I ADY 
 
 JL/ \Ls 1
 
 et
 
 SHE PASSED A HAND UNDER HIS ARM."
 
 Opera 
 and Lady Grasmere 
 
 By 
 
 Albert Kinross 
 
 Author of 
 
 "A Young Man's Fancy," d Game of Consequences " 
 "The Fearsome Island" etc. 
 
 Illustrated ky Archie Gunn 
 
 New York 
 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 Publishers
 
 Copyright, /poo, 
 By Frederick A. Stokes Company.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. BEFORE THE GATES. 
 
 Paet 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE INSTRUMENT g 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 MERCERON ROUSING ..... 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 MERCERON DANCES ...... 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 MERCERON IS WIDE AWAKE .... 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 FIVE A.M. AND "ISABELLA" . . . 54 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 " ISABELLA " 67 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 MERCERON GOES TO BED .... 84 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 AN EARL'S CORONET, A YELLOW DOMINO, AND 
 
 KNIGHTSBRIDGE ..... 92 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 SNOB TO THE RESCUE . . . . . 103 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GATES OPEN Il8 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THEY OPEN WIDER 128 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 ARRIVED . . . . . . , . 144
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 BOOK II. WITHIN. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 TRANSITION 159 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 POSTMEN 173 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 LIFE, AND DEATH l86 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A LITTLE MUSIC . . . . . . 196 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A LITTLE MORE MUSIC 2IO 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 STILL MORE MUSIC ..... 223 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE VICTIMS .' 234 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 GHOSTS 250 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 ERRORS AND COMEDY ..... 260 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 ERRORS AND CORRECTIONS .... 275 
 
 TO-DAY 209
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 BEFORE THE GATES
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 BOOK II. WITHIN. 
 
 AUH 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 TRANSITION . ...... 159 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 POSTMEN ....... 173 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 LIFE, AND DEATH ...... l86 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A LITTLE MUSIC . . . . . . 196 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A LITTLE MORE MUSIC ..... 2IO 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 STILL MORE MUSIC ..... 223 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE VICTIMS .' ...... 234 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 GHOSTS ........ 250 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 BRRORS AND COMEDY ..... 260 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 ERRORS AND CORRECTIONS .... 275 
 
 TO-DAY
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 BEFORE THE GATES
 
 AN OPERA AND LADY GRASMERE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE INSTRUMENT. 
 
 TJUTCHINSON does not know. Not only 
 * -*- is he blandly ignorant of the deeps from 
 which he extracted Merceron, but his own 
 flagrant part in all that was to follow upon this 
 eventful routing out, his consequent claim to 
 public monuments, is equally undreamed of by 
 this darkened Hutchinson. He is, indeed, aware 
 of the conditions and circumstances under 
 which Merceron and the Countess of Grasmere 
 first became acquainted nobody more so, in 
 
 9
 
 io An Opera 6- Lady Grasmere. 
 
 fact, but, speaking broadly and with a dis- 
 regard of irrelevant detail, Hutchinson does 
 not know. 
 
 And yet it is to Hutchinson even more than 
 to Harvey Merceron's self that we owe that 
 one masterpiece the precursor, let us hope, 
 of many which has redeemed our operatic 
 composers, British music in general, from the 
 charge of insignificance. Before the advent of 
 Hutchinson, British music was, relatively 
 speaking, a negligible quantity. But now, 
 Hutchinson has passed, and the ears of the 
 civilised world strain hopefully towards London. 
 And through it all, heedless and entirely deaf 
 to an art which he may rightly be said to have 
 created, Hutchinson, unconscious of his one 
 great mission, Hutchinson, a being doomed to 
 perpetual darkness, treads lightly on a Medi- 
 terranean quarter-deck, and flirts indifferently 
 well with the women of various stations.
 
 The Instrument. n 
 
 Yet, perhaps, to this hero's maiden aunt, 
 Miss Bray, are we even more indebted than 
 to her favourite nephew; for she it was who 
 presented Hutchinson with the two stalls that 
 inspired his movements. But the claims of 
 Miss Bray are infinitesimal, unworthy of 
 further consideration. For without Hutchinson, 
 Merceron had never issued forth into that 
 July evening, Lady Grasmere had gone a 
 different road, nor had Isabella known the 
 ways of Providence. Without Hutchinson, 
 Merceron would have lain idle at the bottom 
 of his largest wicker-chair, and that night 
 would have run to waste, fruitless as many a 
 night preceding. 
 
 Hutchinson had lunched with Miss Bray, 
 and had then been turned loose upon a 
 sweltering town with those two flimsy stalls 
 deep in his breast-pocket. Covent Garden was 
 hardly in his line ; " and yet it would be a pity
 
 12 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 to waste them," he reflected. At this point he 
 bethought himself of Mercero . Merceron 
 was musical ; he had not seen him for years, 
 and as boys they had been "nseparable. He 
 would go and look up Merceron ; Merceron 
 would enjoy Covent Garden and tell him 
 what it was all about. So Hutchinson 
 drifted from Kensi igton to Piccadilly, thence 
 to the chambers in Down Street where 
 Merceron had settled after taking his degixe 
 at Oxford. 
 
 It was like dragging a mole into broad day- 
 light, this starting of Merceron, as Hutchinson 
 hearty as a south-west gale roused him, 
 made him shave, bullied him into his evening- 
 clothes, and finally drove him forth into the 
 open, where his locks were shorn and arranged 
 at a convenient barber's, Hutchinson directing. 
 As they walked, the sailor unfolded the details 
 of their subsequent programme. It hardly
 
 The Instrument. 13 
 
 coincided with the popular conception of a first 
 move towards a Renaissance. 
 
 Merceron's mole-like tendencies had ceased 
 with the donning of his swallow-tails, this 
 utter re-construction of his exterior. True, he 
 blinked as they strolled off to Hutchinson's 
 hotel in Jermyn Street ; but there was no 
 inclination to burrow. Merceron's blinking 
 was a pleasurable movement of unaccustomed 
 eyelids. 
 
 They dined expensively at the newest thing 
 in restaurants and drank champagne, Hutchin- 
 son leading. The sailor's visits to the 
 metropolis were akin to those of the angels; 
 and when he came, he did things in style, and 
 thought them over when aboard his ship. And 
 Hutchinson invariably contrived that these 
 thoughts should be pleasant ones. Opportunity 
 denied him the luxury of enjoyments that stale 
 from habit or constant repetition, and, to
 
 14 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Hutchinson, London was always new though 
 never varying. 
 
 To Merceron fate was even kinder. London 
 was brand-new, and their dinner an initiation. 
 The string-band that discoursed behind a bank 
 of flowers from the gallery at the restaurant's 
 further end was as something celestial by mere 
 virtue of its exalted position. The waiters in 
 black and gold with silk stockings were Gany- 
 medes, and the swiftly-served courses nectar 
 and ambrosia. To Hutchinson, unafflicted as 
 he was with a classical training, the service was 
 but a luxury, while Merceron deemed it one of 
 the Arts. Mirrors and gilding surrounded 
 them, and Merceron spoke feelingly of the 
 " white satin wall-paper." 
 
 Yet these were but material aids. Crowning 
 all, lending her mystery and subtle charm to 
 this opening foray, still further ravishing his 
 unused senses, was Woman. The capital W
 
 The Instrument. 15 
 
 is Merceron's. White hands toyed with the 
 dainty menu-cards, gems flashing on the supple 
 fingers; silken hair curled, jewelled, and aigretted 
 over ivory brows, framing the face in radiant 
 gold, or dark, nocturnal, paling it with a more 
 spiritual glory; diamonds stirred limpid on 
 snowy necks, the round arms shimmered, 
 catching light and colour from the clustered 
 glow-lamps and shaded candles ; and there 
 were bright eyes, joyous, eloquent, subduing, 
 bright eyes that lingered on Merceron's. And 
 Merceron, who had eaten chops in a colourless 
 club these many months, swayed in his seat 
 and deemed that life, though earnest and 
 leading to the grave, had indeed its hours of 
 relaxation. 
 
 Merceron was leaving his rut was ap- 
 proaching the high road. He began to con- 
 template their after-dinner movements with 
 some degree of satisfaction. The thought of
 
 1 6 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 the opera no longer left him unmoved ; it was 
 a goal, an inevitable sequel to his present 
 beatitude. He even took the trouble to 
 discover what was being played, and the names 
 of the singers. They were giving Faust and 
 Faust had its moments ! Harvey, who knew 
 every note of the score, commenced to hum. 
 Hutchinson, meanwhile, was reminiscent, and 
 told stories anent a life on the ocean wave. 
 Some of these were rude. Merceron was 
 surprised; he had forgotten the existence of 
 such adventure. His own life had been far too 
 engrossing to permit of such incidents as these. 
 So consistently had he passed such action by, 
 that it had altogether ceased to exist. But 
 then he had passed everything by, and to-night 
 
 % 
 
 well, there was something in this busy out- 
 door life after all ! 
 
 The string-band played a waltz of Strauss, 
 and Merceron recalled dances, and the tent
 
 The Instrument. 17 
 
 they had put up in his college quad in 
 " Commem." week, and the races. He had 
 evidently once been as they, as these 
 people it was strange ! and he turned on 
 the throng of diners, the men and the 
 women; and the women's exceeding beauty 
 made him wonder whether it were ever 
 possible to go back, to return to the days 
 when he lived their life and they were part 
 of his ? 
 
 " How old do I look, Hutchie ? " he asked, 
 across the table. 
 
 " Twenty-one this morning," came jestingly 
 from the other side. 
 
 " No larking ! " protested Merceron, very 
 much in earnest. 
 
 " Young deuced young ! I don't want to 
 offend you ; you should grow a moustache.'' 
 
 " I 'm twenty-five." 
 
 " I know ; but really, you don't look it,**
 
 1 8 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 protested Hutchinson "comes of living quiet, 
 I suppose." 
 
 " Hope so ! " 
 
 They went out on to the balcony and lit 
 cigars and sipped their coffee. Below ran the 
 river, and London was rich with the gold of 
 evening. A faint orange tinged the Western 
 sky, and ahead over the water the moon was 
 turning from down to metal. A steamboat 
 glided to a pier below and cabs hurried 
 along the Embankment. A raucous boy 
 shouted the evening papers, and through 
 green foliage they could see the statue of 
 Robert Raikes gazing placid over beds of 
 flowers towards Cleopatra's needle. A man 
 on a seat was eating the contents of a greasy 
 newspaper. 
 
 " Who will ever put this to music 1 " said 
 Merceron. 
 
 " Eh 1 " from Hutchinson.
 
 The Instrument. 19 
 
 The river glided, a strip of burnished metal 
 rolling East. Warehouse and factory, wharf 
 and pointed chimney, brooded dark and silent 
 over the further bank. The bridges were live 
 with ceaseless traffic, and dotted with pressing 
 humanity. 
 
 " My God, what melody 1 " said Merceron. 
 
 " Eh ! " said Hutchinson. 
 
 "If these Cockneys only knew what they 
 were singing ! give me another match." 
 
 " Doesn't it draw ? " asked Hutchinson. 
 
 "The weed's all right it's these people," 
 and Merceron indicated the diners sitting 
 behind the tall windows and the hastening 
 folk below. 
 
 " * Youth on the prow and pleasure at the 
 helm ! '" spouted Hutchinson. The quotation 
 was nautical and it had stuck. 
 
 "Etty's picture is crude literalism why 
 didn't he dine here I "
 
 2O An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 "What do you mean? Harvey, old boy, 
 you're raving; that's because I haven't been 
 to see you of late ! " 
 
 " Wish you had," said Merceron. " This is 
 good ! " and he thought of Isabella, smiled 
 over Sopwith, leaning back in his chair and 
 letting the smoke run through his nostrils. 
 " This is good ! " he repeated. 
 
 "Trust me for knowing what's what ! " said 
 Hutchinson. "When we put in at Spezzia 
 by Jove, those Italians did do us well ! ..." 
 
 And then Hutchinson again took the helm, 
 and narrated the secret history of a visit of 
 the British Mediterranean Squadron to a Latin 
 port. And Merceron listened eagerly, for 
 there was Life in the yarn. 
 
 It was nearer nine than eight when they 
 arose and walked across through the Strand, 
 past the Lyceum, and into the Opera House. 
 
 And in the Opera House there was more Life.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MERCERON ROUSING. 
 
 TTUTCHINSON did not know, was blind 
 * * to Merceron's elation as the latter sat 
 swelling in his seat from the time of their 
 arrival, when Valentine occupied the centre of 
 the stage, down to the fall of the curtain. 
 They had gone out between the acts, upstairs 
 to the foyer and on to the verandah ; and even 
 here Merceron's ardour was unabated, had 
 increased rather than slackened. He had 
 exchanged whiskies and cigarettes with perfect 
 strangers, become the centre of a group of 
 promiscuous swallow - tails. Merceron was 
 glowing. He radiated a warmth, a subtle 
 magnetism that attracted passers by, and made 
 
 21
 
 22 An Opera & Lady Grasmert. 
 
 pretty women wonder why he had never taken 
 them down to dinner. 
 
 He had called the opera "fine," accompanied 
 by varying adverbs, no less than six times 
 twice to each entr'acte and he had drawn 
 Hutchinson's attention with an equal frequency 
 to the girl in front of them, a refreshingly 
 youthful girl dressed in white, evidently in her 
 first season, and possessed of the loveliest of 
 complexions and tip-tilted noses. 
 
 But outer and external symbols of elation 
 were all these, the merest trifles ; inside, the 
 commotion was volcanic. The music was 
 much, the music and the singing had their 
 place in Merceron's intoxication; but the house, 
 with its triple row of radiant boxes, its low- 
 lying parterre of jewelled colour that swept from 
 the orchestra to these festive tiers the house 
 was more. To-night was the farewell appear- 
 ance of a supreme soprano, and all London
 
 aferceron Rousing. 23 
 
 had come in to assist at this leave-taking. Her 
 Marguerite was indeed divine, yet to our 
 newly liberated friend, little more than an 
 accompaniment, and, again, a pretext for the 
 coming together of all those dazzling people, 
 who beamed down on the stage, like flowers out 
 of a window-box, or shone, row on row, about 
 and before him. 
 
 "And to think that I should have lived 
 among all this and never have known ! " 
 said Merceron as his two eyes roamed. 
 He lay back in his stall and the per- 
 formance had vanished. He was thinking 
 his own thoughts with the music as aid 
 and furtherer, hastening and heightening his 
 emotions. 
 
 At the end of each act he applauded 
 mechanically, and then drew Hutchinson 
 away for a stroll. Impressions followed 
 each other so rapidly as to be a fever.
 
 24 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Greetings, snatches of conversation, tiny 
 bursts of laughter came to him, kaleido- 
 scopic, Wagnerian, sustained. Every box 
 opening on these public corridors swelled the 
 movement. All London, from Royalty down- 
 ward to the newest millionaire, had become 
 orchestral. 
 
 He would have liked to participate, to lose 
 himself in this universal melody, to be one 
 of this celestial crowd ; but he was without 
 beginning, without halting point, a being tossing 
 idly, impotent, and anchorless over that blissful 
 sea, possessing all, yet possessed of nothing, 
 desiring all, yet too hurried for any premeditated 
 attack. 
 
 The suddenness of the incursion had destroyed 
 his reflective powers, and he could only gaze 
 with eyes busily working, his handsome face 
 alight with the concentrated movement of the 
 entire throng.
 
 Merceron Rousing. 25 
 
 On to the verandah they went, past the 
 foyer, with its graceful, recumbent figures, 
 lavish illumination. Outside was comparative 
 calm, some respite from the disturbing aura 
 of splendid woman -kind and blue -veined 
 romance, the thrills and possibilities of that 
 maison d' elite. Here the two men paused, and 
 Merceron made friends. Now they were back 
 in their seats again, Merceron still active ; 
 sweeping the black cloud of gods that clustered 
 like a swarm of flies upon the ceiling, and 
 again the tiers of boxes and the broad reach 
 of the stalls. And all the while Hutchinson 
 did not know. 
 
 The curtain fell, and the orchestra ran down 
 on the final bars. The applause was tempes- 
 tuous and universal ; recall followed recall. 
 The conductor, too, was driven to share in 
 the ovation. 
 
 The house rose, and Merceron dragged
 
 26 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Hutchinson into the vestibule. A company of 
 footmen stood to attention at the far end. 
 The people streamed out, and down the broad 
 staircase, crowding the spacious hall, and 
 jostling our two friends. 
 
 " Let 's look at them ! " said Merceron. 
 
 They stood aside and watched. 
 
 "This is Life!" said Merceron; "by Jove 
 it is ! " and his eyes fed on the gaily-robed 
 procession, and he swelled now in this ante- 
 chamber. 
 
 The silks and satins rustled, the gems 
 gleamed, and the bright faces shone, radiant 
 with recent emotion. The men were all 
 athletic, the black and white of their dress 
 distinction's self. Nobody heeded Merceron, 
 bending over this changing scene, ardent as 
 a lover. Hutchinson's interest, though keen, 
 was but platonic. 
 
 The crowd was thinner now; the carriages
 
 Mercer on Rousing. 27 
 
 were picking up the silks and satins, the men 
 in black and white. Outside, the street was 
 gay with lamps and glossy horseflesh. 
 
 " Supper," said Hutchinson ; " shall we go 
 to the club ? " 
 
 "No; I want more of this men and 
 women !" and Merceron took his arm, treading 
 on air as they turned into the Strand. " I 've 
 wasted a lot of time," he said "a deuce 
 of a lot ! " 
 ,"At it again?" said Hutchinson. 
 
 But Merceron was not to be silenced. 
 
 " Gounod 's a very great man," he resumed ; 
 " but those people were greater ! " 
 
 "Don't see it," came in reply. 
 
 " Gounod composed that opera, didn't he ? 
 worked on it like a nigger. Result : a few 
 detached fragments, selected moments, with 
 great gaps in between. What he rescued is 
 lovely enough ; but think what remains !
 
 28 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 And that audience was complete complete, 
 Hutchie, no gaps in that ! It didn't work ; 
 it didn't smug itself bald ; it was just its own 
 wonderful self and it beat Gounod, even 
 Gounod ! " 
 
 Hutchinson yawned. 
 
 " Didn't you feel the blood under it all ? 
 Weren't those women fine, and those men I 
 had drinks with, weren't they wonderful ? Is 
 this the supper-place ? " 
 
 Hutchinson led, and Merceron followed. 
 The house had a reputation of a sort, and 
 was living up. to it. 
 
 The two men mixed lobster salad and 
 champagne. Women, gorgeously attired and 
 hectic with cosmetics, made eyes at them ; 
 and Merceron the glowing, Merceron the 
 new-born, who, for three whole years, ever 
 since he had gone down from Oxford, had 
 shut himself away from London, recked only
 
 Merceron Rousing. 29 
 
 of Isabella and Horatio Sopwith, who to-night 
 had once more issued forth into the common 
 life, had dined and operaed, now grew dis- 
 couraged. 
 
 Hutchinson was indifferent so long as his 
 surroundings savoured of the metropolis. 
 To-morrow he rejoined his ship. 
 
 " I wanted to continue," said Merceron. 
 " I wanted more Life not this ! " 
 
 A leering demirep turned away from his 
 kindling eye. 
 
 " This is decay," said Merceron, " decay! " 
 
 The naval officer continued his repast. 
 
 " That 's what we 're striving to repair, 
 isn't it ? " he said, emptying a claw with his 
 fork. 
 
 But Merceron was in earnest. " How are 
 the fallen, mighty ! " he moralised, startling 
 Hutchinson, who ultimately laughed. 
 
 " Jolly good ! jolly good ! Did you
 
 3O An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 get that out of a book ? " enquired the 
 sailor. 
 
 " Er partly," replied Harvey. 
 
 They rose and left this gaudy Borderland, 
 making for Merceron's chambers, and puffing 
 their cigars up Waterloo Place and Piccadilly. 
 There was a big dance on at one of the houses 
 on their route. 
 
 " Supposing we went in ? " said Merceron, 
 as they watched a carriage empty before the 
 awning. 
 
 " We aren't asked, are we ? " 
 
 " The more fun ! " 
 
 "But they're masked." 
 
 " The devil they are ! " said Merceron. He 
 reflected for a moment, and then his face 
 cleared. "Makes it ten times better less 
 risk," he concluded. 
 
 " And the clothes ? " asked Hutchinson. 
 
 " We '11 have to cab it to the Haymarket. or
 
 Merceron Rousing. 31 
 
 else it 's all right ; I 've the Oxford things, 
 mine and Charlie's. We used 'em in Romeo" 
 alluding to a performance of the Oxford Univer- 
 sity Dramatic Society, "and we'll use 'em 
 to-night. Come on 1 " And Merceron hailed 
 a hansom.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MERCERON DANCES. 
 
 HHHE two men drove on to Down Street 
 -* and bade the cabman wait. Merceron 
 worked the lift, and in a moment they were 
 upstairs in the bedroom, and had switched 
 on the electric light. 
 
 " Here they are ! " cried Merceron, half 
 buried in an old oak chest. He dragged the 
 dominos out. A mask was pinned to each. 
 Hutchinson's was bright red, and six inches 
 of trouser-leg showed below ; the other was 
 black. Again the lift, and they rejoined their 
 cab. 
 
 The awning still stood in front of the big 
 house in Piccadilly, and Merceron sighed a 
 
 3*
 
 Merceron Dances. 33 
 
 sigh of relief. He had half feared that house 
 and awning might vanish : so much did this 
 adventure smack of fairy-tale. Everything, 
 however, was real, solidly tangible. 
 
 They marched boldly into the hall, mounted 
 the broad staircase with its sprinkling of 
 powdered footmen and late-arriving guests. 
 The lights within dazzled them. 
 
 " Good - night," said Merceron, as they 
 emerged from the cloak-room, "we hunt 
 single." He helped himself to a programme, 
 waved a hand to Hutchinson, and disappeared 
 in the crowded rooms. 
 
 For a moment the hubbub confused him. 
 He had participated in nothing festive these 
 last three years, had shut himself away from 
 life with his work. Now his work was thrown 
 to the winds, and he was going out to meet 
 Life with wide-open arms. 
 
 A voice gave him his cue, took up the story 
 3
 
 34 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 of his abstinence a falsetto voice, trilling 
 pleasantly behind a yellow domino and mask. 
 
 " Why so late ? " it asked. 
 
 " I was delayed." 
 
 "Vague," commented the domino. 
 
 " You might have intervened." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " By coming earlier." 
 
 " A riddle or flattery ? " it queried. 
 
 " Truth," said Merceron. 
 
 " You 're not dancing ? " asked the mask. 
 
 "I was waiting waiting for you and you 
 have taken your time ! " 
 
 " Long ? ". she tossed back. 
 
 "Three years." 
 
 " Bless my soul, the man's mad ! " 
 
 " Only masked." 
 
 A silvery laugh rippled behind the mask, a 
 flicker of amusement lit the dark eyes, and 
 the lady turned.
 
 Mercer on Dances. 35 
 
 " Another riddle ? " was her parting shot. 
 
 Merceron followed her. 
 
 "Don't go," he said, "I have kept all 
 these for you." And he displayed his empty 
 programme. 
 
 " You have been generous," laughed the 
 lady. 
 
 " You will be more so ? " 
 
 " Impossible ! " as she took his arm. 
 
 They waltzed Merceron like a master, the 
 lady lightly as wind-blown down. Breath 
 failed them at last. 
 
 "The little conservatory shall we sit out ? " 
 she asked, recovering. She had forgotten her 
 falsetto notes, the voice was her own, and rich 
 with music. 
 
 Merceron turned to the right. 
 
 "This way," she said, drawing him in the 
 opposite direction. They left the crowd, and 
 ascended a staircase. "I know the house,
 
 36 An Opera & Lady Grasn tr . 
 
 inside and out. They only ask you to their 
 big things, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Are you fair or dark ? " inquired Merceron. 
 " You wear a hood." 
 
 "Whichever you like," she returned un- 
 abashed. 
 
 "A chameleon?" 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 Merceron continued: 
 
 " We will take your beauty for granted ; you 
 are taking mine ? " 
 
 The mask nodded, merry-eyed. He followed 
 her down an empty corridor. A tiny conserva- 
 tory was at the far end, and beyond was a 
 tinier balcony, hidden away under the stars. 
 Piccadilly ran into the moonlight on either 
 hand, the Green Park was a sylvan foreground. 
 
 On the balcony sat a stout domino, deep in 
 an arm-chair, and snoring with wide - open 
 mouth. The lady laughed in its face, and it
 
 Merceron Dances. 
 
 awoke, scared, showing a bald head to the 
 stars. 
 
 " We are alone," said the lady, as the stout 
 domino fled. 
 
 " You were unkind.*' 
 
 " To brush it away ? " she asked. 
 
 "It was happy," remarked Merceron. 
 
 " Perhaps it was even dreaming," speculatad 
 the lady. 
 
 " You have hurt its feelings." 
 
 " It will make a big supper." 
 
 They were seated now, and the waltz-music, 
 stringed, came faintly from the rooms below. 
 
 " It is really too warm for a dance it 'a 
 absurd dancing in July," said the lady. 
 
 " One should dance in the open, like they 
 do at flower-shows, or in a Corot ? " answered 
 Merceron. 
 
 " One could dance at garden-parties, if they 
 were later," she hazarded.
 
 38 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " You did not lead me up here to discuss 
 dancing," said Merceron, severely. " You have 
 a mission out with it ! " 
 
 The lady shrunk back. 
 
 "You have never spoken to me like that 
 before " 
 
 " Perfectly correct," assented Merceron. 
 
 "And even if we are masked you know 
 perfectly well whom you are speaking to." 
 
 " Not the foggiest idea." 
 
 The lady laughed now. 
 
 " You pretend beautifully," she said, " and I 
 prefer your new voice to the real one," she 
 maliciously added. 
 
 " It shall be permanent." 
 
 " Consider the strain 1" 
 
 " For your sake ? " 
 
 "That was sweet of you take me down- 
 stairs before you get rude again." 
 " I will, if you will ?"
 
 Mercer on Dances. 39 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Give me another chance;" and Merceron 
 extracted three waltzes and supper from the 
 yellow domino. Then they t returned to the 
 ball-room. 
 
 "That is Lady May," she whispered. Her 
 gesture covered a slight pink domino. " Don't 
 forget me," and she dropped his arm. 
 
 "I shall go up to the small conservatory if 
 you're not here," returned Merceron, and he 
 was alone. 
 
 So was Lady May. He accosted her with- 
 out further ado, taking full advantage of his 
 disguise. 
 
 " Pink suits you, you look well in pink," he 
 began, critically. 
 
 Silence and cold eyes behind a mask greeted 
 this raillery. 
 
 " This is our dance your ladyship has not 
 forgotten ? " urged Merceron, undeterred.
 
 40 An Opera 6- Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Is it ? " said Lady May, in a voice dull and 
 quite uninterested. 
 
 " You are cold ? " suggested Merceron, brid- 
 ling. 
 
 " Stifling, these things are so ^warm," she 
 drawled. 
 
 " Why did you come ? " he asked, and was 
 rewarded by a stare so frigid that he almost 
 laughed aloud. "We will dance?" He 
 offered her an arm with a " May I, Lady 
 May ? " 
 
 "You may." 
 
 " It must be terrible to have a name like 
 that always cropping up ! " The girl's arro- 
 gance annoyed Merceron. He was resolved 
 on chastening it. 
 
 " If you don't like it, you may go," she 
 retorted. 
 
 " I love it so well, that I would never ask you 
 to change it."
 
 Mercer on Dances. 41 
 
 A pink foot drummed the floor. Lady May 
 was angry. 
 
 " I am not dancing, will you take me to a 
 seat ? " she said. Her former drawl was 
 lacking. 
 
 " Shall be delighted," answered Merceron. 
 The rest of their way was silence and a bow. 
 
 The yellow domino swung by more than 
 once ; and Merceron watched her, impatient 
 for a renewal. At last he claimed his own. 
 
