THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN 
 
BT THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 A BOY'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 A Novel. Crown 8vo. 
 Second edition. 
 
 THE STRONGEST PLUME. 
 
 A Novel. Crown 8vo. 
 Second edition. 
 
 THE HIGH ADVENTURE. 
 
 A Novel. Crown 8vo. 
 
 GREAT RALEGH. 
 
 Being the Life and Times of 
 Sir Walter Ralegh. 
 
THE WAY 
 THINGS HAPPEN 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH DE SELINCOURT 
 
 n 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMIX 
 
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BFCCLES. 
 
TO 
 C. E. WHEELER 
 
 A LITTLE 
 MONUMENT 
 
 OF A 
 GREAT AFFECTION 
 
 193648 
 
THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN 
 
Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, 
 till you so love the beauty of enjoying it, 
 that you are covetous and earnest to persuade 
 others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the 
 abominable corruption of men in despising it, 
 that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell 
 than willingly be guilty of their error. There 
 is so much blindness and ingratitude and 
 damned folly in it. The world is a mirror 
 of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a 
 Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. 
 It is a region of Light and Peace, did not 
 men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God. 
 THOMAS TRAHERNE. 
 
THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN 
 
 I 
 
 VERY often when Miss Paul awoke 
 in the morning, she remembered, 
 with gentle regret, her days which 
 she called palmy. 
 
 Now her circumstances were, what she called, 
 straitened. Single-handed she waged the long 
 conflict against dirt and hunger ; and learned 
 more in three days than in the full thirty years 
 of her previous life, of the disposal of the 
 enemies' forces. This, like all suddenly ac- 
 quired knowledge, at first surprised her. The 
 attack of hunger was far more simply parried 
 than she imagined : her standard of necessaries 
 she revised. The other foe, however, nearly 
 overwhelmed her by his unceasing encroach- 
 ments. Shut windows meant no air and yet 
 
io The Way Things Happen 
 
 in abundance, dirt : smuts filtered through the 
 cracks : dust made its slow way through the 
 floor. To dirt nothing seemed impenetrable. 
 There were places she dared not inspect. Too 
 close an inspection made her long campaign 
 appear hopeless. 
 
 She awoke very often to gentle regret. 
 Gentle, though the word must predominate in 
 description of her, cannot dismiss her feeling ; 
 may, indeed, readily give a false impression of 
 its nature. Understand one thing about a 
 human being, and you have a clue of entry into 
 that being's mind (a maltreated part of many 
 an organism), which to follow delicately and 
 selflessly is to widen one's prospect of life, 
 quite without exaggeration, twofold. 
 
 And what from swine to swallows, from mud 
 to the stars, may life be or not be ? It is a 
 mystery always. There is mystery about the 
 life of an oak, which has quietly grown in the 
 same place, keeping its secret and its changing 
 beauty, for many hundreds of years. And man 
 with his spirit and mind and body, with his 
 power of speech and laughter and thought and 
 
The Way Things Happen n 
 
 tears, with his will and his conscience, with his 
 fears and hopes, with his love and his hatred 
 and his indifference, with his desires and aspira- 
 tions, with his moods and knowledge and 
 ignorance man, even at his lowest, even when 
 he appears to have thwarted his own humanity 
 to dulness, man staggers the imagination. 
 Human power may be great, but power greater 
 than human is needed to see life steadily and 
 see it whole. By the flash of an illuminating 
 glimpse, with the steadfast memory of it, or by 
 the painful study of one of life's smallest phases, 
 by these means it is possible sometimes to 
 learn a little, if the scope and sacredness of the 
 undertaking be properly realised. Without 
 love and reverence, however, you may observe 
 much, but you can learn nothing, know nothing, 
 understand nothing. 
 
 For the gentle regret, which Miss Paul felt, 
 there were several reasons. Her regret began, 
 undoubtedly, in a desire, which had pathetically 
 lasted, for an immediate cup of hot tea with- 
 out tedious preliminaries, the lighting of gas- 
 stove or spirit-lamp, the boiling of hot water, 
 
12 The Way Things Happen 
 
 and others. It was easier to do without than 
 to prepare. 
 
 Miss Paul felt no animosity against fate or 
 against the fatal improvidence of her deceased 
 brother. She accepted her lot without question- 
 ing it or herself or any one else. Her courage 
 was no less real because it was not conscious. 
 The barriers which had fenced her from the 
 crudities of life cold and hunger and dirt 
 toppled and fell, and she, with scarcely a shiver 
 of fear, set to work to " do " for herself on a 
 bare hundred pounds a year. 
 
 After her brother's death she took a sheet of 
 paper, and, having nearly dazed herself with facts 
 and figures, decided how she could live. Her 
 choice shrank to extremes, and nothing eventu- 
 ally remained between the depths of the country 
 and the centre of the town. 
 
 Really there was no call for the black and 
 white discipline of that uneasy evening : her 
 mind was, as they say, made up by what was 
 much the strongest feature of her character, 
 namely, her instinct. She confessed to a silly 
 whim (so she stigmatised herself) for the town's 
 
The Way Things Happen 13 
 
 very centre. The paraphernalia of facts and 
 figures were a kind of apology, of justification 
 almost, to her conscience for obeying this whim, 
 not too blindly. Though she loved the country 
 and liked to tend flowers, the centre of the town, 
 even in one room without a servant, had attrac- 
 tions which outweighed everything placeable in 
 the other scale. There was the opportunity of 
 hearing music, with her a constant importunity : 
 about that she could to herself be articulate. 
 But there was another reason, which was 
 stronger and which was too vague to take the 
 shape even of any thought ; for about herself 
 she had, oddly enough, small practice in think- 
 ing, and so her conclusions on that subject were 
 far less right than the intelligence she showed in 
 understanding the written thoughts of others 
 (she read with avidity) would have led one to 
 expect. The unshaped idea, which formed her 
 choice, was that in the centre of the town she 
 would be stranded less drily from the stream of 
 life. If she could there maintain the struggle 
 of existence that great hypothesis ! She found 
 that she could, and save, moreover, enough to 
 
14 The Way Things Happen 
 
 spend on seats for twenty-six concerts in the 
 year. 
 
 So Miss Paul lived on the top floor of a 
 house in a crescent which stood back, pleasantly 
 behind trees, from the Marylebone Road. A 
 bachelor lived on the floors beneath, and on the 
 ground floor the landladies. Three small 
 rooms comprised her actual battle-ground, for 
 which she paid 30 a year. Her food and coal 
 and washing came to ^46, service to 11. The 
 rest of her money went in clothes, fares, light, 
 and concerts. Illness she smiled and shrugged 
 her shoulders and fortunately kept, with the 
 exception of an occasional cold, well. For three 
 years she had the gentle warrior waged her 
 war in these rooms and won. Her face showed 
 victory. 
 
 The gentle regret, which now on this morn- 
 ing (a Sunday morning towards the end of 
 March) of her thirty-third birthday she awoke 
 again to experience, was considerably tempered 
 by the fact that she was, as she smiled to put 
 it to herself, "on her own." She continued 
 to taste of independence a flavour which at 
 
The Way Things Happen 15 
 
 first, and for a long time after her brother's 
 death, saddened her sensitive nature, succumb- 
 ing swiftly to the shadow of a charge of heart- 
 lessness, though any one knowing her well 
 (but no one did) would have laughed at such 
 a charge. 
 
 Though in her brother's house at Norwood 
 she had known her brother's friends and their 
 wives and mothers and daughters, she had had 
 no fellowship with them of any kind. They 
 thought her peculiar, a little pitiable, but on 
 the whole pleasant ; not, however, pleasant 
 enough to search for after Mr. Paul's demise 
 and her own, as they called it, disappearance. 
 Miss Paul accepted their silent verdict without 
 rancour, as she accepted most things of that 
 kind without rancour, and quietly went on her 
 lonely way. But her loneliness had become, 
 as on this morning she came very near to dis- 
 cover, less distressing than it had been among 
 the little crowd of Norwood acquaintances. 
 She was more alone but less lonely. 
 
 As a matter of fact her present loneliness 
 was the soil in which she developed ; and, 
 
1 6 The Way Things Happen 
 
 like a rose after the first shock of being trans- 
 planted, she grew. Though she was in her 
 own opinion the most ordinary and unimpor- 
 tant of spinsters, to a well-eyed person she 
 was, even at first sight, of high interest. You 
 must not think that she was, what is called, 
 a striking woman. She was not. She was 
 medium height : she dressed drably though 
 neatly. But her movement was uncommonly 
 graceful, and her eyes this is the point which 
 perhaps an intelligently observant one in ten 
 thousand passers might have noticed her 
 eyes, though they were not specially large or 
 specially beautiful, seemed to possess a wider 
 range of sight than is quite usual to human 
 eyes. She held her head back as she walked 
 and looked a little downwards as though 
 through pince-nez, which, however, she had 
 never worn. She moved through the streets 
 with absolute assurance, because she supposed 
 that no one could possibly take the least 
 notice of her. She was pleased with her 
 complete insignificance, and so it put her 
 (quite without her knowledge) in the position 
 
The Way Things Happen 17 
 
 of a queen, for whom the motley pageant 
 passes. 
 
 But now Miss Paul lay in bed. And as 
 she lay she was called sharply back from her 
 dozing desire for tea by a smart snap and a 
 shrill squeal of terror. She started guiltily, 
 knowing well the cause of the noise. A mouse 
 had been growing too familiar with her rooms. 
 The smelly little fellow had taken to scratching 
 at the kitchen door which opened on to her 
 bedroom, had scuffled about after crumbs, 
 making, for his size, a dreadful noise, and 
 Miss Paul had at last bought a trap in which 
 to catch him. Now she had caught him on 
 a Sunday morning she had caught him, when 
 she was without the charwoman and what in 
 the world she was to do with him, she did 
 not know. There was a silence. She listened 
 for another squeal. None came. She got out 
 of bed. She decided to go out all day, and 
 in the morning Mrs. Cawke would quickly 
 kill him in a pail of water. She began to 
 dress hurriedly, stopping every now and then 
 to listen. All remained still. Miss Paul 
 
1 8 The Way Things Happen 
 
 imagined the mouse's terror vividly. She put 
 herself in the mouse-trap and trembled. All 
 the day and all the night she could not, 
 without food, wait and wait for death on the 
 Monday morning. No living thing must. 
 She summoned her courage, and, putting on 
 a flannel dressing-gown, went into the kitchen. 
 She walked straight to the sink, under which 
 stood a pail. Taking out the scrubbing-brush, 
 she filled the pail with water. She did not 
 look at the floor by the cupboard, where the 
 trap lay, but she felt the mouse's tiny eyes 
 piercing through her from behind the cage's 
 wires. She set the pail on the floor, and, 
 turning her head, she lifted the trap. The 
 mouse scratched wildly at the wires. There 
 was a splash. Miss Paul hurried to the door 
 and then . . . resolution forsook her ; she 
 hurried back to the pail, plunged her hand 
 into the water, wetting the sleeve of her flannel 
 dressing-gown almost to the elbow, and drew 
 out the trap with a gasp. The mouse did 
 not breathe. It lay on its small back, draggled 
 and exhausted. Then Miss Paul found relief 
 
The Way Things Happen 19 
 
 in swift action. She seized a flannel from the 
 plate-rack luckily it was dry she lit the 
 stove, put the flannel in a fire-proof pot and 
 the pot on the jets of gas. Very soon the 
 flannel was hot. She gently pulled the mouse 
 out of the trap by his tail, and rolled him 
 neatly in the hot flannel, from which peered 
 his whiskered head. His eyes opened. Miss 
 Paul rubbed his stomach with her forefinger. 
 His paws moved. She unrolled him. He 
 stood crouched on his four legs trembling, 
 and she left him to his devices. 
 
 In her bedroom she listened for some 
 minutes ; then she looked into the kitchen, 
 and smiled to see no trace of the mouse. 
 
 After this intrusion of death and adventure 
 further dozing became for Miss Paul impos- 
 sible. She put the kettle on, and while the 
 water was boiling she finished dressing, and 
 then went into her sitting-room to drink three 
 small cups of tea, and eat four thin slices of 
 bread and butter her breakfast. Her sitting- 
 room was tiny, and could not have been 
 furnished more ^pleasantly. Remnants of her 
 
20 The Way Things Happen 
 
 possessions fitted it exactly, and each remnant 
 was to Miss Paul a separate treasure. The 
 squat oak bureau and the small gate table 
 had been given her by her mother's mother, 
 who had received it from her mother's mother ; 
 its former history was unknown. In one 
 drawer were two neatly tied packets of letters, 
 one written by her great-grandmother, the 
 other written to her great-grandmother. The 
 chest which had served as her father's great- 
 great-grandfather's bank (he was a sailor) 
 now served her as a coal-box. The bookcase 
 her own father had given her when she was a 
 little girl and fell heir to her grandmother's 
 oak pieces. These were two chairs, one high 
 backed, the other easy ; to these no sentiment 
 or value was attached ; but she would have 
 starved slowly to death before she parted with 
 the family oak. The female branch of the 
 family was strangely dominant. Her mother 
 and her mother's mother were amazingly alike 
 in feature and expression. She knew that from 
 hearsay. What was even more amazing, how- 
 ever, was the resemblance of feature between 
 
The Way Things Happen 21 
 
 the faded miniature of her great-great-grand- 
 mother, which stood on the bureau, and Miss 
 Paul herself. The setting and odd expression 
 of the eyes (in Miss Paul the oddness was a 
 little intensified), the nose, the mouth, the 
 shape of the head, were startlingly the same. 
 Indeed, if a quarter of the stories about these 
 women of her family were true, they must 
 have been great creatures : alike in strength 
 of character as in feature, and like many other 
 women of character, alike in being allied to 
 nonentities of husbands. Among them there 
 was an odd growth of spiritual force. The 
 walls of the room were green ; on them hung 
 four photographs of Italian masters, and a 
 photograph of Beethoven's death-mask. That 
 comprised the furniture of the room with 
 one exception. The exception was Miss Paul's 
 most treasured possession, and had been the 
 most treasured possession of Miss Paul's 
 mother. It was fantastically useless and oddly 
 ornamental. It was the first thing that a 
 visitor would have noticed on entering. In 
 its own way it so dominated the room that 
 
22 The Way Things Happen 
 
 the rest of the furniture, storied and valuable 
 and charming as the furniture was, seemed 
 immediately accessory. It was an oak chair : 
 a tiny oak chair, too small for any one but a 
 very delicately made child of three to use, yet 
 too large for any but a gigantic doll's house. 
 The chair stood on the floor by the bookcase, 
 about two feet from the wall. On the centre 
 of the back was carved the face of a grotesque, 
 such as you may see in stone as a spout on 
 an old church. There was extraordinary life, 
 however, in the carved features, the very 
 fierceness of life. If you looked at it long (and 
 you were bound to do so) it presently seemed 
 as though the spirit of some druidical old oak 
 had somehow been caught, and had then 
 writhed into the shape of a chair. To look 
 at it would have convinced a sceptic, hardened 
 as the chair's own seat, of the supernatural, 
 or, to put it more accurately, would have 
 stirred the sense, however dulled and obscure, 
 of the supernatural in him for say what he 
 will, no man is quite without that sense. 
 What is called the supernatural is everywhere, 
 
The Way Things Happen 23 
 
 like the wind, and like the air is breathed by 
 all. The part of life which the eyes see is 
 paltry compared with the life that is invisible. 
 From what source does instinct, the most 
 maligned of human powers, take its strength ? 
 Because instinct is the only guide of animals, 
 an odd human prejudice exists against it. Are 
 we not higher than the brutes who follow 
 their animal instincts ? We do not certainly 
 become so (Angry Madam) by not following 
 our human instinct. But why compare what 
 is different ? Why mete out praise and 
 blame ? Few are quite moral enough to 
 blame the monkey for infringing the code of 
 the elephant. Yet the dissimilarity between a 
 cabdriver and a Shelley is greater, in spite of a 
 surface physical resemblance, than that between 
 an elephant and a monkey. Human instincts 
 vary magnificently, and lead to fulfilment. 
 
 Miss Paul had lived for thirty-three years. 
 None of the things which are known as events 
 had happened to her. She had not loved or 
 been loved. She had taken part in no move- 
 ment. The days had passed over her head 
 
24 The Way Things Happen 
 
 with quite, to an outsider, astonishing same- 
 ness. It would have taken her five minutes 
 to tell the story of her life, and she spoke 
 slowly. Yet if any one had sympathised with 
 her about the monotony of her life, she would 
 have opened wide her eyes like an incredulous 
 child. She was like a child who has been 
 allowed to explore a large house alone. 
 Thirty-three years had passed by like the first 
 bewildering hour of the child's afternoon. 
 Excitement prevented her from settling to any 
 occupation. She must see every room before 
 she was called to tea. Unlike a child, Miss 
 Paul's excitement and wonder grew ; for un- 
 like a house of brick, the house of life seemed 
 to expand limitlessly in all directions as her 
 power of observation developed. That she 
 should take possession of any of the treasures 
 she saw in the house, occurred to her only as 
 a kind of delightful pretence like a child who 
 would immediately assume entire ownership as 
 a part of the exploring game. This arbitrary 
 ownership without contracts or any business 
 formality is not of course a serious matter. 
 
The Way Things Happen 25 
 
 Or do things belong to those who enjoy them 
 most ? How serious is the possession of a 
 library by a man who has not intelligence, of 
 a piano by one who cannot play and has no 
 ear for music, of health by one who misuses 
 it, of a mansion by one who has no friends, of 
 life by one who is bored by it ? At any rate, 
 Miss Paul was amply content with her manner 
 of ownership. Naturally it left her no time to 
 think about herself, still less to imagine that 
 she was extraordinary for not doing so. 
 
 Little things act as a turning point ; a 
 straw is sufficient to show the direction of 
 a great wind. The capture and resuscitation 
 of the mouse was the first of a train of 
 events. Without Miss Paul's knowledge it 
 started her on an occupation other than that 
 of wonder. Our child in the house drew 
 her finger across a table, and finding an un- 
 expected line, started to dust the furniture 
 of the room. Miss Paul had crossed the 
 mouse's line of life, had perhaps influenced 
 him, Heaven knows how much. The action 
 awakened a sleeping power in her, of which 
 
26 The Way Things Happen 
 
 she was perfectly ignorant ; the power of 
 entering the lives of others. In other words, 
 she was opening the door of another room 
 full of wonders, compared with which the 
 wonders of the other rooms were insignificant. 
 Quite oblivious of this. Miss Paul took the 
 tea things into the kitchen, and washed them, 
 as the phrase is, up. While she dried them 
 she looked for signs of the mouse ; his where- 
 abouts were, however, effectually concealed 
 from her, and quite without any reason other 
 than that she had rather played the devil 
 to him and with him, she decided that his 
 name should be Faust. 
 
II 
 
 ON the floors underneath that is to 
 say, on the second and third floors 
 lived a bachelor. His name 
 was Edward Paveley. If Miss 
 Paul was quite remarkable for the fact that she 
 never thought about herself. Dr. Paveley was 
 equally remarkable for the fact that he very 
 rarely thought about any one but himself. He 
 was an old man when he was seventeen, and 
 the Sunday of Miss Paul's adventure with the 
 mouse happened to be his forty-first birthday. 
 The fact is he had never cared for any one. 
 
 He was interested in men who could talk 
 on his subject, but considered words more 
 fitly written than spoken. Speech was a 
 clumsy medium, in his opinion, and he looked 
 upon conversation as an agreeable adjunct, 
 like nuts, to wine. But no one touched his 
 
 27 
 
28 The Way Things Happen 
 
 affections ; he was not bitten, as he put it, 
 by the craze for intimacy. 
 
 Whether Dr. Paveley was to blame for 
 this, or whether it was his misfortune, is a 
 subject on which the profoundest philosophers 
 disagree. There was nothing in the circum- 
 stances of his past life to explain this pheno- 
 menon. His life had, in its own way, been 
 as uneventful as that of Miss Paul. He had 
 been to a good day-school, from which he had 
 won a scholarship to Oxford. At Oxford 
 he won a prize fellowship and a post at a 
 London University, where he lectured upon 
 history, and where he would continue to 
 lecture upon history, as long as his voice 
 could carry through the not very large hall 
 in which the lectures were delivered. One 
 of the most respectable literary weeklies 
 boasted him as its historical authority, and 
 every book of any historical significance 
 which appeared was immediately despatched 
 to him. The initiated among the paper's 
 clerical readers said that they recognised his 
 style, and it is probable they did so. 
 
The Way Things Happen 29 
 
 Dr. Paveley had occupied his rooms for 
 six years when Miss Paul took the attics, 
 as he called them. They had been empty 
 for nearly four years, so that the doctor 
 naturally regarded Miss Paul's tenancy in the 
 light of an intrusion. He resented every sign 
 of her presence ; he hated to hear her soft 
 tread, and the gentle closing of her door ; 
 he scowled angrily on the rare occasions when 
 he met her in the hall or on the stairs. The 
 proximity of a single woman filled him with 
 uneasiness. "Give her but a least excuse," 
 he grimly thought, measuring his eligibility 
 by his banker's book, his European reputation 
 for historical accuracy and his placid habits, 
 " and she will endeavour to obtain me for 
 her own and marry me." Miss Paul was 
 conscious of his resentment, and her sympathy 
 with its cause made her creep up the stairs 
 by his rooms like a tremulous marauder. 
 She was accordingly surprised when on the 
 Sunday morning of her adventure with the 
 mouse Dr. Paveley did not abruptly retreat 
 into his room and shut the door, but stood 
 
30 The Way Things Happen 
 
 in the doorway and wished her a " Good 
 afternoon " as she passed. 
 
 His benevolence had been born of his 
 pleasure in reading in his Sunday paper the 
 review of a rival's book, in which his rival's 
 work had been measured by the standard of 
 the reviewer's opinion of that pre-eminent 
 scholar Dr. Paveley's work ; on that page 
 of the paper his light obscured the light of 
 his adversary, as the sun obscures a halfpenny 
 dip. And previously he had actually con- 
 sidered the man arbitrary in his judgments, 
 had in his more expansive moments denounced 
 him as a " spoofer," one of the few live words 
 in his vocabulary. 
 
 Dr. Paveley, according to his Sabbatical 
 custom, went to roost austerely during the 
 afternoon at his club : Miss Paul went to 
 St. Paul's Cathedral ; and as she stopped later 
 than usual to hear the organ which was un- 
 expectedly being played, and as the doctor's 
 sitting was shortened by the necessity of 
 dressing for dinner, earlier by an outrageous 
 half-hour than he liked, the strange chance, 
 

 . 
 
 The Way Things Happen 31 
 
 which lurks behind all human endeavour, 
 willed that they should meet on the doorstep. 
 Coming from opposite sides of the crescent, 
 each arrived at identically the same moment, 
 key in hand, before the front door. 
 
 Dr. Paveley's whole historical training and 
 bias led him to disbelieve in chance. He 
 sought for motive and immediately found one. 
 
 " Allow me, madam," he said, and with 
 sublime frigidity ignored the gentle suggestion 
 that the evening was fine. Chance, however, 
 or one of her attendant imps, continued to 
 sport round the doctor. For the second time 
 during his ten years' habitation of those rooms 
 he thrust the wrong key the long key of his 
 large roll-top desk into the keyhole, and in 
 the keyhole it most wantonly stuck. He 
 rattled it angrily, and succeeded in fixing it 
 quite firmly. Too late he employed the deli- 
 cate treatment which the intricacy of even an 
 old-fashioned lock demands. His efforts were 
 unavailing. "Imbecile and pig-like thing," 
 he muttered. " Asinine not to employ such 
 modern contrivances as civilisation has put 
 
32 The Way Things Happen 
 
 within our reach. Progress," he rattled the 
 key with increasing anger, " so-called progress/ * 
 he swore under his breath, "and asinine not 
 to have a patent lock." 
 
 " Haven't you, perhaps, the wrong key ? " 
 Miss Paul ventured to suggest. 
 
 "Yes, madam," declared Dr. Paveley. "Yes, 
 madam, I have the wrong key and the wrong 
 lock infernally the wrong lock." 
 
 Miss Paul felt and the doctor's tone 
 implied that she should feel that the lock and 
 key and herself were found guilty of a base 
 conspiracy against a higher power. 
 
 " The wrong lock," he muttered, kicking the 
 door and shaking it. 
 
 "The wrong key," murmured Miss Paul, 
 as though she were taking her part with due 
 solemnity in a round game with children. 
 
 The doctor heard her, and the adjacent gas- 
 lamp played lime-light to his scowl. 
 
 Miss Paul took a step forward. "Let me 
 try my key," she faltered. 
 
 " May I ask, madam, of what possible 
 use even your key might be, when mine is 
 
The Way Things Happen 33 
 
 inextricably jammed into the lock ? " he icily 
 rejoined, and stood with his hand off the key 
 for the first time. The position was as painful 
 as the ensuing silence. 
 
 "Let me ring," said Miss Paul, timidly. 
 
 "I am capable of that simple operation," 
 retorted the doctor. He pressed the bell. 
 They listened to its long, persistent sound. 
 
 " They are, I am afraid, out." 
 
 " Impossible," he vociferated, and beat a 
 rat-tat with the knocker. The sound seemed 
 to echo through the house, and then the 
 church clock impassively announced the hour 
 a quarter to seven. " Impossible," he re- 
 iterated. "I am to dine in forty-five minutes 
 at St. John's Wood dressed." 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Miss Paul a little feebly. 
 
 " Dear me ! forsooth ! " the doctor of letters 
 snorted, and glared round as though for help. 
 
 " I'm afraid you won't be able to dress," 
 Miss Paul was obliged by sheer nervousness 
 to say. 
 
 " Do you realise, madam, that no one will be 
 able to enter this house without the aid of a 
 
34 The Way Things Happen 
 
 locksmith ; that it is Sunday evening, and that 
 it is highly improbable a locksmith can be 
 found?" 
 
 " Oh dear ! " said Miss Paul. The position, 
 for all its seriousness, was fast overcoming her 
 gravity. To hide her rising laughter, she 
 stepped by her infuriated companion and put 
 her hand on the key. And then whether it 
 was the last trick of Chance (or one of her 
 attendant imps), or whether the fierce raps 
 on the door had loosened, what one may call 
 the grip the key quietly allowed itself to be 
 drawn from the lock. 
 
 She hastily inserted the right key and 
 opened the door. Dr. Paveley pushed by her 
 with a gruff " Thank you," and stalked up the 
 stairs. Miss Paul heard his bedroom door slam 
 during her own soft-footed ascent at the very 
 moment that she became aware that his key 
 the offending key was still in her possession. 
 In consequence, she crept by his door and 
 hurried up the remaining stairs so exactly in 
 her haste like a child at the game of " I spy " 
 that she almost cried out an exultant " Home " 
 
The Way Things Happen 35 
 
 as she shut the door on herself in her own 
 room. The perplexity, caused by her posses- 
 sion of the key, cut short her exultation and 
 mood of laughter. Dr. Paveley would surely 
 want his key before his departure, and she 
 could not face taking it back to him in person. 
 At last she solved the difficulty by writing 
 <c Your key " on a half-sheet of white paper, 
 which she tip-toed down all the stairs to leave 
 conspicuously upon the hall-table. 
 
 Then she made up the fire and sat down, 
 laughing to herself. Laughter is in itself a 
 fascinating mystery. The human mask is 
 illumined from within, as a lantern when its 
 candle is lighted, that is, in genuine laughter. 
 Its variety of tone shows the scope of the 
 human instrument. Now this same laughter 
 possessed Miss Paul. She sat silently in her 
 chair, but it caused her body to shake a little, 
 her breath to come irregularly, her eyes to 
 sparkle, her forehead and cheeks to wrinkle, 
 and her whole face to look quite delightful. 
 She seemed, for some reason, more alive, or, 
 as the saying is, younger. If any normally 
 
36 The Way Things Happen 
 
 sensitive person had been present, he or she 
 would have been obliged to laugh with her ; 
 for laughter, like many other things, may be 
 infectious. 
 
 But a heavy footstep sounded up the stairs, 
 and a loud voice delivered the word "Madam," 
 which passed from the doctor's lips instanta- 
 neously through all the neighbouring space, 
 Heaven knows how far and with what dis- 
 turbance of atoms, but incidentally through the 
 wooden door and into Miss Paul's brain. Her 
 brain took immediate cognisance, and laughter 
 immediately fled. 
 
 " Madam," the loud voice continued, with 
 the same results, no less remarkable for being 
 general, and with an accompaniment of knocks 
 upon the door, " Madam, you have in your 
 possession the key which you so dexterously 
 extracted from the lock." 
 
 Miss Paul opened the door. Laughter had 
 left a little of its brightness upon her face 
 and in her eyes. Dr. Paveley, as he looked 
 at her, noticed this and was irritated by it. 
 
 " I put it on the hall-table," said Miss Paul 
 
The Way Things Happen 37 
 
 " Humph ! " said the doctor. " Did you ? " 
 He looked over her shoulder into the room, 
 and catching sight of the hobgoblin writhen 
 into the form of a chair, he stared. The 
 grotesque face, with its fierce immobile ex- 
 pression of life, held him, as though by some 
 power, against his will. He felt the outline 
 of Miss Paul's appearance and the brightness 
 of her eyes, but saw only, as he stared, the 
 weird thing. He stared with vacant horror 
 until the weird thing, as it were, let him go. 
 He shuddered, as a man shudders who passes 
 through a sudden current of cold air in a 
 warm valley, and wishing Miss Paul "Good 
 evening " with a furtive gentleness, induced by 
 fear, he turned away. 
 
 He had not, of course, passed down many 
 steps before he laughed at this unpleasant 
 sensation and its wooden cause as ridiculous 
 nonsense the most ridiculous nonsense. He 
 did not hear Miss Paul say in her low, amused 
 voice, " You shouldn't have done it, Loki " ; 
 and he did not hear the chair creak, or he 
 would have perhaps had a more acute sensation 
 
38 The Way Things Happen 
 
 of creepiness to dispel by assuring ridicule, 
 though solitary persons will often speak to 
 inanimate objects, and furniture of the most 
 prosaic and machine - made description will 
 often creak, for no reason that we precisely 
 know. 
 
 This was the chief event of Dr. Paveley's 
 forty-first birthday ; the dinner to which he 
 went that evening in St. John's Wood, cele- 
 brated it in a minor way, although his health 
 was drunk there by the company in good red 
 wine. At the dinner his historical accuracy 
 played him for a moment false : for in his 
 narration of the lock and key incident, some- 
 how the part each had played in the little 
 farce became confused, and it was the lady's 
 key which he had arrived on the doorstep to 
 find jammed, and which he had forthwith 
 quietly and deftly extracted from the lock. 
 And the story was immediately seized upon 
 as a practical and pertinent example of the 
 folly of giving to women the power to vote, 
 about which subject opinion in St. John's 
 Wood ran very high at that time. Perhaps 
 
The Way Things Happen 39 
 
 the doctor felt uneasy at the confusion of 
 fact, which made his story so much better 
 than it originally was ; but it is certain that 
 he left the company earlier than he intended 
 and earlier than the company desired. An 
 uncomfortable thing happened to him as he 
 walked towards the main road down which 
 his omnibus ran ; long enough to check one 
 step and make him stumble, he saw plainly 
 in the branches of a tree the grotesque face 
 which was carved on the back of Miss Paul's 
 small chair, and suddenly at the same moment 
 a prowling cat gave an unearthly cry. 
 
 " Fiddle-sticks ! " he muttered. " Bad wine ! 
 disgraceful stuff!" 
 
 But there grew in him the idea that some 
 power, of which he was completely ignorant, 
 had laid hold of him, and that he was no 
 longer master of himself so completely as he 
 had hitherto been. And that idea, even its 
 germ, was to the highest degree uncomfortable 
 and disturbing to such a man as Dr. Paveley. 
 Moreover, into all that uncanny discomfort 
 was woven the apparition of the single woman, 
 
40 The Way Things Happen 
 
 who lived on the floor above him, as he had 
 seen her with the shadow of laughter upon 
 her face. 
 
 No wonder, then, that he sat that evening 
 on his return home in his leather-bound chair, 
 glowering into the fire, and rigidly forcing his 
 will to defeat the schemes of the woman who 
 had, he thought, tried to throw this spell over 
 him. 
 
 Miss Paul sat not ten yards above him, 
 her heels on the small chair, reading. There 
 was a smile upon her, for she was far away, 
 walking down the glades of Spenser's realm of 
 Faerie ; unseen she was watching the knights 
 and ladies and wild men, and all the beauty 
 of the land in which their fights and great 
 adventures happened. 
 
 She sat thus for a long time, faring on at 
 length without the beckoning music and colour 
 of Spenser's verse. As she sat, fire-gazing, 
 she passed down a long avenue of great oak 
 trees ; the branches seemed symmetrical, yet 
 the enormous design eluded her eye : she 
 was thinking that, if she could step right back 
 
The Way Things Happen 41 
 
 and see the whole great line at one glance, 
 the design would no longer elude her, when 
 a twisted little old creature sprang out at a 
 bound from a tree on one side and stood 
 before her with his long arms crossed. 
 
 "I shall always be near to help you," the 
 old creature said with the utmost gravity, and 
 vanished at a bound on the other side of the 
 avenue. He was gone a moment before she 
 had time to identify him, and the oddity of 
 a resemblance to something with which she 
 was familiar brought her swiftly back. She 
 took her feet off the small chair and, leaning 
 forward with her hands on her knees, she 
 looked at the grotesque face carved on its 
 back. 
 
 "Loki," she said, "was that you, my dear?" 
 and enchanted with the hope that it might 
 have been, she smiled. Then she settled 
 herself again and tried to make her way back 
 to the avenue ; but the entrance was closed 
 against her. 
 
 One reason, perhaps, was that a sudden noise 
 in the room underneath as of something hard 
 
42 The Way Things Happen 
 
 dropped or thrown, startled her. The first time 
 it happened she thought the learned occupant 
 had let a book fall ; but then it sounded four 
 times in rapid succession, and she was be- 
 wildered. Such noises had never before issued 
 from Dr. Paveley' s room. 
 
 The fact was that Dr. Paveley was much 
 disturbed by the mouse, which had somehow 
 found its way into his bedroom. He was just 
 dropping asleep when a rustling and scratching 
 roused him to listen. The scratching con- 
 tinued. He struck a match/ and thought he 
 saw the tail of a mouse whisk under the ward- 
 robe. " Ssh ! " he said in a violent whisper, 
 and waited. As silence continued he composed 
 himself again to sleep. But again there came 
 the rustling and scratching, accompanied this 
 time by a furtive squeaking the motif of this 
 Faust in distress. Dr. Paveley lighted the 
 candle, and getting out of bed he peered about 
 the room. There was no sign of any life. 
 Stooping, he picked up a boot and stood in the 
 middle of the room in his nightshirt, a frown 
 on his face prepared. There was absolute 
 
The Way Things Happen 43 
 
 stillness. Nothing moved. The doctor waited 
 in spite of the cold which crept up his legs and 
 made him shiver. For three brave minutes 
 his strange vigil lasted. Then a stealthy 
 scratching came from the direction of the 
 cupboard. Turning slowly round he distinctly 
 saw the mouse, and instantly discharged the 
 boot. With a grim smile he got into bed 
 again not, however, before he had put two 
 pairs of boots within reach of his hand, in case 
 his first shot had not taken effect. His fury 
 at being again disturbed caused him to fling 
 the boots one after the other, like bolts at a 
 venture, in the wild hope that he might in this 
 way terrify the mouse into silence. But it was 
 of no use ; and he was obliged throughout the 
 night to share the persistent restlessness of the 
 mouse. 
 
Ill 
 
 A [AN who has lived more years than 
 he will live, who is approaching the 
 culminating discovery, the final 
 experience, will often be amused, 
 in looking back, at the landmarks on the way. 
 The first step on any line of conduct must 
 always look inconsiderable from the distance of 
 attainment, whether that step lead up the hill 
 or down. Such a landmark was Miss Paul's 
 capture and release of the mouse which she 
 had called Faust. Though the second event 
 of that adventurous Sunday had obscured 
 the first for a moment, it was on Monday 
 morning brought back to her mind by the 
 charwoman who, seeing signs of an immersion 
 upon the mouse-trap, eagerly inquired about 
 the incidents of the death and the disposal of 
 the corpse. Her contempt for Miss Paul's 
 
 44 
 
The Way Things Happen 45 
 
 clemency was vividly expressed in a stare of 
 incredulity and a sharp sniff; it offended the 
 woman's nature that a pest, which had, partly 
 through her skill, reached its proper destination 
 the bottom of a pail of water should by a 
 freak of soft-heartedness be set at large. That 
 decided her that the place took more time than 
 it was worth. She did her two hours' work 
 with noisy impatience, and at half-past ten gave 
 notice. To Miss Paul's gently offered protests 
 the woman, with arms firmly akimbo, answered 
 that Miss Paul did not suit her, never, in fact, 
 had suited her. " Nor do 1 hold with parties 
 stopping on after a party has spoke her mind, 
 so I'll take a sixpence from you, which'll be 
 only right and fair that I should, and we'll be 
 as we was and no harm done." 
 
