ADRIAN
 
 I LIBRARY^) 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 ! SAN DIEGO
 
 \ \
 
 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST \pOWSON AND ARTHUR MOORE 
 
 AUTHORS OF "A COMEDY OF MASKS" 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1899
 
 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ONE afternoon, near the close of a radiant July, a little 
 party of four persons was assembled in the quiet, sunny 
 garden of the vicarage of Underwoods. The house lay 
 behind them : one of those low, rambling houses of 
 uncertain architecture, so frequent in Berkshire, whose 
 warm, red brick-work, and confusion of gables, of ex- 
 travagant chimneys, gave it an air of not too remote 
 antiquity; associations with Elizabeth, perhaps, or the 
 earlier Stuarts. Before them stretched an expanse of 
 smooth, spotless lawn, suggesting, like the sacred turf of 
 college gardens, centuries of careful cultivation: and 
 beyond that, visible only in a thin line of silver, piercing 
 the willows, ran the meandering trout-stream, which 
 bounded so pleasantly this pleasant domain. The 
 extreme heat of the day had subsided as the sun passed 
 westward ; and, for two of the party, any superfluity of 
 sunshine was effectually prevented by the large mul- 
 berry tree whose extensive shadow they enjoyed. They 
 sat, in a silence which had probably followed protracted 
 colloquy, in absent consideration of two youths, in white 
 flannels and straw hats, who amused themselves some 
 fifty yards away by throwing sticks for a vociferous 
 terrier. And just then a trim maid-servant appeared,
 
 2 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 with an afternoon tea-tray, which she placed on the 
 little wooden table between them. This diverted the 
 attention of one of them, who appeared to be the elder, 
 they were both upon the further side of sixty, and 
 he glanced interestedly at the small silver teapot, and 
 then tentatively, with a shade of diffidence in his mild, 
 benignant eye, at his companion. By his clerical garb, 
 and this incipient action, left incomplete through the 
 other's absorption, of offering the hospitable cup, he was 
 easily revealed as the present incumbent of the comfort- 
 able college living of Underwoods, and tenant (for life, 
 as it seemed) of the old red vicarage and the river- 
 bound garden. As visibly as the clergyman, however, 
 Mr. Laurence Simeon's face and appearance betrayed the 
 pedagogue the don of an earlier generation. And the 
 notion was sustained by his history, a long and unevent- 
 ful service as fellow and tutor of his college, of which 
 (though he had long ago retired, reaping this congenial 
 reward) he still very perceptibly retained the aroma. 
 His appearance was in the highest degree placid, a fact 
 which, considering how his life had always flowed as 
 gravely and sluggishly between the banks of unalterable 
 conventions as some quiet, midland river, was hardly to 
 be wondered at. A genial benevolence exhaled from 
 him, although this was rather professional than clerical, 
 indeed, the pastoral office which his fellowship implied 
 had always been highly embarrassing to him, and his 
 mild eye shone, if not with the light of wisdom, at least 
 with the fainter radiance of scholarship. It was not in 
 this attractive old gentleman's character to be violently 
 disturbed by any circumstance, even the most disquiet- 
 ing: these occurred, of course, at times, but his dis- 
 pleasure took the form of deprecating timidity, towards 
 the offending person or object, hardly of irritation. The 
 offending person or thing removed, his equanimity
 
 ADRIAN ROME 3 
 
 returned to him. He reflected now, and the thought 
 was a refreshing one, it had indeed buoyed him up all 
 through his vague unhappiness of the afternoon, that 
 in the present instance Lord Hildebrand could hardly 
 remain much longer, if he wished to catch the train 
 which would enable him to be in London within a 
 measurable distance of dinner-time. For an invitation 
 to dine with them at Underwoods it had been a strain 
 upon the clergyman's courtesy to give it he had been 
 good enough to refuse. Now that this visit was so 
 nearly over, Mr. Simeon was inclined to plume himself 
 upon his conduct. After all, few things more embarrass- 
 ing than that had confronted him ; that he should have 
 spent an afternoon in the company of Lord Hildebrand, 
 have offered him a cup of tea in the sanctuary of his own 
 garden. He had been half afraid, when Mary brought 
 down the tray, that his unwelcome guest might have 
 launched some pleasantry he had a vague notion that 
 it would be a point of honour with a man of Lord 
 Hildebrand's reputation to take indiscreet notice of a 
 pretty maid-servant. But the Earl had not appeared to 
 observe Mary, in spite of her Sunday ribbons : he still 
 remained in silent consideration of the two boys on the 
 lawn, watching them with that set smile which Mr. 
 Simeon found so highly disagreeable. The latter took 
 advantage of this absorption to glance across at his 
 guest, not without trepidation, examining him more 
 closely than he had ventured to do while they were 
 conversing. It was a noticeable old face, older by at 
 least a decade than its appearance, the clergyman 
 reflected, although it retained no traces of the notorious 
 beauty with which, nearly forty years ago, the Earl's 
 name had been associated. What struck this shrinking 
 observer most trenchantly now was the placidity of it, 
 after so many years of presumably exhausting experi-
 
 4 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 ence ; what had it not experienced that was disorderly, 
 and licentious, and cruel ? he was moved to ask, recall- 
 ing a dozen scandalous stories which had leavened in 
 time past the decorous tittle-tattle of his common- 
 room. Life had left no writing upon it, had at most 
 only marked it with vaguest hieroglyphics. It was like 
 a waxen mask, unmoved and expressionless; the colour of 
 his skin, drawn tightly like parchment over the cheek- 
 bones, over the thin aquiline nose, the close-shaven chin 
 and mouth, bore out the resemblance. Only the eyes, 
 this too was in the manner of a mask, when you 
 chanced to meet them, brought expression into the whole 
 face ; illuminated they were very bright and piercing, 
 set in deep sockets the immense irony of that com- 
 pressed mouth. And Mr. Simeon showed no reluctance 
 to escape them, when, after the boys had retreated to 
 the river, the Earl turned to him, prefacing his speech 
 with the production of a diminutive silver snuff-box. 
 
 " Then, Mr. Simeon, I understand you will find my 
 arrangement a considerable satisfaction to you : it will 
 relieve you of a pupil in whom you find cause for 
 anxiety ? " 
 
 The Vicar shifted a little nervously, unfolding for a 
 moment his meek, fat hands. 
 
 " Lord Henry shows very great ability, considerable 
 promise, I may say. I shall be most sorry to lose 
 him." 
 
 The other interrupted him with a vague, deprecating 
 gesture of one thin forefinger. 
 
 " Ah, for Lord Henry, I have nothing to do with 
 him. Not that ! " 
 
 He took a pinch of snuff, expressively, shut the silver 
 box with a little click before he continued 
 
 " You understand, it is on account of my ward, not of 
 my nephew, that I have troubled you with this visit.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 5 
 
 It was about him, if I am not mistaken, that we were 
 talking. I wish him to go to Oxford in the autumn. 
 That is decided, whatever the result may be. However, 
 as I am curious about the result, I ask you for your 
 opinion upon him, upon his temperament. In answer, 
 you tell me that my nephew, Henry Minaret, is a clever 
 and amiable lad. Do you mean that my ward is an 
 incurable fool ? " 
 
 " Ah, my Lord ! " expostulated Mr. Simeon with vague 
 unhappiness. " You must not think that I had any 
 intention of evading you your question. Adrian " 
 
 He paused, letting his eyes wander for a moment as 
 if he found some difficulty in expressing himself : there 
 was something very disconcerting in Lord Hildebrand's 
 suggestion, in his expression of discreet mockery, of 
 urbane expectancy. 
 
 The other relaxed the corners of his narrow mouth 
 into a tolerant smile. 
 
 " I was going to say that your ward's character is 
 somewhat complex ; his temperament has a wider range. 
 His successes are more brilliant, but his failures more 
 frequent. He is a far better scholar than Lord Henry, 
 but he has less application." 
 
 " Oh, for application ! " said Lord Hildebrand easily. 
 " That generally goes with round shoulders and spec- 
 tacles. Has he spirit is he ambitious ? " 
 
 Mr. Simeon paused. " I sometimes think so," he 
 said, half apologetically. " Yes, I think Adrian is 
 ambitious !" 
 
 Lord Hildebrand laughed. " Ah, well ! he is brilliant, 
 a scholar, and ambitious. That will do to begin with. 
 If we have exhausted his virtues, let us proceed to his 
 to the other side of this complicated individuality. 
 By the way, has he any social gifts ? What is his repu- 
 tation in the drawing-rooms of Underwoods ? "
 
 6 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Mr. Simoon smiled uncomfortably. 
 
 " You do not seriously think that wo have anything 
 here which can be regarded as society ? He both my 
 pupils are always spoken of as very gentlemanly, and so 
 on, and they are invited to everything that goes on. 
 You must remember, your ward is young." 
 
 Lord Hildebrand yawned covertly, glancing at his 
 watch. 
 
 " Very gentlemanly, but too young to have a reputa- 
 tion, I gather. Happy boy ! Has he has he any 
 other vices ? " 
 
 The Vicar deposited his teacup on the tray at his side, 
 and confronted his interlocutor for a moment with some 
 dignity. 
 
 " My Lord," he said presently, still with the same 
 stiffness, an unwonted attitude, which did not altogether 
 suit his comfortable person. " If I had discovered your 
 ward to be vicious, I should have felt it to be my duty 
 to inform you. Moreover, if such were the case, I 
 should hardly have permitted his intimacy with my 
 other pupil, your nephew." 
 
 Having delivered himself of this mild protest, Mr. 
 Simeon sank back in his basket-chair, letting his arms 
 rest upon the commodious supports on either side. 
 Then he continued, with less directness in his address, 
 " I have known Adrian since his childhood practically 
 all his life, and, as you know, since his aunt's death 
 he has lived with me, and I have never detected 
 never " 
 
 " Found him out ? " suggested the other, with a repeti- 
 tion of his humourless laugh. " A paragon, in fact, 
 except for his lamentable incapacity for application : an 
 admirable companion for my nephew, who, by the 
 way, was expelled from school a year ago." 
 
 " I have not forgotten that unfortunate circumstance,"
 
 ADRIAN ROME 7 
 
 said Mr. Simeon gravely. " But never was a boy expelled 
 for a more venial offence : his headmaster a very old 
 friend of mine assured me that the act was purely 
 disciplinary, that he much regretted to lose Lord Henry. 
 And I may add, this fact is fully recognised by the 
 Christ Church authorities, who otherwise would surely 
 have made some difficulty about receiving him." 
 
 Lord Hildebrand waved his hand with a gesture of 
 deprecation. " Your pupils are very fortunate," he said 
 urbanely, "very fortunate, to have so generous a 
 champion. You must forgive me for asking so many 
 questions : you will sympathise with my my anxiety. 
 And you will admit that hitherto I have not proved too 
 exacting in my enquiries : this is the first time that I 
 have troubled you, and it seems likely to be the last." 
 
 Mr. Simeon bowed, wondering a little nervously 
 whether he might not have proved somewhat unreason- 
 ably intolerant of the examination to which he had been 
 subjected. 
 
 " Quite so, my Lord. I can perfectly understand your 
 anxiety, your feeling of ah almost parental respon- 
 sibility. I am only sorry if I have without the 
 smallest intention to be so appeared reticent. I assure 
 you I have no reason ; I know of nothing to conceal. 
 And while we are on this subject, I hope you will allow 
 me to assure you that I am in no way responsible for 
 the somewhat peculiar education which your ward has 
 hitherto received. Indeed, I always urged Miss Rome, 
 on the rare occasions on which I saw her, to send her 
 nephew to one of our public schools. But, as you are 
 doubtless aware, Miss Rome was a woman of strong 
 prejudices, and she would never hear of it. And as you 
 appeared to be satisfied with the arrangement " 
 
 Lord Hildebrand shrugged his shoulders. "Miss 
 Rome was a was certainly eccentric. The boy's uncle,
 
 8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Sir Egbert, the doctor, was the only sane member of 
 that family. I might have interfered, but she always 
 informed me," he continued hastily, remembering that 
 in fact his guardianship had been almost forgotten for 
 the many years which passed between the death of his 
 ward's father and that of the lady whose eccentricities 
 they had been discussing, " she always gave me to 
 understand that she was carrying out his father's 
 express wishea For myself, I certainly believe in 
 sending boys to school the earlier the better. How- 
 ever, we shall see ; it will be all the more interesting." 
 
 Lord Hildebrand had risen with his last words, and 
 stood in front of the chair which he had abandoned, 
 leaning lightly on his ivory-headed, tasselled cane, con- 
 sulting his little French watch. 
 
 "And now I must positively take my leave; I see 
 that my train goes in less than half an hour, though I 
 suppose it will be late." 
 
 Mr. Simeon rose also, with an expression of relief, 
 thinly veiled by a decorous regret which did not deceive 
 the practised vision of his guest, and led the way 
 towards the house. Lord Henry Minaret followed, at 
 a little distance, carrying two racquets, on one of which 
 six lawn-tennis balls were poised dexterously. The 
 parting guest paused for a moment before entering the 
 house, tapping his pockets delicately, as if to satisfy 
 himself that he had not forgotten anything, his snuff- 
 box, or his tortoise-shell-rimmed eyeglass. 
 
 " I suppose I had better say good-bye to you," he said, 
 addressing his nephew. " I am going to the station, 
 now." 
 
 "Yes," said his nephew, intent upon the mercurial 
 tennis balls. " I shall have the pleasure of driving you 
 there. There's plenty of time ! " 
 
 The uncle cast a swift glance round the garden, and
 
 ADRIAN ROME 9 
 
 then let his half-closed eyes rest for a moment on the 
 narrow stream below, which seemed full to the brim 
 of the orange and flame colour of the setting sun. 
 
 " Thank you," he said slowly. " By the way, I don't 
 see Rome : I rather want to have a little further talk 
 with him : perhaps the drive would be my opportunity ? " 
 
 Mr. Simeon had disappeared in the dusk of the quiet 
 house : Lord Henry stooped to pick up a ball which had 
 escaped his vigilance, and succeeded in recovering it, at 
 the expense of a majority of the other five. 
 
 "Rome was here a minute or two ago," he said 
 vaguely. " Perhaps perhaps he has walked down the 
 road towards the station. The trap only holds two, you 
 know." 
 
 " Yes," said Lord Hildebrand, with intention. " Pre- 
 cisely." 
 
 And then, after relieving himself of something be- 
 tween a cough and a laugh, he passed through the low 
 doorway, garlanded with purple clematis, which led into 
 the vicarage. 
 
 His nephew, after the avuncular back was turned, 
 allowed a comprehensive grin to illumine his sunburnt, 
 boyish countenance, a document in the lines of which 
 one could already trace a tendency towards the humour 
 which, while it was almost ceasing to be recognisable as 
 such, so trenchantly characterised the features of his 
 mother's brother. Here the resemblance began and 
 ended : there was nothing to remind one of Lord Hilde- 
 brand in the expression of his candid eyes, in the 
 rounded contours of cheek and chin, or the straight, 
 short nose. He pushed his hat back, meditatively, 
 exposing a capacious forehead, receding slightly at the 
 base, and a wavy crop of brownish hair, of a tone 
 somewhat lighter than the tan of his face, and of a 
 quality more than ordinarily fine. Whistling gently,
 
 io ADRIAN ROME 
 
 he deposited his burden of balls and racquets in their 
 appointed place he was eminently orderly in little 
 things in a small room opening out of the long, 
 crooked, central passage ; then with a glance out of the 
 window into the empty garden : " Good old Rome ! " he 
 said softly ; " Rome knows a thing or two, doesn't he ? " 
 Having delivered himself of this utterance, which, if it 
 was inelegant, was also occultly expressive, Lord Henry 
 somewhat disconsolately rejoined his uncle, whom he 
 found already preparing to take his seat in the little 
 pony-carriage which was to convey them to the railway 
 station. 
 
 After casting a final interrogatory glance around the 
 precincts of the vicarage, Lord Hildebrand devoted him- 
 self, during the few minutes which elapsed before their 
 entry into the main road, to a delicate manipulation of 
 his eyeglass, in which a spotless white silk handkerchief 
 (his Lordship carried two, a piece of duplicity which 
 struck Mr. Simeon as scarcely orthodox, and one at least 
 was invariably spotless) played a prominent part. His 
 nephew meanwhile allowed his spirits to rise, as he 
 assured himself that they could hardly fail to catch the 
 train, he was not often so anxious about trains, and 
 he even found occasion for much secret merriment in 
 speculating as to what they would say at home, at 
 Towers, what his " governor " the Duke would say, if 
 it should become known that he had been brought so 
 closely and intimately into contact with the black sheep 
 (he was not considered less black because his hair had 
 become white) of an ancient, and phenomenally respect- 
 able family. His uncle had enquired about his father's 
 health (the Duke of Turretshire was a model of robust 
 old age) in much the manner which a polite but dis- 
 interested foreigner might have adopted in a similar 
 enquiry regarding the well-being of the Prime Minister,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 11 
 
 or the General of the Salvation Army. Really, it 
 appeared to Lord Henry, his uncle was not quite sure 
 that his brother-in-law still figured as an ornament of 
 this world. 
 
 After Lord Hildebrand had polished his eyeglass to 
 his satisfaction, and had buttoned a pair of loose but 
 otherwise entirely unimpeachable grey kid gloves, he 
 settled himself more comfortably in his seat, and relaxed 
 his immobile features, first in a noiseless yawn, which 
 displayed a set of suspiciously perfect teeth, and then 
 into a smile at once indulgent and conciliatory. 
 
 " I don't see Rome," he said, as if he had expected to 
 find his ward perched upon the fence. "You haven't 
 quarrelled with him, I suppose ? " 
 
 Lord Henry smiled a little uneasily, giving a shake 
 to the reins, and fixing his blue eyes upon the shaggy 
 mane of the Vicar's old pony. 
 
 "I don't know where he can be. We certainly 
 haven't quarrelled. I think we get on very well to- 
 gether, considering." 
 
 'Considering?" echoed his uncle interrogatively. 
 
 'Well, you know, Rome hasn't been to school, and 
 hes rather a queer sort in some ways." 
 
 'Do you mean that he's not like other boys that 
 he s rather a muff? " 
 
 ' Oh, no," said the other reflectively. " It's not that, 
 exactly. He's a nailing good shot, though he doesn't 
 seem to care about shooting ; and he rides a lot better 
 than I do. Certainly, he knows about as much about 
 cricket and football as as that cow does about con- 
 juring. But it isn't that, exactly." 
 
 Lord Hildebrand nodded gently. "His tastes, per- 
 haps,' are eccentric?" he suggested. "He has peculiar 
 habits ? " 
 
 "No, it's not exactly that," replied the other hope-
 
 12 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 lessly. He's very fond of music, Beethoven, you know, 
 and that sort, and he reads a lot; he's very literary 
 writes verses. And he sketches." 
 
 "The artistic temperament," said the uncle, half to 
 himself. " I suppose he's pretty easy-going, and good- 
 tempered now, isn't he?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know," answered the other candidly. 
 " Hardly that, I should say. He's got a bit of temper ; 
 he can flare up pretty well, now and then ! " 
 
 Lord Hildebrand suppressed another yawn. "How 
 well you describe him ! You must be an extremely close 
 observer, Henry. By the way, you will probably have 
 remarked that the Vicar's parlour-maid is rather pretty, 
 rather too good-looking, perhaps ? Mr. Simeon must 
 place great confidence in you and in Rome." 
 
 Lord Henry looked up with an air of engaging inno- 
 cence. "Did you find her pretty, sir?" he enquired a 
 little maliciously. "I don't think she's considered a 
 great beauty, in the village." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lord Hildebrand in a moment. " Then 
 there must be at least one deuced pretty girl in the 
 village." 
 
 His nephew laughed, finding this the most convenient 
 way of meeting the innuendo, while he wondered a 
 little inwardly at the brilliant logic of which it had 
 been the outcome.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 OPPOSITE the gate of the vicarage there was a stile, 
 which made the entrance of a field. Several elm-trees 
 bounded this, and from out of them faint wreaths of 
 blue smoke, rising perpendicularly in the clear, still air, 
 suggested the presence of a village. It was towards 
 this smoke that Adrian Kome, the younger of the two 
 lads who were being educated by the placid Simeon, 
 presently made his way. He walked rapidly, as if he 
 had some definite object in view; but after he had 
 crossed the meadow, and had turned into the little lane 
 at the end of it, he allowed himself to loiter. Up the 
 hill before him the village straggled steeply, a handful 
 of white cottages, each with its trim garden, all ablaze 
 with sunflowers and hollyhocks. One more pretentious 
 house, on his right, lay back somewhat beside the sanc- 
 tuary of its gated lawn, a lawn it was by courtesy, 
 although it had by no means the trim, urban aspect of 
 Mr. Simeon's enclosure, and before this house Adrian 
 stopped for a moment. It was a long, low, white house, 
 over the shuttered windows of which a vine that had 
 long known exemption from the pruner's knife straggled 
 riotously ; a genteel house, even luxurious in comparison 
 with its humbler neighbours, yet less fortunate than 
 these, with an aspect singularly comfortless, cheerless, 
 exhaling desolation. Its deserted air apart, it had no 
 claim to be noticeable, and to Adrian at least, who passed 
 it, on an average, three times a day, it was without the 
 
 13
 
 i 4 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 attraction of novelty. To-night, however, some impulse 
 which he did not define induced him to linger there. 
 It was not that the house was his property ; a considera- 
 tion so practical would have been the last to move him, 
 even if he had not been still of an age when real pro- 
 perty is of all possessions that which seems least to 
 represent tangible value. It was rather that the in- 
 cident of his guardian's visit had given him a glimpse 
 into the future, and so had affected him, momentarily, 
 with a desire to look back, to take hold, as it were, once 
 more, for a little, of the past. And such past as he had, 
 that rather melancholy house very largely represented. 
 He debated in his mind upon the window of the par- 
 ticular room in which his aunt, three years ago, had 
 drawn her last breath ; hesitating a little, it was so long 
 since he had thought of her, or indeed of the house, his 
 house, which still seemed so essential of her quality. 
 He drew a deep breath at last, reflecting how little, 
 after all, it mattered. She was dead, and he could afford 
 to be lenient to her memory ; although she had been the 
 terror of his childhood, and later, when his childhood 
 had prematurely closed, the person whom in his life 
 he had the most disliked, at the last with an almost 
 passionate hatred. He had nursed and cherished this 
 antipathy in a manner peculiar to himself, although the 
 reason of it was perhaps not very tangible. It was not 
 to be supposed that the morose old woman's acerbity 
 had been an intentional malice. It was her misfortune 
 that she had been hard, and altogether without sym- 
 pathy, with no capacity to perceive how disastrously 
 her manner and her methods her very temperament 
 even, which was as keen as the blade of a knife must 
 have acted upon the nerves of a particularly sensitive 
 child. It had been part of the evil which had come of 
 it, that he had been led to discover that he had nerves
 
 ADRIAN ROME 15 
 
 at all, at an age when the self-consciousness of most 
 boys has not extended further than their stomachs. It 
 seemed to him that he had an immeasurable capacity 
 for disliking, persons and things ; that there were some 
 of these which affected him as intolerably as an acute 
 physical pain. Roughly, his temper was fastidious ; so 
 that his satisfactions were likely to be few, and fine 
 ones. He was not yet sufficiently prone to self -analysis, 
 or if the word seems preferable, sufficiently morbid, to 
 be conscious of the full disability of these susceptible 
 nerves of his organisation ; but he was yet clever enough 
 to be aware, that they might considerably handicap him. 
 And, at times, he allowed himself the luxury of lacerat- 
 ing them. His dawdling here to-night, on his way to 
 an encounter quite pleasurable, before a mildewy old 
 house, which represented all the tedious things of life 
 to him, was an instance of this. 
 
 He continued his interrupted course, after a while, 
 following the tortuous line of the village ; and his light, 
 nervous step had still more the note of intention in it. 
 Before almost the last cottage he stopped, hesitating a 
 moment ; then he pushed open the door, a bell tinkled 
 as he did so, and entered. It was a little shop, of 
 indeterminate character, half stationer's, half confec- 
 tioner's, while the presence of a primitive desk, at one 
 corner of the counter, suggested that in it also was 
 performed the business of a post-office. A little, faded 
 old woman with lavender ribbons in her cap, who sat 
 at the receipt of custom, knitting, smiled placidly at 
 him as he raised his straw hat. 
 
 " Can I get you anything, Master Adrian ? " 
 
 "No, thanks, Mrs. Drew. I just looked in for a 
 moment to see Sylvia. Is she about ? " 
 
 "In the garden, Master Adrian. Would you mind 
 stepping through ? "
 
 16 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 The lad made his way, with an air of familiarity, to 
 the glazed door at the end of the shop, through which 
 the glancing bough of a laburnum was faintly shadowed. 
 With one hand upon the latch, he hesitated, turned back 
 to her. 
 
 " My guardian has been here to-day, Mrs. Drew," he 
 said. " I am to go to Oxford, to college, you know, in 
 the autumn." Then he added abruptly, " I came round 
 to tell her." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " said the old woman. " To think of 
 that now! Well, the time passes, doesn't it, Master 
 Adrian? We shall be sorry to lose you, sir. Sylvia 
 will be real sorry." 
 
 He smiled vaguely, passed out into the garden, closing 
 the door behind him, so quietly that his coming was not 
 signified to a girl at the further end of it it was a 
 small though very pleasant domain who busied herself, 
 bending down over some flowers. Then he stood still, 
 watching her, with a smile of amused admiration, 
 waiting until some chance or other should inform her 
 of his presence. She wore a large straw hat, and from 
 under it her back was turned to him the mass of 
 her dark hair fell in abundant ripples. When, from 
 time to time, she moved an arm, or tossed back her 
 rebellious tresses, as though she found them irksome 
 to her occupation, her movements were extraordinarily 
 graceful. And this was the more noticeable, in that 
 she appeared to be of an age with which perfect grace 
 is seldom associated. She might have been fifteen, or 
 sixteen at the most ; the short scantiness of her plain 
 skirt promised the earlier age. When presently she 
 changed her position, and gently flushed into conscious- 
 ness of the intruder, the face which she turned to him 
 one was reminded by it instinctively of rosebuds, or 
 the dew-drenched morning was not the less charming
 
 ADRIAN ROME 17 
 
 because of its infantile roundness, a suggestion of im- 
 maturity, corroborated by the slim lines of her figure. 
 It made her beauty (for the girl was beautiful, one 
 gave her advisedly the historic epithet) a thing rather 
 of promise than of fulfilment. The curves of her face, 
 delicious in its serene childishness, were singularly 
 pure and noble. Only, one could afford to overlook 
 this, in a certainty of the something more which would 
 arrive. It was as though, thought Adrian just then, 
 with a fantastic recollection, perhaps, of the fabled 
 Galatea, the soul of her beauty still lay dormant 
 within her, and awaited that last completing touch of 
 life, of experience, to send it forth as the living, fateful 
 power which it would surely become. As she came 
 towards him, with her hands full of white marguerites, 
 he was struck pictorially by the fitness of her com- 
 panionship with such things. And, indeed, observers 
 less interested than a lad of seventeen, who was a half- 
 fledged poet already, and, after the manner of his kind, 
 deeply in bondage to the delight of the eye, might have 
 found something in this girl's carriage and movements 
 akin to the natural waywardness of flowers. 
 
 " What are you going to do with all those ? " he asked 
 at last. 
 
 " I was just taking them indoors," she said. " Will 
 you come ? " 
 
 He shook his head smilingly. 
 
 "No, don't do that, Sylvia! Come and sit in the 
 garden. You can bring the flowers with you. Yes, 
 bring them, Sylvia ! I want to talk." 
 
 " They will wither ; it's so hot," the girl protested, but 
 without appearing to consider that her objection was 
 serious. And she followed him down the garden again, 
 to a corner where was a little wooden table, and a 
 bench, on which they sat. She held her nosegay in her
 
 i8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 lap, arranging a flower from time to time; and she 
 looked out beyond them, at a plot blazoned with yellow 
 marigolds and tawny nasturtiums, with her clear eyes 
 that seemed unconscious of their own wistfulness. 
 
 " Poor dears ! I have watered them once already this 
 evening, and they look as thirsty as ever. It's very 
 little good." 
 
 The boy nodded absently. " I've had a beastly day, 
 Sylvia ! Didn't I mean to come and help to water that 
 precious garden of yours ? Were you expecting me ? 
 Or did you hear how it was?" 
 
 " No that is, I mean, I didn't expect you. Mrs. 
 Brown's little girl told us you had company : she saw 
 you, when she took down the bread. Thank you, all 
 the same, Adrian ! " 
 
 Her voice, when she spoke, was very sweet and low, 
 breathing innate refinement; only about her speech, and, 
 at times, her choice of words, something rustical hung. 
 This seemed to Adrian, like her accent, which was 
 faintly Doric, of the Midlands, hardly an error. It 
 grated no whit upon his sensitive ear; if it was not 
 right in the abstract, he was by no means sure that in 
 this case, the case of a charming girl, it did not make a 
 rectitude of its own. 
 
 " The company was my guardian, Lord Hildebrand," 
 he explained. " I thought I should never get away. I 
 made a clean bolt of it at last ; crept off, and left Harry 
 to drive him to the station. I wanted awfully to see 
 you, Sylvia ! " 
 
 " Oh, Adrian ! " cried the young girl, in a soft, little 
 whisper, as if the temerity of these proceedings, and 
 a motive so inadequate, overpowered her. "And you 
 could see me any time." 
 
 A curious cloud of moodiness darkened his face. It 
 was a nervous, mobile face, striking and very pale : of
 
 ADRIAN ROME 19 
 
 the many fleeting changes of expression which came 
 over it, this one was the most frequent of all. 
 
 " If I was only sure of that ! " he said quickly. 
 
 She raised her long lashes, let her calm eyes rest upon 
 him for a moment. 
 
 " You might always be sure," she said simply. 
 
 He was silent for a moment : he had taken a flower 
 from her nosegay, and was absently, impatiently scatter- 
 ing its petals on the ground. Presently he continued 
 slowly, rather as if he were alone 
 
 " I have lived here so long, that it has seemed as if I 
 should never leave this place. Of course I knew it 
 would come to an end, that I should go to Oxford, or 
 something like that, do something or other in the 
 world. I shouldn't want to stick here always. I have 
 lots of ideas, projects, things I want to do ambitions, 
 I suppose, you would call them. And yet, I hate 
 changes. Sometimes I don't know what I do want." 
 
 The girl said nothing for a while, during which she 
 seemed to be giving his half-irritable outburst the con- 
 sideration due to an abstract proposition. 
 
 "I think I always know what I want," she said at 
 last. 
 
 "Yes, that is the way with women girls. We are 
 different." 
 
 " I want a great deal for you in the first place," she 
 went on, slowly, dreamily. 
 
 " For me ! " He looked up with a half-puzzled smile. 
 
 " Yes ; an immense deal. I want you to be tremend- 
 ously successful, and famous with your verses, or to 
 paint great pictures, or" she hesitated a little, then 
 completed her sentence with a blush, in humble con- 
 fession of her feminine incompetence he had sometimes 
 twitted her with it to synthesise upon Art "or in 
 some of the ways you have talked to me about."
 
 20 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " Dear Sylvia ! " Then he went on with a quick, dark 
 flush. 
 
 " I shall never paint great pictures. I draw detestably. 
 My verses oh, I daresay they are bad enough. No, 
 they are good, some of them. But it isn't that: that 
 is not what matters, not the success I want. Oh, I can't 
 explain it ! It's the feeling, a sort of way of looking at 
 life : to give it scope, expression, to put it first always, 
 that would be worth living for." 
 
 The girl looked at him without speaking : she hardly 
 followed his imperfectly expressed explanation of the 
 artistic conscience. 
 
 " You are very clever," she murmured softly, giving it 
 up. " You can do anything you like." 
 
 He laughed a little mocking laugh. 
 
 "That remains to be proved, my dear! Well, it's 
 beginning, anyhow. I am going away, Sylvia! I am 
 going to Oxford next term." 
 
 "After all," she remarked, after a pause, which she 
 devoted to the consideration of this news, " Oxford is not 
 very far, it's not twenty miles." 
 
 "As if you cared," he flashed out, resenting the 
 placidity of her tone. " It matters very little to you ! " 
 
 She put out a small, sun-stained hand, and laid it upon 
 his, which seemed by contrast the more white and girlish. 
 It rested there, for the space of a few minutes, in perfect 
 friendship and refutation of his petulant cry : he did not 
 make any effort to clasp it, although he believed that 
 she would not have resisted, but was none the less 
 deeply conscious of the cool, consoling tenderness of the 
 gesture. 
 
 " How silly ! " she said at last, with a radiant smile, 
 before which the last vestige of his ill-temper melted. 
 " You know that I care." 
 
 " As you say, it is not very far," he summarised. " I
 
 ADRIAN ROME 21 
 
 shall ride over and see you. I shall write You will 
 write, Sylvia ? " 
 
 " If you would like it," said the girl simply. Then she 
 went on with a sudden seriousness. " Wherever you go, 
 Adrian ! Whatever you do, whether we write or not, 
 even if if you should forget me altogether, I shall go 
 on thinking about you. I shall always remember these 
 days." 
 
 " Forget you, Sylvia ! " he repeated. " Whom should 
 I remember, then ? Aren't you about the oldest friend 
 I have in the world ? And, after all, I am not going yet : 
 we have all the summer before us." 
 
 " Yes ! " she answered lightly, " the harvest is only just 
 begun. They are cutting the first wheat at Monkton 
 Farm. The bearded wheat is blue blue it looked like 
 the sea when I passed by this morning, the wind sent 
 little ripples over it. It is so pretty, Adrian ! But they 
 won't cut it till the wheat is all harvested ; it comes 
 later, with the barley and the oats : those last of all. It 
 will be a beautiful harvest, they say." 
 
 " A beautiful harvest ! " he murmured absently. " Yes, 
 I daresay." 
 
 He had but spoken the truth, when he had said that 
 she was his oldest friend. In fact, their acquaintance 
 dated from an extremely early period, when the speech, 
 at least of Sylvia, had been indistinct ; and Adrian, a 
 picturesque little boy in a velvet suit, speaking a queer 
 foreign English, full of liquid Italian words, was newly 
 committed, in mourning for his father, his mother had 
 died when he was in arms, to the severe tutelage of 
 his aunt. If he had one faint feeling of tenderness to 
 this lady's memory, it arose from her tolerance of the 
 little Sylvia's presence in that funereal house. Such a 
 humanity was so little to be expected from her, that one 
 could only account for it on the theory that the expected
 
 22 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 course in any matter was always the last that she would 
 pursue. There had been other children with whom Adrian 
 might have been supposed more naturally to associate ; 
 not indeed at Underwoods, but at houses in the vicinity ; 
 but from the society of these he had been peremptorily 
 excluded. This was perhaps only inevitable, in view of 
 the open hostility which existed between their parents 
 and the terrible old woman of the " White House," who 
 received social overtures as if they had been offered in 
 the spirit of physical assault. But when Adrian fore- 
 gathered with the round-eyed little girl who lived in 
 such close proximity to his gates, Miss Rome had tacitly 
 acquiesced, and beneath her somewhat grim tolerance 
 the intimacy had rapidly advanced. The post-mistress, 
 Sylvia's mother, a foolish woman, with the traditions of 
 faded gentility, popularly supposed in the village to have 
 seen better days, had accepted the situation as a tardy 
 tribute to the superior nature of her origin; the one 
 subject upon which, in occasional gossips across the 
 counter, she condescended to dilate. The children were 
 always together; and, as they gradually grew up, the 
 habit of their alliance had come to possess in the eyes 
 of the village the sanction of an established thing. It 
 seemed, indeed, as though Miss Rome, a woman who had 
 never condescended to the weakness of an affection, had 
 almost made an exception in favour of the pretty little 
 girl whom Adrian was occasionally permitted to ask to 
 tea. And once, when Sylvia had been invisible for a 
 week, confined to the house with some childish ailment, 
 the severe old woman had manifested sufficient interest 
 to ask of Adrian, whom she encountered wandering dis- 
 consolately in the passages, what had become of the child 
 with the great eyes. 
 
 Adrian's mind, as he sat silently beside her now, was 
 busy with all this retrospect, in which she played so
 
 ADRIAN ROME 23 
 
 large a part, and a little, perhaps, with a future which 
 without her would seem curiously vague ; although he 
 had hardly as yet any determined vision of what her 
 part in it would be. Presently he was recalled to the 
 actual by the appearance of a third person Lord Henry 
 Minaret. 
 
 He came in through the door by which Rome had 
 entered ; and he wore for a moment, as he stood inde- 
 cisively by it, not having discerned the two on their 
 sheltered seat, a somewhat embarrassed air. He raised 
 his hat, as Rome came towards him with Sylvia ; then 
 accepted, a little shyly, her frankly proffered hand. 
 
 " Mrs. Drew said I should find you here, Adrian, and 
 I thought I would remind you that it is nearly dinner- 
 time. Are you coming ? " 
 
 " I know how you forget the time, old chap ! " he 
 remarked to his friend, a few minutes later, as they 
 strolled down the hill together. "And I thought it 
 would be as well that you shouldn't add the crowning 
 sin of being late for dinner to all your other shortcomings 
 of to-day ! " 
 
 " Were they so many ? " asked Rome carelessly. 
 
 Lord Henry laughed his pleasant, good-humoured 
 laugh. 
 
 " Well, you ought to have driven the old boy to the 
 station, you know. I think he expected it." 
 
 Then, as Rome seemed disinclined to justify his 
 irregularities, he went on abruptly : " I am awfully 
 glad that you are to come up to Oxford with me. 
 Such an old ruffian as my precious uncle must be, 
 from all accounts, would be capable of sending you 
 to Cambridge." 
 
 The other smiled rather listlessly. "Isn't it very 
 much the same ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not in the least," said Lord Henry quickly. Then
 
 24 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 he went on, discerning in his friend's speech that re- 
 curring accent, curiously remote, which often puzzled 
 him. 
 
 " What a queer fellow you are, Adrian ! One would 
 think you didn't care, weren't glad to get out of this 
 hole. You have often told me you hated it." 
 
 " There are worse places than this, very likely. The 
 fishing is good." 
 
 The other laughed blithely. 
 
 " A lot you care for that ! You had better go and live 
 in that mouldy old house, when you've taken your de- 
 gree ; you will have time to fish then. You are awfully 
 difficult to please ! Hang it, man, you can get anything 
 you want. You'll be beastly rich in a year or two ; and 
 you've got brains into the bargain. You'll be indecently 
 rich, you beggar. And you have no people to interfere 
 with you." 
 
 "I suppose I shall have enough money," his friend 
 admitted. 
 
 " And yet you are not satisfied," said Lord Henry. 
 
 Then he went on with a rapid transition, which his 
 friend found perhaps inconsequent. 
 
 " Sylvia seems to be growing up into a very pretty 
 girl." 
 
 " Pretty," repeated Rome musingly. " Yes, I suppose 
 she is." 
 
 "You seem to find her so. By the way, Rome," he 
 lowered his voice confidentially, "are not you afraid 
 of going there so much ; I mean, that people will talk ? " 
 
 Adrian flushed rather angrily. 
 
 "Idiots will always talk; let them. I have known 
 her since she was three years old." 
 
 " Oh, so long as you don't care," said the other blandly. 
 " But hang it, she is pretty, you know," he added, half 
 to himself, as they reached the gate.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 25 
 
 As Rome was still silent, however, after his scornful 
 custom, repudiating the burden of justification, he dis- 
 missed the affair light-heartedly, saying to himself, as 
 he tossed his hat down in the hall, " After all, it's no 
 business of mine."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ADRIAN ROME'S rooms, on the first floor of the sunny 
 side of the inner quadrangle of St. Cyr's, were certainly 
 as pleasant as any to be found within the limits of that 
 or any other college ; and he had not been slow to 
 appreciate the good fortune which had endowed him 
 with them when he presented himself at the university 
 as a candidate for matriculation. Yet, as he lounged, 
 one evening, after dining in hall, on the disreputable 
 but extremely sympathetic cushions in the window-seat 
 beneath which lurked his so-called wine cellar, he felt, 
 with a touch of regret, that now, after three years' 
 residence, he was realising the charm of his surroundings 
 to the full, for almost the first time. It was the nearness 
 of the day when he would be compelled to abdicate, to 
 remove his books from their shelves, his pictures and 
 china from their places on the now familiar walls, which 
 brought home to him the fact that, after all, in spite of 
 petty restrictions (all the more vexatious to the spirit of 
 a boy who had never known the discipline of a public 
 school), in spite of the impertinent restraint placed upon 
 a man's reading, and the offensiveness of the antiquated 
 proctorial system, notwithstanding, in short, all the 
 limitations of an English university, there were still 
 compensations and this charming lodging was not the 
 least of them which made Oxford life a thing so truly 
 enjoyable, that to turn one's back on it irrevocably, to 
 take one's degree (in itself a secession from youth), to burn 
 
 26
 
 ADRIAN ROME 27 
 
 one's ships, could not be contemplated without a real 
 regret, a wonder as to whether the world, even to the 
 fortunate master of a liberal income, could offer anything 
 more earnestly to be desired. 
 
 A ripple of light laughter, the tread of quick feet upon 
 the close-packed gravel, invaded the quiet of the shadowy 
 quadrangle : he turned on his seat, and leaning his elbows 
 on the crumbling stone of the window-ledge, allowed his 
 eyes to wander appreciatively over the grave, grey walls, 
 with their decorous mantle of deep ivy, and luxuriant 
 Virginian creeper. As he sat there in the twilight, 
 throwing now and then a careless word or nod in answer 
 to the sallies of the passers-by below, his face and the 
 upper part of his body seemed to be framed, not inap- 
 propriately, in the sombre embrasure of the window. 
 
 The portrait thus presented was that of a boy who 
 had almost entered upon manhood ; he was within a few 
 months of attaining his majority, and looked older than 
 his years. If, at first sight, one would hardly have 
 allowed that he was good-looking, the epithets which 
 one would have selected, upon consideration, as more 
 appropriate to his case, would have been in effect at 
 least as complimentary, and certainly less commonplace. 
 His face was too long, perhaps, and his hair, of a brown 
 colour dark enough to border on black, disposed itself in 
 lines too monotonously straight on either side of a wide, 
 pale forehead, over which it formed almost a complete 
 semicircle. His eyebrows, dark and horizontal, shaded 
 a pair of restless eyes, over which they were placed 
 rather high, and there was a faint, vertical furrow 
 between them, which in certain lights, and particularly 
 in moments of excitement, was much emphasised. The 
 colour of his eyes was as hard to determine as that of 
 the sea on a showery day in the spring : at some 
 moments they were almost of the shade of his hair,
 
 28 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 dark and inscrutable, at others they were warmed and 
 illumined until their dusky glow seemed scarcely less 
 ruddy than the flame of a wine-coloured topaz. Moody 
 and brilliant, wayward and sanguine, they sounded 
 unmistakably the keynote of his temperament. His 
 nose was a straight and well-cut member, of a length 
 sufficient to make it fill its apportioned part of the 
 rather unusual distance between brow and chin. His 
 mouth was of a good shape, expressive and not too 
 small; the upper lip, curving upwards at the corners, 
 was covered lightly with a spare moustache, which did 
 not promise to attain more than a moderate luxuriance. 
 When he smiled, as he often did in speaking, a good set 
 of teeth lent a momentary charm of brilliance to his 
 expression, which, in repose at least, had little vivacity. 
 The lines of his jaw were keenly marked, and sloped 
 rather abruptly from ear to chin, without exhibiting the 
 squareness which is generally accepted as indicating 
 strength of purpose : his chin, somewhat deeply cleft, 
 terminated in a flattened point, the apex of a triangle, of 
 which his cheekbones, standing in higher relief than his 
 slightly concave cheeks, very clearly marked the base. 
 Of medium height, he passed for tall, owing to a certain 
 lightness of build and length of limb ; his arms hung 
 loosely from a pair of square, well-knit shoulders, and 
 the hands in which they terminated were broad, and 
 shallow in the palm, with straight, taper fingers, capable 
 and shapely. 
 
 A striking personality, and in many ways a puzzling 
 one : it had been said of him with some shrewdness by a 
 keen observer, that in whatever country he might find 
 himself, he would pass for a foreigner : and yet 
 although this may sound inconsistent there was in 
 Adrian Rome, physically no less than morally, material 
 for the making of a good cosmopolitan.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 29 
 
 The clock in the little belfry above the college chapel 
 chimed the hour, lingering on the notes with the gentle 
 deliberation of old age, making its warning a hint rather 
 than a command. It was half -past eight, and Rome 
 reminded himself that he had invited one or two of his 
 friends to take coffee with him. On nodding terms with 
 most of the men of his college, he was intimate with 
 few ; he had not gone out of his way to make friends, 
 and it was one of the defects (advantages, he might have 
 said) of his education that he had had no early oppor- 
 tunities for forming juvenile intimacies, the chains of 
 which university life would have welded more closely. 
 He belonged to no camp ; he could not have been 
 classified either as an athlete or as a reading man ; his 
 set (if indeed he could have been assigned to anything 
 so definite) was composed rather of the free-lances of 
 college life, the men who made no great profession of 
 ability, who did not regard themselves too seriously, 
 who were tolerated, nervously, rather than approved by 
 the authorities. He belonged to a literary society which 
 showed symptoms of developing into a whist club ; to a 
 whist club which was suspected of being a society for 
 the encouragement of poker. A member of the Union, 
 he had been spurred by a moment, a mood, to deliver 
 himself, nervously, of one brilliant, audacious speech ; 
 but he could never be induced to repeat the experiment, 
 or even to propose a motion, although his friend Lord 
 Henry Minaret, who had lately been elected an officer 
 of the society, frequently remonstrated against this 
 lamentable indifference towards the affairs of his 
 country. Briefly, while general repute set him down 
 as eccentric, (without thereby intending a compliment), 
 the few men who knew him spoke of him as clever, and 
 even as a genius. His friendship with Gerald Brooke 
 had contributed much towards making him an object of
 
 30 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 curiosity and speculation in out-college circles : Brooke, 
 the newly-elected Fellow of St. Jude's, the wit, the 
 poet, the best-abused man in Oxford. They had 
 encountered each other at Towers, where Rome was 
 staying as Lord Henry Minaret's guest at the end of 
 his first Long Vacation, and they had gradually become 
 intimate on the basis of their common appreciation of 
 Battersea enamel and Catullus. 
 
 It was precisely Brooke, among others, whom Rome 
 was expecting to-night, and who presently arrived, 
 announcing himself with a bon-mot sandwiched between 
 two puffs of tobacco-smoke, and casting himself with 
 an air of infinite weariness into the largest easy-chair, 
 among the cushions of which his meagre person was 
 almost lost. He was small, to the verge of insignificance, 
 and it was commonly reported that he had more than 
 once been taken for a schoolboy up for a scholarship 
 examination. It was only on closer scrutiny that one 
 perceived the wrinkles at the corners of his cherubic 
 eyes, and noted the set lines of his strangely immobile 
 mouth. When he spoke, his hearers were apt to forget 
 their first impressions in a wonder as to whether he 
 had ever been really young. His lips seemed specially 
 adapted for the utterance of charming things with a 
 languid sting in them. Rome was not alone when 
 Brooke knocked at his door; he had already been 
 invaded by Corbyn, a Welshman, of his own year, who 
 inhabited rooms on the next floor of the same staircase ; 
 and before the three had finished their first cigarettes 
 quite a little party had assembled in the pleasant 
 lamplit room, from the open windows of which their 
 boyish voices and laughter, and the music which 
 Corbyn extemporised softly upon the cottage piano, 
 floated fitfully into the empty quadrangle. 
 
 " Don't stop," Brooke had said to Corbyn. " I shall
 
 ADRIAN ROME 31 
 
 never deny that music has one great merit; it makes 
 an admirable background for conversation; it fills up 
 the interstices, and helps one to be suggestively 
 unintelligible." 
 
 " Don't be unkind to Corbyn," said Rome lazily, from 
 the depths of an easy-chair. "He's incapable of de- 
 fending himself ; he's just been ploughed in Pass Greats 
 in political economy, or something." 
 
 Brooke gazed for a minute thoughtfully at the back 
 of the imperturbable musician, who broke into a defiant 
 march. 
 
 " Ploughed," he said reflectively. " Ploughed ! I wish 
 it had occurred to me to be ploughed in something 
 before it was too late. I'm sure it would have been a 
 charming sensation. But I'm afraid I shouldn't have 
 had the courage. I should really feel envious, if it 
 wasn't so commonplace ; there's nothing so distinguished 
 as failure, except a really brilliant success! By the 
 by," he added, turning to Rome, " haven't you been in 
 the schools, too ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Rome briefly, " I've achieved a grovelling 
 pass. I wish I hadn't; I've got no decent excuse for 
 staying up now. " No," he added, in answer to an en- 
 quiry, " I'm not going to take my B.A. now ; it will be a 
 good pretext for running up from town next term." 
 
 " Listen to him ! " said a freshman admiringly. " And 
 to think that I am always trying to find reasons for 
 the reverse process ! " 
 
 "I generally say I want to see my dentist," said 
 Corbyn, wheeling round on the music-stool. " And last 
 time the Dean bless him ! asked me what his name 
 was, and if I could recommend him." 
 
 " Well," said Barton, the freshman, " couldn't you ? I 
 should like to introduce the Dean to my dentist ; he'd 
 make the old beggar sit up ! "
 
 32 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " Corbyn smiled. " You see, as a matter of prosaic 
 fact, I've never been to a dentist in town ; my man lives 
 at Carnarvon. So I had to invent a name, and say I'd 
 forgotten the address. It didn't matter; I expect the 
 old boy was only trying to make conversation." 
 
 " Imagine a man who would manufacture conversation 
 about such a dreadful person," protested Brooke, puffing 
 a voluminous cloud from his glossy briar pipe. " One 
 might as well ask a convict if he could recommend his 
 tailor." 
 
 " Ah," said Rome mischievously, " don't be hard on the 
 Dean, he's old, you know ; he knew better twenty years 
 ago." 
 
 " People ought to be superannuated when they've 
 reached thirty," said Brooke sententiously. "They 
 ought to retire, to seclude themselves. They ought to 
 be sent to to America." 
 
 " Well," said Corbyn, in the middle of a brilliant 
 cadenza, " what monastery do you think of selecting ? " 
 
 " I ? " replied Brooke, settling himself complacently 
 among his cushions, " I shall never be thirty ; I shall 
 draw the line at twenty-six. The resources of Art are 
 inexhaustible; one need never be so bourgeois as to 
 grow old." 
 
 " You should see my guardian," said Rome, shaking 
 his head ; " he isn't bourgeois, but he's old, old he looks 
 as old as Methuselah." 
 
 " Ah, well, a guardian ! He has to look old ; it's in- 
 separable from the part. I hope you've been looking 
 after him properly ; it's a great responsibility, to be a 
 ward." 
 
 " I wish I had a guardian ! " sighed Barton. " It's so 
 much more business-like. By Jove, the cheques I'd 
 make him write!" 
 
 "I think I rather like some old men," continued
 
 ADRIAN ROME 33 
 
 Rome reflectively, turning to Brooke, and speaking 
 under cover of the laughter which Barton's simple 
 aspiration had provoked. "Old men with white hair 
 and bent shoulders, tremulous, and benignant. They 
 look as if they had seen and known so much of life, as 
 if the evil of the world was an open book for them. 
 And yet they are so peaceful and simple, the old men 
 I mean, so passionless, and powerless ; they look as if 
 they had regained the lost innocence of their childhood ; 
 they are like children, only their eyes have not that 
 pathetic look of enquiry, of anticipation." 
 
 Brooke bowed his head gravely, raising his thin eye- 
 brows a little. " Ah," he said presently, " let us be as 
 old as you like, or as young as you like ; but for Heaven's 
 sake, let us give up being middle-aged ! How I detest 
 everything middling ! Middle Classes ! Middle Ages ! 
 A fig for your Golden Mean ! it's an invention worthy 
 of a suburban grocer. Let us be extravagant, let us 
 go to extremes ; anything is better than moderation. To 
 be moderate, isn't it another name for mediocrity ? " 
 
 Just before the clock struck ten, the assembly suf- 
 fered a diminution : Barton, who lived out of college, 
 had recently been "gated," and was obliged to be in 
 his lodgings before that hour (for the benefit of his 
 health, he explained), and some of the other men were 
 " in " for Honour Greats. Brooke had risen as if to take 
 his leave, but Rome easily induced him to resume his 
 occupation of the most comfortable chair in the room, 
 and to fill another pipe. Corbyn also had deferred his 
 departure : he was lying on a sofa, lazily sipping Mara- 
 schino from a small Venetian glass, every now and then 
 throwing a word into the eddy of conversation, with a 
 somnolent intelligence. 
 
 " You have quite decided to go down this summer ? " 
 said Brooke presently, addressing his host. " What do 
 3
 
 34 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 you intend to do ? I wish we could go abroad together 
 again. It was very delightful, that last Long ! " 
 
 "Yes," assented Rome, smiling at the recollection of 
 their pleasant wanderings in Brittany. "I wish you 
 could come. I don't suppose I shall go abroad this 
 summer unless I run over to Paris to see the Salon." 
 
 " Ah, don't do that ! " said Brooke. " If you want 
 a dose I use the word advisedly a dose of Modern 
 Art, Burlington House is much more accessible, and 
 quite as inferior." 
 
 Rome shrugged his shoulders, laughing ; while Corbyn 
 was understood to remark that he knew nothing about 
 Art, but found the Academy very edifying, a senti- 
 ment which drew a rebuke from Brooke, who protested 
 that he really shouldn't he was young enough to 
 know better. 
 
 "But what are you going to do?" he persisted, 
 turning to Rome, "when you are not running over 
 to Paris?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm going to fix myself up in town. I must 
 find chambers somewhere, I suppose. And I'm afraid I 
 shall have business with my solicitors ; I shall be of age, 
 you know, in a few weeks in September." 
 
 " Accept my condolences," interposed Brooke gravely. 
 
 "And then I shall have to interview sundry pub- 
 lishers, and see my poems through the press." 
 
 " Ah, those charming verses ! " said Brooke vaguely. 
 " I'm glad you're going to publish them, though it's so 
 indiscreet ! " 
 
 " But don't you publish pretty often ? " said Corbyn 
 naively. 
 
 Brooke waved his hand lightly. "Oh, one has to 
 sacrifice one's feelings sometimes. I publish; but I 
 always feel like Lady Godiva about it." 
 
 " Do you mean," suggested Rome mischievously, " do
 
 ADRIAN ROME 35 
 
 you mean that people won't look at what you publish ; 
 that, except for an occasional Peeping Tom, they turn 
 their heads away ? " 
 
 Brooke coloured a little, laughing, acknowledged 
 the hit. 
 
 " Nowadays," continued Rome, " Peeping Tom would 
 have achieved distinction as a critic ! " 
 
 " Ah," said Brooke, " I have often wondered that it 
 has never occurred to people that that objectionable 
 person probably represented the Press : he clearly fore- 
 shadowed the American interviewer ; he must have been 
 on the staff of the Coventry Herald \ " 
 
 There was a pause in the conversation. Corbyn got 
 up slowly, and declared that he must go; he took a 
 candlestick from the table, and, holding it in front of 
 the bookcase, meditatively contemplated a long row of 
 volumes bound in paper, green, lemon-coloured, grey, and 
 white, subscribed with the names of publishers at Paris 
 and Brussels. Presently he made a selection; it was 
 Stendhal's Chartreuse; then he turned to the piano, 
 and began to close it, half regretfully, fingering the 
 notes. 
 
 " It's all settled then," said Brooke softly. " You go 
 to London, you establish yourself, do be careful about 
 your wall-papers ! you publish your poems (excuse the 
 transition it's not unprecedented, you know), you 
 write other poems, I suppose, and apresV 
 
 " Ah," said Rome, looking at him with a sudden 
 access of fire in his dark eyes, "that's just what I 
 would give anything to be able to tell you ! " 
 
 Corbyn laughed satirically, rattling off a few bars of 
 the " Wedding March," with intention. Rome smiled 
 at the innuendo; but it seemed to Brooke, who was 
 watching him from under his discreet, delicate eyelids, 
 that the idea was not altogether one which pleased him.
 
 36 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 There was a short silence, which Brooke was the first 
 to interrupt. 
 
 " Your music has cast a gloom over us," he said, 
 addressing Corbyn, but still watching his host. " The 
 ' Wedding March ' always reminds me of draughty 
 churches, fashion-plate brides, ridiculous bridegrooms, 
 and the necessity of effecting the disappearance of 
 small, damp wedges of indigestible cake." 
 
 " Yes," admitted Corbyn apologetically, " and the 
 unutterable difficulty one has in finding something 
 original appropriate and cheap by way of a wedding 
 present ! I'm sorry my music isn't appreciated. But 
 I'm going now ; I'm as tired as a costermonger's donkey ; 
 I was up till four this morning." 
 
 " What, reading ? " asked Rome absently as his guest 
 opened the door. 
 
 " No," replied Corbyn as he vanished, with his tattered 
 gown draped over one arm, and the pale green volume 
 of Stendhal disposed under the other. " Whist ! " 
 
 Before the sound of Corbyn's descending footsteps 
 died away, the college clock struck half -past eleven ; 
 the atmosphere of the room, in spite of the open 
 windows, was heavy with the faint perfume of the 
 smoke of innumerable cigarettes, and the candles were 
 flickering in their sockets. 
 
 " Well," said Brooke presently, " the lamp is going 
 out, the candles are at their last gasp, and it's nearly 
 midnight. I must take the hint ; I must positively go. 
 Come with me as far as the gate ; see, how graciously 
 the dainty moon looks down upon this solemn city ! " 
 
 Rome had risen, and the two walked slowly down 
 the creaking wooden staircase, and across the silent 
 quadrangle, towards the narrow side-entrance, where 
 the night-porter was nodding over a crumpled news- 
 paper.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 37 
 
 " You will come to see me in town ? " said Rome as 
 they parted. " Please say that you will ! I need some 
 assurance of that sort to keep my spirits up." 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Brooke, "of course I will; do I 
 know too many people who can be relied on in the way 
 of furniture ? Be careful about your colours, and I will 
 come and stay with you ! " 
 
 "How would you like a magenta wall-paper, powdered 
 with footprints in gold ? " suggested Rome gravely. 
 
 " Heavens ! " cried the other, raising his hands with a 
 gesture of horror. " You oughtn't to joke about such 
 things. I shall have to read my poems when I get 
 back, by way of antidote, to keep off the nightmare." 
 
 Rome halted, when he reached the seclusion of the 
 inner quadrangle : lights still shone from a few of the 
 windows, and he had a vague idea of seeking com- 
 panionship for a final pipe before going to bed. While 
 he still hesitated, a door closed noisily, there was a 
 sound of quick, descending footsteps, and two or three 
 dark forms emerged from the obscurity of one of the 
 staircases. As they passed him on their way towards 
 the gate, the light of the dim lamp under which he was 
 standing fell upon their faces, and he recognised one of 
 them as his friend Lord Henry Minaret. 
 
 "The very man I wanted to see," he said, greeting him. 
 " Did you get my note ? " 
 
 " No," said the other ; " I haven't been in my rooms 
 since six. I've been dining in the common-room here, 
 with one of your dons, a sort of cousin of mine." 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't matter," said Rome. " I wrote to ask 
 if you could drive over to Underwoods with me, on the 
 day after to-morrow ? " 
 
 " To see old Simeon ? " said the other, smiling. " I 
 shall be delighted : I haven't seen the old boy since that 
 summer three years ago, and I've been feeling rather
 
 38 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 guilty about it : I have never been able to go when you 
 have asked me before." 
 
 " Good ! " said the other ; " I will call for you at Christ 
 Church, then. It's a pretty drive, but I'm rather tired 
 of doing it alone." 
 
 " I suppose you've been over a good many times," 
 said Lord Henry, turning back, with a shrewd glance at 
 his friend, as he passed through the narrow gateway. 
 " Ah, well, of course it's different for you ! Good-night : 
 I've only just time to get into Peck water before 
 twelve."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THERE was a somnolent old town some three miles from 
 Underwoods, within an easy walk of it across the fields, 
 and it was here that our two undergraduates chose to 
 put up their horse and cart, in preference to throw- 
 ing this extra burden upon the hospitality of their 
 old tutor's not too commodious stable. When Henry 
 Minaret joined his friend outside the vaulted courtyard 
 of the " Bear " he had preferred to smoke a cigarette 
 while the other superintended the comfort of their steed 
 he found that Adrian's monosyllabic mood, as he 
 sometimes jokingly designated it, which had largely 
 prevailed during their uneventful drive, showed signs 
 of disappearing. 
 
 " Let us go easily ! " the latter had said, lighting a 
 fresh cigarette from the stump of his old one. " We can 
 talk as we go along. The later we get there, the shorter 
 the interval before luncheon, the embarrassed interval in 
 that grotesque drawing-room. Dear old Simeon's con- 
 versation is a trifle less tedious when he has had a glass 
 of sherry." 
 
 " As you like," said the other. " I am not anxious to 
 hurry. That mare pulls like a steam-engine. You shall 
 drive her back, my friend ! " 
 
 Adrian nodded his acquiescence. 
 
 " I don't mind," he said. " In the morning, I am not 
 equal to driving, or to anything else. The morning is 
 
 detestable ; as Gerald Brooke says, there is something 
 
 so
 
 40 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 indelicate about it : it's like calling on a woman before 
 she has made a toilet. Driving back in the evening 
 will be enchanting." 
 
 "Let us leave Brooke at Oxford," said Lord Henry, 
 with a yawn. " One has enough of him there people 
 will quote you his mots, I mean. I don't often meet 
 him, but " 
 
 " Ah, you don't do him justice, Harry ! No one has 
 ever been so clever. He is clever enough to enjoy the 
 sensation of letting a great number of people think him 
 a fool. By the way, it was at your house that I met 
 him." 
 
 " That was none of my doing. He was staying with 
 Mrs. Vesper : she brought him over to Towers to dine. 
 You know her, of course? I remember she was par- 
 ticularly anxious to meet you." 
 
 Rome reflected a moment ; then he shook his head. 
 
 " Not that I remember. What is she like ? Identify 
 her for me." 
 
 " No good at all," murmured Minaret, struggling for 
 a moment with the wind as he brought a deftly lit 
 match down to the level of his pipe. " I am no hand at 
 descriptions ; besides, if you had met her, you would 
 have remembered her. Ask Gerald Brooke to describe 
 her for you. They are great friends ; she has a mania 
 for collecting people like that about her." 
 
 " It is from Brooke, then, that she has heard of me ? " 
 asked Adrian indifferently. 
 
 The other nodded. " Very probably that was it." 
 
 A moment later he corrected himself. "No, now I 
 remember, of course ; she was a friend of your people 
 of your father." 
 
 Rome looked up with a flash of interest. 
 
 " She must be an extraordinary woman. My people ! 
 there are none of them. My father knew nobody but
 
 ADRIAN ROME 41 
 
 Lord Hildebrand, and the croupiers at Monte Carlo. 
 He only knew his brother professionally ! " 
 
 "Well, she knew him," said Lord Henry resolutely. 
 "And your uncle, the doctor, Sir Egbert. Wasn't he 
 your uncle? In any case you will be sure to come 
 across her in time ; she is constantly at Towers. By 
 the way, I haven't the least idea of what your plans 
 are, when you go down. I took it for granted that 
 you knew we should be awfully glad if you would 
 come to us." 
 
 " Thanks," said the other ; " my plans are very much 
 in the air. I must find some sort of abiding-place in 
 London, I think, first ; if it is only to house my belong- 
 ings. I have thought of the Temple. Corbyn is after 
 rooms there." 
 
 " Will you live in London ? " 
 
 " I expect it is where I shall have the best chance." 
 
 " The best chance ? " 
 
 " Of making a career." 
 
 " Oh, a career ! " cried the other with his pleasant 
 laugh. "Isn't it a sufficient career to inherit any 
 amount of pounds sterling in a few months' time ? " 
 
 " Not for me," said Rome, with a sudden flush. 
 
 Then he went on rather rapidly, as if he felt a 
 delicacy in touching intimate topics. 
 
 " If you want details, I am thinking of my writing ; 
 that is the career I mean. I suppose you know that I 
 write ? " 
 
 His friend nodded. 
 
 "Of course I do, old chap. I am sure you write 
 awfully well. Only " 
 
 The other stopped him, with a little mocking gesture 
 of one delicate hand. 
 
 " Ah, don't go on, Henry ! I know so well what you 
 are going to say ; only one shouldn't let such a trifling
 
 42 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 interest interfere with the order of one's life. I have 
 heard it all before. Go in for politics seriously the 
 law, diplomacy, even trade. Be a serious fldneur, 
 which is best of all. Take anything you like in the 
 world seriously, except Art. My dear fellow, I will 
 never be the sociable amateur; I will go to perdition 
 first." 
 
 Lord Henry laughed with an air of good-natured 
 bewilderment, knocking the ashes out of his pipe as 
 they reached the familiar gate. 
 
 " Oh, I say, you can tell all that to Simeon ! " he said. 
 "I don't understand it. I don't want you to do any- 
 thing you don't like; only, come to Towers in the 
 autumn." 
 
 Then, as if he had been suddenly struck by some- 
 thing, he added a moment later 
 
 " You will meet Mrs. Vesper there, too, by the way. 
 If you feel like that, she is the very person you want." 
 
 They dropped any further consideration of Adrian's 
 intentions as they were shown into the vicarage drawing- 
 room, where they found their former tutor already 
 awaiting them. 
 
 Adrian was able to gauge Mr. Simeon's nervousness it 
 had not been diminished, doubtless, by the fact that he 
 had expected them somewhat earlier by the eagerness 
 with which he hurried them into the dining-room, where 
 luncheon was immediately served. It reappeared from 
 time to time even during the course of this meal, and 
 was noticeable chiefly in his embarrassment as to the 
 precise attitude which it was right to adopt towards 
 his guests. He settled it, finally, by resuming his old 
 part of the inveterate don, questioning the young men 
 copiously about their lectures, and the result of their 
 schools, permitting himself to show, not for the first 
 time, a little mild surprise (it was hardly an expostula-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 43 
 
 tion) at Rome's unenterprising " pass." He had one pupil 
 still, he went on to explain an agreeable youth, who 
 was now away for his holidays. It was through the 
 Duke's recommendation that he had been sent there; 
 he hoped Lord Henry would remember him to his 
 father, that he enjoyed always the same wonderful 
 health : he was under so many obligations to the Duke. 
 And he turned to Adrian, by a sort of after-thought, 
 to enquire after Lord Hildebrand, but was obviously 
 relieved to discover that his former pupil's relations 
 with the notorious old nobleman were still purely 
 formal and impersonal, conducted through the safe 
 channel of a banking account. He passed on to speak 
 of his work, the monograph and exhaustive commentary 
 on the fragments of Simonides, upon which he had 
 been occupied for the last ten years, and which was 
 still very far from completion. As he dilated upon it 
 at great length, Adrian allowed his attention to wander, 
 finding something which irritated him in the old gentle- 
 man's placid attitude towards time, which permitted 
 him still serenely to contemplate postponement, at an 
 age when most men are looking back upon accomplish- 
 ment or else have grown resigned to the lack of it, 
 of what was, after all, the absorbing labour of his life. 
 He contrasted the old scholar's equanimity, not without 
 a trace of envy, with his own eagerness and impatience, 
 his quick impulses, and still quicker disgusts. He was 
 already sensible that his own disabilities and qualifica- 
 tions were essentially different; his creative eagerness, 
 already quickened within him, and, seeking expression 
 in a laborious, almost painful effort after perfectly 
 right form, was not stronger than his impulse towards 
 the direct and concrete experiences of life. And his 
 dissatisfactions in the way of art (he himself was his 
 own severest critic) would necessarily be akin to his
 
 44 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 irritation against the aesthetically disappointing element 
 in life, in which so many tedious things must always 
 jostle one. No, he could not really envy Simeon ; he 
 chose deliberately the elements which, in a life such as 
 Simeon's, had been rejected or ignored; they seemed 
 essential of the most excellent choice. To be concerned 
 with high passions, to live as fully and intensely as one 
 could, rather than as long and as peacefully as one 
 might, it seemed to him that it was only under such 
 conditions that the born artist could properly work out 
 his salvation. The fulness of one's life, the fineness of 
 one's impressions, the multiplicity of one's sensations; 
 here, it seemed to him, was the rough material out of 
 which grew magnificently the ultimate achievement of 
 one's art. In a world where everything is priced, he 
 was not ignorant that for a satisfaction so fine as this 
 one might have heavily to pay. The price of it would 
 be, largely, the exhaustion, the nerve distress which 
 such a choice entails; it would be suffering, and ulti- 
 mately, perhaps, the lassitude of an old age supposing 
 that old age was in the affair not tempered by the 
 calmly vegetable past, devoid of memories, which sus- 
 tained Simeon. 
 
 The old gentleman had turned to Adrian, for the 
 second time, enquiringly before the latter realised that a 
 move was in contemplation, and that they had been 
 waiting for his assent. He roused himself, with a 
 visible effort, in time to excuse himself from accom- 
 panying the others to a church in the neighbourhood 
 which had been recently restored, and which Minaret in 
 the course of conversation had recklessly expressed a 
 wish to see. 
 
 " The fact is," said Adrian, " I must go and set my 
 house in order. I have hardly been in it since my 
 aunt's death, and I think of trying to let it, when I come
 
 ADRIAN ROME 45 
 
 of age. It has struck me that there may be some of her 
 papers which ought to be looked through." 
 
 Mr. Simeon acknowledged the necessity of this duty, 
 with a decorous sigh, while Rome's friend glanced 
 across at him, arching his eyebrows with an amused, 
 half-sceptical smile. 
 
 " Don't be too long taking the inventory, Adrian ! " 
 he said. " We must leave at a reasonable time." 
 
 Adrian smiled vaguely, remotely, with no appearance 
 of deprecating the irony in his friend's tone. He had 
 proffered his excuse, his decent pretext, as politeness 
 required ; and it was not in his temper to be troubled any 
 further to consider whether people found it acceptable 
 or not. It had been genuinely in his intention, more- 
 over, to pay a visit to his old home ; although the 
 disposal of his aunt's papers had very little part in his 
 motive : he had an appointment there, it had not 
 seemed to him necessary to explain that to Mr. Simeon, 
 but it was one which he had no mind to miss. When 
 the other two left him at the gate, the house lying on 
 their road, he found that it still wanted half an hour to 
 the time at which he had asked Sylvia to meet him. 
 He dangled the bunch of keys, which he had obtained 
 from a cottage on the way, irresolutely in his hand for 
 a moment, before he surmounted his curious reluctance 
 to enter. A musty smell saluted him as he passed into 
 the hall ; the dining-room was quite dark, and reeked of 
 damp and mildew : its sombreness was so essential of 
 the room that it did not seem sensibly lighter, when he 
 flung back the heavy shutters, and let the rich sunshine 
 stream in through the long French window, which 
 opened on to a garden even more neglected than the 
 domain which bordered the front of the house. For 
 some minutes he stood there, looking at it all, at the 
 heavy, solid furniture, at the dark old pictures, family
 
 46 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 portraits and the like, which disputed with cobwebs the 
 honourable places on the stained walls. It was at once 
 full of a sort of disused familiarity, and oddly remote. 
 After a time it gave him a feeling of oppression : it was 
 as though the acrimony of his aunt had resisted dis- 
 integration, and remained permeating the air; there 
 was an intangible odour of decay there which the 
 sunshine could never touch. He stepped out into the 
 garden, and wandered down, over the uneven grass, 
 towards the time-worn sun-dial, in the shadow of which 
 he threw himself down. And after a while he became 
 conscious, as he had never been before, of how utterly 
 his old life had passed away : it was too unreal and 
 ghostly even to be remembered with dislike. Nothing 
 remained of it but Sylvia, Sylvia Drew, the little girl 
 with whom he had grown up. She would presently be 
 with him. From his place where he lay on the daisies, 
 he would see her coming across the field : the thought 
 lent serenity to his meditations as he waited for her, 
 conscious, not unpleasantly, of how deep a disappoint- 
 ment it would be to him if she should fail. Yes ! the 
 very blankness of his older past, his solitariness in 
 the present, made it more delightful that the constant 
 friendship of this child remained. He was not always 
 thinking of her. Since he had been at Oxford, when a 
 world of new sensations and ideas had opened out to 
 him, when his aspirations and his ambitions had taken 
 definite shape, she had been often forgotten ; and then, 
 suddenly, into the stress of his mental life (his intelli- 
 gence just then was living an almost passionate life of its 
 own) her image had intruded, and it seemed to him that 
 she had never been less forgotten than when he had 
 appeared to remember her least. And yet, the visible 
 signs of their relation were very few and rare : fitfully 
 they had corresponded ; half a dozen times, in the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 47 
 
 passage of three years, he had ridden over to see her ; 
 and there was nothing in their letters, or in their 
 meetings, which the world might not have seen. On 
 almost the first of these visits, indeed, he became con- 
 scious that she had changed : she had greeted him, for 
 the first time in their history, with shyness ; so that, for 
 a while, their talk, which had once been so spontaneous 
 and direct, was complicated by a certain new reserve. 
 And if there was some sorrow in this tacit recognition, 
 which they made, of the passing of her childhood; if 
 Adrian could not contemplate the loss of his frank 
 comrade, to whom alone he had once confided his most 
 intimate thoughts, without a pang, he was none the less 
 sensible of certain sweet thrills, which were like omens 
 of compensation in the future. From henceforth her 
 memory came to him touched with exquisite possibilities, 
 delightful in their vagueness, far too delightful to be 
 defined. It was a memory which he liked to call up at 
 incongruous seasons : it wrapped him away from the 
 immediate occasion in a silence, which his company had 
 come to accept as one of the eccentricities of a man 
 whose extreme promise entitled his eccentricities to 
 respect. And yet, in spite of the rare pleasure which he 
 found in her company, he had not hitherto explicitly 
 owned to himself that he was in love. 
 
 At the first glimpse of her light dress through the 
 trees, he had risen to his feet; then he walked down 
 rapidly to meet her. They shook hands in silence : he 
 was hardly conscious of how long the greeting lasted, 
 as he stood looking at her, finding in her face some- 
 thing more than the old charm ; conveyed there by 
 a touch of pallor, of tiredness, perhaps, " an hour's 
 defect of the rose," which refined upon it, which 
 seemed scarcely accountable, in that fine air, until she 
 had explained, how her mother had been for a long
 
 48 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 time ailing, and she had been kept constantly by 
 her side. 
 
 He directed their way towards a stone bench, and 
 implicitly she followed him. 
 
 " It's very good of you to come, Sylvia ! I felt sure 
 that you would, though : especially, as it may be my last 
 visit for some time to come. I told you that I am 
 leaving Oxford for good ? Won't you sit down ? " 
 
 She took the place at his side, and for a little while 
 there was silence. At last she said nervously 
 
 " It is because it is very likely the last time that I am 
 here. I don't know whether it's quite right to meet you 
 in this way ! It's too much like a secret meeting. I 
 don't like that." 
 
 He took up one of her hands, which lay passively on 
 her lap, and gently caressed it. 
 
 "Not secret," he said, "simply private. We are not 
 hiding from anybody ; we have nothing to hide : we 
 merely don't wish to be interrupted. That is why I 
 asked you to come here, instead of fetching you myself. 
 Good heavens ! aren't we old enough friends by this time 
 to enjoy each other's company, without embarrassing 
 ourselves with interlopers ? Is it the first time we have 
 been alone together ? " 
 
 "It is different now," she persisted; "things are 
 changed." 
 
 " Is our friendship changed ? I thought that was to 
 be a longer affair." 
 
 " No," said the girl simply, " that can't change, for my 
 part. Only, our friendship ought to be old enough to 
 be just as deep and true if we make up our minds that 
 we can never see very much of one another." 
 
 " Why should we make up our minds to such an 
 absurd thing? My dear girl, where have you found 
 these ideas? They are quite new, and very bad at
 
 ADRIAN ROME 49 
 
 that. Do be reasonable, Sylvia ! There are so many 
 things I want to say, and such a little time to say them 
 in. Minaret will be coming to fetch me, before I have 
 begun." 
 
 She heard him passively, while he briefly unfolded his 
 plans to her, his intention of throwing himself into the 
 literary life, his residence in London, his projects of 
 travel : and, in the midst of it all, he arranged that their 
 meetings should be continued, whenever she would allow 
 him to come down and see her at Underwoods, if it 
 was only for an hour. He made a great point of these 
 excursions, and, indeed, it was not only when, as now, he 
 was actually under the charm of her personal presence, 
 that life without her seemed impossible and cruel. But 
 there was none the less a note of unreality in his words, 
 of which he could not but be dimly conscious, and of 
 which the consciousness irritated him, against society, 
 against circumstance, against himself. Lightly as he 
 glossed over them, there were difficulties in the way of 
 this relation, differences which grew larger as one looked 
 at them close. When he had finished, she came back to 
 them with the same mild persistence. And he credited 
 her for her good sense in that she recognised them, even 
 while he resented her tranquillity, which held them for 
 insurmountable, and acquiesced. 
 
 " Things are changed," she repeated. " Even if we are 
 not, we must look at them. I have been thinking " 
 
 He gave a little, half -mocking, half -tender laugh, which 
 she answered by withdrawing tjie hand which he had 
 retained. She locked her two hands together impuls- 
 ively, and continued with an air of new seriousness 
 which made her argument almost a prayer. 
 
 " Listen to me, Adrian ! for both our sakes. Don't 
 treat me as a child I'm I am not the little girl I was ; 
 I am a woman ; I am thinking of your position, your 
 
 4
 
 50 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 place in the world. I can see things now, the difference 
 between us. We are altogether different: even your 
 way of talking is different to mine, and mother's. People 
 would think it odd, to say the least, if they knew what 
 friends we are. However you may like me, you would 
 feel that, and be ashamed. Your friends would make 
 you feel it. You are one of the gentry ; and it's with 
 them, with lords and ladies that you must mix. I'm 
 just a little country girl that you played with when we 
 were children. Now, we are grown up, and we must go 
 our different ways, with our own folk. It is better so ! 
 We can feel very kindly to each other still, but it must 
 be apart." 
 
 His eyes had never left her face while she made this 
 hasty little speech, the sense of which was apparent to 
 him, although he hardly heard her words. His rapt 
 attention was for her air, her grace, her beauty, which 
 had never seemed to him more touching and pure. 
 What impressed him in her little argument was not its 
 substance, which seemed to him so inadequate, but a 
 discovery which he made while she spoke, that her love 
 for him was a vital thing with her, as unselfish as it was 
 complete. Underneath her air of tranquillity, of resigna- 
 tion, with which she wished to reassure him, she was all 
 the time intimately excited, was passionately pleading 
 against herself. And all that gave him a singular 
 insight into the issues which were at stake. All his life 
 hung on a hair. The sentimental sops which his worldly 
 prudence had induced him to throw himself, in vague 
 promises, and still more indefinite procrastinations, had 
 suddenly ceased to be satisfying; they were as dry as 
 stale bread. She was a woman, as she had said ; not a 
 little girl, with whom one amicably philandered, but a 
 woman, primitive of Eve, with a charm to him unsur- 
 passed and unapproachable, for whom he had an absorb-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 51 
 
 ing passion ; and it was heart for heart with them, and 
 the worship of his whole body, henceforward, or nothing 
 at all. He was conscious of those differences of which 
 she spoke : she had never seemed more rustical, more 
 separate from his own order and degree, than when she 
 had enunciated them. Yes ! there were even intonations 
 in her voice, a selection in her words, which a " lady " 
 (how furiously he despised himself for making the cheap 
 comparison !) would not have used. But there was one 
 thing of which he had a consciousness still more vivid 
 that she was a grand creature, far too precious to lose, 
 that it was impossible to let her go. 
 
 It was amazing how far he had moved in a very few 
 seconds, how much he had lived. The girl saw it in his 
 face, which was visibly paler, as he leaned over towards 
 her ; and she shrank back, half afraid. 
 
 " Never, never ! You must marry me, my darling ! 
 That is what I meant to say." 
 