 " Supper will be on directly, let's get seats," 
 she said, as she took his arm and led the way 
 downstairs. 
 
 A frantic domino in red, with six inches of 
 trouser-leg showing below, intercepted them. 
 It was Hutchinson. 
 
 "I'm off," he said, breathless; "they're 
 going to unmask^-a girl told me." 
 
 The yellow domino was listening with some 
 curiosity.
 
 42 An Opera & Lady' Grasmere. 
 
 "Aren't you coming," continued Hutchinson, 
 " things may get unpleasant ? " 
 
 "I've only just begun besides, there's 
 supper," returned Merceron, undisturbed. 
 
 "Well, if you won't," said Hutchinson, 
 " ta-ta I'll look you up next leave," he con- 
 cluded, and went off to the cloak-room. 
 
 Merceron was about to apologise to bis 
 partner, but she had gripped his arm with 
 
 " Aren't you Captain Mills ? " 
 
 " Not that I'm aware of." 
 
 "But you dance alike you're exactly his 
 figure." 
 
 "We probably go to the same tailor," 
 suggested Merceron. 
 
 " Your voice " 
 
 " You prefer it shall we sit there ? " and 
 he led the way to a vacant table.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MERCERON IS WIDE AWAKE. 
 
 '"IT THY did your friend leave in alarm?" 
 asked the yellow domino, as she and 
 Harvey seated themselves at one of the 
 supper-tables. 
 
 " He feared exposure." 
 
 " Not much harm in it this weather answer 
 again ? " 
 
 " They are going to unmask." 
 
 " And he is hideous ? " 
 
 " We came here uninvited," said Merceron 
 calmly. 
 
 " Who are you ? " 
 
 " A liberated captive." 
 
 " Then you will need a friend." 
 
 43
 
 44 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " I have found one," he gallantly replied. 
 
 " Do you know, I made sure that you were 
 Captain Mills ? " said the lady. 
 
 " You are disappointed ? " 
 
 " No not exactly," she replied. 
 
 The rooms were filling fast as this conversa- 
 tion progressed, grew quite full. Everybody 
 save Hutchinson seemed to be present. The 
 pink domino stood in the doorway with a 
 partner ; another guest, stout and bald-headed, 
 evidently he who had slumbered on the balcony, 
 was seated, handling a m6nu. 
 
 A gong clashed on the hubbub once twice. 
 
 "It is two o'clock, we must unmask," said 
 the yellow domino. 
 
 A hundred faces were exposed, hoods were 
 falling back, the air was full of surprises and 
 astonished laughter, satisfaction at deceits 
 successfully carried out. 
 
 Merceron was gazing into a pair of lovely
 
 Merceron is Wide Awake. 45 
 
 hazel eyes, set below hair of ruddy auburn. 
 The face, though pale, was very beautiful, 
 the half-exposed neck a dazzling-white. She, 
 too, was not displeased with her companion's 
 appearance; his manner charmed her even 
 more. 
 
 Their hostess, a stately dowager hung with 
 ancestral jewels, sailed down the rooms to 
 greet her guests by name. 
 
 The domino and Merceron exchanged a 
 glance, their turn was imminent. The latter, 
 unconcerned, filled his companion's plate and 
 his own, drank to her from a brimming wine- 
 glass. Then the Marchioness was on them. 
 
 " I brought a young friend with me," ex- 
 plained the yellow domino with a subtle 
 twinkle in the hazel eyes. 
 
 Merceron bowed, and the Marchioness was 
 charmed. She gave him two jewelled fingers 
 and passed on.
 
 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Why did you ? " asked Merceron, with 
 danger behind him. 
 
 " Appearances were against me," laughed 
 back the yellow domino ; then, throwing her 
 disguise aside, she stood out clear, gowned in 
 amber satin with opals burning at her throat. 
 " It was rather stuffy," she remarked. 
 
 A white hand stole out to assist Merceron, 
 struggling with his draperies; its touch thrilled 
 him. 
 
 He, too, was good to look upon as he 
 emerged, tall and well knit, from the inky 
 folds of his domino. 
 
 They supped like children, greedy and 
 helping each other as the dishes passed. 
 Music came softly from the further room, the 
 wine sparkled ruddy or golden, flashing back 
 the lights that hung above. Gallantry and 
 the full-framed spirit of greater comedy leapt 
 through the fleeting moment ; something
 
 Mercer on is Wide Awake. 47 
 
 barbaric and primeval snatched at the hearts 
 of these revellers feasting careless before 
 the dawn, spurred on this crowd, frankly 
 joyous with youth and the rich blood of lives 
 untrammelled. A pagan hour it was, and 
 beauty swung in the ascendant ; the spirit's 
 pale awakenings and wan-eyed tremors were all 
 forgot no place for white-lipped meditation. 
 
 " We dance no more ? " said Merceron as 
 they rose. 
 
 She took his arm and followed where he led. 
 
 " Let 's go up to the little balcony again and 
 watch the sun rise ? " he proposed as they 
 passed out together. 
 
 " An Alpine notion," she assented. 
 
 "Alpine is barbarous; they rouse you from 
 slumber to yawn at an open-eyed sun." 
 
 "We will be the sun let it discover us," 
 she sent back. " I am ready ; " and this time 
 Merceron guided.
 
 48 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " It will be cold up there ; I shall fetch the 
 dominoes." He was with her again in an 
 instant, and they mounted. 
 
 The conservatory was ghastly with the 
 clashing of day and artificial light. They left 
 it behind them without unfair glances into 
 each other's face. 
 
 Beyond, the balcony hung deserted. Mer- 
 ceron wrapped his partner in the silken folds 
 of the dominoes, yellow on black. She passed 
 a hand under his arm, and leant over the 
 rampart. Below rumbled a heavy market 
 waggon, stacked high with green-stuff, and 
 making a persistent line for Covent Garden. 
 The sky above was a cold blue, pale, with 
 sparse silver twinklings of paler stars. The 
 air, though cool, was far from chilling. 
 
 A cart, ruddy with a regiment of geraniums, 
 went by, and annunciation lilies, white and 
 tender, mingled with the pots. More stacks
 
 Merceron is Wide Awake. 49 
 
 of vegetables followed, drawn by mechanical- 
 stepping horses, whose drivers dozed torpid in 
 their seats. 
 
 " Le venire de Londres we are being fed," 
 said the lady with a grimace, "and garlanded." 
 
 " Le c&ur de Londres where is it ? " retorted 
 Merceron. 
 
 " Where ? " she demurely echoed. 
 
 " Here 1 " His eyes were on the sky, now 
 growing pink and sentimental. Cherubs 
 might have flopped over it without causing 
 comment. " Here I " his eyes came down, 
 met hers. 
 
 " London has no heart," she said. 
 
 " Six millions think of them growing all so 
 close together no wonder some break I " 
 
 " Those are down below " her gesture 
 covered the street " but we are here in the 
 sunlight 1 " she rejoined, triumphant, challeng- 
 ing* glorying in her force and beauty. Her
 
 5O An Opera & Lady Grasntere. 
 
 wrap was thrown aside : it shivered to the 
 ground and fell about her feet, and she stood 
 radiant, with parted lips, in the first shaft of 
 the ascending sun. Her enlumined hair shone 
 like burnished bronze. 
 
 "Were I artist, I would paint you as 
 Aurora," said Merceron, kindling and captive. 
 
 " You have imagination." 
 
 "But no skill." 
 
 " More than you imagine." 
 
 " Both were too much." 
 
 " Not in this world," and she looked round, 
 her eyes embracing the object of her speech. 
 This world was a street silent with untouched 
 morning, the green of a park verdant with 
 dew and sunshine, and two happy mortals 
 enthroned on a balcony. " Not in this world," 
 she repeated. 
 
 "No, not too much no equipment were 
 sufficing here I" He, too, was in Eden or
 
 Mercer on is Wide Awake. 5 1 
 
 Paradise or Elysium. He seized his houri's 
 hand. She withdrew it. 
 
 " Piccadilly will be crowded at noon," she 
 observed. He looked down upon the street. 
 Her words had filled it with surging traffic and 
 myriad pedestrians. The dawn had passed, 
 and zenith midday was pulsing full and 
 vehement . . . yet below ran but a road- 
 way, empty save for the rare passing of a 
 Covent Garden waggon ! His eyes swept from 
 below, to her and back again. Silence every- 
 where was silence ; broken at last, as a crowd 
 of busy men appeared, armed with gigantic 
 hose-pipes. The two revellers looked on, full 
 of interest. Piccadilly was receiving its morning 
 bath. 
 
 On the balcony now stood but a man and a 
 woman. Poetry had left them; yet there is 
 virtue in good prose. 
 
 " I am dreadfully tired," said the lady*
 
 52 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Shall I take you down ? " asked Merceron, 
 reluctant. 
 
 " I suppose so," she murmured. Her arm 
 lay heavy in his, yet the burden was as a 
 feather. Neither was greatly inclined to change 
 the present for recreant motion. 
 
 " We will continue when ? " urged Mer- 
 ceron. 
 
 She met his questioning eyes, tenderly yet 
 drooping. 
 
 " I may call this afternoon ? " 
 
 She smiled, soft, languid as a child weary 
 with too much play. His heart leaped, exulted, 
 flaming yet solicitous. She was adorable; he 
 yearned madly to carry her down the inter- 
 vening stairs, her arms heavy on his neck. 
 
 " This afternoon," he repeated. Such words ! 
 
 She shook her head ; but her eyes were 
 kinder. " This afternoon 1 " The staircase 
 lav before them.
 
 Merceron is Wide Awake. 53 
 
 Below, the company was thinning and good- 
 nights flew here and there. The lady was 
 herself again, erect, serene as though but new 
 arrived. She exchanged farewells, and Mer- 
 ceron waited. He was in the hall when she 
 came down, cloaked from head to foot, calm, 
 self-possessed a guest departing. Many eyes 
 were on them, admiring, envious. Merceron 
 assisted her to her carriage an earl's coronet 
 was on the panel. A hand lay lightly on his, 
 the shadow of a hand's pressure. She had not 
 forgotten. 
 
 " Au revoir," said Merceron.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIVE A.M. AND "ISABELLA." 
 
 TT was five o'clock of a summer's morning, 
 * and Merceron, his domino over his arm, 
 was in the street, watching the lady's carriage 
 as it disappeared, rolling towards Knights- 
 bridge. 
 
 Despite the hour, no vestige of fatigue did 
 he display; rather was he elate, a being 
 treading on air, ascending rainbows light- 
 footed as a god, with song and melody on 
 his lips, volatile within him. For Hope, 
 Expectation, new-sprung and virginal, were 
 his companions as never in this life. 
 
 The way to his rooms was no long one. 
 He was at his door before he was well aware 
 
 14
 
 Five a.m. and "Isabella" 55 
 
 of any exercise ; and there stood the old, 
 familiar abode, in semi-darkness, with the 
 sunshine struggling behind drawn blinds, 
 unchanged, as he had always known it but 
 he, how altered, how foreign to this trim 
 sobriety ! 
 
 Merceron let in the light and the fresh air, 
 lit a pipe, mixed a brimming tumbler of whisky 
 and potass, threw off his coat and put on an old 
 college blazer. Then he sat down with feet on 
 the fender, and let the night's work steal over 
 his thoughts. 
 
 This review was all-sufficing. Over every 
 phase of his adventure he dwelt, lover-like, 
 ardent, and eager. His blood, long so latent, 
 so torpid and confined, was warmed to sweet- 
 ness by the renewal. After all, what were the 
 past years, spent .studious and apart, but an 
 apprenticeship ? over now, behind him at 
 last. He had served his term, was free once
 
 56 An Opera & Lady Gr asm ere. 
 
 more and a man. He was rich, with youth 
 and fortune equally untouched : he would give 
 all to her, to that life of which she was the 
 symbol, the supremest manifestation ; to the 
 fair, young world wherein he had dwelt 
 unknowing these many years. 
 
 Over this ground he trod, repeating and 
 repeating, and these thoughts were but the 
 sweeter for their repetition. Now the last 
 night came back to him in one continuous 
 whole no series of splendid moments like the 
 Faust he had just witnessed, but as an opera 
 of Wagner, a late one ; richer even than this, 
 for the world was his stage, his opera-house, 
 libretto and setting had ranged themselves 
 spontaneous, fallen truly as the rain of heaven, 
 were no studied effort of cunningly-disciplined 
 particles. Back, over all this ground he went, 
 lingering at the dinner-table where light had 
 first stolen in upon him, to the fair women,
 
 Five a.m. and " Isabella." 57 
 
 showing faces bright with anticipation and 
 toying with delicate viands to the sound 
 of music; then Hutchinson's friendly counte- 
 nance and the terrace overlooking London 
 London awakening to its evening release, its 
 myriad lights opening upon the dusk like rows 
 of enchanted flowers, a festive London while 
 below ran the river, slow moving, girt with the 
 tender greys of its distances, soft, trailing 
 shadows that climbed into the tinted sky. 
 Afterwards, the busy streets that led to the 
 great Opera House, where some of the world's 
 sweetest singers had thrilled him with some of 
 the world's sweetest melody ; not him alone 
 for he had been but an atom, an infinitesimal 
 part of that vast audience. A part of what ? 
 Of the very cream, of the topmost blossoming, 
 of all that London boasted ! He had formed 
 a part of that magic coronal, pre-eminent, 
 privileged, by right of its beauty, its health, its
 
 58 An Opera 6- Lady Grasmcre. 
 
 brilliance, and fastidious appetites. He had 
 been part of this world ; he would stay with 
 it now, always its life was the one Art 1 
 From thence he had descended to the supper- 
 place : a passing through the fustian, the 
 shoddy; a dip into a stream deceptively like 
 the other, yet tainted from its very source, 
 unclean with an invisible pollution. Away 
 from there into his disguise, the music of 
 the dance, the rhythm of harmonious motion, 
 the dramatic semi-danger of his peculiar 
 outrage. And yet this danger had been but 
 illusive what company would not have 
 welcomed so ardent a recruit ? And now, 
 uppermost and chiefest, throned amid all this 
 opulence, this pomp of splendid living, crowning 
 his edifice, was a woman: the woman whose 
 hand had rested on his arm as he and she 
 stood looking down upon this same London of 
 the night before again awakening ; now to no
 
 Five a.m. and "Isabella." 59 
 
 feverish release, but calm, vestal, throwing back 
 mist and darkness, and uprising, glorious, 
 golden, from out the dawn. Warm, living, this 
 woman stood once more beside him, tall and 
 perfect in her rare proportions, dark-eyed and 
 with ruddy hair, the sweep of her full voice 
 encompassing all emotion. He would be with 
 her again, later, that very day ! 
 
 His vehement thoughts, rose-tinted and 
 intense with all desires, coloured with the full 
 brush of young anticipation, now left the 
 concrete, the particular, wandered off towards 
 the general, the larger issues of this chase. 
 The previous night was no longer a chain of 
 incident, but a conquest. Had he not won a 
 new and complete existence out of that which, 
 but one short day ago, had been to him as a 
 nothingness ? Twenty-four hours ! his whole 
 life lay in that twenty-four hours : the rest ! 
 the rest had been work and futile strivings,
 
 60 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 the attempted appeasement of a hunger, an 
 appetite which no life here below could effectu- 
 ally still, the service which men call Art. Before, 
 he had faced the impossible and ultimate 
 darkness ; now, but twenty-four hours distant, 
 and he had found the other way, the one, the 
 right, the true path a road hewn straight 
 through the heart of Life, and bordered with 
 love and all the graces. 
 
 No inkling of regret mingled with this 
 awakening; his twenty-five years stood him 
 in good stead. Young enough he was to smile 
 unruffled over lost opportunity ; old enough 
 to exult in the youth, the measure of strong 
 years that lay before him. His was the golden 
 age. For a moment he stood aloof from 
 himself, recognising the wealth that was his 
 own. Vaguely he called to mind that there 
 were men men no older than he, too who 
 were already tired, spoilt, cynical; yes, men
 
 Five a.m. and "Isabella." 61 
 
 even of his few years who were prematurely 
 weary, scarce capable of enjoyment. He might 
 have been as these, disillusioned, spiritually 
 dyspeptic! This verging Pharisaism disgusted 
 him ; he withdrew his attention to less com- 
 parative fields, to the present, the near future. 
 What would these be ! What would they not 
 be ! A passage in a play of Ibsen's, John 
 Gabriel Borkman, came back to him, struck 
 home with a new force, a new meaning a 
 vision of enlightenment. He had hitherto 
 been playing for the dancers ; henceforth he 
 was going to join in the dance there lay his 
 future. 
 
 Merceron rose, found the book, the scene 
 that had flashed back, well-nigh prophetic. 
 He read it aloud, doubling the parts of 
 Borkman and Frida Foldal : 
 
 " Do you like playing dance music ? At 
 parties, I mean ? " he asked as Borkman.
 
 6a An Opera <$ Lady Grasmere. 
 
 "Yes, when I can get an engagement. I 
 can always earn a little in that way," he 
 answered as Frida. 
 
 " Is that the principal thing in your mind as 
 you sit playing for the dancers ? " 
 
 " No ; I am generally thinking how hard it is 
 that I mayn't join in the dance myself." 
 
 "That's just what I wanted to know. Yes, 
 yes, yes ! That you mustn't join in the dance, 
 that 's the hardest thing of all. But there 's 
 one thing that should make up to you for that, 
 Frida." 
 
 " What is that, Mr. Borkman ? " 
 
 "The knowledge that you have ten times 
 more music in you than all the dancers 
 together." And Merceron closed the volume 
 with a bang. 
 
 No ; he would no longer play for the dancers. 
 Money, he had money in plenty 1 Fame, 
 what was fame to him ! to him, who was going
 
 Five a.m. and "Isabella." 63 
 
 to join in the dance; to him, who had ten 
 times more music in him than all the other 
 dancers together ! He knew this last, was 
 certain of his power, had felt it last night as he 
 moved, a figure leading and dominant, among 
 strange crowds. The others recognised it too. 
 How else would he have ventured so boldly to 
 the attack of the lady in yellow, how else would 
 she have received this attack with such unmis- 
 takable favour? Even his successful demoli- 
 tion of the arrogant Lady May, his trumpery 
 triumph at the Opera bar, the promiscuous 
 men whom he had attracted, magnetised, stood 
 ample evidence in confirmation of this esti- 
 mate . . . He had ten times more music 
 in him than all the other dancers together, and 
 instead of expressing it in written signs, he 
 would live it; he himself would enjoy this 
 luxuriance, this tenfold capacity he, and he 
 only. There should b,e no burdensome division
 
 64 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 between Art and Life but Life, nothing 
 but Life. And he was to live this Life. . . . 
 He would make of it, and would wear it as 
 some strange power; a force, baffling and 
 compelling, impalpable and subtle, ever-present 
 yet never manifest ; a secret religion, a com- 
 pleted Pantheism, that should make him 
 eminent elusively eminent among mankind. 
 
 Within him, some small voice, a remnant, 
 perhaps, of his former devotion, his old altruism, 
 whispered, " Impossible ! " The injustice of 
 such advantage could not be. " Impossible ! " 
 whispered the voice. 
 
 " Possible, and I will prove it ! " cried 
 Merceron. " As for what has been, as for the 
 past there shall be no past my life began 
 to-day ! " 
 
 One link, a something living and articulate 
 that bound him to his former state, remained, 
 testifying to what was, to what might be.
 
 Five a.m. and "Isabella." 65 
 
 Three years had he spent upon its forging ; 
 three years, complete and without break. 
 Isabella, this score with its libretto; Isabella, 
 his first opera, that represented the whole of 
 his doing and being since he had quitted Oxford ; 
 Isabella, but newly finished and laid aside, must 
 burn. His apprenticeship was over now; away 
 with every shed and symbol of the chrysalis 
 from which he had emerged ! Isabella belonged 
 to the past, was the past away with Isabella ! 
 Fire was the surest, the swiftest annihilator. 
 Here were the matches, and over there the 
 cabinet where this manuscript opera lay, care- 
 fullv, cleanly piled, as he had stacked it three 
 weeks since, after a last revision. The fire- 
 place would be a ready crematorium. He found 
 the key of the cabinet. All was ready for this 
 burnt sacrifice, this first offering to the gods 
 that were to watch over his new career. All 
 was ready save only Isabella. Before him
 
 66 An Opera, & Lady Grasmert. 
 
 yawned bare shelves and naked walls, an ironic 
 void. 
 
 The lock of the cabinet was smashed, 
 evidently forced from the outside. The key had 
 turned round and round. The door hung 
 loosely, and offered no resistance. It swung 
 wide open almost as soon as he touched it. 
 The cabinet was quite empty. Isabella, both 
 the score and the libretto, had been stolen.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " ISABELLA." 
 
 TTTE have just accompanied young Harvey 
 Merceron through as varied an enter- 
 tainment as any that London affords the 
 enterprising bachelor within so short a space 
 of time ; twelve hours, is not that the 
 exact period which has elapsed between 
 Hutchinson's breezy entry and the discovery 
 of Isabella's providential exit? 
 
 We have seen Merceron blink, as the sailor 
 drove him forth into the sunlight; we have 
 seen him shake off lethargy and inaction, and 
 run such riot as man too seldom enjoys. We 
 have, all of us, looked on with envy; some 
 few, even, have had courage to openly express
 
 68 An Opera < Lady Grasmert. 
 
 approval of an example so successfully and 
 consistently lawless. And, at the end, we 
 have followed the prodigal home and listened 
 with sceptic smile to his own impassioned 
 version of events that, duly considered, are but 
 the commonplaces of every-day experience 
 every-day experience properly footing it through 
 an accustomed world. 
 
 And now, having heard him declaim, our 
 smile relaxes. Some of us, indeed, are wisely 
 shaking prudent heads, as they watch this 
 youth, wrapped in a college blazer, devise an 
 unlimited paradise upon so slender a founda- 
 tion: quite undeterred is he by any thought 
 of Providence; of Providence, that upright 
 merchant, steadfastly exacting a fair and lawful 
 price for even the least of his wares. No 
 such inevitable payment does young Harvey 
 Merceron contemplate. 
 
 Instead, has he not raised violent hands,
 
 "Isabella." 69 
 
 nor are his eyes lowered in humility ; instead, 
 does he not wish to burn his ships, leave 
 himself no refuge should his quest, his con- 
 jurations, have proved futile. No lap wherein 
 to hide his face should he return empty-handed 
 does he reserve, not even such solace as might 
 have afforded him Isabella. 
 
 Let us hear more of Isabella; for is she not 
 a something vital, a strip, several strips, a 
 reach, upon her master's pathway ? Were 
 not she and Horatio Sopwith sole diversions 
 of the hermit Merceron the Merceron of 
 yesterday ? 
 
 Six years had passed since Harvey left his 
 school and went up to Oxford. As a youth 
 he was remarkable for the largeness of his 
 ambitions. Even when newly arrived at the 
 University which was to give him his musical 
 dRg*ee, the sad history of Isabella and Lorenzo 
 had attracted him as a fitting subject for his
 
 70 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 first enterprise. The story contained all the 
 elements of grand opera, seemed manifestly 
 designed to furnish a music-drama of the 
 highest order. He resolved upon attacking 
 it so soon as he should be done with examiners, 
 as leisure and serious working days lay before 
 him. Meanwhile, he was content to discuss 
 his plans with Sopwith. He had sometimes 
 hesitated between Isabella and Francesca of 
 Rimini. They were both subjects eminently 
 suitable : Wagner would most certainly have 
 treated both of them had he not been otherwise 
 employed; and what was good enough for 
 Wagner was assuredly of sufficient importance 
 to merit the attention of that master's admiring 
 student, Harvey Merceron to wit. Sopwith 
 had been intelligently sympathetic, had listened, 
 keenly interested in either undertaking. 
 
 Sopwith and Harvey were the only men of 
 their year reading for a musical degree at their
 
 "Isabella" 71 
 
 particular college, and thus, a common pro- 
 gramme had thrown them together from the 
 outset. Later, they had worked together, had 
 joined the same clubs, attended the same 
 lectures, grinned at the same tobacconist's 
 daughter, played the same games, and, finally, 
 had been examined side by side and had 
 received their degrees upon the same morning. 
 Sopwith, a smart enough youth, with gifts 
 more receptive than imaginative, was glad to 
 profit by this constant intercourse with a man 
 of such rare instinctive faculty and innate 
 vocation ; for he had speedily recognised in 
 Merceron certain generous though undisci- 
 plined forces which no don or professional 
 teacher lavished in equal measure. Harvey 
 was to Sopwith a chronic source of infection ; 
 and he, for his part, was pleased at having 
 found so willing a listener, was gratified by the 
 other's implied acceptance of himself as leader
 
 72 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 in their joint undertakings; admitted, too, 
 Sopwith's practical outlook and good sense, 
 and their value as a corrective to his own 
 more fiery temperament. The two men, thus 
 admirably assorted, were constantly together ; 
 and, later on, when they both resettled 
 themselves in London, this friendship, begun 
 up at the 'Varsity, prospered and grew 
 venerable. 
 
 Even at their earliest meetings had Merceron 
 and Sopwith discussed the merits of Isabella 
 and Francesca of Rimini. The themes, they 
 had agreed, were nearly identical ; and M er- 
 ceron, enlarging on this point, had roundly 
 asserted that "You've only got to alter your 
 libretto, and one score would almost do for the 
 pair of them especially in the second act, and 
 it's the second act that takes the most doing," 
 he had sagely added. Harvey, at that time, 
 conceived all his operas in three acts, with the
 
 "Isabella." 73 
 
 climax, amorous for the most part, in the 
 middle one. 
 
 " Both deal with clandestine love, clandes- 
 tine meetings, and violent death look here, 
 Sopwith, you take one, and I'll do the other ? " 
 he had remarked upon another and similar 
 occasion. 
 
 " But mustn't we begin at the beginning ? 
 and an opera's rather in the middle," replied 
 the soberer Sopwith. 
 
 " The beginning is where one begins, and, if 
 we begin in the middle, it's all right," retorted 
 Merceron, logical for once. " How would 
 King Lear or The Cenci suit you ? " he proposed 
 after an interval. 
 
 "I think I'll get that degree first, if you 
 don't mind," from Sopwith. 
 
 This made Harvey laugh. 
 
 On going down from Oxford and moving 
 into the Down Street Chambers, he had
 
 74 ^** Opera < L^_y Gtasmerc. 
 
 definitely decided upon handling the story of 
 the unfortunate Isabella. It was simpler than 
 any of the others, and the second act gave 
 him a like opportunity; which, after all, was 
 the main consideration. 
 
 Sopwith, who had taken an even better 
 degree than Merceron, set up for himself in 
 one of a deserted-looking row of houses that 
 formed part of a cul-de-sac which bewildered 
 the straggler into Bloomsbury. He had but a 
 small allowance, just sufficent to manage upon 
 if carefully expended, and rooms in this loose 
 end of a thoroughfare were cheap and spacious, 
 their tenants unrestricted. 
 
 Merceron, thus safely installed, had at once 
 proceeded to shut himself up with Isabella. 
 His libretto he attended to in person ; he had 
 some literary ability, and the notion of any 
 outsider interposing between himself and his 
 beloved work hardly appealed to him. Sopwith,
 
 "Isabella." 75 
 
 he thought, would prove a sufficient check to 
 any extravagance, and was, besides, a familiar 
 worker in the same field. 
 
 Months passed, and Merceron remained deep 
 in his labours, with an occasional visit from his 
 brother-musician or a run down to Hertford- 
 shire to see his people for sole distractions. 
 He lost touch with his other Oxford friends; 
 and as the work grew, and he became more 
 and more immersed, the last social links, rites, 
 and observances were dropped, and Merceron, 
 happily absorbed, stood alone in London with 
 only Isabella, the near Park, and Sopwith left 
 to him the world forgetting, by the world 
 forgot. 
 