 Now it so happened that Dr. Paveley had 
 insisted, when the rooms above his were let, 
 that no link should exist between him and the 
 new occupant. Accordingly the landladies 
 the Misses Jones who kept four cats but no 
 servant, were obliged to find a woman to do 
 what work he wanted. This was a matter of 
 
46 The Way Things Happen 
 
 supreme difficulty. The woman who suited 
 the doctor invariably quarrelled with the 
 woman who came to Miss Paul, and the women 
 who were friendly invariably found the doctor 
 impossible to please. 
 
 The matter ceaselessly afflicted the landladies, 
 and whenever they could waylay Miss Paul 
 they begged her to use her influence with 
 Dr. Paveley and persuade him to lessen the 
 difficulty by allowing one charwoman to serve 
 them both. Miss Paul naturally pointed out 
 to them that her influence with the doctor was 
 nil, or if any existed, would act counter to their 
 wishes. 
 
 On this Mond y morning they made again 
 their timid and insistent suggestion. Mrs. 
 Cawke had wished them a caustic farewell, so 
 they knew Miss Paul was without help. Dr. 
 Paveley's present woman was more trouble- 
 some than they could describe, and they 
 thought that if only Miss Paul would speak to 
 the doctor, she could so easily convince him 
 that an altogether better class woman could 
 be got by a union of their work and wages, 
 
The Way Things Happen 47 
 
 and that every one would be rendered much 
 happier and more comfortable thereby which 
 was quite true. 
 
 Miss Paul said she would do what she could, 
 and if an opportunity came would speak with 
 Dr. Paveley. So the matter rested, and Miss 
 Paul went out to take lunch at a little tea- 
 shop in Baker Street. The waitress there was 
 friendly, and had before now been able to 
 recommend a woman, who had been competent 
 and honest, but whose family duties or necessi- 
 ties had in two cases at least proved too impor- 
 tunate for other more paying but less important 
 work. 
 
 " Mrs. Cawke has given me notice," said 
 Miss Paul, when the waitress, who was also 
 manageress of the little shop, brought the cup 
 of coffee and roll and butter she had ordered. 
 
 " I was afraid she would, miss," said the 
 waitress, who was fresh-faced in spite of the 
 number of hours' standing her day's work 
 involved. " A hasty-tempered woman. She's 
 come here on occasions to clean out Saturdays, 
 and she told me she found it very hard to 
 
 OF THE \ 
 
 UNIVERSITY ) 
 
48 The Way Things Happen 
 
 work for an old maid. Not that she has much 
 to talk about ; her family's been a terrible 
 trouble husband and children and one thing 
 and another. Soured her. Plenty like that. 
 
 Mrs. Martin " 
 
 " Can you tell me of some one else ? " Miss 
 Paul gently interrupted. "There's so little 
 to be done, and I can afford so little, you 
 know." 
 
 " Pooh, miss, there's plenty as 'ud be glad 
 of the bit extra so easily come by. Mrs. 
 Martin now, as I was saying, she's a different 
 pair of shoes. Some sours. She sweetens. 
 And adversity well, I get her whenever I can, 
 I tell you that. You'd say, wouldn't you, 
 there'd not be difference in cleaning out a place 
 who did it ? Well, you don't know what 
 clean is till you've seen her at a job, and in 
 half the time. Her daughter's at work here 
 now, though we shan't keep her long, I fear. 
 We've been taken over by the public-house 
 next door, and every scrap o' food has to be 
 fetched, as it's wanted, across the yard. The 
 time it wastes, and the running to and fro, to 
 
The Way Things Happen 49 
 
 say nothing of it not being nice in wet weather ! 
 The boss wants his money's worth, and that's 
 right enough, but not the way to get it, that 
 isn't. Janie won't stop, and no blame to her ; 
 nor will any self-respecting girl or woman, so 
 he'll lose in the end. Sharp ways and suspect- 
 ing doesn't even pay." 
 
 Miss Paul had come early to find the 
 manageress disengaged, but a customer came 
 in at that moment, and soon the room began 
 to fill. The manageress found time to say 
 when Miss Paul paid her fourpence 
 
 cc If you could come in at three you could see 
 the daughter ; we're slack then, and she'd tell 
 you if her mother could come. I rather think 
 she wants a job, her mother does. And thank 
 you, miss," she added, seeing the two pennies 
 put under the delicate shadow of the plate. 
 
 So Miss Paul returned at three, and saw 
 Mrs. Martin's daughter a glad-eyed, erect 
 girl, pleasantly proud of herself, who was sure 
 her mother would be pleased to come. 
 
 " She'll call round this evenin' 'bout nine, 
 if that'll soot." 
 
50 The Way Things Happen 
 
 And at nine Mrs. Martin came. 
 
 To Miss Paul a visitor of any description 
 was of extreme rarity at any time of day, and 
 this was actually the first time during the 
 tenancy of her rooms that any one had come 
 in the evening. Her bell, with a brass plate 
 engraved with her name underneath it, was 
 just above the bell and plate of Dr. Paveley, 
 and each bell rang outside the door of their 
 respective rooms, Mrs. Martin rang the right 
 bell, but the doctor, expecting a guest, mistook, 
 as Miss Paul feared he might, the sound ; and 
 she did not overtake him until they were both 
 in the hall. 
 
 "I think it's for me," she said; but Dr. 
 Paveley took no notice. He may not have 
 heard, as she was on the last turn of the stairs. 
 Miss Paul stopped under the incandescent light 
 in the hall. Dr. Paveley opened the door. 
 He was very angry at having Miss Paul's 
 presence in the house intruded upon him again, 
 and his temper, after having shared the mouse's 
 restlessness during the previous night, was not 
 fit to bear any strain. 
 
The Way Things Happen 51 
 
 " What can I do for you, my good woman? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Name o' Miss Paul ? " asked Mrs. Martin, 
 startled at thus suddenly seeing a middle-aged 
 and angry gentleman. 
 
 " What do you say ? " 
 
 He wilfully refused to hear, and Mrs. 
 Martin, raising her voice, repeated with the 
 utmost distinctness 
 
 " Name of Miss Paul, I said." 
 
 The owner of the name could not move 
 from her station under the incandescent light. 
 There was something about the doctor's petu- 
 lance which frightened her and irresistibly 
 amused her. He seemed to her a very old 
 man in everything but in this petulance, which 
 made him momentarily resemble a very naughty 
 boy. As she stood there, it flashed through 
 her mind how easy it would be to step forward 
 and clear up the difficulty ; but no resolution 
 for the little deed came, and the innumerable 
 number of projects was joined by another little 
 member, whose hope of blossoming into a full- 
 blown deed was dwindling. 
 
52 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " If you had been at the pains to look, you 
 would have observed that under each bell had 
 been inscribed," began the doctor, in his clearest, 
 most withering manner ; but Mrs. Martin, not 
 easily withered, interrupted him 
 
 " Which I was careful to read before I 
 rang." 
 
 "The names," continued the doctor, "of 
 the different occupants of the house, and you 
 would not have pressed the wrong bell." 
 
 His tone was final, was that of a man who 
 says the last word, the word which Dr. 
 Paveley considered his right on even graver 
 matters of fact. He turned, but Mrs. Martin 
 remarked with emphasis 
 
 " Beggin' your pardon, it was the right bell 
 I rang the top *un." 
 
 Dr. Paveley ignored her remark, and bowing 
 a dignified " good evening " to Miss Paul he 
 proceeded slowly to mount the stairs with an 
 expression of pain upon his face ; but, as on 
 the Sunday of his first encounter with Miss 
 Paul, only the day before, dignity was taken 
 from him. A young man's head peered into 
 
The Way Things Happen 53 
 
 the light round the half-open door, and a 
 boisterous voice cried out as the young man's 
 body rushed through the hall 
 
 " Hullo, uncle ! having a party ? Don't 
 turn your back on your loving nephew. How 
 are you, old uncle ? " he went on, beating Dr. 
 Paveley upon the back, and, before his uncle 
 could remonstrate, " How do you ? " he said 
 to Miss Paul, and gripped her hand in his. 
 
 " Come upstairs, Rupert," said the doctor, 
 sternly, " and behave in as seemly a fashion as 
 is possible to you." 
 
 " My mistake, if it's not a party," said the 
 young man, and as he followed his uncle's 
 broad back up the stairs he smiled regretfully 
 at Miss Paul, who hastened forward to speak 
 to Mrs. Martin, and did not hear the young 
 man add " She's ripping." 
 
 " I'm Miss Paul," she said ; " please come in." 
 
 " Funny sort of an old gentleman, that," 
 said Mrs. Martin, pleasantly. 
 
 " Yes. I live in the rooms at the very top 
 of the house," said Miss Paul, and led the 
 way up the stairs. 
 
54 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Mrs. Martin scrutinised the rooms with the 
 eye of an expert, and Miss Paul quailed under 
 the scrutiny like an amateur, waiting for the 
 judgment. 
 
 " Lord ! you'd say the thing was alive and 
 grinnin'," exclaimed Mrs. Martin with a jump, 
 as her eye fell on the small chair. " Did you 
 ever see such a littl' ole curios'ty ? The likes 
 of that now ! " and " Love me ! " she added 
 on a chuckle to herself. 
 
 Miss Paul, as she looked at the woman, 
 instinctively liked her. Mrs. Martin had her 
 daughter's glad eyes and open face. She was 
 a small woman, and stood with her shoulders 
 back and her arms resting comfortably on 
 what was once her waist. 
 
 "Four shillin's a week, and I don't come 
 on Sundays never 'ave," she pronounced. 
 " And what time of a morning ? " 
 
 " About half-past eight ? " 
 
 " Make it a quarter to nine. Then I can see 
 me boys ready for school and have little Amy 
 dressed, and 'ave a bit o' breakfast, though 
 I can't be eatin' meself till me work's done." 
 
The Way Things Happen 55 
 
 "That'll do very well," said Miss Paul, 
 wondering how many children the woman 
 had and how much work she got through 
 between morning and night. 
 
 " We'll make it look a bit better between 
 us, I think," said Mrs. Martin. "I 'ate 
 a dirty mantelpiece the less to be done the 
 worse some does it. And I've been to places 
 filthy in dirt filthy ! and cleaned it up all 
 nice and proper, and then they've said, c Oh, 
 we can do for ourselves now,* after I've 'ad 
 all the 'ard work of gettin' it clean and not 
 'ad a chance o' keepin' it clean. That comes 
 'ard." 
 
 " I shall want you, ^s far as I know, for 
 a long time," Miss Paul assured her. 
 
 <c Till-death-us-do-part sort of thing ; I 
 see, and thank you, and your place '11 look 
 like a little pickture. You wait and see ! " 
 
 " I hope that perhaps you might do for the 
 gentleman downstairs, you could make quite 
 a good thing of it then ; but he's peculiar, 
 and likes to keep very much to himself, I 
 believe." 
 
56 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " He's afraid of yer, miss. See, if I did 
 his rooms, I'd talk with you about his 'abits 
 and things, and you'd kind of get to know 4m. 
 There's a many like that. Secret. But we'll 
 see ; and anyhow, I'm glad o' the work you 
 can give me, bein' reg'lar, and I'll come 
 to-morrow a quarter on nine and see a bit 
 where things is." 
 
 And Mrs. Martin departed, leaving Miss 
 Paul amused at the idea that Dr. Paveley 
 feared her. Funnily enough, however, Dr. 
 Paveley' s boisterous young visitor expounded 
 the same theory to his uncle, after twitting 
 him with much irreverence on his lack of 
 gallantry. And the more sternly the doctor 
 endeavoured to silence him, the more solemnly 
 this preposterous nephew wagged his head 
 over the seriousness of what he called his 
 uncle's case. 
 
 " It's that surprising streak of white hair 
 curving up from her forehead and her funny 
 nose that have done for you. Uncle mine, 
 introduce me, and I'll put in a good word 
 for you, upon my honour." 
 
The Way Things Happen 57 
 
 "Your behaviour is in the highest degree 
 unseemly and your remarks are impertinent," 
 answered Dr. Paveley. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " said his nephew, with 
 infamous tenderness, "for having touched 
 lightly upon such sacred ground. Your 
 whole manner should have warned me." 
 
 "You are an impertinent young jackanapes ! " 
 fumed the doctor. "And I must ask you," 
 he went on, to his nephew's delight, " not 
 to speak of your ridiculous ideas to any one. 
 They are most unseemly and highly disagree- 
 able to me." 
 
 " What do you take me for ? " cried his 
 nephew, with earnestness. " The beautiful 
 secret shall remain between ourselves." 
 
 Dr. Paveley seemed somehow caught in a 
 ridiculous net. That even a foolish young man 
 should link him and Miss Paul together for a 
 moment in his mind or speech as a joke, in- 
 creased and, as it were, materialised his dread 
 of the single woman who lived above him 
 Supposing the disease had touched him, like a 
 mischievous spirit, and this was the beginning 
 
58 The Way Things Happen 
 
 of an obsession created in the mind by a 
 woman's form which terms approximated to 
 his definition of love. The supposition was 
 horrible. It did not possess even the illusion 
 of pleasure. He must not let such a thing gain 
 upon his thoughts. Or had he become a tool 
 in some one else's hands ? He saw the amused 
 expression upon the woman's face. Was it 
 possible that she had some subtle power, that 
 she knew of this power, and was exerting it 
 over him ? Flummery 1 Flummery ! Flum- 
 mery ! A sleepless night was playing the 
 deuce with him. 
 
 His nephew left. Dr. Paveley went straight 
 to bed. And there in his bedroom, crouched 
 under the wardrobe, was waiting the mouse, 
 who, nourished by the doctor's bootlaces and 
 the crumbs of his vespertinal biscuit, had 
 passed on the whole a pleasant day of 
 sleep and exploration. Frightened by the 
 light and by the heavy step of a man, he 
 remained crouching until all was dark and 
 still, and the doctor was dropping asleep ; 
 then he screwed up his courage and began 
 
The Way Things Happen 59 
 
 his scuffling efforts to find an exit in the 
 wainscot. 
 
 Again the doctor did not sleep. He thought 
 much and variously, but never guessed the 
 Fates' decree that a charwoman and a mouse 
 fantastic emissaries of Aphrodite should be 
 the chief agents in luring him to the edge of a 
 ruinous fall. 
 
 * # # -* * 
 
 So this dance of circumstance began for the 
 two people who had lodged placidly, one above 
 the other, in a humdrum-looking house in a 
 humdrum crescent that faces the noisy Maryle- 
 bone Road. Some power had set the dance in 
 motion over their unsuspecting heads ; or per- 
 haps it would be truer to say over the head of 
 the lady : the poor doctor was really caught in 
 the reflex of the movement ; and he, after being 
 spun round in a turn or two, was dropped into 
 his historical routine again a little the giddier 
 for his rotatory experience. 
 
IV 
 
 D^. PAVELEY deliberately took the 
 next step on his own initiative. 
 Impelled partly by a boy's bravado 
 to show to himself how little he 
 cared in daylight for his night's terrors of a 
 witch's enchantments, and partly by a desire to 
 obtain a mouse-trap as speedily as possible, he 
 ascended the stairs, and tapped at the nearest of 
 the three doors that were shut before him. It 
 was immediately opened. 
 
 " Here is the gentleman from the under- 
 neath," cried Mrs. Martin, as though they had 
 been expecting the unprecedented fact of his 
 visit. 
 
 The welcome unmanned him, like a blow 
 in the waist. He surrendered to the capable 
 voice of Mrs. Martin, begging him to step 
 this way, please a thing which he had decided 
 
 60 
 
The Way Things Happen 61 
 
 on no account to do and followed her into 
 the little sitting-room. Miss Paul rose from 
 her desk, at which she had been sitting, and 
 advanced to meet him with outstretched hand, 
 which he silently, and as he thought foolishly, 
 accepted in his. 
 
 " How fortunate ! " said Miss Paul, colour- 
 ing. " I wanted to speak to you." 
 
 His heart sank, and he noticed the streak of 
 white hair curving up from her forehead, and 
 the funny nose, according to his nephew's 
 description. Mrs. Martin, her arms resting on 
 what was once her waist- her habitual attitude 
 inspected him with a sort of authority, none 
 the less painful to him that it was gained by 
 only one " doing " of the room in which he 
 stood. 
 
 " Madam," he enunciated, " I have come to 
 ask you for the loan of a mouse-trap." The 
 words in which he put his very natural request 
 had an unbecoming tilt of absurdity about them 
 a crooked bonnet has the same effect on the 
 head of a respectable old lady. 
 
 Oh, Faust," said Miss Paul, " has he been 
 
62 The Way Things Happen 
 
 disturbing you ? I am sorry. I ought not to 
 have let him loose." 
 
 " May I ask," said the doctor, and indigna- 
 tion helped him to recover his assurance 
 " may I ask you, madam, if you do keep tame 
 mice as pets, not to allow the disgusting little 
 animals to escape from their cages or wherever 
 you may be ill-advised enough to keep them." 
 
 "No," said Miss Paul, "I don't keep any 
 mice exactly, only " 
 
 " Such an idea ! " said Mrs. Martin, affably. 
 
 "Perhaps you could call," Dr. Paveley 
 coughed angrily " could call him home." 
 
 "No, I " Miss Paul prayed that her 
 
 gravity might not leave her. " He disturbed 
 me and I caught him. Only I let him go 
 again." 
 
 "Soft 'carted like me," said Mrs. Martin, 
 with full understanding. 
 
 " Let him it go, >J said Dr. Paveley, feeling 
 vaguely he had been the butt of some practical 
 joke. 
 
 " But I should be pleased to lend you my 
 trap," hastily put in Miss Paul. 
 
The Way Things Happen 63 
 
 " Two sleepless nights, madam, have been 
 the result." 
 
 "Poor Faust!" she was constrained to 
 murmur. 
 
 " You'd 'ave said with all them cats," Mrs. 
 Martin thought, as it were, aloud, " there'd 
 'ave been no mice, at any rate, whatever else 
 there might V been." 
 
 " I'll fetch the trap," said Miss Paul. 
 
 " Need to be 'andy to set 'em nice. You'd 
 
 best let me " and Mrs. Martin turned 
 
 into the kitchen, saying as she disappeared, 
 " It lies on the bottom shelf." 
 
 " Thank you," Dr. Paveley comprehensively 
 remarked. 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Paveley, I wanted to speak to 
 you," began Miss Paul, and hesitated, as Mrs. 
 Martin returned with the trap in her hand 
 and cheerfully held it out to the doctor. 
 
 "Here it is," she said to him, "and quite 
 at 'ome already ain't we ? " she said to Miss 
 Paul. 
 
 Rather lamely he took the trap, and 
 rather gingerly he held it between thumb and 
 
64 The Way Things Happen 
 
 first finger, inspecting it out of a kind of 
 courtesy. He stood with it in his hand and 
 racked his brains for an apt allusion to the 
 most famous of all mouse-traps, but getting 
 no further than a mournfully facetious 
 "Hamlet's thing," sniffed deferentially at it, 
 more in the way of a lap-dog than of a terrier, 
 for no very intelligible reason. 
 
 "In workin' order ? " queried Mrs. Martin, 
 and, stepping forward, she in a businesslike 
 manner pressed the spring up and down, 
 helping the doctor's hold on the trap with 
 her own hand, and finally letting it snap with 
 an approving " All right," she took her place 
 in the odd trio in her habitual attitude. 
 
 " I don't take to them patent things. Sup- 
 posed to kill 'em outright, but catches 'em 
 by the tail or leg, which, as often as not, 
 breaks. Unsatisfact'ry. Crool too." 
 
 She tightened her arms to her sides the 
 movement a stage sailor makes when he 
 " hists " up his breeches. 
 
 " What I wanted to say " Miss Paul 
 
 gently began again, but could not continue, 
 
 mi 
 '%** 
 
The Way Things Happen 65 
 
 confronting as she did the inert doctor with 
 the mouse-trap still in his hand. 
 
 The poor man's initiative had entirely gone 
 by this time ; no vestige of any will remained 
 to him. Mrs. Martin would almost have 
 been obliged to push him quietly from the 
 room before he could have left. He could 
 not even which was fortunate for his imme- 
 diate self-esteem realise his state. He began 
 to smile, and there was no meaning in his 
 smile. It expressed nothing but vacancy. 
 The firelight danced on the grotesque face 
 of Loki, but the small chair did not creak. 
 
 So Mrs. Martin laughed comfortably and 
 took that difficulty, as she was in the habit 
 of taking most difficulties, upon herself. 
 
 u Miss Paul here, and me, we'd been think- 
 ing as there ain't no sense in havin' two women 
 like me about the place, gettin' in each other's 
 way, when it's one woman's job by rights 
 easy, and you havin' no objection that I'd 
 better see to yer wants and things. I could 
 do for yer both, and keep yer both more 
 comfortable than you'd ever been afore. And 
 
 
 
66 The Way Things Happen 
 
 it all fits in nice, as I know them pore land- 
 ladies with their cats and all has only temp'ry 
 help, and you c'u'd give me a try and see 'ow 
 it suited. To say nothing of it being worther 
 my while to take both jobs, and it's only fair 
 to consider all parties like and be accom'dating, 
 if you'll 'scuse me for 'aving spoke." 
 
 <c I see no objections," answered Dr. Paveley 
 after a short silence, during which within him 
 there was a faint flutter of resistance to the 
 long-feared plan, now suddenly, as he somehow 
 felt, forced upon him, and then, with the 
 ghost of a less negative smile upon his face, 
 he added to Miss Paul, "I even venture to 
 see advantages." 
 
 The exact nature of the advantages was not 
 forthcoming, but the words had a faint sound 
 of a compliment, a frail and distant compliment, 
 which touched Miss Paul's delicate hearing 
 oddly and pleasantly. She forgot his years 
 of cantankerous objection and softly said 
 " How very nice of you ! " 
 " And all this while if he's not been holdin' 
 the trap ! " remarked Mrs. Martin. " Give it 
 
The Way Things Happen 67 
 
 me, and I'll start in this very minute as is 
 by settin' it." 
 
 She took the trap away from him. In- 
 stinctively she treated him as experience 
 had led her to treat all men as beings 
 radically irrational and helpless, bigger than 
 babies and less easy to humour. She would 
 say as much to another woman without a 
 trace of injury in her voice (she was too 
 busy to be bitter), and would always add, 
 " I've learn'd my boys to be 'andy in the 
 
 'ouse." 
 
 Relieved of the mouse-trap, Dr. Paveley 
 became gradually more, as they say, himself. 
 He straitened his shoulders and pulling down 
 his waistcoat with a sigh, held out a hand, 
 which Miss Paul, while noticing it was slightly 
 podgy, took. 
 
 " We're very grateful," she said. 
 
 " You exaggerate the cause for any grati- 
 tude," Dr. Paveley obscurely remarked with 
 
 uneasy jocularity. " I would say " He 
 
 began to append a footnote to his observa- 
 tion, but the passage defeated him, and with 
 
68 The Way Things Happen 
 
 another vacant smile, he a little clumsily 
 withdrew. 
 
 " We didn't 'alf manage him ! " laughed 
 Mrs. Martin. 
 
 The stairs did not sound under his tread ; 
 the door did not slam behind him ; the leather- 
 bound chair received his thirteen stone by slow 
 degrees with no wheeze of expostulation ; the 
 fire burned on in spite of his protracted stare 
 into its flames. His mind was slow to recover 
 its normal function was slow to arrive at any 
 explanation of what had happened to him. 
 
 Mrs. Martin at length entered and asked 
 for instructions. 
 
 " Instructions ? " slowly said the doctor. 
 "Ah! Yes. Breakfast bacon." He rose 
 and walked to his big desk with an air of pre- 
 occupation. He did not like the woman to 
 suppose that it was his custom to spend the 
 morning dozing in his chair ; he fingered the 
 pages of a large book which was lying open 
 upon his desk, and, without turning his head, 
 said with a kind of reluctance, "And the 
 customary cleaning operations." 
 
The Way Things Happen 69 
 
 " Exactly. And wages ? " 
 
 The doctor put his left hand slowly through 
 his hair, and damping a finger on his lips, 
 turned over a page with great deliberation 
 before he slowly spoke. 
 
 " My habitual practice is to pay nine shillings 
 per week for the work which you will do." 
 
 " Make it ten," said Mrs. Martin, cheer- 
 fully " a much more comfortabler sum to 
 reckon with." 
 
 Dr. Paveley looked at the woman over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " I am not prepared to change my " he 
 
 began, and stopped for the word he wanted. 
 
 Mrs. Martin cheerfully repeated, " Make it 
 ten ; " and Dr. Paveley continued, in the same 
 measured tones 
 
 " I am prepared to pay an increment of one 
 shilling per week." 
 
 " Thank you kindly and good mornin* to 
 you, sir," she said, and went to find out more 
 clearly from the landladies the nature of her 
 future duties. 
 
 The landladies were overjoyed to hear the 
 
yo The Way Things Happen 
 
 good news of the doctor's relenting, and 
 immediately, as they expressed it, took to 
 Mrs. Martin. They gave her so many in- 
 structions about this, and warnings about 
 that, and advice about the other, that, if Mrs. 
 Martin had been at all easily bewildered, she 
 would have been in bewilderment infallibly 
 lost ; but she listened pleasantly, and at length 
 saying, "I see I shan't 'alf 'ave me hands full," 
 went briskly upstairs to see what luck she had 
 had with the trap. The hungry mouse had 
 fallen an easy victim to the allurement of the 
 cheese-rind with which the trap had been 
 baited. He was again caught ; and this time 
 he was doomed and drowned. Though his 
 life was thus cut abruptly short, it had exercised 
 more influence upon the lives of other and 
 higher creatures than is usual with the life of 
 a mouse. He had not lived by any means in 
 vain. 
 
 Dr. Paveley stood for some time by his roll- 
 top desk, slowly turning with a damped finger 
 the pages of the large book which he did not, 
 however, read. The pinging voice of the 
 
The Way Things Happen 71 
 
 little clock which stood on the mantelpiece 
 at last awoke him to the fact of his morning's 
 duties, and of his lecture at a neighbouring 
 college in Baker Street. He went to his bed- 
 room to shave. There was probably only one 
 thing that he disliked more than shaving him- 
 self, and that was being shaved ; so he invari- 
 ably postponed that operation until he had 
 been fortified by breakfast. After his face was 
 smooth and dry, he deliberately inspected it 
 in the looking-glass, with the same air of pre- 
 occupation that had been with him all the 
 morning. He had never done such a thing 
 before, and he did it as it were unconsciously ; 
 that is to say, for no reason that he specified 
 to himself. A man face to face with himself 
 in the glass bears a fixed expression like that 
 on a beach-taken photograph. Dr. Paveley 
 saw a broad face inclining to fatness ; he saw 
 on the curve of the cheeks an intricate tracery 
 of little red veins under large eyes that just 
 protruded ; he saw a high forehead, up from 
 which was brushed hair that was becoming 
 scanty ; he saw a longish moustache that 
 
72 The Way Things Happen 
 
 straggled down each corner of his mouth, and 
 a chin that was losing its line ; he saw ears 
 with big lobes, a nose that could well be called 
 Roman. Dr. Paveley was not the man to 
 quail before the thought that he was obliged 
 to live with that face always, to sleep with it, 
 to carry it without shrinking through the 
 streets, to stand before critical audiences with 
 it while he lectured. He did not wonder [f a 
 man with that face could be loved for himself, 
 nor did he go more deeply into the matter and 
 question how far a face was an accurate expres- 
 sion of character. He looked, and he for- 
 lornly sighed, as a man sighs whom malign 
 circumstance has forced to act against his will 
 and judgment. 
 
A PAUSE that endured some days 
 followed this initial little whirl in 
 the dance of circumstance. Mrs. 
 Martin settled into her work so 
 thoroughly that, as she remarked to Miss 
 Paul, it really seemed funny to think of the 
 time she hadn't been there. She attacked dirt 
 with the vigour of a man who is fighting in a 
 blood-feud ; all the enemy's insidious advances 
 she knew by long experience, and foiled them 
 by patience and forethought. Miss Paul 
 learned the meaning of the word " clean," as 
 her friend in the tea-shop had suggested that 
 she would. Otherwise her life resumed its old 
 course a little more pleasantly, owing to the 
 vitality of Mrs. Martin's service. 
 
 Her days were always very fully occupied. 
 She liked to pay her regular tribute of admiration 
 
 73 
 
74 The Way Things Happen 
 
 to all the beautiful things in London St. 
 Paul's, the Abbey, the old City churches, the 
 pictures at the National and the Tate Galleries, 
 the treasures in the museums, and when the 
 day promised a fine sunset, she often walked 
 on to Westminster Bridge to get its full splen- 
 dour. In all the array of beauty within her 
 reach she took a child's proprietary interest and 
 joy. Her sensibility did not become dulled, 
 nor had she- any desire to express to any one 
 else the feelings which different things aroused 
 in her. She never questioned her purpose or 
 felt that she was storing energy for no. purpose. 
 The joy she took from one thing helped her to 
 enjoy another thing more, and she relished joy 
 for its own sake without thinking about it. 
 Supposing in such a life as she had led there 
 had been a grain of envy, her life would have 
 been spoiled. Even such a small thing as the 
 thought, how much pleasanter her life would 
 be if she could afford to rent the large room in 
 which the doctor lived, or could afford more 
 comfortable seats in more concerts, would have 
 poisoned her existence, and made her joy 
 
The Way Things Happen 75 
 
 desperate and not glad-hearted. But discon- 
 tent of any kind was absolutely foreign to her 
 nature. To have asked her what her reason 
 was for living would have been as wise to ask 
 that question of a child who was picking daisies 
 in the sun. Age had brought Miss Paul 
 increased will and intelligence to enjoy without 
 robbing her of her child's spontaneity. So 
 she read, for instance, with deep understanding 
 about the wonder of the human body and of 
 human beings that was all as full of meaning 
 to her as a fairy tale, but when she read such 
 lines as "I could go and live with the animals " 
 she put down the book with a little frown of 
 perplexity, until she remembered the women- 
 folk of some of her brother's friends, who 
 seemed to find little pleasure in anything 
 except their own or their children's ailments 
 and the troubles of housekeeping. Or perhaps 
 they had great secret joys of which they were 
 unable to speak to herself, even as she was 
 unable to speak of her joys to them ; and the 
 troublesome details were the only subjects of 
 conversation available in her company. 
 
76 The Way Things Happen 
 
 She herself wrote occasional fairy stories, in 
 which Loki played a prominent part, and still 
 more occasional verses. Once, when she 
 arrived to find that all the cheapest seats to 
 a series of orchestral concerts were sold, the 
 thought had seriously come to her to sell 
 her hair, which was very long, but she had 
 never thought of selling her stories. 
 
 Dr. Paveley, during these days of pause, 
 continued his work. He was finishing a paper 
 in which he proved England reached its high 
 position in spite of Elizabeth's influence. In 
 a slight digression he showed conclusively that 
 all the great men of the time wrote their 
 sonnets to her and others as studies in irony, 
 to express their contempt and dislike for the 
 woman to whom the poems were addressed. 
 A great point was made in the paper by the 
 insertion of a hitherto undiscovered fact : that 
 Shakespeare's mother was engaged in a law-suit 
 at Stratford-on-Avon before William Shake- 
 speare himself came of age. Only a scholar can 
 realise the importance of such a discovery. To 
 the lay mind it sounds sufficiently insignificant. 
 
The Way Things Happen 77 
 
 But theories that have been painfully con- 
 structed from a lifetime's research may be 
 dismantled by it, and conjectures which would 
 alter the whole complexion of a reign's history 
 may by it be set in motion. The paper was, of 
 course, written round this new fact, and in the 
 doctor's hands it incidentally bore the weight of 
 added proof for all the doctor's opinions. 
 
 As he worked at the paper his dislike of 
 Elizabeth became oddly interwoven with his 
 dislike and fear of Miss Paul, so that many 
 passages rang with the shrill note of a personal 
 animus. The woman, indeed, obsessed his 
 mind, and the hatred, which he opposed to this 
 obsession, had solely the effect of increasing 
 its volume. Into the commonest details of his 
 daily life her appearance somehow found its 
 crafty way. Chiefly perhaps he wondered with 
 angry resentment what she did all day and all 
 the evenings. Tentative remarks to the dis- 
 creet Mrs. Martin elicited no information. 
 The woman merely smiled in a way which 
 forced the doctor to add that it was really not 
 a matter of the slightest interest to him. He 
 
78 The Way Things Happen 
 
 came very near to trying to shake that fact into 
 the woman's dull brain ; but like a man in a 
 swamp, the more he struggled the deeper he 
 sank. He was conscious that Mrs. Martin 
 was beginning to take a womanly interest in 
 his state. She served up his bacon with a kind 
 of tenderness, as though her presence might 
 aggravate the wound caused by another's 
 absence. This state of things afflicted him 
 even more than a boil on the back of his neck, 
 because no remedy which he knew of existed 
 for its appeasement. It seemed pathetic that a 
 man should have lived forty years in content 
 and quiet, to be tripped up in respectable middle 
 age by a ridiculous woman who lived in the 
 attics above him. This painful anomaly, how- 
 ever, as he was obliged to confess, had happened 
 to him. Soon it came about that he could not 
 write about Elizabeth without actually seeing 
 her with a streak of white hair curving up 
 from the centre of her forehead, and a funny, 
 yes, a funny nose. There was no alleviation 
 to this dismal prospect which he saw awaiting 
 him. She might even be unable, for all that 
 
The Way Things Happen 79 
 
 he absolutely knew, to relieve him from the 
 awkward quandary in which the tying of a 
 dress-tie invariably placed him. With such 
 a burden why should he saddle himself ? Why 
 should he, who was a careful worker, a respected 
 historian, who was up to this painful moment 
 quite singularly complete in himself, why should 
 he of all living men be constrained to a pro- 
 posal of marriage ? The affair was too occult, 
 too irresistible, too dreadful to summon even 
 the grimmest smile to his face. The thing, 
 indescribable as it was, had to be. Already 
 within the last two days he had twice found 
 himself at the foot of the stairs leading to the 
 hateful little room in which he knew that the 
 woman was sitting. Twice with a start he had 
 come to himself in the nick of time, and had 
 returned to his leather-bound chair with a cold 
 sensation on his spine, and drops of sweat 
 pricking out from his forehead. He had never 
 subjected himself to any form of mesmerism, 
 but he felt the victim of some occult power 
 more and more strongly manifested. A simple 
 explanation might certainly be that the obsession 
 
80 The Way Things Happen 
 
 had gained complete hold of his mind ; or, 
 most simply, that he was, as they loosely say, 
 in love, and in love for the first time. A 
 simple fact may often be too cruel for the most 
 resolute man to face. His nephew that pre- 
 posterous young man would have explained 
 it all pat enough. The avuncular eye regarded 
 love as a disease ; therefore love came to the 
 uncle in the guise of a disease, and heaven 
 ought to be thanked for this convincing and 
 personal proof of all the uncle's theories. For 
 the obsession intruded upon what the poor 
 man had of imagination, and set it wildly at 
 work on imaginary conversations, in which the 
 gibes of mockers were met by no silencing 
 retort. 
 
 Suddenly one evening it was six days since 
 his loan of the mouse-trap, six long unendurable 
 days of ceaseless, ineffectual struggle he leapt 
 to his feet, and, flinging back his head with the 
 solemnity of a grand opera singer in the second 
 act's crucial moment, advanced to the door. A 
 great idea had come to him. He would go 
 and see the woman. She must conceal some 
 
The Way Things Happen 81 
 
 horrible defect a squint, the loss of a finger, 
 some little personal habit, which would vanquish 
 the ridiculous enchantment and give him back 
 his liberty. He did not stop to think that she 
 was in all conscience odious enough to him 
 already. A prayer was in his heart, as he 
 stepped up the stairs, that he might actually 
 the doctor's stress must excuse the unpleasant- 
 ness of his prayer see the woman crack the 
 joints of her fingers. He did not wait to 
 knock, but opened the door, and stood, as 
 Miss Paul started round in considerable alarm, 
 holding the handle of the door in his hand. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she cried, rising 
 quickly. 
 
 Dr. Paveley's appearance gave her the most 
 natural cause for the gravest anxiety that his 
 room was in flames ; that a burglar had leaped 
 in at the window ; that a ghost had appeared 
 to him. He was breathing heavily ; his hair 
 was in slight disorder ; he clasped and unclasped 
 the fingers of his free hand. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she cried again. 
 " How can I help you ? " 
 
 F 
 
82 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Dr. Paveley slowly closed the door, and 
 advanced into the room. 
 
 " Materially," he said in his blandest manner, 
 "by allowing me, madam, to enter and to 
 enjoy the privilege of a short conversation with 
 your good self." 
 
 "By all means," shyly said Miss Paul. 
 " Please sit down." 
 
 " Thank you, madam, for your kindness. 
 Permit me," he added, somewhat tardily per- 
 haps, as he took his seat "permit me to 
 apologise for thus intruding upon your 
 privacy. When, however, you have learned 
 the importance of what I am about to say, 
 I am convinced that you will readily, and I 
 venture to hope gladly, forgive this this 
 intrusion upon . . . upon your privacy." 
 