 She shook her head imperatively, resisting his en- 
 deavour to draw her to him, but with a weakness which 
 told him how much she distrusted her strength, until 
 
 O ' 
 
 even her will melted to his triumph, and their lips 
 leaped together. An instant later to both of them it 
 seemed far more than this she had disengaged herself, 
 and stood, rosy now to her finger tips, shivering with 
 the incipient terror of a young girl who has looked, for 
 the first time, upon the face of love. 
 
 " Ah, why did you do that ? No, no, it was my fault, 
 I kissed you." Her voice drooped to the shadow of a 
 whisper, and as she faced him there, with her girlish 
 head bowed, in virginal confusion, like a rose that the 
 wind had touched too roughly, she seemed so adorable 
 that he could only move towards her, with protests and 
 asseverations, for a repetition of the offence. 
 
 But suddenly, by a common impulse, they drew apart,
 
 52 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 A fresh baritone voice floated down the air to them, 
 with the tag of an American student song that Adrian 
 recognised 
 
 "There is a tavern, in a town, in a town, 
 And there my true love sits him down, sits him down, 
 And never thinks of me, 
 And ney er thinks of m e." 
 
 Destiny, in the shape of Lord Henry Minaret, with a 
 cigar in his mouth, and a reminder that twenty miles 
 still separated them from home, had intervened. He 
 bowed to Sylvia as he approached, and after giving 
 Rome his message, turned at once on his heel, as though 
 he had a delicacy in assisting at their adieux : in spite 
 of this piece of tact, however, Adrian saw, and his face 
 darkened ominously, that his friend had no intention of 
 leaving them alone. 
 
 He could only hold the girl's hand for a moment, 
 before he dropped it with a sigh ; but it seemed to him 
 that, into his silent pressure of it, he had cast the 
 eloquence of many words. So that it was in answer 
 to this greeting, rather than to his formal good-bye, that 
 he took her whispered disclaimer. 
 
 "No, no! Do you want to kill me with shame? 
 Forget that, Adrian ! I would die sooner than hinder 
 you, and I should I should It was our good-bye ; 
 that's all. Our real good-bye." 
 
 He did not answer, or restrain her; it was not till 
 long afterwards that he could remind himself that in 
 those words she had effectually given him his freedom. 
 There were tears in her voice ; and he could not trust 
 himself to speak. He allowed her hastily to pass them ; 
 then he caught up his friend. Minaret glanced up at 
 him, curiously and held his peace. It was only an 
 hour or so later, when they were well on their home-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 53 
 
 ward road, that he ventured upon a comment. He had 
 a horror of meddling, and was aware that there were 
 many men upon whom the process might be more 
 comfortably used than upon his difficult friend. But 
 he too had received an illumination that afternoon ; the 
 thing was on his mind, and, after all, he liked Adrian 
 well enough to risk his anger. 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " he said at last, leaning towards 
 him, lightly touching his arm "Don't think me im- 
 pertinent if I give you a bit of a warning, upon my 
 word, I speak from experience, do, do take care ! " 
 
 Adrian glanced at him with a look of intentional 
 mystification. 
 
 " Do you mean, of the mare ? " 
 
 " I know you are driving vilely ; but I don't care for 
 the mare. Oh, smash her up and the beastly trap too, 
 if it relieves you. You can afford to pay for 'em. But 
 for God's sake, don't play old Harry with your life, and 
 another ! I I have nothing to gain by saying this. 
 Throw up that little game at Underwoods : retreat with 
 honour ! " 
 
 He could see, in the vague flicker of the carriage 
 lamps, the dark flush of anger which crossed his friend's 
 face. 
 
 "It's not what you think. Sylvia she's the best 
 girl in the world ! Please don't forget that ! " 
 
 " I don't say a word against her Heaven forbid ! 
 You misunderstand me. I am sure she is an excellent 
 girl. Only well, you must see, she is not your equal. 
 It isn't even a kindness to marry her; it's damnation 
 for both of you. Oh ! " he went on after a moment, 
 relieved at his friend's silence, believing in his good- 
 natured density that he had made a point, " I know what 
 I am talking of. Let me tell you the modern version 
 of King Cophetua. You know Lord Altyshaw "
 
 54 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 But Rome interrupted him, bringing the lash of his 
 whip down fiercely and repeatedly on the mare's flanks, 
 until she leaped forward and the harness creaked. For a 
 moment, as they scudded along over the uneven road, 
 with its borders of yellowing bracken, covering a ditch on 
 each side, the well-meaning adviser had enough to do to 
 retain his seat. When the pace slackened, Adrian said 
 sharply Lord Henry could not be certain that he was 
 not addressing the mare " Be quiet, you fool ! " A 
 moment later he went on more calmly, as if he were 
 ashamed of his irritation, but with an increasing lassi- 
 tude. 
 
 " I know you mean well, Harry ! But it's quite idle. 
 You must leave me to settle this matter with my con- 
 science, or consciences, I have several which you know 
 nothing about, and wouldn't understand. Don't suppose 
 that half of myself is not dinning your suggestions into 
 me with twenty times more force than you can do. 
 They may be right, or they may be wrong, and in either 
 case I may act upon them. And I daresay that will be 
 the worst day's work I shall have done in my life." 
 
 " At least," asked Lord Henry, after a pause in which 
 he seemed to be considering these statements without 
 having struck any very lucid gleam from them, "at 
 least, you can tell me that you are not bound ? " 
 
 The other shook his head. 
 
 " Upon your honour ? " 
 
 Adrian reflected for some minutes silently. 
 
 " Upon my honour, I don't think I am bound."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LORD HILDEBRAND read Adrian's poems when they 
 appeared : he found them lying at his elbow one even- 
 ing, when he was taking coffee at his club : and there 
 was something so attractive about the little volume, 
 with its binding of apple-green linen, stamped with a 
 design of daisies in pale gold, that he took it up almost 
 involuntarily ; and when he perceived the author's name 
 upon the elaborate title-page, a kind of curiosity, 
 stronger than his dislike for reading by artificial light, 
 induced the old gentleman to draw his chair nearer to 
 an electric lamp, and to glance at the first few pages, 
 even to make hasty incursions among the last. After- 
 wards, when he had played his modest game of whist, 
 and two or three more of picquet, and was strolling 
 leisurely homewards through the cool lamplit solitude 
 of St. James's Square, he was surprised to find himself 
 unable to deny that, although his guardianship was 
 happily at an end, he still took more than a passing 
 interest in the boy (so he thought of him) ; that he felt 
 himself somewhat weakly unable to turn his eyes away, 
 to wash his hands of his career. That maundering old 
 parson, the Rector or Vicar, was he ? of Underwoods, 
 had been right, then, the boy was clever: it was not 
 everyone who could write verses with something more 
 vital in them than vague aspirations on the subject 
 of an unattainable mistress, or rhymed descriptions of 
 Arcadian scenery. A poet ! It was a long time since he 
 
 55
 
 56 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 had known such a being. And a poet with a grouse- 
 moor, and a yacht, and a row of tin boxes at his bankers : 
 such a person, with youth added to his other advantages, 
 was assuredly not a bird to be found in every thicket. 
 
 Lord Hildebrand's first meeting with Adrian, more 
 than three years ago, at Underwoods, had left him a 
 vague, and speedily obliterated impression, of a some- 
 what ugly, uncommunicative boy, with a pair of curious 
 eyes, and a habit of abstraction, which almost amounted 
 to evasion. Their last interview it had taken place 
 only a few weeks ago, at Messrs. Featherstone's offices 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields had to some extent revived the 
 earlier impression, especially so far as the eyes and the 
 abstraction were concerned. His Lordship, leaning 
 forward in an easy-chair, at the side of Mr. Gregory 
 Featherstone's table, Mr. Featherstone was his co- 
 trustee of Rupert Rome's will, had found in his eman- 
 cipated ward the only interesting object available for 
 contemplation ; for want of something better to do, he 
 had devoted some twenty minutes to a discreet, side-long 
 scrutiny of the boy, and he had ended by admitting to 
 himself that the' personality which he had been study- 
 ing, while the sedate, voluble lawyer prosed with unction 
 about rentals, and mortgages, and transfers of stocks 
 and shares, was an extremely puzzling one, and defied 
 his perspicuity. 
 
 " If you want to ask any questions," Lord Hildebrand 
 had said, at the beginning of the interview, with a 
 humorous glance at the boy, " If anything isn't quite 
 clear to you, don't let scruples deter you from asking : 
 I shan't be able to answer you, but Mr. Featherstone 
 will : it's all far from clear to me ; I never could under- 
 stand accounts, and if I read everything I signed, as I 
 believe well-regulated people do, I should never have 
 time for anything else. I always sign anything which
 
 ADRIAN ROME 57 
 
 Mr. Featherstone asks me to sign, except cheques off 
 my own account, it comes to the same thing in the end, 
 and saves trouble." 
 
 Rome smiled, admitting candidly that the neat docu- 
 ments and columns of figures which lay before him on 
 the table, appeared to him entirely unintelligible; he 
 was perfectly satisfied ; he suggested that Mr. Feather- 
 stone should let him have a simple statement, showing 
 roughly the amount of his income from all sources, and 
 the deductions to be made for such outgoings as were 
 beyond his immediate control. 
 
 " Unintelligible ! " Lord Hildebrand had said, firing a 
 parting shot from the doorway. " That's what the legal 
 profession exists for, to make things unintelligible, and 
 to pretend to explain them ! " 
 
 Mr. Featherstone laughed indulgently as the door 
 closed upon the old gentleman and his snuff-box : it was 
 nearly half a century since his father, the founder of 
 the firm, had rescued Lord Hildebrand and his newly- 
 acquired estates from an importunate horde of money- 
 lenders, and the forty years had been a profitable period 
 for Messrs. Featherstone : a client who lived slightly 
 beyond a liberal income was likely, while he lasted, 
 to be a good friend to his solicitors, and, in addition to 
 answering this description, Lord Hildebrand had been 
 the means of introducing to the firm an even more 
 remunerative client in the shape of Adrian's father, 
 Rupert Rome. 
 
 Lord Hildebrand's hilarity had modified itself into 
 the semblance of grave complacency which he generally 
 carried for the outer world before he reached the time- 
 worn pavement of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and as he stepped 
 delicately into his attendant brougham, he began to con- 
 gratulate himself. 
 
 "I'm well out of that," he said. "Thank goodness,
 
 58 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 his father didn't make the years of the boy's majority 
 twenty-five! With eyes like that his father's eyes, 
 how well I remember them ! that youngster might 
 have played the very devil, and let me his anxious 
 guardian in for all sorts of bother. If he wants to 
 now, he may it might be amusing." 
 
 And now, as it appeared from very tangible proofs 
 which lay upon club tables, and adorned the windows 
 of purveyors of belles-lettres, Adrian Rome was a poet ! 
 Not a sentimental amateur who wrote sweet things in 
 fashionable ladies' albums, but a professed verse-maker, 
 a poet who was published. Lord Hildebrand was puzzled 
 again; in spite of notable exceptions, instances to the 
 contrary, he could not quite rid himself of the notion 
 that, to be a professed artist in this department, one ought 
 to live penuriously in a garret, and to be, socially, an 
 impossible person. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that his Lordship 
 allowed himself to take more than a desultory interest 
 in Adrian Rome and his incipient career. Lord Hilde- 
 brand was really concerned about nobody except him- 
 self ; his speculations as to the future of his old comrade's 
 son, as foreshadowed by this last, and for him somewhat 
 startling development (startling, though, after all, it was 
 what one might have expected of the only son of the 
 union of one of the most talented actresses with one 
 of the most gentlemanly roues of the century), his 
 speculations on this subject were of the idlest, and 
 most impartial nature. He wondered about Adrian, as 
 a man, observing a cloud in a summer sky, might cast 
 in his mind the probabilities of rain. Arrived at his 
 lodging in Half-Moon Street, on this October evening, 
 Lord Hildebrand forgot his former ward in a somnolent 
 perusal of the latest betting on the Cambridgeshire ; 
 after which he made trial upon paper of a new martin-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 59 
 
 gale, with which he hoped, in the coming winter, to 
 avenge himself upon the bank at Monte Carlo ; and 
 when, finally, the ancient peer retired to bed, armed 
 with a well-worn volume of Voltaire, his placid dreams 
 were not disturbed by any recurrence of the youthful 
 poet's image. 
 
 A few days later, Rome, on his return from a short 
 cruise in his newly-acquired yacht, found among the 
 letters which had accumulated during his absence (they 
 were chiefly polite offers from money-lenders in Cork 
 Street) a note from Lord Hildebrand, an invitation to 
 dinner at an early date. The recipient of this unex- 
 pected honour whistled softly, throwing the note across 
 the table to his companion, Corbyn. 
 
 " That comes of not having your letters forwarded," 
 said Corbyn, when he had grasped the situation. "If 
 you had known of this, we might have stuck to the 
 Anonyma for another week ; we might have run over 
 to Brittany, and dodged the venerable nobleman." 
 
 Rome looked at him for a moment, smiling absently. 
 
 " Yes," he admitted ; " but how about term ? Haven't 
 you been rousing my envy by telling me that it begins 
 to-morrow, that you have got to go up ? " 
 
 Corbyn shrugged his shoulders loftily. 
 
 " Oh, that's a detail of the slightest. I should have 
 suggested to the Dean that we were detained in the 
 Channel by contrary winds, or the king's enemies ; that 
 we had run aground on the Goodwin Sands, or been 
 arrested for smuggling. Shall you go ? He can't make 
 you he isn't your guardian now ? " 
 
 Adrian smiled again. " He's very interesting as a 
 study, a document." 
 
 " Oh, well, I've never seen him, you know ; my im- 
 pressions of him are entirely derived from you. You 
 didn't always love him ! He probably wants to rook
 
 60 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 you at e'carte', or to sell you a horse. By Jove ! " added 
 the ingenuous youth, sinking luxuriously into a capacious 
 easy-chair. " What splendid rooms these are for being 
 lazy in ! One can see that Brooke had something to do 
 with choosing them. I don't think I shall live in the 
 Temple, after all ; I couldn't read here, not even for the 
 Bar ; my only chance will be to get diggings in Bays- 
 water, or Earl's Court, or some ghastly place of that 
 sort." 
 
 Rome's expression was one of absent-minded tolerance, 
 as he stood facing his indolent guest, in a favourite atti- 
 tude, with his back to the fire, one foot on the brass 
 fender, and his shoulders against the mantelshelf. 
 
 "Think of the people Lord Hildebrand must have 
 known," he said softly. " Why, he owns to being sixty. 
 I expect he's a perfect store-house of scandal about 
 bygone heroes." 
 
 " And heroines," suggested Corbyn. " By all accounts, 
 especially heroines. Yes, I daresay he's amusing if you 
 can make him talk. But I shouldn't like to try. It 
 would be like cross-examining a crocodile. What shall 
 we do? Remember, I go up to-morrow barring 
 accidents. Let's dine somewhere, and go to see the 
 Modern Actor, at the El-Dorado, for choice. There's a 
 new ballet ; I must have something to talk about to 
 my tutor, and he likes ballets." 
 
 The motion was carried without much discussion, and 
 the two friends presently adjourned to exchange their 
 yachting apparel for attire more suited to the require- 
 ments of the expedition which they had in view. 
 
 Now that he had published his poems, purchased and 
 refitted his yacht, shaken off his guardian, and found a 
 home for his bibelots, Rome was beginning to find time 
 hang a little heavily on his hands. He could not quite 
 make up his mind as to what the next move should be ;
 
 ADRIAN ROME 61 
 
 he had, in fact, a nervous horror of making up his mind ; 
 he expected the future to arrange itself for him without 
 the necessity for cogitation on his part. It seemed to 
 him that if he was to be called upon to do more than 
 acquiesce, than glide with the current of events, his 
 freedom was only slavery in disguise. It was the 
 tyranny of little things which he found oppressive. To 
 be able to choose one's path in life, broadly, without the 
 fear of encountering inconvenient barriers, that was 
 certainly a glorious privilege ; but how irksome it was 
 to have to select a train for to-morrow's journey; to 
 order one's dinner ; to discuss trousers with one's tailor, 
 rents with one's solicitor, politics with one's barber! 
 Rome's attitude towards this side of life may perhaps 
 be partially illuminated by saying that it seemed to 
 him quite natural, and entirely commodious, that he 
 should allow Corbyn to dispose of his evenings for him 
 when they were together, just as he permitted Brooke 
 to dictate to him on the colour of his hangings, the 
 design of his wall-papers. It saved so much trouble. 
 
 Peter Corbyn was the first to reappear in the room 
 in which they had been sitting. It was already grow- 
 ing dark, and the window out of which he bent his 
 contemplative gaze was shaded by the almost intrusive 
 branches of one of the tall plane-trees which stood in the 
 court below. The rooms, with their low ceilings, dark, 
 panelled walls, and florid, wooden chimney-pieces, were 
 on the second floor of one of the oldest buildings in New 
 Court, Middle Temple. Adrian had become enamoured 
 of the view which they commanded, the little, irregular 
 terraces below, the solemn plane-trees, the whispering 
 fountain, with its enclosure of unhappy laurels, the 
 brown sixteenth -century dining -hall, and the grey, 
 modern library, both so much like chapels; and, in 
 pleasant contrast to all the sombre, soot-stained stone
 
 62 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 and brick, the green, brilliant garden, running down 
 to the Embankment and the flashing river. There 
 were seats under the largest plane-tree, that which 
 shaded the windows, and the porter's children were 
 playing about them, enjoying the immunity of a Long 
 Vacation. 
 
 A door opened, and Rome entered the room, to signify, 
 presently, that he was ready. The two sallied forth, and 
 as they passed through the courtyard on their way into 
 the Strand, Corbyn had an opportunity for observing 
 that the porter's children were less charming than they 
 had appeared from his post above. 
 
 Corbyn had a passion for things theatrical, which 
 Rome only imperfectly shared. Corbyn read the Era 
 with unfailing regularity ; he was desperately in love 
 with at least half a dozen charming actresses; and he 
 even confessed to having waited, more than once, outside 
 a gloomy portal, under a lamp labelled " Stage Door," to 
 observe the passage of his divinities. He took a delight 
 in studying members of the dramatic profession " off the 
 stage," in being able to point them out in the streets, at 
 public places. It was at his suggestion that the two 
 friends, who had lunched at midday on board the 
 yacht in Southampton Water, made choice of a populous 
 restaurant in the Strand as the scene of their early 
 dinner; the place and the hour alike being favourable 
 for the gratification of his particular form of hero- 
 worship. When they had appropriated one of the little 
 tables which were grouped at the most favoured end 
 of the vast, brilliant hall, in the long proportions and 
 elaborate decoration of which they found a striking 
 resemblance to the saloon of a gigantic ocean steamer, 
 Corbyn was gratified to observe that they were posi- 
 tively surrounded by the boyish, smooth-faced men, 
 and haggard, strangely attired women, pale and bright-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 63 
 
 eyed, in whom he took so great an interest; all on 
 pleasantly intimate terms with each other, and, as 
 it seemed, on a hardly less friendly footing with the 
 waiters. Rome lent a tolerant ear while his boon-com- 
 panion, with something of the air of an enthusiastic 
 collector before a case of butterflies, passed their neigh- 
 bours discreetly in review, pointing out at this table the 
 nightly exponent of injured virtue drinking Chianti 
 with the villain of her own melodrama ; at that, a 
 lady who made the income of a Q.C. in good practice 
 out of the humour of her winks and the artistic frenzy 
 of her capers. 
 
 " I wish I could go on the stage ! " sighed Corbyn 
 presently, when they had reached the contemplative 
 period of coffee and cigarettes. " I'd rather be a great 
 actor than Solicitor-General or Lord Chancellor. Oh, 
 it's easy enough to say, Why don't you ? You don't 
 know my people. In Wales they don't understand 
 these things : they don't know how respectable the 
 stage is, nowadays ; its intimacy with the Church is 
 not revealed to them ; they would smile incredulously 
 if you compared it favourably with the Bar. I've got 
 an aunt a very useful, dutiful sort of aunt who 
 would go into hysterics, and send for her solicitor, 
 incontinently, if she knew that I was dining, from 
 choice, in close proximity to a horde of miserable 
 mummers : she wouldn't be more scandalised if she 
 heard that I had been hobnobbing with the devil ! " 
 
 Rome shrugged his shoulders. "I've thought of it, 
 sometimes. But I don't think it would do : in these 
 days of long runs it must be a frightful bore. No, I 
 should prefer to write the plays, and see other people 
 act them." 
 
 "Good!" said Corbyn; "you write a play and I'll make 
 my d&ut in it, as third villain, or a comic policeman :
 
 64 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 so shall we achieve renown together. I'm glad to hear 
 you talk about writing plays ; it's all because I dragged 
 you into this inspiring atmosphere. I was afraid you 
 rather despised the theatre : for me, it's really the only 
 thing which makes life worth living 'the blessed 
 fictive world,' as Henry James makes somebody call 
 it: I should like to have a permanent stall at every 
 theatre in London, including the what d'you call 'ems, 
 the transpontines ! " 
 
 " Then you'd better be a critic," suggested Rome ; "you 
 won't see any plays if you go on the stage ! " 
 
 " Ah, I should never win laurels as a critic : I should 
 be too complimentary : I should praise everything, and 
 everybody, indiscriminately, like a country cousin at 
 the Academy. It's the atmosphere, the association ! I 
 revel in the very aspect of the drop-scene, the sound 
 of the first notes of the overture; and when the 
 performance is over, I only half console myself by 
 reflecting that I can come again ! " 
 
 Adrian laughed gently, lighting a cigar and signalling 
 to the waiter. 
 
 "Ah, well, then you must only criticise my plays: 
 your panegyrics will have the distinction of being 
 uncorroborated. No, let me square up for this. You 
 shall pay for the supper. We will walk, it's not far, and 
 the streets are so charming in the lamplight. It's only 
 in the daytime that London is hard, prosaic, business- 
 like : the nights give me an impression of a comfortable 
 fairyland: there is something so restful and caressing 
 about the jewelled, dusky vista of long streets. I am 
 thinking, quite seriously, of making day my night, and 
 breakfasting when the sun seta" 
 
 Corbyn sighed appreciatively, " Lucky devil, to be 
 able to think of such things ! How pleasant it would 
 be to sleep away the vulgar, bustling daylight in the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 65 
 
 Temple, waking now and then for an instant to pity, 
 drowsily, the poor beggars toiling over briefs and 
 consultations conferences, don't they call them? all 
 around you ! " 
 
 " They serve strange gods," said Rome, throwing back 
 his head. "They can't help themselves, I suppose: I 
 pity them ; but I don't like to think of them." 
 
 "Dash it all," Corbyn protested, "we can't all be 
 artists, poets, you know. You may pity me a little if 
 you like, but I draw the line there." 
 
 The other laughed, taking his friend's arm, as they 
 paused before crossing the wide road, full of a chaos of 
 flying wheels, near Piccadilly Circus. 
 
 " Oh, you," he said vaguely, " you're not one of them 
 yet : I'm going to make you go on the stage, or colla- 
 borate with me in a five-act tragedy. Say the word, 
 and I'll take a theatre for you to-morrow ! " 
 
 They passed quickly out of the narrow street, where 
 a long line of heterogeneous vehicles waited near the 
 stage door of the El-Dorado, into the resplendent 
 corridor of the music hall, dazzled for a moment by 
 the almost brutal brilliance of light and colour which 
 pervaded everything, from the moulded ceiling to the 
 thickly carpeted floor. They paid for two stalls, and 
 presently found themselves in an atmosphere full of the 
 smoke of cigars, the clamour of rollicking music, the 
 hum of subdued conversation and louder laughter, and 
 the roll of intermittent applause. 
 
 "By Jove," said Corbyn, glancing at a programme, 
 " we're in luck ; we've just missed those two people who 
 knock each other about with thick sticks, by way of 
 giving point to their inane attempts at humour." 
 
 " I know them ! " said the other expressively. "Thank 
 goodness ! The ballet comes next, doesn't it ? I like a 
 ballet, one needn't pay any attention to it ! " 
 5
 
 66 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 When the curtain had fallen upon the last tableau of 
 the ballet, and they had seen a disquieting gentleman 
 tie himself into elaborate knots and sit upon his head, 
 the two friends decided that, for the time being, their 
 histrionic taste was satisfied. They adjourned, presently, 
 to a neighbouring restaurant, where they found quite a 
 small party of men of their acquaintance celebrating the 
 close of the Long Vacation in midnight revelry ; and it 
 was not before the small hours of the morning had 
 become numerically of some dignity that they sought 
 their monastic bedrooms in New Court.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE French man-servant who admitted Adrian into the 
 house in Half-Moon Street, where Lord Hildebrand 
 occupied a small but unimpeachable flat, assured him 
 that his Lordship would not be five minutes ; and that 
 period had barely elapsed when the Earl appeared, 
 looking very old and delicate in his careful evening 
 dress. Adrian had looked forward to this intimate 
 dinner with the ambiguous old man with some curiosity; 
 without knowing why, he believed it would be something 
 of an occasion, that he would see his former guardian in 
 a new light. To see him at all, he reflected, was an 
 occasion of sufficient interest; for, whatever view one 
 might take of him, the Earl had abundantly the faculty 
 of appealing to one's curiosity. And his curiosity just 
 then was Adrian's guiding principle : it was always 
 eager and awake; an appetite which could not be 
 sufficiently sated; and Lord Hildebrand was certainly 
 the finest morsel which had yet been set before it. 
 Adrian wondered, as he sat opposite him, at the brilliant 
 little table (the dinner was at once exquisite and simple, 
 like the manners of the host), if the old man knew how 
 interesting he was, he had so much the air of taking 
 himself for granted, with the rest. Certainly, he was 
 curiously unique; if it had not seemed a trifle absurd 
 to attribute any share in his elaborate composition to 
 nature, one had been tempted to say that nature, having 
 produced him, had thrown away the mould. At least 
 
 67
 
 68 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 if there had been others of his type, he was the last 
 who was left, the rest had gone their way, sacrificed to 
 a more ethical though less picturesque civilisation, with 
 gallantry, and the duello, highwaymen, and the peruke. 
 He was so composed, and fragile, and rare : he had so 
 eminently that well-bred assurance of a man who has 
 been at home in the world from the first, that Adrian, 
 knowing a little of his history, could hardly believe 
 that he had always been against it, and was now 
 literally under its ban. In the face of all that, his 
 composure, the smooth impenetrable surface, like a 
 cuirass of bright steel, that he presented to one, seemed 
 the more admirable. Adrian wondered what was his 
 secret, his principle of existence in a generation which 
 had ceased to tolerate his traditions (whatever these 
 might be, they were hardly those of to-day), and 
 decided at last that it was only his irony which kept 
 him alive. This was so pervasive, less perhaps in his 
 speech, which was highly urbane, than in the impar- 
 tiality of his mirthless smile, that the young man 
 wondered if his interest, even when he seemed to be 
 most interested, was ever sincere; whether it did not 
 exist simply for the gratification of mental comparisons, 
 for which his direct contact with the historic past 
 offered him such scope. It might not be true, but at 
 least it was well affected, he decided at last, as he 
 found himself, before they had reached dessert, talking 
 almost intimately with his host, who complimented 
 him deftly on his muse, made discreet inquiries as to 
 his plans, and listened to his answers with the respect- 
 ful attention of a parliamentary candidate on his trial. 
 Lord Hildebrand's faculty of conversation was notori- 
 ously great; but to-night he seemed for once to have 
 suppressed it, to be actuated solely by a desire to make 
 his companion talk. It was not until the Duke of
 
 ADRIAN ROME 69 
 
 Turretshire was mentioned, and Adrian's projected visit 
 to his son, that he allowed himself any latitude of 
 comment. 
 
 " It is a very good house, though rather too political. 
 The Duke is my brother-in-law, by the way, although 
 I hardly know him. He is reported to take very 
 serious views of life. A most worthy person." 
 
 His tone was impassive, but there was still an accent 
 in it which compelled Adrian to stand a little on his 
 defence. 
 
 " It is Henry Minaret whom I go to see. You re- 
 member, we were at Underwoods together. Besides, I 
 have nowhere else in particular to go. I shall have a 
 fortnight's cruise beforehand." 
 
 " You have a yacht ? " 
 
 Adrian nodded. 
 
 " It was the first thing I thought of. I have always 
 been immensely in love with the sea : and I determined 
 to have a boat of my own. She is lying at Southamp- 
 ton." 
 
 " It is natural," said Lord Hildebrand, a little absently. 
 " It's in your blood. It was a mania with your father 
 yachting." Then he asked 
 
 " Where will you go ? " 
 
 " I shall cruise in the Channel. I may run over to 
 Guernsey, or St. Malo. Then I shall work round to 
 Norfolk to Towers." 
 
 " And after Towers ? " Lord Hildebrand inquired. 
 
 Adrian glanced vaguely across the room ; a sort of 
 cloud passed over his face. 
 
 "I don't like making plans so far ahead. I shall 
 probably travel : there are a good many places I want 
 to see." 
 
 The silent man-servant brought in black coffee and 
 liqueurs: he placed a box of cigarettes before Adrian,
 
 70 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 who lit one at the flame of a silver spirit-lamp, while 
 Lord Hildebrand meditatively took snuff. 
 
 " Well," he said, when they were once more left alone 
 together, " if your travels bring you to Paris, you must 
 come and see me. That is where I may be said to 
 live. They must take you to Paris, you know," he 
 added, with his indefinable smile ; " and if you don't 
 want them to end there, as mine have done, it is 
 from there that they had better begin. Will you 
 travel alone, by the way, or with a friend with Henry 
 Minaret ? " 
 
 Adrian remarked that he was afraid Minaret would 
 be too much engrossed : he had his eye on the House 
 already, was nursing a constituency. 
 
 Lord Hildebrand shrugged his shoulders with 
 humorous tolerance ; and his gesture alone would 
 have told Adrian how greatly Paris had been his 
 home. 
 
 " Ah, I forgot : that family is devoted to Parliament 
 from their cradle; the younger sons too. Perhaps, 
 though, you will follow his example, when you have 
 travelled enough ? " 
 
 " I think not," said Rome. " I fear it is hardly my 
 vocation." 
 
 The old man smiled. 
 
 " I should have said that also, but I never pretend to 
 be sure. You are very happily situated, par ex&mple : 
 you have a fortune, and, I believe, very little land. You 
 have no houses to keep up." 
 
 Adrian admitted that with the exception of his aunt's 
 house and a few hundred acres at Underwoods, and some 
 farms and shooting in Inverness, he was unhampered 
 with real estate. 
 
 "I congratulate you," said Lord Hildebrand humor- 
 ously. "I have my Irish estates. I believe they are
 
 ADRIAN ROME 71 
 
 very beautiful, I know they are very expensive, per- 
 haps if you ever travel so far as that, you will visit 
 them." 
 
 " You have never been to see them ? " asked Adrian 
 laughingly. 
 
 " Ah," said the Earl, taking another pinch of rappee, 
 " in my time we hadn't your large ideas, we never went 
 out of civilisation." 
 
 Presently he asked his guest if he played picquet or 
 e'carte', two games which, he regretted to say, the present 
 generation had allowed to fall into disuse. He seemed 
 delighted to find that the latter of the two was well 
 known to Adrian. 
 
 The servant came in his entrances, apparently at ran- 
 dom, were always so opportune that Adrian wondered if 
 amongst his accomplishments second sight had not to be 
 included and set out a little card-table before the fire, 
 at which they established themselves. They played 
 several rubbers, with varying fortune: the cards were 
 generally with Adrian, and he felt that it was little to 
 his credit that when he rose to take his departure 
 his host was a rubber to the good. Certainly, he could 
 admit that his attention had been less frequently given 
 to the play than to the face and manner of his host, who 
 seemed, in the glamour of the courtly game, with its 
 urbane French expressions, more than ever to have 
 slipped back into the past, into the century of Louis 
 Quinze. Adrian indulged his fantasy (it was not diffi- 
 cult in that quiet room, lit only by the flickering fire, 
 and the two fine wax candles on the low-legged card- 
 table) until the sense even of his own modernity was 
 diminished ; and it was almost with a start of surprise 
 that he met the Earl's valediction, his quick descent into 
 the present, the personal. 
 
 " I suppose you will go on writing ? " he asked.
 
 72 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 A sudden light flashed into the young man's eyes, 
 emphasised his assent. 
 
 The Earl considered him for a moment silently, oddly, 
 with his cold bright eyes : then his mouth formed itself 
 into the smile, curiously sardonic, which always com- 
 plicated his speech, embellished it with an embarrassing 
 richness of intent. 
 
 "You are very fortunate: you have position, and 
 brains, and and personality. And you have youth." 
 He paused for a moment, took a pinch of snuff: then 
 shutting the box, with a little emphatic snap, he 
 continued 
 
 " Allans, my young friend ! You will no doubt meet 
 a good many people of more or less esteem, who will give 
 you a great deal of good advice. They will tell you 
 that this is a good thing, and that that is something to 
 look after. I do not deal in advice, but if you will per- 
 mit me, I will also tell you something. To have youth 
 and what you have a la bonheurl that is a good 
 thing the best." 
 
 He extended a white, thin hand to Adrian, bade him 
 good-night; and as the door closed on the latter, he 
 saw the old man shrug his shoulders once more, half 
 absently ; it seemed like an epitaph on the evening. 
 
 Less than a week later, that evening seemed to Adrian, 
 as he tried vaguely to recall it from the deck of his yacht, 
 already to have clothed itself in more than its just share 
 of the mistiness of the past. He was glad, indeed, to 
 put aside such civilised considerations, yielding himself 
 more completely to the fresh delight which he always 
 found in the sea ; while a favourable, rough breeze sent 
 the Anonyma scudding along the Solent. It was 
 a rest which he had promised himself; and he was 
 inclined to congratulate himself, that, contrary to his 
 original intention, the cruise was to be a solitary one
 
 ADRIAN ROME 73 
 
 a friend whom he had asked to join him having at the last 
 moment made excuse. So was he more entirely at liberty 
 to follow the fantasy of the moment, to work, or to be idle 
 as the whim seized him, and to meditate at leisure upon 
 the various issues which concerned him. As he leaned, 
 warmly clad, against the taffrail, watching the lights of 
 Cowes slowly efface themselves, the physical good which 
 he found in the birdlike motion through the darkness, 
 the salt spray, and the wind in his face, seemed to be of 
 the nature of a novel satisfaction. It was a refresh- 
 ment: and his London life, short as it had been, and 
 full of fascination, had given him the need of that, had 
 tired him more than he was aware; so that he had 
 already a foretaste of the yearning with which he might 
 go to the sea, later, for solace of a lassitude become more 
 ingrained and intolerable. 
 
 Brought face to face with the ancient sea, so cosmic 
 and original, the accidents and factitious interest of his 
 personal life fell into a proper perspective : its problems 
 became more sanely soluble. Actually, he was two men : 
 and such direct encounters with the lawlessness of 
 elements released that second part of him, primitively 
 poetic, which the life of cities, and society, even of his 
 friends, at times irked and irritated. And it blew 
 through his perversities, of the modern artist, through 
 the charm of Brooke's paradoxes, and of Corbyn's 
 pleasant cynicism, dispelling them like so many cobwebs. 
 Incidentally, it sent him back to the image of Sylvia. It 
 was not that he had ever forgotten her, or, indeed, ceased 
 to consider her, in a relation which no other person 
 could bear towards him. Only, when in the stress of his 
 estranged life, the memory of this girl, whom he had 
 loved, penetrated, the diversity between them seemed too 
 intolerable, the difficulties of the relation insurmount- 
 able. More than mere leagues of country separated him
 
 74 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 from her garden of hollyhocks. Other women ho had 
 met now, with grace and intelligence, women in society, 
 and girls too, the charm of whose girlhood had not been 
 sensibly corroded by it, who were as beautiful as Sylvia, 
 who had refinements which she lacked, and interests, 
 dear to him, which she ignored. But here any such 
 comparisons which he might have made, became at once 
 false or insincere. 
 
 A wind-tossed shower of spray leaped in his face ; and 
 he retreated, laughing, to the shelter of the companion- 
 hatch, to find a tarpaulin, and light a last pipe. They 
 were leaving the shelter of the Wight : and the cutter 
 lay to for a moment, plunging like a horse, while the 
 crew ran aft noisily, and beneath the taciturn supervision 
 of the skipper made a double reef in the mainsail, which 
 catching just then the luminosity of the Needles' light, 
 seemed immense, relieved against the blackness of the 
 waters like the breast of some colossal swan. A moment 
 later she swung to the wind again, and heeling over, 
 leaped to the open channel, shaking the spray from her 
 clean-cut bows, with a sort of human joyousness, heading 
 straight for France. The stars above were plain : there 
 was no light ahead ; only the vague immensity of dark, 
 heaving waters. With half a shiver, Adrian prepared to 
 turn in. Certainly there was a huge cruelty about the 
 sea, at least potential, even to its lovers. Life, too, he 
 reflected, was of that quality : it lay before him, perhaps 
 as dark and formidable, certainly more unknown ; with 
 an equal fascination, it might be capable of cruelties as 
 profound. Human conventions, and gimcrack laws of 
 society, seemed but a fallible compass. Was it not 
 rather to some high ideal passion, sacramental, and 
 primitive of sex, that one should turn, as to a guiding 
 star, across the sea of one's limitations and one's ignor- 
 ance ? At least there seemed in that notion, half mysti-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 75 
 
 cal, of the complete loss of oneself in another human 
 person, a nearest approach to that absolute for which 
 one yearned always, and which seemed now more 
 necessary in one's utter loneliness with the waves and 
 stars. So his fantasy ended, as it began, with Sylvia, 
 and carried him to his berth.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WITHIN a few miles of Towers, along the sandy Norfolk 
 shore, the fishing town of Lowmouth, with its harbour, 
 notable to all yachting men, had been fixed as the 
 natural termination of Adrian's cruise. Hither, when 
 there were guests at Towers, and the weather was pro- 
 pitious, Lord Henry Minaret drove such as were inclined 
 for the expedition, in a capacious waggonette. Depart- 
 ing visitors were taken to the station ; trains were met ; 
 expeditions were made for letters and the evening 
 papers ; the ladies sauntered on the pier, or did such 
 light shopping as the rusticity of the town afforded; the 
 men lounged an hour away in the yacht club. 
 
 Entering this building one afternoon in November, 
 when the time of Adrian's visit was nearly approaching, 
 Lord Henry found a belated telegram from his friend, 
 who had worked up Channel along the French coast to 
 Flushing, and announced that, the wind being favour- 
 able, he was on the point of sailing thence, direct to his 
 destination. It sent him to the steward with inquiries ; 
 half expecting to find that the Anonyma, was already 
 in the harbour. She was not yet posted, however ; but 
 on a consideration of dates and winds, it appeared 
 highly probable that she would be sighted in the course 
 of the afternoon. A few moments later, he had betaken 
 himself to the pier ; hoping that, from the end of it, he 
 might recognise, in some of the white sails which were 
 discernible in the offing, his friend's craft. The Low- 
 
 78
 
 ADRIAN ROME 77 
 
 mouth pier, a somewhat dreary edifice, popular only in 
 the height of the summer season, when a band played 
 upon it, was almost deserted, on this particularly 
 cheerless afternoon, when the season had long been a 
 thing of the past ; so that he had no difficulty in identi- 
 fying two feminine figures, in blue serge, who already 
 occupied the post of vantage which he had aimed at, 
 as ladies of the party which he had driven over from 
 Towers. They were leaning over the rusty bulwarks, 
 gazing aimlessly at the waves. They glanced round at 
 the sound of his step ; and recognising him, the younger, 
 slighter, more obviously pretty of the two, smiled, and 
 then blushed, with a richness of suggestion, which 
 seemed to her companion at least, who averted her 
 handsome head with a certain haughty tolerance, to be 
 reflected, as it were, in the sudden flash which came into 
 Minaret's eyes. 
 
 " Have you exhausted the High Street shops already, 
 Miss Lancaster ? " he asked lightly. 
 
 The girl shook her head. 
 
 " I only wanted to match some silk, and they hadn't 
 the right shade. They are going to send for it. It's 
 very obliging of them, isn't it, Marion ? " 
 
 Her voice, as she turned a charming profile to the 
 elder girl, had a plaintive accent, sweetly appealing, to 
 the charm of which other men than Minaret had fallen 
 willing captives, without pausing to reflect upon the 
 inadequacy of its cause. As with women often, who 
 had a way of seeming cold to the inherent pathos of 
 this girl's voice and eyes, he was half angry now with 
 Marion Brabant, excellent friends as they were, for her 
 irresponsiveness, ignoring the appeal. 
 
 " Marion has a soul above silks," he said. " You must 
 expect no sympathy from her." 
 
 The girl, who had not spoken, desisted for a moment
 
 78 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 from her contemplation of the sea, turning to Minaret 
 they were first cousins a face which was a fine 
 feminine copy of his own. 
 
 "Did you come for us?" she asked. "I am afraid 
 we can't start before the time you arranged. Lady 
 Lancaster has gone to pay a call: she has taken the 
 carriage." 
 
 " Mamma will be just hours yet," put in the younger 
 girl, smiling felicitously, " if the Dysarts are at home. 
 We can't possibly start yet, can we, Marion ? " 
 
 Minaret hastened to explain. 
 
 " It sounds very rude, but, really, I came here on my 
 own account. I didn't know that you patronised piers. 
 I haven't the least wish to hurry you rather the other 
 way. I have had a wire from Adrian Rome, you have 
 often heard me speak of him, Marion. He is about due. 
 I came to have a look round. There are two or three 
 yachts out there ; if his boat happens to be one of these, 
 we can drive him back with us, perhaps. May I borrow 
 your glass ? " 
 
 His cousin handed him a diminutive pair of field- 
 glasses, and he considered through them, critically, the 
 various sails in sight. 
 
 "Is that Mr. Rome's yacht?" asked Miss Brabant 
 presently, as the nearest of the white-winged fleet 
 swept down towards the harbour entrance. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "No, that's a schooner; the others are too small. 
 Stay ! there's a big cutter right out at sea, which may 
 be the Anonyma, but she is too far out to swear to." 
 
 The younger girl watched the schooner which had 
 just passed within fifty yards of them, her speed 
 diminishing as the snowy canvas was hauled in. She 
 gave a sudden exclamation, coloured a little. 
 
 " Why, it's the Andromeda, General Verrinder's yacht !
 
 ADRIAN ROME 79 
 
 We met him at Cowes last season. Mamma will be 
 pleased." 
 
 The young man followed the direction of her eyes. 
 
 "I doubt if he's on board. Lady Lancaster will be 
 disappointed. I expect she is only here to lie up. 
 
 " What a pity ! " cried the girl. " Isn't it a pity, 
 Marion ? We might have made the General take us for 
 a cruise." 
 
 "That can easily be arranged," said Lord Henry. 
 " Rome will be delighted, and he is bound to be here 
 soon." 
 
 Marion Brabant had taken the glass again, and held 
 it steadily fixed upon the cutter which her cousin had 
 pointed out, and which was no longer a speck upon the 
 distance. 
 
 " It's a large yacht," she said presently ; " it's moving 
 very fast. It has a flag up, but I can't make it out. 
 See if your eyes are better." 
 
 Minaret took the glass from her, and considered for a 
 moment : then he dropped it with an exclamation. 
 
 "It's the Royal Thames burgee," he said, "and the 
 Anonyma, without a doubt. I know her lines ! Isn't 
 she a beauty ? " 
 
 "She has very white sails," said Miss Brabant in- 
 differently. " How long will she take getting into the 
 harbour ? " 
 
 "Not very long, at this rate," Lord Henry replied 
 admiringly, with his eyes still fixed upon the approach- 
 ing white- winged phantom. "Not more than twenty 
 minutes, I should say. If Rome doesn't run her on to 
 the Chinkers ! " 
 
 Miss Lancaster got up with an effective little shiver, 
 stamping her feet, and displaying a neatly-gaitered 
 ankle. " Are those the horrid rocks which we see 
 sticking up at low tide ? I hope he won't, on a dread-
 
 8o ADRIAN ROME 
 
 f ul rough day like this, too ! Don't you think you ought 
 to warn him, Lord Henry ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't think we need man the lifeboat just 
 yet," he responded lightly. " Rome has got a Norfolk 
 skipper on board; they'll give the Chinkers a very 
 wide berth : the Anonyma's heading away from them 
 already ; you'll see her go about in a minute or two. 
 Hullo ! isn't that the waggonette coming down the hill ? 
 I'm afraid Lady Lancaster can't have found the Dysarts 
 at home." 
 
 "Poor mamma! I'm sorry she's been disappointed," 
 said Miss Lancaster demurely. " I know she wanted to 
 have a long talk with Mrs. Dysart." 
 
 " I'm disappointed," sighed Lord Henry. " I wanted to 
 have a long talk with " 
 
 " With your cousin ? " suggested Miss Lancaster, in- 
 terrupting him. "Shall I call her? see, she's at the 
 other end of the pier. How charming she is ! We have 
 become great friends already." 
 
 " I know someone else who is a thousand times more 
 charming," Lord Henry protested clumsily. Miss Lan- 
 caster gave no sign of having heard him. He could not 
 see her face for the moment, but when she turned towards 
 him there was no trace of resentment in her somewhat 
 infantile blue eyes. 
 
 " Doesn't the sea always make you feel sentimental ? " 
 he continued. 
 
 The girl averted her eyes with a little movement and 
 smile, which he took for acquiescence. 
 
 " Gracious ! " she thought to herself. " What will he 
 say next ? he'll be asking me if port wine doesn't make 
 me feel sleepy." 
 
 " I'm sure you're a poet, Lord Henry," she said, turn- 
 ing her demure eyes suddenly upon him. " Now, con- 
 fess ! I used to write poetry when I was a little girl,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 81 
 
 until my governess found me out: she said it wasn't 
 proper for little girls to write poetry." They had reached 
 the end of the pier ; Miss Lancaster turned. 
 
 " See," she said, " the carriage has stopped, and Marion 
 is coming towards us." 
 
 " Yes," assented Lord Henry. " I suppose we mustn't 
 keep Lady Lancaster waiting. I'm afraid Rome won't 
 be ready to leave the yacht for another hour or so ; he's 
 such an enthusiast, he's sure to want to see her all snug 
 at her moorings." 
 
 Miss Brabant, who had joined them, glanced at him 
 for a moment enquiringly. "Don't you think we had 
 better drive back with Lady Lancaster, and tell them to 
 send another carriage down to fetch you and Mr. Rome ? 
 I confess that I've had almost enough of the sea-breeze 
 for one day ; it's getting rather too bracing." 
 
 Miss Lancaster assented, somewhat reluctantly, Lord 
 Henry flattered himself, stipulating that she was to 
 be allowed to drive ; and Lord Henry escorted the two 
 girls to the carriage, which was waiting on the desolate 
 expanse known as the Parade, and despatched them, 
 overwhelmed with rugs, on their three miles' drive in- 
 land to Towers. " Aren't you coming with us ? " Lady 
 Lancaster had said, addressing him. "Do you think 
 Marjorie is to be trusted to drive, without you to keep 
 an eye on her ? " 
 
 Lord Henry glanced at Miss Lancaster with some 
 perplexity, avoiding the faintly mocking gaze of his 
 cousin's fine eyes. 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry ! " he said. " You see, I'm obliged 
 to wait for Mr. Rome. And Miss Lancaster drives as 
 well as she does everything else. And there's Waters," 
 he added, indicating the smart groom, "if the horses 
 should be too much for her." 
 
 It was dark long before the dog-cart which had been 
 6
 
 82 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 sent to fetch the two young men reached Towers on its 
 homeward journey, and the house, as they approached 
 it through the rustling obscurity of the park, presented 
 only a vista of dark masses, a dusky, broken outline 
 looming against the grey background of wind-scattered 
 clouds; a nocturne in black, punctuated by the lights 
 which shone broadly from a few uncurtained windows 
 in the centre and one wing. The dressing-gong sounded 
 as they entered the large inner hall, and Adrian, some- 
 what bewildered after his dark drive by the bright light 
 and a crowd of unfamiliar faces, was glad to make it an 
 excuse for curtailing his exchange of greetings with his 
 host and hostess. Entering the drawing-room half an 
 hour later, after dressing with unprecedented haste, 
 the tribute of a newly-arrived guest to the passion for 
 punctuality which was not the least notorious of the 
 Duke's innumerable virtues, he found himself almost 
 alone in a wilderness of furniture ; there were so many 
 empty chairs, presenting their seats to the discreetly 
 moderated light of the electric chandelier, that he found 
 his choice embarrassed. Sounds of music came to him 
 from a recess at one side, where a girl was playing softly 
 a capriccio of Tchaikowsky; an upholstered dowager 
 was studying a photograph-album in front of the fire ; 
 and in the dimly lighted conservatory, which opened out 
 of the further end of the room, he presently recognised 
 Lord Henry, flitting from flower to flower with a pretty, 
 fair-haired girl, whose face was strange to him. 
 
 As his eyes wandered idly round the room, noting the 
 pictured panels and curious tapestries, they were caught 
 by the reflection in a Venetian mirror of the profile of 
 the girl at the piano ; and the small head, well set on a 
 graceful, rounded neck, the dark eyes, and the darker hair, 
 disposed in a manner not greatly affected by the young 
 ladies of the period, seemed to him vaguely familiar.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 83 
 
 After a few moments of mystification, he identified the 
 unconscious performer as the original of a variety of 
 photographs which had embellished Lord Henry's rooms 
 at Underwoods and Oxford ; and he was pleased to find 
 his conclusion confirmed, when, the Duchess presently 
 introducing him, he learned that the girl was in fact her 
 cousin, Miss Brabant. 
 
 Although he had been introduced to Miss Brabant, 
 and the Duchess had intimated that he was to take 
 her down to dinner, Adrian was not allowed to enjoy a 
 monopoly of her society ; the room was now full, in spite 
 of its capacity ; pheasants were plentiful this autumn in 
 the ducal coverts, and the leaves being now well off the 
 trees, quite an army of shooters had been invited to 
 open the campaign. The duties of hospitality were 
 somewhat onerous ; and Miss Brabant, by virtue of her 
 kinship, appeared to occupy more or less the position of 
 a daughter of the house. Rome contented himself with 
 watching her, finding something in the nature of a 
 challenge to his powers of discrimination in the expres- 
 sion of her face, a kind of impassive disdain, a reserve, 
 of a quality extraordinarily subtile. A faint smile 
 presently softened the curves of her lips, and lent a 
 new brilliance to her eyes ; he followed their direction, 
 and was in time to see Lord Henry emerge from the 
 conservatory with his fair-haired companion, who, blush- 
 ing a little, was adjusting a feathery, copper-coloured 
 chrysanthemum in the front of her white dress. 
 
 At dinner, Miss Brabant divided her conversational 
 favours with great impartiality between Rome and Mr. 
 Poindexter, the ex-Cabinet Minister, who sat upon her 
 other side. She had owned to a passion for music. 
 " It gives one an opportunity to relieve one's feelings 
 without being indiscreet, without being too intelli- 
 gible," she explained.
 
 84 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Adrian assented. 
 
 " One can say a good deal, in music, without exceeding 
 the narrow limits which propriety imposes upon one's 
 ordinary conversation. A piano is like a typewriter in 
 more .ways than one : through the medium of your 
 fingers your thoughts, or your interpretation of your 
 composer's thoughts, are written on the air ! " 
 
 " Where not every one that runs may read," suggested 
 Miss Brabant. " A composer can be even more obscure 
 in expressing himself than a poet. I beg your pardon, 
 I did not mean to be allusive," she added a minute 
 later, turning to Adrian, with a brilliant smile, in the 
 middle of a conversational assault on the part of the 
 politician. "Of course, I have read your verses; we 
 have all been reading them; we have discussed them 
 furiously." 
 
 Adrian's modest rejoinder was wasted upon his com- 
 panion, who again turned her back to him. From his 
 seat near the middle of the long table he could study 
 the Duchess without making her feel uncomfortable, for 
 she was too short-sighted to perceive that his eyes were 
 fixed upon her. He found her interesting, on account 
 of a curious resemblance to Lord Hildebrand. It seemed 
 to him that the brother and sister were like two en- 
 gravings struck from the same plate, but with a con- 
 siderable interval, the simile was carried out by the 
 Earl's fifteen years' seniority, during which the lines 
 had become worn and blunted, so that the impression, 
 in the sister's case, was fainter, less resilient. The 
 Duchess, as he gathered from his observations and from 
 common repute, was on the whole a happy woman; 
 proud of her husband, though she was too clever her- 
 self to exalt him to a very high pinnacle of wisdom ; 
 and well content (in spite of the boyish escapade which 
 had led to his expulsion from Winchester) with the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 85 
 
 prospects of her second son, Lord Henry Minaret. Her 
 one sorrow was centred in the sense of responsibility 
 which she felt for the moral obliquity of her firstborn, 
 the Marquis of Towers ; whose secession from the paths 
 of virtue, which had been trodden for so many genera- 
 tions with unfaltering straightness by her husband and 
 his ancestors, had for several years yielded paragraphs 
 for Society journalists. The Marquis he was ten years 
 older than Lord Henry was, in fact, a black sheep, 
 of the inkiest possible description ; and the Duchess of 
 Turretshire, irreproachable as she felt herself to be, was 
 uneasily conscious that she was still responsible for the 
 introduction of the strain ; if there was anything in 
 heredity, and she had been taught to believe in it as 
 fervently as any latter-day dramatist, Lord Hildebrand 
 and his degenerate nephew, though it was only in their 
 least amiable qualities that their characters tallied, were 
 undoubtedly the products of a common ancestor, and 
 the link could only be found in herself. It was a con- 
 solation to her that at least she could not be held 
 accountable for her brother's misdeeds. 
 
 As for the Duke, it seemed to Adrian that Lord 
 Hildebrand had described him with sufficient precision 
 when he referred to him as "a most worthy person." 
 Worthiness was, in fact, written in every line of his 
 benevolent countenance, of his portly, comfortable figure. 
 If he was bald, he had reached an age when baldness is 
 scarcely to be resented: if he was, in plain language, 
 fat, it did not interfere with his powers of independent 
 locomotion, or prevent his personal supervision of the 
 building of model cottages, his enjoyment of a long 
 day's shooting. Adrian never looked at him without an 
 inward chuckle, remembering a story which Lord Henry 
 himself had irreverently conveyed to him, of how a 
 guileless American, of tender years, and a great uncon-
 
 86 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 fessed respect for the British aristocracy, had mistaken 
 him, in broad daylight, for his own butler. It was 
 curious that Lord Hildebrand's somewhat patronising 
 epithet should have been so exactly the word which one 
 would have used with reference to a well-tried, virtuous 
 menial : his Lordship, perhaps, would have been more 
 surprised than flattered, if he had been told that an 
 American an American girl had been capable of a 
 judgment so precisely tantamount to his own. 
 
 Later in the evening, during the progress to a 
 harrowing conclusion of an impassioned recitation, of 
 which the drift was imperfectly revealed to him, Adrian 
 found himself wedged into a corner behind two rustling, 
 silk-clad dowagers, who addressed each other by their 
 Christian names, and appeared to be sublimely uncon- 
 scious of his presence, and of the fact that their im- 
 pressive whispers were audible to him, as well as to 
 several other persons in their vicinity. In spite of his 
 endeavours to rivet his attention unreservedly upon the 
 recitation, as a stranger, with no one to talk to, this 
 was his only resource, he could not help becoming 
 aware that the ladies were exchanging confidences on 
 the subject of the eldest son of his host the much- 
 discussed Marquis of Towers. 
 
 "Such a sad break-down," said one of them com- 
 placently, he recognised her, by her emeralds, as the 
 dame who had been absorbed in a photograph-album 
 when he entered the drawing-room before dinner, " I'm 
 afraid it's quite hopeless, my dear living abroad, you 
 know, with a sort of companion." 
 
 " A ? " queried the other. 
 
 " Oh, not that creature : I don't know anything about 
 her. A kind of keeper, I meant. Yes, I believe it's as 
 bad as that. Oh, I am told he's tolerably careful about 
 appearances, now ; you know Arabella, poor dear, hasn't
 
 ADRIAN ROME 87 
 
 been able to get a divorce yet ! It does seem a shame, 
 doesn't it ? And they have no children, so it wouldn't 
 matter. And she hasn't set eyes on him for years. It's 
 a real miscarriage of justice, though I am far from 
 saying that she wasn't to blame." 
 
 " You are always so just, Selina ! " murmured the 
 other lady, with a pensive shake of her head that made 
 her diamonds twinkle. 
 
 " And, you know, the Duke poor man ! has quite 
 declined to have any more to do with him ; won't even 
 pay his creditors Rich American widow? Oh, but 
 you see he can't marry again, unless And there 
 doesn't seem to be much chance of it. Otherwise " 
 Here the speaker cast an expressive glance in the 
 direction of the ottoman on which Lord Henry was 
 sitting with the fair-haired girl of the chrysanthemums. 
 
 " Ah, quite so," assented the other dowager meaningly. 
 "Of course, it would make such a difference! Dear 
 Marjorie, how sweet she's looking to-night: how that 
 white Empire gown becomes her ! Crepe de Chine, is 
 it ? You always dress your girls so well, Selina ! " 
 
 Adrian did not find this conversation particularly 
 edifying; he felt that he was forced into a position 
 which had more than a suggestion of the indiscreet 
 about it: certainly, there was nothing novel in the 
 scandal about Lord Towers, whose affairs had for a 
 considerable number of years been subjected to extreme 
 publicity ; but the discussion of the unhappy nobleman's 
 prospects had, it seemed, involved a certain betrayal 
 of maternal policy on the part of the more talkative 
 lady, who, he gathered, was the mother of Lord Henry's 
 inamorata; and he would have preferred a less sur- 
 reptitious method of making himself master of the 
 complications of this little comedy. 
 
 Escaping, when the recitation had come to an impress-
 
 88 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 ive end, and the lady who had been addressed as " Selina " 
 had made her stately way across the room to play 
 accompaniments for her daughter, who sang some little 
 French songs with considerable grace and vivacity, 
 Adrian found himself near Miss Brabant, and he took 
 the opportunity of ascertaining from her that the singer 
 was Miss Lancaster. 
 
 " And the lady accompanying her is her mother ? " he 
 suggested. 
 
 "Yes, that is Lady Lancaster, how did you guess? 
 Don't you think she's very pretty, Mr. Rome ? The 
 daughter, I mean, of course." 
 
 "The rules of friendship appear to demand that I 
 should think so," he answered, with a glance towards 
 Lord Henry. "Yes, she is certainly pretty, and she 
 sings very charmingly." 
 
 Miss Brabant smiled demurely, Adrian decided that 
 she was really very nice when she smiled, and accused 
 him of being a dangerously keen observer. 
 
 "But I suppose you are in my cousin's confidence: 
 you and Henry are quite old friends, are you not ? " 
 
 " I suppose I may call him my oldest friend, in a way, 
 the oldest friend I have, the oldest among my 
 coevals, certainly. But I am only in his confidence as 
 to his political projects, which appear to be very tre- 
 mendous ! He will be in the House soon, I suppose : he 
 is very ambitious." 
 
 " Poor Henry ! I'm afraid he will be sorry that he 
 wasted so much time at school." 
 
 Adrian shrugged his shoulders. " I confess," he said 
 slowly, "I never quite understand what people mean 
 by wasting time. So long as you're not asleep, what 
 does it matter? What, after all, is the difference 
 between wasting time, and killing time, or passing 
 it?"
 
 ADRIAN ROME 89 
 
 Miss Brabant, who in common with the other women 
 now struggling towards the doorway, had risen from 
 her seat, appeared to reflect for a moment. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Rome," she said, glancing at him over a 
 white and shapely shoulder, " I'm afraid you're terribly 
 modern ! You will have time to ponder that riddle, 
 with a great many practical examples to help you, over 
 your cigarettes in the billiard-room, to which I can see 
 Henry is ready to conduct you. We keep early hours 
 here, as you see. Good-night ! "
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ADRIAN was able to reflect, before he had been many 
 days at Towers, that his guardian had been only right 
 in warning him that he was going to an excessively 
 political house. The warning had affected him less 
 than it might have done, because he had been a guest 
 on former occasions, when this quality had been less 
 forcibly suggested to him. Then, there had been no 
 considerable company ; and the Duke, with his constant 
 air of anxious absorption in public affairs, had been 
 less in evidence than the Duchess, who, if she could be 
 political enough on occasions, was always ready, with a 
 certain bland satisfaction, which reminded the young 
 man faintly of his guardian, to drop the r6le for that 
 one, more congenial to her, of the charming hostess. 
 
 Henry Minaret also, in those earlier days, had not yet 
 been explicitly trusted with the sacred torch of family 
 tradition, to the worthy succession of which it was still 
 remotely possible that his erring brother might be 
 recalled. But now Lord Henry, it was easy to see, had 
 entered into his inheritance. He had spoken at public 
 meetings, and was the accepted Liberal candidate of a 
 neighbouring borough, whose present member's resigna- 
 tion was a matter of the near future. And the con- 
 sciousness of what was expected of the young man had 
 matured him sensibly ; he had already some of that 
 grave assurance it sat somewhat oddly upon his 
 boyishness which association with the management of 
 
 eo
 
 ADRIAN ROME 91 
 
 a great nation, even when it is still prospective, indubit- 
 ably secures. Sincere and thorough, however, as Lord 
 Henry's concern with the national interests might be 
 (and Adrian, who could not have explained why these 
 admittedly great affairs should seem to him but a barren 
 delight, was obliged to confess that his friend's temper 
 towards them was not in the least factitious), it was 
 noted by the contemplative poet, and pleasurably, that 
 there was still room for matters more personal than the 
 Irish question and the claims of Labour, in his friend's 
 positive mind. His career engrossed him to the extent 
 that he could forego his shooting for the tamer sport 
 of running electors to earth: but the eternal femin- 
 ine prevailed. He was rarely confidential ; but Adrian 
 smiled when, beneath a touch of spleen, what seemed a 
 mere flirtation, was more particularly illuminated. The 
 young men had come in from a ride, and they sat in a 
 revel of procrastination before Adrian's seductive fire, 
 until the first gong which heralded dinner should divide 
 them to change their "cords" for the less picturesque 
 garb of civilisation. 
 
 And Minaret broke in, almost fiercely, on a desultory 
 sketch of his friend's projected travels, with the ex- 
 clamation, "Thank the gods, you are not a younger 
 son ! " 
 
 " Does the shoe pinch there ? " said Rome, unfastening 
 one of his leggings. " You will get over that." 
 
 "My brother you mean?" Minaret went on im- 
 petuously, misinterpreting him : then, scenting his error, 
 he flushed furiously, but did not interrupt his vein. 
 
 " It's his head which is weak, not his health. I speak 
 brutally, but when has he ever considered me us? 
 Besides, she may get a divorce, goodness knows, she has 
 reason ! and he will marry some monstrous woman, out 
 of spite. A fellow like that ! Oh, my people don't hear
 
 92 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 the worst; no, not even the Society papers, or they 
 don't print it. It's a mad blackguard." 
 
 Adrian picked up the thread of his suggestion, buried 
 in this outburst. 
 
 " I meant that matters would arrange themselves," he 
 said skilfully. " Does the lady ask so much ? Forgive 
 me, but I can't help having eyes ! " He was proud of 
 his tact ; a quality inherent in him, like a subtile, sixth 
 sense ; and never more than when, as now, he seemed 
 to violate it, was consciously indiscreet. For he knew 
 how the conventional, behind their mask of convention, 
 implore dubiously to be unmasked. So does a fine 
 player of whist, versed in Cavendish, discard his book 
 at the critical moment ; playing, as it were, by instinct 
 of the game. 
 
 "You mean you mean that I am in love?" Lord 
 Henry queried, after a moment's silence. " Very likely." 
 
 Then he gave a little nervous laugh. 
 
 " Why should I humbug you ? Of course I am. I 
 have proposed to Miss Lancaster. Do you admire her ? " 
 
 Adrian smiled; though, honestly, the charm of the 
 little, blonde girl, like an angel in Dresden china, hardly 
 moved him. In these matters of attraction, however, 
 were not the inexplicable, the exceptional, the only 
 laws ? And he was too conscious of how defenceless to 
 outside criticism lay predilections of his own, to be 
 other than acquiescent in any freak of a lover's choice. 
 " She is exceedingly pretty. Am I to congratulate 
 you?" 
 
 " She has been good enough to accept me." 
 
 Finding, perhaps, that his friend showed some surprise 
 at the lack of enthusiasm with which this announce- 
 ment was made, Lord Henry went on hastily, sketching 
 the situation. 
 
 " It is the mother who has to be reckoned with. She
 
 ADRIAN ROME 93 
 
 will hear of no definite engagement ; though I have the 
 girl's promise. She will not have it published, so that 
 she can slip out of it if she can do better. She 
 deprecates the scandal of my brother's possible divorce. 
 She plays fast and loose." 
 
 " But Miss Lancaster is firm ? " 
 
 " While I am there to support her ; but away from 
 me, a reed in the wind. She seems wax to a strong 
 will ; and that woman stamps upon her. At least, I 
 fear so." 
 
 '' What does she want, the mother, I mean ? " 
 Adrian asked. 
 
 Minaret smiled contemptuously, throwing out his 
 hands, with an explicit gesture. "Money, money, any 
 amount of it : her debts paid, to begin with. I listen to 
 the old women talking, and that much I am certain of. 
 Do you know Verrinder General Verrinder ? " 
 
 " I know him as a name," said Adrian vaguely, 
 " little more of him. Isn't he a yachting man ? " 
 
 " It is the same man. He owns half Eastshire, and is 
 enormously rich, besides. He had a million, they say, 
 with his first wife, who fell in love with his V.C. Now 
 he is a widower of sixty ; gouty, and a parti I Pshaw ! 
 the idea is blasphemous." 
 
 " Lady Lancaster stalks him ? " Adrian asked, to 
 supply the hiatus in his friend's words. The other had 
 risen as the first, deep notes of a gong began to throb 
 through the house ; and he stood, caressing his fair 
 moustache, his broad shoulders resting against the 
 mantelpiece, vaguely disquieted. 
 
 " I must be moving," he said, but still remained ; then 
 he went on abruptly 
 
 " So it stands : I have Marjorie's word ; but the 
 mother is shifty and a harridan. She may be playing 
 me against the millionaire, to egg him on. With the
 
 94 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 title, perhaps, I am preferred ; but a bird in the hand, 
 a fortune, and such a fortune " 
 
 He left his sentence unfinished, gazing out rather 
 moodily at the dancing reflection of the light upon the 
 furniture and walls. Then he glanced at his watch, 
 exclaimed at his tardiness, and was at the door ; where 
 he looked back, by an afterthought, to remark to Rome, 
 that Mrs. Vesper would be at dinner, had arrived that 
 afternoon. 
 
 Descending into the drawing-room, twenty minutes 
 later, Adrian Rome seemed to identify this lady, in 
 whose name he was just dimly conscious that he was 
 interested, in one of two ladies who conversed apart, 
 where a sort of alcove, rendered discreet by curtains, 
 made, when these were drawn, almost a separate apart- 
 ment. The second of the two ladies, Marion Brabant, 
 had corroborated this recognition by briefly mentioning 
 his name, and the name of Mrs. Vesper, before he had 
 time to waver from it. She acknowledged the presenta- 
 tion vaguely ; then turned, and continued her talk with 
 Miss Brabant. The manner of their discourse, rather 
 than its matter, which concerned persons strange to him, 
 appeared intimate ; so that when he had learnt that 
 Mrs. Vesper fell to him at the dinner-table, Adrian was 
 content to stand aside, absently turning the leaves 
 of an illustrated paper, while at the same time he 
 collected, at some advantage, his impressions of the new 
 arrival. She was slight, and slim, and past middle age ; 
 the simplicity of her dress struck the young man as 
 conveying almost a note of exaggeration, as though 
 she wished to accentuate the fact, that she had long ago 
 lost the justifications of coquetry, until he reflected 
 that the plainness of this garb (to be sure, it was 
 tremendously fashionable, simplex munditiisl) sprang 
 largely from contrast with the magnificence of her
 
 ADRIAN ROME 95 
 
 companion. He had noticed before that Miss Brabant 
 affected a certain richness of apparel, a splendour of 
 adornment, which seemed to him, who, like most men of 
 his temper, associated the candour of maidenhood with 
 pearls and white muslin, at the least an audacity. A 
 happy audacity perhaps ; for her figure, tall and 
 statuesque, deserved liberal drapery. So that he would 
 have hesitated to declare that this young lady's pre- 
 ference for trailing, imperial clothes, brocades, even, and 
 velvets, confessed a flaw of taste : there might be even 
 a subtilty in its suggestion of what he seemed already 
 to have discovered, that, girl as she was, she was, none 
 the less, the most mature of women. Watching her now 
 half surreptitiously; in juxtaposition with the sedate, 
 little lady, with her bright eyes, and compressed mouth, 
 and her immense composure ; he was surprised to dis- 
 cover what animation she could on occasion exhibit. 
 Indeed, the singular coldness of this girl, with whom 
 his acquaintance halted, had sensibly repelled him ; the 
 more so in that he made sure she was clever, and sus- 
 pected that she was cultivated ; and so, could ascribe her 
 chilling haughtiness neither to shyness nor to stupidity, 
 so much as to arrogance, of the superior person; an 
 attitude unpardonable for him in women. His discovery 
 now, that she could glow with a quite girlish ardour, 
 could be really nice, as he phrased it, as her eyes, which 
 were certainly fine, wandering in his direction once or 
 twice, seemed to include him in her sudden graciousness ; 
 was provocative less of a desire to dwell on itself than to 
 probe the immediate cause of it. Had this plain, little, 
 elderly woman, then, the great gift, to which Lord Hilde- 
 brand attached the last charm, describing it dubiously, 
 as personality ; a force to be reckoned with ? Certainly, 
 Marion Brabant seemed to be moved and altered by 
 it. He remembered hearing it might have been from
 
 96 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Gerald Brooke that Mrs. Vesper was inimitable; and 
 suddenly, with little reason, perhaps, for she had 
 hardly addressed him, he felt that rumour was right 
 He was conscious of a vague pleasure, which, it seemed 
 to him, was reflected in the quick scrutiny with which 
 now and again she favoured him, a scrutiny which 
 promised much treasures of intimacy. 
 
 They sat down to this meal, a comfortable dozen ; 
 for many of the shooting party had dispersed; and 
 Adrian was hardly surprised to find that the new guest 
 knew everyone, and was known to all. This quality 
 threw him at first, for social sustenance, on his left-hand 
 neighbour, the Dresden-china damsel, into whose con- 
 fidences, indirectly, through the admissions of Minaret, 
 he seemed recently to have penetrated. Her conversa- 
 tional resources were not extensive, but she could talk 
 about nothing prettily, after the manner of her class ; 
 and Adrian, without feeling bound to be remarkably 
 attentive, considered her more closely than he had done 
 before. He had turned away from her at last ; Mrs. 
 Vesper's talk with her neighbour, Dalrymple Green, a 
 young political journalist, who was supposed to have a 
 brilliant future, having lapsed ; with a shadowy sense of 
 pity. He had never seen anybody who seemed to him 
 so soft, so pliable by circumstances ; it was a comfort 
 to reflect, that if her destined tears were numerous, 
 they would all be very easily dried. Just then a 
 conversational battle waged at the top of the table, 
 between the Duke and Sir Rufus Hake, whose pro- 
 perty bordered upon Towers ; a Tory of the most 
 rigid cut. It was their eternal feud, Free Trade against 
 Protection, which broke out whenever they met, excel- 
 lent friends as they were, of thirty years' standing. 
 The words, "retaliation," "corn laws," "Peel," party 
 cries of a bygone generation, floated down the table.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 97 
 
 " Where are they gone ? What were they ? " asked 
 Mrs. Vesper. Dalrymple Green smiled. 
 
 " Out of practical politics ; impossible in the present 
 state of the franchise." 
 
 " I believe in retaliation," grumbled a gentleman 
 facing them, " We are flooded with foreign goods, and 
 they meet us with prohibitive duties. We should dis- 
 criminate between agricultural products and manu- 
 factures. I don't want the corn laws back again ; but a 
 reasonable tariff." 
 
 " The heresy of Fair Trade," put in Lord Henry, with 
 a smile. "Don't compromise me, by preaching it on 
 the platform." 
 
 " Fair Trade ! What is Fair Trade ? " asked a pretty, 
 dark girl sitting next to him. 
 
 Lady Lancaster said it sounded reasonable. " Besides, 
 it would stop all those horrid, cheap things made in 
 Germany." 
 
 Dalrymple, scenting his pet abomination, burst in 
 with a definition. 
 
 " The wolf Protection, in a most transparent lamb- 
 skin." 
 
 Under cover of the laugh, Mrs. Vesper turned to 
 Adrian. 
 
 " Are you of Lord Henry's way of thinking, Mr. 
 Rome ? " 
 
 Adrian confessed that his friend's Radical enthusiasm 
 went too far. 
 
 " Is he Radical ? " she asked whimsically ; " or too 
 good a Conservative to desert the principles of his 
 family ? " 
 
 They admitted to each other their scant interest in 
 questions of policy, while an accompaniment of voices, 
 in which Dalrymple Green's high, nervous tones 
 dominated, discussed universal suffrage. 
 7
 
 98 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " I agree with Balzac," Adrian murmured into the ear 
 of his tolerant neighbour. "Universal suffrage means 
 government by the masses, which is the most irrespons- 
 ible tyranny in the world." 
 
 " Treason in a Whig house ! " Mrs. Vesper laughed. 
 " But I agree with you, if you hate democracy." 
 
 " I think I am afraid of it. Yes, seriously, I am afraid 
 of it It threatens the only things I care about in the 
 world." 
 
 " There speaks the artist. Well, you have my 
 sympathy. Possibly I am an artist myself. Oh, I 
 don't mean that I paint or write, but in my own way. 
 Some day I will tell you my medium." 
 
 She smiled at the young man's mystified air. " I 
 have read your book. I can't say how it struck me. 
 You must come and see me in London." 
 
 Adrian expressed his pleasure at the prospect, and she 
 went on. 
 
 " You seem hardly a stranger to me, Rupert Rome's 
 son." 
 
 " You knew my father ? " 
 
 " You are remarkably like him." 
 
 Her phrase was sufficiently deliberate to be an answer 
 in the affirmative. 
 
 " You have no brother, have you ? " She asked after 
 a moment, "Is your aunt " She half paused, as if 
 she anticipated his announcement, that that aged woman 
 was no longer in the flesh. " You must be the last of 
 them all," she concluded. " Well, that is rather sad." 
 
 Adrian gave a little nervous laugh. 
 
 " Some people might say it was rather fortunate." 
 
 He imagined that he should embarrass her ; but she 
 appeared to be impervious to that emotion : at least, her 
 prompt reply revealed no trace of it 
 
 " People are very stupid. If one has character, if one
 
 ADRIAN ROME 99 
 
 is not like the rest of the world ; roundly, they call one 
 mad. At least," she added, after a moment's pause, in 
 which her eye caught the Duchess' signal for retreat 
 " I find no people like them now." 
 
 His last impression of her, as she passed out with the 
 stream of ladies, by the side of Marion Brabant, was 
 that she was clever, and that she had charm. His 
 impression of her cleverness, it may be said, was a 
 permanent one, although there came days when he 
 could question her charm ; and long after that dinner, 
 he remembered with a singular sense of irony, that 
 it was in connection with Miss Brabant that both 
 of these qualities had first been revealed to him.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CORBYN astonished himself and his friends by satisfying 
 the Oxford examiners before the end of the Michael- 
 mas term, and when the Spring came he was already a 
 B.A. of some months' standing, and, casting Herodotus 
 and Aristotle behind him, had familiarised himself with 
 the backs at least of the ponderous volumes which filled 
 the shelves of the eminent counsel, who, for a pecuniary 
 consideration, allowed him and a few other aspirants 
 towards forensic honours to enjoy the run of his cham- 
 bers in King's Bench Walk. Returning, after the week's 
 sojourn in the sunshine of Oxford, for which it had not 
 been difficult to find a pretext, to his somewhat gloomy 
 attic in New Court, he discovered, buried among the 
 pressing appeals from university tradesmen which had 
 accumulated during his absence, one of Adrian Rome's 
 cards, with a few words scribbled on it in pencil, 
 announcing his return to London. Casting the bills 
 light-heartedly into the waste-paper basket, a recep- 
 tacle only too familiar with such documents, Corbyn 
 made haste to accomplish the descent of his staircase 
 and the ascent of the lower half of the next, on which 
 his friend's rooms were situated, and he was fortunate 
 enough to find Adrian at home, on the point of setting 
 out in search of dinner. Their greetings were cordial 
 and brief. 
 
 " What a chap you are ! " Corbyn expostulated, as they 
 emerged a few minutes later into the Strand. " I 
 
 100
 
 ADRIAN ROME 101 
 
 haven't seen you for nearly six months, and you've only 
 written about twice. If it hadn't been for your name 
 at the foot of the staircase, I should long ago have 
 concluded that you were the creature of my fertile 
 imagination a beautiful dream." 
 
 "I ought to have written oftener," Rome admitted 
 apologetically, " but I can't write letters ; it's such a 
 grind. You weren't in town when I set out on my 
 travels ; I started rather suddenly, before Christmas, 
 meaning to have a little cruise in the Mediterranean, 
 and somehow the cruise protracted itself ; and I have 
 only been back two days. I couldn't make up my mind 
 to leave the sunshine ; it was so delightful, after all the 
 winters I've spent in England." 
 
 "I wonder you came back at all," said Corbyn 
 enviously. " I shouldn't ; only I should miss the 
 theatres," he added, with an affectionate glance at the 
 portals of the Gaiety which they were passing. " How 
 jolly sunburnt you are ! you look preposterously fit. 
 Where have you been ? " 
 
 Adrian shrugged his shoulders. " Where haven't I 
 been? Nice, Corfu, Venice, Florence, Verona, Rome, 
 Algiers and half the ports on the Mediterranean. I 
 didn't stay anywhere long : I moved on when my 
 fellow-countrymen became too conversational. I have 
 developed quite a passion for the road : I think nature 
 must have intended me for a commis voyageur." 
 
 Corbyn smiled. " I wonder what the dickens she 
 intended me for ? Whatever it was, it was something 
 in the contemplative line, and she spoiled it by forget- 
 ting the money part of the qualification. But weren't 
 you awfully lonely ? Especially if, as you say, you 
 dodged your fellow-countrymen." 
 
 " I was rather," admitted the other. " But I wanted 
 to be alone. I had quite enough society in Italy, chiefly
 
 102 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 of the Bostonian order. I have been working pretty 
 hard. I have written a play, and started on a novel. 
 Lord Hildebrand was with me for a week or two at 
 Nice, and Brooke paid me a flying visit at Rome. 
 Henry Minaret was to have joined me soon after 
 Christinas, for a cruise; but his sister-in-law died 
 Lady Towers, you know." 
 
 " Yes," said Corbyn ; " very sudden, wasn't it ? The 
 man I am reading with held a brief for the lady, in her 
 divorce case. Poor thing, she was very badly treated ! 
 And they say that Lord Towers is likely to marry 
 again ! " 
 
 " I shouldn't be surprised," said Rome. " I saw him a 
 week or two ago at Mentone, dangling in the train of a 
 colonial lady, a person with emeralds like chandelier 
 drops, and everything else, including an accent, on the 
 same scale. I don't envy either of them. But its rough 
 on Minaret." 
 
 Chatting indifferently, the two men made their way 
 along the Strand, teeming just then with its eastward 
 stream of pleasure-seekers, and westward tide of home- 
 faring men of business; across Trafalgar Square, where 
 they paused for a moment, beneath the shadow of the 
 National Gallery, to gaze admiringly at the medley of 
 delicate lights, gleaming across the sombre square and 
 converging roadways, like tall daffodils in a wood ; 
 thence, turning their backs on the gloomy pools and 
 statues, they passed into Regent Street. Rome had 
 proposed that they should dine at the Cafe Imperial, 
 and Corbyn, tapping his pockets a little ruefully, 
 assented : it was an occasion ; for once, he would be 
 extravagant. "We will celebrate the return of the 
 prodigal," he said, laughing. " I confess that I am 
 getting very tired of cheap dinners. You don't know 
 how the poor live, my boy ! I feel that I could write a
 
 ADRIAN ROME 103 
 
 blue-book on cheap restaurants : I know where to find a 
 dinner a substantial dinner for a shilling, and I 
 habitually lunch for half that sura. And yet, I can't 
 economise ! I don't know how it is : I don't gamble, my 
 tastes are simple, and I keep accounts or try to ; but 
 every month I find myself a sovereign or two out 
 on the wrong side ; and they have to go down as 
 " Tobacco, etc.," or, more vaguely still, as " Incidental 
 expenses." It's the very devil ! " 
 
 Rome sighed, looking at his companion across the 
 table a little wistfully, while the nimble waiter bustled 
 about them with forks and spoons. 
 
