G(!t=.utf\i^fc,- p msm VAIN FORTUNE, Only One Hundred and Fifty Copies of this Large Paper Edition have been Printed^ of which this is Mo. > ».-..-..^ 1>>-' "THE GKKAT CRITICS HAD i:ACn A SKI'AIIATK Al'DIHN-CK. [ l>„gt GS. Pronlhincce.'] VAIN" FOETUNE. BY GEOKGE MOOKE, Av.thor ef "A Mummer's Wife," " Impressions and Ojiinums," " Confessions of c, Touny Man," "A Modem Lover," etc. WITH ELEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAURICE GKEJFFENHAGEN. LONDON: HENRY AND CO., BOUVERIE STREET, E.G. Printed by Haaell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, The Author- has to express Ms thanks to the Editor of the '■''Lady's Pictorial" for his kind permission to reproduce in this volume Mr. GreiffenkagerC s illus- trations. VAIN FORTUNE. CHAPTER I. rpHE lamp had not been wiped, and the room smelt slightly of paraffin. The old window- curtains, whose harsh green age had not softened, were drawn. The mahogany sideboard, the thread- bare carpet, the small horsehair sofa, the gilt mirror, standing on a white marble chimney-piece, said clearly, " Furnished apartments in a house built about a hundred years ago." There were piles of newspapers, there were books on the mahogany sideboard and on the horsehair sofa, and on the table there were various manuscripts, — The Gipsy, Act 1. ; The Gipsy, Act III., Scenes iii. and iv. A sheet of foolscap paper, and upon it a long slender hand. The hand traced a few lines of fine, beautiful Z VAIN FORTUNE. caligrapliy, then it paused, correcting with extreme care what was already written, and in a liesitating, minute way, telling of a brain that delighted in the correction rather than in the creation of form. The shirt cuff was frayed and dirty. The coat was thin and shiny. A half-length figure of a man drew out of the massed shadows between the window and sideboard. The red beard caught the light, and the wavy brown hair brightened. Then a look of weariness, of distress, passed over the face, and the man laid down the pen, and, taking some tobacco from a paper, rolled a cigarette. Rising, and leaning forward, he lighted it over the lamp. He was a man of about thirty — six feet, broad-shouldered, well-built, healthy, almost handsome. The time he spent in dreaming his play amounted to six times, if not ten times, as much as he devoted to trying to write it ; and he now lit cigarette after cigarette, abandoning himself to every meditation, — the unpleasantness of life in lodgings, the charm of foreign travel, the beauty of the south, what he would do if his play succeeded. He plunged into calculation VAIN FOETUNE. 3 of the time it would take him to finish it if he were to sit at home all day, working from seven to ten hours every day. If he could but make up his mind concerning the beginning and the middle of the third act, and about the end, too,— the solution,— he felt sure that, with steady work, the play could be completed in a fortnight. In such reverie and such consideration he lay immersed, oblivious of the present moment, and did not stir from his chair until the postman shook the frail walls with a violent double knock. He hoped for a letter, for a newspaper — either would prove a welcome distraction. The servant's footsteps on the stairs told him the post had brought him something. His heart sank at the thought that it was probably only a bill, and he glanced at all the bills lying one above another on the table. It was not a bill, nor yet an advertisement, but a copy of a weekly review. He tore it open. An article about himself ! After referring to the deplorable condition of the modern stage, the writer pointed out how dramatic writing has of late years come to be practised entirely 4 VAIN FORTUNE. by men who have failed in all other branches of literature. Then he drew attention to the fact that signs of weariness and dissatisfaction witli the old stale stories, the familiar tricks in bringing about " striking situations," were noticeable, not only in the newspaper criticisms of new plays, but also among the better portion of the audience. He admitted, how- ever, that hitherto the attempts made by younger writers in the direction of new subject-matter and new treatment had met with little success. But this, he held, was not a reason for discouragement. Did those who believed in the old formulas imagine that the new formula would be discovered straight away, without failures preliminary ? Besides, these attempts were not utterly despicable ; at least one play written on the new lines had met with some measure of success, and that play was Mr. Hubert Price's Divorce. But Mr. Hubert Price had kept silence too long, they were waiting for him to speak. By his admir- able play Div07'ce he had made himself Chef d' Ecole. The time had come ; the opjtortunity was I'ipe ; the public was ready to ai)plaud a masterpiece. VAIN FORTUNE. O " Yes, the fellow is right. The public is ready for a good play : it wasn't when Divorce was given. I must finish J he Gipsy. There are good things in it ; that I know. But I wish I could get that third act right. The public will accept a masterpiece, but it will not accept an attempt to write a masterpiece. But this time there'll be no falling off in the last acts. The scene between the gipsy lover and the young lord will fetch 'em." Taking up the review, Hubert glanced over the article a second time. " How anxious the fellows are for me to achieve a success ! How they believe in me ! They desire it more than I do. They believe in me more than I do in myself. They want to applaud me. They are hungry for the masterpiece." At that moment his eye was caught by some letters written on blue paper. His face resumed a wearied and hunted expression. " There's no doubt about it, money I must get somehow. I am running it altogether too fine. There isn't twenty pounds be- tween me and the deep sea. Great Scott ! it is awful to think of it. Here am 1, a London celebrity,— I 6 VAIN FOKTUNE. suppose I am a London celebrity, — living in a garret on the verge of starvation, while my genius is being discussed in caf6, club, and drawing-room. I must do something to earn a little money. Journalism ! there is journalism ; but how I hate it ! how incapable I am of the facile commonplaces it demands ! " ***** In his own soul every man's life is a romance, pro- saic though the outward facts may be ; and Hubert's life was a psychological romance of intense interest, although the facts of his existence were so few and simple that without compression or undue brevity they can be told in a few pages. He was the son of the Rev. James Price, a Shrojj- shire clergyman. The family was of Welsh extraction, but in Hubert none of the physical characteristics of the Celt appeared. He might have been selected as a typical Anglo-Saxon. The face was long and pale, and he wore a short reddish beard ; the eyes were light blue, verging on grey, and they seemed to speak a quiet, steadfast soul — an impersonal soul, one would have said. But Hubert Price's impersonality was only VAIN FOETUNE. 7 apparent. In truth he was morbidly personal ; and to escape from an overwhelming self-consciousness he often simnlated an interest in others which was hardly genuine. " I stand so much in need of your sympathy that to gain it I must sympathise with you." When a child, Hubert had been shy, meditative, illusive, — his mother's favourite, and the scorn of his elder brothers, two rough boys, addicted in early youth to robbing orchards, and later on to gambling and drinking. The elder, after having broken his father's heart with debts and disgraceful living, had gone out to the Cape. News of his death came to the Rectory soon after; but James's death did not turn Henry from his evil courses, and one day his father and mother had to go to London on his account, and they brought him back a hopeless invalid. Hubert was twelve years of age when he followed his brother to the grave. It was at his brother's funeral that Hubert met for the first time his uncle, Mr. Burnett. Mr. Bur- nett had spent the greater part of his life in New Zealand, where he had made a large fortune by sheep 8 VAIN FOETUNE. farming and investments in land. He had seemed to be greatly taken witli his nephew, and for many years it was miderstood that he would leave him the greater part, if not the whole, of his fortune. But Mr. Burnett had come under the influence of some poor relations, some distant cousins, the Watsons, and had eventually decided to adopt their daughter Emily and leave her his fortune. He did not dare intimate his change of mind to his sister ; but the news having reached Mrs. Price in various rumours, she wrote to her brother asking him to confirm or deny these rumours ; and when he admitted their truth, Mrs. Price never spoke to him again. She was a deter- mined woman, and the remembrance of the wrong done to her son never left her. While the other children had been a torment and disgrace, Hubert had been to his parents a consolation and a blessing. They had feared that he too might turn to betting and drink, but he had never shown sign of low tastes. He played no games, nor did he care for terriers or horses ; but for books and drawing, and long country walks. Immediately on hearing of VAIN FORTUNE. 9 his disinheritance he had spoken at once of entering a profession ; and for many months this was the sub- ject of consideration in the Rectory. Hubert joined in these discussions willingly, but he could not bring himself to accept the army or the bar. It was indeed only necessary to look at him to see that neither soldier's tunic nor lawyer's wig was intended for him ; and it was nearly as clear that those earnest eyes, so intelligent and yet so undetermined in their gaze, were not those of a doctor. But if his eyes failed to predict his future, his hands told the story of his life distinctly enough — those long, white, languid hands, what could they mean but art ? And very soon Hubert began to draw, evincing some natural aptitude. Then an artist came into the neighbourhood, the two became friends, and went together on a long sketching tour. Life in the open air, the shade of the hedge, the glare of the highway, the meditation of the field, the languor of the riverside, the contemplation of wooded horizons, was what Hubert's pastoral nature was most fitted to enjoy ; and, for the sake of the life it afforded 10 VAIN FORTFNE. him, he pursued the calling of a landscape painter long after he had begun to feel his desire turning in another direction. When the landscape on the canvas seemed hopelessly inadequate, he laid aside the brush for tlie pencil, and strove to interpret the summer fields in verse. From verse he drifted into the article and the short story, and from the story into the play. And it was in this last form that he felt himself strongest, and various were the dramas and comedies that he dreamed from year's end to year's end. While he was in the midst of his period of verse- writing his mother died, and in the following year, just as he was working at his stories, he received a telegram calling him to attend his father's death-bed. When the old man was laid in the shadow of the weather-beaten village church, Hubert gathered all his belongings and bade farewell for ever to the Shropshire rectory. Sitting in the railway carriage, he watched the long line running on to London — London, beginning in the fields, a line of lamps stretching behind the sleeping cattle, houses, then fields again, gardens, then a bridge, and the street below freckled with yellow VAIN FOETUNE. 11 lights. The train shook, springing from rail to rail — there was the immense Thames, its grey indefinite perspectives ! In London Hubert made few friends. There were some two or three men with whom he was frequently seen — quiet folk like himself, whose enjoyment con- sisted in smoking a tranquil pipe in the evening, or going for long walks in the country. He was one of those men whose indefiniteness provokes curiosity, and his friends noticed and wondered why it was that he was so frequently the theme of their conversation. His simple, unaffected manners were full of suggestion, and in his writings there was always an indefinable rainbow-like promise of ultimate achievement. So, long before he had succeeded in writing a play, detached scenes and occasional verses led his friends into gradual belief that he was one from whom big things might be exjjected. And when the one-act play which they had all so heartily approved of was produced, and every newspaper praised it for its literary quality, the friends took pride in this public vindication of their opinion. After the 12 VAIN FORTUNE. production of his play people came to see the new author, and every Saturday evening some fifteen or twenty men nsed to assemble in Hubert's lodgings to drink whisky, smoke cigars, and talk drama. Encouraged by his success, Hubert wrote Divorce. He worked unceasingly upon it for more than a year, and when he had written the final scene he was breaking into his last hundred pounds. The play was refused twice, and then accepted by a theatrical speculator, to whom it seemed to afford opportunity for the exhibition of the talents of a lady he was interested in. It was bitterly assailed and passionately defended. A certain section of the Press spoke of " foul psycho- logy " ; another said, " At last a literary play can be witnessed in London ! " The success of the play was brief. In something like fifty representations its audience — the few thou- sands who are capable of appreciating literature, and the few thousands who would have it believed that they are capable of appreciating literature — was ex- hausted, and the i)lay had to be withdrawn. But before this happened, Hubert had sold the American VAIN FOKTUNE. 13 rights for a handsome sum, and within the next two years he had completed a second play, which he called An Ebbing Tide. The production of An Ebbing Tide was the theatrical event of the season. Some of the critics argued that it contained scenes as fine as any in Divorce, but it was admitted on all sides that the interest withered in the later acts. But the failure of the play did not shake the established belief in Hubert's genius ; it merely concentrated the admiration of those interested in the new art U2)on Divorce, the partial failure of which was now attributed to the acting. If it had only been played at the Haymarket or the Lyceum, it could not have failed. The next three years Hubert wasted in various asstheticisms. He explained the difference between the romantic and realistic methods in the reviews; he played with a poetic drama to be called The King of the Beggars, and it was not until the close of the third year that he settled down to definite work. Then all his energies were concentrated on a new play— TAe Gipsy. A young woman of Bohemian origin is suddenly taken with the nostalgia of the 14 VAIN FORTUNE. tent, and leaves her hnsband and her home to wander with those of her race. He had read portions of this play to his friends, who looked npou it as his master- piece. Innumerable paragraphs had appeared in the newspapers concerning it, and as Hubert's fortunes grew narrower his fame grew wider in the world. At last the newspapers succeeded in driving Mon- tague Ford, the popular actor-manager, to Hubert's door ; and after hearing some few scenes he had offered a couple of hundred pounds in advance of fees for the completed manuscript. "But when can I have the manuscript ? " said Ford, as he was about to leave. "As soon as I can finish it," Hubert re- plied, looking at him wistfully out of pale blue-grey eyes. " I could finish it in a month, if I could count on not being worried by duns or disturbed by friends during that time." Ford looked at Hubert questioningly ; then he said, " I have always noticed that when a fellow wants to finish a jd^y? t.he only way to do it is to go away to the country and leave no address." But the country was always so full of pleasure for VAIN FORTUNE. li) him, that he doubted his power to remain indoors with the temptation of fields and rivers before his eyes, and he thought that to escape from dunning creditors it would be sufficient to change his address. So he left Norfolk Street for the more remote quarter of Fitzroy Street, where he took a couple of rooms on the second floor. One of his fellow-lodgers, he soon found, was Rose Massey, an actress engaged for the per- formance of small parts at the Queen's Theatre. The first time he spoke to her was on the doorstep. She had forgotten her latch-key, and he said, " Will you allow me to let you in ? " She stepped aside, but did not answer him. Hubert tliought her rude, but her strange eyes and absent-minded manner had piqued his curiosity, and, having nothing to do that night, he went to the theatre to see her act. She was playing a very small part, and one that was evidently unsuited to her — a part that was in contradiction to her nature ; but there was something behind the outer envelope which led him to believe she had real talent, and would make a name for herself when she was given a part that would allow her to reveal what was in her. 16 VAIN FOETUNE. In the meantime, Rose had been told that the gentleman she had snubbed in the passage was Mr. Hubert Price, the author of Divorce. " Oh, it was very silly of me," she said to Annie. " If I had only known ! " " Lor', he don't mind ; he'll be glad enough to speak to you when you meets him again." And when they met again on the stairs. Rose nodded familiarly, and Hubert said, — " I went to the Queen's the other night." " Did you like the piece ? " " I did not care about the piece ; but when you get a wild, passionate part to play, you'll make a hit. The sentimental parts they give you don't suit you." A sudden light came into the languid face. " Yes, I shall do something if I can get a part like that." Hubert told her that he was writing a play con- taining just such a part. Her eyes brightened again. " Will you read me the play ? " she said, fixing her dark, dreamy eyes on him. " I shall be very glad. ... Do you think it won't VAIN FOETUNE. 17 bore you ? " And his wistful grey eyes were full of interrogation. " No, I'm sure it won't." And a few days after she sent Annie with a note, reminding him of his promise to read her what he had written. As she had only a bedroom, the reading had to take place in his sitting-room. He read her the first and second acts. She was all enthusiasm, and begged hard to be allowed to study the part — ^just to see what she could do with it — just to let him see that he was not mistaken in her. Her interest in his work captivated him, and he couldn't refuse to lend her the manuscript. CHAPTER, 11. T3OSE often came to see Hnbert iu his rooms. Her manner was disappointing, and he thought he must be mistaken in his first judgment of her talents. But one afternoon she gave him a recitation of the sleep-walking scene in Macbeth. It was strange to see this little dark-complexioned, dark-eyed girl, the merest handful of flesh and bone, divest herself at will of her personality, and assume the tragic horror of Lady Macbeth, or the passionate rapture of Juliet detaining her husband-lover on the balcony of her chamber. Hubert watched iu wonderment tin's girl, so weak and languid in her owu nature, awaking only to life when she assumed the personality of another. There she lay, her wispy form stretched in his arm-chair, her great dark eyes fixed, her mind at rest, sunk in some inscrutable dream. Her thin hand lay on the arm of the chair : wheu i9 VAIN FORTUNE. 19 she woke from her day-dream she burst into irre- sponsible laughter, or questioned him with petulant curiosity. He looked again : her dark curling hair hung on her swarthy neck, and she was somewhat untidily dressed in blue linen. " Were you ever in love ? " she said suddenly. " I don't suppose you could be; you are too occupied with your play. I don't know, though; you might be in love, but I don't think that many women would be in love with you. . . . You are too good a man, and women don't like good men." Hubert laughed, and without a trace of offended vanity in his voice he said, " I don't profess to be much of a lady-killer." "You don't know what I mean," she said, looking at him fixedly, a maze of half-childish, lialf-artistic curiosity in her handsome eyes. Perplexed in his shy, straightforward nature, Hubert inquired if she took sugar in her tea. She said she did ; stretched her feet to the fire, and lapsed into dream. She was one of the enigmas of Stageland. She supported herself, and went about by herself, 20 VAIN FORTUNE. looking a poor, lost little thing. She spoke with con- siderable freedom of language on all subjects, but no one had been able to fix a lover upon her. " What a part Lady Hayward is ! But tell me, — I don't quite catch your meaning in the second act. Is this it ? " and starting to her feet, she became in a moment another being. With a gesture, a look, an intonation, she was the woman of the play, — a woman taken by an instinct, long submerged, but which has floated to the surface, and is beginning to command her actions. In another moment she had slipped back into her weary lymphatic nature, at once prematurely old and extravagantly childish. She could not talk of indiiferent things ; and having asked some strange questions, and laughed loudly, she wished Hubert " Good-afternoon " in her curious, irresponsible fashion, taking her leave abruptly. The next two days Hubert devoted entirely to his play. There were things in it which he knew were good, l)ut it was incomplete. Montague Ford would not produce it in its present form. He must put his shoulder to the wheel and get it right ; one more VAIN FORTUNE. 21 push, that was all that was wanted. And he conld he heard walking to and fro, np and down, along and across his tinj^ sitting-room, stopping suddenly to take a note of an idea that had occurred to him. One day he went to Hampstead Heath. A long walk, he thought, would clear his mind, and he returned home thinking of his play. The sunset still glittered in the skies ; the bare trees were beautifully distinct on the blue background of the suburban street, and at the end of the long perspective a 'bus and a hansom could be seen coming towards him. As they grew larger, his thoughts defined themselves, and the distressing problem of his fourth act seemed to solve itself. That very evening he would sketch out a new dramatic movement around which all the other move- ments of the act would cluster. But at the corner of Fitzroy Square, within a few yards of No. 17, he was accosted by a shabbily-dressed man, who inquired if he were Mr. Price. On being answered in the affirma- tive, the shabbily dressed man said, " Then I have something for ye ; I have been a-watchiug of ye for the last three days, but ye didn't come out; missed 22 VAIN FORTUNE. yer this morning: 'ere it is ; " and he thrust a folded paper into Hubert's hand. " What is this ? " " Don't yer know ? " he said with a grin ; " Messrs. Tomkins & Co., Tailors, writ— twenty-two pound odd." Hubert made no answer ; he put the paper in his pocket, opened the door quietly, stole up to his room, and sat down to think. The first thing to do was to examine into his finances. It was alarming to find that he was breaking into his last five-pound note. True that he was close on the end of his play, and when it was finished he would be able to draw on Ford. But a summons to appear in the county court could not fail to do him immense injury. He had heard of avoiding service, but he knew little of the law, and wondered what power the service of the writ gave his creditor over him. His instinct was to escape — hide himself where they would not be able to find him, and so obtain time to finish his play. But he owed his landlady money, and his departure would have to be clandestine. As he reflected on how many necessaries he might carry uwuy in a newspaper, VAm FOETUNE. 23 ne began to feel strangely like a criminal, and while rolling np a couple of shirts, a few pairs of socks, and some collars, he paused, his hands resting on the parcel. He did not seem to know himself, and it was difficult to believe that he really intended to leave the house in this disreputable fashion. Mechanically he continued to add to his parcel, thinking all the while that he must go, otherwise his play would never be written. He had been working very well for the last few days, and now he saw his way quite clearly; the inspiration he had been so long waiting for had come at last, and he felt sure of his foui-th act. At the same time he wished to conduct himself honestly, even in this dis- tressing situation. Should he tell his landlady the truth? But the desire to realise his idea was intolerable, and, )delding as if before an irresistible force, he tied the parcel and prepared to go. At that moment he remembered that he must leave a note for his landlady, and he was more than ever surprised at the naturalness with which lying phrases came into his head. But when it came to committing them to paper, he found 24 VAIN FORTUNE. lie could not tell an absolute lie, and he wrote a simple little note to the effect that he had been called away on urgent business, and hoped to return in about a week. He descended the stairs softly. Mrs. Wilson's sitting-room opened on to the passage; she might step out at any moment, and intercept his exit. He had nearly reached the last flight when he remembered that he had forgotten his manuscripts. His flesh turned cold, his heart stood still. There was nothing for it but to ascend those creaking stairs again. His already heavily encumbered pockets could not be persuaded to receive more than a small portion of the manuscripts. He gathered them in his hand, and prepared to re-descend the perilous stairs. He walked as lightly as possible, dreading that every creak would bring Mrs. Wilson from her parlour. A few more steps, and he would be in the passage. A smell of dust, sounds of children crying, children talking in the kitchen ! A few more steps, and, with his eyes on the parlour door, Hubert had reached the rug at the foot of the stairs. He hastened along the passage. Mrs. Wilson was a moment too late. His hand was VAIX FOETUNE. 25 on the street-door when she appeared at the door of her parlour. '• Mr. Price, I want to speak to yon before yon go ont. There has " " I can't wait — running to catch a train. You'll find a letter on my table. It will explain." Hubert slipped out, closed the door, and ran down the street, and it was not until he had put two or three streets between him and Fitzroy Street that he relaxed his pace, and could look behind him without dreading to feel the hand of the '' writter" upon his shoulder. CHAPTER III. n~*HEN he wandered, not knowing where he was J.. going, still in the sensation of his escape, a little amused, and yet with a shadow of fear npon his soul, for he grew more and more conscious of the fact that he was homeless, if not quite penniless. Suddenly he stopped walking. Night was thickening in the street, and he had to decide where he would sleep. He could not afford to pay more than five or six shillings a week for a room, and he thought of Holloway, as being a neighbourhood where creditors would not be able to find him. So he retraced his steps, and, tired and footsore, entered the Tottenham Court Road by the Oxford Street end. There the omnibuses stopped. A conductor shouted for fares, with the light of the public-house lamps on his open mouth. There was smell of mud, of damp clothes, of bad tobacco, and where the lights of the 26 VAIN FORTUNE. 27 costermongers' barrows broke across tlie footway the picture was of a group of three coarse, lond-voiced girls, followed by boys. There were fish shops, cheap Italian restaurants, and the long lines of low houses vanished in crapulent night. The characteristics of the Tottenham (Jourt Road impressed themselves on Hubert's mind, and he thought how he would have to bear for at least three weeks with all the grime of its poverty. It would take about that time to finish his play, and the neighbourhood would suit his purpose excellently well. So long as he did not pass beyond it he ran little risk of discovery, and to secure himself against friends and foes he penetrated farther northward, not stopping till he reached the confines of Holloway. Then a little dim street caught his eye, and he knocked at the door of the first house exhibiting a card in the parlour window. But they did not let their bedroom under seven shillings, and this seemed to Habert to be an extravagant price. He tried further on, and at last found a clean room for six shillings. Having no luggage, he paid a 28 VAIN FORTUNE. week's rent in advance, and the landlady promised toget liim a small table, on which he cotild write, a small table that wonld fit in somewhere near the window. She asked him when he wonld like to be called, and put the candlestick on the chair. Hubert looked round the room, and a moment sufficed to complete the survey. It was about seven feet long. The lower half of the window was curtained by a piece of muslin hardly bigger than a good-sized pocket-handkerchief ; to do anything in this room except to lie in bed seemed difficult, and Hubert sat down on the bed and emptied out his pockets. He had just four pounds, and the calculation how long he could live on such a sum took him some time. His breakfast, whether he had it at home or in the coifee-house, would cost him at least fourpence. He thought he would be able to obtain a fairly good dinner in one of the little Italian restaurants for ninepence. His tea would cost the same as his breakfast. To these sums he must add twopence for tobacco and a penny for an evening paper — impossible to do without tobacco, and he must know what was VAIN FOETUNE. 29 going on in the world. He could therefore live for one shilling and eightpence a day — eleven shillings a week — to which he would have to add six shillings a week for rent, altogether seventeen shillings a week. He really did not see how he could do it cheaper. Four times seventeen are sixty-eight; sixty-eight shillings for a month of life, and he had eighty shillings — twelve shillings for incidental expenses ; and out of that twelve shillings he must buy a shirt, a sponge, and a tooth-brush, and when they were bought there would be very little left. He must finish his play under the month. Nothing could be clearer than that. Next morning he asked the landlady to let him have a cup of tea and some bread and butter, and he ate as much bread as he could, to save himself from being hungry in the middle of the day. He began work immediately, and continued until seven, and feeling then somewhat light-headed, but satisfied with himself, went to the nearest Italian restaurant. The food was better than he had expected ; but he spent twopence more than he had intended, so, to accustom 30 VAIN FORTUNE. himself to a life of strict raeasnre and discipline, he determined to forego his tea that evening. And so he lived and worked until the end of the week. But the situation he had counted on to complete his fourth act liad proved almost impracticable in the working out ; he laboured on, liowever, and at the end of the tenth day at least one scene satisfied him. He read it over slowly, carefully, tliought about it, decided that it was excellent, and lay down on his bed to consider it. At that moment it struck him that he had better calculate how much he had spent in the last ten days. He gathered himself into a sitting posture and counted his money ; he had spent tliirty shillings, and at that rate his money would not hold out till the end of the month. He must reduce his expenditure ; but liow ? Impossible to find a room where he could live more cheaply than in the one he had got, and it is not easy to dine in London on less than ninepence. Only the poor can live cheaply. He pressed his hands to his face. His head seemed like splitting, and his monetary difficulty, united with his literary difficulties, produced a momentary insanity. VAIN FOETUNE. 31 Work that morning was impossible, so he went out to study the eating-houses of the neighbourhood. He must find one where he could dine for sixpence. Or he might buy a pound of cooked beef and take it home with him in a paper bag; but that would mean an almost intolerable imprisonment in his little room. He could go to a public-house and dine off a sausage and potato. But at that moment his attention was caught by black letters on a dun, yellowish ground : " Lockhart's Cocoa Rooms." Not having breakfasted, he decided to have a cup of cocoa and a roll. It was a large, barn-like place, the walls covered with a coat of grey-blue paint. Under the window there was a zinc counter, with zinc urns always steaming, emit- ting odours of tea, coffee, and cocoa. The seats were like those which give a garden-like appearance to the tops of some omnibuses. Each was made to hold two persons, and the table between them was large enough for four plates and four pairs of hands. A few hollow- chested men, the pale vagrants of civilisation, drowsed in the corners. They had been hunted through the night by the policemen, and had come in for something 32 VAIN FOETUNE. hot. Hubert noted the worn frock-coats, and the miserable arms coming out of shirtless sleeves. One looked up inquiringly, and Hubert thought how slight had become the line that divided him from the outcast. A serving maid collected the plates, knives, and forks, when the customers left, and carried them back to the great zinc counter. Impressed by his appearance, she brought him what he had ordered and took the money for it, although the custom of the place was for the customer to pay for food at the counter and carry it himself to the table at which he chose to eat. Hubert learnt that there was no set dinner, but there was a beef- steak pudding at one, price fourpence, a penny potatoes, a penny bread. So by dining at Lockhart's he would be able to cut down his daily expense by at least twopence; that would extend the time to finish his play by nearly a week. And if his appetite were not keen, he could assuage it with a penny plum pudding ; or he could take a middle course, making his dinner oif a sausage and mashed potatoes. The room was clean, well lighted, and airy ; he could read his paper there, and VAIN FOETTJNE.' 3^ forget his troubles in tlie observation of character. He even made friends. An old wizen creature, who had been a prize-fighter, told him of his triumphs. If he hadn't broke his hand on somebody's nose he'd have been champion light weight of England. " And to think that I have come to this," he added emphatically. " Even them boys knock me about now, and 'alf a century ago I could 'ave cleared the bloomin' place." There was a merry little waif from the circus who loved to come and sit with Hubert. She had been a rider, she said, but had broken her leg on one occasion, and cut her head all open on another, and had ended by running away with some one who had deserted her. " So here I am," she remarked, with a burst of laughter, " talking to you. Did you never hear of Dolly Dayrell ? " Hubert confessed that he had not. " Why," she said, " I thought every one had." About eight o'clock in the evening, the table near the stairs was generally occupied by flower-girls, dressed in dingy clothes, and brightly feathered hats. They placed their empty baskets on the floor, and shouted at their companions — men who sold newspapers, boot- 3 34 VAIN FOETUNE. laces, and cheap toys. About nine the boys came in, the boys who used to push the old prize-fighter about, and Hubert soon began to perceive how representative they were of all vices — gambling, theft, idleness, and cruelty were visible in their faces. They were led by a Jew boy who sold penny jewellery at the corner of Oxford Street, and they generally made for the tables at the end of the room, for there, unless custom was slack indeed, they could defeat the vigilance of the serving maid and play nap at their ease. The tray of penny jewellery was placed at the corner of a table, and a small boy set to watch over it. His duty was also to shuffle his feet when the servant-maid approached, and a precious drubbing he got if he failed to shuffle them loud enough. The " 'ot un," as he was nicknamed, always had a pack of cards in his pocket, and to annex everything left on the tables he considered to be his privilege. One day, when he was asked how he came by the fine carnation in his buttonhole, he said it was a ju'esent from Sally, neglecting to add that he had told the child to steal it from a basket which a flower-girl had just put down. VAIN FORTUNE. 35 Hubert hated this boy, and once could not resist boxing his ears. The " 'ot un " writhed easily out of his reach, and then assailed him with foul language^ and so loud were his words that they awoke the innocent cause of the quarrel, a weak, sickly-looking man, with pale blue eyes and a blond beard. Hubert had protected him before now against the brutality of the boys, who, when they were not playing nap, divided their pleasantries between him and the decrepit prize- fighter. He came in about nine, took a cup of coffee from the counter, and settled himself for a snooze. The boys knew this, and it was their amusement to keep him awake by pelting him with egg-shells and other missiles. Hubert noticed that he had always with him a red handkerchief full of some sort of loose rubbish, which the boys gathered when it fell about the floor, or purloined from the handkerchief when they judged that the owner was sufficiently fast asleep. Hubert now saw that the handkerchief was filled with bits of coloured chalk, and guessed that the man must be a pavement artist. " A dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is," said the 36 VAIN FORTUNE. artist, fixing his i)ale, melancholy eyes ou Hubert ; "bad manners, no eddication, and, above all, no respect." " They are an unmannerly lot — that Jew boy especially. I don't think there's a vice he hasn't got." The artist stared at Hubert a long time in silence. A thought seemed to be stirring in his mind. " I'm speaking, I can see, to a man of eddication. I'm a fust-rate judge of character, though I be but a pavement artist ; but a picture's none the less a picture, no matter where it is drawn. That's true, ain't it ? " " Quite true. A horse is a horse, and an ass is an ass, no matter what stable you put them into." The artist laughed a guttural laugh, and, fixing his pale blue porcelain eyes on Hubert, he said, — " Yes ; see I made no blooming error when I said you was a man of eddication. A literary gent, I should think. In the reporting line, most like. Down in the luck like myself. What was it — drink ? Got the chuck ? " VAIN FOKTUNE. 