 " Not at all. Oh ! not at all," Miss Paul 
 hastily murmured, and stooped to rake the 
 grey ashes out of the fire. 
 
 If the doctor's visit had been actuated by 
 much the same feeling as forces a man to 
 precipitate himself from a dizzy height, or 
 to fling himself at a swiftly passing train, that 
 
The Way Things Happen 83 
 
 impulse disappeared in the presence of the 
 feared woman herself. Miss Paul's own 
 obvious nervousness put the good doctor at 
 ease with himself. He became pleasantly 
 master of the situation, and pleasantly, as 
 the phrase is, at home. A sober relaxation 
 took the place of the severe strain of the past 
 days. He spread out his hands before the 
 fire. He saw, as business men say of their 
 interviews, the line to take and took it. 
 
 " It has occurred to me, my dear madam," 
 he began, smoothing the warmth into his 
 hands "it has occurred to me that we have 
 erred on the side of, what I may call, ex- 
 clusiveness that much is to be said for 
 pleasant interchange . . . for agreeable social 
 amenities. We might, we might spend an 
 occasional pleasant evening, many pleasant 
 evenings, perhaps, in pursuing the . . . what 
 I may call the lighter sociabilities. Back- 
 gammon, now may I inquire if you have 
 ever played backgammon ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't," said Miss Paul, " play 
 backgammon." 
 
84 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Or chess ? " continued the doctor, with 
 an encouraging wave of his hand. " Many 
 a long hour might be beguiled by a study 
 of the openings, and by an occasional applica- 
 tion of those careful theories in a pitched and 
 peaceful battle." 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't," said Miss Paul, " play 
 chess either." 
 
 "Then there is the simpler but scarcely 
 less engrossing game of draughts." 
 
 " Nor draughts," said Miss Paul. 
 
 " My hands are constitutionally incapable 
 of manipulating cards with any dexterity, but 
 I believe several games exist, in which two 
 people can find distraction from " 
 
 "I'm very stupid, I'm afraid," Miss Paul 
 interrupted, " but I can't play any games." 
 
 "Perhaps you will allow me to instruct 
 you in the mysteries of a game, for which 
 I must own to a strong partiality, the most 
 excellent game of backgammon." 
 
 " I'm so afraid I hate all games," Miss Paul 
 was obliged emphatically to say, in spite of 
 her fear of hurting his feelings. 
 
The Way Things Happen 85 
 
 "Just so," mused the doctor, "just so," 
 and leaned back in his chair. 
 
 " I'm so sorry about the mouse," said Miss 
 Paul, and leaned forward to sweep up the 
 grate with the hearth-brush. 
 
 Dr. Paveley was pondering deeply. He 
 looked at her, as if she were not there, with- 
 out seeing her, and became conscious of the 
 grotesque little chair which stood by her side. 
 Miss Paul turned her head and saw the fire- 
 light dance across the fantastic face, and 
 accentuate its fierce expression of life. She 
 smiled. 
 
 " In that case," the doctor at length said, 
 and his voice sounded as if he were speaking 
 in his sleep, "in that case, madam, may I 
 inquire what your views are of ... what 
 your views are on the subject ... the delicate 
 subject of ... of marriage ? " 
 
 The question dropped into her mind like 
 a large stone into a fish-pond, and scattered 
 her dulled thoughts in all directions. But she 
 was glad of a topic on which she need be less 
 drearily abrupt and negative. 
 
86 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Ah, yes/* she said, " marriage. So much." 
 And she tried to catch from the helter-skelter 
 what might most properly be considered her 
 own view. 
 
 Dr. Paveley, again launched, regained his 
 self-possession. 
 
 " I may add," he remarked in his normal 
 voice, "that I do not speak out of mere 
 curiosity though curiosity to elicit a view so 
 admirable, as I can readily assure myself your 
 view must undoubtedly be, would certainly be 
 pardonable. I speak, madam, I speak with 
 honest intention." 
 
 So her view, Miss Paul was relieved to think, 
 on marriage was not in immediate request. 
 He was, in his own way, preparing for a con- 
 fidence, and needed no less than a more ordinary 
 mortal, a little sympathy, a little kindness. 
 
 " Marriage may be so beautiful," she 
 sincerely said. 
 
 "Madam," said Dr. Paveley, "I am con- 
 vinced it may." 
 
 Without pausing to clear his throat, though 
 his voice was rather husky 5 he proceeded 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 . - 
 
 The Way Things Happen 87 
 
 " The best men desire to keep their freedom / 
 as devoutly as the best women desire to lose / 
 theirs." He coughed and extended his arm. 
 " It is in the natural order of things. A man 
 has his work and position, which occupy his 
 mind and engage him in manifold interests. 
 A woman without a husband is an incomplete 
 thing, and I am now convinced convinced, 
 I will frankly own, a trifle unwillingly that 
 there are elements of incompleteness in a man 
 without without a wife. On these elements 
 it is unnecessary even perhaps unseemly 
 that I should now brood. I may, however, 
 mention the hours after his day's work is 
 done, when his spirit may be refreshed by the 
 solace of those lighter amenities to which 
 I have referred. I may mention the pre- 
 parations which welcome his return home, the 
 hearth swept, the tea ready, his slippers 
 in things insignificant is affectionate attention 
 perhaps most recognisable his slippers 
 warmed ; and the mention of these these 
 solicitous preparations, brings me to the wider 
 sphere of the advantages which await a good 
 
88 The Way Things Happen 
 
 woman, a sensible woman. Her horizon is 
 widened her usefulness is increased her 
 position is assured. My thoughts are echoed 
 in the works of our two greatest English 
 poets. Does not Milton say, in c Paradise 
 Lost,' c He for God only she for God in 
 him ' ? And does not Wordsworth, in one 
 of his most inspired moments, employ the 
 phrase, c A ministering angel thou ! ' ? " 
 
 " It was, I think, Sir Walter Scott, wasn't it ? 
 c O woman ! in our hours of ease,' you know," 
 interposed Miss Paul. 
 
 "The poem to which I refer begins, if my 
 memory serves me, c Woman, when I behold 
 thee flippant, vain.' ' 
 
 " It really doesn't, I'm afraid ; that's Keats." 
 
 " I cannot account for this extraordinary 
 lapse in a memory of which I am not ashamed 
 to say I am generally proud ; but that Words- 
 worth wrote something much akin to my senti- 
 ments, I am constrained to think. We will 
 take it, with your permission, that he did, and 
 proceed with " 
 
 " Oh, I know the one you mean," said Miss 
 
The Way Things Happen 89 
 
 Paul, quickly. " c She was a phantom of 
 delight/ that's it. c I saw her upon nearer 
 view,' you know it ends, ( a spirit yet a woman 
 too.' I always thought the great man was just 
 a little, what shall I say, off the line con- 
 descending perhaps, don't you think ? " 
 
 " No, madam," answered Dr. Paveley, " I 
 most certainly do not think so." 
 
 " I do," said Miss Paul, simply. Her words 
 threw down no gauntlet of opposition, but 
 stated a quiet fact for what it might be worth. 
 
 The doctor paused. Might not this flip- 
 pancy afford abundant cause for severance ? 
 Part of his mind insisted that it did, but 
 insisted to no purpose. He waited for a 
 possible effect. No sensation of freedom was 
 forthcoming, and the dissenting part of his 
 mind made no further protest. He took a 
 deep breath. 
 
 "Whatever may be," he continued, "the 
 merits or dements of that particular poem, I 
 will, if you will allow me, proceed with my 
 argument, without seeking for illustrations, 
 which seem to confuse rather than to enlighten 
 
90 The Way Things Happen 
 
 my thesis. I have too great a respect for the 
 common sense and intelligence to which " (the 
 doctor waved his hand and inclined his head) 
 cc your appearance and bearing afford striking 
 testimony,'to suppose that you disagree with the 
 general proposition which I have endeavoured 
 to lay before you, that marriage incomparably 
 widens the sphere of a woman's activities." 
 
 He paused. Miss Paul could not deny the 
 fact ; nor could she put into any words an 
 undercurrent of violent disagreement, not so 
 much with what Dr. Paveley said, but with 
 the manner in which he said it. So she was 
 silent. It didn't, after all, matter much whether 
 she did or whether she didn't agree. His 
 elaborate courtesy she took to be due to a wish, 
 which pleased her, to make amends for the 
 slight rudeness, by her easily understood and 
 forgiven, which had marked his behaviour on 
 some previous occasions. She was quite sure 
 that he just wanted to be, as she put it to 
 herself, nice and friendly ; and any ill-success 
 she was quick to ascribe to a lack in herself 
 rather than in him. 
 
The Way Things Happen 91 
 
 Dr. Paveley, pleased by her consenting 
 silence, resumed 
 
 " So I have been able to express myself 
 with tolerable accuracy on the general subject, 
 and I flatter myself to hope that a like success 
 awaits what I may designate the particular 
 application." 
 
 Miss Paul made a supreme call upon her 
 fund of kindness, and said with warm en- 
 couragement 
 
 " I'm so longing to hear all about it." 
 
 She folded her arms and did her best to send 
 scampering about their business the wantons 
 who urged the drollness of her thus being the 
 confidant of the learned doctor's affair. He 
 could help his phraseology as little as he could 
 help the shape of his nose. Language the use 
 different people made of words was a mystery, 
 and in mysteries of every kind, according to 
 Miss Paul's idea, there was something sacred. 
 She grew at once graciously solemn. 
 
 The doctor thought briefly before he moved 
 on to the difficult ground which lay before 
 him. 
 
92 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " You must forgive me, madam, if I trans- 
 gress the accepted ideas the very properly 
 accepted ideas of ah modesty ; and rest 
 assured that my reasons for doing so are in 
 the highest degree weighty. Modesty may 
 become false when it serves to hide what I 
 may call a greater truth." 
 
 "Oh, that is true!" Miss Paul gladly 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Madam, you remove all the hesitation I 
 was inclined to feel in stating the advantages 
 which my wife would undoubtedly enjoy. A 
 woman who had lived for many years alone 
 would find herself with an intelligent companion. 
 Her interests would be singularly large ; my 
 works are commented on in every historical 
 review of any importance in Europe and in 
 America. I am not unknown in India and 
 Australia. What more agreeable occupation 
 than the neat arrangement of these tributes 
 and criticisms in specially prepared volumes ? 
 When the future Mrs. Paveley travelled, the 
 houses of all learned men would be thrown 
 open to her. I should permit her, after some 
 
The Way Things Happen 93 
 
 slight instruction, to correct my proofs for the 
 press the proofs, that is to say, of my less 
 important writings. She would be taken up 
 in a continuous stream of gentle and womanly 
 occupations. I need not mention the pleasures 
 which universally accompany the wedded state 
 the home, the possibility of children, the 
 household duties all of which are dear to 
 woman's heart, though through my years of 
 loneliness I have myself regarded them as 
 somewhat harassing, troublesome even." 
 
 "I'm so glad. I'm sure you'll both be 
 
 very happy in your own " She caught 
 
 herself in the nick of time to change " peculiar 
 way" with a gasp to "home." "And tell 
 me about the lady. Who, if I may ask, is 
 the fortunate lady ? " 
 
 The doctor rose, and smiling with a large 
 benevolence, he bowed his head and said with 
 grave deliberation 
 
 " I hope, very dear madam, that you yourself 
 will be the the fortunate lady." 
 
 Miss Paul jumped to her feet. "Me ! Good 
 gracious ! I had no idea ! Why didn't you 
 
94 The Way Things Happen 
 
 say so sooner ? I'm dreadfully sorry to have 
 let you go on and on like this. Too stupid 
 of me. Because I couldn't possibly on any 
 account, you know, marry you, my poor dear 
 Dr. Paveley." 
 
 "Your surprise is as natural, dear lady, as 
 it is becoming," he suavely said. 
 
 "I really couldn't for a moment entertain 
 the idea ; " and inconsequently she added in 
 the same breath, "Why, I'm beginning to 
 talk like you already." There was in her 
 voice alarm ; but he acknowledged a com- 
 pliment. 
 
 He raised himself upon his toes and " More 
 and more like me . . . my humble wish," he 
 blandly faced her to say. 
 
 He looked absurdly, or, as Miss Paul 
 thought, pitifully happy. His loneliness and 
 his proposal of marriage were the only items 
 in his quaint discourse which were real enough 
 for her to remember. His assurance did not 
 irritate her ; it added merely, in her kind 
 view, to the height from which she must push 
 him to humiliation. He stood middle-aged 
 
The Way Things Happen 95 
 
 and radiant before her. No comfort in the 
 thought of the fall being good for him, in 
 the thought of his probable inability to feel 
 that or anything else deeply, in the thought 
 of her own prestige, came to her. The one 
 hateful fact that faced her, as flatly as his 
 happy red face, was that she must hurt him. 
 She strove wildly to find in her brains a buffer 
 for the blow, and stammered 
 
 " I'm so sorry ; but to marry you for me 
 would be, under the circumstances, quite 
 absolutely impossible." 
 
 It had no effect. 
 
 He moved his outspread hands, and lightly 
 expostulated 
 
 "Dear lady, it is just the circumstances 
 that are especially favourable ; it is just the 
 circumstances that brought home to me what 
 I have now set my heart on. I was not 
 foolish or indelicate enough to suppose for a 
 moment that you would, if you will pardon 
 the expression, leap into my arms. Your 
 reluctance is truly and nobly feminine. In 
 the highest degree I honour your irresolution." 
 
96 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " No, no, no," she almost wailed. 
 
 But he took no heed. He stepped back 
 to find room, as it were, to expatiate. Only 
 a hand pressed tightly over his mouth could 
 have then stopped the utterance of thoughts 
 and feelings long exiled from his mind and 
 heart. Through tears, that did not drop, 
 Miss Paul distinctly saw the stunted spirit 
 of his youth peer out from his eyes. Like 
 something that had nothing to do with his 
 uncouth body and his pompous words and 
 his unblushing assurance, it peered at her, a 
 poor ill-used thing, and entreated her for pity, 
 like a maimed child asking for food. 
 
 " A man himself feels great reluctance before 
 a complete change in his way of life. My 
 own reluctance, increased by years of quiet 
 habit, was comically intense. To the odd 
 feelings that overmastered me I was even 
 inclined to attribute a supernatural agency ; 
 the vision of you, dear Miss Paul, haunted 
 me like an obsession, and I fought hard to 
 keep myself in the bondage of my familiar 
 loneliness. But I was obliged to capitulate, 
 
The Way Things Happen 97 
 
 and my capitulation has shown me, if you 
 will pardon the exaggeration, the expansive 
 demesne of freedom, and I am constrained 
 to look back with contempt and with some- 
 thing akin to actual loathing, to the prison- 
 house I formerly occupied. My income will 
 be amply sufficient to obtain for us such 
 homely comforts as we may desire ; with the 
 renewed energy that glows within me, I 
 am confident it may even be substantially 
 increased." 
 
 "Please stop, please stop," cried Miss Paul. 
 
 "Should you desire to approach slowly the 
 threshold, as it were, of matrimony, we could 
 continue to live much as we are now living 
 I mean in these same rooms and I could 
 continue to save, as I have now for some 
 years been saving, a considerable portion of 
 my income ; and then we might remove to 
 a small but commodious villa in St. John's 
 Wood where, in addition to the advantages 
 I have already enumerated, you might enjoy 
 the delights of a small garden, in which blos- 
 soms could be cultivated and the hardier 
 
g 8 The Way Things Happen 
 
 varieties of fruits grown. I flatter myself 
 our life would be idyllic, Elysian. Rightly, 
 indeed, right aptly you described my future 
 wife as a fortunate lady." 
 
 " I had no idea you were thinking of me. 
 I can't marry you ever. I can't marry you. 
 Please understand me. It's quite impossible 
 for me to marry you." 
 
 She could not take her eyes from his face, 
 which remained to all perceptions but hers as 
 happy and red as ever. But she saw the poor 
 stunted spirit fade slowly away and disappear 
 from his eyes, and it wrung her heart to see it. 
 
 The learned man, however, took conscious 
 pleasure in doing the exactly right thing, as 
 he said 
 
 "In your present state of agitation, dear 
 madam, it is seemly that I should withdraw. 
 I retire the more gladly that I am confident 
 your meditations must on this occasion be 
 fraught with ultimate pleasure, and, I may add, 
 our mutual advantage." 
 
 He swept away her last remonstrance with 
 a ceremonious little bow, and left the room, 
 
The Way Things Happen 99 
 
 closing the door softly behind him. Miss 
 Paul listened to his careful descent of the dark, 
 rather steep, stairs. Her feelings swayed oddly 
 between tears and laughter. 
 
 "Had you anything to do with this, you 
 bad old Loki ? " she at last said in a very soft 
 voice. " So that's my first proposal of marriage ! 
 I ought to be flattered. But the poor little 
 shrunken, withered thing that peered out ! 
 The sadness of it !" 
 
 She walked to the window, and moving the 
 curtain on one side, looked out at the moon 
 that was shining over the many miles of houses 
 and all the tumult of the streets. 
 
 " Why did you make me see it ? " she said ; 
 and there was in her voice a note of delicate 
 sorrow which was very characteristic of her 
 gentle personality. 
 
VI 
 
 NEXT morning Miss Paul waited 
 some time before she came to the 
 conclusion that something had 
 occurred to prevent the admirable 
 Mrs. Martin from coming. Something serious, 
 she very much feared. Mrs. Martin was not 
 the kind of woman whom a trifle would keep 
 from work; nor did Miss Paul look forward 
 to a bleary-eyed avowal of a cold to which 
 spirit-smelling breath gave the lie, and to which 
 she was becoming sadly accustomed. Her 
 liking and trust of the woman had steadily 
 increased into a real affection. She was dis- 
 tressed to think of bad causes for her absence, 
 and amused to confess a slight disappoint- 
 ment in not having the sympathetic ear 
 for her eventful news. Just to mention the 
 fact of Dr. Paveley's proposal would have 
 
 IOO 
 
The Way Things Happen 101 
 
 been as pleasant as to hear Mrs. Martin's 
 comments. 
 
 She was beginning to make her bed when 
 the tapping of one of the landladies the 
 Misses Jones sounded apologetically on the 
 door. The timid little lady entered. Beside 
 her Miss Paul seemed robust. 
 
 " Good morning, Miss Paul. Won't you 
 let me help you ? " she said. 
 
 "That would be nice and kind of you," 
 Miss Paul cheerfully answered. " Turning a 
 mattress by myself hurts the tips of all my 
 fingers." 
 
 " I'm sure it's most troublesome about these 
 women." Miss Jones spoke in a soft faltering 
 voice, and each word came by itself from her 
 lips, with a little struggle for its utterance. 
 
 " Oh, well," said Miss Paul, " Mrs. Martin's 
 the right sort, Miss Jones, I'm sure." 
 
 " I am so glad you think she is. It's 
 most troublesome, though Dr. Paveley took 
 it most kindly, I will say, when I prepared 
 his breakfast." 
 
 So I'm sure he should." 
 
IO2 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Miss Jones gave a diffident little smile. 
 " And he asked me to give you this " her 
 voice faltered more timorously " which I have 
 taken the liberty of leaving in the entrance." 
 
 She hastily left the room for " this," which 
 was two bunches of violets, wrapped carefully 
 in tissue paper. The pleasure Miss Paul felt 
 in the flowers was modified by the fear that 
 acceptance of them would surely encourage the 
 persistent giver. Yet to refuse to accept them 
 from the timorous intermediary would be 
 unkind and silly. 
 
 <c How very nice of him," she said, " and 
 of you to give me such great help ! " she 
 added, noticing that Miss Jones hovered by 
 the door. 
 
 Miss Jones made repeated efforts to smile, 
 and went away. 
 
 Miss Paul put the violets in water, and 
 immediately sat down to write to thank Dr. 
 Paveley and clinch her refusal. 
 
 "DEAR DR. PAVELEY," she wrote, "Thank 
 you very much for sending me the violets. 
 Violets are almost my favourite flowers. Please 
 
The Way Things Happen 103 
 
 understand that I cannot ever marry you." 
 (That was surely clear enough.) "This is 
 no kittenish modesty, but my unalterable 
 determination." (She carefully scratched out 
 "kittenish," and wrote "womanly" over the 
 obliteration ; she smiled at the long last words, 
 but let them stand.) " I am glad to think you 
 are really in love with the idea of marriage, 
 and that I am only an accident. Many really 
 nice women would not only be honoured, as 
 I am, by your proposal, but would be able to 
 accept it, which I am not. Bear me no ill-will, 
 
 and teach " She stopped. No, she could 
 
 not learn backgammon. She scratched through 
 the " and teach," put a big full-stop after " ill- 
 will," and signed herself " sincerely " in full 
 " CONSTANTLY PAUL." 
 
 She had just finished addressing the envelope, 
 which she determined to send through the 
 post, in order that her words might come from 
 a greater distance and with more authority, 
 when her bell rang loudly. She hurried down- 
 stairs to open the door. A very small boy, 
 gnome-like and surprising, stood on the step. 
 
104 The Way Things Happen 
 
 With his hands behind him, and his head tilted 
 farther back than a collar would have allowed, 
 he immediately began to speak in a loud quick 
 whisper, induced by shyness and a cold. 
 
 " I'm sent to say as Mrs. Martin's too bad 
 to cometer work, and she's sorry." 
 
 " So am I," said Miss Paul, looking down 
 on the diminutive boy, who kept gazing at 
 her. " And who are you ? " 
 
 " I'm Mrs. Martin's fith son, Johnny 
 Martin, please." 
 
 " I hope your mother's not seriously ill ? " 
 
 " Doctor come. Took orf 'is coat. See 
 'is white apron thro' the key'ole. 'Is black 
 bag too. Ain't no baby in it this time. Orf 
 school t' run errans." He poured out his 
 words in an elfin whisper, too breathless for 
 expression. 
 
 Miss Paul felt, as the meaning of the 
 little boy's words became clear to her, very 
 much as she would have felt if in walking 
 over a moor she had come suddenly upon a 
 sheer declivity, which opened out to her view 
 a wide and undreamed-of landscape. It startled 
 
The Way Things Happen 105 
 
 her ; and the effect of the shock was to make 
 her more surely herself that is to say, more 
 actively gentle and understanding. 
 
 "Where does your mother live, dear?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " 20, Nun'on Place." 
 
 Where is that ? " 
 
 " Eh ? " 
 
 " Whereabouts ? " 
 
 Chapelseet." 
 
 "Where's that?" 
 
 "Hedgware'Oad." 
 
 " Here's a penny for you, Johnny. Good 
 morning." 
 
 " Goo'morning, Miss Paul," he said, and 
 raced away. 
 
 Her name, coming from the little gnomish 
 boy, had a comical sound. 
 
 Shyness teased her, but did not weaken 
 her resolution to go and see Mrs. Martin. 
 She went up and dressed, and came down 
 again without, to her extreme satisfaction, 
 meeting Dr. Paveley. In the crescent she 
 passed a man in a grey suit, wearing a grey 
 
io6 The Way Things Happen 
 
 felt hat, whose face she seemed to recognise. 
 She had seen him, oddly enough, once in 
 Westminster Abbey and once in the National 
 Gallery oddly, because Miss Paul was not 
 in the habit of noticing or remembering faces. 
 Frequent inquiries brought her, through many 
 dingy streets, to Nunton Place. The Place 
 was a lop-sided street, with a long block of 
 tenement houses, high and not so spruce as 
 those near what was once the Imperial Theatre. 
 The street seemed lop-sided to Miss Paul 
 because these tenements were faced by a blank, 
 red wall. A great number of children were 
 in the street children, as Miss Paul thought, 
 of every age. But she thought so wrongly ; 
 there were only girls minding children too 
 young to go to school. Women stood in the 
 doorways, taking a snatch of talk with a 
 neighbour or giving an eye to a child. They 
 thoroughly looked at Miss Paul, as she passed, 
 in an impersonal and not unpleasant way. 
 She thought most of them appeared to have 
 just a little more to do in the day than they 
 could manage to get done. From the door 
 
The Way Things Happen 107 
 
 of Number 20, a girl was pulling a perambu- 
 lator : the wheels had lost their tyres, and 
 grated harshly on the stone pavement. 
 
 " Does Mrs. Martin live here ? " Miss 
 Paul asked. 
 
 The girl stared crossly at her, not moving 
 the perambulator further out of the entrance, 
 which it exactly blocked. 
 
 " Firs' floor," she said, and " Martins " she 
 suddenly screamed at the top of a piercing 
 voice. 
 
 " Let me help you," suggested Miss Paul. 
 
 "It's done now," said the girl, giving the 
 perambulator a jerk on to the back wheels 
 and a swift turn. "They'll 'ave 'card," she 
 added. 
 
 " Thank you very much," said Miss Paul, 
 and hastened to the foot of the stairs. The 
 unceremonious shout, which heralded her 
 approach, made her acutely shy. When she 
 was halfway up the stairs a door opened, and 
 a man's voice cried out, " Who is it ? " and 
 Miss Paul hurrying up on to the landing 
 answered, " It's me." 
 
io8 The Way Things Happen 
 
 She saw a short stout man standing in the 
 doorway ; a little girl was clinging round his 
 left knee.. 
 
 " I'm Miss Paul." 
 
 " It's yer missus cometer see yer, Sophie," 
 said the man, and picking up the child he 
 limped in and held the door open, so that 
 Miss Paul was able to pass by the foot of 
 the bed which just left space for the door 
 to open, and on which Mrs. Martin was 
 lying. 
 
 "Glad to see yer, Miss Paul," said Mr. 
 Martin. " We've 'card a lot about yer." 
 
 A flicker of a smile passed over his wife's 
 face as she said 
 
 " You're very welcome, Miss Paul." 
 
 " I am so sorry you're ill," said Miss Paul. 
 
 "111! I should think I was," said Mrs. 
 Martin, in an exhausted voice. "The pains 
 took me somethin' shockin' in the night. It 
 do seem there ain't no sense in this go. Not 
 that we've exactly room for another little 'un, 
 as you see. I was that bad I 'ad to 'ave the 
 doctor all the same. No confinement nor 
 
The Way Things Happen 109 
 
 nothin* : didn't even know, and that's a fack. 
 We women " 
 
 "Not so much jawering, Sophie. Ain't 
 no use in that at any rate, speshly when you're 
 weak as a 'alf-drownded cat." 
 
 " I am that," said Mrs. Martin, and added, 
 with a faint smile of something very like pride, 
 cc He don't like other folks to jawer 'xcept his- 
 self, Mr. Martin don't." 
 
 " What a dear little girl you have !" said Miss 
 Paul, turning to Mr. Martin, who still held the 
 child in his arms. 
 
 "Ah ! " said Mr. Martin, " she is so." 
 
 " He takes wonnerful to the littlest," com- 
 mented Mrs. Martin. 
 
 " Now then, Agnes, say how dyer do to the 
 lady." 
 
 The little girl held her arms more tightly 
 round her father's neck, and tried to hide her 
 face in his scarf, from which a whispered " How 
 dyer do " came. 
 
 " Show the lady yer face," insisted the man, 
 " can't yer ? " and he tickled her side very 
 gently with his thick, red hand. 
 
no The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Let her be then, George. She's a terrible 
 one for bein' shy, is little Aggie, ain't she 
 Grannie ? That's Grannie." An old woman 
 with bright white hair bobbed by the door, 
 which she had opened out of the adjoining 
 room. " We've comp'ny, Grannie Miss 
 Paul, as you've so orfen 'card me speak of." 
 
 The old woman bobbed again to Miss Paul's 
 smile, and went to open the door of the oven. 
 
 "Cookin* us a bit o* dinner, ain't you, 
 Grannie ? She comes in like to help a bit when 
 I'm at work, and to give a eye to the little 
 'uns," explained Mrs. Martin from the bed. 
 Her voice grew weaker as she went on talking 
 to little Agnes, who at this moment peeped 
 shyly round, holding the back of a small hand 
 to her forehead. 
 
 " You didn't 'alf talk this mornin', didyer ? 
 Baby mum, baby mum. Let Aggie see baby 
 mum. What them children notice ! a gal out- 
 side saw 'is bag and told Elsie he'd brought a 
 baby. Oh dear, oh dear, what they do get 
 saying ! But there ain't no baby this time, 
 Aggie." 
 
The Way Things Happen in 
 
 " You goes on jawering, Sophie ! " said her 
 husband, taking a step forward. 
 
 " Does me good ! " said Mrs. Martin, 
 closing her eyes. 
 
 Miss Paul leaned over her, and stroked her 
 forehead with her hand. 
 
 " Mind you get all the rest you possibly can." 
 
 "Thankyer," said Mrs. Martin. "Not 
 much as I can do, more's the pity. Fairly lays 
 yer out, this do." 
 
 " Good-bye, Promise me to take great 
 care of yourself. Til see Dr. Paveley isn't 
 bothered." 
 
 "How about yerself? Fair worries me, 
 lyin* here." She opened her eyes and looked 
 at Miss Paul with such response to the caress 
 that the gentle lady's heart was gladdened. 
 
 " I know you'll look after her well," she 
 turned and said to Mr. Martin. 
 
 " She's a woman in a 'undred a thousand 
 I'd say," he answered, limping to the door. 
 "You don't 'alf mean to strangle me, I see," 
 he said to the child. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Miss Paul to the old 
 
ii2 The Way Things Happen 
 
 woman, who bobbed again and smoothed down 
 her apron. Mr. Martin was in the passage and 
 closed the door after her. 
 
 " She's a fair terror for worryin'. B'lieve 
 me, it was all we could do to keep 'er in bed. 
 Worryin' 'bout 'er work, 'ood do this and 
 'ow that'd be, and no end to it all." He spoke 
 in a confidential undertone. 
 
 " You must see that she doesn't get up too 
 soon," said Miss Paul. "Of course," she 
 added hastily, " I'll see she gets her money all 
 right, and I'll send or bring a few little jellies 
 and things." 
 
 " Thank yer kindly, and she's told our girl 
 eldest girl, Janey to look in after 'er work 
 and put a hand to a thing or two. She's a rare 
 good girl, is Janey. 'Bout a quarter after 
 seven she'll be with yer." 
 
 The door opened and the old woman 
 appeared saying 
 
 "Mrs. Martin forgot to say as 'ow 
 Janey " 
 
 " Well, we ain't so thoughtless," interrupted 
 Mr. Martin. 
 
The Way Things Happen 113 
 
 " Oh ! " said Grannie, and shut the door. 
 
 He jerked his head in the direction of the 
 room, and sniffed. Miss Paul retreated along 
 the passage and down the stairs. Her departure 
 roused the child to lean forward and wave her 
 hand. 
 
 " Wave yer 'and," cried Mr. Martin. 
 
 Little Agnes leaned over the barrier which 
 protected the passage from the steep stairs and 
 shook her hands about violently to her father's 
 intense pleasure, until Miss Paul with an 
 answering wave of her arm disappeared from 
 sight. 
 
 In the street, Johnnie the gnome-like little 
 boy was standing ; Miss Paul commandeered 
 him to take back the things she intended to 
 buy, and finding a large grocery near the 
 Edgware Road, she sent him back, the elated 
 bearer of calves-foot jelly, biscuits, and potted 
 chicken. Many things weighed upon her 
 mind on the way to the corner of Chapel 
 Street. Wonder predominated wonder at 
 the inexplicable state of things which allowed 
 absolute want to exist side by side with absolute 
 
 H 
 
ii4 The Way Things Happen 
 
 waste ; wonder at the number of Mrs. Martin's 
 children ; wonder at the amiably gruff Mr. 
 Martin : but the supreme wonder was that in 
 that small room, which performed the functions 
 of kitchen, bedroom, and living-room for too 
 many human beings, she had unmistakably felt 
 the presence of something, which she called to 
 herself, beauty. The fact that human beings 
 could bear up against such conditions so bravely 
 as that poor sick woman filled her with a 
 strange exaltation, and acted as a light to 
 illumine, what seemed to her, the ignorant 
 cruelty of those conditions. The amazing 
 variety of life excited her so much that her 
 cheeks flushed. She would lay by every penny 
 she could to get the comforts which might 
 soonest coax strength back again to Mrs. 
 Martin. Her mind, appalled by the glimpse it 
 had taken of the huge outrageous workings of 
 civilisation, focussed itself, as it were, on the 
 immediate question how much she, not a 
 plutocrat, could help Mrs. Martin, not by any 
 means the poorest among the poor. 
 
 Shelley had lived, she happened to remember 
 
The Way Things Happen 115 
 
 as she got into a waiting omnibus, chiefly upon 
 dry bread and raisins. Concerts . . . her 
 gloom at the thought of giving them up was 
 suddenly dispelled by her surprise in seeing the 
 gentleman in the grey suit and grey felt hat 
 sit down on the end seat by the conductor. 
 She turned quickly away, as his eye uncon- 
 cernedly caught hers, and looked in front of 
 her. Again she started. The visit to the 
 Martins had inclined her mind towards 
 observation, of the very poor especially, and 
 opposite her was sitting an old man, whose 
 appearance, as the phrase is, riveted her atten- 
 tion. Miss Paul had never seen a human face 
 which expressed such misery as the face of 
 this old man such hopeless misery. Dirt 
 did not obscure the delicate shape of his hands, 
 with which he held his coat together ; there 
 were signs of breeding in his unshaven face. 
 His scarf was scanty, and it was apparent that 
 he had no shirt under his coat. From time 
 to time a convulsive shiver shook his body. 
 She could not imagine where he had found the 
 penny for his fare, where he could be going, 
 
n6 The Way Things Happen 
 
 what he at all was doing. His misery crushed 
 her. In her purse were three coppers and a 
 sovereign. She did not think about the evils 
 of indiscriminate charity, she did not think 
 how she would herself manage without the 
 money, or of the needs of the Martin family. 
 She simply gave the man the sovereign. 
 When he rose to get out, she took his hand, 
 opened it, shut the gold piece in it, whispering 
 " Buy a shirt and food." The old man's 
 mouth opened in dumb astonishment. He 
 hesitated a moment ; Miss Paul squeezed his 
 hand saying, " Please, please," and then he 
 stumbled out, unable to speak a word. It 
 all happened so quickly that she was almost 
 sure no one had noticed her action, and if any 
 one had she would hardly have minded. A 
 fat, jolly-faced woman with many parcels and 
 two children got in and sat down opposite her, 
 on the seat which the old man had just left. 
 The woman, as soon as she was settled, kept 
 up a cheerful flow of talk ; she was explaining 
 to her children what a big and what a wonder- 
 ful place London was. Their jolliness was a 
 
The Way Things Happen 117 
 
 relief to Miss Paul, even though she could 
 only relish its reality for a few moments before 
 she got out of the omnibus. 
 
 " That was a real noble thing to have done," 
 said a voice in her ear, and turning, she found 
 the gentleman in the grey suit standing by her 
 with his hand to his grey felt hat. The in- 
 tonation of his voice declared him an American. 
 It added, " I must say a real, noble action," 
 with increased earnestness. 
 
 " Oh no ! " Miss Paul demurred, colouring. 
 
 " So much do I think it, oh yes," the man 
 went courteously on, " that I must thank you 
 for it. I am obliged to thank you as people 
 are obliged to thank a musician for having 
 played beautifully. As wise as to have tried 
 to dam a river with a diamond pin. But a 
 real good deed." 
 
 " I simply had to," said Miss Paul. 
 
 "Precisely!" said the man. "Then you 
 can perhaps pardon my speaking to you. I 
 simply had to, as you admirably put it." 
 
 They were standing a little way inside the 
 crescent, a few yards from the noisy stream 
 
n8 The Way Things Happen 
 
 of traffic and people in the Marylebone 
 Road. 
 
 " You gave the old man a yellow sovereign," 
 he went on, "which you can ill spare, with- 
 out his asking for it oblivion for four days, 
 perhaps five. Give me I humbly entreat 
 you " He paused, and instead of look- 
 ing behind her as before at the passers-by, he 
 looked straight into her eyes, and said slowly, 
 " Give me your golden sympathy." He 
 turned completely round on his heel and, 
 balancing himself with both hands on his stick, 
 continued gaily : " An unblushing beggar, 
 demanding preposterous alms ! " and then, 
 with another change to his former solemnity, 
 as swift as had been his change to gaiety, the 
 surprising man said, " But will you ? Tour 
 eyes see that I am trustworthy. Please do." 
 
 " How can I ? " said Miss Paul, and added 
 with a little laugh, " It's not so easy as a 
 sixpence, you know, to give." 
 
 "Oh, immensely easier, dear lady. So 
 much more depends upon me than the gently 
 enforced closing of my hand upon a coin. 
 