 " I don't see what you have got to sigh about," said 
 Corbyn captiously. " For Heaven's sake, don't say that 
 you envy me that you would like to be a pauper. 
 That would be playing the part of the pompous idiot, 
 who gives away the prizes, on speech days, and wishes 
 that he was back at school. I know I don't ! Talking 
 about parts, tell me about your play : you said you had 
 written one. I'm awfully glad. When is it to be 
 produced ? " 
 
 " Goodness knows ! " said Rome, colouring a little. 
 " I haven't sent it to anyone yet ; when I do, I shall be 
 told that it isn't suited for the stage. I daresay it isn't." 
 
 " Oh, skittles ! " said Corbyn airily. " I expect it's 
 awfully good. I drink to its success! What is it? 
 Comedy, I hope." 
 
 " Yes, it's a comedy, I suppose. It certainly isn't 
 intended for tragedy or farce. You shall read it, if you 
 will criticise it. But you won't: that's the worst of 
 friends, they can't be candid, except in little things. 
 And afterwards, when the book has been cut up, the 
 play damned, they exchange mysterious glances, and tell 
 each other that they only expected it." 
 
 " Oh, I'll abuse it," said Corbyn cheerfully. " I'll go
 
 104 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 through it with a big blue pencil. I rather fancy 
 myself as a stage-manager, you know. By the way, 
 you probably don't know I write for the Outcry. 
 Have you ever heard of it ? Oh, it's a most influential 
 organ, though its circulation has latterly become some- 
 what limited. It's edited by a cousin of Barton's; he 
 introduced me to him. He takes me to the theatre with 
 him now and then, and sends me tickets for the less 
 important Private Views. Rather a well, in short, a 
 bounder ; but we get on pretty well, so far. Chiefly, I 
 expect, because my services are gratuitous. I write about 
 the Drama, with a big D, and (whatever you do, don't 
 tell Brooke !) Art, with a very big A. You should see 
 how I pitch into the R.A.'s. I came across the President 
 the other day, and I felt quite ashamed of myself : he 
 looked such a venerable aiid imposing old gentleman." 
 
 " Oh, they're all very respectable," said Rome, " and 
 certainly imposing like their pictures. I should think 
 the Private Views would be rather a bore ; but I suppose 
 that you appreciate the theatre tickets ? " 
 
 "It's not bad. But I don't get many tickets: I'm 
 only a kind of understudy, you know. They generally 
 send me to the music halls, and the Surrey-side places. 
 When I do go to a decent theatre, I have to accompany 
 the editor. I find that rather trying. I'm not sure that 
 I don't prefer the independence of the pit. The gratui- 
 tous stall savours of bribery and corruption." 
 
 " I'm glad to observe that journalism hasn't blunted 
 your artistic conscience. I can understand too, that if a 
 confiding manager sends you a ticket for his show (isn't 
 that the correct term ?), you don't like to go home and 
 revile it. Haven't I heard of a critic who won't accept 
 complimentary tickets, but pays his half-crown at the 
 pit door, so that he may have a free hand instead of a 
 free seat ? "
 
 ADRIAN ROME 105 
 
 " Yes," said Corbyn. " He must be a man of means ! 
 I don't think one ought to pamper one's conscience like 
 that ; mine would wax fat and kick in no time." 
 
 " You think conscience is like a wife, a thing to be 
 openly obeyed and covertly coerced." 
 
 " There is a certain resemblance. But you have some 
 choice in the matter of a wife : you needn't saddle 
 yourself with one unless you like." 
 
 " I hope not ! " said Rome. ' But it's so difficult to 
 know what one really does like." 
 
 " Unless one has tried, you mean ? That's the worst 
 of it, matrimony is such a devil of a plunge. In spite 
 of the Divorce Court, there's practically no retreat. But 
 you you have Art for your mistress ! " 
 
 " And you : haven't you become the Mentor of play- 
 wrights ? I don't say of painters, for I imagine that 
 there you don't take yourself quite seriously ? " 
 
 " Gracious ! " cried Corbyn, in burlesque alarm. " Have 
 you, by chance, been reading the Outcry ? It isn't my 
 fault. I admit that as a writer I'm a hopeless duffer. 
 But if I don't trouble myself about the painters and 
 pictures, it's because Brooke and you have told me so 
 often that they aren't worth it. Now, the Drama, 
 I do take that seriously : if one can't say much for 
 the plays, at least the actors are interesting; one can 
 write about them. And your play I'm sure that will 
 inspire me : I shan't have to fall back on saying that 
 it's admirably acted, magnificently staged." 
 
 " I hope it will be well acted, if it's acted at all," said 
 Adrian, emptying his coffee cup, and leaning back to 
 watch the thin smoke of his cigarette floating towards 
 the painted and gilded splendour of the ceiling. "As 
 for the staging, I don't care. It isn't spectacular ; its 
 success won't depend on scenery and supernumeraries. 
 I don't bring Cleopatra's Barge, or the Scotch Express,
 
 106 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 upon the stage. It's the presentment of a temperament, 
 of a condition of soul, of nerves " 
 
 " Like an American novel ? " queried Corbyn, inter- 
 rupting him. " Be careful ; they don't dramatise well ! " 
 
 " Like an American novel ? Well, we'll call it the 
 play of manners, if you like ; that is, to put it shortly, 
 what I have been trying to write. In these days action 
 is so commonplace ; physical situations have become so 
 hackneyed ; the fifty ways of committing a murder, of 
 rescuing a heroine ; aren't they more than threadbare ? 
 These devices are almost as stupid as the inevitable 
 second act of the modern farce, when the scene presents 
 an interminable array of doorways, which the author 
 employs as so many bolt-holes, to get himself out of 
 difficulties." 
 
 "And to get his characters into them," suggested 
 Corbyn. " When the maiden aunt gets locked into the 
 bathroom with the butler, and the key has been dropped 
 down somebody else's back ! Oh, I always know there's 
 going to be some fun when I see those doors. They're 
 adapted from the French ! " 
 
 " Precisely ! Isn't it time that we changed that ? 
 What I want to write I don't imagine for a single 
 instant that I have written it is a play which shall be 
 readable as well as actable, a play which shall present 
 an interesting life-scene, with style, fonn, literary finish, 
 dignity, in a word, a work of art, not a skeleton for a 
 star actor to clothe with mannerisms. Oh, you may 
 smile : I admit that I am ambitious ! " 
 
 " It's refreshing to hear you talk ! " said Corbyn. 
 " An original play is all I want. What I complain of is, 
 that as soon as I have read the programme, I know 
 what's coming. If the properties were scheduled, like 
 the actors, I have little doubt that I could reconstruct 
 the play evolve it out of them."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 107 
 
 Rome laughed contemptuously, assenting. One had 
 only to look at the theatrical advertisements, he said, to 
 gauge the state of things : a long list of announcements 
 of melodramas, professed and in disguise ; comic operas 
 translated and adapted from the French ; farces 
 obviously hailing from the same source, though their 
 authors (save the mark) generally hadn't the decency to 
 own as much. 
 
 From this well-worn topic their conversation drifted 
 into more pleasant channels, as for an hour or more they 
 sat, smoking and watching their neighbours, amid the 
 tedious clatter of dominoes and the surge of voluble 
 voices : it seemed scarcely possible that there could be a 
 greater percentage of Frenchmen in any cafd on the 
 Boulevard des Italiens. Rome grew eloquent upon the 
 subject of his wanderings, inspiring his companion with 
 feelings which were frankly envious ; and presently they 
 deserted the behaviour of the yacht, the blue shadows of 
 Algiers, to fall into the familiar discussion of aims and 
 aspirations, discoveries and disillusionments. 
 
 As the hands of the clock over the bar advanced, and 
 the more serious business of dining came to an end, the 
 cafe grew fuller and noisier : the clamour of voices ceased 
 to form a background for their conversation, and assailed 
 them bewilderingly, like the wide-eyed electric light 
 which was reflected, unshaded, from the mirrored walls, 
 and from the gilded ceiling, with its posturing, painted 
 nymphs. On the suggestion of Rome, who complained 
 that he was beginning to imagine himself in a bonbon- 
 niere full of madmen, they made their escape ; and the 
 adjournment to the cooler air and comparative quiet of 
 the street seemed pleasant, in spite of the hovering fog, 
 while for a time they wandered under the vague panoply 
 of the sky, which they could not see. 
 
 Later, when they sat in meditative enjoyment of their
 
 io8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 cigars and the contents of tall tumblers, in the billiard- 
 room of the club which numbered him among its members, 
 Adrian, in the frequent pauses in their conversation 
 which occurred when Corbyn's interest in a complicated 
 cannon or a brilliant break held him silent, often felt 
 himself vaguely troubled by some ill-defined uneasiness, 
 the ghost of some forgotten aberration, which was all 
 the more baffling, because his conscience told him that it 
 
 O* 
 
 must be trivial It was only after the feeling had been 
 many times peremptorily dismissed, and as often timidly 
 recalled (after the fashion of a maiden playing with her 
 lover), that the ghost embodied itself in a regret that he 
 had not bestowed more consideration upon her last letter. 
 (It is perhaps worthy of note that Sylvia Drew was the 
 only woman who figured in his thoughts after this 
 manner, in the familiar domino of a pronoun, anonym- 
 ously.) Her last letter; it came to him while he was 
 in town before Christmas, in answer to the one which he 
 had written to her just before leaving Towers, and he 
 had treated it with little ceremony; he remembered, 
 with a blush, that he had even gone the length of 
 crumpling the careful writing and lighting his pipe with 
 it, cynically. During his wanderings abroad, this scruple 
 had not assailed him : wounded pride at first had held 
 him aloof from the thought ; and the frequent change of 
 scene, the unfamiliar environment, the long-anticipated 
 pleasures which now found fulfilment: all operated to 
 turn his eyes to the future rather than to the past, to 
 wean him from his weakness for introspection. But 
 now the key had been changed, the scene shifted. The 
 Temple, where her photograph lurked in a pigeon-hole 
 over his writing-table; Corbyn; the club; the foggy 
 London night outside : it was natural that 'his mind 
 should clothe itself with its old habits, and even that 
 it should feel more at its ease so clad. What had he
 
 ADRIAN ROME 109 
 
 written to her ? What had been her reply to him ? He 
 could only remember that his letter had been the result 
 of careful deliberation, that it had been copied and 
 recopied, that it had impressed him, in its final shape, 
 as diplomatic without ceasing to be loverlike, loverlike 
 without being ridiculous. He had intended, he remem- 
 bered clearly, to bring matters to a definite issue, to 
 explain his position, his point of view, to Sylvia; to 
 inform her that he was ready to follow to an honourable 
 end the path upon which they had entered so light- 
 heartedly. But he had also asked for some assurance ; 
 it was not in his nature to feel certain about anything 
 or anybody ; he had pleaded (and perhaps that was 
 where his tact had failed him) for the removal of certain 
 uncomfortable doubts. 
 
 If pride had held him silent afterwards, it was pride 
 no less which had dictated Sylvia's answer : and when 
 friends or lovers withdraw themselves to separate pin- 
 nacles, estrangement follows as a matter of course. 
 
 It was a confession difficult to make, but Adrian's 
 subtilty had been at fault : he had not given this village 
 maiden credit for pride. His clearer vision of to-day 
 showed him that he had been guilty of the folly of 
 regarding this passion as his lordly prerogative : he 
 recognised his mistake. 
 
 He wished that he could remember exactly what she 
 had written; he could only recall his impressions on 
 reading her letter, a sense of coldness, a feeling that he 
 was being rebuked, misinterpreted, held at arm's length. 
 At the time, if he had been compelled to give voice to 
 his thoughts, he would have complained that he had 
 been snubbed, an affront which of all others his tem- 
 perament found it hard to assimilate. 
 
 He awoke from his reverie presently, to find his friend 
 regarding him curiously through a mist of tobacco smoke.
 
 no ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " What is it now, old man ? " said Corbyn pleasantly. 
 " Wliy those frowns, symptoms of brain-racking ? Are 
 you hammering at a villanelle, to celebrate your return 
 to London, or pondering on your mistress' shoe-lace, or 
 what?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Rome. "Have you been 
 talking to me ? I'm afraid my attention was wandering. 
 Isn't it late ? Shall we walk back to the Temple ? " 
 
 "Late?" replied Corbyn pityingly; "no, it's early. 
 I'm just beginning to feel alive. You don't want to 
 look in at the Eden, or the Dorado ? No ? Well, let's 
 make for the Temple, and so to bed, as Pepys would 
 say." 
 
 " We might walk along the Embankment," Adrian 
 suggested, as they passed into Piccadilly. "The river 
 has always a new charm Tor me, especially at night ; it 
 quite amounts to a fascination. I'm almost afraid of it, 
 when I'm alone. It's so silent, mysterious, beautiful. 
 After all, there's nothing like it in this world not even 
 Venice." 
 
 " Yes," said the other ; " but don't let it fascinate you 
 too much. I like to see the lights, and moonbeams, and 
 stars, and things struggling and drowning in it ; but I 
 should be very sorry to follow their example." 
 
 "I'm afraid," continued Rome, "that some night I 
 shall see a poor wretch I suppose one would have 
 to make a fool of oneself, and jump in after him or 
 her." 
 
 " I don't know," said Corbyn. " I think it would be 
 rather rough luck to be hauled out when one was once 
 in, and probably slanged next morning by an unsym- 
 pathetic beak. Candidly, I think I should run away, 
 like blazes, if I heard an ominous splash. After all, 
 people don't do such things without making up their 
 minds ! "
 
 ADRIAN ROME in 
 
 "Perhaps it's well for some people that they can't 
 make up their minds," suggested the other, with a short 
 laugh. " I can't ! " 
 
 " What about ? " queried Corbyn. " Not that ! Girls, 
 I suppose ? Are you between two bundles of hay ? Let 
 them slide : they aren't worth bothering about. But 
 seriously," he continued, after a pause, "you're not in 
 love, are you ? There wasn't anything in that little 
 flirtation down at Underwoods, was there ? If you go 
 marrying, and so on, what's to become of me ? " 
 
 " In love," said Rome, slowly letting his eyes wander 
 along the river-front, where the electric light shone 
 through the fog like a necklace of moonstones and opals. 
 " I don't know ! Perhaps I am not. Well, confound 
 women : I'm a confirmed bachelor at least, I think 
 so!" 
 
 Corbyn whistled softly. " This looks bad, my friend. 
 It's no business of mine ; but I see that I shall have to 
 begin to look for a wedding present. Are you coming 
 up to my rooms? I've got some whisky, of the old 
 brand : you'd better come up and smoke a few last pipes. 
 I'm awfully glad you've come back : the Temple is very 
 charming, especially New Court ; but it's devilish lonely 
 at night. I don't like being alone in a big place like 
 this: it makes one feel so insignificant!" 
 
 An hour later, when Adrian reached his own rooms, 
 he found on the table a letter, which, to judge from the 
 postmarks, had been pursuing him over half the Con- 
 tinent. It was from Lord Henry Minaret, and Rome 
 smiled a little scornfully when he read the brief an- 
 nouncement of Miss Lancaster's engagement to General 
 Verrinder. 
 
 " Poor Harry," he said ; " I don't suppose he knows 
 that he is well out of it!"
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MRS. VESPER'S little house in Mayfair, and Mrs. Vesper's 
 little dinner parties, at which no one who was not 
 worth knowing ever sat down, had been for so long a 
 feature of the London season, that any wonder at the 
 extent of her vogue would have seemed provincial or 
 underbred. Adrian Rome almost felt convicted of these 
 deficiencies, or at least of a deplorable na/iveU, when he 
 had, once or twice, questioned some of the more fashion- 
 able of his club acquaintance as to the lady's standing, 
 and had been met with a tolerant but superior smile. 
 Yet he doubted, on reflection, whether any of them 
 could actually have told him more than he himself, in 
 the course of two visits, had grasped : that Mrs. Vesper 
 was, in London society, a person to be accounted, perhaps 
 even a power to be felt. Whatever there might be 
 ambiguous about her (in attaching this epithet to her 
 it must not be inferred that he gave it a detrimental 
 sense), of one thing he felt that he could, without undue 
 vanity, be certain, her genuine goodwill towards himself. 
 She had extended her benevolence so far as to ask him 
 to disregard the formality of her days, and to call when 
 he felt inclined, adding, smilingly (in an undertone, for 
 certain of her guests still lingered), that she knew 
 how to treat artists, creatures of impulse and mood, 
 with whom the wind of social intention blew very much 
 where it listed ; the stated period was good enough for 
 diplomatists and men of affairs.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 113 
 
 Adrian thanked her ; and a few days later, when he 
 availed himself of the licence, had the luck to find her 
 alone. 
 
 The smile with which she welcomed him banished 
 any scruple which he might have felt as to having 
 taken her invitation too literally. He wondered afresh, 
 after half an hour's converse with her, how, without 
 personal beauty or the advantage of youth, she managed 
 to be so charming. To her voice he decided, which 
 reminded him, in its silvery modulations, of that of a 
 great French actress, just then at the height of her 
 fame, she owed much, and a little, perhaps, to her 
 surroundings the discreet and sober elegance of her 
 house. When he left her, he was hardly sensible of 
 how she had imposed herself on him. He found him- 
 self pledged to read his play to her on an early 
 occasion, half surprised himself at the ease with which 
 the promise had been extracted. 
 
 " And by the way," she had added, " would you mind 
 a small audience, and make it Thursday ? I expect one 
 or two people to dine ; your friend Gerald Brooke is 
 coming, and I want you to be one of the party." 
 
 He went back to the Temple to spend an absorbed, 
 distressed evening over his manuscript emending, 
 correcting, excising, until, to his confusion of ideas, 
 the play came to seem to him a monstrosity of imper- 
 fection, and he cast it aside in despair. This result was 
 the more disheartening, in that he could recall how, 
 when he wrote the last page in the cabin of the 
 Anonyma at Algiers, he had gone through it with less 
 of that inevitable disgust with which, to a certain 
 extent, always at the moment of completion, he needs 
 must contrast achievement with the evasive beauty of 
 his idea. He had thought it a strong play, exposing 
 lucidly, in several dramatic movements, a forcible story. 
 8
 
 ii 4 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Less than ever before, too, he hod reproached himself 
 with offences against his passion for style, believing 
 that he had, in a measure, succeeded in his constant 
 endeavour to be classically fine, without " preciousness," 
 or merely ornate writing; to be simple, inevitable, pre- 
 cise. In his present mood, his characters grew puppets 
 of melodrama, the deliberate simplicity of his dialogue, 
 ineffectual reporting. 
 
 Though in the sober morning he could take a more 
 lenient view of his effort, he was maintained in this 
 judgment by Corbyn, to whom the play was shown, 
 and who was loud in its praises, it was not without 
 sundry trepidations that he rendered himself, with his 
 manuscript, on the appointed evening, at Mrs. Vesper's 
 house. He found that her small audience was still large 
 enough to make a considerable show round a dinner- 
 table that was, nevertheless, of respectable size. He felt 
 vaguely puzzled during the uncomfortable interval in 
 the drawing-room (happily he was a little late), for 
 though the majority of the guests were strange to him, 
 he seemed so familiar with their faces, that he felt as if 
 he ought to have known them. It was not till Mrs. 
 Vesper had mentioned the names of two or three of them 
 that he could account for this sentiment ; they figured 
 too often in the chronicles of the world of Art for the 
 most absent peripatetic to have missed their photo- 
 graphs in the shop windows of Regent Street. When 
 he discerned the face of Miss Brabant amongst them, 
 he hailed her by contrast as an old friend ; was sensibly 
 relieved at discovering, when they had exchanged 
 greetings of some cordiality, that he was to take her 
 down to dinner. One of her allusions, while they 
 waited, to the promised morsel of the evening, the 
 reading of his play, disconcerted him. He gathered that 
 the fact was published, the match already laid to the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 115 
 
 train; and a project, which had half formed itself in 
 his mind, of evasion, of retreat, was shattered. His 
 unhappiness he had seldom felt so disorganised 
 drove him to the girl for sympathy, and before 
 dinner had made much progress he had confessed his 
 scruples, his tremors. Her laugh was benevolent and 
 sanguine. 
 
 " You remind me of my cousin Henry, when he was 
 going to address his constituents. He was terribly 
 nervous. But you need not be afraid ; your poems 
 were so good, that I feel certain of your play. Besides, 
 it will not be so formidable some of these people will 
 have gone on to the Foreign Office." 
 
 Rome had heard of his friend's victory of course, it 
 had been a foregone conclusion at a bye-election a 
 month ago. Had he spoken yet ? 
 
 "I see very little of him," the girl replied. "I am 
 staying here for the present. The Duchess is not in 
 town." 
 
 There was a trace of reticence in her tone, and he 
 wondered how far she was in his friend's confidence ; 
 or it might refer simply to the continued obloquy of 
 the eldest son of the house, which was making the 
 Duchess more and more a votary of country seclusion ; 
 precisely, a paragraph he had read half an hour be- 
 fore in an evening paper seemed to corroborate this ; 
 a rumour of an approaching alliance between the 
 noble Marquis and the Australian lady, with whom 
 his name was so constantly coupled an impossible 
 person ! 
 
 Mrs. Vesper interpolated a remark just then, strate- 
 gically seeking to make the conversation general. 
 
 Gerald Brooke, whose smile of good-humoured self- 
 appreciation reassured the young dramatist over a 
 rampart of exotic flowers and glass, seconded her with
 
 ii6 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 an epigram. And he leaned back, while the laugh 
 rippled round him, with the air of a man who had 
 plenty more in stock, and was disposed to be generously 
 lavish with them. 
 
 It was upon conversation, indeed, that the conversa- 
 tion trenched; and more than one lady turned to this 
 past-master of the practice for an opinion. He declared 
 it a lost art, cultivated by the fewest, at least in 
 England ; he was in favour of a parliamentary com- 
 mittee to enquire into the cause of this. 
 
 Dalrymple Green, as a prominent lobbyist, protested 
 against the tribunal; they heard so much bad talk in 
 the House, that their judgment must be warped. Mrs. 
 Vesper alluded to the new enterprise, of an enterprising 
 purveyor of all things, who supplied entertaining guests 
 to the nouveaux riches iot a consideration. 
 
 Lady Adela Moon, a lady with a passion for barbarous 
 experiences, who was only in civilisation to publish a 
 book of her last travels in Central China, commended 
 the idea. " If ever I have a house again, I will enter- 
 tain on that principle." 
 
 " The objection would be," put in Brooke, " that your 
 best talker depends upon his atmosphere; he can only 
 flourish under the choicest conditions." 
 
 " That is the worst of bores," Adrian hazarded ; " they 
 are not only dull themselves, but they make you dull : 
 their vice is catching." 
 
 " Exactly," went on Brooke, with genial egoism. " I 
 tremble to think of the oceans of dulness I might pour 
 out, if I were hired for, say a Nonconformist break- 
 fast-table." 
 
 The incongruity of the notion provoked hilarity. 
 
 " A Nonconformist break fast- table ! The mere men- 
 tion of such a gathering is depressing," Mrs. Vesper 
 declared. " What would it be like ? "
 
 ADRIAN ROME 117 
 
 Dalrymple Green repudiated knowledge of it, though 
 he admitted his acquaintance with its conscience. 
 
 " You keep it, don't you, Green ? " asked Lorimer, the 
 editor of a famous monthly review, " the Nonconformist 
 conscience ? " 
 
 Brooke bent forward with his suavely malicious 
 smile, answering for him. 
 
 "Dalrymple tickles it in his leaders as they tickle 
 trout to catch votes." 
 
 " One must catch them when one can," said the 
 journalist cynically. 
 
 And the stream of pointed talk, of bright, apposite 
 impromptu, or of more deliberate phrases, uttered with 
 the air of impromptu, flowed into other channels. 
 
 Adrian, the youngest, least -known man present, 
 weighted, moreover, by disagreeable anticipations, was 
 content for the most part to be a silent listener, admiring 
 especially the deft management of his hostess, to whose 
 nice tact he attributed it, that the effect of brilliance 
 was so general, with no privileged wit or predominant 
 monologue. She had her table in hand, and moved it 
 harmoniously, as the born conductor his orchestra. 
 They rose soon after nine, and almost immediately the 
 men followed the ladies into the drawing-room. And 
 there were leave-takings from the persons who were 
 pledged elsewhere, hardly numerous enough for Adrian, 
 whose nervousness, when he saw the little table with 
 its pair of stately candlesticks already set for him, had 
 reached its climax. Actually, however, when he had 
 seated himself, and with a last, appealing glance round 
 the room, opened his manuscript, most of the strangers 
 had departed. 
 
 It was but a vague circle of arm-chairs that con- 
 fronted him, for the large, handsome room was dimly 
 lighted. The well-bred hush which ensued amongst
 
 n8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 the in.listin^uishable guests, after a few preliminary 
 murmurs, struck Adrian cold, and he plunged at his 
 title, at the list of his characters, desperately, with a 
 voice that trembled. But a moment later, with the 
 opening of his first act, his disorder had passed away. 
 A sudden determination to do his work justice, mingled 
 with a renewed confidence in it, had restored him. 
 When he turned the first page, he read, until he came 
 to the end, in a low, distinct voice, full of subtile 
 modulations, with composure and conviction; he had 
 forgotten his audience. People listened, watched him 
 with an increasing curiosity ; they were disposed to be 
 interested, finding his long, oval face, rather pale, with 
 its vivid eyes against the background of shadow, a 
 picture impressive and striking. 
 
 The Opportunists : a Comedy, he called his play, the 
 category striking at least one of his listeners, before 
 the reading had very far progressed, as a trifle arbitrary. 
 Certainly, in spite of not a few passages of effective wit 
 in the first act, which opened in full sunshine, upon a 
 return of the newly-married, there was little of the 
 genial spirit of old comedy in this somewhat relentless 
 piece of dramatic observation. In some dialogue with 
 the husband, full of literary charm, the character of 
 the heroine revealed itself: a vivid, girlish figure, 
 wisely innocent, cherishing her dignified ideals, "the 
 fair sum of six thousand years' traditions of civility," 
 defending them all most passionately from the playful 
 attacks of a friend, older by some years, Mrs. Helvellyn, 
 who viewed marriage (" if one doesn't begin by forgiving 
 one's husband, one ends by divorcing him") more 
 cynically; who meets Cynthia Mallory's impetuous 
 denial that she has married a husband who needs for- 
 giveness, with the shrug of superior knowledge. More 
 subtilely, the character of Mallory was exposed : a weak,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 119 
 
 well-meaning, handsome fellow, " the average sensual 
 man," or more so, keenly appreciative of his wife, yet 
 a little bored already, after a six weeks' honeymoon, 
 with the odd part she casts him for. Half amused, but 
 a trifle exhausted, he sketches the situation to his cousin, 
 Captain Romilly, in a scene which the author had 
 treated with a discretion quite masterly, and which 
 brought the act to an end. The situation had the 
 germs of tragical, or, at least, of ironical development ; 
 and Marion Brabant was prepared for the hardly 
 mirthful note which pervaded the subsequent scenes, 
 of the heroine's successive awakenings. Is that opera- 
 tion, so dear to the heart of woman, of washing the 
 Ethiopian, ever really successful ? This was a question, 
 among others, which Adrian's play seemed to suggest 
 to the audience ; though, certainly, he had avoided the 
 error of answering too definitely this or other ques- 
 tions. At least, in the second act, an interval of some 
 months had elapsed, Mallory has returned to the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt. A discovery, inexorably convincing, of 
 the clay in her idol, has estranged Cynthia from her 
 husband, and in a scene, with some art only touched 
 upon in retrospect, she has coldly dismissed him. In 
 his absence, Captain Romilly, superficial, adroit, in- 
 flammable, misses no opportunity of consoling a beautiful 
 inconsolable ; and with all the skill of a past-master of 
 gallantry, he widens the breach between the disenchanted 
 couple, for his own purpose. The masque of the high- 
 minded, chivalrous lover imposes on the disillusioned 
 wife, and, with her youthful hunger for the ideal still 
 unsatisfied and exorbitant, she draws the inference 
 which Romilly desires. It is but from one high horse 
 to another that this gentle amateur in the difficult art 
 of loving steps. And an artful dialogue, in which 
 Romilly, with some casuistry, argues with Cynthia for a
 
 120 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 woman's right to avenge her husband's notorious in- 
 fidelities in kind, paves the way for his declaration. 
 Between a noble lover, and a husband, who is, at the 
 best, a good-natured profligate, choice is difficult and 
 involved. Her very hatred of compromise; the legiti- 
 mate recklessness of a fine nature, wantonly outraged, 
 are advocates of his cause ; and the curtain falls almost 
 upon her consent. And it was here Adrian scored his 
 first triumph, retaining his audience's sympathy for a 
 heroine capable of such weakness of an abdication 
 which had at least its roots in nobility. The sequel, and 
 the precise Deua ex machina to save Cynthia from social 
 shipwreck, resumed the key of lighter comedy. At the 
 point of flight with Captain Romilly, the irresolute 
 woman, attacked by her friend, Mrs. Helvellyn, whom 
 old acquaintance with Captain Romilly has rendered 
 suspicious, is reduced to explain, to justify herself. The 
 scene which followed between the two, when from a 
 few deft revelations Cynthia learns that her lover's 
 record is less creditable even than her husband's own, 
 provoked applause. Her dismissal of him, characterised 
 by a certain cold disdain rather than her old fire of 
 indignation, signalised her defeat. Mrs. Helvellyn's 
 pitying reminder, "One doesn't make one's life, my 
 child ! one arranges it, puts up with it : it's compromise 
 one makes"; the defeated, doubly defeated woman's 
 rejoinder, " One pays dearest for one's aspirations," pre- 
 pare for the reconciliation between Cynthia and her 
 husband, privately summoned by Mrs. Helvellyn. As 
 she makes her exit, leaving them with the benediction 
 of a good-hearted mondaine, who has killed a scandal, 
 Cynthia, with half a sigh burying her girlhood, is a 
 convert to opportunism. The finale, the half-hearted 
 reconciliation of the intimately divided pair, sought 
 with a curious lassitude by the wife, met with good-
 
 ADRIAN ROME 121 
 
 natured acquiescence by the husband, at heart he is 
 plainly impenitent, came upon the audience as a sur- 
 prise of cynicism. There was a minute's silence, before 
 they were sufficiently certain that the reading had come 
 to an end to seal it with a little polite applause. On 
 the whole, however, they had been diverted, although 
 their urbane praises probably concealed a variety of 
 opinions. 
 
 There was a quick shuffle of chairs ; people split up 
 into little groups ; some were taking leave. Adrian, as 
 he moved towards his hostess, was afflicted with a return 
 of shamefacedness, of disgust at his part of the enter- 
 tainment, was anxious only to get away. 
 
 But Brooke stopped him for a moment, to introduce 
 him to a tall, thin, close-shaven man, with restless eyes ; 
 Cyrus Holmes, an actor, who was also a manager, and 
 who was reported to be less prone than most of his 
 fraternity to time-honoured reproductions, to have a 
 taste for dramatic novelties. Stammering a little, 
 smiling rather foolishly, his perfect self-possession on 
 the stage being in odd contrast to his extreme nervous- 
 ness in private life, he asked Adrian if he might 
 have the pleasure of reading the manuscript; it had 
 struck him very much, he wanted to find something 
 new. 
 
 " He means, that he wants to produce you," Brooke 
 interpolated. 
 
 " I think I think I might very likely be able to 
 make you an offer," the actor went on. " Your play is 
 very strong." 
 
 Adrian professed himself delighted; he had feared 
 that perhaps it had not the elements of a popular 
 success. 
 
 " Oh, the public is waking up," said Cyrus Holmes 
 placidly.
 
 122 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " So you have scored a point ! " Brooke remarked a 
 few minutes later, as they stopped beneath a gas-lamp, 
 lighting cigarettes. "Holmes talks like a schoolgirl, 
 but he is far too good a man of business to compromise 
 himself. You will be produced, and very well produced, 
 and I congratulate you in advance. Your play, my 
 dear fellow, is charming, but it's horrible. Your people 
 are quite too absurdly vulgar and real ; they are people 
 out of the street, they lack atmosphere and grace." 
 
 " You are an impenitent romantic," laughed Adrian ; 
 "you would like to dress my persons in seventeenth- 
 century clothes." 
 
 " Yes," admitted the other, as they separated, " I am 
 a very impenitent romantic. I am going away to devise 
 a beautiful Oriental ballet : it is much less tedious than 
 writing plays. 
 
 Left alone, Adrian paused for a few moments at the 
 street corner, gazing vacantly at his watch, in search of 
 inspiration. He felt restless, disinclined for his own 
 society; vaguely dissatisfied, and at the same time 
 exhilarated. He remembered suddenly that the hour 
 was one at which he would almost certainly find 
 Corbyn at a neighbouring club, and his yearning for 
 sympathy prompted him to bend his steps thither. 
 The club was one where the university element largely 
 predominated, and the little group which he joined on 
 his arrival was augmented shortly after midnight by 
 Lord Henry Minaret, who had come up from the House. 
 A pleasant hour ensued, full of reminiscence and the 
 exchange of personal news. 
 
 " You have heard, of course, about poor old Simeon ? " 
 said Lord Henry, as they parted later in Piccadilly, 
 turning abruptly to his friend. " I'm sorry ! " he added 
 quickly, perceiving that Adrian's expression exhibited 
 the note of enquiry rather than assent.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 123 
 
 " I thought you would have seen it in to - day's 
 Times" 
 
 " He's dead ? " said Rome softly. 
 
 The other nodded gravely, and after a moment's 
 expressive silence they separated.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE train which conveyed Adrian and a few other 
 friends and kinsmen of his old tutor from London to 
 Underwoods did not time its arrival with any con- 
 sideration for the hour of the funeral, and, finding that 
 he had plenty of time to cover the short three miles 
 on foot, Adrian preferred to allow his companions to 
 drive off without him in the rusty, hired carriage which 
 had been sent to meet them. For a while he stood on 
 the platform, exchanging a few words with the station- 
 master, who did not fail to recognise him as a former 
 inhabitant of the place ; watching, while he waited, the 
 carriage creeping between the hedgerows, with its dusky 
 load of mourners, whose black coats and hats seemed 
 an affront to the tender beauty of the fresh spring 
 landscape. So soon as he felt that he had nothing to 
 fear from the dust of their wheels, he set out after 
 them, walking on the short grass by the roadside, with 
 an eye for the peeping primrose in the hedge-bottom, 
 the delicate shimmer of blue-bells and wind-flowers in 
 the spinney. When he came in sight of the little 
 village, it seemed to him, gazing upon it from his post 
 of vantage on the top of the hill, to be almost buried in 
 a sea of apple-blossom, which clung like a white surf 
 round the red gables, the tiled and thatched roofs, and 
 the crooked chimney-stacks ; the place was hardly less 
 silent than the bright spring sky, which spread its 
 cloud -flecked dome above. The fugual cawing of the 
 
 124
 
 ADRIAN ROME 125 
 
 rooks in the elm-trees, the challenge of the cuckoo in 
 the copse, the distant bleating of the lambs on the 
 hillside; these were the only sounds that broke the 
 perfect stillness : one might have fancied the village 
 uninhabited, or the villagers asleep. 
 
 While he waited, leaning his elbows on the top rail 
 of a gate which, as a boy, he had often climbed, the 
 church clock struck, and the familiar sound carried him 
 still further back into the days of his childhood, re- 
 calling, amongst other memories pleasant and bitter, the 
 little girl at the post-office, at an age when she had not 
 (to him at least) presented anything so disagreeable as 
 a problem, a difficulty. He sighed presently; but the 
 emotion of which this may be imagined the expression 
 was not due solely and singly to the change in his, 
 or Sylvia's, estate, but rather to a general feeling of 
 present discomfort : a funeral was a function which his 
 soul abhorred, and he often felt that this, and certain 
 other attendant circumstances, rather than the actual 
 passing from life, were the attributes which made the 
 thought of death so ugly. As he descended the hill, 
 feeling glad on the whole that his road to the vicarage 
 did not lie through the village or past the post-office, 
 he promised himself that he would make a will which 
 should enjoin upon his executors, in the strictest 
 possible terms, his desire that his death should not be 
 made the occasion of the ordinary dismal ceremonies. 
 He passed his own house quickly, almost without a 
 glance ; he did not even know whether it held a tenant ; 
 and coming within sight of the vicarage which for so 
 long had been his home, the scene of a bondage which 
 he recognised now as certainly beneficent, he fell to 
 thinking, a little self -reproachfully, of the many kind- 
 nesses which had come to him from the hands of his 
 old tutor, the dear old pedant, whom he had so often
 
 126 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 laughed at, though at heart he revered him as a 
 single-minded man, and loved him as a kindly foster- 
 father. 
 
 The weary waiting in the darkened parlour, the 
 slow procession of bareheaded men to the sunny 
 churchyard, the hospitality which he found himself 
 bound to accept at the hands of the Vicar's sister-in- 
 law, whom he remembered as a frequent visitor to 
 the house in his boyhood, all those irksome cere- 
 monies dragged at last to an end ; and, with something 
 like elation, he found himself once more on the outer 
 side of the vicarage gate, with only his black clothes to 
 remind him of the ordeal to which he had been subjected. 
 
 Consulting his watch, after surreptitiously flinging 
 his black gloves behind the hedge, he found that it was 
 nearly four o'clock, and ho remembered that there was 
 no available train to London before half-past six. Cir- 
 cumstances seemed to dictate that he should take the 
 familiar short-cut along the river to the post-office, and 
 his inclination, though at first somewhat feebly, abetted 
 them. He felt that, after all, he could not afford to 
 quarrel with Sylvia: when all was said, the fact re- 
 mained that she was a beautiful and charming girl, the 
 only friend of his boyhood, the most pleasant feature of 
 a period from which, if he did not altogether wish to 
 return to it, he had no desire entirely to sever himself. 
 He had not recognised her among the little group of 
 villagers who stood, somewhat apart from his fellow- 
 mourners, in the churchyard ; but it was possible that 
 she was there; nor would there have been anything 
 startling in her absence, for he well knew that of late 
 years Mrs. Drew had become a confirmed invalid, need- 
 ing constant attendance. He had no fear lest he should 
 not n'nd Sylvia in the queer little house which was her 
 home, or possibly in the pleasant garden, which he had
 
 ADRIAN ROME 127 
 
 so often helped her to weed and water ; for his voluble 
 friend the station-master had informed him as to the 
 mental and bodily estate and whereabouts of all the 
 dwellers in Underwoods, and her name had not figured 
 among the absentees. 
 
 The little shop, shuttered on account of the funeral, 
 was empty when Adrian entered it ; but a small boy, 
 appearing in obedience to the summons of the tinkling 
 bell, which his entry had startled into spasmodic 
 eloquence, informed him that Mrs. Drew was within. 
 He found the old lady (with a person whom he correctly 
 denominated as her younger sister) in occupation of the 
 prim, festal parlour, in which he had sometimes taken 
 tea when he was a child. The windows were closed, 
 and a fire crackled in the grate, in spite of the warmth 
 of the vernal afternoon ; and it struck him at once that 
 Mrs. Drew had aged very fast, that she had become old, 
 decrepid. She recognised his voice, she told him, and 
 his manner of knocking at the door : she quavered out 
 various polite little speeches, and presently, when the 
 conversation flagged, reminded him strangely of the 
 old days by sinking back into her arm-chair, with a nod 
 in the direction of the low bay-window. " Sylvia's in 
 the garden, Mr. Adrian ; she will be right glad to see you. 
 It's pleasanter there, for young people." Her intima- 
 tion conveyed no news to him : his first swift glance 
 through the window had confirmed his anticipation ; he 
 had seen, with a quick thrill, that Sylvia was outside, 
 in the sunlight, standing in front of the old arbour, 
 with her back towards the house. Her occupation was 
 not so promptly revealed to him : something in her pose, 
 her movements, seemed to indicate that she was holding 
 animated converse with an invisible interlocutor, who 
 might be concealed within the arbour : once, when she 
 turned slightly, with a dramatic gesture, he caught a
 
 128 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 glimpse of a butt-coloured book, held in one outstretched 
 hand. 
 
 Mrs. Drew, observing his hesitation, reassured him ; 
 it was all right, he wouldn't be interrupting anything ; 
 Sylvia was only reading to her cousin. Whereupon 
 Rome smilingly took his leave of the old lady ; recalling, 
 with a laugh at his own stupidity, that Sylvia had 
 always shown a weakness for helping small boys with 
 their lessons ; she was probably engaged in this way now. 
 
 As soon as his footsteps sounded on the red tiles which 
 were set before the garden door, Sylvia came quickly 
 down the path to meet him, blushing a little, and putting 
 up one hand in restraint of vagrant tresses. If their 
 greeting was a little formal, lacking in the old frank 
 simplicity, it must be remembered that they had not 
 seen each other for at least six months ; a period which, 
 in the country at least, is a long one, and may well work 
 many changes in a maiden's manners, even though it 
 leaves her heart unscathed: moreover, their last ex- 
 change of letters had imposed vague burdens on their 
 consciences. 
 
 Sylvia wore a black dress, almost entirely covered by 
 the apron, of a faded blue, which formed part of her 
 garden apparel : when her blushes died away, he noticed 
 that she was rather thin and pale, and that her beauty 
 gained thereby an added charm of delicacy. 
 
 " I saw you in the churchyard," she said softly, grow- 
 ing restless under the gaze of his eyes. " Poor old gentle- 
 man, we shall miss him in Underwoods ! They say he 
 died very peacefully." 
 
 "Yes," said Adrian, "he did everything very peace- 
 fully, dear old man ! I think my guardian was the only 
 person that ever ruffled him." 
 
 " And the Salvation Army ! " suggested Sylvia. " Yes, 
 we shall miss him ! "
 
 ADRIAN ROME 129 
 
 Adrian watched her, while she stooped to pick a dead 
 blossom off a flame-coloured wall-flower : revelling in 
 the rapid grace of her movements, the curves of her 
 hand and wrist. 
 
 " You will miss him, Sylvia ! I wonder, do you ever 
 miss me ? " 
 
 " Of course we miss you ! " she answered brightly. 
 " The whole village has missed you, ever since that 
 summer when you went to Oxford." 
 
 " Oh, the village ! " said Rome. " I didn't realise that 
 I was so important a member of the community. But 
 you you yourself : do you ever think of the old days ? " 
 
 " You were very kind," said the girl, still intent upon 
 her flowers. " You used to help me water my garden, 
 and read to me. I should be very ungrateful if I didn't 
 think of you sometimes," she continued bravely, turning 
 towards him. " I'm afraid I made you waste your time : 
 you must forgive me, I was only a child." 
 
 " Your precious garden ! I wish I might never waste 
 time less pleasantly. I should like to help you water 
 it now. Do you remember, you used to make me a 
 buttonhole, by way of reward, and even . . ." 
 
 " Oh no," said Sylvia hurriedly, " that would never 
 do ! You mustn't think I don't know what a celebrated 
 person you have become. Of course, I knew you would ! 
 We read the newspaper here, you know, and I have seen 
 what a deal they think of your poems. We were very 
 glad, mother and I." 
 
 " Ah," said Adrian softly, " I would give it all it's 
 not worth much, it has been only a little bubble for 
 one of the summer days when we sat and talked by the 
 old sun-dial ! Why can't they come again, those old 
 days ? I haven't changed, Sylvia." 
 
 " Everything has changed ! " cried the girl. " They were 
 all wrong, those old days. If they were pleasant, and 
 9
 
 i 3 o ADRIAN ROME 
 
 I'm sure I thought so then, so much the better ; but 
 they are gone we can't be children again. I was 
 we were very foolish." 
 
 " And are we so wise now ? I don't like your wisdom ; 
 I liked you better when you were foolish ... I wish 
 I wasn't obliged to go back to town to-night. I should 
 like to stop here all my days. I feel quite another 
 being when I'm in your garden; I think it must be 
 enchanted ! " 
 
 " Poor garden ! " she said, gazing away from him 
 across the green grass-plot, where the blossoms of the 
 old pear-tree lay like sprinkled snowflakes. " Who can 
 have enchanted it ? Isn't that another reason why you 
 ought never to come here ? Haven't you read to me, 
 out of your wonderful books Homer, wasn't it ? what 
 happens to people who linger in enchanted places ? Yes, 
 that's it, it has an evil influence, my garden ; it makes 
 you forget your ambitions, the figure you are to make 
 in the great world. Have you forgotten how you used 
 to talk to me, about your plans ? " 
 
 " Forget forget ! does one ever forget ? And I 
 thought you wanted me to, you know, you said we 
 were foolish then, Sylvia." 
 
 " I think we were very wise, sometimes." 
 
 " I'm sure I was very wise until I went away. That 
 strikes me now as the beginning of all my follies." 
 
 She sighed, smiling a little wearily. " It was the end, 
 I hope." 
 
 Adrian echoed her sigh : it reminded him that he was 
 weary, in body and mind. He had wandered into 
 Sylvia's domain in the hope of finding an oasis in the 
 desert of controversy : an attack of feminine logic was 
 not at all what he had bargained for. He wanted to 
 tell this immensely charming, but provokingly perverse 
 damsel, whose rusticity, he was relieved to find, had
 
 ADRIAN ROME 131 
 
 (at least while he was under the spell) absolutely no 
 terrors for him, that he adored her, that she was a 
 thousand times prettier than she had ever been before, 
 that he was a fool for having written her that stupid, 
 prosy letter, of which her reply was, after all, only the 
 natural consequence; that he was, in short, her slave, 
 humble and devoted. But she seemed to be hedged 
 about with scruples, bristling with secrecy, conventional, 
 discouraging. For a moment, whimsically, he was 
 inclined to attribute his defeat to his funereal appear- 
 ance: after all he was hardly dressed for the lover's 
 part; he was better calculated to produce a nervous 
 attack than an access of tenderness. He wished he had 
 the courage to ask for a flower something bright, a 
 pansy, or one of those little yellow things for his 
 coat ; but catching a glimpse of his reflected image in 
 the glass door of the diminutive greenhouse, he at once 
 dismissed the idea, as hardly decorous. His efforts, 
 which he did not at once abandon, to establish a greater 
 degree of ease, to bridge the gulf of time, of misunder- 
 standing, which seemed to lie between them, met with 
 scant success. So long as their talk ran in safe channels, 
 clear and shallow, she was the pleasant Sylvia of old 
 days; but any attempt on his part to court the swift 
 danger of the rapids, to fathom the deep pools which 
 formerly she had shown no anxiety to avoid, seemed to 
 lead inevitably to his discomfiture. 
 
 " Adrian," she said suddenly, after a silence which had 
 been broken only by the tramp of his feet upon the 
 gravel, the carol of the blackbird in the pear-tree. " I 
 wish you would promise me something ! " 
 
 " And I wish you would promise me something ! " he 
 interrupted, with a look which made her turn .away 
 passionately, with a cry, a protest that he was cruel. 
 
 " I'm sorry," he said. " Only, I don't know what I've
 
 i 3 2 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 done. Forgive me, trample on me, anything only don't 
 turn your back on me : your face is so much prettier ! " 
 
 The girl uttered a little despairing moan, and then 
 turned to him, laying one hand (how well he remem- 
 bered that dimple, between garden-glove and sleeve, on 
 the sunburnt wrist !) upon his arm. 
 
 " Promise me that you won't come here any more, for 
 a long time, that you won't ! " 
 
 " My dear child ! " he murmured, caressing the little 
 hand as it lay upon his black sleeve. " What are you 
 afraid of?" 
 
 " I'm not a child ! " she broke out, tearing her hand 
 away and walking on. "It's you who are a child a 
 mischievous child ! Take care ; you don't know what 
 you are driving me to. Haven't I been patient enough?" 
 
 Adrian frowned, biting his lip with a hasty protest, 
 as he followed her along the narrow path, noticing again 
 the charming contours of her neck and shoulders ; the 
 easy carriage of her arms, of which her scanty sleeves 
 revealed the modelling ; the radiant coils of her wonder- 
 ful hair. He began to realise that it was true, that 
 things had changed : there was to be no more of the old, 
 frank love-making, when there was no need to count 
 the kisses, to think of the morrow. Sylvia had of 
 a sudden become desperately practical, surprisingly 
 worldly. He had gone out into the world, it seemed, 
 while she had stayed at home and garnered its wisdom. 
 A Sylvia with whom one had to pick and choose one's 
 words ; to be on one's guard : he found the development 
 somewhat disconcerting. She had never looked so 
 charming, she had never treated him so unkindly. He 
 was desperately in love with the creature (he withdrew 
 the " desperately " later, on his way home), but he was 
 bewildered, tired, uncomfortable. What did she mean ? 
 he asked himself. If it had not been done so often
 
 ADRIAN ROME 133 
 
 before, by every lover that he had read about, he would 
 have enquired whether there was anyone else if he had 
 a rival ? She turned, presently, (the silence had been, in 
 fact, of brief duration), and he was agreeably disappointed 
 when, instead of making some further unreasonable 
 demand of him, she suggested, naively, that if he was 
 going by the 6.30 train it was time that she should see 
 about getting him a cup of tea. 
 
 Strolling together along the winding paths, between 
 the nodding columbines and golden leopard's-bane, they 
 had hitherto, by tacit, mutual consent, avoided the 
 vicinity of the summer-house ; but now they drew near 
 to this retreat, Sylvia leading the way, and Rome was 
 soon in a position to observe that its occupant, of whose 
 presence he had been vaguely aware, was a good-looking 
 youth, a little older than himself, dressed in flannels, 
 lounging in a basket-chair, lazily intent upon a novel, 
 yellow-backed, by Carrie Morella. His careless conclu- 
 sion as to the little boy and the lesson-book had, it 
 seemed, fallen somewhat short of the mark. He 
 wondered, for an instant, what Sylvia had been reading 
 to this gentleman, and whether his presence was the key 
 to her incomprehensible attitude. Presently he perceived 
 that he was being eyed in turn ; and, when the three 
 were already at close range, the stranger rose deliberately 
 from his comfortable seat, and stood, stooping, in the 
 low doorway of the arbour, caressing a fluent, well- 
 ordered moustache, regarding the approaching couple 
 with lazy curiosity. Sylvia coloured a little, and after 
 glancing askance at her companion, murmured a few 
 words of introduction. 
 
 "George, this is Mr. Rome; Mr. Rome, my cousin, 
 Mr. George Winter." 
 
 "That happens to be my name," supplemented the 
 stranger, bowing graciously, with a flourish of his smart
 
 i 3 4 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 straw hat ; " but I am better known as Montague Villiers. 
 Anyway, I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, 
 Mr. Rome." 
 
 Adrian bowed, a little stiffly, in spite of his wish to 
 avoid such an attitude. It had never occurred to him 
 that Sylvia numbered among her kinsfolk a cousin so 
 urbane, genteel : he was aware that she had relations on 
 her mother's side, but he had been quite in the dark as 
 to their social pretensions : in the days when he dwelt 
 there, they had not visited Underwoods. So Sylvia had 
 a cousin with an assumed name ; he felt somewhat 
 curious as to the motives which had prompted the man 
 to abandon the appellation (he had forgotten what it 
 was) which Sylvia had murmured, and which was pre- 
 sumably the gift of his godfathers and godmothers ; 
 while, at the same time, he felt that after all the substi- 
 tution had been singularly judicious: the Montague 
 Villiers (had he heard the name before ?) was so unmis- 
 takably impressed upon the cut of his handsome 
 features, the fashion of his coloured flannel jacket, 
 (disposed so as to allow a liberal display of a gaily 
 striped shirt-front), his smart be-ribboned hat, his staring 
 yellow Russian-leather shoes. 
 
 Sylvia, begging the gentlemen to excuse her, hastened 
 towards the house on an errand connected with the pro- 
 mised tea : her cousin meanwhile (he appeared to be of 
 a conversational disposition) explained to Rome that his 
 presence at Underwoods was due to his mother's desire 
 to visit her sister, Mrs. Drew. 
 
 " My aunt's in failing health, you know, Mr. Rome ; 
 not expected to live long : the old lady's not so young 
 as she was. And I thought a week in the country 
 wouldn't be so bad for me. Town takes it out of one, 
 doesn't it ? " 
 
 Adrian assented, lighting a cigarette and offering his
 
 ADRIAN ROME 135 
 
 case to Mr. Villiers, who was encouraged thereby to 
 profess his contempt for tea, and regret that he was 
 unable to provide Mr. Rome with a whisky-and-soda. 
 
 " I've been telling my cousin that she ought to go on 
 the stage," he continued confidentially. " With a little 
 teaching and experience she'd do first-rate. You know, 
 I'm in that line myself : if you read the Era you have 
 probably seen my name. Yes ? Theatrical agency, you 
 know. Do a bit myself, sometimes. Take a show round 
 the provinces, you know. Oh, I'm certain Sylvia's got 
 it in her, the right stuff. I know it well enough, when 
 I see it. And she's pretty, too ; there's no doubt she'd 
 knock 'em, even if she wasn't so clever. Oh, she'd 
 knock 'em all right." 
 
 " Does your cousin favour the idea ? " asked Rome, 
 frowning a little unconsciously, " I imagine that Miss 
 Drew has had no experience of any kind : surely it must 
 be a little difficult, even for an expert like yourself, to 
 estimate her capacity ? " 
 
 " Oh," said the other airily, " it was her own notion in 
 the first place. She wrote to me about it some time ago, 
 and I didn't encourage her, I assure you, Mr. Rome. I 
 told her it wasn't all beer and skittles and big salaries, 
 and that there were vanloads of girls all over the 
 country fancying themselves Ellen Terrys and Sarah 
 Bernhardts on the strength of an encore at a Penny 
 Reading. But she's been studying up some things on 
 the quiet, I sent her down acting copies of a few of 
 Robertson's plays, and so on ; and she knows a good bit 
 already. She was reading over Polly Eccles' lines to me 
 just before you came : it wasn't half bad. As her cousin, 
 I don't want her to go on the stage ; but Art, Mr. Rome, 
 Art has no consideration for one's feelings ! " 
 
 Rome expressed his appreciation of this sentiment ; 
 and, somewhat to his relief, further discussion was
 
 i 3 6 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 arrested by the advent of Sylvia herself with the tea- 
 tray : he was relieved, for although he could not reason- 
 ably resent Mr. Villiers' choice of a topic, he would have 
 preferred that his enlightenment as to Sylvia's possible 
 projects should have emanated from her own lips. 
 Before taking his leave, as he presently did, in order to 
 catch the London train, he found an opportunity of 
 questioning Sylvia briefly as to her supposed histrionic 
 ambition, to which her cousin had again made allusion 
 over the tea-table; and he accepted as reassuring her 
 reply, that she had not considered the matter seriously, 
 that she certainly had no intention of doing anything of 
 the kind during her mother's lifetime.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LADY LANCASTER'S summer dance had come to be re- 
 garded as a " fixture " no less invariable than the Henley 
 Regatta or the 'Varsity cricket match ; events with which 
 it was, in point of time, very closely associated. As a 
 general rule, it was a well-attended gathering. People 
 ordered their carriages to drive to the plain, commodious 
 house in the unlovely square to the north of Oxford 
 Street, not because they expected to find collected there 
 a brilliant assembly, graced perhaps by the presence of 
 Royalty, or the latest discovery in skirt-dancers, but 
 rather on account of a certain dumb reluctance to forego 
 a ceremony which appealed so strongly to that conserva- 
 tive habit of life, that love of the treadmill routine, to 
 which everyone is at heart a victim. 
 
 Moreover, the daughters were pretty, and (crowning 
 virtue) easy to talk to ; versed in the dangerous wiles of 
 the ballroom, the seductive arts of conservatory and 
 staircase: if this was an argument which smiled not 
 upon the mothers of marriageable but less attractive 
 daughters, to the irresponsible butterfly of the clubs, to 
 that rare bird, the dancing man, it appealed with con- 
 siderable force. Now, it was true, Lady Lancaster had 
 (to use a metaphor of the garden) planted out two 
 of the four charming seedlings which had originally 
 adorned her nursery; only Marjorie and Phyllis re- 
 mained practically only Phyllis, for it will be remem- 
 bered that Marjorie was already the destined bride of 
 
 137
 
 r 3 8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 that famous warrior, General Sir Cuthbert Verrinder: 
 but the tradition clung to the house; the girls were 
 pretty, and if it was not smart, one met very decent 
 people there. On this particular night, in the second 
 week of June, Lady Lancaster had the pleasure of open- 
 ing her doors to the customary throng of damsels and 
 dowagers (in the proportion of four to one); budding 
 politicians and diplomatists ; tall youths from Aldershot 
 and Oxford ; and country cousins, easily identified by 
 their complexions and their preference for Irving and 
 the Academicians, a somewhat solid agglomeration, 
 discreetly leavened by a pinch of what the astute 
 hostess regarded as reclaimed Bohemianism, in the 
 shape of a few young painters who could display 
 letters after their names (Marjorie had already been 
 immortalised on the wallg of Burlington House, and 
 a "Portrait of Miss Phyllis Lancaster" by Sir 
 Richard Lightmark, R.A., was one of the features 
 of the current exhibition), two or three men whom 
 one associated vaguely with the austerer paths of 
 literature, a newly-returned explorer, and a successful 
 novelist. 
 
 Adrian Rome, who came under the wing of Lord 
 Henry Minaret, represented for their hostess a fine 
 example of those invaluable social units who are cata- 
 logued by strategicians of her order as eligibles, a 
 category under which Lord Henry also fell. And Lady 
 Lancaster's welcome of the two young men was as 
 gracious as circumstances (such as an elbowing crowd, 
 a hot room, an elaborate toilet) would allow. One of 
 them (Mr. Rome, for choice) would do so admirably for 
 Phyllis, if the Marquis of Glendougal failed to come up 
 to the scratch. She bore Lord Henry no malice on 
 Marjorie's account; indeed, she regarded him as an 
 important feature of her triumph ; she could afford to
 
 ADRIAN ROME 139 
 
 pity him, to feel, gratefully, that he had been instru- 
 mental in hastening General Verrinder's decision. 
 
 This enviable old gentleman had posted himself at 
 Lady Lancaster's elbow, blushing quite boyishly under 
 the congratulations which were showered upon him. 
 His behaviour throughout had been all that a pro- 
 spective mother-in-law could wish; he had displayed 
 a princely liberality in the matter of settlements ; and 
 the recklessness with which he had laid his Surrey rose- 
 beds and hothouses under contribution for the greater 
 glory of this festivity had brought tears to the eyes of 
 his Scotch head-gardener. 
 
 For a time, Adrian allowed himself to be towed about 
 the crowded rooms in the wake of one of the indefatig- 
 able daughters of the house, winning golden opinions by 
 the urbane impartiality with which he asked every girl 
 to whom he was introduced if he might have the pleasure 
 of dancing with her. It was more by chance than by 
 design that, somewhat late in the evening, he found that 
 he had left himself without partners for two consecutive 
 numbers, and was so enabled, without breach of contract, 
 to take Miss Brabant down to supper at the end of the 
 waltz which he had begged from her. 
 
 " I'm engaged for the next dance," she explained, as 
 they made their way down the wide staircase, between 
 the banks of fragrant roses. " But only to Henry : he 
 won't mind. One always has to take one's chance with 
 the supper dances. Keally, one might imagine oneself 
 at a flower-show ! " 
 
 The girl was looking singularly well, Adrian reflected, 
 as he glanced at her across the little table at which they 
 found places. The music, the heat, the rapid motion, 
 had lent a colour to her cheeks, a brilliance to her eyes ; 
 even a charm to her voice, and a certain languorous 
 grace to her movements. She was Diana masquerading
 
 i 4 o ADRIAN ROME 
 
 ns Venus ; the part suited her indifferently, but the step 
 was in the right direction. As she talked, inconsequently, 
 and a little breathlessly, protesting that she didn't want 
 any supper, she had only come down because it was the 
 right thing to do, to reassure her chaperon, he forgot 
 that she could be cold and irresponsive ; he felt, more than 
 ever, that he had begun by doing her an injustice. 
 
 He caught up her reference to the roses, glancing at 
 the petals, deep red and copper-pink, which had fallen 
 from a tall vase upon the table at which they sat. 
 
 "Quite a wonderful display: one feels like Helio- 
 gabalus. I didn't know there were so many roses in 
 England. Lady Lancaster must have imported them, 
 from Bulgaria or Provence." 
 
 The girl smiled, with a little air of mystery. 
 
 "Not from Bulgaria, I think, unless that is the 
 name of General Verrinder's place in Surrey." 
 
 " Ah, I see ! " said the other reflectively. " I wasn't in 
 the secret. Poor Harry ! " 
 
 Miss Brabant shrugged her white shoulders imper- 
 ceptibly. 
 
 " Poor Harry, indeed ! I'm afraid he's very obstinate. 
 He won't own that he's beaten, even now." 
 
 " He has taken a lesson from politics," suggested Rome ; 
 " that's the way seats are won, Miss Brabant. Pardon 
 the comparison ! " 
 
 " It's not what I should have expected of a poet ! " 
 the girl admitted, with a smile. 
 
 "Ah, that's too great a name for me," said Adrian 
 modestly ; " for a maker of indifferent rhymes." 
 
 Miss Brabant protested. " You should hear Mrs. Vesper 
 talk about your poems and your play. And I regard 
 her as an authority, of the highest." 
 
 "Mrs. Vesper is my guardian angel, my fairy god- 
 mother!" declared the other gravely. "I am learning
 
 ADRIAN ROME 141 
 
 to go to her in all my difficulties ; she is really extra- 
 ordinarily gifted ! Last week, for instance, I suddenly 
 remembered that I had taken an enormous house-boat 
 for Henley, and I hadn't the remotest idea as to what to 
 do with it. In this extremity " 
 
 "You repaired to your fairy godmother, and she 
 undertook to get up a party for you." 
 
 " Precisely ! And if she has been clever enough to secure 
 you, I shall regard her as as a veritable Deus ex machina" 
 
 "The house-boat being the 'machine,' I suppose," 
 laughed the girl. "Mrs. Vesper has been good enough 
 to ask me; in fact, she has enlisted me as a kind 
 of lieutenant. We are going to take down all sorts 
 of people ! " 
 
 " The dear creature ! " murmured Rome. " I hope you 
 haven't had much trouble about it ? " 
 
 " Oh, I ought to thank you ! " said Miss Brabant. 
 " Otherwise, I expect I should have missed Henley 
 altogether. The Duchess isn't going this year." 
 
 " And do you care much about it ? " 
 
 The girl hesitated for a moment. " Candidly, no. It's 
 always the same. I haven't missed the Regatta for three 
 or four years now, and, so far as my experience goes, it 
 always rains on two days out of the three: there are 
 always the same people, the same house-boats, the same 
 tents and flowers on the lawns ; and if the same crews 
 don't win every year, at least they are so much alike 
 that an ignoramus like myself can't tell the difference." 
 
 Adrian laughed, admitting the truth of Miss Brabant's 
 summary. 
 
 " I was there last year, for the first time. St. Cyr's 
 my college had a crew in for something or other the 
 Ladies' Plate, I think. They didn't win. I remember 
 I felt quite depressed about it. I think it must have 
 been much pleasanter in the old days, when it was less
 
 i 4 2 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 formal, before it put on the smartness of Hurlingham 
 and Ascot, and became a great social festival." 
 
 Miss Brabant nodded. " It certainly must have been 
 nicer when one didn't have to think so much about one's 
 gown." 
 
 Adrian glanced quickly at the extremely becoming 
 robe of stately corded silk, ivory white, with a trimming 
 of silver lace and moonstones, which she was wearing. 
 
 " Ah," he said, smiling ; " decidedly I shall have reason 
 to be proud of my party ! Or perhaps I ought to call 
 it, Mrs. Vesper's party ? " 
 
 Miss Brabant echoed his smile faintly, buttoning her 
 long glove, and bending over the programme which was 
 fastened to her fan. " I think you may consider it your 
 party," she said indifferently. 
 
 It seemed to Adrian that the flickering flame, which 
 he was not vain enough to imagine that he had kindled, 
 but which he had hoped to encourage, was rapidly dying 
 out ; that his Galatea was unregretfully returning to her 
 pedestal. Outwardly calm, discussing lightly subjects 
 persistently trivial, he was still at his wits' end to think 
 of an expedient to stay the inevitable moment when he 
 would experience the chagrin of seeing Miss Brabant 
 relapse into that state of impassive frigidity which she 
 could wear so becomingly, and which yet constituted, 
 so indubitably, a blow to his self-respect. He felt him- 
 self singularly barren of ideas ; his incompetence to rise 
 to the occasion struck him as almost ludicrous. For an 
 instant, when they made their escape together from the 
 ballroom, just before the voluptuous waltz rallied into 
 its last bars, he had flattered himself that the barrier, 
 which it had become quite an inveterate habit for him 
 to attempt to climb, had of a sudden fallen to the ground ; 
 he imagined, vainly, that the fortress had capitulated, 
 that at last he was on the other side, within the walls ;
 
 ADRIAN ROME 143 
 
 with Mrs. Vesper, whom he had so often envied when 
 he had seen the two ladies exchanging rapid glances 
 expressive of a privileged intimacy, or chatting, con- 
 fidentially, with frank, sociable enthusiasm. His want 
 of success presented itself as a signal reproach to his 
 address, an impeachment of his tact. The game had 
 ended by interesting him more than he would have 
 acknowledged. He was piqued, in short, attracted by 
 the unattainable in proportion to its remoteness : the 
 predicament was not less perilous for the reason that it 
 was, after all, indigenous to his temperament. 
 
 If inspiration came at all, it came too late. He was 
 presently obliged to surrender Miss Brabant to one of 
 the claimants whose names appeared upon her pro- 
 gramme ; and as he wandered homeward in the pleasant, 
 mellow coolness of the June midnight (he had basely 
 deserted Lord Henry, whose passion for dancing ran far 
 beyond his own), he was able to console himself only by 
 reflecting that, if he had not advanced, at least he had 
 not lost ground, and Henley seemed to promise a field 
 upon which he might retrieve his laurels. 
 
 It must be admitted that when Miss Brabant de- 
 nounced her cousin as obstinate, incapable of retiring 
 gracefully from the inglorious field, it was no unfounded 
 charge that she laid at his door. His presence, and in 
 particular his tactics, at the dance this evening, had 
 prompted her. Hoping, in common with such of his 
 other friends as were in the secret, that the House 
 would serve to draw the young politician's attention 
 to worthier interests, she could not help reproaching 
 him (womanlike, a little pitifully), when she saw that 
 he had deserted the debate on Bimetallism to dangle 
 after the girl who had rejected him. 
 
 Miss Marjorie Lancaster, to whom Lord Henry appealed 
 on the first opportunity for a dance, professed herself
 
 i 4 4 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 unable to comply with his request ; later, perhaps, she 
 could not promise ; her duties as daughter of the house 
 were too onerous to allow her to enjoy herself at present. 
 She protested,demurely,that in her own house she couldn't 
 think of dancing while there were other girls in want of 
 partners. 
 
 " Won't you dance with Miss Carnaby ? " she suggested. 
 "You don't know her? Then I will introduce you at 
 once. And if you don't tread on them (you'll know 
 what I mean presently !), it will prove that you are in 
 good form, and perhaps only perhaps, mind ! you shall 
 be allowed to dance with me. Miss Carnaby, if your 
 card is not quite full, may I introduce Lord Henry 
 Minaret ? " 
 
 Lord Henry bowed, glancing a little reproachfully 
 at his retreating hostess. " Ah ... I should really feel 
 quite ashamed of myself if I victimised you by making 
 you dance this, Miss Carnaby. I'm sure you must be 
 tired, and the room is so full, isn't it ? Do let me get 
 you an ice!" 
 
 "But I relented," he explained afterwards to Miss 
 Lancaster. " It wasn't a nice thing to do in spite of 
 my provocation; and she seemed to feel rather sorry 
 for herself when we went out of the ballroom, and I 
 caught her shivering over the ice ! So I concluded that 
 she hadn't been dancing much, and we went upstairs 
 in a hurry, and danced the polka, recklessly regardless 
 of each other's feet, the music, and our neighbours. 
 Now, haven't I done my duty ? Haven't I earned my 
 reward ? " 
 
 " You've been an angel ! " she admitted, glancing down 
 at the tip of a little foot, shod in the neatest of gilded 
 shoea " You know, we're going to Henley ; I don't 
 want to miss that!" 
 
 " I couldn't tread on them if I tried ! " protested the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 145 
 
 other. " Besides, do you think I don't want you to go 
 to Henley ? I'm going down with Adrian Rome ; he's 
 got a house-boat, and we mean to sleep on it." 
 
 "We're going to stay at Rose Court," said Miss 
 Lancaster. "I tell you, so that you may avoid 
 it!" 
 
 " All right," nodded Lord Henry. " I'll come and look 
 for you on the first day, after lunch. What a delicious 
 waltz this is ! " 
 
 " Yes," said the girl softly, letting her eyes rest on his 
 for a moment as they swung round, her light weight 
 thrown on the support of his encircling right arm. " But 
 I ought not to be dancing with you; you don't know 
 how angry mamma will be ! " 
 
 Lord Henry bit his lip, and they danced for a while 
 without speaking. He tried to think calmly, to be 
 reasonable ; but his thoughts were invaded by the rustle 
 of the silken skirt of Marjorie's Empire gown, the faint 
 perfume of the spray of violets, blue and white, which 
 so charmingly relieved the fairness of her neck and 
 lifting bosom. It was not possible even for a states- 
 man to be calm within kissing distance of her golden 
 hair, her dainty eyes. Beginning to dream a little, to 
 lose himself in the plaintive rapture of the waltz, (a 
 state of mind incompatible with the alertness, mental 
 and bodily, without which, in full measure, it is difficult 
 to find a clear course in a London ballroom), he was 
 recalled to himself by the shock of a slight collision, 
 and a little surprised protest from his partner. He 
 apologised, and for a few seconds devoted himself to 
 making amends by swift, skilful pilotage. 
 
 " General Verrinder does not dance, I think ? " he said 
 presently, with a transparent air of indifference. 
 
 "No," said the girl demurely, tapping his arm with 
 one of the slender fingers which rested upon it. " But 
 
 10
 
 146 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 that doesn't matter, you know. One doesn't dance with 
 one's one's husband." 
 
 " Husband ! " he echoed, in a savage whisper. " Marjorie, 
 you can't, you won't ! It isn't too late say that you 
 won't ! that it's a horrible mistake, and I'll speak to 
 Lady Lancaster to-morrow ! " 
 
 She glanced at him, pouting a little, and relaxing the 
 clasp of her left hand. 
 
 " Don't be so horrid ! Of course it's too late ; it's all 
 settled, and and the wedding presents are coming in. 
 Why can't you be sensible ? You shall dance with me 
 afterwards, as much as you like. What more can you 
 want ? You aren't a bit nice ! " 
 
 Lord Henry could only find relief for his emotion in 
 a smothered groan. This self-possessed young lady bore 
 very little resemblance to the tearful maiden who had 
 bidden him farewell in the conservatory at Towers. 
 On that occasion a hurried interview in the twilight, 
 among the palm-trees and azaleas she had posed as 
 a victim. Now, under the chastened brilliance of the 
 electric light, she wore an air of contentment with her 
 lot ; her tears had been succeeded by a complacency, a 
 lightness of heart which her lover viewed with suspicion 
 and resentment. 
 
 "Marjorie," he said quickly, as they sank down on 
 the low seat which stood in a dim recess half-way up the 
 staircase, " you don't really care for him ? " 
 
 The girl fixed her eyes on her slim third finger, where 
 the shape of a jewelled ring defined itself suggestively 
 through her pale suede glove. 
 
 "He's really very nice to me," she murmured, still 
 without looking at her companion. " He has sent me a 
 present every day since our engagement was announced, 
 including Sundays. This bangle isn't it pretty ? came 
 to-night."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 147 
 
 Lord Henry clenched his teeth viciously, but vouch- 
 safed no answer. 
 
 "Jargoons and aquamarines set alternately, you see, 
 with a daisy for a clasp. Wasn't it clever of him to 
 think of the daisy ? " 
 
 " You are cruel," he said, after a silence which she had 
 broken by a little sigh. " I don't know you." 
 
 " No," put in the girl quickly. " You wouldn't want 
 to marry me if you did. I am a wretch. You ought to 
 be glad." 
 
 There was a note of sincerity in her words, and the 
 gaiety of the charming, childlike eyes was eclipsed for 
 the moment by a more passionate fire. He could hear 
 the rustle of her bodice as her breath came fast. But 
 if she was touched, it was only for an instant. Her 
 next words sounded the keynote of the old mood. 
 
 " I've no patience with you," she said, turning to him 
 with a pretty air of reproach and a daintily wrinkled 
 brow. " You, a man, crying for the moon no, not even 
 the moon, only a bit of a girl. Now promise not to do 
 it any more. Let's kiss and be friends oh ! figuratively, 
 of course. Quick, there's the music ; say that we'll be 
 friends." 
 
 Lord Henry shook his head, then wavered, protesting 
 ruefully, with a puzzled look in his honest eyes, that he 
 was bewildered he didn't know what he was saying. 
 
 " Gracious ! " said the girl, rising lightly, like a bubble, 
 from her seat, and stooping to gather up her flowers and 
 her fan. " Then it's time I went back to the ballroom. 
 Poor Lord Henry ! I know I'm horrid ; but, come, give 
 me your arm ; we will be friends you shall have this 
 white violet as a pledge. If it is to be war, you must 
 give it back to me at Henley." 
 
 During the remainder of the evening, Lord Henry was 
 obliged to console himself by gazing upon his charmer
 
 148 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 from afar; his eyes followed her through the maze of 
 every dance, in spite of himself ; and it is to be feared 
 that his successive partners had cause for complaining 
 that the attention he bestowed on them was incommen- 
 surate with their claims. Once, as Marjorie passed him 
 on the staircase, leaning lightly on the arm of General 
 Verrinder, who was escorting her to the supper-room, 
 she threw him a glance which a woman might have read, 
 but which only served to increase his perplexity ; later, 
 when he took his leave, one of a stream of departing 
 guests, he found her smile, the frank pressure of her 
 little hand, equally unsatisfactory.
 
 CORBYN, pipe in mouth, looked on with eyes sleepily 
 observant at the progress of Adrian's toilet, (he was 
 by way of destroying his third unsuccessful tie), the 
 later stages of which were being accomplished, for 
 greater convenience, in the sitting-room, before an old 
 Renaissance mirror, which hung between two windows. 
 
 It was only in such vagrant moments when Rome 
 was dressing for dinner, or in the brief half -hour after 
 midnight which intervened between the poet's mundane 
 diversions and his labour of literature that the two 
 friends, near neighbours as they were, now foregathered. 
 
 The London season was just then at its height, and 
 Adrian Rome, with a little deft assistance, hardly per- 
 ceptible, except to the initiated, from Mrs. Vesper, had 
 almost mechanically been caught into its routine. Cer- 
 tain whispers, indefinable, yet authentic, and no one 
 could precisely state their origin, had made him fashion- 
 able ; and the first step being so compassed, his road from 
 dinner to dinner, in the choicest of company, was smooth 
 and inevitable. Certainly, the fact that he was his 
 father's son a sufficient testimony to his wealth and 
 position went far; but, beyond this, it was admitted, even 
 by his enemies (and he was far too brilliant to be without 
 these necessary appendages of a reputation), that Adrian 
 Rome's vogue depended upon something more personal 
 than the balance at his bank. With many, indeed, it was 
 rather his striking disregard of those advantages, making 
 
 149
 
 150 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 him so desirable a guest to the mothers of marriageable 
 daughters ; his quite sincere desire to be accounted solely 
 as a debutant of letters, as a serious recruit to the army 
 of Art, which was the secret of his indisputable success. 
 The imputation of being an amateur he passionately 
 resented that. It was, precisely, by clumsy persons who 
 had, innocently enough, stumbled into this error, and 
 revealed it to him in their talk, that Rome was voted, 
 perhaps not without reason, insufferably rude. At least 
 Corbyn could have testified that if he worked veiy hard 
 at pleasure (at the social treadmill, as the impecunious 
 barrister, who was, however, either too indolent or too 
 philosophical to be envious, would have preferred to call 
 it), it was a strained, almost feverish energy that he 
 bestowed afterwards upon labour more legitimate; in 
 long vigils, bounded only by sheer physical exhaustion, 
 or the bitter reminder of dawn filtering in through the 
 curtains with a light, even in summer, so deeply sadden- 
 ing and cold. 
 
 Corbyn, a born idler, clinging to his twelve hours of 
 sleep, was amazed at this double, exhausting life of his 
 friend, wondered how long it would endure, and which 
 half of it would be the sacrifice, that, in the nature of 
 things, a constitution not quite of iron must ultimately 
 make. 
 
 It was only natural, he reflected, catching Adrian's 
 image in the glass (the tie was just being adjusted to his 
 satisfaction), that his friend's face should have changed 
 since their Oxford days, though these were hardly 
 remote. The lines about his mouth were emphasised; 
 his pallor, always a little singular, was increased ; alto- 
 gether he was older, more mature, more a man of the 
 world. The alteration, moreover, was not wholly ex- 
 ternal ; Corbyn, finely observant, as many very indolent 
 men are, found at least one quality which was novel an
 
 ADRIAN ROME 151 
 
 immense restlessness in his friend's actions, a passion to 
 be amused, to be occupied, even by trivial things, as 
 though (and here the observer lost his way) he dreaded, 
 beyond all things, solitude, with its accompanying 
 tyranny of his own thoughts. 
 
 When he had finished dressing he lit a cigarette and 
 passed over to his friend, stood leaning against the man- 
 telshelf an attitude habitual to him in his own rooms. 
 Corbyn glanced at the clock, which wanted some 
 minutes to seven. 
 
 "Turn me out when you want to go," he said, "or 
 leave me here if you like. I must finish this pipe." 
 
 " Don't hurry," Rome answered carelessly. " I am to 
 be picked up by a man. He won't be here just yet. 
 Tell me what you have been doing all this time." 
 
 Corbyn protested that he never did anything which 
 was worth chronicling; he would rather hear of the 
 other's movements. 
 
 " How did you get through the ceremony ? " he 
 asked. "How did you find Underwoods?" 
 
 Rome was silent for a moment, watching a perfect 
 ring of smoke sail across the room. Then he said, rather 
 moodily, not directly answering the question 
 
 " I think it's a mistake ever to go back to places one 
 has liked, especially for funerals. They have a way 
 of changing, which one resents, or of not changing, which 
 one resents more." 
 
 "That is oracular," said Corbyn, observing him 
 through his half -closed eyes, " but I partly understand. 
 Which thing happened in your case ? " 
 
 "I hardly know. In any case, it was a mistake: I 
 shan't repeat it." 
 
 " You have a touch of the spleen," remarked Corbyn 
 humorously. " I recommend repose, change of air : a 
 week's cruise in the Anonyma.
 
 152 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 A sudden light came into the other man's eyes. 
 
 "I wish I could, but I can't just at present. I 
 suppose I must see the season out. Then we will cut 
 the whole thing of course you are coming with me, 
 Corbyn? and sail away to the South Sea Islands, or 
 the North Pole." 
 
 "I shall be charmed," said Corbyn. "In either of 
 those localities I should think one would be pretty safe 
 from one's duns. But perhaps the skipper might object." 
 
 " Seriously, I think he would like it," went on Rome, 
 with a little laugh. " I didn't tell you, though, did I, 
 about my new skipper, the very prince and paragon of 
 sailors, or how I stumbled on him ? " 
 
 Corbyn shook his head. 
 
 " So you have got rid of old Martin ? Well ! I hardly 
 thought he would stay. Tell me of his successor." 
 
 " Martin was an amiable humbug, but an old woman," 
 said Rome. " He was afraid of the wind, and he hated 
 the Mediterranean : he was always making difficulties. 
 Finally, during the last cruise, we got so hopelessly on 
 each other's nerves, that Martin caught a convenient 
 illness at Malta, and I sent him home. And at Malta I 
 met Salvesen." 
 