37 " No," said Hubert, " never touch it. Out of work." "No offence, master, we're all mortal, we is all weak, and in misfortune we goes to it. It was them boys that drove me to it." " How was that ? " " They was always round my show ; no getting rid of them, and their remarks created a disturbance ; the perlice said he wouldn't 'ave it, and when the perlice won't 'ave it, what's a poor man to do ? They are that hignorant. But what's the use of talking of it, it only riles me." The blue-eyed man lay back in his seat, and his head sank on his chest. He looked as if he were going to sleep again, but on Hubert's asking him to explain his troubles, he leaned across the table. " Well, I'll tell yer. Yer be an eddicated man, and I likes to talk to them that 'as 'ad an eddicatiou. Yer says, and werry truly, just now, that changing the stable don't change an 'orse into a hass, or a hass into an 'orse. That is werry true, most true, none but a eddicated man could 'ave made that ere hobserva- tion. I likes yer for it. Give us yer 'and. The 38 VAIN FORTUNE. public just thinks too much of the stable, aucl not enough of what's inside. Leastways, that's my experience of the public, and I 'ave been a-catering for the public ever since I was a growing lad — sides of bacon, ships on fire, good old ship on fire. ... I knows the public. Yer don't follow me ? " "Not quite." " A moment, and I'll explain. You'll admit there's no blooming reason except the public's blooming hignorance why a man shouldn't do as good a picture on the pavement as on a piece of canvas, provided he ave the blooming genius. There is no doubt that with them 'ere chalks and a nice smooth stone that Raphael — I 'ave been to the National Gallery and 'ave studied 'is work, and werry fine some of it is, although I don't altogether hold — but that's another matter. What was I a-saying of? I remember, — that with them 'ere chalks, and a nice smooth stone, there's no reason why a masterpiece shouldn't be done. That's right, ain't it ? I ask you, as a man of eddication, to say it thai ain't right; as a representative of the Press, I asks you to say." Hubert nodded, and the pale-eyed VAIN FOKTUNE. 39 man continued, " Well, that's what the public won't see, can't see. Raphael, says I, could 'ave done a masterpiece with them 'ere chalks and a nice smooth stone. But do yer think 'e'd 'ave been allowed ? Do yer think the perlice would have stood it ? Do yer think the public would 'ave stood him doing master- pieces on the pavement ? I'd give 'im just one after- noon. Them boys would 'ave got 'im into trouble, just as they did me. Raphael would 'ave been told to wipe them out just as I was." The conversation paused ; and half amused, half frightened, Hubert considered the pale vague face, and he was struck by the scattered look of aspiration that wandered in the pale blue eyes. " I'll tell you," said the man, growing more excited, and leaning further across the table ; " I'll tell you, because I knows you for an eddicated man, and won't blab. S'pose yer thinks, like the rest of the world that the chaps wot smears, for it ain't drawing, the pavement with bits of bacon, a ship on fire, and the regulation oysters, does them out of their own 'eads ? " Hubert nodded. " I'm not surprised that you do, all 40 VAIN FOETUNE. the world flo, and the public chncks down its coppers to the poor hartist ; but 'e aint no hartist, no more than is them 'ere boys that did for my show." Lean- ing still further forward, he lowered his voice to a whisper. " They learns it all by 'art ; there is schools for the teaching of it down in Whitechapel. They can just do what they learns by 'art, not one of them could draw that 'ere chair or table from natur'; but I could. I 'ave an original talent. It was a long time afore I found out it was there," he said, tapping his forehead ; " but it is there," he said, fixing his eyes on Hubert., " and when it is there they can't take it away — I mean my mates — though they do laugh at my ideas. They call me ' the genius,' for they don't believe in me, but I believe in myself, and they laughs best that laughs last. ... I don't know," he said, looking round him, his eyes full of reverie, " that the public liked my fancy landscapes better than the ship on fire, but I said the public will come to them in time, and I continued my fancy landscapes. But one day in Trafalgar Square it came on to rain very 'eavy, and I went for shelter into the National Gallery. It VAIN FORTUNE. 41 was my fast visit, and I was struck all of a 'eap, and ever since I can 'ardly bring myself to go on with the drudgery of the piece of bacon, and the piece of cheese with the mouse nibbling at it. And ever since my 'ead 'as been filled with other things, though for a long time I could not make exactly out what. I 'ave 'card that that is always the case with men that 'as an idea — dare say you 'ave found it so yourself. So in m}^ spare time I goes to the National to think it out, and in studying the pictures. There 1 got wery interested in a chap called Hetty, and 'e do paint the female form divine. I says to myself. Why not go in for lovely woman ? the public may not care for fancy land- scapes, but the public alius likes a lovely woman, and, as well as being popular, lovely woman is 'igh 'art. So, after dinner hour, I sets to work, and sketches in a blue sea with three bathers, and two boxes with the 'orse's head looking out from behind one of the boxes. For a fust attempt at the nude, I assure you — it ain't my way to blow my own trumpet, but I can say that the crowd that 'ere picture did draw was bigger than any that 'ad assembled about the bits o' bacon and 42 VAIN FORTUNE. ship-a-fire of all the other coves. 'Ad I been let alone, I slionld 'ave made my fortune, bnt the crowd was so big and the curiosity so great that it took the perlice all their time to keep the pavement from being blocked. It wasn't that the public didn't like it enough, it was that the public liked it too much, that was the reason of my misfortune." " What do you mean ? " said Hubert. " Well, yer see them boys was a-hawking their cheap toys in the neighbourhood, and when they got wind of my success they comes round to see, and they remains on account of the crowd. Pockets was picked, I don't say they wasn't, and the perlice turned rusty, and then a pious old gent comes along, and 'earing the remarks of them boys, which I admit wasn't nice, complains to the hauthorities, and I was put down ! Now, wliat I wants to know is why my 'art should be made to suffer for the beastly-mindedness of them 'ere boys." Hubert admitted that there seemed to be an injustice somewhere, and asked the artist if he had never tried again. VAIN FORTUNE. 43 " Try again ? Should think I did. When once a man 'as tasted of 'igh 'art, he can't keep his blooming fingers out of it. It was impossible after the success of my bathers to go back to the bacon, so I thought I would circumvent the hauthorities. I goes to the National Gallery, makes a sketch, 'ere it is," and after some fumbling in his breast pocket, he produced a greasy piece of paper, which he handed to Hubert. " S'pose yer know the picture ? " Hubert admitted that he did not. " Well, that is a drawing from Gainsborough's celebrated picture of Medora a-washing of her feet. . . But the perlice wouldn't 'ave it any more than my original, 'e said it was worse than the bathers at Margate, and when I told the hignorant brute wot it was, 'e said he wanted no hargument, that 'e wouldn't 'ave it." Hubert had noticed, during the latter part of the narrative, a look of dubious cunning twinkling in the pale eyes ; but now this look died away, and the eyes resumed their habitual look of vague reverie. " I've been 'ad up before the Beak : from him i expected more enlightenment, but he, too, said 'e 44 VAIN FORTUNE. wouldn't 'ave it, and I got a month. But I'll beat tliem yet, the public is on my side, and if it woru't for them 'ere boys, I'd say that the public could be helevated. They calls me ' the genius,' and they is right." Then something seemed to go out like a flame, the face grew dim, and changed expression. " It is 'ere all right," he said, no longer addressing Hubert, but speaking to himself, "and since it is there, it must come out." CHAPTER IV. T TUBERT at last found himself obliged to write to Ford for an advance of money. But Ford replied that he would advance money only on the delivery of the completed manuscript. And the whole of one night, in a room hardly eight feet long, sitting on his bed, he strove to complete the fourth and fifth acts. But under the pressure of such necessity ideas died within him. And all through the night, and even when the little window, curtained with a bit of muslin hardly bigger than a pocket-handkerchief, had grown white with dawn, he sat gazing at the sheet of paper, his brain on fire, unable to think. Laying his pen down in despair, he thought of the thousands who would come to his aid if they only knew — if they only knew ! And soon after he heard life beginning again in the little brick street. He felt that his brain was giving way, that if he did not find change, 45 46 VAIN FOETUNE. whatever it was, he must surely run raving mad. He had had enough of England, and would leave it for America, Australia — anywhere. He wanted change. The present was unendurable. How would he get to America ? Perhaps a clerkship on board one of the great steamships might be obtained. The human animal in extreme misery becomes self- reliant, and Hubert hardly thought of making applica- tion to his uncle. The last time he had applied for help his letter had remained unanswered, and he now felt that he must make his own living or die. And, quite indifferent as to what might befall him, he walked next day to the Victoria Docks. He did not know where or how to apply for work, and he tired himself in fruitless endeavour. At last he felt he could strive with fate no longer, and wan- dered mile after mile, amused and forgetful of his own misery in the spectacle of the river — the rose sky, the long perspectives, the houses and warehouses show- ing in fine outline, and then the wonderful blue night gathering in the forest of masts and rigging. He was admirably patient. There was no fretfulness in VAIN FOETUNB. 47 his sonl, nor did he rail against the world's injustice, but took his misfortunes with sweet gentleness. He slept in a public house, and next day resumed his idle search for employment. The weather was mild and beautiful, his wants were simple, a cup of coffee and a roll, a couple of sausages, and the day passed in a sort of morose and passionless contem- plation. He thought of everything and nothing, least of all of how he should find money for the morrow. When the day came, and the penny to buy a cup of coffee was wanting, he quite naturally, without giving it a second thought, engaged himself as a labourer, and worked all day carrying sacks of grain out of a vessel's hold. For a large part of his nature was patient and simple, docile as an animal's. There was in him so much that was rudimentary, that in accepting this burden of physical toil he was acting not in contradiction to, but in full and perfect harmony with, his true nature. But at the end of a week his health began to give way, and, like a man after a violent debauch, he thought of returning to a more normal existence. He had 48 VAIN FORTUNE. left the mannscript of his unfortunate play in the North. Had they destroyed it ? The involuntary fear of the writer for his child made him smile. What did it matter ? Clearly the first thing to do would be to write to the editor of The Cosmopolitan^ and ask if he could find him some employment^ something certain ; writing occasional articles for newspapers, that he couldn't do. Hubert had saved twelve shillings. He would therefore be able to pay his landlady : he smiled — one of his landladies ! The earlier debt was now hopelessly out of his reach, and seemed to represent a social plane from which he had for ever fallen. If he had succeeded in getting that play right, what a difference it wonld have made ! He would have been able to do a number of things he had never done, things which he had always desired to do. He had desired above all to travel — to see France and Italy ; to linger, to muse in the shadows of the world's past ; and after this he had desired marriage, an English wife, an English home, beautiful children, leisure, the society of friends. A successful play would have given him VAIN FORTUNE. 49 all these things, and now his dream must remain for ever unrealised by him. He had sunk out of sight and hearing of such life. Eose was another ; she might sink as he had sunk ; she might never find the opportunity of realising her desire. How well she would have played that part ! He knew what was in her. And now ! What did his failure to write that play condemn him to ? Heaven only knows, he did not wish to think. Strange, was it not strange ? . . . A man of genius — many believed him a genius — and yet he was incapable of earning his daily bread otherwise than by doing the work of a navvy. Even that he could not do well, society had softened his muscles and eifeminised his constitution. Indeed, he did not know what life fate had willed him for. He seemed to be out of place everywhere. His best chance was to try to obtain a clerkship. The editor of The Cosmopolitan might be able to do that for him ; if he could not, far better it would be to leave a world in which he was out of place, and through no fault of his own — that was the hard part of it. Hard part I Nonsense ! What does 4 50 VAIN FOETUNE. Fate know of our little rights and wrongs — or care ? Her intentions are inscrutable ; she watches us come and go, and gives no sign. Prayers are vain. The good man is punished, and the wicked is sent on his way rejoicing. In such mournful thought, his clothes stained and torn, with all the traces of a week's toil in the docks upon them, Hubert made his way round St. Paul's and across Holborn. As he was about to cross into Oxford Street, he heard some one accost him, — " Oh, Mr. Price, is that you ? " It was Rose. " Where have you been all this time ? " She seemed so strange, so small, and so much alone in the great thoroughfare, that Hubert forgot all his own troubles in a sudden interest in this little mite. "Where have you been hiding yourself? ... It is lucky 1 met you. Don't you know that Ford has decided to revive Divorce ? " " You don't mean it ! " " Yes ; Ford said that the last acts of The Gipsy were not satisfactorily worked out, and as there was something wrong with that Hamilton Brown's piece, VAIN FOETUNE. 51 he has decided to revive Divorce. He says it never was properly played ... he thinks he'll make a hit in the husband's part, and I daresay he will. But I have been iinfortnuate again ; I wanted the part of the adventuress. I really could play it. I don't look it, I know ... I have no weight, but I could play it for all that. The public mightn't see me in it at first, but in five minutes they would." " And what jjart has he cast you for — the young girl ? " " Of course ; there's no other part. He says I look it ; but what's the good of looking it when you don't feel it ? If he had cast me for Mrs. Barrington, I should have had just the five minutes in the second act that I have been waiting for so long, and I should have just wiped Miss Osborne out, acted her off the stage ... I know I should ; you needn't believe it if j'OU don't like, but I know I should." Hubert wondered how any one could feel so sure of herself, and then he said, " Yes, I think you could do just what you say. . . . How do you think Miss Osborne will play the part ? " 52 VAIN FOETUNE. "She'll be correct enough; she'll miss nothing, and yet somehow she'll miss the whole thing. But you must go at once to Ford. He was saying only this morning that if you didn't turn up soon, he'd have to give up the idea." " 1 can't go and see him to-night. You see what a state I'm in." " You're rather dusty ; wliere liave you been ? what have you been doing ? " " I've been down at the dock. ... I thought of going to America." " Well, we'll talk about that another time. It doesn't matter if you are a bit dusty and worn-out- looking. Now that he's going to revive your play, he'll let you have some money. You might get a new hat, though. I don't know how much they cost, but I've five shillings ; can you iget one for that ? " Hubert tnanRed her. " But you are not offended ? " Offended, my dear Rose I I shall be able to manage. I'll get a brush up somewhere." VAIN FORTUNE. 53 " That's all rigbt. Now I'm going to jnmp into that 'bus," and she signed with her parasol to the conductor. " Mind yon see Ford to-night," she cried ; and a moment after he saw a small space of blue back seated against one of the windows. CHAPTER V. n^HERE was much prophecy abroad. Stiggins words, " The piece never did, and never will draw money," were evidently present in everybody's mind. They were visible in Ford's face, and more than once Hubert expected to hear tliat — on account of severe indisposition— Mr. Montague Ford has been obliged to indefinitely postpone his contemplated revival of Mr. Hubert Price's play Divorce. But, besides the apprehension that Stiggins' unfavourable opinion of his enterprise had engendered in him. Ford was obviously provoked by Hubert's reluctance to execute the alterations he had suggested. Night after night, sometimes until six in the morning, Hubert sat uj) considering them. Thanks to Ford's timely advance he was back in his old rooms in Fitzroy Street. Lockhart's and the docks were for- gotten — a fugitive dream that had come and gone. 54 VAIN FORTUNE. 55 All was as it had been. He was working at his play every evening, waiting for Rose's footsteps on the stairs. And yet a change had come into his life ! He believed now that his feet were set on the way to fortune — that he would soon be happy. He stared at the bright flame of the lamp, he listened to the silence. The clock chimed sharply, and the windows were growing grey. Hubert had begun to drowse in his chair; but he had promised to rewrite the young girl's part, Ford having definitely refused to entrust Rose with the part of the adventuress. He was sorry for this. He believed that Rose had not only talent, but genius. Besides, they were friends, neighbours ; he would like to give her a chance of distinguishing herself — the chance which she was seeking. All the time he could not but realise that, however he might accentuate and characterise the part of the sentimental girl. Rose would not be able to do much with it. To bring out her special powers something strange, wild, or tragic was required. But of what use thinking of what was not to be ? Having altered the part to suit her to the best of his ability, 56 VAIN FORTUNE. Le Ibkled his papers np, and addressed them to Miss Massey, He wrote on a piece of paper that they were to be given to her at once, and that he was to be called at ten. There was a rehearsal at twelve. On the night of the first performance, Hubert asked Rose to dine in his rooms. Mrs. Wilson proposed that they should have a roast chicken, and Annie was sent to fetch a bottle of cliampagne from the grocer's. Annie had been given a ticket for the pit. Mrs. Wilson was going to the upper boxes. Annie said, — " Why, you look as if you was going to a funeral, and not to a play. Why don't ye laugh ? " In truth, Hubert and Rose were a little silent. Rose was thinking how she could say certain lines. She had said them right once at rehearsal, but had not since been able to reproduce to her satisfaction a certain effect of voice. Hubert was too nervous to talk. There was nothing in his mind but " Will the piece succeed ? What shall I do if it fails ? " He could give heed to nothing but himself, all the world seemed blotted out, and he suffered the pain of ex- cessive self-concentration. Rose, on the other hand, VAIN FOETUNE. 57 had lost sight of herself, and existed almost un- consciously in the sonl of another being. She was sometimes like a hypnotised spectator watching with foolish, involuntary curiosity the actions of one whom she had been bidden to watch. Then a little cloud would gather over her eyes, and then this other being would rise as if out of her very entrails and re- create her, fashioning her to its own image and likeness. She did not answer when she was spoken to, and when the question was repeated, she awoke with a little start. Dinner was eaten in morbid silence, with painful and fitful efforts to appear interested in each other. Walking to the theatre, they once took the wrong turning and had to ask the way. At the stage door they smiled painfully, nodded, glad to part. Hubert went up to Montague Ford's room. He found the comedian on a low stool, seated before a low table covered with brushes and cosmetics, in front of a triple glass. " My dear friend, do not trouble me now. I am thinking of my part." 58 VAIN FORTUNE. Hubert tnrnecl to go. " Stay a moment," cried the actor. " Yon know when the hnsband meets the wife he has divorced ? " Hubert remembered the moment referred to, and, with anxious, doubting eyes, the comedian sought from the author justification for some intonations and gestures which seemed to him to form part and parcel of the nature of the man whose drunkenness he had so admirably depicted on his face. " ' Tills is most unfortunate^ very unlucky — ver-y, my dear Louisa ; but ' a ( '7 am no longer obliged to bear with your insults ; I can now defend myself against you.'' " Now, is that your idea of the scene ? " A pained look came upon Hubert's face. '' Don't question me now, my dear fellow. I cannot fix my attention. I can see, however, that your make-up is capital — you are the man himself." The actor was satisfied, and in his satisfaction he said, " I think it will be all right, old chap." A dense crowd pressed about the pit and gallery doors, and on the mass of cloth coats the ostrich VAIN FORTUNE. 59 feathers in the girls' hats and bonnets made spots of bright colour. A girl smiled at Hubert, and he returned the smile, thinking how she might be to- night amone; those who would condemn him. In the stillness of the evening, the yellow Haymarket rose up distinct on a rose-flushed sky. A clatter of cabs, and plenty of shirt-fronts hastening westwards. High wheels whirling in light dust, and the mature elegance of a woman of thirty stepping into her victoria. She sits down by the side of a poodle. Every balcony bright with flowers. The air a cordial that the lungs drink greedily. Fashion tremulous in the pale air, and every heart singing the song of its own sweet life. The passion of life on every face ; lips trembling, and vague emotion afloat in the grey glint of English eyes. Up and down the high steps leading from Birdcage Walk to the Duke's Column feet springing like india-rubber, and the talk of sweethearts growing lower, dying on their lips. The spectacle of spring in the Birdcage was en- trancing ; but danger forced his thoughts onward, and the joy of the evening seemed to him a mockery. 60 VAIN FORTUNE. He hated the salmon-colonred sky, the skiffs shooting through the yellow water, the frocks and the voices of the children, and thought he would sooner look on melancholy mountain lands, where the curlew called. The gravel walks like grey ribbons, the coquettish islands blue in the twilight, and the line of Buckingham Palace seen at the end of a vista, were particularly disagreeable. As he turned, memory of the half-crazed pavement artist he had met in Lockhart's fell upon him. Had that reformer succeeded in persuading the public that wanted pieces of bacon and shij)s on fire to accept his memories of Gainsborough and Etty? and would he, Hubert Price, succeed any better in inducing a public hungering after melodrama and farce to accept psychology ? Retracing his steps, he wandered up Regent Street and crossed the Circus. The long, circular line of the houses ended abruptly on the pale sky ; the telegraph wires hung heavy and black in the still air. Tlie French women stood sentinel-like, with their backs against the patent shutters ; the English girls walked rapidly, their long muslin dresses falling from VAIN FORTUNE. 01 their waists straight as baby-clothes. He entered the golden Caf^ Royal, and called for a liqueur of brandy. Trying to distract his thoughts, he forced himself to notice the gold columns, the mirrors surmounted with half-length figures of women holding gold garlands. He wondered at the murmur of voices and the clanking of money on the marble tables, and was vaguely interested in the various faces seen through blue arabesques of smoke. Then, leaving the cafe, he walked through Leicester Square. At Charing Cross a row was in progress, — cabs were backing into each other, and a group of girls in straw hats pressed forward, interested in the dispute; a tired woman leaned on the arm of a clerk ; a band of boys passed singing — one danced, his hands in his pockets ; and behind a block of buildings, painted yellow, Trafalgar Square stood out in the glowing atmosphere, its black lions and balustrades beautifully distinct. The fountains were playing, and the blithe sound of children's voices contrasted with the sunset still- ness of the black domes and roofs of the National Gallery. 62 VAIN FORTUNE. It had struck eight, and Hubert hastened towards the theatre, lioping to reach his box without meet- ing critics oj- authors. The serving-maids bowed and smiled,— he was the author of the play. " They'll think still more of me if the notices are right," he thought, as he hurried upstairs, and from behind the curtain of his box peeped down into the grey twilight of the auditorium. The gas had not yet been turned uj). Tlie darkness of the pit and gallery was spattered with shining faces. Hubert wondered where the girl who had smiled so sweetly at him an hour ago was sitting ; and he counted the critics who edged their way down the stalls, securing their places. The dark- bearded man, with the genial commonplace of his copy so strangely well expressed on his face, writes for The Morning Express; the thin, wizen man, whose sharp snout tells of two or three ideas, old-fashioned, dusty, and tied with red tape, writes for The Telephone ; the awkward, lieavy-shouldered man, whose vague, vapid face advertises his general incapacity for every sort of thought, writes for The Weekly Messenger. " And there's Stiggins," said Hubert to himself ; and VAIN FORTUNE. 63 he watched the large unctuous face. The hands were crossed over the stomach in an attitude of resignation. " He will maintain that weary look the whole evening, hoping thereby to imjjress those who are not within speaking distance." A thin, cone-headed young man made his way towards Stiggins, and Hubert said, " Now he'll tell him all he said about the piece when it was first produced; and Hooper, who is the veriest blockhead, without an idea on any subject, will take it all down and publish it next morning. That's the way criticism is manufactured." The stalls began to fill. Middle-aged women came with sedate circulating literature wi"itten on their faces ; here and there the vagrant eyes of an actress ; fashionable women nodding to their admirers as they passed, utterly indifferent whether the play came from Parnassus or Grub Street. Little by little the theatre assumed an air oi fete. In one box the white line of a neck of sixteen, and in the adjoining box the diamonds of a rJemi-mondaine, heaving on her heavy fatness. Smiles and the colour of violet gloves, the 64 VAIN FOItTUNE. shiue of silk hats, the sullen black of opera hats, sharply broken folds, aud the sound of silk. In the third row of the stalls Harding stood talking to a young man. He said, " You mean the Avoman with the black hair piled into a point, and fastened with a steel circlet. A face of sheep-like sensuality. Red lips and a round receding chin. A large bosom, aud two thin arms showing beneath the opera cloak, which she has not 3'et thrown from her shoulders. I do not know her — une laideur attir- ante. Many a man might be interested in her. But do you see the woman in the stage-box ? You would not believe it, but she is sixty, and has only just begun to speak of herself as an old woman. IShe kept her figure, and had an admirer when she was fifty-eight." " What has become of him ? " " They quarrelled ; two years ago he told her he lioped never to see her ugly old face again. And tliat delicate little creature in the box next to her — that pale diaphanous face ? " " With a young man hanging over her whispering in her ear ? " VAIN FORTUNE. 65 " Yes. She hates the theatre; it gives her neuralgia; but she attends all the first nights because her one passion is to be made love to in public. If her admirer did not hang over her in front of the box just as that man is doing, she would not tolerate him for a week." At that moment the conversation was interrupted by a new-comer, who asked if he had seen the play when it was first produced. " Yes," said Harding ; " I did." And he continued his search for acquaintances amid white rows of female backs, necks, and half-seen profiles — amid the black cloth shoulders cut sharply upon the illummed curtam. " And what do you think of it ? Do you think it will succeed this time ? " " Ford will create an impression in the part; but I don't think the piece will run." " And why ? Because the public is too stupid ? " " Partly, and partly because Price is only an in- tentionist. He cannot carry an idea quite tlirough." " Are you going to write about it ? " 5 66 VAIN FORTUNE. " I may." " And what will you say ? " " Oil, most interesting things to be said. Let's take the case of Hubert Price. . . . Ah, there, the cnrtain is going up." The cnrtain rolled slowly up, and in a small country drawing-room, in very simple but very pointedly written dialogue, the story of Mrs. Holmes' domestic misfortunes was gradually unfolded. It appeared that she had flirted with Captain Grey ; he had written her some compromising letters, and she had once been to his rooms alone. So the Court had pronounced a decree nisi. But Mrs. Holmes had not been unfaithful to her husband. She had flirted with Captain Grey because her husband's attentions to a certain Mrs. Barriugtou had maddened her, and in her jealous rage had written foolish letters, and been to see Captain Grey. It was one of those plays whose force depends upon the degree of attention which has been o-iveu to the first act ; and Hubert noticed in despair that folk were still asking for their seats, and pushiug down the very VAIN FORTUNE. 67 rows in which the most influential critics were sitting. They exchanged a sahitation with their friends in the dress-circle, and, when they were seated, looked aronnd, making observations regarding the appear- ance of the house ; and all the while the actors were speaking the precious dialogue, every sentence of which was necessary for the due setting forth of the story. Hubert trembled with fear and rage. Would these people never give their attention to the stage ? If they had been sitting by him, he could have struck them. Then a line turned into nonsense by the actress who played Mrs. Holmes was a lancinating- pain ; and the actor who played Captain Grey played so slowly that Hubert could hardly refrain from calling from his box. He looked round the theatre, noticing the indifferent faces of the critics, and the women's shoulders seemed to him especially vacuous and imbecile. There was an air of cruelty in the theatre ; and he felt like a victim led forth for torture, and the line " Butchered to make a Roman holiday " came into his mind. Notwithstanding some mistakes and some slow- 68 VAIN FOETUNE. ness in the interpretation, the act was received with applause, and Hubert could see the audience was pleased. Indifi'erence melted away like snow in April, and in a few minutes groups had collected round the doorways, and rapid progress was made in the discussion of the piece. The great critics had each a separate audience. The younger men worked their way up to where Harding was sitting ; the elderly men assembled in corners, their backs to the orchestra, and the indifference of their heavy features contrasted with the nervous animation of the young men. Some young women approached Stiggins. He shook his head, trying to convey by gesture his opinion of the play to the entire theatre. Hubert knew that the young men would fight hard for the life of this play — it had long been their battle-ground; but the journals that the veterans who chatted so aftably wrote for circulated a hundred thousand a day, and then he must count on the enormous mischief that they would do him. At that moment Harding turned towards a young critic who had come to inquire his opinion. VAIN FORTUNE. 69 " I know what he is saying," tlioiight Huhert. " That this always was and that it will remain the most serions effort of our time to define the new dramatic formula. How often all that has been said, and how little the saying of it has served me ! How little I care now for the new dramatic art ! To give one's life for a little scribbling on paper, for the little fictitious life of a few hours on the stage ; to be praised by a few enthusiasts ; to pass through life a hungry fanatic, — such has been my past, and I have had enough of it. 1 want comfort, leisure, an Eng- lish home, and an English wife, — like that— like that blonde woman dressed in white, waving a white fan. To have a woman like that, and an English home in one of the southern counties, I'd write all the detest- able melodramas and farces that have been produced within the last ten years." Hubert thought all this, and then his thought paused, and he asked himself if he were sincere with himself. The principal scene of the second act was between Mrs. Holmes and the man who had divorced her. He has been driven to drink by the vile behaviour of his 70 VAT^r FORTUNE. second wife ; he Is mined in health and in pocket, and has come to the woman he wronged to beg forgive- ness; he knows she has learnt to love Captain Grey, but will not mavrv him, because she believes that once married always married. There is only one thing he can do to repair the wrong he has done — he will commit snicide, and so enable her to marry the man she loves. He tells her that he has bonglit the pistol to do it with, and the words, " Not here 1 not here I " escape from herj and he answers, " No, not here, but in a cab. I've got one at the door." He goes out ; Captain Grey enters, and Mrs. Holmes begs him to save her hnsband. While they are discussing how this is to be done, he re-enters, saying that his conscience smote him as he was going to pull the trigger. Will she forgive him ? If she won't, he must make an end of himself. She says she will. The realism of Ford's acting electrified the house ; every one cried, " A masterpiece ! a masterpiece ! " The actors were called for ; and Hubert said, " Well, who knows ? perhaps success has come to me at last." At that moment a knock came at the door, and VAIN FORTUNE. 71 Arthnr Hood, a little Jew, one of Hubert's stannchest admirers, entered. '' A hundred congratulations, my dear friend ! What did I tell yoii ? An immense success ! " " Do they like it downstairs ? — tell me." Then Hood told him what Stiggins had said: he was furious at what he termed the attitude of the house — it was deplorable ; and his hope lay in the third act — that no English audience would stand. " He'll ' slate' you up and down a couple of columns ; but we don't care for him. No one reads him now but cookmaids and the sentimental ballet-girls whom he invites to tea. Roberts is delighted ; he speaks of a new theatrical renaissance. Harvey — well, I don't know what he'll say ; he and his wife are not on speaking terms, and it is im2)0ssible to say what view he'll take. The Basset girls are enthusiastic, and want to come up and congratulate you ; they write for a lot of papers." "Yes, yes; but what do the veterans say ? Theirs are the papers that circulate. What does Harding say ? " iZ VAIN FORTUNE. " Oh, he has complicated theories of his own to work out. He and Roberts will back each other np, tear yon to pieces, and then stick yon together again." " Oh, here is Harding," said Hubert. " Snperb, my dear friend ! There will be an end of Stiggins if you succeed. He is asking if England has become cynical, and if the heart-rending sorrows of the family are to be made a subject of pitiless dissection." Then Harding was interrupted by the Basset girls, who, in their enthusiasm, looked as if they were going to kiss Hubert. They dropped their note-books and pencils about the box, spoiling the effect of the epigrams and ajihorisms of a massive and liilarious man ; and all the while Hubert's voice was heard, " Thank you, thank you ; it is very kind of yon. I hoi)e the third act will be all right." In the third act Hubert had attempted to paint Mr. Holmes' vain efforts to reform his life. But the constant presence of Captain Grey in the household, his attempts to win Mrs. Holmes from her husband, and the drunken husband's amours with the servant- VAIN FORTUNE. 73 maid disgusted rather than horrified. The act was not liked, and in the upper portions of the theatre there were some slight manifestations of displeasure ; but the vociferous cheering of the young men in the stalls and dress-circle prevailed, and the actors were called before the curtain, and an appearance of success was secured for the piece. Then Hubert and his friends felt that if the fourth act went well the victory would be with them. But in the fourth act the wretched husband admits that his reformation is impossible, and that, although he has no courage to commit suicide and set his wife free, he will return to his evil courses ; they will sooner or later make an end of him. The slowness and deadly gravity with which Ford took this scene rendered it intolerable ; and, notwithstanding the beautv of the conclusion, when the deserted wife, in the silence of her drawing- room, reads again Captain Grey's letter telling her that he has left England for ever and with another, the success of the play was left in doubt, and the audience filed out, talking, chattering, arguing, won- dering what the public verdict would be. 74 VAIN FORTUNE. To avoid commiseration of heartless friends and the triumphant glances of literary enemies, Hubert passed through the door leading on to the stage. Scene- shifters were brutally pushing away what remained of his play ; and the presence of Hamilton Brown, the dramatic author, talking to Ford was at that moment particularly disagreeable. On catching sight of Hubert, Brown ran to him, shook him by the hand, and mur- mured some discreet congratulations. He preferred the piece, however, as it had been originally written, and suggested to Ford the advisability of returning to the first text. Then Ford went upstairs to take his paint off, and Hubert walked about the stage with Brown. Brown's insincerity was sufficiently trans- parent ; but men in Hubert's position catch at straws, and he soon began to believe that the attitude of the public towards his play was not so unfavourable as he had imagined. Hubert tried to summon up a smile for the stage-door keeper, who, he feared, had heard that the piece had failed, and then the moment they got outside he begged Kose to tell him the exact truth. She assured him VAIN FORTUNE. 