 Sopwith, who came in regularly to compare 
 notes and see how Isabella was progressing, 
 was always a welcome visitor. He would 
 listen with an unfailing patience while Merceron 
 ran over the latest additions to the pile of
 
 76 An Optra & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 manuscript, or explained how these results 
 had been obtained, or, as was often the case, 
 had not been obtained. Sopwith's constancy 
 had its reward; for, was not the outcome of 
 all this eager experiment and labour entirely 
 at his service ? He meanwhile, though an 
 interested spectator, was content with a less 
 soaring ambition, devoted, indeed, a certain 
 portion of his time and talents to the com- 
 position of settings for the metrical effusions 
 of wealthy amateurs. Such patrons paid him 
 well for his trouble, and insisted that their 
 names should appear in large type on the 
 cover of songs, the cost of whose publica- 
 tion they also defrayed. This arrangement 
 Sopwith not only countenanced, but courted 
 into the bargain. He also went much to 
 other people's houses, urging Merceron to do 
 the same. 
 
 " How do you think you are going to get
 
 "Isabella." 77 
 
 Isabella put on, if you don't know people ? " 
 Sopwith would exclaim when Merceron ignored 
 these precepts. He expounded further, "It's 
 all interest. Merit be blowed; you've got to 
 know people first, you 've got to get some- 
 body influential to take you up and make 
 people talk about you. Look at So-and-so 
 and So-and-so," and here he would rattle off 
 half-a-dozen names well known in the musical 
 world. 
 
 "But I'm not So-and-so and So-and-so," 
 Merceron would reply unmoved. 
 
 Sopwith, however, only shook his head. 
 " You 've got to get yourself talked about," he 
 insisted, "so that everybody knows who you 
 are, and then when anybody wants any music 
 they come to you, even if they've never 
 heard a bar of your work. They've heard 
 your name, and that's all they want. In 
 England, people don't know much about
 
 78 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 these things, and music is just like soap or 
 patent medicine." 
 
 "But we're going to change all that," said 
 Harvey. 
 
 " Not just now, old chap. And just now 
 people are buying the brand they see and hear 
 most about and I 'm taking precious care 
 they hear a deal about Horatio Sopwith ! " 
 
 The author of these remarks was in so far 
 right, that when Isabella neared completion 
 Merceron's was a name unknown, while Horatio 
 Sopwith's songs were in evidence at all the 
 principal music-sellers so much so, that their 
 composer was enabled to occupy and furnish 
 a cosy flat situate in Bayswater. Occasionally, 
 one of these compositions would catch Mer- 
 ceron's eye as he passed a shop-window, and 
 once or twice he had entered and purchased, 
 run rapidly over the setting and marvelled at 
 Sopwith's lack of courage. A reminiscence,
 
 "Isabella." 79 
 
 always a reminiscence, some sort of a borrow- 
 ing or another, were these trifles. He had 
 chaffed Sopwith about these variations on the 
 familiar, but the latter had only shrugged his 
 shoulders. 
 
 " What am I to do ? " he would explain. 
 " I 'm not independent like you are, so I can't 
 afford to refuse the things; and besides, nobody 
 knows the difference." 
 
 Merceron looked reproval this was indeed 
 degeneracy. 
 
 " My dear boy," returned Sopwith, " I can't 
 afford to waste time doing original drawing- 
 room songs and comic-opera inlays for the 
 idiots. You wait till I 've a chance of choosing 
 my own work, and then I'll astonish you; but 
 
 now " and the speaker, perfectly dressed in 
 
 the latest of late fashions, correct even to the 
 pearl-headed pins that kept his necktie in 
 position, would proceed to deplore his lugubrious
 
 8o An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 circumstances and the straitened resources 
 which condemned him to such a present state 
 of unworthy drudgery. 
 
 And so through these three years the pair 
 of them had progressed, each in his own way ; 
 Merceron going deeper and ever deeper into 
 his work, discovering technical and tone secrets 
 which no Oxford or other don has yet imparted, 
 learning day for day in that most personal and 
 thorough of all universities Experience. So 
 that when first he appears in these pages, with 
 Isabella well behind him, he might really have 
 begun to compose something noways dis- 
 creditable. Doubt came to him and fear, often 
 and often again, as he went on thus blindly 
 with his task, caring little, dreaming little of all 
 that lay beyond ; but doubt and fear were 
 courageously swept aside or smiled over ; and 
 when Sopwith paid his weekly call and sat 
 listening with unconcealed admiration to these
 
 "Isabella." 81 
 
 new pages, the reward was sufficing and 
 Merceron dared continue. 
 
 Isabella drew towards its close, and now 
 Sopwith's visits grew scarcer. 
 
 "The opera season is on," he explained, 
 " and I 'm going to make hay." He had met 
 the impresario, was trying hard to arouse that 
 worthy's interest ; and he mentioned also the 
 name of a great lady, one who reigned supreme 
 in the musical world, and whom he fancied he 
 had quite won over to his side. His chance had 
 come at last; he would turn out no more 
 songs and waltzes and here the pair of them 
 shuddered polkas ! Not only might he engage 
 in something lofty, but he would stand a fair 
 chance of getting his work produced, and that 
 without delay. 
 
 And now the impresario figured constantly 
 in his conversation, partnered by that great 
 lady who was able to move mountains
 
 82 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Sopwith had evidently become a shadow 
 stalking this all-important . functionary and his 
 exerciser from bed to board and backwards. 
 He now spoke seriously of beginning his 
 magnum opus. 
 
 "Why don't you start now?" cried Harvey, 
 delighted at the change, "now and do take 
 one of our subjects, the ones we used to talk 
 over at Oxford, Francesca or King Lear or The 
 Cenci why not Francesca ? The second act is 
 just like mine, you know, and it '11 be such fun 
 to compare, and I can help you a bit you see, 
 I 've nearly got mine behind me ! " 
 
 And then and there it was agreed that 
 Sopwith was "to tackle Francesca." 
 
 It was about this time that the finale of 
 Isabella was set down, under these conditions, 
 in this utter quiet. Upon it had followed three 
 weeks of helpless idling, during which Merceron 
 had tossed anchorless, restless and yet without
 
 "Isabella." 83 
 
 definite pursuit or object, till there arose that 
 hot July afternoon which saw Hutchinson enter 
 his chambers, drag him out of doors, plunge 
 with him into that larger world which he had 
 half forgotten to the foundering of all his plans 
 and philosophies.
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 MERCERON GOES TO BED. 
 
 1T7E left Merceron staring blankly into the 
 * empty cabinet, at its broken lock and 
 damaged door. 
 
 As the situation opened to him, as he 
 realised that Isabella had escaped him, he burst 
 out laughing. " Saved me the trouble, whoever 
 you are ! " he cried, throwing the box of 
 matches on to a near table. "Saved me the 
 trouble dashed silly thing to steal, though 1 " 
 he protested. 
 
 Despite these unconcerned exclamations, the 
 thought of ringing up and interrogating his 
 man occurred to him as he turned away, still 
 laughing ; but it was too early in the morning 
 
 84
 
 Merceron Goes to Bed. 85 
 
 for Hancock to be astir, and he wasn't " going 
 to wake the beggar ; hardly worth while, hanged 
 if it is 1 " he repeated mirthfully, addressing 
 the violated piece of furniture, that still yawned 
 painfully in the background. Harvey went 
 back and closed its open door. " Rather a pull 
 up, wasn't it ?" said he; "quite the 'hand of 
 Fate ' we hear so much about ! " 
 
 " Funny notion, though, coming up here and 
 taking Isabella, and leaving the other things," 
 he mused, resuming his seat before the fire- 
 place ; " I wonder what they want it for ? " 
 
 Some faint regrets had mingled with his 
 mirth : for, after all, was not Isabella a witness 
 to years of industry and aspiration ; as a 
 souvenir alone, had merited preservation ? 
 And then he might have shown her to the 
 yellow domino ; perhaps she would have been 
 interested . Bah, he was no longer a 
 
 musician, but a man, merely a man ! This
 
 86 An Opera <5- Lady Grasmere. 
 
 afternoon there would be greater music than 
 any he might ever compose ! It was well that 
 Isabella had passed out of his life ; she had no 
 place in the new existence that spread before 
 him. He was going to listen now! Other men 
 could spend their lives over Isabellas; as for 
 him, he was going to sit in his stall and enjoy. 
 The clock on the mantelpiece caught his eye, 
 interrupted his reflections. It was close on 
 seven had he not better go to bed for a few 
 hours? It would be absurd for him to resume 
 in the afternoon, tired-out and yawning. And 
 he must also look in at his tailor's, for he had 
 hardly a decent coat in his wardrobe. Clothes 
 had troubled him very little of late. 
 
 Merceron retired to his bedroom and went 
 to sleep. At eleven he awoke, feeling rather 
 clammy and dissipated. A bath revived him. 
 As he dressed, he recollected that he had asked 
 Sopwith to look in the night before and talk
 
 Mercer on Goes to Bed. 87 
 
 Francesco, over with him, and that he had gone 
 out with Hutchinson, completely forgetful of 
 this prior engagement. He was meditating 
 an apology, when a connection between 
 the sudden disappearance of Isabella, and 
 Sopwith's call appeared to him as in some 
 measure possible. 
 
 " No, Sopwith isn't that sort ! " exclaimed 
 Merceron, scouting the idea it was too 
 unpalatable; "and, besides, he's pegging away 
 at one of his own at Francesco. ! " 
 
 "And yet," persisted reason, "who else 
 would take a pile of music ; and hardly anyone 
 but Sopwith knows I 've done it ? I 'd have 
 given it to him for the asking . . . perhaps he 
 only . . . M 
 
 Here Merceron turned aside, deferring 
 other speculations, hoping against hope. He 
 rang, instead, for shaving-water and break- 
 fast.
 
 88 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 t 
 
 "By-the-by, Hancock," he carelessly in- 
 quired, as the man returned, " were you in last 
 night?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Harvey's eyes were on his servant's facet 
 here surely was no stealer of operas absurd ! 
 
 " Did anybody call after I went out ? " fae 
 continued, selecting a razor. 
 
 "A gentleman, sir; he wouldn't leave his 
 name or any message. He said he'd wait a 
 little as you were out, sir; and, as he was a 
 gentleman, I showed him into the sitting- 
 room." 
 
 Merceron was puzzled, but suppressed his 
 interest, asking only in the same indifferent 
 tone: 
 
 " Did he stay long ? " 
 
 " About half an hour, sir ; I thought " 
 
 " Mr. Sopwith didn't look in ? " interrupted 
 Harvey.
 
 Mercer on Goes to Bed. 8g 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 Merceron was pleased ; relieved as well. 
 
 " All right," he said, closing the interview. 
 
 What was the use of following up the matter ? 
 As for his mysterious visitor, he would leave 
 him to his defective conscience, and the critics. 
 He was glad, more than glad, that his doubts 
 regarding Sopwith had been so promptly 
 dispelled. A note from that suspect, lying 
 beside the breakfast things, banished the 
 last of these unwelcome fears. Yesterday's 
 date headed it. 
 
 "Dear old chap," it ran, " I was up the river 
 all day, and got back to town too late to come 
 in this evening. Sorry to disappoint you ; 
 write and fix another day. Friday or sometime 
 next week will do." 
 
 " What a cad I was to think poor old Sop 
 bad taken the thing!" exclaimed Merceron
 
 go An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 over this message. " I must write to him." 
 And he did so as soon as he had breakfasted. 
 
 " Come in again," he wrote. " Give me a 
 clear day's notice first though, as I have taken 
 your advice and am going out to see the world. 
 What do you think has become of Isabella* 
 You won't believe it ; but some idiot seems to 
 have walked in last night and made off with 
 her. It seems the funnier, because I 've given 
 up work for good, and wouldn't quite have 
 known what to do with Isabella had the idiot 
 stayed at home. I 'm going to listen to you 
 other fellows in future; so mind you hurry 
 up with Francesca, and make her worth 
 listening to." 
 
 " Hang it all, I 'm forgetting all about this 
 afternoon ! " cried Harvey, as he closed the 
 envelope that covered this note. Whereupon, 
 he arose and went to the window.
 
 'HOPE IT'LL TTRN FINE ACAIN ! " Page 91-
 
 Merceron Goes to Bed. 91 
 
 " Looks like rain," as he inspected the frag- 
 ment of heavy sky visible above the opposite 
 side of Down Street. " Hope it '11 turn fine 
 again I " 
 
 He had forgotten all about Sopwith and 
 Isabella; stood once more upon that balcony 
 overlooking the Green Park and Piccadilly.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AN EARL'S CORONET, A YELLOW DOMINO, 
 AND KNIGHTSBRIDGE. 
 
 BEFORE turning in at his club that 
 morning, Merceron marched off to Bond 
 Street, where he bought a new hat and 
 several pairs of the latest shade of gloves. 
 He also found some boots that fitted him, 
 and looked, besides, ever so much smarter 
 than anything he had previously worn. 
 Thence to his tailor's, whom he astonished 
 with the most extensive order he had ever 
 bestowed in that direction. He went to 
 his bank as well, and filled his pocket with 
 sovereigns and notes ; why, he hardly knew, but 
 it all seemed part of the new life whose con- 
 tinuance was now so close at hand. From
 
 An Earl's Coronet. 93 
 
 here to his club, where he lunched as lightly 
 as the bill of fare would permit. 
 
 Merceron's club was a small and, as these 
 things go, a rather select institution ; its 
 address, a biggish house in Piccadilly that had 
 once been private. He knew very few of the 
 members it had been to him more of a con- 
 venience than a social centre and not even a 
 casual acquaintance was in the dining-room as 
 he sat down to his meal. There entered, indeed, 
 a certain Carter-Page, a man whom he had 
 known at Oxford, but who, for some reason of 
 his own, had thought fit to ignore Merceron upon 
 their re-colliding in town. Harvey had not 
 lingered over the incident; he had had little 
 time to give to Carter- Page, a familiar enough 
 type of middle-class opportunist. 
 
 To-day, however, Carter- Page seemed to 
 recover his memory. He nodded quite genially 
 as he came down the room.
 
 94 An Opera & Lady Grastnere. 
 
 "I wonder whether he saw me come in? 
 It 's that hat, and the gloves and boots ; 
 thinks I 've got a rise of some sort ! " was 
 Harvey's ungenerous interpretation of this 
 altered demeanour. 
 
 But Carter- Page was not content with a 
 nod ; must needs come and take lunch at the 
 same table. 
 
 " Didn't know you belonged just joined, 
 I suppose ? " remarked Carter- Page, referring 
 to the club. 
 
 "Three years ago," said Harvey. 
 
 " Really ? Ought to have seen you before 
 then ; but I 'm rather slack." 
 
 " Fellows used to say so at Oxford," from 
 Harvey. 
 
 " You were at The House, weren't you ? " 
 asked Carter-Page, not visibly disconcerted. 
 
 "No." 
 
 Carter-Page changed the subject.
 
 An Earl's Coronet. 95 
 
 " Rather jolly club this, quiet, you know : 
 not quite smart, but so-so," he observed. 
 " Ever play pills here ? " 
 
 " Haven't touched a cue for ages." 
 
 " How do you like living in town ? You go 
 out a great deal, I suppose? Not working 
 much, are you ? " 
 
 "No; not at all." 
 
 "You chaps are lucky," said Carter-Page, 
 with the air of a galley-slave. He was 
 articled to a firm of solicitors, at whose 
 office he turned up whenever he had 
 nothing better to do. "You chaps are lucky. 
 And there's always plenty going, season's 
 nearly over, though. I suppose you '11 go 
 abroad ? " 
 
 " I don't know," returned Harvey, who was 
 obviously expected to say something. He rose 
 to go. 
 
 " See you again : I usually lunch and look at
 
 96 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 the papers here. You 're a bit fagged ? Don't 
 look it, though." 
 
 " Morning," said Merceron. 
 
 It was time for action. A minute or two 
 later, Harvey, gripping his umbrella, set out 
 for the Park. He would be able to think there. 
 As yet he had but trusted ; but now he would 
 want all his wits. 
 
 It was close on three o'clock, and the heavy 
 clouds that darkened the midsummer sky, whose 
 forerunners had already filled Merceron with a 
 certain amount of indignation, now began to 
 threaten. Large drops, falling singly, were 
 their next intimation. Why was he not allowed 
 to ponder undisturbed ? 
 
 By the time he reached the Serpentine, the 
 Park was dismal with fast pattering rain ; the 
 near bridge crossed a sheet of water from 
 which Cockney oarsmen were fleeing in dis- 
 gust. Who was she ? Where did she live ?
 
 An Earl's Ccronet. 97 
 
 "An earl's coronet and a yellow domino." 
 Harvey had already repeated this formula a 
 dozen times : how could he discover more ? 
 
 He was on the bridge, had halted midway, and 
 
 i 
 
 was now looking down into the water as though 
 half expecting to find his answer there. 
 
 " An earl's coronet and a yellow domino that 
 had driven off towards Knightsbridge ? " 
 
 He leaned over the parapet retelling these 
 three beads. More how could he discover 
 more ? and he stared ahead and round about, 
 unmindful of the inclement downpour, trying 
 to see beyond this trio, to enlarge this brief 
 rosary. The landscape grew familiar, its detail 
 noticeable, dark sky, dripping foliage, and 
 leaden water ; the seats and benches along the 
 shore were deserted ; a man was moving among 
 the chairs, placing them face to face so as to 
 keep them dry. It was half-past three, and he 
 had promised to call that afternoon. Where-
 
 98 An Opera & Lady Grasmcrc. 
 
 where where? Who who who? "An earl's 
 coronet, a yellow domino, and Knightsbridge." 
 
 And now at last the first dull shaft of doubt 
 grazed him, then a second that bruised. What 
 a fool he had been not to ask her who she was, 
 where she lived ! Why had he not done so ? 
 She would have told him he had been so near 
 to her. And, brightening his misery, that 
 moment came back to him ; that moment of 
 semi-surrender, brief, entrancing, when she had 
 leant so heavy on his arm and looked up at 
 him through half-closed eyes, and he had whis- 
 pered, "This afternoon this afternoon!" 
 These words returned, mocking, bitter, extin- 
 guishing the light that had stolen over his 
 anguish, now intensified. What a fool he had 
 been 1 
 
 Why had he not asked, asked instead of 
 fearing the commonplace question, the return 
 to facts, and their jarring ? This this gazing
 
 An Earl's Coronet. gg 
 
 at sky and water from under a dripping 
 umbrella- -was this not commonplace, jarring, 
 a damper ? Cold water enough for sure ! 
 He looked about him. Dismal how dismal ! 
 Rain how it rained ! And the landscape ! 
 now a possession, every line bitten into his 
 mind ; he could have gone home and repro- 
 duced it from memory alone, down to the one 
 steeple that showed above the foliage, a slim, 
 tapering thing, studded with points like a 
 cactus I 
 
 And now his doubts, single at first, came 
 crowding ; where they had grazed and bruised, 
 they pierced and sickened. Perhaps he would 
 never find her again ; perhaps she would leave 
 London ; perhaps to-day or to-morrow perhaps 
 was legion. His heart sank the deeper with 
 each new possibility; and worst, most hateful 
 of all, was his knowledge a mocking, cruel 
 voice this his consciousness of the utter
 
 ioo An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 futility of his new programme, new philosophy, 
 unless he could obtain this woman's help. For 
 had he not built his new life up around her 
 was she not the heart of it and the kernel, its 
 keystone, its Leit-motif? Without her, it could 
 not be lived. The rest the rest was lifeless ; 
 without her animating spirit, dead, soulless, 
 profitless ! 
 
 The rain still poured, the Park was near 
 deserted. The rare passers-by hurried on 
 regardless of all but their present scurryings 
 towards shelter; oblivious to Merceron, to 
 Merceron's assailment of doubt and fear and 
 welling bitterness as he stood thinking on that 
 forsaken structure "An earl's coronet, a yellow 
 domino that drove off towards Knightsbridge ? " 
 What a fool . he was to entertain, why waste 
 more time over, such a figment ! His quest had 
 been hopeless from the outset, an impossible 
 conundrum why follow it further ? He looked
 
 An Earl's Coronet. 101 
 
 below, the raindrops pitted the water's surface. 
 Above, the clouds had grown still darker ; the 
 foliage was almost black. The landscape, with 
 a skyline reaching from Kensington to Mayfair, 
 had now become an obsession, a thing hateful 
 yet persistent. He closed his eyes, it was still 
 there. 
 
 Yet darker grew the clouds, and the rain 
 continued. The new hat had lost much of its 
 gloss, the patent leather of the new boots was 
 dulling. He would go away ; perhaps he might 
 find the house in Piccadilly whose awning had 
 invited them last night. But what could he ask 
 for, and for whom ? "An earl's coronet . . . ? " 
 He checked himself, he had had enough of that 
 formula ! Out of the heavy sky flashed a first 
 streak of lightning, then thunder. The interval 
 was filled by Merceron's cry : 
 
 "I have it that man, Carter-Page he 
 knows of course he knows ! "
 
 IO2 An Op$ra 6" Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Merceron ran off to get a cab. 
 
 "I must find the little beast," he muttered 
 on the way. " Of course he knows, Why was 
 he so affable? he's cut me for three years, 
 and now thank the merciful God that created 
 snobs ! Somebody must have told him that I 
 was at that house last night, or else he saw me 
 there, and she 's ' An earl's coronet, a yellow 
 domino, and Knightsbridge ! ' " cried Merceron 
 joyfully, as he hailed the cab that drove him 
 back to his club.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SNOB TO THE RESCUE. 
 
 Countess of Grasmere, for such was 
 -* the style and designation of Merceron's 
 new acquaintance, had slept with extreme 
 soundness after the Marchioness's ball. T t 
 was late in the morning when she awoke. 
 
 In the deliciously comfortable half -hour 
 before rising, the recent event, and more 
 especially her own part in it, returned, echo 
 of a pleasurable comedy. She smiled over 
 each distant scene ; never had fairy-tale and 
 romance, paradoxically near and removed as 
 they were, seemed so actual. This dance was 
 one of those rare festivities that stand apart 
 from the ruck. The figure of her foremost 
 103
 
 104 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 partner led this train. He had, indeed, been 
 delightful : and she set to wondering whether 
 she would ever see him again ; whether he 
 would really call was it not that very after- 
 noon that he was to reappear? They had 
 behaved like a pair of reckless children how 
 young they had been ! Perhaps he would call 
 but the next day was so different to far-away 
 balconies ! And the Countess sighed. After 
 all, it was but charming fairy-tale ; and the 
 book was closed, the story ended. 
 
 Lady Grasmere sent her maid to find Mrs. 
 Hodgson; and when that lady appeared, she 
 was told to sit down on the bed and listen. 
 
 Mrs. Hodgson was middle-aged and benevo- 
 lent, her eyes twinkled humorously and her 
 mouth curved merrily upwards; half guest, 
 half companion, she had spent that season 
 
 with the Countess at the house in Albert 
 
 / 
 Gate.
 
 Snob to the Rescue. 105 
 
 Her ladyship told of last night, and Mrs. 
 Hodgson smiled. Her ladyship only told 
 half. 
 
 " Shocking," said Mrs. Hodgson, " I 'm sur- 
 prised at you ! " She was laughing. 
 
 " And if he should call? " asked the Countess. 
 
 " My dear!" 
 
 " I wish he would." 
 
 "Gertrude!" 
 
 " I 'm sure you would like him." 
 
 "So am I," said Mrs. Hodgson. "But 
 these young m^n," and she wagged her head 
 warningly, "one never can tell." 
 
 "You'd better not!" laughed the Countess. 
 
 " I wonder what he must think of you 1 " 
 exclaimed Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 " 1 know." 
 
 "So do I," said Mrs. Hodgson, patting the 
 Countess' head. 
 
 " He said n e loved me," said the Countess.
 
 io6 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Gertrude, how can you ? " 
 
 " He didn't but I 'm sorry." 
 
 " What are you sorry about ? " asked Mrs. 
 Hodgson. 
 
 " It 's all over," said the Countess. It really 
 did seem a pity that she should see no more of 
 this masterful unknown quantity whose ex- 
 uberant vitality had given her some of the 
 keenest moments of that fast-dying season. 
 " Why couldn't I have met him in the ordinary 
 way ? " she asked petulantly. 
 
 " It wouldn't have been half such fun," said 
 Mrs. Hodgson, her eyes twinkling more than 
 ever. 
 
 " Not a quarter," said the Countess. 
 
 " Is this all you wanted me for?" asked Mrs. 
 Hodgson, rising. Her voice betokened deep 
 disappointment. 
 
 " Isn't it plenty ? " asked the Countess. 
 "You're going?"
 
 Snob to the Rescue. 107 
 
 "I am, madam; your frivolity is most 
 char ing," and Mrs. Hodgson swept out, 
 amid a peal of laughter from the bed. 
 
 The Countess remained, her morning colla- 
 tion well within reach. She was still thinking 
 of Harvey. He interested her. The audacity 
 of his uninvited presence at the Stoke ball, one 
 of the most exclusive "functions of the year, 
 delighted her and he had carried his intrusion 
 off so well ! 
 
 He was unmistakably a gentleman, his good 
 looks and bearing beyond question. "He 
 wasn't rude once and he could have been," 
 she reflected. He had clearly embarked on his 
 adventure for adventure's sake. Would she 
 ever see him again ? He might find her out ; 
 but then she was evidently as strange to him 
 as he to her, and he had asked no questions. 
 There were no clues, absolutely none. Even 
 his face, she pondered, was new to her, and
 
 io8 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 by degrees one really got to know almost every 
 face in town. 
 
 " Etiquette is very silly I wish I had asked 
 him to call," said the Countess, as she nibbled 
 her luncheon. 
 
 "So do I," replied Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 "One doesn't do these things," replied the 
 Countess. 
 
 " I should hope not," said Mrs. Hodgson. 
 After a sufficient pause she added, " He might 
 have asked permission.' 
 
 " That 's all he did ask," sighed the Countess. 
 
 "Then he will come," asserted Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 " But he knows nothing and he 's a perfect 
 innocent." 
 
 "The more reason.'* 
 
 "Adam on his honeymoon must have be- 
 haved like this man," said Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " What a notion ! " Mrs. Hodgson then 
 turned to the brooding sky. "I told Mrs.
 
 Snob to the Rescue. 109 
 
 Pretty I 'd go with her to that new palmist 
 everybody's talking about, and it's going to 
 rain." 
 
 " So you 're going out ? " 
 
 " To have my fortune told.** 
 
 " If he calls shall I receive him ? H 
 
 " You may, if you promise " 
 
 " Promise ? " 
 
 "To keep him till I come back," said Mrs. 
 Hodgson. 
 
 " I '11 only allow you one look," said the 
 Countess. 
 
 After lunch Mrs. Hodgson busied herself- 
 with the manufacture of a corduroy waistcoat, 
 a problem in silk and wool and paper, whose 
 solution was to keep Mr. Hodgson's chest 
 warm during subsequent winters. The Countess 
 alternately answered her letters and looked out 
 of the window at the rain. 
 
 "I wish it wouldn't," protested Mrs. Hodgson.
 
 no An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 At four o'clock came lightning and thunder. 
 " I can't go out in this weather," she added. 
 
 The Countess went to her room. It grew so 
 dark that Mrs. Hodgson had to lay the waist- 
 coat aside. 
 
 "Gertrude seems a trifle disordered," she 
 remarked to the world at large. " But Gertrude 
 has very good taste it's the same as 
 mine." 
 
 Meanwhile, Merceron was driving back to 
 his club, arranging his plan of attack as the 
 cab covered the intervening ground. Arrived, 
 he casually inquired of the porter whether 
 Carter-Page had left. 
 
 The man's "No, sir," was worth bank- 
 notes. 
 
 With the same assumption of leisure Harvey 
 proceeded to search the building. He found 
 Carter- Page in the billiard - room, cue in 
 hand.
 
 Snob to the Rescue. in 
 
 This time it was Harvey who nodded and 
 took a seat. 
 