The Way Things Happen 119 
 
 Appreciation heightens the value of this gift, 
 and its bestowal replenishes the store in the 
 heart from which it is taken. 1 * 
 
 "The quality of mercy, you know " 
 
 began Miss Paul, her eyes twinkling ; but the 
 man in grey actually seized her arm to empha- 
 sise his interruption, as he exclaimed 
 
 "Its origin, with you, dear lady, as the 
 beautiful bestower, goes deeper, farther back 
 
 into the rarer, bigger power of " he let go 
 
 her arm to fling up his hand and utter with 
 delightful eagerness, "joy, the rarest and the 
 finest of all human qualities," and again he tossed 
 the short word "joy" into the air, much in 
 the way, so Miss Paul instantly thought, that a 
 small boy might toss into the air his cap. As 
 Chance (or one of her attendant imps) would 
 have it, the little word fell on the head of 
 Dr. Paveley, who, at the precise moment of 
 its ejaculation, turned sharply round the corner 
 of the wall which stops to make an entrance 
 into the crescent. The doctor looked aston- 
 ished and displeased to come upon the lady 
 whom he had honoured on the previous 
 
120 The Way Things Happen 
 
 evening conversing thus strangely with a man, 
 about whose very existence he had been kept, 
 as he felt it, wrongly in the dark. The slight 
 lifting of his hat discovered a frown, the 
 wrinkles of which remained until, on turning 
 with his key in the lock to see the man hand a 
 visiting card to Miss Paul, they deepened on 
 his forehead to furrows of wrath. 
 
 Miss Paul heard a door noisily shut as she 
 read the name " Paul Haskins " on the card. 
 
 " My name,'* she said. 
 
 " I was glad to hope so," he answered. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He oddly moved his head a little to one side 
 to suggest that the question was not necessary. 
 
 "But how, I mean?" 
 
 " The dumb witness of a brass plate." His 
 voice sounded a comical note of apology for 
 prying. 
 
 "And when?" She coloured at the dis- 
 charge of her little battery of questions. 
 
 " Since first I saw you," he said. " Your 
 wonderful face," he added as the simple fact 
 of explanation, strong enough to destroy the 
 
The Way Things Happen 121 
 
 last difficulty, and he quietly repeated, " Your 
 wonderful face." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Miss Paul, "where ? " 
 
 "In your National Gallery, as you passed 
 from one to the other of my favourite pictures. 
 I followed you home," he confessed without 
 a blush. " I simply had to. I have followed 
 you again and again. I simply had to. That's 
 my only reason or excuse. When you come 
 to think of it, it's much the best reason in all 
 the funny catalogue for ever doing anything." 
 
 "Perhaps it is," she ventured through her 
 amazement. 
 
 " Of course it is," he insisted ; and tenta- 
 tively added, " To-morrow ? You allow me to 
 call for you ? At twelve, say ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Paul, " do." 
 
 " Ha ! " He gave a short laugh that suddenly 
 lined his solemn face with happiness, and 
 suddenly disappeared. 
 
 " Where shall we go ? " said Miss Paul. 
 
 " Where else with you," he exclaimed, as he 
 bowed to leave her, "but to see beautiful 
 things ? " 
 
122 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Miss Paul was too bewildered to think, as 
 she made her way to the door and slowly 
 climbed the stairs to her room, which seemed 
 to her, for all its dear familiarity, somehow to 
 be strangely new. She stopped on its thres- 
 hold and surveyed it, as though it were the 
 home of another person, until her belongings, 
 those ancient pieces of oak, the pictures, the 
 room itself offered again, as she oddly felt, 
 their old friendly welcome. With her hands 
 clasped together at the back of her head, she 
 stood in the middle and looked at them all 
 with smiling eyes. Her happy inspection 
 began and ended with the little grotesque chair, 
 on which at length she placed her hat, saying, 
 with a shake of her head 
 
 " Such things, Loki, have happened. Some 
 mischievous old thing has been playing pranks 
 with me." 
 
 She sat down to think over the events which 
 had come thus, tumbling on each other's heels, 
 upon her. She saw again the home of the 
 Martins, and Mrs. Martin lying on the bed ; 
 she saw the little gnome-like boy disappearing 
 
The Way Things Happen 123 
 
 round a corner, his pockets bulging ; she saw 
 the destitute old man in the omnibus, and the 
 fat, jolly woman with her many parcels and her 
 two children ; she saw the extraordinary man 
 in grey, and tried to remember if his eyes and 
 hair were as grey as his suit and hat ; she saw 
 Dr. Paveley and the mouse, which she had 
 called Faust, now dead. And the mouse, as 
 she fell gradually asleep, seemed to her in some 
 way to have been the originating influence 
 which had set these things to work on her 
 which had pushed the chip the butterfly clung 
 to into the stream, and sent it floating down 
 the current. Down the stream she was float- 
 ing ; she felt the quick rise and dip of the 
 chip in the bright ripples, and delighted in the 
 slow turning as it hurried along on its way. 
 And then she assumed her own shape, and 
 stepping from the stream, which lapped against 
 her ankles, she walked on the soft green turf 
 towards a long avenue of oak trees, the 
 branches of which were interlaced so as to 
 form a fantastic pattern. She was not sur- 
 prised to recognise them, and she was so little 
 
124 The Way Things Happen 
 
 surprised at the dwarfish old man who leapt 
 out upon her, exactly as he had done before, 
 that she spoke to him before he had time to 
 open his wide mouth. 
 
 " Are you an old imp from the brood of 
 Chance ? " she said. 
 
 " I may be," he answered. 
 
 " Or only Loki ? " she took him up. 
 
 "Wealth," he cried out, "wealth!" He 
 flung his arms about and grew gigantic, he 
 stamped his feet so that the whole avenue 
 resounded with the noise, and with each stamp 
 he shouted, " Wealth, wealth, wealth ! " 
 
 "Please don't," she cried out, putting her 
 fingers in her ears, " deafen me." And woke 
 to find herself standing before Dr. Paveley, 
 who was saying 
 
 "... knocked well, madam, well, well. 
 Had you had the courtesy to bid me enter, it 
 would not have been necessary." 
 
 " I must have dropped asleep, I'm afraid," 
 said Miss Paul, blinking. 
 
 " I apologise for intruding upon your matu- 
 tinal slumbers," said Dr. Paveley, angrily. " I 
 
The Way Things Happen 125 
 
 have come, madam, to ask you who was the 
 man I saw you speaking with in the street." 
 
 Miss Paul was still hazy-minded from her 
 dream, and said 
 
 " Mr. Paul oh yes Mr. Paul Haskins or 
 Hasskins. I never saw him before." 
 
 " In my opinion, madam, a woman who 
 converses with strange men in the street, is no 
 better than she should be." 
 
 " Are not you," she interposed, " perhaps a 
 little ruder than you need be ? " 
 
 " No, madam, under the circumstances I am 
 not ; and I consider the proposal I made you 
 of marriage in the highest degree rash and 
 untimely." 
 
 " It was rather, I'm afraid," Miss Paul agreed. 
 
 " And I wish to withdraw from it though 
 
 I withdraw to greater bitterness and to deeper 
 
 unhappiness than was my lot before you " 
 
 His voice actually broke. 
 
 "Don't be cross," Miss Paul hastily said. 
 " Be friendly and sensible." 
 
 "Madam," he said, "I need neither your 
 consolation nor your advice." 
 
126 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Tears actually stood in his eyes. Whether 
 they came from anger, or the heat of the fire, 
 or grief, it is impossible to be certain. 
 
 " Oh, be friendly," she cried. But the door 
 slammed behind him, and he was ungallantly 
 gone. 
 
 Miss Paul went into the kitchen, and lifting 
 the lid of the stone bread-pan, with a sigh 
 discovered that she must fetch another loaf 
 from the baker's. And raisins, she thought, 
 certainly, some raisins too. 
 
VII 
 
 OUTSIDE Baker Street station next 
 morning a man was pasting up the 
 large notice of a pianoforte recital. 
 Miss Paul, on her way to Nunton 
 Terrace, saw him slap his broad wet brush over 
 the features of her favourite pianist, and realised 
 that her impulsive charity precluded the possi- 
 bility of her presence. Disappointment was 
 great, but could not withstand for long the 
 magic of spring's arrival, to which the sweet 
 air bore glad witness. As rash and untimely, 
 she smiled to think without regret, as the good 
 doctor's proposal, even if the impulse sprang 
 from a slightly different motive. Her thoughts 
 ran on from the doctor to the possible rebirth 
 of the former difficulty ; her refusal of him 
 might lead to his refusal to be served by 
 the same woman. In that case Mrs. Martin 
 
 127 
 
128 The Way Things Happen 
 
 would lose much, and she herself might lose 
 Mrs. Martin. Either emergency was deplor- 
 able and yet likely. Spring's magic, however, 
 tempted her to complete confidence in her 
 power of managing circumstances, however 
 refractory they might be. 
 
 She relished the spice of an actual adventure, 
 as the meeting with the man in the grey suit, 
 the eccentric Mr. Paul Haskins, undoubtedly 
 was, all the more keenly, because hitherto her 
 adventures had been of an imaginary nature. 
 She decked the odd encounter with the rosiest 
 possibilities, and laughed like a child to 
 remember how exactly the enthusiastic old 
 man in her dream had hit the fairy-tale likeli- 
 hood. As a matter of fact, Miss Paul had 
 lived so long and so vividly in her own imagi- 
 nary world that she was, without knowing it, 
 amply prepared for the wildest experience. 
 Indeed, a thing was real to her in nice 
 proportion to the vigour of its appeal to her 
 imagination. And that raises a very pretty 
 point. How much of truth and of life lies 
 in the isolated fact ; and how far is any fact a 
 
The Way Things Happen 129 
 
 dead fact, unless it be the material expression 
 of a spiritual truth ; that it flourishes with 
 life and grows, not of itself but in conse- 
 quence of that with which the human being 
 endows it, as the sun acts upon a bulb, from 
 his imagination or his soul or whatever it may 
 be that connects a man with the great harmony 
 of things with the universal life. Nothing, 
 truly, can be detached from the mighty scheme 
 without losing immediately its real being. 
 
 Miss Paul accepted what she perceived of 
 the mighty scheme without questioning, and 
 was as much inclined to deny the reality of 
 her dreams and of her less shadowy ideas, 
 as to deny the present reality of mud upon 
 her boots and the eventual necessity of clean- 
 ing the boots herself. For though the air 
 was sweet with the magic of spring's arrival, 
 the pavements were thickly coated with spring's 
 stickiest mud. 
 
 She arrived at Nunton Terrace, and as she 
 climbed the steep wooden stairs she uttered 
 the customary cry of warning, like a sea-gull 
 visiting a friend's nest in a strange cliff, or 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
130 The Way Things Happen 
 
 an ancient viking approaching the shore of a 
 neighbour's fiord. The door this time did 
 not open until her hand was upon the handle. 
 
 "I've just come to ask how your wife is," 
 she said to Mr. Martin. 
 
 "Step in, Miss Paul," he said, "please. 
 Ain't no rest for the wicked, Sophie, not 'alf." 
 
 "Must 'ave 'is joke," said Mrs. Martin. 
 "That kind to send them things. I never 
 thought o' such a thing, knowin' things ain't 
 any too easy for yerself." 
 
 " You look much better, I think," said Miss 
 Paul. 
 
 "Ah, I'm still pretty middlin', and I do 
 fair 'ate lyin' here." 
 
 " Some folks 'ud be glad to 'ave the chance 
 of lyin' all comfortable on their backs," said 
 Mr. Martin, "havin' everythin' done for 'em 
 and havin' a proper good rest." 
 
 " Um, that's like me, ain't it ? " answered 
 Mrs. Martin, "and Miss Paul 'ere to see the 
 room and all in sech a state." 
 
 " 'Aven't I done me best, eh ? No pleasin' 
 yer, there ain't." 
 
The Way Things Happen 131 
 
 "Yer best. Very good for a man. I'm 
 not blamin' you, George ; but things do get 
 without me well not as I likes 'em, nor 
 you, nor any one else fer that matter." 
 
 "I think it's a charming room, so home- 
 like," said Miss Paul. 
 
 "Wherever it is, 'owever small, where one 
 lives and 'as things, there's no place like it 
 like 'ome ; that's a true song and a pretty 
 one, and it always do bring the tears to me 
 eyes to 'ear it sung. 'E's a wonnerful one 
 to like 'is 'ome, is Mr. Martin." 
 
 "No wonder," said Miss Paul, and smiled 
 to Grannie, who came in. Evidently the old 
 woman had something on her mind. She 
 looked round the room and blinked her little 
 eyes uneasily. 
 
 " 'Ullo, Grannie," said Mr. Martin, making 
 his slow way into the other room, " done yer 
 errans ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Grannie, timidly ; and as 
 soon as his back disappeared into the other 
 room, she leant forward over the foot of the 
 bed and said, in a hurried whisper, " Young 
 
132 The Way Things Happen 
 
 George houtside in the street says, 'ave yer 
 got some bread or threppence for a loaf." 
 
 'Ush," said Mrs. Martin, "yer old silly; 
 'is ears ... I told yer so," she added wearily, 
 as Mr. Martin called out 
 
 " What's that ? Young George again ? 
 'Aven't I told yer scores o' times I won't give 
 'im a 'alfpenny nor a " 
 
 "Orl right, orl right," said Mrs. Martin 
 (the old woman silently disappeared). " You're 
 master 'ere, we all knows, but yer needn't go 
 showin' yer bad 'eart before the lady raising 
 yer voice and shoutin'. 'E and 'is eldest 'avn't 
 ever 'it it orf nice," she added in explanation. 
 
 " How good of you to get me a chair ! " 
 said Miss Paul to him ; he was standing in 
 the doorway holding a wooden chair in his 
 hand. "But I won't sit down, thank you. 
 I only looked in just to make my mind easy 
 that your wife was no worse." 
 
 "I'll be up an' about by the end of the 
 week for sure," said Mrs. Martin. 
 
 A sudden impulse compelled Miss Paul, as 
 she leaned over Mrs. Martin, to say 
 
The Way Things Happen 133 
 
 "Dr. Paveley asked me to marry him." 
 It changed a distressing subject. 
 
 " Lor love me ! " cried Mrs. Martin. 
 "Think of that, now. Didn't I just know 
 which way the wind was bio win' ! 'Ear that, 
 Mr. Martin ? What did I tell yer ? " 
 
 Mr. Martin grinned, and shifting the weight 
 from his lame to his sound leg, suggested 
 hoarsely 
 
 "'Avin' 'im, may I ask?" 
 
 "'Are yer?" asked Mrs. Martin, with 
 breathless interest. 
 
 " No," said Miss Paul. 
 
 "Well, maybe you're right. Less, perhaps, 
 to put up with," said Mrs. Martin. 
 
 "Sets a vally on yer, too." Mr. Martin 
 made his cryptic remark without noticing his 
 wife's reproach to the stout race of husbands. 
 His motive may have arisen from use or 
 tact or mere dull-headedness, or from the 
 call of his own idea for utterance. Mrs. 
 Martin continued 
 
 " Single blessidness, they do say." 
 
 Mr. Martin looked from one woman to 
 
134 The Way Things Happen 
 
 the other with a man's profound knowledge, 
 and said with unfathomable depth of meaning 
 in his voice 
 
 " Ah ! yes, so they do say." 
 
 "Though as 'usbands go, George, I will 
 say you ain't a bad 'un." 
 
 " Oh, I ain't, ain't I ? " he said with such a 
 bland smile that Mrs. Martin was constrained 
 to add with marked emphasis 
 
 " Though you has yer faults and plenty 
 of 'em." 
 
 "We all have, I expect, plenty of faults," 
 suggested Miss Paul. 
 
 "And it's not for want of 'earing 'em 
 jawered about that they're there." Mr. Martin 
 put his face far forward to send his words 
 properly home, and then brought his head 
 impressively back to its normal position on 
 his shoulders. 
 
 " I always speaks out what's in me mind. 
 Better'n storin' of it up like, till you say things 
 you may be sorry for." 
 
 " Much better," said Miss Paul, cheerfully. 
 " Good-bye." 
 
The Way Things Happen 135 
 
 " It's done me good to see yer," said Mrs. 
 Martin. " I do 'ate lyin' 'ere with Mr. Martin 
 too without a job. Though if he were at work 
 I don't know whatever I should do. 'E's 
 wonnerful 'andy in the 'ouse fer a man." 
 
 " Kiss little Aggie for me," said Miss Paul, 
 at the door. 
 
 " She didn't 'alf talk about yer after you'd 
 gorn, did she, Sophie ? " said Mr. Martin, 
 proudly. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Miss Paul again ; and 
 this time she went. 
 
 Living so long, as she had lived, alone, she 
 really met people now for the first time, not 
 as her brother's sister and housekeeper, but as 
 herself. The experience would have been 
 interesting even if Chance (or one of her 
 attendant imps) had not played the tricks she 
 had played, and after giving her years of happy 
 solitude, abruptly forced such diverse persons 
 on her as Dr. Paveley and the Martins and the 
 odd gentleman in the grey suit, who, she had 
 not forgotten, was going to call for her at 
 midday. 
 
136 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Miss Paul approached the Martins with no 
 preconceived theories about the poor ; she was 
 not on the look-out for examples of depravity 
 or misery or preternatural goodness. Nor 
 could she, in her sorrow for the eldest son's 
 want of bread, forget the magic of spring's 
 arrival ; her joy in the warmth and gladness 
 of the air was not at odds with her horror of 
 his hunger and his father's unkindness. For 
 Mrs. Martin she cared, and her heart easily 
 accepted the man her husband, and welcomed 
 the gnome-like little boy and the shy little girl, 
 the children she had seen. Her attitude was 
 the same to them as to Dr. Paveley or any 
 one else who was brought into her life. No 
 standard by which she measured the behaviour 
 of others was among her belongings. Too 
 great an effort was required to subdue her own 
 shyness before what she unconsciously regarded 
 as the mystery of another human being to 
 leave time for criticism of that being's conduct 
 towards herself. Valiantly the gentle lady tried 
 to understand and feel with others. Her 
 nature, with its child's capacity for taking joy 
 
The Way Things Happen 137 
 
 in things, prompted her love ; and now she 
 was beginning to learn that her love, nurtured 
 on animate beauty, was wanted. The momen- 
 tous discovery, with all its latent responsi- 
 bilities, was coming upon her imperceptibly, 
 like dawn. Miss Paul, had she lived in a 
 mediaeval manuscript, would have been labelled 
 a mystic by the curious. She was a natural 
 mystic ; most children, indeed, are. The text- 
 books she read on light, on heat, on sound, 
 on human personality, on psychology, did not 
 dissipate her wonder at these miraculous mani- 
 festations of vitality, but increased it sevenfold 
 by informing her intelligibly of the intricate 
 mass of things perpetually in movement, per- 
 petually happening on every side. Astronomy 
 baffled her. The stars remained little gods of 
 the sky, of whom the moon was empress, and 
 whose great region above the earth was ordered, 
 and whose movements were mastered by the 
 human brain. She saw the scientist working 
 and working to discover new facts in the tre- 
 mendous material of the natural world, and 
 working to verify his discoveries on and on 
 
138 The Way Things Happen 
 
 through the generations ; she saw the poet 
 understanding those facts, and by the force of 
 his imagination realising their place and their 
 proportion in what was already discovered. She 
 saw the consciousness of humanity developing ; 
 the scope of life widening and growing towards 
 knowledge and beauty. Her vision of things 
 was clear and unquestioning ; her vitality was 
 exuberant ; and her power, for all her un- 
 assuming gentleness, was immense. Power of 
 that kind is not always immediately apparent, 
 like physical bulk or Nelson's statue in Tra- 
 falgar Square. Only remarkable circumstances 
 make it universally recognised. Such power 
 usually remains hidden, for gentleness is its 
 most constant attribute. A well-eyed person 
 would recognise it in Miss Paul by the way 
 she triumphed over the bad monsters of life 
 fear, depression, selfishness which would have 
 caught and strangled long ago a less gallant 
 adventurer into the solitudes. 
 
 Mr. Paul Haskins had felt her power with 
 all his instinct man's surest guide. But how- 
 ever final his boy's excuse " I simply had to " 
 
The Way Things Happen 139 
 
 for addressing the unknown lady had seemed 
 at the actual moment, reason had raised her 
 clear voice in the meantime with no faltering 
 accent to declare that he was again a thorough- 
 going, right-down fool. Perhaps, he was 
 content with a sad smile to answer, perhaps ; 
 and as the clock of Marylebone Road church 
 finished striking the hour of twelve, he stepped 
 out of his six-cylinder Napier and pressed 
 the bell. 
 
 He shook hands with Miss Paul without 
 a word of welcome. She looked at the car 
 in astonishment. 
 
 " There are pictures at Windsor," he almost 
 mournfully remarked. 
 . " In in that motor ? " she gasped. 
 
 "Yes," he said. 
 
 "I I'll fetch a scarf. To tie round my 
 head." 
 
 Miss Paul turned and ran along the passage 
 and up the stairs. Her one sensation was of 
 delight at the prospect of a drive, like a little 
 boy unexpectedly asked if he would like a 
 ride on a pony. She came hurrying back, her 
 
140 The Way Things Happen 
 
 eyes alive with happiness, and climbed, dumb 
 with suppressed excitement, into the front seat. 
 The chauffeur wrapped an enormous fur rug 
 round her, and the car seemed bigger than 
 ever when she was sitting in it, and grew 
 bigger still when it began to move slowly 
 round the crescent and slowly into the Mary- 
 lebone Road. Miss Paul was far too excited 
 to notice her companion's silence or his 
 scrutiny of her person. 
 
 "I must call for my sister's fur coat," he 
 at last said, " if you will allow me." 
 
 "However shall we get out of all this to 
 Windsor ? " she inconsequently answered, as 
 they made their way through the traffic. 
 
 " We'll make a detour to get a better run," 
 he replied. 
 
 She looked at him, and marvelled at his 
 apparent lack of consciousness of the power 
 he was controlling. He leaned a little back, 
 almost lolling, as she thought, in his seat. 
 
 Opposite a great shop, which bore on its 
 front the horrible legend " Motorities," he 
 brought the car to a standstill, and, with 
 
The Way Things Happen 141 
 
 another apology for leaving her, entered. The 
 gentle throbbing of the machine played on her 
 excitement, and she could not have told at all 
 how long she sat till Mr. Haskins reappeared 
 carrying over his arm a fur coat, which he 
 handed to the chauffeur to put in the tonneau. 
 
 " I'm afraid you must be tired of waiting," 
 he said, as he took his seat by her. " These 
 shopmen never seem to know their stock," he 
 turned quickly round to observe whether she 
 had detected his error, and seeing that she had 
 detected nothing, with a laugh he corrected 
 himself" where, I mean, their orders are to 
 be found. Mismanagement. Rife in the old 
 country, even with a new commodity." 
 
 His interest in the steering-wheel, which had 
 occupied him during these remarks, suddenly 
 ceased. His tentative tone changed. As 
 though a happy idea had newly come to him, 
 he said 
 
 " In the wind you may feel the cold. Why 
 not wear the coat ? Would you mind ? " 
 
 He immediately got out of the car ; the 
 chauffeur handed him out the coat. 
 
142 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Isn't it rather would your sister mind ? " 
 
 " Oh no," he laughed, " it's not." 
 
 He stood on the pavement, holding the coat 
 by the shoulders. 
 
 "It would slip on nicely over," he said, 
 dangling it. 
 
 Miss Paul got out, and put her arms into 
 the sleeves. 
 
 "What a swell," she said, "I am ! " And 
 nestling her chin into the fur, " How soft and 
 comfy it is I " she added, laughing. 
 
 " The collar goes up," he said. " Like 
 this." And he put the collar up. It came 
 above her ears. 
 
 She laughed again. " How huge it is ! " 
 
 " Let me button the wrists." 
 
 She held out each arm in turn, and watched 
 with solemnity the process of undoing and 
 buttoning up the tabs. 
 
 "The wind won't blow up your arms," he 
 said. " Now, then, for Windsor." 
 
 "You must be fearfully rich," she gravely 
 said as she got into the car. 
 
 "Abominably," he answered earnestly, and 
 
The Way Things Happen 143 
 
 .tucked the rug round her feet with a 
 sigh. 
 
 The chauffeur leaned forward and suggested 
 the best route for leaving London. Mr. 
 Haskins listened, and without turning his 
 head, nodded. They started. 
 
 Miss Paul was too excited to speak as they 
 sped out of reach of the monster London. 
 The newness of her experience of moving so 
 swiftly through the great town made the great 
 town itself appear in a new aspect. Her 
 imagination was alive and gaping with im- 
 pressions of the monstrous spectacle. What 
 could induce human beings to pack themselves 
 so closely to each other ? The rows on rows 
 of streets of little houses, in which people were 
 solving in their own way the problem of life 
 and passing on their way towards death. She 
 saw a little old .woman driving slowly in a 
 carriage, pulled by two strong horses, driven 
 by a big coachman, by whose side sat a tall 
 footman ; she saw on the pavement a woman 
 waiting to cross the road, with a baby in her 
 arms and two small children clinging to her 
 
144 The Way Things Happen 
 
 skirts. The sight, familiar enough, startled 
 her, and seemed suddenly to open her eyes to 
 all the fantastic discrepancies, to all the sad 
 absurdities of the monstrous town, with its 
 grim vitality and unrest. She saw two little 
 boys laughing laughing so that they leaned 
 against a paling for support and passed swiftly 
 by without an idea of the joke. 
 
 They sped through the dreary suburbs, 
 through the waste land that encircles the 
 town, the monster's refuse ; they passed 
 orchards, and were at last in the quiet, open 
 country. The hedges were clothed in young 
 green, and the twigs shone brightly black in 
 the sun. She caught snatches of the lark's 
 song as he rose towards the sky, and his 
 little paean found an echo of joy in her 
 heart. 
 
 The car abruptly slowed down and stopped. 
 
 " Well ? " said her companion, looking at 
 her. Why ? " 
 
 She answered his question with a look of 
 amazement. 
 
 " How do you mean Why ? " she said. 
 
The Way Things Happen 145 
 
 "You cried out 'Stop,' that's all," he 
 gravely replied. 
 
 " Did I ? I didn't know. How funny 
 It must have been that lark's song. To hear 
 more of it. Such a few notes. Listen ! 
 We can still hear him singing. Can you f " 
 
 They both listened intently. The quietness, 
 accentuated by the previous throbbing speed, 
 and the peace of the sunshine and the soft air 
 overwhelmed her. 
 
 " Oh ! " she whispered, closing her eyes, 
 " the spring ! the spring ! " 
 
 He looked at her intently. The chauffeur 
 eyed his watch as the car moved on again, 
 and muttered to himself 
 
 " Three an' a quarter minutes' stoopid 'alt." 
 And he added, as he put his hands up his 
 sleeves, " Larks ! S'truth larks ! " 
 
 They did not stop again till the car drew 
 up before the Red Lion at Windsor. 
 
 " A wonderful drive," said Miss Paul. " I 
 enjoyed it." 
 
 " I'm glad," said Mr. Haskins, simply. " I 
 enjoyed it too." As an afterthought, for the 
 
 K 
 
146 The Way Things Happen 
 
 sake of approaching more nearly that elusive 
 quantity the truth " In your company," he 
 added, a little against his will. 
 
 Miss Paul directly looked into his face. 
 "That pleases me," she said, and went on 
 buttering her crust. For, to the landlady's 
 disgust, they were lunching off bread and 
 cheese. The gentleman drank only beer, the 
 lady only milk. 
 
 "Why?" asked Mr. Raskins. "I am a 
 stranger, you know." 
 
 " I suppose you are," Miss Paul replied ; 
 "at any rate, as long as you like to remain 
 so. But you aren't quite as much as you 
 lately were." 
 
 " I sometimes feel a stranger to myself," he 
 said. 
 
 Miss Paul thoughtfully cut as thin a slice 
 from her piece of cheese as the whippy knife 
 allowed, and laid it on the bread. 
 
 " I often feel," she said, " friends with all 
 the world." 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 " Of course now after that ride." 
 
The Way Things Happen 147 
 
 Am I included, then ? " 
 " Included ? no. Through you, don't you 
 see, quite specially as the reason of it all, out 
 to all the others ? " 
 
 " The others ? " 
 
 " Why, to all living things to life." 
 
 She made a quick little gesture, comprehensive 
 of everything, and began to cut more shavings 
 from her cheese. He suddenly tipped back 
 his chair, and, as on their first strange 
 encounter at the entrance of the crescent, 
 colour came into his thin cheeks just under 
 their high bones as he tossed out the 
 words 
 
 " Oh ! you apostle of joy." Then he 
 leaned forward and said very seriously, " So 
 you like the taste of the knife." 
 
 Miss Paul was amused at his sudden change 
 of manner, but bewildered in her search after 
 some symbolic meaning to his last remark. 
 
 " I don't follow you," she said, and her 
 voice showed her perplexity. 
 
 "Little lumps are better than those shav- 
 ings," he explained. "Of cheese, I mean." 
 
148 The Way Things Happen 
 
 She laughed aloud. " And apostle," she 
 said. " How you jump ! " 
 
 " Yes of joy. Joy you've simply preached 
 through all the morning with every breath 
 you've taken. Joy comes from you as 
 fragrance comes from a rose. That's what 
 makes your delicious sermon so utterly, so 
 completely convincing." 
 
 "I've never ridden in a motor-car before, 
 you see," she seriously said ; and it was his 
 turn to laugh. 
 
 "You're delightful! oh, delightful!" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " And yet, you know, I am a stranger." 
 She threw back to him his gloomy definition. 
 
 "Fate, the finest of all hosts, introduced 
 me to you took me by the shoulders and 
 pushed me forward towards you. It was 
 ordained. At our meeting the gods them- 
 selves presided," he cried with solemn 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " Loki, certainly, must have." 
 
 "WhoisLoki?" 
 
 " I've often wondered. A very special and 
 
The Way Things Happen 149 
 
 grotesque little deity, peculiarly mine. You 
 must one day come and see him. He has 
 always, I think, quietly looked after me. He 
 said he would, so he certainly ought." She 
 spoke gaily, but the spirit of reverence outgrew 
 her gaiety as she added, "What might not 
 happen in this wonderful, mysterious life of 
 ours ? Think of the dawn and the sunset, 
 the enormous change from night to day ; the 
 whole movement of life now in the spring, 
 when green life comes from the great silent 
 trees, when the little flowers appear and the 
 birds sing, and there is warmth and happiness 
 in the air. I can't get used to it all, the 
 surprising wonder of it all. This beautiful 
 world ! Why should I not believe that some 
 kind of life exists in that carved chair-back ? 
 Is it more magical than the continual daily 
 happenings that are hardly recognised because 
 they are so usual ? I can get used to nothing. 
 The sea and the tides and the moon and the 
 wind and the rain and the sunshine and the stars 
 and the earth, the dear old, thick old earth. Can 
 any one get used to such gigantic happenings ? " 
 
150 The Way Things Happen 
 
 He was silent for a little ; then he said in 
 a sad low voice 
 
 " You make me ashamed." 
 
 But her mind was far away ; she did not 
 hear him. 
 
 " And the rivers and the clouds, this uni- 
 versal scheme of beauty." 
 
 " Don't, don't go up and away from me ! 
 You fade away from your eyes and look out 
 at me from a distance. Come back. You 
 make me ashamed. Come back," he en- 
 treated. " Though I've been dull, dull to the 
 beauty, dull, dull, dull." 
 
 She looked at him without surprise. 
 " Dull ? " She echoed the knell, questioning. 
 
 He suddenly cried out. " Ah, you've 
 come back to me down that long sunbeam, 
 look, that's streaming through the dusty 
 window. What conductors men may be of 
 all this life and beauty 'h what a tremendous 
 chance men have with all their powers and 
 senses ! I've always known it, now I feel it 
 everything is given to man that he may 
 enjoy. Joy is the creative power. And 
 
The Way Things Happen 151 
 
 illness, evil, meanness, all spring from dulness, 
 from stupidity, from being half-alive. Beauty 
 is the highest form of vitality. We've solved 
 the riddle of life." He beat the table with 
 his fist. " Let's eat an apple." 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 " Do you mean," he asked, " c yes ' to the 
 apple or to our solution ? " 
 
 " Perhaps to both," she said, " certainly to 
 this ; " and she took an apple from the dish 
 and began to cut off its peel. 
 
 " I've been spoiled," he began again from 
 the depths into which he so rapidly sank ; " all 
 my life I've been spoiled." 
 
 "Not completely, I hope," she suggested, 
 to lift his spirit from despondence. 
 
 "Just by the chance of meeting you, perhaps 
 not." 
 
 " So very serious ? But how spoiled ? " 
 
 " By money, spoiled. I'll tell you. It will 
 be, so pardon me, the history of my life. But 
 your life what has that been ? " 
 
 " Oh, my life ! " She waved it away with 
 a light little laugh. " To find anything to tell 
 
152 The Way Things Happen 
 
 would be the puzzle. I've just lived, you 
 know." 
 
 "Just lived," he mused. "That's it. I 
 expect you have just lived." 
 
 " On and on, I mean, on and on," she added 
 in extenuation. 
 
 " I've tried to," he smiled sadly, " on and 
 off. That's exactly the difference between us. 
 I've waited too long." 
 
 "Waited? for what?" 
 
 " Say for whom, and I answer you. I'll 
 tell you about it," he said, and immediately 
 stopped. 
 
 " Yes, tell me." She smiled encouragement 
 and interest. " Do tell me," she repeated. 
 
 "Where to begin, when you come to the 
 actual point of narration, is the difficulty." 
 
 He lapsed again into musing. 
 
 " I was born on such and such a day. My 
 parents just to get going. It doesn't matter 
 so very much where. Or from the day before 
 yesterday, and you can go backwards." She 
 made suggestions, to cover his silence. 
 
 " It's not so much," he at last ventured, 
 
The Way Things Happen 153 
 
 "the actual fact of my father having made 
 a fortune and of my always having had money 
 in superabundance, as the character I somehow 
 had, which made my wealth a burden ; and 
 about that character I don't want you to 
 get a wrong impression. Distrustful doesn't 
 describe it wholly. Sensitive, no. Affectionate, 
 no. Queer, no. Half-hearted, no. I can 
 think of no happy word from which you 
 could jump to the truth. A sort of mingling 
 of the lot. Yet that can give no definite 
 idea. It lies in the result. I believe if I 
 could make you exactly understand just how 
 this motor drive with you has affected me, 
 you'd understand all the funny ins and outs 
 of this conglomeration me. I'm something 
 more than an ass in dittoes a silly ass whom 
 money has made miserable. Believe me, I am. 
 Or at least I feel more than that when I'm 
 with you. If I could explain why, I should 
 incidentally explain the mystery of all human 
 relationships." 
 
 He looked as deeply troubled as she looked 
 deeply perplexed. 
 
154 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " This questioning ? " She spread out her 
 hands. " Always this questioning. I don't 
 understand. You make up a question for 
 life to ask, and you make up your answer 
 to what's, after all, your own question. How 
 can it matter ? Yet I feel it does matter to 
 you. Aren't you" she leaned forward and 
 touched his arm "aren't you satisfied at having 
 found a solution for what you call the riddle 
 of life, without setting yourself immediately 
 another riddle to solve about about human 
 relationships ? Isn't it enough that I, just 
 like you, I mean to go on with, say, for one 
 lunch-time ? " 
 
 "I'm too analytical, dear lady," he said. 
 " Do go on." 
 
 " Go on ? " 
 
 " With your theories of life, I mean." 
 
 "Oh, I've no theories. But that's what I 
 feel I mean now. I've never reasoned 
 things out. I've well, I've no theories." 
 
 "Call them what you like," he laughed. 
 She was silent. "You explain me so beauti- 
 fully to myself. You see" his voice grew 
 
The Way Things Happen 155 
 
 slow and emphatic "you are what I want 
 to become, that's why I love you." 
 
 "Do you ?" She leaned forward and touched 
 his arm. " Oh, I am glad ! " 
 
 "Why should you be ?" 
 
 " Why ? " she cried. " Because I so feel 
 you mean what you say ; and love is so good 
 and beautiful." 
 
 " You mean it may be." 
 
 "No, no, no, I don't. It is. Caring, I 
 mean, for some one else, just is. It's not 
 caring that's so pitiful." 
 
 " That's another tremendous theory, you 
 know. But you use your brains to to find 
 joy in life, I use my brains to question life." 
 
 "Why do you?" 
 
 "It's my nature, I suppose, to be discon- 
 tented. With you I somehow am not." 
 
 " You put it like that. But I've not much 
 brains at all. It takes me all my time to see 
 and read and understand things. Painting, 
 music, books. I'm very slow." 
 
 " And people ? Do you, may I ask, care 
 for me ? " 
 
156 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Of course I do," she instantly replied. 
 
 " It's not of course ; you might like motor- 
 ing and put up with the motor's owner." 
 
 "Don't be" she hesitated "a foolish man 
 in dittoes." 
 
 " I guess I make you tired." 
 
 " No, no, no," she insisted. " It's not as 
 bad as that. But haven't we been sitting here 
 a very long time ? It's after half-past three." 
 
 "Would you think it a wasted day if we 
 saw the pictures and the castle another time ? 
 I'm so out of the mood for seeing things." 
 
 " Not a bit," she answered, and began medi- 
 tatively to put on her gloves. "Are you," 
 she then said very gravely, "so terribly 
 rich ? " 
 
 " About half a crown a minute," he answered 
 with a quaint sigh. 
 