75 that Ford had said that he had always counted on a certain amount of opposition ; but that he believed that the general public, being more free of prejudice and less sophisticated, would be impressed by the simple humanity of the play. The conversation paused, and at the end of an irritating silence he said, " You were excellent, as good as any one could be in a part that did not suit them. Ah, if he had cast you for the adventuress, how you would have played it ! . . ." " I'm so glad you are pleased. I hope my notices will be good. Do you think they will ? " " Yes, your notices will be all right," he answered, with a sigh. " And vour notices will be all right too. No one can say what is going to succeed. There was a call after each of the last three acts. ... I don't see how a piece could go better. It is the suspense. . . ." " Ah, yes, the suspense ! " They lingered on the landing, and Hubert said, " Won't you come in for a moment ? " She followed him into the room. His calm face, usually a perfect picture of repose and self-possession, betrayed his 76 VAIN FORTUNE. emotion by a certain blankness in the eyes, certain contractions in the skin of the forehead. " I'm afraid," he said, '^ there's no hope." " Oh, yon mustn't say that ! " she replied. " I think it went very well indeed. ... I know I did nothing with the yonng girl. I oughtn't to have undertaken the part." . " You were excellent. If we only get some good notices. If we don't, I shall never get another play of mine acted." He looked at her imploringly, thirsting for a woman's sympathy. But the little o^irl was thinking of certain effects which she would liave made, and which the actress who had played the adventuress had failed to make. " I watched her all the time," she said, "following every line, saying all the time, ' Oh yes, that's all very nice and very proper, my young woman ; but it's not it ; no, not at all — not within a hundred miles of it.' I don't think she ever really touched the part — do you ? " Hubert did not answer, and a quiver of dis- traction ran through the muscles of her face. " Why don't you answer me ? " VAIN FORTUNE. 77 " I can't answer yon," he said abrnptly. Then rememhering, he added, " Forgive me ; I can think of nothing now." He hid his face in his hands, and sobbed twice — two heavy, choking sobs, pregnant with the weight of anguish lying on his heart. Seeing how mnch he suffered, she laid her hand on his shoulder. '' I am very sorry ; I wish I could help you. I know how it tears the heart when one cannot get out what one has in one's brain." Her artistic appreciation of his suffering only jarred him the more. What he longed for was some kind, simple-hearted woman who would say, " Never mind, dear ; the play was perfectly right, only they did not understand it ; 1 love you better than ever." But Rose could not give him the sympathy he wanted ; and to be alone was almost a relief. He dared not go to bed ; he sat looking into space. The roar of London hushed till it was no more than a faint murmur, the hissing of the gas grew louder, and still Hubert sat thinking, the same thoughts battling in his brain. He looked into the future, but could see nothing but suicide. His uncle ? He had applied to him 78 VAIN FORTUNE. before for help ; there was no hope there. Then he tramped up and down, maddened by the infernal hiss- ing of the gas ; and then threw himself into his arm-chair. And so a terrible night wore away ; and it was not until long after the early carts had begun to rattle in the streets that exhaustion brought an end to his sufi'erings, and he rolled into bed. CHAPTER VI. " TTTHAT will ye 'ave to eat ? Eggs and bacon ? " " No, no ! " " Well, then, 'ave a chop ? " " No, no : " " Ye must 'ave something." " A cup of tea, a slice of toast. I'm not hungry." " Well, ye are worse than a young lady for a happetite. Miss Massey 'as sent you down these 'ere papers." The servant-girl laid the papers on the bed, and Hubert lay back on his pillow, so that he might collect his thoughts. Stretching forth his hands, he selected the inevitable paper. " For those who do not believe that our English home life is composed mainly, if not entirely, of lying, drunkenness, and conjugal infidelity, and its sequel, divorce, yester evening at the Queen's Theatre must 79 80 VAIN FORTUNE. have been a sad and dismal experience. That men and women who have vowed to love each other do sometimes i)rove false to their troth no reasonable man will deny. With the divorce court before oar eyes, even the most enthusiastic believer in the natural goodness and ultimate perfectibility of human nature must admit that men and women are frail. But drunkenness and infidelity are happily not charac- teristic of our English homes. Then why, we ask, should a dramatist select such a theme, and by every artifice of dialogue force into prominence all that is mean and painful in an unfortunate woman's life ? Always the same relentless method ; the cold, pas- sionless curiosity of the vivisector ; the scalpel is placed under the nerve, and we are called upon to watch the quivering flesh. Never the kind word, the tears, the effusion, which is man's highest pre- rogative, and which separates him from the brute and signifies the immortal end for which he was created. , We hold that it is a pity to see so much talent wasted, and it was indeed a melancholy sight to see so many capable actors and actresses labouring to " VAIN FORTUNE. 81 " This is even worse than usual," said Hubert ; and glancing through half a column of hysterical common- place, he came upon the following : — " But if this woman had succeeded in reclaiming from vice the man who unjustly divorced her, and who in his misery goes back to ask her forgiveness for pity's sake, what a lesson we should have had ! And; with lightened and not with heavier hearts, we should have left the theatre comforted, better and happier men and women. But turning his back on the goodness, truth, and love whither he had induced us to believe he was leading us, the author flagrantly makes the woman contradict her whole nature in the last act ; and, because her husband falls again, she, instead of raising him with all the tender mercies and humanities of wifehood, declares that her life has been one long mistake, and that she accepts the divorce which the Court had unjustly granted. The moral, if such a word may be applied to such a piece is this : ' The law may be bad, but human nature is worse.' " The other morning papers took the same view, — a 6 82 VAIN FORTUNE. great deal of talent wasted ou a subject that could l^lease uo one. Hubert threw the papers aside, lay back, and in the lucid idleness of the bed his thoughts grew darker. It was hardly possible that the piece could survive such notices ; and if it did not ? Well, he would have to go. But until the piece was taken out of the bills it would be a weakness to harbour the ugly thought. There were, however, the evening papers to look forward to, and soon after midday Annie was sent to buy all that had appeared. Hubert expected to find in these papers a more delicate appreciation of his work. Many of the critics of the evening press were his personal friends, and nearly all were young men in full sympathy with the new school of dramatic thought. He read paper after paper with avidity ; and Annie was sent in a cab to buy one that had not yet found its way so far north as Fitzroy Street. The opinion of this paper was of all im2)ortance, and Hubert tore it open with trembling fingers. Although more temperately written than the others, it was clearly favourable, and Hubert sighed a sweet sigh VAIN FORTUNE. 83 of relief. A weight was lifted from Lim ; the world suddenly seemed to grow brighter ; and he went to the theatre that evening, and, half doubting and half con- fidently, presented himself at the door of Montague Ford's dressing-room. The actor had not yet begun to dress, and was busy writing letters. He stretched his hand hurriedly to Hubert. " Excuse me, my dear fellow ; I have a couple of letters to finish." Hubert sat down, glancing nervously from the actor to the morning papers with which the table was strewn. There was not an evening paper there. Had he not seen them ? At the end of about ten minutes the actor said, — " Well, this is a bad business ; they are terribly down on us — aren't they ? What do you think ? " " Have you seen the evening papers — The Telephone, for instance ? " " Oh yes, I've seen them all ; but the evening papers don't amount to much. Stiggins's article was terrible. I am afraid he has killed the piece." " Don't you think it will run, then ? " 84 VAIN FOP.TUNE. " Well, that depends npon the public, of course. If they like it, I'll keep it on." " How's the booking ? " " Not good." Montague Ford moved his papers absent-mindedl3^ At the end of a long silence he said, " Even if the piece did catch on, it would take a lot of working up to undo the mischief of those articles. Of course you can rely on me to give it every chance. I sha'n't take it out of the bills if I can possibly help. " VAIN FORTUNE. 85 " There is my Gipsy ^ " I have another piece ready to put into rehearsal ; it was arranged for six months ago. I only consented to produce your play because — well, because there has been such an outcry lately about art. . . . Tremendous part for me in the new piece . . . I'm sure you'll like it." The business did improve, but so very slowly that Hubert was afraid Ford would lose patience and take the play out of the bills. But while the fate of the play hung in the balance, Hubert's life was being rendered unbearable by duns. They had found him out, one and all ; to escape being served was an im- possibility; and now his table was covered with sum- monses to appear at the County Court. This would not matter if the piece once took the public taste. Then he would be able to pay every one and have some time to rest and think. And there seemed every prospect of its catching on. Discussions regarding the morality of the play had arisen in the newspapers, and the eternal question whether men and women are happier married or unmarried had reached its height. Hubert 86 VAIN FORTUNE. spent the afternoon addressing letters to tlie papers, striving to fan the flame of controversj'. Every even- ing he listened for Rose's footstep on the stairs. — How did the piece go ? — Was there a better house ? Money or paper ? — Have yon seen the notice in the ? — ■ First-rate, wasn't it ? — That ought to do some good. — I've heard there was a notice in the , hut I haven't seen it. Have you ? — No ; but So-and-so saw the paper, and said there was nothing in it. And, do you know, I hear there's going to be a notice in The Modern Revieiv, and that So-and-so is writing it. Every post brought newspapers ; the room was filled with newspapers — all kinds of newspapers — papers one has never heard of, — French papers, Welsh papers, North of England pai)ers, Scotch and Irish papers. Hubert read columns about himself, anecdotes of all kinds, — where he was born, who were his parents, and what first induced him to attempt writing for the stage ; his personal appearance, mode of life, the cut of his clothes ; his religious, moral, and political views. Had he been the plaintitf in an VAIN FORTUNE. 87 action for criminal libel, greater industry in the col- lection and the fabrication of personal details conld hardly have been displayed. Bnt one evening his attention was caught by an article written, even in the opening lines, with more clearness and more concise- ness than the others. The opening lines were a plain statement of how Hubert had come to be a marked man in the theatrical world. It told how brutally and how bitterly Divorce had been received when it was first produced, how not three men in London had dared speak a word in its favour ; '' whereas now," said the critic, " if we except an aged scribbler or two, there is not a journalist in Fleet Street who, with or without provocation, is not prepared to declare, in one or two columns stnifed full of allusions to the new dramatic formula, that Mr. Hubert Price is the man the world is waiting for — the mau who will achieve the dramatic revolution. " But the Ethiopian had not changed his skin, nor the leopard his spots," said this critic, " and the explanation of all this noisy kindness and bustling generosity lies in the discovery that, beyond creating a 88 VAIN FOKTUNE. little useful agitation in dramatic circles, which will enable certain dramatic opportunists to get rid of their wares, Mr. Hubert Price has achieved nothing ; it therefore suits every one to praise him, just as it suits every one to praise the dead." The humanity of this hypocrisy deliglited this critic ; and, having made sufficiently merry over it, he turned to what Hubert had already written, and pointed out the signs of incipient sterility even in Divorce. In An Ebbing Tide there was hardly a good scene — a few ideas that the author had not been able to develop, a few striking phrases. The critic then ran over cases of artistic sterility, noting the first appear- ance of the disease, and its subsequent developments. Men of partial genius were said to be peculiarly liable to it, and the tendency of education to foster the growth was interestingly touched upon. The paper dropped from his hands, and he re- collected all his failures. " Once 1 could do good work ; now 1 can do neither good work nor bad. Were I a rich man, I should collect my scattered papers and write songs to be VAIN FOKTUNE. 89 sung in drawing-rooms ; but being a poor one, I must — I suppose I must get out. Positively, there is no hope, — debts on every side. Fate has willed me to go as went Haydon, Gerard de Nerval, and Marechal. The first cut his throat, the second hanged himself, and the third blew out his brains. Clearly the time has come to consider how I shall make my exit. It is a little startling to be called upon so peremptorily to go." In this moment of extreme dejection it seemed to Hubert that the writer of the article had told him the exact truth. He refused to admit the plea of poverty. It was of course hard to write when one is being harassed by creditors. But if he had had it in him, it would have come out. The critic had very probably told him the truth. He could not hope to make a living out of literature. He had not the strength to write the masterpiece which the perverse cruelty of nature had permitted him only to see, and he was hopelessly unfit for journalism. But in his simple, wholesome mind there was no bent towards suicide ; and he scanned every horizon. Once 90 VAIN FORTUNE. again lie thought of his uncle. Five years ago he had written, asking him for the loan of a hundred poimds. He had received ten. And how vain it would be to write a second time ! A few pounds would onlj^ serve to prolong his misery. No ; he would not drift from degradation to degradation. He only glanced at the letter which Annie had brought up with the copy of The Modern Review. It was clearly a lawyer's letter. Should he open it ? Why not spare himself the pain ? He could alter nothing ; and in these {'bs^ days Leaving the thought unfinished, he sought for his keys; he went to his box, unlocked it, and took out a small paper package. Of the fifty pounds he had received from Ford about twenty remained : he had been poorer before, but hardly quite so hopeless. He scanned every horizon — all were barred. The thought of suicide, and with it the instinctive shrinking from it, came into his mind again. Suppose he took, that very night, an overdose of chloral ? He tried to put the thought from him, and returned, a little dazed and helpless, to his chair. Had the critic in The Modern Review told him VAIN FORTUNE. 91 the truth ? Was he incapable of earning a living ? It seemed so. Above all, was he incapable of finishing The Gipsy as he intended ? No ; that he felt was a lie. Give him six months' quiet, free from worry and all anxiety, and he would do it. Many a year had passed since he had enjoyed a month of quiet ; and glancing again at the letter on the table, he thought that perhaps at that very moment a score of gallery boys were hissing his play. Perhaps at that very moment Ford was making up his mind to announce the last six nights of Divorce. At a quarter to twelve he heard Rose's foot on the stairs. He opened the door. " How did the piece go to-night ? " " Pretty well." " Only pretty well ? Won't you come in for a few minutes ? ... So the piece didn't go very well to-night ? " " Oh yes, it did. I've seen it go better ; but " " Did you get a call ? " " Yes, after the second act." " Not after the third ? " 92 VAIN FORTUNE. " No. That act never goes -well. Harding came behind ; I was speaking to him, and he said some- thing which struck me as heing very trnc. Ford, he said, plaj^s the j)art a great deal too seriously. When the piece was first produced, it was played more good-hnmouredly by indifferent actors, who let the thing run without trying to bring out every point. Ford makes it as hard as nails. I think those were his exact words." Hubert did not answer. At the end of a long silence he said, — " Did you hear anything about the last nights ? " " No," she said ; " I heard nothing of that." " Ford appeared quite satisfied, then ? " " Yes, quite," she answered, with difficulty ; for his eyes were fixed on her, and she felt he knew she was not telling the truth. The conversation paused again, and to turn it into another channel she said, " Why, you have not opened your letter ! " " I can see it is a lawyer's letter, on account of some unpaid bill. If 1 could jiay it I would ; but as I can't " AIN FORTUNE. 93 "You are afraid to open it," said Rose. Ashamed of his weakness, Hubert opened the letter, and began to read. Rose saw that the letter was not such an one as he Lad expected, and a moment after his face told her that fortunate news had come to him. The signs of the tumult within were repre- sented by the passing of the hand across the brow, as if to brush aside some strange hallucination, and the sudden coming of a vague look of surprise and fear into the eyes. He said, — " Read it ! Read it ! " Relieved of much detail and much cumbersome legal circumlocution, it was to the following effect : — That about three months ago Mr. Burnett had come up from his place in Sussex, and at the offices of Messrs. Grandly & Co. had made a will, in which he had disinherited his adopted daughter, Miss Emily Watson, and left everything to Mr. Hubert Price. There was no question as to the validity of the will ; but Messrs. Grandly deemed it their duty to inform Mr. Hubert Price of the circumstances under which it had been made, and also of the fact that a few 94 YAIN FORTUNE. weeks before his deatli Mr. Burnett had told Mr. John Grandly, who was then staving with Mr, Burnett at Ashwood, that he intended adding a codicil, leaving some two or three hundred a year to Miss Watson. It was unfortunate that Mr, Burnett had not had time to do this ; for Miss Watson was an orphan, eighteen years of age, and entirely unprovided for. Messrs. Grandly begged to submit these facts to the con- sideration of Mr. Hubert Price. Miss Watson was now residing at Ashwood. She was there with a friend of hers, Mrs. Beutley ; and should Mr. Hubert Price feel inclined to do what Mr. Burnett had left undone, Messrs. Grandly would have very great pleasure in carrying his wishes into effect. " I'm not dreaming, am I ? " " No, you are not. It is quite true. Your uncle has left his money to you. I am so glad ; indeed, I am. You will be able to finish your play, and take a theatre and produce it yourself if you like. I hope you won't forget me. I do want to play that part. You can't quite know what I shall do with it. One VAIN FOKTUNE, 95 can't explain oneself in a scene here and there. . . . What are yon thinking of ? " "I'm thinking of that poor girl Emily Watson. It comes very hard upon her." " Who is she ? " " The girl my uncle disinherited." " Oh, she ! Well, you can marry her if you like. That would not be a bad notion. But if you do you'll forget all about me and Lady Hayward." " No ; I shall never forget you, Rose." He stretched his hand to her ; but. irrespective of his will, the gesture seemed full of farewell. " I'm so much obliged to you," he said ; " had it not been for you I might never have opened that letter." " Even if you hadn't it wouldn't have mattered ; you would have heard of your good-fortune some other way. But it is getting very late. I must say good- night. I hope you will have a pleasant time in the country, and will finish your play. Good-night." Returning from the door, he stopped to think. " We have been very good friends — that is all. How ^6 VAIN FOETUNE. strangely determined she is ! . . . More so than I am. She is bound to sncceed. There is in her just that note of individual passion. . . . Perhaps some one will find her out before I have finished, — that would be a pity. I wonder which of us will succeed first ? " Then the madness of good-fortune came upon liim suddenly ; he could think no more of Rose, and had to go for a long walk in the streets. CHAPTER VII. "TT was pleasing to listen to the detailed story of his wonderful fortune. There were so many- thousands in funds, and so much more in other securities ; altogether, five-and-thirty thousand pounds, excellently well invested. And then there was the estate in Sussex; and the senior member of the firm of Grandly & Co. was able to show Hubert a photograph of the house, and to tell him of the many advantages of this snug little estate. Ashwood was a couple of miles from a railway station, and Mr. Grandly told Hubert of the woods and the gardens. It sounded like a pleasant dream, from which he could not shake himself, and the moment seemed always imminent when the solicitor and his office would vanish, and he would find himself in his arm-chair, Mrs. Wilson standing over him with her terrible "book" in her hand. 97 7 98 VAIN FOETUNE. Miss Emily Watson was only a connection, a second or third cousin — he was not certain which. The Watsons had always lived in Cornwall, and as they rarely came to London he had never happened to meet her. Only his mother used to speak of them. Emily would look upon him as a robber; no reparation, except perhaps marriage, would be thought complete by her, and, even if he liked her sufficiently, he must woo and win her. But under the circumstances of this disinheritance it seemed difficult even to offer to see her. He wondered if she expected him to make a settlement, and if she would deem three hundred a year sufficient. The conversation paused. Then speaking suddenly, Mr. Grandly said, — " If you have any communication to make to Miss Watson, I shall be pleased to take charge of it." " I shall be glad if you will. ... It is a very delicate matter, but I have every confidence in your tact and judgment." Mr. Grandly bowed. VAIN FORTUNE. 09 " I quite understand my cousin must feel this disinheritance very deeply." " I have reason to believe that she does ; she had been brought up to consider Mr. Burnett as her father. Of course 1 was aware that Mr. Burnett made no provision for her in his will. ... I may say that the matter was discussed between us ; but Mr. Burnett was— legal etiquette does not allow me to divulge his motives for his sudden change of intention in regard to Miss Watson, but I may again bring it under your notice that he was considering the necessity of adding a codicil. . . . Indeed, I have some letters in which reference is made — if you would like to see them." Mr. Grandly opened a drawer, and, taking out a bundle of letters, he sought for one. Finding it, he read a few lines, and passed it across the table to Hubert. Then Hubert proposed that Mr. Grandly should write to Miss Watson, asking her to come up to London to meet her cousin at his office. Mr. Grandly agreed to do this ; but after some further conversation, in which the excellence of Hubert's feelings was evident, iOO VAIN FOETUNE. Mr. Grandly was moved to advise Hubert to jump into the train and go down and see the young lady himself. Such an adventurous grappling with circumstances Mr. Grandly thought would find more favour with Emily, and be more likely to remove any resentment she might feel, than an official summons to a meeting by appointment in a solicitor's office. " It is a delicate matter, sir ; but if you run down as I advise, and, claiming relationship, tell the young lady that you intend to settle three hundred a year upon her, I venture to say you will please her more than if you invited her up here and settled six hundred a year." Mr. Grandly threw himself back in his chair, and a twinkle ran round the corner of his eves. "And if you should ever feel inclined to call in the three hundred you so generously propose to settle on the young lady, you will find that " Mr. Grandly finished his sentence with a laugh. Hubert did not doubt that Mr. Grandly was right; but he was a shy, reserved man, and felt he could not go down to Ashwood and introduce himself to those two ladies. Mr. Grandly tried to persuade him, and TllKY DINED AT THE CAFE KOYAL. [Page lOl. VAIN FORTUNE. 101 finally the matter was compromised. Mr. Grandh- promised to write to Miss Watson, telling her of her cousin's desire to see her, and asking her to send a trap to meet him at the station on Monday. If Hubert took the half-past four train from Victoria, he would arrive at South Water at six. On Saturday night Hubert went to see the last performance of Divorce. On Sunday he took Rose out to dinner. They dined at the Caf6 Royal; the dinner was copious and expensive, the wine was the rarest; but they both felt that their dinners in little side-streets had given them more pleasure. Hubert tried to talk to her about Hamilton Brown's new drama, which they had just heard would follow Divorce-, but he was unable to detach his thoughts from Ash- wood and the ladies he was going to visit to-morrow evening. They felt like two school-fellows, one of whom is leaving school ; the link that had bound them had snapped ; henceforth their ways lay separate ; and they were sad at parting just as school-friends are sad. To both of tliem their friendship seemed strangely incomplete ; there was a restlessness in their souls ; 102 VAIN FORTUNE. and yet both knew that they were not in love. Both felt, however, that things should have turned out differently. The girl thought he should have finished the play ; he thought so too, although for the moment all remembrance of the stage was distasteful to him. "You are not rich," he said ; "you offered to lend me money once. I want to lend you some now." " Oh yes," she said, with a sudden laugh ; " five shillings, wasn't it ? " " It doesn't matter what the sum was, — we were both very poor then " " And I'm still poorer now." " All the more reason why you should allow me to help you. . . . Allow me to write you a cheque for a hundred pounds. I assure you I can afford it." " I think I had better not. ... I have some things I can sell." " But you must not sell your things. Indeed, you must allow me " " I think I'd rather not. I shall l)e all right — that is to say, if Ford engages me for Brown's new piece; and I think he will." VAIN FOKTUNE. 103 " But if he doesn't ? " " Then," she said, with a sweet and natural smile, "I'll write to yon. . . . We have been excellent friends — comrades — have we not ? " " Yes, we have indeed, and I shall never forget. There is my address ; that will always find me." Next day he bade good-bye to the whole house, — to Mrs. Wilson, to Annie, and once more to Rose. He caught up his rug, and a moment after he was driving toward Victoria. Before he reached the rail- way station the last realities of the lodging-house, the good-byes bidden on the doorstep, began to fade, and he again lost himself in the glamour and hallucination of the new life which chance had so unexpectedly thrust upon him. Like one in fairyland, he was pre- pared for everything. Anything might happen. He had ceased to calculate, had surrendered himself uj) to nature ; and puzzled by the irregularity of her metre, he listened to the rattle of the train, and took a vague joy in watching the white steam going out and dispersing over the rich country just beginning to ripen into summer. This house, this 104 VAIN FORTUNE. property, these ladies 1 He wondered what they would say, what he should say ; and in extreme nervousness regretted not having given the solicitor fuller instructions. When he got out of the train, a smart footman touched his hat, and a fast-trotting animal took him rapidly through a small red town into a fine open country, the outlines of which were beginning to grow dim in the setting light. The sky was rose; and had a river flowed through the undulating meadows where the cattle were grazing, they would have been as Corot would have painted them. Fugitive pride rose in him that part of this beautiful country was his ; but the sensation was constantly engulfed in nervous apprehension of the approaching interview with his cousin. He wondered if the fringe of trees which stretched downwards from the right belonged to him, and soon after the dog-cart stopped before a white gate. The park was clothed in its* finest greenery ; the trees were in fullest leaf. The orna- mental water was crossed by a handsome bridge, and through the shadows of the darkening island two VAIN FORTUNE. 105 swans floated softly, leaving behind them alight silver lines ; above, the swallows flew high in the evening. Peace and profound silence, forgetfiilness of the past; and Hubert thought that this corner of the park represented, in some vague way, his memory of the life he had endured and that had fallen from him. The house was pale brown and of irregular structure. Numerous windows opened on a sward set forth with vases, and the bulging conservatory was green with plants. He noticed portraits and yellowing statues in the hall, and wolfskins on the parqueted floor in the drawing-room. There were dim decorations on the walls — vine leaves and distant mountains. There was a grand piano, and a tall woman came from the instrument, her pale hair sparkling in the light. She wore a yellow summer dress, and on her arm there was a gold bracelet. At the same moment, out of an arm-chair covered with grey drugget, there rose a small slender girl of about eighteen. Her abundant chestnut hair — exquisite, soft, and silky — was looped picturesquely, and fastened with a thin tortoiseshell 106 VAIN FORTUNE. comb. The tiny month trembled, and the large, pro- minent eyes reflected a strange, yearning soul. She was dressed in black, and the fantastically small waist was con- fined with a black band. " I am Miss Watson," she said in a low mnsical voice, "and this is my friend, Mrs. Bentley." Hubert bowed, and sought for words. He found none, and the irritating silence was broken again by Miss Watson. " Won't you sit down ? " she said. "Thank you." He pulled oif his gloves. The pained, troubled look which he had met in Miss Watson's face seemed a reproach, and he regretted not having followed his own idea, and invited the VAIN FORTUNE. 107 yonng lady to meet him at Mr. Grandly's office. He glanced nervously from one lady to the other. " I hope you have had a pleasant journey, Mr. Price," said Mrs. Bentley. " The country is looking very beautiful just at present. Do you know this part of the country ? " Mrs. Bentley's words were very welcome, and Hubert replied eagerly, — " No, I do not know the country at all well. I have been very little out of London for some years, but I hope now to see more of the country. This is a beautiful place." At that moment he met Mrs. Bentley's eyes, and, feeling that he was touching on delicate ground, he stopped speaking. When he turned his head, he met Miss Watson's great sad eyes, which seemed to absorb the entire face, fixed upon him. They expressed such depth of pathetic appeal that he trembled with appre- hension, and the instinct in him was to beg for pardon. But it became suddenly necessary to say something, and, speaking at random, his head full of whirling words, he said, — "Of course nothing could be more sad than my 108 VAIN FORTUNE. poor uncle's death, — so unexpected. . . . Having lived so long together, yon must have " Then it was Hnbert's tnrn to look appealingly at Miss Watson ; but her great eyes seemed to say, " Go on, go on ; heap cruelty on cruelty ! " Then he plunged des- perately, hoping to retrieve his mistakes. " He died about a month ago. Mr. Grandly told me 1 should still find you liere, so I thought " The intensity of his emotion perhaps caused Hubert to accentuate his words, so that they conveyed a mean- ing different from that which he intended. C'ertainly his hesitations were capable of misinterpretation, and Miss Watson said, her voice trembling, — " Of course we know we have no right here, we are intruding ; but we are making preparations. ... I daresay that to-morrow we shall be able to " "Oh, I beg pardon, Miss Watson; let me assure you ... 1 am sorry if " Taking a little handkerchief out of her black dress, Emily covered her face in her thin, tiny hands. She sobbed aloud, and ran out of the room, Hubert turned to Mrs. Bentley, his face full of consternation. VAIN FORTUNE. 109 " I am very sorry, but she did not give me time to speak. Will yon go and fetch her, Mrs. Bentley ? I want to tell her I hope she will never leave Ash- wood. ... I believe she thinks that I came down here to ask her to leave as soon as possible. It is really quite awful that she should think such a thing." " She is an exceedingly sensitive girl, and is now a little overwrought. The events of the last month have proved too much for her." " Mr. Grandly informed me that it was Mr. Bur- nett's intention to add a codicil to his will, leaving Miss Watson three hundred a year. This money 1 am prepared to give her, and I'm quite sure she is welcome to stay here as long as she pleases. Indeed, she will do me a great favour by remaining. Please go and tell her. I cannot bear to see a girl cry ; to hear her sob like that is quite terrible." " You will be able to tell her yourself during the course of the evening. I think it will come better from you." " After what has happened, it will be very difficult 110 VAIN FORTUNE. for me to meet her until she is informed that she is mistaken. I charged Mr. G-randly to explain every- thing in his letter. Apparently he omitted to do so." " He only said you wanted to see Emily on a matter of business. Of course we did not expect such generosity." They were standing quite close together, and sud- denly Hubert became conscious of Mrs. Bentley's beauty. Her blue eyes were at that moment full of tender admiration for the instinctive generosity which Hubert so unwittingly exhibited, and her eyes told what was passing in her soul. Suddenly they both seemed to understand each other better, and, playing with the bracelet on her arm, she said, — " You do not know Emily ; she is strangely sensitive. But I will go and try to persuade her to return. . . . Although only distantly related, you are cousins, after all — are you not ? " "Yes, we are cousins, but the relationship is remote. Tell her everything ; beg of her to come downstairs." Hubert imagined Emily's little black figure thrown upon her bed, sobbing convulsively. He was very VAIN FORTUNE. Ill much agitated, and looked abont the room, at first hardly seeing it. At last its novelty drew his thoughts from his cousin's tears, and he wondered what was the history of the house. " The old man," he thought, "bought it all, furniture and ancestors, from some ruined landowner, and attempted very few alterations — that's clear." Then he reproached himself. " How could I have been so stupid ? I did not know what I was saying. I was so horribly nervous. Those strange eyes of hers quite upset me. I do hope Mrs. Bentley will tell her that I wish to act generously, that I am prepared to do everything in my power to make her happy. Poor little thing ! She looks as if she had never been happy." Again the room drew Hubert's thoughts away from his cousin. It was still lit with the faint perfumed glow of the sunset. The paint of the old decorations was cracked and faded. A man in a plum-coloured coat with gold facings fixed his eyes upon him, and the tall lady in blue satin had no doubt played there in short clothes. He walked up and down, he turned over the music on the piano, and, hearing a step, looked round. It 112 VAIN FOETUNE. was only the servant coming to tell him that his room was ready. He dressed for dinner, hoping to find the two ladies in the drawing-room, and it was a disappointment to find only Mrs. Bentley there. " I have told Emily everything yon said. She is very grateful, and begs of me to thank you for your kind intentions. But I am afraid you must excuse her absence from dinner. I really don't think she is in a fit state to come down ; she couldn't possibly take part in the conversation." " But why ? I hope she isn't ill. Had we better send for the doctor ? " " Oh no ; she'll be all right in the morning. She has been crying. She sufiers from depression of spirits. She is, I assure you, all right," said Mrs. Bentley, replying to Hubert's alarmed and questioning face. " I assure you there is no need for you to reproach yourself. Dinner is ready." She took his arm, and they went into the dining-room. No further mention was made of Mr. Burnett, of money matters, or of the young lady upstairs ; and VAIN FORTUNE. 113 with considerable tact Mrs. Bentley introdnced the Bubject of literature, alluding gracefully to Hubert's position as a dramatist. " Your play, Divorce., is now running at the Queen's Theatre ? " " No ; I'm sorry to say it was taken out of the bills last Saturday. Saturday night was the last performance." " That was not a long run. And the papers spoke so favourably of it." " It is a play that only appeals to the few." And, encouraged by Mrs. Bentley's manner, Hubert told her how happy endings and comic love scenes were essential to secure a popular success. " I am afraid you will think me very stupid, but I do not quite understand." In a quiet, unobtrusive way Hubert was a graceful talker, and he knew how to adapt his theme, and bring it within the circle of the sympathies of his listeners. There was some similarity of temperament between himself and Mrs. Bentley ; they were both quiet, fair, meditative Saxons. She lent her whole 8 114 VAIN FORTUNE. mind to the conversation, interested in the account that the young man gave of his dramatic aspirations. From the dining-room window looking over the park the long road wound through the vaporous country. The town stood in the middle distance, its colour blotted out, and its smoke hardly distinguish- able. In the room a yellow dress turned grey, and the gold of a bracelet grew darker, and the pink of delicate finger nails was no longer visible. But the pensive dusk of the dining-room, which blackened the claret in the decanters, leaving only the faintest ruby glow in the glass which Hubert raised to his lips, suited the tenor of the conversation, which had wan- dered from the dramatic to the social side of the question. What did he think of divorce ? She sighed, and he wondered what her story might be. They passed out of the dining-room, and stood on the gravel, watching the night gathering in the open country. In the light of the moon, which had just risen above the woods, the white road grew whiter, the town was faintly seen in the tide of blue vapour, which here and there allowed a field to ai)pear. In VAIN FOETUNE. 