 "Rather a good stroke that," he observed 
 critically, and lit a cigarette. 
 
 "Not bad, assented Carter- Page, figuring 
 out a cannon. 
 
 "Why didn't you play at the red and go 
 in ? " asked Harvey, greatly interested, as the 
 cannon failed. 
 
 ' " I 'm not specially good at long shots;" and 
 Carter -Page stood aside and watched his 
 opponent. 
 
 " Neat," said Harvey, as the latter went in 
 off the red. 
 
 " Have a drink ? " said Carter- Page. 
 
 " Yes I 'm a bit cheap, was dancing half 
 the night," remarked Harvey his first move 
 in this other game of pump. 
 
 " Stoke House ? " inquired Carter - Page. 
 " I '11 trouble you for the ' rest.' "
 
 112 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Harv ey handed it to him. " I '11 trouble yot 
 for the rest Stoke House that's one t< 
 me ! " was his inward cry. 
 
 " Thirty-four forty-five," said Carter-Page 
 coming out of play. 
 
 " It was rather fun masks and dominos, 
 you know. But you were there too, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 No " 
 
 " You 're not a dancing man ? " Harvey 
 agreeably suggested. 
 
 " Dashed poor leave that ! " and Carter-Page 
 moved away and pocketed the red. " Hard 
 lines ! " from Harvey, as he almost cannoned. 
 The white fluked in. Carter-Page continued. 
 The break yielded fifteen and all the while 
 Harvey looked on with brow unclouded. 
 
 " Rather a run that," he said, as Carter- Page 
 .owered his cue. 
 
 \i the other man scored.
 
 Snob to the Rescue. 113 
 
 A servant brought Harvey a whisky-and- 
 soda, which he was obliged to taste. 
 
 " Don't care for dances ?" he enquired, as he 
 set the glass down again. 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I do. I don't know the Stbkes, 
 though. Bonner, do you remember him ? " 
 
 " Bonner of New ? " asked Harvey. 
 
 "Yes. He was there you were rather in 
 luck," said Carter-Page with a grin. 
 
 " Forty-nine sixty-two," said the enemy. 
 
 Harvey's heart was rising he was nearer, 
 much nearer. 
 
 Carter- Page pocketed and went in, brought 
 off an easy cannon, another, and failed to go in 
 off the red. 
 
 " Can't do anything when it 's under the 
 cushion," he declared. 
 
 "Hard lines," sympathised Harvey; "you 
 weren't in luck if I was rlon't quite see where 
 
 mine comes in, though." 
 8
 
 ii4 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Luck ? " asked Carter- Page. 
 
 " You just mentioned the article." 
 
 " Oh, yes Lady Grasmere, you were rather 
 making the pace." 
 
 Harvey was clinging to the name like grim 
 death. 
 
 "An old friend," he remarked. 
 
 Carter- Page seemed impressed. He had to 
 play in baulk, and missed. 
 
 "Have a cigarette?" said Harvey; "I'm 
 just going over to the reading-room may see 
 you later on ? " 
 
 " I '11 come up afterwards ; the weather *s 
 much too beastly to do anything," said Carter- 
 Page. 
 
 " Grasmere he said Grasmere ! " Harvey 
 had rushed upstairs, had pulled down the big 
 directory. " Law Commercial Court Court, 
 that '11 be it . . . ' Grasmere, Countess of,' " 
 his finger was on the line, he had the direction.
 
 Snob to the Rescue. 115 
 
 Soiled hat and dripping umbrella, what did 
 they matter ! 
 
 Ten mintes later his hansom drew up at the 
 house in Albert Gate. 
 
 Before him stood a dainty red-brick mansion, 
 freshly picked out with white and gay with 
 well-filled window-boxes. He looked up, the 
 sky was clearing ; facing him was the equestrian 
 statue of a recent general and the point of a 
 wedge whose sides formed two important main 
 roads. 
 
 A man opened to him. Was Lady Grasmere 
 at home ? The man would go and see. His 
 name? 
 
 " Merceron. 1 * 
 
 "Mr. Mason?" 
 
 Harvey, palpitating, was shown Into a room, 
 and waited. 
 
 Presently the man returned and deferentially 
 took possession of Harvey's umbrella, then led
 
 n6 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 the way up thickly-carpeted stairs to a 
 charmingly furnished drawing-room. 
 
 A middle-aged lady received him. Had he 
 come to the wrong house ? 
 
 "Dreadful weather, Mr. Marsden." That 
 man had evidently corrupted his name a 
 second time. 
 
 " Very," assented Harvey. What did this 
 mean, and where was he ? 
 
 " Cats and dogs," said Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 " Certainly," said Harvey, his perplexity 
 increasing. 
 
 Light at last ! The Countess had laughingly 
 interposed. She entered, little changed from 
 the woman of last night, was wearing blue 
 instead of yellow. 
 
 " Mrs. Hodgson," s-aid the Countess. Harvey 
 bowed. " But she has to take a friend to get 
 their fortunes told." 
 
 " Unfortunately," said Mrs. Hodgson.
 
 Snob to the R'scue. 117 
 
 "Can we spare her?" asked the Countess. 
 
 Harvey only smiled the best thing he could 
 have done. 
 
 " Nice face, nice smile ; beware ! " whispered 
 Mrs. Hodgson at the door. The Countess closed 
 it on her. 
 
 They were alone now, and Merceron was 
 looking up at his companion in a rebound of 
 happiness, almost doubting the evidence of his 
 five senses. His eyes wandered from his 
 hostess, roamed round the exquisite interior, 
 to its hundred and one knick-knacks in silver 
 and china and glass, its photographs of unknown 
 faces, and the unfamiliar pictures on the walls ; 
 and he was glad.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GATES OPEN. 
 
 \ TERCERON sat in the seventh heaven 
 L* A and sipped his tea. 
 
 " So you 've found me out ! " the Countess 
 had just observed. 
 
 " It was my turn," he answered with a laugh, 
 recalling his own confessions of the night 
 before. 
 
 " But so soon ! " 
 
 " Did you doubt my success?" 
 
 " I was not so modest," she answered, 
 smiling; "besides, you had threatened." 
 
 " ' This afternoon I ' " he quoted. 
 
 " Are you always so sure ? " 
 
 " The gods fought on my side ; " and he told 
 
 nft
 
 The Gates Open. ng 
 
 her how he had soliloquised in the Park, of 
 Carter- Page, and the crafty extraction of 
 " Stoke House " and " Lady Grasmere." 
 Like most men who have lived much alone, 
 Harvey recounted each incident with the 
 personal zest and elaborations of a professed 
 story-teller. 
 
 "And that is all you know?" she asked, as 
 he concluded. 
 
 "That and you!" 
 
 "No more?" 
 
 " I am content," he replied, unmistakably 
 sincere. 
 
 " Don't you want to ? 
 
 " Not specially. Do you ? " 
 
 " You have never studied Burke ? " 
 
 " I once looked at Debrett." 
 
 " For whom ? " 
 
 " Lady A.," said Merceron, helping himself 
 to a cucumber sandwich. " Lady A. is the
 
 120 An Opera & Lady Grastnere. 
 
 only member of the aristocracy who ever 
 aroused my interest ; and she was fraudulent." 
 
 The Countess looked at him wonderingly. 
 
 He hastened to her relief. 
 
 " Lady A.," he explained, " is the only 
 titled person I ever pondered over and 
 delighted in; and she was I regret to say 
 it an impostor." 
 
 " Explain ! " said the Countess. 
 
 Merceron smiled over this show of alarm, 
 and continued with the same zest as had 
 marked his account of the Carter-Page 
 incident : 
 
 " I was staying at a small seaside town one 
 summer, and so was Lady A. A child in the 
 house, a niece of my landlady and a native of 
 Camberwell, first drew my attention to Lady A. 
 Her ladyship used to speak to this child ; they 
 had met on the beach, and the child was proud 
 of the acquaintanceship. It babbled unceas-
 
 The Gates Open. 121 
 
 ingly of Lady A. I had never seen this 
 personage, but her name, her name alone, 
 delighted me. There was something romantic 
 and mysterious in that reticent initial. It 
 recalled fashionable fiction of the thirties, 
 of that inflated period \ hen Lady A. and 
 Lord B. and Lady N. strutted through inflated 
 story books. For a whole fortnight I built 
 castles around Lady A. ; for a whole fortnight 
 Lady A. shed a glamour over my existence, 
 inflated it, so to speak. This Camberwell child 
 prated of her without cease, and I was delighted 
 to live within a stone's throw of such mystery. 
 At last dire disillusion my eyes were opened ! 
 The child was with me at the time, this child 
 from Camberwell." 
 
 " Go on," said the Countess. 
 
 " I encountered Lady A.," continued 
 Merceron. " Her ladyship was a middle-aged 
 woman with a wide leather rim to her skirt,
 
 122 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 and a big dog. This child and I were 
 advancing together ; we were quite close to the 
 heroine of my romances, my one distraction 
 amid so much that was ordinary. 'That is 
 Lady A.,' whispered the child, awestruck and 
 tremulous. * Hay, child, Hay ! ' exclaimed her 
 ladyship. She had heard the whisper. Then 
 turning to me, 'This little girl will persist in 
 dropping her aitches,' she said. But I had 
 already turned my back on Lady Hay. The 
 spell was broken; romance and mystery had 
 vanished. She was no Lady A. at all, but a 
 mere Hayl You may find them in any 
 Peerage," concluded Merceron. 
 
 The Countess was laughing. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I 'm a fact equally substantial," 
 she said. 
 
 " But you do not masquerade under an 
 initial." 
 
 " You wear even less."
 
 The Gates Open. 123 
 
 The comic situation came home to Harvey. 
 Laughing, he produced a card. 
 
 She read it curiously. 
 
 "I like the name," she said; "only, 
 I '11 have to learn it by heart and Harvey 
 is nice." 
 
 "Suggests a good circulation," he remarked. 
 
 " You must tell me some more, though ? " 
 
 " I was born three years earlier than your- 
 self," he answered, risking the accuracy of the 
 statement. 
 
 " How do you know ? ** 
 
 " I 'm nearly twenty-six." 
 
 "But ," and she was about to express 
 
 her surprise at his correct divination. She 
 caught the merriment in his eye, instead. 
 
 " That was very clever a perfect trap," she 
 said. 
 
 " You have never even heard of the 
 Mercerons ? " asked Harvey.
 
 124 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " We are a remarkable family." 
 
 " I am not surprised." 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " Came over with the Conqueror, I suppose 
 Merceron sounds like it ? " 
 
 " Came over vid Dieppe and Newhaven, I 
 believe ; but the Mercerons are famous, never- 
 theless. You don't happen to play the barrel- 
 organ ? " he asked. 
 
 "No how silly!" 
 
 He disregarded the epithet. 
 
 "The Mercerons are the only monopolists in 
 this country," said he. 
 
 " Is it a patent something ? " 
 
 " No ; but a monopoly all the same. My 
 great-grandfather, you must know, was an 
 organist quite a musician in his way. His 
 son too was musical, but preferred building 
 organs to playing on them. There was more
 
 The Gates Open. 125 
 
 money in it. It was he who made the first 
 barrel-organs in this country. They had always 
 come from abroad, from Italy, before. Of 
 course he could sell them cheaper, making them 
 on the spot. And when my father succeeded 
 him evolution had already displaced the barrel- 
 organ by the piano-organ the Mercerons 
 practically had the monopoly of the street- 
 organ trade. Now I 'm sole proprietor. I go 
 down to the works once or twice a year and 
 look at the books. It pays, but it 's a sad 
 eminence all the same." 
 
 " Why ? " asked the Countess, greatly in- 
 terested. 
 
 " Well, you see ; every piano-organ in this 
 country comes out of the Merceron works. 
 My own position is therefore most awkward. 
 For, not only do I connive at and profit 
 by the misery of thousands of my fellow- 
 creatures, but, whenever I myself am victim-
 
 i26 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 ised, whenever some miserable Italian halts 
 outside my rooms and tortures me with 
 my with his infernal machine what am 
 I to do! The position is most delicate. 
 I can't send him away, for didn't I sell him 
 the instrument ? " 
 
 The Countess laughed. 
 
 But Harvey continued : 
 
 "What can I do to such a man? Nothing. 
 And I really cannot afford to wind up the firm 
 over a simple matter of etiquette I " 
 
 "You are musical yourself?" asked the 
 Countess. 
 
 Harvey hesitated. 
 
 "No no, certainly not; only the cause of 
 music in others." 
 
 He had deflected the shaft. 
 
 Here a servant interrupted them, announcing 
 "Captain Mills." Was Lady Grasmere at 
 home?
 
 The Gates Open. 127 
 
 She looked across at Harvey. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 As yet she had only known her companion 
 tite~a-tete. She was curious to see how he 
 would figure in a more complex arena.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THEY OPEN WIDER. 
 
 " But the society named polite is volatile . . . ideas cannot take 
 foot in its ever-shifting soil. It is besides addicted in self-defence to 
 gabble exclusively of the a/airs of its rabidly revolving world, as 
 children on a whirligoround bestow their attention on the wooden 
 horse or cradle ahead of them, to escape from giddiness and preserve 
 a notion of identity." 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH, An Essay on Comedy. 
 
 'pAPTAIN MILLS," said Merceron, "you 
 ^ mistook me for Captain Mills last 
 night?" 
 
 The Countess agreed. 
 
 " Shall I thank him ; I owe him even more 
 than Hutchinson ? " 
 
 The door opened, and Merceron was intro- 
 duced to a man of his own figure, handsome and 
 sunburnt of face, whose neat moustache was 
 trimmed with military precision.
 
 They Open Wider. 129 
 
 "Awful weather 1" said the new-comer, 
 taking a chair. 
 
 " Perfectly horrid ! " assented Lady Grasmere . 
 Merceron, though an authority, expressed no 
 opinion. 
 
 "It's clearing up, though," said Captain 
 Mills. " I heard you were at the Stoke ball 
 rather fun wearing masks what were you in ? 
 I hunted for you everywhere, but couldn't find 
 you," he continued, addressing the Countess. 
 
 " I was in yellow it was very amusing," she 
 replied. " Mr. Merceron was in black, and had, 
 I believe, some remarkable adventures," she 
 roguishly added. 
 
 " Really ? " said the soldier, turning to Harvey. 
 Harvey however, was equal to the occasion. 
 " The supper was excellent," he returned, 
 with edifying correctness. 
 
 " Going to Goodwood ? " asked Captain 
 Mills. 
 
 9
 
 130 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " I haven't decided I suppose I ought to. 
 You are ? " from Lady Grasmere. 
 
 "I'm going to the Bassets he's our 
 Colonel, you know. Lady Basset usually asks 
 half the regiment and all her nieces." 
 
 " Dangerous, isn't it ? " 
 
 " There 's safety in numbers. You won't be 
 at Cowes ? " asked the Captain. 
 
 " No, I think not." 
 
 " You never are." 
 
 Here the man interrupted them, announcing 
 the Marchioness of Stoke and Lady May 
 Draper. 
 
 " Shocking weather ! " said the Marchioness, 
 as the circle widened. Lady May drawled in 
 sympathy, and Merceron at once recognised 
 the pink domino whom he had so effectually 
 routed the night before. The Marchioness, he 
 already knew for his hostess. 
 
 " Shocking weather 1 " she repeated in a tone
 
 They Open Wider. 131 
 
 suggesting that she looked upon the behaviour 
 of the elements as an offence directly aimed 
 against her own person. " Most unpleasant ! " 
 
 " But it 's clearing, is it not ? " replied Lady 
 Grasmere. " Your dance was perfectly lovely, 
 Marchioness; even Captain Mills says it was 
 delightful, and he 's quite spoiled." 
 
 The Marchioness, pausing in her inspec- 
 tion of Merceron, responded with a faded 
 smile. 
 
 " I didn't quite catch his name last night ? " 
 she said in a loud whisper to the Countess, who 
 enlightened her. Lady Stoke repeated it. 
 The name had a pleasant sound, but was 
 unfamiliar. 
 
 Lady May, meanwhile, was telling the others 
 how she had come across a terribly rude man 
 the night before. 
 
 " I wish I knew who it was ! " she concluded 
 vindictively.
 
 132 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Merceron, however, rendered her no assist- 
 ance. 
 
 The Marchioness was monopolising Lady 
 Grasmere. 
 
 " Vv'hen are you leaving town ? " she was 
 asking. " We 're staying till Goodwood : of 
 course you '11 be there ? " 
 
 " I really haven't quite decided ; it 's such a 
 long way off, you know," came in reply. 
 
 "A fortnight, my dear Gertrude, and every- 
 thing 's being snapped up." 
 
 The remainder of the party was deep in 
 racing matters. Lady May had just asked 
 Harvey whether he preferred Ascot to Good- 
 wood, and he had startled his audience by 
 confessing that he knew nothing of either, that 
 he had only seen a fraction of a race in his life- 
 time, and that by sheer accident. He gave an 
 account of this latter experience ; how, as a 
 small boy, he was once exploring Brighton
 
 They Open Wider. 133 
 
 Downs, when, in a deserted spot, he inad- 
 vertently stumbled across a group of mounted 
 jockeys, who took to their heels at his approach. 
 On reflection, it had occurred to him that he 
 must have witnessed a "start." 
 
 Lady May received this explanation with 
 her customary Arctic smile. Captain Mills 
 was greatly amused. They evidently mistook 
 Merceron's plain statement of fact for some 
 peculiarly waggish piece of humour. 
 
 Here they were again interrupted by the 
 man, who ushered in Lady Horace Waring. 
 
 A young and very pretty woman Merceron 
 distinctly remembered having seen photographs 
 of her in shop windows, perfectly dressed, 
 smart as a new pin, joined them. 
 
 " Dreadful weather ; but it 's clearing up," 
 she said, advancing towards Lady Grasmere. 
 "Marchioness, everybody's raving about your 
 dance so original, you know I such fun being
 
 134 An Opera 6- Lady Grasmere. 
 
 masked and flirting with one's own husband. 
 Mine kissed me, the wretch 1 Wonder who he 
 thought I was ? " 
 
 " Rather poor fun, kissing a mask," suggested 
 Harvey. 
 
 "There now he's quite spoilt it I " exclaimed 
 Lady Horace. 
 
 She was one of the most amusing women in 
 Society, and her veracity, though frequently 
 questioned, was rarely improved upon. She 
 was the first, however, to laugh at her own 
 undoing, and the others quickly followed suit. 
 
 "Who is he, Gertrude?" she asked of 
 Lady Grasmere. 
 
 The Countess told her, 
 
 " One of the Hertfordshire Mercerons ? " she 
 enquired. 
 
 " The Hertfordshire Merceron," said Harvey. 
 
 " Girls hunt, don't they your sisters ? '* 
 
 "Yes."
 
 They Open Wider. 135 
 
 "Pretty girls don't want much of a lead 
 either," said Lady Horace approvingly ; then, 
 volatile as before, in that rather shrill voice of 
 hers, "See you all at Goodwood, I suppose? 
 We 're full up or else some of you would have 
 to come to ours." 
 
 Everybody had made definite arrangements 
 save Lady Grasmere and Harvey. 
 
 Lady Horace was pained. 
 
 "You must come to us, dear do!" she 
 pleaded ; " and Mr. Merceron must come as 
 well men are always so useful, are they not ? " 
 she asked, mischievously confusing Captain 
 Mills with the awkward question. 
 
 " They do their best," said he. 
 
 " Aren't they ornamental as well ? " asked 
 Harvey. 
 
 " Only in fancy dress," declared Lady Horace, 
 " and then 
 
 She hesitated.
 
 136 An Opera & Lady Graswere. 
 
 "And then?" pressed Captain Mills. 
 
 "And then it 's their legs," she whispered. 
 
 The Marchioness coughed and mentioned 
 Cowes. 
 
 " Calves ! " corrected Lady Horace in an 
 audible aside. 
 
 " We 've taken a house for the week," con- 
 tinued the Marchioness, disregarding the 
 interruption. 
 
 "Is Gertrude coming?" enquired Lady May. 
 
 But the Countess had to decline. She was 
 going to Canterbury for the cricket week 
 instead. 
 
 " You know, I 've a place in Kent," she 
 explained; "it's a matter of duty. The county 
 will cut me if I don't entertain ; we always 
 have done." 
 
 The Marchioness was sorry. She and Lady 
 May rose to leave. 
 
 "We 're going to the Opera to-night, and it
 
 They Open Wider. 137 
 
 begins so early that wretched Wagner ! " said 
 the former. 
 
 " What are they giving ? " asked Captain 
 Mills. 
 
 "Siegfried; and it starts at half- past seven, 
 and the Marquis will insist on being punctual. 
 He won't dine either, but just has a cup of tea 
 first, and then he eats sandwiches between the 
 acts. He says he can't listen properly if he 
 dines," answered the Marchioness ; " only 
 think of it with those wretched society papers, 
 too ! " 
 
 Lady Horace comforted her. 
 
 "Siegfried is rather fun, though; everybody 
 dresses just like the men in the Prehistoric 
 Peeps," she said, alluding to a well-known 
 series of Punch drawings. "And then there's 
 a dragon that sings bass and pretends to get 
 killed, and a bear and a bird quite a panto- 
 mime. But the music's lovely: Sir Horace
 
 138 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 heard it the other day, and he came home 
 gushing gushing like the rock that Moses 
 struck 1 " 
 
 Lady May and her mamma took their 
 departure. 
 
 "Rather a stick, that girl," said Captain 
 Mills, as the door closed. 
 
 " Pots o' money," said Lady Horace. 
 
 "Suppose that's why she puts on the 
 side." 
 
 A mischievous light gleamed in Lady Gras- 
 mere's eye as she turned to Harvey, and 
 asked : 
 
 " How did you find her you were dancing 
 with her last night ? " 
 
 Merceron narrated his experience with the 
 pink domino, omitting no detail of their 
 duologue. 
 
 " Made her regularly furious, I should think ; 
 serve her right," said* Lady Horace warmly.
 
 They Open Wider. 139 
 
 "No wonder she doesn't marry with those 
 manners ! " 
 
 Captain Mills too was delighted. 
 
 " You should have passed her on to me," he 
 said ; " do her good, a snubbing o' sorts like 
 that wonder she didn't find you out just 
 now!" 
 
 " Far too silly," said Lady Horace. " Ger- 
 trude, I really must go see you at the 
 Faucits' to - night ? And do bring Mrs. 
 Hodgson ; I 've quite missed her this after- 
 noon." She gave Harvey a hand. "You're 
 coming for Goodwood, aren't you ? " she 
 said. "And you must come and dine first, 
 and say * How-de-do ? ' to Sir Horace mind 
 he does," as she turned again to Lady 
 Grasmere. " Nice boy that 1 " she whispered ; 
 'I'm quite hit. Good-bye, dearl" and she 
 was off. 
 
 Captain Mills left shortly afterwards.
 
 140 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " What do you think of us ? " asked Lady 
 Grasmere, when she and Harvey were once 
 more alone. 
 
 " Rather fun, wasn't it ? " he replied. 
 
 She was proud of him. 
 
 "You really did splendidly," she said. 
 " You Ve made quite a conquest of Lady 
 Horace. She doesn't ask everybody to 
 her parties, although one might think she 
 did ! Seems to know your people, doesn't 
 she ? " 
 
 " The girls," said Harvey. 
 
 A silence followed. Merceron leaned back, 
 happy. He had forgotten all about the 
 dismal minutes he had spent in the rain, 
 looking out over the dreary Serpentine and 
 leaden sky. 
 
 The Countess glanced at the clock. 
 
 " Mr. Merceron," she interposed, " will yon 
 go home now ? "
 
 "YOU REALLY 1)11) SPLENDIDLY, SHE SAID." Pagi' 140.
 
 They Open Wider. 141 
 
 Harvey's face fell. She smiled it back to a 
 more gracious oval. 
 
 " Go home and dress," she continued ; " and, 
 if you are very good, you may come back and 
 dine or take me out. We'd better go out, 
 I want some fresh air; and it's left off raining, 
 hasn't it?" 
 
 Merceron looked out of the window. 
 
 " It 's quite bright," he said. 
 
 " Don't be long ! " and she accompanied 
 him to the head of the staircase and waved a 
 hand as he disappeared. 
 
 At his rooms Merceron found a letter from 
 Hutchinson. 
 
 " Dear Harvey," began that youthful mariner, 
 " Do wrte and tell me what happened after 
 I left ? I shall be at Devonport till Saturday. 
 Did they give you the boot, or did you leave 
 unassisted ? I would have looked in this
 
 142 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 morning to find out, only I had to hurry like 
 steam. Write by return, there's a good chap, 
 and relieve the strain. I 'd give a fiver to 
 know what happened. 
 
 "Yours ever, 
 
 " C. C. H. HUTCHINSON." 
 
 A lengthy postscript was, however, the most 
 interesting feature of this document. 
 
 "By-the-by," Hutchinson had added, 
 " Phipps, a brother-officer, was at your rooms 
 last night. He was up in town on leave as 
 well, and he hunted me down to my aunt's, 
 and she sent him on to your place. He 
 waited a bit; but, as we didn't turn up, he 
 left. I 'm sorry we missed him. He s an 
 awfully good sort, and ou 'd have liked 
 him, because he 's musical and all that sort 
 of thing."
 
 They Open Wider. 143 
 
 "Is he?" commented Harvey, "perhaps 
 that accounts for his helping himself to 
 Isabella!" 
 
 He thought the possibilities of this solution 
 over for a moment, then : 
 
 " Hang it all ! I 'm keeping a lady waiting! " 
 he exclaimed, forcibly dismissing the subject 
 and ringing up his man.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ARRIVED. 
 
 F?OR the present, Merceron had dismissed 
 * Hutchinson's message and the light it 
 seemed to throw upon his mysterious visitor 
 of the night before, upon the unexplained 
 disappearance of the score and libretto of his 
 opera, Isabella, and the damage done to the 
 violated cabinet. He was dressing with all 
 possible haste, yet not too speedily to admit of 
 the immaculate, spoiling two bows and a collar 
 before criticism was satisfied and he at liberty 
 to proceed. Hancock, his man, assisted, 
 blazing with surprise and suppressed joyful- 
 ness, scenting perquisites tenfolded. What 
 ailed his master ?
 
 Arrived. 145 
 
 " It 's them women," said he, when all was 
 over. "That there Hutchinson looks a bad lot ! " 
 
 Harvey's appearance was really worthy of 
 the locality as he sauntered forth into Piccadilly 
 and hailed a passing cab. Even the driver 
 of the hansom, an expert and difficult, felt 
 fully satified as to his fare's distinction. 
 
 Before returning to Albert Gate, Merceron 
 looked in at his club and took down Debrett, 
 first making sure that Carter- Page was nowhere 
 In the vicinity. 
 
 " It may be foolish, but it saves trouble," 
 said Harvey, as he turned up " Grasmere." 
 
 He discovered that the Countess was widow 
 to the seventh Earl, who had died three years 
 ago and eighteen months after marriage, without 
 issue and aged sixty-two ; that the present 
 holder of the title was a nephew, a boy of 
 sixteen. Harvey also searched for and found 
 
 Sir Horace Waring, evidently one of two 
 10
 
 146 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 brothers, both baronets. He then rejoined 
 his hansom and called at a florist's, arriving 
 at the house with a carefully-selected button- 
 hole in his coat and a big handful of roses 
 for Lady Grasmere. 
 
 The Countess was not quite ready, and for 
 some minutes Harvey had to twirl his thumbs 
 in an unfamiliar drawing-room ; a new apart- 
 ment this, hung with exquisite water-colour 
 drawings Fred Walkers, Pinwells, Gregorys 
 and Smythes, which he fitfully examined till 
 his hostess welcomed him, superb and dazzling 
 in creamy satin and diamonds. 
 
 " I Ve left a note for Mrs. Hodgson ; we 're 
 deserting her this evening," she said, smiling. 
 " We are dining in town where ? " 
 
 Harvey suggested the place on the Embank- 
 ment, beloved of Hutchinson, and the Countess 
 acquiesced. Outside, the horses waited, im- 
 patient for exercise.
 