 " Great heavens ! " ejaculated Corbyn. " You don't 
 mean to say you are skippered by a Swede ? " 
 
 "A Norwegian," corrected Rome. "I admit it isn't 
 quite orthodox, for a yacht. He hails from Kragero, a 
 blonde, blue-eyed giant. When I found him in a 
 drinking-shop in Valetta, he was out of a berth. He 
 had been master of a trading brig, and had been sacked 
 for drunkenness." 
 
 " On the strength of which recommendation you, no 
 doubt, instantly engaged him." 
 
 Adrian laughed. 
 
 " It has a comical side to it, but I believe I did. The
 
 ADRIAN ROME 153 
 
 fact is, I was taken with the man: he was perfectly 
 frank about his vice, you know. He told me that he 
 was liable to these these attacks ; but only when he 
 went ashore. I said I would give him a trial, and he 
 has stayed. I found he was precisely the man I wanted : 
 he's a fine sailor, absolutely honest, without a particle 
 of fear in him ; and, to finish up with, he has become 
 blindly devoted to me." 
 
 Corbyn took his pipe out of his mouth, examined its 
 polished, dark bowl reflectively. 
 
 " Well ! " he said at last, " I shall sail with you in 
 future with considerably less confidence." 
 
 " Oh ! I don't suppose we shall go to the bottom just 
 yet," said Adrian lightly. Then he looked at his watch. 
 
 "My man is late. Will you dine with us at some 
 restaurant ? We have to go to the opera afterwards." 
 
 " Who is your man, by the way ? " 
 
 " Dalrymple Green. You know him, I think." 
 
 Corbyn exhaled a long volume of smoke, shook his 
 head decisively. 
 
 " You don't like him ; I forgot." 
 
 " Oh ! " Corbyn began : but Rome interrupted him, 
 with a deprecating gesture of one hand. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid to say so ; neither do I ... 
 He amuses me, which is a different thing," he went on, 
 answering the explicit interrogation of his friend's lifted 
 eyebrows. " That is why we are so much together. 
 Besides, he is an important type : what the French call 
 ' strugforlifeur ' ; with his feigned enthusiasms, his 
 passion for success, his " 
 
 But what further animadversions Adrian might have 
 intended were cut short, at this moment, by the entrance 
 of their subject, Dalrymple Green himself, correct, and 
 smiling apologies for his lateness. He suggested a 
 neighbouring old-fashioned tavern in Fleet Street as a
 
 154 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 place where a passable dinner could be obtained without 
 much loss of time; and it was thither that the two 
 presently adjourned, leaving Corbyn at the gate of the 
 Temple to wander westward, in search of an ordinary 
 less sturdily British. 
 
 Adrian cast a glance at him, which seemed half re- 
 gretful, allowing his friend to believe that he would not 
 have been sorry to take a night off, to dine with him 
 vagrantly in some dubious, foreign place in Soho, and 
 lounge away the evening afterwards, smoking, in a 
 congenial caf6 t or at the club. 
 
 Certainly, if Dalrymple was amusing, a type of 
 edification, there were times when Adrian found his 
 society a trifle tedious. To-night he made no pretence 
 of listening to the journalist's fluent, if a little laboured, 
 talk, when they had settled themselves in one of the 
 small box-like compartments into which the dining- 
 room of their hostel was divided. He ate his dinner in 
 a moody silence, vaguely oppressed, disquieted, as he had 
 been, intermittently, since that unfortunate pilgrimage 
 (surely its origin in a funeral had really been by way of 
 omen), with an irritation which rankled all the more, 
 in that he could not, or would not, lay his finger on a 
 tangible cause. His mind went feverishly chasing an 
 idea, which still eluded him round tortuous corners : as 
 a roan racks his memory, quite vainly, for some lost 
 phrase or word, conscious all the time that his search, 
 when successful, will seem of a ludicrous simplicity. 
 Possibly, a mere physical tiredness : so he justified his 
 lassitude at last, with a stifled yawn; and agreed to 
 Green's suggested remedy, a pint bottle of Perrier-Jouet, 
 And Dalrymple, who always drank champagne (one of 
 several Americanisms contracted during a lecturing tour 
 in the States), and who was already half-way through 
 his bottle, burst into praise of the wine, holding up his
 
 ADRIAN ROME 155 
 
 broad, flat glass to the light, watching admiringly the 
 little, sparkling beads bubble to the surface. 
 
 " Ozone to men who live by their brains ! " he dubbed 
 it. " The nicest medicine ! I have half a pint with my 
 lunch, and drink it at dinner ; another, when the wires 
 come in, before I write my leader. You see it in my 
 articles ! " 
 
 Rome, a lover of still wines, whose palate was chiefly 
 moved by the subtile charm of certain rare, old clarets, as- 
 sented silently. His estimate of the dapper, elderly, young 
 man, with his effervescent wit, his deft rhetoric, which 
 made him really something of a power with a democratic, 
 not too intelligent audience, his superficial cleverness, 
 tallied well with the preference which he had just de- 
 clared. These two, who had drifted, as men do in society, 
 for no authentic reason, into the imitation of friendship, 
 were certainly excellent contrasts, in more vital matters 
 than their criticism of a wine-list. There was something, 
 to a casual observer, almost meridional in Dalrymple 
 Green's temperament; a suggestion of underlying passion, 
 which his rather high, not too dignified voice, his lack 
 of repose in society, of restraint in public speaking, 
 corroborated. Under his air of the evergreen enthusiast, 
 the devoted social reformer, there lay hidden (Adrian 
 believed) a nature hard and keen as the blade of a 
 knife; a never-sleeping, unscrupulous ambition. If he 
 was not yet in the House (and it was certainly on the 
 House that his eyes were fixed), it was hardly for lack 
 of opportunity, but rather because he played a waiting 
 game, (whatever it might be, Adrian was sure that it 
 was not lacking in profundity), and for the present a 
 game, which he could play best outside the portals of 
 St. Stephen's. The real Dalrymple might be more 
 apparent later ; at present, his interested observer could 
 at least be certain that the Dalrymple of tradition very
 
 156 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 inadequately expressed him. Were most men of that 
 pattern, all more or less masquerading beneath a manner ? 
 Adrian himself, with his aspect, a little cold perhaps, or 
 languid, always reserved, and to many persons repellent, 
 easily deceived the superficial, would hardly have betrayed 
 his temperament, so nervous and passionate and, very con- 
 ceivably, morbid. There was good in Green's recipe he 
 owned, at last, when they had settled their bill and were 
 adjourning. His mood was alleviated, at any rate for the 
 time, and he was certainly more in the mood for rather 
 frivolous musical sensations. For once, he could assent 
 to his companion's explicit satisfaction that the opera 
 of the night was Italian of the Italians; one of the 
 lightest of Donizetti's compositions, fluently melodious ; 
 an occasion on which one was justified in making less of 
 the music than of the company. He was inclined just 
 then to cry truce with the larger emotions, and was 
 aware that the storm and passion of Tristan, ordinarily 
 his preferred masterpiece, would have been intolerable. 
 
 It was not a very brilliant house, the young men 
 decided, when they had been ushered into their stalls, 
 (the overture was just drawing to an end), and had 
 devoted some minutes to a scrutiny, interrupted hero 
 and there by a smile, a bow, as one out of the sea of 
 faces identified itself as that of an acquaintance. The 
 Royal box was empty, and, Dalrymple Green protested 
 with a contemptuous shrug, many others which were 
 occupied were metaphorically as void, inhabited by 
 nobodies, people whom he did not know even by sight. 
 Adrian agreed it was no more than ordinarily fashion- 
 able ; but he discerned faces which he recognised on all 
 sides. Gerald Brooke's boyish figure inadequately filled 
 a stall ; in a box, Lady Lancaster's faded, elegant face 
 wreathed itself into conventional smiles; she had 
 brought her two pretty daughters with her, and the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 157 
 
 martial presence of General Verrinder loomed in the 
 background ; and further back, on the grand tier, Adrian 
 found his attention drawn to another box, where two 
 ladies were just then settling themselves ; Miss Brabant, 
 surely, under the wing of the Duchess of Turretshire ? 
 
 " Yes ; she is in town for a day or two," Dalrymple 
 Green explained. " She was in the Ladies' Gallery this 
 afternoon, Minaret made a speech, was heckling the 
 Home Secretary. What a handsome girl the niece is ! " 
 
 Adrian's assent was lost in the final crash from the 
 orchestra : the curtain went up, and for half an hour the 
 murmur of voices was respectfully hushed. Adrian, 
 however, uninterested in the music, and not a great 
 admirer of the diva of the night, continued to devote 
 most of his attention to the audience. Before the end 
 of the act, Lord Henry Minaret had joined the party 
 in his mother's box. He had come in late, and was 
 standing ; and Adrian could see his eyes moving round, 
 in the restless fashion of a man in search of something, 
 which, nevertheless, he hardly expects to find. Lord 
 Henry also, it appeared, had not come there for music 
 alone. 
 
 When the interval came, there was a general move- 
 ment, a great vacating of seats: Adrian and his com- 
 panion joined the flock of men in the corridors. Minaret 
 was emerging from his box when they reached it, con- 
 templating a visit to the ladies. 
 
 "My mother has just been asking about you," he said 
 to Dalrymple. " Won't you go in ? " And he laid a hand 
 upon Adrian's arm, as he was about to follow, detaining 
 him. 
 
 " Wait a bit, old fellow ! Come and have a drink. I 
 haven't seen you for an age." 
 
 They passed down into the bar, which was crowded 
 with men, a medley of black and white smoking and
 
 158 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 talking. Adrian lit a cigarette, and threw himself on a 
 divan, while his friend struggled for whisky-and-soda. 
 Presently Lord Henry brought him a long tumbler, and 
 stood looking down at him with rather a self-conscious 
 smile. Then he said abruptly 
 
 "The fact is, I should be awfully obliged, would 
 you mind going to my people, and letting me have your 
 stall?" 
 
 The other glanced at him with some amusement : 
 after a moment he smiled. 
 
 "It's I who am obliged," he protested; "supposing 
 your people will put up with me. But I warn you, my 
 stall is not a very good one." 
 
 " Oh, I saw where you were sitting," put in Lord 
 Henry, with assumed nonchalance. "I shall be very 
 well there." 
 
 " Yes." Rome hesitated a moment : then, tentatively, 
 " It commands an excellent view of Lady Lancaster's 
 box." 
 
 Lord Henry flushed a little, tugged rather nervously 
 at his yellow moustache 
 
 " Oh, I daresay ! " Then he lowered his voice, con- 
 tinued, in a tone rather mournfully confidential. 
 
 " If you like to have it so ! Yes, that is the only 
 mortal thing I am here for to have a look at her. It's 
 very imbecile : I don't gain anything by it, but it's a 
 sort of occupation. It doesn't do me any good, it's 
 merely exasperating : I don't suppose I shall be able to 
 stand more than an act of it, but I'm bound to look at 
 her. In a month or so, I shan't have the right to do 
 even that." 
 
 Adrian simply handed him his voucher. 
 
 " I don't quite see where your right comes in now," 
 he remarked rather drily. 
 
 The Duchess was in conversation with an elderly
 
 ADRIAN ROME 159 
 
 foreigner, a person of distinction, no doubt, when 
 Adrian entered, a conversation which her smile of 
 welcome, of reassurance, that seemed to acquit him of 
 any share in Henry's eccentricities, was hardly allowed 
 to interrupt. He succeeded to the chair at Marion 
 Brabant's side, just then vacated by a tall youth who 
 looked crestfallen and subdued, and seemed by no means 
 reluctant to leave Adrian in possession of the field. It 
 was a way with the girl's admirers, he could remind 
 himself, to retire rather ingloriously : he had noticed 
 that before. Her chilling urbanity, the hardly con- 
 cealed contempt with which she bowed her handsome 
 head to compliments, disarmed the most accomplished 
 master of flirtation, and made her a veritable terror 
 to young or sensitive men. This youth was quite 
 unknown to Adrian, and a consciousness of a secret 
 sympathy with him, spurring him on to accusations 
 against this girl (whom, in a manner, he admired), of a 
 discourtesy, of a stupid and unmaidenly pride, warned 
 him unpleasantly of jangled nerves, of a temper suddenly 
 thrown out of tune. He watched Lord Henry in his 
 appropriated stall, blandly regardless of the scene, 
 leaning forward a little, his head slightly on one side, 
 resting on one hand. His friend's continued infatuation, 
 in the face of obstacles quite insuperable, seemed to him 
 again, as it had done when he listened to him, half 
 impatiently in the smoking-room, an exasperating piece 
 of folly ; while an odd pang of something like envy 
 mingling with this sentiment, led him to wonder 
 whether, after all, he was not primarily angry with 
 himself. Oneself ! One's lack of will, and one's 
 divided allegiance to incompatible gods : was not that 
 more really the author of one's disasters than any things 
 or persons or conditions one blindly reproached for 
 them ; and that prayer of Goethe's, the best to be
 
 160 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 prayed " not to stand in one's own light " ? Only, 
 which was the ultimate light to hold by, in a world so 
 full of multifarious and distracting gleams ? Marion 
 Brabant's voice, coming to him, as it seemed, from a 
 great distance, brought him down from the clouds, 
 unconscious of how much irritation and lassitude his 
 expressive face had indicated for the preceding ten 
 minutes. 
 
 " How this music bores you, Mr. Rome ! " 
 
 " The music ? " He gathered himself together hastily. 
 " It is not inspiring ; but I am afraid I have been very 
 rude ; it's a suitable accompaniment for conversation." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't want you to make it for me," the girl 
 protested. " Besides, you look tired." 
 
 He owned to the impeachment, adding 
 
 " I have had a tiresome day." 
 
 " A busy day ? " she queried. 
 
 " A very empty day," he answered. 
 
 She leaned back, fanning herself gently, meditatively ; 
 then she went on 
 
 " In that case, I have no sympathy with you. There 
 are so many things to do : if one doesn't occupy one- 
 self, one has no right to complain of being bored." 
 
 " Do you occupy yourself so much, Miss Brabant ? " 
 
 " A girl cannot always do as she likes." 
 
 "But if " 
 
 He stopped short, having had it on his lips to ask, 
 " if you were married ? " but an odd scruple, an unaccount- 
 able diffidence restrained him. 
 
 " If I were a man ? " The girl continued quickly. 
 " Well ! If I were a man I should be occupied " 
 
 " If you were a man, you would not waste your time 
 in scribbling ? " 
 
 His accent, a certain flash, half resentful, in his eyes, 
 converted the question into a challenge : and it was as a
 
 ADRIAN ROME 161 
 
 challenge that the girl responded to it, after a moment's 
 silence, during which she considered him deliberately, 
 with her grave, cold scrutiny. 
 
 " No ! I shouldn't write novels or plays, Mr. Rome. 
 I am very ambitious ; I should want to make myself 
 felt in a different way." 
 
 Adrian drew a quick, sharp breath, exclaiming with 
 a certain acrimony, inconsequently, it seemed 
 
 " How much you hate us, Miss Brabant ! " 
 
 " Hate you ? " She echoed him, rather mockingly, 
 from behind her fan. " Why should I hate you ? I 
 thought we were reasonably good friends." 
 
 " Me, personally, perhaps not, Heaven forbid ! But 
 all that we represent, I and my friends ; our objects, our 
 interests, our point of view, the position of persons who 
 live chiefly for Art. Can you deny that it's intolerable 
 to you ? " 
 
 She ignored his question, watched him for a moment 
 with her steady, not unkindly eyes. 
 
 " How do you know that you represent all that to 
 me, or any of it ? " 
 
 " What else, pray, do I represent ? " 
 
 " Yourself, surely," she suggested. " Things that I 
 consider of importance. Why should you talk as if you 
 were a nobody ? " 
 
 He caught her up with a quick, impatient gesture, a 
 laugh that sounded a little harsh. 
 
 " Now you've said it, Miss Brabant ! No ! don't 
 try to explain it away, it's transparent, it's what I 
 meant." 
 
 " I am sorry if I have said anything very dreadful," 
 she remarked, " but I retract nothing." 
 
 " You make me wish that I were a pauper," he went 
 on slowly, " an adventurer, with nothing but my ideas : 
 it would be easier."
 
 162 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 She smiled, as though she found the picture inconceiv- 
 able 
 
 " We like you better as you are, Mr Rome ! " 
 
 He answered with a shrug ; and their conversation 
 lapsed, while they once more became sensible that an 
 opera was in progress, turned their attention to the 
 scene. The stall adjoining Dalrymple Green's was 
 vacant now : it appeared that Lord Henry had been 
 driven away. Adrian, also, was beginning to feel 
 satiated ; and he took the occasion which the next fall 
 of the curtain allowed him, to retire. 
 
 As he wended his way homewards, his mind busied 
 itself, unreasonably, with Marion Brabant, her cold, grave 
 beauty, her perplexing character with its almost 
 masculine hardness of contour her ambiguous quality. 
 To-night was not the first occasion when a certain 
 amount of friction, an undercurrent of acerbity, had 
 attended their intercourse. There was something like, 
 and yet antagonistic, in their two minds, which must 
 needs produce exasperation, dividing them, even while it 
 drew them together. 
 
 Into his feeling towards Miss Brabant, which was 
 half admiration and half repulsion, an odd desire to 
 subjugate her crept ; to abase her pride, which at times 
 clashed so stridently with his own ; so that looking 
 forward to their near meeting at Henley, it was rather 
 an intellectual passion which goaded him, than the 
 anticipation of any pleasurable emotion.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 COMING out of his bedroom one morning towards the 
 middle of July, Adrian Rome found amongst the little 
 pile of letters on his breakfast-table, invitations to 
 dinner, tradesmen's circulars, and the like, an envelope 
 with the inscription of the Nondescript Theatre on its 
 seal. It reminded him, that he was still in suspense as 
 to the fate of his play : and he opened it, before he 
 attended to his other correspondence, with a thrill of 
 expectation. As he had supposed, the letter was from 
 Cyrus Holmes ; but it was with some surprise, that he 
 proceeded to read a verdict in his favour. Yes ! 
 Holmes would produce the Opportunists ; it would 
 be in rehearsal as soon as earlier arrangements would 
 permit : to so much, Rome gathered, the manager, who, 
 however, requested an interview, was definitely pledged. 
 His approval was tempered by certain criticisms ; the 
 title would never do ; and a call for various altera- 
 tions and modifications, chiefly in matters of practical 
 stagecraft, which might easily be arranged. Adrian 
 meditated over the letter, frowning at times thought- 
 fully, while he breakfasted. Actually, it required some 
 such definite, practical reminder, to stir the slumbering 
 ashes of his old fire of faith in the piece, in the Drama 
 as a vehicle of Art. Other work was now engrossing 
 him ; and it was characteristic of his temperament 
 always to be concentrated on the immediate, the 
 present, so that what he had achieved became at once 
 
 163
 
 164 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 rather remote from him, and of quite secondary import- 
 ance. And when he had lit his first cigarette, had 
 drawn down the blind, modulating the intense glare, 
 which the summer morning cast over his writing-table, 
 already the faint, delightful thrill which Holmes' letter 
 had stirred in him was subsiding. He settled himself 
 for a long morning's work, writing laboriously, not 
 very rapidly, but incessantly ; until at one o'clock 
 he could throw aside quite a number of long, white 
 sheets, covered densely with his small and intricate 
 handwriting, for that which was always with him the 
 most arduous part of composition revision, erasure, 
 reconstruction. It was a novel, this time, which was 
 absorbing him. Coming back from Henley, it had 
 been a delightful, though perhaps rather fatiguing, 
 excursion, he had been aeized almost feverishly by 
 a craving for work. And while the mood lasted, and 
 his intimate satisfaction with his idea was still fresh 
 enough to spur him on, he had abandoned all other 
 occupations ; refusing invitations, denying himself to 
 people, living in a solitary security from interruption 
 behind his sported oak ; in order to make the most of 
 his regained facility. More than one poignant experi- 
 ence of what the lack of this precisely right illumination 
 meant of an arid condition of brain and nerves when 
 the mere thought of writing was hateful warned him 
 against neglecting to seize gratefully upon the moment, 
 and endeavour to prolong it to the utmost. On this 
 occasion, however, the inspiration had been of such 
 duration that to-day, when at last he threw down his 
 pen, and gathered his voluminous manuscript into a 
 drawer, he felt only pleasantly refreshed, and not 
 exasperated, at having worked it out. He drew up his 
 blind, and stood for a moment, admiring the cool, green 
 shade afforded by the Temple trees, inclined to lounge
 
 ADRIAN ROME 165 
 
 away the afternoon beneath them, luxuriously, with 
 cigarettes and a volume of verse, crisp and dainty in its 
 immaculate paper cover, newly arrived from Paris. But 
 the necessity of lunching, and a desire, very rare with 
 him, to lunch extravagantly and well, interfered with 
 this half-formed intention. He dressed himself, and 
 sauntered out, wandering westward by the Embankment, 
 with a keen relish for the pleasant smell of summer, 
 which, even in London, cannot entirely be suppressed. 
 Opportunely, he met Corbyn near Charing Cross ; and 
 he carried him off to a favoured restaurant to be his 
 guest. Corbyn smiled at his friend's elaborate criticism 
 of the menu, and the exactness of his orders, finding his 
 attitude, of a connoisseur in matters culinary, novel and 
 unexpected. He protested humorously against an 
 innovation, which, he declared, would completely ruin 
 his afternoon. 
 
 " I was going to a matinde," he said, laughing. " But 
 I see I must give it up. I have to lunch austerely, or I 
 go to sleep." 
 
 He yielded, however, very readily, to the infection of 
 Adrian's expansive mood; and when their extended 
 luncheon was over, and they had arrived at the discus- 
 sion of coffee and liqueurs, was only disposed to regret 
 that the occasion could not be prolonged. He had 
 never more admired his friend's brilliant capacity for 
 making the most of an interlude of this kind. It was 
 really a compensation for the many difficult and arid 
 moments, which his intimacy involved, that, once in a 
 way, it should offer an hour so frankly entertaining. 
 Adrian's luminous wit, which flashed delightfully 
 to-day round every topic they broached ; his knowledge, 
 his tastes, and more than all, perhaps, his relapse into 
 that old manner of lighthearted pleasure in things, 
 in the summer sunshine, and the taste of good wine, in
 
 1 66 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 the mere noises, redolent of busy life, in the street 
 below ; the manner, which had first attracted Corbyn to 
 him at Oxford, was all the more refreshing to-day 
 because, recently, it had become so rare. He could 
 account for it in a measure when Adrian somewhat 
 tardily informed him, it was just before they parted, 
 of the acceptance of the Opportunists. 
 
 " That explains everything," he laughed. " My dear 
 fellow, why didn't you say so at once ? I didn't know 
 what we were celebrating. I drink to the new dramatist 
 to the judicious manager." 
 
 "It's not that." Rome had suddenly grown serious; 
 he threw away the end of his cigarette, spoke rather 
 nervously, with a little hesitation. 
 
 " You mean, why I am taking my ease ! It has very 
 little to do with the play. But I have made a wonderful 
 spurt, found myself again, my vein ; and I have been 
 working furiously hard. To-day it came to an end ; but 
 it left me, I confess, exhilarated, I felt free and fresh 
 yes, free ! " 
 
 He was silent for a moment, then he went on abruptly 
 
 "So long as one can work, can write, work that 
 satisfies one, the rest doesn't matter." 
 
 Corbyn laughed again, vaguely mystified. 
 
 " The rest can't matter much to you," he said. 
 
 The afternoon had waned sufficiently to render a call 
 decorous, and when the young men parted, Rome turned 
 his steps to Mrs. Vesper's house in Berkeley Square. 
 He reminded himself that his late abstentions must have 
 seemed a little strange, in view of the frequency with 
 which, earlier in the season, he had knocked at her door. 
 He was aware, too, of her interest in his fortunes as 
 a playwright, and was by no means certain that the 
 present result was not one for which thanks might be 
 partly due to her efforts ; at least, to her introduction.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 167 
 
 He found her alone, Marion had gone out to lunch, 
 she explained, sitting at a dainty Chippendale writing- 
 table, while a little heap of square white notes, arranged 
 at her side, testified to her diligence as a correspondent. 
 
 " No, you are not interrupting me at all ! " she de- 
 clared ; " or if you are, it is a very welcome interruption ! 
 They will bring tea in a minute : I will just address this 
 envelope it is the last ! " 
 
 " And where in the world have you been ? " she asked, 
 after a brief interval, coming towards him, and inviting 
 him to draw his chair up to the tea-table. " On a honey- 
 moon, I suppose, with your muse ? " 
 
 Adrian shook his head, smiling, as he protested that 
 he had been less ideally occupied : his muse had deserted 
 him, she had never compromised herself, and he had 
 been avenging himself by a vigorous flirtation with 
 fiction. He explained, abandoning his humorous vein, 
 how deeply this affair had engrossed him ; and declared, 
 finally, producing Cyrus Holmes' letter, that it was 
 gratitude which had brought him, laden with excuses, 
 to her door. 
 
 Mrs. Vesper heard his account in silence, tacitly 
 ignoring his thanks, allowing him to assume that, if 
 she had been of any service, her services were the last 
 things which she would admit. 
 
 She sympathised with him on the subject of the 
 alterations which his actor-manager demanded, vowing 
 that if she were the author she would decline point- 
 blank to alter a word; and she cast ridicule on the 
 catch-penny title which Holmes had suggested for the 
 play. 
 
 " But I am very pleased," she exclaimed at last, as he 
 rose to take his leave, " though, of course, I expected it ! " 
 Then she gave a little laugh, and continued 
 
 " Do you know, I imagined that you had something
 
 168 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 special to say to me, and that that was why you were so 
 long away. But it was hardly that " 
 
 " My play ! You mean " 
 
 She laughed again at his air of bewilderment 
 
 "Oh, it's of no importance; but it certainly wasn't 
 about your play. Though, of course, I was on tenter- 
 hooks about that." 
 
 Adrian had already cast a glance towards the door, 
 but he seated himself again at this remark. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Vesper ! " he protested, " this is very 
 tantalising of you. How can I go without hearing more, 
 after this?" 
 
 Mrs. Vesper raised her eyebrows, glancing at him, and 
 then dropping her gaze discreetly. 
 
 " You are very fantastic," she said, with a smile. 
 
 " Fantastic ? " he queried blankly. 
 
 "Certainly in your treatment of your friends. Oh, 
 I leave myself out of the question, but, Marion ; have 
 you quarrelled ? And at Henley you seemed to get on 
 so well." 
 
 A gleam of intelligence began to dawn upon Adrian's 
 puzzled mind, and in the light of it he slightly flushed. 
 
 " Quarrelled with Miss Brabant ? Never in the world. 
 What put such an idea into your head ? " 
 
 " I thought you admired her," said Mrs. Vesper softly, 
 with a little sigh. "I mean, it has been suggested to 
 me; silly people talk." 
 
 "Certainly, I admire her," Adrian murmured help- 
 lessly, " I admire her immensely ; but she doesn't like 
 me." 
 
 " Really ? " said the lady, with an ambiguous smile, 
 glancing at him meaningly. " Oh, don't misunderstand 
 me ! " she went on, after a moment, laying a detaining 
 hand upon his arm, as he showed signs of departure. " I 
 am not betraying any confidence : I know no secrets !
 
 ADRIAN ROME 169 
 
 and, really, I am not a matchmaking person, Heaven 
 forbid ! even when it's so suitable. But I'm too in- 
 terested ; she is almost my daughter, and you are both 
 so strange, so proud. She is like no other girl ; I thought 
 there must be a misunderstanding : forgive me if I have 
 made a mistake ! " 
 
 Adrian gazed at her for a moment silently, knitting 
 his brow; then he uttered a little nervous laugh: he 
 had succeeded in reaching the door. 
 
 " Oh, a mistake ! " he cried ; " perhaps it is I who have 
 been making a mistake." 
 
 He found his way back to the Temple in a state of 
 mind which bore very little resemblance to his serenity 
 of the morning. The idea which Mrs. Vesper (hardly 
 discreetly, perhaps, although he acquitted her of any 
 conscious mediation) had suggested to him, really pre- 
 sented itself now, confronted him in definite shape, for 
 the first time. He began to retrace in his mind the 
 history of his acquaintance with this girl, whom, cer- 
 tainly, he had admired, and who now was suddenly 
 placed before him as a woman who might be his wife. 
 And he could recall no sign which she had ever given 
 him of the preference which he was now allowed to 
 believe that she entertained. If she had distinguished 
 him in any way from other men who had equally sought 
 her company, (and they were many), he would have said 
 that the distinction had hardly been in his favour. She 
 had been colder to him than to the rest ; there had been 
 at times a shade more of haughtiness in her manner to 
 him than in her treatment, habitually disdainful as that 
 was, of mankind in general. He endeavoured to deride 
 the notion that, under it all, beneath this mask of calm 
 indifference, a proud woman concealed a predilection ; 
 no, he was not vain enough for that ! And yet, against 
 his reason, against his will, the conviction stole upon
 
 170 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 him that Mrs. Vesper was right. She was the last woman 
 in the world to make a mistake of that nature, to convey 
 to him such an inference unless she were quite sure that 
 her premisses were sound. And he went on seriously, 
 with a growing thoughtfulness, to consider the possibility 
 of such a union. And as he considered, it began to 
 appear not merely possible, but desirable; the thing 
 which should be. Certainly, he was not in love with 
 Miss Brabant; neither her memory nor her presence 
 could perceptibly quicken the beating of his pulse : but 
 she was a beautiful and accomplished woman, whom he 
 admired, and an alliance with her contained at least the 
 promise of an honourable security, which marriage on 
 a more passionate basis might forbid. Gradually, he 
 persuaded himself that this sentiment was sufficient, that 
 he might do worse than ask her to be his wife. 
 
 Unknowingly, Mrs. Vesper had put forward her troubl- 
 ous suggestion at an extremely opportune season, at a 
 time when it was most likely to bear fruit. Adrian was 
 in a mood of reaction, from a perplexing passion which, he 
 told himself repeatedly, had worn itself out. Whether, 
 intimately, he was satisfied with this account of a rela- 
 tion that had once been so full of charm, one may be 
 permitted to doubt ; but it is certain that the image of 
 Sylvia glanced at him now through a veil of misunder- 
 standing. Imperceptibly, the breach had widened ; and 
 it was none the less real and separating because it was 
 the result of no open difference. Ever since that after- 
 noon at Underwoods, when Sylvia, stepping out of that 
 singularly isolated position which she had always occu- 
 pied in his mind, had presented herself in a new light, 
 as a girl who could create scruples, difficulties ; a person, 
 moreover, with relations, encumbrances, his pride and 
 his love had furiously warred together. His recollection 
 of the occasion had become increasingly unpleasant to
 
 ADRIAN ROME 171 
 
 dwell upon, until of late his one desire had been to bury 
 it in oblivion. Even at the time, while he was under 
 the charm of Sylvia's presence, he had rebelled against 
 her attitude ; since, he had accounted for it in a dozen 
 ways, which were none the less intolerable, because they 
 were, after all, inadequate, unconvincing. He would 
 probably have resented strongly the suggestion that her 
 association with her cousin, Montague Villiers (whose 
 name so persistently intruded into his day-dreams), was 
 a powerful factor a prime cause of his irritation ; but 
 it may be doubted whether this was not, in fact, the case. 
 And his exasperation was only heightened by a secret 
 consciousness, deep down in his heart, that he was 
 unreasonable, unjust. He steeled himself against the 
 girl, even as she had armed herself against her heart ; 
 fought against his passion as if it were an evil thing ; and 
 was glad when, in the distraction afforded by society, or 
 in the stress of his artistic labour, he had for a short hour 
 succeeded in forgetting her. In the light of his newly- 
 awakened enthusiasm, his art took the first place, chiefly 
 filled his thoughts; everything else seemed more than 
 ever secondary, unimportant ; the idea of love, of mar- 
 riage, the routine of life, more than ever troublesome. 
 
 To dispose of the harassing question once and for all ; 
 this seemed to him to be the solution, the desired con- 
 summation; he was anxious, mainly, to relieve himself 
 of this perpetual necessity of balancing issues, of making 
 a choice. That it was inevitable that he should commit 
 himself, sooner or later, it did not occur to him to deny ; 
 and the sooner the plunge was made, he argued, the 
 sooner would he be able to bring trivial affairs to a 
 settlement, to possess his soul in peace. His art, he 
 pleaded fiercely that this was the first thing to be con- 
 sidered ; that he was bound, as a matter of conscience, 
 to so order his life as to prevent the intrusion of any
 
 172 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 element incompatible with a perfect devotion to this 
 absorbing spiritual passion. If he must marry (and it 
 seemed that it was expected of him), why, let him marry, 
 in Heaven's name ; marry, and have done with it. There 
 was at least a certain security in this step ; it promised 
 to confer an immunity from the recurrence of dilemmas 
 so embarrassing. He would marry, as he had taken his 
 degree, in order to dispose of a troublesome formality.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 AND he fell back into the old routine, spent his days 
 assiduously in haunting places where he met the same 
 persons and said the same things ; dedicated his evenings 
 to the opera, when he was not at a fashionable first- 
 night; concluded as often as not at a dance; and still 
 found leisure, however late was his return to the Temple, 
 to devote part of the night to his dearer labour, to the 
 slow but steady elaboration of his book. His acquaint- 
 ance increased enormously, became labyrinthine and 
 immense; and at the same time, if he was always con- 
 gregating with new persons, striking out, as it were, 
 new roots, there was enough of the beaten track in his 
 peregrinations to enable him to see more than ever of 
 those with whom his acquaintance had begun. 
 
 Gerald Brooke and Dalrymple Green ; Lady Lancaster 
 and her pretty daughters; Mrs. Vesper and Marion 
 Brabant, and the satellites of those inseparables ; even 
 Lord Henry Minaret, who, rather silent and distrait, 
 but always very faultlessly dressed, had grown a more 
 inveterate haunter of doorways and corridors through 
 which Marjorie Lancaster, with her pretty impersonal 
 smile, and her air of submission to the inevitable, was 
 likely to pass, as the day approached which should 
 finally install that young lady in possession of her 
 elderly warrior and the famous Verrinder pearls : all 
 these familiar figures seemed more perpetually to be 
 crossing Adrian's path, appearing and disappearing with 
 
 173
 
 174 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 the fantastic effect of figurants in a complicated dance or 
 ballet, as day by day his engagements clustered thicker 
 upon him. 
 
 He cultivated Miss Brabant with a fresh interest and 
 an increased regularity, after that day when Mrs. Vesper 
 had exposed her for a moment in so unexpected a light. 
 He had succeeded now, by the force of ceaseless con- 
 sideration, in denuding that confidence of any direct pur- 
 pose, in reducing it to, at most, the expression of a wish. 
 At the same time, the impression which it had left upon 
 him was vivid and enduring. He laid himself out, as he 
 had never done before, to study Marion, to please her, 
 was conciliatory and charming beyond his wont. And 
 if at times his success was problematical, and the girl 
 seemed to have grown more inaccessible than ever behind 
 her barrier of reserve, there were, on the other hand, 
 moments when she gave sudden signs of yielding moods 
 of extreme softness, in which she showed a desire that 
 was almost touching to apprehend, to mould herself to 
 his point of view. Then, victory seeming less desirable 
 as it approached, Adrian himself would become half 
 alarmed, would procrastinate and retreat. And, all the 
 time, Mrs. Vesper looked on, complacent but remote; she 
 had never shown any signs of recurring to the embarrass- 
 ing topic, and had it not been for a certain subtile shade 
 of understanding in her smile, he could have believed his 
 awkward interval in her drawing-room to have been a 
 feverish dream. As the season glided away, however, and 
 to Adrian the precise denouement became daily a thing 
 more inevitable and clear, he was seized, even while he 
 accepted the situation, with a desire to revisit Under- 
 woods, to see once more that charming friend of his boy- 
 hood, if only for the last time. He did not yield to this 
 impulse at once : in fact, he struggled against it with a 
 vehemence which seemed a trifle uncalled for, in view of
 
 ADRIAN ROME 175 
 
 his repeated inward protests, that it was a very little 
 matter which he contemplated, as it might have been a 
 visit to a grave. But the impulse remained, impregnable 
 to argument, stronger than his pride ; it wore him out. 
 He ended by shrugging his shoulders, and yielding, with 
 a smile at his own fatuity that was devoid of rnirth. 
 
 The day before, he had been one of the smart crowd 
 which assembled in a West End church to witness the 
 wedding of Marjorie Lancaster with General Verrinder. 
 Most of the guests were known to Adrian, at least by 
 sight, and they were all, with one exception, precisely 
 the people whom he would have expected to see. The 
 exception was his friend Lord Henry Minaret, who was 
 standing twenty paces from him, and whose attitude he 
 was consequently able to observe. There was certainly 
 nothing notable in this, nothing which might lead the 
 casual observer to guess that the occasion offered him 
 any exceptional interest. He wore the white button- 
 hole of convention in his coat, bore himself correctly and 
 well ; while his agreeable face was composed to the same 
 expression of decorous, rather bored resignation, which 
 predominated among the other guests. On the whole, 
 Adrian was surprised that he should have come. Was it 
 mere bravado, for the benefit of the bride ? Or did his 
 presence there imply at last a tardy acquiescence, a rati- 
 fication of the essentially contradictory elements in the 
 governing of human affairs ? 
 
 They exchanged a few words in the porch, after the 
 ceremony (neither of them was going on to the reception 
 in Portman Square), but when they separated, Adrian's 
 curiosity was not sensibly diminished. Yet there was a 
 trace of acrimony, of lassitude in his friend's voice, 
 ordinarily so frank and genial. It was finally with a feel- 
 ing almost akin to envy, that Adrian parted from him. 
 If his visible frustration was obvious, so also was the
 
 176 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 unwavering directness, the single-hearted sincerity of 
 his desire. Well, there seemed satisfaction even in that, 
 even in frustration which followed upon strenuous effort, 
 to a man whose mind, never more than now, was in the 
 condition of a house divided against itself. 
 
 By noon the following day he was at Underwoods. 
 The journey down, in the tedious train, which stopped 
 everywhere, had not seemed long to him : he was too 
 intimately occupied. A revulsion had come over him ; 
 he no longer sought to stem the tide of his old tender- 
 ness, reproached himself only for procrastination, which 
 had deferred the inevitable journey so long. And as 
 imaginative men will, he busily invented a hundred 
 charming modes and phrases, in which their meeting 
 would be framed, tasting delightfully in anticipation the 
 fruit of his humility, the gradual softening of the per- 
 verse maiden. And, all the time, he confessed to no 
 definite aim or project in this pilgrimage : only, he had 
 passed from the labour of introspection, was content 
 simply to be guided by the accident of the moment. A 
 meeting with Sylvia! His imagination played lazily 
 around that, incapable of looking beyond. 
 
 There was no conveyance at the station, and he 
 accomplished on foot the few miles which separated him 
 from his goal. A walk irresponsible and happy ; later 
 he could remember that, and the thrill, not unattended 
 by a certain sinking of heart, which accompanied his 
 first glimpse of the village through the trees. Ostensibly, 
 he was a stranger now, there was no longer the pretext 
 of a call upon his old tutor. The sense of his isolation, 
 of estrangement, smote him painfully when he passed 
 the first cottages. A woman working in the garden of 
 one of them glanced at him from under her white sun- 
 bonnet, with stolid eyes which betrayed no recognition, 
 though he remembered her face well. And for the first
 
 ADRIAN ROME 177 
 
 time an odd diffidence overcame him, so that he had not 
 the courage to take at once the familiar road to the 
 little post-office. He wished now that he had written, 
 had informed Sylvia of his coming. In his difficulty, he 
 bethought him of the rustic who had the keys of his 
 house, and directed his steps to a neighbouring cottage. 
 It would seem natural enough to old Rudge, he reflected, 
 that he should wish to look over this desirable mansion. 
 And the next moment he laughed at the absurdity of 
 supposing that his subtile, sentimental malady needed 
 concealment from the most stolid of Berkshire peasants. 
 He knocked with the head of his stick on the cottage 
 door, and an apple-cheeked woman opened it. She 
 recognised him after a moment, and grasped his purpose. 
 Her master was in the fields, she explained, and he 
 waited at the door while she sent a small tow-haired 
 son to summon him. They stood by the door together, 
 and the woman gossiped in the broad nasal dialect of 
 Berkshire, which at times he found hard to follow. He 
 listened, however, patiently to her flow of talk, knowing 
 that sooner or later, if he put her no questions, she 
 would touch of her own accord upon the history of the 
 only household which interested him. After a while 
 the name of Drew caught his ear, and was repeated in 
 a conjunction which caused him to avert his head ; what 
 more she said was a mere vain sound passing through 
 his ears. When she had finished, he looked vaguely at 
 his watch. " After all, I shan't have time, Mrs. Rudge, 
 to look over the house. I am sorry I troubled your 
 husband. Tell him to do anything that is necessary." 
 His quick change of purpose might seem an unreason- 
 able peculiarity, but Adrian had suddenly ceased to care 
 how his conduct might impress any of the inhabitants 
 of Underwoods. He left the apple-cheeked woman still 
 standing at her door, and wandered away up the village 
 12
 
 i;8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 street. Mechanically he repeated to himself the few 
 words which Mrs. Rudge had driven home to his under- 
 standing. 
 
 " Eh, dear, we be here to-day and gone to-morrow ! 
 Mrs. Drew she died last month, and Miss Sylvia's gone 
 to Birmingham, to her mother's folk." By dint of 
 frequent repetition the jingle of mere words imaged to 
 his mind grotesquely the definite, exasperating fact. 
 He walked along rapidly, though his step had lost its 
 buoyancy, as the proper aimlessness of his journey was 
 borne in upon him. He passed the post-office without a 
 halt, feeling no desire to assure himself that the name 
 over the door was altered and strange. He was anxious 
 only to leave the village behind him, to be free of 
 observers, suspicious that his inner blankness might be 
 printed on his face, so that even to rustic notice he must 
 seem stupid and amazed. He did not pause until he 
 had climbed the hill and stood on the bare down, which 
 stretched to right and left of him, one fair, green 
 expanse as far as his eye could reach. Then he flung 
 himself down on the grass and rested. The village lay 
 below him, partly hidden by trees, but suggested by 
 the faint haze of smoke which curled up in thin, spiral 
 lines through the quiet air. Presently he turned his face 
 away from it with a fierce objurgation; and for a 
 long time he lay there, looking up sullenly at the 
 cloudless sky, a prey to the exceeding bitterness of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 It was not so much the futility of his journey, so 
 delicious in anticipation, which exercised him painfully, 
 as the fact, that this departure of Sylvia, and her 
 mother's death, should have come to his knowlege in a 
 manner so indirect. That she should not have thought 
 fit to write news so vital to him herself, enabled him, as 
 he had never done before, to realise the full extent of
 
 ADRIAN ROME 179 
 
 their division, and he reproached himself passionately 
 for having allowed estrangement to proceed so far. 
 Now that Sylvia was gone out of his reach (it was 
 characteristic of his temper and the curious views of 
 fatalism which underlay his reason, that he accepted 
 this severance as ultimate, where a man of more practi- 
 cal energy would have looked at the hundred ways of 
 bridging it), it was to his pride alone, to his foolish 
 half-heartedness, and not to any shortcoming in the 
 girl, that he attributed her loss. He had been vaguely 
 tender, lavish of adoring generalisations, but when had 
 he ever explicitly sought her, as by countless indirect 
 speeches he had given her the right to expect that he 
 would ? His distractions, his work, his need of contact 
 with the great world, the pleasure of cultivating his 
 personal popularity ; he had allowed these things vain 
 enough they seemed to Adrian now, in his hour of 
 solitary self-communion on the Berkshire downs to 
 come between him and his dearer, more intimate life. 
 If he could acquit himself of absolute dishonour, he 
 stood none the less confessed of culpable weakness, 
 whereof now, in the fulness of time, he was reaping 
 his reward. 
 
 He had forfeited opportunity, and let this girl, never 
 desired more deeply than now, pass finally out of his 
 life. In the season of her deepest need, she had made no 
 sign to him : the mute reproach of this silence of hers 
 seemed to put the seal of finality upon their separation ; 
 he read it like a sentence upon his own unworthiness ; 
 and if he would have protested against its severity, there 
 was this against the presumption of his innocence, that 
 he had allowed judgment to go against him by default. 
 For two hours or more he lay there, motionless, on the 
 brow of the hill, invaded by a rising lassitude, sick at the 
 very thought of resuming, of reconstructing the disordered
 
 i8o ADRIAN ROME 
 
 elements of his life. Grotesquely enough, it was the 
 reminder of physical hunger he had tasted no food 
 since the early morning which at last set him reluct- 
 antly moving. He felt dizzy as he rose ; but, once on 
 his feet, his desire to be away from Underwoods (the 
 village, destitute of its old charm, moved him in the 
 distance like a desecrated shrine), hurried him over the 
 downs by a road longer, but more sequestered, than that 
 which had brought him to the station. He embarked 
 in the train with the feelings of a man who had said 
 good-bye to his youth ; that, and his love for Sylvia, so 
 living in the morning, seemed all at once to have 
 retreated irrevocably into the past. 
 
 At Reading he alighted for refreshment, and waited 
 half an hour for an express which would carry him 
 more commodiously to London. When it arrived, as 
 he walked down the platform, selecting his carriage, a 
 familiar voice fell on his ear, called him by name. He 
 saw the unmistakable head of Gerald Brooke half 
 protruded from the window of a first-class smoking 
 carriage. Adrian, weary enough just then of the 
 monotony of his own circuitous thoughts, hastened to 
 join him. 
 
 Brooke welcomed him with the enthusiasm of a true 
 conversationalist unexpectedly relieved from an unpro- 
 fitable solitude, in which his gifts were quenched. 
 
 He smiled, however, with lofty pity when Rome asked 
 him to account for himself. 
 
 "My dear Adrian! Why should you question a 
 palpable gift of the gods ? Let us assume that we 
 have each dropped from the clouds." 
 
 He lit a cigarette, and handed his case to Adrian : 
 the latter settled himself in the opposite corner. He 
 could perceive that he was literally, as Brooke put 
 it, "manna from heaven" to the gregarious poet
 
 ADRIAN ROME 181 
 
 pining for an audience, and resigned himself to the 
 part. 
 
 " We moderns lack the sense of mystery," Brooke 
 continued, as the train steamed out of the station, 
 " that is why we are grown so tedious some of us 
 at least. For my part, I never go away on the most 
 commonplace errand, but I invent some beautiful, 
 romantic account of myself, for the benefit of my 
 friends. To-day, I have been picking cowslips on the 
 Cumnor hills." 
 
 Adrian smiled. 
 
 " Cowslips in August ? My dear Brooke ! " he pro- 
 tested. 
 
 The other waved his hand with a gesture of benignant 
 tolerance. 
 
 " Don't they flourish now ? How wonderful of you 
 to know, Adrian ! I know nothing about them, except 
 that they rhyme perfectly with 'lips.' If you insist 
 on plain brutal facts, I have been up to Oxford on 
 college business trivial, stupid, impossible affairs : the 
 place was deserted ; it was very virtuous of me to go, 
 and I was just reminding myself that virtue is always 
 its own punishment, especially if it implies a railway 
 journey, when you materialised yourself." 
 
 " I fell on you opportunely for myself," said Rome. 
 " I was very blue." 
 
 "Yes!" Brooke went on impartially in the key of 
 soliloquy. " Just then you came to me, from the clouds, 
 or from Arcady. You see I am kinder than you: I 
 don't seriously assume that you had business at Read- 
 ing. You" 
 
 He broke off suddenly, observing Adrian through the 
 film of the smoke. He resumed with a sigh. " Ah, 
 fortunate fellow ! One doesn't need to invent for you. 
 You have come from some strange and exquisite
 
 i8 2 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 experience. You live the romances that we others often 
 have not the courage to write. I can read it in your 
 eyes you have marvellous eyes, Adrian ! lustrous, 
 wine-dark, like old Homer's sea, capable of infinite 
 changes. Just now, they have a sombre light in 
 them, like the flame of the topaz in my ring. From 
 what wonderful quest have you come ? " 
 
 Adrian uttered a little, short laugh. 
 
 " A quest which carried me into a cut de sac and so 
 I came back." 
 
 A note in his voice, acrimonious, suggesting that the 
 random shot had told, slightly disconcerted his fluent 
 friend, who, hating confidences, deftly passed to less 
 personal topics. In a breath, he gibbeted epigram- 
 matically the head of his college, praised a poem of 
 Adrian's in a current magazine, fathered unblushingly 
 a witty cynicism of his own on a notoriously dull 
 divine, and inquired whether they should meet that 
 night at Lady Drumblaney's ball. Adrian half thought 
 he would be there. 
 
 " Oh, you must come ! One goes dutifully to see 
 the last of persons : why not of the season ? It dies 
 to-night." 
 
 " Not soon enough for me," Adrian declared. " I 
 shall be on the Anonyma in a week. I can do better 
 work at sea. Hard work, after all, is one's cure for 
 most things." 
 
 Brooke ignored the personal allusion, deprecated the 
 word. 
 
 " Ah, we don't, can't work, you and I ! Nobody 
 works nowadays, but the lower middle classes." 
 
 "And the horny-handed son of toil?" suggested 
 Adrian indifferently. 
 
 " A popular fallacy ! He only represents us in 
 Parliament, and organises strikes."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 183 
 
 Adrian laughed. 
 
 " Who accompanies you ? " Brooke asked. 
 
 " You, if you will ? Minaret, if he can." 
 
 Brooke touched on the young Lord's presence at 
 the Verrinder wedding, chronicled in the Morning 
 Post. 
 
 " Rumour has it, that he would fain have assisted in 
 another capacity." 
 
 " What doesn't rumour say ? " 
 
 Brooke's low laugh, rippling out melodiously, seemed 
 to point his assent with innuendo. 
 
 " It marries most of us, and divorces us when we are 
 wed." 
 
 The word "marriage" enticed him once more to 
 the path of generalisation. He mocked the popular 
 superstition of elective affinity in the choice of a 
 wife. 
 
 " There is only one woman in the world one ought not 
 to marry the woman one loves." 
 
 " In our practice at least we should please you ; few 
 of us do." 
 
 " Because she is generally married," Brooke cynically 
 explained. 
 
 At Paddington they departed in separate cabs, to 
 dress and dine, arranging to meet again later in the 
 evening. Once more alone, Adrian became conscious 
 that his chance meeting with Brooke had supplied him 
 with the precise mental tonic which he desired; the 
 difference between himself, at present, and the youth 
 who had gone down to Underwoods that morning, no 
 longer struck him as an inexplicable cruelty. To his 
 passionate hour of self-reproach had succeeded a certain 
 hard numbness ; not of his intelligence, which remained 
 singularly alert, but of his emotional life, which seemed 
 dead, and, with it, all effective, personal desire. He
 
 1 84 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 looked at the youth of the morning with vague be- 
 wilderment, tending to become aversion: it was a person 
 grown so strange. When he reached his chambers, he 
 had the impression of having come back after a long 
 absence.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WALKING along Piccadilly a few hours later, in the 
 pleasant midsummer twilight, after dining fortuitously 
 with Lord Hildebrand at a restaurant which they both 
 frequented, Adrian found himself considering, in the 
 desultory fashion which the distractions of a busy 
 London thoroughfare are wont to impose upon a 
 pedestrian's meditations, his Lordship's parting words 
 a confession somewhat strikingly at variance with 
 that weary hedonist's mature cynicism, of which it was 
 at the same time, in a way, a corroboration. They had 
 been discussing, over their coffee, the eternal theme 
 woman, and her weakness, with reference to the 
 supposed mastery of the superior man; and the old 
 gentleman had admitted, with an incongruous air of 
 candour, that he did not believe in what he chose to 
 call a royal road to women's hearts. "I know fifty 
 men," he declared whimsically, tapping his snuff-box, 
 and gazing at the exquisite miniature of Madame 
 Recamier which adorned its lid, "fifty, at least, who 
 are the proprietors so they tell me of infallible 
 systems for breaking the bank at trente et quarante, 
 and forty of them make no secret of their belief that 
 there are methods equally sure of winning a woman's 
 favour. Eh bien, not one of them has ever come back 
 from Monaco with more than enough to pay his 
 travelling expenses ; not one of them has come out of 
 an affaire du cceur with even so much credit ! " Then 
 
 186
 
 i86 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 he. shrugged his shoulders, accentuating his point with 
 an expressive grimace. " If I could be young again 
 young in body, with my not inconsiderable experience 
 of life, it would be upon iny youth, not my knowledge 
 of the world, that I should pin my reliance. A man 
 may watch the game for years, and not win so much 
 in a lifetime as some careless plunger carries off at a 
 single coup. And it is the same with women. It is 
 all luck : the wise man leaves the tables when fortune 
 frowns. Well, I hope you are wise; it's more than 
 your father was before you ! " 
 
 Adrian had found this dinner, face to face with the 
 veteran of many experiences, a singularly appropriate 
 sequel to the episodes (how remote they seemed!) of 
 the long, unprofitable day. Even more than the hour 
 which he had spent with Gerald Brooke, it had braced 
 him, withdrawn him from the past, confirmed him in 
 his new-born worldliness. Lord Hildebrand had unbent, 
 growing almost genial, perversely, in recognition of the 
 boy's moroseness : there was something in Adrian's 
 mood which interested him, a challenge to his per- 
 spicacity in the expression which haunted the long, 
 pale face, and leaped at times, momentarily, into the 
 dark, restless eyes, in which the fire of some strenuous 
 conflict seemed still to smoulder. But finally, he was 
 obliged to acknowledge that he was baffled : the boy 
 was in no humour for confidences, and it had never 
 occurred to him to regard Lord Hildebrand in the light 
 of a father-confessor. 
 
 While Adrian hesitated (he had stayed his steps 
 instinctively on the threshold of his club), the great 
 clock at Westminster boomed out the hour ten; and 
 he remembered his half-promise to Brooke, that he 
 would keep him in countenance (a somewhat superfluous 
 service) at Lady Drumblaney's ball. He recalled his
 
 ADRIAN ROME 187 
 
 wandering thoughts, plunged into the club to procure 
 a buttonhole, and verify his memory of Lady Drum- 
 blaney's address, and in less than twenty minutes his 
 hansom had pulled up at the tail of a long line of 
 carriages outside a house in Eaton Square, which by 
 its striped awning, red-carpeted steps, and the sounds 
 of music that floated from its brilliant windows, elo- 
 quently betrayed the nature of the festivities that were 
 already in full swing within. 
 
 It was not long before he encountered, in the interval 
 between two dances, his disconsolate friend, Lord Henry 
 Minaret, adorning a doorway, gazing stoically into the 
 parti-coloured ocean of black coats and gay dresses, in 
 which bright eyes, laughing lips, flushed cheeks, and 
 daintily-curved, white arms seemed to eddy as in a 
 somewhat deliberate whirlpool. They retreated, strate- 
 gically, to a spot where the vigilant eyes of their 
 hostess could not detect their breach of the rule which 
 dictates, that in a ballroom no two persons of the 
 same sex shall foregather, unless they have attained 
 an invidiously privileged seniority; and congratulated 
 each other on their approaching escape from the social 
 routine, which had finally become so tedious. 
 
 " Well," said Adrian presently, " have you made up 
 your mind ? Which is it to be Sanquhar, or the Isles 
 of Greece ? Sandy Macpherson and a moor suspected 
 of harbouring grouse or the Anonyma and my 
 Viking skipper ? Under which tyrant ? Remember, 
 I sail in a week, mat ccelum." 
 
 " A , any ladies on board ? " queried the other, feign- 
 ing a consuming interest in his programme. 
 
 Rome smiled. " That hadn't occurred to me. No, I 
 think not, if you don't mind ! I mean business ; we're 
 in for a cruise none of your Solent picnics." 
 
 "All right," said Lord Henry softly, after a pause.
 
 i88 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " I'm there ! I shall be delighted to come. Bother the 
 the grouse ! " 
 
 " Good man ! " ejaculated the other, glancing at him 
 shrewdly. "You and I, and Corbyn, and possibly 
 Brooke : we will have a good time, and get the cobwebs 
 blown out of our braina" 
 
 Lord Henry sighed. "It will have to blow pretty 
 hard for some of us ! " 
 
 The music had ceased, and they found themselves 
 elbowed by a stream of refugees from the heat and 
 brilliance of the ballroom. Miss Brabant passed, on the 
 arm of Dalrymple Green, throwing them a smile and 
 glance, which Adrian was obliged to share with his 
 companion. 
 
 "I didn't know that your cousin was here," he 
 remarked to Lord Henry. 
 
 The other glanced at him curiously, finding a strange 
 quality in his voice. 
 
 " Oh, Marion ? She hasn't been here long : she came 
 with me and Mrs. Vesper. They had been to the 
 Paderewski concert, and picked me up at the House 
 me and Dalrymple Green." 
 
 " The ubiquitous Dalrymple ! " murmured Adrian 
 absently, buttoning his gloves. 
 
 " He well he's an awful bore, if you ask me ! " said 
 Lord Henry candidly. " I daresay he's a good sort, and 
 all that, but he's so infernally clever, and he is always 
 letting you know it. Do you happen to know if that is 
 Miss Farndale ? I've got to dance the next with Miss 
 Farndale. No, I'm tired of Dalrymple : he gets on my 
 nerves." 
 
 " Poor Dalrymple ! " said Adrian, smiling vaguely. 
 " But I like him : he makes such an admirable foil. 
 A world composed entirely of charming people and 
 nonentities, would be rather monotonous after all ! "
 
 ADRIAN ROME 189 
 
 Lord Henry laughed. " I won't ask under which 
 category I come ! But I wonder whether you have 
 been selecting your yachting party on these principles ; 
 and if so, which of your guests represents the Dalrymple 
 element. I assume, charitably, that the crew will be 
 cast for the nonentities." 
 
 Rome glanced at him humorously. " My dear fellow, 
 you are getting dangerous : one recognises the readiness 
 of the old parliamentary hand ! Brooke shall be our 
 Dalrymple for Heaven's sake don't breathe it ! After 
 all, they have something in common, only Brooke is an 
 orchid, of the rarest, while the other represents some 
 useful vegetable let us say a cabbage ! Ah, there is 
 the music again, that delightful " Moonbeam " waltz. I 
 wonder if your cousin has a dance left for me : I must 
 ask her at once." 
 
 Lord Henry smiled. " Yes, you had better go for my 
 sake. I shall draw down upon my head the enmity of 
 half the old ladies in London if I monopolise you any 
 longer." 
 
 Then seeing that Rome looked at him with a puzzled 
 expression, " My dear boy," he added, " surely you know 
 that you are being stalked assiduously that you are 
 one of the partis of the season. Off with you, and give 
 the guileless huntresses a chance." 
 
 Adrian laughed tolerantly, then a somewhat grave 
 expression clouded his smile : he hesitated for a moment, 
 colouring a little, and fingering uneasily the ragged edge 
 of the broad leaf of a palm which stood in the corner 
 near them. 
 
 "Do you," he said deliberately, "do you consider 
 that I am what is known as what is the phrase ? 
 an eligible parti ? I I don't care what the old ladies 
 think, you see ; they don't know me." 
 
 " Does anyone know you, you mysterious old beggar?"
 
 190 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 rejoined Lord Henry, gazing at him curiously. "You 
 really oughtn't to fish for compliments in such a bare- 
 faced way. But, good heavens, man, of course you are 
 of course I think so! If I was a dowager with a 
 pretty daughter, I should be on your track, you bet ! " 
 
 " You might repent," said the other gravely, but with 
 a faintly conscious smile, as he continued, " Well, I must 
 try to find your cousin : perhaps I shall see you later. 
 Don't forget the Anonynia to-day week ; we might run 
 down to Southampton together." 
 
 Adrian found himself confronting Miss Brabant on 
 the staircase, just when he had begun to wonder, with a 
 strangely vehement feeling of anxiety, whether she was 
 sitting out this dance with Dalrymple Green. In answer 
 to his petition, she showed him her card, shaking her 
 head doubtfully, explaining that it was full, " all except 
 the last three dances, and I have been telling everyone 
 that I shall not be here for them." 
 
 "May I take the first," he said quickly, "on the 
 chance ? " 
 
 She looked at him silently for a moment, then yielded 
 her card to him, and waited while he scrawled illegible 
 initials upon it. 
 
 " I have promised Mrs. Vesper not to keep her late," 
 she added, glancing back over her shoulder as she passed 
 forward on her partner's arm, leaving Adrian to wonder 
 suspiciously why he had been so anxious to secure a 
 dance with a girl with whom fortune had thrown him 
 into contact almost daily for the last three months. 
 
 Flattening himself against the wall to allow the 
 throng to pass, he glanced at his programme, and found 
 that only two dances intervened between that which was 
 now in progress and the waltz for which he hoped to 
 induce Miss Brabant to remain, and that he had left 
 himself without partners for either of them. After a
 
 ADRIAN ROME 191 
 
 moment's hesitation, he made his way to the recess 
 where Mrs. Vesper was seated chatting with Gerald 
 Brooke, and, watching his opportunity, showed her his 
 programme. 
 
 " I'm going to be very selfish ! " he murmured quickly. 
 " I want you to promise to stay for No. 18 ! " 
 
 She raised her eyebrows, glancing at him and then 
 down at the card, smiling with a nod of comprehension 
 as she noticed Marion's name written opposite the 
 number which he had indicated. He acknowledged her 
 playful speech of assent with a few words of thanks, 
 in which Mrs. Vesper looked in vain for any allusive 
 meaning, and acting upon a sudden impulse, broke away 
 in the middle of one of Brooke's most carefully studied 
 impromptus, and, pausing for a moment to find his hat, 
 passed out into the obscurity of the empty street. He 
 had walked half-way down one side of the long rect- 
 angle, vaguely contemplating the dim vault of sky, into 
 which the tall houses jutted steeply, the solitary lamps, 
 and whispering trees, before he realised, in a flash, that 
 his mind was made up, that he was at last face to face 
 with the great question which had for so long haunted 
 his meditations. It had all been settled, as it seemed to 
 him, quite independently of his own volition, and in his 
 weariness he was glad that it was so, content to acquiesce 
 passively, almost without a protest. In less than half 
 an hour he would return to the ballroom, to claim the 
 promised dance ; and before he emerged again into the 
 pleasant darkness, in which he could walk with only the 
 watchfulness of his own eyes to fear, words would have 
 been spoken which he might then wish unsaid. He 
 might repent but the words should be spoken ; his soul 
 was weary of this long uncertainty; only one end 
 seemed possible, and his restless nature called loudly 
 upon him to hasten it.
 
 i 9 2 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 When he re-entered the ballroom, a little late (the 
 music of the eighteenth dance had already begun), and 
 found Miss Brabant waiting for him, with a smile upon 
 her lips which was like the breath of life to some peer- 
 less statue, he was struck with a quick thrill of admira- 
 tion for her beauty, so elusive, and yet after all, for the 
 initiated, so real a quality which made itself felt 
 almost as a rebuke, whelming his doubts in a flood of 
 appreciation. She was tired, and her slight lassitude 
 served to lend a certain charm of softness to her allure, 
 bringing about, as it seemed to Adrian, more than a 
 merely physical effacement of sharp contours : the delicate 
 colour which her exertions had brought to her cheeks, 
 the suggestion of disorder in her dark hair, all helped 
 to complete the illusion, to make it difficult to believe 
 that she could be cold, irresponsive, severe. For once 
 she seemed a creature of generous flesh and blood, not a 
 masterpiece of marble imagery; and the change, the 
 added charm, enhanced her beauty marvellously. 
 
 "I have been very virtuous," she explained, as she 
 surrendered herself languorously to his guidance. "I 
 proposed to Mrs. Vesper that we should go, just now, 
 but she actually declared that she preferred to stay ! I 
 am puzzled but it was very nice of her. She is really 
 too good to me ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " began Rome. " Yes, she is positively too 
 charming ; I wonder she isn't afraid that it will become 
 monotonous." 
 
 When they had accomplished a few circuits of the 
 crowded room, Marion readily acceded to her partner's 
 suggestion that they should leave the floor to more 
 inveterate dancers, and seek the cool seclusion of a 
 roomy balcony, where chairs were set under the glamour 
 of Japanese lanterns, that hung overhead in festoons, 
 nodding like great flowers on their stems. Through the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 193 
 
 tall French window they recognised Brooke in the dark- 
 ness ; he had just vacated a low basket-chair, the merits 
 of which he lingered for a moment to recommend to 
 Miss Brabant's attention. 
 
 " Mrs. Trevanion and I were only now regretting the 
 absence of the moon," he added, turning towards them, 
 as he held the curtain aside for his companion, a dis- 
 tinguished lady novelist, to pass : " the gods have taken 
 the hint, and send Miss Brabant to supply the deficiency." 
 
 "I suspect he had already said that of Mrs. Tre- 
 vanion ! " declared Miss Brabant cynically, as Adrian 
 seated himself on the cushioned ledge of the balcony 
 wall, close by her side. "I, for one, don't regret the 
 moon at all; it's so pleasant, the darkness: one can 
 dream under cover of it without being afraid of betray- 
 ing one's thoughts." 
 
 "Yes," replied Adrian appreciatively, "it's a great 
 relief to be able to lay aside one's mask. In broad day- 
 light everyone is obliged to pose, more or less." 
 
 Miss Brabant sighed gently, and for a time they were 
 silent, listening vaguely to the curious medley of sounds 
 which floated through the open windows of the ball- 
 room the strains, half plaintive, half rapturous, of the 
 quaint Hungarian waltz, the rhythmic, multitudinous 
 tread of feet, the light surge of silken skirts eddying 
 over the polished floor. 
 
 " Forgive me if I am remiss ! " murmured Rome pre- 
 sently. " I feel like a traveller, who, after walking for 
 a long time between high walls, draws near suddenly to 
 a corner which he hopes will bring him in sight of a 
 fair country his journey's end, the haven where he 
 would be." 
 
 Miss Brabant opened her fan with a delicate feathery 
 rustle, and then let it fall half closed at her side. " Why 
 doesn't he hurry on, your traveller ? " she asked lightly. 
 13
 
 194 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " He is afraid," said Adrian, with a curious sense of 
 shame, blessing the friendly darkness, and yet wishing 
 that he could see his companion's face, to read its 
 presage. " There may be nothing but more high walls, 
 or worse still, a dismal swamp, round the corner. Yes," 
 he added, boldly throwing his scruples to the winds, " I 
 am afraid ; I am going to look round the corner, and it 
 depends on you what I shall see." 
 
 " On me," she repeated almost inaudibly, half closing 
 her eyes and sinking back into her low chair. 
 
 " Can't you guess ? " he continued quickly. " You 
 you are my haven, my desire. I want you to come 
 down from your pedestal, to say to say that you care 
 for me, that you will be my wife ! " 
 
 The girl turned, opening her lips as if to interrupt 
 him ; when he paused she too was silent, but a faint 
 rustle of the basket-chair betrayed her trembling. 
 
 "Are you offended?" he added, following his other 
 words quickly, though the interval had seemed to him 
 prolonged. "Have I spoken too soon? Do you wish 
 for time ? " 
 
 Marion sighed before she answered, still with down- 
 cast eyes, a trace of indecision marking almost imper- 
 ceptibly the inflection of her voice. 
 
 "It would never do," she said slowly. "I don't 
 understand you your ideals. Remember how we have 
 differed. Think of your art how utterly I am out- 
 side it. I " And her words were lost in another 
 sigh. 
 
 " You you don't hate me, then ? " he put in quickly, 
 perceiving her want of conviction. " Your fears what 
 are they ? Do you think I haven't considered all that ? 
 I think I understand you your sympathies, better than 
 you do yourself. My ideals why, you are one of them. 
 You are too beautiful to be an alien to Art to all that
 
 ADRIAN ROME 195 
 
 is most beautiful in the world. Ah, Marion, say that 
 you will that you will ; all the rest is nothing." 
 
 Miss Brabant clasped the arms of her chair, leaning 
 forward a little: she uttered no word, but he was so 
 close that he could hear her breath come fast, detect the 
 rapid rise and fall of the spray of white flowers which 
 lay upon her bosom. Then she turned her beautiful 
 head towards him slowly, with downcast eyes. 
 
 " Are you sure ? " she murmured. " Are you very 
 sure?"
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NEARLY a year later, upon a particularly sultry evening 
 in May, an interested little party had foregathered in 
 the manager's room, in Cyrus Holmes' theatre the 
 "parlour," as he preferred to call it, with allusion to 
 a larger and more famous apartment in the classic 
 house of Moliere, whose traditions, so sanely artistic, 
 he wished it to be supposed he was popularising, on 
 the less congenial banks of the Thames. The heat was 
 excessive, in spite of a certain studied nudity in the 
 room's arrangement, which suggested coolness, it had a 
 bare, brilliantly polished parquet, very sparely relieved 
 with pale India matting ; but upon the faces of every- 
 one present there was imprinted, besides the discomfort 
 of the weather, augmented for most of them by a super- 
 fluity of grease paint, the expectant anxiety, with its 
 accompaniment of suppressed irritability, of persons 
 embarking on an adventure. An adventure, indeed, 
 was pressing upon them very nearly. For the last 
 fortnight the bills of Compromise : a new and original 
 Comedy, by Adrian Rome, had been abroad; and the 
 company, all the leading members of which were here 
 assembled, was now within an hour of its production. 
 Cyrus Holmes, already dressed for his part, he was 
 cast for the prodigal husband, sat at a little table, 
 impatiently smoking a cigarette, while from time to 
 time he glanced nervously, frowning a little, at the 
 clock on the chimney - piece. Archie Longdale, the 
 
 190
 
 ADRIAN ROME 197 
 
 Captain Romilly of the piece, whose appropriate soldier- 
 like aspect was justified by his history (he had never 
 regretted exchanging from a marching regiment, while 
 his military fame was still as insignificant as his pay, 
 into the histrionic ranks), ladled out claret cup to various 
 ladies in pretty, summer costumes, who sat fanning them- 
 selves uneasily in different parts of the room. Presently 
 he paused in this occupation, to nod enquiringly to a 
 man in evening dress who had just strolled round from 
 the front. It was Peter Corbyn, who, as a particular 
 friend of the author who had assisted almost more 
 assiduously than the author himself at rehearsals, and 
 a dramatic critic for an evening paper of some esteem, 
 was by this time quite an intimate of the " Nondescript " 
 family. 
 
 "It's filling," he remarked, in answer to the actor's 
 impatient query. "The stalls are just beginning to 
 come. You will have a crack house." 
 
 Cyrus Holmes broke in impatiently. 
 
 "I'm not afraid of that: a premiere is always a 
 premiere here ; there isn't a seat to be had. It's the 
 tone they will take, the tone ! I am afraid of the first 
 act, and still more of the last. There are audacities; 
 and I can't forget the dress rehearsal, it went all wrong." 
 
 Corbyn smiled with all the assurance of his years, 
 giving a sanguine twist to his moustache. 
 
 " Everything always goes wrong at dress rehearsals : 
 and the worse it goes, the better for the first night. 
 You told me that yourself, Mr. Holmes. Oh, I haven't 
 a qualm. Besides, there's not a dull line in the 
 piece." 
 
 " I hope you are right," answered the actor shortly. 
 
 He walked over to the buffet, and helped himself to a 
 glass of wine. 
 
 " Where is Rome ? " he asked, after a while. " It's
 
 198 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 very odd : he hasn't turned up at all to-day. Have his 
 nerves given way ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. Rome is never nervous when you 
 expect him to be. I should think he would be round 
 soon. I saw him in a box five minutes ago, with his 
 wife and some other ladies . . . Hasn't he been to see 
 you yet, Miss Lucerne ? " 
 
 The actress whom he addressed shook her head at 
 him over her big palm fan. She was a slight, fragile 
 woman, with bright, dark eyes and a small, whimsical 
 mouth. Her age was an enigma which no one, save 
 perhaps the schoolboy in the pit, ever cared to solve ; 
 that she was young was obvious (for women of her type, 
 youth is an elastic period) ; that she was not endowed 
 with the gifts that are usually regarded as constituting 
 beauty, was perhaps hardly so manifest, for something 
 indefinable about her mobile face seemed to most people 
 an efficient substitute for these qualities. Corbyn was 
 her warm admirer, and considered his friend fortunate 
 in having such an exponent for his heroine : an actress 
 so subtile and so sure, whose force appealed so uniquely 
 to the intelligence, who cared so little for physical 
 effects. 
 
 "You are not nervous, for one," he remarked, glancing 
 at her approvingly. 
 
 " I am only impatient," she said quickly. " Besides, 
 I am in love with my part with Cynthia; I don't 
 know when any part has pleased me more. Do you 
 know ? " she went on confidentially, lowering her voice, 
 " I have adopted some of your suggestions, since last 
 night. Some of them were very clever ; I didn't know 
 how clever, till I tried them." 
 
 " It is you that are clever," he deprecated. " But what 
 have you changed ? " 
 
 " It is not so much the details, as the general scheme.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 199 
 
 I've altered the key. I don't make the transition after 
 she finds out. I take it very lightly, as light as air, all 
 through. It was something you said which gave me 
 the notion." 
 
 Corbyn laughed. 
 
 " You give me a horrid sense of responsibility. Please 
 don't tell Holmes, or the author. But at least if I said 
 anything good, you might have the kindness to remind 
 me of it." 
 
 " It was very good ; it was about tragedy generally. 
 You said that to get an intensely tragical effect out of 
 modern situations, one must take them in the tone of 
 comedy." 
 
 Corbyn considered her for a moment, pulling thought- 
 fully at his moustache. 
 
 " I am sure you can do whatever you try," he said at 
 last. 
 
 Miss Lucerne gave a little, petulant laugh. 
 
 " What a pity the author doesn't agree with you ! " 
 
 " Oh, he does, he does," protested Corbyn ; " give him 
 time." 
 
 " He doesn't believe in me," went on the actress, with 
 a note of regret in her soft, rich voice. " He thinks I 
 haven't haven't the physical capacity. I am not his 
 idea of Cynthia Mallory. Very true ! but I can impose 
 my idea upon other people. Besides, he gives me no 
 help ; all the hints I have had, have come from you. I 
 can't be his idea, if he doesn't tell me what he has in his 
 mind." 
 
 " Oh, what Rome has in his mind ! " Corbyn exclaimed 
 vaguely. Then he went on with an air burlesquely 
 paternal. 
 
 " My dear girl ! I am sure you will be perfect, and 
 so, believe me, is Rome. But he is a poet, remember, 
 essentially though he happens to have written a good
 
 200 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 play. He knows nothing about the theatre: that is 
 why he leaves it all to you." 
 
 The actress ignored his interpolation, continued in her 
 previous vein. 
 
 " I thought it might be useful if I saw his wife. I 
 got a glimpse of her in the Park last Sunday, she was 
 with a lot of people ; one of them was a Duke. But it 
 was a failure. She is handsome enough and a real swell, 
 but she is not ' Cynthia Mallory.' Poor Mr. Rome," 
 she went on, with what seemed to Corbyn the height of 
 inconsequence, " what a pity he writes plays ! " 
 
 " When they are so good ? " 
 
 " Especially if they are good." 
 
 "You mean you mean " He broke off with a 
 gesture of bewilderment. " No, I give it up. You may 
 understand each other, but you are dark enigmas to 
 me." 
 
 "I don't understand him," protested Miss Lucerne, 
 " but sometimes I pity him." 
 
 Corbyn's eyebrows were raised suggestively. 
 
 " In the name of wonder, why ? It isn't the emotion 
 he most frequently excites." 
 
 Miss Lucerne was silent for a moment, while she con- 
 sulted a little, jewelled watch. 
 
 " He hasn't much time, if he means to come behind at 
 all." Then she resumed, "I mean that he seems un- 
 happily placed. He cares too much about Art to be 
 simply a swell he might be such a big one ; and he is 
 too thick with the smart people to be a good Bohemian. 
 And yet, at heart, I believe he prefers the coulisses to 
 Mayfair. My dear fellow, you have only to look at his 
 friends ! " 
 
 "Yes, they are Dukes," put in Corbyn laughingly. 
 "But do him justice; he has others ourselves, for 
 instance."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 201 
 
 " Oh, for all I count ! " ejaculated Miss Lucerne, whose 
 unimportant tones, however, betrayed no accent of pique. 
 Her eyes had wandered away to the door, which was 
 open for the sake of the pleasant draught from the 
 stage. " Here he comes ! " she exclaimed, " and he is 
 bringing somebody with him. Is this another of the 
 Dukes ? " 
 
 Corbyn followed the direction of her gaze, nodding to 
 his friend, who had stopped for a moment, apparently 
 to explain to his companion some internal economy of 
 the theatre. 
 
 " Precisely ! " he replied, smiling. " If he isn't a Duke, 
 at any rate he may be ; he's the son of one that's Lord 
 Henry Minaret." 
 
 The new-comers joined them, and introductions fol- 
 lowed, while the general movement, and an exodus of 
 visitors, gave notice that the business of the evening 
 was about to begin. 
 
 And after a moment Corbyn and Lord Henry Minaret 
 found themselves isolated, while Adrian moved across 
 to spend the few minutes that remained in a review of 
 his forces. 
 
 "Perhaps we had better go in front," Corbyn sug- 
 gested, as a wave of melody from the orchestra surged 
 in upon them. The other silently acquiesced, and they 
 made their way together to the stalls, which were 
 already densely tilled, and dotted with familiar faces. 
 
 Corbyn, for one, followed the progress of the piece 
 with an interest that was almost passionate in its in- 
 tensity. If he had not the pardonable pride of author- 
 ship to sustain him, his exertions at rehearsal, where 
 Rome had really been tremendously lax, at least entitled 
 him to view it, in its present development, as a foster- 
 child who did him credit. Long before the play was 
 over, he had admitted the value of Miss Lucerne's
 
 202 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 innovations; while the appreciation with which he 
 noted certain of her instant, exquisite touches, was not 
 diminished by his consciousness that not a dozen of the 
 audience were capable of following him there, of per- 
 ceiving with what essential rectitude, just such and such 
 an effect had been made. When the curtain fell, however, 
 it was plain that the sense of a fastidious house was with 
 Corbyn, that Miss Lucerne had secured another triumph, 
 and that Adrian Rome's first dramatic venture was 
 successfully launched. The players were summoned 
 before the curtain, and separately applauded ; a bouquet 
 was handed up to the heroine of the evening. Cyrus 
 Holmes, in answer to the inevitable call of a first-night, 
 regretted blandly that the author was not in the house. 
 
 "And now," cried Corbyn, drawing a sigh of relief, 
 preparing to fall into line with the outflowing audience, 
 " to find Rome and pay him our compliments." 
 
 Lord Henry, who had spent half the evening in Mrs. 
 Rome's box, followed him in silence ; and gradually and 
 with difficulty they made their way into the small, 
 crowded lobby (everything in Cyrus Holmes' theatre 
 was neat and compact as a bandbox), which was radiant 
 with pretty women, in a gay diversity of opera cloaks, 
 who stopped to exchange fragmentary farewells, and 
 stray bits of criticism, while they shrouded their heads 
 delicately in lace and gossamer, before they stepped into 
 the street. Corbyn stood on one side, while his com- 
 panion saluted here and there an acquaintance, and 
 conversed for a moment with Mrs. Rome, one of a little 
 group of ladies, who waited, cloaked and hooded, for 
 their carriages. Presently Lord Henry joined him, with 
 an apology, and they passed out together into the com- 
 paratively empty corridor which led to the stage, where 
 supper was prepared, and where Adrian presently joined 
 them. Even his extreme pallor his face was like a
 
 ADRIAN ROME 203 
 
 mask of ivory hardly seemed to contradict the non- 
 chalant calmness with which the author received his 
 friends' congratulations. It was rather the effect of 
 physical weariness, than a testimony against the perfect 
 steadiness of his nerve ; though on the face of his un- 
 accountable absence from the theatre during the progress 
 of the piece, Corbyn had begun to distrust this. He 
 explained it naturally enough, in answer to Corbyn's 
 playful expostulation: an arrangement with Miss 
 Lucerne. She had taken the notion into her head, 
 that she would play with more facility if he did not 
 confront her from a box; she wished not to see him 
 until it was all over, and she could assure him of a 
 substantial success. Personally, he had been very glad 
 to oblige her, especially as the poor little woman had 
 appeared not to have been particularly pleased with his 
 attitude towards the rehearsals (after all, he had missed 
 very few). However, he had made his peace with her, 
 he had sent her an enormous bouquet, and had hurried 
 round immediately after the descent of the curtain to 
 assure her that her " Cynthia " was exquisite. Yes, he 
 had seen a good deal of the second act quite enough 
 to form an opinion from the back of his wife's box. 
 