115 the foreground a great silver fir, spiky and solitary, rose np in the blue night. Beyond it was seen a corner of the ornamental bridge. The island and its shadow were one black mass rising from the park up to the level of the moon, which, a little to the right, between the town and the island, lay reflected in a narrow strip of water. Farther away some reeds were visible in the illusive light, and the meditative chatter of dozing ducks stirred the silence which wrapped the country like a cloak. Hubert and Mrs. Bentley stood looking at the landscape. The fragrance of his cigar, the presence of the woman, the tenderness of the hour, combined to make him strangely happy ; his past life seemed to him like a harsh, cruel pain that had suddenly ceased. More than he had ever desired seemed to be fulfilled; the reality exceeded the dream. What greater happi- ness than to live here, and with this woman ! His thoughts paused, for he had forgotten the girl upstairs. She was not happy ; but he would make her happy — of that he was quite certain. At that moment Mrs. Bentley said, — 116 VAIN FORTUNE. " I hope yon like your home. Is not the prospect a lovely one ? " "Yes ; bnt I was thinking at that moment of Emily. I suppose I must accustom myself to call her by her Christian name. She is my cousin, and we are going to live together. But, by the way, she cannot stay here alone. I hope — may I trust that you will remain with her ? " Mrs. Bentley turned her face towards him ; he noticed the look of pleasure that had passed into it. " Thank you ; it is very good of you. I shall be glad to remain with Emily as long as she cares for my society. It is needless to say I shall do my best to deserve your approval." Her voice fell, and he heard her sigh, and in his happiness it seemed to him to be a pity that he should find unhappiness in others. They went into the drawing-room. Mrs. Bentley asked him if he liked music, and she went to the piano and sang some Scotch songs very sweetly. Then she took a book from the table and bade him VAIN FOKTUNE. 117 good-night. She was sure that he would excuse her. She must go and see after Emily. When the door closed, the woman who had just left him seemed like some one he had seen in a dream ; and still more shadowy and illusive did the girl seem — that pale and plaintive beauty, looking like a pastel, who had so troubled him with her enigmatic eyes ! And the lodging-house that he had left only a few hours ago I and Miss Massey ! What did it all mean ? Had there ever been such a romance ? And yet the facts were simple enough. When all hojie seemed dead, when he stood on the brink of suicide, his uncle, who had adopted a distant member of the family, — one of the Watsons, — had suddenly taken it into his head to leave his money to the nearest of kin. The most commonplace story in the world when looked at from one side, and yet how romantic when looked at from another ! The point of view is everything. He had written a play — a play that the most competent critics had considered a work of genius ; in any case, a play that had interested his generation more than any other. It had failed, and failed twice; 118 VAIN FORTUNE. but did that prove anything ? Fortune had deserted him, and he had been unable to finish The Gipsy. Was it the fanlt of circnmstances that he had not been able to finish that play ? or was it that the slight vein of genius that had been in him once had been ex- hausted ? He remembered the article in The Modern Review, and was frightened to think that the critic might have divined the truth. Once it had seemed impossible to finish that play ; but fortune had come to his aid, accident had made him master of Ids destiny ; he could spend three years, five years if he liked, on The Gipsy. But why think of the play at all ? What did it matter even if he never wrote it ? There were many things to do in life besides writing plays. There was life ! His life was henceforth his own, and he could live it as he pleased. What should he do with it ? To whom should he give it ? Should he keep it all for himself and his art? It were useless to make plans. All he knew for certain was tliat henceforth he was master of his own life, and could dispense it as he pleased. And then, in sensuous curiosity, his thoughts turned VAIN FOKTUNE. 119 on the pleasure of life in this beautiful house, in the society of two charming women. " Perhaps I shall marry one of them. Which do I like the better? I haven't the least idea." And then, as his thoughts detached themselves, he remembered Emily's tears. CHAPTER VIII. "^TEXT morning Hubert lay late in bed, tempted by tlie fineness of the sheets and the bright air and colour of the room. About half-past ten he found his way into the dining-room, and, remembering Fitzroy Street, he smiled when the biiiler proposed devilled chicken, kidneys, omelette, cutlets sausages. On the sideboard there were a pale, enticing ham and a rich brown tongue. Mrs. Bentley poured out a cup of coffee for him, and boiled two eggs by lighting a spirit lamp beneath a pretty silver spirit apparatus that stood on the dining-room table. He asked after Emily, and was told she had quite recovered, and was now in the flower-garden. Seeing he had all he wanted, she begged him to excuse her. Then his thoughts went to Emily, whom he imagined among the swards and flower-beds, looking after the gardener. He knew he would have to go to her when he had VAIN FORTUNE, 121 finislied breakfast, and wished the meeting was over. He dreaded her reproachful eyes. It was a day of English summer, and the meadows and trees drowsed in the moist atmosphere ; a few white clouds hung lazily in the blue sky ; the garden was bright with geraniums and early roses, and the closely cropped privets were in full leaf. Hubert's senses were taken with the beauty of the morning, and there came the thought, so delicious, " All this is mine." He noticed the glitter of the greenhouses, and thought the cawing of some young rooks a sweet sound ; a great tortoiseshell cat lay basking in the middle of the greensward, whisking its furry tail. Hubert stroked the animal ; it arched its back, and rubbed itself against his legs. At that moment a half-bred fox-terrier barked noisily at him ; he heard some one calling the dog, and saw a slight black figure hastening down one of the side-walks. Despite the dog's attempts on his legs, he ran forward. " Emily ! Emily ! " he called. She stopped, turned, and stood looking at him. " My dear cousin," he said. " I'm sorry about last 122 VAIN FORTUNE. night. I hope that Mrs. Beutley has told you. I begged of her to do so." " Yes, she told me of your kind intentions. I have to thank you." They walked on in silence, neither knowing what to say. " Go away, Dandy ! " said Emily, thrusting her black silk parasol at the dog, who had begun an attack on Hubert's trousers. The dog retreated ; Hubert laughed. " I'm afraid he doesn't like me." " He'll soon get to know you. Are you fond of animals ? " " I don't know that I am particularly." " Oh ! " she said, looking at him reproachfully, " how can you ? " Her eyes seemed to say, " I never can like you after that." " I adore animals," she said. " My dear dog — there is nothing in the world I love as I love my Dandy ; come here, dear." The dog came, wagging his tail, putting back his ears, knowing he was going to be caressed. Emily stooped down, took his rough head in her hands, and kissed him. " Is he not a dear ? " she said, looking up ; and then she VAIN FORTUNE. 123 said, " I hope yoa won't object to having him in the house " ; and her face clouded. " Oh, my dear Emily, how can you ask such a question ? I shall never object to anything you desire." The conversation paused, and they walked some paces in silence. Emily had just begun to speak of her flowers, when they came upon the gardener, who was standing in consternation over the fragments of a broken mowing-machine. Jack — that was the donkey — had been left to himself just for a moment. It was impossible to say what wild freak had taken him ; but instead of waiting, as he was expected to wait, stolidly, he had started off on a wild career, regardless of the safety of the machine. At the first bound it had come in contact with a flower-vase, which had been sent in many pieces over the sward ; at the second it had met with some stone coping ; and at the third it had turned over in complete dissolution, and Jack was free to tear up the turf with his hoofs, until finally his erratic course was stopped by the small boy who was responsible for the animal's behaviour. The arrival of Hubert and Emily saved the small boy from many a 124 YAIN FORTUNE. cuff and the donkey from a kick or two ; and Jack stood amid the ruin he had created, as quiet and as docile a creature as the mind couhl imagine. " Oh, you — you wicked Jack ! Who would have thought it of you ? " said Emily, throwing her arms round the animal's neck. " And at your age, too ! This is my old donkey," she said, turning her dreamy eyes on Hubert. " I used to ride him every day until about two years ago. I love my dear old Jack, and would not have him beaten for worlds, although he is so wicked as to break the mowing-machine. Look what you have done to the flower-vase." The animal shook its long ears. Hubert and Emily strolled down a long walk, wondering what they should talk about. " These are really very pretty grounds," he said at last. " I am sure I shall enjoy myself immensely here." The remark appeared to him to be of doubtful taste, and he hastened to add, "That is to say, if I have completely made it up with my pretty cousin." " But you have not seen the place yet," she said, speaking still with a certain tremor in her voice. VAIN FORTUNE. 125 " Yon haven't even seen the gardens. Come, and I'll show them to you." Hubert would have preferred to walk with her through these ornamental swards ; and he liked the espalier apple trees with which the garden was divided better than the glare and heat of the greenhouses into which she took him. " Do you care for flowers ? " " Not very much." "These are all my flowers," she said, pointing to many rows of flower-pots. " These are Julia's. You see I run a line of thread around mine, so that there shall be no mistake. She is not nearly so careful as I am, and it isn't nice to find that the plants you have been tending for weeks have been spoilt by over- watering. I don't say she doesn't love them, but she forgets them. . . . Just look at these ; they are devoured by insects. They want to be taken out and given a thorough cleansing. Even then I doubt if they would come out right, — a plant never forgives you ; it is just like a human being." " And doesn't a human being ever forgive ? " 126 VAIN FORTUNE. " Oh, I didn't mean that ! " she said, blushing ; " but sometimes I could ciy over the poor plants which she neglects. I daresay you will think me very ridiculous, but I do cry sometimes, and sometimes I cannot re- sist taking them out on the sly, and giving them a thoroughly good syringing, — only you must not tell her ; we have agreed not to touch each other's flowers. But I cannot bear to see the poor things dying. How do we know that they do not suffer ? " " I don't think it probable." " But we don't know for certain," she said, fixing her great eyes on him. " Do we ? " " We know nothing for certain," he answered ; and then he said, " You and Mrs. Bentley have lived a long time together ? " " No, not very long. About a couple of years. I was about thirteen when 1 came to Ashwood. J am now eighteen. Mrs. Bentley is a sort of connection. She is very poor — that is why Mr. Burnett asked her to come and live here ; besides, as I grew up I wanted a companion. She has been very good to me. We have been very happy together — at least, VAIN FOKTUNE. 127 s iiappy as one may be ; for I don't think that any one is ever very happy. Have you been very happy ? " " I have not always been happy. But tell me more about Mrs. Bentley." " There is little more to tell. I naturally love her very much. She nursed me when I was ill — and I'm often ill ; she taught me all I know ; she cheered me when I was sad — when I thought my heart would break; when everybody else seemed unkind she was kind. Besides, I could not remain here without her." Emily lowered her eyes, and the conversation seemed to pause. " I have arranged all that/' Hubert answered hurriedly. " I spoke to her last night, and she has consented to remain." " That is very good of you." Emily raised her eyes and looked shyly at Hubert ; and then, as if doubtful of herself, she said, " Do you like her ? I'm sure you do. Every one does. Do you not think she is very handsome ? " " I think her an exceedingly pleasant woman, and I'm sure we shall all get on very well together." 128 VAIN FOETUNE. " But don't yoa think her very handsome ? " " Yes, she is a handsome woman." Nothing more was said. Emily drew meditatively on the gravel with the point of her parasol. The gardeners looked up from their work. " I have to go now," she said, raising her eyes timidly, " to feed the swans. You would not care to go so far ? " " On the contrary, I should like it of all things. A walk by the water on a day like this will be quite a treat." " Then will you wait a moment ? I will go and fetch the bread." She returned soon after with a small basket; and a large retriever, tied up in the corner of the yard, barked and lugged at his chain. " He knows where I am going, and is afraid I shall forget him — aren't you, dear old Don ? You wouldn't like to miss a walk with your mistress, would you, dear ? " The dog bounded and rushed from side to side ; it was with difficulty that Emily loosed him. Once free, he galloped down the drive, returning at intervals for a caress and a sniff at the basket which VAIN FORTUNE. 129 his mistress carried. " There's nothing there for you, my beantiful Don ! " The drive sloped from the house down to the arti- ficial water, passing under some large elms ; and in the twilight of the branches where the sunlight played, and the silence was tremulous with wings, Hubert felt that Emily had forgiven him. She wore the same black dress that he had admired her in the night before ; her waist was confined by the same black band ; but the chestnut hair seemed more beautiful beneath the black silk sunshade, leaned so gracefully, the black handle held between thumb and forefinger. And the little black figure seemed a part of the beautiful English park, now so green and fragrant in all the flower and sunlight of June, and decorated with a blue summer sky, and white clouds moving lazily over the tops of the trees. And the impression of the beautiful park was enforced by its reflection, which lay, with the mute magic of re- flected things, in the still water, stirred only when, with exquisite motion of webbed feet, the swans propelled their freshness to and fro, balancing them- 9 130 VAIN FORTUNE. selves in the current where they knew the bread must surely fall. " They are waiting for me. Cannot you see their black eyes turned towards the bridge ? " And she threw the bread from the basket, and the beautiful birds unbent their curved necks, devouring it vora- ciously under the water. In the larger portion of this artificial lake there were two islands, thickly wooded. In the smaller, which lay behind Emily and Hubert, there was one small island covered with reeds and low bushes, and this was a favourite haunt for the waterfowl, which now came swimming forward, not daring to approach too near the dangerous swans. " These are my friends," said Emily. '• They wUl follow me to the other end, and I shall be able to feed them as we walk along the meadow." Don and Dandy bounded through the tall grass; sometimes foolishly giving chase to the birds that rose up out of the golden grasses, barking in mad eager- ness — sometimes pursuing a hare into the distant woods. The last chase had led them far, and both k."_»S. C Atxaj_ia-i»_ TAis rv:«si"L>*- 131 bieath br their misszeba s ajOc : sadsfr the retriever's affecn.:^ I^ Plaji__ - - -. -— : -— :? ^ie s&ii — ~ Sot ginoe I was a dot, ten or rweire years aaro^ I was ~. T^rTc -5^ rlr -zelT decisive noieasKKi! r,->» »^- . "Yes. ^^ ' V """ ■ t(»e. -Mavl ask ~ I do nor kn : - if ^ . - ijo lell yoo. It — ' " ' better not to. Y t.~ slLe cc»iit:_"^ ". -~ :lv«' "J^^i-L- _-- '> - ----- ; - not wast JC'~ ' ' 'i'.:ls: TJiai I am so very - - — - -^ - - I do nor - b^Tp acT^i ' _ : to tc I taey irere s vouth and : :the-~ __ •• Frve vears ago I ^=^:- : "-'— ," - H — r^^j -rry 132 VAIN FORTUNE. slowly, " asking him to lend me fiftj^ pounds, and he refused. Since then I have not heard from him." At the end of a long silence, the girl said, — " So long as you know that I am no longer angry with him for having disinherited me, I do not mind telling you the reason. Two months before lie died ho asked me to marry him, and I refused." They walked several yards without speaking. " Do you not think I was right ? I was only eighteen, and he was over sixty." " It seems to me quite shocking that he could have even contemplated such a thing." " But look at these poor ducks ; they have followed us all the way, and I have forgotten to feed them ! " Taking out all the bread that remained in the basket, Emily threw it to the ducks that had collected where the dammed up stream that filled the lake trickled over a wooden sluice. There was a plank by which to cross the deej) cutting. Hubert and Emily paused, and stood gazing at the large beech wood that swept over some rising ground. Don had not been seen for some time, and they both shouted to him. Presently VAIN FORTUNE. 133 a black mass was seen bounding through the flowers, and the panting animal once more ensconced himself by his mistress's side. " I was very fond of Mr, Burnett," she said, " but I could not marry him. I could not marry any man I did not love." " And because you refused to marry him, he did not mention you in his will. I never heard of such selfishness before ! " " Men are always selfish," she said sententiously. " But it really does not matter ; things are just the same ; he hasn't succeeded in altering anything — at least, not for the worse. We shall get on very well together." The conversation paused. Then Emily went on : " You won't tell any one I told you ? I only told you because I did not want you to think me selfish. I was afraid that after the foolish way I behaved last night you might think I hated you. Indeed, I do not. Perhaps everytliing has happened for the best. I was very fond of the old man. I gave him my whole heart; no father ever had a 134 VAIN FORTUNE. daughter more attached; but I could uot marry him. And it was the remembrance of my love for him that made me burst out crying. I do not think I realised until I saw you how cruelly I had been treated. But yon won't tell any one ? You won't tell Mrs. Bentley ? Slie knows, of course; but do not tell her that 1 told you. I do not care that my feelings should be made a subject of discussion. You promise me ? " " 1 promise you." They now reached the tennis lawn. The gong sounded, and Emily said, " That is lunch, and we shall iind Julia waiting for ns in the dining-room." It was as she said. Mrs. Bentley was standing by the sideboard, her basket of keys in her hand ; she had not quite finished her housekeeping, and was giving some last instructions to the butler. Hubert noticed that the place at the head of the table was for him, and he sat down a little embarrassed to carve a chicken. So much home after so manv vears of home- lessness seemed strange. " Thank you, Til take a wing." " May 1 help you ? " VAIN FORTUNE. 135 " Thank you, I'll help myself." He gave an animated account of their morning- walk, interspersing it with playful allusions to Don's temptations among the rabbits, and how perfectly incapable he had shown himself of resisting any. Emily, too, was full of conversation and laughter ; and Mrs. Bentley thought, " They have settled their monetary difficulties ; I wonder if any other will arise ^ At that moment Hubert looked at Mrs. Bentley, and, remembering their conversation of the previous evening, he desired to tell her how very charming he had found Emily, how well they had got on together, and how sure he was that henceforth their lives would be one uninterrupted flow of happiness. And thinking she was going to pass through the window and on to the terrace, Hubert moved to follow her. But, mentioning that she had some orders to give to the servants, she left the room by the farther door. He had said all he had to say to Emily, and bethought himself of a walk with the gamekeeper. As 136 VAIN FORTUNE. he made inqniries of the bntler, Emily said they were going for a drive — going to have tea with some neigh- bours : wonld he not come to accompany them ? It was impossible to refuse, and a few minntes after the pony-chaise came round. CHAPTER IX. nnWO or three days afterwards, when Hubert was finishing breakfast, the butler came to tell him that the bailiff wished to see him ; and, as he did not yet know the way through his house, the butler took him through wide passages — past doors standing ajar, behind which he divined store-rooms — past doors wide open, whence white-capped maid-servants came with bowls in their hands. Farther on he saw the cook standing at her work before the great range, and the kitchen-maid sat preparing vegetables in the cool scullery. These homely aspects of his new life awakened a keener sense of consciousness in his own good-fortune than he had yet felt; and, a-tingle with happiness, he passed into the open air. The trees waving above the garden walls stimulated his present mood, and he entered into conversation with the thick- set man in breeches and gaiters, who wanted to know 137 138 VAIN FOllTUNE. what the Squire meant to do with that twoscore of lambs that were not sold at Fendon last month. They passed through the paddock ; and he did not attempt to disguise his ignorance of lambs, fearlessly questioning his bailiff about them and the growing crops. He thought that corn was cut in September, and had no idea as to the value of a " load." He had hardly seen the country since he was fifteen ; it was to him an inordinate and delicious surprise, and he was charmed with the freshness of the green rustling- corn. And all along the edge of the plantation they met lads and lasses taking their ease in the high grass, gently fanned and hushed by the waving shadows of the trees. And over the paling there came a man, whose slouching gait, gun, and velveteen coat proclaimed him to be the gamekeeper. Hubert asked him what he had been shooting. " Very nearly got a stoat. Squire, coming along yonder hedgerow." " What is a stoat ? " " A sort of a weasel, sir. Only jest seed him ; VAIN FOETUNE. 139 dreadful mischievous them 'ere stoats — worse than any pair of foxes." " They take the young rabbits, don't they ? " " Yeas, and the old ones too. I'll 'ave some trajjs down there to-night." When he passed through the stables the groom and coachman came forward, touching their caps. They would like to know if he intended to keep them on. Without trying to assume the air of a man who was accustomed to servants, Hubert told them that he did not intend to make any changes for the present ; and when they asked him if he would like to see the horses, he consented to walk through the stables — more because he thought they would be disappointed if he did not, than because he wished to save himself from disparaging criticism. The horses looked fat and shiny, so he said they looked very well. Then, turning into the house, he went in search of Emily; but, happening to meet Mrs. Bentley, they went into the morning-room, for she wanted to speak to him about some household matters. There were account- books on the table. 140 VAIN FORTUNE. " Really, Mrs. Beutley, I'm quite satisfied. I have so little taste for accounts. In a few days I intend to go thoroughly into my affairs. I had thought of writing to my solicitor, but " " I will not trouble you very long. My business with you is not important enough to need the assist- ance of a solicitor. I merely want to show you what are our household expenses. No ; I promise you there shall be no long accounts to go through. You need not look further into things than the general accounts — for instance, the servants' wages " " My dear Mrs. Bentley " " No ; you really must know how much we are si)ending — that is to say, if you wish me to continue." " But, of course " " Then, listen. Give me your attention, and in an hour we shall have finished." So Hubert had to bend his intelligence upon house- hold economy, and even sanction some cutting down of expenses. He very often said, "Yes- — quite so;" but Mrs. Bentley was not easily deceived, and she insisted on his understanding the necessity of keeping VAIN FOKTUNE. 141 two under-housemaids. A great deal of fuel had been wasted in the garden, and she had little doubt the coal bill could be reduced. There were the horses, an expensive item, and at least two should be sent away. Hubert wished things to go on without any change, — at least, for the present, — and was not prepared to say that a second gamekeeper was not required. Allusion was made to the farm, the number of eggs the bailiff generally sent up, and the income derived from the sale of butter. At last everything seemed settled; but Mrs. Bentley still hesitated, and it was not until Hubert rose that she decided to speak. " There is only one thing more I have to trouble you with, and that is myself. You were kind enough to let me remain here as Emily's companion " " My dear Mrs. Bentley •" " No, no; we must understand one another. 1 am a distant cousin of the late Mr. Burnett, a connection of yours. My husband died leaving me quite unprovided for " " I know ; Emily has " " I really must insist on your hearing me out," she 142 VAIN FOKTUNE. said, smiling. " My husband left me entirely un- provided for ; and, knowing of my circumstances, Mr. Burnett asked me to come and look after his house. I have no means whatever. He allowed me fifty pounds a year." " Well, then, I allow you the same. Do not let us talk any more about it. I'm sure I hope you'll be happy here. Anything you want, if you will let Emily know, I shall, I'm sure, be only too glad " " It is very kind." Their eyes met . . . they looked aside. Then to break an irritating silence Mrs. Bentley said, " You are satisfied, I suppose, at the way things have turned out ? Emily enjoyed her walk. She was very full of it. She came into my room last night, and told me all about it." .- " I found her charming. . . . What a pretty girl she is ! Yes, we had a pleasant walk. She fled from me, bat I caught her up. ... I was very much afraid ; but I felt I had better get it over, and it was over almost at once. Suddenly I noticed that we were friends. But I owe it all to you; you prepared the VAIN FORTUNE. 143 way. I think she has behaved splendidly ; for, of course, that disinheritance was a terrible blow." " I think she is quite satisfied at how things have turned out. Your generosity has quite won her heart. We are only afraid now lest you should not be satisfied." " If I Should not be satisfied ! I hardly under- stand." "Well, some men might not care to accept the responsibility of looking after two women. Some men are women-haters ; some men would have pre- ferred to live alone." " I assure you I'm not a woman-hater ; I have lived too much alone, and grown tired of my own company. I'm sure that so long as you and Emily are free to remain — I mean that you will both do me a great favour by remaining at Ash wood. I suppose the time will come when some one will come and take Emily away. It would be selfish to say I hope that time will never come I " Mrs. Bentley looked as if she were going to say something, but she changed her mind. 144 VAIN FORTUNE. " Of course, a pretty girl like that doesn't remain long single. I daresay there's many a young fellow in the neighbourhood whose heart is breaking for her." " I don't think we have got such a tiling as a young man in the neighbourhood — at least, none that Emily would care about." "Well, we must get some whom she will. . . . When I'm a little settled here, we — I'll ask some friends. The editor of The Cosmopolitan. I'm long- ing to ask him here, and he knows every one. I'll ask him to bring down an irresistible young man." " I'm afraid you'll find she is difficult to suit." " Do you think so ? " Hubert wondered if Mrs. Bentley meant that Emily did not wish to marry. Then, speaking suddenly, he said, '' I never could understand those who like every woman. It seems to me so necessary to choose, to find exactly the one we love. Then all the others are indifferent to us." " I thought men were not like that. I thought that men could like any woman if she were pretty." VAIN FORTUNE. 145 Her voice sank, and she forgot herself in thought. Hubert wondered if her experience of men had been a sad one. " One can only speak for oneself," he said. " I could only love one woman." She looked at him a little puzzled. Did he mean that he was by temperament a monogamist, or that he had chosen and could never choose again ? In the silence that settled between them, both wondered how it was that they who three days before had met for the first time should be now discussing the most intimate characteristics of each other's souls. Eaisino- her eyes, she examined his pale face lit with grey, quiet eyes. They were not unlike — fair Saxon faces, wearing the expression of the country that produced them ; and the nature so plainly written on their faces seemed to reach to their souls, and to mould and colour their very slightest thought. At that moment steps were heard in the passage, and the door opened quickly. " Do you not know that lunch is waiting ? What can you have to say to each other all this while ? " " I was explaining to Mr. Price a number of details 10 146 VAIN FORTUNE. conuectecl with the management of the honse — dry matters of pounds, shillings, and pence — business, Emily, which you would, I'm afraid, attend to with even worse grace than he." Two days after he received a visit from the county solicitor, and the business of the estate absorbed the greater ])ortion of his time for at least a fortnight. It was necessary that he should visit his tenants, and hear what each had to say about reduction of rent and the improvements of farm buildings which needed overhauling. It was amusing to listen to the questions he put, making the folk smile — at the same time betrajdng a love of the country which they who had seen nothing else could neither feel nor understand. His natural- ness was very winning ; and the bailiff once said, " That's jest what I likes about he ; he doan't pretent to knawwhat he knaws nothing about." This seemed to all an adequate explanation, except, perhaps, the groom, who found it difficult to think much of a gentleman who went for long walks across the downs when there were horses in the stable wanting exercise. VAIN FOKTUNE 147 Coming home in the evening, at the hour when the hind drives the cows from the pasture to the milking- shed, he experienced a joy of which he was half ashamed, so selfish did it seem ; for his heart exulted when he opened the white gate and looked upon his park. He walked up the drive slowly, thinking of the first time he saw it. The swallows flew high, just as now, and all the tranquil beauty of the hour was reflected in the artificial water. In these moments the plausive and wilful sweetness of life possessed him ; and the joy about his heart grew tense indeed when he stoj^ped, a little tired, but so happy, after his long ramble, and viewed his house in the setting light, — the long terrace, bright with flowers, and the slender figures of the women walking to and fro, their arms about one another. He was, perhaps, a little too conscious of his happiness ; and he feared to do anything that would endanger the pleasure of his present life. It seemed to him like a costly thing which might slip from his hand or be broken ; and day by day he appreciated more and more the delicate comfort of this well-ordered 148 VAIN FORTUNE. house, — its brightness, its ample rooms, the charm of space within and without, the health of regular and wholesome meals, the presence of these two women, whose first desire was to minister to his least wish or caprice. These, the first spoilings he had received, com- bined to render him singularly happy. Bohemiauism, he often thought, had been forced upon him — it was not natural to him ; and though sjnritual belief was dead, he experienced in church a resurrection of in- fluences which misfortune had hypnotised, but which were stirring again into life. He was conscious again of this revival of his early life in the evenings when Mrs. Bentley went to the piano ; and when playing a game of chess or draughts, remembrances of the old Shropshire rectory came back sudden, distinct, and sweet. In these days the disease of fame and artistic achievement only sang monotonously, plaintively, like the wind in the valleys where the wind never wholly rests. Sometimes, when moved by the novel he was reading, he would discuss its merits and demerits witli the two women who sat by him in the quiet of VAIN FOETUNE. 149 the dim drawing-room, their work on their knees, thinking of him. In the excitement of criticism his thoughts wandered to his own work, and the women's eyes filled with reveries, and their hands folded languidly over their knees. He spoke without emphasis, his words seeming to drop from the thick obsession of his dream. At ten the ladies gathered up their work, bade him good-night ; and nightly these good-nights grew tenderer, and nightly they went upstairs more deeply penetrated with a sense of their happiness. CHAPTER X. "TZTE was strangely haj^py — it was the happiness of rest ; and the peace he enjoyed was as beautiful as the summer wliich drowsed in the shady English park, waxing every day to deeper fulness and perfection. He had never known before the charm of ladies' society, and his shyness and nnsensual nature, which had alienated liim from London women, endeared him to these quiet country ladies, and gradually he became their idol. When he was not present, they talked of him ; and he watched and delighted in the contem- plation of their love for one another, which the slight accidents of every hour of their peaceful life revealed. But at heart he was a man's man. He hardly per- ceived life from a woman's point of view ; and in the long evenings which he spent with these women he sometimes had to force liimself to appear interested in their conversation. He was as far removed from one '5° VAIN FORTUNE. 151 as from the other. Emily's wilfnlness puzzled him, and he did not seem to have anything further to talk about to Mrs. Bentley. He missed the bachelor evenings of former days, — the whisky and water, the pipes, and the literary dis- cussion ; and as the days went by he began to think of London ; his thoughts turned aifectionately towards the friends he had not seen for so long, and at the end of July he announced his intention of running up to town for a few days. He called on all his friends. He spent pleasant half-hours with painters and poets ; he met journalists in Fleet Street, and had drinks with them ; he penetrated behind the scenes into the managers' rooms — heard their projects for the autumn ; and on the following day he knocked at the doors of dramatists and novelists. Wherever he went there were drinks, cigars, and artistic discussion. He felt called upon to entertain his friends, and dinners in restaurants and clubs had for him who had always been so poor a peculiar interest. One evening they all sat dining at Hurlingham in the long room. The conversation, as usual, had been about books and 152 VAIN FOKTUNE. pictures. And now, leaning back in their chairs, heavy and happy in a gentle torpor of digestion, they mused ou the spectacle of existence that the long room presented ; remembering the while liow little they had done — how much had escaped their analysis. Thompson envied the richness of line of a woman's neck, seeing some character there that his pencil had not expressed. Harding studied a woman in a green dress whose capricious infidelities had been described to him. He watched the folly of every gesture, think- ing how impossible it was to convey in a book the sparkling nothingness of fashionable life. It was the moment when strings of lanterns were hoisted from tree to tree. In front of a large space of sky the coloured globes were crude and trivial ; but in the shadows of the trees by the river, where the mist rose into the branches, they had begun to awaken the first impression of melancholy and the sadness oifcte. It was the moment when the great trees hung heavy and motionless, strangely green and solemn beneath a slate-coloured sky; and the plaintive waltz cried on Hungarian fiddle strings, till it seemed the soul of this VAIN FORTUNE. 153 feminine evening. The fashionable crowd had moved out upon the lawn; the white dresses were phantom blue, and the men's coats faded into obscure masses, darkening the gathering shadows. It was the moment when voices soften, and every heart, overpowered with yearning, is impelled to tell of grief and disillusion ; and every moment the wail of the fiddles grew more unbearable, tearing the heart to its very depths. " Women bring us no happiness," said Harding ; " they are no more in our lives than febrile agitation." " Yes," said Thompson ; " look at those greens and that slate-coloured sky, just to get those values right. But I daresay you are right, — women do not bring happiness ; and, what's more, I doubt if we bring women happiness." " There I disagree with you," said Harding. " We bring women all their happiness. But what do they bring us ? " Various answers were given; and then Hubert said, as if speaking to himself, — " I never was happy, except in those rare moments when I thought I was a great man." 154 VAIN FORTUNE. The remark was indignautly challenged. Every one felt he had been taken, as it were, in the act ; and to cover his nakedness each declared that he worked for the sake of his art, and was indifferent to the opinion of others. " I know what Price means," said Harding, — " those moments when we feel that we are — when the world seems centred in the I." Drawing round their chairs, several joined m the discussion, and soon the question was raised whether artists should marry. Hubert offered no opinion. He had thought too long on that subject, and he knew it to be unsolvable. He remembered how he had debated whether he should ask liose to be his wife. He had genuinely liked her, and in all his relations with her had behaved as well as the most critical could desire. It was not unlikely that she thought of him as one of the best and kindest. But he had never considered her gain — only his own ! He had often said, " She is a woman of genius, and will be able to interpret my ideas. Married, I shall have a quiet home, where I shall be able to work in ease and security. And to VAIN FORTUNE. 