 " Goodness me ! " said Miss Paul. " What 
 does that mean a year ? " 
 
 "Between sixty and seventy thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 "How utterly extraordinary it must be to 
 have all that ! And if it once began to be a 
 
The Way Things Happen 157 
 
 weight it would soon become a pretty heavy 
 
 one." 
 
 " Precisely, dear lady. A pretty heavy one. 
 Every time the clock ticks a halfpenny drops 
 into my pocket." 
 
 He, rising, rang and gave instructions for 
 the car to be brought round. 
 
 As he helped her on with the fur coat he 
 said in the dry, dejected way that was most 
 usual with him and from which his sudden 
 keenness shot like the flare of a flame 
 
 "You see how little it matters my getting 
 the coat for you." 
 
 "But your sister ?" 
 
 " Was a myth. I have no sister. No one 
 nearer to me than a horrible family of second 
 cousins, six big loud-voiced girls, who scan 
 the papers for news of my marriage or demise." 
 
 During the drive back to London he was 
 able to tell her more of his history, because 
 Miss Paul was again constrained to silence 
 by the excitement of the speed at which they 
 went, and his pauses were not, to the dis- 
 comfiture of his narrative, filled. Miss Paul 
 
158 The Way Things Happen 
 
 liked him to tell her about his life, though 
 his wish for her to understand his character 
 puzzled her. It was enough for her that she 
 liked him. It never occurred to her to find 
 a reason for her liking, still less to find words 
 for that reason. He, on the contrary, con- 
 tinued to search for reasons and for exact 
 words in which to express them, and each 
 discovery and each new phrase gave him, she 
 clearly saw, fresh delight. "You restore to 
 me the capacity for joy which I was losing," 
 he exclaimed, and to that he returned con- 
 stantly, saying that it was the simple gist of 
 the matter ; and at each return a look almost 
 of rapture lighted his lean face. 
 
 Miss Paul was merely conscious of giving 
 more happiness than she had hitherto been 
 able to give. She left it at that, and allowed 
 this glad consciousness its full scope in height- 
 ening the pleasure of her drive. Her power of 
 appreciation was quickened. She felt more in 
 harmony with the beauty of the sky, as it 
 royally welcomed the approach of night. She 
 quietly felt the magic of spring in all her being, 
 
The Way Things Happen 159 
 
 as the hedges with all their dancing buds 
 quietly felt it. 
 
 Once she looked at the man by her side, 
 painfully groping for words in which to make 
 his soul clear to her, and at the moment she 
 seemed to see quite into him, as into a deep 
 untroubled pool, in which among all the strange 
 growths and weeds her own image was reflected. 
 
 She touched his arm and gently said, " Oh, 
 be sure, my dear, that I do know you." 
 
VIII 
 
 f I "^HE fire was burned out in the 
 j| grate and the room was in ob- 
 
 ^ scurity. On the ceiling the light 
 
 was reflected dimly from the lamps 
 in the street. The little room was very still, 
 the noise of the traffic hummed in the distance. 
 Miss Paul heard the clock ticking in the 
 kitchen, as she stood by the window and 
 looked out on the great church. Its spire of 
 stone rose into the sky with a strange light 
 glowing on it, as though the stone had the 
 power of keeping the sun's light round it after 
 day had gone. She wrapped the fur cloak 
 closely round her and sat down in a chair to 
 recollect, as was her wont, the events of the day, 
 which she supposed were at an end. Memory 
 in solitude gave them its special charm, which 
 was coloured by her presence once more among 
 
 160 
 
The Way Things Happen 161 
 
 her dear belongings. She mused to Loki, 
 whose shape became clear in the dimness. 
 " Is it because of you, perhaps, you wonderful 
 old thing, that I've never set myself these 
 dreadful questions ? Have you always been a 
 little in front of me on the path and held the 
 brambles apart so that they did not lay prickly 
 hold of me ? But if they spring back ! oh, then 
 they come stinging against you. They have 
 swung against the dear man in grey. He has 
 always been a pace too far back. Lagging, 
 perhaps, under the burden of his money. You 
 
 . must meet him, old Loki, you must meet " 
 
 She started at the ringing clamour of her 
 bell. The blotting-paper, with which its 
 extreme resonance was dulled, must have 
 slipped down again. " More adventures," she 
 lightly thought, hurrying down ; "my life is 
 becoming a perfect whirl." As she passed Dr. 
 Paveley's room a stab of remembrance made 
 her flush. The day's excitement had sent her 
 experience with him to what appeared a heart- 
 less distance. 
 
 To her surprise the doctor's nephew was 
 
 L 
 
1 62 The Way Things Happen 
 
 standing on the doorstep. He immediately 
 whipped off his hat a hat of tweed with 
 round crown and limp brim. His hair thereby 
 was ruffled, and his eyes beamed eagerness 
 which his tongue was unable to utter. 
 
 "You have, I think, rung the wrong bell," 
 said Miss Paul, making no attempt to hide 
 a smile of pleasure and amusement at his 
 appearance. 
 
 "Frightful cheek," he whispered, "but I 
 absolutely haven't. Take me upstairs. I want 
 to talk to you. Do take me upstairs." 
 
 " To me ? " said Miss Paul, amazed and 
 amused. " Whatever about ? " 
 
 "Upstairs," he insisted. "Til tell you 
 upstairs." He clung to the word as though 
 therein lay his sole hope of salvation from 
 some secret doom. " Upstairs, now do. Take 
 me upstairs." 
 
 "All right," said Miss Paul, "but I must 
 first, you know, close the door." 
 
 He bundled into the hall, and in a panting 
 whisper 
 
 "My name's Rupert Harden. I'm old 
 
The Way Things Happen 163 
 
 Dr. Paveley's nephew. You remember we've 
 shaken hands once. Shake hands again now, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 He held out his hand to her, as she passed 
 him to lead the way upstairs. She laughed and 
 took it. There was about the boy a jolly 
 frankness and sincerity which pleased her. He 
 was gay fresh, young, and gay. 
 
 " Oh, Lord," she heard him whisper, as they 
 
 walked up the stairs, " if the old lad looked 
 
 out and saw me," and again with a sigh of 
 
 elief, as they turned up the last little flight, 
 
 " Safe, begad, safe at last, by all that's blue." 
 
 " It's rather dark and cheerless, I am afraid," 
 said Miss Paul, "but I've been out all day. 
 Perhaps you'd better not take your coat off. 
 I'll soon kindle up a fire." 
 
 " Oh, let me ! " he exclaimed. " I'm a dab 
 at a fire. I say, what a topping little room, 
 too ! " He followed her into the kitchen and 
 wrested the bundle of wood from her hands. 
 " If I'm of some use, it'll make me feel better 
 less, you see, of a rascally intruder ; and I 
 can talk better fiddling with something on my 
 
164 The Way Things Happen 
 
 knees too. You can look upon it as a con- 
 tinual attitude of supplication for forgiveness, 
 which I can't go on asking for, though you 
 do forgive me, don't you, for taking you on a 
 villainous rush like this ? " 
 
 By this time he was on his knees, rather 
 neatly removing the ashes. 
 
 " The great thing," he rattled on, " at this 
 game is not to coat the whole room with 
 infernal white dust. A gas fire would be 
 handy, but they're beastly things. With my 
 back turned to you, too, because what I have 
 to say is awfully delicate." Upright on his 
 knees he looked at her over his right shoulder. 
 " Most awfully delicate," he repeated, and his 
 eye falling at that moment on the little chair 
 he exclaimed, " My lawks ! what a fellow ! a 
 regular old goblin patron saint, Miss Paul ! 
 I say, what's his name ? He's the identical 
 Golgonooza or Bowlahoola Blakish, symbolic, 
 
 devilish, queer " He was bending over 
 
 the grate, arranging the sticks. "He's all 
 right you know, really, the old boy underneath. 
 But we look after him, though he doesn't 
 
The Way Things Happen 165 
 
 realise it mother and dad and me ; and the 
 parents being away on an Italian jaunt the 
 lucky beggars ! it all devolves upon me in 
 a queer way which I can't hope for you to 
 understand, but know you'll take for granted. 
 The old dear is most fearfully pompous, but 
 he can't help it ; and he could no more speak 
 for himself without being a ridiculous old 
 pompous old fathead than he could fly. And 
 I've ragged him about things and didn't realise 
 how acute he'd got it till to-day at lunch, when, 
 upon my soul, I happened on him, and found 
 him simply off his poor old chump. He'd got 
 into a scrape, and was muddling it somehow, 
 without us to look after him." 
 
 " Yes, but who " Miss Paul began ; 
 
 but the boy turned and swept away her 
 interruption. 
 
 " Just let me ramble on and round, you'd 
 really better ; and gradually some kind of 
 meaning will inkle into you. It's not a thing 
 that can be blurted out. We're all keen that 
 he should marry. He's a bit inclined to be 
 selfish, you see ; and we think he's growing 
 
1 66 The Way Things Happen 
 
 more so because he's growing into bachelor 
 habits, which are the very deuce, though he's 
 a rare old dear, really. You can take my word 
 for it. And now he is really dead gone on 
 a person, it does seem a frightful pity that he 
 should be blighted, Miss Paul ; don't you 
 think so?" 
 
 "But it hasn't even inkled who he exactly 
 is, Mr. Harden." 
 
 " Oh, I say, dash it ; it's ridiculous to call 
 me that when I'm sitting here making an ass 
 of myself. I don't an atom mind appearing 
 an ass, as long as 1 can somehow get things 
 done I want to do. On the face of it my 
 coming at all is idiotic. Rupie, Rupert, Pert, 
 Juggins anything but the prim formula, 
 because, of course, I knew we should be pals 
 the moment I saw you. And it's your wonder- 
 ful eyes and that jolly streak of white hair 
 that have done for the old uncle right enough. 
 Shows his sense, really." 
 
 "You mean oh dear, you absurd boy 
 you mean however could you ! " 
 
 The whole ludicrous truth burst upon Miss 
 
The Way Things Happen 167 
 
 Paul so suddenly that she could not speak for 
 laughter. 
 
 " Really, you see, what I specially wanted 
 to say, as well as that he's really an old dear, 
 is that in about two minutes he'd do exactly 
 whatever you wanted he'd be like a regular 
 trustworthy big old dog." 
 
 "But," she faltered, "I don't happen to 
 want a regular trustworthy big old dog." 
 
 "Let that idea filter into your mind. It's 
 not one to be sneezed at. Then if he gets as 
 far as " 
 
 He has." 
 
 "As asking the immortal question, you 
 wouldn't be so put off by his apparent pom- 
 pousness, and if you're at all lonely or " 
 
 " Your uncle has proposed, and I have 
 refused him ; and he has already retracted his 
 proposal," said Miss Paul, as severely as she 
 could. 
 
 " Oh, I say," he cried. " Don't rise on your 
 tail and wave your paws at me. No one ever 
 takes me seriously enough to be angry with 
 me ; really they don't. So he's done it, has 
 
1 68 The Way Things Happen 
 
 he, the old boy, and muddled it ! It 
 must have been killing. Poor old beggar ! 
 Blighted ! Well, I was afraid your sense of 
 humour would have been too much for him. 
 Oh my lawks, I wish Fd been there. But 
 for all that he'd make a jolly excellent husband, 
 and we must find him one. Tell me where 
 there's a match, and I'll light the fire. Oh, 
 I've got one in my pocket." He struck a 
 match and applied it to the paper. " You see, 
 it's easy enough now for you to understand 
 why I felt I must say a word for him. I have 
 profound pity for any one who is afraid of 
 making an ass of himself. In this universe 
 anyhow it seems ridiculous for men to strut 
 about under the sun and clouds, mere atoms 
 in trousers : that's the initial absurdity ; and 
 when a man's pompous about it, it's so utterly 
 silly that it's simply pathetic. That's my point 
 of view. That's why poor old uncle's got to 
 be looked after. He couldn't really talk about 
 anything more important than the weather 
 without being tearfully ridiculous. I haven't 
 thought it right out. But it is so, isn't it ? " 
 
The Way Things Happen 169 
 
 " You bewilder me," laughed Miss Paul. 
 
 " I mean, look at myself now," he went on 
 with extreme earnestness. " I've risked making 
 an utter ass of myself, and made it, but you're 
 not chiefly thinking what an egregious ass I 
 am, are you ; you're amused and liking me ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am," said Miss Paul ; " but every 
 one's not like me." 
 
 " I only wish they were. Aren't you beastly 
 lonely, tucked away up here by yourself ? " 
 
 " I can't say that I have been." 
 
 " I only wanted to know, because one of my 
 theories is that a person gets old and dry living 
 alone ; and uncle's told us how seldom any 
 one comes to visit you. One of my worthy 
 fellow-lodger's most amiable qualities you 
 know how he'd say it. And you're the least 
 old and dry person I've ever met. That's 
 what interested me so tremendously about you 
 when I caught my first glimpse of you. How 
 do you manage it ? You might give a chap 
 the recipe. You haven't " his voice sank to 
 tender depths of sympathy " you haven't had 
 some fearful great sorrow ? " 
 
170 The Way Things Happen 
 
 "Oh no," she said, "I haven't. I'm just 
 unsociable, I expect." 
 
 "That's not it, because you aren't. The 
 sorrow theory would explain it. Something 
 big and terrible to switch you clean off the 
 common humanity utterly to disconnect you. 
 You might have been born like it, of course. 
 Just a pet. Oh, that's the family name for the 
 absolutely right sort." 
 
 In the silence which followed they became 
 aware of soft but heavy steps ascending the 
 stairs. They looked at each other like guilty 
 children. The door was tapped. Rupert 
 sprang up silently, and with an intensely 
 whispered " My lawks ! " disappeared into the 
 kitchen before Miss Paul could collect sufficient 
 presence of mind to stop him. 
 
 " Come in," she cried in a feeble voice. 
 
 Dr. Paveley entered and closed the door 
 carefully behind him. Miss Paul tried to 
 summon up confidence from the thought that 
 it was after all her room. 
 
 "Madam," began the doctor, "my visit 
 cannot fail to surprise you. But as the poet 
 
The Way Things Happen 171 
 
 says, 'Amor vincit omnia.' I do not know 
 whether you are a Latinist sufficiently expert 
 to recognise the pungent pun." 
 
 Miss Paul was almost certain that she 
 heard a smothered shriek of laughter coming 
 from the kitchen ; but as Dr. Paveley's 
 face showed not the least sign, she fancied 
 it must have been the mistake of her 
 imagination. 
 
 "I have come to offer my most sincere 
 apologies for the speech which my jealousy 
 evoked, and to plead," he went on with his 
 customary assurance, " that the existence of 
 that same jealousy proves the depth of of 
 ah, my passion." 
 
 The door which led into the kitchen was at 
 that moment burst open. 
 
 "It's no use. Your infernal voice carries 
 so, and the door won't properly shut. And 
 though it'd be too god-like to hear, I can't 
 overhear. It's no go, old uncle mine. She's 
 got far too keen a sense of humour." 
 
 " Sir ! " gasped Dr. Paveley. 
 
 " The surprise is dreadful and mutual. You 
 
1 73 The Way Things Happen 
 
 must bear heroically up, painful as is the 
 
 occasion." 
 
 " Sir ! " repeated Dr. Paveley ; and added 
 with bitterness, " I was not aware that you 
 were on visiting terms here ! " 
 
 " I'm not ; but I came. And oh, it's 
 happy I shall die, twice to have heard the 
 most revered of uncles address me as 
 sir ! " 
 
 "Won't you both please," suggested Miss 
 Paul, desperately, " sit down ? The fire will 
 soon burn brightly, and " 
 
 But the doctor's wrath boiled over upon his 
 nephew. 
 
 "To what, may I inquire, are we indebted 
 for your impertinent intrusion ? " 
 
 " Don't be silly, old uncle mine ! What's 
 that got to do with it ? Didn't you hear our 
 gracious hostess ask us to sit down ? Come 
 now, smile and sit down, and we'll have a nice 
 friendly little party." 
 
 Rupert put firm hands on his uncle's 
 shoulders and pressed. Dr. Paveley sat down 
 without, to Miss Paul's astonishment, further 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 V 
 
 X 
 
 The Way Things Happen 173 
 
 protest. The nephew sat on the floor clasping 
 his knees. 
 
 "And isn't it," he proclaimed with a large 
 benignant smile, " a funny world we live in ? " 
 
 " Have you," Dr. Paveley quite suavely 
 asked, "known this extraordinary nephew of 
 mine long ? " 
 
 " And this extraordinary old uncle of mine, 
 have you known him long ? " the boy irre- 
 pressibly inquired. 
 
 " I feel it would be more satisfactory if I 
 were to explain my presence," said Dr. Paveley ; 
 and, ignoring his nephew's remark that that 
 was more than he could do of his, proceeded, 
 " I have offered this lady my hand in marriage, 
 and she has declined my offer." 
 
 A distressing silence, as might be expected, 
 followed this announcement. Then Rupert 
 cheerfully interposed 
 
 "Well, that's on the carpet all right. It's 
 your turn now, Miss Paul, to make a remark. 
 The great art of conversation is - " 
 
 "Rupert," interrupted Dr. Paveley, "your 
 flippancy is both obnoxious and inconsiderate." 
 
174 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " It's not my fault, surely, if you will 
 thump out great personal solecisms. Hang 
 it! Do you expect me solemnly to con- 
 gratulate Miss Paul and sympathise with 
 you, or what ? Think of it from our point 
 of view." 
 
 " You certainly ought to consider your 
 uncle's feelings, and not treat a serious matter 
 as a jest," said Miss Paul, firmly. 
 
 " Oh, not as a jest, really ! Don't for a 
 moment think it, I implore. After all I've 
 said, too. That from you." 
 
 "Am I to understand," said Dr. Paveley, 
 " that you have been discussing my affairs 
 with this lady ? " He looked from one to the 
 other. 
 
 " I merely told her what a good old boy you 
 were really, in spite of your pompous manner," 
 declared Rupert. 
 
 <c He means he was good enough to approve 
 of me as an aunt," hastily added Miss Paul ; 
 but Rupert continued, unabashed and very 
 seriously 
 
 " My theory is that all pompous persons 
 
The Way Things Happen 175 
 
 must have some kind of a nurse to look 
 after them. I was too late. You'd already 
 muddled it." 
 
 Dr. Paveley drew himself up, breathing 
 heavily with anger and amazement. 
 
 " A nurse ! You ! I am to understand 
 that you have seen fit graciously to constitute 
 yourself in the, ah ! in the capacity of of my 
 nurse ? " 
 
 "Oh, don't make | such a fuss about it 1 
 Yes, precisely. And I'm most awfully sorry 
 I was too late." 
 
 "I am able, I think," said his uncle, with 
 bitter emphasis, " to dispense with your sorrow 
 as well as with your assistance. This, I am 
 bound to say, is the most astounding example 
 of impertinence that it has ever been my lot to 
 meet with. You deserve to be caned, sir, you 
 deserve to be caned." 
 
 "Of course it's been a failure, and you 
 ought never to have known. If it'd ease your 
 feelings to have six or so smacks at me with a 
 cane, you're at liberty to have 'em, only I must 
 have warning to prepare." 
 
176 The Way Things Happen 
 
 "Please, Dr. Paveley," said Miss Paul, 
 " you must forgive us both.'* 
 
 "Look here, old uncle mine, I consider 
 mine a jolly sporting offer. I've hurt your 
 pride. You can't hurt mine, because I've got 
 none. The only thing about me you could 
 hurt I'll turn gladly up for execution ; or are 
 the wounds to pride too desperate for any 
 remedy ? " 
 
 " You deserve a sound thrashing, sir, a sound 
 thrashing." 
 
 " Don't keep on about it. You know I'm 
 fearfully sorry you've been blighted, because we 
 all think marriage would simply be the making 
 of you. Be as sick as you like," he earnestly 
 proceeded, " with me, but don't be put off by 
 one rebuff, however hard it's hit you. Believe 
 me, it's not with a man like you the particular 
 person that at all matters, it's the idea of the 
 thing of marriage that's laid hold of you, 
 and a jolly good idea it is." 
 
 "I am flattered," said Dr. Paveley, with 
 biting suavity, "by your interest in my wel- 
 fare ; and I am glad to observe with what 
 
The Way Things Happen 177 
 
 seriousness you treat your self-imposed position 
 of shall I say mentor." 
 
 " That's stupid, and simply unworthy of you, 
 like the phrase c imposed position.' Oh, uncle 
 mine, don't be all wrapped up in your own 
 dignity and pompousness. What's it matter 
 that you're a few years older than me, when 
 you think of the thousands of years men have 
 been living ? Why, if you'd drop all that husk 
 and be yourself with me, you'd be able to learn 
 almost as much from me as I could learn from 
 you. Instead of that you're just silly and 
 sarcastic. Any ass can be sarcastic. Only a 
 man can be real and sincere. Can't you see 
 I am sincere, and frightfully in earnest about 
 your future ? You can't afford to make mis- 
 takes. All you people of middle age lay your 
 heads together and worry about our futures 
 about us young 'uns when it doesn't matter a 
 toss if we make fifty mistakes ; it's you, all set 
 in your grooves and forgetting about the 
 real business of life that should come to us 
 for help to seek our advice and we'd put 
 you up to a thing or two my hat, we would ! " 
 
 M 
 
178 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " The present generation," said Dr. Paveley 
 to Miss Paul, and the bite of his suavity had 
 lost its edge, " is beyond me." 
 
 "Of course it is," cried Rupert, with un- 
 wavering enthusiasm, " if you make no effort 
 to understand it. Like everything else worth 
 understanding, it requires an effort." 
 
 "In all tender delicacy, I should like to 
 submit a wistful doubt as to whether its worth 
 is quite in proportion to your high estimate." 
 
 " There you are. At it again, with your 
 pompous gibes. Hopeless. Come on; we're 
 boring Miss Paul. Well adjourn to your 
 
 room." 
 
 Jumping up, Rupert seized his uncle's arm, 
 and leaving him hardly time for the hastiest of 
 farewells, impetuously dragged him from the 
 room. He, however, rushed upstairs again to 
 thrust his head in at the door, and say to 
 Miss Paul 
 
 " I say, you will let me come and see you 
 again, won't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, do," she replied, laughing. 
 
IX 
 
 f "^HE dreams of the gentle lady were 
 that night vivid and fantastic. She 
 awoke, however, only with the 
 hazy certainty that Mr. Haskins 
 had presented her with a complete outfit of fur 
 as soft and well fitting as the coat of a kitten 
 and had driven her in his motor over vast 
 tracts of ice and snow in search of the North 
 Pole ; and that Rupert had converted his uncle 
 to his exquisite views on the necessity of the 
 middle-aged learning from youth before it was 
 too late. She lay a long time brooding over 
 them, and came to the conclusion that the 
 actual facts were far more amazing in themselves 
 than any dream could make them. The cold 
 reality of events she always found to be most 
 surprising. 
 
 Nothing, as far as she knew, would happen 
 179 
 
180 The Way Things Happen 
 
 that day, she was glad to think, until her friend 
 in grey came at four to take tea with her. The 
 wind was cold, but the sun was shining brightly, 
 and about eleven she went out into Regent's 
 Park to see how the daffodils were getting on. 
 The winter had been long lived and boisterous. 
 The wall-flowers had suffered, and the bravery 
 of the snowdrops had been more valiant even 
 than usual. The bulbs were late ; but among the 
 short clumps of daffodil leaves she saw many a 
 light green bud, and in sheltered corners a few 
 already gay in yellow beauty. These first- 
 comers she welcomed, and thought with joy of 
 the high knoll in Kew Gardens, which she 
 would now in a few weeks see occupied by a 
 golden nodding army of them. Pets, she 
 thought and laughed to herself to think of 
 the absurd boy's family name for the absolutely 
 right sort pre-eminently pets, and spying at 
 that moment a single daffodil quite full-blown 
 waving gently from side to side in a very 
 tremor of joy, she said to herself, " And there 
 is the pre-eminent heavenly pet." 
 
 When Miss Paul returned home, she found 
 
The Way Things Happen 181 
 
 on the hall table, on which her letters and 
 parcels (extremely rare arrivals) were put by 
 the landladies, a big wooden box. She moved 
 the tissue paper from the top, and saw to her 
 wonder and delight bunches and bunches of 
 spring flowers violets, daffodils, freesia, wall- 
 flowers, tulips in profusion ; and roses and 
 lilies. On them lay a little scrap of paper, on 
 which was written in blue pencil, " To remind 
 you I'm coming to tea. P. H." Pre-eminent, 
 heavenly, she decided no other words could have 
 those bright particular initials as she carried the 
 box in both hands slowly up to her rooms. 
 Everything that could hold water was pressed 
 into service for the flowers. Never in her life 
 before had she had half so many flowers. Her 
 room blazed with them. They looked at her 
 from every corner, from every place on which a 
 jar or a dish or a pot could stand. She felt in 
 an enchanted garden, herself enchanted by the 
 colour and by the fragrance. She went from 
 one to the other and examined each minutely, 
 then she stepped into the middle of the room 
 and surveyed them all, turning slowly round 
 
1 82 The Way Things Happen 
 
 and round. She touched the tulips with her 
 smooth white fingers, and the roses with her 
 lips ; she leaned over the violets and the wall- 
 flowers and took deep breaths of their sweet 
 life. Her eyes shone with joy. She became 
 impatient for her grey friend to come ; she 
 wanted to thank him : she wanted some one 
 with whom to share her joy. 
 
 The flowers moved her by the silent, motion- 
 less ecstasy of life, which made their perfect 
 beauty ; and then before the beauty she bowed 
 her head in awe, as a worshipper in the presence 
 of the Godhead. 
 
 Reverence and joy brought delicate peace, 
 which surrounded her like the perfume of the 
 flowers themselves. The happiness of that 
 afternoon was already fixed in her mind, and 
 always would the scent of freesia recall it to her 
 mental sight, for among the smells of the roses 
 and violets and lilies and wall-flowers the smell 
 of the freesia penetrated, as a melody stands 
 out from its accompaniment, and gave her most 
 pleasure. 
 
 Her friend was wearing his grey suit when 
 
The Way Things Happen 183 
 
 he came, and his grey mood of doubt, as though 
 expectancy had too often led him to disappoint- 
 ment. The grey mood she was able to colour. 
 Her thanks took the simple rare form of an 
 effort to make him feel the joy which he had 
 given her with the flowers. At first he 
 shrugged his shoulders to her rather nervous 
 " How dear of you to send the flowers ! " his 
 gesture implied that such a gift was customary, 
 that he could have done no less. But she was 
 not satisfied with that. She put her hands on 
 his shoulders and said 
 
 " Do you realise my joy ? You must." And 
 she gently shook him. 
 
 " Oh, I thought I'd like to be with you in 
 your welcome of the spring, perhaps." He 
 spoke almost with indifference. 
 
 " You fill my room with flowers and " 
 
 " They're so entirely your due your right 
 your there's a suitability in all things. To 
 
 have been the means " He stopped and 
 
 turned away. " I like your room," he went on. 
 " The old oak is right. But that " he pointed 
 to the little old chair " that it he at once 
 
184 The Way Things Happen 
 
 seemed, if I may say so, the chief occupant. 
 He it remarkable. Sheer writhen life." 
 
 " That's Loki, my ancient Loki, whom I 
 wanted you to meet." 
 
 " I guessed as much." 
 
 " Look," she said, " this is the kitchen." 
 
 " It's all very compact," he commented. 
 
 " What's on your mind ? " she cried out. 
 " What's making you so gloomy and de- 
 liberate?" 
 
 " That you should be tucked away up 
 here ! That these attics should be all the 
 space in this huge town that can be spared 
 you ! It's ludicrous it's contemptible." 
 
 " But I am so very pleased with them. 
 You're jealous of me because I'm not abomin- 
 ably rich too. You're like a man I once saw 
 in the underground with a very bad cold, who 
 glared at every one that wasn't snuffling like 
 himself. You haven't surely come here to 
 set me at odds with my little surround- 
 ings?" 
 
 Ah ! " he sighed. If I only could ! " 
 
 " How disgraceful of you to say that." 
 
The Way Things Happen 185 
 
 " If you'd only take things from me ! " he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Haven't I ? " she cried. " Haven't I 
 quite outrageously done so already ? Come, 
 you gloomy man, you must have some tea. 
 Sit down here, please " she moved a chair 
 a little forward " while I get it." 
 
 " Mayn't I, though, help you ? " 
 
 "No," she said, "you may not," and went 
 into the kitchen, immediately returning with 
 a tray, which she put on the table, and a 
 kettle, which she put on the fire. 
 
 " I do hope you'll like the cake," she said, 
 so solemnly that he was constrained to give 
 his sudden laugh. 
 
 " Forgive my smiling," he said, " over a 
 matter of such grave importance as the cake." 
 
 She frowned at him. " Since there's no 
 choice, it is important. I should hate you 
 only to have bread and butter at our first 
 tea-party in my room." 
 
 " The way you said it," he expostulated, 
 not quite sure if she were really displeased 
 or not " the solemnity. Not your hospitality, 
 
1 86 The Way Things Happen 
 
 which would be beautiful if you offered me a 
 stale crust without butter." 
 
 " Do you take sugar and milk ? " she 
 severely asked. 
 
 "You mustn't think me aggravating, 
 
 but " She held up the milk-jug. "I 
 
 beg your pardon. Yes, please. Sugar and 
 milk one lump." 
 
 " Why should I think you aggravating ? " 
 she inquired. 
 
 "I'm a little heavy and difficult, because 
 I can't chat about things which don't com- 
 paratively matter, when I've an enormous 
 something on my mind. Do you mind my 
 plunging at once at it ? " 
 
 " What may the enormous something be ? 
 The confession of a felony ? " 
 
 " No ; it's worse than that. It's simply 
 that I want you to live with me always. Of 
 course it's preposterous to stop a woman in 
 the street, as I have practically stopped you, 
 and propose marriage off-hand as I do to 
 you ; but really, I don't know that it is so. 
 There are things to be said for it. I should 
 
The Way Things Happen 187 
 
 so much like you to hear me say them, if you 
 would allow me." 
 
 " Funny to want to give reasons " she 
 put an odd little emphasis, as it were of 
 distaste, on the last word "for such 
 suc h " 
 
 But her sentence remained incomplete. 
 The door was irresolutely tapped while she 
 hesitated. 
 
 "Come in," said Miss Paul, standing up. 
 The door opened. " Mrs. Martin ! " she ex- 
 claimed. " How could you have got up so 
 soon ? " 
 
 Mrs. Martin^ said in a whisper, " Comp'ny ! " 
 
 Miss Paul stepped forward, and taking hold 
 of the woman's arm, said 
 
 " Come in, at once, and sit down." 
 
 "You will excuse me, miss Good after- 
 noon to you, sir but I couldn't go on lyin' 
 there. I 'ad just to come out like in the 
 sunshine and see if there was any little thing 
 as I c'ud do for yer. You'd just let me wash 
 up them tea-things, wouldn't yer, after you're 
 finished ? and I'll sit in the kitchen." 
 
The Way Things Happen 
 
 " You must have a cup of tea." 
 
 "Reelly, I can't say as I fancy anythin'. 
 Don't let me, now, jus' give yer trouble. Not 
 kind. That ain't." 
 
 Miss Paul stood thinking. "I know," she 
 said, and went into the kitchen. 
 
 The two sat in silence. Mr. Haskins 
 scrutinised Mrs. Martin. 
 
 " A banana," said Miss Paul, returning, " and 
 some warm milk. Now do to please me." 
 
 " I do fancy nothin'. And all this trouble. 
 Too bad," said Mrs. Martin. 
 
 Her voice expressed discontent, which her 
 face belied, because her face, as Mr. Haskins 
 noticed, showed how keenly sensitive she was 
 to Miss Paul's kindness. There is, however, 
 no equivalent in these matters to the rainbow, 
 which appears when the sun shines during 
 rain, so that any one might be pardoned, if 
 not pitied, who observed the crossness and 
 did not observe the beauty ; for when a 
 kindness passes between two people, there 
 beauty is. 
 
 " You ain't 'alf got some blooms," said 
 
The Way Things Happen 189 
 
 Mrs. Martin. " My ! the room fair smells 
 of 'em." And she bit a piece off the banana 
 and deliberately ate it. 
 
 " You must take a bunch with you to cheer 
 you up," said Miss Paul. " This is the 
 woman who works for me. She's been ill 
 and ought not really to be out now. Ought 
 you, Mrs. Martin ? " 
 
 "There's things one can bear, and things 
 one can't, which lyin' there was one of 'em." 
 
 To the latter order Mr. Haskins was of 
 opinion that her slowness in eating the banana 
 indubitably belonged. 
 
 " I quite agree with you, Mrs. Martin," 
 he said. 
 
 " Funny to want reasons I mean for such 
 a heavenly plan," said Miss Paul quickly, 
 leaning forward to rest her hand upon his 
 knee for a moment. " Don't you think reasons 
 foolish, Mrs. Martin ? " 
 
 " Reasons ? " meditated Mrs. Martin. " My 
 'usband likes 'em, when a thing's not quite 
 as he fancies it." 
 
 Miss Paul, very much to the admirable 
 
i go The Way Things Happen 
 
 woman's surprise, suddenly put her arms 
 round her neck and kissed her cheek. 
 
 " Now you must go quietly home. There's 
 nothing at all that I can't easily do for myself." 
 She turned to Mr. Haskins and said, "Be a 
 dear and put Mrs. Martin into a four-wheeler. 
 There's a whistle on the hall table." 
 
 " Oh, the idee-a ! " cried Mrs. Martin. " Did 
 you ever, now ? " 
 
 But Paul Haskins was already out of the 
 room. Immediate action was some relief to 
 the suppressed joy which set his face and 
 lighted his eyes. 
 
 " So I'm to go 'ome in me carriage ! I 
 'ope I haven't troubled yer, but I never 
 thought as you'd be 'avin' comp'ny, some'ow." 
 
 "I'm glad you came," said Miss Paul. 
 " We mustn't keep the cab waiting." 
 
 " You don't 'alf think of others ! " said 
 Mrs. Martin, wrapping her bright purple shawl 
 closely round her shoulders. 
 
 " Mind you tell the cabman the address." 
 
 " 'Ave no fear. Good day to you, miss, and 
 thank you." 
 
The Way Things Happen 191 
 
 cc 
 
 Good day. Take care of yourself," said 
 Miss Paul, gaily. 
 
 She stood with her hands clasped together 
 behind her back waiting for her grey friend 
 to come to her. Very gently her slender 
 body, sheathed in a green close-fitting cloth 
 dress, the colour of a young daffodil leaf, 
 swayed from side to side. From a white 
 fichu her neck rose in a beautiful line to 
 her chin, which was tilted a little back. Her 
 head, in its barely perceptible movement, 
 seemed to be gladly and lightly poised. The 
 streak of white hair waved up, like a song, 
 from her forehead ; her eye-lids were half 
 closed in the gentlest caress on her eyes. So 
 she stood, the living form of joy, and waited 
 for hef grey friend to come. 
 
 And so she stood when he came. Only 
 the gentle swaying of her slender body ceased, 
 as though his presence crystallised her joy 
 into stillness. He shut the door with a sigh 
 of happiness. He could not speak. For a 
 little while he looked at her. Then he came 
 slowly forward to her and gently kissed the 
 
1 92 The Way Things Happen 
 
 streak of white hair that curved up from her 
 forehead. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, dear one, 1 * he whispered ; 
 and again they were silent. 
 
 She put one hand on his neck, and with 
 the other she smoothed his forehead and 
 touched his eyes. 
 
 " All over the world to this little room and 
 you," he said; and then a little later, "To 
 have waited so long. It is no wonder, is it, 
 that we so quickly recognised each other ? 
 Our need of each other. And oh, my dear, 
 I have wanted you. I was tired of waiting 
 for you. And you ? Tell me." 
 
 She thought deeply, and then in a very low 
 and very distinct voice said 
 
 " I'm only so glad youVe come. I'm only 
 so glad I can love you, and be loved by 
 you." 
 
 Suddenly he put his hands in front of his 
 face, and cried out 
 
 "I'm full of fear." 
 
 "Ah, no," she soothed him. "No not 
 fear." 
 
The Way Things Happen 193 
 
 "These forces these blind powers that 
 have at last so fantastically allowed us to meet, 
 may force us cruelly apart." His face was 
 drawn with pain into deep lines. "We live 
 from moment to moment on sufferance 
 wretchedly." 
 
 All the strength of her great gentleness 
 came out, as she leaned closer to him and, 
 moving her delicate finger along the lines 
 of pain, said with hesitation 
 
 "Isn't that, dear, exactly what lends . . . 
 what may make each . . . each moment vital 
 and . . . and beautiful ? " 
 
 He looked into her eyes, and she smiled 
 at him. In that minute the old fight between 
 St. George and the dragon was fought out 
 again, and again the evil beast was vanquished. 
 Fear crept away, ashamed, to its lair among 
 the skulls and bones and darkness. His face 
 relaxed and softened. 
 
 "You," he cried out, "you are magnifi- 
 cently triumphant always." 
 