 Arrived. 147 
 
 The rain had long since ceased, and now 
 the sky was clear a blue new-washed, though 
 bordered by heavy banks of cloud that 
 smouldered a dun orange where the sun 
 was sinking. They drove down Piccadilly in 
 the open carriage, side by side, with London, 
 crowded and astir, swarming to right and to 
 
 
 
 left of them, enclosing them with a changing 
 wall of flesh and blood. Merceron had found 
 his starting-point at last, had indeed begun to 
 share that brilliant Life of which but yesterday 
 he had stood a fevered spectator. He leaned 
 back for a moment with lowered eyelids, so 
 as the better to drink in the melody of it all, 
 so as the better to feel the rousing embrace of 
 this sea whose dancing waters he was cleaving 
 on and onward. With the evening his 
 former exultation had returned. At this festive 
 hour illusion and fancy came closer, played 
 their parts with fuller voice and eyes more
 
 148 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 eloquent, warmed by the uncertain light, the 
 Dncoming dusk. 
 
 Their dinner was rather ideal than real. 
 [n the place of Hutchinson sat this woman 
 whose every word was quick and tingling, 
 aglow with music; whose person was com- 
 posed of so subtle a compounding of flesh 
 and spirit as to have escaped the material. 
 Merceron, radiant, lived with every nerve 
 and, womanlike, she reflected his ecstasy, 
 joyed with him in all the fulness of this new 
 existence. 
 
 " When were you born ? " she had asked, 
 wondering at his delight, " and where ? " 
 
 " In Piccadilly, last night, when we met." 
 
 "I've half a mind to believe you," she 
 replied; " but what happened before ? " 
 
 "There was no before." 
 
 "You have told me nothing of that," she 
 urged.
 
 Arrived. 149 
 
 "Like Minerva, I sprang fully armed out of 
 the brow of Jove ! " he laughed back, " and 
 before " 
 
 " You made his august head ache ? " 
 
 " Rather, my own." 
 
 " You worked ? " 
 
 " Pursued a phantom, had ambitions, and 
 now," he lingered on her eyes, " it is all 
 changed," he finished slowly. 
 
 " What were you doing ? " she persisted. 
 
 " Mistaking a duckpond for the ocean, a 
 backwater for the river ! " 
 
 " Backwaters are nice," mused her ladyship ; 
 " one is undisturbed, and there is usually shade 
 and cushions." 
 
 " I was undisturbed and there were cushions 
 but I was alone." 
 
 " So are most of us," she sighed. 
 
 " There were no problems," he returned, 
 " only work and such empty work ! And I
 
 150 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 growing old all the time, without ever havihg 
 known you ! " 
 
 She could not doubt his sincerity as his 
 words flashed across its sheer strength was 
 drawing her to his side. She felt her weakness, 
 and her head fought with her heart. 
 
 " You would make an ardent lover," she 
 lightly replied; "I shall have to introduce you 
 to some nice girls." 
 
 "After knowing you ! " he retorted. 
 
 " I said 'nice girls,' " answered the Countess. 
 
 "Lady Mays?" he asked glibly; and they 
 both laughed. 
 
 " You are killing ! " she interspersed. 
 
 " Rather, the victim." 
 
 "Poor boy only a day old, and you dare 
 attack!" 
 
 " You are mocking my inexperience ? " 
 
 She nodded. " In self- defence in self- 
 defence 1" said her head to her heart*
 
 Arrived. 151 
 
 " You mistake me," he continued : " is not 
 every face an open book to those who read ? 
 and I have lived in London I " 
 
 " Theory bald theory ! " she returned. 
 
 " The theorist is at least disinterested ! " 
 
 " But uninteresting," she drawled back: " he 
 lacks the very weakness that makes experience 
 strong." 
 
 "Humanity?" asked Merceron. "I am 
 human ? " 
 
 She did not answer, and Merceron was left 
 facing a blank wall the position of the theorist. 
 He said so. 
 
 " I am on the other side," she tossed back. 
 
 " I am climbing." 
 
 " I am years ahead you cannot even see 
 me," she crowed. 
 
 " Inspiration has placed me at your side ! " 
 
 She shook her head dubiously. "Wait I 
 am out of breath." Then again, "Wait!"
 
 152 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 this time to herself; for her heart beat rapidly, 
 and she knew its tenor. Some of the roses 
 that he had brought were in her corsage. She 
 hid her face in them. 
 
 Merceron ordered coffee. 
 
 "Would you like to hear an act or two of 
 Siegfried ? " she asked, as he lit a cigarette. 
 " I have a box, you know." 
 
 " It would be rather jolly." 
 
 The carriage had waited, and was dismissed 
 at Covent Garden with orders for a later hour ; 
 and again Merceron found himself an integral 
 part of what last night had been but panoramic. 
 
 Mrs. Hodgson rose as they entered the box, 
 and the Countess sat down between her and 
 Harvey. 
 
 The dragon was in its death throes when they 
 arrived, a most plaintive worm. They laughed 
 at it. But their chatter ceased when the note 
 of the Waldvogel smote their hearts with its
 
 Arnved. 153 
 
 ethereal sweetness. Visitors broke the spell that 
 had crept over them. The lights were raised, 
 before them the curtain. In the tier below 
 and opposite they could see the Marchioness of 
 Stoke and Lady May. The Marquis was eating 
 sandwiches, with the score open in front of 
 him. Merceron admired his enthusiasm. 
 
 " Shall we stay for the end ? " asked Lady 
 Grasmere as the conductor stepped into his 
 place for the third act. 
 
 Harvey was more than willing. " Listening 
 is the wiser part," he murmured, more to 
 himself than to her. Some fugitive thread of 
 his old ambitions had tugged at his heart, and 
 he had broken this last strand. 
 
 The performance was over at last. Brunn- 
 hilde had surrendered, had relinquished her 
 divinity for terrestrial love. The eyes in the 
 box met with more than common under- 
 standing.
 
 154 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Brave old world ! " said Lady Grasmere, 
 " I 'd sooner be there than in the Royal box ! " 
 
 " You are not afraid of dragons ? " asked 
 Merceron, smiling into the lovely face. 
 
 "Is not the Marchioness below?" she asked; 
 and Mrs. Hodgson laughed reproval. 
 
 " I had forgotten," said Harvey. " And yet 
 the present has its moments," he added, 
 bending over her with opera-cloak in hands 
 that testified. 
 
 Together they went out into the vestibule 
 where Hutchinson and he had stood the 
 night before. Now he was looking for Lady 
 Grasmere's man. The world had undergone 
 considerable change during the intervening 
 hours belonged to him at last, as he to it. 
 He was no longer a spectator, a sightseer, no 
 longer aloof; he had thrown in his stake with 
 the rest, and the game prospered. 
 
 He put the ladies into their carriage.
 
 Arrived. 155 
 
 " I am going on to Gatint House and the 
 Faucits," said the Countess ; " it will be dull, 
 so I 'm not going to take you good-night I " 
 
 " Till to-morrow," said he. 
 
 She was off a wave of a dainty hand, and 
 he was alone. 
 
 Merceron walked home that night. The 
 new life was greater than its promise.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 WITHIN.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TRANSITION. 
 
 summer had gone by, autumn had 
 merged into winter, and now some faint 
 signs of returning foliage showed on tree and 
 hedge as Harvey Merceron progressed home- 
 wards from Dover. Eight months had elapsed 
 since last we saw him, handing the Countess 
 of Grasmere and Mrs. Hodgson into their 
 carriage after the curtain had fallen upon the 
 third act of Siegfried. Eight months had 
 passed since that eventful morning whereon 
 Harvey Merceron had put Art aside, resolved 
 to play no more for the dancers but himself 
 to dance he who ' had ten times more music 
 in him than all the other dancers together ! ' 
 
 159
 
 160 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 It is doubtful whether either Sopwith or 
 even Hutchinson would, at a first glance, have 
 recognised in the young gentleman of fashion 
 who had just landed at the Admiralty Pier the 
 Harvey Merceron of a year ago; as, perfectly 
 dressed, he chose a first-class carriage and a 
 cigar as though the whole business of his 
 life had consisted in similar selections. The 
 musician had disappeared in the man of leisure, 
 and only the too thoughtful eyes, set some- 
 what incongruously amid more placid features, 
 betokened the youthful enthusiast who, for 
 three long, arduous years, had grappled 
 doggedly with the composition of Isabella 
 now, alas, an episode almost unsubstantial, oi 
 such stuff as those fugitive incidents of child- 
 hood that we turn back to and smile upon in 
 warm moments of reminiscence. Isabella, her 
 making and her sensational exit, were alike 
 relegated to this same shadowy background.
 
 Transition. 161 
 
 Merceron, true to his resolve, had conquered 
 all impulse of curiosity, of ownership, had 
 dropped the clue which Hutchinson had placed 
 within his hands. The affair of Isabella's dis- 
 appearance was no longer his. He was no 
 musician, therefore he had composed no opera, 
 therefore no opera of his could have been 
 stolen. That Isabella had passed out of his 
 life were she burnt or the white elephant of 
 an unknown thief, it mattered little which 
 had been the one consideration. . . . And 
 now eight months had closed upon her, had 
 passed, lightning-like, varied, in an increasing 
 succession of new scenes, new faces, and 
 new experiences ; more filled with the Life 
 for which he had thirsted than all foregoing 
 years. 
 
 The old quiet of his aloofness in Down 
 Street, with Sopwith for sole distraction, music 
 
 as sole topic, had ceased. Of Down Street he 
 ii
 
 1 62 An Opera & Lady Grasmcre. 
 
 had caught but fugitive glimpses, of Sopwith 
 he had heard nothing save that his opera was 
 making progress. He had had no time for 
 further contact with his old surroundings ; 
 indeed he hardly wished for more than this. 
 His life had been full, full to overflowing, as 
 things were. A breathless fortnight in London 
 had succeeded upon the masked ball and its 
 ensuing presentations. An easy-going swarm 
 of butterflies, who demanded of man nothing 
 more than that he should be well-dressed, 
 cleanly, and fitly introduced, of agreeable 
 aspect and bearing, had welcomed friend 
 Merceron to common flights. 
 
 The London season over, there had followed 
 the Warings* Goodwood party; a full house 
 and an excited crowd all intent on winners. 
 By day, the Downs, a gay mob picnicing in 
 the open, blazing sunshine and deep blue 
 skies, the hubbub of the ring, interrupted
 
 Transition. 163 
 
 by the mad rush, the break-neck scramble of 
 straining horseflesh ; by night, the same 
 company discussing the day's hazards, the 
 flower-like toilettes of the women as they 
 dined under the shaded candles, a stroll in 
 the grounds, now with a brother cigar, genial 
 with perfect health and unimpaired digestive 
 organs, or else Lady Grasmere, the hand 
 on his arm more eloquent than speech, to 
 the accompaniment of song and music from 
 open drawing-room windows. 
 
 Only once had the Countess appeared con- 
 trite, questioned the impulse which had led 
 her to launch her companion upon this 
 blissful sea. 
 
 " You have never told me what you think of 
 me for it all," she had asked, almost shame- 
 facedly, " of my behaviour ? " 
 
 "I have left off thinking," Harvey had 
 decisively replied, "and my actions are trans-
 
 164 An Opera & Lady Gtasmere. 
 
 parent," with a gentle pressure of his arm 
 upon her hand. 
 
 " You should despise rne, should you not ? ' 
 she had questioned. smiHng. 
 
 " Myself if anybody ? " 
 
 " A very Christian view." 
 
 " But I am proud er, devilish proud ! " 
 
 She dropped him a curtsey upon the spot. 
 
 From Goodwood, Harvey had gone on to 
 Lady Grasmere's place ki Kent, to join in the 
 robuster pleasures of the Canterbury week. 
 Here was another houseful of visitors : and the 
 days sped fast in the cricket field, where the 
 whole county had assembled to encourage its 
 champions ; dispensing bounteous hospitality 
 from gaily decorated tents, and turning out of 
 nights for a full succession of concerts, dances, 
 and theatricals. 
 
 He had gone abroad after these festivities, to 
 Ostend, up the Rhine, gradually drifting to
 
 Transition. 165 
 
 Nuremberg on his way to Bayreuth, where he 
 had promised to join the Countess and Sir 
 Horace and Lady Waring. The Marquis of 
 Stoke was also of their party. He was to 
 meet Lady May and the Marchioness later 
 on, at Venice. They were yachting in the 
 Mediterranean ; and, meanwhile, the Marquis 
 was free to pursue his beloved Wagner 
 without fear of disorganising the family 
 dining arrangements, and with no special 
 necessity for munching ham sandwiches 
 between the acts. 
 
 It was Lady Grasmere who had drawn 
 Merceron to Bayreuth his second visit, by- 
 the-by. Both she and Lady Horace were 
 more than ordinarily devoted to music, dis- 
 played even a technical understanding of 
 harmony and orchestration that caused Harvey 
 considerable surprise. More often than not 
 they sat beside him in the long intervals
 
 1 66 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 between act and act, discussing an open score 
 and following with apparent ease intricate 
 combinations, subtle manipulations of themes 
 and counter -themes. Harvey surmised a 
 deal of unsuspected earnestness behind such 
 facility. 
 
 He, for his part, was content to listen, 
 attempted neither analysis nor synthesis, 
 tabooed even that perpetual and ubiquitous 
 tri-syllable Leit-motif. 
 
 Once, indeed, he had been surprised into 
 helping the ladies over a peculiarly difficult 
 passage, a jumble of apparently discordant 
 discords which even the Marquis could not 
 adequately interpret. 
 
 " I didn't think you knew so much about 
 it," said Lady Horace, when Harvey 
 finished. The Countess was silently aston- 
 ished; even his careless disclaimer hardly 
 contented her.
 
 Transition. 167 
 
 "Oh, a musical fellow told me," he had 
 replied. Nor was the response altogether 
 fiction, albeit the " musical fellow " was none 
 other than his own discarded self. 
 
 Not even to Lady Grasmere had he spoken 
 of his old ambitions. His school and Oxford 
 she knew about, also that his mother and 
 sisters lived in a biggish house in Hertford- 
 shire, and that they were spending the summer 
 in Switzerland. He had also spoken of 
 Sopwith, but not as of a fellow, one with 
 whom he had shared a common pursuit, a 
 common art ; merely as a musical friend who 
 was working upon an . opera dealing with 
 Francesca of Rimini. 
 
 The Countess knew some of .his songs. 
 " Feeble very feeble," was her description 
 of them. 
 
 " Pot-boilers, I believe," said Harvey ; " but 
 the opera's serious. I suggested Francesca;
 
 1 68 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 it 's rather a good subject, don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 The Countess agreed, after which both 
 Sopwith and his doings were laid aside in 
 favour of matters more personal and pressing. 
 
 From Bayreuth the party had descended 
 into the Tyrol, had separated there to meet 
 once more upon the Warings' grouse-moor. 
 Harvey went up to Scotland with the rest, 
 and, at the close of his visit, recrossed the 
 Channel, Italy his new destination. There he 
 again encountered the Marquis, this time ac- 
 companied by Lady Stoke and their daughter, 
 also a dozen other of his new acquaintances, 
 bent on escaping the rigours of the frozen 
 North. 
 
 The Marquis gave Harvey an unexpectedly 
 warm welcome, had evidently taken a great 
 liking to him during their week at Bayreuth, 
 and was doubtless glad to have captured
 
 Transition. 169 
 
 someone capable of sharing in the musical 
 speculations which he was constantly formulat- 
 ing, asserting with all the assurance and 
 dogmatism of the amateur. He was, as 
 Harvey soon discovered, an amiable bore, with 
 lofty ideals, whose expression, however, he left 
 to poorer men. 
 
 Merceron was not ill-pleased at this meeting 
 and its entailments ; for the Marchioness could 
 be very gracious, knew, besides, all the best 
 people, and even Lady May, following in the 
 wake of her father, had grown quite respectful. 
 It was on the Stoke yacht that Harvey made 
 the voyage from .Naples to Alexandria; arriving 
 in Cairo just in time to spend Christmas with 
 Lady Grasmere, her nephew, the present Earl, 
 and Lady Mountjoy, his mother. 
 
 These months sped rapidly enough, a con- 
 stant flight of novel experience and emotion, 
 insight, action and reaction, amid changing
 
 170 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 soil, faces, races, and scenery ; a movement 
 so sustained, varied, coloured, material and 
 abstract, that Merceron was left no oppor- 
 tunity for weariness nor overlong meditations 
 either. The child within him, the instinct 
 that had first prompted him to intrude at 
 Stoke House, that had so disarmed the 
 Countess and then irresistibly attracted her, 
 this joyous ingenuousness of his remained 
 almost intact, winning for him even more 
 friends than his evident means and handsome 
 presence. Women were especially delighted 
 with him ; he had individuality and that with- 
 out aggressive advertisement.. Several of them 
 said as much, with more to follow ; but Lady 
 Grasmere apart, Harvey was in no mood to 
 seek alliances. 
 
 Towards the Countess, he was ever the 
 same devoted cavalier; although the ardour 
 of his first attack had abated with a conviction
 
 Transition. 171 
 
 of the security of his position, a recognition 
 of the wisdom of her parryings. She was 
 evidently widow enough to foresee the danger 
 of such breathless carryings by assault. Now 
 he was steadily gaining her confidence as well 
 as her love, a quieter process, yet one recom- 
 mended by all praise-worthy counsel. 
 
 "You are not fit to be trusted out alone," 
 she had once laughingly declared. " Lady 
 Horace, please take him away he is turning 
 my head." This, during the first week of 
 their friendship. 
 
 Lady Horace had played lightning-conductor 
 with some success ; and Merceron, gathering 
 the " true word " behind the jest, had hence- 
 forth resolved to move by the measure of their 
 surroundings. So that at Bayreuth, in Scot- 
 land, and later in Egypt and at Cannes, a 
 softer mood had prevailed, and one more in 
 unison with the tempo of the rest of life.
 
 172 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 From the Riviera Merceron had gone to 
 Paris, and the Countess home to her house 
 in Kent. Now Harvey too was on English 
 soil; a week with his people in Hertfordshire, 
 and he would join a party that Lady Grasmere 
 was entertaining over Easter.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 POSTMEN. 
 
 'T^HE Countess and Lady Horace were at 
 -^ the station when Harvey arrived from 
 Charing Cross, and the three walked over to 
 the house together, leaving Hancock to look 
 after the baggage. 
 
 " There 's not much peace now ; and we 
 used to be that quiet ! " said Hancock to the man 
 who had driven over to assist him, after sundry 
 courteous inquiries anent the health and well- 
 being of various members of the Grasmere 
 household. 
 
 "A little society does one good ; and changes 
 is always welcome," returned the other, cheer- 
 fully. " You 're not a rover, Mr. Hancock ? " 
 
 173
 
 174 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " ' There 's no place like home ' is my motto ; 
 and I stick to it," was Hancock's emphatic 
 answer. 
 
 "Well, you'll be treated first-class down 
 here ; and though I says it as shouldn't, we 're 
 a most sociable lot," modestly observed the 
 other. 
 
 " Never met a more sociable," Hancock 
 politely responded. " When I was here last 
 summer, I said to the cook, I said, ' I 've a 
 good mind to stay here, a very good mind ' ; 
 and she says, ' Go along, Mr. Hancock, I 'm a 
 married woman ! ' " Here Harvey's retainer 
 indulged in a little dignified laughter. 
 
 " Cooks is independent," said the other, 
 meditatively ; "they earns good wages." 
 
 " ' But you may stay here all the same,' 
 was what she said as well," resumed 
 Hancock. 
 
 " Think it likely ? " asked the other.
 
 Postmen. 175 
 
 " You 're on the spot," returned Hancock, 
 evasively. 
 
 " Well, they do say it '11 either be him or 
 Captin Mills." 
 
 Here the conversation assumed a character 
 so confidential as to merit a privacy which we 
 hasten to respect. 
 
 The party that Lady Grasmere was enter- 
 taining over Easter was, relatively speaking, a 
 very quiet one; just a few friends whom she 
 had gathered together until the London season 
 should rejoin them all in town. The Warings 
 were there of course ; for, as Merceron had long 
 since discovered, Lady Horace and his hostess 
 were friends of more than common devotion. 
 
 " Di Waring 's one of the few women I 'd 
 sooner talk to than a man," the latter had 
 once confided to Harvey; "her notions are 
 masculine, her conclusions feminine, and her 
 prejudices neuter."
 
 176 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 "The ideal woman?" enquired Harvey. 
 
 "The ideal woman's woman," replied Lady 
 Grasmere. 
 
 Now the trio was strolling down the white 
 road that led to the lodge gates. 
 
 " The Marquis and Lady May are here, but 
 you mustn't ask after the Marchioness," Lady 
 Grasmere was explaining ; "she's staying with 
 her sister, and the sister and the old gentleman 
 don't speak. One of them jilted the other 
 forty years ago I don't know which one." 
 
 "The Marquis, of course," interrupted Lady 
 Horace ; " do you think a woman would sulk 
 for half a century ! Just imagine, years 
 and years before we were born these two 
 people," she continued, romancing ; " they 
 ought to be put in the British Museum under 
 glass ! " 
 
 " Lady May says that you were awfully nice 
 in Italy, but that you scorned Guido and Carlo
 
 Postmen. 177 
 
 Do'ci," said the Countess; "you shouldn't 
 have done that." 
 
 " Her pets, and ' so sweet ! ' " mimicked 
 Lady Horace. 
 
 " Couldn't help it after Bayreuth and this 
 person," said Merceron. " I left Lady Horace 
 without an illusion," he declared, laughing. 
 
 " Rude man, isn't he ? " demanded the 
 baronet's wife. 
 
 Captain Mills was on the lawn, amusing him- 
 self with a golf club and an imaginary ball. 
 Sir Horace and Lady May were examining a 
 book of artificial flies; and, indoors, the Marquis 
 was deep in the Times. 
 
 " Your friend Sopwith's opera, Francesca of 
 Rimini, is going to be put on this season a 
 British composer at last ! " said the Marquis as 
 he shook Harvey's hand. 
 
 "Is it? I must write and congratulate him 
 haven't seen Sopwith for months ; he 's been 
 
 12
 
 178 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 pretty quick though, he had only just begun it 
 when I last saw him." 
 
 " We '11 all have to go and cheer," proposed 
 Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Rather ! " from Merceron ; and he went to 
 the library and wrote Sopwith a congratulatory 
 note forthwith, promising him an early visit, 
 and apologising for having done so little to 
 maintain their friendship. " But I 've cut 
 music, as you know," he concluded ; and con- 
 tinuing, " I shall see you on the first night, if 
 not before. I suppose you must be terribly 
 busy." 
 
 Later on, at dinner, the conversation again 
 drifted towards Sopwith's opera. Captain 
 Mills had met the composer. 
 
 "A long-haired chap with glasses, isn't he ? " 
 the soldier asked of Merceron. 
 
 " He wasn't when I last saw him, but 
 Sopwith's capable of much," replied Harvey,
 
 Postmen. 179 
 
 smiling as he pictured this new composer's 
 evident concessions to the situation. 
 
 " Do you think he let it grow on purpose? ' 
 asked Lady Horace. 
 
 "Imagine a musician without long hair!' 
 exclaimed Lady -Grasmere, "nobody would 
 believe in him an English name is bad 
 enough ! " 
 
 " Supposing Mr. Merceron were to write an 
 opera, do you think he 'd let his hair grow ? " 
 demanded Lady Horace, with more mischief, 
 perhaps, than she had intended, " or Captain 
 Mills ? " 
 
 " I should think letting one's hair grow is 
 quite sufficient occupation, without throwing in 
 an opera," returned Harvey unruffled. 
 
 " I think the hair 's about as far as I 'd 
 get," drawled Captain Mills. 
 
 " Your friend Mr. Sopwith would probably 
 enjoy this discussion. He'd doubtless feel
 
 180 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 amply repaid for I don't know how many months' 
 hard labour 1 " commented Lady Grasmere, 
 severely sarcastic. 
 
 "You young people have not the respect for 
 Art that was common in my time it 's these 
 Americans ! " observed the Marquis. He had 
 a comfortable practice of holding " these 
 Americans " responsible for every current 
 irreverence. 
 
 Merceron's flippancies on this occasion did 
 not, however, affect the old gentleman's 
 estimate of his abilities, for, only the next 
 morning, the Marquis reiterated an interest in 
 their proper employment. 
 
 " You should go into Parliament," he said to 
 Harvey, as they chatted after breakfast ; " a 
 young man of your gifts is wasted, sir, 
 positively wasted, unless he settles down to 
 responsible duties." 
 
 Instead of Parliament, however, Merceron
 
 Postmen. 181 
 
 went off to a neighbouring trout- stream with 
 the Warings, and spent the greater part of an 
 afternoon with Lady May, looking out quota- 
 tions for some competition formulated by that 
 damsel's favourite organ, The British Matron. 
 
 Very peaceful were these few days, their 
 restfulness doubly enhanced by the intimacy of 
 the little band. Of Lady Grasmere's society, 
 Harvey had more than his fair share. She 
 was an even more attractive woman in this 
 quiet country home of hers than in the more 
 fashionable localities they had frequented. In 
 the white blouses and skirts, faultlessly cut, 
 that she wore in the daytime, she would walk 
 lightly at his side, humanising the landscape. 
 The easy grace which marked her out-door 
 movements reminded him frequently of Diana. 
 More regal, yet equally simple, were her evening 
 
 r 
 
 gowns. Lady Horace's admiration of her was 
 outspoken, even audacious.
 
 182 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " I know you 're as much in love with her as 
 I am," she said one evening to Harvey. 
 
 " More," he replied. 
 
 " And you are content ? " 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 " I envy you your wisdom even though it 's 
 unwise." 
 
 " She might marry ? " he asked, half-interested. 
 
 " She will marry," asserted Lady Horace. 
 
 " I hope so," he soothingly returned. 
 
 " Wretch ! " said Lady Horace, laughing at 
 him. " You 've never told me where you went 
 to school," she added, rallying ; " I want to send 
 my boy there. Woman must have been part 
 of the curriculum a subject so necessary, yet 
 they never teach it ! " 
 
 " It is a gift," Harvey gravely explained ; 
 "the connoisseur is born and not made 
 
 nascitur non fit : 
 
 For tke poet was man and woman and child,'
 
 Postmen. 183 
 
 as Bret Harte used to say," he somewhat 
 irrelevantly added. 
 
 Lady Horace shook her head. 
 
 " You 're in the depths," she said, " and I 
 am getting out of mine." 
 
 " You should learn to swim, now 
 there 's that trout-stream," he smilingly 
 suggested. 
 
 " Girls, nowadays, must have a hard time 
 talking to you men ? " she questioned* 
 
 " I have never met any." 
 
 She left him unregenerate, and rejoined Sir 
 Horace. 
 
 Harvey contemplated the couple from his 
 chair. 
 
 " That woman will make me think, if I only 
 let her," he reflected. " I shall have to drag 
 Mills in and make him bring his concertina " 
 alluding to one of the Captain's most popular 
 accomplishments.
 
 184 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Lady May was seated amid a group of poets, 
 seeking more quotations. 
 
 " I wish you 'd find some for me ? " she said 
 as Harvey went by ; " I 've gone through five 
 things of Byron to-day and only found eight." 
 
 " Poor Byron ! " exclaimed Harvey. 
 
 " Poor me," corrected Lady May. 
 
 Captain Mills and the Marquis were playing 
 billiards, and Lady Grasmere was marking the 
 game. 
 
 " Come to relieve me ? " she asked as Harvey 
 entered. 
 
 He took her place and later on a cue, and 
 then he and Captain Mills talked India till 
 bedtime. 
 
 Lady Grasmere was scribbling notes when 
 they returned to the drawing-room. The 
 others had all retired. The soldier said " Good- 
 night," and Harvey sat down in a chair and 
 watched the Countess as she wrote.
 