155 get her managers will have to produce my plays. But, on the other hand, if I married I might find myself forced to write vnlgar farce and melodrama — marriage might hinder the free development of my talent." For more than a month such thoughts had formed his whole heart. He remembered the alarm the thought had occasioned in him, that the responsibilities of marriage might force him to accept Ford's suggestions regarding the last act of The Gipsy. And he believed now that was why he had not proposed to Rose. The discovery of so much meanness puzzled and perplexed his knowledge of his own character ; and, romance taking hold of him, he thought he should go to Rose and ask her to marry him. But this was not possible. He had formed other ties, and he must let the past be the past. The best he could now do was to finish his play, and give her the part of Lady Hayward. It would make her reputation as an actress. He rose, and he and a friend walked on the lawn, passing to and fro amid the fashionable crowd, puffing at their cigars. The others sat watching, knowing 15(5 VAIN FORTUNE. that the conversation must turn on him. They longed to speak, yet none dared to say the first word. At last some one said, — " What a nice fellow he is I — so kind, so quiet, so gentle — never says an ill word to any one." " And such a clever fellow too ! ... I wonder he doesn't do more." " I wonder I Of all the men we know he is the best equipped to do big things. He is the best read man amongst us, he writes the most perfect English, and I know no greater pleasure than to listen to him criticizing a work of art. . . . What subtle apprecia- tion, he — " " He is a mystery ! But I begin to understand him. Did you hear what he said just now? The whole story of his soul appeared in the phrase, '■ I never was happy, except when I thought I was a great man'! He did not say a famous man, — ' a great man,' but — " " Do you believe in that unalterable kindness, that unaffected sympathy, — is it a mask ? and beneath the mask is there a suffering, envious heart ? " " I should say that he was eaten up with envy. VAIN FORTUNE. 157 Living the life lie does, — no dissipations of any kind, no vice, — nature must find a vent somewhere, and in his case I should say she finds it in envy." '^ I'm not sure that I agree with you. He is too much bound up in himself, and his belief in himself is so intense that it is not probable he realises how little he has done. That is how I see him." " Then you think he'll never succeed in writing his play ? " " I did not say so. None of us see much below the surface. He may return to the country and come back in two months' time with a masterpiece. Or — and it is by no means unlilvely, for I hear he has not touched his play since he inherited his fortune — he may gradually forget it, marry his cousin, and settle down, — a happy man, fond of his wife and children, whose one fault is a predilection for the composition of pastoral or domestic poetry. Or maybe he will become a monomaniac, and spend his life re-writing his play. If so, I pity the people who have to live with him. My father had a clerk in his office ; he was the best and worthiest man that ever lived, until 158 VAIN FORTUNE. one day he conceived the idea of a machine for the exhibition of advertisements on the hoardings. His system was based on the roller towel which we find in public lavatories. The roller was moved by clock- work, and the advertisements went round like the towel. I think there were two rollers . . . but I never quite understood. He used to explain it to me. But, one roller or two rollers, he went into a lunatic asylum, and his wife and children were thrown upon the parish." "What surprises me most about Price is the interest that we take in him. We are always talking about him — always wondering if this play is better than that play, and if he will prove his incontestable superiority in the next." " I can never look at him without thinking of the discrejjancy between his fine manly appearance and the slightness of his artistic production." " He is a very clever fellow, but I don't think he has the irresponsible instinct of genius." " Who has ? " " Who has ? Tliere's that little Hose Massey— that little baby who spends half her day dreaming, and VAIN FORTUNE. 159 who is as ignorant as a cod-fish. Well, she has got that something — that nndefinable but always recog- nisable something. It was Price who discovered her. We used to laugh at him when he said she had genius. He was right ; we were wrong. The other night I was standing in the wings ; she was coming down from her dressing-room — she lingered on the stairs, looking the most insignificant little thing you can well imagine ; but the moment her cue came a strange light came into her eyes and a strange life was fused in her limbs ; she was transformed, and went on the stage a very symbol of old-world passion and romance." The slate colour of the sky did not seem to change, and yet the night grew visibly denser in the park ; and there had come the sensation of things ended, a movement of wraps thrown over shoulders, and thought of bedtime and home. The crowd was moving away, and nearly lost in the darkness Hubert came towards his friends. He had just knocked the ash from his cigar, and as he drew in the smoke the glow of the lighted end fled over his blond face. CHAPTER XI. ""VTEXT day he returned home. The fortnight in London had been passed pleasantly, and Hubert felt that the association it had brought about between his past and his present life had been beneficial. For the change in his fortune had strangely divided the entity of his life: and now, for the first time, the twain were one, and no longer was he conscious of any discrepancy or discord between Hubert Price, the dramatic author, and Hubert Price, the owner of Ashwood Park. He felt happy and at one with himself. This visit to London had brought him into harmony with himself and his surroundings, and he was sure that the moment, if ever, had arrived for him to devote himself to his play. The wheels of the dog-cart raised little clouds of dust, and the hedgerows were white with it, and the sun sank sullenly through the woods, reddening the i6o VAIN FORTUNE. 191 sheaves in the stnbble. The ^mmer had burnt up the park, and nothmg seemed cool except the swans. The ladies left their flowers and came forward to meet him, and he walked with Emily on the terrace till the gong sounded for dinner. Never did they pass a happier evening ; and as if they had been separated for years instead of two short weeks, the ladies ques- tioned him about his doings in London, prolonging their stay in the drawing-room until nearly eleven. In the morning Emily or Mrs. Bentley was generally about to pour out his coffee for him and keep him company. One day Hubert noticed that it was no longer Mrs. Bentley but Emily who met him in the passage and followed him into the dining- room. And while he was eating she sat with her feet on the fender, talking of some girls in the neighbour- hood — their jealousies, and how Edith Eastwick could not think of anything for herself, but always copied her dresses. Dandy drowsed at her feet, and very often she would take him to the window and make him go through all his tricks, calling on Hubert to admire him. 11 162 VAIN FORTUNE. She had a knack of monopolising Hubert, and since his return from London her desire to do so had become almost a determination. Hubert showed no disinclination, and after breakfast they were to be seen together in the gardens. Hubert was a great catch, and there were other young ladies eager to be agreeable to him; but he did not seem to desire flirtation with any. So they came to speak of him as a very clever man, no doubt ; but as they knew nothing about plays, he very probably did not care to talk to them. Hubert was not attractive in general society, and he would soon have failed to interest them at all had it not been for Emily. She was proud of her influence over him, and for the first time showed a desire to go into society. Day by day her conversation turned more and more on tennis parties, and she even spoke about a ball. He con- sented to take her ; and he had to dance with her, and she refused nearly every one, saying she was tired, leading Hubert away for long conversations in the galleries and on the staircases. Hubert had positively nothing to say to her ; but she seemed (j[uite happy VAIN FORTUNE. 163 as long as she was with him. And as they drove through the dawn Emily chattered of a hundred trifles, — what Edith had said, what Mabel wore, of the possibility of a marriage, and the arrival of a detachment of some cavalry regiment. Hubert found it liard to affect interest in these conversations. His brain was weary with waltz tunes, the shape of shoulders, and the glare and rustle of silk; but as she chattered, rubbing the misted windows from time to time, so as to determine how far they were from home, he wondered if he should ever marry, and half play- fully he thought of her as his wife. He allowed vague dreams to linger, — dreams of Italy, pictures, terraces, and wonderful moonlit nights. He was the hero of his imaginings ; and his companion, a pale, translucid girl, stood by him on the shore of a pale, translucid lake. But without warning his dreams were broken by a sudden thought, and he said, — " Another time, I think it will be better, my dear Emily, that Mrs. Bentley should take you out." 164 VAIN FORTUNE. " Why should yoii not take me ont ? . . . I suppose you don't care to — I bore you." " No, on the contrary, I enjoy it — I like to see you amused ; but I think you should have a proper chaperon." Emily did not answer ; and a little cloud came over her face. Hubert thought she looked even prettier in her displeasure than she had done in her joy ; and he went to sleep thinking of her. Never had he thought her so beautiful — never had she touched him with so personal an interest ; and next morning, when he lounged in his study, he was glad to hear her knock at the door ; and the half-hour he spent with her there, yielding to her pleading to come for a walk with her, or drive her over to South water in the dog-cart, was one of unalloyed pleasure. But a few days after, as he lay in bed, a new idea came to him for his third act. So he had said he would have breakfast in his stud v. He dressed, thinking the whole time how he could round off his idea and bring it into the act. So clear and precise did it seem in his mind that he sat down VAIN FORTUNE. 165 immediately after breakfast, forgetting even his matu- tinal cigar, and wrote with a flowing pen. He had left orders that he was not to be disturbed ; and was annoyed when the door opened and Emily entered. " I am very sorry, but you must not be cross with me ; I do so want you to come and see the Eastwicks with me." " My dear Emily, I could not think of such a thing this morning. I am very busy — indeed I am." " What are you doing ? Nothing very important, I can see. You are only writing your play. You might come with me." " My play is as important to me as a visit to the Eastwicks is to you," he answered, smiling. " I have promised Edith. ... I really do wish you would come." " My dear Emily, it is quite impossible : do let me get on with my work ! " Emily's face instantly changed expression ; she turned to leave the room, and Hubert had to go after her and beg her to forgive him — he really had not meant to be rude to her. When he returned to his 166 VAIN FOETUNE. study, having made his peace with her, he sat down at his writing-table, and he noticed with delight that the interruption had not broken the sequence of his thoughts. He wrote on for some hours, rested, and then returned refreshed and ardent to his work ; and it was not till four o'clock that he had exhausted him- self, feeling he had done enough for the day. He lit a cigar, and threw himself into his arm-chair, happy in the sensation of accomplishment. Never had he written so fluently before — only a shadow of doubt lingered ; and he felt sure of being able to achieve his play in exactly the manner he had intended ; he even thought it likely that he would exceed his ideal. And as he blew the fragrant smoke from his lips his happi- ness grew irresponsible — birdlike in a new sense of wings ; and, like a bird in a warm June garden, his soul wandered through a fair region of fancy, and every- where through the sweet air came intoxicating odours of ultimate success. Vague and fugitive remembrance of the literature of all ages passed through his mind, and he was astonished at how little had been done. Infinite VAIN FORTUNE. 167 possibilities seemed to open up before him, and lie only asked for time and health to achieve an entirely new literature, — dramas peopled with human souls, strangely true, intense, subtle, and strong ! ... He analysed masterpiece after masterpiece, finding all defective. Romeo and Juliet was only a love-song ; Hamlet ought to have ended with a philosophic sui- cide, and not in a series of turbulent assassinations. But Shakespeare only wrote poetic romances, and could hardly be said to come into the present argument. The comedies of the Restoration ? Courtly intrigues — nothing more. Sheridan had produced — well, one admirable piece of work ; after him, no one. Ibsen ? A man of talent, too didactic, too small, too curtailed in rhythm, and generally his plays were dis- figured by stage devices of the most threadbare kind. It really was surprising how little had been done. Then a little giddiness came into his brain, and the dramatic literature of the world seemed paltry, a mere plot of kitchen-garden. But The Gipsy ? This play seemed to him to unite all qualities in one perfect whole. It was realistic, romantic, psychological. And 168 VAIN FORTUNE. the story ? Surely it would be difficult to invent a finer one. Overcome with self, he pitied the toilers whom the want of a little money never allows to realise the high ideals that haunt their souls. They must remain unknown ; but he was a great man — he could hear his own heart singing the words, " A great man "; and he felt strangely happy — strangely at rest — strangely at harmony with his surroundings — strangely thank- ful for all that fate had done for him. Why should he do anything to change the blissful present ? That silly little girl who put her visit to the Eastwicks before his play ! Marry ! Why should he marry ? He would like to marry ; but perchance bachelor- hood was the natural state of the artist. Were he her husband, he'd have to escort her to balls and parties ! . . . That idiotic ball ! She was a pretty and charming little thing, but quite incapable of under- standing him. No ; he did not think he would ever marry. Then another set of thoughts came upon him. He grew rapidly aware of a number of things he had not VAIN FORTUNE. 169 noticed before. He remembered how his neighbours, whenever he met them, always asked after Emily, and the looks that were exchanged when they arrived together at tennis parties. His conscience smote him, and he asked himself if he had done anything to encourage ? Surely not. He hoped that her manifest interest in him was of a fleeting kind— the first ephemeral love of a young girl ; and in this hope he bore with her visits. He could not forbid her his study, and he could not always refuse her his company. Sometimes he took refuge in Mrs. Bentley's society ; but this expedient was not very successful. Mrs. Bentley seemed to avoid him ; and Emily, who seemed to divine all that concerned him with a strange intuition, alluded frankly to her inability to acquire interest in anything outside of the little material circle of their lives. She said, — " You don't care to talk to me. I am not clever enough for you." Then pity took him, and he made amends by suggesting they should go for a walk in the park, and she often succeeded in leading him even to dry. 170 VAIN FOETUNE. uninteresting neighbours. But the burden grew heavier, and soon he could endure no longer the evenings of devotion to her in the drawing-room, where the presence of Mrs. Bentley seemed to fill her with incipient rebellion. One evening after dinner, as he was about to escape upstairs, Emily took his arm, pleading that he should play at least one game of backgammon with her. He played three ; and then, thinking he had done enough, he took up a novel and began to read. Emily was bitterly offended. She sat in a corner, a picture of deep misery; and whenever he spoke to Mrs. Bentley, he thought she would burst into tears. It was exasperating to be the perpetual victim of such folly; and, pressed by the desire to talk to Mrs. Bentley about the book he was reading, he suggested that she should come with him to the meet. The Harriers met for the first time that season at not five miles from Ashwood. Mrs. Bentley pleaded an engagement. She had promised to go over to tea at the rectory. " Oh, we shall be back in plenty of time ; I'll leave you at the rectory on our way home." VAIN FOETUNE. 171 " Thank you, Mr. Price ; but I do not think I can go." " And why, may I ask ? " " Well, perhaps Emily would like to go." " Emily has a cold, and it would be folly of her to venture a long drive on a cold morning." " My cold is quite well." " You were complaining before dinner how bad it was." " If you don't want to take me, say so." Tears were now streaming down her cheeks. " My dear Emily, I am only too pleased to have you with me ; I was only thinking of your cold." " My cold is quite gone," she said, with brightening face ; and next morning she came down with her waterproof on her arm, and she had on a new cloth dress which she had just received from London. Hubert recognised in each article of attire a sign that she was determined to carry her point. It seemed cruel to tell her to take her things off, and he glanced at Mrs. Bentley and wondered if she were offended. 172 VAIN FOETUNE. " I hope the drive won't tire yon ; yon know the meet is at least five miles from here." Emily did not answer. She looked charming with her great boa tied about her throat, and sprang into the dog-cart all lightness and joy. " I hope you are well wrapped up about the knees," said Mrs. Bentley. " Oh yes, thank you; Hubert is looking after me." Mrs. Bentley's calm, statuesque face, whereon no trace of envy a2)peared, caught Hubert's attention as he gathered up the reins, and he thought how her altruism contrasted with the passionate egotism of the young girl. " I hope Julia was not disappointed. I know she wanted to come ; but " " But what ? " " Well, no one likes Julia more than I do, and I don't want to say anything against her; but, having lived so long with her, I see her faults better than you can. She is horribly selfish ! It never occurs to her to think of me." Hubert did not answer, and Emily looked at him VAIN FORTUNE. 173 inqniringly. At last she said, " I suppose yon don't think so?" " Well, Emily, since yon ask me, I mnst say that I think she took it very good-humouredly. You said you were ill, and it was all arranged that I should drive her to the meet; then you suddenly interposed, and said yon wanted to go ; and the moment yon mentioned your desire to go, she gave way without a word. I really don't know what more you want." " Yon don't know Julia. You cannot read her face. She never forgets anything, and is storing it up, and will pay me out for it sooner or later." " My dear Emily, how can yon say such things ! I never heard She is always ready to sacrifice herself for you." " Yon think so. She has a knack of pretending to be more unselfish than another; but she is in reality intensely selfish." " All I can say is that it does not strike me so. I never saw any one give way more good-humouredly than she did to-day." " I don't . think that that is so wonderful, after all. 174 VAIN FORTUNE. She is only a paid companion; and I do not see why she shonkl go driving about the country with you, and I be left at home." I Hubert was I somewhat I shocked. M T ]i e con- versation paused. " She gets ^ on very well with men," Emily said at last, breaking an '••3 ^ irritating V~:: ''^' silence some- v^_^/ - ' what suddenly. " They say she is very good-looking. Don't you think so ? " " Oh yes, she is certainly a pretty woman — or, I should say, a good-looking woman. She is too tall VAIN FORTUNE. 175 to be what one generally understands as a pretty woman." " Do yon like tall women ? " At that moment the hunt appeared in the field at the bottom of the hill. A grey horse had just got rid of his rider, and after galloping round and round, his head in the air, stopped and began to graze. The others jumped the hedge, and the greater part of the field got over the brook in capital style. Emily and Hubert watched them with delighted eyes, for the sight was indeed picturesque this fine autumn day. Even their horse pricked up his ears and began neigh - ing, and Hubert had to hold him tight in hand, lest he should break away while they were enjoying the spectacle. At that moment a poor little animal, with fear-haunted eyes, and in all the agony of fatigue, appeared above the crest of the hill, and immediately after came the straining hounds, one within a dozen yards of the poor little beast, now running in a circle, uttering the most plaintive and pitiful cries. " Oh, they are not going to kill it ! " cried EmUy. " Oh, save it, save it, Hubert ! " She hid her face in 176 VAIN FORTUNE. her hands. " Did it escape ? is it killed ? " she said, looking round. " Oh, it is too cruel !" The huntsman was calling to the hoands, holding something above them, and at every moment horses' heads appeared over the brow of the hill. There was more hunting ; and when the October night began to gather, and the lurid sunset flared up in the west, Hubert got out another wrap, and placed it about Emily's shoulders. But although the chill night had drawn them close together in the dog-cart, they were as widely separated as if oceans were between them. So far as lay in his power he had hidden the annoyance that the intrusion of her society had occasioned him ; and, to deceive her, very little concealment was necessary. So long as she saw him she seemed to live in a dream, unconscious of every other thought. They rolled through a gradual eftacement of things, seeing the lights of the farmhouses in the long plain start into existence, and then remain fixed, like gold beetles pinned on a blue curtain. The chill evening drew her to him, till they seemed one ; and full of VAIN FORTUNE. 177 the intimate happiness of the senses which comes of a long day spent in the open air, she chattered of indifferent things. He thought how pleasant the drive would he were he with Mrs. Bentley — or, for the matter of that, with any one with whom he could talk about the novel that had interested him. They rolled along the smooth wide road, watching the streak of light growing narrower in a veil of light grey cloud drawn athwart the sky. Overpowered by her love, the girl hardly noticed his silence ; and when they passed through the night of an over- hanging wood her flesh thrilled, and a little faintness came over her ; for the leaves that brushed her face had seemed like a kiss from her lover. 12 CHAPTER XII. A S the days went by Emily's demands on Hubert's time grew larger and larger. He bad begun to notice tbat be met ber at every turn, that to keep out of ber way seemed no longer possible, and witb proposals to go bere and tbere, witb tennis parties, and witb visitors, sbe beguiled bim from bis play. He yielded because be bad no beart to refuse sucb sligbt favours to one from wbom be bad taken so mucb. During tbe summer montbs be bad written bardly anything ; and in tbis long idleness wbat be believed to be an inspiration bad come upon bim, and be bad re-written bis first and tbird acts from a slightly different point of view. The second act now engaged his attention. He could not quite determine what it required to bring it into harmony witb the first and tbird ; but his first and third acts pleased him so 178 VAIN FOETUNB. 179 mnch that he could not wait for an opinion of his work till he had finished the play, and one evening he spoke of asking some of his London friends to stay with him at Ashwood. Emily and Mrs. Bentley welcomed this proposal. He would ask the editor of The Cosm,opolit(m, Montague Ford, Harding, and perhaps one or two more. In subsequent considera- tion it occurred to him that it might be well to ask some one who might take a fancy to Emily. He confided his intention to Mrs. Bentley, who, while avoiding any direct expression of opinion, contrived to let him understand that, if he did not intend marrying Emily, it might be as well to try to get her a husband. There could be very little difficulty, — a pretty girl with three hundred a year ! And in his letter to the editor Hubert mentioned these facts, suggesting that if he (the editor) could lay his hand on a nice young man, he might bring him down. The young man that the editor brought with him was rich, good-looking, and well connected — in every way a desirable match ; and, as luck would have 180 VAIN FORTUNE. it, he seemed very much taken with Emily. After dinner he came and sat by her, devoting himself entirely to her. Hubert, who did not care for shooting, walked, as the afternoon declined, with the ladies through the fields, so as to meet the sportsmen as they were coming home. And seeing a tall figure getting through a hedge, Hubert and Mrs. Bentley hoped it was young Rawley. It was he ; and they thought, as he strode towards them, his gun on his shoulder, looking so well in his shooting gear, that no girl could refuse him. He gave them a brief description of the day's sport ; and as he then addressed himself entirely to Emily, Hubert and Mrs. Bentley dropped back, leaving the younger couple together. Their kind intention, however, seemed to meet with but scant appreciation — at least, from Emily, who fre- quently looked back, and stopped so as to allow Hubert and Mrs. Bentley to catch them up. Hubert was surprised at her obvious want of interest in the young man ; and, finding himself alone with her in the drawing-room, — the others had not yet come t- /I Ay* '^t ^'S.'brtv-'S: -■'" "HUBERT AND MRS. BENTLEY DROPPED BACK, LEAVING THE YOUNGER COUPLE TOGETHER." [P«^e 180. VAIN FORTUNE. 181 downstairs,— he said, " I cannot understand why you don't like young Rawley." "■ I suppose you want me to marry him ? " she asked abruptly, her voice trembling slightly. "■ I don't want you to marry ; I was thinking only of your own good, my dear Emily. He is a very nice young man. Almost any girl " " Then let any girl that wants him take him ! " "That settles the matter. Let's say no more about it." " You are not angry ? " " Angry ! " " I'm very happy as I am. Unless you wish me to leave Ashwood, 1 see no reason why I should marry. Do you ? " " No, I can't say I do. Most people think a girl should marry ; but I daresay the world is far too prejudiced in favour of marriage." It was disappointing to see her throw over so excellent a chance, and in quick passage a thought asked what would eventually become of her. The thought passed, leaving no impression, swallowed up 182 VAIN FOETUNE. in more present and more personal interests. He had not enjoyed a literary discnssion for months, and was absorbed in Ford, Harding, and the editor. He read to them the acts he had re-written, and these were passionately argued, and the various alternative fourth and fifth acts which he proposed to his critics formed the theme of conversation. His critics were ready with suggestion ; but they differed so widely in their view of the play that it was difficult to arrive at any conclusion. The actor spoke of public taste, and inclined to the opinion that there must be at least one character with whom the audience could wholly sympathise. Harding dissented vio- lently. He thought that Hubert in re-writing his play, with a view of securing the sympathies of the public, had, especially in the third act, deprived the characters of a great deal of their original humanity. Hubert denied that he had re-written his play with a view to securing the theatrical sympathies of the audience, and the editor joined issue with Harding regarding the third act. He infinitely preferred the revised version. On the other hand, he could not VAIN FORTUNE. 183 but think that the first act was better as Hubert had originally written it. It was simpler and more logical. " But why," he said, " seek after any one's advice ? You are now a rich man, and can afford to impose your ideas on the public. Finish your play in the way it seems best to you, come up to London, take a theatre, and produce it. We shall all be there to applaud you ; and if it is good, we will, I promise you, fight your battle." This advice ap- peared to Hubert to be excellent, and when his friends left him he made a new scenario. He worked very hard, roughing out his play from end to end. New ideas came to him, but the diffi- culty of working them into the woof of his story was very great. They seemed to find their jjlaces in the end ; and, feeling sure he would now be able to finish The Gips]) to his satisfaction, he had already begun to speak of the theatre he would select, and of the date of the first performance. Both women were eagerly interested ; and after dinner, the excitement of the journey to town, the dresses they would wear, the assemblage of fashion in the theatre, the great 184 VAIN FORTUNE. snpper to wliicb all genius and talent would be invited, and, above all, the pleasure of seeing Hubert successful, were the theme of their conversation. In the excitement of this prospect of pleasure, and new sensation of life, Emily's jealousy of Julia seemed to subside — her melancholy little soul seemed to brighten ; and it was not until Hubert directed any considerable amount of his conversation to Mrs. Bentley that she retreated into a corner and sat watching, as her wont was, in miserable silence. One afternoon, about the end of September, Hubert came down from his study about tea-time, and an- nounced that he had written the last scene of his last act. Emily was alone in the drawing-room. " Oh, how glad I am 1 Then it is done at last. Why not write at once and engage the theatre ? When shall we go to London ? " " Well, I don't mean that the play could be put into rehearsal to-morrow. It still requires a good deal of overhauling. Besides, even if it were com- pletely finished, I should not care to produce it at VAIN FORTUNE. 185 once. I should like to lay it aside for a couple of months, and see how it read then." " What a lot of trouble you do take ! Does every one who writes plays take so much trouble ? " " No, I'm afraid they do not, nor is it necessary they should. Their plays are merely incidents strung together more or less loosely ; whereas my play is the development of a temperament, of temperamental characteristics which cannot be altered, having been in- herited through centuries ; it must therefore pursue its course to a fatal conclusion. In Shakespeare But no, no ! these things have no interest for you. You shall have the nicest dress that money can buy ; and if the play succeeds " The girl raised her pathetic eyes. In truth, she cared not at all what he talked to her about ; she was occupied with her own thoughts of him, and just to sit in the room with him, and to look at him occasion- ally, was sufficient. But for once his words had pained her. It was because she could not understand that he did not care to talk to her. Why did she not understand ? It was hard for a little girl like her to 186 VAIN FORTUNE. understand such things as he spoke about ; but she would understand ; and then her thoughts passed into words, and she said, — " I understand quite as well as Julia. She knows the names of more books than I, and she is very clever at pretending that she knows more than she does." At that moment Mrs, Bentley entered. She saw that Emily was enjoying her talk with her cousin, and tried to withdraw. But Hubert told her that he had written the last act ; she pretended to be looking for a book, and then for some work which she said had dropped out of her basket. " If Emily would only continue the talking," she thought, " I should be able to get away." But Emily said not a word. She sat as if frozen in her chair ; and at length Mrs. Bentley was obliged to enter, however cursorily, into the conversation. " If you have written out The Gipsy from end to end, I should advise you to produce it without further delay. Once it is put on the stage, you will be able to see better where it is wrong." VAIN FOETUNE. 187 "Then it will be too late. The critics will have expressed their opinion ; the work will be judged. There are only one or two points about which I am doubtful. I wish Harding were here. I cannot work unless I have some one to talk to about my work. I don't mean to say that I take advice ; but the very fact of reading an act to a sympathetic listener helps me. I wrote the first act of Divorce in that way. It was all wrong. I had some vague ideas about how it might be mended. A friend came in ; I told him my difficulties ; in telling them they vanished, and I wrote an entirely new act that very night." " I'm sorry," said Mrs. Bentley, " that I am not Mr. Harding. It must be very gratifying to one's feelings to be able to help to solve a literary difficulty, particularly if one cannot write oneself." " But you can — I'm sure you can. I remember asking your advice once before ; it was excellent, and was of immense help to me. Are you sure it will not bore you? I shall be so much obliged if you will." ' Bore me ! No, it won't bore me," said Mrs. Bentley. 188 VAIN FORTUNE. *' I'm sure I feel very much flattered." The colour mounted to her cheek, a smile was on her lips ; but it went out at the sight of Emily's face. " Then come up to my study. We shall have just time to get through the first act before dinner." Mrs. Bentley hesitated ; and, noticing her hesita- tion, Hubert looked surprised. At that moment Emily said, — " May I not come too ? " " Well, I don't know, Emily. You see that we wish to see if there is anything in the play that a young girl should not hear." " Always an excuse to get rid of me. You want to be alone. I never come into the room that you do not stop speaking. Oh, I can bear it no longer ! " " My dear Emily ! " " Don't touch me ! Go to her ; shut yourself up together. Don't think of me. I can bear it no longer ! " And she fled from the room, leaving behind her a sensation of alarm and pity. Hubert and Mrs. Bentley stood looking at each other, both at a loss for words. At last he said, — VAIN FORTUNE. 189 " That poor child will cry herself into her grave. Have you noticed how poorly she is looking ? " " Not noticed ! But yon do not know half of it. It has been going on now a long time. You don't know half ! " " I have noticed that things are not settling down as I hoped they would. It really has become quite dreadful to see that poor face looking reproachfully at you all day long. And I am quite at a loss to know what's the right thing to do." " It is worse than you think. You have not noticed that we hardly speak now ? " " You — who were such friends — surely not ! " Then she told him hurriedly, in brief phrases, of the change that had taken place in Emily in the last three months. " It was only the other night she accused me of going after you, of having designs upon you. It is very painful to have to tell you these things, but I have no choice in the matter. She lay on her bed crying, saying that every one hated her, that she was thoroughly miserable. Somehow she seems naturally an unhappy child. She was unhappy at home before 190 VAIN FORTUNE. she came here ; but then I believe she had excellent reasons, — her mother was a very terrible person. However, all that is past ; we have to consider the present now. She accused me of having designs on you, insisting all the while that every one was talking about it, and that she was fretting solely because of my good name. Of course, it is very ridiculous ; but it is very pitiful, and will end badly if we don't take means to put a stop to it. I shouldn't be surprised if she went off her head. We ought to have the best medical advice." " This is very serious," he said. And then, at the end of a long silence, he said again, " This is very serious — perhaps far more serious than we think." " Not more serious than I think. I ought to have spoken about it to you before ; but the subject is a delicate one. She hardly sleeps at all at night ; she cries sometimes for hours ; she works herself up into such fits of nervousness that she doesn't know what she is saying, — accuses me of killing her, and then repents, declaring that I am the only one who has ever VAIN FGETUNE. 191 cared for her, and begs of me not to leave her. I do assure you it is becoming very serious." " Have you any proposal to make regarding her ? I need hardly say that I'm ready to carry out any idea of yours." " You know what the cause of it is, I suppose ? " " I do not know ; I am not certain. I daresay I'm mistaken." "No, you are not ; I wish you were — that is to say, unless But I was saying that it is most serious. The child's health is affected ; she is working herself up into an awful state of mind ; she is losing all self- control. I'm sure I'm the last person who would say anything against her ; but the time has come to speak out. Well, the other day, when we were at the East- wicks', you took the chair next to mine when she left the room. When she returned, she saw that you had changed your place, and she said to Ethel Eastwick, ' Oh, I'm fainting. I cannot go in there ; they are together.' Ethel had to take her up to her room. Well, this morbid sensitiveness is most unhealthy. If I walk out on the terrace, she follows, thinking that I 192 VAIN FORTUNE. have made an appointment to meet yon. Jealonsy of me fills up her whole mind. I assure you that I am most seriously alarmed. Something occurs every day — trifles, no doubt ; and in anybody else they would mean nothing, but in her they mean a great deal." " But what do you propose ? " " Unless you intend to marry her — forgive me for speaking so plain — there is only one thing to do. I must leave." " No, no, you must not leave ! She could not live alone with me. But does she want you to leave ? " " No, that is the worst of it. I have proposed it ; she will not hear of it ; to mention the subject is to provoke a scene. She is afraid if I left that you would come and see me ; and the very thought of my escaping her vigilance is intolerable." " It is very strange." " Yes, it is very strange ; but, opposed though she be to all thoughts of it, I must leave." " As a favour I ask you to stay. Do me this service, I beg of you. I have set my heart on finishing my play this autumn. If it isn't finished now, it VAIN FORTUNE. 