 He threw his arms round her and covered 
 her cheeks and eyes and mouth and neck 
 
 N 
 
194 The Way Things Happen 
 
 with kisses. Delight made her look like a 
 rose in the sunshine when she put her hands 
 to her head to straighten her hair, while she 
 said 
 
 "You are disgraceful. You've not paid, 
 you know, any proper attention to my flowers. 
 You must smell each one carefully in turn. . . . 
 But first, sit down here." 
 
 He sat down in the low chair she meant, and 
 she leaned over him, and holding his face 
 between her hands she gently loved his lips 
 with her lips. Then, still holding his face 
 between her hands, she looked into his eyes 
 and said 
 
 "Now each flower in turn, first my roses, 
 then my lilies, my wall-flowers, my tulips 
 all must be inspected and their sweetness 
 appreciated." 
 
 " Sweeter than all," he entreated, " your 
 breath on my face." 
 
 " Come," she said, moving away and holding 
 out her hands to help him get up. She showed 
 him all the different beauties of all the different 
 flowers. She forced him to concentrate his 
 
The Way Things Happen 195 
 
 mind upon the depth of colour, the delicacy 
 of formation, the grace of poise, the curving 
 lines, and all the intricate traceries of loveliness. 
 She had already during the afternoon arrived at 
 terms of close intimacy with them. 
 
 " Each one," she assured him, " is in itself 
 quietly perfect." 
 
 He answered, " Like you," and she chid him 
 for irrelevance. 
 
 The inspection continued for some time, 
 then she sat down and " Oh, I'm so happy," 
 she said "I'm so happy," and closed her 
 eyes. 
 
 He too sat down and rested his hand on her 
 hand. The night came slowly down upon 
 them as they sat thus silently together. 
 Neither moved. Both were content with the 
 expression which silence and nearness gave to 
 their spirits. The eyes of both were turned in 
 the same direction, and happened to rest with 
 dreamy intensity upon the grotesque face 
 carved upon the back of the small chair. Its 
 mistress saw that the twisted features wore a 
 benevolent look. 
 
196 The Way Things Happen 
 
 At length her grey friend lifted her hand and 
 touched each finger with his lips. Then he 
 sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Where shall we live ? Aha ! we ! how 
 shall we live ? What shall we do ? Rome, 
 Venice, London, Florence, Egypt, America. 
 Name the place ! " 
 
 "You take," she cried, "my breath away. 
 Plans ! " 
 
 "Yes," he cried. " Plans," and added in a 
 low voice, " of life, together." 
 
 "There's plenty of time," she said; "these 
 rooms, you know, are very dear to me. I 
 can't grasp such immense possibilities, such a 
 tremendous change, all in a moment. Suddenly 
 to have everything within one's reach, I mean, 
 and such power too. You must let me think. 
 One blessing, at any rate, is that we have no 
 one to consider but ourselves. Or must you 
 consider the cousins ? " 
 
 " No. Certainly not." 
 
 " I think, my dear," she brooded on, " one's 
 old habits and way of living move much more 
 slowly than the higher part of one. My heart 
 
The Way Things Happen 197 
 
 has longed for you ; my heart recognised and 
 welcomed you at once. But all the other 
 part of me I can't be quite clear all the 
 part of me that has grown accustomed to a 
 particular working order, as it were, can't 
 suddenly be uprooted and transplanted. It's 
 all new to me, to have to try and explain 
 myself. It's because, dear, I am a little stupid, 
 you know, and I've been very much alone and 
 alone I now find, within rather narrow limits, 
 and so many boundaries, which I thought were 
 quite sure always to enclose me, have at your 
 touch disappeared, and I feel as though I were 
 dwindling, dear, dwindling before the enormous 
 new bigness, like a mouse on the Lord Mayor's 
 table, like Thumbelisa in the cornfield ; I feel 
 weak and tiny, simply tiny ; and it's so funny 
 to be talking about myself to any one, so 
 funny . . . and so silly to want to cry. But 
 I can't help it." 
 
 He tried to comfort her, saying how perfectly 
 he understood. 
 
 " Don't in the least," she went on, " mind, 
 dear. It's not that I'm unhappy." 
 
198 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " That's why I wished I could make you dis- 
 contented with your surroundings. The very 
 fact that you've so beautifully been able to 
 make them a part of yourself made it unlikely 
 that just because of me you'd change them 
 at all." 
 
 " Just because of you ! Oh, hear him, Loki, 
 hear him ! I'll light the candles,'* she said, 
 rising ; " it's easier than the lamp, and a nicer 
 light, except for reading. I'm really no good 
 for thinking further into the future than five 
 minutes. An egg, bread and cheese, a banana. 
 Rather too frugal a dinner ? It's all I can 
 offer. I was not prepared to dine an American 
 plutocrat, you know, or I might have bought a 
 Paysandu tongue." 
 
 " Don't tease me. Do let me take you 
 out to dinner. I'll go and make arrange- 
 ments." 
 
 " Arrangements ? " she asked. " What 
 arrangements ? " 
 
 " Why, get the motor, a table, order dinner." 
 He snatched out his watch. " I'll be back in 
 an hour." 
 
The Way Things Happen 199 
 
 " Paul, what a goose you are ! And I don't 
 think I much like your having my name like 
 this. I want to walk. I can't spare you for an 
 hour just now. You must be nice to me all 
 the way. My name is Constantia. Summon 
 up your courage and say it. I want to hear 
 you say it." 
 
 " Constantia," he obediently said. 
 
 "It's a tremendous name, isn't it, for me 
 to have?" 
 
 "Oh," he cried, flinging out his arms, "I 
 love it and you ! " 
 
 "It's Miltonic," she said; "like calling an 
 ant a parsimonious emmet. I'm going to 
 put on my hat." 
 
 " May I smoke while you're gone ? " he 
 said. 
 
 "You've been pining all this while for a 
 cigarette ! Why didn't you remind me ? Can 
 you forgive me ? " 
 
 " Don't tease me ! " he cried, and kissed 
 her. "And don't be long." 
 
 " Poor Paul ! " she said with her hand on 
 the door, " he mustn't be teased." 
 
2oo The Way Things Happen 
 
 "No." He shook his fist. "That epithet 
 I forbid ; it's only one step from that to mere 
 parrotdom." 
 
 She laughed, dubbing base his insinuation 
 into her sympathy of such a pun, and went 
 into her bedroom. 
 
 Paul Haskins lighted a cigarette. He now, 
 a wanderer over the earth, for the first time 
 in this little box-room, as he called it to 
 himself, felt the sensation of homeliness, of 
 being at peace with himself. He had drifted 
 so long that the sensation was keen to him 
 and inspiring. Had he been an artist or a 
 social reformer it would have inspired him 
 with energy to work, but being a man with- 
 out either channel in which his new love 
 of life might flow forth, he resolved rather 
 vaguely and quite peacefully to seek for some 
 means by which he could make the earth a 
 little happier for his brief presence on it. 
 The means did not trouble him. With such 
 a companion he knew, as he had always 
 known, the search would not long be 
 futile. 
 
The Way Things Happen 201 
 
 His wish, for all its vagueness, was sincere. 
 Indeed, this wish is a trait, common to much- 
 maligned human nature ; and its very vague- 
 ness shows it is so part of love's actual being, 
 that it has no more need for expression than 
 a sunbeam. Love made him feel in harmony 
 with life ; to give is the first law of all life. 
 Selfishness is the most insidious form of 
 death. 
 
 It pleased him as he blew lazy rings of 
 smoke to imagine how many hundreds of 
 years had gone to the making of his lady. 
 He noticed the age of the oak pieces and 
 wondered. Then his eye fell on the little 
 miniature which stood in the full light of 
 the candle, and he was, as a less observant 
 person must have been, struck by the resem- 
 blance to Constantia, who at that moment 
 entered, gaily exclaiming 
 
 "You put me out of conceit with all my 
 clothes which have given me such satisfaction. 
 They're all too drab too drab for my 
 present mood." 
 
 "Ha!" he said. "There's something, 
 
202 The Way Things Happen 
 
 then, at any rate. But who's this ? " He 
 pointed to the miniature. 
 
 " Fancy my forgetting to show you that ! 
 That dear thing is my great-great-grand- 
 mother." She stood on tiptoe for emphasis. 
 "And this is my family oak." She pointed 
 out the various pieces with eagerness and 
 pride. " They're dearer to me far than these." 
 And she held up one by one the fingers of 
 her right hand. 
 
 " Ah ! " he brooded ; " that accounts for 
 it. No wonder that you are so beautifully 
 at home on this old earth. You have a right 
 to be." 
 
 " I don't understand, you solemn old pet ; 
 I surely ought for just that reason, scientifically 
 I mean, to be played out." 
 
 He laughed with pleasure at the whimsical 
 grace of her speaking. 
 
 "Your voice is exquisite and soothing. 
 Soft and melodious and strong. It comes 
 from the deeps of you, and comes so clearly, 
 so simply, so " 
 
 She put her hand over his mouth. 
 
The Way Things Happen 203 
 
 "You mustn't be foolish," she said very 
 seriously. 
 
 " Foolish ! " he cried out ; " it's absolutely 
 true. I've never heard such a voice." 
 
 " c The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,' ' 
 she quoted smiling. 
 
 "The lover's view is the only view worth 
 having. That's a truth I've just discovered, 
 a truth that's as old as the world." 
 
 "I wonder if that's the exact age of all 
 truth," she mused, and they passed easily to 
 the delight of unembarrassed silence, which 
 he at last broke by saying 
 
 "There's something I want to put into 
 words. This love." He hesitated. "This 
 love that has come upon us. Don't you 
 think that its language the expression it is 
 in its own heavenly way given our bodies 
 to use must be learned slowly, instinctively 
 as speech is learned, in order that it may 
 grow more delicate and more expressive not 
 duller and less expressive in the course of 
 time?" 
 
 She looked at him a little while without 
 
204 The Way Things Happen 
 
 speaking ; then she put her arms round his 
 neck and her cheek against his. She said 
 
 " Sweetheart ! What makes you so sensi- 
 tive to what was not troubling me but was 
 just the shadow of a cloud on my mind ? 
 Sweetheart, I do love you ! " 
 
X 
 
 SO Constantia to summon, as she charm- 
 ingly put it, our courage up emerged 
 from the shelter of poverty. Paul 
 Haskins insisted on fitting her, as he 
 termed it, suitably out. He scoffed at what 
 he called her prejudice about receiving money 
 from him. What was the use of money to 
 him, anyhow ? And he summarily and imme- 
 diately clinched his argument by making a will 
 in which he left her every farthing, and instruc- 
 tions that the cousins were to be paid a thousand 
 a year each for life by the solicitor on condition 
 that they never came near Constantia. But 
 supposing, she suggested, she thereby missed 
 the possibility of dear friends ? He vowed he 
 would take the risk. In her presence he really 
 seemed to look younger and younger every 
 day, and that being the delightful case, his 
 
 205 
 
2o6 The Way Things Happen 
 
 impetuous making of a will tickled her with 
 his ineradicable vein of youngness rather than 
 troubled her with any foreboding of his death. 
 He showed her the will exactly a week after 
 the day on which he had first spoken to her. 
 She had thus been swooped up by circumstance 
 out of reach of ordinary material discomfort, 
 and really the most immediately observable 
 difference was the pleasure she felt in drawing 
 on soft silk stockings and in wearing fine-spun 
 linen. She had no desire to enter, as the 
 phrase is, society of any kind. To individuals 
 she was kindly disposed, but to people in bulk 
 she felt no attraction, and none developed. 
 The qualities of wit and cleverness were foreign 
 to her nature. 
 
 In the community, by the ordered arrange- 
 ments and conveniences of which she was enabled 
 to live peaceably her own life, she often blamed 
 herself for having no interest, and hoped on 
 those occasions that the active duties of a citizen 
 could be carried out by more practical minds. 
 For herself, when the gas jet was turned off, 
 it was gone for ever ; she could not follow it 
 
The Way Things Happen 207 
 
 along the pipes to the meter, and along the 
 railway lines to the mine. The cheque she 
 cashed weekly disappeared, as a stone sinks 
 into the sea, in the branch-office of her bank ; 
 she could not trace it through all its processes 
 into the Bank of England. A vague debt 
 towards the various intricate systems and all 
 the hundreds of persons employed in their 
 administration troubled her mind with responsi- 
 bilities, but no solution offered itself to the 
 problem of how that debt could most profitably 
 be paid. Before such complications her brain 
 became numbed. But as a matter of fact the 
 problem was instinctively solved by her in the 
 best manner possible ; and any community 
 would have been the better for her valiant, 
 though obscure, presence in it. She fulfilled 
 her duty in the universe, as a lily fulfils its 
 duty, and the light of life shone through her 
 unimpeded. So Paul answered her, to his 
 entire satisfaction at any rate, when she raised 
 the question to him, and he had laughed at 
 her for being, contrary to her recent declara- 
 tion, troubled by any questions at all. Her 
 
208 The Way Things Happen 
 
 defence that there was a larger and a smaller 
 life he disposed of with another laugh as a 
 quibble, delightful because her dear low voice 
 uttered it seriously. 
 
 Those four days were as exciting to our 
 gentle lady as are the first days of flight to a 
 young bird. And spring was advancing over 
 the earth like a conqueror, with the waving 
 green of the trees as pennons, and with the 
 sun as shining banner. Joy was the watch- 
 word of spring's oncoming army of life, and 
 it thrilled in her heart as clearly as in the lark's 
 song or in the whisper of the wind among the 
 budding twigs. Paul's assurance that she was 
 beautiful became more and more true. Beauty 
 had always lurked, as it were, in her face ; now 
 under the kindly influence of love and joy it 
 shone, as beauty should, triumphantly forth. 
 
 Mrs. Martin, who came back to work on the 
 fourth morning, noticed the delicate develop- 
 ment at once, and commented upon it on the 
 first opportunity. 
 
 " I should say as somethin' uncommon 
 pleasant 'ad 'appened to you, miss," she said, 
 
The Way Things Happen 209 
 
 hitching her arms upon what had once been 
 her waist. "If I might make so bold, 'ave 
 you changed yer mind like ? " 
 
 " Changed my mind ? " queried Miss Paul, 
 puzzled. 
 
 " 'Bout the gov'nor downstairs." Mrs. 
 Martin significantly nodded her head. 
 
 "Oh!" laughed Constantia. "No no, I 
 haven't. But . . . I'm going to marry the 
 gentleman you saw in my room." 
 
 " Are yer now ? I never ! They do say 
 as it never rains but it pours, don't they ? 
 Well, to think of that now ! You won't be 
 wanting Mrs. Martin much longer. And 
 fancy me not wishin' you 'appiness ! " She 
 advanced with outstretched hand. " I wish 
 you hev'ry sort of 'appiness, most heartily I 
 do," she said in a constrained voice, as though 
 she were reading aloud from a book. 
 
 The woman's words moved Miss Paul for 
 some reason very deeply. She continued to 
 hold Mrs. Martin's hand, which became limp, 
 as she said 
 
 " Thank you very much indeed." 
 
 o 
 
2io The Way Things Happen 
 
 " I never ! " repeated Mrs. Martin, judi- 
 cially, resuming her habitual attitude. " I 
 never ! " 
 
 " Your husband, is he still out of work ? 
 What is he when he's in work ? " 
 
 "A master bricklayer my 'usband is. None 
 better. But he finds work wonnerful 'ard to 
 come by. They thinks twice before engagin' 
 a man with one leg." 
 
 One leg ? " 
 
 " Didn't I tell you ? The old 'uns knows, 
 and the new 'uns is a bit too sharp to take 
 a lame man on nowadays when an accident 
 means such expense ; he gets work tho', when 
 he's far up on the line, 'asn't to walk far, and 
 they don't notice nothing. Rheumatiz, too, 
 gets him through, but not orften, they're that 
 
 cunninY 
 
 " When did he lose his leg ? " 
 
 " Twenty year ago now. I've 'ad to work 
 somethin' crool. But work never kilTd the 
 cat, they say, nor it 'asn't kill'd me yet. I've 
 'opped and dressmaked and charred and sat 
 be'ind a bar, and washed and tied the tops on 
 
The Way Things Happen 211 
 
 them marm'lade jars precious little I 'aven't 
 turned me 'and to. Worked and 'ad babies, 
 reg'lar, till I've fair dropped at times. Worked 
 and 'ad babies ; and I'm a qualified nurse, too. 
 I should know, if any, seeing I've 'ad thirteen 
 of me own. To feel the pull of their little 
 gums." 
 
 A look illumined her face with the spirit 
 that illumines some of the Holy Mothers' in 
 the paintings of early Italian masters. The 
 woman appeared to Constantia in the light of 
 a heroine, as she stood before her with rough, 
 undaunted face. 
 
 " How do you manage ? " she faltered. 
 
 " Ha ! it takes a bit of managing. It does 
 that. But the boys 'elp. Earning good 
 money, two of 'em. The little 'uns 'elp in 
 the 'ouse. Though they're all wonnerful par- 
 tic'lar, and its c Oh, mum, we can't eat this,' if 
 they think Grannie's cooked the dinner, and 
 c Oh, mum, our beds is all uncomferable,' if it's 
 not me that's made 'em. Funny, ain't it ? 
 But there ain't one as I could well spare." 
 
 There was nothing that Constantia could 
 
212 The Way Things Happen 
 
 find to say ; the, woman's placid narration of 
 courageous endurance in the battle of life 
 silenced her completely ; this undecorated, un- 
 sung heroism filled her with awe greater than 
 any prowess on a battlefield, to which she felt 
 ashamed now of having ever been susceptible. 
 
 " Money ! " continued Mrs. Martin, with 
 perfect unconsciousness of her listener's enthu- 
 siastic regard. " I do think money is a terrible 
 thing ; dreadfull I call it, the way one 'as to 
 struggle for it. I don* know. Its impor- 
 tance ! Boots and clo'se and rent and food. 
 When one has put by a bit, it goes. Mr. 
 Martin's set 'is 'eart on a little greengrocery 
 shop. Can't get it started. 'E gets a bad 
 'eart about it. I'm sure I dunno. There 
 don't seem much sense in things. Best not 
 to think too much, nor yet jawer too much, 
 when there's plenty of work for me to be 
 at." She laughed good-humouredly, and set 
 about her work. 
 
 Suddenly a wave of elation swept over 
 Constantia as she became aware of the obvious 
 fact that she was in a position to help Mrs. 
 
The Way Things Happen 213 
 
 Martin ; that through her the last part of 
 this admirable woman's life could be made 
 easier and perhaps pleasanter. Directly Paul 
 came she put the matter with warmth before 
 him. 
 
 " Have you," he asked, " said anything to 
 her ? I mean, don't let her know you're rich. 
 Don't think me suspicious and horrid," he 
 went on to explain his lack of instant enthu- 
 siasm, which caused a shadow of doubt to 
 cloud her face, " but people are so queer. It's 
 the hardest thing in the world to give. People 
 so easily lose their I don't know think one 
 mean not to give more, and don't do their 
 best : become dependant." 
 
 " I do think this is an exception." 
 
 " Let them think the money matters to you. 
 To give without letting people lose their self- 
 respect by receiving is really of supreme 
 difficulty. Don't think me a cautious old 
 penguin." 
 
 " But you'll see him, won't you ? " 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 Mr. Martin." 
 
214 The Way Things Happen 
 
 "Of course I will." 
 
 "Well, let's go now and hear his views 
 about a shop." 
 
 " A shop ! It's not the day, you know, of 
 little shops. It's no good starting him off 
 towards a failure. Better to leave him with 
 his little dream. You see, if you've fought 
 for a thing for years and then have it sud- 
 denly given you for no particular reason, it's 
 apt to look paltry." 
 
 " What do you suggest ? " 
 
 "I'll see him and talk things over with 
 him ; find out what kind of fellow he is." 
 
 Constantia called Mrs. Martin, who came in 
 dressed in her coat and hat and bright purple 
 shawl. 
 
 "If you see your husband when you get 
 back, I wish you'd ask him to step round. 
 We shall be here till one-thirty, anyhow. 
 My friend would like to see him about 
 work." 
 
 Mrs. Martin stood in the doorway, amazed ; 
 it was a long moment before she spoke ; then 
 she said 
 
The Way Things Happen 215 
 
 "I'll send 'im up. Goo' mornin', miss. 
 Goo' mornin', sir." 
 
 Constantia peered out of the window and 
 saw her half-walking, half-running from the 
 crescent into the road, in her haste to send her 
 husband, as she put it, up. 
 
 " You won't be grey and gloomy, will 
 you ? " She took his hand and caressed it. 
 
 " Dear," he answered with a rather sad 
 smile, "I'm not. Really, I'm not. But if 
 you only knew the number of deserving cases 
 that had collapsed^ like touched bubbles before 
 a five-pound note. It makes one lose heart." 
 
 <C I really care for this woman. She's real 
 and honest. You'll see. I know it. Some- 
 thing tells me so as clearly as if old Loki 
 shouted it into my ear." There was no 
 hesitation in her voice. 
 
 "I'm wavering and uncertain. But you 
 have the infallible instinct. You are a perfect 
 touchstone, a kind of magnet a rogue turns 
 green before you." 
 
 " Or grey ? " she hinted. " The waverer 
 made no bee-line for me after all, did he ? " 
 
2 1 6 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Oh, you," he said seriously, " that's simply 
 you. Your power. I was willy-nilly drawn to 
 you. Like a piece of quivering wire attracted 
 to and made firm by the magnet. I still feel 
 uneasy before your overwhelming directness 
 and honesty. There is that about you which 
 continually takes my breath away. Perhaps 
 the reason is that I'm unused to so much 
 happiness." 
 
 "Dear," she said, smoothing her finger 
 along the lines of pain that were still all too 
 quick to appear, " dear, won't you just be, to 
 please me, content to be happy ? " 
 
 "Ah, my dear," he said, grasping her 
 shoulders, "all the shifty, purposeless tangle 
 of discontent must be withered and cleaned 
 away before the reality in me gets its fair chance. 
 My love for you is like a flower on a rubbish 
 heap, and the least thing is sufficient to raise 
 choking, horrible dust. Bear with me." 
 
 "Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. You solemn 
 old pet, you're wrong, wrong, wrong. There 
 is my love for you, which your imperial 
 gloominess must take into account. To say 
 
The Way Things Happen 217 
 
 nothing of my old enchanter, Loki, whom you 
 seem most naughtily to have forgotten. And 
 listen," she cried, " to this ! " And stepping 
 back into the middle of the room, with her 
 head thrown back and her arms stretched 
 gladly out, she chanted in a low, triumphant 
 voice 
 
 " ' O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men 
 Art as the calm to Ocean's weary waves.' 
 
 And to this 
 
 ' Love and joy can make the foulest breast 
 A paradise of flowers where peace might build her nest.' 
 
 And to this 
 
 ' Love he sent to bind 
 The disunited tendrils of that vine 
 Which bears the wine of life, the human heart . . .' 
 
 No, stop," she exclaimed, breathless with joy. 
 " Listen to this 
 
 * I cry Love ! Love ! Love ! happy, happy Love ! free 
 as the mountain wind ! ' 
 
 * O thou summer's harmony, 
 I have lived and mourned for thee ; 
 Each day I moan along the wood, 
 And night hath heard my sorrows loud. 
 
2i8 The Way Things Happen 
 
 ' Dost thou truly long for me ? 
 And am I thus dear to thee ? 
 Sorrow now is at an end, 
 O my lover and my friend.' 
 
 Listen, oh listen to the mighty words of the 
 seers among the sons of men. Listen to the 
 great fellows for whom joy and hope and love 
 and youth have a meaning ; listen to the poets 
 who make their way to the very heart of life 
 and sing to the deaf world the truths which 
 are life's beauty. Listen, listen, listen to the 
 young gods singing ! " 
 
 He was caught up in the spirit of her 
 enthusiasm. The monotonous rumble and 
 noise of the traffic in the street below passed 
 by unheard. He listened to her as he might 
 have listened to a lark's song become sud- 
 denly intelligible ; he listened to her as to a 
 voice in the air, the voice of Love, singing. 
 And, indeed, she seemed to be speaking not 
 only to him but to all gloomy men who 
 walk under a dark shadow, bidding them to 
 come out into the sunshine and laugh again 
 and live. 
 
The Way Things Happen 219 
 
 "Dear, dear enchantress," he at last 
 whispered. 
 
 In the silence which followed irregular steps 
 were heard ascending with difficulty. Before 
 the knock came, he said with his characteristic 
 laugh 
 
 "These admirable Martins, do they arrive 
 by magic ? " 
 
 " They rap, and are admitted by the land- 
 ladies," she answered smiling, and "Please 
 come in," she called out. 
 
 Mr. Martin came in with his cap in his hand 
 and a broad, shy smile on his face, breathing 
 heavily, and made a stiff, rather comical bow to 
 each in turn. 
 
 "Them stairs," he said, wiping with a 
 coloured handkerchief the beads of sweat from 
 his forehead. " A rare job with this." He 
 slapped his wooden leg, and sat down on the 
 chair Constantia offered him. He expected 
 surprise from Paul Haskins, and was not dis- 
 appointed. " Truth, wooden-jointed and all. 
 Feel it." He clasped his leg in both hands, 
 and offered it genially for inspection. 
 
220 The Way Things Happen 
 
 As Paul made no movement, Constantia, 
 much against her inclination, leaned forward 
 and prodded it gingerly with her first finger. 
 Disgust was, she considered, childish and 
 unnecessary. If a man had lost a leg, the 
 least you could do was to allow him a little 
 scope for his very obvious pride in the 
 possession of a wooden counterfeit. Disgust, 
 however, she strongly felt. 
 
 "Wonnerfully 'andy thing,'* commented 
 Mr. Martin ; and his epithet, adding a spice 
 of absurdity to her horror, nearly overcame 
 Constantia. She was rescued by Paul, who 
 said 
 
 " I'm interested, Mr. Martin, in the culture 
 of vegetables." He was very like Matthew 
 Arnold at the moment, Constantia was swift on 
 a little cough of laughter to think. " In spite 
 of this lady's mirth," Paul went on ; and Mr. 
 Martin, the smile on whose face broadened 
 with interest in the subject, threw him a look 
 of supreme and complacent knowledge of all 
 the sex's whims and infirmities, " I am inte- 
 rested in vegetables. I understand you are 
 
The Way Things Happen 221 
 
 anxious to set up in a small greengrocery store ? 
 Is that the case ? " 
 
 Mr. Martin moved to the extreme edge of 
 his chair and bent eagerly forward. 
 
 "If you'll allow me to speak," he said, 
 " things in my own way. It's like this." 
 
 But Mr. Martin's way was, as they soon 
 found, so diffuse that their patience was well 
 tried. The upshot of his wandering harangue 
 seemed simple enough. Through information, 
 received and corroborated by him, he was of 
 opinion that a little fortune was waiting for the 
 man who sold enamel-ware at the markets in 
 the outskirts of London. 
 
 " What d'yer think a man I knows took on 
 one Saturday night at Shepherd's Bush ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 "Thirty shillings, perhaps?" suggested 
 Paul. 
 
 Mr. Martin made a dramatic pause ; then in 
 a voice to impose awe on the most casual 
 listener he slowly announced, " Seven pun 
 fifteen," and he repeated, emphasising the 
 astounding sum with four deliberate taps of 
 
222 The Way Things Happen 
 
 his thumb on his wooden leg, " Seven pun 
 fifteen ! " Leaning back in the chair, he with 
 a slight effort knit his fingers together over his 
 stomach, and waited for the significant fact to 
 be absorbed by his hearers. 
 
 "Every night's not Saturday night, you 
 know," Paul said. 
 
 " Right ; that's true enough. But " 
 
 Mr. Martin stopped short. "But," he re- 
 peated, "some markets is on a Thursday." 
 His point was sent mysteriously home. And 
 from that moment he continued to send all his 
 points one after another home. The man's 
 enthusiasm for the sale of household and cook- 
 ing utensils of enamel-ware was unbounded, 
 was almost fanatical. He turned the small 
 room with its oak pieces into a thronged street 
 and sold imaginary wares, threatening, jesting, 
 cajoling . . . until he suddenly stopped and 
 mopped his forehead with the coloured hand- 
 kerchief. " I knows the trick," he said judici- 
 ally. 
 
 Paul laughed and said, " You seem to." 
 Constantia sat amazed. She began to realise 
 
The Way Things Happen 223 
 
 how all a man's ambitions and aspirations could 
 be centred in the sale of enamel-ware. Her 
 immense reverence for humanity showed her a 
 human being striving for scope to express the 
 vigorous life that pulsed in his maimed body. 
 And somehow the thing was raised in her mind 
 above the ridiculous and the mean. 
 
 " What would you want to start with ? " said 
 Paul. 
 
 Mr. Martin sighed heavily like a groan. 
 " That's the difficulty. Tain't no sense nor 
 use in it 'less you start fair and square. Make 
 a shift, and there's nothin' but trouble from the 
 fust. Nothin' but set-backs. Messin' an' 
 scrapin* and worry. Money, it all means 
 money. You can't do nothin' without a little 
 'orse an' cart. Then there's the 'arness and the 
 lamps and the stock. Gawd ! I know where 
 to lay me 'ands on 'em all. Cheap too. Bar- 
 gains. 'Orses, now them taxis and their like 
 are about, are simply bein' giv'd away. Giv'd 
 away, I tell yer ! And stock. Stuff at three 
 shillin' a gross. Get a penny each for 'em. 
 Tuppence, thrippence, fourpence a piece. Sell 
 
224 The Way Things Happen 
 
 'em like 'ot cakes, and turn yer money 
 
 over/ 1 
 
 " And figures ? " asked Paul, curtly. 
 
 " Aye, I didn't catch." 
 
 " Figures. How much money, precisely ? " 
 
 "Fifteen pun, 'orse an' cart and lamp and 
 'arness ; ten pun stock ; five pun to turn roun' 
 with. A lot o' money ! When you wants it ! 
 And only " he for the first time spoke with 
 bitterness " me honest face to raise it on. 
 And that ain't as lovely as it were. I've 'oped 
 and 'oped till I'm bad-'earted." 
 
 " So you think you could make it pay, do 
 you?" 
 
 " Make it pay ! " His enthusiasm flamed 
 up. 
 
 Paul noticed and immediately rose. "I'll 
 think it over, Martin," he said. " I'm glad 
 to have heard your ideas. There's no more 
 to be said except" he smiled "good morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Am I to hope " the man faltered. 
 
 "Yes!" said Paul, "certainly hope. I'm 
 interested in you." 
 
The Way Things Happen 225 
 
 Mr. Martin beamed and bowed and de- 
 parted. 
 
 "You cut him rather sternly short, dear, 
 didn't you ? " said Constantia. 
 
 " He'd have talked all day. But he's per- 
 fectly genuine. With tremendous push." He 
 spoke dreamily, like a man waking from sleep. 
 "Like something from another world. Here, 
 too. In this room, where we met. Which of 
 us is nearer life ? The sheer bed-rock thing 
 
 She attacked his despondency. " These 
 questions," she cried, " again ! They are 
 simply the voice of discontent." She shook 
 him. " And here's an answer : Who perceives 
 and feels most, lives most. Anyhow, you don't 
 want to sell enamelled saucepans in high 
 
 streets." 
 
 Her attack, however, failed. He seized 
 her arm and said with anguish in his voice 
 
 " If ever if ever, instead of your joy over- 
 coming, if my lifelessness poisoned you with 
 its misery, I should " 
 
 "Paul," she said, forcing him to look into 
 
 p 
 
226 The Way Things Happen 
 
 her eyes, "Paul, my dear, it never can and 
 it never will." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I don't know why, and I don't care why. 
 Faith, my dear, instinctive, absolute." 
 
 She put her arms round him, and he became 
 in her arms like a little child. Each time she 
 cast the devils out of him, they lost their 
 power to return. The age of such miracles 
 has not yet passed. Incidentally, also, by use 
 the gentle lady's power became greater ; now, 
 too, for the first time she grew conscious of 
 her power and rejoiced in it. 
 
 They did not go that afternoon, as had 
 been arranged, to the National Gallery. They 
 talked. Speech is never at all times easy even 
 to the most intimate. For that reason, like 
 wise lovers, they seized the moment when 
 speech was possible to them, or in the good 
 biblical phrase, their tongues were loosened. 
 Time passed so swiftly that Constantia, to 
 whom the delight of expression was a new 
 experience, could hardly believe that Rupert, 
 when he came, had come half an hour after 
 
The Way Things Happen 227 
 
 the time that had been arranged, and not at 
 least an hour in advance of it. The clocks 
 bore him quietly out, however, and his late- 
 ness, when proved, was easily forgiven, though, 
 as he pointed out, after suggesting the visit 
 himself, the least he could do was to be 
 decently punctual. Having made his apolo- 
 gies, Rupert subsided into a shy and embar- 
 rassed boy. His shyness may have been 
 caused by Paul's direct question as to what 
 he did, or by his consciousness of something 
 in the air from which he was excluded. The 
 fact remains that his answer, " I try and paint," 
 remained for some time his last remark until 
 Constantia told him her news. That acted 
 on him more quickly than a strong tonic. 
 
 "Aha!" he exclaimed, after saying how 
 glad he was in her happiness, "that rather 
 adds, doesn't it, to the sad humour of the 
 old uncle's failure ? But wouldn't it perhaps 
 have let him down more gently, forgive me, 
 to have told him ? I mean it was such a 
 superlatively excellent reason for declining his 
 offer. Poor old buster ! " 
 
228 The Way Things Happen 
 
 cc 
 
 But then, you know," Constantia hesi- 
 tated, "I wasn't. Rupert's uncle" she 
 turned to Paul who was looking surprised 
 "honoured me with a proposal a few days 
 before before you." 
 
 "A wise man but unfortunate, then," said 
 Paul. 
 
 Rupert laughed heartily. "A wise man, 
 begad, I should think he was, an absolute 
 historian ! If you only knew ! Edward 
 Paveley. Don't you know his name ? Surely 
 you must ! " 
 
 "Of course I do. But I'm afraid I have 
 not read his works." 
 
 Rupert laughed again more heartily. 
 "Don't," he cried, "don't! If you have 
 any feeling for history. Even life in the 
 time of Elizabeth becomes, in his hand, 
 dreary and monotonous. All those tremen- 
 dous fellows are brought up before him like 
 a lot of wretched little boys to have their 
 heads patted or smacked at the schoolmaster's 
 desk. His is the grand style grand as be 
 hanged. I'm going to be married too." 
 
The Way Things Happen 229 
 
 " Are you ? When ? " Constantia eagerly 
 asked. 
 
 "IlazTa a>z> 4v yovvcuTi /ceirat. Which 
 is Greek for, God knows," he replied. "The 
 receipts," he went gaily on, "of my last 
 financial year were sixty-three pounds, five 
 and fourpence. Honestly, to omit the farthing 
 I picked up on the pavement. But," and 
 his gaiety suddenly deepened to joy, " I know 
 she's there." He leaned forward and said 
 slowly, as though he were confiding to them 
 both a solemn secret, " Mary ; she's like a 
 spring morning." 
 
 " You're a dear boy," said Constantia. 
 
 "You and she would be friends," he 
 declared simply. "There's the same quality 
 about you. I recognised it at once. That's 
 why I immediately loved you." He went to 
 his overcoat and drew from the pocket with 
 great difficulty a framed sketch. "Look," 
 he said to Constantia ; " not bad ? " 
 
 She saw a delicate water colour of a girl 
 in white lying by a rose bush. His worship 
 of Matthew Maris was obvious ; but the 
 
230 The Way Things Happen 
 
 thing was sincerely felt and the workmanship 
 was good. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " said Constantia. 
 
 " Oh, don't you say that ! " he earnestly cried. 
 " Fair 'prentice work. Gives an idea. . . . But 
 beauty is life, the divine the great end 
 of all work, all achievement, the touchstone, the 
 essence oh, the tremendous all in all. And 
 it's a mere Christmas card compared with what 
 I had it in my mind to do. I've done better." 
 
 Paul was looking at the little picture over 
 Constantia's shoulder. While they were look- 
 ing at it, Rupert suddenly said 
 
 " May I call you Aunt Con ? " 
 
 " Yes, do," she answered, laughing. 
 
 Paul looked up and said, "Paint Aunt 
 Con's portrait for me, will you ? " 
 
 "What! Me?" 
 
 " What are your terms ? Too busy ? " 
 
 " Terms ! " he stammered and blushed ; 
 " Terms ! Do you mean it ? A regular 
 commission to paint her ! " 
 
 " Isn't that your job ? Will you take fifty 
 pounds ? Head and shoulders." 
 
The Way Things Happen 231 
 
 " You're not, are you, pulling my leg ? 
 That wouldn't be cricket." 
 
 " My dear boy, you should try and inspire 
 your buying public with confidence ; not treat 
 an order as though it were a wonder out of 
 heaven." 
 
 " But it is. It's the first real one I've ever 
 had ; and you know there are the established 
 swells." He mentioned the names of many 
 portrait painters. 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Paul, " but I choose to 
 ask you." 
 
 Rupert, for answer, seized Paul's hand and 
 shook it between both his own hands in , silent 
 rapture. 
 
 "I think you'll do it beautifully," said 
 Constantia. 
 