 He broke off to introduce Lord Henry to Cyrus 
 Holmes, who had just entered, having now exchanged 
 his stage costume for correct evening dress, and whose 
 bland, hospitable smile announced, palpably, that with 
 the professional raiment he had put off the role of the 
 irritable actor-manager for that of the charming host. 
 
 " Yes, it went very well," Corbyn heard him observe ; 
 " it will carry us through the season, you know. That is 
 all we want." 
 
 The room began to fill ; a couple of dramatic critics 
 drew Corbyn into a corner, to discuss the piece with 
 him with animation, referring at times to notes scrawled
 
 204 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 on a programme or a cuff. A babel of voices ensued, 
 as, one by one, actors and actresses of the company, 
 reinforced at times by a guest from another theatre, 
 strolled in from their dressing-rooms. Gerald Brooke's 
 mellow laugh sounded a deep note to the fluted accom- 
 paniment of chattering women ; every now and then 
 a champagne cork popped. Everyone wore an air of 
 good-humoured relief, which Corbyn found an assurance, 
 more substantial than any approving phrases could be, 
 of the success which his friend had made. And the 
 excitement carried infection with it, so that even the 
 disinterested, who had not the excuse of previous 
 tension for their geniality, took their key from Cyrus 
 Holmes, and were frankly hungry, boisterous, and 
 amused. It was not until they had seated themselves 
 that Corbyn, welcoming a happy juxtaposition, was able 
 to have a word with Viola Lucerne. She looked at him 
 silently, for a moment, with bright, expressive eyes, 
 while he helped her to mayonnaise: Then she asked 
 abruptly 
 
 " Well, what will you say of me ? " 
 
 " Wait till to-morrow afternoon," he said, in an under- 
 tone, which the clatter of tongues all around them 
 permitted. " It will take me till breakfast time to put 
 it all into shape." 
 
 " You needn't tell me," she went on after a while ; 
 " I saw you, I played to you. Ah, my dear fellow, if 
 everyone who comes to the theatre were like you 
 what a perfect audience ! what great things we might 
 do!" 
 
 Corbyn's laugh betrayed a little confusion. 
 
 " You have surprised my secret," he said humorously. 
 " Yes, I have a ridiculous, a puerile passion for the 
 theatre, for good acting acting like yours : it's my 
 object in life, the one thing which makes it worth living."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 205 
 
 " Why don't you go on the stage ? " 
 
 Corbyn made a gesture of deprecation. 
 
 " Not for the world ! Oh, I'm not stage-struck in 
 that sense : besides, it would destroy the illusion, the 
 glamour ; that's what I want, the illusion ! To-night it 
 was complete, yes, at one moment I had an impulse, a 
 perfectly insane impulse, to rush round and tell you 
 that that you were adorable, and that I adored you." 
 
 He had reduced his voice to a whisper : the actress 
 gave a little forced laugh. Then she said quickly, but 
 her fine voice contained a suggestion of bitterness 
 
 " That you adored ' Mrs. Mallory,' you mean. Well, 
 that's all right what I wanted. But I'm afraid that 
 you must wait to tell her so, Mr. Corbyn, until you 
 play ' Captain Romilly ' ; you'd do it quite as well as 
 Archie." 
 
 Corbyn was silent for a moment ; then he said 
 quickly 
 
 " I rather think I meant Viola Lucerne." 
 
 The actress looked at him gravely, he could see that 
 she was flushing through her rouge : presently she laid 
 her hand, with an intimate gesture, which pleased him 
 oddly, on his coat-sleeve. 
 
 " Don't you fall in love with me, Mr. Corbyn ! Not 
 that I think there is any serious danger champagne and 
 midnight, you know ! But I can't afford to lose you as 
 a friend. I suppose I may call you one, or are we not 
 to see any more of you now that the ship is afloat ? I 
 was going to ask you to come and see me " 
 
 " Ah, don't put it in the past tense," he broke in. 
 
 " Well, in the present, then. Come and see me some- 
 times, Mr. Corbyn, when when your legal duties 
 allow you." She laughed with gay malice. "I'll seal 
 a compact of comradeship with you : you're one of the 
 best fellows I know."
 
 206 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Corbyn filled his glass, and raised it to his lips. 
 
 " Consider it sealed our compact," he said, with the 
 miniature of a bow. 
 
 At the other end of the table, in the immediate circle 
 of Cyrus Holmes, the increasing merriment testified 
 perhaps as much to the excellence of the " Nondescript " 
 champagne, as to the agility of Gerald Brooke's wit. 
 Minaret, too, Corbyn noticed, seemed at his ease, devot- 
 ing himself to a florid lady at his elbow, and adding 
 every now and then his quiet, self-contained laugh to 
 the fund of general mirth. Adrian's long, pale face also 
 bore signs of unwonted animation, as though he too had 
 at last determined not to be behind-hand in his recogni- 
 tion of the expansive moment. Corbyn's eyes rested 
 upon him more than once with stealthy curiosity, and 
 turned away at last dissatisfied. He could not have 
 accounted for the impression which he had received, but 
 it was not the less disquieting, that, after all, his 
 friend's share in the festivity was a superficial one : he 
 was genial with an effort, and forcing himself to be 
 brilliant, but his heart was signally out of it. Corbyn's 
 mind wandered off on to the paths of vague conjecture, 
 from which he was only aroused by the light touch of 
 Miss Lucerne's extended hand. 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Corbyn ! " 
 
 He rose quickly, returned the greeting, retaining her 
 hand for a moment longer than was necessary. 
 
 " You are really going ? And our compact when 
 does that begin ? " 
 
 She glanced at the clock, laughing gently. 
 
 " At this present, abandoned hour, Mr. Corbyn, if it's 
 not dragging you away and you will come and find me 
 a cab ? " 
 
 Corbyn's simple response was to follow her. When 
 he returned, twenty minutes later, to say good-night to
 
 ADRIAN ROME 207 
 
 Adrian, he found in the pressure of his friend's hand 
 a reassurance for which he was vaguely grateful; if 
 Adrian was silent, his grasp at least was expressive, and 
 Corbyn, before he turned away, found time to murmur 
 that he would have given more money than he could 
 count to look back on such an achievement. 
 
 i
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 SOME days afterwards, Corbyn, who had failed in 
 several attempts to find his friend at his club, made a 
 pilgrimage west of Pall Mall, and knocked at a house 
 on the north side of Eaton Place, in which, upon their 
 return to London, after a prolonged sojourn on the 
 Continent, Mr. and Mrs. Rome had installed themselves. 
 The footman, who received his card, ushered him into 
 a little library on the ground floor, just then empty ; and 
 for ten or more minutes the visitor occupied himself in 
 an interested survey of the apartment. It was full 
 of books and pictures ; and besides the many quaint 
 and rare bibelots, which had adorned the old Temple 
 chambers, he could discern additions, a censer, and a 
 pair of handsome candlesticks, the work of some Renais- 
 sance silversmith, that spoke of researches on the Lung' 
 Arno ; a quantity of faience, and pieces of old furniture, 
 redolent of Breton interiors (part of the honeymoon had 
 been spent in a chateau in Finistere), which assured 
 him that Adrian's passion for collecting had not been 
 quenched by matrimony. The table was littered, with 
 familiar untidiness ; and the odour of tobacco smoke, 
 which hung about the fantastically bright curtains of 
 thin Genoese linen, if not so ingrained as of old, still 
 testified to his friend's persistent occupation. A writing- 
 table by the window faced directly upon a small but 
 pleasant garden, from which a vague perfume of summer 
 floated in. Corbyn seated himself by this table absently, 
 
 203
 
 ADRIAN ROME 209 
 
 finding the situation almost ideal for a literary man; 
 and he had ample leisure, before he was interrupted by 
 his host's entrance, to let his mind wander away on the 
 paths of conjecture. His meetings with Rome recently 
 had been so much in public, concerned so exclusively 
 with his theatrical fortune, he had seen so little of him 
 in his married character (it is true that he had received a 
 card for Mrs. Rome's day, and had not forgotten his feeling 
 of isolation Rome himself being absent upon the one 
 occasion when he had responded to it in person), that he 
 was sensible of an explicit curiosity at this his first 
 approach to a more intimate point of view. Outward 
 symbols and effects of the marriage state apart, was 
 Adrian intrinsically altered ? From his standpoint of 
 the unmarried, if not unmarriageable person, the for- 
 midable tie, with all its implication of change, appeared 
 stupendous, seemed to render his claim, even upon the 
 old Rome, shadowy and unreal. He recalled the element 
 of surprise, almost of incredulity, which had attended 
 his reception of the news of this engagement a surprise 
 which had been diminished, indeed, by the discovery 
 that amongst Adrian's closer acquaintance (for a long 
 time their paths had been diverging) the engagement 
 seemed an inevitably simple consummation of the 
 expected. Simplicity, however, was a quality which 
 Corbyn would so little have expected to attend his 
 friend's choice of a wife, that its very presence here was 
 a ground for suspicion. That this marriage was admitted 
 on all sides to be excellent, unimpeachable, conventionally 
 just, seemed to Corbyn, approaching it nevertheless in 
 by no means a hypercritical mood, one mystification the 
 more. It was so reasonable an arrangement, that it left 
 nothing to be supplied by the imagination ; and imagina- 
 tion being a faculty to which, both by precept and 
 example, Adrian had always allowed such exorbitant 
 14
 
 2io ADRIAN ROME 
 
 claims, ho would have had his friend plead guilty at last 
 to inconsequence, if not to an intellectual lapse. 
 
 Charitably, one might assume, however (the assump- 
 tion was rendered easier by Corbyn's almost complete 
 ignorance of the lady except by current report), that 
 for the persons most concerned, the felicitously paired 
 themselves, the essential quality existed. If that were 
 so, he was prepared with that intelligent acceptance 
 of the situation which is the benediction of an unmarried 
 friend. In the meantime he was reduced to a suspense 
 of judgment tempered by curiosity a curiosity which 
 he hoped his friend might, if only unconsciously, help to 
 dispel. 
 
 When Adrian, however, at last put in his appearance, 
 apologising for the delay, the other found him no more 
 than of old inclined to transparency. 
 
 "It's an age since I have seen you," he remarked 
 conventionally, after he had installed the visitor in a 
 more luxurious chair " seen you properly, I mean. I 
 don't count rehearsals, or a chance word in the street." 
 
 "A middle state between interview and correspond- 
 ence," suggested Corbyn, " with the advantages of 
 neither. Well, it is not I who am to blame. I have 
 looked for you ; you are never at the club. I don't 
 wonder, now I see how charming your house is." 
 
 " One house is very much like another, I am afraid," 
 Adrian interpolated. " No, I have been very little to 
 the club. Of course, one's time is not quite one's own. 
 Marriage, whatever else one may say about it, is 
 certainly an occupation." 
 
 Corbyn tacitly acquiesced : he continued with an 
 enquiry as to how the time abroad had been spent ; the 
 general scheme of travel had been imparted to him ; 
 pictorial, expressive detail was lacking. Adrian sketched 
 a pilgrimage not deficient in variety. The Tyrol, Italy,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 211 
 
 the Breton coast, had successively been visited. There 
 was a note of enthusiasm in his voice, previously a little 
 languid, as he spoke of this last experience ; the charm 
 of that sea-washed village, the old chateau, ruinously 
 dilapidated, but in parts habitable enough, with its 
 great neglected garden, and the grass growing rank 
 and luxuriant from between the paving-stones of its 
 courtyard. 
 
 " I took the place for a year," he went on, " at a 
 fabulously low rent. We stayed a month. I could 
 have lived there for the rest of my life, but my wife 
 grew restless. However, we shall go back there. I 
 have had the Horatian inscription over the door restored, 
 ' rus, quando te aspiciam ! ' a prayer I pray daily," 
 he went on with a fretful accent. " It was a place to 
 work in, besides, with no society, and out of the way of 
 the tourist; with no noise except the wind and the 
 waves a grey, silent limbo of a place." 
 
 Corbyn smoked his cigarette in silence, watching him 
 with interest. Presently the other continued 
 
 " Yes, one might do good work there. Here, in the 
 thick of this bustling, pushing rabble, if one can put pen 
 to paper at all, it is a miracle. The result is what one 
 would expect." 
 
 " Oh, come now," Corbyn protested, " and I am fresh 
 from the ' Nondescript ' triumph ! " 
 
 Rome stopped him with a deprecating gesture. 
 
 "Spare me, my dear fellow. If that play has bored 
 the poor gallery people as it has bored me ! ... Let us 
 talk of something newer and truer." 
 
 In the course of the few minutes for which Corbyn 
 was alone, his roving eye had lingered, with a momentary 
 curiosity, upon an object which struck him as a some- 
 what singular ornament of his friend's otherwise strictly 
 workmanlike writing-table. It was a parcel-gilt silver
 
 212 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 figure, some eight inches in height, of a woman arrayed 
 in the hooped skirts of a bygone age, elaborately and 
 fantastically wrought, with an attention to detail which 
 corroborated the impression of antiquity which the 
 aspect of the material itself conveyed. Now, as the 
 first flow of conversation exhausted itself, and the two 
 men relapsed into a lazy enjoyment of their easy-chairs, 
 his wandering eyes once more halted upon this work of 
 art, and he asked his host indifferently where he had 
 picked it up. 
 
 Rome, turning in his chair, allowed his eyes to rest 
 on the object for an instant with an expression which 
 the other, still observing him, found a little mysterious ; 
 then he stretched a long arm towards the figure and 
 handed it to Corbyn. 
 
 " A Norwegian bride-cup," he explained, with a some- 
 what unaccountable smile hovering on his lips. "Yes, 
 it is really a cup or rather two cups, though you might 
 not suspect it. You see, the figure is hollow; the 
 woman's skirts form one cup, a tolerably capacious one, 
 and the basket which she is holding over her head 
 forms another a kind of liqueur glass. I am told that 
 it played an important part at Norwegian wedding 
 feasts." 
 
 "Did they stick it on the cake?" asked the other, 
 interrupting him. " Is it ornamental, or useful ? " 
 
 "I was going to tell you," continued Rome, still 
 smiling gravely. " Both cups were filled with wine, 
 and at a certain stage in the proceedings the machine 
 was handed to the bridegroom, who was required to 
 pledge the company, disposing of the contents of the 
 larger cup without spilling a drop from the smaller 
 one." 
 
 " Lord, what an ordeal ! " interposed Corbyn ; " and 
 the bridesmaids no doubt trying to be funny at the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 213 
 
 poor beggar's expense. And what became of the wine 
 in the smaller cup ? and how could you possibly fill 
 both at the same time ? " 
 
 "The wine in the smaller cup was the bride's per- 
 quisite. The performance was not quite so arduous as 
 at first sight you might imagine : although the require- 
 ments of the design make it necessary that the cups, 
 when the figure is standing in its normal condition, 
 should be end to end, you will see that there is a kind 
 of swivel arrangement which makes it possible to re- 
 verse the smaller cup. So it ought to be easy enough 
 to fill them both. I haven't tried ! " 
 
 " It didn't figure, then, at your wedding ? " said 
 Corbyn humorously. "I don't remember to have 
 noticed it on that festive occasion." 
 
 " No ; you might have seen it, though, for it was one 
 of the wedding presents." 
 
 While Rome was speaking the same curious expression 
 flitted over his face more than once, and when he went 
 on to reveal the donor of the gift as Gerald Brooke, his 
 friend, though he was still mystified, imagined for a 
 moment that he had found the key which would enable 
 him to interpret this ambiguous mood. 
 
 Corbyn made no immediate comment ; he was silent, 
 handling the figure and inspecting closely the quaint 
 chasing and elaborate repousse work. When he spoke, 
 it was to ask whether Norwegian tradition attached 
 any peculiar symbolical meaning to the ceremony which 
 Adrian had described; it had been on the tip of his 
 tongue to enquire whether Brooke had endowed his 
 gift with any such reference, but something in his 
 friend's attitude, a shadow of some deeper feeling 
 underlying the humour of his smile, implicitly com- 
 pelled him to a discretion which, in any case, he would 
 hardly have ventured to violate.
 
 2i 4 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Adrian threw the end of his cigarette out of the open 
 window, first lighting a fresh one with it, before he 
 replied. 
 
 "I am not acquainted with the legend," he said 
 briefly ; " no doubt there is one. Brooke ought to have 
 sent some account of it with the figure. I should like 
 to know what happened when the bridegroom spilt 
 the wine in the smaller cup. I daresay Brooke doesn't 
 know anything about it; he probably picked it up 
 somewhere, and thought it had a certain charm of 
 quaintness. Or perhaps " After a pause he continued, 
 " Perhaps he thought the allusion, if there is one, might 
 seem a little . . ." 
 
 Corbyn laughed, dismissing his scruples. 
 
 "After all, the allegory is sufficiently obvious the 
 disproportion, the dependence " 
 
 "My dear fellow," Adrian broke in, with just an echo 
 of his friend's laugh, " isn't that a little too cynical ? 
 For the Norwegians, I mean, not, of course, for 
 Brooke ! " 
 
 At this point an interruption occurred. The door 
 opened, and Corbyn, looking up, caught a glimpse, 
 reflected in the mirror which hung on the opposite wall, 
 of the face of his friend's wife. Before he turned, 
 rising quickly from his low chair, he had time to notice 
 in the reflected image a slight expression of a surprise 
 which struck him as by no means distinctly pleasurable, 
 so that the smile which Mrs. Rome wore when she 
 advanced to greet him, while it hardly convinced him 
 that he had been mistaken, carried with it the charm of 
 the unexpected. 
 
 The lady's toilet, which was rather elaborate, sug- 
 gestive of an occasion of social importance, betrayed 
 the fact that she had either just come in or was on the 
 point of going out; an unbuttoned glove over which
 
 ADRIAN ROME 215 
 
 she was busying herself, daintily adjusting the fit of the 
 slim fingers, turned the scale in the favour of the latter 
 assumption. Her greeting of Corbyn was extremely 
 gracious. It was the first time that he had seen her 
 so privately; on other occasions he had been obliged 
 to interpret her attitude in reference to the world in 
 general, as represented at the wedding, a comprehensive 
 dinner party, and an extremely catholic reception. It 
 had already been made manifest to him (inclined though 
 he was to exercise a certain caution in his appreciation 
 of his friend's choice of a wife) that Mrs. Rome was a 
 beautiful woman, with a manner that, under the un- 
 satisfactory title of the " grand air," he had often seen 
 inadequately imitated on the stage ; it struck him now 
 that the removal of the outward apparel of coldness 
 which was, perhaps necessarily, associated with these 
 qualities, might reveal the woman as mistress of 
 fascinations of which he had been prepared to pronounce 
 her incapable. 
 
 " You were looking at Mr. Brooke's ridiculous cup ? " 
 said Mrs. Rome presently. " My dear Adrian, why don't 
 you relegate it to a more appropriate place? One 
 would think you regarded it as a kind of talisman, a 
 source of inspiration." 
 
 Her tone slipped from mild resentment to an amused 
 contempt, while Corbyn eyed her furtively, wondering 
 whether his scrutiny would detect in her face a shadow 
 of the curious expression which contemplation of Gerald 
 Brooke's wedding present seemed to have called into 
 her husband's. He had gathered up his hat and gloves, 
 with a few words of apology for the protracted nature 
 of his visit ; there could be no doubt that Mrs. Rome's 
 entry in bonnet and cloak had given the cue for his 
 departure, but she politely echoed her husband's protest 
 against this desertion, and he lingered, mentally bemoan-
 
 2i6 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 ing the social inexperience which rendered him incapable 
 of making a graceful exit. 
 
 " But you were going out, Mrs. Rome. I'm afraid ' 
 
 Adrian interrupted him. "Not until this evening 
 surely, Marion ? I have an idea that we are dining 
 somewhere but this afternoon ? " 
 
 "Lady Lightmark's garden party," murmured Mrs. 
 Rome, half apologetically ; but the carriage can wait, it 
 is really quite early . . ." 
 
 "Oh!" protested her husband petulantly. "And I 
 wanted Corbyn to read the first act of my new play 
 before I send it to the typewriting people. It has been 
 waiting for weeks," he explained, turning to Corbyn 
 for sympathy. " Something always turns up ! People 
 ought not to be allowed to give garden parties in 
 London. Even if it doesn't rain (and it always rains), 
 the trees 'come off black,' and the lawn is generally 
 just big enough to make a sort of setting for the tea- 
 table. No, London gardens certainly have a charm of 
 their own, for people who are tied to London ; but the 
 happy proprietors ought to luxuriate in them privately." 
 
 "I like London gardens," said Corbyn, desperately, 
 edging towards the door. " London would be quite 
 inhabitable at any time if every house had one. I 
 should like to make it penal to build a house without a 
 garden. I I really believe the want of gardens is a 
 fertile source of crime ! " 
 
 Mrs. Rome smiled indulgently. " That seems a very 
 reasonable theory, Mr. Corbyn. I don't think I ever 
 heard of a gardener who was a great criminal." 
 
 " They are generally Scotchmen," put in her husband, 
 with doubtful relevancy. 
 
 " That is hardly a crime, after all," suggested Corbyn. 
 " But I must release you now so that you may go to 
 your garden party, Mrs. Rome, otherwise I should feel
 
 ADRIAN ROME 217 
 
 that I was doing violence to my own theory. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 "Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Rome, offering his 
 friend a cigarette ; " but I don't think that you ought 
 to have suggested that a newly-married couple like 
 ourselves stand in need of your antidote ! You must 
 come and dine with us quietly one day soon, I really 
 want you to help me, and then you will be able to to 
 judge whether we exhibit any criminal tendencies."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE Ascot race meeting would have been voted 
 singularly incomplete without General Verrinder to 
 dispense liberal hospitality in the sacred enclosure, and 
 to provide a favourite for his guests to lose their money 
 over on the day devoted to the Cup. His somewhat 
 old-fashioned, precise attire was no less familiar to 
 inveterate haunters of lawn and paddock than the 
 uniform of the Master of the Buckhounds or the colours 
 of the senior steward of the Jockey Club; his coach 
 had become almost as much a feature of the landscape 
 as the judge's box or the Grand Stand. Lady Verrinder, 
 in the scheme of whose early education a course of 
 race-going had not been included, found the occasion 
 her induction, as it were, into the mysteries of the 
 Turf a little trying; accustomed though she was to 
 being stared at, her prettiness was of the kind which 
 provokes criticism, she had never before figured as the 
 cynosure of so many pairs of knowing eyes. It was 
 obvious that the men there seemed no end to them 
 who saluted her husband, with raised hat or brandished 
 whip, as they made their way slowly along the heath, 
 were considerably puzzled as to her identity. She 
 imagined, with mingled feelings of amusement and 
 indignation, that they were making bets among them- 
 selves, and that the odds ruled slightly in favour of the 
 assumption that she and her sister Phyllis were the 
 elderly warrior's newly-emancipated granddaughters.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 219 
 
 She declared presently, when her husband had de- 
 parted to interview his trainer in the paddock, that she 
 had never seen so many smart frocks, so many pretty 
 faces ; and one of her companions, glancing askance at 
 Miss Phyllis Lancaster, protested, with a fine youthful 
 blush, that he was entirely of her opinion. 
 
 "I was really quite afraid of my gown," she con- 
 fessed, " when we started, but I understand now what 
 my maid meant when she said that it was impossible to 
 be too smart for Ascot. One really might wear any- 
 thing all the colours of a paint-box without being 
 conspicuous here. Phyllis and I are comparatively 
 dowdy, after all. Oh, I assure you I hate compliments, 
 Mr. Lascelles ; don't be ridiculous, but tell me who 
 everybody is, and particularly, show me a bookmaker." 
 
 Mr. Lascelles proceeded to point out the celebrities 
 the latest plunger, the owner of the winner of the 
 Derby, the popular jockey. 
 
 " But I must see the horses, I must have a bet ! " 
 exclaimed the lady. " Is it correct to bet, Mrs. Dollond ? 
 I love horses, and I adore betting. How do you do, 
 Lord Henry ? Do come and take care of Phyllis while 
 I am gone. Mr. Lascelles insists on taking me to see 
 Wingfoot in the the paddock, don't you call it ? You 
 know, Mr. Lascelles, I have never seen one of my 
 husband's horses yet ! " 
 
 " Gracious ! " said Mr. Lascelles naively, as he un- 
 strapped his race-glasses, glancing back regretfully at 
 the seat he had just vacated, upon which Lord Henry 
 Minaret was leisurely depositing himself. "I wish I 
 hadn't ! They invariably lose when I back them." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Lady Verrinder reflectively. " Then you 
 shall back Wingfoot to-day, only for a little, you 
 know, and I will bet against him. How would that 
 do?"
 
 220 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Mr. Lascelles laughed, shaking his head a little 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " And this is really your first race meeting," he mur- 
 mured vaguely. " For a beginner, you show great pro- 
 mise it's clear that you have a natural gift for it. You 
 ought to make a book, by Jove ! " 
 
 " Now you're laughing at me, Mr. Lascelles ; it's really 
 quite unkind of you. I know I am very ignorant, but 
 it is not my fault. Mamma always was well, rigid. 
 She thinks racing is immoral. I don't believe she would 
 have let Phyllis come to-day if she had known." 
 
 Mr. Lascelles studied his race card intently. 
 
 " Is ah is Miss Lancaster fond of racing ? " 
 
 " This is my sister's first experience of it," replied the 
 lady sweetly. " Rather early to form an opinion, isn't 
 it ? Besides, Mr. Lascelles, surely you know that ladies 
 are never fond of racing; the sportwoman Anglaise 
 only exists in the French journalist's imagination. 
 Women go racing because well, because they are taken." 
 
 " To look after their husbands ? " suggested Mr. Lascelles. 
 
 " To look after husbands ! " put in Lady Verrinder. 
 " Precisely ! I'm afraid that you are very cynical, Mr. 
 Lascelles. What does that bell mean ? And what are 
 they all talking about so loudly in this enclosure ? What 
 a dreadful noise it sounds as if they were quarrelling. 
 And do you really mean to say that those little long- 
 tailed creatures are racehorses? What wretched little 
 animals to make such a fuss about ! " 
 
 Miss Lancaster had blushed a little, very faintly and 
 becomingly, when Lord Henry Minaret greeted her, and 
 after a moment's hesitation took possession of the seat 
 at her side. Mrs. Dollond, who was seated close behind, 
 remarked maliciously to her companion, Sir Richard 
 Lightmark, the handsome Academician, who was also of 
 the party, that the girl couldn't have coloured more
 
 ADRIAN ROME 221 
 
 prettily if she had done it on purpose. Sir Richard 
 replied that he quite thought she had, the woman of 
 to-day was capable de tout. 
 
 After delivering himself of the few polite phrases 
 which the occasion seemed to demand, Lord Henry 
 relapsed into silence. His eyes followed for a moment 
 the retreating figures of Lady Verrinder and Mr.Lascelles ; 
 then, instead of admiring his extremely pretty companion, 
 he seemed buried in a conscientious perusal of the list 
 of the horses that were to contest the next race, the 
 event of the day ; but Miss Lancaster, glancing askance 
 at him, detected, with some inward wonder and amuse- 
 ment, that the card at which he was gazing with so 
 intent a frown was upside down. She presently chal- 
 lenged him, giving expression to her merriment in a 
 charming ripple of laughter ; taxed him with his evident 
 abstraction, enquiring whether he was pondering over 
 his next speech. He confessed, apologetically, that he 
 had not even the pretext of his parliamentary duties to 
 offer in palliation of his remissness. 
 
 " Then you must have a guilty conscience you must 
 have been losing money, Lord Henry ; confess that you 
 have been making a plunge. Isn't that what you call 
 it?" 
 
 Lord Henry shook his head. " No, I haven't been 
 betting. My brother represents the family in that de- 
 partment." 
 
 " Oh, but you ought to back Wingfoot. At least that 
 is what General Verrinder has been telling all his friends 
 of course I don't know anything about it. He has done 
 something wonderful given a stone to Pelican in a trial, 
 whatever that means." 
 
 Lord Henry smiled ; his good-humoured face, with its 
 unemotional cast of features, discreetly disguising the 
 great weariness which he felt.
 
 222 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " What do you stand to win, Hiss Lancaster ? Gloves 
 enough to last you till Christmas, I suppose ? " 
 
 The girl laughed, showing him her programme, and 
 pointing, with a taper finger neatly cased in russet suede, 
 to a few words scrawled in pencil on the margin. 
 
 " That is my only bet I made Mr. Lascelles write it 
 down for me. See, Mr. Lascelles lays me six pairs of 
 gloves against the winner." 
 
 Lord Henry raised his eyebrows, with an inward 
 chuckle at the girl's innocence. 
 
 " I congratulate you," he said gravely. " That looks 
 like good business for you. I won't ask you if you want 
 to hedge a little of it. May I write my own name and 
 ditto under Mr. Mr. Lascelles' note ? There, now, that 
 is my only bet. I daresay Mr. Lascelles will wish pre- 
 sently that he could say as much. I haven't been think- 
 ing at all about the racing. To tell the truth, I have 
 been rather taken up with a new departure which I am 
 contemplating. In fact, I am going to- to make a plunge, 
 though not in the sense which you meant just now." 
 
 Miss Lancaster glanced at him quickly, and then 
 across the lawn at the gallows-like erection on which 
 the numbers of the runners and the names of the jockeys 
 were being displayed. He wore a mysterious air, she 
 thought, and she wondered with a little thrill whether he 
 was going to ... It need hardly be said that this young 
 lady was no stranger to the history of Lord Henry's 
 infatuation for her sister. The episode was running its 
 course just at the time of her emancipation from the school- 
 room, and her youthful sympathies had been entirely on 
 the disappointed lover's side. It had occurred to her, more 
 than once, in the secrecy of her virginal day-dreams, that 
 the task of consoling this unhappy mortal was one which 
 it would not require any extraordinary degree of pres- 
 sure to induce her to undertake ; and, moreover, it was
 
 ADRIAN ROME 223 
 
 one which she was eminently fitted to perform. She 
 was not Marjorie, it was true, but, after all, she was 
 absurdly like her ; they had the same tastes, they even 
 wore the same dresses. 
 
 So far, in spite of the havoc wrought by her blue eyes 
 and exquisite complexion, Phyllis had only received one 
 offer of marriage; the only scalp which adorned her 
 maidenly girdle was that of a young gentleman of ex- 
 tremely tender years, who was now completing his first 
 summer term at Oxford. She was charming, but she was 
 also portionless ; and the after-dinner conferences of far- 
 seeing matrons of Lady Lancaster's stamp had pro- 
 nounced the matrimonial market as suffering from an 
 untoward depression. Eligible men were at a premium : 
 they had never been so scarce or so shy. All things 
 considered, Lord Henry, with his chance of surviving a 
 childless elder brother and an octogenarian father, was 
 a quarry by no means to be despised. It is only fair to 
 add that Phyllis herself was far from being the designing 
 young woman which, from this brief statement of the 
 situation, she may have been made to appear. Indeed, 
 her sister's marriage, with a man old enough to be their 
 grandfather, had not been accomplished without her 
 vehement protests. It has been said that she sided with 
 the disappointed lover; and at the wedding ceremony 
 she had presented the rare anomaly of a genuinely 
 tearful bridesmaid. If Lord Henry Minaret was the 
 object of deep-laid matrimonial schemes, Miss Lancaster, 
 at least, was no active party to them. If she had 
 allowed herself for an instant to wonder whether his 
 embarrassment portended a declaration, it was because 
 she was too frank to disguise from herself that, worldly 
 reasons apart, such an offer would be extremely 
 attractive. 
 
 Her vague anticipation was not, however, to be
 
 224 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 realised ; for her companion went on presently to explain 
 that his parliamentary career was, for the time being at 
 least, to be suspended. He was going abroad almost 
 immediately to Canada, with Lord Camelford. He 
 spoke vaguely of diplomatic possibilities. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Miss Lancaster, with exactly the 
 right degree of surprise in her clear voice it was a 
 voice of a quality which lent to her most trivial utter- 
 ances an importance which some people found dispro- 
 portionate, and even irritating : " What will your 
 constituents say to that ? " Then she added hastily, as 
 he began, with an air which was eloquent of the value 
 at which he rated the opinion of the electors of Low- 
 mouth, to explain the circumstances of his withdrawal, 
 " Please don't ; I know you are going to say something 
 about the Chiltern Hundreds, a mystery with which 
 my feeble intellect utterly declines to grapple. I've no 
 doubt you can explain it in two words, but I had really 
 rather you didn't. Don't you hate being told things 
 things which one ought to know ? Like the date of 
 the French Revolution, and and about Bimetallism, and 
 Local Option. Though perhaps you don't have to be 
 told ! How long shall you be away ? After all, that is 
 the question which has most interest for m us ! " 
 
 Mrs. Dollond, who, quite involuntarily and without 
 any desire to play the eavesdropper, had overheard these 
 last few words, wondered, with a tincture of contempt 
 for the probable density of a mere man, whether Lord 
 Henry (whose less penetrating tones did not reach her) 
 had appreciated the little betrayal which they involved. 
 Just then an interruption occurred ; the confused medley 
 of voices, ranging from the discreet undertones and 
 silvery laughter of ladies to the boisterous cries and 
 raucous utterances of the less aristocratic mob who 
 crowded the heath, culminated in a staccato shout,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 225 
 
 dropping like a volley fired by raw recruits, of " They're 
 off!" Lord Henry rose, like his neighbours, unbuck- 
 ling the case of his field-glasses, which he adjusted and 
 offered to Miss Lancaster. 
 
 " I do hope Wingfoot will win ! " murmured the 
 young lady. "Isn't that him" (her grammar suffered 
 from the excitement of the moment) " in a pink jacket 
 with striped sleeves, the jockey, I mean, and he's such 
 a long way behind ? " 
 
 Mr. Lascelles, who had returned with Lady Verrinder 
 to the coach just in time to witness the race from this 
 point of vantage, reassured her. 
 
 " They have got to go round again, you know. And 
 Billy Gunn (that's the General's jockey) has waiting 
 orders. You will see him come through all right 
 presently." 
 
 " Waiting orders come through ? " echoed Miss Lan- 
 caster, turning to Lord Henry. " What does he mean ? " 
 
 But Lord Henry was discreetly silent : the task of 
 enlightening feminine ignorance as to terms technical 
 was one which experience, pleasantly culled at Henley 
 and Lord's, warned him to shun. 
 
 The cries, which had lulled while the earlier and 
 less interesting part of the race was being run, were 
 tumultuously renewed as it neared its close. Shouts of 
 " Wingfoot, Wingfoot ! " vied with counter-cries of 
 " Privateer ! " as these two horses, favourite and outsider, 
 were seen by the experienced to be fighting a desperate 
 finish ; the clamour reached its climax ; a few triumph- 
 ant cheers sounded above the hubbub, and then com- 
 parative quiet was restored. 
 
 " It was a near thing, by Jove ! " exclaimed Mr. 
 Lascelles, his eyes fixed on the board upon which the 
 winner's number was being hoisted. " A short head, I 
 should" 
 15
 
 226 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Then he closed his race-glass with a vicious snap, 
 smiling ruefully. " Number 3, just my luck, that's 
 Privateer a twenty to one chance ! " 
 
 " What! is it over ? " said Miss Lancaster. " And hasn't 
 poor Wingfoot won ? " 
 
 " No," Lord Henry admitted, " I'm afraid he hasn't. 
 Lucky you didn't back him, Miss Lancaster." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! " murmured Lady Verrinder. " How 
 savage the General will be ! " 
 
 " You have won your bets, Miss Lancaster," continued 
 Lord Henry gravely. " Five and three-quarters, and 
 four buttons, I suppose ? I will send them to you as 
 soon as I get back to town. I think I ought to say 
 good-bye now : I am obliged to go to Towers to-morrow, 
 and I sail in about a week's time." 
 
 Miss Lancaster dropped her eyes, digging the point of 
 her parasol into the soft turf, while her companion glanced 
 askance, with some hesitation in his bearing, at Lady 
 Verrinder, who was now dispensing tea, the centre of a 
 small throng. The achievement of the object which had 
 brought him to Ascot to say good-bye to Marjorie 
 no longer appeared to be a matter of extreme simplicity. 
 
 It was Miss Lancaster who broke the silence, after an 
 interval during which a gleam of intuition revealed to 
 her the doubt that occupied Lord Henry's mind. She 
 handed him her empty teacup, smiling brightly, but 
 with a curious feeling of disappointment, of frustration, 
 heavy at her heart. 
 
 " Didn't you say you were staying with the Heather- 
 fields, at AJshley ? They are very old friends of ours, 
 you know, and Marjorie has asked them to come over 
 this evening it's only a short drive to join in a sort 
 of impromptu dance. They will want to bring you, of 
 course : as a dancing man you will be invaluable." 
 Then she added archly, in an undertone, " You know, so
 
 ADRIAN ROME 227 
 
 many of the General's friends are old fogies whose 
 dancing days are over. They will come and look at us, 
 and distribute a few broadside compliments, and then 
 they will beat a retreat to the billiard-room, or get up 
 a game of poker." 
 
 Lord Henry's face brightened for an instant, " Ah, 
 that will be awfully jolly ! You must keep at least 
 three dances for me, Miss Lancaster else I may be 
 tempted to join the poker-players ! Well, then, I needn't 
 say good-bye just yet but au revoir. I must try to 
 find the Heatherfields, or they will be driving off with- 
 out me : they won't stay long after the big race." 
 
 He turned away, raising his hat, but drew near to the 
 girl again, to add, in an indifferent undertone which, 
 apart from the slight blush which clouded his per- 
 sistently cheerful countenance, would hardly have 
 deceived her newly-awakened vigilance, " Oh, by the 
 way, you might if you don't mind you might ask 
 your sister to keep a waltz or two for me I may be 
 late." 
 
 To which request Miss Lancaster's reply was a little 
 nod, and the faintest of smiles, thrown at him over her 
 shoulder, as she turned to speak to Mr. Lascelles. 
 
 A dinner somewhat protracted (Lord Henry, nervously 
 expectant, would have employed a stronger epithet) had 
 drawn approximately to an end, and the ladies were already 
 marshalling themselves for their retreat to the drawing- 
 room, when their hostess, Mrs. Heatherfield, uttered a 
 little cry of self-reproach, clasping her hands tragically 
 as she paused near the door of the dining-room, which it 
 had fallen to Lord Henry's lot to open. The lady, a 
 tall, graceful person, with a reputation for beauty based 
 solely, yet securely, on a pair of brilliant eyes, a 
 youthful complexion, and a charming manner ; who 
 affected dresses a la Watteau, and indulged an
 
 228 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 enthusiasm for the art of fence, of which she was a 
 mistress, and for small dinner parties, invariably 
 brilliant and select ; this lady proceeded, in duly 
 contrite tones, to explain that her present distress was 
 due to her unpardonable omission to inform her guests 
 (they were a small party, barely a dozen, all staying 
 in the house), to whom she apologised severally and 
 collectively, that she had accepted on their behalf an 
 invitation to a " scratch dance " at the Verrinders'. " This 
 very evening," she added, turning to her husband " she 
 was Marjorie Lancaster, you know : they are staying 
 at Guisebury House for the week. I only heard from 
 Lady Verrinder this morning," she continued, " but, of 
 course, I ought to have told you before. I think such 
 of us as are going had better start almost at once : I 
 ordered carriages for nine o'clock. Thank goodness I 
 remembered that ! " 
 
 Mr. Heatherfield, a devoted husband, who was of 
 great importance somewhere in the City, but merely an 
 amiable adjunct at home, protested loudly, declaring 
 that nothing should induce him to go : and he appealed 
 humorously to his guests to abet him in his rebellion. 
 In the end, however, dancing shoes were called into 
 requisition, buttonholes and bouquets hastily improvised, 
 and the party arrived at Guisebury House in time to 
 take part in the third dance. 
 
 Lord Henry, detaching himself, not without some 
 difficulty, from the ladies of his party, hastened to claim 
 the dance which he hoped that Marjorie had set apart 
 for him : he found her busily ^ endeavouring, with Sir 
 Richard Lightinark's assistance, to organise charades, 
 or a cotillon she really didn't know which; and she 
 declared, laughingly, that she could not make any rash 
 promises. Finally, however, she relented, and as the 
 result of his persistence, Lord Henry found himself
 
 ADRIAN ROME 229 
 
 waltzing with her, about an hour later, when her duties 
 as hostess had become less exacting. 
 
 " Phyllis gave me your message," she said lightly, 
 when they paused near an open bay-window, into the 
 curtained recess of which they presently withdrew. 
 " She said that you were going abroad for a long time : 
 is it true ? And why do I never see you now ? " 
 
 He glanced at her quickly, wondering whether her 
 indifference was as complete as her words and her 
 manner seemed to imply : he was slightly provoked, in 
 spite of his devotion and his wish to spare her. 
 
 " You can ask me that ! " he murmured, in a voice 
 according ill with the speaker's boyish face, so eloquently 
 expressive of an easy conscience, a heart unravaged, 
 debonair. " Good Lord, are women so heartless ? " 
 
 Marjorie uttered a little lingering cry, a sound half 
 sigh, half protest, rebuking his bitterness. 
 
 " Are you going to scold me again ? " she whispered, 
 slowly opening a great fan of white ostrich feathers, 
 over which she looked at him with an expression at 
 once apprehensive and pitiful. 
 
 " I am very sorry, for everything ! " she added 
 quickly. " But what can I do ? I don't think I ought 
 to let you scold me ! Why can't you be sensible ? 
 Why can't you accept things as they are ? It's the only 
 way, in this wicked world ! If I am heartless, well, you 
 ought to consider yourself lucky ..." 
 
 " Lucky ! " he echoed. 
 
 " Yes, in in having escaped me," she added petu- 
 lantly. 
 
 He was silent for a moment, considering her with 
 plaintive, sullen eyes her delicate prettiness which no 
 emotion seemed to ruffle ; her smooth, candid brow ; her 
 placid bosom, which rose and fell so quietly under 
 her necklet of sapphires, scarcely lifting the spray of
 
 230 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 orchids which nestled at one side, each flower daintily 
 poised, like a hovering butterfly, among the maiden- 
 hair. 
 
 " Do you mean," she continued hurriedly, fearing, in 
 spite of the superficial calmness which deceived her 
 companion, what the silence might bring forth, "do 
 you mean that you are giving up your seat, that you 
 are going into exile, simply because . . ." 
 
 " Because I can't help loving you, Marjorie," he put in 
 quickly as she hesitated. "Yes, I may as well say it 
 now, once for all ; I am running away. I may be a 
 coward, but after all . . ." 
 
 He turned, and gazed out into the garden, where the 
 trees stood mysterious in the moonless night. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, don't think I am appealing to 
 your pity ! " he added abruptly. " I don't care a rap for 
 Parliament who does, nowadays? I'm not trying to 
 get you to ask me to stay ; I have not fallen so low 
 as that ! If if you did ask me, I should simply 
 go further ! " He broke off, with a miserable laugh. 
 " What an idiot I am to make a scene like this, when 
 I only wanted to say good-bye to you quietly, and and 
 to tell you that if ever you want a friend . . ." 
 
 " He will be in Canada ! " put in the girl, echoing his 
 laugh. Then she sighed. 
 
 "I don't want you to go away thinking me utterly 
 heartless ! Go go if you must. Yes, you must 
 And if I asked you to stay, you would simply go 
 further ? " 
 
 He came closer to her, stooping over her, holding out 
 his hands. 
 
 " I can't bear it ! " he said hoarsely. " Let us say good- 
 bye here, where no one can see us ; the music is begin- 
 ning for the next dance, they will be looking for you." 
 
 She let him take her hand : when he relinquished it,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 231 
 
 she began to move forward into the room, but struck 
 by a sudden impulse, paused for a moment to select a 
 flower from her bouquet a delicate orchid, the counter- 
 part of the spray which she wore in her bosom. " I 
 don't know whether they grow in Canada," she 
 exclaimed whimsically, with a break in her clear voice. 
 " The General took a prize for these at the last Horti- 
 cultural show." 
 
 Lord Henry accepted the flower silently, with a 
 glance in which gratitude struggled with perplexity, 
 and they passed together into the ballroom.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AT number ninety -nine Eaton Place an informal little 
 dinner had been in progress, and the men, after a shorter 
 interval than usual over their wine, had just joined the 
 ladies in the drawing-room. The occasion was the 
 immediate departure of Lord Henry Minaret, he was to 
 embark on the next day at Liverpool, and, in spite of 
 the presence of Mrs. Vesper and Dalrymple Green (the 
 latter included at Minaret's request as succeeding to the 
 reversion of his seat, which in spite of Reform Acts 
 remained always very much at the disposal of the 
 Turretshire interests), the gathering had no less the 
 air of an intimate family party. The master of the 
 house, who had been the last to enter, hesitated for a 
 moment on his passage across the large room, struck 
 trenchantly by this aspect, by the familiar grouping into 
 which the others had already fallen. He took up a 
 dainty cup from off the high oak mantelpiece, crowded 
 with such frail ware, and examined it thoughtfully, 
 from time to time allowing his gaze to stray disinter- 
 estedly to the company, from which he seemed just then 
 to be separated by more than a measurable space of 
 carpet. The Duchess of Turretshire in town for a 
 few days to superintend her favourite son's departure 
 had bestowed herself in a large arm-chair, and, as was 
 natural, the young man had subsided into an adjacent 
 seat. The others formed a little group Marion, her 
 long, white hands, on which the rings glistened in the 
 
 232
 
 ADRIAN ROME 233 
 
 delicate candlelight, resting on a piece of interrupted 
 embroidery in her lap ; Dalrymple Green, standing, his 
 face wreathed in political smiles, bending forward 
 deferentially to the Duchess, for whose benefit he 
 discharged himself of the latest lobby anecdote of the 
 Prime Minister ; while Mrs. Vesper, turning her back for 
 a moment to the piano, it was not the least of this 
 amiable woman's qualities that she was always ready to 
 fill up the interstices of conversation with admirably 
 discoursed fragments of music, seemed to complete the 
 circle. The anecdote provoked a chorus of modulated 
 laughter, and thence the conversation grew more general ; 
 always the talk of Turretshire, it seemed to Adrian, 
 listening remotely as he caught here and there a name, 
 an affair, an instance, local or personal ; allusions, which 
 escaped him, being readily caught up by each one of the 
 quartet. It became apparent to him, after a while, that 
 they had fallen into a relation, the spontaneous ease of 
 which his participation would only dispel ; and he drew a 
 short breath of relief, as he assured himself that the nicest 
 notion of what was dutiful in a host required nothing 
 more difficult of him than simply to leave them to them- 
 selves. It was a hot and windless night : the flame of 
 the candles did not flicker, nor were the flimsy silk 
 curtains perceptibly stirred by any air which entered 
 through the open windows. Adrian stepped out un- 
 noticed on the balcony. Below him stretched the 
 silent square : the dark, motionless boughs of the trees, 
 blotting out the opposite houses, were defined rigidly 
 beneath a canopy of starry sky. Under a gas-lamp at 
 the corner a policeman had come to a pause in his beat, 
 and his figure, the only one visible, seemed to Adrian to 
 intensify the solitude. Once a coach and four flashed 
 by, with a stupendous clatter, then, as the noise of its 
 wheels died away, the square resumed its natural quiet,
 
 234 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 while, through the silence, without to a sensitive ear 
 diminishing it, there penetrated continuously the muffled 
 rumour, like distant thunder, of busier thoroughfares, 
 the noise of greater London. It was a night and place 
 for contemplation, but Adrian, leaning against the 
 parapet, for a long time relished only the effect of soli- 
 tude, of darkness, upon his harassed nerves. Presently 
 the subdued hum of voices from the drawing-room ceased, 
 and was succeeded by harmonious sounds from the piano : 
 he recognised one of Bach's most exquisite Preludes, and 
 the polished execution of Mrs. Vesper. He listened with 
 appreciation, and after a time his consideration passed 
 from the melody to the performer, to his introduction to 
 her it had closely followed his first encounter with his 
 wife in the drawing-room at Towers. From that had 
 ensued their closer intimacy, with its many results of 
 more or less importance ; his whole mundane education, 
 no doubt at the beginning of their acquaintance she 
 had found him lamentably crude ; his social importance, 
 and indirectly, of course, his marriage. 
 
 Retrospect, or indeed much inward questioning of 
 any kind, was a luxury which, of late, for no very in- 
 telligible reason, he had denied himself; and when he 
 went on now to reflect, on how few occasions since his 
 marriage Mrs. Vesper had crossed his path, the notion 
 had sufficient novelty to move him with the force of a 
 discovery. It impressed him oddly, was a proof of the 
 desuetude into which his fine faculty of observation had 
 fallen, that this accident, if accident it were, had not 
 struck him before. Such a simple fact, of course, might 
 admit of a very simple explanation : if he had not seen 
 Mrs. Vesper, it was merely because he had not chosen to 
 call at her house. That was an oversight, no doubt, 
 since he had been to a score of houses where he amused 
 himself less : yet was it not ample proof of a change in
 
 ADRIAN ROME 235 
 
 their relation, that she had allowed such an oversight to 
 become habitual ? There was a discrepancy, moreover, 
 in her abstention, which seemed to remove it from the 
 realm of accident : her presence with them to-night was 
 only one of many signs to remind him that, whatever 
 subtile shade of difference might mark her attitude 
 towards himself, she was none the less unalterably 
 concerned with his wife. She had been invisible, but 
 she had been felt : her hand was always there ; the very 
 house was full of her; and Adrian could only set it 
 down to his obtuseness that, when she seemed to have 
 receded most, he had not observed her conspicuous 
 presence prominent in the background. He faced this 
 problem with a certain confusion of emotions, which 
 might seem disproportionate, were it not to be remem- 
 bered that his attitude towards his fellow-creatures had 
 always been that of interpretation; that he viewed 
 mystification as an insult ; and was now suddenly con- 
 fronted with an uncomfortable misgiving that for once, 
 and in the case of a lady with whom he was intimate, 
 he had been simple as a child. This brilliant, discreet, 
 impenetrable woman of the world, to whom he was 
 surely grateful for much, but who made no claims had 
 he never sufficiently accounted her ? Had she more to 
 do with his life than he believed, more perhaps than he 
 could wish ? He left the question unanswered, finding 
 it a grotesque one, after all dismissed the subject. It 
 was merely his tiredness, his idleness (for some time past 
 the time which he devoted ostensibly to literature had 
 been fruitful only of irritation and ennui), that per- 
 mitted him to indulge in such a train of thought. Deep 
 down in his heart, he was aware that he let the question 
 pass, simply because he was afraid. The accidents of 
 one's life even to himself he would not call them 
 errors occurred through one's own fault, or that of
 
 236 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Providence. The backs of the gods are broad, and are 
 to be flagellated occasionally without too much injury 
 to one's pride; but he revolted from the idea, and 
 shunned the temptation of accusing another of any 
 unhappiness which might be his. A man's fortune, or 
 misfortune, is simply the sum of his mistakes ; if Adrian 
 had made any, he had made them with his eyes open, a 
 free agent if ever man had been; he would not lose 
 sight of that fact, nor believe for a moment that be- 
 cause one was unhappy there lay in that any reason 
 why one should also be unjust. Yet his impression had 
 been too startling, and was too recent, to be quite dis- 
 sipated, when presently, under cover of the music, he 
 took up his position again in the room, and found him- 
 self regarding Mrs. Vesper's inexpressive back with 
 something of that bewilderment with which one dis- 
 covers a familiar object, through some unexpected illu- 
 mination, suddenly to have grown strange. He could 
 reassure himself, had he needed reassurance, that the 
 lady had not altered in cordiality, when, soon after- 
 wards, the breaking up of the little party left them 
 together for a moment. 
 
 Mrs. Vesper had risen, was standing indecisively in 
 the middle of the room, but, in response to Adrian's 
 tacit invitation, she sat down again ; her smile was rich 
 with benevolence. 
 
 "It is true, I am not in a hurry; I will wait until 
 the leave-takings are over ; and I have not spoken two 
 words to you to-night." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Adrian ; " if you have been 
 talking to Harry I haven't the heart to grudge 
 him any satisfaction. He will have so few in 
 Canada." 
 
 Mrs. Vesper gave a discreet little sigh ; a vague tribute 
 to the general sadness of a situation which could not
 
 ADRIAN ROME 237 
 
 adequately be rendered in speech. She continued, her 
 eyes fixed upon the carpet 
 
 " Poor, dear Duchess ! She feels it so much, after all 
 her other troubles." (She alluded to the settlement in 
 England of the reprobate heir with his unmentionable 
 wife.) "And she has always depended so much on 
 Henry. Perhaps politically, though, he was not a great 
 success." 
 
 "No," Adrian admitted. "But there is at least one 
 person who views his eclipse with singular complacency 
 Dalrymple Green." 
 
 Mrs. Vesper had opened her fan, and over its gentle 
 vibrations she now gave him a brief, brilliant 
 glance. 
 
 "That reminds me I have a quarrel with you. 
 Marion has told me she is immensely disappointed 
 you are very provoking. If you had seen the matter 
 differently, there could have been no question of Mr. 
 Dalrymple Green. Perhaps even now your decision is 
 not unalterable ? " 
 
 Adrian was silent for a moment; he was conscious 
 of a quickening of his pulse, of a certain intimate 
 excitement, and again, as half an hour previously, he 
 seemed to tremble on the brink of a revelation, which 
 once more he deliberately postponed. He resumed, in a 
 tone of forced lightness 
 
 "I discussed the question exhaustively with Marion 
 this morning; I don't think she is disappointed. I 
 think we agreed to consider the notion as an excellent 
 joke." He laughed. " If Lord Henry was not precisely 
 a political beacon, pray, what should I be like in the 
 House ? A farthing rushlight ? " Then he added, as 
 if by an afterthought, " I am obliged to you for the 
 suggestion ; it did not strike me before that it was you 
 I had to thank."
 
 238 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Mra Vesper swept the suggestion aside, glancing at 
 him strangely. 
 
 "Oh, my notions! Who am I to indulge in such 
 things ? It was Marion's idea, to mention no one else. 
 Why shouldn't I say that I have reason to believe that 
 it would have greatly pleased the Duke ? " 
 
 Adrian arched his eyebrows impatiently. Presently 
 he went on 
 
 " It begins to take the aspect of a conspiracy against 
 Dalrymple Green. By the way, if he knew the extent 
 of his obligation to me, how he would hate me ! " Then 
 he added abruptly, " The Duke, he is an excellent old 
 gentleman, but I do not see why I am bound to con- 
 sider the Duke so much. I would prefer to consider 
 you." 
 
 " Consider only yourself," pleaded the lady, with the 
 conciliatory voice of a person who declined to recognise 
 irritation. " Or, if you consider me, consider me as a 
 woman who takes the deepest interest in you, in your 
 welfare." 
 
 " Believe me, I have never doubted that," said Adrian 
 quickly. Then he hesitated, went on with a little laugh, 
 a perceptible flush : " Only only don't let it carry you 
 too far your interest." 
 
 Mrs. Vesper regarded him obliquely with her fine, 
 imperturbable smile. 
 
 " You mean that you might come to resent it ? My 
 friend, you are very difficult." 
 
 " Ah, no ! " he protested. " I mean, your expectations 
 are very great I may disappoint you." 
 
 She was silent for a brief space. She had again risen 
 and was adjusting the clasp of a bracelet which had en- 
 tangled itself in the lace that edged her sleeve. When 
 she had finished, she observed quietly 
 
 " Yes, my expectations are very great. But I think
 
 ADRIAN ROME 239 
 
 too highly of you of your intelligence ? No, I am not 
 afraid of that." 
 
 He looked at her for a moment with a puzzled ex- 
 pression, to which she presented the same blandly 
 impenetrable countenance ; and it was on his lips to 
 ask, with some impatience, what in Heaven's name her 
 expectations were, when the entrance of his wife re- 
 strained him. 
 
 "Have I been very long?" she apologised. "Harry 
 is in the smoking-room. I told him that I would send 
 Adrian down." 
 
 Her husband glanced at Mrs. Vesper irresolutely. 
 With a prompt interpretation of his attitude, she 
 smilingly extended her hand. 
 
 " Then don't let me detain you. Besides, I am on the 
 point of departure." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " he answered. " Then I will go and smoke 
 with the exile. Good-night." 
 
 Lord Henry had already equipped himself with a 
 cigar, at which he was pulling meditatively, and a 
 tall tumbler of brandy-and-soda, when his host joined 
 him. His attitude suggested a search after physical 
 comfort ; but if he had found that, it was no less 
 apparent that he still chewed the cud of bitter re- 
 flection. Adrian filled a pipe, and smoked it for some 
 time in silence a silence, the awkwardness of which 
 was perhaps hardly felt by the other, but seemed 
 inexcusable to himself. It embodied so great an im- 
 plication of the lack of vitality which had come to 
 characterise their old habits of friendship. There had 
 been days when, under similar conditions, on the eve 
 of a substantial parting, confidences on either side 
 would have flowed more readily. It was not without 
 regret that Adrian made this admission, and his regret 
 was rendered more acute by the knowledge that, if this
 
 240 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 were true if they could no longer broach intimate topics 
 with any approach to ease the initiative in reserve had 
 been his own. Certainly, he had long ago ceased to be con- 
 fidential, even with himself ; and if Lord Henry preferred 
 to throw the thin veil of a decent reserve over his feelings 
 and motives, Adrian, interested though he might be, had 
 not the right to expose them. And, indeed, if the other 
 had been more communicative, Adrian was not sure that 
 he could have made any adequate response. When one's 
 friend is transparently in love with a married woman, 
 the situation has its reticences ; and perhaps, after all, 
 the better part of confidence is reserve. Nevertheless, 
 if the occasion had presented itself, Adrian believed that 
 he could have preferred a salutary word a cut and 
 dried homily, in the manner of Lord Hildebrand, on the 
 absurdity of permitting a woman seriously to deflect 
 one's life. They were important, certainly, but by no 
 means so important as that. And he had a moment 
 of pitying, half -impatient superiority towards his friend, 
 who had so many moral leagues to travel before he 
 reached that secure pinnacle of indifference which, he 
 prided himself, was his own. When they spoke, what- 
 ever may have lurked in the background of their speech, 
 it was only the material travels in store for one of them 
 upon which they touched. 
 
 " You will be glad to be rid of the House ? " Adrian 
 had remarked abruptly, when, after some desultory dis- 
 cussion of dates and distances, silence had once more 
 threatened them. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," said Minaret vaguely. " I don't 
 dislike it as much as you would." Then he went on 
 after a pause, with a smile : " I can't exactly see you 
 standing for Lowmouth. I told Marion it wouldn't hold 
 water. Besides, you have your work, your writing. 
 When is that novel coming out? And a literary
 
 ADRIAN ROME 241 
 
 man is mostly rather out of it when he takes to 
 politics." 
 
 " My work ! " repeated Rome shortly. " The less said 
 of that the better. But, as you say, I am not cut out 
 for politics. Besides, I believe I am a Tory, a re- 
 actionary, and, so far as I can make out, we are 
 running a Whig salon" He stopped to knock the 
 ashes out of his briar, before he continued, with a 
 certain restraint 
 
 "Did I tell you that the lease of Brackenmuir had 
 fallen in ? " 
 
 " Your place in Perthshire ? The family moated 
 grange ? " 
 
 " A barrack in the desert yes ! It was let for a 
 long term in my father's time to M'Crosky, the dis- 
 tiller, you know, and he is anxious for the arrange- 
 ment to be prolonged." 
 
 " Of course, you won't be so accommodating ? " 
 
 Rome shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I suppose not ; at least, I shall let Marion decide." 
 
 " Then it is decided. Marion will like it very much." 
 
 "It is a good thing that somebody should like it," 
 observed Rome drily. 
 
 Lord Henry sighed audibly, finished his glass, which 
 he tacitly allowed the other to replenish. Then he con- 
 tinued, with a smile 
 
 " I like it also, but I am disinterested. I shall be in 
 Canada. In three years you will certainly have it let 
 again; I shall have no benefit of your grouse." 
 
 " In three years ? " Adrian repeated the phrase in the 
 tone of enquiry, but without personal application, as 
 though he consulted an oracle. " Besides, you will come 
 back before." 
 
 " Barring accidents, I am going, as I said before, for 
 three years." 
 16
 
 242 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " The accidental is what always occurs." 
 
 " Accidents ? " Lord Henry dwelt on the word as if 
 he would thrash some curious meaning out of it. " I 
 should have said, great changea" 
 
 " That is different. Nothing ever changes, except one's 
 point of view." 
 
 " Oh, my point of view ! No," he added, after a moment, 
 " my point of view is stationary." 
 
 " Well," said Adrian at last, " there is shooting in 
 Canada, I believe, to say nothing of the salmon." 
 
 The other glanced at him gravely through the blue 
 smoke of his cigar. 
 
 " Oh, damn the shooting ! " he said deliberately ; and, 
 after a moment, he added, with equal deliberation, " And 
 damn the salmon too ! " 
 
 Adrian laughed, but rather mirthlessly. Decidedly, 
 conversation did not flourish to-night. He glanced at 
 the clock; it wanted a few minutes to midnight; but 
 Minaret was lighting another cigar a large one, that 
 would last an hour. A barely suppressed yawn, perhaps, 
 warned the guest of his indiscretion, for he began to 
 protest that his host should not stand on ceremony; 
 they had known each other long enough to dispense 
 with that. Adrian needed little persuasion to take him 
 at his word, and leave him to a vigil which he probably 
 preferred to fulfil in solitude, and was certainly deter- 
 mined to prolong.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A LIGHT shining through the half-opened door of the 
 drawing-room crossed his vision unexpectedly, and, 
 entering the room to repair the supposed negligence of a 
 servant, he was surprised to find his wife still in occupa- 
 tion. The noise of his entrance disturbed her, and she 
 glanced round from the little writing-table at which she 
 sat, before she resumed the task upon which she was 
 engaged. Adrian subsided into a low chair not far from 
 her : he took up a novel, began cutting the crisp leaves 
 listlessly with an ivory paper-knife: after a while he 
 abandoned this pretext of an employment and closed 
 his eyes. A Louis xv. timepiece marked the seconds 
 persistently, and equally audible was the passage of 
 Marion's rapid pen: but for these sounds, the house 
 seemed steeped in the silence appropriate to the hour. 
 He did not know how long he had dozed, when he 
 looked up presently to find his wife standing over 
 him. 
 
 Earlier in the evening, doubtless, many of the lights 
 had been extinguished, and the room was now sparely 
 illuminated by a shaded lamp, a place of dim alcoves 
 in which Marion's contour, if it had lost some of its 
 brilliancy, was figured to her husband by compensa- 
 tion with a certain rich softness, which ordinarily it 
 lacked. 
 
 " I apologise, Marion," he said, with a smile responsive 
 to her own, " if I was asleep was I ? I left Harry ta 
 
 243
 
 244 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 his own society I fancy he preferred it. It's tre- 
 mendously late or early. I didn't think to find 
 you up." 
 
 " Yes, yCJtr were asleep ; I have been watching you," 
 she went on, after a moment, and her smile was com- 
 plicated by an expression half wistful, a look which 
 puzzled him. "It's strange to catch someone asleep; 
 you look quite different, Adrian someone else, as if 
 as if there were two persons in you, and one only came 
 out in sleep. And I was wondering which was the real 
 you perhaps that one ? " 
 
 " An improvement on the other, let us hope . . . What 
 a number of notes ! You've been busy." He spoke 
 quickly, parrying her attention ; the personal note was 
 struck by her so seldom, in spite of their material 
 intimacy, their most private speech being most often 
 characterised by a tone of almost punctilious reserve, 
 that he had come to dread the least sign of any incon- 
 venient exception. She glanced absently at the pile of 
 square envelopes in her hand. 
 
 " Three four six they had to be written." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, knitting his brow 
 thoughtfully, while he felt in the breast-pocket of his 
 coat, from which, after some search, he produced a 
 letter. 
 
 " You remind me that I have something to show you. 
 It's about Brackenmuir ; I was keeping it for to-morrow, 
 but as we are here, you may as well read it now." 
 
 She took the letter from its oblong legal envelope, 
 turning a little towards the lamp, while she perused it. 
 He had risen to his feet, and stood with his hands 
 clasped behind his back, watching her with his restless 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes ? " she said at last tentatively ; and then as he 
 persisted in his silence, " Have you answered it ? "
 
 ADRIAN ROME 245 
 
 " My dear Marion ! Without consulting you ? What 
 do you think of me ? " 
 
 "I should have thought it only admitted of one 
 answer." 
 
 "I had an idea you would find it so," he went on 
 inconsequently, considering her with his fine smile. 
 
 "A desirable property, at least they tell me so, 
 infinite acres, with a commodious dungeon in the middle 
 of them. For part of the year, at least, we should have 
 to live there. I suppose I should be the laird, I am 
 sure you would be an admirably efficient laird's lady. 
 Perhaps I should have to wear a kilt. In the summer, 
 it would not be intolerable . . . My dear Marion, I will 
 do whatever you wish." 
 
 " What I wish ! " She repeated the phrase impatiently, 
 and for a moment it seemed to him that her eyes were 
 placidly resentful. But she continued, with an even 
 voice which betrayed no sign of exasperation (he was 
 conscious that he had been exasperating), in a tone 
 calmly explanatory, such as one might use to an un- 
 reasonable child 
 
 " It is not a question of what I want, it is what you 
 should do what is reasonable, in the fitness of things. 
 Surely one is not arbitrary in considering that? I 
 consider it a good deal, I am not ashamed to confess it. 
 May I ask what it is that you want ? " 
 
 " Generally, to please you, Marion," he said quickly ; 
 " and in this matter of Brackenmuir in particular. Let 
 us consider it settled." 
 
 She half averted her face with a quick movement, 
 and her pallor was suddenly invaded by a flush of 
 anger. 
 
 "I will not have it put upon me," she cried incon- 
 sequently, " it is not fair, it is unjust." Then she added 
 abruptly, " How you hate responsibility importance
 
 246 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 a decision ! But this time I am not going to help you. 
 You must do as you like." 
 
 Adrian regarded her with imperturbable good- 
 humour. 
 
 " I like whatever you like, Marion. Haven't I proved 
 it abundantly ? In this case " 
 
 She interrupted him frigidly, 
 
 " In this case I have no predilection. You must really 
 excuse me. It is a matter of complete indifference to 
 me whether or no you renew the lease." 
 
 She had gathered up her extensive drapery in preface 
 of departure, and for a moment they stood confront- 
 ing each other, with eyes that were suave and yet 
 hostile. 
 
 " Come, Marion," he said at last gravely, " this is an 
 important matter. I should advise you to consider it 
 to sleep on it. I confess I don't understand your 
 attitude. It seems to me childish. To-morrow I will 
 take your instructions." 
 
 She made no response ; and if he would have inter- 
 preted her silence as consent, he was warned by the 
 hard iridescence of her eyes, which gave no signs of 
 yielding. 
 
 "Let me take your letters," he said urbanely, in a 
 tone which closed the discussion. 
 
 " These notes ? They are not so urgent as all that 
 they can go in the morning." 
 
 " They will give me a pretext for a stroll it is too 
 insufferably hot to sleep." 
 
 And when he had dropped his budget into the nearest 
 pillar-box, he walked for half an hour round the deserted 
 square, in a state of disgusted reaction which was not 
 solely due to the temperature. He regarded the scene 
 which had just taken place quiet as it had been, it 
 marked an epoch with a vague trouble which changed
 
 ADRIAN ROME 247 
 
 presently into a very poignant regret. Surely the 
 mockery of good intentions had never been more 
 hideously displayed ? For, in handing his wife the 
 letter from Mr. Featherstone, he had been merely 
 prefacing a piece of generosity, a graceful waiving of 
 preferences of his own. He had not really intended to 
 let Brack enmuir ; his objection to it was in the abstract ; 
 it represented another impediment, one more of those 
 inevitable growths which seemed to him to hinder the 
 liberty of action, and above all the liberty of feeling, for 
 which of old he had pleaded so passionately. It was 
 the disadvantage of real property, as he had once 
 declared with perverse humour, that it was the pro- 
 prietor who was owned. But when one was already 
 so entangled, what did one entanglement more or less 
 matter ? It had not been without pleasure that he had 
 calculated on giving this satisfaction to his wife, which 
 he knew she craved. Unhappily, he had not been able 
 to resist the temptation to be ironical, and a sentence 
 which the perverse ingenuity of woman had interpreted 
 as a sneer, had frustrated everything. It was no longer 
 the question of the lease which was at issue : that was 
 dwarfed by the vital difference which had displayed 
 itself between his wife's conception of things and his 
 own. That Marion had been so so strange he could 
 come no nearer to the precise qualification of her 
 attitude was of more importance than any dispute as 
 to the desirability of retaining possession of a Scotch 
 estate. It spoke much of his discomfiture that in 
 seeking some explanation of her aberration, vaguely 
 irritated against her as he was, he would have given a 
 good deal if he could have assured himself that she was 
 heartless, that he had no place in her regard. If he 
 could have accused her of that, his conscience ah no, 
 his mind, would have been easier. But he could not
 
 248 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 conquer the belief and he resented it, because it was 
 in the face of evidence, and seemed to put him in the 
 wrong that he would always be more to this cold, 
 proud woman who was his wife, than she had ever been 
 to him.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 BEFORE many mouths had elapsed from the date of 
 his probationary enrolment in the army of dramatic 
 journalists, Peter Corbyn, weighing probabilities with 
 the careless providence of his youth, found that his 
 duties were sufficiently exacting, and his prospects on 
 the whole roseate enough, to furnish, at least to his own 
 satisfaction, the pretext, which he had long been seeking, 
 for abandoning the increasingly distasteful study of the 
 law. As he had anticipated, the step was regarded as a 
 species of moral suicide by his relations in Wales. His 
 aunt wrote an inordinately lengthy epistle from Haver- 
 ford west, commenting in no measured terms on the 
 flagrant iniquity of his act. He was given to under- 
 stand, that if he maintained for three months his 
 lamentable attitude of apostasy, the end of that period 
 would inevitably be signalised by the complete and per- 
 manent withdrawal of all pecuniary assistance. This 
 ultimatum, in spite of his anticipations, proved for the 
 moment staggering ; but an elastic temperament enabled 
 him to harden his heart, and before he had exhausted 
 the proceeds of the last parental cheque, he was fortun- 
 ate enough to find himself attached to the paid staff of a 
 fairly respectable evening paper, as critic of the Drama ; 
 and a few weeks later he was engaged, on the recom- 
 mendation of his friend Adrian Rome, to contribute a 
 column of gossip on Art, in its broader aspects, to one of 
 the omnivorous weeklies. His income was extremely 
 
 249
 
 250 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 small, and his editors by no means the most regular of 
 paymasters, but he enjoyed the satisfaction, than which 
 none could be keener, of earning money by the pursuit 
 of a vocation so congenial that, if he had been a rich 
 man, he would willingly have paid for the privilege of 
 following it. 
 
 The novelty of the thing was already somewhat 
 threadbare, but the charm remained. In his eyes, pro- 
 fessed cynic though he was, every actor was a charm- 
 ing, brilliant fellow ; every actress the embodiment of 
 wit and beauty. He had not ceased to lend an almost 
 reverent attention to the talk, trivial enough, of the 
 smooth-shaven masters of unlimited leisure who decor- 
 ated of afternoons the bar of the Golden Cage, so 
 appropriately theatrical, with its acres of marble and 
 mirrors and gilded mouldings, so conveniently situate in 
 the very High Street of Stageland; to escort actresses 
 to rehearsals, to chat with them in discreet undertones 
 at Tnatindes, or in the seclusion of their surburban fast- 
 nesses, was still a privilege with which he wondered 
 secretly to find himself endowed. He was happy, 
 grateful to Fortune in that she had proved so com- 
 plaisant, but his ambition was at the same time far 
 from being satisfied. It was true that he had set foot- 
 within the charmed circle, but what he longed for now 
 was to dominate it, to enrol himself among the little 
 group which glittered at its centre. To be a critic was, 
 after all, not enough ; the very name implied exclusion, 
 an outside standpoint; the profession, viewed strictly 
 and conscientiously, involved the maintenance, if not 
 of hostility, at least of an armed neutrality. In the 
 dreams of his boyhood he had seen himself swaying an 
 eager audience with an inflection of his voice, a move- 
 ment of his hand ; wresting in one triumphant season 
 their laurels from an Irving or a Booth; now, when
 
 ADRIAN ROME 251 
 
 experience and the wisdom of his fifth lustre had taught 
 him that such visions were desperately futile, it was as 
 an impresario, manager, that he dreamed of grasping a 
 golden fame. To rule a theatre was his ambition, to 
 found a new epoch, to inaugurate a Renaissance in 
 dramatic history, his modest aim. 
 
 " All I want," he said one day to Viola Lucerne they 
 were snatching a few minutes in the sunshine of St. 
 James's Park, after the matinfe at the Nondescript, 
 " all I want is a popular theatre, and a few good plays." 
 
 " Really ? " smiled the lady, arching her delicate eye- 
 brows, and turning a little in her chair. " Do have 
 wings, while you are about it, and Aladdin's lamp ! 
 And a million or two you would want all that, if you 
 mean to run a theatre ! " 
 
 " The theatre," continued the other gravely, ignoring 
 her interruption, "that would not be a very difficult 
 matter. But the plays, the soul of the bricks and 
 mortar, there's the rub ! " 
 
 Miss Lucerne tapped the ground impatiently with her 
 foot. "Ah," she protested, "you get your theatre, my 
 dear boy, and I'll find you plays by the vanload ! In 
 London you can't throw a stone without hitting some- 
 one who has written a play, or wants to write one." 
 
 "Good plays, I said," put in Corbyn patiently. "Other- 
 wise I should prefer to write my own." 
 
 " Well, isn't there your grand friend, Mr. Rome ? 
 Doesn't he write the very best ; so good that there is 
 nothing for the actors to do, except make up and show 
 themselves? I declare you make me tired!" 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, don't try to be American ! " 
 murmured the other, leaning back in his chair and 
 stretching out his legs. "I admit that Rome has written 
 one play, and a thundering good one, but do you 
 suppose that he will ever write another?"
 
 252 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Miss Lucerne threw a quick, sidelong glance at him. 
 " You mean that she won't let him ? " 
 
 Corbyn whistled softly. "My dear child," he said 
 quaintly. " She ? You musn't let your ideas run away 
 with you. For all we know, Mrs. Rome may be holding 
 Adrian's inkpot for him at this very moment." 
 
 " I can see her doing it ! " said his companion, in her 
 best comedy manner, lamentably wasted on a flock of 
 water-fowl and two privates of the Grenadiers. 
 
 " He's too monstrously rich," put in Corbyn inconse- 
 quently. " The whole thing is absurd. He ought to be 
 running the theatre, don't you see, and I ought to 
 write the plays. I shouldn't care how rich he was, so 
 long as I had the genius ; or how clever he was, so long 
 as I had the guineas. But as it is, well, I admit it, I'm 
 perfectly green with envy ! " 
 
 Miss Lucerne rose abruptly. " Let us cross the bridge, 
 and then you can put me into a cab. This is all very 
 well, but I can't get through the evening without dining, 
 and it's past six. What a nuisance it is being one of 
 the ' beginners ' in the first act ! Just you remember 
 that, when I'm your leading lady." 
 
 Corbyn got up more deliberately, flicking a drift of 
 cigarette ash off his coat-sleeve. " Ah," he said, looking 
 at her with attention, as she stood pluming herself, a 
 little after the manner of one of those dainty water-birds 
 which in her alertness and trimness of figure she so 
 closely resembled, " aren't you that already ? " 
 
 Miss Lucerne turned her back on him, with a little 
 impatient flirt of her skirts, which would have suggested 
 to an observer that the situation was wanting in novelty. 
 Then she glanced back at him with a tolerant smile. 
 " I'm going to lead you out of the Park anyway, you 
 envious creature! And you might have dined with me, 
 if you had been good."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 253 
 
 " Lord ! " said Corbyn hypocritically, with a surrepti- 
 tious finger on the few coins which lurked in the 
 seclusion of his waistcoat pocket two or three stray 
 shillings, and a half-crown which felt uncomfortably 
 like a florin " I thought you said you were going to 
 dine with some people at the Cosmopolitan ? " 
 
 " Well, you might have come too ! You don't want 
 an invitation to be able to dine at a restaurant, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 The other sighed. " No ; well, the fact is, I'm busy. I 
 shan't have time to dine. I've got to meet a man presently, 
 and then, there's that new show at the Gaiety." 
 
 "Busy!" echoed Miss Lucerne scornfully. "I suppose 
 you are still hunting for the paragon who is to play that 
 Dutch girl in your precious play. You won't get anyone 
 to do it better than I should." 
 
 " Perhaps not : of course you would do it charmingly, 
 as you do everything. But " 
 
 " Ah, take care, you are ruining your compliment ! " 
 
 "It doesn't suit you," said Corbyn briefly. "Yes, I 
 admit that she is still in the clouds ; and Vanderfelt has 
 promised to put the piece in rehearsal for the next 
 Unconventional performance, as soon as we can get our 
 company together." 
 
 "Well, I wish you joy of it! I don't think you'll 
 translate any more Dutch pieces in a hurry, that's all ! 
 If you find your ' Geertje ' this side of Christmas, I shall 
 be surprised. But perhaps that will be quite soon 
 enough for the Unconventional show ? " 
 
 "The season of the Unconventional Theatre will 
 begin early in October," said Corbyn gravely. "I 
 ignore your distinctly flippant suggestion, Miss Lucerne; 
 considering that you are on the permanent free-list, you 
 ought to be more respectful." 
 
 Miss Lucerne laughed derisively, quickening her step
 
 254 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 as they crossed the little suspension bridge which spans 
 the charming, unappreciated lake. "Is not the entire 
 audience on the free-list ? I think we ought to be paid 
 for coming ; you always give one the blues with your 
 pieces ! You don't pay your actors, the least you can do 
 is to remunerate your public ! " 
 
 " I find the levity of your tone deplorable ! " protested 
 Corbyn, shaking his head. "You really ought to ex- 
 hibit more reverence towards a society whose single 
 aim is the encouragement of literary and dramatic talent. 
 It is to be hoped that Adrian's play won't run much 
 longer, if this is its effect on its exponents." 
 
 " Mr. Rome wouldn't care much," suggested the lady. 
 " He he never comes near the theatre now ; I haven't 
 seen him for ages." 
 
 Corbyn regarded her enquiringly for a moment, struck 
 by her tone. 
 
 " Oh, he had his triumph on the first night. That's 
 all he cares about. Shall we get into this hansom ? It 
 looks rather like a property horse, but I daresay it's all 
 right." 
 
 Miss Lucerne settled herself in her corner of the cab, 
 casting a quick glance at the reflection of her face, pale, 
 and quaintly demure, in the little cracked mirror which 
 confronted her Then she fingered for a moment the 
 tassel of the dark-blue silk blind, which hung, like a 
 heavy eyelid, half-way down the window at her side. 
 
 " So Mrs. Rome doesn't approve of her husband writ- 
 ing plays ? " she murmured carelessly, when the rubber- 
 tyred wheels of their vehicle began to run silently on 
 the wooden pavement of Whitehall. 
 
 Corbyn frowned a little, his eyes intent on the cigar- 
 ette which he was carefully rolling, and they had passed 
 the Horse Guards before he answered. 
 
 "That's a problem which I leave to you, Miss Lucerne.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 255 
 
 I don't understand women, and I don't know Mrs. 
 Rome. So what can I say ? " 
 
 The girl regarded him with a fine air of amused 
 indifference. 
 
 " Gracious a problem ! My dear Peter, how serious 
 you are ! What does it matter ? That Dutch play of 
 yours is spoiling you. Turn it into a farce, or it will 
 turn you into a I had better not say what ! That's a 
 compliment," she added hurriedly, as their cab pulled up 
 in the Strand at the portals of the Cosmopolitan ; " you 
 see, I admit that you are rather nice as you are ! " 
 
 Five minutes later, Corbyn had left Miss Lucerne 
 seated with her friends at one of the little tables which 
 dotted, mushroom-like, the floor of the vast restaurant, 
 and was walking briskly eastward along the crowded 
 thoroughfare, dodging the current of traffic with all the 
 deftness of a practised Londoner. The crowd was denser 
 just outside one of the theatres, where a new melodrama 
 had convoked a patient swarm of patrons of pit and 
 gallery, and while he paused for an instant, with intui- 
 tive curiosity, he found himself confronted by no less a 
 personage than Mr. Montague Villiers, who hailed him 
 effusively as " Good old Uncle Peter," and, linking his 
 arm in Corbyn's, drew him, in spite of a faint show of 
 reluctance, into the portals of the Golden Cage. 
 