193 never will be finished ; and your leaving would create so much trouble that all thought of work would be out of the question. Emily could not remain alone here with me. I should have to find another companion for her ; and you know how difficult that would be. I'm worried quite enough as it is." A look of pain passed through his eyes, and Mrs. Bentley wondered what he could mean. " No," he said, taking her hands, "we are good friends — are we not? Do me this service. Stay with me until I finish this play ; then, if things do not mend, go if you like, but not now. Will you promise me ? " " I promise." " Thank you. I am deeply obliged to you." At the end of a long silence, Hubert said, " Will you not come upstairs, and let me read you the first act ? " " I should like to, but I think it better not. If Emily heard that you had read me your play, she would not close her eyes to-night ; it would be tears and misery all the night through." 13 CHAPTER XIII. nnHE study in which he had determined to write his masterpiece had been fitted up with taste and care. The floor was covered with a rare Persian carpet, and the walls were lined with graceful book- cases of Chippendale design ; the volumes, half morocco, calf, and the yellow paper of French no vels, showed through the diamond panes. The writing-table stood in front of the window ; like the bookcases, it was Chippendale, and on the dark mahogany the handsome silver inkstand seemed to invite literary composition. There was a scent of flowers in the room. Emily had filled a bowl of old china with some pale Sej^tember roses. The curtains were made of a modern cretonne — their colour was similar to the bowl of roses ; and the large couch on which Hubert lay was covered with the same material. On one wall there was a sea-piece by Courbet, and upon another *94 VAIN FOKTUNE. 195 a .river landscape, with rosy-tinted evening sky, by Corot. The chimney-piece was set out with a large gilt time-piece, and candelabra in Dresden china. Hubert had bought these works of art on the occasion of his last visit to London, about two months ago. It was twelve o'clock. He had finished reading his second act, and the reading had been a bitter dis- appointment. The idea floated, pure and seductive, in his mind ; but when he tried to reduce it to a precise shape upon paper, it seemed to escape in some vague, mysterious way. Enticingly, like a butterfly it fluttered before him ; he followed like a child, eagerly — his brain set on the mazy flight. It led him through a country where all was promise of milk and honey. He followed, sure that the alluring spirit would soon choose a flower ; then he would caj)ture it. Often it seemed to settle. He approached with pali)itatiug heart ; but lo ! when the net was withdrawn it was empty. A look of pain and perplexity came upon his face ; he remembered the lodging at seven shillings a week in the Tottenham Court Road. He had suffered there ; 196 VAIN FOETUNE. but it seemed to him that he was suii'eriug- more here. He had changed his surroundings, but he had not changed himself. Success and failure, despair and hope, joy aud sorrow, lie within and not without us. His pain lay at his heart's root ; he could not pluck it forth, and its gratification seemed more than ever impossible. He changed his jjosition on the couch. Suddenly his thoughts said, " Perhaps 1 am mistaken in the subject. Perhaps that is the reason. Perliaps there is no play to be extracted from it ; perhaps it would be better to abandon it and choose another." For a few seconds he scanned the literary horizon of his mind. " No, no ! " he said bitterly, " this is the play I was born to write. No other subject is possible ; I can think of nothing else. This is all I can feel or see." It was the second act that now defied his efforts. It had once seemed clear and of exquisite proportions ; now no second act seemed possible : the subject did not seem to admit of a second act ; and, clasping his forehead with his hands, he strove to think it out. He remembered that in the second act, drawn by VAIN FO"RTITNK. 197 irresistible instinct, Lady Hayward visits the gipsies' encampment. The nostalgia of the desert is upon her ; she questions them about their wanderings, learning eventually that the old fortune-teller is her mother. Although Lady Hayward loves her husband, she is unconsciously drawn towards a young gipsy ; and it is at the close of the act that this note of the attraction of race, out of which the story proceeds, is first touched upon. But though clear and precise in its conception, this act, as the author recognised, was overgrown with a fungous growth of subordinate idea. He felt that all subordinate idea must be eliminated, and nothing left but just enough to explain the drama that was to follow. But how to secure the main theme, and preserve it like a thread of gold to the end ? lu his distraction he would take down book after book, never finding the one he wanted ; he would turn over newspapers ; or, dashing out of the house and wandering about in the park, the strain of his thoughts, first relieved by the chatter of a bird or an effect of light, would unconsciously steal back to Lady Hayward ; and very often, before he was 198 VATN- FORTUNE. aware, the dense dilemma and devious labyrinth of the act would grow suddenly elear, and measure out in proportioned ways ; and he, feeling strong and capable of achievement, would liasten home, fearing he might lose the precious inspiration. See him on a wet SejDtember evening, hurrying through the deep grass, his feet soaking, fearing only lest the idea should fade before he reaches the white sheet of paper. As he ajjproaches his study, it slackens within him, and he waits not to throw off his boots, but sits down at once and writes precipitately. But as he draws to the end of the first few repliques the scene withers in his brain, and goes out like a dying light. See him reading and re-reading the few lines he has written, knowing them to be worthless, tortured by a prescience of the perfection required, and maddened by the sight of the futility that is. See him rising from his writing-table with blank despair upon his face, un- able to bear any longer the mocking ghastliness of the sheet of paper. He throws himself on the couch absorbed in despair, and then a curious painful look VAIN FORTUNE. 199 creeps romid the corners of the month, and looks ont of the eyes — the pained, pinched look of impotent desire. Any distraction from the haunting pain, now become chronic, is welcome, and he answers with a glad " Come in ! " the knock at the door. " I'm sorry," said Mrs. Bentley, " for disturbing yon, but I should like to know what fish yon would like for your dinner — soles, turbot, or whiting ? Immersed in literary problems as you are, 1 daresay these details are very prosaic ; but I notice that later in the day " Hubert laughed. "I find such details far more agreeable than literature. I can do nothing with my play." " Aren't you getting on this morning ? " " No, not very well." " What do you think of turbot ? " " I think turbot very nice. Emily likes turbot." " Very well, then. I'll order turbot." As Mrs. Bentley was about to withdraw, she said, " I'm sorry you are not getting on. What stops you now ? That second act ? " 200 VAIN FORTUNE. " Come, YOU are not very bnsy. I'll read yon the act as it stands, and then tell yon how I think it onght to be altered. Nothing helps me so mnch as to talk it over ; not only does it clear np my ideas, bnt it gives me desire to write. My best work has always been done in that way." " I really don't think I can stay. If Emily heard tliat yon had been reading yonr play to me " " I'm tired of hearing of what Emily thinks. I can pnt np with a good deal, and I know that it is my duty to show mnch forbearance ; bnt there is a limit to all things ! " This was the first time Mrs. Bentley had seen him show either excitement or anger ; she hardly knew him in this new aspect. In a moment the blonde calm of the Saxon had dropped from him, and some Celtic emphasis appeared in his speech. " This hysterical girl," he continued, " is a sore burden. Tears about this, and sighs about that ; fainting fits because I happen to take a chair next to yours. Yon may depend upon it our lives are already the constant gossip of the neighbourhood." " I know it is very annoying ; and I, I assure VAIN FORTUNE. 201 you, receive my share. Every look and word is mis- interpreted. I must not stay here." " You must not go ! I really want you. I assure you that your opinion will be of value." " But think of Emily. It will make her wretched if she hears of it. You do not know how it affects her. The slightest thing I You hardly see any- thing ; I see it all." " But there is no sense in it ; it is pure madness. I'm writing a play, trying to work out a most difficult problem, and am in want of an audience, and I ask you if you will be kind enough to let me read you the act, and you cannot listen to it because — because — yes, that's just it — because ! " " You do not know how she suffers. Let me go ; spare her the pain," " She is not the only one who suffers. Do you think that I don't suffer? I've set my heart — my very life is set on this play. I must get through with it ; they are all waiting for it. My enemies say I cannot write it, but I shall if you will help me." " Poor Emily's heart is equally broken. Her life 202 VATN FORTUNE. is equally set- Mrs. Bentlev did not finish. Hubert jnst caught the words. Their significance :5gg«gS^''--'- struck him ; he looked questioningly into Mrs. Bentley's eyes ; then, pretending not to have understood, he begged her to remain. With the air of one who yields to a temptation, she came into the VATN FORTUNE. 203 room. He felt strangely liappy, and, drawing over an arm-chair for her, he threw himself on the conch. He noticed that she wore a loose white jacket, and once during the reading of the act he was conscions of a beantifnl hand hanging over the rail of the chair. Sometimes, in an exciting passage, the hands were clasped. The black slippers and the slender black- stockinged ankles showed beneath the skirt ; and when he raised his eyes from the manuscript, he saw the blonde face and hair, and the pale eyes were always fixed upon him. She listened with a keen and penetrating interest to his criticism of the act, agreeing with him generally, sometimes quietly con- testing a point, and with some strange fascination drawing new and unexpected ideas from him ; and in the intellectual warmth of her femininity his brain seemed to clear and his ideas took new shape. " Ah," he said, after two hours' delightful talk, " how much I'm indebted to you ! At last I see my mistakes ; in two days I shall have written the act. . . . If I only had you by me, I should soon finish the play. Just to talk to you, just some slight communion with 204 VAIN FORTTTNT?. good sense, and I've got it, I do not think I'll come down to lunch. Send me np a sandwich ; bnt before yon go, let me tell you. ... In the third act, you know, the nostalgia of the tent gains upon her ; her husband lavishes presents of love and jewels upon her, bnt to no purpose. She pines for the stars and skies of the encampment ; she pines also for her gipsy lover ; but of her love for him she is not yet conscious. The ct ends with her elopement. In the fourth act her husband comes after her ; for her sake he will become a gipsy ; he will wander with her, her people shall be his people. But now she shrinks from him as one of an alien race. He learns the truth ; the men meet and they fight. Lord Hayward is stabbed by the gipsy. ... In the fifth act, overcome with remorse, and unable to stand the rough life of the encamp- ment, Lady Hayward escapes and returns to her home. She is followed by the gipsy. The last act is by her husband's tomb, and the play ends with her death." Hubert told the story of his play, looking at Mrs. Bentley, but hardly seeing her, completely absorbed in his desire. She looked at him, noticing every VAIN FOKTUNB. 205 characteristic — the shape of his ears, of his hands, the colour of his eyes, every peculiarity of manner ; and the thought passed, " How he does love his work ! how his life is in it ! " When she left, he instantly sat down to write, and he wrote rapidly for nearly two hours, reconstructing the opening scenes of his second act. He then threw himself on the couch, smoked a cigar, and after half an hour's rest continued writing till dinner-time. When he came downstairs, the thought of what he had been writing was still so vivid in him that he did not notice at once the silence of those with whom he was dining. He complimented Mrs. Bentley on the freshness of the turbot ; she hardly answered ; and then he became aware that something had gone wrong. What ? Only one thing was possible. Emily had heard that Mrs. Bentley had been in his study. Look- ing from the woman to the girl, he saw that the latter had been weeping. She was still in a highly hys- terical state, and might burst into tears and fly from the dinner-table at any moment. His face changed expression, and it was with difficulty that he restrained 206 VAUSf FOKTUNE. his temper. His life had been made up of a constant recurrence of these scenes, and he was wholly weary of them ; and the thought of the absolute want of reason in the causeless jealousy, and the misery that these little bickerings made of his life, exasperated him beyond measure. The dinner proceeded in silence, and every slight remark was a presage of storm. Hubert hoped the girl would say nothing until the servant left the room, and with that view he never spoke a word except to ask the ladies what they would take to eat. These tactics might have succeeded if Mrs. Bentley had not unfortunately said that next week she intended to go to London for a couple of days. " The Eastwicks are there now, and they've asked me to stay with them." " I think I shall go up with you. I want to go to London," said Emily. " It will be very nice if you'll come ; but we cannot both stay with the Eastwicks ; they have only one spare room." " I suppose you'd like me to go to an hotel." "My dear Emily, how can you think of such a VAIN FORTUNE. 207 thing ? A young girl like you could not stay at an hotel alone. I shall be only too pleased if you will go to the Eastwicks ; I will go to the hotel." Emily's lip quivered, and in the irritating silence both Hubert and Mrs. Bentley saw that she was trying to overcome her passion. They fervently hoped she would succeed ; for at that moment the servant was handing round the wine, and the time he took to accomplish this service seemed endless. He had filled the last glass, had handed round the dessert, and was preparing to leave the room when Emily said, — " The hotel will suit you very well. You'll be free to see Hubert whenever you like." Hubert looked up quickly, hoping Mrs. Bentley would not answer, but before he could make a sign she said, — " What do you mean, Emily ? I did not know that Hubert was going to London." " You hardly expect me to believe that, do you ? " The servant was still in the room ; but no look of astonishment appeared on his face, and Hubert hoped he had not heard. An awful silence glowered upon 208 VAEN FORTUNE. the (linuer-table. The moment the door closed Hubert said, turning angrily to Emily, — " Really, I am quite surjjrised, Emily, that you should make such observations in the presence of servants ! This has been going on quite long enough ; you are making the house intolerable. I shall not be able to live here any longer." Emily burst into a passionate flood of tears. She declared she was wretchedly miserable, and that she fully understood that Hubert had begun to regret that he had asked her to stay at Ashwood. Everything had been taken from her ; every one was against her. Her sobs shook her frail little frame as if they would break it, and Hubert's heart was wrung at the sight of such genuine suffering. " My dear Emily, I assure you jou are mistaken. We both love you very much." He got up from his chair, and, putting his arm about her, besought her to dry her eyes ; but she shook him passionately from her, and fled from the room. Three days after Emily tore up one of her songs, because Mrs. lientley had sung it without her leave. VAIN FORTUNE. 209 And so on and so on, week after week. No sooner was one quarrel allayed than signs of another began to appear. Hubert despaired. " How is this to end ? " he asked himself every day. Mrs. Bentley begged him to cancel her promise, and allow her to go. But that was impossible. He could not remain alone with Emily ; if he left her she would not fail to believe that he had gone after her rival. The situation had become so tense that they ended by discussing these questions almost without reserve. To make matters worse, Emily had begun visibly to lose her health. There was neither colour in her cheeks nor light in her eyes ; she hardly slept at all, and had grown more than ever like a little shadow. The doctor had been summoned, and, after prescribing ' a tonic, had advised quiet and avoid- ance of all excitement. Therefore Hubert and Mrs. Bentley agreed never to meet except when Emily was present, and then strove to speak as little as possible to each other. But the very fact of having to restrain themselves in looks, glances, and every slightest word — for Emily misinterpreted 14 210 VAIN FORTUNE. all things — whetted their appetites for each other's society. In the misery of his study, when he watched the sheet of paper, he often sought relief in remembrance of her sweet manner, and tho happy morning he liad spent in her companionship. What he had written under the direct influence of her inspiration still seemed to him to be less bad than the rest of his play ; and he began to feel sure that, if ever this play were written, it would be written in the benign charm of her sweet encouragement, in the reposeful shadow of her presence. But that presence was for- bidden him — that presence that seemed so necessary ; and for what reason ? Turning on the circumstances of his life, he raged against them, declaring that it would be folly to allow his very life's desire to be frittered away to gratify a young girl's caprice, — a caprice which in a few years she would laugh at. And whenever he was not thinking of his play, he remembered the charm of Mrs. Bentley's company, and the beneficent effect it had on his work. He had never known a woman he had liked so much, and he VAIN FORTUNE. 211 felt — he started at the thought, so like an inspiration did it seem to him — that the only possible solution of the present situation was his marriage with her. Once he was married, Emily woukl soon learn to forget him. They would take her up to London for the season ; and, amid the healthy excitement of balls and parties, her girlish fancy would evaporate. No doubt she would meet again the young cavalry officer whose addresses she had received so coldly. She would be sure to meet him again — be sure to think him the most charming man in the world ; they would marry, and she would make him the best possible wife. The kindest action they could do Emily would be to marry. There was nothing else to do, and they must do something, or else the girl would die. It seemed wonderful to Hubert that he had not thought of all this before. " It is the very obvious solution of the problem," he said ; and his heart beat as he heard Mrs. Bentley's step in the corridor. It died away in the distance ; but a few days after, when he heard it again, he jumped from his chair, and ran to the door. " Come," he said, '' I want to speak to you." 212 VAESr FORTUNE. " No, no, 1 Leg of you I " " I must speak to yon ! " He laid his hand upon her arm, and said, '' I beg of you. I have something to say — it is of great importance. Come in." They looked at each other a moment, and it seemed as if they could see into each other's souls. Then a look of yielding passed into her eyes, and she said, — " Well, what is it ? " The familiarity of the words struck her, and she saw by the kindling tenderness in his eyes that they had given him pleasure. She almost knew he was going to tell her that he loved her. He looked towards the open door, and, guessing his intention, she said, — " Don't shut it ! Speak quickly. Remember that she may pass at any moment. Were she to find us together, she would suffer ; it would be tears and reproaches. What you have to say to me is about her ? " " Of course ; we never speak of anything else. But we must not be overheard. I must shut the door." She noticed a certain embarrassment in his manner. VAIN FOETUNE. 213 Snddenly relinq^uishing his intention to take her hands, he said, — " This cannot go on ; our lives are being made unbearable. You agree with me — do you not ? " " Yes," she said, with a curious inquiring look in her eyes. " You had better let me leave. It is the only way out of the difficulty." " You know very well, Julia, that that is impossible." It was the first time he had used her Christian name, and she knew now he was going to ask her to marry him. A frightened look passed into her face ; she turned from him ; he took her hands. " No, Julia," he said ; " there is another and better way out of the difficulty. You will stop here— you will be my wife ? " Reading the look of pain that had come into her eyes, he said, " You will not refuse me ? I want you — I can do nothing without you. If you leave me, I shall never be able to write my play ; it can only be written under your influence. I love you, Julia ! " She allowed him to draw her towards him, and then she broke away. 214 VAIN FOETUNE. " Oh," she said, " why do you say these things ? Yon only make my task harder. You kuow that I cannot betray my friend. Why do you tempt me to do a dishonourable action ? " " A dishonourable action ! What do you mean ? It is the only way to save her. Once we are married, she will forget. No doubt she will shed a few tears ; but to save the body we must often lose a limb. It is even so. Things cannot go on as they are. We cannot watch her withering away under our very eyes ; and that is what is actually happening. I have thought it all over, considered it from every point of view, and have come to the conclusion that — that, well, that we had better marry. You must have seen that I always liked you. I did not myself know how much until a few days ago. Say that I am not wholly disagreeable to you." "No, I will not listen to you ! My conscience tells me plainly where my duty lies. Not for all the world will I play Emily false. I shudder to think of such a thing ; it would be the basest ingratitude. I owe everything to her. When I hadn't a penny in the VAIN FORTUNE. 215 world, and wlien in my homelessness I wrote to Mr. Burnett, she pleaded in my favour, and decided him to take me as a companion. No, no ! a thousand times no ! Let go my hands. Do you not know what it is to be loyal ? " " I hope I do. But, as I have explained, it is the only solution. The romantic attachments of young girls, unless nipped in the bud, often end fatally. Do you not see how ill she is looking ? She is wearing her life away. We shall be acting in her best in- terests. Besides, she is not the only person to be considered. Do I not love you ? Are you not the very woman whose influence, whose guidance, is necessary, so that I should succeed ? Without your help I shall never write my play. A woman's influence is necessary to every undertaking. The greatest writers owe their best inspiration to " " Her heart is as closely set upon you as yours is upon your play." " But," cried Hubert, " I do not love her 1 Under no circumstances would I marry her. That I swear to you. If she and I were alone on a desert island " 216 VAIN FORTUNE. Julia looked at him one moment donbting-ly, in(]^uir- ingly. Then she said, — " Hers is no evanescent fancy, but a passion that goes to tlie very roots of her nature, and will kill her if it be not satisfied." " Or cut out in time." " I must leave." " That will not mend matters." " My departure will, at all events, remove all cause for jealousy ; and when I am gone you may learn to love her." " No, that 1 swear is impossible ! " " You very likely think so now ; but I'm bound to give her every chance of winning you." " I say again that that is impossible I 1 have never seen a woman except yourself I could marry. I tell you so : believe me as you like. ... In this matter you are acting like a woman, — you allow your emotions and not your intellect to lead you. By acting thus, you are certainly sacrificing two lives — hers and mine. Of your own 1 do not speak, not knowing what is passing in your heart ; but if by any chance you should VAIN FOETUNE. 217 care for me, yon are adding your own happiness to the general holocanst." Neither spoke again for some time. " Why should yon not marry her?" Julia said, at the end of a long silence. " Some people think her quite a pretty girl." The lovers looked at each other, and smiled sadly. And then, in pathetic phrases, Hubert tried to explain why he could never love Emily. He spoke of his age, and of difference of tastes, — he liked clever women. The conversation fell. At the end of a long silence, Julia said, — " There is nothing for it but my departure, and the sooner the better." " You are not in earnest ? You are surely not in earnest ? " Yes, indeed I am." " Then, if you go, you must take her with you. She cannot remain here alone with me. And even if she could, I could not live with her. Her folly has destroyed any liking I may have ever had for her. You'll have to take her with you." 218 VAIN FORTUNE. " She would not come with me. I spoke to her once of a trip abroad." " And she refased ? " " She said she only wanted things to go on just as they are." CHAPTER XIV. XN some trepidation Julia knocked. Receiving no reply, she opened the door, and her candle burnt in what a moment before must have been inky dark- ness. Emily lay on her bed — on the edge of it; and the only movement she made was to avert her eyes from the light. " What ! all alone in this dark- ness, Emily ! . . . Shall I light your candles ? " She had to repeat the question before she could get an answer. " No, thank you ; I want nothing ; I have no wish to see anything. I like the dark." " Have you been asleep ? " " No, I have not. . . . Why do you come to tor- ment me ? It cannot matter to you whether I lie in the dark or the light. Oh, take that candle away 1 it is blinding me." Julia put the candle 319 220 VAIN FORTUNE. on the washstand. Then full of pity for the grieving girl, she stood, her hand resting on the bed-rail. " Aren't you coming down to dinner, Emily ? Come, let me pour out some water for you. When you have bathed your eyes " " I don't want any dinner." " It will look very strange if you remain in your room the whole evening. You do not want to vex him, do you ? " " I suppose he is very angry with me. But I did not mean to vex him. Is he very angry ? " " No, he is not angry at all ; he is merely dis- tressed. You distress him dreadfully when " " I don't know why I should distress him. I'm sure I don't mean to. You know more about it than 1. You are always whispering together — talk- ing about me." " I assure you, Emily, you are mistaken. Mr. Price and I have no secrets whatever." " Why should you tell me these falsehoods ? They make me so miserable." VAIN FORTUNE. 221 " Falsehoods, Emily ! When did you ever know me to tell a falsehood ? " " You say you have no secrets ! Do you think I am blind ? You think, I suppose, I did not see you showing him a ring ? You took it off, too ; and 1 suppose you gave it to him, — an engagement ring, very likely." " I lost a stone from my ring, and I asked Mr. Price if he would take the ring to London and have the stone replaced. . . . That is all. So you see how your imagination has run away with you." Emily did not answer. At last she said, breaking the silence abruptly, — " Is he very angry ? Has he gone to his study ? Do you think he will come down to dinner ? " " I suppose he'll come down for dinner." " Will you go and ask him ? " " I hardly see how I can do that. He is very busy. . . . And if you would listen to any advice of mine, it would be to leave him to himself as much as possible for the present. He is so taken up with his play ; 1 know he's most anxious about it." 222 VAIN FORTT'NE. "Is he ? I don't know. He never speaks to me abont it. I hate that play, and 1 hate to see him go up to that study ! I cannot understand why he should trouble himself about writing jilays ; he doesn't want the money, and it can't be agreeable sitting up there all alone thinking. ... It is easy to see that it only makes him unhappy. But you encourage him to go on with it. Oh yes, you do; there's no use saying you don't. You are always talking to him about it ; you bring the conversation up. You think I don't see how yon do it, but I do ; and you like doing it, because then you have him all to yourself. I can't talk to him about that play ; and I wouldn't if I could, for it only makes him unhappy. But you don't care whether he's unhappy or not ; you only think of yourself." " You surely don't believe what you are saying is true ? To-morrow you will be sorry for what you have said. You cannot think that I would deceive you, Emily ? Remember what friends we have been." " I remember everything. You think I tlon't ; but I do. And you think also that there's no reason VAIN FORTUNE. 223 why I should be miserable ; bnt there is. Because you do not feel my misery, you think it doesn't exist. I daresay you think, too, that you are very good and kind ; but yon aren't. You think you de- » ceive me ; but you don't. I know all that is passing between you and Hubert. I know a great deal more than I can explain. . . ." " But tell me, Emily, what is it you suspect ? What do you accuse me of ? " " I accuse you of nothing. Can't you understand that things may go wrong without it being any one's fault in particular ? " Julia wondered how Emily could think so wisely. She seemed to have grown wiser in her grief. But grief helped her no further in her instinctive per- ception of the truth, and she resumed her puerile attack on her friend. " Nothing has gone well with me ever since you came here. I was disinherited ; and I daresay you were glad, for you knew that if the money did not come to me it would go to Hubert, and I do know " 224 VAIN FORTUNE. " What are yon saying, Emily ? I never heard of such wild accusations before ! You know very well tliat I never set eyes on Mr. Price until he came down here." " How should I know what you know or don't know ? But I know that all my life every one has been plotting against me. And I cannot make out why. I never did harm to any one." The conversation paused. Emily flung herself back on the pillow. Not even a sob. The candle burned like a long yellow star in the shadows, yielding only sufficient light for Julia to see the outlines of a somewhat untidy room, — an old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe, cloudy and black, upon old-fashioned grey paper, some cardboard boxes, and a number of china ornaments, set out on a small table covered with a tablecloth in crewel work. ' "I would do anything in the world for you, Emily. I am your best friend, and yet " " I have no friend. I don't believe in friends. You think people are your friends, and then yon find they are not." VAIN FOKTUNE. 225 " How can I convince you of the injustice of your suspicions ? " " I see all plainly enough; it is fate, I suppose. . . . Selfishness. We all think of ourselves — we can't help it ; and that's what makes life so miserable. . . . He would be a very good match. You have got him to like you. Perhaps you didn't intend to ; but you have done it all the same." " But, Emily dear, listen ! There is no question of marriage between me and Mr. Price. If you will only have patience, things will come right in the end." " For you, j)erhaps." " Emily, Emily ! . . . You should try to understand things better." " I feel them, even if T don't understand." " Admit that you were wrong about the ring. Have I not convinced you that you were wrong ? " Emily did not answer. But at the end of a long: silence, in which she had been pursuing a different train of thought, she said, " Then you mean that he has never asked you to marry him ? " The directness of the question took Julia by 15 226 VAIN FORTUNE surprise, and, falsehood being unnatural to her, she hesitated, hardly knowing what to answer. Her hesitation was only momentary ; but in that moment there came up such a wave of pity for the grief- stricken girl that she lied for pity's sake, " No, he never asked me to marry him. I assure you that he never did. If you do not believe me " As she was about to say, " I will swear it if you like," an irresponsible sensation of jiride in her ownership of his love surged up through her, overwhelming her will, and she ended the sentence, " I am very sorry, but I cannot help it." The words were still well enough ; it was in the accent that the truth transpired. And then }ielding still further to the force which had subjugated her will, she said, — •• I admit that we have talked about a great many ithmgs." (Again she strove not to speak, but the words rose red-hot to her lips.) " He has said tluit he would like to marry, but I should not think of accepting " "Then it is just as I thought !" Emily cried ; "he wants to get rid of me ! " VAIN FORTUNE. 227 Julia was shocked and surprised at the depth of disgraceful vanity and cowardice which special cir- cumstances had brought within her consciousness. The Julia Bentley of the last few moments was not the Julia Bentley she was accustomed to meet and interrogate, and she asked herself how she might exorcise the meanness that had so unexpectedly appeared in her. Should she pile falsehood on false- hood ? She felt it would be cruel not to do so ; but Emily said, " He wants to marry to get rid of me, and not because he loves yon." Then it was hard to deny herself the pleasure of telling the whole truth ; but she mastered her desire of triumph, and, actuated by nothing but sincerest love and pity, she said, — " Oh, Emily dear, he never asked me to marry him ; he does not love me at all ! Why will you not believe me ? " " Because I cannot ! " she cried passionately. " I only ask to be left alone." " A little patience, Emily, and all will come right. Mr. Price does not want to get rid of you. You wrong him just as you wrong me. He has often said 228 VAIN FORTUNE. how much he likes yon ; indeed he has." Although speaking from the bottom of her heart, it seemed to Julia that she was playing the part of a cruel, false woman, who was designingly plotting to betray a helpless girl ; and not understanding why this was so, she was at once puzzled and confused. It seemed to her that she was being borne on in a wind of destiny, and her will seemed to beat vainly against it, like a bird's wings when a storm is blowing. She was conscious of a curious powerlessness ; it surprised her, and she could not understand why she continued talking, so vain and useless did words seem to her — an idle jjatter. She continued, — " You think that 1 stand between you and Mr. Price. Now, I assure you that it is not so. I tell you I should refuse Mr. Price, even if he were to ask me to marry him, here, at this very moment. 1 pledge you my wonl on this. Give me your hand, Emily. You will not refuse itr" Emily gave her hand. "It is quite ridiculous to promise, for he will never ask me ; but I promise not to marry him even if he should ask me." She gave the j)romise, determined to keep VAIN FORTUNE, 229 it ; and yet she knew she would not keep it. She argued passionately with herself, a prey to an inward dread ; for no matter how firmly she forced resolu- tion upon resolution, they all seemed to melt in her soul like snow on a blazing fire. Then, determined to rid herself of a numb sensation of powerlessness, and achieve the end she desired, she said, " I'll tell you, Emily, what I'll do. I'll not stay here ; I will go away. Let me go away, dear, and then it will be all right." " No, no ! you mustn't leave ; I don't want you to leave. It would be said everywhere that I had you sent away. . . . You promise me not to leave ? " Raising herself, Emily clung to Julia's arm, detaining her until she had extorted the desired promise. " Very well ; I promise," she said sadly. " But I think you are wrong ; indeed I do. I have always thought that ' the only solution of the problem ' was my departure." Memory had betrayed her into Hubert's own phrase. " Why should you go ? You think, I suppose, that I'm in love with Hubert ? I'm not. All I want 230 VAIN FORTUNE. is for things to go on jnst the same — for us to be friends as we were before." " Very well, Emily — very well. . . . But in the meantime you must not neglect your meals as you have been doing lately. If you don't take care you'll lose your health and your looks. I have been noticing how thin you are looking." " I suppose you have told him that I am looking thin and ill. . . . Men like tall, big, healthy women like you — don't they ? " " 1 see, Emily, that it is hopeless ; every word one utters is misinterpreted. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes ; or, if you like, I will dine upstairs ; and you and Mr. Price " " But is he coming down to dinner ? I thought you said he had gone to his study ; sometimes he dines there." " T can tell you nothing about Mr. Price. I don't know whether he'll dine upstairs or down." At that moment a knock was heard at the door, and the servant announced that dinner was ready. " Mr. Price has sent down word, ma'am, that he VATN FORTUNE. 231 is very busy writing ; he hopes you'll excuse him, and he'll be glad if you will send him his dinner up on a tray." " Very well ; I shall be down directly." The slight interruption had sufficed to calm Julia's irritation, and she stood waiting for Emily. But seeing that she showed no signs of moving, she said, " Aren't you coming down to dinner, Emily ? " It was a sense of strict duty that impelled the question, for her heart sank at the prospect of spend- ing the evening alone with the girl. But seeing the tears on Emily's cheeks, she sat down beside her, and said, " Dearest Emily, if you would only confide in me ! " " There's nothing to confide. . . ." " You mustn't give way like this ; you really mustn't. Come down and have some dinner." " It is no use ; I couldn't eat anything." " He may come into the drawing-room in the course of the evening, and will be so disappointed and grieved to hear that you have not been down." 232 VAIN FORTUNE. " No ; he will spend the whole evening iu his room ; we shall not see him again." " Bnt if I go and ask him to come ; if I tell him " " No ; do not speak to him about me ; he'd only say that I was interfering with his work." "That is nnjnst, Emily ; he has never reproached you with interfering witli his work. Shall I go and tell him that you won't come down because you tbink he is angry with you ? " Ten minutes passed, and no answer could be obtained from Emily — only passionate and illusive refusals, denials, prayer to be left alone ; and these mingled with irritating suggestions that Julia had better go at once, that Hubert might be waiting for her. But Julia bore patiently with her, and did not leave her until Hubert sent to know why his dinner was delayed. Emily had begun to undress ; and, tearing off her things, she hardly took more than five minutes to get into bed. " Shall I light a candle?" Julia asked before leaving. VAIN FOETUNE. 