 Postmen. 185 
 
 The thoughtful face and ruddy hair, illumined 
 by the candles at her side, made a delicious 
 picture. 
 
 At last she had finished. 
 
 " I rather wanted these to go to-night," she 
 said, biting her quill, "and the servants have 
 all gone to bed." 
 
 " Shall I do postman and run down to the 
 village with them ? " asked Harvey. 
 
 Outside, the sky was clear, the air fresh with 
 the health of springtime. She had opened 
 the French windows. 
 
 " I '11 come too," she said. " You 're not 
 afraid of the churchyard ? " 
 
 She found a hat and a cape in the hall, and 
 they started off together across the lawn.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 LIFE, AND DEATH. 
 
 walk from the house to the post office 
 *- was barely a matter of ten minutes. 
 When Lady Grasmere and Harvey came out 
 at the lodge gates they had only a few hundred 
 yards of roadway to traverse before they 
 reached the footpath that led across the rectory- 
 field to the churchyard ; another hundred 
 yards or so, and they would pass the pond 
 that marked the near end of the village 
 street. 
 
 It was close on midnight when they set out. 
 The Countess had taken Harvey's arm, ahead 
 ran the dim roadway, and the darkness closed 
 in on them as they trod, cutting them off the
 
 Life, and Death. 187 
 
 more and more from the consciousness of a 
 gregarious world. 
 
 Never before had Lady Grasmere seemed so 
 near to Merceron as on this night. They had 
 often been together at a similar hour: in Cairo, 
 under the heavy stars; at Cannes, watching 
 the moonlight tremble on the idle waves. But 
 these Southern nights held none of the intimacy 
 of the present excursion. They had been too 
 exotic were almost part of a routine, like the 
 table d'hdte and the after-dinner band; they 
 lacked all familiar appeal, were rather a 
 spectacle than an atmosphere. To-night, 
 this darkness of an English springtide was 
 Merceron's own and hers ; no foreign savour 
 distracted them with a heaven and an earth, 
 so multiplied by art and convention as to 
 partake of the theatric. 
 
 As they stepped along the world seemed to 
 have dwindled to some desert island whert
 
 i88 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 only they two stirred, a personal belonging; 
 every clod of soil, every fold of the darkness, 
 their very own. Thought made an epic of each 
 minute, so close were they, so eloquent the 
 night! The silent stars and the mysterious 
 distances unshrouded nocturnes rarer than any 
 known of musician. 
 
 Through Harvey's heart these melodies 
 whispered and melted, equally elusive, equally 
 vague, deep as the night. 
 
 The dun outline of a horse showed, black on 
 black, as they struck across the footpath 
 through the rectory-field ; the vicarage was in 
 darkness. Around them they could hear the 
 persistent munch of browsing sheep. 
 
 The churchyard was heavily silent, the 
 shadowy building in its centre singularly im- 
 pressive. As they entered at the little swing- 
 gate Harvey felt the arm within his own tighten. 
 He returned the pressure, and they passed
 
 Life, and, Death. 189 
 
 down this place of modest sepulture without 
 word, heart and brain the busier for unin- 
 terruption. 
 
 " You were thinking of Gray and the 
 Elegy ? " she whispered as they skirted the 
 pond. 
 
 " Yes and you ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 But a single light burned in the sleeping 
 village, illuminating a low window in the 
 upstairs room of a cottage. 
 
 " Poor Tom Martin ! Doctor Small says he 's 
 dying and his mother's such a dear. The 
 boy 's all she has, too," said Lady Grasmere as 
 they passed. 
 
 Harvey's thoughts went back to the church- 
 yard. 
 
 They reached the post office, and he 
 dropped the letters into the box. The 
 object of their adventure was accomplished.
 
 igo An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 They turned, walking more slowly than 
 before. 
 
 The letters were forgotten, and thought, fully 
 freed, now centered entirely on the personal. 
 The village clock began to strike the hour as 
 they reached the churchyard. Harvey's hand 
 was on the gate. He paused and waited, his 
 eyes on her face, white in that darkness, the 
 spirit looking out on him, paling the night. 
 Twelve ! The hour had passed. 
 
 " Ghosts ! " she whispered, with a nervous 
 little laugh. 
 
 His arm went round her. 
 
 "No, darling not yet!" 
 
 It was, indeed, no ghostly arm that encircled 
 her, no illusive shape that was encircled. 
 
 " I love you I have always loved you," he 
 breathed. 
 
 " And I " Her voice was glorious with 
 
 perfect happiness.
 
 "HER Ul'Tl'RXEI) KACK WT Jl'ST HEI.OW MIS OWN." Page I () I .
 
 Life, and Death. 191 
 
 Through the dark his eyes called to her. 
 She raised her lips to his. 
 
 " My queen . . . My queen ! " his kisses 
 covered her face "you love me you. love 
 me ! " Half in triumph, half questioning, his 
 words came to her. 
 
 " I dare not say how much," she had 
 answered. 
 
 Her height was near to his, her upturned 
 face but just below his own. Time swooned 
 as he held her in his arms, breast to breast, the 
 perfume of her hair invading him. 
 
 The half-hour chimed on the night. The 
 dead generations below the sod had known 
 no love as this, the barred church no such 
 union. The village slept, wrapped in a stubborn 
 torpor, man beside wife, parent and child. Only 
 the one light burned, in the cottage window 
 where Love and Death were watching. And 
 here in the churchyard stood Love and Life.
 
 IQ2 An Opera & Lady Grasmcre. 
 
 The hour struck, a single note that spoke 
 to them of countless hours, a forerunner so 
 young is Love ! A drop in an ocean was this 
 hour, a blade of grass, a grain of sand ; and 
 they were treading summer meadows, golden 
 shores ! 
 
 Tears stirred through Merceron's heart. In 
 that hour he first tasted of the fruit of the tree 
 of Perfect Knowledge, attained to the Open 
 Secret and Earth held no further veil. The 
 Past, with its near horizons, incomplete 
 emotions, had dwindled, then vanished, in 
 this newer light. At first the old selves had 
 obtruded, had dared dispute the Present to 
 be found wanting, turned utterly adrift. The 
 Present was built to a larger scale ! And amid 
 this debris, this crackling of discarded works, 
 Isabella had once more reappeared, this opera 
 that his unformed manhood had wrought out 
 of its inexperience ; a tattered thing, abortive,
 
 Life, and Death. 193 
 
 and piteous in its strained assumption of 
 maturity. Its laboured mewlings, its flagrant 
 shallovvnesses, now smote him him who knew. 
 The woman in his arms, the heart that swelled 
 to hers, knew love ; and love was a fuller, a 
 deeper melody . . . Poor Isabella ! Poor 
 everything! All, all was poor beside such 
 wealth ! 
 
 Another half-hour chimed. The dead under- 
 foot had not stirred, nor shaken their worn 
 bones an antic chorus. 
 
 The village was dumb ; only its dogs 
 bayed aimlessly at nothings, or a challenging 
 circle of cockerels crowed from farmyard to 
 farmyard. The light behind the one yellow 
 window-pane had vanished. Perhaps Life 
 had surrendered the dying man, had cast 
 its eye over this still churchyard, sure of 
 succession; while Love sobbed through the 
 dark.
 
 Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Home, darling we must go home," they 
 whispered at last. 
 
 Their path was strewn with kisses ; the 
 April air was warm as the breath of June. 
 
 The lodge gates were reached, and they 
 passed down the avenue and on to the lawn. 
 The low lights of the drawing-room glowed 
 soft. They entered and closed the French 
 windows with hands caressing hands. 
 
 " Good-night," he said. She was once more 
 in his arms. 
 
 "Good-night," she whispered; then, 
 holding him from her, so as the better to 
 see the loved face. " This was the ninth 
 of April." 
 
 "I shall always remember." 
 
 "It will be my next birthday and the 
 next." 
 
 Her hands fell, and he took them both and 
 covered them with kisses.
 
 Life, and Death. 195 
 
 "Good -night good-night," he said. 
 
 These words, so fervently repeated, were 
 love-vows. They followed him to his room 
 as he left her. 
 
 The whole world whispered, " Good-night ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A LITTLE MUSIC. 
 
 HARVEY and Lady Grasmere were left 
 standing alone on the station platform, 
 and Lady Horace was beaming down on them 
 from a window of the moving train. 
 
 The Countess fluttered a handkerchief. 
 
 "I've been very good, have I not?" she 
 asked. " We 've both been very good ; and yet 
 Di Waring was personal, even made me 
 blush." 
 
 " Lady Horace is a villain," returned Harvey 
 with severity. 
 
 The train disappeared round a curve in the 
 line, and Merceron and the Countess turned. 
 The other guests had left in the morning, and
 
 A Little Musk. 197 
 
 Harvey was to take the last train, the 9.46. 
 Mrs. Hodgson would arrive on the following 
 day, for a lengthy visit, here and in London. 
 
 "Nearly six hours to mine," said Harvey, as 
 they quitted the station ; " I shan't stay in 
 town ; I shall go on to my people's from here 
 it will kill the days." 
 
 " And tell them ? " She smiled up at him 
 as she spoke. Her smile had grown marvel- 
 lously tender since that night. No wonder 
 that Lady Horace had noticed the change. 
 
 " About what ? " he teased. 
 
 " About the designing widow-lady ? " 
 
 Almost her first direct reference was this to 
 things anterior, to her marriage; and Harvey 
 had of course never broached the subject. He 
 knew that she had been but eighteen on her 
 wedding-day and that she was widow at twenty. 
 Lady Horace had supplied the rest, however : 
 
 "The Earl was a father to her," she had
 
 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 once told him, "a dear old gentleman we 
 were all so sorry. Her mother made the 
 match an old flame of hers, I fancy, and 
 Gertrude went to church from the school- 
 room." 
 
 " About the designing widow-lady and the 
 defenceless orphan ? " Harvey had just replied. 
 
 The village looked on at them as they passed, 
 forming a third, dropping curtseys and touching 
 its hat. In the cottage where the light had 
 burned two nights ago, the blinds were drawn. 
 They both noticed this token, but neither 
 remarked upon it. That night was theirs. 
 They skirted the pond, and he met her eyes, 
 with his hand upon the little swing-gate. The 
 churchyard lay before them, white and green 
 in the sunlight a different place. The peaceful 
 building in the centre showed grey and vener- 
 able. The rectory-field followed, with its 
 browsing sheep and the vicar's mare nibbling
 
 A Little Music. 199 
 
 contentedly at the low grass ; then the white 
 roadway with its hedges, tender with budding 
 . hawthorn a different place. 
 
 Hancock had already packed his master's 
 things. The few hours that remained would 
 be undivided. 
 
 They sipped their tea contentedly after they 
 came in. How good it was to be alone ! how 
 good even to be silent thus; with the know- 
 ledge that she was in the same room, that an 
 outstretched hand would meet hers, that he 
 was free to look and look and look, and all the 
 while she would be beside him. 
 
 " You have never loved anyone else ? " she 
 asked, crossing their reverie. 
 
 " There was a girl when I was a boy, and 
 we pretended." 
 
 " And since then ? * 
 
 " Only you I was waiting for you." He 
 answered her in all sincerity ; she represented
 
 2OO An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 his "ideal woman," the being he had half 
 formulated, half dreamed on these many 
 years. 
 
 " And I I was waiting for you ; " she re- 
 peated his words slowly, lingering over each 
 one. Then, quickening, " Do you remember," 
 she asked, " those were almost the first words 
 you spoke to me at the Stoke ball ? I believe 
 that's why I liked you so ... because 
 I ... I was waiting as well ! " She pressed 
 his hand as she spoke. Her voice was uncer- 
 tain, her eyes downcast. In that moment she 
 had confessed a great deal. 
 
 " But I thought you mistook me for Mills ? " 
 
 " Only half but I was surprised when you 
 weren't," she answered, deliciously feminine in 
 this juxtaposition. 
 
 They walked till dinner-time in the cross- 
 avenue that intersected the one that ran from 
 the lawn to the lodge-gates.
 
 A Little Music. 201 
 
 Her hand was on his arm after all, in a 
 week or two their secret would be everybody's. 
 
 Hancock, from the stables, where he was 
 pominally watching the operations of his ally 
 of the week before, had just ventured the 
 opinion that he and his master would not wait 
 so long before their next visit. " It 's ten to one 
 against Mills, I fancy," he sagely concluded. 
 
 " Five hundred! not that Captain Mills 
 ain't a gentleman as anybody would be proud 
 of; always tips gold, no harf-crowns with him 
 like that there Mar-quis." 
 
 " Well, it 's time he did settle down, not 
 that he's been gay always lived most quiet 
 and respectable till lately," said Hancock, who 
 always spoke of his master as " he." 
 
 " Don't give much trouble, does he ? " asked 
 the other, already pondering over altered con- 
 ditions- of service. " Don't waste all your time 
 wi* things o' no value, does he ? "
 
 2O2 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Gentle as a lamb, an' only swears when 
 there's no dictionary word fitting." 
 
 "Well, I rayther like a good 'damn' myself." 
 " But you 're a Methodist," suggested 
 Hancock, polite yet clinching. 
 
 " I 'm not, either 'twas my last place," 
 explained the groom, " and that was Plymouth 
 Brother." 
 
 " I 've never heard of them," said Hancock, 
 somewhat impressed by the unfathomed, 
 yet disguising this under the supercilious. 
 "Sounds like a breed of poultry," said he; 
 then, hedging, " but ' places is difficult," he 
 concluded. 
 
 Meanwhile, the lovers in the cross-avenue 
 were discussing subject-matter of a less con- 
 troversial character. 
 
 "I am so glad it should have come like this," 
 the Countess was saying, "and not suddenly 
 and all of a rush. I was afraid at first," she
 
 A Little Music. 203 
 
 confessed, " it was magnificent, but it was not 
 love." 
 
 " But there was the possibility of losing 
 you ! " he answered. " You remember that 
 first afternoon when I wandered about in the 
 rain till I thought of Carter- Page ? I had 
 almost lost you then and it was terrible! I 
 had given up all for you, everything that I had 
 ever done or dreamt of doing." 
 
 "You have never told me of that?" she 
 gently urged. 
 
 Harvey confessed: 
 
 " I had written an opera. I had worked on 
 it for three years, and when I met you it was 
 just finished." 
 
 "And the opera ?" 
 
 " I " he hesitated ; " I destroyed it- 
 destroyed everything that you had not shared." 
 
 " We will write another," she said. 
 
 " Live one, rather; this is the second act 1"
 
 204 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 His old conception of music-drama, the 
 climax in the central act, still clung to him. 
 He smiled over the involuntary conceit. 
 
 " You look like Lohengrin," she said, mir- 
 roring his happiness. 
 
 " As though I 'd been what Mark Twain calls 
 'grailing'?" he returned, the smile deepening. 
 " By-the-by, we must go and see Sopwith ; his 
 opera's due next month. We'll hear it and 
 cheer ? " And then he told her more about 
 Oxford and the old life at the rooms in Down 
 Street. 
 
 "You have never regretted it?" she asked 
 when they had come to the end. 
 
 " No, darling," he answered, cloudless. 
 
 "And yet," said she, "I have often thought 
 that you were more fit for something serious 
 than this gadding." 
 
 " So does the Marquis ; he wants me to go 
 into Parliament 1 "
 
 A Little Music. 205 
 
 Whereat they both laughed. 
 
 Harvey did not dress for dinner, but the 
 Countess wore the gown of two nights ago. 
 He recognised it as she entered the drawing- 
 room, and sprang to her side. 
 
 "That was good of you, darling," he said, 
 proudly regarding the queenly figure. His near 
 departure smote him. " I want something," 
 he exclaimed, " something that I can always 
 have ! " 
 
 She took a sheaf of photographs out 
 of a cabinet. He had seen others, but 
 never anything so recent. By a strange 
 coincidence, she had been taken in that very 
 gown. 
 
 " Some premonition ? " she hazarded, as he 
 looked from her to the pictures, " and I wanted 
 them to be for you." 
 
 The man came in and announced dinner. 
 
 "These are mine," said Harvey, deliberately
 
 206 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 choosing each position. He dropped them for 
 the original. 
 
 She made him smoke in the drawing-room 
 after their meal. Six quarters of an hour 
 remained to them. 
 
 The blinds were drawn, and they sat side by 
 side. Suddenly she arose and opened the 
 piano. 
 
 " Play ! " she said. 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "Forme?" 
 
 She returned to the sofa as he sat down. 
 
 " For you," he said, fingering the keys. 
 
 Instinctively he turned to an episode in 
 Isabella, a song of Lorenzo's that was the 
 culmination of his first act; an impassioned 
 declaration that he had failed in a score of 
 times, till at last, late one afternoon, a lovely 
 face that had passed him in the street had 
 given him the true impulse. The words had
 
 A Little Music. 207 
 
 come for the mere writing one of the few 
 things of all his libretto that had lingered : 
 
 All the long day and the night, 
 All through the dark and the light, 
 I was alone, and I knew 
 You wanted me, and I too 
 Wanted you, 
 
 ran the words. 
 
 From Harvey's ringers now fell the original 
 melody, a leaping-board from which he ascended 
 improvising, swayed by a deeper and a richer 
 flood of emotion than the anaemic stream of 
 yester-year. He had left Isabella far below 
 him, had risen to the larger passion of the man 
 who had known those hours in the still church- 
 yard the stir of the blood as loved heart 
 yearned to loved heart, as the love-warm lips 
 met and sundered. 
 
 The Countess listened, spellbound and 
 deathly silent, yet elate and following. 
 
 The year's suppressed force, the melody that
 
 208 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 he had baffled these many months, had resurged 
 all-powerful, sweeping the keys before it. His 
 fingers seemed to run on uncontrolled, as some- 
 thing apart from himself. Effortless and with 
 the ease of a master, he transmuted his 
 exultation into music. This undreamt power, 
 this unsuspected accession that made the 
 instrument sing under his hands like a live 
 thing, outstripping all former experience and 
 manifestation, half-delighted, half-frightened 
 him. It was as though he had suddenly 
 discovered the keys of Life and Death, as a 
 possession, piece and part of himself. He 
 ceased playing and turned in his seat. 
 
 The Countess was once more beside him. 
 
 "You love me, as I love you as I love 
 you ! " was all she said. Criticism of the 
 rarest. 
 
 At last it was half-past nine, and Harvey 
 would have to go and join Hancock, who
 
 A Little Music. 209 
 
 was already down at the station with the 
 baggage. 
 
 They parted indoors and again at the lodge 
 gates, where he left her, turning his head every 
 few steps to catch a farewell glimpse of the 
 dim shape that watched him from the roadway. 
 Again his path lay across the meadow and the 
 churchyard. 
 
 "A woman ! " he was muttering. "A woman 
 bless her ! " 
 
 Harvey was alone in the carriage that took 
 him up to Charing Cross. From all sides 
 Lady Grasmere's portrait smiled upon him. 
 He had distributed the photographs about the 
 seats. They were marvellous good company.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A LITTLE MORE MUSIC. 
 
 SOPWITH'S opera, Francesco, of Rimini, 
 was really going to be put on that season. 
 Almost every paper that Merceron picked up at 
 his club contained preliminary announcements 
 to this effect : the announcement direct, the 
 announcement indirect, the personal, the super- 
 fluous, every variety, and all bearing marks of 
 similar inspiration. Some of the illustrated 
 weeklies even indulged in portraits of the 
 gifted composer himself, and The Musical 
 Messenger, ever in the van, added an exclusive 
 biographical notice to the information already 
 imparted in its news columns. Sopwith's 
 likeness, too, was on the front page, a matter 
 10
 
 A Little More Music. 21 1 
 
 of ten guineas cash, or twenty guineas credit. 
 As Captain Mills had already stated, the sitter's 
 hair had gone to enormous lengths ; and, in 
 addition, pose, costume, and expression were 
 founded on easily recognisable precedent. 
 Sopwith, if this portrait did him justice, had 
 certainly been equal to the most popular con- 
 ception of the musical exterior. 
 
 Harvey smiled broadly over this transfor- 
 mation ; the careless bow and the velvet 
 coat, that had replaced the faultless garb 
 of the olden days, afforded him an unalloyed 
 delight. 
 
 " I wonder if the music 's half as good as old 
 Sop pity he doesn't call himself Soppesini ! " 
 he said, turning to the limited biography on 
 the subsequent page. 
 
 This last partook greatly of the nature of 
 those edifying fictions which are proclaimed by 
 their authors to be " largely founded on fact."
 
 212 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 The composer's nationality, his unimpeachable 
 British descent, were insisted upon with all the 
 fervour of the fourth-rate trade journalist over- 
 eager to propitiate his audience. A stirring 
 narrative ! Sopwith's feats as a lad, his brilliant 
 Oxford career, his successful songs, the pride 
 of his parents and their son's devotion, were 
 all deftly touched upon. Pathos and the 
 admirative note blended ; a character that 
 the ladies have unanimously agreed to term 
 "interesting" was unfolded in this pleasant 
 history. Harvey's smile grew broader. 
 
 Of the composer himself, however, Merceron 
 saw nothing ; for Sopwith pleaded pressure of 
 business to every suggested meeting, and, 
 indeed, judging by the amount of attention his 
 opera was already receiving, he must have 
 been indefatigable. So Harvey was left to 
 picture his perspiring friend, rushing breathless 
 from place to place in search of advertisement,
 
 A Little More Music. 213 
 
 with intervals for rehearsals and the seeing of 
 interviewers. 
 
 That distinguished patron of the arts, the 
 Marquis of Stoke, was more fortunate. Sopwith 
 had even attended a reception at Stoke House. 
 " A most talented young man ; and not above 
 accepting advice from his seniors," was his 
 host's description of him. Indirectly, too, 
 Merceron had gathered further tidings. Had 
 he not been more pleasantly occupied, he might 
 himself have encountered the mobile Sopwith, 
 for the composer was fully living up to former 
 precept, and securing all possible social notice. 
 But Harvey was in no mood for crushes, and 
 so allowed opportunity to pass him by. He 
 had a seat in Lady Grasmere's box for the first 
 night of Francesca, and meanwhile other and 
 more immediate calls occupied his time and 
 attention. 
 
 The Countess was back at Albert Gate, and
 
 214 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Harvey was troubling very little about Sopwith 
 or any other outside diversion just then. True, 
 he still went out a great deal, wherever Lady 
 Grasmere led the way. But she had withdrawn 
 considerably from last year's procession, and 
 moved now only around an inner circle that 
 kept reasonable hours and limited its entertain- 
 ments. To these functions Sopwith had no 
 access, for it required real social prestige to 
 obtain cards for such smaller festivities, whereas 
 most of the larger affairs were about as select 
 as a race-meeting. 
 
 Harvey was to dine with Lady Grasmere the 
 night that Sopwith's opera came on, and Mrs. 
 Hodgson was to be handed over to the Warings 
 both before and after the performance. The 
 conspirators had reserved that evening as soon 
 as the date had transpired, quick to seize upon 
 any opportunity for one of the few unchallenged 
 tete-a-tetes permitted them by the season's whirl.
 
 A Little More Music. 315 
 
 Their time would be their own in a month or 
 two. They had preferred the present course, 
 with Lady Horace and Mrs. Hodgson as sole 
 confidantes, to the formalities of a duly para- 
 graphed betrothal. 
 
 The evening, thus carefully set aside, arrived, 
 doubly attractive ; for, beside Lady Grasmere's 
 presence, there would be the diversion of a 
 spectacle which Harvey was looking forward 
 to with almost a personal interest. The first 
 night of Francesca meant more to him than the 
 presentation of a musical novelty written by an 
 intimate friend. The situation was primarily 
 one that he himself had but barely escaped ; 
 as such, would possess a spice of the exquisitely 
 egotistical, a flavour of self that few men are 
 permitted to enjoy without due sacrifice and 
 imminent risk. He knew, too, that Sopwith's 
 work would be largely influenced by his own 
 vanished method and vision. His step was
 
 216 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 more than ordinarily elastic as he walked over 
 to Albert Gate that evening. 
 
 It was close on seven when Harvey came in. 
 He had brought a spray of orchids for her 
 ladyship, and was visibly excited over the 
 evening's arrangements. Mrs. Hodgson met 
 him in the hall, ready for the cab that was to 
 take her to the Warings. 
 
 " Punctual," said she ; "such deception too ! " 
 with mock indignation. The Countess joined 
 them. "They're always hours late when 
 they're married," added Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 "I'm sorry," said Harvey. 
 
 "So am I," said the Countess. 
 
 " What about ? " asked Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 "T ..at you've brought Mr. Hodgson up so 
 wickedly," said Harvey. 
 
 " So shamefully ! " added the Countess. 
 
 "That's my cab," said Mrs. Hodgson, "and 
 I 'm only going to give him a shilling."
 
 A Little More Music. 217 
 
 They wished her good-night. 
 
 Dinner was ready, and the carriage would 
 take them down in good time for the overture. 
 
 " I almost feel as though I 'd written it 
 myself," declared Harvey, as they sat down. 
 " It 's more exciting than I thought it would 
 be : he 's not conducting himself I would 
 have done ! " 
 
 His eagerness was infectious, and, as they 
 dined, this new work was discussed with 
 multifarious speculations as to the treatment. 
 
 " The wind up ought to be splendid," 
 insisted Harvey. " Of course he will have 
 them put to death on the stage it '11 make a 
 splendid finale I feel quite envious ! " he 
 exclaimed with dancing eyes. 
 
 Lady Grasmere assisted, joining in with : 
 
 " It '11 be something like the finish of 
 Tristan, only more dramatic. Don't you 
 think so?"
 
 2i8 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " Yes ; only Lanciotto 's a brute, not a man 
 like King Mark and there 's no love philtre 
 or magic of any kind it's almost modern," 
 he answered, following out the comparison that 
 her question had suggested. 
 
 " I wonder whether they '11 have the scene in 
 The Inferno? It would make a fine tableau 
 at the end Dante watching them sail by." 
 
 But Harvey objected to this. 
 
 " It would be bad art quite .outside the 
 tragedy and one wouldn't quite see the force 
 of it unless one were a believing Papist," he 
 protested. 
 
 No external event had ever roused him as 
 this. She had never fully recognised the artist 
 in him till to-night. When he had played to 
 her, only the musician had been evident ; now, 
 the critic completed a personality that was full 
 of surprises. 
 
 Their light meal was swiftly served. Harvey
 
 A Little More Music. 219 
 
 was to come back afterwards for some supper. 
 There was time for a cigarette and coffee 
 before the carriage would be round. 
 
 The Countess was looking hard at Merceron 
 in the interval. She suddenly interrupted this 
 brown study, and came over to him. 
 
 " Harvey," she said probingly, " you 're 
 never going to get spoiled, are you?" 
 
 He shook his head in contradiction, won- 
 dering. 
 
 "You were quite your first self just now," 
 she resumed, "just now when we were guessing 
 what the opera was going to be like I was so 
 happy. Sometimes, of late, I think you've 
 lost a great deal," she continued, "and some- 
 times I'm sure I'm mistaken. I do so wish 
 that you'll never get like the other men one 
 knows, hard to please and critical and more 
 selfish than is absolutely necessary." She 
 smiled as she added this last item to the rest,
 
 22O An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 but there was an earnest, even an undernote 
 of sadness, running through her voice. 
 
 "I won't, darling; I didn't quite know that 
 I had altered I haven't, have I ? In fact," he 
 added, with evasive lightness, " the only 
 change I 've noticed is that I usually have a 
 brandy-and-soda in the morning which I 
 never used to." 
 
 She leaned over his shoulder and placed her 
 cheek on his : 
 
 " There 's no real difference, and you 're ever 
 so much nicer, really," she said, " but one 
 becomes machine-made if one lets one's self 
 go." 
 
 "That's just what I did at the beginning," 
 he gaily expostulated. 
 
 She smiled as well. 
 