 "I was just on a gin-crawl myself, dear boy," Mr. 
 Villiers announced, as they drew near to the long bar, 
 the summit of which presented an expanse of polished 
 marble, so dazzling in its smoothness that it was easy 
 to lend a credulous ear to the story of the gifted bar- 
 maid, who had been wont to send a full tumbler sliding 
 from one end to the other without shipwreck, or the 
 jettison of so much as a single drop. 
 
 The place was full, as was usual at that hour of a 
 Saturday ; a few men were dining at the tables which
 
 256 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 were ranged along one side of the room, and three or 
 four little groups gave almost constant employment to 
 the nimble damsels who officiated behind the bar. While 
 Corbyn's arrival was hailed with demonstrative approval 
 by the members of the little cluster to which he and 
 his companion attached themselves, it was evident from 
 their greeting of Villiers that this gentleman's absence 
 had been of but brief duration. 
 
 There was a chorus of "It's just about time for 
 another," quoted appropriately from a popular song; 
 and one humorist enquired anxiously whether Mr. 
 Villiers had forgotten his umbrella, or his change. 
 
 Montie (so they styled him, while " Uncle Peter " ap- 
 peared to be Corbyn's recognised sobriquet) encountered 
 their chaff with a serene indifference, born of long'practice. 
 He stayed long enough to consume a Hollands and An- 
 gostura at Corbyn's expense, and to pay for a second 
 round himself ; after which Corbyn discovered that he 
 would only just have time to dress and discuss a frugal 
 chop before the hour fixed for the rising of the Gaiety 
 curtain. 
 
 " I'm going to the Gaiety show, too," said Villiers, as 
 they emerged into the Strand. " 1 shan't have time to 
 dress ; we might dine together ? " 
 
 " Good," said Corbyn, with tempered enthusiasm. 
 " Do you mind coming round to my chambers, while I 
 change my clothes ? " 
 
 The other nodded his acquiescence. " How's your 
 Dutch piece going, by the way ? Have you called a 
 rehearsal yet ? " 
 
 Corbyn sighed. " It's turning my hair grey. I can't 
 find my leading lady." 
 
 "Lord!" said the other. "That ought to be easy 
 enough ; or do you want such a blazing star ? " 
 
 " I don't want a star at all. That's just the difficulty.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 257 
 
 I want a girl with more talent than experience, some- 
 one who will take people by surprise make them 
 talk." 
 
 " The devil you do ! " said Villiers reflectively. " A 
 star in the pip, I suppose you mean. I wonder ..." 
 
 Then he was silent for a few minutes, and Corbyn 
 changed the subject, with a reference to the new bur- 
 lesque, shortly to be set before them at the theatre 
 which they were passing. 
 
 Later, while Corbyn was plunging desperately into 
 his well-worn dress clothes, his guest neglected the 
 cigarette and copy of the Era which had been offered 
 to him to beguile his solitary waiting in the sitting- 
 room, and devoted himself to a course of meditation. 
 
 " I suppose it's all right, your Dutch play ? " he said, 
 when his host rejoined him, with a pair of patent 
 leather shoes in one hand and a clothes-brush in 
 the other. "Not too low in the neck, I mean the 
 sort of piece a lady could play in without feeling 
 queer ? " 
 
 Corbyn looked at him for a moment enquiringly before 
 he answered. 
 
 " Oh, it's all right. The kind of piece a girl could 
 take her mother to see, as they say in Paris. We don't 
 want to make Mrs. Grundy sit up this time." 
 
 The other rose, plunging his hands into his pockets, 
 and whistling the air of the latest music-hall ditty, 
 while he contemplated absently the array of programmes 
 which ornamented the frame of the mirror over the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 " If you like to lend me the play," he said presently, 
 " I think I know a girl who might do. I want to bring 
 her out in something something recherchy, don't you 
 know. Let me take the play home to her, she's living 
 with me and my old woman down Brixton way, and 
 17
 
 258 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 I'll get her to study it up. It'll be good practice for her, 
 anyhow, and then you can come down and hear her do 
 it. It's take it or leave it, dear boy ! But, you know, 
 I wouldn't make the offer to everyone." 
 
 Corbyn expressed his thanks somewhat awkwardly 
 while he struggled into his Inverness cape. The idea 
 struck him as an almost ludicrously forlorn hope: he 
 found it difficult to imagine that his ideal Geertje would 
 be found in the shape of an unknown damsel living at 
 Brixton under the same roof with Mr. Montague Villiers 
 and his "old woman" better known as Miss Flossie 
 Faraday, the Favourite Serio-comique Nightingale of the 
 London Halls. But he was disposed to clutch at straws ; 
 the realms of the probable seemed to have been ex- 
 hausted, and there was always a chance that quarters 
 apparently unlikely might harbour the rare bird. A 
 search of a few minutes among the papers which littered 
 the one large table in the centre of his room brought to 
 light the delicate radiance of a London summer even- 
 ing a disreputable type -written copy of The Lady 
 of the Moon, still encircled by the wisp of pale green 
 ribbon which had confined its vagrant pages during 
 its passage to the Temple from Miss Lucerne's house at 
 Hampstead. 
 
 Corbyn handled the packet for a moment with some- 
 thing of the deprecating tenderness of an author for an 
 oft-rejected manuscript; then he crammed it into the 
 pocket of his overcoat. 
 
 " It's rather bulky," he said briefly. " I'll give it to 
 you after the show this evening. I hope Miss your 
 friend won't object to the dog's-ears," he added, when 
 he had sported the oak and had overtaken his friend at 
 the foot of the staircase. " Miss Lucerne rather lost her 
 temper over it, I fancy : it looks as if she had chucked 
 it out of the window two or three times."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 259 
 
 " Violent Lucerne, we used to call her when we were 
 on tour with the Silver King," said the other. "Nice 
 little girl, devilish nice ; but she hasn't the physique for 
 a great actress. Just you wait, Uncle Peter wait till 
 you see my client, Juliet Arden ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " I DINED with Montie Villiers on Saturday night," said 
 Corbyn, casting a humorous glance at Rome, whom 
 he had encountered fortuitously in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 " He was in great form. Quite an old friend of yours, 
 by the way, isn't he?" 
 
 Adrian looked up quickly, with an expression which, 
 for the moment, checked his friend. He seemed about 
 to speak, but he only frowned ; and the other continued 
 light-heartedly : to see Adrian frown was neither novel 
 nor portentous. 
 
 " He was in wonderful form eloquent upon the sanc- 
 tity of Art, and maintaining in the same breath his 
 laudable theory that the public is the only infallible 
 judge, the final court of appeal on all questions con- 
 nected with it. What an impossible creature it is ! but 
 I delight in him, he amuses me " 
 
 " The public ! " broke in Rome savagely. " Damn the 
 public ! One ought not to use the word, even in mockery. 
 Forgive me you don't know how sick I am of that 
 many-headed, muddy-minded bogey; I would almost 
 rather hear you open up the interminable discussion of 
 politics." 
 
 " Heaven forfend ! " ejaculated the other devoutly. 
 <; You're safe, mon vieux ; my knowledge doesn't extend 
 beyond the name of the Prime Minister ; I don't know 
 enough to write a gallery verse for a topical song. Well, 
 suppose we talk about ourselves, then; that will be 
 
 260
 
 ADRIAN ROME 261 
 
 much more interesting. Tell me about your novel. Does 
 it progress ? When may I ask for it at all the libraries? " 
 
 "I write about a page a month, now," said Adrian 
 tersely. "I had written about half the book when I 
 married. The calculation is easy ! " 
 
 Corbyn was silent for a minute, gazing reflectively at 
 a workman who was painting the low railings surround- 
 ing Leicester Square. 
 
 " What a discontented idiot you must think me ! " 
 added the other, with a sufficiently mirthless laugh. " I 
 feel that I am an idiot all the time. I ought to be 
 happy enough, n'est-ce-pas ? I have plenty of money, 
 a charming wife, and the newspapers say the kindest 
 things about everything I write. And yet How 
 unsatisfactory one is ! I suppose I want change of air. 
 That is generally regarded as a panacea, isn't it ? " 
 
 Corbyn shrugged his shoulders. " It's the easiest thing 
 to change," he said. " Except one's clothes even that 
 is a considerable relief, sometimes or one's mind, 
 which, after all, one can't change, worse luck ; one 
 only rakes up the surface, and it's confoundedly hard to 
 smooth it over again. I should not object to a change 
 of air but I should want to take London with me. 
 Well, I suppose you will be on the wing very soon ? 
 Don't forget to send me some grouse ! " 
 
 Adrian smiled. " I will, if I see any. But they are 
 not very common in the Channel. We are going for a 
 cruise off the coast of Brittany, I think. My wife has 
 to pay a visit first at Lady Verrinder's ; she goes to- 
 day. I've just been to see my solicitor to tell him that 
 I shall not be accessible for a couple of months. The 
 Anonyma is getting her stores on board. There will 
 be a berth at your disposal whenever you like to join. 
 Brooke has definitely declined to join us at St. Malo 
 so he is sure to be with us."
 
 262 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 "Are you taking a party?" enquired Corbyn diplo- 
 matically, with a nod expressive of his thanks. 
 
 Rome hesitated for a moment. "I hardly know; I 
 believe my wife has asked some friends the Verrinders, 
 I believe they will pick up their own yacht at Brest ; 
 Mrs Vesper, probably, and Miss Lancaster the charm- 
 ing Phyllis, you ought to know her." 
 
 " I remember," said Corbyn. " I have met her at your 
 house a pretty, fair-haired damsel, with a discouraging 
 mamma." 
 
 " Precisely, though the attitude of the mamma is not 
 invariable ; it depends ! Are you in a hurry, or will 
 you come to the ' Nondescript ' for an hour or so ? 
 There is to be a rehearsal of my play : Holmes is send- 
 ing a company off to the provinces, and I half promised 
 to look in." 
 
 The other nodded a cheerful assent. " By all means 
 I have an especial weakness for the provincial mum- 
 mer ; he doesn't, as a rule, try to disguise himself as a 
 respectable member of society, like his metropolitan 
 brethren. I expect it will be rather a lark." 
 
 " Doubtless for everybody, except the author ! " 
 
 " Oh, you can afford to laugh, too. You needn't care 
 about the provinces ; you have made your hit." 
 
 They turned up a side street, passed quickly through 
 a swing-door, with a nod to the custodian, who was 
 reading a sporting paper in a kind of sentry-box inside, 
 and picked their way down a steep and tortuous stair- 
 case to the wings, where a few figures loomed in the 
 obscurity which a rapid transit from the brilliant sun- 
 shine outside rendered the more bewildering. They 
 paused for a few minutes, after exchanging a brief 
 greeting with the stage-manager, a bustling tyrant 
 with a very shiny silk hat, precariously perched 011 the 
 back of his head, listening to the voices which came
 
 ADRIAN ROME 263 
 
 from the dimly-lighted stage, and accustoming their 
 eyes to the darkness. 
 
 Presently Rome tapped his companion on the shoulder. 
 
 " Let us go in front," he suggested. " There are a few 
 people in the stalls ; it's so confoundedly draughty here." 
 
 They passed through a fire-proof iron door, stumbled 
 down a dark passage, and pushing aside a heavy cur- 
 tain, found themselves in a region to which the 
 daylight faintly penetrated the corridor outside the 
 stalls, which they entered. Among the little cluster 
 of people who occupied seats in the middle row, they 
 presently recognised Mrs. Holmes a pretty, vivacious, 
 little woman, dressed like a fashion-plate, whom Corbyn 
 remembered to have encountered at a hundred private 
 views and the rococo figure of Miss Lucerne. 
 
 "No," murmured Mrs. Holmes, in reply to Adrian's 
 whispered enquiry. " Cyrus isn't here ; he has gone 
 to the East End to make a speech for some charity. 
 Why, I can't think. I can't begin to suspect him of 
 philanthropy." 
 
 Adrian smiled. " Oh, it's the sort of thing that's 
 expected of actors and bishops and that kind of person 
 nowadays." 
 
 " Did you hear that ? " said Corbyn, leaning forward 
 to address Miss Lucerne, who occupied the seat im- 
 mediately in front of his own. "Decidedly, I shall 
 never have the courage to get married if that is what 
 one may expect one's wife to say about one." 
 
 Miss Lucerne laughed softly. "I didn't know that 
 men ever condescended to think that it required courage. 
 I thought it was only the preliminaries that were sup- 
 posed to present difficulties." 
 
 "Oh, the mere plunge has terrors of its own, of 
 course ! But the waters are so deep, so full of hidden 
 rocks and it's such a long way to the other side ! "
 
 264 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " Heavens ! " put in Mrs. Holmes. " He is thinking 
 about the other side already ! Don't be such a coward, 
 Mr. Corbyn ; remember that the Humane Society's drag 
 is kept in in the Divorce Court." 
 
 Just then an interruption occurred ; the comparatively 
 uninteresting education of two minor characters came to 
 an end, and the stage-manager crossed the stage quickly, 
 calling the " beginners " for the second act. 
 
 " And mind your p's and q's, ladies and gentlemen," 
 he added humorously, as they gathered on the stage. 
 " Especially your cues : the author's in front, and if he 
 hears any fluffing, he'll let you know of it." 
 
 Mrs. Holmes had made her escape, on the pretext 
 of talking to someone about the dresses, and Adrian, 
 finding it difficult, as the first spark of curiosity died 
 out, to rivet his attention on the actors, abandoned the 
 effort and allowed his thoughts to wander unchecked, 
 in swift bat-like flights, through the stimulating dark- 
 ness of the empty auditorium. An appreciation of his 
 surroundings, absent and intermittent, perhaps, but 
 instinctively accurate, betraying the trained observer, 
 formed the resting-place to which his vagrant im- 
 agination at intervals returned. He had attended many 
 rehearsals since the first of his play (how remote that 
 moment of fruition seemed !), but the occasion never 
 failed to strike him as curious and interesting. As he 
 sat alone in his stall (Miss Lucerne, after vainly en- 
 deavouring to lure him from his silence, had migrated, 
 with Corbyn, unobtrusively, to the stage-box), he felt, 
 at times, like a disembodied spirit, watching from some 
 shadowy limbo the tragical humours of the little comedy 
 of life. More than once he was obliged to brace himself, 
 in order to dispel the illusion to grasp at such realities 
 as the white waistcoat and radiant hat of the hovering 
 stage-manager ; the gas flaring from the tall T-light in
 
 ADRIAN ROME 265 
 
 the centre of the stage ; the broom and flapping duster 
 of the charwoman, who prowled ghoul-like among the 
 shrouded seats of the dress-circle, with a fine disdain 
 for the goings-on below. At intervals came interrup- 
 tions : the re-echoing tap of a hammer, and the raucous 
 voice of the stage-carpenter who wielded it; vague 
 cries, and a heavy rumble of traffic from the street; 
 even these sounds seemed infinitely remote, mere echoes 
 from another world, wrapped and muffled in the pall of 
 clinging darkness. The boxes, except those next the 
 stage, to which the gaslight faintly radiated, touching 
 Viola Lucerne's pale face and Corbyn's hands, seemed 
 abysmal gulfs of blackness ; the pit, one might imagine, 
 stretched to infinity. A small uncurtained window, 
 high up at the back of the gallery, gave entrance to a 
 ghostly ray of sunlight, which seemed to faint upon the 
 threshold of the impenetrable gloom, recognising the 
 futility of its effort to join the centre of artificial 
 brilliance upon the stage so far below. It was hard 
 to realise that the passing of a few hours would fill 
 this vault with radiance, laughter, and life; that it 
 would seem an appropriate setting for beautiful 
 women, flashing jewels, the music of voices, and the 
 rustle of pretty dresses. 
 
 Adrian emerged from the soporific waves of his 
 reverie with a start, to find himself called upon by 
 name to decide some technical difficulty which had 
 presented itself to the busy people on the stage ; he 
 left his seat, and drew as near to his tormentors as the 
 intervention of the seats of the orchestra would permit. 
 One query led to another; the representation of the 
 piece in the provinces demanded certain small altera- 
 tions, which, in spite of their triviality, could not, it 
 appeared, be effected without considerable discussion, 
 in which he was content to take the smallest part, his
 
 266 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 indifference recoiling upon himself in the shape of the 
 futile suggestions which it provoked. When at last he 
 was released, he found himself deserted by his friends. 
 Corbyn and Miss Lucerne had vanished ; the afternoon 
 was far advanced, and, glancing at his watch, he re- 
 minded himself that he had promised to meet his wife 
 at the railway station, from which she was to depart on 
 her visit to Lady Verrinder. 
 
 A certain nervous fear of seeing the little rift, which 
 he already sometimes imagined lay between them, 
 widen, as well as a feverish desire for solitude, as the 
 occasion for work, had prompted Adrian to proffer a 
 shallow pretext for remaining in town to attend to 
 rehearsals and legal business while his wife fulfilled 
 her engagement to Lady Verrinder. The separation 
 of a few days, he argued, not very hopefully, might 
 serve to restore the moral and mental equilibrium 
 which the ravages of a busy season had not unnaturally 
 impaired. It was to nerves unstrung, to weariness and 
 want of change, that he preferred to ascribe their recent 
 dissension, which, unimportant as it might be in itself, 
 his foresight marked as ominous. If Marion had be- 
 trayed some surprise at his suggestion, she had acceded 
 with a readiness a sweet reasonableness, he acknow- 
 ledged which would have done credit to a woman 
 possessed of more tact than she could lay claim to. 
 Acute as his mental vision was, it had not occurred 
 to Adrian to suspect that pride might be in some 
 degree answerable for his wife's attitude, for the re- 
 ticence which he had admired ; he had allowed himself 
 to conclude, with a flush of gratitude for her sympathy, 
 that she, too, recognised the occasion as a convenient 
 opportunity for relaxing, for a while, a state of tension 
 for which outward circumstances were entirely to 
 blame.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 267 
 
 " At last ! " she exclaimed lightly, when he met her 
 on the platform at Waterloo. "Do you know that I 
 have been waiting nearly ten minutes ? If time-tables 
 go for anything, the train ought to have started long 
 ago." 
 
 " I'm sorry," he began apologetically. " I " 
 
 " Oh, it isn't your fault that I'm so ridiculously early. 
 It was absurd of me to think that any railway company 
 could be punctual in such weather. It's too hot to do 
 things in a hurry, isn't it ? " 
 
 Adrian assented, declaring that in August one ought 
 to stroll through life with an eye to short cuts and 
 shady paths. Then he added quickly, rather dis- 
 concerted by her smile. " You know, it's a mystery 
 to me how you manage to catch trains. I never do. 
 I was quite convinced that you would miss this, and 
 go by the next. I had made up my mind for half 
 an hour's solitary contemplation of the bookstall. It's 
 very nice of you not to scold me ; I appreciate your 
 forbearance. I suppose punctuality is a virtue it's 
 such a bore that I feel sure it must be. Is your luggage 
 all right and the invaluable Elise ? " 
 
 Marion nodded. " Yes, and the carriage is waiting to 
 take you back and that is more than you deserve. I 
 have secured a comfortable corner, and I have La Peau 
 de Chagrin to read." 
 
 They paused for a minute at the door of the com- 
 partment, while a tired inspector interrupted their 
 conversation with his mechanical demand for a display 
 of tickets ; and Adrian had leisure to wonder, for the 
 hundredth time, at the rare, distinctive quality of his 
 wife's beauty a beauty so elusive that on first acquaint- 
 ance one would hardly recognise it as such; so real, 
 nevertheless, that, for the few who knew Marion well 
 enough to be numbered among the initiated, there
 
 268 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 seemed to be no limit to its gradual revelation. The 
 fulfilment of the exacting routine of a long season had 
 left its traces, in the shape of a certain refinement of 
 contour, a slight weariness, that had its compensation 
 in an increased charm of delicacy, in the softened lines 
 of lips inclined to stiffness, the more unveiled expression 
 of calm, disdainful eyes. 
 
 When she had settled herself in her seat, leaning 
 forward a little, with one arm resting lightly on the 
 ledge of the open window, her eyes encountered his, 
 and a slight flush answering the expression which no 
 woman could have failed to read in them, lent an 
 additional charm to her allure. She turned her head 
 sharply, recognising and repelling his admiration, 
 although she appreciated it, with a movement which, 
 like the instinct that prompted it, was rather wanting 
 in grace. 
 
 " Elise might as well have come in here with me," she 
 said brusquely, glancing askance at the old lady who 
 occupied a corner seat at the other end of the compart- 
 ment, with a touch of the suspicious intolerance which 
 marks the courtesy of an English traveller towards a 
 chance companion. " Even her society would be better 
 than none ! " 
 
 Adrian smiled. "My dear Marion," he protested, 
 "surely you have had enough society! And haven't 
 you Balzac the very best ? Shall I find Elise for you ? 
 She is probably reading Gyp's latest, or the Queen, in 
 a second-class carriage, with a packet of bonbons to season 
 the fashion-plates ; she would feel flattered, no doubt." 
 
 Marion looked at him absently, frowning a little, 
 before she replied. " No no, never mind ; the train is 
 just going to start." Then she glanced past him at the 
 bookstall, beating a tattoo on the window-sill with her 
 finger-tips.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 269 
 
 " I I wish I was coming with you," said her husband 
 urbanely ; " it would be very charming." 
 
 Marion flushed quickly. " Why " she began, and 
 then paused, biting her lip. " You you might have 
 come." She breathed quickly. 
 
 Adrian dropped his eyes, with a shadow of a frown, 
 feeling his insincerity punished, then he looked down 
 the long platform irresolutely. 
 
 "Oh, it's too late now," added his wife. "The 
 Verrinders don't expect you." 
 
 A minute later, the train began to glide out of the 
 station, slowly, with laborious ease. To Marion, sinking 
 back in her seat, the face of her husband, with an 
 expression in which she tried to imagine that regret 
 was the dominant element, still seemed framed in the 
 square of the open window. It haunted her, with its 
 dark, inscrutable eyes, with a smile of farewell over- 
 riding its faint perplexity, long after the express had 
 carried her into the midst of the parched fields of 
 Berkshire; and even the witty pages of her author 
 failed at first to banish its persistent presence.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ADRIAN stood on the still crowded platform, and watched 
 the tail of the receding train until it passed out of sight. 
 Afterwards, as he slowly wended his way homewards 
 (he had preferred to walk, dismissing his carriage, in the 
 first flush of his contentment at being once more the 
 master of his own time), he could remind himself, without 
 too much anxiety, that this was really the first appreci- 
 able separation and such are salutary, after all, between 
 the most appropriately mated which had occurred in 
 his married life. His way took him past the Embank- 
 ment, and presently he stopped, leaned on the wide 
 parapet, looking down idly into the broad river, which, 
 like live things, seemed to be rendered more sluggish 
 by an August sun; watched a penny steamer plying; 
 noted the innumerable little shafts of gold which flecked 
 the surface of the broad, slack stream, like bright feathers 
 sprinkling the brown plumage of a bird. Actually, he 
 was nicely mapping out, like a schoolboy surprised by a 
 holiday, the disposition of his few days of liberty, which 
 expanded indefinitely, in his forecast of their full labori- 
 ous hours. His work, his neglected, forgotten work, 
 yes, it was with a view to that, the opportunity of that, 
 his work, the perpetual need of artistic creation, which, 
 however intermittent, was, after all, the sharpest stimulus 
 of his life, for ever restlessly urging him, that his en- 
 forced loneliness seemed so rich an occasion. To pass a 
 certain span of time without interruption in the company 
 
 270
 
 ADRIAN ROME 271 
 
 of those dear and immaterial people of his imagination, 
 must always be in the last degree the holiday of the 
 artist. And Adrian embraced his opportunity with 
 more enthusiasm than he had believed nowadays to be 
 within his capacity, enjoying the emptiness of the large 
 house (a character which it shared with many of its 
 neighbours, for habitable London was already putting up 
 its shutters), and even deriving a certain perverse relish 
 from the precarious and unpunctual nature of his meals. 
 But after a day or two spent almost entirely in the 
 library, he was obliged to confess, with a sinking heart, 
 that, if the effort had been considerable and the occasion 
 unexampled, the result was barren in the extreme. 
 
 It was in the evening that he came to this conclusion : 
 he was still sitting at his writing-table before the open 
 window, through which fresh garden smells, invigorated 
 by a transitory shower, penetrated agreeably ; and the 
 light had waned so gradually, or his preoccupation had 
 been so great, that he found himself, before he was aware, 
 in an obscurity, which exposed the hollowness of his 
 laborious pretext. He dropped his useless pen with a 
 gesture of impotence, shut the window hastily, for the 
 darkness had brought an unseasonable chill in its train, 
 and threw himself wearily into a chair by the swept 
 and garnished hearth. It seemed to him, just then, that 
 he had reached the end of his tether, of his facility, 
 his genius, his talent call it what you will; of that, 
 nothing seemed left but a memory, and he mourned for 
 it, and all its unfulfilled promise, as for a dead child. 
 He had been patient, had chosen his season, and built his 
 altar, but for all his waiting the fire from heaven had 
 not descended ; his hieratic studiousness had brought 
 forth no inspiration ; and nothing seemed left but to 
 beat a spleenful retreat, demolishing the unachieved, 
 unsanctified pile. And he abandoned himself to the
 
 272 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 depression of the hour, to the tide of self-pity which 
 surged over him, and which was not without its element 
 of self-reproach. He was driven irresistibly upon that 
 pitiable summing-up of experience, which at seasons 
 the least introspective man cannot escape; and, face 
 to face with his verdict, he found it no more toler- 
 able because the failure which confronted him was as 
 inexplicable as it was vague. 
 
 Certainly, there remained a tangible result of his 
 labour, in work, not quite imperfect, by no means unap- 
 preciated, of not too remote a past, to which he might 
 point ; but that seemed an inconsiderable set-off to his 
 state of mind. Therein, essentially, and not in any 
 positive or popular achievement, was to be sought, to 
 his fancy, the true measure of an artist's success. And 
 his outward, enviable state only seemed to accentuate the 
 wretched poverty which was his inward portion. He 
 reminded himself how, years ago, although these were 
 not so many, he had looked forward to his inheritance 
 with a pleasure that contained an element of awe. 
 Riches were so generally the compensation of the dull, 
 that when, once in a while, they fell into the right hands, 
 there seemed a priceless opportunity to more and others 
 than their bright- witted possessor. Yes! he had been 
 glad, unfeignedly glad, of his great fortune ; and there 
 was no grossness in the idea he would start neither a 
 racing-stable nor a harem ; it meant to him simply the 
 union of great liberty with the power of turning it to 
 the best account in life, in knowledge, in creative art. 
 And now, after all, he was asking himself whether his 
 opportunities had not been his destruction, and his 
 money veritably a lion in his path ? So difficult is it to 
 ride up Parnassus in a carriage and pair. Certainly, 
 there were moments when he could envy Corbyn his 
 poverty and his enthusiasms, his pervading belief in the
 
 ADRIAN ROME 273 
 
 free drama that was to be the Theatre of Art. Adrian 
 could send his Theatre of Art a cheque for fifty guineas 
 with the best will in the world, but a draft upon his 
 conviction, his effective sympathy, that was another 
 affair; he feared it might be dishonoured. 
 
 He dressed, summoned a hansom, and for the first time 
 for many months dined at his club. It was like a 
 revival of his bachelor days the days of his liberty: 
 he found himself at the same table, and the company, 
 too, had scarcely altered. Even the waiter had not for- 
 gotten that he drank Pontet-Canet, and had a weakness 
 for olives. Only, a new poet had sprung up, had entered 
 the circle; and the quatrain had succeeded the triolet, 
 and the triolet was voted vieux jeu. And, as of old, 
 Brooke's clean-cut conversation at once suggested and 
 dominated the stream of rapid, paradoxical talk ; as of 
 old, Dalrymple Green, who, since he had taken his seat, 
 wore spectacles, and studiously endeavoured to look 
 older than his age, added a note political, or political- 
 scandalous, to the aesthetic harmony. Had not the 
 master of elaborate conversation laid it down, that, in 
 talk, as in cookery, the ingredients mattered nothing so 
 that the service was fine ? So they discussed political 
 measures as if they were pictures, and gave to the turn 
 of a verse the importance of an affair of State. Presently 
 the name of Corbyn cropped up in conjunction with his 
 scheme, which came in for its share of ridicule. 
 
 " The poor old theatre," said Brooke, " is dead " He 
 interrupted himself with intention, waved a bland finger, 
 smiling at Rome. " I beg your pardon, it's dying. To- 
 morrow is the last night of your play. Even that could 
 not keep it alive ; after that, let us decently bury it. 
 Let Corbyn galvanise its corpse, if he can." 
 
 " Why should he ? " protested Sebastian Smith, the 
 languid poet. " Besides, Corbyn is really too antiquated. 
 18
 
 274 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 The Theatre of Art is in existence. It has two temples 
 in Leicester Square." 
 
 " Ah, the ballet ! " said Brooke, with unction. " Yes, 
 the world is not wholly bad. Let us give thanks for the 
 ballet. It is music, and a picture, and a poem all in one. 
 It has all the fascination without any of the vulgarity of 
 the opera. It is a Whistler put into song, a dream made 
 flesh. Sebastian, how unkind of you to remind me that 
 I might be in a stall at the Alhambra, when I am going 
 to Mrs. Vesper's crush ! " 
 
 " I am weary of the ballet," sighed Sebastian Smith. 
 " It resembles an epic, and everything bores me which is 
 longer than an epigram. That is why I am so tired 
 of life. But I am going to a hall to-night. Who will 
 come with me ? I am going to see Little Tich." 
 
 Rome shook his head. 
 
 "I don't care for the music hall, and I have an 
 engagement." 
 
 The languid youth protested. 
 
 " How strange of you ! The music hall is the last 
 refuge of Art. There is nothing between ' Gotterdam- 
 merung ' and Little Tich. Have you seen the charming 
 quatrain I wrote round the brothers Pietrosanto those 
 adorable acrobats ? I published it in the Horizon" 
 
 Brooke interpolated an explanation : " It is Sebastian's 
 review : upon everything on which somebody has said 
 the last word he says one word more. It comes out 
 twice in thirteen months, the edition is strictly limited, 
 and each copy costs a hundred francs." 
 
 " Why francs ? " queried Dalrymple Green. 
 
 " It gives an exotic touch," explained the proprietor 
 complacently. " Besides, it is printed in Bruxelles, and 
 Toulouse Lautrec is going to design a cover." 
 
 He had risen, was arranging the strange orchid in his 
 buttonhole. Dalrymple Green pushed back his chair,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 275 
 
 announcing that he too was a patron of the Variety 
 Stage. 
 
 " The County Council has monopolised these places too 
 long; it is time that the House of Commons looked 
 in." 
 
 " Have you really an engagement, Adrian ? " Gerald 
 Brooke asked, when they were left alone. " Or did you 
 invent one, to put off that foolish boy ? I call him 
 foolish, though he is charming: he actually believes 
 more than half of what he says. He has just come 
 down he is the new generation." 
 
 " I prefer the old generation," said Adrian shortly. 
 "At least their affectations were amusing." 
 
 Brooke smiled, as he lighted a final cigarette. " The 
 affectation of the younger generation is always the 
 antithesis of the last. Formerly, to be a poet, one had 
 to dress badly and carry extravagant hair. Nowadays 
 observe dear Sebastian one is shaven and shorn 
 one is close-shaved by Charles, and buys one's coat of 
 Poole . . . Come with me to Mrs. Vesper's crush ! " 
 
 " The old generation ! " Adrian repeated absently. 
 " No, I am going to pay it a visit. I can't come with 
 you to Mrs. Vesper convey my excuses." 
 
 A moment or two later, as they came down the steps 
 of the broad portico, he added, more definitely 
 
 "I am going to see Lord Hildebrand, my ancient 
 guardian." Brooke received the name with a soft 
 laugh. 
 
 " I met him once in Paris ; we were dining at Cubat's 
 he reminded me of Talleyrand." He paused for a 
 moment, with one foot already on the step of his cab. 
 
 "He sketched me, in a line; if you will promise to 
 repeat it everywhere, I will tell you what it was he 
 called me "An Elzevir edition of Rabelais." 
 
 Gerald Brooke flung the citation, Parthian-like, at his
 
 276 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 friend, and disappeared with a rich laugh, while Adrian 
 directed his steps towards South Audley Street, medi- 
 tating vaguely. He had contemplated no such visit 
 when he came out, but he was suddenly conscious of a 
 wish to see Lord Hildebrand, who had been for some 
 time, and with an air of permanence (he had sold his 
 Parisian Penates), established in London, but whom, 
 for one cause or another, he had neglected. That 
 Marion disliked him, distrusted him profoundly, or 
 rather the tradition which he represented (for she had 
 never set eyes on the scandalous old man), was no doubt 
 a reason of a kind, but it seemed to him now hardly a 
 reason that should have weighed. He was becoming 
 aware, with a growing sense of dissidence, which was 
 more than the issue of an egoistic impulse, which might 
 by and by have the sanction of his clearest reason, that 
 the list of Marion's disapprovals was an onerous one, 
 too heavy to be borne ; and that concession must some 
 day or other be exhausted. And Marion's conscience 
 (if it had been a religious conscience, seeking expression 
 in mystical pieties, he could have respected it, but it 
 seemed to him purely social) struck him with a cold 
 terror. And he wondered idly, but with a genuine 
 dismay, whether one day he might have to face it, and 
 fight with Marion and that shadow of something awful 
 and unknown, an incarnate respectability, which loomed 
 behind her, for dear life, for his very soul's salvation. 
 To have, for an adviser in such a case, a man like his 
 whilom guardian was perhaps a benefit to be contrived. 
 Adrian was shown directly into the little dining-room, 
 where he found the old man sitting over his coffee ; he 
 greeted him as though they had parted the day before, 
 and called for another cup. In answer to Adrian's 
 enquiry, he remarked that his health was excellent, 
 saving a touch of gout he glanced sardonically at his
 
 ADRIAN ROME 277 
 
 foot, which was swathed in a formidable bundle, and 
 reposed stiffly on a low stool. 
 
 "A respectable malady," he commented; "it should 
 make even my sister esteem me. But she suffers from 
 it herself." 
 
 He put in a polite, indifferent question or two, as to 
 his young friend's doings and intentions, when the man 
 had left the room. The waxen, cadaverous mask of his 
 countenance was composed to an expression of urbane 
 interest ; but his keen, cynical eyes seemed to penetrate 
 through Adrian's brief and evasive answers, giving him 
 an unaccountable sense of discomfiture. 
 
 " And you have a salmi, I hear ? as it was understood 
 in my young days. A salon, and a beautiful and 
 accomplished wife ? . . . Where did I hear it ? " he went 
 on. " How does one hear such things ? I suppose my 
 man heard it from somebody's maid your wife's maid, 
 most likely." 
 
 Adrian smiled deprecatingly. 
 
 " She's very respectable, a paragon, my wife tells me," 
 he murmured. 
 
 " And you mean that my poor Achille is not ? Well, 
 he got it from somebody else's maid. I suppose it is 
 true. They know so much more about us than ourselves, 
 and they have their reward from the editors of the 
 Society papers." 
 
 " The salon ! I think that is more Marion's than mine." 
 
 Lord Hildebrand took snuff; tapping his box, he 
 resumed after a moment 
 
 "You must allow me to congratulate you on your 
 success. I am told Achille tells me that your name 
 is always in the papers. Once upon a time, a long 
 time ago, my name used to be constantly in the papers, 
 but that was another affair; they spoke of me in 
 terms "
 
 278 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 He broke off abruptly, asked blandly 
 
 " And your wife ? " 
 
 "She is very well," said Adrian quickly; "she is 
 staying with Lady Verrinder, in the country." 
 
 " Verrinder ! " The old man arched his eyebrows 
 reflectively, seemed to be drawing on his recollections. 
 
 " Cuthbert Verrinder ? And he's married ? well, he 
 had not much time to lose. Everything is behind him ; 
 and the lady ? " 
 
 " She, on the contrary, had time. She is very young 
 and foolish. Everything is before her." 
 
 He got up to leave. Lord Hildebrand looked at him 
 for a moment, with his fine, inscrutable smile. " After 
 all, you disappoint me," he remarked humorously. 
 " You've settled down so promptly and so well. You've 
 done everything that you ought to do, and left undone 
 all that you shouldn't do. In short, you're unimpeach- 
 able correctness." 
 
 " And, apres ? " Adrian forced a little laugh, with one 
 hand on the door. 
 
 "Apres you look as if it didn't agree with you. 
 You look ill." 
 
 " I'm tired of London, and the people in it. I shall 
 run over to France in the yacht, as soon as my wife 
 comes back. Good-night." 
 
 He went off languidly, and Lord Hildebrand was left 
 in vague meditation over some elusive, inexplicable 
 quality in his young friend's manner. And solitary 
 as he was, his meditation was accompanied by a faint, 
 ironical smile. He rose painfully, and, leaning with 
 one hand on the table, took down from the wall a dainty 
 miniature. It was the dark and debonair face of 
 Adrian's father handsome Rupsrt Rome, portrayed 
 when he was near the age of thirty. With certain 
 essential differences, such as the long beaked nose, and
 
 ADRIAN ROME 279 
 
 that typical air of a gay, moral recklessness which 
 characterised the days when the century was yet young, 
 it presented striking resemblances to Adrian, especially 
 in the eyes and lips. Lord Hildebrand's smile was 
 accentuated, as he gazed at the portrait of that passion- 
 ate lover of woman, as though it exhaled an aroma of 
 long - forgotten scandals. The son, too, unless physi- 
 ognomy was at fault, and heredity belied, had in his 
 blood, with other tempestuous qualities, that dominant 
 tendency of the race, more often than not disastrous, 
 to be swayed overwhelmingly by the fairer half of 
 humanity. And yet, to all seeming, he had already 
 found a safe anchorage in calm and decorous waters. 
 
 Lord Hildebrand shrugged his shoulders sceptically, 
 with the air of a person who was not deceived by appear- 
 ances, however plausible, who foresaw breakers ahead, 
 cataclysms merely postponed. 
 
 " Nous verrons," he said to himself. " At any rate, if 
 there isn't a woman, there will be, and it is certainly 
 not his wife."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 AFTER all, it was a small party which a fortnight later 
 sailed down the Solent in the Anonyma. At the last 
 moment the Verrinders had refused ; although this re- 
 fusal did not extend to Phyllis Lancaster, and, indeed, 
 this young lady's mother had welcomed the opportunity 
 of committing her, in Marion's safe custody, out of reach 
 of a detrimental flirtation, to the security of the high 
 seas. Gerald Brooke was in Paris, ostensibly for the 
 Salon; he might join later, as Corbyn also proposed to 
 do; of other expected guests, Mrs. Vesper alone duly 
 embarked, but then this lady was, as everyone agreed, 
 a host in herself, and amply filled all gaps. 
 
 It was, perhaps, her presence which made Adrian 
 reflect, one morning (they had left Guernsey the night 
 before, and he was up betimes to watch for the first, 
 faint outline of the Breton coast) question himself, 
 as to whether even the immemorial delight of the sea 
 might not, under certain conditions, fail of its effect. 
 Was there not, perhaps, something inseparable from 
 Mrs. Vesper's company (it was, no doubt, part of her 
 charm, her cleverness), which seemed, even on the free 
 decks of a yacht, to burden the salt breezes of the 
 Channel with an odour of London salons, exotic, 
 aromatic of the world of that world precisely which 
 Adrian was most anxious to forget? At least, it 
 required a wind of more than ordinary volume to 
 dissipate the feeling of restraint which, more and 
 
 280
 
 ADRIAN ROME 281 
 
 more, the knowledge of her presence imposed on 
 him. 
 
 Such a wind had risen during the night, gathering 
 strength with daybreak, and the graceful cutter was 
 scudding before it, heeling over beneath the weight of 
 her snowy canvas, as Adrian came forward to smoke 
 his first pipe. Salvesen, the skipper, was there before 
 him a tawny giant, with blue eyes, and a vast yellow 
 beard, which flew out in the wind like a flag ; he gazed 
 through his glass straight ahead, where the horizon 
 was as yet a blank communion of sea and sky. 
 
 Eastward of them, several miles off, but clearly 
 defined in the rare air, was the low line of the Cherbourg 
 peninsula, which the cutter widely skirted. Over it, 
 just where Coutances might be, the sun had now risen 
 in a nebulous red rotundity, presaging a hot day. At 
 present, there was that freshness in the air, which, in 
 its perfection, only attends the opening hours of a 
 summer morning out at sea. 
 
 " Shall we catch the tide at St. Malo ? " Adrian asked 
 presently. 
 
 The skipper deliberated. 
 
 " We shall just do it, if the wind holds." 
 
 It freshened sensibly as he spoke, with a sudden gust 
 which made the cutter plunge violently ; her sharp bows 
 just grazed the crest of a curling wave, and the white 
 spray that was scattered over the deck glistened in the 
 sunlight like coloured fire. 
 
 Adriad laughed, and shook himself. 
 
 "Unless you can resign yourself to getting in that 
 topsail, it will take French leave in a minute." 
 
 Salvesen looked aloft doubtfully. He took a peculiar 
 pride in sailing the yacht under a perilous abundance 
 of canvas, and it was grief and pain to him, when he 
 had to climb down and confess himself defeated. He
 
 282 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 was still hesitating, when a second and fiercer squall 
 caught them ; there was a sound of straining cordage, 
 and the yacht shivered. 
 
 " Damn the wind ! " he said. " She will always blow 
 too much or not at all damn her ! " 
 
 He gave regretfully the order which prudence dic- 
 tated, and went aft to take the helm ; and a moment 
 later two men swarmed up the rigging and struggled 
 with the refractory sail, which they gradually hauled 
 in, to a rending noise like stage thunder. The cutter 
 was brought up to the wind again, and, sensibly 
 lightened, resumed her course, taking each green wave, 
 and surmounting it, with the free, unfettered motion of 
 a bird. 
 
 A little peal of laughter made Adrian look round. 
 Out of the companion hatchway a face had just appeared 
 the face of Phyllis Lancaster, matutinal, fresh, rosy. 
 She clung to the balustrade, and glanced out doubtfully, 
 appealingly, distrustful of her power to cross the deck 
 in safety. 
 
 " You're up early, Miss Lancaster. Wait a bit let 
 me help you. We're rather boisterous this morning." 
 
 She extended her hand laughingly, and he came aft 
 and assisted her dexterously into a seat in the stern ; 
 then he stood, leaning against the tafirail, looking down 
 at her. 
 
 " Well, this is courage ! I was afraid we should see 
 none of you now until we were snug at anchor in 
 harbour." 
 
 " Oh, I'm a splendid sailor ! " Miss Lancaster demurred. 
 " Only, I can't walk about quite easily yet." 
 
 " That will come," said Adrian. " In the meantime, 
 let me get you a cup of tea." 
 
 " Will you ? And a biscuit, please ; I'm desperately 
 hungry."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 283 
 
 He disappeared down the companion to interview the 
 steward ; returned almost immediately, followed by this 
 functionary with a tray. He leaned against the taff- 
 rail, with one arm passed round a stay to steady himself, 
 and they ate their hard ship's biscuit in silence. From 
 time to time Adrian let his eyes rest on the girl, absently. 
 He found her charming, in her little serge frock, her 
 yachting cap, from which her rough, brown hair blew 
 out ; with a charm which was, after all, no more than 
 that of youth and health, yet seemed harmonious with 
 the hour and the occasion that young morning, the 
 salt breeze, the buoyancy of waves. When he had seen 
 her before, at his own house, or at her mother's, he had 
 thought of her as a faint impression of her sister, or at 
 least of her sister in her younger, virginal days, before 
 she became Lady Verrinder and an unchallenged beauty. 
 The resemblance was facile, unmistakable as far as it 
 went, but he saw now that it did not go very far. She 
 was not so pretty as Marjorie, or she was prettier ; but it 
 was not that alone which struck him ; it was an essential 
 difference of expression, of temperament. She could 
 knit her brows; her charming eyes were capable of 
 resolution, did not, like her sister's, contain that con- 
 stant note of wistfulness, as it were an appeal to all 
 the authorities to let her off easily, to respect her frailty, 
 to treat her kindly, and, above all, not too seriously. 
 Poor Marjorie had been very pliable, but Phyllis seemed 
 to him built more sturdily ; she might develop a will of 
 her own. Adrian was the more impressed by this trait, 
 when he became aware that the girl was already the 
 heroine of a little drama. During the last few days, 
 which they had passed in Guernsey harbour, or cruising 
 round the islands, a sort of intimacy had sprung up 
 between them. The girl had met his advances at the 
 outset with a queer reluctance, an ill-concealed hostility,
 
 284 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 which had somewhat startled him, until he had dis- 
 covered from Marion that her presence with them was 
 not so much of her own seeking, as a rebuke, a punish- 
 ment meted out by maternal solicitude to a rebellious 
 chit. Marion spoke in cold tones of a Mr. Lascelles, a 
 most ineligible subaltern in a cavalry regiment. She 
 had been glad to take the child out of his way. Yes, 
 no doubt she had encouraged him, it had gone a certain 
 distance. But when a thing is plainly impossible, a girl 
 of discretion submits. Her chill dismissal of the subject 
 sounded to Adrian ominously towards the lovers' hopes, 
 and, unreasonably enough, for he knew next to nothing 
 of the circumstances, aroused in him a sense of 
 antagonism. 
 
 "I shall certainly let her know that I, at any rate, 
 am not in the conspiracy," he said, with humour. 
 
 " I beg you will do nothing indiscreet." 
 
 " For what do you take me ? I am thinking of my 
 own comfort. If the girl is to be on my hands, if it is 
 necessary to sacrifice Lady Lancaster conversationally 
 well, you mustn't count on me." 
 
 His wife hesitated for a moment; then, looking 
 askance at him, with that faint flush, that odd ex- 
 pression, to which he had grown accustomed, although 
 it had not ceased to puzzle him, she remarked in a tone 
 which practically dismissed the subject 
 
 " We can always count on your indifference." 
 
 Marion was unaware as to how far he had fulfilled 
 his threat ; but certainly it was not long before the first 
 restraint with which Miss Lancaster had met him was 
 comfortably relaxed. As she had said, she was a good 
 sailor, taking only a frank and healthy pleasure in that 
 occasional vehemence of the waves which drove the 
 other two ladies to the sanctuary of the saloon. 
 
 To Adrian her company was often refreshing, like
 
 ADRIAN ROME 285 
 
 that of some engaging child. She was vivid and bright, 
 and her mother's system of education, which had come 
 so perilously near success with poor Marjorie, had failed 
 to extinguish all the nature in her. He began to enter- 
 tain a covert longing for Mr. Lascelles his name was 
 sometimes mentioned to succeed in his nefarious 
 designs. At least, he believed the young lady to be 
 quite capable of showing fight. 
 
 They had finished their fragmentary breakfast when 
 Salvesen came up; he lifted his cap, with a foreign 
 gesture, to the young girl. 
 
 " You will be able to see the land, if you come for- 
 ward, Miss." 
 
 She rose and walked to the bows, steadying herself 
 with one hand upon Adrian's arm. 
 
 They looked out over the heaving waters. Straight 
 ahead they could discern easily the little archipelago of 
 islands, mere barren rocks, which are dotted round the 
 entrance to the harbour of St. Malo; Chateaubriand's 
 tomb; and the extremity of the mole, with its undis- 
 tinguished lighthouse glistening in the sun. The girl 
 gave a regretful sigh. 
 
 " Why, we're nearly there," she said. " I'm almost 
 sorry ; this has been so delightful." 
 
 " I'm afraid you would not find it so delightful if we 
 lost the tide, and had to hang outside. We shall be in 
 by ten. If you are not very hungry, we will breakfast 
 on shore at some hotel." 
 
 " Yes, that will be charming. Poor Mrs. Vesper, how 
 glad she will be ! She is not going to get up till we are 
 actually at anchor. When I came on deck, her maid 
 was bathing her forehead with eau de Cologne." 
 
 Adrian smiled rather grimly. 
 
 " She had better keep her eau de Cologne until we 
 are in the harbour. She will want it then." . j
 
 286 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " Gracious ! " cried the young girl. " It won't be rough 
 inside ? " 
 
 " Not rough, but, you see, St. Malo, or, at least, the 
 harbour, is the most notoriously evil-smelling place in 
 Europe." 
 
 " And it looks so delightful ! How long shall we be 
 there ? " 
 
 " We are entirely at your orders." He hesitated, then 
 went on, " However, I believe Marion wants to wait 
 for letters ; perhaps a day or two." 
 
 She reflected for a moment ; then she resumed, " Well, 
 we needn't be always on board." 
 
 " No, we will go up the Ranee to Dinan, by the 
 steamer. We will run over to Dol it has the most 
 enchanting cathedral We will go to the theatre, sup- 
 posing the piece happens to be convenable. We will 
 even go and dance at the Casino, if you like. Besides, 
 we may have an addition two additions to our party." 
 
 " Whom do you expect ? " she asked quickly. 
 
 " My friend Corbyn I don't think you know him ? 
 And, possibly, Gerald Brooke." 
 
 " Mr. Brooke he's too terribly clever," she protested. 
 " I'm afraid to say a word to him." 
 
 "That isn't necessary, so long as you are able to 
 listen." 
 
 The girl smiled. 
 
 "I don't quite like that either. There's a mean." 
 Inconsequently, she went on, watching the waves, "It 
 is easier to talk to people like you, who know how to be 
 silent sometimes." 
 
 " I'm afraid that implies I have often been very dull." 
 
 " No, not dull," she said quietly, but purposely with- 
 held any explanation. 
 
 One of those sudden silences of his to which she 
 alluded, and which are natural enough, after all, at sea,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 287 
 
 as though the wind had a property of blowing through 
 all those trivial and irrelevant matters which are the 
 staple element of most manufactured talk, succeeded, 
 and she watched him curiously. She had noticed that 
 he had two manners, and this one she took quaintly, for 
 it implied a complete indifference to her presence as a 
 tacit compliment, the more valid as it was unconscious, 
 and he believed her to be quite unobservant, a supposi- 
 tion which made the quick-witted girl smile. Had this 
 not been so, she felt assured that with her, too, he would 
 have maintained his other aspect that perfectly well- 
 equipped and urbane manner which had struck her 
 when she had seen him in company with Mrs. Vesper, 
 or with his wife, which she could almost believe he 
 maintained with the latter in their closest intimacy a 
 manner so excellent, and yet so factitious. She pre- 
 ferred his reinissness to his punctilio, and was amazed 
 at the difference between them at each transition, dis- 
 cerning, when he was off his guard, as now (and coming 
 perhaps nearer the mark than most critics), how really 
 remote he must be, when he seemed most present, most 
 prepared ; and suspecting that his social relations had 
 come to be a sort of elaborate and grotesque etiquette, 
 from which he must be glad to escape even into mere 
 blankness. And her amusement and her insight were 
 never keener than when she realised his consternation if 
 he should ever grasp the knowledge of how she judged 
 him. 
 
 It was not a very cheerful little party that break- 
 fasted at St. Malo an hour after the Anonynias arrival 
 in the insalubrious port. Corbyn had boarded the yacht 
 almost before she had dropped her anchor (he had passed 
 her, he explained, just after daybreak, on board the 
 packet from Southampton), with news which, conven- 
 tionally sad in itself, had the further effect of breaking
 
 288 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 up an expedition, the members of which discovered now, 
 if for the first time, that it was not altogether lacking 
 the elements of enjoyment. The Duke of Turretshire 
 had been dead for twenty-four hours. This was 
 Corbyn's budget, to deliver which he had expedited his 
 departure from London ; and a couple of telegrams were 
 presently brought to the yacht confirming the news, 
 and summoning Mrs. Rome to Towers, to the bedside of 
 the bereaved Duchess, whose health had proved unequal 
 to the shock. That all the ladies of the party should 
 return to England with their hostess, by the steamer 
 leaving St. Malo in the afternoon, was almost inevitable ; 
 and, in the eyes of Mrs. Rome, at least, it seemed only 
 decorous that Adrian should accompany them. It was 
 arranged hastily that Corbyn should be left in charge 
 of the yacht, which was to proceed more leisurely to 
 Southampton, to be rejoined by her owner so soon after 
 the funeral as circumstances would permit. 
 
 " Sorry, old chap," said Adrian, as he parted from his 
 friend. " You would have liked Miss Lancaster, I feel 
 sure, and However, you will find Salvesen good 
 enough company for a day or two, and perhaps, after 
 all" 
 
 He paused, glancing up at the grey town, huddled 
 steeply behind the mediaeval menace of its embattled 
 walls, with an expression half humorous, half wistful. 
 
 Corbyn laughed a little nervously, " Oh, you know, 
 so far as I am concerned, I am not a carpet knight. 
 Candidly, I think I was rather afraid of the ladies." 
 
 Adrian nodded gravely. " Lady Lancaster would have 
 been rather afraid of you," he suggested presently. " I 
 was promising myself some amusement ! " 
 
 Corbyn looked puzzled for a moment. " Thanks, 
 very nice of you ! " 
 
 "Oh, everyone goes through that sort of thing,"
 
 ADRIAN ROME 289 
 
 murmured the other, with a rather elaborate air of 
 carelessness. " You well, it's only fair, you have been 
 a spectator long enough. Remember, there are people " 
 he shrugged his shoulders " who can't get on with- 
 out something to talk about. Scandal, if you like ; but, 
 after all, it's very human." 
 
 " Ah," Corbyn protested, with a shrewd glance at the 
 other, " you forget, my friend, that is one of the penal- 
 ties of greatness. I am insignificant, moi ; leave me at 
 least the immunities of my otherwise hardly covetable 
 position." 
 
 Adrian shaded his eyes with one sunburnt hand, 
 watching absently the struggles of the vociferous Breton 
 dock-hands, who were filling the steamer's hold with an 
 endless stream of boxes and hampers, that suggested, 
 vaguely, eggs and butter. 
 
 " Immunities ! " he repeated. " You will be lucky if 
 you find them. Don't lean on that reed ! " 
 
 A bell rang clamorously, in warning of the packet's 
 departure. Corbyn turned, raising his straw hat in 
 salutation of the ladies, who had installed themselves, in 
 a little intimate group, upon the bridge. " After all, I 
 am light, you know. Perhaps, if I don't lean too con- 
 fidently? Well, au revoir; I wish you well through 
 the next few days." 
 
 " I don't like light people," declared Mrs. Rome, who 
 had overheard part of Corbyn's last utterance. " It 
 means that that one can't depend on them." 
 
 "My dear Marion," protested Mrs. Vesper, "you 
 know, I always thought you so independent. Now, I 
 don't want to depend on anyone, except my doctor and 
 my dressmaker." 
 
 " And your cook ? " suggested Adrian lightly. Then 
 he added, with a furtive glance at his wife, " Don't be 
 hard on poor Corbyn : where should we be we others 
 19
 
 2 9 o ADRIAN ROME 
 
 without our butterflies ? He will marry one of these 
 days, and then " 
 
 "Ah," murmured his wife, getting up and glancing 
 over her shoulder at the receding quay ; " do people 
 cease to be light when they marry ? " 
 
 Adrian gave a sigh, half petulant, half tender. 
 " Some people don't cease to be serious ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 " You know," Lady Verrinder had remarked, flippantly, 
 one afternoon, as she handed her empty teacup to her 
 host, " you know, when I see you in your wife's drawing- 
 room, Mr. Rome, I always think of you as a visitor 
 and a not very intimate one ; I am always expecting 
 you to pick up your hat and gloves, and retreat in a 
 kind of surreptitious way, like people always do, 
 particularly men, as if they were afraid of being 
 prevented towards the door. Of course," she added 
 hastily, wondering a little whether she had not trans- 
 gressed, by an inch or two, the elastic limits of that not 
 too rigid discretion which formed, vaguely, one of the 
 articles of her belief, " of course, you are perfectly right ; 
 it is not oh, one could say it so much better in French, 
 not correct for a man to assist at the fiveocloques of 
 his own wife . . . You don't mind, do you, Mr. Rome ? 
 I don't see why you should, in the least, but then 
 you're so deep, I don't suppose you can understand a 
 trivial person like me. Not that there's anything to 
 understand, you know; I hardly ever mean anything. 
 One just talks ! " 
 
 And Rome had protested that he was only too de- 
 lighted to find himself corroborated, reinforced in his 
 position (had she not implied, with admirable delicacy, 
 that he was a model of the correct ?), by so undeniable 
 an authority as Lady Verrinder. And although he 
 
 291
 
 292 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 would never have confessed that he regarded the 
 mundane little woman's opinion as anything but a neg- 
 ligeable quantity, he still derived a certain comfort from 
 her suggestion, that the tendency which he had been 
 inclined to stigmatise as symptomatic of a growing 
 remissness, possessed, in the eyes of the worldly, its 
 redeeming qualities, was perhaps not altogether to be 
 reprehended. 
 
 As time went on, his domestic relations had arrived at 
 a certain superficial settlement. Mrs. Rome no longer 
 habitually invaded her husband's study, early in the 
 afternoons when she was " at home," to enquire, with that 
 air of submissive tolerance which was still uncomfort- 
 ably suggestive of a sense of injury, whether he would 
 not, later, abandon his pen and ink in favour of her 
 tea-table : he had attained the semblance, at least, of a 
 privileged immunity, and if his ideas sometimes declined 
 to flow, it was not because they were checked by any 
 haunting fear of interruption or reproaches. 
 
 It was seldom, indeed, that the rustle of petticoats 
 made itself heard in the region which lay behind the 
 door which Mrs. Rome, on occasion, pointed out to a 
 parting guest as belonging to "the room where my 
 husband does his scribbling he writes, you know." 
 Mrs. Vesper had been known to penetrate to Adrian's 
 fastness, but this had happened far less frequently than 
 the intimacy which had existed between them before his 
 marriage would have made it natural to expect. In- 
 deed, the room might have been said to maintain a 
 certain tradition of its master's lost bachelorhood. Of 
 his old associates, Corbyn was no stranger to the place ; 
 he had spent many long evenings there, when Mrs. 
 Rome was out of town; and Gerald Brooke, perhaps, 
 ran him closest in the assiduity of his attendance. The 
 room contained a low easy-chair of extraordinary depth
 
 ADRIAN ROME 293 
 
 and luxury of cushions, and, on the wall facing it, a 
 " Portrait of a Lady," ascribed to Botticelli ; and their 
 combined attraction was one to which Brooke was 
 always ready to succumb. 
 
 " The physical and the spiritual ; comfort and beauty," 
 he protested, late one afternoon, when, after encounter- 
 ing Adrian on his doorstep, he had been easily induced 
 to re-enter the house. "How dear of you, Adrian, to 
 provide for one so completely ! I should like to sit 
 here, indefinitely, and gaze at your fair lady, until she 
 stepped from her frame, to tell us how Sandro beguiled 
 the hours when she sat to him, the history of that 
 wonderful collet of silver and pearls (Ghirlandajo's 
 handiwork for a ducat !) ; and why, ah, why did he give 
 us only her head and shoulders ? And what is she 
 thinking about, that makes her smile so gravely, so 
 obscurely and delightfully ? Think what a simper it 
 would be, how impossible to live with, if one of our 
 portrait painters of the Royal Academy had mistrans- 
 lated her! What a pity for Botticelli that I didn't 
 live in the fifteenth century ! " 
 
 " So that you might have sat to him ? " hazarded 
 Rome, with a smile hovering on his grave lips. 
 
 " Oh, that of course ! But I meant so that he might 
 have heard me talk about his pictures. Think how it 
 would have encouraged him ! " 
 
 " Poor Sandro ! " murmured the other ambiguously. 
 " Were there many people upstairs when you left ? " 
 
 Brooke shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Oh, it 
 was one of Mrs. Rome's usual Fridays; there were 
 people," he said vaguely. "Mrs. Vesper, I seem to 
 remember, and Dalrymple Green, I think. Oh yes, 
 he was talking House of Commons with your wife. 
 Really, Adrian, I didn't expect you to run a political 
 salon ! "
 
 294 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 Adrian smiled a little bitterly, holding out his right 
 hand and surveying minutely the ink stain on its 
 middle finger. " Do I run it ? " he protested. " My 
 wife is responsible, and the amiable, inevitable Dal- 
 rymple " He paused for a moment, then added 
 with increased bitterness, "You know how I hate 
 it!" 
 
 Brooke raised his eyebrows a little, shooting an en- 
 quiring glance at the Botticelli. 
 
 " Politics, I mean," the other added hastily. 
 
 " Confound their politics," quoted Brooke pleasantly. 
 " I'm afraid we're excellently bad citizens, you know ! 
 Ah, Adrian, be thankful that you've escaped from 
 Oxford ; that you're not a don, as you might be if you 
 hadn't been afflicted with riches. I despair, absolutely, 
 of my common-room. Politics and whist, and 'varsity 
 tittle-tattle ; whist, Adrian, has anything ever been so 
 wearisomely perfect? I'm sure Aristides would have 
 delighted in it!" 
 
 The speaker had risen now, and, in spite of a depre- 
 cating gesture and murmured protest on the part of 
 his host, was gathering up his hat and gloves, with an 
 air of imminent departure. He paused for a moment, 
 smiling whimsically, seeking, with the instinct of his 
 training, for some unerring shaft to give point to his 
 retreat. 
 
 "Eh bien, I have my revenge," he added genially. 
 " I hibernate, la bos ; I live on the accumulated reserves 
 of my proper wit. I think out the most brilliant things, 
 and keep them for future use, just trying them, perhaps, 
 discreetly, at undergraduate breakfast-tables. If they 
 only knew, Adrian! Good-bye. I hope you have not 
 put me into your novel; I have the greatest possible 
 confidence in your art, but, all the same, you would 
 inevitably make me so much less amusing than I really
 
 ADRIAN ROME 295 
 
 am. You know, even I can hardly do myself justice, 
 sometimes. Good-bye." 
 
 When he was alone, Adrian sank wearily back into 
 the easy-chair which his visitor had abandoned, and 
 fumbled for some minutes, aimlessly, with a cigarette. 
 A packet lay on the writing-table, addressed, in a neatly 
 illegible handwriting, to his publishers ; he eyed it list- 
 lessly. What had it all come to ? he asked himself for 
 the hundredth time, yielding to that love of self-torture 
 which was so essential of his temperament. Where 
 were his hopes of yester-year, his expectations, his am- 
 bitions? To make a figure in the great world, as his 
 imagination had pictured it; to win laurels in contest 
 with great men : that had been his dream in the old 
 days at Underwoods. How they had dwindled, that great 
 world, and its great . . . ! He told himself, sometimes, 
 that it was only because he was so intimately in their 
 midst, that the turrets and spires which had loomed tall 
 for him across the plains now shrank to insignificance 
 behind the tavern roofs; if he could isolate himself 
 again, perhaps once more they would menace the sky. 
 Perhaps The word, so intimate of hope, so germane 
 to despair, set his thoughts adrift upon a wandering 
 tide ; and he tantalised himself awhile with a perusal, 
 half contemptuous, of the familiar pages of his journal 
 of what might have been. He turned from the prospect, 
 wearily, to find himself confronted with one already no 
 less tiresomely familiar, as he summarised, relentlessly, 
 the brief record of his married life ; so brief, compared 
 with the future that seemed to stretch its length before 
 him; so brief, and yet so infinitely long. A scornful 
 pity filled his heart pity for himself, pity, at moments, 
 for his wife : and if he could find no precise justification 
 for either of these feelings, at least, his indulgence in 
 the latter of them was impervious alike to his logic
 
 296 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 and his scorn. She had loved him; he could admit 
 that to himself, dispassionately, without a thrill; she 
 had loved him, and he had sacrificed her, deliberately, 
 of set purpose, almost, upon the altar of his art. At 
 times, perversely, he derived a certain pleasure a 
 sense of fitness from the manifest rejection of the 
 sacrifice ; and now he asked himself, with a sincerity 
 not too profound, whether the moment had not come 
 for a reversal of the parts played by his injured wife, 
 and his contemptuous mistress. Since for him, under 
 present conditions, happiness seemed no longer among 
 things attainable, why should he not make tardy 
 amends, and do his best to make Marion happy ? He 
 recalled, with a passionate resentment, difficult of 
 analysis, moments when he had detected in her face, 
 ordinarily rather a mask than a mirror of emotion, a 
 wistful expression, a fugitive, restrained appeal, dis- 
 pelling, hardly for his pleasure, the doubt as to whether 
 she loved him still. Impartially, and coldly as any 
 curious bystander, he weighed the evidence; it would 
 have pleased him to conclude that his wife's love for 
 him was dead; he would have been less inclined to 
 resent her hatred; and his shame and despair were 
 multiplied tenfold, when he remembered how plausibly 
 he had simulated the passion which his heart had never 
 harboured. Was not her love an answer, sufficient 
 and convincing, to any impeachment that he could 
 bring against her ; her case as solid as his was baseless ? 
 Such was his mood to-day. At other times, he had 
 consoled himself, as he doubtless would console himself 
 again, taking refuge in a certain philosophy of worldli- 
 ness, in the tenets of which one might trace the teaching 
 of such counsellors as Lord Hildebrand and Gerald 
 Brooke ; when he argued, cynically, that marriage was 
 a compromise; that his wife's love for him was no
 
 ADRIAN ROME 297 
 
 compensation for the lamentable want of tact of which 
 it seemed easy to convict her. She had made a mis- 
 take ; let her recognise her position, and bow before 
 the inevitable, even as he was learning to prostrate 
 himself.
 
 IN the afternoon of one of these late autumnal days, 
 Corbyn had found Adrian in his study, with a face so 
 blank, and a manner so desultory, that he imagined this 
 man of tortured moods had fallen upon one that was 
 more than ordinarily perplexing, that hardly promised 
 a favourable answer to the suggestion he was making. 
 But he nevertheless unfolded his project in a few words, 
 and was surprised to find it acceptable. 
 
 " No, I've no engagement," Adrian replied, with a 
 reluctance that was only half feigned ; " and if it will 
 give you the least pleasure well," he broke off abruptly, 
 and with a smile which had in it, perhaps, more of 
 scornful self-criticism than of ironical intention towards 
 the dramatic enthusiasm of his friend, " I will come with 
 you ; I will even sit through four acts of an impossible 
 transpontine drama, in an impossible transpontine house, 
 for the sake of your company. After all, it is you who 
 will be disappointed, not I, who expect nothing, least of 
 all from the stage, and less still to find the golden 
 actress of your dreams you appear to want a budding 
 Bernhardt, or at least the blossom of a Lina Munte 
 in your young lady of the Surrey-side. My poor Peter, 
 why be so difficult, when Viola Lucerne would do any- 
 thing for you ? At any rate, she's a lady, and has a 
 mind ! " 
 
 Peter Corbyn winced a little ; he went on quickly, 
 with a nervous laugh, " Oh, I don't expect a paragon ;
 
 ADRIAN ROME 299 
 
 I've never seen Miss Arden on the stage, you know. 
 By the way, she is a lady, in spite of her impossible 
 surroundings. Did I tell you, it was at Brixton with " 
 
 But Adrian interrupted him, with a gesture of 
 indifference. " Well, let us go and see her, this belle of 
 Brixton at least, I may hope she is belle." 
 
 Corbyn reflected for a moment. " Yes, she is singu- 
 larly pretty," he said ; then he went on with a certain 
 accent of regret, " but I'm afraid it is a prettiness that is 
 lost on the stage." 
 
 " Perhaps that's the best kind of prettiness," Adrian 
 remarked, as he paused to light a cigarette ; and, with 
 the half-consumed match, he cast away the subject, as 
 they emerged into the square. 
 
 The late autumn tinged the air with something cold, 
 and dusky, and sad ; it was not much after five o'clock, 
 but the lamps were already lit, and struggling ineffectu- 
 ally against an increasing mist, which, by the time they 
 had reached the river, had taken the proportions of a 
 fog. They stood for a moment on the Embankment, 
 looking at the livid river, and the tangle of green and 
 ruby-coloured lamps on the railway bridge. Corbyn, 
 chilled and depressed, pulled up the collar of his over- 
 coat, suggested a cab ; but the other demurred, absently. 
 
 " Let us walk, if you don't mind ; it's not far, you 
 say;" and as Corbyn fell in with his suggestion, and 
 paced leisurely along by his side, he went on, in a tone 
 of soliloquy 
 
 " I like no, I don't like, but I tolerate London in a 
 fog. It gives me a sense of distance, and of inclusion 
 of being included in the distance. That's what one lacks 
 so much the sense of something new. One lives 
 behind a ghastly iron grating, made out of the foolish- 
 ness one has done. And so, I like a fog : it gets inside 
 the grating, suggests (of course it is a lying suggestion)
 
 300 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 something beyond itself. I express myself very vaguely,' 
 he went on abruptly, with an accent of indifferent 
 apology; "it seems to me that I have quite lost any 
 knack of expression that I used to have ; but I like a 
 fog." 
 
 He seemed to Corbyn, who, in effect, missed his mean- 
 ing, to speak with an air of cheerful misery ; it was 
 plain that his nerves were very tense. 
 
 They were turning into the Kennington Road, when 
 Corbyn halted before a flaring building, half restaurant, 
 half public-house. 
 
 " We had better have something to eat here," he said ; 
 " it's not famous, but it's about the only possible place 
 we are likely to fall across this side of the water. But 
 we might sup somewhere after the show." 
 
 " Let us go here, by all means," said Adrian ; " I only 
 want a chop." 
 
 They had ordered, and were discussing their simple 
 fare ; and Adrian had been almost silent, listening with 
 the faintest show of interest, while Corbyn discoursed 
 of his vague and expansive plans. He taxed his com- 
 panion at last with a more than usual lethargy. 
 Adrian smiled listlessly. " I am all attention," he said ; 
 "you think of having a month in Paris, when your 
 Geertje is launched. You will divide your time there 
 between the Theatre Fran<jais, La Bodiniere, and the 
 Theatre de 1'CEuvre, I wish anything in the world 
 interested me as much as you are interested by the 
 stage, but nevertheless, you will have a charming time. 
 I should like to be going with you." 
 
 " Why not ? " asked the other. " There's nothing in 
 the world to prevent it. If you're hipped, there's 
 nothing like Paris to " 
 
 " To drive away the dragons, as Madame de Sevigne 
 calls those beasts of multiple names. Mine lie too close
 
 ADRIAN ROME 301 
 
 to my door ; and there's everything to prevent it. Let 
 us be moving ; we will drive, if you like, and you must 
 talk to me. If I talk, I shall say horrible things ; it is 
 bad enough to think them. Talk to me of Paris ; I was 
 happy enough there for a month or so, after I left 
 Oxford." 
 
 And then, indifferent to what was said, his mind 
 harked back to the period of which he had spoken. 
 Paris ! What a glamour there was about the name, and 
 the time in question. He had been there with Brooke, 
 and they had lodged, not too sumptuously, but with a 
 pleasing and recreative carelessness, in the quarter of the 
 Luxembourg. What novel, irrevocable days and nights ! 
 For to Adrian, at least, the society was new, and Brooke's 
 company was a passport into its most diverse sections. 
 And the regret was formulated in his mind which his 
 tongue had not dared to utter. The nimbler Gallic 
 spirit, the gayer charm, the utter lack of responsibility, 
 and the freedom ah, yes, the freedom of it all ! And 
 he reminded himself, with a smile at once bitter and 
 whimsical, of the coming generation of genius intro- 
 duced to him by Brooke, in many a literary cafe, 
 between Procope and the Francois I ier - ; the audacious 
 feuilletcmistes ; the poets of twenty, with three books 
 behind them and a dozen projected; their gay and 
 amiable affectations, their beautiful self-satisfaction, 
 and their innocent immorality, yet conjoined so quaintly 
 with how much enthusiasm and almost ascetic sacrifice 
 to the muse. To be sure, there were the others, the 
 more distinguished, the " arrived," to whom Brooke had 
 also presented him, who haunted the greater boulevards 
 in a very limited routine, whose heavy lids pouched 
 beneath dulled eyes, which only fired at a present 
 malice, or an unmentionable recollection of the past. 
 
 But they, too, were nimble, if they were caustic, with
 
 302 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 achievement to look back upon; and whatever grim 
 passions had burned themselves into actual ashes in 
 those disinterested eyes, at least a certain passion for 
 amusement had remained . . . 
 
 Here the cab stopped, drew up with a jerk, 
 interrupting his memories; and they alighted before 
 a building, larger and more brilliantly illuminated, 
 but not less uniformly ugly, than the grocer's shop 
 which adjoined it on one side, and the public-house 
 on the other, and the repetition of such establish- 
 ments, which carried a sordid and monotonous line 
 into the charitable vagueness of the fog. With but 
 a bare glance at the flaring posters, which depicted a 
 not unfamiliar struggle between a highly-coloured young 
 lady and a gentleman in evening dress, Adrian followed 
 Corbyn through a somewhat unsavoury crowd, into a 
 lobby that was no longer in the flush of fresh decoration. 
 Adrian waited on one side, whilst Corbyn spoke for a 
 moment to a man whose back was turned to him ; then, 
 following his lead down a narrow corridor which smelt 
 of gas and oranges, he stumbled into a stage box, a 
 blaze of light, and, as it seemed to him at first thought, 
 into the very heart of the orchestra. 
 
 " Will you excuse me," Corbyn murmured apologetic- 
 ally, " while I just run behind ? I won't be long. The 
 band is at its last gasp ; and in the meantime run your 
 eye over the house ; surely there must be ' copy ' in it." 
 
 In effect, Adrian obeyed this suggestion; and even 
 after the curtain had risen on a conventional village, 
 and the stage had been for some time occupied by a pair 
 of comic lovers, his attention was still turned, though 
 somewhat indirectly, on the audience. It was not 
 beautiful, but it set him thinking. It was composed 
 that part of it nearest his view, in the more expensive 
 parts of the house, of tradesmen of the locality, with
 
 ADRIAN ROME 303 
 
 their wives and daughters, dressed in a vulgar fineness 
 which hurt the eye, physically, like a loud light. Those 
 entities of the lower middle classes, they were here in 
 their forces, they were here in their expansion; and 
 to-night Adrian, who had sometimes ached with a sort 
 of instinctive pity for them, as for persons who lacked a 
 certain subtile sixth sense, which rendered life as really 
 incomplete to them as to the physically deaf or blind, 
 was irritated into a very genuine envy of their limita- 
 tions. To be happy, even in a common way ; to be 
 frankly amused, even if one were vulgar. And, after 
 all, there was a vulgarity in one's fineness ; and of late 
 that had been pressing on him. Yes, he could envy 
 them, their limited range, and their satisfactions: and 
 they were so satisfied, he was sure of it ; at least, they 
 never wanted anything to happen. He had greatly 
 wanted things to happen, what he knew not but some- 
 thing. And now never, never ! 
 
 A dropping salvo of applause greeted a fresh entrance ; 
 a voice appealing to his ear, with a familiar but strange 
 sweetness, recalled him to the stage. A presentiment 
 so he called it afterwards made his head swim. Are 
 there ever any other presentiments than afterthoughts 
 of the greatly unexpected ? . . . The girl was nervous in 
 her part ; he could never tell what figure in the cheap 
 and tawdry melodrama she represented; but even her 
 make-up could not disguise the freshness of her pure, 
 young beauty ; and a flood of recollection poured across 
 the footlights, and the scene turned into a garden full of 
 vain dreams, and set about with trim hollyhocks. . . . 
 He looked up, to find Corbyn standing over him with a 
 certain queer embarrassment in his eyes, even before he 
 had stammered out 
 
 " I know Miss Drew your Miss Arden, I mean. You 
 must have known ; why didn't you tell me ? "
 
 304 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " I beg your pardon," answered the other hurriedly. 
 " Of course, I should have mentioned it ; but the fact is, 
 I only knew just now. You see, I never knew her as 
 Miss Drew ; and even if I had, you see your name 
 never cropped up till to-night. It's very curious " 
 
 If the other had exhibited a moment's discomfiture, it 
 was only for a moment. He interrupted him, quite 
 easily, with a little laugh that seemed to do ample 
 justice to the occasion. 
 
 " Yes, very. But I really don't know why I should 
 have expected you to have guessed that your Miss 
 Arden was an old friend of mine; it was a sort of 
 boy-and-girl friendship." 
 
 " Yes, exactly," said Corbyn. " But you must come 
 round and see her. She is not on after the second act." 
 
 " I should like to do that." And they fell into silence. 
 Adrian seemed absorbed in the play ; Corbyn was 
 surreptitiously watching him; his interest in his pre- 
 sumptive first lady of course she would not do, he 
 owned with a sigh had been transferred to his com- 
 panion. He was trying to gather together irrelevant 
 threads of his recollection, of some old story, a sort of 
 impossible idyll. And the more he remembered, the 
 more he suffered from an unaccountable sense of 
 discomfort. 
 
 Was there some deeper, more intimate emotion 
 implied, than his friend's cavalier dismissal of the 
 subject had admitted ? There was certainly nothing 
 extraordinary in his manner ; neither at that time, nor 
 later, when in the dust and glare of the flies (for there 
 was no green-room) Adrian found himself face to face 
 with Miss Arden, this will-o'-the-wisp of the past, to 
 whom Corbyn had a little awkwardly reintroduced 
 him. But there was a bright spot on either sallow 
 cheek, and, for once, that rare luminous quality in his
 
 ADRIAN ROME 305 
 
 eyes, like the flash of wine, which sometimes touched 
 his queer, nondescript face with beauty. The girl had 
 greeted him almost silently; she had put on her hat, 
 and was obviously on the point of departure. 
 
 Absently, Adrian had shaken hands with the manager, 
 had murmured a mechanically smiling assent to the 
 claim of old acquaintanceship, listened to a florid com- 
 pliment. 
 
 " Montague Villiers, you know remember you quite 
 well, Mr. Rome flattered, my dear sir, flattered, I 
 assure you, to see you at my little slummicking show. 
 Won't stay ? Well, I don't wonder. I'm of your 
 opinion, Mr. Rome, if I had my own way. I like Art 
 myself Tosca or Pink Dominos. But I'm handi- 
 capped here ; wait till I get a West End house ! Besides, 
 you would like to talk to my cousin remembers you 
 very well would be flattered, flattered, I'm sure, if 
 you'd see her a little way known her longer than I 
 have. Excuse me, Mr. Rome," and he turned hurriedly 
 to Corbyn. " You will wait, won't you, Uncle Peter ? 
 with you in a moment just got to see a man about a 
 cut in the third act. You can meet Mr. Rome at the 
 station last train to Waterloo." 
 
 Adrian saw Corbyn reluctantly buttonholed, snatched 
 away into the mysterious gloom of the passage. 
 
 " Shall I get you a cab, or walk with you a little 
 way ? " he asked, averting his eyes somewhat nervously. 
 
 " If you'll be so good," said the girl quickly. 
 
 He followed her deft guidance, stumbling, himself, 
 over properties, up and down dilapidated steps, through 
 the stage door, and out by a little alley into the street 
 again. Rain had fallen, and ceased, since they had 
 entered the theatre ; the dirty pavement glistened, but 
 the fog had cleared. He stood for a moment silently ; 
 there was not a cab in sight.
 
 306 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " If you are not very tired, may I walk with you to 
 your door ? " he asked. 
 
 She did not answer for a moment ; then she said 
 simply 
 
 " If it is not taking you out of your way. It is not 
 very far. I have always walked from rehearsals." 
 
 They set off; the girl walking very quickly, Adrian 
 keeping pace with her. Once or twice he glanced at her 
 with a sort of curious fear. 
 
 " So, you are Sylvia," he said suddenly.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI11 
 
 ON the threshold of the stage door, Corbyn paused to 
 light a cigarette at the gas which flared, with an almost 
 birdlike flutter, within a wire cage, opposite the lair of 
 the doorkeeper. A little way up the alley, which ran 
 by the side of the theatre, a small group had gathered, 
 to which Montague Villiers had already attached him- 
 self. After a moment's hesitation, Corbyn joined the 
 party; confused introductions followed, and a slow 
 progression, which, as experience taught him to foresee, 
 soon found its limit in the saloon bar of a neighbouring 
 tavern. 
 