233 " No, thank yon." " Shall I send yon up some sonp ? " " No ; I could not touch it." " You are not going to remain in the dark ? Let me light a night-light ? " " No, thank you ; I like the dark." CHAPTER XV. TZrUBERT and Mrs. Bentley stood by the chimney- piece in the drawing-room, waiting for the doctor ; they had left him with Emily, and stood facing each other absorbed in tlionght, when the door opened, and the doctor entered. Hnbert said, — " What do you think, doctor ? Is she seriously ill ? " " There is nothing, so far as I can make out, organic- ally the matter with her, but the system is running down. She is very thin and weak. I shall prescribe a tonic, but " " But what, doctor ? " " She seems to be suffering from extreme depres- sion of spirits. Do you know of any secret grief — any love affair ? At her age, anything of that sort fills the entire mind, and the consequences are often grave." " And supposing it were so, what would be your advice ? Change of air and scene.? " 234 VAIN FORTUNE. 235 " Certainly." " Have yon spoken to her on the subject ? " "Yes; but she says she will not leave Ashwood." " We cannot send her away by force. What would yon advise us to do ? " " There's nothing to be done. We must hope for the best. There is no immediate cause for fear. . . . But, by the way, she looks as if she suffered from sleeplessness." "Yes, she does ; but she has been ordered chloral. Any harm in that ? " " In her case, it is a necessity ; but do you think she takes it ? " " Oh yes, she has been taking chloral." The conversation paused ; the doctor went over to the writing-table, wrote a prescription, made a few remarks, and took his leave, announcing his intention of returning that day fortnight. Hubert said, and his tone implied reference to some anterior conversation, " We are powerless in this matter. You see we can do nothing. We only succeed in making ourselves unhappy ; we 236 VAIN FORTUNE. do not change in anything. I am wretchedly unhappy ! " " Believe me," she said, raising her arms in a beau- tiful feminine movement, "I do not wish to make you unhappy." " Then why do you persist ? Why do you refuse to take the only step that may lead us out of this difficulty?" " How can you ask me ? Oh, Hubert, I did not think you could be so cruel ! It would be a shameful action." It was the first time she had used his Christian name, and his face changed expression. " I cannot," she said, " and I will not, and I do not understand how you can ask me — you who are so loyal, how can you ask me to be disloyal ? " " Spare me your reproaches. Fate has been cruel. I have never told you the story of my life. I have suftered deeply; my pride has been humiliated, and I have endured hunger and cold ; but those sufferings were light compared to this last misfortune." She looked at him with sublime i)ity in her eyes. VAIN FORTUNE. 237 " 1 do not conceal from yon," she said, " that I love you very much. I, too, have suffered, and I had thought for one moment that fate had vouchsafed me happiness ; but, as you would say — the irony of life ! " " Julia, do not say you never will ? " " We cannot look into the future. But this I can say — I will not do Emily any wrong, and so far as is in my power I will avoid giving her pain. There is only one way out of this difficulty. 1 must leave this house as soon as I can persuade her to let me go." The door opened; involuntarily the speakers moved apart; and though their faces and attitudes were strictly composed when Emily entered, she knew they had been standmg closer together. " I'm afraid I'm interrupting you," she said. " No, Emily ; pray do not go away. We were only talking about you." " If I were to leave every time you begin to talk about me, I should spend my life in my room. I daresay you have many faults to find. Let me hear all about your fresh discoveries." It was a thin November day : leaves were whirling 238 VAIN FORTUNE. on the lawn, and at that moment one blew rustling down the window-pane. And, even as it, she seemed a passing thing. Her face was like a plate of fine white porcelain, and the deep eyes filled it with a strange and magnetic pathos ; the abundant chestnut hair hung in the precarious support of a thin tortoiseshell; and there was something unforgetable in the manner in which her aversion for the elder woman betrayed itself, — a mere nothing, and yet more impressive than any more obvious and therefore more vulgar expression of dislike would have been. " A little patience, Emily. You will not have me here much longer." " I suppose that I am so disagreeable that you cannot live with me. Why should you go away ? " " My dear Emily, you must not excite yourself. The doctor " " J want to know why she said she was going to leave. Has she been com2)laining about me to you ? What is her reason for wanting to go ? " " We do not get on together as we used to — that is all, Emily. I can please you no longer." VAIN FOETUNE. 239 '* It is not my fault if we do not get on. I don't see why we shouldn't, and I do not want you to go." " Emily, dear, everything shall be as you like it." The girl looked at him with the shy, doubting look of an animal that would like, and still does not dare, to go to the beckoning hand. How frail seemed the body in the black dress ! and how thin the arms in the black sleeves ! Hubert took the little hand in his. At his touch a look of content and rest passed into her eyes, and she yielded herself as the leaf yields to the wind. She was all his when he chose. Mrs. Bentley left the room ; and, seeing her go, a light of sudden joy illuminated the thin, pale face ; and when the door closed, and she was alone with him, the bleak, un- happy look, which had lately grown strangely habitual to her, faded out of her face and eyes. He fetched her shawl, and took her hand again in his, knowing that by so doing he made her happy. He could not refuse her the peace from pain that these attentions brought her, though he would have held himself aloof from all women but one. She knew the truth well enough ; but they who suffer much think only of 240 VAIN FORTUNE. the cessation of pain. He wondered at the inveigling content that introduced itself into her voice, face, and gesture. Settling herself comfortably on the sofa, she said, — " Now tell me what the doctor said. Did he say I would soon recover ? Did he say that I was very bad ? Tell me all." " He said that yon ought to have a change — that you should go south somewhere." " And you agree with him that I ought to go away ? " " Is he not the best judge ? — the doctor's orders ! " " Then you, too, have learnt to hate me. You, too, want to send me away ? " "My dear Emily, I only want to do as you like. You asked me what the doctor said, and I told you." Hubert got up and walked aside. He passed his hand across his eyes. He could hardly contain him- self; the emotion that discussion with this sick girl caused liim went to his head. She looked at him curiously, watching his movement, and he failed to understand what pleasure it could give her to have VAIN FORTUNE. 241 him by her side, knowing, as she clearly did, that his heart was elsewhere. Turning suddenly, he said, — " But tell me, Emily, how are you feeling ? You are, after all, the best judge." " I feel rather weak. 1 should get strong enough if " She paused, as if waiting for Hubert to ask her to finish the sentence. But he hurriedly turned the conversation. " The doctor said you looked as if you had not had any sleep for several nights. I told him that that was strange, for you were taking chloral." " I sleep well enough," she said. " But sometimes life seems so sad, that I do not think I shall be able to bear with it any longer. You do not know how unfortunate I have been. When I was a child, father and mother used to quarrel always, and I was the only child. That was why Mr. Burnett asked me to come and live at Ashwood. I came at first on a visit ; and when father and mother died, he said he wished to adopt me. I thought he loved me ; but his love was only selfishness. No one has ever loved me. I feel 16 242 VAIN FORTUNE. SO utterly alone in this world — that is why I am unhappy." Her eyes filled with tears, and at the sight of her tears Hubert's feelings were overwrought, and again he had to walk aside. He would give her all things ; but she was dying for him, and he could not save her. No longer was there any disguisement between them. The words they uttered were as nothing, so clearly did the thought shine out of their eyes, " I am d)'ing of love for you," and then the answer, " I know that is so, and I cannot help it." Her whole soul was spoken in her eyes, and he felt that his eyes betrayed him equally plainly. They stood in a sort of mental nakedness. The woman no longer sought for words to cover herself with ; the man did, but he did not find them. They had not spoken for some time; they had been thinking of each other. At last she said, and with the querulous perversity of the sick, — " But even if I wished to go abroad, with whom could I go ? " Hubert fell into the trap, and, noticing the sudden brightness in his eyes, a cloud of disappointment VAIN FORTUNE. 243 shadowed hers. " Of course, with Mrs. Bentley. I assure you, my dear Emily, that you " " No, no, I am not mistaken ! She hates me, and I cannot bear her. It is she who is making me ill." " Hate you ! Why should she hate you ? " Emily did not reply. Hubert watched her, noticing the pallor of her cheek, so entirely white and blue, hardly a touch of warm colour anywhere, even in the shadow of the heavy hair. " I would give anything to see you friends again." " That is impossible ! I can never be friends with JiUia as I once was. She has No, never can we be friends again. But why do you always take her part against me ? That is what grieves me most. If only you thought " " Emily dear, these are but idle fancies. You are mistaken." The conversation fell. The girl lay quite still, her hands clasped across the shawl, her little foot stretched beyond the limp black dress, the hem of which fell over the edge of the grey sofa. Hubert sat by her on a low chair, and he looked into the 244 VAIN FORTUNE. fire, whose light wavered over the walls, now and again bringing the face of one of the pictures out of the darkness. The wind whined about the windows. Then, sjjeakiug as if out of a dream, Emily said, — " Julia and I can never be friends again — that is impossible." " But what has she done ? " Hubert asked in- cautiously, regretting his words as soon as he had uttered them. " What has she done ? " she said, looking at him curiously. " Well, one thing, she has got it reported that — that I am in love with you, and that that is the reason of my illness." " I am sure she never said any such thing. You are entirely mistaken. Mrs. Bentley is incapable of such wickedness." " A woman, when she is jealous, will say anything. If she did not say it, can you tell me how it got about ? " " I don't believe any one ever said such a thing." " Oh yes, lots have said so — things come back to me. Julia always was jealous of me. She cannot bear me VAIN FOKTUNE. 245 to speak to you. Have you not noticed how she follows us ? Do you think she would have left the room just now if she could have helped it ? " " If you think this is so, had she not better leave ? " Emily did not answer at once. Motionless she lay on the sofa, looking at the grey November day with vague eyes that bespoke an obsession of hallucination. Suddenly she said, " I do not want her to go away. She would spread a report that I was jealous of her, and had asked you to send her away. No, it would not be wise to send her away. Besides," she said, fixing her eyes, now full of melancholy reproach, " you would like her to remain." " I have said before, Emily, and I assure you I am speaking the truth, I want you to do what you like. Say what you wish to be done and it shall be done." " Is that really true ? I thought no one cared for me. You must care for me a little to speak like that." " Of course I care for you, Emily." " I sometimes think you might have if it had not been for that play ; for, of course, I'm not clever, and 246 VAIN FORTUNE. cannot discnss it witli yon. . . . Jnlia, I snj)pose, can — that is the reason why you like her. Am I not right?" " Mrs. Bentley is a clever woman, who has read a great deal, and I like to talk an act over with her before I write it." " Is that all ? Then why do people say yon are going to marry her ? " " But nobody ever said so." " Oh yes, they have. Is it true ? " " No, Emily; it is not trne." " Are yon quite sure ? " " Yes, quite sure." "If that is so," she said, turning her eyes on Hubert, and looking as if she could see right down into his soul, " I shall get well very soon. Then we can go on just the same; but if you married her, I " " I what ? " " Nothing ! I feel quite happy now. I did not want you to marry her. I could not bear it. It would be like having a step-mother — worse, for she would not have me here at all; she would drive me away." VAIN FORTUNE. 247 Hubert shook his head. " You don't know Julia as well as I do. However, it is no use discussing what is not going to be. You have been very nice to-day. If you would be always nice as you are to-day, I should soon get well." Her pale profile seemed very sharp in the fading twilight, and her delicate arms and thin bosom were full of the charm and fascination of deciduous things. She turned her face and looked at Hubert. ^' You have made me very happy. I am content." He was afraid to look back at her, lest she should, in her subtle, wilful manner, read the thought that was passing in his soul. Even now she seemed to read it. She seemed conscious of his pity for her. So little would give her happiness, and that little was impossible. His heart was irreparably another's. But though Emily's eyes seemed to know all, they seemed to say, " What matter ? I regret nothing, only let things remain as they are." And then her voice said, — " 1 think I could sleep a little; Jiappiness has brought me sleep. Don't go away, i shall not be 248 VAIN FOETUNE. asleep long." Slie looked at him, and dozed, and then fell asleep. Hubert waited till her breathing grew deeper ; then he laid the hand he held in his by her side, and stole on tiptoe from the room. The strain of the interview had become too intense ; the house was unbearable. He went into the air. The November sky was drawing into wintry night; the grey clouds darkened, clinging round the long plain, overshadowing it, blotting out colour, leaving nothing but the severe green of the park, and the yellow whirl- ing of dishevelled woods. " I must," he said to himself, " think no more about it. I shall go mad if I do. Nature will find her own solution. God grant that it may be a merciful one ! I can do nothing." And to escape from useless consideration, to release his overwrought brain, he hastened his steps, extending his walk through the farthest woods. As he approached the lodge gate he came upon Mrs. Bentley. She stood, her back turned from him, leaning on the gate, her thoughts lost in the long darkness of autumnal fields and woods. VAIN FORTUNE. 249 " Julia 1" " You have left Emily. How did you leave her ? " " She is fast asleep on the sofa. She fell asleep. Then why should I remain ? The house was unbear- able. She went to sleep, saying she felt very happy." " Really ! What induced such a change in her ? Did you " " No, I did not ask her to marry me; but I was able to tell her that I was not going to marry you, and that seemed entirely to satisfy her." " Did she ask you ? " " Yes. And when I told her I was not, she said that that was all she wanted to know — that she would soon get well now. How we human beings thrive in each other's unhappiness ! " " Quite true, and we have been reproaching ourselves for our selfishness." " Yes, and hers is infinitely greater. She is quite satisfied not to ^e happy herself, so long as she can make sure of our unhappiness. And what is so strange is her utter unconsciousness of her own fantastic and hardly conceivable selfishness. ... It is astonishing I " 250 VAIN FOETUNE. I " She is very yonng, and the young are naturally egotistic." " Possibly. Still, it is hardly more agreeable to encounter. Come, let's go for a walk ; and, above all things, let's talk no more about Emily." The roads were greasy, and the hedges were torn and worn with incipient winter, and when they dipped the town appeared, a reddish-brown mass in the blue landscape. Hubert thought of his play and his love; but not separately — they seemed to him now as one indissoluble, indivisible thing ; and he told her that he never would be able to write it without her assistance. That she might be of use to him in his work was singularly sweet to hear, and the thought reached to the end of her heart, causing her to smile sadly, and argue vainly, and him to reply querulously. They walked for about a mile ; and then, wearied with sad expostulation, the conversation fell, and at the end of a long silence Julia said, — " I think we had better turn back." The suggestion filled Hubert's heart with rushing pain, and he answered, — VAIN FORTUNE. 251 " Why should we return ? I cannot go back to that girl. Oh, the miserable life we are leading I " " What can we do ? We must go back ; we cannot live in a tent by the wayside. We have no tent to set np." " Come to London and be my wife." " No," she said ; " that is impossible. Let us not speak of it." Hubert did not answer; and, turning their faces homeward, they walked some way in silence. Suddenly Hubert said, — " No, it is impossible. I cannot return. There is no use. I'm at the end of my tether. I cannot." She looked at him in alarm. " Hubert," she said, " this is folly ! I cannot return without you." " You ruin my life ; you refuse me the only happiness. Ikn more wretched than 1 can tell you 1 " " And I ! Do you think that I'm not wretched ? " She raised her face to his ; her eyes were full of tears. He caught her in his arms, and kissed her. The warm 252 VAIN FOETUNE. touch of her lips, the scent of her face and hair, banished all bnt desire of her. " Yon must come with me, Jnlia. I shall go mad if von don't. I can care for no one bnt von. All my life is in yon now. Yon know I cannot love that girl, and we cannot continue in this wretched life. There is no sense in it ; it is a voluntary, senseless martyrdom ! " " Hubert, do not temjjt me to be disloyal to my friend. It is cruel of yon, for yon know I love yon. But no, nothing shall tempt me. How can I ? We do not know what might happen. The shock might kill her. She might do away with herself." " You must come with me," said Hubert, now com- pletely lost in his passion. " Nothing will happen. Girls do not do away with themselves; girls do not die of broken hearts. Nothing happens in these days. A few more tears will be shed, and she will soon become reconciled to what cannot be altered. A year or so after, we will marry her to a nice young man, and she will settle down a (piiet mother of children." " Perhaps you are right ? " VAIN FORTUNE. 253 An empty fly, returning to the town, passed them. The fly-man raised his whip. " Take yon to the railway station in ten minutes ? " Hubert spoke quietly ; nevertheless there was a strange nervousness in his eyes when he said — " Fate comes to help me ; she offers us the means of escape. You will not refuse, Julia ? " Her upraised face was full of doubt and pain, and she was perplexed by the fly-man's dull eyes, his starved horse, his ramshackle vehicle, the wet road, the leaden sky. It was one of those moments when the familiar appears strange and grotesque. Then, gathering all her resolution, she said — " No, no ; it is impossible ! Come back, come back." He caught her arm : quietly and firmly he led her across the road. " You must listen to me. . . . We are about to take a decisive step. Are you sure that " * " No, no, Hubert, I cannot ; let us return home." " I go back to Ashwood ! If I did I should commit suicide." " Don't speak like that. . . . Where will you go ? " 254 VAIN FORTUNE. " I shall travel. ... I shall visit Italy and Greece. ... I shall live abroad." " You are not serious ? " " Yes, I am, Julia. That cab may not take both, but it certainly will take one of us away from Ash- wood, and for ever." " Take you to Southwater, sir — take you to the station in ten minutes," said the fly-man, pulling in his horse. A zig-zag fugitive thought passed : why did the fly-man speak of taking them to the station ? How was it that he knew where they wanted to go ? They stopped and wondered. The poor horse's bones stood out in strange projections, the round-shouldered little fly-man sat grinnmg on his box, showing three long yellow fangs. The vehicle, the horse, and the man, his arm raised in questioning gesture, appeared in strange silhouette upon the grey clouds, assuming portentous aspect in their tremulous and excited imaginations. " Take you to Southwater in ten minutes ! " The voice of the fly-man sounded hard, grating, and derisive in their ears. He had stopped in the middle of the road, and they VAIN FORTUNE. 255 walked slowly past, through a great puddle, which drenched their feet. " Get in, Jnlia. Shall I open the door ? " " No, no ; think of Emily. I cannot, Hubert,— I cannot ; it would kill her." The conversation paused, and in a long silence they wondered if the fly-man had heard. Then they walked several yards listening to the tramp of the hoofs, and then they heard the fly-man strike his horse with the whip. The animal shuffled into a sort of trot, and as the carriage passed them the fly-man again raised his arm and again repeated the same phrase, " Drive you to the station in ten minutes ! " The carriage was her temptation, and Julia hoped the man would linger no longer. For the promise she had given to Emily lay like a red-hot coal upon her heart ; its fumes rose to her head, And there were times when she thought they would choke her, and she grew so sick with the pain of self-denial that she could have thrown herself down in the wet grass on the roadside, and laid her face on the cold earth for relief. Would nothing happen ? What madness ! Night was coming on, and still they 256 VAIN FORTUNE. followed the road to Sonthwater. Rain fell in heavy drops. " We shall get wet," she mnrmnred, as if she were answering the fly-man, who had said again, " Drive you to the station in ten minutes ! " She hated the man for his persistency. " Say you will come with me ! " Hubert whispered ; and all the while the rain came down heavier. "No, no, Hubert. ... I cannot ; I promised Emily that I never would. I am going back." '' Then we must say good-bye. I will not go back." " You don't mean it. You don't really intend me to go back to Emily and tell her ? . . . She will not believe me ; she will think I have sent you away to gain my own end. Hubert, you mustn't leave me . . . and in all this wet. See how it rains. I shall never be able to get home alone." " I will drive you on as far as the lodge gate ; further than the lodge I will not go. Nothing in the world shall tempt me to pass it." VAIN FORTUNE. 257 At a sign from Hubert the little fly-man scrambled clown from bis box. He was a little old man, almost hunchbacked, with small mud-coloured eyes and a fringe of white beard about his sallow, discoloured face. He was dressed in a pale yellow jacket and waistcoat, and they both noticed that his crooked little legs were covered with a pair of pepper-and-salt trousers. They felt sure he must have overheard a large part of their conversation, for as he opened the carriage door he grinned, showing his three yellow fangs. . . . His appearance was not encouraging. Julia wished he were different, and then she looked at Hubert. She longed to throw herself into his arms and weep. But at that moment the heavens seemed to open, and the rain came down like a torrent, thick and fast, splashing all along the road in a million splashes. " Horrible weather, sir ; sha'n't be long a-takin' you to South water. What part of the town be yer going to — the railway station ? " Julia still hesitated. The rain beat on their faces. and when some chilling drops rolled down her neck she instinctively sought shelter in the carriage. 17 258 VAIN FORTUNE. " Drive me to the station as fast as yon can. Catch the half-past five to London, and I'll give you five shillings." The leather thong sounded on the starved animal's hide, the crazy vehicle rocked from side to side, and the wet country almost disappeared in the dark- ness. Hedges and fields swept past them in faintest outline, here and there a blurred mass, which they recognised as a farm building. His arm was about her, and she heard him murmur over and over again — " Dearest Julia, you are what I love best in the world." The words thrilled her a little, but all the while she saw Emily's eyes and heard her voice. Hubert, however, was full ef happiness — the sweet happiness of the quiet, docile creature that has at last obtained what it loves. CHAPTER XVI. "TIpMILY awoke shivering ; the fire had gone out, the room was in darkness, and the house seemed strange and lonel}'. She rang the bell, and asked the servant if he had seen Mr. Price. Mr. Price had gone out late in the afternoon, and had not come in. Where was Mrs. Bentley ? Mrs. Bentley had gone out earlier in the afternoon, and had not come in. She suspected the truth at once. They had gone to London to be married. The servant lighted a candle, made up the fire, and asked if she would wait dinner. Emily made no answer, but sat still, her eyes fixed, looking into space. The man lingered at the door. At that moment her little dog bounded into the room, and, in a paroxysm of delight, jumped on his mis- tress's lap. She took him in her arms and kissed him, and this somewhat reassured the alarmed servant, who then thought it was no more than one of Miss 259 260 VAIN FORTUNE. Emily's queer ways. Daudy licked his mistress's face, and nibbed bis rongb bead against her sbonlder. He seemed more tban usually affectionate that evening. Suddenly sbe caugbt bim up in ber arms, and kissed bim passionately. " Not even for your sake, dearest Dandy, can I bear witb it any longer ! We are all very selfisb, and it is selfisb of me to leave you, but I cannot help it." Tben a doubt crossed her mind, and sbe raised her head and listened to it. It seemed difficult to believe that he had told ber a falsehood — a cruel, wicked falsehood — he who bad been so kind. And yet Ah! yes, she knew well enough that it was all true ; something told her so. The lancinating pain of doubt passed away, and she remained thinking of the impossibility of bearing any longer with ber life. An hour passed, and the servant came with the news that Mr. Price and Mrs. Bentley bad gone to London ; they had taken the half-past live train. " Yes," sbe said, " I know they have." Her voice was calm. There was a strange hollow ring in it, and the servant wondered. A few minutes after, dinner was announced; and to escape observation and comment VAIN FORTUNE. 261 she went into the dining-room, tasted the soup, and took a slice of mutton on her plate. She could not eat it. She gave it to Dandy. It was the last time she should feed him. How hungry he was ! She hoped he would not care to eat it ; he would not if he knew she was going to leave him. In the drawing-room he insisted on being nursed ; and alone, amid the faded furniture, watched over by the old portraits, her pale face fixed and her pale hands clasping her beloved dog, she sat thinking, brooding over the uuhaj^piness, the incurable unhap- piness, of her little life. She was absorbed in self, and did not rail against Hubert, or even Julia. Their personalities had somehow dropped out of her mind, and merely represented forces against which she found herself unable any longer to contend. Nor was she surprised at what had happened. There had always been in her some prescience of her fate. She and unhappiness had always seemed so inseparable, that she had never found it difficult to believe that this last misfortune would befall her. She had thought it over, and had decided that it would be unendurable 262 VAIN FORTUNE. to live any longer, and Jiad borne many a terrible insomnia so that she might collect sufficient chloral to take her out of her misery ; and now, as she sat thinking, she remembered that she had never, never been hajjpy. Oh ! the miserable evenings she used to spend when a child between her father and mother, who could not agree — why, she never understood. But she used to have to listen to her mother addressing insulting speeches to her father in a calm, even voice that nothing could alter; and, though both were dead and years divided her from that time, the memory survived, and she could see it all again — that room, the very paper on the wall, and her father being gradually worked up into a frenzy. When she was left an orphan, Mr. Burnett had adopted her, and she remembered the joy of coming to Ashwood. She had thought to find happiness there; but there, as at home, fate had gone against her, and she was hardly eighteen when Mr. Burnett had asked her to marry him. She had loved that old man, but he had not loved her ; for when she had refused to marry him he had broken all his promises and left VAIN FORTUNE. 263 her penniless, careless of what miglit become of her. Then she had given her whole heart to Julia, and Julia, too, had deceived her. And had she not loved Hubert ? — no one would ey&c know how much ; she did not know herself,— and had he not lied to her ? Oh, it was very cruel to deceive a poor little girl in this heartless way ! There was no heart in the world, that was it — and she was all heart; and her heart had been trampled on ever since she could remember. And when they came back they would revenge themselves upon her — insult her with their happiness ; perhaps insist on sending her away. Dandy drowsed on her lap. The servant brought in the tea, and when he returned to the kitchen he said he had never seen any one look so ghost-like as Miss Emily. The clock ticked loudly in the silence of the old room, the hands moving slowly towards ten. She waited for the hour to strike ; it was then that she usually went to bed. Her thoughts moved as in a nightmare; and paramount in this chaotic mass of sensation was an acute sense of the deception that had been practised on her ; with the consciousness, now 264 VAIN FOETUNE. firm and nnalterable, tliat it had become impossible for her to live. When the clock struck she got up from her -0 I chair, and the ■| movement , seemed to . react on her . brain ; her thoughts nn- 4 clouded, and I \ she went up- stairs think- ing clearly of her love of this old house. The old gentleman in the red :^' coat, his hand on his r"»s^^^^^^^^^^mr sword, looked on her '^^^MkP^^ benignly ; and the lady playing the spinet smiled as sweetly as was her wont. Emily held up the candle to the picture of the windmill. She had .^. VAIN FORTUNE. 265 alwa,ys loved that picture, and the sad thought came that she should never see it again. Dandy, who had galloped upstairs, stood looking through the banisters, wagging his tail. The moment she got into her room she wrote the following note : " I have taken an overdose of chloral. My life was too miserable to be borne any longer. I forgive those who have caused my unhappiness, and I hope they will forgive me any unhappiness I have caused them." They were nothing to her now ; they were beyond her hate, and the only pang she felt was parting with her beloved Dandy. There he stood looking at her, standing on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to cover him up and put him to sleep in his own corner. " Yes, Dandy, in a moment, dear — have patience." She looked round the little room, and, remembering all that she had suffered there, thought that the walls must be saturated with grief, like a sponge. It was a common thing at that time for her to stand before the glass and address such words as these to herself : " My poor girl, how I pity you ; 266 YATN FORTUNE. how I pity j-ou I " And now, looking at lierself very sadly, she said, " My poor girl, I shall never pity yon any more ! " Having hung np her dress, she fetched a chair and took varions doses of chloral out of the hollow top of her wardrobe, where she had hidden things all her life — sweets, novels, fireworks. They more than half-filled the tumbler; and, looking at the sticky, white liquid, she thought with repugnance of drinking so much of it. But, wanting to make quite sure of death, she resolved to take it all, and she undressed quickly. She was very cold when she got into bed. Then a thought struck her, and she got out of bed to add a postscript to her letter. " I have only one request to make. I hope Dandy will always be taken care of." Surprised that she had not wrapped him up and told him he was to go to sleep, the dog stood on the edge of the bed, watching her so earnestly that she wondered if he knew what she was going to do. " No, you don't know, dear — do you ? If you did, you wouldn't let me do it ; you'd bark the house down, 1 know you would, my own darling." Clasping liim to her VAIN FORTUNE. 267 breast, she smothered him with kisses, then put him away in his corner, covering him over for the night. She felt neither grief nor fear. Through mucli suffering, thought and sensation were, to a great extent, dead in her ; and, in a sort of emotive numb- ness, she laid her candlestick in its usual place on the chair b}^ her bedside ; and, sitting up in bed, her nightdress carefully buttoned, holding the tuml^ler half-filled with chloral, she tried to take a dispassionate survey of her life. She thought of what she had endured, and what she would have to endure if she did not take it. Then she felt she must go, and without hesitation drank off the chloral. vShe placed the tumbler by the candlestick, and lay down, re- membering vaguely that a long time ago she had decided that suicide was not wrong in itself. The last thing she remembered was the clock striking eleven. For half an hour she slept like stone. Then her eyes opened, and they told of sickness now in motion within her. And, strangely enough, through the over- powering nausea rising from her stomach to her brain, 268 VAIN FORTUNE. the thought that she was not going to die appeared perfectly clear, and with it a sense of disappointment ; she would have to begin it all over again. It was with great difficulty that she struck a match and lighted a candle. It seemed impossible to get up. At last she managed to slip her legs out of bed, and found she could stand, and through tlie various assaults of retching she thought of the letter : it must be destroyed ; and, leaning in the corner against the wall and the wardrobe, she tried to recover herself. A dull, deep sleep was pressing on her brain, and she thought she would never be able to cross the room to where the letter was. Dandy looked out of his rug ; she caught sight of his bright eyes. On cold and shaky feet she attemjited to make her way towards the letter ; but the room heaved up at her, and, fearing she should fall, and knowing if she did tliat she would not be able to regain her feet, she clung to the toilette-table. She must destroy that letter : if it were found they would watch her; and, however impossible her life might l)ccome, she would not be able to escape from it. This cousidera- VAIN FORTUNE. 269 tion gave lier strength for a final effort. She tore the letter into very small pieces, and then, clinging to a chair, strove to grasp the rail of the bed ; but the bed rolled worse than any ship. Making a supreme effort she got in; and then, neither dreams nor waking thoughts, but oblivion complete. Hours and hours passed, and when she opened her eyes her maid stood over the bed, looking at her. " Oh, miss, you looked so tired and ill that I didn't wake you. You do seem poorly, miss. It is nearly two o'clock. Should you like to sleep a little longer, or shall I bring you up some breakfast ? " " No, no, no, thank you. I couldn't touch any- thing. I'm feeling wretched ; but I'll get up." The maid tried to dissuade her ; but Emily got out of bed, and allowed herself to be dressed. She was very weak — so weak that she could hardly stand up at the wash stand ; and the maid had to sponge her face and neck. But when she had drunk a cup of tea and eaten a little piece of toast, she said she felt better, and was able to walk into the drawing- room. She thought no more of death, nor of her 270 VAIN FORTUNE. troubles ; thought drowsed in her ; aud iu a passive, torpid state she sat looking into the lire till dinner- time, hardly caring to bestow a casual caress on Dandy, who seemed conscious of his mistress's neglect, for, in his sly, coaxing way, he sometimes came and rubbed himself against her feet. She went into the dining-room, and the servant was glad to see that she finished her soup, and, though she hardly tasted it, she finished a wing of a chicken, and also the glass of wine which the man pressed upon her. Half an hour after, when he brought out the tea, he found her sitting on her habitual chair nursing her dog, and staring into the fire so drearily that her look frightened him, and he hesitated before he gave her the letter which had just come up from the town ; but it was marked " Immediate." When he left the room she opened it. It was from Mrs. Bentley. " Dearest Emily, — I know that Hubert told you that he was not going to marry me. He thought ho was not, for I had refused to marry him ; but a short time after we met in the park quite accidentally, VAIN FORTUNE. 271 and — well, fate took the matter out of our hands, and we are to be married to-morrow. Hubert insists on going to Italy, and I believe we shall remain there two months. We have made arrangements for your aunt to live with you until we come back ; and when we do come back, I hope all the little unpleasantnesses which have marred our friendship for this last month or two will be forgotten. So far as I am concerned, nothing shall be left undone to make you happy. Your will shall be law at Ashwood so long as I am there. If you would like to join us in Italy, you have only to say the word. We shall be delighted to have you." Emily could read no more. " Join them in Italy ! " She dashed the letter into the fire, and an intense hatred of them both pierced her heart and brain. It was the kiss of Judas. Oh, those hateful, lying words ! To live here with her aunt until they came back, to wait here quietly until she returned in triumph with him — him who had been all the world to her. Oh no ; that was not possible. Death, death — escape she must. But how? She had no more chloral. 