 "And you can exhibit it when it's done," 
 said Paul, "and call it <An Apostle of 
 Joy/ " 
 
 "Oh, you two ! " Rupert whispered ; "you 
 two ! " and then he spun round on his heels, 
 and cried out, " I knew old Golgonooza there 
 would bring me luck. The beginning, this 
 
232 The Way Things Happen 
 
 is, the beginning ! Four years at the Slade, 
 two years in Paris, looking for work for 
 a year in London, and now, now, now, so 
 soon the first rung the magnificent begin- 
 ning. Sing Hey for the Purple Island ! 
 Come to my studio, and see what I've done 
 do come." 
 
 For answer Paul leaned out of the window 
 and peered down into the street. 
 
 "The car's there," he said. "Shall we just 
 run down now ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes," cried Rupert. 
 
 And Constantia giving her glad assent, they 
 went. 
 
XI 
 
 r ^HE sittings immediately began. 
 
 Perhaps Rupert's enthusiasm for 
 M instant action was the infectious 
 
 influence which caused Paul to 
 
 close with the offer of a house in Portland 
 
 Place. At any rate the doubts and questions 
 
 about it abruptly terminated, and he signed the 
 
 lease two days after the portrait was ordered. 
 
 It was certainly a good plan, because all the 
 
 various business of furnishing occupied him 
 
 during the mornings when Constantia was 
 
 at St. John's Wood, where Rupert had his 
 
 studio. The sittings were declared sacred 
 
 from intrusion. In a fortnight sufficient 
 
 rooms had been made habitable. So they 
 
 were married very quietly one day, and 
 
 went to live in what to Constantia was the 
 
 vast house. Mrs. Martin's assistance was 
 
 233 
 
234 The Way Things Happen 
 
 invaluable. She came every day, and her 
 eldest daughter, Janie, became Constantia's 
 sewing-maid. It was on May loth that Con- 
 stantia actually moved, and found herself in- 
 stalled over four servants with a husband in 
 her own house. There was a little room at 
 the top of the house into which her oak 
 pieces fitted, and there she ensconced herself 
 and Loki, about whom Paul liked to tease 
 her. 
 
 So the days passed pleasantly and swiftly 
 by. Paul and Constantia prospered in their 
 own way, as Mr. Martin, who had been started 
 on his enamel-ware enterprise, prospered in 
 his. The portrait bid fair to be a masterpiece. 
 They were happy as children, and enjoyed 
 themselves as fully and as deeply as two 
 children might enjoy an afternoon building 
 a sand castle on the beach. But Chance 
 (not one of her attendant imps) flung down 
 another event to challenge our gentle lady's 
 endurance. 
 
 Exactly thirteen days after the removal 
 the grief of the landladies at losing their lodger 
 
The Way Things Happen 235 
 
 was genuine Paul saw Constantia drive off in 
 the car at three o'clock to St. John's Wood, 
 with a wave of his hat, and getting into a 
 hansom cab drove off to the Tottenham Court 
 Road. He went to find a bureau and a hat- 
 stand, and one or two other things. He said 
 he would be back about a quarter-past five 
 just, in fact, before Constantia. 
 
 The sitting, however, was a short one 
 Rupert begged her not to make the mistake 
 of judging work by time, as if he were a 
 " wall-splasher " and Constantia was home 
 by a quarter to five. 
 
 It happened to be the first time that she 
 had waited for him in the new house. The 
 house felt larger than usual as she walked 
 down the stairs from her bedroom to the 
 hall to see that the flowers which the parlour- 
 maid had bought were arranged to her own 
 liking. The sense of space pleased her, and 
 the lonely feeling it imparted only gave a 
 relish to the joy of Paul's return. The long 
 years during which she had lived alone with 
 Loki and alone in her brother's house made 
 
236 The Way Things Happen 
 
 very sweet the knowledge that another person 
 would by his mere coming bring new energy 
 of life with him to her, that she was not 
 dependent upon herself for this renewal of 
 spirit. 
 
 Was he thinking of her ? and what was he 
 thinking of her ? she wondered as she picked 
 the withered primroses and withered daffodils 
 from the jars on his study table. It was 
 beautiful to know, as she well knew, that some 
 one was longing to come back to her ; that 
 she mattered so very much as she knew she 
 did matter, to one so dear to her as Paul. 
 " From Miss Paul you've just become Mrs. 
 Paul ; " she remembered his low laughing voice, 
 and how he had added that he'd not meddled 
 after all quite unforgivably with her name. 
 She twisted up the newspaper, on which the 
 withered flowers lay, and took it to burn in 
 the hall fire. Sadly she threw them into the 
 flames. The quantity of flowers which she 
 was now able to have did not lessen her care 
 for them, or the faint grief that their beauty 
 was short-lived. " Even we, even so ; " she 
 
The Way Things Happen 237 
 
 gave them a gentle requiem as the fire curled 
 round the paper, and began to change the 
 withered flowers to ashes. Into all the rooms 
 she went to tend the flowers, and the blue 
 Russian kitten, which Paul had given her, 
 followed. He varied the monotony of the 
 walk by lurking in corners and pouncing 
 upon her skirt, on which he slid a little way 
 with lashing tail. " Don't be," she said to 
 him, " a bad boy," and rolled him up a piece 
 of paper to beguile him into a more suitable 
 game. He was, however, only momentarily 
 beguiled, and kept returning with fresh ardour 
 to what he considered a far more exciting 
 sport, until he suddenly climbed on to a chair, 
 within reach of the hall fire's warmth, turned 
 round once, curled himself up, and instantly 
 went to sleep. "Is that your comment, you 
 bad boy, on Paul's lateness ? " she asked him, 
 gently rubbing his soft furry head, as, having 
 seen to all the flowers, she passed him on her 
 way upstairs to her little room. 
 
 The window of the little room commanded 
 a view of the wide, long street. To the left, 
 
238 The Way Things Happen 
 
 in the green distance, Regent's Park was 
 visible. The air was very cool and sweet. 
 The sun was beginning to set, and the sky 
 glowed tenderly in welcome of the approaching 
 night. 
 
 The portrait would now, Rupert had an- 
 nounced, be after two more sittings finished ; 
 and they were going to give in its honour a 
 dinner-party, to which Rupert and the girl, 
 who was like a spring morning, and a few 
 people chiefly young artists whom she had 
 met at the studio were to be invited. Rupert 
 insisted that Loki should stand on the table 
 as centre piece. The party reminded her of 
 doubts as to whether Paul ought to cut him- 
 self so entirely off from all his acquaintances 
 as he had done. "There's not one," she 
 heard his voice declaring, "that means any- 
 thing to me anything at all. I want so much 
 to take this opportunity of beginning again 
 just with you." It seemed to her terrible 
 that Paul should have been so extraordinarily 
 alone, though her own loneliness she accepted 
 without a thought as most natural. She 
 
The Way Things Happen 239 
 
 mused at the amazing change that this spring 
 had wrought on her life, and could not 
 help turning to give old Loki a questioning 
 look. And yet the most amazing thing about 
 it undoubtedly was that the change for all its 
 swift happening was so much less radical than 
 if it had been prophesied to her she would 
 have imagined possible. The numerous 
 changes from night to day, of one day from 
 another, of the spring from the winter, of the 
 autumn from the summer, were far greater ; 
 and in these changes she took such continual 
 delight with them she had always been in 
 such close sympathy that her own little 
 change of circumstance seemed really by those 
 standards, which were her standards, paltry and 
 insignificant. Really she felt only more her- 
 self, more able to render tribute to life's 
 beauty, more in touch with life's beauty, more 
 conscious of the bigness of things, and in 
 consequence more reverent. Love, after all, 
 was not in her case so much a change as an 
 intensification ; and nothing that money could 
 buy was of great importance to her in 
 
240 The Way Things Happen 
 
 comparison with what were now, and had 
 always been, her true possessions. 
 
 So she pondered, watching out of the high 
 window the royal approach of night. And 
 always there shone in her mind, like the 
 moon's reflection in a pool, the joy of the 
 thought that she was waiting for some one 
 who cared for her, to come. The fairy-tale 
 improbability of their meeting seemed natural 
 and right to her. What a place their large 
 hall was for all the flowers to dance in ! She 
 smiled to remember that favourite story, and 
 saw the slow minuet of the slender daffodils 
 with the pompous tulips ; the romping gallop 
 of all the littler flowers in crowds. And 
 always her eyes were straining to catch the 
 earliest possible glimpse of the dear man on 
 his way to her. 
 
 Many taxis passed the door without stop- 
 ping ; one slowed down and stopped next 
 door. Once she thought she recognised his 
 walk, but as the man drew nearer she laughed 
 at her ridiculous mistake. To mistake even 
 for a moment, and at a distance, a stranger 
 
The Way Things Happen 241 
 
 for Paul ! And still she waited without fear. 
 Every minute made his coming more certain. 
 It would be delightful to see him hurrying 
 to her without being seen by him. A clock 
 in the distance struck six. A quarter-past 
 five Paul had given for the probable time of 
 his return. He had thought of a present to 
 surprise her. That, certainly, that was delay- 
 ing him ; must be the reason of his lateness. 
 The glow in the sky deepened. Again she 
 heard his low laughing voice say, like a 
 whisper of the wind in her ear, " From Miss 
 Paul you've just become Mrs. Paul." Inti- 
 macy with him was delicate and dear, tender 
 like the deepening of colour in the sky, and 
 the gradual blending in the evening of night 
 with day. 
 
 From the Oxford Street end of the place she 
 saw what she made out by straining her eyes 
 to be two policemen wheeling an ambulance, 
 and the sight filled her with pity for the man 
 who was being taken away hurt or ill or drunk, 
 and for his friends who would suddenly have 
 the shock of bad tidings to face. It did not 
 
 Q 
 
242 The Way Things Happen 
 
 occur to her that a woman might be lying in 
 the ambulance. There was so much suffering 
 in the world. Was Paul right in saying that 
 indifference was a worse calamity than pain ? 
 That fear and discontent and peevishness 
 sapped the flavour of life more cunningly than 
 the big disasters ? 
 
 They were pushing it along on the opposite 
 side of the wide street to that on which 
 her house stood. She saw it quite plainly 
 now the red-brown covering and the large 
 wheels. She looked from it up into the sky, 
 across which a little cloud, just touched with 
 the rosy glow of sunset, was slowly moving. 
 Always the silent movement of a cloud fasci- 
 nated her like running water, and she did not 
 withdraw her gaze until with a start she became 
 aware that the two policemen were wheeling the 
 ambulance directly across the road at right 
 angles to her house. She held her breath in 
 terror. Craning out in terror, she watched 
 them carefully set the handles on the ground, 
 look at the numbers of the houses, and come 
 forward out of her view. She waited. There 
 
The Way Things Happen 243 
 
 was no knocking on the front door. She could 
 not move. How Paul and she would laugh 
 over her scare together ! Her temples 
 throbbed, her heart beat heavily. It could 
 not be that those men were really coming to 
 the house that she and Paul had just taken. 
 Her terror would show Paul how she cared. 
 Paul hurt, when only a few hours before she 
 had seen his eyes alive with love when only a 
 few hours before she had heard his laughter 
 and felt his dear hands smoothing her forehead. 
 Paul dead ! The thought was inconceivable, 
 the thought was silly. She could laugh at it 
 laugh at it now if only this terror would loosen 
 its grip of her heart. 
 
 Hours she seemed to have stood there 
 waiting listening. Then she heard a hurried 
 rustling step. Jane stood in the door ; horror 
 was on the girl's face. 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, the master ! they've brought 
 him home hurt badly." 
 
 With no effort, Constantia moved forward, 
 saying, " I know. I'm coming. Go and fetch 
 your mother at once." 
 
244 The Way Things Happen 
 
 She walked swiftly downstairs without hurry- 
 ing. They were waiting in the hall. The hall 
 door was wide open ; they had wheeled the 
 ambulance not only to her door, but right into 
 the hall. A man, as she descended the last 
 flight, stepped quickly in and said to her at 
 once 
 
 " I'm the doctor Dr. Simkins," and, kneel- 
 ing down, began to undo the coverings. 
 
 Then Constantia saw Paul's face ; it was 
 white, and the eyes were closed. Involuntarily 
 she moved forward and smoothed back a tuft 
 of hair which lay on his forehead. One of the 
 policemen said, " Knocked down and run over," 
 and went on speaking, but Constantia did not 
 hear what he said, or if she heard, the words 
 had no meaning for her. She stood, looking 
 at Paul's white face, and shuddered when Paul, 
 without opening his eyes, groaned. 
 
 "Well, my men," said the doctor, "we'll 
 take him upstairs. If you'll kindly point out 
 the way," he added, indicating that Con- 
 stantia should go in front of them, and seeing 
 the group of frightened servants at the far end 
 
The Way Things Happen 245 
 
 of the hall, he called out, " Hot water, please, 
 at once," to them. 
 
 He was a youngish man with a prompt, 
 decisive manner. 
 
 " Be careful to keep him straight," he said to 
 the men who lifted the stretcher on which Paul 
 lay out of the ambulance. 
 
 They went up the stairs, a slow and sad 
 procession. Constantia went first and waited 
 at the bend of the staircase for the men who 
 followed step by step cautiously, feeling with 
 their heavily-booted feet for each stair. The 
 young doctor came last, carrying his brown 
 emergency case. The policemen looked anxious 
 and shocked, Constantia looked dazed, the 
 young doctor looked eager and interested. 
 
 " This room," she said, opening the door. 
 
 They carried him in and laid him on the 
 bed. 
 
 All through the doctor's examination Con- 
 stantia stood at the end of the bed, holding the 
 brass rail. When Paul opened his eyes, she 
 smiled at him and said, " I'm with you, dear ; " 
 and Paul answered her smile faintly, like a 
 
246 The Way Things Happen 
 
 gleam of sunlight seen for a moment on a river 
 from a very great distance. 
 
 Constantia was unconscious of hope or 
 despair. She simply knew, as she stood there, 
 that Paul was dying. She did not think of 
 herself without Paul, left again alone. Every- 
 thing in her was turned towards the spirit that 
 still hovered in Paul's hurt body ; she wanted 
 his spirit, before it fared forth on its long 
 journey towards the Unknown, to be bathed 
 for the last time in the love of her spirit. Her 
 love she wanted to be the last thing that his 
 spirit knew, before his spirit went away from 
 his body and from her ken. Resentment, 
 bitterness, misery, she fought them for his 
 sake, as the intruders upon this last hour of 
 their communion. All her strength was needed 
 in this unseen conflict. She put out all her 
 strength. At that moment the whole conflict 
 of all the forces of life became to her mental 
 vision concentrated in one picture which she 
 had only seen in a photograph. She saw it 
 now in blazing colour. The sight did not 
 distract her, it strengthened her. She saw St. 
 
The Way Things Happen 247 
 
 George riding on the dragon with his lance 
 couched, just at the moment when his lance 
 was striking the monster full in the mouth. 
 Goodness did not meekly pass along its way to 
 be devoured if the monsters were hungry, but 
 charged on evil, head erect, eyes glowing, to 
 vanquish evil or to die. 
 
 She stood holding tightly with her hand to 
 the bed-rail, the unflinching champion of life. 
 Death she feared not, the body's end the 
 mystery as deep as birth. She was not fighting 
 against death. She fought against the real 
 foes of life bitterness, indifference, fear, resent- 
 ment, and all the powers of cowardice and 
 meanness. Paul must die in no grey mood. 
 His spirit must start gallantly forth into the 
 Unknown, like a knight stooping his head for 
 his lady's kiss before riding away on his quest. 
 Her lover must feel the bright power of her 
 love now for the last time most surely. 
 Now for the last time his need for her love 
 was greatest. 
 
 The young doctor looked at her from time 
 to time, as he, with deft and expert tenderness, 
 
248 The Way Things Happen 
 
 went on with his business. At length he took 
 Constantia away, and said in a low voice 
 
 " I've done all I can, I'm afraid." 
 
 " I know," said Constantia, quietly and 
 firmly. " Thank you very much indeed " 
 she took his hand "for all your kindness. 
 Please let me, if you will, have your card." 
 
 " I'll wait. Not long. It can't be. Spine 
 broken. Leave you. To see him alone." 
 
 The doctor, in spite of his experience, was 
 affected by Constantia's immense grief, which 
 she so superbly controlled. He was, without 
 knowing it, in the presence of supreme beauty. 
 He had played the porter at so many of life's 
 entries and departures that his reverence was 
 a little in abeyance. Now reverence and awe 
 overcame him. For the first time he took 
 more than a porter's part in the great 
 ceremony. 
 
 Constantia went back into the bedroom. She 
 walked round the bed to the side on which 
 Paul was lying, and leaning over him, she 
 kissed his forehead. 
 
 His eyelids slowly unclosed. She still leaned 
 
The Way Things Happen 249 
 
 over him, and with her lips very near to his 
 ear, she said in her low voice 
 
 " Sweetheart, can you hear me ? " 
 
 And Paul's breath formed the word " Yes," 
 and the faint light passed again over his face, 
 like the shadow of a smile. 
 
 " All that is beautiful on the earth has been 
 made more beautiful for me because of you. 
 You understand ? More beautiful." 
 
 His hand found and touched her hand. A 
 tempest of feeling moved through her ; with 
 a supreme effort she forced back under control 
 her tears, and in the same low voice, without 
 a tremor, and very lightly smoothing with her 
 finger his hand, she said 
 
 " Paul, shall I go away with you ? Gladly, 
 dear, gladly, I'd go with you. Shall I ? " 
 
 " No," said Paul, and his voice was not 
 mere breath ; there was sound in it. " No. 
 Live. I love you. Be my " the sound went 
 from his voice " my apostle " he made a 
 last effort " of joy." His head moved a little 
 forward. She closed his eyes. 
 
 And then, like a caress on her heart, a 
 
250 The Way Things Happen 
 
 thought came to her in the form of a line 
 which she had often read 
 
 "He is a portion of the loveliness which once he made 
 more lovely." 
 
 His body to the earth, his spirit to the source, 
 wherever it might be, from which all life and 
 all beauty come. 
 
 A kind of darkness closed over her. She 
 went downstairs to the doctor, and spoke to 
 him quite simply, and listened to what he said 
 about arrangements quite intelligently. But 
 something seemed to have gone from her. The 
 doctor was frightened, and gave her a sleeping- 
 draught, which she consented to take. 
 
 Mrs. Martin came and put Constantia to 
 bed like a child, gave her bread and milk, and 
 stationed herself in front of the door, though 
 no one was likely to disturb her. 
 
 In time with the throbbing of her temples 
 the last words of Paul beat, syllable by syllable, 
 through our gentle lady's brain : " My a 
 postle of joy My a postle of -joy ! " 
 
XII 
 
 details of the accident and the 
 inquest were fully reported in the 
 Sunday papers. There was a 
 sketch of a weeping woman, which 
 Constantia fortunately never saw. The pro- 
 bable number and situation of the bones broken 
 in Paul's body were given, and differed slightly 
 according to the reporter's ingenuity or physio- 
 logical knowledge. Everything was minutely 
 described, from the appearance of the corpse 
 down to the feelings that were supposed to be 
 hidden most deeply in the heart of the bereaved 
 woman. Many ladies read the account, and 
 commented upon it to themselves or to an 
 intimate friend : " Only a fortnight ! What 
 luck some women have ! " 
 
 Constantia was unconscious of the momen- 
 tary interest of envy or sympathy which she 
 
 251 
 
2 $2 The Way Things Happen 
 
 aroused. Indeed, she was unconscious of 
 everything except that Paul had been taken 
 away. The suddenness of the disaster stunned 
 her. She moved under a great weight in 
 darkness. Dr. Simkins was kind and practical 
 in his help. Paul's solicitor saw to the busi- 
 ness of the dead body's disposal and the dis- 
 posal of effects. He found no difficulty in 
 making her understand what it was necessary 
 for her to understand. Her mind was strangely 
 active, but her body was very tired more tired 
 than she had ever thought possible for her 
 body to be ; and she felt in her soul dead, as 
 though the virtue had passed out of her body 
 with Paul's life. Everything seemed dully 
 unreal and far away. Everything seemed 
 meaningless. She saw flowers without any 
 response to their beauty ; she felt the wind 
 on her cheek without any response to its 
 touch ; her heart gave no response to the 
 bright warmth of the sun or the majesty of 
 the clouded sky ; she was blind to the varying 
 pageant of the sunset, and deaf to the music 
 of the birds in the rustling trees. Nothing 
 
The Way Things Happen 253 
 
 existed for her. The light was gone from her 
 eyes. She moved in darkness, under a great 
 weight, and she felt tired very tired. 
 
 Often all her strength became concentrated 
 on the effort (like a little boy being very 
 brave) not to cry. She slept much heavily, 
 without dreaming yet sleep did not rid her 
 of the weight which accumulated from day to 
 day. She sat for hours motionless in a chair, 
 gazing in front of her. She never opened a 
 book. She never spoke to Mrs. Martin, who 
 quietly insisted on stopping in the house and 
 waited on her always with tireless care, unless 
 Mrs. Martin spoke to her. When the woman 
 spoke it was usually to press her to eat, and 
 she called Constantia " dearie," enrolling her 
 among her numerous children ; and Con- 
 stantia obeyed like a child, and ate what 
 she was bidden. Sometimes she looked up at 
 Mrs. Martin like a tired child, and said with 
 the pitiful shadow of a smile, " Must I ? " 
 Then tears came into Mrs. Martin's eyes, and 
 she answered firmly, "Eh, dearie, you really 
 must, now." 
 
254 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Constantia generally sat in the little room 
 at the top of the house, but sometimes she 
 wandered through the house, through all the 
 great empty rooms, without noticing the new 
 furniture which had come and been placed 
 at Mrs. Martin's instructions where the 
 admirable woman thought best. The ser- 
 vants were frightened at her appearance, and 
 immediately left any room when she entered. 
 The blue Russian kitten liked her to wander, 
 and crouched and pounced upon her dress with 
 unabated zest. Once, however, she picked 
 him up, and handed him to Laura, the house- 
 maid, saying, "Please cut his claws, they're 
 growing too long." Laura took him, and 
 burst into tears as she carried him out of 
 the room. There was something in the quiet- 
 ness of her mistress's request which over- 
 whelmed the girl. One afternoon Constantia 
 stopped all the clocks their ticking hurt her. 
 
 It has been said that Constantia was aware 
 only of her loss, which deadened her sensi- 
 bilities like a blow, and crushed her like a 
 great weight. That was so. But in her 
 
The Way Things Happen 255 
 
 mind was present a hope, like 'a glimmer of 
 distant light, which makes the blackness of 
 a dark night blacker. 
 
 Hope ? It was something far vaguer than 
 a hope. She did not formulate it in thought 
 or word to herself. It took no definite shape 
 in her bruised mind. It was a possibility 
 the possibility that Paul might have given 
 her a child. It did not come to her even as 
 definitely as that. But the possibility, till she 
 knew, forced the weight of grief down upon 
 her the uncertainty prevented her from 
 making any effort to begin once more to 
 live. 
 
 Ten days dragged slowly by. Then she 
 spoke with Mrs. Martin, and the distant 
 light disappeared. Consciousness revived when 
 this glimmer of something vaguer than a hope 
 had faded away from her. And with the 
 revival of consciousness she began to suffer, 
 no longer dully but acutely. Spring now held 
 full sway over the world, and with relentless 
 gaiety forced life into her misery. Spring 
 imperiously demanded a response, if not of 
 
256 The Way Things Happen 
 
 joy, then of sorrow. Nothing with any particle 
 of life might remain any longer dormant. 
 Earth's panoply of life derided her. The 
 sunshine mocked her grief. The singing, 
 joyous birds laughed at her loneliness. The 
 sweet warmth of the air quickened her anguish. 
 Every little thing that reminded her of Paul 
 pierced into her like a white-hot steel. This 
 agony seemed all that was left to her of Paul, 
 and she cherished it. She cherished it, and 
 she felt false to his love in doing so. Why 
 had he bidden her be his apostle of joy ? 
 Why could she not tell him that he had asked 
 what was impossible ? One more hour she 
 wanted with him ; one more hour to talk with 
 him, and be comforted by him. He had asked 
 too much of her. She had no courage. She 
 was little and alone and sad. "Paul," she 
 cried out, " I'm sad, dear too sad to do 
 what you wish." 
 
 She began to cry. She had cried before, 
 but without sobbing and dry-eyed. Now she 
 sobbed like a broken-hearted child, and the 
 tears flowed down her cheeks. She made no 
 
The Way Things Happen 257 
 
 effort to control herself; no more effort of 
 any kind was possible to her. She went on 
 crying till her body was so exhausted that she 
 fell into a deep sleep. 
 
 And for the first time since Paul's death 
 she dreamed, and she awoke refreshed. Her 
 dream was singular. Generally she quietly 
 lived in dreamland in much the same way 
 as she lived in the more normal world. In 
 this dream, however, she watched a woman 
 sitting on a dark-brown tree-trunk, wrapped 
 in a large green cloak. She was not conscious 
 of standing or of sitting, but merely of watch- 
 ing, and of knowing that she was invisible. 
 The woman's back was turned to her, and 
 by her attitude the woman was clearly afflicted 
 by a great sorrow. A very old man, also with 
 his back to her, stood by the weeping woman. 
 The old man recalled the Wanderer to her, 
 until, by a gesture of his hand, she felt he 
 must be Loki, grown more human than she 
 had hitherto seen him. He was speaking. 
 He turned. At first she only noticed that 
 his lips were moving ; but suddenly, without 
 
258 The Way Things Happen 
 
 any reason and yet without any surprise, she 
 heard quite distinctly what he was saying. 
 
 "I do right to upbraid you," the old man 
 said. " Such grief is sinful sinful as any 
 other denial of life. He lives in your memory. 
 See, then, that your memory is no evil place 
 of sores. Deny life, and you deny his 
 love." 
 
 The old man disappeared, and the woman 
 rising, turned, and Constantia for the first 
 time saw that it was herself. Then the woman, 
 this other self, spoke to her. 
 
 " Shall we together try ? " she said. 
 
 And all the leaves and birds and flowers 
 took hold of the word and passed it in a 
 growing chorus on, until the very stars in 
 heaven shouted " Try ! " 
 
 So Constantia awoke refreshed. 
 
 This imagination which had lent poignancy 
 to her love and to her grief at length reasserted 
 its power for her welfare. She began to see 
 things through its agency with a deeper view 
 and a clearer insight. It lifted her a little 
 above the sphere of personal loss, and showed 
 
The Way Things Happen 259 
 
 her how she could come more closely to what 
 she felt to be the universal spirit of life. 
 
 So she thought as she lay dozing, and the 
 memory of her dream dominated her mind. 
 But the torpor of despair is not lifted by one 
 dream, however vivid. She took no immediate 
 step in the new direction, and the entrance 
 became hidden by descending darkness. There 
 was, after all, surely nothing to be done. 
 What was the use of counteracting the order 
 that she would see no one ? No one could 
 want her. A sense of obligation only might 
 bring Rupert. Without knowing it she em- 
 ployed all the old arguments for inaction, 
 which rise glibly to the lips of those who 
 for any reason shirk giving. They were new 
 to Constantia and unsatisfying, but, as always, 
 they were unanswerable. A kind of uneasiness 
 was in consequence added to the gentle lady's 
 sorrow. She was, however, ready for any 
 kindness which might come right up for her 
 hand to do, though she could take no actual 
 measure to meet it on its way. She did not 
 notice, as she would have noticed before, 
 
260 The Way Things Happen 
 
 how troubled Mrs. Martin looked. It would 
 have been evident to her that the woman's 
 visits to her home were painful ; that some- 
 thing was gravely wrong. But when Mrs. 
 Martin said that she was unable to stop any 
 longer, Constantia thanked her for having 
 stayed so long, and was secretly a little 
 aggrieved at the woman's abrupt manner of 
 withdrawal from the original arrangement of 
 a month's stay. So that when she chanced 
 to overhear Mrs. Martin scornfully and tear- 
 fully remark to Laura, "Catch me addin' to 
 'er worries, poor dear ! " it surprised and 
 distressed her. 
 
 She immediately sent for Mrs. Martin to 
 come to her room, and questioned her. Then 
 she discovered that Mr. Martin's sound leg 
 was daily developing the very symptoms which 
 had resulted in the loss of his other leg. The 
 knee was terribly swollen, and the pain was 
 unbearable. 
 
 "It's a growth," she said, "and if it is a 
 growth, there ain't nothing for it but to 'ave 
 'is leg off; and what a 'ealthy man like my 
 
The Way Things Happen 261 
 
 'usband is to do with no legs, I'm sure I 
 dunno." 
 
 " How long has he been ill ? " 
 
 " Three days after I come 'ere, it began to 
 give 'im trouble." 
 
 " But what's he done ? " exclaimed Con- 
 stantia. 
 
 "Done! Well, 'e ain't been able to do 
 much. He's afraid to go to the 'ospital. You 
 see, they pulled 'im about for 'is other leg 
 something shockin'. And 'e don't like to 
 fancy it's bad enough to go through that 
 again. Four of them student chaps 'eld him 
 down while the doctor bored 'is knee to let 
 the bad stuff out. And it was all for no good, 
 cos 'is leg came off in the end. But don't 
 you worry, miss ma'am, I should say what 
 'as to be, 'as to be, and you've enough on 
 yer mind. But it do seem 'ard just as 'e 
 was startin' so nice and all, and 'is 'orse there 
 eatin' 'is 'ead off, though he thinks he knows 
 a man as would 'ave it orf 'im. He 'as been 
 to the 'ospital, but after three hours' wait the 
 doctor bandaged it up so tight that 'e was 
 
262 The Way Things Happen 
 
 fair wild with pain in the evening and took 
 'em all orf again. And gettin' there's a job ; 
 Vs a 'eavy man is Mr. Martin, and shifting of 
 'im ain't easy." 
 
 Constantia, for the first time since Paul's 
 death, asserted herself; the pang which Mrs. 
 Martin's mistake in address sent through her 
 heart, stimulated her to action. 
 
 " My dear," she promptly said, " you 
 mustn't give up hope. In twenty years 
 people have learned much about diseases. 
 Even that growth may now be curable." 
 
 " He 'as got a wonnerful constitootion, I 
 will say. 'E was up an' about fourteen days 
 after 'is other leg was took orf." 
 
 Constantia did not at once answer. She 
 was thinking what could be immediately done. 
 After a moment she said 
 
 <c We'll soon find out what is best, and 
 do it." 
 
 "Reelly, it do seem strange," Mrs. Martin 
 complained, " for me to be troublin' you now, 
 of all times, with my worries." 
 
 " It's not a trouble," said Constantia, 
 
The Way Things Happen 263 
 
 brooding, "it's a help, the greatest, if you 
 understand, for me to feel I can be of some 
 
 use." 
 
 " There's not many as I knows as 'ud think 
 so," declared Mrs. Martin. 
 
 "You must believe me that I do." 
 
 Constantia began to realise the resources 
 at her command. She telephoned to Dr. 
 Simkins to find out if he were in and could 
 see her. He could. She telephoned to the 
 chauffeur to bring round the car, which she had 
 used twice since the disaster, and drove at once 
 to the doctor's house. 
 
 Dr. Simkins received her cordially, and she 
 gallantly fought the pain of the memories 
 which the sight of him recalled. She had 
 something else to occupy her mind. 
 
 " I want your professional service, but not 
 for myself," she began ; but he interrupted 
 her. 
 
 " I don't know if you are aware that I am 
 what is called a Homoeopath ? " 
 
 "Oh!" she said; "what difference does 
 that make ? " 
 
264 The Way Things Happen 
 
 "None," he laughed. "But there is a 
 prejudice against us in the faculty. I thought 
 I ought to mention it." 
 
 She gave the particulars about Mr. Martin, 
 and asked him if he would let her take him 
 to Nunton Terrace in the car at once. 
 
 " Certainly, poor chap," he answered. " And 
 we'll see if there's a bed in the hospital." 
 
 Constantia was not in a mood to waste time. 
 She drove with him to Nunton Terrace, to 
 the wonder and excitement of its inhabitants. 
 
 Mrs. Martin was waiting at the door of 
 the block to receive them. She escorted Dr. 
 Simkins to their room, while Constantia stopped 
 in the centre of a little gazing crowd of women 
 and children. 
 
 The doctor soon came back saying that the 
 case was grave, and that Mr. Martin must, 
 if possible, go into the hospital ; and for the 
 hospital they forthwith, at his suggestion, 
 started, amid faint cheers from the children. 
 They left Mrs. Martin almost tearful with 
 gratitude. 
 
 At the hospital in Great Ormond Street 
 
The Way Things Happen 265 
 
 a bed was found to be vacant. From the 
 hospital the doctor telephoned for the St. 
 John's Ambulance (at mention of the word 
 our gentle lady shuddered) to be at Nunton 
 Terrace at 10.30 on the next morning, and 
 despatched a telegram to inform the Martins. 
 
 This activity on another's behalf tired and 
 refreshed Constantia. It was, as she a little 
 sadly told Dr. Simkins on their drive back 
 to his house in New Cavendish Street, the 
 medicine which she needed. 
 
 He agreed with that, but he did not agree 
 with what she called the absurdity of his 
 accepting for his services a nominal fee. He 
 said that it was a pleasure to be allowed to 
 help her help the poor fellow. She said that 
 the acceptance of his full fee need not in 
 any way detract from that kindly expressed 
 pleasure. "You are," he answered, "irre- 
 sistible ; " and again memory stabbed her heart. 
 
 She arrived at Portland Place to find Rupert 
 coming away from the door. He swept off 
 his tweed hat by its limp brim. 
 
 "So," he said, "youVe decided to drop 
 
266 The Way Things Happen 
 
 me, have you ? " He spoke jauntily, but 
 deep tenderness looked out of his eyes as 
 he took her hand in his. "I'm not easily" 
 he became aggressive, noticing more clearly 
 the change which sorrow had wrought upon 
 her face " I can tell you, dropped. You 
 shelter yourself behind all those servants. 
 You've become, Aunt Con, hang it, as diffi- 
 cult to approach as the editor of an illustrated 
 weekly." 
 
 " Nonsense," she said ; " I'm very pleased 
 to see you. We'll have some tea if you'd 
 like it." 
 
 " Very much. But best of all in your own 
 little room, if you can induce the ladies who 
 honour you by their attendance to carry it 
 up so high at so late an hour." 
 
 Tea was quickly brought. Constantia was 
 genuinely pleased to see Rupert, but she was 
 conscious of a horrible sensation that this 
 pleasure increased Paul's distance from her. 
 It was as though she saw the tide advancing 
 and the sea covering the footsteps in the sand 
 of a friend who had gone. She hardly heard 
 
The Way Things Happen 267 
 
 Rupert, though he did his best to claim her 
 attention, tell his news that the old uncle 
 had left his rooms in the crescent and taken 
 a small house in St. John's Wood. 
 
 " Fairly near us ; but that's not the reason 
 the poor old thing gives for the upheaval. 
 His present situation makes it harder for him 
 to master you know how he'd put it pain- 
 ful feelings. We're sorry, because we think 
 that taking a house without a wife will make 
 it less likely he'll ever take a wife." He 
 noticed grief close down upon Constantia, and 
 went bravely prattling on. "The parents 
 have been back from Italy now for a week. 
 You must meet them. They've brought 
 quite a collection of photographs with them. 
 Simply broke, they are. It's luck having 
 parents that are such children. Spent all their 
 money and had to come home a week earlier 
 than they intended in consequence." He 
 suddenly threw himself down by her, unable 
 to keep up any appearance any longer. " Oh, 
 Aunt Con, dear, it's too awful, too awful for 
 you. All the circumstances . . . Why just 
 
268 The Way Things Happen 
 
 to you ? Why not to me ? Death so looms 
 over us all. Really the great inducement to 
 live each moment to live, to live. Recog- 
 nition increases the power of beauty. We all 
 so want your power. We all so want your 
 power. It still comes from you even now, 
 even as you sit there overclouded with sad- 
 ness. I thought if I'd been if it had hap- 
 pened to me if Mary had been suddenly 
 snatched away, I should have simply" he 
 got up and strode from side to side of the 
 room "simply given in, dwindled out. I 
 imagined it all, I imagined it all. I felt she 
 was dead. I'm a coward. I couldn't stand 
 it. But you you have courage ; you you 
 have fineness, beauty. I saw what I ought 
 to do : what you would have helped me to 
 do. To have lived on more bravely, more 
 deeply. You'd have helped me. I've pitched 
 myself at you from the very first. Now I 
 couldn't let you be alone, if I'd come every 
 day for a month and found you were out 
 each time. We all want you. Your fineness, 
 your delicacy, your understanding of beauty." 
 
The Way Things Happen 269 
 
 He stood by the window, looking out. His 
 back was to her ; his young body was tense 
 with the strain of feeling. 
 
 " Who do you mean by we ?" she said 
 after a short silence. 
 
 He did not at first turn round, as he 
 answered 
 
 " We. Not just our little band of struggling 
 artists. I see it all so clearly now after this 
 has come upon us, like a frightful flash of 
 lightning." Still he did not turn round. His 
 voice was low and intense. "It's every one 
 who wants to do something for its own 
 good sake. It's every one to whom money 
 is a means and not an end. It's every 
 one who hates a fat peddling meal-to-meal 
 existence." 
 