 "I don't mean that sort, but getting in- 
 different just to save one's self the trouble of 
 thinking," she resumed ; " I know it 's easy,
 
 A Little Mere Muiic. 221 
 
 but, Harvey, I often think that that 's the 
 reason why half the men one meets are such 
 bores and some of them were such nice boys 
 once ! " 
 
 He kissed the dear face thoughtfully. 
 
 " I don't think I 'm ever likely to become a 
 vegetable ? " he said. 
 
 "You won't, will you? It's time we were 
 starting ! " 
 
 " You are no end of a dear," he whispered 
 five minutes later, as they sat in the brougham. 
 
 Her hand stole into his. 
 
 Outside roared London, with voice redoubled, 
 fully raised ; a chorus, joyous, gigantic, hailing 
 its evening release, trumpeting forth its 
 myriad anticipations. Westwards and east- 
 wards, through the sounding street, the traffic 
 surged, and pavements were gay with life and 
 motion. 
 
 Calm, as though filled with an unutterable
 
 222 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 peace, the blue of heaven showed above jhe 
 housetops, contrasting, almost consciously con- 
 trasting, with the strife below a protest and a 
 promise. 
 
 The carriage picked its way, through and 
 under, one of a hundred that that night 
 emptied before the portico of the Covent 
 Garden opera house. And now Harvey and 
 the Countess were in their box, studying the 
 programme and libretto of Sop with 's initial 
 flight, Francesca of Rimini.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STILL MORE MUSIC. 
 
 house was rapidly filling. A flowing 
 -* stream of fashionable arrivals poured 
 through the lobby, wound up the broad stair- 
 case, was dispersed in the curving corridors. 
 The doors of the countless boxes that wall the 
 auditorium, those doors whereon you may read 
 some of the proudest names in Europe, turned 
 ceaselessly on their hinges. A great crowd 
 manifestly attracted by an exceptional occasion 
 this unique performance was swiftly gather- 
 ing. Years had elapsed since the work of a 
 British-born composer had been presented in- 
 this classic house. 
 
 An air of expectancy, of anticipation, hung
 
 224 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 over the huge theatre. The performance that 
 was about to open had been heralded with no 
 common vigour. Long before the door had 
 flung back a swarming queue had gathered 
 about the entrances to the cheaper seats. The 
 amateurs of the gallery, those rigid connoisseurs 
 to whom such an evening meant a solid curtail- 
 ment of more material delights, had paid their 
 hard-earned silver and were preparing to sit in 
 judgment. They had studied the libretto, read 
 the evening paper, struck up casual acquaint- 
 anceships, or discussed the classics with feeling 
 and determination, the half-hour past. It was 
 hot up there terribly hot and crowded ; the 
 seats hard as inferior railway accommodation. 
 
 Below these serried ranks sat the suburban 
 enthusiast, feminine for the most part, who had 
 sent postal orders to the booking-office weeks 
 beforehand. A more serious and formal 
 company this, muttering occasional complaint
 
 Still More Music. 225 
 
 anent the inaccessibility of the score, occasion- 
 ally proclaiming its relationship to a press- 
 ticket in the stalls some critic whom publicity 
 had severed from the obscurity of the remnant. 
 The foreign element so marked here on other 
 nights, was conspicuously absent. The per- 
 formances of a British composer it looked upon 
 as an encroachment, as something " foul and 
 most unnatural." Here, as above, all was 
 compact and apprehensive, and the brilliant 
 light that emanated from the huge chandelier 
 showed no vacant seat. And the young 
 women who preponderated, attired in costumes 
 reminiscent of Liberty and the New Gallery, 
 waited eager and discovered celebrities, in the 
 mass below. 
 
 Even the stalls and boxes had shared in the 
 prevailing punctuality. Sopwith's friends and 
 patrons and their tale was legion had come to 
 
 shower applause and encouragement. Though 
 15
 
 226 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 to a certain extent lacking in the discrimination 
 of the cheaper seats, these later arrivals were 
 better dressed, and most of them had come in 
 their own carriages. They leavened the floor 
 of the house, they leaned over the cushions of 
 half the boxes. A certain satisfaction as of 
 proprietorship overspread their features ; the 
 sense of an almost personal share in the 
 evening's doings flattered agreeably. Even the 
 least susceptible responded to this subtle 
 invitation to play a gracious role. Their vanity 
 had been caressed by an appeal so delicate as 
 to have escaped consciousness. 
 
 Mingled with these dilettanti were the politer 
 members of the profession, wearers of the 
 laurel wreath, musicians of assured renown, 
 middle-aged or grey, who had come in to assist 
 at the enterprise of a junior ; a polyglot com- 
 munity of carefully groomed lions, leonine too 
 in the richness of their hirsute adornments;
 
 Still More Music. 227 
 
 men and women whom the platform had set 
 unmistakably apart from the pursuers of a less 
 florid career. Secure upon pedestals whose 
 stability no new arrival could endanger, these 
 famous champions twirled their moustachios, 
 and indulgently suffered the scrutiny of an 
 admiring public. The younger generation 
 was seated with its seniors, symbolising the 
 Millennium. A sterner and a more exacting 
 band this younger generation, it had evidently 
 come prepared to accept nothing but a score 
 entirely orchestral, methods the most advanced. 
 Technique was manifest on its unflinching front, 
 purity of feeling its most modest requirement ; 
 for the younger generation had lived and had 
 frequented the new academies, and now waited, 
 an uncompromising crew, gloomily expectant, 
 and pessimistically scenting a barbarous re- 
 jection of all its own most cherished theories. 
 In the stalls, too, were the critics, a row of
 
 228 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 strangely assorted faces bespeaking varieties of 
 temperament sufficient to furnish an anthro- 
 pological museum ; a veritable Noah's Ark 
 of representative types the thoughtful and 
 scholarly, severely conscientious and of an open 
 mind; the facile egotistical and the facile 
 plausible, both equally bent on concealment of 
 ignorance though differing in method ; the 
 accidentally critical, irresponsible and scintil- 
 lating ; the missionary enthusiastic, ardent and 
 filled with prophesy ; the sound and weighty, 
 unadventurous and shy of innovation ; the 
 prettily sensuous, emotional and ladylike ; the 
 Cockney brilliant, anarchic and in constant 
 opposition the list is endless. The woman- 
 critic too, the reticent and the gushing, the 
 classical and the flamboyant, was also in 
 pursuit. And interleaving this varied assembly 
 was the fashionable mob, bejewelled and 
 bediademed, the heroes and her6ines of
 
 Still More MuJ.c. 229 
 
 the London season, the children of light 
 whose ease and radiance had so shaken 
 our friend Merceron some nine months since, 
 when, with Hutchinson on his arm, he had 
 re-entered the world. 
 
 Now, above the chatter, the greetings and 
 speculations, the movement of all this eager 
 multitude, arose the scrapings and strange 
 noises of an orchestra making ready. This 
 tuning-up ceased and with it the well-bred 
 gossip. The conductor had stepped into his 
 place ; expectation electrified the air. 
 
 In the box where sat Harvey and Lady 
 Grasmere reigned an alert silence. The libretto 
 of Francesco, had been laid aside. They were 
 waiting. The conductor gave the signal. 
 From the 'cello yearned pianissimo the first 
 bars of the overture the overture to ISABELLA. 
 
 The violins swelled the movement, the flutes 
 and oboes softened the rising volume, and
 
 236 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Harvey sat in the semi-darkness wondering 
 whether he were asleep or waking. He looked 
 across at his companion, but she was listening 
 unmoved, an arm resting on the cushioned 
 front of their box. The quiet was unbroken, 
 the music continued, undisturbed save for the 
 rustle of a few late-comers tiptoeing to their 
 seats. The overture proceeded, ebbing and 
 flowing, theme melting into theme, as he had 
 planned it; no break in the familiar continuity, 
 episode on episode, till, at the end, only the 
 violins spoke, dwelling on that minor melody 
 which Harvey had improvised from that night 
 when he took train for London, when he had 
 played as never before for her. The incom- 
 plete thing sighed out its woe, a sweet enough 
 trifle too sweet, perhaps yet of a certain 
 grace and beauty ; an undeniably promising 
 youthfulness. The conductor's wand dropped. 
 The house hesitated a moment. Then Sopwith's
 
 Still More Music. 231 
 
 friends broke the silence, applauding from the 
 three quarters. Other hands followed, filling 
 the theatre with an encouraging echoing and 
 re-echoing. Merceron, deathly pale, was gazing 
 straight ahead, speechless and vaguely won- 
 dering as to what would follow upon this 
 opening of surprise and betrayal. 
 
 The curtain rose upon a splendid imposition, 
 upon a libretto transformed, an Isabella 
 masquerading as Francesca, a Lorenzo im- 
 personifying Paolo. Harvey's music had 
 been all but retained. The two stories were sc 
 nearly alike, and Sopwith had made full use of 
 opportunity, had deftly altered the libretto, yet 
 retained the setting Sopwith, the thief ! 
 
 Instead of the household of the two brothers, 
 the movement of the first act transpired at the 
 palace of the lord of Rimini. Very cleverly was 
 this transposition effected. The license of the 
 librettist had been taken full advantage of by
 
 232 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 the author of the book. He had retained the 
 exact form of the original version, had retold 
 his story in the very mould of Merceron's 
 Isabella. The two tales were so nearly alike, 
 and he had overlooked all difference, following 
 the expression, of the music, and unfolding his 
 tragic history with a singular dexterity. A 
 clever rogue undoubtedly was this librettist, 
 despite the many advantages of the situation. 
 For the most had been in his favour. The 
 suppressed passion of the lovers, half con- 
 fessed, yet only half suspected the two 
 narratives were identical. Their meetings, 
 clandestine in the one case, permitted in the 
 other, and then the avowal (here over the open 
 book that told of the fall of Lancelot and 
 Guinevere), the impassioned declaration that 
 followed their stories held no vital difference. 
 Merceron sat silent to the end, till that one 
 redeeming melody, Lorenzo's heated confession,
 
 Still More Music. 233 
 
 brought down the curtain on the opening act. 
 Again the audience wavered, till Sopwith's 
 friends leading the applause decided the unde- 
 cided. The lights flashed up, the singers 
 responded ; then a babel of chatter, a flourish 
 of critical pencils, and invasion. And all the 
 while Harvey had not spoken, nor had the 
 Countess. Their thoughts were speedily dis- 
 turbed. Sir Horace and Lady Waring had 
 come in with Mrs. Hodgson. 
 
 "Rather ambitious," ventured Sir Horace. 
 " Rather ambitious." But Harvey had no heart 
 for discussion. He wanted fresh air. 
 
 " I am going out to see a man excuse me 
 for a moment ? " he said, snapping his opera- 
 hat. Then he left them.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE VICTIMS. 
 
 HARVEY did not stay in the theatre. He 
 wanted to be alone, to be unobserved; 
 the load of the present was more than he 
 could openly support. The unfamiliar walls 
 repelled, the enclosed space stifled him ; every 
 face that he encountered was a new constraint ; 
 and his feelings must have free play, his frame 
 fresh air, or he would suffocate. 
 
 He crossed the hall and went out into the 
 street, escaping the light and the oppressive 
 contact of the audience ; turning away into a 
 dark and empty passage, one of the many that 
 open out on to the great market. Here he was 
 undisturbed, only one other pedestrian disputed 
 the seclusion. 
 
 34
 
 The Victims. 235 
 
 This alley of Merceron's was by night an 
 almost lifeless place, a strip of asphalt running 
 between the huge bulk of a row of warehouses 
 and a blank wall of the opera house that 
 adjoined a similar wall belonging to one of the 
 market buildings. These many-storied ware- 
 houses were dark and tenantless, only less 
 sombre than the opposing masonry; and through 
 these two silences ran the narrow passage, its 
 feeble gas-lamps waging hopeless warfare with 
 a darkness enclosed, hemmed in, and black 
 with shadow. 
 
 At the mouth of this byway there gleamed 
 the misty radiance of two opposing public- 
 houses ; yet between lay a more than sufficient 
 desert of gloomy asphalt. This, Harvey could 
 pace uninterrupted, alone with the resurgent 
 flood that had taken him by the throat and 
 forced him out of doors. 
 
 The man in front of Merceron reached the
 
 236 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 yellow glare from the two corners, but, instead 
 of continuing across the market, checked him- 
 self and turned. They passed each other in 
 the dim passage, and Harvey, unaware of the 
 retracement, went on to the public-house lights, 
 then back again. Once more they met on their 
 opposing beats. 
 
 The even footfalls in the empty street merged 
 imperceptibly into the rhythm of Harvey's 
 thoughts. In later years he never recalled this 
 interval of refuge, without an accompanying 
 understrain of steady footfalls. The man 
 repassed him, and he looked up. They were 
 near one of the gas-lamps. 
 
 " It's no go," said Merceron, "you're in for 
 it." 
 
 His imaginary conversation with Sopwith 
 was now replaced by a more real interview. 
 
 The composer halted, recognised the speaker, 
 with mind zigzaging till it reached a position
 
 The Victims. 237 
 
 that enabled it to grasp Harvey's remark, and, 
 approximately, his attitude. 
 
 " It breaks down, goes from bad to worse as 
 the story intensifies," continued Merceron, 
 very calmly, with the tone and manner of a 
 man facing an already accomplished fact. 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " asked Sopwith 
 uneasily. His voice acknowledged all the 
 old ascendency, the old instinctive faith in 
 Merceron's judgment the exaggerated belief 
 of the consciously unoriginal artist in the man 
 of convictions. 
 
 " It must fail, there 's nothing more for it to 
 live on, the rest 's all limp soft as butter." 
 
 " But they seemed pleased, they were clap- 
 ping all over the house just now and after the 
 overture," urged Sopwith. 
 
 "There was that one thing of Lorenzo's 
 but there 's nothing else left, it can't go on." 
 
 The composer listened like one doomed.
 
 238 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Merceron's words fell with a finality that over- 
 powered even the most laggard of his hopes. 
 
 " But you thought it good you were pleased 
 with it," he protested. 
 
 " I was when I wrote it the workmanship 
 is good, good enough to be proud of but 
 there 's no real life in it, the workmanship's all 
 wasted on unreal emotion," returned Harvey, 
 patiently dissecting Isabella, more for his own 
 delectation than for Sopwith's. He continued, 
 evenly as before, with an exasperating calm, 
 " I had no real experience, I was writing about 
 things I did not understand it's all ineffectual, 
 not a natural emotion in it except that glimmer 
 of a one they sang just now." 
 
 "But " Sopwith attempted. He could 
 
 get no further, could find no objection ; even 
 suspicion of Harvey's disinterestedness was 
 disarmed by the business-like exposition with 
 which he had just been favoured.
 
 The Victims. 239 
 
 " But ? " questioned Merceron who was 
 waiting. 
 
 "It may come through?" hazarded Sopwith, 
 more to supply an evident demand than from 
 any latent hopefulness. 
 
 Harvey shook his head. 
 
 " No, not this, perhaps the next, the next 
 may ; but you don't understand, you never will 
 understand." The futile words, the unintelli- 
 gence of his questioner, were wearying him. 
 He had said all he had to say. 
 
 Yet Sopwith remained, breaking out desper- 
 ately with : 
 
 " Why did you believe in it then why did 
 you believe in it ! " 
 
 " You know how I used to live, shut up from 
 everything, feeling everything with my head 
 instead of but you don't understand," replied 
 Merceron. He was growing impatient, the 
 interview was being needlessly prolonged.
 
 240 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 "But what shall I do what am / to do?" 
 demanded Sopwith in the voice of a drowning 
 man. "What shall I do!" 
 
 Harvey shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I don't know it 's your own fault." 
 
 But Sopwith defended himself. 
 
 "It isn't. I never meant to do this," he 
 whined ; " I never meant to do this ! " 
 
 Harvey took a pace forward, but the composer 
 followed him. 
 
 " You think me a thief ? " he said, clutching 
 at a lapel of Harvey's coat. 
 
 " I could but I 'm not bothering about that ! " 
 
 "But I'm not I'm not a thief! I was 
 trapped ! " 
 
 Merceron looked wonderingly at his erstwhile 
 friend. Was the man demented ? 
 
 " Trapped," repeated Sopwith, " trapped ! 
 You don't know what I 've had to put up with 
 all these months ; and now and now it 's
 
 The Victims. 
 
 going all wrong!" and he burst into tears, 
 breaking down completely, weeping hysterically 
 in that narrow passage, that strip of walled-in 
 asphalt, running back to where the yellow 
 lights shone from the two public : houses that 
 overlooked the great market. 
 
 Harvey had severed himself from his own 
 thoughts, was trying to follow the obscure 
 accusations of the abject wretch at his side. 
 
 " I don't understand," he said. 
 
 A faint sound as of a distant orchestra floated 
 on to the silence. 
 
 " They 're beginning again," said Sopwith. 
 He had pulled himself together, was listening 
 eagerly. " Isn't it any good ? It must be 
 some good it must be some good, or else they 
 wouldn't play it ! " he exclaimed with growing 
 conviction. The genuineness of the performance 
 must have some equally genuine justification, 
 
 some raison d'etre proportionately vigorous. 
 16
 
 242 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 But Harvey's gesture shattered the fugitive 
 assumption. The former tone returned, an even 
 greater degree of desperation than before. 
 
 " What am I to do afterwards ? I 'm quite 
 ruined I " Sopwith's hand still clutched the 
 lapel. " I 've put money into it every cent 
 I 've got, and I 've borrowed, and my reputa- 
 tion 's clean gone. I can't disclaim it and say 
 it's yours ; you won't say it 's yours, and if you 
 
 did " The distracted wretch paused, 
 
 speechless and dazed, as he began to realise 
 the multiplied hopelessness of his position, 
 the completeness of this checkmating. "What 
 am I to do whatever am I to do?" he was 
 sobbing afresh. " And all these months, as 
 though they weren't enough why did you 
 ask me to come that evening, and why weren't 
 you in ? I didn't want to take it 1 I hadn't 
 meant to take anything! I never took any- 
 thing in my life before or since 1 It's your
 
 The Victims. 243 
 
 doing, you and that man who let me in yours 
 and his ! " 
 
 Harvey's perplexity was growing. The 
 spectacle at which he was assisting had 
 swamped his own private drama. 
 
 " What do you mean by all this ? " he asked. 
 " What man, and who let you in ? I know 
 
 nothing about either of you, unless " He 
 
 paused. Was Sopwith referring to Hutchinson's 
 brother officer and his own former suspect ? 
 " What had the man to do with you ? " he 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 " Didn't he tell you, and don't you know ? 
 You must have asked him. You knew it was I 
 who took the music, didn't you ? " Sopwith's 
 voice rose with each question ; his companion's 
 ignorance seemed incredible. " You must have 
 asked him, and you knew it was I ? " he repeated. 
 " Why, you wrote me an insulting letter called 
 me an idiot twice 1 "
 
 244 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " I didn't. I only found you out to-night. 
 I told you I hadn't worried," Harvey briefly 
 replied. 
 
 " But you saw how I was keeping out of 
 your way, month after month ; and didn't that 
 man tell you that he let me in as he was 
 leaving ? " 
 
 " He was a friend of a friend, and I 've never 
 even seen him." 
 
 "And I made sure that he would tell you; 
 that you knew all the time. I Ve been miser- 
 able ever since, wondering what was going to 
 happen ; and yet I couldn't go back. You 
 don't know what I 've had to put up with ; and 
 now, my God ! this is more than I deserve ! 
 I 'm going to be paid out further, as though 
 I hadn't had enough already ! " and the miser- 
 able victim shook and swayed in a very passion 
 of remorse as the uselessness of all his plotting 
 drove deeper.
 
 The Victims. 245 
 
 Harvey steadied him against the wall. 
 
 " Boot laces, buy a pair " but the man 
 
 passed on without concluding his appeal. 
 Sopwith's face had silenced him. " Toffs ! " 
 he muttered ; " toffs ! No, 'tweren't booze 
 nor ill. Gawd bless you, sir ! " Harvey had 
 flung him a coin. He shuffled off towards the 
 lights at the corner. 
 
 The distant orchestra, itself tragi-comical, 
 still murmured, whispered its accompani- 
 ment to the tragi-comedy that was being 
 enacted in this remote byway of Central 
 London. 
 
 So Hutchinson's friend had waited, and 
 Sopwith had met him as he was leaving the 
 Down Street Chambers. The door had been 
 open and Sopwith had walked in. 
 
 He was still discoursing, raging against 
 misfortune, the tears beading his cheeks : 
 
 " Trapped ! trapped by you two ! "
 
 246 An Opera 6- Lady Grasmere. 
 
 He repeated the charge a dozen times. 
 
 " Supposing you consider your own share 
 of the business ? " suggested Harvey at 
 last. 
 
 But Sopwith flared up : 
 
 " He let me in, didn't he ? and you had 
 asked me to come. ... He wanted to 
 know if I were you first, and when I said 
 I wasn't he went downstairs, leaving your 
 door open for me to walk in ; and no one 
 knew I had come, and he didn't know who 
 I was." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Don't you see how I was tempted ? . . . 
 I was alone in your rooms, and nobody had 
 seen me come in except that man who didn't 
 know me from a crow. I sat down and waited 
 for you, meaning no harm ; and then suddenly 
 the temptation came. ... I knew how you 'd 
 worked on the thing, and that it was finished.
 
 The Victims. 247 
 
 ... I thought you were a genius, and that 
 that opera was a work of genius. . . . Don't 
 you see how I was tempted ? . . . And it was 
 in the cabinet, and no one knew I was there. . . . 
 I could get it put on if I had it, I was almost 
 sure of that ; I knew all the right people. . . . 
 And if you had it you would never do any good 
 with it ; you would never have troubled to get 
 it produced. You weren't the man to make up 
 to the management, to ask for favours, and 
 bother about all sorts of useful people. The 
 lock was almost rotten, it gave as soon as I 
 touched it ... and no one had seen me come 
 in, and no one saw me go out. That 'sail. . . . 
 And what else could I have done ? You know 
 how poor I am, and that I am not specially 
 clever. What could I do but take it ? ... It 
 wasn't stealing ... I never thought of it till 
 I 'd been there quite a time . . . and I 'd come 
 up because you 'd asked me to. . . . Everything
 
 248 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 helped to make me take it any musician would 
 have taken it ! ... It was almost an invitation 
 . . . And here am I punished and you two 
 allowed to go scot free! . . . And now you 
 say it 's no good you say it 's no good and 
 I 've put money into it ; and there 's my 
 name ! . . . Perhaps I deserve something . . . 
 but not this ! . . . I 've been miserable all 
 these nine months. . . . There was that 
 letter I wrote you saying I 'd been up the 
 river ... I thought that man would upset 
 it ... a perfect hell it 's been ! . . . And I 've 
 still got to pay the man who altered your 
 libretto ... I believe he suspects . . . And 
 now what 's that ! " 
 
 Sopwith's lamentations had ceased, he had 
 started back, was listening eagerly, madly, with 
 the face of a famished beast awakening to the 
 distant plash of water. 
 
 "They're clapping they're clapping!" he
 
 The Victims. 249 
 
 cried. "You devil you lying hound!" Then 
 he made off, escaping by various narrow streets 
 to the stage-door. 
 
 Harvey was alone. The muffled sound of 
 far-away applause had replaced the droning of 
 the distant orchestra.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GHOSTS. 
 
 TTARVEY'S self-possession had returned to 
 1 -- him. The interview with Sopwith was 
 succeeded by a calm, a passionate quietude; 
 his nerves were steel, his thoughts perfectly 
 controlled. His will power now gripped his 
 whole being as in a vice. The tumult, the 
 fever of revolt, which had seized upon him in 
 the theatre, had given way to this colder 
 passion. Sopwith's hysteria and incoherence 
 had confronted him, a blurred reflection of his 
 own excess, a danger-signal warning him of 
 his own nearness to the chaotic. 
 
 He had left Lady Grasmere's box with a 
 mind whirling methodless and destructive 
 
 350 '
 
 Ghosts. 251 
 
 through his own career : for, with this re- 
 introduction to Isabella, to this work of his, 
 to this epitome of all that had been altruistic 
 in his life, the musician had reawakened ; the 
 master-passion that had slumbered these nine 
 months had opened wide its eyes, had called 
 to him, and he had leapt upright at the sound. 
 The craving of the artist to bring forth, the 
 hunger to create, and the irresistible impulse 
 towards expression, the full lust of conquest, 
 had returned a tide broad as infinity. Rushing 
 and foaming and tumbling, it had swept down 
 all the little dykes which he had built. And he 
 had breasted these waters, had struck out alone 
 from the dry land, had turned his face from all 
 his erstwhile sheltering places such refuges 
 were pitiful 1 The half-life he had been leading, 
 the people he had led it with, were alike pitiful 
 and infirm. Theirs was the true half- world. 
 The desire to be alone, alone with the present
 
 252 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 and the future, alone as henceforth he must 
 always be, had impelled him out of doors. 
 He had taken his agony into the street, had 
 paced up and down with it, till Sopwith had 
 met him with another drama. 
 
 At first a play of marionettes, this drama of 
 Sopwith's had not impinged until from the 
 pigmy spectacle had developed a more pressing, 
 immediate, active drama than Harvey's own, 
 a tragi-comedy that had turned his inward- 
 looking eyes outward. Only caused him to 
 reverse his gaze, no single emotion. The com- 
 poser's ragings had left him unmoved, for the 
 material success or non-success of Isabella had 
 no share in his own plight, and his fatherhood 
 was intact a wilderness of Sopwiths could not 
 deprive him of this fatherhood, although they 
 might steal his child. The one effect of the 
 composer's moral dishevelment was to cause 
 Harvey to turn his gaze outward ; and he had
 
 Ghosts. 253 
 
 recognised the drunken helot, a chaos that 
 neared his own. The spectacle made him 
 gather in his wandering senses, revert to 
 sobriety. By the time that Sopwith had 
 rushed off, reanimated by his audience's 
 applause, Merceron had come to a complete 
 understanding with himself. He regained the 
 Countess' box, erect and self-possessed. 
 
 Lady Grasmere was surrounded by a changing 
 group of visitors, the interval before the last 
 act was at its noon. She gave Harvey a smile 
 of welcome as he entered, and, for a moment, 
 his own face softened. 
 
 Only Lady Waring remarked upon his 
 lengthy absence, pouncing down upon him 
 with 
 
 " Drove you away, did it ; come now, it 
 wasn't quite as bad as all that ? " 
 
 "A matter of taste," returned Harvey, grimly 
 calm.
 
 254 An Opera & Lady Grasmcre. 
 
 The Marquis of Stoke turned to him. 
 
 "Your friend, Mr. Sopwith, will have to try 
 again. I don't say but that he has the root of 
 
 the matter in him, but at present " The 
 
 tone of the voice and a gesture completed the 
 sentence. 
 
 " Perhaps he will try again," said Harvey. 
 
 Here a Lady Soames joined in the discussion. 
 
 "The second act rather missed fire," she 
 shrilly declared ; " but there 's the third 
 the third may pull it off, don't-cher know," 
 and she wagged her head mysteriously. 
 She was the proprietress of a well-known 
 racing stable, and therefore a woman of 
 much experience. 
 
 The Countess had made no remark. 
 
 The discussion continued. 
 
 " That song in the first act was quite pretty ; 
 I shall have to get that song," said Lady 
 Waring.
 
 Ghosts. 255 
 
 " Wonder where he took it from ? " drawled 
 a well-known critic, who formed one of the 
 company. 
 
 "Think he think he inserted it?" asked 
 Lady Soames. 
 
 "That has been done before," the Marquis 
 gravely intoned. 
 
 Lady Grasmere was still only a listener. 
 
 The Marquis continued : 
 
 " I am disappointed ; the work is not what 
 it should be not what it should be." 
 
 "A sincere opinion is always valuable, ' 
 Harvey slowly returned ; " even when it is 
 worthless," he added, grimly. 
 
 Lady Horace, who had heard, shook a fore- 
 finger at him. 
 
 " Wicked," she said, laughing, " very 
 wicked ! " 
 
 Lord Stoke was unconsciously proceeding 
 with further deliverances.
 