272 VAIN FOKTUNE. Suddenly she thouglit of the lake. " Yes, yes; the lake, the lake ! " And then a keen, swift, passionate longing for death, such as she had not felt at all the night before, came upon her. There was the knowledge too that by killing herself she would revenge herself on those who had killed her. She was just conscious that her suicide would have this effect, but hardly a trace of such intention appeared in the letter she wrote ; it was as melancholy and as brief as tlie letter she had torn up, and ended, like it, with a request that Dandy should be well looked after. She had ouly just directed the envelope when she heard the servant coming to take away the tea-things. She concealed the letter; and when his steps died away in the corridor and the house door closed, she knew she could slip out unobserved. Instinctively she thought of her hat and jacket, and, without a shudder, remembered she would not need them. She sped down the pathway through the shadow of the firs. It was one of those warm nights of winter when a sulphur-coloured sky hangs like a blanket behind VAIN FORTUNE. 273 the wet, dishevelled woods; and, though there was neither moon nor star, the night was strangely clear, and the shadow of tlie bridge was distinct in the water. When she approached the brink the swans moved slowly away. They reminded her of the cold ; ^^Z.M S^ir*^«~ i^-..— i but the black obsession of death was upon her ; and, hastening her steps, she threw herself forward. She fell into shallow water and regained her feet, and for a moment it seemed uncertain if she would wade to the bank or fling herself into a deeper place. Suddenly she sank, the water rising to her shoulders. She was 18 274 VAIN FOETUNE. lifted off lier feet. A faint struggle, a faint cry, and then nothing — nothing but the whiteness of the swans moving through the sultry night slowly towards the island. CHAPTER XVII. " n^^HEY ought to be back from the theatre by now. They'll want a nice fire. I always likes to make a newly-married couple comfortable." " When were they married ? " " This morning. We mnst make the room look nice. Better light the candles ; they'll be home in a few minutes." Its rich, inanimate air proclaimed the room to be an expensive bedroom in a first-class London hotel. Interest in the newly-married couple, who were to occupy the room, prompted the servants to see that nothing was forgotten; and as they lingered steps were heard in the passage, and Hubert and Julia entered. The maid-servants stood aside to let them pass, and one inquired if madame wanted anything, so that her eyes might be gratified with a last inquisition of the happy pair. 275 276 VAIN FOKTUNE. " How wonderful ! oh, how wonderful ! I don't think I ever saw any one act before like that — did you?" " She certainly had three or four moments that could not be surpassed. Her entrance in the sleep- walking scene — what vague horror ! what pale presenti- ment 1 how she filled the stage ! notliing seemed to exist but she." "And Ford; what did you think of Ford's Macbeth ? " "Very good. Everything he does is good. Talent; but the other has genius." " I shall never forget this evening. What an awful tragedy ! " " Perhaps I should have taken you to see something more cheerful; but I wanted to see Miss Massey play Lady Macbeth. But let us talk of something else. We are very well here. Splendid fire— is it not?" She slipped her long cloak from her shoulders. The gown was pale blue, with a bunch of 2)alc roses on the shoulder and a garland of pale roses on the skirt, and in the candle and firelight her pale hair filled with rich tones. Hubert threw off his overcoat, and in the VAIN FORTUNE. 277 black and white of his evening clothes his tall, thiu figure drew a look of admiration from Julia. Hubert surprised that look; his face changed expression, and he said, " Dearest, let me kiss you ; " and, leaning up to her, for he was seated in the arm-chair, he drew her down to him, and their lips lingered in a long and intoxicating embrace. She sat upon his knee and stretched her feet to the fire. " I'm so happy," he said, " that I fear it must be only a dream. But you are with me. Say that it is not a dream ! " " Yes, I'm here with you. Why do you think it is only a dream ? " " Because my life now is a perfect realisation of the life I desired when I was poor and miserable; and no man ever attains his ideal." " And were you ever really poor ? I mean, did you ever really want ? " " Want a dinner ? Yes, for whole weeks together, when I was writing The Gips'j, I lived on tenpence and a shilling a day. For three days — for the better part of a week — I worked in the docks as a labourer. I went down there hoping to get a clerkship on board 278 VAIN FORTUNE. one of the Transatlantic steamers. I had had enough of England, and thought of seeking fortune elsewhere." " I can hardly believe you worked as a labourer in the docks." "Yes, I did. I awoke one morning without a penny- piece. I saw some men going to work, and I joined them. I don't think I thought much about it at the time. A very little misery rubs all the psychology out of us, and we return more easily than one thinks to the animal." " And then ? " " At the end of a week the work began to tell upon me, and I drifted back in search of my manuscript." " But you must have been in a dreadful condition ; your clothes " "Ah! thereby hangs a tale. An actress lived in one of the houses I had been lodging in." " Oh, tell me about her 1 This is getting very interesting." Then passing his arm round his wife's neck, and with her sweet blonde face looking upon him, and the insinuating warmth of the lire about them, he VAIN FOETUNE. 279 told how Rose had lent him five shillings to buy a hat, and how he had gone to see Ford. He told of the terrible first night, of the fight that the younger critics had made against the grossness of public taste, and the stupidity and animosity of the veteran critics who wrote in morning papers. Hubert told the story with such directness and simplicity that the illusion was complete — it seemed like a real scene she was witnessing, it was passing under her very eyes. " But," she said, her voice trembling, " you would not have committed suicide ? " " No man knows beforehand whether he will commit suicide. I can only say that every other issue was closed." At the end of a long silence Julia said, " I wish you hadn't spoken about suicide. I cannot but think of Emily. If she were to make away with herself ! The very possibility turns my heart to ice. What should 1 do — what should we do ? I ought never to have given way ; we were both abominably selfish. I can see that poor girl sitting alone in that house grieving her heart out." 280 VAIN FORTUNE. " You ought never to have given way ! A nice speech indeed to make, and on your wedding night." " Yon know what I mean ! " she said, clasping her arms about him, and kissing him. Hubert took her arms in his hands, and looked at her. He thought he had never seen anything so exquisite as her white beauty in the romantic voluptuousness of the fire- light. "Nothing will happen," he said, to assure her. " My life has been always full of agitation, and yet nothing happened. My marriage is the one real event." " The most terrible things often happen — have happened." " Emily may have been fond of me — I think she was ; but it was no more than the hysterical caprice of a young girl. Besides, people do not die for love; and I assure you it will be all right. This is not a time for gloomy thoughts. Kiss me." " I'll try not to think of her. Well, what were we talking about ? I know : about the actress who lived in 17, Fitzroy Street. Tell me about her." VAIN FOETUNE. 281 " She was a real good girl. If she hadn't lent me that five shillings, I don't know where I should be now." " Were yon very fond of her ? " " No ; there never was anything of that sort between ns. We were merely friends." " Truly ? Am I to believe that ? Didn't you love her a little bit ? " " No, dearest wife, I did not; you have all my love." " Yes ; but the past ? " " There was neither love nor cheerfulness in the past." " And what has become of this actress ? Have you lost sight of her ? " " You must think me very ungrateful. No ; I saw her to-night." " You saw her to-night ? " " Yes ; were we not at the theatre ? " " Was she acting in the piece we saw to-night ? " " It was she who played Lady Macbeth." " You are joking." " No I'm not. I always knew she had genius, and 282 VAIN FORTUNE. they have found it out ; but I must say they have taken their time about it." " How wonderful ! she has succeeded ! " " Yes, she has succeeded." " And she is really the girl you intended to play Lady Hayward?" " Yes, and I hope she will play the part one of these days." " Of course, she is just the woman for it. What a splendid success she has had ! All London is talking about her." " And I remember when Ford refused to cast het for the adventuress in Divorce. If he had, there is no doubt she would have carried the piece through. Life is but a bundle of chances ; she has succeeded, whatever that may mean." " But you will let her have the part of Lady Hayward ? " " Yes, of course — that is to say, if " "Why 4f'?" " My thoughts are with you, dear ; literature seems to have passed out of sight." VAIN FOKTUNE. 283 " But you must not sacrifice your talent in worship of me. I shall not allow you. For my sake, if not for hers, you must finish that play. I want you to be famous ? I should be for ever miserable if my love proved a upas tree." " A upas tree ! It will be you who will help me ; it will be your presence that will help me to write my play. I was always vaguely conscious that you were a necessary element in my life ; but I did not wake up to any knowledge of it until that day — do you remember ? — when you came into my study to ask me what fish I'd like for dinner, and I begged of you to allow me to read to you that second act. It is that second act that stops me." " I thought you had written the second act to your satisfaction. You said that after the talk we had that afternoon you wrote for three hours without stopping, and that you had never done better work." " Yes, I wrote a great deal ; but on reading it over I found that — I don't mean to say that none of it will stand ; some still seems to me to be all right, but a great deal will req[uire alteration." 284 VAIN FORTUNE. The conversation fell. At the end of a long silence Hubert said, — " What are you thinking of, dearest ? " " I was thinking that supposing you were mistaken — if I failed to help you in your work." " And I never succeeded in writing my play ? " " No, I don't mean that. Of course you will write your play ; all you have to do is to be less critical." " Yes, I know — I have heard that before ; but, unfortunately, we cannot change ourselves. I'll either carry my play through completely, realise my ideal, or " " Remain for ever unsatisfied ? " Hubert hesitated ; they looked at each other a moment fixedly; then he answered, "You have said it." " But," said Julia, — there was a slight note of alarm in her voice which she sought to disguise, — " we are going to Italy. You said you loved me. I give you all my love, as much as a woman ever gave to man. Yes, and Fortune has given you wealth, and now you can do with your life as you will. . . . We are lovers ; we are going to Italy. Think of the long days we VAIN FORTUNE. 285 shall spend together ! and yon will show me all that is to be seen — ruins, pictures, statues , . . you will teach me ! And you'll have patience with me, for I am very ignorant. . . . Yes, we shall be very happy ? Fortune has conspired to make us happy. So why think of that play at all— I mean for the present ? " " I will think of it as little as may be, and whether I write it or no I shall be happy in your love." " Yes, yes ; let us be happy." Hubert and Julia looked at each other. He did not speak, but his thought said, "There is no happiness on earth for him who has not accomplished his task." " I wonder if I shall make you happy ? The day will come when my love will cease to charm you, and you will seek distraction again in your study." " I do not think so. We attach too much importance to a little scribbling on paper, to a little daubing on canvas. I will not think of my play ; I will forget everything in love of you.' " No, 1 would not have you forget it." Hubert sighed, and then he continued : " You are here ; Italy awaits us— its skies, its cities, its palaces; ^°6 VAIN FORTUNE. and with yon for companion, tell me, is not the prospect allnring ? And yon would have me sacrifice all the beautiful, intoxicating reality for the folly of a vulgar ambition, and such an ambition — such scribbling on paper as would succeed in awaking some clapping of hands and a few cries of applause among a herd of half-educated jieople. But, leaving me out of it, — my desires and my beliefs, — tell me, do you not hunger for life ? Is there no longing in you for ease, for leisure, I'or love ? Do you not want to drink one draught of the golden cup ? " " Yes, indeed I do. We have both suffered, we are both tired of suffering, and it is only right that we should be happy." " There, I like to hear you talk so ; I would have you enjoy life even as I intend to enjoy it. Long suffering has whetted our appetites. We shall feast well. It shall be my pleasure to attend you, to give you all your desire. But you said just now that you had suffered. I have told you my past. Tell me yonrs. I know nothing except that you were unhappily married." VAIN FORTUNE. 2 " There is little else to know ; a woman's life is not adventurons, like a man's. I have not known the excitement of ' first nights,' nor the striving and the craving for an artistic ideal. My life has been essentially a woman's life, — suppression of self and monotonous duty, varied by heart-breaking misfortune. I married when I was very young; before I had even begun to think about life I found But why dis- tress these hours with painful memories ? " " It is pleasant to look back on the troubles we have passed through; the memory gives a keener zest to present happiness. Beside, I want to know all your life ; it seems to me that I must know all to possess you wholly." " Well, I learnt in one year the meaning of three terrible words — poverty, neglect, and cruelty. In the second yeg,r of my marriage my husband died of drink, and I was left a widow at twenty, entirely penniless. I went to live with my sister, and she was so poor that I had to support myself by giving music lessons. You think you know the meaning of poverty : you may ; but you do not know what a young woman who 288 VAIN FORTUNE. wants to earn her bread honestly has to put np with, trudging through wet and cold, mile after mile, to give a lesson, paid for at the rate of one-and-sixpence or two shillings an hour." The conversation came to a pause. Julia took her eyes from her husband's face, and looked dreamily into the fire. Then, raising her face from the flame, she looked around with the air of one seeking for some topic of conversation. At that moment she caught sight of the corner of a letter lying on the mantel-piece. Eeaching forth her hand, she took it. It was addressed to her husband. " Here is a letter for you, Hubert. . . . Why, it comes from Ashwood. Yes, and it is in the handwriting of one of the servants. Oh, it is Black's writing ! It may be about Emily. Something may have happened to her. Open it quickly." " That is not probable. Nothing can have happened to her." " Look and see. Be quick 1 " Hubert opened the letter, and he had not read three VAIN FORTUNE. 289 lines when Julia's face caught expression from his, which had become overcast. " It is bad news, I know. Something has happened. What is it ? Don't keep me waiting. The suspense is worse than the truth." " It is very awful, Julia. Don't give way." " Tell me what it is. Is she dead ? " " Yes, she is dead." Julia grew pale as the dead, and she got up from her husband's knees and stood by the mantelpiece, leaning upon it. " It is more than mere death." " What do you mean ? She killed herself— is that it ? " " Yes ; she drowned herself the night before last in the lake." " Oh, it is too horrible ! Then we have murdered her. Our unpardonable selfishness ! I cannot bear it ! " Her eyes closed and her lijis trembled. Hubert caught her in his arms, laid her on the chair, and, fetching some water in a tumbler, sprinkled her face ; then he held it to her lips; she drank a little, and revived. " I'm not going to faint. Tell me — tell mc when the unfortunate child " 19 290 VAIN FORTUNE. " They don't know exactly. She was in the drawing-room at tea-time, and the drawing-room was empty when Black went ronnd three-quarters of an hour after to lock up. He thought she had gone to her room. It was the gardener who brought in the news in the morning about nine." " Oh, good God 1 " " Black says he noticed that she looked very de- pressed the day before, but he thought she was looking better when he brought in the tea." " It was then she got my letter. Does Black say anything about giving her a letter ? " " Yes, that is to say " " I knew it ! I knew it ! " said Julia ; and her eyes were wild with grief, and she rocked herself to and fro. " It was that letter that drove her to it. It was most ill-advised. I told you so. You should have written. She would have borne the news better had it come from you. My instinct told me so, but I let myself be persuaded. I told you how it would happen. I told you. You can't say I didn't. Oh ! why did you persuade me — why — why — why ? " VAIN FORTUNE. 291 " Julia dear, we are not responsible. We were in nowise bound to sacrifice our happiness to her " " Don't say a word ! I say we were bound. Life can never be the same to me again." Hubert did not answer. Nothing he could say would be of the Slightest avail, and he feared to say anything that might draw from her expressions which she would afterwards regret. He had never seen her moved like this, nor did he believe her capable of such agitation, and the contrast of her present with her usual demeanour made it the more impressive. " Oh," she said, leaning forward and looking at him fixedly, " take this nightmare off my brain, or I shall go mad ! It isn't true ; it cannot be true. But — oh ! yes, it's true enough." " Like you, Julia, I am overwhelmed ; but we can do nothing." " Do nothing ! " she cried ; " do nothing ! We can do nothing but pray for her — we who sacrificed her." And she slipped on her knees and burst into a pas- sionate fit of weeping. " The best thing that could have happened," thought 292 VAIN FORTUNE. Hubert ; and his thought said, clearly and precisely, " Yes ; it is awful, shocking, cruel beyond measure I " The fire was sinking, and he built it up quietly, ashamed of this proof of his regard for physical comfort, and hoping it would pass unnoticed. But they could not sit without a fire, and he saw that their tete-d-tete might be unduly prolonged. His pain expressed itself less vehemently than Julia's; but for all that his mind ached. He remembered how he had taken everything from her — fortune, happiness, and now life itself. It was certainly an appalling tragedy — one of those senseless cruelties which we find nature so constantly inventing, and with such devilish in- genuity. Then a thought revealed an unexpected analogy between him and his victim. In both lives there had been a supreme desire, and both had failed. " Hers was the better part," he said bitterly. " Those whose souls are burdened with desire that may not be gratified had better fling the load aside. They are fools who carry it on to the end. ... If it were not for Julia " She was still upon her knees, and she had never ■■SHE HAD NKVKK LnoKEIJ .MoKE BEALTIFL'L THAN NOW, HER ARMS FLUNG ACROSS THE CHAIR." [Pa^^e 203. VAIN FOKTUNE. 293 looked more beautiful than now, her arms flnng across the chair. Her beauty drew Hnbert's thoughts from his play, and he remembered how misadventure had pursued them, even to the finding of the letter. If they had not sat up talking, if she had not seen the letter, if she had merely given it to him without seeing where it came from ! Then he songht to determine what were his exact feelings. He knew he was infinitely sorry for poor Emily ; but he could not stir himself into a paroxysm of grief, and, ashamed of his inability to express his feelings, he looked at Julia, who still wept. "No doubt," he thought, '-'women have keener feelings than we have." At that moment Julia got up from her knees. She had brushed away her tears. Her face was shaken with grief. " My heart is breaking," she said. " This is too cruel — too cruel ! And on my wedding night." Their eyes met ; and, divining each other's thought, each felt ashamed, and Julia said, — " Oh, what am I sajdng ? This dreadful selfishness. 294 VAIN FORTUNE. from which we cannot escape, that is with us even in such a moment as this ! That poor child gone to her death, and yet amid it all we must think of ourselves." " My dear Julia, we cannot escape from our human nature ; but, for all that, our grief is sincere. We can do nothing. Do not grieve like that." " And why not ? She was my best friend. How have I repaid her ? Alas ! as woman always repays woman for kindness done. The old story. I cannot forgive myself. No, no ! do not kiss me ! I cannot bear it. Leave me. I can see nothing but Emily's reproachful face." She covered her face in her hands and sobbed again. The same scenes repeated themselves over and over again. The same fits of passionate grief ; the same moment of calm, when words impregnated with self dropped from their lips. The same nervous sense that something of the dead girl stood between them. And still they sat by the fire, weary with sorrow, re- crimination, long regret, and pain. They could grieve no more ; and before dawn sleep pressed upon their VAIN FOETUNE. 295 eyelids, and at the end of a long silence he dozed — a pale, transparent sleep, through which the realities of life appeared almost as plainly as before. Suddenly he awoke, and he shivered in the chill room. The fire was sinking ; dawn divided the window curtains. He took his overcoat from the bed, and his hand met the evening paper he had thrust unread into his pocket. He opened and glanced through the paper, until his eyes were arrested by his own name. " So they are still thinking of The GipsyT . . . Instantly his thoughts wandered into some new scheme of reconstruc- tion. But dismissing these involuntary hopes abruptly, he looked at his wife. She seemed to him very beautiful as she slept, her face turned a little on one side, and he asked himself if he loved her. Then, going to the window, he drew the curtains softly, so as not to awaken her ; and as he stood watching a thin discoloured day now breaking over the roofs, it seemed to him that Emily's suicide was the better part. " Those who do not perform their task in life are never happy." The words drilled themselves into his brain with relentless insistency. . . . Should he 296 VAIN FORTUNE. ever be happy any more? Surely Emily's suicide was the better part. " Hubert ! " It was Julia calling him. Pale and overworn, but in all her woman's beauty, she came, offering herself as compensation for tlie burden of life. THE END. Printed by HazoU, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. UNDER THE Z^^^^^9^^. H.M. PATRONAGE OF ^S^^^^^^e^i THE QUEEN. H.R.H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES, H.R.H. 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"The Gentlewoman's Music Book," by Miss Oliveria Prescott. "The Gentlewoman's Book on Dress," by Mrs. Douglas. "Gentlewomen of To-Day," sketched by other Gentlewomen. " The Gentlewoman's Book of Cuisine," by Mrs. De Salis. Also works on Gardening, Painting, the Toilette, Art, Needlework, etc. HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN has been graciously pleased to sanction the use of the title " The Victoria Library, and to order two copies of each volume for the Royal Library. Vol. I. THE GENTLEWOMAN IN SOCIETY. By LADY VIOLET GREVILLE. {October 20th. Vol. n. THE GENTLEWOMAN'S BOOK OF HYGIENE. By Dr. KATE MITCHELL. [Nouember. LONDON: HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.G. C^^ ^'^l^iMr'mrs pbrnrgf of Wixi anb §nmo\xx. A New Series of Monthly Volumes designed to supply the Public with Entertaining Literature by the Best Writers. Crown &V0, cloih, with Portrait, as. 6d. each. Vol. I.-ESSAYS IN LITTLE. By Andrew Lang. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "If it is well to judge by firstfruits (and, generally speaking, the judgment is right), the new ' Whitefriars Library' should compass the very laudable designs of its projectors. The first monthly volume of the new series may fairly be said to be aflush with the finest promise. Mr. Andrew Lang s ' Essays in Little ' is one of the most entertaining and bracing of books. Full of bright and engaging discourse, these charming and recreative essays are the best of good reading. Hard must be 'the cynic's lips' from which Mr. Lang's sportive pen does not 'dislodge the sneer,' harder that ' brow of care' whose wrinkles refuse to be smoothed by Mr. Lang's gentle sarcasms and agreeable raillery. . . . ' Essays in Little ' ought to win every vote, and please every class of reader." — Saturday Review. "The volume is delightful, and exhibits Mr. Lang's light and dexterous touch, his broad literary sympathies, and his sound critical instinct to great advantage." — Times. " 'The Whitefriars Library ' has begun well. Its first issue is a volume by Mr. Andrew Lang, entitled ' Essays in Little.' Mr. Lang is here at his best ^alike in his most serious and his lightest moods. We find him turning wthout effort, and with equal success, from 'Homer and the Study of Greek,' to ' The Last Fashionable Novel ' — on one page attacking grimly the modem newspaper tendency to tittle-tattle (in a 'Letter to a Young Journalist'), on another devising a bright parody in prose or verse. Mr. Lang is in his most rollicking vein when treating of the once popular Haynes Bayly, the author of 'I'd be a Butterfly ' and things of that sort. With Bayly's twaddling verse Mr. Lang is in satiric ecstasies ; he revels in its unconscious inanity, and burlesques it repeatedly with infinite gusto. . . . His tone is always urbane, his manner always bright and engaging. No one nowadays has a style at once so light ana so well bred. ... It is always pleasant, and frequently de\\^\i\.i\i\.'— Globe. Vol. il— sawn OFF: A Tale of a Family Tree. By G. Manville Fenn. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "Mi. Fenn is an excellent story-teller.'' — Athenceum. "Another volume of the excellently designed 'Whitefriars Library.' Both 'Sawn Off' and the other story, 'The Gilded Fill,' are good examples of light, entertaining and unsensational fiction." — Keviciv of Reineivs. " Mr. Fenn has succeeded well in enlivening morality with wit, and in tem- pering wit with morality." — Daily Graphic. " Mr. Fenn is a favourite writer with the public, and in this volume he is seen to advantage." — Daily Chronicle. " An amusing volume." — Daily News. LONDON : HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.G. Avd at all Booksellers' and the Railway Stalls. mn m^Mxhm fibraru oi »t anb fumour. A New Series of Monthly Volumes designed to supply the Public with Entertaining Literature by the Best Writers. Vol. Ill -"A LITTLE IRISH GIRL." By the Author of " Molly Bawn." OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " Mrs. Hungerford never fails to be prettily piquant, and this volume will be enjoyed quite as much as anything she has ever -written."— Acadcitiy. " One needs scarcely to be reminded that the author of ' Molly Bawn ' is a writer of distinct Hibernian wit and verve, but if further proof were required it would be found in ' A Little Irish Girl.' "—Daily Chronicle. " In all respects a delightful story, written in a bright and happy spirit, and full of amusement and instruction."— Sco/s;«a«. Vol. IV.— three WEEKS AT MOPETOWN. By Percy Fitzgerald. [Ready, OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " A clever skit upon life at a hydropathic establishment, in this writer's popular vein ; the book is SLmusin^."— Gentlewoman. " In all senses the writing is uncommonly clever, and the sketches of the various characters who inhabit a fashionable hydropathic establishment are drawn with lifelike ^AeWty."— Public Opinion. 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" An enjoyable and amusing volume, which is certain to be wideljjread ; the book sparkles with irresistible specimens of wit and humoar."— Scottish Leader. " We find the book genuinely amnsing."— Publishers' Circular. "Mr. Adams discourses wisely and well on all our principal native bur- lesque." — Referee. "A volume most welcome on table or desk. Is Davenport Adams' ' Book of Burlesque,' There's fun at your asking, wherever you look, And not a dull page, you'll declare, in the booVi."— Punch. LONDON: HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.G.; And at all Booksellers' and the Railway Stalls, IN A CANADIAN CANOE. BY BARRY PAIN. (Vol. VL—Vibc 'Mbitctvinxs Xibrarg of M(t anD Ibumour) WITH PORTRAIT. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d. SECOND EDITION. PRESS OPINIONS. "The pleasant and even remarkable book which Mr. Barry Pain has con- tributed to the Whitefriars Library. The best thing in the book, to our mind, is ' The Celestial Grocery,' a quaint and thoroughly original blending of effervescent humour with grim pathos." — Pall Mall Gascttc. " Mr. Barry Pain has a decided sense of humour. The best things in the volume are the classical burlesques grouped under the title of 'The Nine Muses minus One.' They are really clever and full oi esprit." — Academy. " Nor is he deficient in fancy, and ' The Celestial Grocery ' is as whimsical as it is fresh. ' Bill ' is in yet another vein, and proves that Mr. Pain can handle the squalor of reality : while the last half of ' The Girl and the Beetle,' the best of the book, suggests a certain comprehension of character." — National Observer. " An original worker, a man who copies no one either in treatment or style — this, his first volume, should find a wide popularity.'' — The Review q/ Reviews. " If you want a really refreshing book, a book whose piquant savour and quaint originality of style are good for jaded brains, buy and read /« a Canadian Canoe . . . There is in these stories a curious mixture of humour, insight and pathos, with here and there a dash of grimness and a sprinkling ol that charming irrelevancy which is of the essence of true humour. As for The Celestial Grocery,' I can only say that it is in its way a masterpiece." — Punch. " In Mr. Barry Pain we have a new humorist, not of the rollicking sort who splits one's tympanum by coarse guffaws, but quiet, dry, quaint^ and refined, making one think even while one laughs, and taking one out ot the world of fact into the nebulous region of imagination and speculation. He has struck a new vein which, if we err not in judgment, is rich in the pure metal of thought. There is no vulgarity in his humour ; his fancy is bold and strong, and otten exquisitely graceful in its creations. . . . 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" We shall look forward to Mr. Pain's future work with much interest." — Daily Chronicle. "Unquestionably there is a good deal of humour in these burlesques and stories." — AthcncEum. LONDON : HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET E.G. NOW READY. FIFTH EDITION. THE BOOK OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON THE BACHELORS' CLUB. By L ZANGVVILL. Crown 8vo. 348 pp. 3s. 6d. With HiLUSTRATIONS by GEOKGE HUTCHINSON. BRIEF EXTRACTS FROM LATER PRESS NOTICES. Ally Sloper: "We have few genuine humourists, but Mr. Zangwill is certainly one of them." Artist : " The tales are quite as good as the shorter things of Charles Dickens. The best book of the month." Daily Chronicle : " With all his fun he is not a ' funny man,' he is a literary humourist — in all the seriousness of claiming a place in literature." Detroit Free Press : " A book almost impossible to review in such a way as to give the reader an adequate idea of its genius. It must be read to be appreciated." Fun : " On Fame's drum it will beat rub-a-dub-dub." Glasgow Herald: "Would-be wit. The ordinary civilised mortal is not likely to enjoy it. The skits are rather sombre in their eccentricity." Hearth and Home : " Humour is a rare gift, but Mr. Zangwill has it in abundance." Lady : " The author is one entirely born to the motley. His quips are quaint, his satire delightfully exhilarating." Literary World: "Entitles Mr. Zangwill to rank as a genuine humourist. The book is full of good things." Literary Opinion : " Far above the average mechanical stuff that does duty for humour." Lloyds : " Ingenuity oi incident is combined with a wealth of reflective wisdom, that often becomes dazzling in its effect." Morning Post: "The author has a manner of touching upon the foibles of the day, full of playful malice, but quite devoid ol bitterness, which is one of the best gifts of the humourist." Observer: " The author has a delightful vein of humour." Publishers' Circular : "We have laughed with genuine enjojmient." Review of Reviews : " Much that is genuinely novel and amusing." Saturday Review: "We like the stories of ' Hamlet up to Date,' and 'The Fall of Israfel ' best, but all are amusing, and all coruscate with puns." Speaker : " It is impossible to read this book without being delighted with it. It is full of good things." Sporting Times : " No end of fun. Mr. Zangwill never misses the oppor- tunity of saying a clever thing." Sunday Sun : "A funny book by the very funny editor of And." Weekly Dispatch : " The history of the Club is told with charming fluency, whimsical variety, and dramatic power ; this delightful and clever book ; Mr. Zangwill has raised expectations that will not be easily satisfied." At all Libraries, Booksellers', and the Railway Stalls. LONDON : HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.G. The Whitefriars Library of Wit and Htimour, NEW SERIES. In crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. IVii/i Portraits and Illustrations. Vol. I.— THOSE OTHER ANIMALS. Bv G. A. HENTY. With Twenty-two Illustrations by Harrison Weir. " Some very pleasant reading, the attraction of which is greatlj- enhanced by the numerous graphic illustrations contributed by Mr. Harrison Weir. A distinct vein of humour runs through Mr. Henty's text, and a happy reflection of it is to be found in Mr. Weir's characteristic drawings." — Globe. "Mr. Henty attempts to lead us to a juster view of what we are pleased to consider the inferior creation. The process is very entertaining. . . . We are accustomed to being amused by Mr. Henty, but he has written nothing more amusing than these thirty-seven essays." — Sunday Times. " Mr. Henty has gone to the animal world for topics, and discourses brightly and pleasantly upon all kinds of creatures, from the elephant to the tortoise. Mr. Henty does not give the reader a series of studies in natural history ; he does not look upon the camel or the daddy-long-legs with the cold eye of the scientist, but with the geniality of a man who has a sympathy with every created thing (barring the mosquito), and with the gift of seizing upon the humorous points of our fellow-occupants of the earth." — Eveuing News and Post. " No more delightful and amusing book could be wished for than Mr. Henty's ' Those Other Animals.' The book is full of information as well as of humour, and it is cleverly illustrated by Mr. Harrison Weir." — Scotsman. Vol. II.— IN CAMBRIDGE COURTS. By R. C. LEHMANN, Author of "Harry Fludyer at Cambridge," etc. Illustrated by A. C. Payne. [Ready. Also a limited Large-Paper Edition. Crown 4to, 10s. Gd. Vol. III.— MR. BATTERS'S PEDIGREE. By Horace G. Hutchinson. Illustrated. [//) preparation. To be followed, at monthly intervals, by works from the pens of F. C. BuRNAND, Justin McCarthy, M.P., Theodore Watts, Clement Scott, H. D. Traill, Sir Henry Cunningham, K.C.I. E., Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., M.P., W. Clark Russell, Miss M. Betham Edwards, R. Le Gallienne, etc. LONDON : HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.G. George Moore's New Novel. ^^^ VAIN FORTUNE. By the Author of "A MUMMER'S LIFE," "A MODERN LOVER," "IMPRESSIONS AND OPINIONS," etc. In crozvn 8vo, with Eleven Illustrations by MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN. 6/-. Also a LARGE-PAPER EDITION, crown 4to, limited to 150 Copies, Numbered and Signed by the Author, £1 5s, nett. TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH. THE RESIDENT'S DAUGHTER, A NOVEL. By MELATI van TAVA. Translated from the Dutch by A. Teixeira DE Mattos. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3^. dd. NEW S/- NOVELS. THE DYNAMITARDS : A TALE OP A.D. 1888. By REGINALD TAYLER. A FREAK OF FATE, By ERNEST F. SPENCE. A SHILLING SHOCKER! THE BIG BOW MYSTERY. By I. ZANGWILL, Author of "The Bachelor's Club," etc Reprinted from the Star. LONDON : HENRY & CO., 6, BOUVERIE STREET, E.C. IMPRESSIONS & OPINIONS By GEORGE MOORE Author of "Confessions of a Young Man," "Vain Fortune," etc. 16mo, 346 pages, 5s. net. CONTENTS : Balzac— Turgu£neff— A Great Poet (Verlaine)— Two Unknown Poets (Laforgue and Rimbault)— La Reve— Le Revers d'un Grand Homme —An Actress of the Eighteenth Century (Mdlle. Clairon)— Mum- mer Worship— Our Dramatists and their Arts— Ghosts— Theatre Libre— Meissonier and the Salon Julian— Art for the Villa- Degas— The New Pictures in the National Gallery. EXTRACTS FROM PRESS NOTICES. THE ACADEMY, March 21st, 1891, says: "The work of an artist who understands art, and who is entirely honest, absolutely unaffected, in his noting down of exactly how he has been im- pressed by this or that novel, drama, or picture." THE ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE, April 2nd, 1891, says : "Mr. George Moore is gifted with ability, honesty, courage, and youth— all of which are good gifts. He has so evidently his subjects at heart ; he is so evidently able to feel and think for himself; he is so evidently fearless about frankly uttering his very own impressions and opinions for the time being, that he makes a refreshing figure among more cautious or more convention- ally cultivated critics. Here, in spite of obvious faults, is a man who can do really good work, and who has a real feeling for literature and literary crafts- manship." THE LITERARY WORLD, March 27th, 1891, says : " One of the freshest and most interesting volumes of criticism that have appeared for some time. There are some of Mr. Moore's views in art, litera- ture, and morals with which we certainly disagree ; but in these pages they are expressed ably and honestly and without offence, and we are inclined to agree far oftener than to differ." THE AN Tl -JACOBIN says : "Well worth presenting anew in book form. In the immense mass of matter that appears, week by week and month by month, under the name of criticism, the true critical faculty is rarely visible. Mr. Moore possesses it, though in him it needs discipline." THE LADY'S PICTORIAL, April 4th, 1891, says : " It is a treat to meet Mr. George Moore in the capacity of critic. The critical faculty is- as he is, probably, beginning to find out- iar greater in him than the imaginative. There are not many readers, except those who think all criticisms dull, who will either scamp Mr. Moore's ' Impressions and Opinions,' or put the book aside unread." D. NUTT, 270, STRAND. :f^j»- r^ t^'^