 " Don't worry about your pal," Villiers had protested, 
 anticipating his guest's scruples, " you will find him at 
 the station all right; there's a good half-hour before 
 the train goes, and I want to talk to you. Besides," he 
 added, with a departure from his confidential undertone, 
 " these Johnnies all want to get at you ; it isn't every 
 day that we get a representative of the metropolitan 
 press down here, all to our little selves." 
 
 The others crowded round Corbyn, pressing drinks 
 upon him, with cries of " after you with the critic," and 
 a burlesque of anxious sycophancy. They were all 
 frankly professional, as young actors are wont to be, 
 reflecting, with no shamefaced diffidence, the honest 
 glare of the footlights, diffusing lavishly the genial 
 radiance in which they were nightly steeped. 
 
 For Corbyn, the trait possessed the sanctity of old 
 
 807
 
 308 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 acquaintance. If it had needed apology, he would have 
 urged that it was only fair that men who did their best 
 to make you forget the stage when they were upon it, 
 should be allowed to carry it about with them after- 
 wards if only to prove that it existed, and in common 
 gratitude. He smiled a little, inwardly, as he remem- 
 bered Rome's summary of his first impression of 
 Montague Villiers, after their encounter at Underwoods ; 
 that he "brought the scent of the footlights over the 
 hayfields." 
 
 At half-past eleven, Corbyn, not without difficulty, 
 effected his escape, and Villiers volunteered to walk 
 with him to the station. 
 
 " And you don't think she'll do ? " said Villiers light- 
 heartedly, thrusting his hands deep down into the 
 pockets of his Inverness cape, as a sudden gust of wind 
 encountered them at the street corner. 
 
 Corbyn hesitated. "She might be splendid in her 
 own part ; it's all there, she only wants experience. I 
 admire your cousin immensely you mustn't think 
 But well, she isn't my idea of Geertje ; I've said that 
 so often that I'm afraid I must be hopelessly exacting. 
 But you don't think yourself that the part would suit 
 her ? " 
 
 " You're quite right," declared the other, nodding his 
 head sagaciously. "Said so myself when I heard her 
 read it. Rum thing, she rather likes it. But there 
 don't mind telling you, I rather fancy myself in 
 ' Hamlet.' " 
 
 " She likes it ? " Corbyn raised his eyebrows a little. 
 " I'm sorry " he began. 
 
 Villiers nudged him with his elbow playfully. "Garn !" 
 he said. " Between artists, dear boy ! Art first, feelings 
 nowhere." 
 
 Corbyn smiled. " You're a good chap, Montie."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 309 
 
 The other glanced at him askance, with an elaborate 
 show of suspicion. 
 
 " Hullo ! want me to buy you a drink ? " 
 
 Corbyn laughingly shook off the aspersion of his good 
 faith. 
 
 "Remember Rome, and the last train. Miss Arden 
 Miss Drew " he added, stumbling over the names. 
 "Your cousin ought to have a part written for her. 
 Something sympathetic hayfields, you know, and 
 roses, and all that. We'll make Rome do it, and take a 
 theatre for her, eh ? " 
 
 Villiers assented. " They're old pals, you know ; she 
 used to be a neighbour of his, down at his place in 
 Berks. My aunt bossed the local stamp-foundry, and 
 ran a corner in slate-pencils and toffee ; quite the village 
 Whiteley. We used to be no end chummy Sylvia and 
 I and Mr. Rome. Tea in the back garden, church bells, 
 chorus of villagers, bless our happy home, rooks, sheep, 
 and all that kind of thing." 
 
 " Yes," said Corbyn, thoughtfully. " Underwoods, 
 wasn't it?" 
 
 "That's the ticket. I've said to Sylvia, time and 
 again, that we ought to give Mr. Rome a call and cheer 
 him up with memories of his youth, and that, but she 
 didn't seem to cotton to it. She's kind of haughty, you 
 know, and inde-blooming-pendent. And, of course, 
 well, there's Mrs. Rome, you know what men are when 
 they're married sometimes, a bit shy of their old pals. 
 What ? Not that I mean to imply You must come 
 up to my shanty some time. No good to-night; you 
 would only have missed your train, and Flossie won't be 
 back for another hour she's doing a late turn at the 
 Oxford. You must come down later on for the panto. 
 Aladdin and the Safety-Lamp ; they've engaged Flossie 
 special for principal boy, and your humble servant is
 
 310 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 going to play the widow Twankay. Great games. I 
 say, you'll have to hump yourself, dear boy. Must go, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 Corbyn nodded. " I'll come, like a bird. Thanks, very 
 much. There's Rome getting the tickets. Good-night." 
 
 A minute later the train moved out of the station. 
 Rome and his companion were not fortunate enough to 
 secure the privacy of an empty compartment, and it 
 was not until they reached Waterloo, and had ensconced 
 themselves in a cab, that Corbyn began to find his 
 friend's reticence no longer to be explained by a reluct- 
 ance to discuss intimate topics before strangers. 
 
 An allusion, almost inevitable in the circumstances, to 
 the object of their expedition, had drawn from Adrian 
 an evasive murmur, discouraging criticism of the actress. 
 
 "It's a fact that I wasn't in the secret," Corbyn 
 hazarded, just before they crossed the river. " I had no 
 idea that I was taking you to see an old friend." 
 
 Adrian looked at him for a moment with absent eyes, 
 frowning a little. Then he smiled. " My dear fellow," 
 he said, "forgive me I quite understand. Besides, I 
 have to thank you : I should have thanked you for a far 
 less pleasant surprise. A surprise " 
 
 He hesitated, and Corbyn, a little ashamed of his 
 insistence, was prompt to interrupt him with a quick 
 transition, curiously responsive to his friend's diverted 
 train of thought. 
 
 " He's not a bad sort the volatile Montie ! " 
 
 Rome eyed him gravely. 
 
 "No," he said at last, adding, almost beneath his 
 breath : " Thank God for that ! " 
 
 At a point a little beyond the north side of Waterloo 
 Bridge, Adrian brought the cab abruptly to a stop. 
 
 " It is clearing up. I will walk from here, I think," 
 he said. " Good-night, Corbyn and thank you."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 311 
 
 Corbyn saw his friend enter the gloomy stairway 
 that leads to the Embankment, before his cab turned 
 and merged itself in the traffic of the Strand ; and he 
 wondered, with a certain sense of indiscretion, how far 
 Adrian's mood would have carried him before he en- 
 countered his wife. His meditations were interrupted, 
 however, when he reached his rooms, and found in his 
 letter-box a small, square envelope, addressed in a hand- 
 writing which during the last few weeks had become 
 increasingly familiar. He contemplated the note for a 
 minute, by the light of the gas that illuminated, crudely, 
 the desolate staircase ; then he raised it to his lips, and 
 entered his room, sporting the oak quickly behind him. 
 
 "Of course, it is to say that she can't come," he 
 assured himself, with elaborate unconcern, as he struck 
 a match and looked about him for a candle. "Of 
 course rehearsals^-dressmakers oh, I know." 
 
 He propped the note against the candlestick on the 
 mantelshelf, and passed into his bedroom to put on an 
 old coat and slippers. This accomplished, five minutes 
 were devoted to the lighting and encouragement of his 
 fire (for he had a couple of hours' work before him) ; 
 then he pulled a dilapidated basket-chair up to the 
 fender, established himself in it, and very deliberately 
 filled and lit his pipe. 
 
 When he had read the note, he lay back in his chair 
 luxuriously, letting his eyes wander again over the 
 written words. She would be very pleased to lunch 
 with him to-morrow, and go with him to the matinde at 
 the Royalty. She would be very pleased ; she was his 
 sincerely, Viola Lucerne. . . . He cheated himself with 
 the sweetness of the words, wilfully ignoring their want 
 of meaning, their stereotyped conventionality. 
 
 Half an hour passed ; he recalled himself from his 
 vague, delightful dream, shook his head as one who
 
 312 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 reprehends a folly, drew his chair closer to a chaotic 
 table, and opened his inkpot. 
 
 He awoke next morning, at an hour nicely consistent 
 with the exactions of his midnight labours, to a vague 
 consciousness that the day held pleasure in store for 
 him. His nebulous vista took definite shape presently, 
 when his eyes fell on the little note that lay, beneath 
 his watch, upon the rickety, japanned chest of drawers 
 which stood at the side of his bed, and did duty as a 
 dressing-table. And he confided this impression to Miss 
 Lucerne a few hours later, when she sat confronting 
 him at a little table in the Restawrant des Bienvenus. 
 
 " The feeling one used to have ever so many years 
 ago on one's birthday, or at school, on a holiday," he 
 concluded, as the waiter deposited a cryptic hors d'oeuvre 
 before them with a flourish. 
 
 Miss Lucerne contemplated, for an instant, the faint 
 mark which a seam of her glove had left round the 
 thumb of the hand which she had just withdrawn from 
 it, then she raised her eyes, across the depths of which 
 a light veil of raillery flashed before the other had time 
 to discern the expression that was beneath. 
 
 "Good little boy," she said lightly. "It should be 
 taken to the play, and to Buzzard's afterwards, if it 
 behaved nicely, for an ice. Now, if only it was the 
 pantomime ! " 
 
 Corbyn laughed. " Of course, that would be quite 
 perfect ; so that I could go home afterwards to dream of 
 the Fairy Princess. To think how one used to be able 
 to dream ! " 
 
 He sighed regretfully. 
 
 Miss Lucerne shot a quick glance at him, and let her 
 eyes rest for a moment on his half-smiling, half-wistful 
 face. He was so different from the other men of her 
 acquaintance; they were so many, and he so different
 
 ADRIAN ROME 313 
 
 from them all. Fortune, and the changeful life of her 
 vocation, had brought her into contact with almost 
 every type of the class to which, vaguely, she assigned 
 Peter Corbyn ; she had enjoyed her share, at least, of 
 careless friendships, of friendships that had waxed 
 and waned, of jealous enmities. They were good 
 fellows " good sorts," as she might have put it some, 
 even most, of the men whom she had known ; he was a 
 " good sort " too. They had amused her, fallen in love 
 with her, crossed her quick temper ; she had quarrelled 
 with them, forgotten them. But he She shook her 
 head and smiled, recalling herself. 
 
 " But, you mustn't be sentimental," she protested. 
 " You you must amuse me, you know. I didn't mean 
 ' sentimental ' quite." She shrugged her shoulders, as 
 he looked across at her, puzzled for a moment, 
 questioningly. 
 
 " Oh," she added, " that's your business, to know what 
 I mean ! " 
 
 Corbyn smiled. " I undertake the task, with cheerful 
 submission and tempered enthusiasm; but aren't you 
 going to tell me about your new part?" 
 
 "My new part?" She echoed his words, with a 
 gesture of despair. "It's turning my hair grey; wait 
 till I get the author into a secluded corner he'll learn 
 something to his advantage, as the agony column says. 
 It's too bad of Mr. Rome not to write another play ; when 
 you see him you may tell him so, with my compliments." 
 
 " You should tell him so yourself ; it might have an 
 effect. That reminds me talking of Rome last night 
 quite a story." 
 
 He paused, and the girl looked at him enquiringly. 
 
 " We were with Montie Villiers last night, over the 
 water. They are going to put on a pantomime; I 
 expect great things of it."
 
 314 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " I shouldn't. Well, and Mr. Rome your story ? " 
 
 Corbyn hesitated for a moment. " I enticed him to 
 transpontine wilds to see a debutante a possible 
 Geertje, you know ; and Rome recognised her as an old 
 friend. That's all." 
 
 " That's all ! " echoed the girl whimsically. 
 
 " Really," she added a minute later, meeting her com- 
 panion's imperturbable smile with an impatient flash of 
 her blue eyes, "one might imagine that you were Mr. 
 Rome telling his wife." 
 
 " I wish I were ! " put in Corbyn quickly. " I mean 
 not Rome, of course ! " 
 
 A faint colour rose to Miss Lucerne's face, as she 
 quickly interposed. 
 
 " You wish you were telling Mrs. Rome, instead of 
 declining to tell me." 
 
 Corbyn sighed. " I think you know what I wish." 
 
 " Just imagine me cast for an ingenue," Miss Lucerne 
 put in inconsequently, as the waiter served coffee, and 
 Corbyn produced his cigarette-case. "And, my dear 
 Peter, such an ingenue I " 
 
 Corbyn laughed. " As if you couldn't do anything in 
 that line from Juliet to Jane Eyre." 
 
 "Vastly polite," nodded the actress ; " particularly Jane 
 Eyre. I didn't suggest that I couldn't, you know. But, 
 Lord, this creature ! In the first place, she's cursed with 
 a moralising old father, who quavers, and wavers, and " 
 
 "I know," Corbyn interrupted. "Regular dodderer. 
 Grey-hairs-with-sorrow brand. And you're the serpent's 
 tooth, of course." 
 
 " Not at all ! The prop of his declining years ! " 
 
 " Well," said Corbyn, smiling, " fire away prop him 
 up. Nice sympathetic part ; I can hear the tears 
 dripping from the gallery into the dress circle, and the 
 stalls sniffing."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 315 
 
 " Wretch ! Oh and the creature is in love, if you 
 please ! " 
 
 " Never heard of an ingenue who wasn't particularly 
 the kind with doddering parents." 
 
 "Perhaps you think you're being nice, and sym- 
 pathetic," the girl protested indignantly. " Of course 
 they are ; but they don't all behave as if they had a 
 monopoly of the experience, and wanted everyone to 
 know it. Anyhow, I'd sooner play Ibsen, any day." 
 
 " Well," said Corbyn with decision, " you would be 
 perfect as Nora. Can you dance a tarantella ? " 
 
 "Miss Lucerne ignored the interruption, frowning a 
 little as she sipped her coffee. 
 
 "Perhaps, if I were in love myself," she suggested, 
 drumming with her fingers on the table in the most 
 matter-of-fact way. 
 
 Corbyn eyed his cigarette intently, scrutinising the 
 gilt letters of the maker's name at one end of the white 
 cylinder. 
 
 " But you're not," he put in brusquely, as she paused. 
 
 The girl shot a stealthy glance at him. The lines of 
 her companion's mouth hardened a little, as he gazed 
 with absent eyes at his empty coffee-cup. A brief 
 silence followed; he looked at his watch, exclaiming 
 that it was late, and summoned the waiter. 
 
 When he had paid the bill he crossed the room in 
 search of his umbrella, which the waiter had success- 
 fully concealed. 
 
 " Dear idiot," murmured Miss Lucerne, following him 
 for an instant with her eyes, before she turned, in- 
 stinctively, to consult a convenient mirror.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 WHEN he had left Corbyn, in a vehement desire to be 
 alone, Adrian walked rapidly on, careless and uncertain 
 of his direction : and he must have wandered long and 
 far before a heavy torrent of rain recalled him, as from 
 a great distance, to the lateness of the hour, the strange- 
 ness of the place. He had been threading his devious 
 way through the purlieus of Westminster ; he had some 
 trouble to find a cab; and when he let himself into 
 his own house, it was dark and silent. His wife had 
 doubtless long since gone to bed. Drawing a long 
 breath of relief that this was so, he entered his library, 
 stirred up the dying fire, and lit all the candles he could 
 lay his hands upon. Mentally and physically, he had 
 need of a violent illumination. And he sat down by his 
 writing-table, and strove to recollect himself, to focus the 
 events of the evening. 
 
 They had been trivial enough, the things that had 
 happened, the words he had spoken ; yet he was con- 
 scious that they represented some change in his life, 
 which had gradually come to be such a routine of 
 ennui ; they inaugurated a crisis. Nothing was very 
 tangible, nothing was at all clear ; but through a sort of 
 mist, which had overcast his mind, one fact shone like a 
 lantern, like a beacon of safety. " Sylvia has come 
 back" 
 
 A beacon of safety was it, or perhaps, rather, some 
 dubious will-o'-the-wisp, to lure him into fatal morasses ? 
 
 316
 
 ADRIAN ROME 317 
 
 No, it was of safety, it must be so : of safety ! And he 
 repeated the name to himself very softly : " Sylvia 
 Sylvia!" 
 
 Yet he had said but little to her, in their brief and 
 embarrassed progress through the teeming streets. 
 
 He was glad to see her again, she also was glad ; she 
 had heard of him, of his triumphs, of the success which 
 she had always hoped for and prophesied ; and, in a brief 
 allusion to his marriage, she had the air, very frankly, 
 of assuming that that was part of it. Did she notice 
 his swift evasion of the subject, turning to herself with 
 a few brief questions as to her life and interests ? The 
 stage ? No, she pretended to no vocation for it ; but 
 she had a need to earn her living, and that seemed the 
 most natural and simple way, since her only relations 
 were in " the profession." 
 
 He hated the phrase from her lips, and the idea 
 which it connoted; that was the most personal note 
 he struck ; and at her faint smile, perhaps, a trifle 
 sad, which was her only answer to this inconsequent 
 remonstrance, he had been quick to retract. What 
 right, in fine . . . 
 
 At the door, she had held out a friendly hand to him. 
 
 " Of course, I must see you again," he had said. 
 
 " If you go sometimes to the theatre." 
 
 She had looked vaguely aloof, had not encouraged his 
 request to call upon her. Indeed, her whole attitude 
 seemed to convey a quiet assumption of their divided 
 ways ways grown too separate to be bridged over by 
 any friendliness. Yet just at the last, when the gas- 
 light over the door fell full upon his face, her eyes had 
 seemed to dwell upon it with a glance, quickly repressed, 
 that was almost tender, that might have been pitying 
 and that was all. 
 
 The door of the shabby-genteel villa had shut her in
 
 3 i8 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 from him. And he began to think of that house and its 
 tenants : the fluent, vulgar actor-manager ; his wife, the 
 serio-comic lady ; kind, no doubt, but, in relation to 
 Sylvia, filling him with a dumb rage, and detestable. 
 
 Suddenly, at last, he seized pen and paper and began 
 to write to her. This was his letter. 
 
 " Sylvia, you must not misunderstand me ; that at 
 least we owe to old days. When I saw you to-night, 
 we were afraid, uneasy. There were things to be said, 
 and we had no chance or time to say them. There was 
 a shadow between us, of something which does not 
 exist, can never exist estrangement. Oh, Sylvia, my 
 friend, is it any reason, because we travelled apart, 
 that now when chance has thrown us together again, 
 we must avoid one another ? I must come and see you. 
 I will tell you why. I beg it of you of the old Sylvia. 
 I want you to help me, to help my work : you once 
 cared for it, believed in it. It is like to die without 
 you. I have gone as a blind man, wandering. Yourself 
 gave me light again, and put me in the way I had lost, 
 and I seemed to see the things I had seen and once I 
 saw visions. And I am afraid lest the light should go 
 out. Sylvia, write and tell me that I may come to 
 
 you." 
 
 It was a little note, but the candles were flickering in 
 their sockets before he had ended it ; for, between each 
 spasmodic sentence, his fingers had lain idle, whilst his 
 mind span out unwritten pages. He sealed it, without 
 reading it over, in a fear of that cold reaction which 
 follows any effort after sincere expression, lest it should 
 tempt him to destroy it ; and it was a like dread which 
 caused him to steal out himself to post it, in the grey 
 morning, whilst the impression was still fresh upon 
 him. 
 
 The house was dormant, steeped in that oppressive
 
 ADRIAN ROME 319 
 
 silence which only a great house exhales, in a great 
 city, when both are slumbering. There was something 
 guilty about it ; but as Adrian passed quietly by his 
 wife's door, on his way to his own room, it was with no 
 feeling of guilt, but with a mingled sense of pity and of 
 the inevitable that he thought of her. He slept a heavy, 
 dreamless sleep until nearly midday. 
 
 " Mrs. Rome bade me give you this, sir," his servant 
 told him as he descended, and he handed Adrian the 
 laconic note in which his wife informed him of the day's 
 proceedings. She had gone out to lunch ; there was 
 this to be done ; such and such guests were coming to 
 dinner ; they had a box for the French play. " Henry 
 Minaret was here yesterday was sorry to miss you 
 again." 
 
 There was nothing novel about this bulletin indeed, 
 it had become a matter of almost daily occurrence 
 except the last item, which (strangely enough, for he 
 loved the man) gave Adrian an indefinable feeling of 
 uneasiness. But this impression, and all thought of 
 his wife, even the almost unconscious irritation caused 
 by her formality, as though she would accentuate the 
 fact of their differences, vanished as he shut himself into 
 his library. 
 
 The raindrops still hung to the yellowing trees in 
 the square, but to-day they glistened jewel-like in a 
 mellow sunshine ; and through the windows, when, for a 
 moment, he opened them, the cool odour of wet earth 
 filtered agreeably. The room, which he had grown to 
 hate, with all its memories of ineffectual effort and dis- 
 heartening self-interrogation, seemed to have become 
 bright with promise. Sylvia had come back ; Sylvia's 
 eyes shone to him out of the sombre bookcases ; Sylvia 
 would write to him. 
 
 He began to sum up the possibilities, the probabilities
 
 320 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 of a response from her ; then dismissed the conjecture 
 peremptorily as an outrage upon his faith, his certitude. 
 And to distract himself, to avoid the tedious counting of 
 the hours or days which must elapse before the desired 
 line could reach him, he took out the neglected manu- 
 script of the book which had been nearest his heart, 
 from the drawer, into which, months before, he had 
 despairingly flung it. 
 
 He began to peruse them those "Sensations of 
 Florio," forlornly near completion, never, he had come to 
 say, to be completed ; at first, with a sort of indistinct 
 repugnance, with the gene with which one encounters 
 afresh a person once loved, but long grown distasteful ; 
 but as he read, in the new light which had been shed 
 upon him, he found himself caught up suddenly in the 
 warm embrace of his idea. This phrase was good, that 
 situation contained inevitable Tightness ; a revision here, 
 a compression there, and the climax which he had sought 
 for so tediously was revealed to him in a logical and 
 admirable lucidity; it should be tragical perfection. 
 And he flung himself into his work, with a feverish 
 ardour which, two days before, would have been incred- 
 ible to him, covering page after page with his loose 
 handwriting, and, against his usual habit, writing 
 rapidly and almost without erasure. 
 
 The light waned ; his man silently brought in candles, 
 and he still wrote on, insensible to the noises about the 
 house, voices and announcements, the coming and going 
 of carriages. He waved aside the notion of dinner with 
 a bare excuse ; they brought in a tray of sandwiches, 
 some decanters. He poured himself out a whisky -and- 
 seltzer, which he drank with eager thirst, and went on 
 writing. He was unconscious of the time, but it must 
 have been very late, when at length, in sheer physical 
 fatigue, morally refreshed though he was by the effort
 
 ADRIAN ROME 321 
 
 of creation, he dropped his pen, and gathering together 
 the scattered sheets, began to read over the result of his 
 labour. And as he read, he felt an amazed joy, not to be 
 overcome, as on how many occasions in the past, by the 
 reaction of disgust, which is too often the ironic reward 
 of the deadliest travail of the artist. This time, what 
 he had written was written ; let it stand ; it was vivid, 
 it was strong, it was just. Never before had he seemed 
 to have drawn so near to the perfect expression of that 
 haunting, visionary idea which he had followed. 
 
 He was engaged at his task, now correcting, now 
 erasing a word, but still flushed with that joy, grown so 
 rare with him, of satisfaction with the accomplished, 
 when the door opened softly, and his wife entered. 
 
 She had carnations, rose and white, in her hair ; she 
 wore an opera-cloak, feathered in whiteness, over a gown 
 of sea-green silk sprayed with roses : she had never 
 looked statelier, more handsome. The light from the 
 shaded candles tinged and softened the cold precision of 
 her beauty, and Adrian, losing for a moment his resent- 
 ment in aesthetic admiration, yielded to an instinctive 
 movement of pride in her possession. And at the same 
 time with the artist's need of sympathy, appealing to 
 her as he might have done to any casual comer, he held 
 up the sheet which he was correcting, his hand trembling 
 a little. 
 
 "See, Marion, I have had a splendid day. I have 
 been in the vein. My book is almost finished." 
 
 She unclasped the buckle of her cloak deliberately 
 before she answered him, drawing a deep breath. 
 
 " Yes ... I am glad to hear it. You seem to have 
 been a long time over it." 
 
 He could not see her quickly suppressed gesture of 
 aversion, nor the hardening of the lines round her 
 mouth ; but the ice in her voice was a subtile indication
 
 322 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 to him, and her indifference steeled him anew to 
 her. 
 
 " I shall be able to finish it to-morrow," he said 
 quickly. 
 
 He suffered a moment of vexatious shame at his 
 inconsequent appeal to her; his long fingers fumbled 
 nervously with his disordered papers ; her presence 
 there troubled him ; the strange woman ! What was his 
 work to her, or she to him? In God's name, what had 
 they to do with one another ? He wished that she would 
 go, leave him alone with his other life, his possibilities. 
 He began to glance over the papers again, and it was out 
 of the distance that her voice presently reached him. 
 
 " I didn't come to talk about your book. I am afraid I 
 have disturbed you. But I wanted to speak to you, and 
 you give me I have so few opportunities : I must take 
 them when I can find them. Yesterday " 
 
 " Yesterday, I was very busy," he interrupted hurriedly. 
 His attention was now riveted ; he had half turned 
 round in his chair, and was regarding her with anxious 
 apprehension. She had spoken with seeming indiffer- 
 ence, but her eyes were extraordinarily brilliant ; and he 
 suddenly became disagreeably conscious that, under her 
 calm exterior, she was passionately agitated. 
 
 " It's very late," he said nervously. He felt that they 
 were drifting towards what he hated most in the world, 
 an explanation. Hitherto, the situation had existed, but 
 it had not been explicit. For Adrian, this was the one 
 fact which saved it ; and it was through fear of himself, 
 and of what might come to them, if once the seal were to 
 be set upon their estrangement by an admission of it, that 
 he made a last effort to stay her. 
 
 " It is very late, Marion. You look tired, and I am 
 utterly. If you have anything to say, hadn't it better 
 wait till to-morrow ? "
 
 ADRIAN ROME 323 
 
 She looked at him in silence for a moment, then she 
 broke out suddenly 
 
 "To-morrow? Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow it is 
 all the same. When did I see you last ? How long is 
 this life to go on ? " 
 
 The cluster of blood-coloured carnations, that stained 
 the whiteness of her bosom, surged tumultuously. It 
 was the first time that Adrian had detected any sign 
 of discomposure, of exaltation, through the perfection 
 of his wife's demeanour. And this observation restored 
 his own nerve. If Marion was going to make a scene, 
 so much the worse ; he had sought to stave it off. At 
 least, if it was inevitable, he could face it with the 
 advantage of self-possession. 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " he asked, with a little sigh. 
 But they both remained standing, and he went on after 
 a moment" What life ? " 
 
 " Oh," she cried, with a gesture of elision, " you can 
 ask it?" 
 
 He pulled his moustache thoughtfully for a moment. 
 Then gravely 
 
 "Listen, Marion, and consider. I understand what 
 you mean, what you are going to say. I beg you to 
 pause before you say it. Why can't you let things be ? 
 There is something to me appalling about words ; they 
 can't be retracted, or glossed over ; they remain. Oh ! 
 one should be careful about words. For your own sake, 
 for my sake you don't know what it may involve ! 
 let us avoid any explanation ; don't let us specify our 
 position." 
 
 " Our position ! " She repeated the phrase in a wrath 
 of scorn. " It is intolerable ; it's horrible ! It's obvious 
 to the world!" 
 
 " Hush ! " He held out his hand deprecatingly. " If 
 our marriage has failed, if we are as completely apart
 
 324 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 as any two married lovers ever became, is that a 
 reason. . ." He paused for a moment; then went on 
 suddenly "Don't let us recriminate. I have always 
 tried to consider you. You have had everything you 
 wanted." 
 
 " Everything ! " She drew a deep breath. " How 
 much you must hate me ! " she exclaimed. " And who 
 is the woman ? " 
 
 He grew very pale ; his calmness suddenly abandoned 
 him. 
 
 "It isn't true . . . You shouldn't have said it," he 
 stammered. 
 
 They stood facing each other, rigid and pale, for a 
 few seconds of exhausting silence, which Marion was 
 the first to break. She had regained her self-control. 
 Her smile seemed a natural thing ; her voice had 
 resumed its habitual inflexion of coldness. 
 
 " I was speaking foolishly," she said. " I came about 
 something quite different. I have no wish to interfere 
 in your life. It is quite beyond my comprehension. I 
 suppose you are coming to Brackenmuir with me on the 
 20th ? So long as we live under the same roof, we owe 
 something to appearances, to society." 
 
 It was Adrian's turn to let fall an involuntary 
 bitterness. 
 
 "O God!" he cried. "Haven't I sacrificed enough 
 to it?" 
 
 She looked at him with eyes in which genuine aston- 
 ishment was depicted. 
 
 "I don't understand you," and, gathering her cloak 
 together "I don't think I want to understand you." 
 
 " Good-night," he said wearily, and held the door for 
 her sweeping drapery to pass through. 
 
 When she had left him, he sat down at his writing- 
 table, and gathered together the mass of his papers, with
 
 ADRIAN ROME 325 
 
 an almost personal tenderness. But his mind had been 
 diverted from them, and he only laid them aside. He 
 buried his face in his hands, and sat idly. He was 
 almost grateful to his wife for the light she had 
 struck. 
 
 " Sylvia, Sylvia ! " he murmured, and presently, exult- 
 ing as it were in his new conviction " Oh, my love, my 
 love!"
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE same filial piety which had made it natural for Lord 
 Henry Minaret to address letters, affectionate, if brief, to 
 his mother, at frequent intervals, during his absence 
 from England, prompted him to devote the first days 
 of his return to an attendance upon the widowed 
 Duchess at Turreyfield, the dower house, a stone's- 
 throw from the gates of Towers, to which, shortly 
 after her husband's death, she had very willingly 
 betaken herself. His father's testamentary disposi- 
 tions had left Lord Henry a richer man than his 
 elder brother, who had encumbered so heavily the 
 estates to which he succeeded as tenant for life, that 
 he was practically dependent upon the dubiously 
 acquired dollars of his Duchess. This lady seemed 
 by no means inclined to abandon her control of purse- 
 strings that had already become somewhat frayed in 
 her spendthrift husband's service. She was intimidated, 
 perhaps, by her strangely abrupt arrival at the altitude 
 which, a year ago, had tempted her speculative eye; 
 struck, as an unpractised mountaineer, by sudden dizzi- 
 ness. Retrenchment flew its colours on the battlements 
 of Towers. Guests were infrequent; the magnates of 
 the county perfunctory in their homage. The new 
 Duke was not accounted seriously; a stop-gap, mani- 
 festly, whose days were numbered. He had done his 
 worst; even scandal had grown tired of his name. 
 It was plain that the hour of his reckoning was at 
 
 326
 
 ADRIAN ROME 327 
 
 hand, that at last he was to be called upon for his 
 quota of the price which his family had grown accus- 
 tomed to pay. 
 
 Lord Henry, all things considered, could afford to be 
 magnanimous. He was polite to the Duchess, forbearing 
 with his brother, whom, after all, it was better policy 
 to pacify than to provoke. It is possible that his 
 exile admittedly disciplinary had not been without 
 its effect, in the direction of a certain habit of self- 
 restraint. At least, he was philosopher enough to 
 realise the futility of cherishing resentment against a 
 fellow-mortal, however malignantly aberrant; prudent 
 enough to recognise that he had nothing to gain by 
 relinquishing a standpoint which enabled him to keep 
 a discreet eye upon his brother's proceedings. 
 
 The invention of cards redoubtable link of the wise 
 with the wayward enabled the two brothers to spend 
 long evenings together without drawing too heavily 
 upon a limited fund of common interests. The Duke 
 had learned to keep sober when a game of piquet or 
 e'carte' was in progress. His brother discovered the fact, 
 and made good use of his discovery. 
 
 Some weeks before Christmas, however, the dower 
 house was temporarily abandoned, and Lord Henry 
 accompanied his mother to Clarges Street. Already, 
 he had paid flying visits to town, had dined with 
 intimate friends, interviewed leaders of his party, but 
 it was from this time that he dated his formal return to 
 civilisation ; from an exile which, in spite of its brevity, 
 had seemed to him prolonged. It had struck him at 
 first as strange, that his advent should be so quietly 
 accepted ; that the waiters at his club should recognise 
 him with so little of effort or surprise ; that his passage 
 along Piccadilly or Pall Mall should not be interrupted 
 by salutations more allusive and impassioned.
 
 328 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 The days passed, and he fell into the old routine; 
 realised that other people were not altered at all ; that 
 he was altered, perhaps, less than he had apprehended. 
 The House had never engrossingly engaged his atten- 
 tion, and it was but little that he missed the occupation 
 which, a year ago, his position as member had provided 
 for many idle hours. And in this direction, too, with 
 the assistance of a ready-made constituency, and a con- 
 venient bye-election, restitution seemed imminent. As 
 Mrs. Vesper said, summing up the situation for him one 
 evening after dinner, he had only to ask, the world was 
 at his feet. 
 
 " Ask no, you needn't," she added, yielding her coffee- 
 cup to him. " You have only to sit still to do what is 
 expected mapped out for you." 
 
 " And ' we do the rest ' ! " Lord Henry put in, rather 
 defiantly. " Really, it's almost too simple ! " 
 
 " Ah, you young men ! " Mrs. Vesper murmured, with 
 faint reprobation. "If you only knew when to be 
 patient, and when to strike out for yourselves ! Well, 
 I admit," she added, with her gracious smile, "for a 
 young man, you have been patient, and it wasn't 
 simple. After all, I'm not sure that you are not my 
 most promising pupil ! " 
 
 She paused, glancing towards the door. Guests were 
 arriving. Mrs. Vesper was "at home," and music was 
 promised. Mrs. Rome had just been announced. Dal- 
 rymple Green followed her closely, and, just behind, 
 Lady Verrinder brought the charm of her fragile 
 prettiness. 
 
 Mrs. Vesper glanced at her guest sharply, before she 
 turned to receive the new-comers. 
 
 " Give a man the whole world, and he will still cry 
 for the moon ! " 
 
 Lord Henry bit his lip, as he followed his Amazon of
 
 ADRIAN ROME 329 
 
 Parthian shafts into the middle of the room. Almost be- 
 fore he had time to fling to the occasion the merest scrap 
 of the consideration that it deserved to be sure, before- 
 hand he had considered it enormously he found himself 
 exchanging conventional greetings with Lady Verrinder. 
 Another instant, and she had passed on, leaving him a 
 victim to the imperturbable smile of Gerald Brooke 
 never so disconcerting as when it was least allusive. To 
 Dairy mple Green, who rescued him from the gossamer 
 web of the wit, he listened with a masterly display 
 of attention, conveniently corroborated by his frowning 
 brow. Released, presently, by the kindly intervention 
 of music, he withdrew to a corner of the smaller portion 
 of the double room, a point from which, through a jungle 
 of heads and shoulders, he could catch occasional glimpses 
 of the face of Marjorie Verrinder, who was sitting on a 
 sofa with Mrs. Rome. 
 
 Marjorie Verrinder. Their hostess had pronounced 
 the name in his hearing, and it had struck him, curiously, 
 as at once familiar and strange. Now, as his physical 
 vision came to the assistance of thoughts that for many 
 months had not been idle, he became gradually aware 
 of an impression a sensation. He sought in vain 
 for a precise definition of his feeling. Loss change. 
 Vaguely these features loomed in the ghost that was 
 with him. 
 
 He buried himself in his thoughts, to be recalled 
 presently by the murmur, breaking quickly into un- 
 fettered conversation, which marked the cessation of 
 the music, to be rallied on the severity of his frown. 
 Steering a difficult course, with the skill of a practised 
 navigator of crowded drawing-rooms, he found himself 
 at Lady Verrinder's elbow, just in time to hear her take 
 leave of her hostess. She had another engagement, she 
 explained ; was to call for her husband, and take him to
 
 330 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 an entertainment, which, she protested gracefully, pro- 
 mised to be far less delightful than that which she was 
 obliged to abandon. She acknowledged, with a nod and 
 half a word, Lord Henry's suggestion that he should see 
 her safely installed in her carriage, and together they 
 made their way down the stairs. 
 
 She turned to him, flushed, and a little breathless, 
 when they had escaped to the seclusion of the hall. 
 
 " I suppose it doesn't matter ? " she said, breaking an 
 awkward silence rather recklessly. "People would talk, 
 I mean, anyhow. Will you ask for my carriage ? I 
 have an uneasy feeling that I forgot to tell the man 
 that I should be leaving early : I will go and find my 
 cloak." 
 
 He stood silent for a moment, looking at her, gravely 
 and wistfully, before she turned away. Five minutes 
 later he met her again, with the announcement that her 
 doubt was confirmed, that her carriage was not in 
 waiting. 
 
 "So I have secured a hansom," he added. "I hope 
 you won't mind ? And you will let me take you home 
 won't you ? " 
 
 She glanced from him to the impassive face of Mrs. 
 Vesper's footman, with momentary hesitation; then 
 yielded her arm to him with a murmur of acquiescence. 
 
 The night was cold and cheerless; a pale moon 
 floated high in a surf of broken clouds ; the lamplight 
 was reflected dankly in wet pavements, and the yellow 
 rays seemed to swim shapeless in the liquid air. 
 
 It was Marjorie who broke the silence at last, with a 
 trivial question, such as Lord Henry had answered daily 
 since his return to England, about his impressions of 
 Canada. He met the enquiry with a short laugh, almost 
 contemptuous, and halting words. 
 
 "You did not seem so far from me when I was in
 
 ADRIAN ROME 331 
 
 Canada," he concluded, almost impersonally. " I had to 
 come back; I'm afraid I shall have to stay." 
 
 "Really!" she protested, arching her delicate eyebrows 
 at his reflection, that confronted her in the little oblong 
 mirror at her side. " That's absurd, you know ! " 
 
 His gesture of assent was tempered by a smile, faintly 
 suggestive of imperfect resignation. The horse was 
 reined back sharply at a crossing, to avoid a reckless 
 wayfarer. Marjorie frowned, and averted her eyes 
 impatiently, as she encountered the gaze, at once doleful 
 and listless, of her companion. 
 
 " I beg your pardon " he began a little stiffly. " I 
 have no right . . ." Marjorie interrupted him with an 
 impatient murmur; then she sighed, with momentary 
 self-abandonment. 
 
 " You you haven't changed, you're just the same," 
 she continued, half regretfully. " Oh, don't look at me 
 as if I was a riddle ! I'm not I'm dreadfully simple. 
 If only you would accept that ! I don't pretend to have 
 forgotten that that a thousand years ago you we 
 thought we loved each other well, yesterday, if you 
 will. Yesterday, or a thousand years it's all the 
 same." 
 
 " I haven't changed," he said slowly. 
 
 "But " He paused, then added almost brutally, 
 " You you're different." 
 
 She shrank into her corner, looking at him askance 
 with deprecating eyes. Then, in a flash of swift under- 
 standing, she struck home at the heart of his misgiving. 
 " You mean it's not me me that you're in love with ! 
 Ah, don't you see, you're in love with the little girl who 
 let you make love to her at Towers Marjorie Lancaster 
 the Marjorie Lancaster of your imagination." 
 
 She paused, breathless with her discovery, and the 
 force of her denunciation ; then went on, a little sadly,
 
 332 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 to interrupt his half-hearted protestations. "Oh, you 
 can't deny it and, after all, isn't it better so ? I don't 
 know am I heartless ? How strange life is and 
 difficult! I like you I always liked you. You 
 mustn't hate me you mustn't pity me ! " 
 
 " Marjorie," he murmured. " Marjorie ! " 
 
 "My husband" she continued "he doesn't make me 
 unhappy ... I shall be with him presently we are 
 going to hear Joachim, at the Lightmarks' ; music 
 always makes him go to sleep. . . . He is kind to me, 
 I care for him. Oh, please don't hold problems at 
 my head ! I'm a trivial, frivolous wretch do you 
 think I have no soul, perhaps like the mermaid ? " 
 
 " No soul ! " Lord Henry repeated mechanically. " Do 
 you suppose I ever thought or cared? I loved you; 
 you told me that you that you loved me." 
 
 The cab pulled up with a jerk, and Lord Henry's low 
 tones were almost lost in the clatter. He swung the 
 doors back, with careful deliberation. 
 
 "I shall never love anyone else," he declared stubbornly, 
 looking at his companion askance, as he leaned forward, 
 with one hand on the splash-board. 
 
 Marjorie sighed. " You make me feel very dreadful," 
 she murmured, as she gave him her hand, and descended, 
 with a nice regard for her skirts, threatened by a muddy 
 wheel. " And yet and yet " 
 
 She paused, before she turned to ascend the steps of 
 the great sombre house. 
 
 " Who knows ? " she put in quickly as the door opened. 
 " I perhaps I shall never love anyone at all"
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 ON the third day of his expectation, Adrian received 
 Sylvia's answer to his letter. It seemed to him con- 
 strained, frigid, almost, in its bare acquiescence to his 
 request. So much indeed was conceded ; she would 
 grant him an interview; she would be at home that 
 afternoon, if he would call for her : but the thing seemed 
 to him to be granted grudgingly. And again, after 
 repeated perusal of the few almost formal lines, he could 
 fancy a certain dread, an apprehension lurked beneath 
 them, as though her gentleness had taken alarm. 
 
 She must have been waiting for him, however, for she 
 was herself immediately responsive to his knock, and she 
 stood before him in the narrow hall, arrayed for the 
 street, in hat and jacket. 
 
 The jingle of a piano in the upper regions flaunted 
 through the house an accompaniment to a woman's 
 voice, strong and metallic ; a music-hall melody, the words 
 of which were inaudible. Then the music stopped, and 
 there was a buzz of voices, a clash of laughter. 
 
 A slight flush came into the girl's paleness. 
 
 "It is rather noisy upstairs. Flossie my cousin's 
 wife is trying over a new song with Mr. Minchin he's 
 one of our friends. I thought you would sooner come 
 out for a bit of a walk." 
 
 "That would be pleasant," he said. "Where would 
 you like to go ? " 
 
 " The Park is not far," she said " Kennington Park, I 
 
 333
 
 334 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 mean. Perhaps you have never been there ? " And she 
 added apologetically, " It's not very big, you know ; but 
 I often go there; it's quiet there, and it's just green 
 enough to remind one of the real country." 
 
 He assented simply. As he paced by the girl's side he 
 was studying her more closely. 
 
 It was paler somewhat, shadowed slightly under the 
 great frank eyes, heavy-lidded, that face in which he 
 had read the promise of singular beauty; which he had 
 known as a child's face, as a young girl's face, and which 
 had now strayed fortuitously across his vision in its 
 accomplished womanhood. Moving with quiet grace at 
 his side, slim and delicate in her plain, dark gown, she 
 had, perhaps, an air less flowerlike than of old, bred of 
 the town, but by no means that of the theatre ; she was 
 so simple, and so inexplicably refined. As he regarded 
 her, the old tenderness of their relation came over him, 
 like a sudden flood of pale sunshine on a dreary day, 
 dissipating his first feeling of strangeness. He broke 
 the silence, a little awkwardly. 
 
 "It is a long time since we had a walk together, 
 Sylvia. It was very good of you to come." 
 
 She hesitated for a moment. 
 
 " I did not know what to do. Your letter made me 
 very sorry. It is rather sad, you know. I thought you 
 had quite forgotten me." 
 
 " Did you think I had such a bad memory ? " 
 
 He put the obvious question with an attempt at light- 
 ness, which he was conscious was a weak one. They 
 relapsed into silence ; and he reflected that, perhaps, she 
 had never known or doubted of his one ineffectual 
 attempt to see her, after her mother's death ; and fell to 
 wondering what difference it would have made to their 
 lives if chance had been with him then, and he had 
 encountered her.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 335 
 
 If she did not know, fickle and cold she might well 
 hold him ; and he was resolved on that subject, at least, 
 to enlighten her. He was too conscious of the many 
 vital errors which he had committed in his blind perver- 
 sity so it seemed to him not to accentuate the one 
 misadventure which he might account to fatality. 
 
 They had reached the entrance to the uninviting 
 enclosure which was their destination. It was quiet, as 
 the girl had said, and it had only the redeeming feature 
 of its quietude. Groups of squalid children draggled 
 about the tattered grass; a few loafers, of the class 
 which is neither employed nor seeks employment, sat 
 smoking, with disinterested eyes, or lay sleeping, on the 
 benches ; other frequenters there were few. 
 
 " And you come here often ? " Adrian asked curiously, 
 when they had found an isolated seat. " It isn't very 
 cheerful. It isn't much like the country like Under- 
 woods." Then he resumed quickly, without waiting for 
 her response, returning to his idea 
 
 " Did you ever know ? I went down to Underwoods 
 just after you had left. I went down to see you, but 
 you were not there." 
 
 She had taken off her gloves, and was smoothing them 
 between her pretty hands. 
 
 " I never heard," she said after a moment, and he 
 seemed to detect constraint in her voice. 
 
 " I wanted you to know ; I thought I should like to 
 tell you," he said with intention, and went on quickly : 
 " You must have thought me very heartless." 
 
 " No, no ! " she protested. " I knew you would be very 
 busy. You were in such a different world. I couldn't 
 expect " 
 
 He interrupted her, following his own train of 
 thought. 
 
 " I never could discover where you had gone. But I
 
 336 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 was not heartless only a fool. And, perhaps, it would 
 have made no difference." 
 
 " Difference ?" She looked at him with eyes in which 
 quiet astonishment only was depicted. 
 
 " It might have made a deal of difference to both our 
 lives," he went on doggedly, " if I had found you that 
 day at Underwoods. But the Fates would not have it, 
 and so I went away, and and here we are." 
 
 He took up a pebble and flung it across the grass 
 with a gesture of aimless discontent. 
 
 " What fools men are ; what a mess we make of our 
 lives," he said listlessly. 
 
 The girl laid her hand impulsively on his arm ; there 
 was pain in her face. 
 
 "I can't bear to hear you talk like that, Adrian." 
 Unconsciously, in her earnestness, she had resumed the 
 old intimate appellation. "I can't help guessing your 
 meaning, and I don't want to. It doesn't seem right ; 
 it makes me think I was wrong in seeing you. Perhaps 
 nobody is altogether happy. I am not very happy my- 
 self; but still " 
 
 " And what makes you unhappy ? " he put in quickly. 
 
 " Oh, things," she said evasively. " Only sometimes, 
 you know. I suppose I am happy enough." 
 
 " No, you are not," he cried, almost irritably. " And I 
 know what the ' things ' are. They are all your life : the 
 theatre, your cousin, the Flossies, and the Minchins 
 does Minchin want to marry you ? the unspeakable 
 crowd, the whole cursed environment. How should you 
 be happy in it ? " 
 
 She flushed slightly. 
 
 "I shall not marry Mr. Minchin. I don't sup- 
 pose I shall ever marry." And she resumed with a 
 dignity, half sad, half humorous, "And you mustn't 
 abuse the poor old theatre, and my cousins they are
 
 ADRIAN ROME 337 
 
 very kind, you know, and they are all the people I 
 have." 
 
 "Oh, I don't abuse them," he sighed. "Only there 
 should be a fitness in things . . . My dear," he went 
 on abruptly, " you know it is all wrong, and you hate it. 
 What's the use of trying to throw dust in our eyes ? 
 We might allow ourselves the luxury of being miserable 
 it's the only one left to us. I see everything so clearly 
 now." 
 
 " You mustn't speak for me," she protested. " I call 
 that unfair." 
 
 " As you like. It shall be a luxury all my own, then. 
 After all, the mistake, the folly have been all my own, 
 and I ought to be glad to pay the price of it alone, for 
 both of us." 
 
 The girl shifted on her seat uneasily. 
 
 " Would it make you any happier to believe that I was 
 paying too ? Isn't that rather unjust ? " 
 
 "Many things are unjust. It would make me 
 wretched, sublimely wretched. But am I to believe it, 
 Sylvia?" 
 
 She was silent for a moment, averted her face, then 
 she said gently 
 
 " Believe it a little, if it's any good to you." 
 
 He gave a deep inhalation, and she went on hurriedly, 
 with a confused effort to shape an evasive idea in words : 
 " But don't give too much thought to it. Oh, I was wrong 
 to have spoken so ! Don't don't think of it at all. 
 And why can't you look at things differently ? It makes 
 me sad to hear you speak so hopelessly. I had thought 
 it was all different. When I heard your name spoken, 
 how you were thought of, I was glad. Oh yes, glad, and 
 proud. I liked to think of you as being a great man. 
 And can it all be nothing ? You you who have every- 
 thing" 
 
 22
 
 338 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 He checked her, with a sudden, irrepressible gesture, 
 caught her wrist almost fiercely, and the passion vibrated 
 hoarsely through his voice. 
 
 "I wanted you, Sylvia. You are everything my 
 soul, and my heart, and my heart's blood, and without 
 you it doesn't beat, and I am starved and perished . . . 
 Yes, I have said it. Don't look at me with those fright- 
 ened eyes. You may hate me, I may hate myself, for 
 saying it, but I am consumed with love of you, and it 
 has been so oh, since the /world began ! And you you 
 may deny it with your lips, but your true eyes cannot ; 
 you will never love anyone as you love me ice and snow 
 as you are. It has got to be faced." 
 
 She had risen, as he poured out this confession, and 
 stood facing him. And her eyes seemed drawn to his 
 irresistibly, not so much in alarm, nor in maidenly pro- 
 test, as in a piteous appeal. 
 
 Suddenly he rose, and stood at her side. 
 
 " Shall we face the world together, you and I ?" he cried. 
 
 But she drew back hurriedly, pressing her hand to her 
 side, with a little sharp cry, like a dumb animal wronged. 
 Gradually, as he looked at her, the flame smouldered out 
 of his eyes, his figure seemed to shrink somewhat, and 
 his mouth was twisted into a bitter smile. 
 
 " Forgive me, dear," he said, " if I have hurt you. It 
 was stronger than myself. I was mad, indeed. Life is 
 so ghastly ; but for a moment I seemed to see a different 
 one stretch out, with no shadow of parting from you in 
 it, Sylvia. But I haven't the courage for myself, may 
 be but not for you. . . . Shall we go, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said absently, and they moved along in a 
 constrained silence. At the gates the girl paused, looked 
 at her watch. 
 
 " Leave me here," she said. " I have to be at the theatre." 
 
 He gave a little mirthless laugh.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 339 
 
 " You must go to the theatre, and the rest of it. And 
 I must go home to my dinner, and my wife perhaps she 
 is waiting for me. What we call the realities of life are 
 expecting us fools that we are. But we know in our 
 hearts, you and I, that all the reality there will ever be 
 for us we have just looked at in this dingy garden 
 looked at, and turned our backs on." 
 
 She held out her hand, which he just touched and 
 dropped again. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said, but added inwardly, as he turned 
 away from her, "And yet! If it is written, it is 
 written." 
 
 The idea of his own house was hateful to him, and he 
 drove to his club ; but, on entering it, knew not whether 
 he was glad or sorry to find it almost deserted, the 
 smoking-room untenanted. He felt jaded and unstrung, 
 with a notion that something of the storm which had torn 
 him might be visible in his demeanour. The waiter, 
 hovering near him in expectation of an order, irritated 
 him ; he fancied the man was watching him, and, to be 
 rid of him, impatiently ordered a brandy-and-soda. He 
 drank it at a draught, drew his chair to the fire, and a 
 slight glow played round the chill at his heart. It gave 
 him a moment's impulse of energy, enough to start him 
 anew upon his homeward way. As he footed it through 
 the crowded streets, the lassitude which had seized him 
 was changed into a dull exasperation. The people who 
 strolled or bustled past, well-groomed or slovenly, were 
 transformed into a jeering and hostile crowd. Unknown 
 and unimportant units as they were, indifferent in them- 
 selves, were they not, in the mass, the terrible force 
 which controlled one's life, which compelled obedience, 
 which was the slave-driver of beauty, and genius, and 
 knowledge; blind instrument of an unknown will, to 
 make men their own tormentors, and the victims of
 
 340 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 themselves ? The very physical discomfort of noisy 
 London on a dank winter's day, the rattle of the cum- 
 brous omnibuses, the shrill cries of the newsboys, seemed 
 to Adrian but symbols of his moral and intellectual 
 collapse. 
 
 Outside his house a neat victoria was standing, which 
 he was not at the trouble to identify ; but as he opened 
 the door the servant came to meet him, with an expres- 
 sion, almost of curiosity, on his usually impassive face. 
 
 " Mrs. Vesper is here, sir." 
 
 "Yes," he answered absently, delivering up his hat 
 and overcoat; and then, somewhat impatiently, as the 
 man still lingered, " Well, Hawkins, what of that ? I 
 suppose she has been shown up to Mrs. Rome ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir. Mrs. Rome left early in the 
 afternoon, I believe for the station. Mrs. Vesper asked 
 for you, sir. I said it was uncertain when you would 
 return, but she wished to see you." And he added, 
 apologetically, " She is in the library, sir. She pref ered 
 to wait there." 
 
 Rome knitted his brows nervously. 
 
 " Very well, Hawkins. Will you tell Mrs. Vesper that 
 I will be with her immediately." 
 
 He paused for a minute to collect himself, feeling that 
 something new was in the air, was indistinctly heralded 
 by a visit which had all the nature of the unwonted. 
 But a strange flutter round his heart warned him that 
 in his present mood disturbance was a good and salutary 
 thing, that nothing could henceforth be more desirable 
 than conflict. 
 
 As he opened the door, Mrs. Vesper rose to meet him 
 with an expression of annunciation on her hard, enig- 
 matical little face. Adrian murmured a few words of 
 apology. 
 
 " I am so sorry. I can't imagine what has become of
 
 ADRIAN ROME 341 
 
 my wife, and why they showed you into this den of 
 disorder. I hope you haven't waited long ? " 
 
 She waved away the inconvenience, with a little bird- 
 like gesture. 
 
 " It hasn't mattered in the least. I asked to be allowed 
 to stay here. I like so much to be with books one's 
 not alone. I hope you don't think it a dreadful piece of 
 audacity ? I went with Marion to the station, and came 
 back to see you, and explain." 
 
 " Explain ? " He looked at her blankly, and noticed 
 that she held a telegram crumpled up in one gloved 
 hand. " Has Marion gone away ? " 
 
 " To Towers, with Henry Minaret. I see you haven't 
 heard the news. The Duke of Turretshire his condi- 
 tion is most critical. It was important to be on the 
 field at once. There is no knowing what that woman 
 might have done have made away with." 
 
 " I see," he said, " Marion has gone to the rescue of the 
 family jewels." 
 
 " They are such fine ones," Mrs. Vesper said simply ; 
 and then she added inconsequently, " And you didn't 
 read it in the papers ? " 
 
 " I never read the papers." 
 
 " No ; of course you have other things to read." And 
 she went on quickly, "It is most fortunate that Lord 
 Henry should be at home. He will have everything, 
 we hope even if that unfortunate man has made a 
 will." 
 
 Adrian glanced at her, with a certain humour. 
 
 " Poor Lady Lancaster ! " he ejaculated, " she was too 
 precipitate." 
 
 Mrs. Vesper, with downcast eyes, seemed to give 
 assent to the sadness of the situation. 
 
 " Poor Lady Lancaster, indeed ! " she said. 
 
 Adrian had remained standing, and at this juncture
 
 342 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 he had the air of tacitly assuming that the interview 
 was at an end. But Mrs. Vesper still remained, and, as 
 they hesitated, he became aware that her tidings had 
 been a pretext she had more to say. 
 
 He steeled himself to confront her. 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " he said coldly. 
 
 She sank back, into the chair from which she had 
 risen on his arrival. 
 
 " It is true," she said, with an attempt at lightness, 
 " I had something else to say. I had a talk with Marion 
 to-day, which distressed me. Oh, the merest hint, of 
 course ; I have such a horror of of interference ; but I 
 couldn't be ignorant that there has been a sort of dis- 
 agreement. I know that I have no title, no right, 
 perhaps you will say, to intervene, but when one is an 
 old woman one must be pardoned an inconsequence, 
 and I must risk one. I mean," she went on, growing 
 desperate in the face of his chilly silence, he would 
 listen to her, but he would make no effort to help her, 
 " I mean that I am in a position to say that it is not too 
 late. Marion will make allowances ; you have both 
 been too hasty! Where true affection exists, it is so 
 easy ! Marion will meet you half-way. Oh, I hope I 
 make myself clear ! " 
 
 Adrian favoured her with a long and studied 
 scrutiny. Under her composure, he saw that she was 
 ill at ease, and the sight of the little worldly woman's 
 discomfiture gave him an odd pleasure. He felt that he 
 had a bitter grudge against her ; that she had committed 
 the unpardonable sin against him, had seemed to like 
 him, and had simply made use of him. 
 
 " You said just now that you had no title," he said at 
 last. 
 
 " Oh," she interrupted, " the title given by my affec- 
 tion for both of you."
 
 ADRIAN ROME 343 
 
 " I don't dispute it. You have every right to inter- 
 fere in my married life." He let his great bitterness 
 pierce through his calm. "Didn't you make it? 
 Aren't you the cause of it ? " And he went on, with the 
 irapassiveness of a judge summing up a case. " I have 
 no mind to dispute your right; what I deny, is the 
 utility of exercising it. Is the disagreement between 
 my wife and myself a matter of yesterday? Mrs. 
 Vesper, why couldn't you have let us alone ? Weren't 
 we always as remote 
 
 She leaned forward in her chair, interrupting him 
 again with a little cry of protest. 
 
 " Ah, don't, don't ! You can't imagine how you distress 
 me" 
 
 Adrian waited on her words deferentially. 
 
 Strangely calm, he found himself remotely interested, 
 wondering, dully, and impersonally almost, whether the 
 woman imperturbable mistress of emotion as he had 
 fancied her could genuinely be moved. He watched her 
 idly, a little pleased and distracted by the thought that 
 his words had pierced a cuirass so finely tempered as 
 that which he had accredited to her worldliness. 
 
 " A mistake," she murmured, dropping her eyes ; " I 
 won't I can't admit it. It is you who are blind, mis- 
 taken. Ah, poor Marion ! " 
 
 " Poor Marion ! " Adrian echoed gravely. 
 
 " At least you cannot blame her." 
 
 " Never in the world ! " put in the other impatiently. 
 " My dear Mrs. Vesper, I blame no one not even my- 
 self. That is a satisfaction which you are welcome to 
 enjoy, but believe, at least, that it is denied to me ! " 
 
 They had both risen, and Mrs. Vesper confronted him, 
 leaning with one hand on the back of her chair. 
 
 "I don't understand," she said slowly. "This is a 
 mood, I suppose. Your father had moods . . . but they
 
 344 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 passed, like clouds. Was I foolish to interest myself 
 in the marriage of your father's son ? " 
 
 Rome was silent; his eyes smouldered ominously in 
 his pale, constrained face ; it was plain to his visitor 
 that her mediation had failed. She composed herself, 
 smiling, a little wearily, nicely mindful of the emblems 
 of an honourable defeat. 
 
 " Pray make allowance for the anxiety of an dd 
 woman ! " she exclaimed more lightly, holding out 
 her neat gloved hand. " Marion would never forgive 
 me . . ." 
 
 He took her hand for an instant, bowing over it with 
 ceremony. She turned towards him, as he held tlie 
 door open for her to pass. 
 
 " And I if it is true that I interfered, at least you 
 cannot suggest that I had anything to gain." 
 
 He bowed again, rather acknowledging than meeting 
 her challenge. 
 
 " For you that is doubtless a matter of congratulation." 
 
 Mrs. Vesper threw a shrewd glance at him before she 
 turned away. 
 
 " But you you think that makes it worse ! " she 
 murmured quickly, as she stepped into her carriage.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 SOME ten days later, the door of Rome's house had just 
 closed behind Peter Corbyn, when he was confronted by 
 the figure of a tall and blonde young man, whose 
 pleasant face seemed strangely, and yet distantly 
 familiar. The hesitating recognition in his own eyes 
 was shadowed for a moment in the other's ; then they 
 both smiled simultaneously, and gripped cordial hands. 
 
 " I am going in to see Rome," explained Lord Henry 
 Minaret, nodding his head in the direction of the house ; 
 and there was a note curiously anxious in his frank 
 voice, which seemed to lie in wait for the other's 
 answer. 
 
 "You may spare yourself the trouble of ringing; I 
 have been on the same errand." 
 
 " Oh, he hasn't come back yet ? That's a bore." 
 
 He spoke with an assumption of lightness, but frowned 
 as he fingered the buttons of his glove ; and the other 
 was the less deceived, in that, although he masked himself 
 with more subtilty, he was himself a prey to a certain 
 hardly definable fear. Corbyn was the first to realise 
 that their position there, procrastinating irresolutely on 
 the doorstep, began to partake of the grotesque. 
 
 "Well, I am afraid it is useless to wait," he re- 
 marked. 
 
 Lord Henry flushed awkwardly ; then he shot a glance 
 at the other's good-humoured face, and seemed reassured 
 by his scrutiny. 
 
 Ml
 
 346 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 " Would you let me walk with you ? Any way is the 
 same to me." 
 
 "With all the pleasure in the world. I am going 
 home ; I live in the Temple." 
 
 " I'll come part of the way with you." Lord Henry 
 spoke with greater blitheness. Then, when they had 
 gone a few paces, he burst out suddenly 
 
 " It's deucedly odd !" 
 
 Corbyn made no feint of ignoring his meaning. 
 
 " Yes, it's odd," he said, with a little sigh. 
 
 " I think you are a great friend of Rome's. I believe 
 he is awfully attached to you." 
 
 " We are old friends," said the other cautiously. 
 
 " Deucedly odd ! " Lord Henry resumed. " There are 
 things one doesn't like to talk about, you know; one 
 doesn't like to go prying into a fellow's affairs. But I've 
 got a sort of rightr I mean, as Mrs. Rome's cousin, don't 
 you know ; and you can say what you wish to me. In 
 fact," he blurted out, " I think if you know anything, 
 what he means, where he is gone, and so on, for the 
 sake of of the family, you ought to tell us." 
 
 Corbyn reflected silently for a moment. He was glad 
 of this opportunity, of these confidences ; he was a prey 
 to an uneasiness even more acute than that of his com- 
 panion, because, if like him he was extremely in the 
 dark, he had a point of suspicion to lean uncomfortably 
 upon : there were incidents within his knowledge which 
 the other might not know. 
 
 " Yes," he said at last. " It is better to speak out, and 
 you can perfectly depend upon me. But I must begin 
 by telling you that I know next to nothing. I was 
 never in Rome's confidence. He didn't tell me that he 
 was going ; he hasn't told me where he has gone." 
 
 " Thank you," said Lord Henry with a sigh. " I felt 
 at once you were the sort of man one could talk to
 
 ADRIAN ROME 347 
 
 about it. You see," he went on quickly, surmounting 
 his scruples with a rush, " the last time I saw him, we 
 had a bit of a row. It hasn't all been straight sailing, 
 with his wife, you know. I daresay you remarked 
 that yourself that they were not a very united 
 couple." 
 
 Corbyn maintained a decorous silence, and the other 
 went on ruefully. 
 
 " Well, of late it has been getting worse, and I, like an 
 ass, must needs get myself mixed up in it. My mother 
 went at me ; I think it was Mrs. Vesper who put her up 
 to it." 
 
 Corbyn interrupted him with a little expressive ejacu- 
 lation. 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Vesper ! " 
 
 " You don't like her ? She's not a bad sort . . . Well, 
 Marion had made a scene, it appeared. No doubt he 
 has neglected her awfully. And Mrs. Vesper hinted 
 that there was some other woman ; she spoke as if she 
 knew something oh, very vaguely. The long and the 
 short of it was, that I was coaxed into interfering the 
 word in season, you know. I am afraid my diplomacy 
 was overrated. I didn't mend matters ; probably I made 
 them worse. I believe I lost my temper. Afterwards I 
 was sorry. You know how queer he is; this time he 
 was queerer than ever. He seemed like a man who was 
 quite indifferent, who didn't care a rap for anything 
 any scandal ; like a man who was just making up his 
 mind to a jump." 
 
 " And you gave him the final shove ? " 
 
 " That was what I was afraid of," said Lord Henry 
 simply. " When I got cooler, I went back. That was 
 the next day." 
 
 " And he was gone ? " Corbyn murmured. " I called 
 also." Then he went on absently. " The man was
 
 348 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 speaking the truth. He doesn't know where his master 
 is. And there is a pile of letters ; they are not being 
 forwarded." 
 
 " You don't think " Lord Henry stopped short, 
 with a blank, significant interrogation, to which the 
 other as quickly responded. 
 
 " No, no not that ! I'll tell you. I was excessively 
 uneasy. I made some enquiries, and this much I dis- 
 covered: the Anonyma, his yacht, left Southampton 
 last Monday for a cruise in the Channel, owner not on 
 board. It's meagre, but there it is." Then he went 
 on after a moment's hesitation, "You see, I will be 
 quite frank with you ; there is a woman, a girl." 
 
 " O Lord ! And you mean to say that Rome has run 
 off with her ? " 
 
 "I don't know; I can't make up my mind. But I 
 think he wants to run off with her." 
 
 " But that's terrible," said Lord Henry ; in his dismay 
 he had stopped short, clasped his hand intimately on his 
 companion's arm. "Think of the scandal think of 
 Marion. I say," he added, with a sudden inspiration, 
 " surely there's time. My cousin fortunately she is at 
 Towers, with my mother. And this woman you know 
 her ? If it's not too late, couldn't you see her, couldn't 
 we frighten her buy her off? " 
 
 Corbyn shook his head. 
 
 "It's not as you think. She is not the woman one 
 drives. She's your only hope." His own words seemed 
 to strike him trenchantly, and he repeated them, " She's 
 your only hope ! " 
 
 " That brings a gleam of comfort," said Lord Henry, 
 after cogitating for a moment on this obscure remark. 
 " But see the girl, my dear fellow, see her, and tell her 
 how it stands." 
 
 "See her, not I," protested the other. "And Lord
 
 ADRIAN ROME 349 
 
 knows how it stands, I don't ! And perhaps," he was 
 unable to resist this shaft of irony, " there has been too 
 much arranging interference as it is." 
 
 Lord Henry reflected a moment, allowing the full 
 effect of this reasoning gradually to penetrate him. 
 
 " Then you mean to do nothing ? " he enquired 
 presently, with a touch of coldness. 
 
 Corbyn shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "To help Rome anything I can," he said shortly. 
 " But I don't see what can be done, and I doubt whether 
 you can tell me ? " 
 
 They had reached the broad terrace on the northern 
 side of Trafalgar Square, and Corbyn halted, with an 
 unconscious suggestion of his wish to close the interview. 
 Then, as the other confronted him, eyed him with a 
 troubled frown, he added deliberately 
 
 " You see it's quite natural you are thinking more 
 of your cousin the family yourselves. My concern 
 begins and ends with Adrian." 
 
 His companion nodded silently, with grave perplexity. 
 
 "It's difficult to speak of it ... One wishes, of 
 course, that their interests were identical. But " 
 
 Corbyn hesitated ; then continued, stumbling 
 
 "As things are, haven't I already exceeded . . . ? 
 It's conceivable, at least, that Adrian might blame me." 
 
 " You couldn't have done less," protested the other. 
 
 " Or more," put in Corbyn, smiling ruefully. " After 
 all, there is such a thing as discretion ! Of course, one 
 wants to help. Oh, it's damnably difficult ! " 
 
 Lord Henry assented, holding out his hand. 
 
 "I'm sure we can count on you," he said weakly. 
 " I'm glad I happened to meet you ; you will give me 
 your address in case " 
 
 A minute later, after exchanging cards, they parted ; 
 and Corbyn, as he let himself drop into the tide-race of
 
 350 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 the Strand, wondered, a little, whether to ascribe to a 
 strange oversight, or to an unexpected delicacy, Lord 
 Henry Minaret's omission to demand the name of the 
 woman who seemed to have come between Adrian and 
 his wife. He was the more inclined to congratulate 
 himself, on his escape from the indiscretion which would 
 have been involved in a voluntary surrender of the 
 information, when he remembered, curiously, that Lord 
 Henry's intimacy with their friend dated from the days 
 of their association at Underwoods an association in 
 which the girl had participated. 
 
 And while they conjectured and were perturbed, to 
 Adrian, waiting, in the tension of his purpose, at a little 
 seaport on the Dorset coast, all this surmise and anxiety 
 would have seemed incalculably trivial and remote. So 
 conscious was he and it was almost the beginning and 
 end of his consciousness of the memorable leagues 
 which his mind had traversed, separating him, far more 
 than any mere physical distance might, from all their 
 concern in his life. 
 
 Even now, he could not remember precisely how he 
 had taken the leap. People had been stupid, crass, 
 insolent; and because they were so many, and spoke 
 with authority, for a little while he had walked ser- 
 vilely in their ways. And then an illumination had 
 come to him, and a sense that a man's folly should not 
 be final ; that if one had been imposed upon, even if one 
 had oneself largely contributed to the imposition, one 
 had nevertheless the right to set oneself free, to begin 
 again. Was not selfishness a bugbear, after all, and not 
 the real devil that superstition had painted it ? 
 
 And so, there had been that last passionate interview 
 with Sylvia, when his irrevocable utterance had borne 
 them high and far upon its wings. He would never 
 forget that utterance, nor the plenitude of her response,
 
 ADRIAN ROME 351 
 
 of which the unshrinking truth was at once his crown 
 and torment. Sincerity had flashed from the clouds, 
 and by its light he had read her soul, as even she had 
 never dared to read it. The softening of her eyes to 
 his appeal, to his confession of all the weakness of his 
 strength, the failure of his success if she was not to 
 share it, was that to prove the ultimate reward of his 
 endeavour ? Just then, through all its reservations, her 
 love had seemed to envelop them, as consummately as 
 if there had been no shadow to separate them. 
 
 And the haunting spell and sweetness of that moment 
 had carried him, as a man in a dream, through all the 
 practical details of his departure. Mechanically, almost, 
 as a man in a dream, he had set his house in order. He 
 had spent a long hour with Mr. Featherstone in Lin- 
 coln's Inn; perturbing, ruthlessly, his discreet adviser, 
 who had never found him so clear of purpose, sane, 
 inscrutable. For once, he had not sought advice, but 
 given instructions. Remittances should be made to him, 
 at such and such dates and places; two-thirds of his 
 income must be paid to his wife's banking account; 
 secrecy was significantly enjoined ; no word of explana- 
 tion was forthcoming. He had cleared the ground with 
 the unfaltering directness of a captive breaking prison ; 
 each step taken with a sure precision which proclaimed 
 premeditation, seemed strangely incompatible with the 
 freshness of his purpose. 
 
 At first, while he waited, in this place of incurious 
 strangers to which he had betaken himself, the long 
 days had been beguiled by the same enchantment, the 
 charm and thrill of that dear possession, wrapped close 
 in his heart, where no too sudden breath or touch might 
 reach and shatter it. He had waited for Sylvia's 
 answer, for Sylvia's self. A week had passed since he 
 had shaped his appeal in writing. From the first, when he
 
 352 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 had believed himself secure of her consent, it was to the 
 sea that he had turned, of his yacht that he bethought 
 him, as the most natural means of bridging over the 
 gulf they needs must cross. Safe on board the little 
 ship, with her white wings spread, and her prow point- 
 ing to the South, would they not be out of reach of 
 the lash of tongues, their love sanctified, as it were, by 
 the primitive benediction of those heaving waters ? To 
 the South : for the South must call them, as it calls all 
 the lawless ones, children of passion, rebellious against 
 accepted bonds. Yes, it was there that they lay, what- 
 ever fortunate islands the world might hold, for these 
 fugitives from the world. 
 
 So he had waited, happy in that cherished treasure 
 of her love. At first, until, on the third morning he 
 woke to discern, from the window of his little hostelry 
 upon the quay, the Anonyma swinging her riding-light 
 under the rose-flushed canopy of the dawn, his expec- 
 tation stood firm in the background of his happiness, 
 steadfast and unshaken by either hope or fear. With 
 the yacht came Salvesen, frankly rejoicing in his escape 
 (none too soon, it seemed) from the dram-shops of 
 Southampton, in the prospect of a cruise. The man, 
 keenly impatient for the sea, chafed visibly at delay; 
 and as the days passed, and brought no word from 
 Sylvia, Adrian's impatience, too, caught fire, and at once 
 his expectation was tarnished by uncertainty. Had he 
 done wrong, perhaps, to commit his ultimate appeal to 
 the untrusty mediation of written words; wrong to 
 bid her take time for her reply ? And yet, each day, 
 at noon and evening, as he left the post-office empty- 
 handed, he was vaguely troubled to find his disappoint- 
 ment tempered and alloyed, by a sensation to which he 
 shrank from assigning too close a definition. Was it in 
 her strength, or in her weakness, that his hopes were
 
 ADRIAN ROME 353 
 
 centred his hopes, or fears? Was convention right, 
 then, and selfishness the hideous monster of accepted 
 precept? He loved her with his whole heart and 
 being ; with his heart and being he yearned and longed 
 for her. And love was strong, with wings to outsoar 
 and tire the heavy pinions of remorse. If her love 
 was as his love, where should doubt find foothold at 
 all ? Would not her love, too, tend its sweetest flower 
 in self-sacrifice ? In sacrifice ah, but where was 
 his? 
 
 And now Sylvia's answer had come. It was on the 
 high cliff that he had read it, above the wheeling sea- 
 gulls, where the sky seemed near ; and afterwards he 
 had walked far and aimlessly in the exceeding bitterness 
 of his thoughts ; until, long after the light had failed, 
 hunger and weariness reminded him of the practical 
 needs of life. As he wandered, the crumpled letter 
 nestled in his hand, and now, while he retraced his 
 steps, the final phrases of that piteous renunciation 
 besieged him still, seemed almost visibly imprinted on 
 the dark background of his mind. 
 
 " You must forget ; you must not give up ; you must 
 be strong. It is so cruelly hard to say ! But I have 
 known always that I cared for you. And that it could 
 not be, that I have known too, always. Nothing is 
 changed. I can't ; oh ! I can't ... I should make you 
 suffer; I should reproach myself, even if you did not 
 reproach me. You must pity me, and forgive me and 
 forget no, I can't write that! Forgive me, think 
 kindly of me be strong. Don't make me feel that I 
 have spoiled your life. Let it be as if we had not met 
 again . . ." 
 
 The wind had risen since the morning, and Adrian 
 looked down, over the sheer cliff, at an angry sea, a 
 dark waste from which sudden swirls of thrilling 
 23
 
 354 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 whiteness glimmered ominously. Yes, it was time 
 to go. 
 
 " So be it," he murmured drearily, breaking the long 
 silence of his thoughts. " And perhaps, my poor child, 
 you are right. It isn't a new thing we should have 
 tried. The world is so old, its precedents so hopelesa 
 Those others who have tried have they found happi- 
 ness ? But we, Sylvia, my love are we not strong 
 enough . . . God! to think that anyone has loved as I 
 love I'll not believe it ! And you love me, Sylvia 
 you have always loved me, and forgiven me ! " 
 
 An hour's rapid walking brought him at last to the 
 jetty, under shelter of which the yacht's dinghy lay 
 tugging at her painter. Of Salvesen and the boy, who 
 had received orders to wait his coming, there was no 
 visible sign ; but presently, in a lull of the wind, the 
 voice of the Scandinavian skipper, upraised in a boister- 
 ous sea-song, betrayed his presence in the little tavern 
 on the quay. For a few minutes Adrian waited, peering 
 seaward through the shifting darkness which hid the 
 yacht's lights from him. He pulled himself together 
 with a start. 
 
 " A dirty night," he said softly. " Would you have 
 been frightened, Sylvia ? " 
 
 He found Salvesen in the taproom of the tavern, 
 making merry; and opposite him the boy, eying the 
 wild-eyed sailor with awestruck admiration, over a big 
 mug of cocoa. A few minutes later they followed him 
 to the jetty. He shrugged his shoulders patiently, with 
 a touch of self-reproach, as he noted his skipper's elo- 
 quently clumsy gait, and watched him fumbling aimlessly 
 with the dinghy's painter. 
 
 " I'll take an oar," he said rather sternly, as he stepped 
 into the boat. " And, Salvesen, we shall sail to-morrow. 
 After the post comes in," he added, half to himself.
 
 ADRIAN ROME 355 
 
 A new boat-cloak, warmly lined, lay folded in the 
 stern-sheets, and he eyed it forlornly, remembering for 
 what service he had destined it. And then he bent to 
 his oar, calling on Salvesen, and bidding the boy steer 
 carefully.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 AT half-past eleven on the morning of the following 
 day, Sylvia sat in one of the corners of a third-class 
 railway carriage, her eyes fixed remotely on the horizon 
 of the country through which an express train was 
 bearing her to Dorsetshire. To nerves keenly alert, 
 after many sleepless hours, and missing the calm domi- 
 nation of her newly-shaken steadfastness, the rhythmic 
 sweep and clangour, the suggestion of strength and 
 inevitability, brought an incredible sense of respite and 
 repose. Just as her eyes rested on the motionless 
 tranquillity of the far blue hills, hardly conscious of 
 the nearer detail and reality of the hurrying fields, and 
 her ears ignored the shrill gossip of the country-women 
 who shared her carriage ; so her thoughts, too, overshot 
 the obvious problems of the present, and hovered, 
 almost restfully, over the abyss, wrapped and sheltered 
 in the comfortable dimness which her anxiety no longer 
 essayed to fathom. They had warred so furiously of 
 late that ordinance of self-denial which had become 
 the heart and motive of her life, with her woman's long- 
 ing to love, to be loved ; to make complete surrender, 
 and cast her all upon the divine hazard. Too generous 
 to be selfish, too humble to expect much at the hands 
 of Fate ; and yet, withal, exceeding proud, with a pride 
 finely primitive and wild ; in these qualities her purpose 
 had found staunch allies, such as it needed more than 
 
 356
 
 ADRIAN ROME 357 
 
 ever now, if it must prevail against the dear enemy 
 within her gates. 
 
 It was so hard to seem unkind ! And so, after she 
 had despatched her reply to Adrian's appeal, misgiving 
 had found her an easy prey: the peace which, for a 
 brief moment, spread its wings over the battlefield of 
 her doubts, was succeeded by a fierce riot of rebellion 
 and regret ; a tumult to be quelled, it seemed, only at 
 the cost of some concession. That concession Sylvia 
 was making now. What its limits might be, she had 
 not cared to ask herself too curiously. Only, she would 
 see Adrian again; would be able, in some degree, to 
 soften the cruel finality of her denial. 
 
 She would see Adrian again : there her thought 
 stayed itself, poised in anticipation, in worship of 
 the bright moment. Beyond lay the abyss, vague, 
 unfathomable. 
 
 The train hurried on: it had passed Salisbury now, 
 and Yeovil, nestling close among its downs. The sweet, 
 formidable hour drew near, and already Sylvia's appre- 
 hension stirred uneasily in its sleep. She ceased to 
 wonder, absently, which of the ultimate hills sheltered 
 her lost Underwoods ; fresh doubts assailed her, as the 
 familiar struggle was renewed, and she thought, with 
 dim foreboding, of what should be the manner of her 
 return ; the manner, and the time ? She half dreaded, 
 half hoped, to hear from Adrian's lips that his deter- 
 mination (to make a new beginning, as he had phrased 
 it) was irrevocable ; that he had burned his ships, and 
 definitely withdrawn himself from the heights on 
 which her imagination vaguely enthroned him; from 
 the realisation of those ambitions, of which, in her 
 solitude, she had felt so proud to have, however 
 imperfectly, a part and understanding. 
 
 To deny herself had become easy ; for in what other
 
 358 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 practice had her life been spent ? And the belief that 
 she had helped Adrian had, at least, not stood in his 
 way; this had been her fine solace and reward. She 
 had cherished this rose ever more closely in her breast, 
 braving its thorns in her yearning for its sweetness. It 
 was not until her lover's insistence stirred dissension in 
 her heart, that her love sprang up in rebellious arms to 
 challenge her devotion. Her love ; had it been a folly 
 in the old days ; was it worse than folly now ? 
 
