, tired after the day's 
 experience, she went to sleep, resting in his arms. 
 
 Then Johns reflected. As he closed his eyes, and was 
 rocked by the swaying train, the whole of his past history, from 
 the day he had landed at Tilbury to the death of his wife at 
 
OF JOHN JOHNS 301 
 
 Cannes, appeared to him distinctly. The women he had 
 known — Ellen, Lucy, Edith, Rose — his many conquests in 
 society ; the syrens who had now and then diverted him ; even 
 the little friendless girl of Grafton Street, with her pale and 
 weary face ; he saw them all in his imagination as though they 
 had been portraits in a gallery. Truly he felt he owed them 
 gratitude, for each in her especial way had been the means of 
 advancing his career; each had borne her share in the work of his 
 apotheosis, which this little girl, whose head was leaning on his 
 shoulder, was to complete. Ah, yes ! it was through women that 
 men climbed fastest. Their love was the lever which no barriers 
 withstood. Through them, nothing was unattainable. Had he 
 not learned that poor Society, with its rules, its prudery, its pride, 
 capitulated to the man its women loved ? Had he not seen 
 that the virtue of the highest was not more difficult to overcome 
 than the famous pride of caste which had been unable to with- 
 stand the prestige of the son of David Johns ? Women were 
 the providence of life. How fortunate it was that there should 
 be a sex so bountiful ! 
 
 As he arrived at this conclusion, he cast a glance at Gwen, 
 who was sleeping calmly, the light of the roof lamp falling 
 on her maidenly and almost pretty face. He muttered ta 
 himself, "Yes, yes, she'll do. She must T 
 
 Then, to drive away all other thoughts, he disposed him- 
 self to sleep. In a few minutes he was soundly slumbering. 
 
 When he awoke, the light was streaming through the front 
 windows of the coupe. He drew aside the blinds and saw 
 that the train was traversing a rich green country, bright and 
 joyous ;with spring tints. How well he recollected his 
 awakening five months previously in the old brown land of 
 Provence, which, compared with this, was as a matron to a 
 budding girl ! ' Well, he had left the old existence there. 
 The new life was before him now. He had exchanged the 
 old wife for "the young ! 
 
 He had reached this stage of his reflections, when the voice 
 of Gwen caused him suddenly to start. She was asking — 
 
 "Oh, John, where are we?" 
 
 And he remembered that these same words had been 
 used by Rose upon the journey down. 
 
 "Amid the beautiful green fields, Gwen. Soon we shall 
 be at Lyons." 
 
 She sat up in the carriage, adjusted the folds of her 
 light silk dress, and passed her hand over her dark brown 
 hair. It was all dishevelled, and a lock was hanging down. 
 She asked — 
 
302 THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN JOHNS 
 
 " How shall I do my hair, John ? I've nothing with me ! " 
 
 Johns, rising, reached from the hand-rail a leather dressing- 
 case which he had brought with him. Opening it, he said, 
 " You'll find all you want in there, Gwen." 
 
 She looked at the open case with its rows of silver mountings, 
 its button hooks, its scissors, and its combs, and presently she 
 spied a hairpin. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, " surely it's your wife's ? " 
 
 He kissed her, saying, ** Gwen ! it's yours." 
 
 They breakfasted at Lyons. 
 
 The remainder of the journey was passed pleasantly, and in 
 the evening, to avoid detection (for Johns was not quite sure 
 whether by French law Wilson might not have discretionary 
 powers over Gwen), they alighted at a suburban station before 
 Paris, to which they had caused their luggage to be addressed. 
 
 Thence they were driven to an hotel behind the Etoile Arch, 
 which Johns had once heard recommended for its quietness. 
 
 Their first act, as soon as they had secured a suite of rooms, 
 was to telegraph to Wilson. 
 
 "Your daughter is in my hands and safe," Johns wired. 
 " It's useless for you to object to our marriage now. Please tell 
 us you consent through the medium of the Times advertise- 
 ments. We intend to be married soon. — J. J." 
 
 Three weeks afterwards, Wilson, having yielded to the force 
 of circumstances, as Johns had judged he would, they were 
 married quietly in the English Church at Neuilly, having lived 
 platonically, to Johns's amusement, the whole time. Then, 
 after a short trip in Brittany, Johns took his wife to Grosvenor 
 Place. 
 
 Wilson had given a princely dowry to his daughter, and 
 the Johns's fortune was sufficient to sustain ambitions of the 
 greatest magnitude. 
 
 The Stanfields, however, discontinued Johns's acquaintance, 
 and St. George wrote him a letter in which he called him a 
 mendacious cad. 
 
 Johns laughed over the letter with Ellen the first time they 
 met j but when she asked him if he was really happy now, he 
 answered slowly — 
 
 " Happiness, my worthy Ellen, is unattainable ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
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