 256 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 "Who's the American girl in the Bullers* 
 box ? " asked Lady Soames. 
 
 " Pretty girl, isn't she ? " said the critic ; 
 " I thought she was French." 
 
 " Only the hair : the face is American, and 
 .so 's the jewellery," diagnosed one of the men. 
 
 The conversation drifted from Sopwith's 
 opera into more familiar channels. Only the 
 Marquis clung to matters musical. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said to Harvey; "I thought 
 the young man might have made a beginning. 
 There's a want of it we English are terribly 
 backward." 
 
 " He 's young," answered Harvey, with 
 twitching nerves. 
 
 "Yes yes," the Marquis dubiously agreed. 
 
 They were interrupted by a new-comer, a 
 lady whose evening had been a distracting 
 medley of curiosity and generous applause. 
 
 " What do you think of it, Marquis ? "
 
 Ghosts. 257 
 
 She rattled on without giving the old 
 gentleman a chance of venting an opinion. 
 
 "We've all been clappin' as hard as we 
 could. Mr. Sopwith 's such a nice young man, 
 and so very interesting ; he dined with us the 
 night before last, and we all promised we 'd 
 come and see him through : you '11 keep it 
 up afterwards, and make him come on ; and 
 you, too, Mr. Merceron ? " she pleaded. 
 
 And Mrs. Hopgood-Smyth smiled her sweetest 
 on them and Lady Grasmere, then darted off 
 to another box. Besides applauding herself, 
 she was evidently bent on being the cause of 
 applause in others. 
 
 " I 'm going back to Mrs. Hodgson and Sir 
 Horace he's looking lonely!" cried Lady 
 Waring, laying down an opera-glass. "Any- 
 body supping at the Savoy you you ? " She 
 looked round as she spoke. "No no? See 
 you again then. Good-night."
 
 258 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 " What are you going to say about the 
 thing?'' asked someone of the critic. 
 
 " State secret," he answered mysteriously 
 " I must go downstairs again and find out 
 can't think about music up here." 
 
 He accentuated the compliment with a 
 gallant inclination towards Lady Grasmere, 
 and then went en to the verandah and smoked 
 a cigarette, pondering over the new American 
 beauty, his tailor's bill, Saturday's damnation 
 of Francesca, and various other matters, till 
 the bell rang for the final act. 
 
 In Lady Grasmere's box the coming and 
 going continued. The previous conversations 
 were repeated with temperamental differences. 
 Harvey, rigidly courteous, suffered all these 
 bland inanities, could even afford to smile over 
 them. For to-morrow he would be rid of all 
 these people, he would be at work again, and 
 all these peacocking nonentities with their
 
 Ghosts. 259 
 
 strident voices, steady conceit, and hundred 
 limitations even their very ignorance was 
 limited, he reflected with a certain grim mirth- 
 fulness all these sawdust masqueraders would 
 be but an absurd recollection. 
 
 The chatter about him ran on to the end, 
 till the conductor reappeared. And all the 
 while Lady Grasmere had said no word to 
 him ; indeed, he had hardly heard her voice.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ERRORS AND COMEDY. 
 
 THE curtain had risen on the final act of 
 Francesca of Rimini, and once more the 
 audience was silent; only the orchestra filled 
 the darkened house with sound. Harvey sat 
 alone with Lady Grasmere, half expecting that 
 she would seize upon the opportunity and 
 question him ; but no, she was apparently 
 occupied with the scene before them, the 
 stage whereon Paolo and Francesca were 
 energetically misinterpreting the third act of 
 Isabella. 
 
 Harvey had had some difficulty with this 
 last part of his libretto, had been obliged to 
 diverge considerably from Boccaccio's story: 
 
 00
 
 Errors and Comedy. 261 
 
 entirely omitting the incident of the pot of 
 basil, and, with it, the lingering termination of 
 the original. Instead, by substituting a con- 
 tinuous and swifter action, he had brought his 
 story to a more conventional, though no less 
 tragic, close. The hunting-party in the forest 
 was the first episode of the final act. The two 
 brothers entered and reiterated their intention 
 to slay the hapless Lorenzo, then hid behind 
 some trees. The tenor followed, his face " flush 
 with love," and giving utterance to his feelings. 
 He was interrupted by the brothers, who first 
 killed and then, buried him, amid orchestral 
 wailings. They departed, making way for 
 Isabella and her nurse. The former explained 
 how she had had a vision, wherein she had 
 seen her lover murdered and his body hidden 
 upon that very spot. She recognised various 
 landmarks common to the two localities the 
 forest of the vision and this forest. A voice
 
 262 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 broke in upon her sad declamation. She 
 listened. It was Lorenzo answering her, 
 telling her of his treacherous murder and his 
 undying love. She staggered to the "fresh 
 thrown mould," responded in an ebbing death- 
 song, and expired upon her lover's grave. So 
 ended Isabella. 
 
 Sopwith and his librettist had had a great 
 many difficulties to contend against in the 
 manipulation of this portion of the score and 
 book. The whole course of events was 
 altogether different, but in spite of these dis- 
 couragements, the pair had worked wonders. 
 For the forest they had substituted a dungeon 
 in the Castle of the Lord of Rimini. Here 
 the lovers were imprisoned. Francesca opened 
 the Act with Isabella's recitative, lamenting her 
 own and her lover's impending doom in very 
 similar terms to Isabella's account of the vision. 
 Paolo interrupted this mournful declamation
 
 Errors and Comedy. 263 
 
 with Lorenzo's answering tones, transposed, 
 more robustly set for he was not singing from 
 somewhere underground. He, too, discoursed 
 of imminent death, of his undying affection. 
 Then Lanciotto and his favourite minion 
 entered, sword in hand, and delivered themselves 
 in a manner precisely similar to the bass and 
 baritone threatenings of the two brothers in 
 the legitimate opening scene. Paolo defied 
 them with Lorenzo's flushed utterance, which 
 was cut short by a slaughtering identical with the 
 bloodshed of the genuine version. Francesca 
 was also despatched, and the curtain descended 
 amid the orchestral wailings. 
 
 So terminated Sopwith's noisily heralded 
 music-drama, Francesca of Rimini, a thing of 
 splendid opportunities imperfectly grasped, a 
 wonderful story marred by impotent treatment, 
 a youthful extravagance, fruit of a too eager 
 brain, of juvenile impatience a work entered
 
 264 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 into rashly, heedlessly, an undertaking blindly 
 pursued, and pathetic with the reckless daring 
 of inexperience. 
 
 Through the whole opera there ran an 
 irritating air of largeness, a mock-perfection that 
 angered ; for the workmanship was carried out 
 with a care, an acuteness, a deftness of touch 
 and an unsparing devotion at once pitiful and 
 grotesque. It seemed as though the composer, 
 lacking all intimacy with Life, had perforce 
 vented all his powers upon this framework, 
 upon the vase wherein he had bestowed his 
 artificial flowers. A very emblem and a monu- 
 ment was this opera. Soaring youth articulate 
 had chiselled it, overspread it, had fed it with 
 its own vague emotions, undisciplined now and 
 now hesitant, its own incertainties ; had filled 
 it with its own blind impulses, shrinkings, and 
 labours misapplied the errors that chasten. 
 The work, though ineffectual, was brave
 
 Errors and Comedy. 265 
 
 enough and clean with honest endeavour. 
 There was, indeed, no cause for shame in the 
 effort ; its public appearance was its one sin, it 
 had no right to thrust itself thus brazenly upon 
 a busy world. The conscientious and scholarly 
 critic in the stalls viewed the thing not 
 altogether unfavourably. Of that whole 
 audience, perhaps he and Harvey alone knew 
 Isabella's proper place, assessed it at its real 
 value. It had taught its author how to write. 
 Matter, direct and sure emotion, the great 
 sanity, might come with the years. 
 
 The curtain had fallen amid a stubborn 
 silence that ended in a sigh of relief. The 
 gallery and amphitheatre sought its hat, heavily 
 disappointed, yet bearing the blow without a 
 murmur; for there were patriotic as well as 
 musical issues at stake. 
 
 Francesca of Rimini, with all its faults, was 
 of native growth, was deserving of sympathy
 
 266 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 as the plucky though unsuccessful attempt of a 
 British composer to attain to a place beside 
 the pre-eminent foreigner. More in sorrow 
 than in anger, therefore, did the multitude 
 prepare for departure. 
 
 In the boxes and stalls, however, a different 
 and a less "sentimental spirit prevailed. Here 
 the decorum, the self-respect of the upper 
 circles was replaced by a far-spreading display 
 of foolishness. Sopwith's friends and patrons, 
 the Mrs. Hopgood-Smyths and their compeers, 
 beat their gloved hands together, and made 
 their men-folk join this acclamation. As before, 
 a wave of artificial and ill-considered applause 
 was set in motion by the occupants of the more 
 expensive portions of the house. But this 
 time the cheaper seats refused to swell the 
 hubbub, remained cold, unresponsive, were not 
 to be inveigled into the deception. Resent- 
 ment rather filled the honest gods at this vain
 
 Errors and Comedy. 267 
 
 argument. Their good-nature had been already 
 strained to its extreme. 
 
 The applause continued, sustained, persistent. 
 Two or three ominous hisses, protestant from 
 the gallery, blended with the noise from below, 
 were drowned, however, by the opposition ; and 
 the clapping continued, redoubling in vigour as 
 the curtain rose upon the performers, was aided 
 by a hundred voices as Sopwith appeared, 
 bland, clean-shaven, a flower in his coat, 
 apparently none the worse for his recent 
 collapse the very image of his published 
 portrait. 
 
 The vain applause reached its full limits as 
 he bowed his thanks, hand on heart a pleasing 
 embodiment of conscious merit chastened by 
 modesty. The offended deities chafed at the 
 spectacle. By now the situation was fully 
 revealed to them ; they had recognised the 
 relationship between claque and composer,
 
 268 An Opera & Lady Grasmerg. 
 
 their outraged sentiment had found voice, 
 their resentment liberal expression. The 
 Briton, who had spared the victim of honour- 
 able defeat, showed less mercy to the charlatan, 
 the humbug. 
 
 The welcome from the stalls and boxes was 
 now but barely audible above a rising volume 
 of groans and hisses. The composer's friends, 
 hopelessly outnumbered and already at fullest 
 tension, at the extreme limit of their powers, 
 tried to prevail, to hold their own. But the 
 raging up above increased, grew to a sibillant 
 roar, a tempest that carried all before it. They 
 were overpowered ; their counterings swallowed 
 up, drowned and lost, sunk to a mere undistin- 
 guishable item of the general outcry, had 
 at last gone to swell the furious protest from 
 above. A new comer, entering at this moment, 
 would have fancied the house unanimous in its 
 condemnation, have suspected no warring of
 
 Errors and Comedy. 269 
 
 divided interests. Even the bowing Sopwith 
 was taken aback, dumbfounded by the swiftness 
 of this inversion, had failed to keep pace with 
 his audience's apparent change of front. 
 
 Prey to a fresh series of violent transforma- 
 tions, his unhappiness was unmistakable. Once 
 more he had been victimised, deluded, trapped; 
 once more his child-like confidence and trust 
 had been rewarded by a rude betrayal. A 
 sudden fall of the curtain hid him from the 
 audience, ended the hubbub, and he was left 
 alone upon the boards to face the furious 
 management. 
 
 Thus ended the first and last performance of 
 Sopwith's initial effort towards the regenera- 
 tion of the British Operatic Stage ; in a scene 
 memorable alike to spectators and participants, 
 a scene that afforded the critics even more 
 scope than the work itself, the musical world 
 an even greater degree of delectation.
 
 270 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 Harvey, impassive as a Beethoven, dis- 
 playing even some of that master's greatness 
 in the stoicism with which he received impact 
 after impact, a succession of shocks that would 
 have doubly and trebly destro\ed the com- 
 posure of a lesser man, had looked on im- 
 perturbable, through the final act, with its 
 succeeding engagement, rout, debacle. For his 
 thoughts were rather on the morrow than on 
 any present spectacle ; he was reserving his 
 powers for a greater work than the pursuit 
 of an ignominious imposition, was saving his 
 energies for the larger combat. The failure 
 of Isabella caused him neither regret nor 
 surprise ; he recognised the opera merely as 
 a probationary exercise, a 'prentice-work pre- 
 liminary to mastership. As for the unan- 
 nounced effects which followed, the audience's 
 contributions, their additions to the official 
 harmonies, he had taken these lightly, more
 
 Errors and Comedy. 271 
 
 as an interested spectator than as something 
 affecting himself. 
 
 When, after the finale, the Hopgood-Smyths 
 had vented vain applause, Harvey had smiled 
 incredulously and helped the Countess into 
 her cloak; at Sopwith's unexpected reappear- 
 ance, curiosity had blended with his scepticism. 
 The gallery's rising disapproval made him 
 pause. 
 
 " Surely it wasn't bad enough for all this 
 fuss heaven save a man from such friends!" 
 he said to Lady Grasmere who, standing 
 beside him, was following the spectacle. 
 
 She nodded acquiescence, and then the duello 
 that ensued, with its swift termination in one 
 general, undistinguishable demonstration of 
 disgust, eclipsed the first interest. Harvey, 
 quick to feel the workings, the several provoca- 
 tions which had given rise to this tumult, 
 sympathised momentarily with the upper
 
 272 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 circles, the outraged deities above. Momen- 
 tarily, however ; for at last the sublimity of 
 his own position reached him, crowned this 
 bevy of unrealities with the one essential, the 
 one deep-rooted fact. He recognised in himself 
 the unseen dramatist. It was he who had set 
 these players in motion. Without him, all this 
 theatre, with its perspiring audience, disordered 
 composer, performers and management, had 
 been but an empty shell. 
 
 The situation was one of appalling comedy. 
 Insistent and farcical there occurred to him 
 the makings of an additional scene, a culmina- 
 tion and a climax worthy of the occasion. 
 What if he should cry "SILENCE! " from his 
 box and explain that he was the real culprit, the 
 identical; that they were wasting their energies, 
 their wind and muscle upon an innocent man ; 
 that the wretch they were hounding was 
 altogether blameless; that they, he, Sop with,
 
 Errors and Comedy. 273 
 
 the whole company, were the victims of a chain 
 of unforeseen circumstances which he himself 
 had set in motion ! And Harvey laughed aloud 
 over his suppressed oration. How the popular 
 novelist would have revelled in it, with what 
 melodrama would he have engarlanded such a 
 speech delivered under such circumstances ! 
 The falling of the curtain interrupted this train 
 of thought, the people were leaving and Sopwith 
 had disappeared. 
 
 Merceron and the Countess descended the 
 broad staircase, the crowd at their elbows, 
 behind and before them, filling the entrance 
 hall and passing homewards amid the flash of 
 carriage lamps, the rattle of hoof and harness. 
 The air was full of exclamations, flying dis- 
 cussions, and the immediate. 
 
 Nine months ago years they seemed to 
 Harvey as he looked down upon this com- 
 motion he and Hutchinson had stood atten- 
 18
 
 274 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 tive upon that self-same spot, had watched this 
 self-same crowd. With what other feelings, 
 what other attitude, what reversals of present 
 emotion ! Years ago it seemed to Harvey ! 
 But the Countess' man had caught his eye, had 
 come forward touching his hat. Now Lady 
 Grasmere and he were in the brougham, alone 
 together,' and rolling towards Albert Gate. 
 
 Poor Harvey ! if there had been anything of 
 pain, anything of struggle, if he had at all 
 suffered that night, it was now that his real 
 trial and torment were to begin 1
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ERRORS AND CORRECTIONS. 
 
 'T^HE carriage rolled steadily homewards 
 * a short enough journey ; yet to Harvey, 
 with mind bent and fixed upon the one im- 
 pending certainty, laden with the one harrowing 
 resolve, that drive was long and heavy as some 
 final trundling towards a place of execution. 
 With a heart leaden-weighted, impervious to 
 all save the sense of this one burden, he sat 
 speechless beside the woman from whom he 
 was now to part, whom he must now renounce 
 with the rest, wiih all the misplacement and 
 glitter of the last nine months. 
 
 Their silence ,vas well-nigh unbroken. Only 
 touch, the almost impalpable pressure of her
 
 276 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 wrappings, of the silken draperies that imagi- 
 nation warmed with the shape they enclosed, 
 spoke to Harvey was but once interrupted. 
 
 "You wrote that music?" she had asked; 
 and he had assented with an absent " Yes." 
 
 At last they reached the house. Automati- 
 cally half, reduced to sub-sensations, he followed 
 her up the stairs to the little drawing-room 
 where she had received him that first after- 
 noon ; after his dreary vigil in the Park, his 
 happy questioning of Carter- Page. 
 
 Here a light supper was laid out, upon a 
 table just large enough to accommodate the 
 two of them. 
 
 "I am rather hungry," said the Countess, 
 handing over wraps and outer encumbrances 
 to her maid. "You need not sit up for me, 
 nor need Mason Mrs. Hodgson has a key," 
 she added, dismissing the girl. 
 
 "Good-night, madam."
 
 Errors and Corrections. 277 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 Harvey and the Countess were alone. 
 
 The moment that Merceron was awaiting 
 had at last arrived, when he must tell her 
 the bitter truth and beg forgiveness. Pale, 
 very pale, yet set and determined, he now 
 stood before her. 
 
 She was watching him, reading between the 
 lines on his face; and, tender as always, was 
 swift to put him out of initial misery, to break 
 the ice-bound silences from which he must 
 emerge. 
 
 "Harvey," she gently observed, "you have 
 said nothing to me for hours and you want 
 to." 
 
 The ice was broken. 
 
 He had seated himself, was leaning forward, 
 elbow on knee, supporting his head with the 
 clenched hand that was pressed against his 
 cheek. Suffering was on the face he exposed,
 
 278 An Opera < Lady Grasmere. 
 
 yet resignation also ; once more he was master 
 in his own house. 
 
 The Countess remained standing ; looked 
 down upon him, an arm resting above the 
 unlit fireplace. 
 
 " I have come back with you, to ask your 
 forgiveness," said Harvey, "to ask you to 
 forget." 
 
 There was no halting in his voice, no hesi- 
 tation ; rather an added clearness, a roundness 
 of tone consistent with the weight of what he 
 uttered. 
 
 Her eyes bade him continue. 
 
 " To ask your forgiveness," he repeated, " to 
 ask you to forget. I first met you at a masked 
 ball, and I have been masquerading ever since." 
 
 Her eyes were still upon his face, unmoved, 
 unsaddened. 
 
 "Not intentionally, believe me, nor con- 
 sciously," he continued ; " I, too, was deceived
 
 Errors and Corrections. 279 
 
 by my disguise, believed in it with you. I 
 thought that I really was the man you have 
 known. It was a mistake, and I have misled 
 you as well ; you whom I love, whom I shall 
 always love." 
 
 He paused, checking the passion that the 
 thought, the actuality, had brought forth ; then, 
 resuming : 
 
 " I imagined that I was able to live the life 
 we have been leading, that I could belong to 
 your world. I have made a mistake, have led 
 you to share in it. I have been deceiving you 
 all, myself as well have been assuming the 
 man of fashion, the idler. I am not as I pre- 
 tended ; but a common workman, an ordinary 
 labourer, artist if you will ; neither fashionable 
 nor leisured." 
 
 Her eyes showed no wincing, were tranquil 
 as before. She listened, changing no line of 
 the face turned to his own, without visible
 
 280 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 emotion ; as though she had already heard his 
 words and answered them, long ago long ago. 
 
 " Come back to the beginning with me," he 
 continued, "and you will understand, perhaps 
 pardon me ? " 
 
 His voice was lower now, had sunk by several 
 keys, when he resumed : 
 
 " I wrote to-night's opera. This was the 
 work I had undertaken, had willingly slaved at, 
 had shut myself up with, for those three years. 
 It was but barely finished the night I first met 
 you and your world. How bright and joyous 
 it all seemed to me, after my years of solitude, 
 you can well imagine. I had gone out that 
 night, my mind perfectly free, no haunting 
 sense of work waiting and unfinished, the first 
 time for many months. London was new to 
 me, a revelation. We dined in town and went 
 to the Opera afterwards. I had seen no people 
 like those around me for years. And then
 
 Errors and Corrections. 281 
 
 came the Stoke ball. I met you there ; you, 
 the representative, the embodiment of this 
 beautiful world which I had just discovered. 
 I went home that night forgetful of all else, 
 and bent on following, on giving up the old 
 ambitions vain, unsubstantial, frivolous, they 
 seemed, beside the reality of the existence 
 I had just witnessed." 
 
 His voice was lower now ; yet fuller and 
 more vibrant than before, had deepened as the 
 heart beyond had deepened, opened wider ; 
 as the thought expressed, the feelings exposed, 
 were the more and more reserved, secret, and 
 inward. And she, silent, motionless, was still 
 looking down upon him with gaze untroubled. 
 
 " I went home that night, ardent, intoxicated, 
 resolved on joining you," he had continued ; 
 " resolved on beginning my life afresh, on 
 making it as yours, on devoting every gift, 
 every possession, to this new service. So I
 
 282 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 willed. For hours I revelled further, planning, 
 anticipating ; vaingloriously measuring my zest, 
 my strength and aptitude. And to make this 
 new course the more secure, to complete this 
 utter severance from my former state, I hastened 
 to destroy my opera. Thus would the previous 
 years be quite obliterated and laid waste, all 
 they held, their promise return would be 
 impossible. I determined to burn this work 
 of mine, but instead, discovered that, during 
 my absence, it had been stolen. My music 
 had disappeared. The incident almost amused 
 me, for the thief had but saved me trouble ; 
 my opera was to all intents and purposes 
 destroyed. So I fancied. I was free, my life 
 contained but that day ! 
 
 " The rest you have seen, have shared in ; 
 how well I played my part deceiving you, 
 deceiving myself, with what double-edged 
 success I spread illusion, you know. Then
 
 Errors and Corrections. 283 
 
 came to-night. To-night, when this music 1 
 thought to have escaped confronted me, ghost- 
 like, admonishing, recalling my former s elf, my 
 real, my only self; returned, awakened me to 
 the truth. Told me that I was masquerading, 
 that my place was not that of idle listener and 
 drone. That I was made for work, that I had 
 in me a certain coarseness, a hardness, a 
 brutality, a something different from the people 
 amongst whom I was living ; a latent force, 
 concealed, dormant all this time or struggled 
 against till to-night, when it seemed to break 
 loose, to overpower me, claiming me for another 
 destiny than the one I had willed. And I must 
 follow must follow! " 
 
 His voice was heavy now, dull, with its sense 
 of the inevitable, and worn with struggle. He 
 continued, with an effort : 
 
 " I must follow. I do not belong here ; my 
 place is outside. I must give up everything.
 
 284 An upera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 The middle course is to be a Sopwith. It 
 seems almost as though Providence had ar- 
 ranged this theft, then flung my work back at 
 me a call, a call ! " 
 
 Memories were these words of what had 
 filled him during his escape from the crowded 
 Opera House; his jaded mind could encompass 
 no more. Her first movement, a step towards 
 him made audible by the rustle of her gown, he 
 instinctively met, as one of protest ; attempted 
 a reply, with feeble parryings, lamed echoes of 
 what had gone before. 
 
 " This is stronger than I am," he repeated ; 
 "I must go utterly away and work . . . and 
 you whom I have cheated and betrayed . . 
 will you not try to forgive me, to forget me ? . . . 
 It seems almost as though Providence is forcing 
 me, has called to me . . .** 
 
 " Yes, Harvey, yes ; but you have only heard 
 half 1" she interposed.
 
 Errors and Corrections. 285 
 
 He looked up into her face, met her eyes 
 fully for the first time since he had entered. 
 He looked up into her face, expecting blows ; 
 but, instead, she was radiant with tears and 
 smiles, a penetrating happiness. 
 
 " Harvey, my poor boy, I am so glad so 
 glad!" 
 
 She had come over to him, knelt before him, 
 with those strangely bright eyes of hers opposite 
 to his own. Her cool hands soothed his aching 
 forehead. What did this mean ? But she gave 
 him no time to explain this reversal of all fore- 
 bodings, to follow his vague misgivings. 
 
 " I am so glad, Harvey ! I was waiting for 
 this ; I have watched for this ; I knew it was 
 coming ! It is what I have hoped for, longed 
 for, all the time, and I am so happy ! " 
 
 The perplexity that crossed his face was 
 answered by : 
 
 " Do I not love you, Harvey ; and does not
 
 286 An Opera & Lady Grasmerc. 
 
 love know and feel and see everything ? Did 
 you think you could hide anything from me? 
 Oh, Harvey, I knew all you have told me to- 
 night, knew it all long ago almost from the 
 first ! I knew that you were not made for this 
 kind of life have I not said as much to you 
 time and time again ? But you were too happy 
 to understand then. And, Harvey dear, what 
 if you do work ! Do you think that I could 
 love an idle man, a man of no ambitions ? I 
 knew that you were a common labourer, an 
 ordinary workman perhaps that is why I 
 loved you. Oh, Harvey, do you think that I 
 am content with these husks, that I am content 
 to dodder through life with empty hands? No, 
 dear, I too am stifling ! And we are going out 
 into the free air together, to work and to share, 
 to help each other. You will want help, and 
 you will want love as I, Harvey, as I ! " 
 Her words came to him warm, glowing,
 
 Errors and Corrections. 287 
 
 reviving his spent forces with their generous 
 heat. His hands stole over hers as she con- 
 tinued : 
 
 " We will not part now," she said, " and 
 dear, my poor tired Harvey, you have only 
 half understood it all. Do you not see what 
 the last nine months mean ? " she asked, "what 
 they have done for you, why they were neces- 
 sary ? Do you not see that without me, with- 
 out these nine months, you would still be what 
 you were the man who wrote to-night's music, 
 the man who failed ? Who failed because he 
 knew nothing of real men and women, nothing 
 about himself. And now, dear, we know these 
 things. And to-morrow, the new man, the 
 man that these nine months, that I have made 
 of you yes, /, Harvey," she triumphantly 
 repeated, " this new m n goes back to work. 
 Different work from that we heard to-night, 
 eh, Harvey ? "
 
 288 An Opera & Lady Grasmere. 
 
 He drew her gently to him. " You have 
 forgiven me? " he asked; then added, " I was 
 inside it all, and it is so difficult to see things 
 clearly when one is inside." 
 
 He understood now, saw his life as a whole 
 at last. 
 
 A minute later, holding her in his arms, he 
 said: 
 
 " Darling, it seems almost as though we had 
 been utter strangers until to-night."
 
 TO-DAY. 
 
 IV f ERCERON'S first opera, The Sultan of 
 ^'^ Shagpat, has, as you are doubtless aware, 
 made triumphal progress round the two hemi- 
 spheres. The British composer has at length 
 emerged from obscurity, and the nations are 
 loud with acclamation. The unexpected has 
 again happened. As for Harvey, he takes his 
 honours lightly, and ponders further conquests. 
 Mrs. Merceron for the yellow domino has put 
 aside her titles lately presented him with a 
 daughter. The child's name is Isabella. 
 
 Sopwith, snug in his Bayswater flat, has 
 bravely overcome defeat. His songs are 
 conspicuous in the shop-windows. He paid 
 seventeen pence in the pound. As the hero of 
 a late courageous, yet ill-fated attempt, he 
 289
 
 290 An Opera & Lady Grasrnere. 
 
 supports his position with a certain mournful 
 dignity very edifying to the spectator. " The 
 race is not always to the strong," his graceful 
 comment upon the news of Harvey's first 
 success, charmed a large and influential circle, 
 besides implying a generous acceptance of the 
 situation created. 
 
 And of all the diversified, the momentous 
 events and struggles recently traversed, of this 
 whole dance-of-life which he himself put into 
 motion, saving a bald and unconvincing outline, 
 Hutchinson, the instrument, Hutchinson, the 
 original instigator and responsible head, knows 
 nothing, absolutely nothing ! 
 
 THE END.
 
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