 Then he swung round upon her. cc You're 
 one of us. You live in the big world where 
 things have meaning, where things matter ; in 
 which death and love move, and the spring 
 and the flowers and the summer and the winter 
 are not forgotten. You live. You're one of 
 us. We enjoy the world. They become 
 
270 The Way Things Happen 
 
 craven and indifferent, mean and bitter, with 
 their little selfish desires and their paltry, selfish 
 ends. We live for the world. By enjoying 
 we possess the world. We love and face old 
 age and death without defiance. We are not 
 tired and discontented. The whole thing's too 
 big to mind about ourselves, except to keep 
 our little selves in harmony ; and that power 
 we have. It is our gift of understanding, of 
 manhood. Little selves I say. No ; our god- 
 like selves. God-like ! They set up deities 
 to worship or shake their puny fists at. They 
 expect things of life. They look for rewards. 
 They invent penalties. They create duties and 
 conventions to rail against or obey. They 
 move in fetters of habit. They creep through 
 life in fear. Shelters, denials of life, cowardice. 
 Sweep all that rubbish away. Let's go forward 
 with hands outstretched towards life, and bow 
 our heads only before Beauty, which is the 
 final and highest expression of life. Let's be 
 searchers for Beauty, wherever it may be 
 found, Beauty that in life is joy and in art 
 is life, Beauty that is eternal, and the source 
 
The Way Things Happen 271 
 
 from which all strength comes, and by which 
 the spirit is for ever renewed and kept 
 young." 
 
 He stopped. Constantia remembered her 
 own sudden outburst to Paul, in which she had 
 bidden him listen to the young gods singing. 
 Were, she thought, their songs presumption ? 
 The voice of inexperience, the voice of foolish- 
 ness ? Or did they see and sing the brave 
 and beautiful truth ? With his last words 
 Paul had told her to be his apostle of joy. 
 How could joy come from such grief as was 
 now the greatest part of her ? Her mind put 
 these questions ; but she knew quite well there 
 was no question. She knew quite well that 
 the young gods were right. She only doubted 
 her own courage. 
 
 " You think I'm cruel and intrusive and 
 impertinent ? " she heard his voice exclaiming. 
 " I don't care. It doesn't seem to matter. 
 You know I'm speaking to you for my own 
 sake. Great God, you don't need help from 
 me ! I'm not even the nibbling mouse at 
 the entangling net. I merely utter now 
 
The Way Things Happen 
 
 what you taught me, what you might, being 
 stunned giddy, have for a moment forgotten, 
 lost." 
 
 She looked at him with a smile through the 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 " It was a mouse, a real one, that first 
 started me off. But you've done for me so 
 much more. You've done for me what 
 
 Her voice entirely went. She was again 
 so swift are the visions of the imagination 
 holding the brass rail of the bed on which Paul 
 lay dying ; she saw again the blazing picture. 
 And now she saw that the monster who had 
 crept wounded to his cave among the skulls 
 and bones and darkness had emerged with ten 
 other monsters. The warrior spirit did not 
 shrink from the encounter. Paul's last words 
 no longer sounded like a menace for her weak- 
 ness ; they recalled one great victory, and they 
 were now for ever the battle-cry of her strength. 
 The boy's warning voice had roused her before 
 the monsters wound the warrior spirit in their 
 long coils. He had done for her what she had 
 done for Paul. 
 
The Way Things Happen 273 
 
 She ceased to doubt her courage. She 
 stood up. 
 
 "You're right," she slowly said. "The 
 young gods sing the truth." She put her 
 hands on his shoulders, and forced her voice 
 to say, " In our memory he lives the only 
 home on earth for his love and for him now. 
 We must keep his home fresh and bright and 
 singing." 
 
 She took her hands from his shoulders. She 
 went on speaking, far away from the boy and 
 the small room, with her head tilted slightly 
 back. She stood as she had stood when first 
 waiting for her grey friend to come back as 
 her lover, and swayed from side to side. Her 
 neck rose in a beautiful line to her chin. The 
 streak of white hair waved up like a song from 
 her forehead. 
 
 " Love must be so much more than any 
 mere personal satisfaction. It must go out 
 to all that is lovely in the world. To live 
 love must be selfless, above self. It must 
 simply become life itself. More than the 
 passion of a moment, more than the joy of a 
 
 s 
 
274 The Way Things Happen 
 
 moment. Love is life, and life is God. Help 
 me, God help me to live ! " 
 
 She prayed. Her soul was open for life, for 
 God to enter. 
 
 Rupert stood very still ; then he went again 
 to the window. His heart responded passion- 
 ately to her prayer as he looked up into the 
 mysterious depth of the blue sky, and saw the 
 trees in the distance moving under the invisible, 
 mysterious power of the wind. 
 
 <c It's all so big," he reverently said, " so 
 big and wonderful." 
 
 They were silent for some minutes. Then 
 Constantia said 
 
 " And the portrait ? " 
 
 "Oh," said Rupert, "the portrait. You're 
 right clean beyond my range. How can I ever 
 express in paint what I now see through you ? 
 The hideous gulf, which yawns between one's 
 power of expression and what one wants to 
 express, widens. Every minute of wasted time 
 rises before me and grins derision at me. One 
 wants such Titanic strength. It's so much 
 easier to deny than to affirm ; so much easier 
 
The Way Things Happen 275 
 
 to destroy than to build. Joy is so terribly 
 simple. It just is. Whereas all the reasons 
 for misery give you something to hold on to, 
 to understand it by. Joy just is, or just isn't. 
 It's hit or miss." 
 
 u I don't understand," she answered, " any- 
 thing about art. But it's better, surely, to fail 
 at trying the highest than to succeed in doing 
 what is not the highest. I mean within your 
 ken. Please don't say things about me like 
 
 that. I don't " 
 
 " They're true," said Rupert, doggedly. " I 
 shall." 
 
 "I want you to finish the portrait." 
 " All right," he said. " I will try." 
 " Good boy," she answered " good, dear 
 boy. How's Mary ? " 
 
 " Broken-hearted about you." 
 " You musn't let her be." 
 "No; I'll tell her. She understands" 
 he looked defiantly at her "your great 
 beauty and strength," he said with fierce 
 emphasis. " We're dining at Paganis. Come 
 
 too." 
 
276 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Dinner's ordered here. Bring her here, if 
 it won't spoil the party." 
 
 "I'll bring her. I must go now to meet 
 her." 
 
 " Don't let her think I'm an old sad thing." 
 " Aunt Con ! How dare you say that ! " 
 "I am, you know. But Pm something 
 more as well. I think Pll come with you. I 
 only didn't because I was afraid of cook's 
 wrath. She can eat the dinner with the others, 
 instead of sending it up to me. But that won't 
 appease her." 
 
XIII 
 
 EVERY morning, when Constantia 
 awoke, the effort to begin again 
 taxed all her strength. Her sleep 
 was often fitful and uneasy. Her 
 body became rebellious. She refused the 
 excuse of illness, and forced herself to take 
 fresh air. But often her strength left her ; 
 her will ceased to act. Often she decided that 
 to go on was impossible. She would attend to 
 the affairs she had begun, and finish them see 
 Martin well and his family prospering ; see 
 Rupert happy and married ; and then she 
 would buy enough laudanum at different 
 chemists to end all the effort and pain for ever. 
 Why not ? She was not wanted. 
 
 Her choice shrank to extremes, exactly as 
 it had, after her brother's death, shrunk. 
 No halfway measure of indifference intervened. 
 
 277 
 
278 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Either life to the limit of her powers, or 
 death. 
 
 One evening as she sat in her room the 
 deeire of death was strong upon her. Death 
 beckoned her to its long, deep sleep, to its 
 unending peace and nothingness. Death en- 
 ticed her to delay no longer, but to come. 
 
 Then, as often, she looked at Loki, and 
 spoke to him quite gently. 
 
 "This life," she said, "impassive old Loki, 
 is it after all worth it this aimless pain ? " 
 
 And through her mind, against her will, as 
 though the writhen face with its fierce expres- 
 sion of life had forced it upon her, the answer 
 almost sounded 
 
 " Worth it, if you live for others always ; 
 if for yourself never." 
 
 She knew it well enough. But she wanted 
 to be happy, as she had been, without all this 
 strain and thought. These questionings, when 
 Paul was troubled by them, she had so victori- 
 ously dispelled. Were her instinctive answers 
 empty and false ? If so, then love itself was a 
 delusion and life itself a jest. 
 
The Way Things Happen 279 
 
 She felt at that moment that she was looking 
 into the unveiled face of life ; she felt like a 
 man who meets his own ghost in the middle 
 of a great desert. She was alone in the vast 
 spaces, and she was frightened ; but in spite of 
 the fear and the loneliness she listened to a 
 faint sound in the distance, that approached 
 and became clearer, until, passing like soft, 
 tremulous breaths of wind, it left in her mind 
 the knowledge that there was beauty, that 
 there was kindness. It seemed to her as 
 though she passed through the barriers for 
 a moment into the world beyond this world, 
 and had come back with this knowledge, of 
 which she now felt ashamed of having been 
 before only dimly aware. 
 
 After that evening her power increased, and 
 the power of the enemy lessened. Patience or 
 resignation are words too passive to give to her 
 state of mind, though she did not go on her 
 way, as Rupert went on his, rejoicing. Hers 
 was the deep joy of victory and experience, 
 Rupert's the tempestuous joy of the morning. 
 Constantia could not become accustomed 
 
280 The Way Things Happen 
 
 to the size of the house, and the servants 
 remained strangers, who lived their lives (in 
 spite of the size of the house) at discon- 
 certingly close quarters. At first the idea of 
 moving seemed perilously near to running 
 away. But as her confidence grew, she decided 
 that to remain would merely be a waste of 
 strength. Her heart turned towards the small, 
 familiar rooms in which she had begun her 
 lonely battle, and up and away from which she 
 had been lifted by circumstance. Accord- 
 ingly as soon as Dr. Paveley moved out, she 
 stored the furniture which she did not want 
 and moved in. Mrs. Martin came every morn- 
 ing as she had come before, but her daughter 
 Constantia's sewing-maid lived at the top of 
 the house in the little room which had been her 
 kitchen the scene of Faust's first adventure. 
 It was very odd for her to be back again, and 
 yet extremely natural. 
 
 She took up her new life in earnest. Her 
 desire to help found ample means of expression. 
 She was besieged by begging letters, to which 
 she paid no attention. It was mischievous to 
 
The Way Things Happen 281 
 
 give without knowledge. She heeded Paul's 
 fears. 
 
 Two schemes, as Mr. Martin progressed 
 towards recovery, chiefly occupied Constantia's 
 mind. The first affected Rupert's future, the 
 second Nunton Terrace. In the little rooms 
 she had attacked dirt and hunger almost alone. 
 Now that her forces were increased, she desired 
 to extend her operations against the elemental 
 foe ; and Nunton Terrace having been by her 
 friendship with Mrs. Martin brought within 
 her cognisance, on Nunton Terrace she resolved 
 to make her first onslaught. How to begin 
 was the problem. The whole gigantic organisa- 
 tion of society stood in her way, and when an 
 entrance appeared in that confronting wall, she 
 found that the natures of the people themselves 
 were in far greater need of reform than the 
 circumstances under which they lived. When 
 the idea first came to her, it came with the 
 fairy vision of a bright, happy street, but very 
 soon that vision faded. The process of any 
 change is long and slow. The task, that looked 
 at first so easy for a resolute hand, appeared 
 
282 The Way Things Happen 
 
 in its true and huge proportions of deliberate 
 difficulty. A little help here, a little help there, 
 and perhaps a few people might be lifted to 
 brighter lives, if great care and great love were 
 lavished. Those were, after all, bigger powers 
 than money. 
 
 For instance, Mrs. Martin's third son, Robert, 
 worked at a brewer's from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. ; 
 his work consisted chiefly in washing beer- 
 bottles "returned empties." It is true that 
 he earned eleven shillings a week, but there 
 was not much scope for promotion materially 
 or spiritually in that comparatively unskilled 
 labour. Robert had a turn for carpentry, so 
 Constantia got him apprenticed to a carpenter. 
 Mrs. Martin's eldest son had cleaned motors 
 and could drive them ; he was interested in the 
 machinery and had picked up much knowledge. 
 Constantia had him trained ; herself she coached 
 him in the streets of London until he was able 
 eventually to pass the examination at Scotland 
 Yard, and become the proud driver of a motor 
 cab. So she felt her way towards a more exten- 
 sive attack on the unhappiness of the Terrace. 
 
The Way Things Happen 283 
 
 Her other scheme, with regard to Rupert, 
 for long baffled Constantia. Paul's sudden 
 death made her feelings of fear for Rupert and 
 Mary, as she confessed to herself, morbid in 
 intensity. 
 
 It seemed absurd to her that she could not 
 quietly give him enough money from her 
 abundance to enable him immediately to marry, 
 and yet she could not find words in which to 
 make the suggestion. Rupert ardently and 
 always asserted that his uncle was an old dear 
 at heart ; and Constantia was so baffled by her 
 own inability to find a way out of her difficulty, 
 that she decided, since something must be done, 
 to consult Dr. Paveley. He might help her. 
 She had met Rupert's parents, and had actually 
 visited them on purpose to ask their advice, but 
 she could no more broach the subject to them 
 than she could to Rupert himself. She tried to 
 find no reason for this. As Paul would have 
 said, she simply couldn't, and there was an end 
 of it. To Dr. Paveley, however, she simply 
 could. 
 
 She called at his house in St. John's Wood. 
 
284 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Dr. Paveley was at home. As she was shown 
 into his study, the odd thought occurred to her 
 mind that she had never before seen him in the 
 midst of his belongings, and when she saw him 
 rise to greet her, she was amused at her 
 momentary surprise that he looked precisely as 
 he had looked before all the big things had 
 happened to her. He was even wearing the 
 same dull crimson slippers. 
 
 " Madam," he rather stiffly said, " this is an 
 unexpected pleasure." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " she answered. " What 
 a pleasant situation you have found for your 
 house ! I've taken, you perhaps know, your 
 old rooms. Familiar places, I find, attract 
 me." 
 
 Dr. Paveley was looking very hard at 
 Constantia. 
 
 " I have heard," he said, " from my harum- 
 scarum nephew strange rumours concerning 
 you, which your costume seems both to sub- 
 stantiate and to refute. I observe signs of 
 wealth, but none of of what I may in all 
 tender delicacy call the suits of woe." 
 
The Way Things Happen 285 
 
 Unaffected by the crudity of his reference, 
 Constantia answered 
 
 "I always wear grey now, with the light 
 left in it if possible. But I want to speak to 
 you about your harum-scarum nephew." 
 
 The old woman brought in tea. Two large 
 cups were already filled ; there was a lump of 
 sugar in one saucer. 
 
 "You will pardon," said the doctor, "a 
 confirmed bachelor's somewhat homely arrange- 
 ments. Even a scholar looks a fool with a 
 teapot in his hand. I press the bell on the 
 rare occasions when I require a second cup. 
 I hope you will allow me to do so on your 
 account, should you feel it necessary. Tea 
 is a most refreshing beverage. It is doubtless 
 also pernicious. But since I have lived here 
 my ancient domestic has influenced me to par- 
 take of it. I was previously content to sip a 
 small glass of brandy and of soda." 
 
 " It is, I think, an excellent plan," said Con- 
 stantia. " About your nephew Rupert " 
 
 "That young man is," declared Dr. Pave- 
 ley, interrupting her, " if you will forgive the 
 
286 The Way Things Happen 
 
 expression, a spoofer. By that vulgar but 
 expressive term I imply that his ideas are 
 second-hand, and are wholly in opposition to 
 his practise. He breakfasts at ten, and 
 becomes lyrical on the beauty of work. 
 He sleeps so much and so deeply that he 
 will always, I much fear, remain that painful 
 and foolish thing an enthusiast.'* 
 
 Constantia was pleased to see Dr. Paveley 
 in such an amiable humour. She laughed, 
 and objected 
 
 " He works though till three, and never 
 
 sleeps after lunch. But it's his future " 
 
 "His future, dear madam, is not a proper 
 subject for a wise man's consideration." 
 " His career, I rather mean." 
 " I see no reasonable prospect of his ever 
 having a career. An artist exists to please 
 more serious individuals in their leisure 
 moments by his work painting or writing 
 or sculpting. That is his business. If he 
 mistakes his business, and uses his brush or 
 his pen to lecture or instruct, or for any other 
 purpose than to please his patron, the public, 
 
The Way Things Happen 287 
 
 it is right that he should be neglected. My 
 nephew is a young man of some intelligence ; 
 but he has not sufficient intelligence to realise 
 that he must please the patron before he can 
 enjoy the luxury of pleasing himself." 
 
 "That's just," interposed Constantia, "what 
 I want him to enjoy. It's the only way of 
 doing anything. I mean to please one's self. 
 Couldn't we now put him in such a position 
 that he might meet his patron on level terms ? 
 We're both very fond of him. Now, why 
 shouldn't we establish him, so to speak, and 
 let him marry and be happy at once ? " 
 
 Dr. Paveley eyed her roundly. " I am not 
 usually slow of apprehension, madam, but 
 I fail to understand you. It is hardly possible 
 that you could mean to suggest we should 
 give him pecuniary assistance." 
 
 " Yes, I do. That's exactly it." 
 
 " I think it would be in the last degree 
 disastrous. My income, moreover, is sufficient 
 only for my own simple needs." 
 
 " My money. Your help. You see " 
 
 " I do not think a self-respecting girl would 
 
288 The Way Things Happen 
 
 like her husband to be the pensioner of another 
 
 woman." 
 
 " Don't you see, I want them to be happy. 
 So do you. You know the family records. 
 Couldn't you invent an uncle or an aunt, or 
 some one who had long ago emigrated, and 
 could die and leave him money ? Then it 
 would all be nice and natural, and only we 
 and the solicitor would be a penny the wiser. 
 Lots of people are left money, you know. 
 What do you think ? " 
 
 " I consider the plan to be quixotic and 
 unpractical. I consider the only hope for my 
 nephew is to have the nonsense knocked out 
 of him by the stress of adverse circumstances. 
 An independence would bolster him up in 
 self-confidence. Moreover, it would be be- 
 neath my dignity to stoop to such a falsehood, 
 to degrade myself by such deception." 
 
 "But it would be such fun, wouldn't it, 
 to see them happy and comfortable ? to be 
 ourselves fairy godmothers ? Especially since 
 we know his ideas that the middle-aged need 
 his help." 
 
The Way Things Happen 289 
 
 Dr. Paveley was pondering deeply. An 
 abstracted look was in his eyes. He looked 
 at and through Constantia, who thought he 
 was perhaps yielding to what she called the 
 fun of the thing. She gave him full time to 
 become articulate. He at length spoke. 
 
 " Madam," he deliberately said, " I now 
 see, beneath the rashness, the generosity of 
 your idea. On my nephew's behalf I thank 
 you for your impulsive kindness. But money, 
 madam, is the root of all evil. Money, 
 madam, in undiscriminating hands is the very 
 mischief. I perceive that the rumours which 
 reached me that you are wealthy are founded 
 on fact. How wealthy you may be I do not 
 know, nor do I ask you to inform me." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then pro- 
 ceeded with the same deliberation. Constantia 
 no more thought of interrupting him than 
 she would have thought of interrupting a 
 rector in the delivery of his sermon. She sat, 
 privileged to listen, and remembered how his 
 previous discourses had been the prelude to 
 Paul's coming. 
 
290 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " 1 am flattered," he continued, " and touched 
 by the fact that you have in your difficulty seen 
 fit to approach me. It shows that you are 
 aware of the grave responsibility of possessing 
 and of spending money. I do not think you 
 could have selected a more judicious adviser. 
 I beg that you will always come to me for 
 advice whenever you are in a similar difficulty. 
 You are weighed down by the sense of responsi- 
 bility. I offer my sturdier shoulders gladly to 
 help you support the weight. You see me 
 here settled after a painful upheaval in a little 
 home of my own, in which I looked forward to 
 spending the remainder of my days contentedly 
 among my books and the few roses which the 
 air of London suffers me to grow. I have had 
 the great good fortune to find a respectable and 
 worthy woman to attend to my small wants. 
 Such, however, is my feeling for your situation, 
 a simple woman, a lonely woman, a prey to 
 the sharks who swarm round wealth, that I am 
 willing to take the burden off those slender and 
 delicate shoulders, and allow you to live at 
 peace again under my ample and judicious 
 
The Way Things Happen 291 
 
 protection. Do not, I pray you, think my 
 offer unseemly and indelicate. I have the 
 greatest sympathy for bereavement of any 
 kind ; for such a bereavement as yours my 
 heart, without exaggeration, aches. But, dear 
 lady, I should feel it more indelicate and 
 more unseemly if under the circumstances I 
 allowed you to leave this house without the 
 knowledge that you can at any moment call on 
 me for honourable protection, without in any 
 way infringing the unwritten yet rigid code of 
 feminine modesty." He ceased. 
 
 " Thank you very much," said Constantia. 
 
 She saw the odd mingling of selfishness and of 
 real kindness in his proposal. She knew that 
 he could never imagine even what she had 
 passed through, or how ludicrous it was to 
 think that she could marry him after having 
 known Paul. The extraordinary variety of 
 human nature astounded her as it had never 
 astounded her before. 
 
 " Thank you very much," she repeated. " I 
 will certainly come to you for advice, as you 
 kindly suggest. But I am unsociable and must 
 
292 The Way Things Happen 
 
 always live alone. It suits me best." She held 
 out her hand to him. " Good-bye," she said. 
 " It was good of you to spare me so much 
 time. The tea was delicious." 
 
 " Good-bye, madam," he answered. " Allow 
 me to open the front door for you." 
 
 He smiled benignantly at her as she got into 
 the car. 
 
 Constantia drove to Rupert's studio. Dr. 
 Paveley was an old dear, but an old dear, she 
 was constrained on a sigh to acknowledge, 
 who belonged to another species than herself. 
 Her visit had proved a failure. He was 
 unamenable, and might even warn Rupert's 
 parents or Rupert himself against her intended 
 generosity. She must speak to Rupert ; he 
 would surely understand her.point of view, that 
 it would be a greater kindness for him to take 
 the money than for her to give it ; that she 
 would be indebted to him, not he to her. 
 
 Rupert, on her arrival, insisted that she 
 should immediately take up her position, and 
 he immediately became engrossed in his work. 
 He worked with breathless absorption, while 
 
The Way Things Happen 293 
 
 Constantia yielded to the influence of stillness 
 and dreamed. She dreamed that all the myriad 
 manifestations of life in human nature were 
 slowly working to their fulfilment like the life 
 in the natural world. Life advanced through 
 all the ages, struggling, fighting, working, 
 loving. Birth and youth and age and death 
 confronted every generation with the same 
 problems. And the circumstances were always 
 differing and obscuring the wisdom of the great 
 teachers. Children were conceived in unhappi- 
 ness and born in sorrow. The gloom of the 
 parents injured the newly-born, who grew to 
 hate the life into which they had not been 
 welcomed. Yet nature made man to be con- 
 ceived in delight and to be born through pain 
 to the overmastering joy of the mother, whose 
 instinct caused her to forget the pain at the 
 first touch of the new life on her torn body. 
 Why had man learned so little ? Why did 
 men still fear death, and still fear life ? Why 
 did men still feel aggrieved at age, aggrieved at 
 the loss of powers which they had never put to 
 their full uses ? 
 
294 The Way Things Happen 
 
 " Done," cried Rupert, suddenly. " Look I " 
 
 She came and looked. 
 
 "The solemn rite," he said, and painted 
 " Rupert Harden " in the right-hand corner or 
 the canvas. 
 
 " I like it," said Constantia. Is it like me ? " 
 
 " Something of you is in it, I believe," said 
 Rupert. 
 
 " Paul would have liked it," said Constantia. 
 
 " That's very dear of you." 
 
 " Haven't you finished ? " she asked. 
 
 " I'm inscribing its title in flaming red The 
 Apostle of Joy," he quietly answered. 
 
 She looked over his stooping back and saw 
 the small burning letters being formed. The 
 gentle lady sighed. 
 
 "We'll call in Mary," said Rupert, and 
 going outside shouted her name. 
 
 Mary came in, small and silent. Constantia 
 agreed with Rupert, after her first meeting 
 with Mary, that she was like a spring morning. 
 
 " I want to talk with you, my dears," said 
 Constantia, after Mary had looked at the 
 portrait and approved of it. " Rather seriously, 
 
The Way Things Happen 295 
 
 my dears, about something rather delicate, as 
 Rupie once said, if he has not forgotten, while 
 he was laying my fire and putting in his word 
 for the middle-aged." 
 
 " Of course I do remember," said Rupert. 
 "It was jolly sound, too. Though I can't 
 think how I ever could have had the 
 cheek." 
 
 " I'm glad that you did have," Constantia 
 smiled, " the cheek." 
 
 " So am I. By Jove, so am I! " he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " But to the point," the gentle lady con- 
 tinued. " I want the help of you two dears." 
 
 " Good ! " cried Rupert. 
 
 " Wait till you've heard what I want. You 
 know I am rich. I feel the responsibility of 
 my money. And if you'd allow me. You 
 see, I want you to be happy together at once. 
 I want you to help me with the money. You 
 wouldn't feel pensioners or dependant on me, 
 or any nonsense. Just the three hundred a 
 year from me. Of course it's what people 
 would say that would be the difficulty. But 
 
296 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Paul would have so liked it for you to be 
 happy. And really suddenly for me to have 
 all this money is most bewildering. You 
 don't say anything either of you. You think 
 it's rather an interference. It's Loki's plan, I 
 think, in reality." 
 
 " I don't say anything, because there's 
 nothing for me to say. Mary doesn't, because 
 she never does." 
 
 " You will, dears, you will ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Mary, solemnly. 
 
 " What a plan ! What a woman ! " said 
 Rupert, huskily. 
 
 " It's all so easy, and no one really need 
 know. It's just, you see, to tell my solicitor. 
 I was so afraid you might, oh, I don't know, 
 see things stupidly. But my life's lately been 
 a kind of fairy-tale, and it's sweet of you to 
 keep it up. To keep it quite beautifully up 
 we'll see that money doesn't spoil us, won't 
 we, though there are a dreadful number of 
 economic principles and things which I can't 
 ever understand. I want you both to help 
 me give. To help me find out where some 
 
The Way Things Happen 297 
 
 of this money might perhaps do good. Will 
 you both help me ? " 
 
 She held out her hands to Rupert and Mary. 
 Each took a hand, and each instinctively 
 stooped and kissed it. 
 
 So they were very soon married ; and on 
 the wedding-day the blue Russian kitten wore 
 a blue silk bow round his neck, from which 
 he fought to disentangle himself until Con- 
 stantia, noticing his anger and wounded dignity, 
 removed it. 
 
XIV 
 
 CONSTANTIA eventually became 
 the owner of Nunton Terrace. 
 Her campaign against the unhap- 
 piness of its inhabitants was on 
 the whole successful ; the chance of brighter 
 lives was put within their reach. Mrs. Martin 
 was her chief lieutenant in that field, and her 
 intimate knowledge of the enemy was a con- 
 stant strength. Rupert was her other lieu- 
 tenant ; through information he discovered 
 many young painters, musicians, and writers 
 were lifted over steep places by a friend who 
 remained unknown. Constantia had in her 
 operations few failures. Her success was 
 perhaps due to the spirit in which she gave 
 help. Her most conspicuous failure was in 
 the case of a labourer's son, who had a 
 faculty for drawing and whom she had taught 
 
 298 
 
The Way Things Happen 299 
 
 engraving ; he used his knowledge to become 
 an expert forger and achieved a very long 
 sentence of imprisonment. Another failure 
 was in the case of a pianist, who desired above 
 all to work for six months at Rome. She 
 caused him to receive fifty pounds a fortnight 
 before his recital at the Bechstein Hall. The 
 recital was a lamentable exhibition. He broke 
 down hopelessly, and it took him five years 
 to win back the ground he lost in consequence 
 of having, as the phrase is, "blown" fifty 
 pounds in ten days on wine and food and 
 women. Constantia rightly blamed herself 
 more than she blamed him. 
 
 Constantia remained in the familiar crescent ; 
 but she bought an old house at Burford, partly 
 because she wanted the pleasure of a garden, 
 partly because she wanted several cottages, 
 which were near the house, as nursing homes. 
 
 Her forces as time went on became more 
 and more systematised. She lived, as she had 
 always lived, very much alone. She made few 
 new friends, and was intimate with no one but 
 Rupert, and with Mary in a very much less 
 
300 The Way Things Happen 
 
 degree. She continued to care for all the 
 things for which she had previously cared, and 
 she was happy in seeing the happiness of others. 
 She trained that rare gift in herself in the same 
 way as she trained her ear to music and her 
 eye to painting and her brain to the beauty of 
 words. Her joy in these things grew as her 
 sensitiveness to beauty deepened. The house 
 at Burford praised God in the living brightness 
 of the flowers which surrounded it, and in the 
 living happiness of those who slept within its 
 old walls. 
 
 So Constantia gently lived the remainder of 
 her life gently as in the days before the 
 capture and resuscitation of the mouse. Then 
 she gently died. She went away with as little 
 regret as our child in the house who, after 
 her wonderful afternoon of exploration, obeyed 
 with only a happy sigh the imperious summons 
 to go back to the nursery. She left her fortune 
 to Rupert, who carried on her campaign against 
 unhappiness in the same way as she had done, 
 and lived in the house at Burford. The old 
 oak pieces became his most valued possessions. 
 
The Way Things Happen 301 
 
 The semblance of life continued to glare out 
 of the carved features of Loki with unaltered 
 fierceness. 
 
 Dr. Paveley's domestic, most unluckily for 
 the eminent scholar's comfort, took to drink. 
 He was unable to replace her satisfactorily, and 
 happening some six months after our gentle 
 lady's death to pass by his old rooms in the 
 crescent, he realised that the rooms were to let. 
 He went in and spoke to the timid landladies, 
 and being offered all the rooms on the first 
 and second and third floors at only ten pounds 
 more than he had previously paid for the 
 rooms on the first and second floors, he cheer- 
 fully knocked a sovereign off the sum, and 
 immediately closed with what it gave him con- 
 tinual satisfaction to think was a bargain. 
 
 So our gentle lady's footprints in the sand 
 were washed out by the advancing tide. But 
 many girl-babies in the neighbourhoods espe- 
 cially of Nunton Terrace and of Chelsea were 
 called Constantia, many boy-babies Paul. And 
 the children stopped playing or quarrelling to 
 listen when the virtues of Miss Paul or Mrs. 
 
302 The Way Things Happen 
 
 Paul (either title was used indiscriminately) 
 were being discussed by their parents. Quite 
 a legend grew up round her name. In one 
 imaginative woman's tale the streak of white 
 hair that waved up from her forehead became 
 an aureole. However that may be, a little 
 corner of the world was unquestionably cleaner 
 and brighter and happier because she had lived. 
 That is why her history is worth recording. 
 
THE HIGH ADVENTURE 
 
 By HUGH DE SELINCOURT 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 Times. '"The High Adventure' is a remarkable book. The 
 adventure is love ; not, as in most cases, betrothal or even marriage, 
 because in the author's scheme of things such external events count for 
 very little. The story of the book is the development of youth (Mr. 
 de Selincourt's usual youth) from the aimless, groping existence of the 
 unawakened to the passionate activity, the secure direction, the 
 simultaneous finding and losing of self which comes of falling in love." 
 
 Westminster Gazette." The really important fact about ' The High 
 Adventure ' is that it is sincere and very full of life. Bernard, with all 
 his inconsequence and self-analysis, is so real a person that, in spite of 
 the fact that the author never once attempts a description of him, we 
 know exactly what he looks like and how he walks and speaks : he 
 is someone we have met and liked." 
 
 Daily ^ Chronicle." Mr. de Selincourt is a thoughtful writer, and has 
 some original observations to make on art and life and literature and 
 things in general." 
 
 Morning Post." Bernard Linnell's ambition in life was to become 
 a little nicer a good ambition enough. He is living, when we first 
 see him, in a bachelor establishment, with three other rather uncongenial 
 young men. . . . One of his new friends is a simple silent girl, who 
 has from the first a mysterious attraction for him. The main part of 
 the story is taken up with their rather charming love passages, in the 
 course of which Bernard overcomes his aversion for the marriage tie." 
 
 Outlook. "There is an originality of manner and a success of touch 
 about Mr. de Selincourt's work which, combined with a certain effect 
 of youthful freshness, make ' The High Adventure ' a good story to 
 read. As for his purpose, it is like his two previous novels, a love story 
 of a peculiarly truthful and unconventional kind." 
 
 Scotsman.' 1 The book depends for its intellectual fascination, which 
 will not be universally depreciated, on reflections and discussions upon 
 themes that have doubtless an intimate bearing on the life and conduct 
 of men, but are not usually written about with the freedom that 
 characterises this book." 
 
 Bystander. " As a work of literary art The High Adventure ' is 
 quite notable. The author has set to work to portray a mood, and well 
 he succeeds. The bad temper of young Bernard Linnell is the most 
 sustained I have ever encountered, and it is altogether refreshing to 
 come across an author who seriously prescribes as the cure for it- 
 marriage. 
 
 Daily Mail. " Mr. de Se'lincourt has already made his mark as one 
 of the cleverest of the younger school of novelists. His work is un- 
 doubtedly clever, his youth is unmistakable, and it actually does seem 
 to be a new school which he and others are setting up." 
 
A BOY'S MARRIAGE 
 
 A Novel by HUGH DE S^LINCOURT 
 Crown Svo. 6s. Second Edition. 
 
 Daily Telegraph. " It is a very proper, legitimate, and highly interest- 
 ing study of life, which French novelists have accustomed us to rather 
 than English, who more often make incidents their chief object instead 
 of temperament, which moulds the incidents. . . . It would, of course, 
 have been quite possible to end the story differently, but it would have 
 been spoilt in doing so, for the peculiar character of the boy would have 
 been enfeebled. It is a worthily conceived and worthily executed 
 story. All the characters are real." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. " The heroine is a pretty little girl without very 
 much depth of character, who embarks on love and marriage without 
 realising the full meaning of either. The hero is a thoughtless, up-to- 
 date young fellow, who has been rather overspoiled at home, and is 
 rather easily emotioned. His father and mother are a charming couple. 
 As the story goes along, the author's descriptions recall Maupassant's 
 stories." 
 
 Athenteum. "The best points in Mr. de Selincourt's novel are his 
 delicacy of treatment and sense of character. He has the makings of 
 a fine novelist." 
 
 Daily Mail. " The Teruel family are very well rendered, and Mr. 
 Teruel, senior, is extremely lifelike. In fact, we get the feeling that 
 we are moving among real people in a real world, and are somewhat 
 annoyed that we cannot shake Beverley and show him his stupidity. . . . 
 The book is in its essentials sound, and shows very promising gifts. It 
 has the breath of life, and we have read it with great interest." 
 
 THE STRONGEST PLUME 
 
 A Novel by HUGH DE SELINCOURT 
 
 Crown %vo. 6s. Second Edition. 
 
 Morning Post. " While it deals with a problem almost as unconven- 
 tional and as difficult to handle as the problem of ' A Boy's Marriage,' 
 it brings to it so much more skill in the handling of character, and so 
 much clearer a sense of proportion, that we dp not feel for a moment, as 
 we were perhaps unjust in feeling in the earlier book, that the problem 
 is treated for the sake of effect. . . . Mr. de Selincourt has moved so 
 far between his first and second novels that we shall look for his third 
 with considerable interest." 
 
 Daily Telegraph. " The first page of this book promises us that we 
 are in for a good thing, and the first page is a witness of truth. Mr. 
 Hugh de Selincourt is possessed of a pretty pen, and he has a real 
 desire to study men and women, their motives and their moods. His 
 first novel, 'A Boy's Marriage,' is still fresh in our minds, and his 
 second is perhaps even better. He has a fine future before him, for he 
 has the qualifications necessary for writing novels worth writing, and he 
 has by no means got to the top of his ladder." 
 
 Literary World. " This is a very fine novel. As a study of tempera- 
 ment it is a most careful and artistic piece of work, while its literary 
 form reaches a high standard. . . . Mr. de Selincourt is an accomplished 
 story-teller, and his style is graceful and pleasant. He seems to have 
 carved out a department in fiction for himself, a department that has 
 been called somewhere ' reticent realism ' not inaptly." 
 
 Daily News. " The recent novels that are worth taking into account 
 might also be divided into two classes. Those that are, in the cant 
 phrase, wholesome, and those which primarily aim at giving a rude 
 shock to the conventional notions of respectability. The besetting sin 
 of the former class is a tendency towards dull sentimentalism, of the 
 latter the worse dulness of decadence and impropriety. Mr. de Selincourt 
 is among the revolutionists, and it is to his credit that he has altogether 
 avoided the defect of which we write. He deals with a problem quite 
 worthy of serious consideration, frankly but restrainedly." 
 
 JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, W. 
 

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