 She shivered a little, turning in her seat, and with- 
 drawing her eyes from their weary contemplation of 
 the wooded banks, and bare, wintry fields, over the 
 hurrying procession of which a wild wind drove mists 
 of rain. Presently the train drew up at a station ; it 
 was Axminster, where she must alight and find a 
 vehicle to carry her to the coast. She gathered up 
 her wraps, and made her way out of the station ; called 
 back, to her confusion, when she had already passed the 
 barrier, to receive the unused half of her return-ticket. 
 Half an hour later, a dilatory omnibus, the interior of 
 which she shared with a sleepy commercial traveller, 
 was bearing her over the hilly roads that lie between 
 Axminster and the sea. 
 
 For the first time, now, her anxiety took the shape of 
 a fear lest she should prove too late, lest Adrian should 
 already have set sail for those vague regions of which 
 his letter spoke. She chafed at the delay which each 
 acclivity imposed upon the cumbrous vehicle; counted 
 the milestones, leaning forward restlessly in her seat, 
 curiously beset by the impression that the speed of her 
 progress depended intimately on the alertness of her 
 will; as if a due exertion of her volition could lend 
 wings to the horses, and lift their patient trot to swift- 
 ness. 
 
 It was still early in the afternoon when Sylvia
 
 ADRIAN ROME 359 
 
 realised, not without a touch of incredulity, that she had 
 reached her destination. She lingered for a moment 
 at the spot, outside the little post-office, where the 
 coach had set her down. The rain had ceased. Over- 
 head the wind whistled in the telegraph-wires, tearing 
 the grey fleece of the sky, as it fled inland with a dismal 
 moan. From her feet, as she stood, half-way down the 
 hill, the steep roadway, flanked with low houses, swept 
 downward in a curve, breaking off abruptly in the very 
 face of the restless welter of the sea, which alternated 
 rhythmically the thunder of its onslaught with the 
 sonorous rattle of its retreat, on the unseen shore below. 
 As Sylvia made her way down the hill, the wind 
 buffeted her, stinging her cheeks, and tugging unex- 
 pectedly at her skirts. She felt weary and dishevelled ; 
 and was half conscious, among her real anxieties, of a 
 fear lest Adrian should find her so. 
 
 Reaching the seawall, she turned instinctively to- 
 wards the jetty, which stretched its blackness through 
 a surge of breakers at the further end of the desolate 
 " promenade." A few ships (all alike, to her inexperience) 
 lay heaving at their anchors in the harbour ; she eyed 
 them eagerly as she hurried along the road, which ran, 
 slippery with spray, between the face of the cliff and 
 the wet seawall. The tide was high, and the spray 
 towered from the crest of each successive wave as it 
 dashed against the rough-hewn granite: the air was 
 charged with tingling spindrift, through which faint 
 gleams of sunshine made fragmentary rainbows. 
 
 The quay gained, Sylvia paused to recover her breath, 
 and lingered for a moment, forlornly, among the piles 
 of timber which yielded shelter from the wind. The 
 coastguard, whose uniform at last attracted her inquiry, 
 glanced at her sharply, then fixed his eyes on the 
 horizon in a perturbed silence.
 
 360 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 "Mr. Rome?" he said gently, "the gentleman who 
 owned the An&nymaV 
 
 Sylvia's answer was impatient 
 
 " Mr. Adrian Rome ; he owns the Anonyma he hasn't 
 gone started ? " 
 
 The man shook his head, plainly embarrassed; and 
 inviting her to follow, led the way to a little building of 
 official aspect, outside the open door of which a few 
 fishermen and sailors were talking, eagerly and gravely. 
 Their eyes turned to her curiously, she thought as 
 she followed her guide into the office ; and she heard one 
 of the sailors (he was in the centre of the group, and the 
 breast of his jersey was marked Anonyma in a scroll of 
 red) murmur a few words, which sounded like " No not 
 his wife." 
 
 " Not his wife not his wife ! " she repeated softly, as, 
 with a chill at her heart, she confronted the burly, grey- 
 headed harbour-master, who looked at her over the top 
 of a wooden desk littered with blue papers. 
 
 " You're not Mrs. Rome ? " he assumed, when she had 
 refused the chair which he pulled forward for her. 
 " The telegram says that she can't make she can't get 
 here before night." 
 
 "No . . . but Mr. Rome expects me," she put in 
 nervously, as he hesitated. 
 
 The man folded a strip of paper clumsily. "You 
 don't know, then . . . You haven't heard . . . You see, 
 there's been an accident . . ." he stammered, and paused 
 helplessly, eyeing the closed door. 
 
 Outside, the siren-whistle of a passing steamer hooted, 
 hideously plaintive ; and the chain of a derrick clanked 
 and rattled to the accompaniment of the stifled gasps of 
 its engine. Sylvia threw her foreboding from her with 
 desperate courage. 
 
 " You mean, he's hurt ? " she said quietly, in a voice
 
 ADRIAN ROME 361 
 
 that she seemed to recognise, oddly, as her own. 
 " Please tell me he would wish it." 
 
 " Ay, poor soul ! " said the other, with gentle brusque- 
 ness. " Hurt you'll need your courage if I'm to tell 
 you!" 
 
 He turned his eyes away, with a shake of his head, as 
 they met her gaze of urgent enquiry, of apprehension. 
 
 "He's dead he's dead!" she moaned; then waited, 
 agonised for the denial that the cruel, black silence 
 withheld from her. The whole world the very light 
 and air, grew dark, and full of a quivering stillness, as 
 Sylvia leaned against the ink-stained wooden desk, 
 wondering, impersonally almost, why she did not faint ; 
 praying, without hope, that she might awake from the 
 horror of this benumbing dream. 
 
 With tearless eyes she watched the clumsy masts of a 
 departing collier swing round and creep across the 
 window, obscured from time to time by the smoke that 
 poured spasmodically from an unseen funnel. The voice 
 of the old harbour-master sounded dully and remotely in 
 her ears, torturing them with almost the meaningless per- 
 sistence of the ticking of a clock. His laboured story 
 had been told, and she had not lost a word of it. To her 
 imagination, it had all been pictured, vividly and memor- 
 ably, as he spoke; the stormy night; the little boat 
 tossing on the dark waste of water; Adrian ah, that 
 was like him ! struggling to save the drunken sailor 
 "a foreigner, name of Salvesen," who had fallen, or 
 madly thrown himself, into the water after his lost oar ; 
 the capsized boat ; the struggle ; and all the grim horror 
 of the sequel ; to the rescue of the one survivor, clinging 
 to the boat, and the finding of the dead, hardly an hour 
 ago, on the shore where the tide had left them the 
 dead body of her lover . . . 
 
 Adrian was dead ! The sea that he loved had given
 
 362 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 him death ; the sea that he had so loved ; and the woman. 
 And the triumph of the waves thundered, relentless, in 
 the woman's ears ; and the window on which her tearless 
 eyes were fixed was wet with spray. A passionate 
 resentment filled her heart, that the God whom she 
 had been taught to love could be so cruel, fashioning 
 out of her very obedience to His laws so terrible a 
 scourge. 
 
 It would have been so sweet to yield to Adrian's 
 entreaty ; and if she had yielded, she would have been 
 far away, and Adrian with her ; they would have been 
 happy. Happy ? she repeated the word dully. It had 
 never seemed possible, that happiness ; a thing no more 
 to be grasped, or even essayed, than the inexorable 
 serenity of the furthest star. And it was precisely this 
 quality, indeed, this hopeless remoteness, forbidding 
 hope, which had made Sylvia content for so long to 
 realise what pleasure she might from an almost uncon- 
 scious contemplation of the radiant unattainable. 
 
 And now this terrible thing had happened ; and her 
 sacrifice was ignored. 
 
 It was true ; and her last hope fled, when, presently, 
 they left her alone with the dead body of her friend. 
 Adrian was dead ; and she must leave him there, within 
 sight and sound of the faithless waves which he had 
 trusted. She must not stay with him ; she must not 
 take him with her. 
 
 It was not for the first time that she looked upon the 
 face of death. She had seen her mother die, and her 
 mother's sister : there had been others, too, at Under- 
 woods, to whom this great change had come, for the 
 most part as a release, long expected. 
 
 And Adrian was he now more irrevocably with- 
 drawn from her life, from the reach of her love, than he 
 had been at that time when, on a sudden, the pleasant
 
 ADRIAN ROME 363 
 
 paths which they had so long paced together seemed to 
 branch in sundering ways, and she, at least, had been 
 resolute to choose that separate path to which her 
 devotion pointed ? Was it not then, when that moment- 
 ous choice was made, that for her, as her lover, if not as 
 her friend, Adrian had ceased to belong to the world in 
 which she lived ? 
 
 But this was Death. How trivial, by comparison, was 
 all that before had seemed so final, irremediable ! While 
 Adrian lived, she could picture him happy, and owing 
 his happiness, in part, at least, to her; successful, and 
 harvesting his success from those fields which, humbly, 
 she had helped him to till. No; it was no mere 
 physical distance that could separate their lives. One 
 thing only could really intervene : and that had 
 come. And he had not found happiness, after all. 
 The pity of it ; and, ah, the cruel phantom of reproach 
 that must lie in wait for each empty moment of her 
 life. . . . 
 
 On the quay, outside the tavern, a bell clanged noisily, 
 and a clock struck four. Sylvia remembered, drearily, 
 that other people were expected to arrive before night- 
 fall; people who had rights; one, at least, who would 
 look at her askance, with eyes that she must not en- 
 counter. There must be no scene, no scandal. She 
 must go. 
 
 For the future, was not her course simple, inevitable 
 as the daily routine of a prison ? 
 
 She must go back ; she must accept the inevitable, 
 just as when, years ago, Adrian's life first diverged from 
 her life, she had patiently accepted it. 
 
 She must go back. She must gather up the grey 
 threads of her existence, dropped when that transient 
 gleam had crept from the far horizon to beguile her, in 
 spite of herself, with dreams of sunshine, of flowers. A
 
 364 ADRIAN ROME 
 
 rainbow, was it, that had spread its brief radiance across 
 the greyness of her prospect or the treacherous glimmer 
 of some marish light ? Will-o'-the-wisp, or rainbow, it 
 had passed ; and before her lay the straight path, and 
 the greyness. 
 
 THE END 
 
 PRIKTBD BY MORRISON AND OIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH
 
 A CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 
 
 AND ANNOUNCEMENTS OF 
 
 METHUEN AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS : LONDON x 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET K ^ h 
 
 W.C 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FORTHCOMING BOOKS, 
 
 POETRY, .... 
 
 BELLES LETTRES, ANTHOLOGIES, ETC., 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BOOKS, . . ./ : 
 
 HISTORY, . . '.'--V 
 
 BIOGRAPHY, .... 
 
 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE AND TOPOGRAPHY, 
 
 NAVAL AND MILITARY, 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE, 
 
 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, . 
 
 PHILOSOPHY, . 
 
 THEOLOGY, . . . V . 
 
 FICTION, 
 
 BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, . ,_ ~ 
 
 THE PEACOCK LIBRARY, 
 
 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SERIES, 
 
 SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY 
 
 CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS 
 
 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, . . > 
 
 PAGE 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 24 
 
 33 
 
 33 
 34 
 35 
 35 
 36 
 
 FEBRUARY 1899
 
 FEBRUARY 1899. 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S 
 
 ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 
 Travel and Adventure 
 
 THE HIGHEST ANDES. By E. A. FITZGERALD. With 
 40 Illustrations, 10 of which are Photogravures, and a Large Map. 
 Royal 8vo. 30*. net. 
 
 Also, a Small Edition on Handmade Paper, limited to 50 Copies, 
 t,to. $, SJ- 
 
 A narrative of the highest climb yet accomplished. The illustrations have been 
 reproduced with the greatest care, and the book, in addition to its adventurous 
 interest, contains appendices of great scientific value. 
 
 ROUND THE WORLD ON A WHEEL. By JOHN FOSTER 
 FRASER. With 100 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 The narrative of a bicycle ride right round the world, which covered over 19,000 miles 
 and occupied 774 days. The book is full of adventure and incident, and contains 
 as much matter as the ordinary book of travel published at six times the price. 
 
 THE HEART OF ASIA. By F. H. SKRiNEand E. D. Ross. 
 
 With Maps and many Illustrations. Large crown 8vo. IDS. 6d. 
 This is an account, historical, political, economical, and descriptive of Russian Central 
 Asia. The first part of the work contains a concise history of Turkestan, etc from the 
 earliest times. No such history has hitherto appeared in any European language, 
 and many untranslated Oriental works have been put under contribution oy 
 Professor Ross. In the second part Mr. Skrine gives a complete account of 
 Russian Central Asia, with all the latest statistics. Great attention has been paid 
 to the production of accurate maps, and the information contained in this part 
 of the book may be regarded as semi-official. 
 
 THROUGH ASIA. By SVEN HEDIN. With 300 Illustrations 
 from Photographs and Sketches by the Author, and 3 Maps. Two 
 volumes. Royal 8vo. 36*. net. 
 
 Extracts from reviews of this great book, which T/tf Times has called ' one of the 
 greatest books of the century,' will be found on p. 15. 
 
 CHITRAL : The Story of a Minor Siege. By SIR G. S. ROBERT- 
 SON, K.C.S.I. With 22 Illustrations, 4 Plans, and a Map. A New 
 and Cheaper Edition. Demy 8vo. los. dd. 
 Extracts from reviews of this remarkable book will be found on page 15 
 
 THREE YEARS IN SAVAGE AFRICA. By LIONEL DECLE. 
 With 100 Illustrations and 5 Maps. Second and cheaper Edition. 
 Demy 8vo. los. dd. net. 
 
 THE CAROLINE ISLANDS By F. W. CHRISTIAN. With 
 
 many Illustrations and Maps. Large crown 8vo. IOJ. 6d. 
 This book contains a history and complete description of these islands their physical 
 features, fauna, flora; the habits, and religious beliefs of the inhabitants. It is 
 the result of many years' residence among the natives, and is the only worthy work 
 on the subject.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 3 
 History and Biography 
 
 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF SIR JOHN EVERETT 
 MILLAIS, President of the Royal Academy. By his SOD, J. G. 
 MILLAIS. With nearly 300 Illustrations, of which 10 are in photo- 
 gravure. Two volumes. Royal &vo. 321. net. 
 
 A limited edition will also be printed. This will contain 22 of 
 Millais' great paintings reproduced in photogravure, with a case 
 containing an extra set of these Photogravures pulled on India paper. 
 The price of this edition will be 4, 4*. net. 
 
 In these two magnificent volumes is contained the authoritative biography of thr 
 most distinguished and popular painter of the last half of the century. They 
 contain the story of his extraordinary boyhood, of his early struggle', and 
 triumphs, of the founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, now first given t 
 the world in authentic detail, of the painting of most of his famous pictures, of his 
 friendships with many of the most distinguished men of the day in art, letters, 
 and politics, of his home life, and of his sporting tastes. There are a larpje 
 number of letters to his wife describing the circumstances under which his 
 pictures were painted, letters from Her Majesty the Queen, Lord Beaconsfield, 
 -Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Watts, Sir William Harcourt, Lord Rosebery, Lord 
 Leighton, etc., etc. Among them are several illustrated letters from Landseer, 
 Leech, Du Maurier, and Mike Halliday. The last letter that Lord Beacons- 
 field wrote before his death is reproduced in fac-simile. Sir William Harcourt 
 contributes his reminiscences of Millais, and Mr. Val Prinsep has written a long 
 and most interesting chapter to the same purpose. 
 
 Not the least attractive and remarkable feature of this book will be the magnificence 
 of its illustrations. No more complete representation of the art any painter has 
 ever been produced on the same scale. The owners of Sir John Millais' 
 most famous pictures and their copyrights have generously given their consent 
 to their reproduction in his biography, and, in addition to those pictures with which 
 the public is familiar, over two hundred pictures and sketches which have never 
 been reproduced before, and which, in all probability, will never be seen 
 again by tbe general public, will appear in these pages. The early chapters 
 contain sketches made by Millais at the age of seven. There follow some 
 exquisite drawings made by him during his Pre-Raphaelite period, a large 
 number of sketches and studies made for his great pictures, water colour 
 sketches, pen-and-ink sketches, and drawings, humorous and serious. There are 
 ten portraits of Millais himself, including two by Mr. Watts and Sir Edward 
 Burne Jones. There is a portrait of Dickens, taken after death, and _a sketch of 
 IX G. Rossetti. Thus the book will be not only a biography of high interest and 
 an important contribution to the history of English art, but in the best sense of 
 the word, a beautiful picture book. 
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 By EDWARD GIBBON. A New Edition, edited with Notes, 
 Appendices, and Maps by J. B. BURY, LL.D., Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Dublin. In Seven Volumes. Demy %vo, gilt top. &s. 6d. 
 each. Crown &vo. 6s. each. Vol. VII. 
 The concluding Volume of this Edition. 
 
 EVAGRIUS. Edited by Professor LEON PARMENTIER of 
 Liege and M. BlDEZ of Gand. Demytovo. ios.6d. [Byzantine Texts. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF PSELLUS. By C. SATHAS. Demy 8vo. 
 
 [Byzantine Texts.
 
 4 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 
 A CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF 
 
 ROME. By T. M. TAYLOR, M.A., Fellow of Gonville and Caius 
 College, Cambridge, Senior Chancellor's Medallist for Classics, 
 Person University Scholar, etc., etc. Crown Svo. "js. 6d. 
 An account of the origin and growth of the Roman Institutions and a discussion of 
 the various political movements in Rome from the earliest times to the death of 
 Augustus. 
 
 A HISTORY OF EGYPT, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO 
 THE PRESENT DAY. Edited by W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L., 
 LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at University College. Fully Illus- 
 trated. In Six Volumes. Crown 8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 Vol. IV. THE EGYPT OF THE PTOLEMIES. J. P. MAHAFFY. 
 
 Vol. V. ROMAN EGYPT. J. G. MILNE. 
 
 ANNALS OF SHREWSBURY SCHOOL. By G. W. FISHER, 
 M.A., Assistant Master. With Numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 
 i os. 6d. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE MIDLAND RAILWAY. By 
 CLEMENT STRETTON. With many Illustrations. Dttny "&vo. los. 6d. 
 Uniform with Mr. Grinling's ' History of the Great Northern Railway.' 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS. By JOHN 
 HACKETT, M.A. Demy 8vo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Theology 
 
 ST. PAUL, THE MASTER-BUILDER. By WALTER LOCK, 
 
 D.D., Warden of Keble College. Crown 8vt>. 3*. 6d. 
 An attempt to popularise the recent additions to our knowledge of St. Paul as a 
 missionary, a statesman and an ethical teacher. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. 
 By W. H. BENNETT, M. A., and W. F. ADENEY, M.A. Crown %>vo. 
 6s. 
 
 OrforO Commentaries. 
 
 General Editor, WALTER LOCK, D.D., Warden of Keble College 
 
 Dean Ireland's Professor of Exegesis in the 
 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Messrs. METHUEN propose to issue a series of Commentaries upon such 
 Books of the Bible as still seem to need further explanation. 
 
 The object of each Commentary is primarily exegetical, to interpret 
 the author's meaning to the present generation. The editors will not 
 deal, except very subordinately, with questions of textual criticism or 
 philology ; but taking the English text in the Revised Version as their 
 basis, they will try to combine a hearty acceptance of critical principles
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 5 
 
 with loyalty to the Catholic Faith. It is hoped that in this way the Aeries 
 may be of use both to theological students and to the clergy, and also to 
 the growing number of educated laymen and laywomen who wish to read 
 the Bible intelligently and reverently. 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOB. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, 
 by E. C. S. GIBSON, D.D., Vicar of Leeds. Demy 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Che Churchman's JSiblc. 
 
 General Editor, J. H. BURN, B.D., Examining Chaplain to the Bishop 
 of Aberdeen. 
 
 Messrs. METHUKN propose to issue a series of expositions upon most 
 of the books of the Bible. The volumes will be practical and devotional 
 rather than critical in their purpose, and the text of the authorised version 
 will be explained in sections or paragraphs, which will correspond as far 
 as possible with the divisions of the Church Lectionary. 
 
 The volumes will be produced in a very handy and tasteful form, and 
 may be obtained in cloth or leather bindings. 
 
 The first volume will be : 
 
 THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO THE GALATIANS. 
 Explained by A. W. ROBINSON, B.D., Vicar of All Hallows, Bark- 
 ing. Fcap. Svo. 2s. Leather, 3*. net. 
 
 foanoboofcs of Cbeolosg. 
 
 General Editor, A. ROBERTSON, D.D., Principal of King's College, 
 London. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE 
 CREEDS. By A. E. BURN, Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of 
 Lichfield. Demy Svo. los. 6d. 
 
 Ube Xlbrare of Devotion. 
 
 Pott 8vo. Cloth 2s. ; leather 2s. 6d. net. 
 NEIV VOLUMES. 
 
 A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE. 
 
 By WILLIAM LAW. Edited, with au Introduction by C. BIGG, D.D., 
 
 late Student of Christ Church. 
 This is a reprint, word for word and line for line, of the Editio 
 
 LYRA INNOCENTIUM. By JOHN KEBLE. Edited, with 
 Introduction and Notes, by WALTER LOCK, D.D., Warden of Keble 
 College, Oxford. 
 
 This is edited on the same scale as ' The Christian Year.' Dr. Lock has corrected 
 the printed text by collating it with the MS. in the Keble College Library ( and has 
 added an Introduction, and an analysis and explanatory notes to each of the more 
 difficult poems.
 
 6 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 General Literature 
 
 Cbc Br&en Sbahcepcarc. 
 
 General Editor, EDWARD DOWDEN, Litt. D. 
 MESSRS. METHUEN have in preparation an Edition of Shakespeare in 
 single Plays. Each play will be edited with a full Introduction, Notes on 
 the text, and a Commentary at the foot of the page. 
 
 The first volume will be : 
 HAMLET. Edited by EDWARD DOWDEN. Demy %vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 3be Hovels ot Cbarlea Dicfcens. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Each Volume, cloth 3*. , leather 41. net, 
 
 Messrs. METHUEN have in preparation an edition of those novels of Charles 
 Dickens which have now passed out of copyright. Mr. George Gissing. 
 whose critical study of Dickens is both sympathetic and acute, has written 
 an Introduction to each of the books, and a very attractive feature of this 
 edition will be the illustrations of the old houses, inns, and buildings, which 
 Dickens described, and which have now in many instances disappeared 
 under the touch of modern civilisation. Another valuable feature will be 
 a series of topographical notes to each book by Mr. F. G. Kitton. The books 
 will be produced with the greatest care as to printing, paper and binding. 
 The first volumes will be : 
 
 THE PICKWICK PAPERS. With Illustrations by E. H. NEW. 
 Xwo Volumes. 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With Illustrations by R. J. WILLIAMS. 
 
 Two Volumes. 
 
 BLEAK HOUSE. With Illustrations by BEATRICE ALCOCK. Two 
 Volumes. 
 
 OLIVER TWIST. With Illustrations by E. H. NEW. Two Volumes. 
 
 Xittle Xibrars. 
 
 Pott 8vo. Each Volume, cloth 2s. ; leather 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Messrs. METHUEN intend to produce a series of small books under the 
 above title, containing some of the famous books in English and other 
 literatures, in the domains of fiction, poetry, and belles lettres. The series 
 will also contain several volumes of selections in prose and verse. 
 
 The books will be edited with the most sympathetic and scholarly care. 
 Each one will contain an Introduction which will give (i) a short biography 
 of the author, (2) a critical estimate of the book, (3) short bibliographical 
 details. Where they are necessary, short notes will be added at the foot 
 of the page. 
 
 The Little Library will ultimately contain complete sets of the novels 
 of W. M. Thackeray, Jane Austen, the sisters Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell and
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 7 
 
 others. It will also contain the best work of many other novelists whose 
 names are household words. 
 
 Each book will have a portrait or frontispiece in photogravure, and the 
 volumes will be produced with great care in a style uniform with that of 
 ' The Library of Devotion.' 
 
 The first volumes will be : 
 A LITTLE BOOK OF ENGLISH LYRICS. 
 
 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. By JANE AUSTEN. With an 
 Introduction by E. V. LUCAS. Two Volumes. 
 
 VANITY FAIR. By W. M. THACKERAY. With an Introduction 
 
 by S. GWYNN. Three Volumes. 
 EOTHEN. By A. W. KlNGLAKE. With an Introduction. 
 
 CRANFORD. By Mrs. GASKELL. With an Introduction by 
 E. V. LUCAS. 
 
 JANE EYRE. By CHARLOTTE BRONTE. With an Introduction 
 by R. BAYNE. Two Volumes. 
 
 Cbe xtttlc Guides. 
 
 Pott Svo, cloth jr. ; leather %s. 6d. net. 
 NEW VOLUME. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY. By B. C. WlNDLE, M.A. 
 
 Illustrated by E. H. NEW. 
 Uniform with Mr. Wells' ' Oxford' and Mr. Thomson's ' Cambridge.' 
 
 Fiction 
 
 A NEW DEPARTURE IN PUBLISHING. 
 
 Messrs. METHUEN contemplate a very interesting experiment in 
 publishing. They are about to issue at Sixpence, under the general title of 
 ' Methuen's Library of Fiction,' stories by some of the best known writers 
 of the day. A few books will be reprints, but most will be new works 
 hitherto unpublished in book form. 
 
 A considerable number of Sixpenny Editions of old books have already 
 been issued by various publishers, but in no case has the work of an author 
 of high repute been published in the first instance at that price. This 
 Messrs. Methuen will attempt, and the first book thus published will be 
 by E. W. Hornung. Mr. Robert Barr and Mr. Cutliffe Hyne will 
 follow, and later will be published books by Mr. Baring Gould and 
 others. In some cases the same book will be published simultaneously 
 both at Sixpence and at a higher price. Messrs. Methuen recognise the 
 inevitable tendencies of an age of cheap literature. The theatre has its 
 stalls and its pit, the railway its first and its third classes : so the novelist
 
 8 MESSRS. METHUEN'S ANNOUNCEMENTS 
 
 may well have a double audience, and while the wealthy will still pay Six 
 Shillings for their novels, those of limited means will be able to purchase 
 the same book in a decent but less luxurious form. 
 
 A NEW NOVEL. By E. W. HORNUNG. Demy Svo. 6d. 
 JENNY BAXTER. By ROBERT BARR. Demy Svo. 6d. 
 
 THE COUNTESS TEKLA. By ROBERT BARR, Author of 
 
 'The Mutable Many.' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 A romance of ad venture. 
 
 THE CAPSINA. By E. F. BENSON, Author of Dodo.' With 
 Illustrations by G. P. jACOMB-HoOD. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE HUMAN BOY. By EDEN PHILPOTTS, Author of ' Chil- 
 dren of the Mist.' Crown Svo. 3*. &r*. 
 
 A scries of studies of the English schoolboy, the result of keen observation, and of a 
 most engaging wit. 
 
 ANNE MAULEVERER. By Mrs. CAFFYN (Iota). Author of 
 1 The Yellow Aster. ' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 RACHEL. By JANE HELEN FINDLATER, Author of 'The 
 Green Graves of Balgowrie. ' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 BETTY MUSGRAVE. By MARY FINDLATER, Author of 
 ' Over the Hills.' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE PATH OF A STAR. By SARA JEANETTE DUNCAN, 
 Author of ' A Voyage of Consolation. ' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN. By E. W. HORNUNG, 
 Author of ' Young Blood.' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE PATHS OF THE PRUDENT. By J. S. FLETCHER, 
 
 Author of ' When Charles I. was King.' Crown Svo, 6s. 
 
 GILES INGILBY. By W. E. NORRIS. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 ROSE A CHARLITTE. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS. Crown 
 Svo. 6s. 
 A romantic story of Acadie. 
 
 ADRIAN ROME. By E. DOWSON and A. MOORE, Authors of 
 ' A Comedy of Masks.' Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED. By DOROTHEA 
 GERARD, Author of ' Lady Baby,' ' Orthodox,' etc. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 LONE PINE. By R. B. TOWNSHEND. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 A romance of Mexican life. 
 
 TALES OF NORTHUMBRIA. By HOWARD PEASE. Crown 
 Svo. 3*. 6d.
 
 A CATALOGUE OF 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S 
 
 PUBLICATIONS 
 
 Poetry 
 
 Rudyard Kipling. BARRACK-ROOM 
 BALLADS. By RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 47 1 'A Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' Mr. Kipling's verse is strong, vivid, full 
 of character. . . . Unmistakeable genius 
 rin^s in every line.' -Times. 
 ' The ballads teem with imagination, they 
 palpitate with emotion. We read them 
 with laughter and tears ; the metres throb 
 in our pulses, the cunningly ordered 
 words tingle with life ; and if this be not 
 poetry, what is ? 'Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Rudyard Kipling. THE SEVEN 
 SEAS. By RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 4U/ Thousand. Cr. 8vo. Buckram, 
 gilt top. 6.5. 
 
 ' The new poems of Mr. Rudyard Kipling 
 have all the spirit and swing of their pre- 
 decessors. Patriotism is the solid concrete 
 foundation on which Mr. Kipling has 
 built the whole of his work.' Times. 
 ' The Empire has found a singer ; it is no 
 depreciation of the songs to say that 
 statesmen may have, one way or other, 
 to take account of them.' MancJiester 
 Guardian. 
 
 'Animated through and through with in- 
 dubitable genius.' Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "Q." POEMS AND BALLADS. By 
 
 " Q." Crown 8vo. 35. >d. 
 'This work has just the faint, ineffable touch 
 and glow that make poetry-' Speaker. 
 
 "Q." GREEN BAYS: Verses and 
 Parodies. By"Q." Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. y. 6rf. 
 
 A 
 
 E. Mackay. A SONG OF THE SEA. 
 By ERIC MACKAY. Second Edition. 
 Fcap. 8vo. 5*. 
 
 ' Everywhere Mr. Mackay displays himself 
 the master of a style marked by all the 
 characteristics of the best rhetoric." 
 Globe. 
 
 H. Ibsen. BRAND. A Drama by 
 
 HENRIK IBSEN. Translated by 
 
 WILLIAM WILSON. Third Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 ' The greatest world-poem of the nineteenth 
 century next to ''Faust." It is in the 
 same set with " Agamemnon," with 
 " Lear," with the literature that we now 
 instinctively regard as high and holy.' 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "A.O." VERSES TO ORDER. By 
 "A. G." Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 'A capital specimen of light academic 
 poetry.' Si. James's Gazette. 
 
 James Williams. VENTURES IN 
 VERSE. By JAMES WILLIAMS, 
 Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 
 Crown 8vo. y. f>d. 
 
 ' In matter and manner the book is admir- 
 able.' Glasgeiv Herald. 
 
 J. G. Cordery. THE ODYSSEY OF 
 HOMER. A Translation by J. G. 
 CORDERY. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. 
 
 ' A spirited, accurate, and scholarly piece 
 of work.' Glasgo-.i' Herald.
 
 10 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 Belles Lettres, Anthologies, etc. 
 
 R. L. Stevenson. VAILIMA LET- 
 TERS. By ROBERT Louis STEVEN- 
 SON. With an Etched Portrait by 
 WILLI AM STR A NO. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. Buckram. 6s. 
 
 ' \ fascinating book.' Standard. 
 
 ' Kulj of charm and brightness.' Spectator. 
 
 * A gift almost priceless.' Speaker. 
 
 ' Unique in Literature.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 G.Wyndhaxn. THE POEMSOF WIL- 
 LIAM SHAKESPEARE. Edited 
 with an Introduction and Notes by 
 GEORGE WYNDHAM, M.P. Demy 
 8vo. Buckram, gilt top. los. 6d. 
 This edition contains the ' Venus,' ' Lucrece,' 
 and Sonnets, and is prefaced with an 
 elaborate introduction of over 140 pp. 
 ' One of the most serious contributions to 
 Shakespearian criticism that have been 
 published for some time.' Times. 
 ' A scholarly and interesting contribution 
 
 to literature.' Literature. 
 ' We have no hesitation in describing Mr. 
 George Wyndham's introduction as a 
 masterly piece of criticism, and all who 
 love our Elizabethan literature will find a 
 very garden of delight in it. ' Spectator. 
 ' Mr. Wyndham's notes are admirable, even 
 i ndispensable. ' Westminster Gazette. 
 
 W. E. Henley. ENGLISH LYRICS. 
 Selected and Edited by W. E. 
 HENLEY. Crown 8vo. Buckram, 
 gilt top. 6s. 
 
 ' It is a body of choice and lovely poetry. 
 Birmingham Gazette. 
 
 Henley and Whibley. A BOOK OF 
 ENGLISH PROSE. Collected by 
 W. E. HENLEY and CHARLES 
 WHIBLEY. Crown 8vo. Buckram, 
 gilt top. 6s. 
 
 ' Quite delightful. A greater treat for those 
 not well acquainted with pre-Restora- 
 tion prose could not be imagined.' 
 Athenffum. 
 
 H. C. Beeching. LYRA SACRA : An 
 Anthology of Sacred Verse. Edited 
 by H. C. BEECHING, M.A. Crown 
 8vo. Buc&ram. 6s. 
 'A charming selection, which maintains a , 
 lofty standard of excellence.' Times. 
 
 "Q." THE GOLDEN POMP. A Pro- 
 cession of English Lyrics. Arranged 
 by A. T. QuiLLER COUCH. Crown 
 8vo. Buckram. 6s. 
 ' A delightful volume : a really golden 
 " Pomp." ' Spectator. 
 
 W. B. Yeats. AN ANTHOLOGY OF 
 IRISH VERSE. Edited by W. B. 
 YEATS. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 'An attractive and catholic selection. 1 
 
 Timtt. 
 
 G. W. Steevens. MONOLOGUES OF 
 THE DEAD. By G. W. STEEVENS. 
 Foolscap 8vo. y. 6d. 
 ' The effect is sometimes splendid, some- 
 times bizarre, but always amazingly 
 clever.' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 W. M. Dlxon. A PRIMER OF 
 TENNYSON. By W. M. DIXON, 
 M.A. Cr. 8va. zs. 6d. 
 ' Much sound and well-expressed criticism. 
 The bibliography is % boon.' Speaker. 
 
 W. A. Craigie. A PRIMER OF 
 BURNS. By W. A. CRAIGIE. 
 Crown 8vo. ar. 6d. 
 ' A valuable addition to the literature of the 
 poet. 1 Times. 
 
 L. Magnus. A PRIMER OF WORDS- 
 WORTH. By LAURIE MAGNUS. 
 Crown 8vo. zs. 6d. 
 
 ' A valuable contribution to Wordswortliian 
 literature.' Literature. 
 
 Sterne. THE LIFE AND OPINIONS 
 OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. By 
 LAWRENCE STERNE. With an In- 
 troduction by CHARLES WHIBLEY, 
 and a Portrait. 2 vols. ys. 
 ' Very dainty volumes arc these : the paper, 
 type, and light-green binding are all very 
 agreeable to the eye.'GMe. 
 
 Congreve. THE COMEDIES OF 
 WILLIAM CONGREVE. With an 
 Introduction by G. S. STREET, and 
 a Portrait. 2 vols. js. 
 
 Morier. THE ADVENTURES OF 
 HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN. By 
 JAMES MORIER. With an Introduc- 
 tion by E. G. BROWNE, M.A., and a 
 Portrait. 2 vols. 7*.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 ii 
 
 Walton. THE LIVES OF DONNE, 
 WOTTON, HOOKER. HERBERT 
 AND SANDERSON. By IZAAK i 
 WALTON. With an Introduction by i 
 VERNON BLACKBURN, and a Por- 
 trait. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Johnson. THE LIVES OF THE | 
 ENGLISH POETS. By SAMUEL 
 JOHNSON, LL.D. With an Intro- 
 duction by J. H. MILLAR, and a Por- 
 trait. 3 vols. los. 6d. 
 
 Burns. THE POEMS OF ROBERT 
 BURNS. Edited by ANDREW LANG 
 and W. A. CRAIGIE. With Portrait. 
 Second Edition. Demy 8vo, gilt top. 
 6s. 
 This edition contains a carefully collated 
 
 Text, numerous Notes, critical and text- 
 ual, a critical and biographical Introduc- 
 tion, and a Glossary. 
 
 'Among editions in one volume, this will 
 take the place of authority.' Timet. 
 
 F. Langbridge. BALLADS OF THE 
 BRAVE ; Poems of Chivalry, Enter- 
 prise, Courage, and Constancy. 
 Edited by Rev. F. LANGBRIDGE. 
 Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. y, 6d. 
 School Edition. 2s. 6d. 
 ' A very happy conception happily carried 
 out. These "Ballads of the Brave" 
 are intended to suit the real tastes of 
 boys, and will suit the taste of the great 
 majority.' Spectator. 
 'The book is full of splendid things.' 
 World. 
 
 Illustrated Books 
 
 John Bunyan. THE PILGRIM'S 
 
 PROGRESS. By JOHN BUNYAN. 
 
 Edited, with an Introduction, by C. H. 
 
 FIRTH, M.A. With 39 Illustrations 
 
 by R. ANNING BELL. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 This book contains a long Introduction _by 
 
 Mr. Firth, whose knowledge of the period 
 
 is unrivalled; and it is lavishly illustrated. 
 
 'The best "Pilgrim's Progress."' 
 
 Educational Times. 
 1 A choice edition.' Westminster Gazette. 
 
 F. D. Bedford. NURSERY RHYMES. 
 With many Coloured Pictures by F. 
 D. BEDFORD. Super Royal 8vo. $s. 
 ' An excellent selection of the best knovyn 
 rhymes, with beautifully coloured pic- 
 tures exquisitely printed.' Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 8. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF 
 FAIRY TALES retold by S. BARING 
 GOULD. With numerous Illustra- 
 tions and Initial Letters by ARTHUR 
 J. GASKIN. Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 
 Buckram. 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Baring Gould is deserving of grati- 
 tude, in re-writing in simple style the 
 
 old stories that delighted our fathers and 
 grandfathers.' Saturday Review. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. OLD ENGLISH 
 FAIRY TALES. Collected and 
 edited by S. BARING GOULD. With 
 Numerous Illustrations by F. D. 
 BEDFORD. Second Edition. Cr. 8w. 
 Buckram. 6s. 
 'A charming volume.' Guardian. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. A BOOK OF 
 NURSERY SONGS AND 
 RHYMES. Edited by S. BARING 
 GOULD, and Illustrated by the Bir- 
 mingham Art School. Buckram, gilt 
 top. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 H. C. Beeching. A BOOK OF 
 CHRISTMAS VERSK. Edited by 
 H. C. BEECHING, M.A., and Illus- 
 trated by WALTER CRANE. Cr. 8vo, 
 gilt top. y. 6d. 
 
 An anthology which, from its unity of aim 
 and high poetic excellence, has a better 
 right to exist than most of its fellows.' 
 Guardian. 
 
 History 
 
 Gibbon. THE DECLINE AND 
 FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 By EDWARD GIBBON. A New Edi- 
 tion, Edited with Notes, Appendices, 
 
 and Maps, by J. B. BURY, LL.D., 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. 
 In Seven I "olumes. Demy 8vo. Gilt 
 top, 8s. 6d, each. Also Cr. 8vo. 6s.
 
 12 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 each. Vois. /., //., ///., IV., V., and 
 VI. 
 
 ' The time has certainly arrived for a new 
 edition of Gibbon'* great work. . . . Pro- 
 fessor Bury is the right man to under- 
 take thii task. His learning is amazing, 
 both in extent and accuracy. The book 
 is issued in a handy form, and at a 
 moderate price, and it is admirably 
 printed. ' Times. 
 
 ' This edition is a marvel of erudition and 
 critical skill, and it is the very minimum 
 of praise to predict that the seven 
 volumes of it will supersede Dean Mil- 
 man's as the standard edition of our great 
 historical classic.' Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' At last there is an adequate modern edition 
 of Gibbon. . . . The best edition the 
 nineteenth century could produce.' 
 Manchester Guardian. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. A HISTORY OF 
 EGYPT.FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES 
 TO THE PRESENT DAY. Edited by 
 W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L., 
 LL.D., Professor of Egyptology at 
 University College. Fully Illustrated. 
 In Six Volumes. Cr. 8vo. 6s. each. 
 VOL. I. PREHISTORIC TIMES TO 
 XVlTH DYNASTY. W. M. F. 
 Petrie. Third Edition. 
 VOL. II. THE XVIlTH AND 
 XVIIITH DYNASTIES. W. M. 
 F. Petrie. Second Edition. 
 ' A history written in the spirit of scientific 
 precision so worthily represented by Dr. 
 Petrie and his school cannot but pro- 
 mote sound and accurate study, and 
 supply a vacant place in the English 
 literature of Egyptology." Times. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. RELIGION AND 
 CONSCIENCE IN ANCIENT 
 EGYPT. By W. M. FLINDERS 
 PETRIE, D. C. L. , LL. D. Fully Illus- 
 trated. Crown 8vo. zs. 6d. 
 ' The lectures will afford a fund of valuable 
 information for students of ancient 
 ethics.' Manchester Guardian. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. SYRIA AND 
 EGYPT, FROM THE TELL EL 
 AMARNA TABLETS. By W. M. 
 FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L., LL.D. 
 Crown 8vo. zs. 6d. 
 1 A marvellous record. The addition made 
 to our knowledge is nothing short of 
 amazing.' Times. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN TALES. 
 
 Edited by W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE. 
 
 Illustrated by TRISTRAM ELLIS. / 
 
 Two Volumes. Cr. 8vo. y. 6d. each. 
 
 ' Invaluable as a picture of life in Palestine 
 
 and Egypt.' Daily Ntvit. 
 
 Flinders Petrie. EGYPTIAN DECO- 
 RATIVE ART. By W. M. FLIN- 
 DERS PETRIE. With 120 Illustrations. 
 Cr. 8vo. y. 6d. 
 
 ' In these lectures he displays rare skill in 
 elucidating the development of decora- 
 tive art in Egypt.' Timei. 
 
 C. W. Oman. A HISTORY OF THE 
 
 ART OF WAR. Vol. n. : The 
 
 Middle Ages, from the Fourth to the 
 
 Fourteenth Century. By C. W. 
 
 OMAN, M.A., Fellow of All Souls', 
 
 Oxford. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. ais. 
 
 ' The book is based throughout upon a 
 
 thorough study of the original sources, 
 
 and will be an indispensable aid to all 
 
 students of mediaeval history.' Athe- 
 
 tueuiit. 
 
 ' The whole art of war in its historic evolu- 
 tion has never been treated on such an 
 ample and comprehensive scale, and we 
 question if any recent contribution to 
 the exact history of the world has pos- 
 sessed more enduring value.' Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 S. Baring Gould. THE TRAGEDY 
 OF THE CAESARS. With nume- 
 rous Illustrations from Busts, Gems, 
 Cameos, etc. By S. BARING GOULD. 
 Fourth Edition. Royal 8vo. 151. 
 ' A most splendid and fascinating book on a 
 subject of undying interest. The great 
 feature of the book is the use the author 
 has made of the existing portraits of 
 the Caesars and the admirable critical 
 subtlety he has exhibited in dealing with 
 this line of research. It is brilliantly 
 written, and the illustrations are sup- 
 plied on a scale of profuse magnificence. ' 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 F. W. Maitland. CANON LAW IN 
 ENGLAND. By F. W. MAITLAND, 
 LL.D., Downing Professor of the 
 Laws of England in the University 
 of Cambridge. Royal 8vo. 7.1. 6d. 
 'Professor Maitland has put students of 
 English law under a fresh debt. These 
 essays are landmarks in the study of the 
 history of Canon LAW.' Titties.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 H. de B. Qibbins. INDUSTRY IN 
 ENGLAND : HISTORICAL OUT- 
 LINES. By H. DE B. GIBBINS. 
 M.A., D. Litt. With 5 Maps. Se- 
 cond Edition. Demy 8vo. IQS. 6d. 
 
 H. E. Egerton. A HISTORY OF 
 BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY. 
 By H. E. EGERTON, M.A. Demy 
 8vo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 ' It is a good book, distinguished by accu- 
 racy in detail, clear arrangement of facts, 
 and a broad grasp of principles.' 
 Manchester Guardian. 
 ' Able, impartial, clear. ... A most valu- 
 able volume.' Athenaum. 
 
 Albert Sorel. THE EASTERN 
 QUESTION IN THE EIGH- 
 TEENTH CENTURY. By ALBERT 
 SOREL, of the French Academy. 
 Translated by F. C. BRAMWELL, 
 M.A., with an Introduction by C. R. 
 L. FLETCHER, Fellow of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford. With a Map. 
 Cr. 8vo. y && 
 
 'The author's insight into the character 
 and motives of the leading actors in the 
 drama gives the work an interest un- 
 common in books based on similar 
 material.' Scotsman. 
 
 C. H. Griming. A HISTORY OF 
 THE GREAT NORTHERN RAIL- 
 WAY, 1845-95. By CHARLES H. 
 GRINI.INO. With Maps and Illus- 
 trations. Demy 8vo. los. 6d. 
 Admirably written, and crammed with 
 
 interesting facts.' Daily Mail. 
 ' The only adequate history of a great 
 
 English railway company.' Times. 
 ' Mr. Grinling has done for a Railway what 
 
 Macaulay did for English History. ' 
 
 The Engineer. 
 
 W. Sterry. ANNALS OF ETON 
 COLLEGE. By W. STERRY, M.A. 
 With numerous Illustrations. Demy 
 8vo. "js. 6d. 
 
 ' A treasury of quaint and interesting read- 
 ing. Mr. Sterry has by his skill and 
 vivacity given these records new life.' 
 Academy. 
 
 ' A most attractive and admirably illustrated 
 account.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 J. Sargeaunt ANNALS OF WEST- 
 MINSTER SCHOOL. By I. SAR- 
 GEAUNT, M.A., Assistant Master. 
 With numerous Illustrations. Demy 
 8vo. js. 6d. 
 
 A. Clark. THE COLLEGES OF 
 OXFORD : Their History and their 
 Traditions. By Members of the 
 University. Edited by A. CLARK. 
 M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Lincoln 
 College. 8vo. izs. 6d. 
 'A work which will be appealed to for 
 many years as the standard book.' 
 AtkentrMtti. 
 
 Perreng. THE HISTORY OF 
 FLORENCE FROM 1434 TO 
 1492. By F. T. PERRKNS. 8w. 
 I2s. 6d. 
 
 A history of the domination of Cosimo, 
 Piero, and Lorenzo de Medicis. 
 
 J. Wells. A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 ROME. By J. WELLS, M.A.. 
 Fellow and Tutor of Wadham Coll. , 
 Oxford. Second and Rnnsed Edition. 
 With 3 Maps. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. 
 This book is intended for the Middle and 
 Upper Forms of Public Schools and for 
 Pass Students at the Universities. It 
 contains copious Tables, etc. 
 'An original work written on an original 
 plan, and with uncommon freshness and 
 vigour. ' Speaker. 
 
 0. Browning. A SHORT HISTORY 
 OF MEDIEVAL ITALY, A.D. 
 1250-1530. By OSCAR BROWNING, 
 Fellow and Tutor of King's College, 
 Cambridge. In Two Volumes. Cr. 
 &w. y. each. 
 VOL. I. 1250-1409. Gueiphs and 
 
 Ghibellines. 
 VOL. ii. 1409-1530. The Age of 
 
 the Condpttieri. 
 
 ' Mr. Browning is to be congratulated on 
 the production of a work of immense 
 labour and learning. ' Wtttminsttr 
 Gazette. 
 
 O'Grady. THE STORY OF IRE- 
 LAND. By STANDISH O'GRADY, 
 Author of 'Finn and his Companions.' 
 Crown 8vo. 21. 6d.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 Biography 
 
 B. Baring Gould. THE LIFE OF 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. By 
 S. BARING GOULD. With over 450 
 Illustrations in the Text and 12 
 Photogravure Plates. I^a-rge quarto. 
 Gilt top. 361. 
 
 'The best biography of Napoleon in our 
 tongue, nor have the French as good a 
 biographer of their hero. A book very 
 nearly as good as Southey's " Life of 
 Nelson." ' Manchester Guardian. 
 'The main feature of this gorgeous volume 
 is its great wealth of beautiful photo- 
 gravures and finely - executed wood 
 engravings, constituting a complete 
 pictorial chronicle of Napoleon I.'s 
 personal history from the days of his 
 early childhood at Ajaccio to the date 
 of his second interment.' Daily Tele- 
 graph. 
 
 ' Nearly all the illustrations are real con- 
 tributions to history.' ll'estminster 
 Gazette. 
 
 P. H. Colomb. MEMOIRS OF AD- 
 MIRAL SIR A. COOPER KEY. 
 By Admiral P. H. COLOMB. With 
 a Portrait. Demy 8vo. i6s. 
 ' An interesting and adequate biography of 
 one who for a quarter of a century had a 
 prominent part in the administration of 
 the Navy. The whole book, in fact, is 
 one of the greatest interest peculiarly 
 so, it may be, to the naval officer, but also 
 to the average taxpayer and the reading 
 public.' Times. 
 
 Morris Fuller. THE LIFE AND 
 WRITINGS OF JOHN DAVEN- 
 ANT, D.D. (1571-1641), Bishop of 
 Salisbury. By MORRIS FULLER, 
 B.D. Demy&vo. los. 6d. 
 
 J. M. Rigg. ST. ANSELM OF 
 CANTERBURY: A CHAPTER IN 
 THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. By 
 J. M. RIGG. Demy 8vo, -]i. 6d. 
 ' Mr. Rigg has told the story of the life 
 with scholarly ability, and has contri- 
 buted an interesting chapter to the 
 history of the Norman period.' Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 F. W. Joyce. THE LIFE OF 
 
 SIR FREDERICK GORE OUSE- 
 LEY. By F. W. JOYCE. M.A. 7*. 6V/. 
 
 ' This book has been undertaken in quite 
 the right spirit, and written with sym- 
 pathy, insight, and considerable literary 
 gkill.' Times. 
 
 W. G. Collingwood. THE LIFE OF 
 JOHN RUSK IN. By W. G. 
 COLLINGWOOD, M.A. With Por- 
 traits, and 13 Drawings by Mr. 
 Ruskin. Second Edition. a voh. 
 8vo. 32*. 
 ' No more magnificent volumes have been 
 
 published for a long time.' Times. 
 1 It is long since we had a biography with 
 such delights of substance and of form. 
 Such a book is a pleasure for the day, 
 and a joy for ever.' Daily Chroniclt. 
 
 C. Waldstein. JOHN RUSKIN, By 
 CHARLES WALDSTEIN, M.A. With 
 a Photogravure Portrait, Post 8vo. 
 
 5 s - 
 
 'A thoughtful and well-written criticism of 
 Ruskin's teaching.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 A. M. F. Darmesteter, THE LIFE 
 OF ERNEST RENAN. By 
 MADAME DARMESTETER. With 
 Portrait. Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 
 6s. 
 
 'A polished gem of biography, superior in 
 Us kind to any attempt that has been 
 made of recent years in England. 
 Madame Darmesteter lias indeed written 
 for English readers " The Life of Ernest 
 Renan." ' A thenaum. 
 1 It is interpenetrated with the dignity and 
 charm, the mild, bright, classical grace 
 of form and treatment that Renan him- 
 self so loved ; and it fulfils to the utter- 
 most the delicate and difficult achieve- 
 ment it sets out to accomplish.' 
 Academy. 
 
 W. H. Button. THE LIFE OF SIR 
 THOMAS MORE. By W. H. 
 HUTTON, M.A. With Portraits. 
 Cr. 8vo. ST. 
 
 ' The book lays good claim to high rank 
 among our biographies. It is exc-llently 
 even lovingly, written.' Scotsman. 
 'An excellent monograph.' Tunes.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 Travel, Adventure and Topography 
 
 SvenHedin. THROUGH ASIA. By 
 SVEN HEDIN, Gold Medallist of the 
 Royal Geographical Society. With 
 300 Illustrations from Sketches 
 and Photographs by the Author, 
 and Maps. 2 vofs. Royal 8vo. 36*. 
 net. 
 
 'One of the greatest books of the kind 
 issued during the century. It is im- 
 possible to give an adequate idea of the 
 richness of the contents of this book, 
 nor of its abounding attractions as a story 
 of travel unsurpassed in geographical 
 and human interest. Much of it is a 
 revelation. Altogether the work is one 
 which in solidity, novelty, and interest 
 must take a first rank among publica- 
 tions of its class. ' Times. 
 
 1 In these magnificent volumes we have the 
 most important contribution to Central 
 Asian geography made for many years. 
 Intensely interesting as a tale of travel.' 
 Spectator. 
 
 ' The whole story of the desert adventure is 
 worthy to be added to the classics of its 
 kind.' World. 
 
 ' These volumes are of absorbing and fascin- 
 ating interest, their matter is wonderful, 
 and Dr. Hedin's style is surcharged with 
 strong and alluring personality. No 
 romance exceeds in its intense and en- 
 thralling interest this story.' Birming- 
 ham Post. 
 
 ' One of the most remarkable books of travel i 
 of the century.' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' Profoundly interesting.' Academy. 
 
 'A memorable book, gigantic of design, : 
 magnificent in execution, and without | 
 doubt one of the outstanding travel- , 
 volumes of the century.' Black and 
 White. 
 
 ' Let any one who is desirous to learn about 
 the wonderful continent of Asia as no one 
 else can teach him, buy and read this 
 work.' Vanity Fair. 
 
 R. E. Peary. NORTHWARD OVER | 
 THEGREATICE. By R.E. PEARY, ! 
 Gold Medallist of the Royal Geogra- : 
 phical Society. With over 800 Illus- : 
 trations. avals. Royal 8vo. 325. fief. 
 
 'The book is full of interesting matter a 
 tale of brave deeds simply told ; abun- 
 dantly illustrated with prints and maps.' 
 Standard. 
 
 ' His book will take its place among the per- 
 manent literature of Arctic exploration.' 
 Times. 
 
 It yields neither in interest nor in ability 
 to Nansen's " Farthest North," while its 
 results are no less valuable.' Glasrw 
 Herald. 
 
 'Crowded with adventures and intensely 
 interesting ' World. 
 
 ' An exciting and thoroughly well-arranged 
 book. 1 St. James's Gazette. 
 
 G. S. Robertson. CHITRAL: The 
 Story of a Minor Siege. By Sir 
 G. S. ROBERTSON, K. C.S.I. With 
 numerous Illustrations and a Map. 
 Second Edition. Demy 8vo. los. 6d. 
 
 ' It is difficult to imagine the kind of person 
 who could read this brilliant book without 
 emotion. The story remains immortal 
 a testimony imperishable. We are face 
 to face with a great book.' Illustrated 
 London News, 
 
 ' A book which the Elizabethans would have 
 thought wonderful. More thrilling, more 
 piquant, and more human than any 
 novel." Newcastle Chronicle. 
 
 ' One of the most stirring military narra- 
 tives written in our time.' Times. 
 
 'A masterpiece of narrative.' Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 'As fascinating as Sir Walter Scott's best 
 fiction.' Daily Telegraph. 
 
 ' Full of dashing feats of courage as any 
 romance.' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' Not since the appearance of Lord Roberts'* 
 ' ' Forty-one Years " have we had a record 
 of Indian warfare which can be compared 
 with this glowing and moving story. ' 
 Daily Mail. 
 
 ' The enthusiastic admiration of the reader 
 cannot fail to be aroused.' Morning 
 Post. 
 
 ' A classic of frontierliterature.' Scotsman. 
 
 ' Any one proud of his name as Englishman 
 may read in these stirring chaptersabun- 
 dant justification for his pride.' Globe. 
 
 'A very fascinating, a singularly delightful 
 book.' Glasgow Herald. 
 
 ' A noble story, nobly told.' Pvnc h. 
 
 'Every page is quick with heroism.' 
 Outlook. 
 
 H H. Johnston. BRITISH CEN- 
 TRAL AFRICA. By Sir H. H. 
 JOHNSTON, K.C.B. With nearly 
 Two Hundred Illustrations, and Six
 
 16 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 Maps. Second Edition. Crown 4/0. 
 18*. net. 
 
 'A fascinating book, written with equal 
 skill and charm the work at once of a 
 literary artist and of a man of action 
 who is singularly wise, brave, and ex- 
 perienced. It abounds in admirable 
 sketches from pencil.' Westminster 
 Guiette. 
 
 A delightful book . . . collecting within 
 the covers of a single volume all that 
 is known of this part of our African 
 domains. The voluminous appendices 
 are of extreme value.' Manchester 
 Guardian. 
 
 L. Decle. THREE YEARS IN 
 SAVAGE AFRICA. By LIONEL 
 DECLE. With 100 Illustrations and 
 5 Maps. Second Edition. Demy 8ro. 
 lor. 6d. tiff. 
 
 A fine, full bopk.'-/W/ Mall Gazette. 
 ' Abounding in thrilling adventures.' 
 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 
 4 Its bnght pages give a better general 
 survey of Africa from the Cape to the 
 Equator than any single volume that 
 has yet been published.' Times. 
 4 A delightful book.' Academy. 
 ' Unquestionably one of the most interest- 
 ing books of travel which have recently 
 appeared . ' Standard. 
 
 A. Hulme Beaman. TWENTY 
 
 YEARS IN THE NEAR EAST. 
 
 By A. HULME BEAMAN. Demy 
 
 8vo. With Portrait. 10*. 6d. 
 
 ' One of the most entertaining books that we 
 
 have had in our hands for a long time. 
 
 It is unconventional in a high degree ; it 
 
 is written with sagacious humour ; it is 
 
 full of ad ventures and anecdotes. 1 Daily 
 
 Chronicle. 
 
 4 Packed with incident and eminently read- 
 able.' Critic. 
 
 Henri of Orleans. FROM TONKIN 
 TO INDIA. By PRINCE HENRI OF 
 ORLEANS. Translated by HAMLF.Y 
 BENT, M.A. With 100 Illustrations 
 and a Map. Cr. 4/0, gilt top. 255. 
 
 R. S. S. Baden-Powell. THE DOWN- 
 FALL OF PREMPEH. A Diary 
 of Life in Ashanti, 1895. By Colonel 
 BADEN-POWELL. With 21 Illustra- 
 tions and a Map. Cheaper Edition. 
 Large Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A compact, faithful, most readable record 
 of the campaign.' Daily News. ' 
 
 R. S. 8. Baden-PowelL THE MATA- 
 BELE CAMPAIGN, 1896. By Col. 
 BADEN-POWELL. With nearly 100 
 Illustrations. Cheaper Edition. Large 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' A straightforward account of a great deal 
 of plucky work.' Times. 
 
 8. L. Hinde. THE FALL OF THE 
 CONGO ARABS. By S. L. HINDK. 
 With Plans, etc. Demy 8vo. 121. 6d. 
 
 A, St. H. Gibbons. EXPLORATION 
 AND HUNTING IN CENTRAL 
 AFRICA. By Major A. ST. H. 
 GIBBONS. With full-page Illustra- 
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 20 
 
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 21 
 
 Theology 
 
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 22 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 A Kempte. THE IMITATION OF 
 CHRIST. By THOMAS A KEMPIS. 
 With an Introduction by DEAN 
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 GERE, and printed in black and red. 
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 J. Keble. THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. 
 By JOHN KEBLE. With an Intro- 
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 General Editor, A. ROBERTSON, D.D 
 THE XXXIX. ARTICLES OF THE 
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 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE 
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 D.D., Warden of Keble College, 
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 ., Principal of King's College, London. 
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 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
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 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 
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 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By JOHN 
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 has yet existed in English.' Academy. 
 
 A BOOK OF DEVOTIONS. By J. 
 W. STANBRIDGE, M.A., Rector of 
 Bainton, Canon of York, and some- 
 time Fellow of St. John's College, 
 Oxford. 
 
 ' It is probably the best book of its kind. It 
 deserves high commendation.' Church 
 Gazette. 
 
 XcnDcrs of "Religion 
 
 Edited by H. C. BEECHING, M. A. With Portraits, Crown Svo. 3*. 6W. 
 
 A series of short biographies of the most prominent leaders of religious 
 life and thought of all ages and countries. 
 The following are ready 
 
 JOHN KEBLE. By WALTER LOCK. 
 
 D.D. 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. By Mrs. 
 
 OLIPHANT. 
 LANCELOT ANDREWES. By R. 
 
 L. OTTLEY, M.A. 
 AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. 
 
 By E. L. CUTTS, D.D. 
 
 ByR. H. 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 HUTTON. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. By J. H. OVER- 
 TON, M.A. 
 
 BISHOP WILBERFORCE. By G. 
 W. DANIKLL, M.A. 
 
 CARDINAL MANNING. By A. W. 
 HUTTON, M.A. 
 
 CHARLES SIMEON. By H. C. G. 
 MOULE, D.D. 
 
 WILLIAM LAUD. 
 HUTTON, B.D. 
 
 By W. H.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 JOHN KNOX. By F. MAcCVKN. 
 
 JOHN HOWE. By R. F. HORTON, 
 D.D. 
 
 BISHOP KEN. 
 M.A. 
 
 By F. A. CLARKE, 
 
 GEORGE FOX, THE QUAKER. 
 
 By T. HODGKIN, D.C.L. 
 JOHN DONNE, By AUGUSTUS 
 
 JESSOPP, D.D. 
 THOMAS CRANMER. By. A. J. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Other volumes will be announced in due course. 
 
 Fiction 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS 
 
 Marie Corelli's Novels 
 Large crown 8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS. 
 
 Eighteenth Edition. 
 VENDETTA. Fourteenth Edition. 
 THELMA. Twentieth Edition. 
 ARDATH: THE STORY OF A 
 
 DEAD SELF. Eleventh Edition. 
 THE SOUL OF LILITH. Ninth 
 
 Edition. 
 
 WORMWOOD. Eighth Edition. 
 BARABBAS: A DREAM OF THE 
 WORLD'S TRAGEDY. Thirty- 
 third Edition. 
 
 1 The tender reverence of the treatment 
 and the imaginative beauty of the writ- 
 ing have reconciled us to the daring of 
 the conception, and the conviction is 
 forced on us that even so exalted a sub- 
 ject cannot be made top familiar to us, 
 provided it be presented in the true spirit 
 of Christian faith. The amplifications 
 
 of the Scripture narrative are often con- 
 ceived with high poetic insight, and this 
 "Dream of the World's Tragedy " is 
 a lofty and not inadequate paraphrase 
 of the supreme climax of the inspired 
 narrative.' Dublin Review. 
 
 THE SORROWS OF SATAN. 
 Thirty-ninth Edition. 
 
 ' A very powerful piece of work. . . . The 
 conception is magnificent, and is likely 
 to win an abiding place within the 
 memory of man. . . . The author has 
 immense command of language, and a 
 limitless audacity. . . . This interesting 
 and remarkable romance will live long 
 after much of the ephemeral literature 
 of the day is forgotten. ... A literary 
 phenomenon . . . novel, and even sub- 
 lime.' W. T. STEAD in the Review 
 of Reviews. 
 
 Anthony Hope's Novels 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 THE GOD IN THE CAR. Eighth 
 
 Edition. 
 
 'A very remarkable book, deserving of 
 critical analysis impossible within our 
 limit ; brilliant, but not superficial ; 
 well considered, but not elaborated ; 
 constructed with the proverbial art that 
 conceals, but yet allows itself to be 
 enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary 
 method is a keen pleasure.' The World. 
 
 A CHANGE OF AIR. Fifth Edition. 
 'A graceful, vivacious comedy, true to 
 human nature. The characters are 
 traced with a masterly hand.' Times. 
 
 A MAN OF MARK. Fourth Edition. 
 
 'Of all Mr. Hope's books, "A Man of 
 
 Mark" is the one which best compares 
 
 with " The Prisoner of Zenda." ' 
 National Observer. 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT 
 ANTONIO. Third Edition. 
 1 It is a perfectly enchanting story of love 
 and chivalry, and pure romance. The 
 Count is the most constant, desperate, 
 and modest and tender of lovers, a peer- 
 less gentleman, an intrepid fighter, a 
 faithful friend, and a magnanimous foe.' 
 Guardian. 
 
 PHROSO. Illustrated by H. R. 
 
 MILLAR. Third Edition. 
 ' The tale is thoroughly fresh, quick with 
 vitality, stirring the blood.' St. James's 
 Gazette.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 1 A story of adventure, every page of which 
 is palpitating with action.' Speaker. 
 
 'From cover to cover "Phroso" not only 
 engages the attention, but carries the 
 reader in little whirls of delight from 
 adventure to adventure.' Academy. 
 
 SIMON DALE. Illustrated. Third 
 
 Edition. 
 ' "Simon Dale " is one of the best historical 
 
 romances that have been written for a 
 long while.' St. James's Gazette. 
 
 'A brilliant novel. The story is rapid and 
 most excellently told. As for the hero, 
 he is a perfect hero of romancr ' 
 A thenavm. 
 
 'There is searching analysis of human 
 nature, with a most ingeniously con- 
 structed plot. Mr. Hope has drawn the 
 contrasts of his women with marvellous 
 subtlety and delicacy.' Times. 
 
 Gilbert Parker's Novels 
 
 Crown Svo 
 
 PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. 
 Fifth Edition. 
 
 'Stories happily conceived and finely ex- 
 ecuted. There is strength and genius in 
 Mr. Parker's style.' Daily Telegraph. 
 
 MRS. FALCHION. Fourth Edition. 
 ' A splendid study of character.' 
 
 A thentrum. 
 
 ' But little behind anything that has been 
 done by any writer of our time.' Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 'A very striking and admirable novel.' 
 St. James's Gazette. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OF A 
 SAVAGE. 
 
 'The plot is original and one difficult to 
 work out ; but Mr. Parker has done it 
 with great skill and delicacy. The 
 reader who is not interested in this 
 original, fresh, and well-told tale must 
 be a dull person indeed.' 
 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD. 
 
 Illustrated. Sixth Edition. 
 1 A rousing and dramatic tale. A book like 
 this, in which swords flash, great sur- 
 prises are undertaken, and daring deeds 
 clone, in which men and women live and 
 love in the old passionate way, is a joy 
 inexpressible. ' Daily Chronicle. 
 
 WHEN VALMOND CAME TO 
 PONTIAC: The Story of a Lost 
 Napoleon. Fourth Edition. 
 1 Here we find romance real, breathing, 
 living romance. The character of Val- 
 mond is drawn unerringly. The book 
 must be read, we may say re-read, for 
 any one thoroughly to appreciate Mr. 
 Parker's delicate touch and innate sym- 
 pathy with humanity.' Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 AN ADVENTURER OF THE 
 
 6s. each. 
 
 NORTH: The Last Adventurer, of 
 4 Pretty Pierre.' Smwd Edition. 
 ' The present book is full of fine and mov- 
 ing stories of the great North, and it 
 will add to Mr. Parker's already high 
 reputation.' Glasgow Herald. 
 
 THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY. 
 Illustrated. Ninth Edition. 
 
 'The best thing he has done; one of the 
 best things that any one has done lately. ' 
 St. James's Gazette. 
 
 ' Mr. Parker seems to become stronger and 
 easier with every serious novel that he 
 attempts. He snows the matured power 
 which his former novels have led us to 
 expect, and has produced a really fine 
 historical novel.' Athentntm. 
 
 ' A great book.' Black and White. 
 
 1 One of the strongest stories of historical 
 interest and adventure that we have read 
 for many a day. ... A notable and suc- 
 cessful book.' Speaker. 
 
 THE POMP OF THE LAVILET- 
 TES. Second Edition. 3*. 6</. 
 ' Living, breathing romance, genuine and 
 unforced pathos, and a deeper and more 
 subtle knowledge of human nature than 
 Mr. Parker has ever displayed before. 
 It is, in a word, the work of a trucartUt.' 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG : 
 a Romance of Two Kingdoms. 
 Illustrated. Fourth Edition. 
 ' Mr. Gilbert Parker has a master's hand in 
 weaving the threads of romantic fiction. 
 There is scarcely a single character which 
 does not convince us.' Daily Cknmicle. 
 1 Such a splendid story, so splendidly told, 
 will be read with avidity, and will add 
 new honour even to Mr. Parker's reputa- 
 tion.' St. Jamts's Gasette.
 
 26 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 ' No one who takes a pleasure in literature 
 but will read Mr. Gilbert Parker's latest 
 romance with keen enjoyment. The mere 
 writing is so good as to be a delight in 
 itself, apart altogether from the interest 
 of the tale. 1 /><*// Mall Gazette. 
 
 ' Nothing more vigorous or more human has 
 come from Mr. Gilbert Parker than this 
 novel. It has all the graphic power of 
 
 his last book, with truer feeling for the 
 romance, both of human life and wild 
 nature. There is no character without its 
 unique and picturesque interest. Mr. 
 Parker's style, especially his descriptive 
 style, has in this book, perhaps even more 
 than elsewhere, aptness and vitality.' 
 Literature. 
 
 S. Baring Gould's Novels 
 
 Crown Svo. 6s. each. 
 
 'To say that a book is by the author of "Mehalah" is to imply that it contains a 
 story cast on strong lines, containing dramatic possibilities, vivid and sympathetic descrip- 
 tions of Nature, and a wealth of ingenious imagery. 1 Speaker. 
 
 ' That whatever Mr. Baring Gould writes is well worth reading, is a conclusion that may 
 be very generally accepted. His views of life are fresh and vigorous, bis language 
 pointed and characteristic, the incidents of which he makes use are striking and original, 
 his characters are life-like, and though somewhat exceptional people, are drawn and 
 coloured with artistic force. Add to this that his descriptions of scenes and scenery are 
 painted with the loving eyes and skilled hands of a master of his art, that he is always 
 fresh and never dull, and it is no wonder that readers have gained confidence in his 
 power of amusing and satisfying them, and that year by year his popularity widens.' 
 Cott ft Circular. 
 
 ARMINELL. Fourth Edition. 
 URITH. Fifth Edition. 
 
 IN THE ROAR OF THE SEA. 
 
 Sixth Edition. 
 MRS. CURGENVEN OF CURGEN- 
 
 VEN. Fourth Edition. 
 CHEAP JACK ZITA. Fourth Edition. 
 THE QUEEN OF LOVE. Fourth 
 
 Edition. 
 MARGERY OF QU ETHER. Third 
 
 Edition. 
 
 JACQUETTA. Third Edition. 
 KITTY ALONE. Fifth Edition. 
 NO^MI. Illustrated. Third Edition. 
 
 THE BROOM-SQUIRE. Illustrated. 
 
 Fourth Edition. 
 THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS. 
 
 Third Edition. 
 DARTMOOR IDYLLS. 
 GUAVAS THE TINNER. Illus- 
 
 ttated. Second Edition. 
 BLADYS. Illustrated. Second Edition. 
 DOMITIA. Illustrated. Second Edi- 
 tion. 
 
 1 There is a wealth of incident, and a lively 
 picture of Rome in the early days of the 
 Empire.' Scotsman. 
 
 ' Mr. Baring Gould, by virtue of his lurid 
 imagination, has given a forcible picture 
 of the horrors and heroism of Imperial 
 Rome. ' Spectator. 
 
 Conan Doyle. ROUND THE RED 
 LAMP. By A. CONAN DOYLE. 
 Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 'The book is far and away the best riew 
 that has been vouchsafed us behind the 
 scenes of the consulting-room.' Illus- 
 trated London News. 
 
 Stanley Weyman. UNDER THE 
 RED ROBE. By STANLEY WEY- 
 MAN, Author of 'A Gentleman of 
 France.' With Illustrations by R. C. 
 WOODVILLE. Fourteenth Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 4 A book of which we have read every word 
 
 for the sheer pleasure of reading, and 
 which we put down with a pang.' 
 Westminster Gazette. 
 ' Every one who reads books at all must 
 read this thrilling romance, from the 
 first page of which to the last the breath- 
 less reader is haled along. An inspira- 
 tion of manliness and courage.' Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 Lucas Malet. THE WAGES OF 
 SIN. By LUCAS MALET. Thir- 
 teenth Edition, Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Lucas Malet. THE CARISSIMA. 
 By LUCAS MALET, Author of ' The
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 27 
 
 Wages of Sin, 1 etc. Third Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 George Gtesing. THE TOWN TRA- 
 VELLER. By GEORGE GISSING, 
 Author of ' Demos,' ' In the Year of 
 Jubilee, ' etc. Second Edition. Cr. 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Not only a story with a happy ending, but 
 one which is in the main suffused with 
 cheerfulness, and occasionally mounts 
 to the plane of positive hilarity.' 
 Spectator. 
 
 'An admirable novel.' Truth. 
 ' It is a bright and witty book above all 
 things. Polly Sparkes is a splendid bit 
 of work._ A book which contains Polly, 
 the glorious row in the lodging-house, 
 and such a brisk plot, moving so smartly, 
 lightly 5 and easily, will not detract from 
 Mr. Gissing's reputation.' Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 ' The spirit of Dickens is in it ; his delight 
 in good nature, his understanding of the 
 feelings. ' Bookman. 
 
 S. R. Crockett. LOCH INVAR. By 
 S. R. CROCKETT, Author of 'The 
 Raiders,' etc. Illustrated. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. ' 
 ' Full of gallantry and pathos, of the clash 
 of arms, and brightened by episodes of 
 humour and love. . . .' Westminster 
 Gazette. 
 
 S. R. Crockett. THE STANDARD 
 BEARER. By S. R. CROCKETT. 
 Crown 8vo. dr. 
 ' A delightful tale in his best style." 
 
 Speaker. 
 
 ' Mr. Crockett at his best.' Literature. 
 
 1 Enjoyable and of absorbing interest.' 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 Arthur Morrison. TALES OF 
 MEAN STREETS. By ARTHUR 
 MORRISON. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 8vc>. 6s. 
 
 'Told with consummate art and extra- 
 ordinary detail. In the true humanity 
 of the book lies its justification, the 
 permanence of its interest, and its in- 
 dubitable triumph.' Athtnemm. 
 'A great book. The author's method is 
 amazingly effective, and produces a 
 thrilling sense of reality. The writer 
 lays upon us a master hand. The book 
 is simply appalling and irresistible in 
 its interest. It is humorous also ; with- 
 out humour it would not make the mark 
 it is certain to make." World. 
 
 Arthur Morrison. A CHILD OF 
 THE JAGO. By ARTHUR MORRI- 
 SON. Third Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 1 The book is a masterpiece. 1 Pall Mall 
 
 Gazette. 
 
 ' Told with great vigour and powerful sim- 
 plicity. 1 Athenavm. 
 
 Mrs. Clifford. A FLASH OF 
 SUMMER. By Mrs. W. K. CLIF- 
 FORD, Author of 'Aunt Anne,' etc. 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' The story is a very beautiful one, exquis- 
 itely told. 'Speaker. 
 
 Emily Lawless. HURRISH. By the 
 Honble. EMILY LAWLESS, Author of 
 'Maelcho,' etc. Fifth Edition. Cr. 
 8vo. dr. 
 
 Emily Lawless. MAELCHO : a Six- 
 teenth Century Romance. By the 
 Honble. EMILY LAWLESS. Second" 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' A really great book.' Spectator. 
 
 'There is no keener pleasure in life than 
 the recognition of genius. A piece of 
 work of the first order, which we do not 
 hesitate to describe as one of the most 
 remarkable literary achievements of this 
 generation.' Manchester Guardian. 
 
 Emily Lawless. TRAITS AND 
 CONFIDENCES. By the Honble. 
 EMILY LAWLESS. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A very charming little volume. A book 
 which cannot be read without pleasure 
 and profit, written in excellent English, 
 full of delicate spirit, and a keen ^appre- 
 ciation of nature, human and inanimate.' 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 Jane Barlow. A CREEL OF IRISH 
 STORIES. By JANE BARLOW, 
 Author of ' Irish Idylls. ' Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 'Vivid and singularly real.' Scotsman. 
 
 Jane Barlow. FROM THE EAST 
 UNTO THE WEST. By JANE 
 BARLOW, Author of 'Irish Idylls.' 
 etc. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' The genial humour and never-failing sym- 
 pathy recommend the book to those who 
 like healthy fiction.' Scotsman. 
 
 J. H. Findlater. THE GREEN 
 GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE. By
 
 28 
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 JANE H. FINDLATER. Fourth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 'A powerful and vivid story.' Standard. 
 ' A beautiful story, sad and strange as truth 
 
 itself.' Vanity Fair. 
 'A very charming and pathetic tale.' Pall 
 
 Mall Gone tie. 
 ' A singularly original, clever, and beautiful 
 
 story. 'Guardian. 
 ' Reveals to us a new writer of undoubted 
 
 faculty and reserve force.' Spectator. 
 'An exquisite idyll, delicate, affecting, and 
 
 beautiful.' Black and White. 
 
 3. H. Findlater. A DAUGHTER 
 OF STRIFE. By JANE HKI.KN 
 FINDLATER. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 'A story of strong human interest.' Scots- 
 man. 
 
 ' Her thought has solidity and maturity.' 
 Daily Mail. 
 
 Mary Findlater. OVER THE 
 HILLS. By MARY FINDLATER. 
 Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A strong and fascinating piece of work.' 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 ' A charming romance, and full of incident. 
 
 The book is fresh and strong.' Speaker. 
 
 ' Will make the author's name loved in many 
 
 a household.' Literary World. 
 'A strong and wise book of deep insight and 
 unflinching truth.' Birmingham Post. 
 
 Alfred Ollivant. OWD BOB, THE 
 GREY DOG OF KENMUIR. By 
 ALFRED OLLIVANT. Second Edit ion. 
 Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Of breathless interest.' British Weekly. 
 1 Weird, thrilling, strikingly graphic.' 
 
 Punch. 
 'This fine romance of dogs and men.' 
 
 Outlook. 
 
 ' We admire this book extremely for its 
 originality, for its virile and expressive 
 English, above all for its grit. The book 
 is to our mind the most powerful of its 
 class that we have read. It is one to read 
 with admiration and to praise with en- 
 thusiasm.' Bookman. 
 'It is a fine, open-air, blood-stirring book, 
 to be enjoyed by every man and woman 
 to whom a dog is dear.' Literature. 
 
 B. M. Croker. PEGGY OF THE 
 BARTONS. By B. M. CHOKER, 
 Author of 'Diana Barrington." 
 Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' Mrs. Croker excels in the admirably simple, 
 easy, and direct flow of her narrative, the 
 briskness of her dialogue, and the geni- 
 ality of her portraiture.' Spectator. 
 
 ' All the characters, indeed, are drawn with 
 clearness and certainty ; and it would be 
 hard to name any quality essential to 
 first-class work which is lacking from this 
 book.' Saturday Review. 
 
 H. O. Wells. THE STOLEN BA- 
 CILLUS, and other Stories. By 
 H. G. WELLS. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' They are the impressions of a very striking 
 imagination, which, it would seem, has 
 a great deal within its retch.' Saturday 
 Review. 
 
 H. 0. Wells. THE PLATTNER 
 STORY AND OTHERS. By H. G. 
 WELLS. Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 
 6s. 
 
 ' Weird and mysterious, they seem to hold 
 the reader as by a magic spell.' Scott- 
 man. 
 
 ' No volume has appeared for a long time 
 so likely to give equal pleasure to the 
 simplest reader and to the most fastidious 
 critic. ' A cademy. 
 
 Sara Jeanette Duncan. A VOYAGE 
 OF CONSOLATION. By SARA 
 JEANETTE DUNCAN, Author of ' An 
 American Girl in London.' Illus- 
 trated. Third Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6r. 
 ' Humour, pure and spontaneous and irre- 
 sistible.' Daily Mail. 
 'A most delightfully bright book.' Daily 
 
 Telegraph. 
 'Eminently amusing and entertaining.' 
 
 Outlook. 
 
 ' The dialogue is full of wit.'Gleoe. 
 ' Laughter lurks in every page.' Daily 
 News. 
 
 C. F. Keary. THE JOURNALIST. 
 By C. F. KEARY. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 'An excellently written story, told with a 
 sobriety and restrained force which are 
 worthy of all praise.' Standard. 
 
 ' It is rare indeed to find such poetical sym- 
 pathy with Nature joined to close study 
 of character and singularly truthful dia- 
 logue : but then " The Journalist " is 
 altogether a rare book.' Athenerutn. 
 
 'Full of intellectual vigour." St. James's 
 Gazette. 
 
 E. F. Benson. DODO : A DETAIL 
 OF THE DAY. By E. F. BENSON. 
 Sixteenth Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A delightfully witty sketch of society.' 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 ' A perpetual feast of epigram and paradox. 
 Speaker.
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 29 
 
 E. P. Benson. THE VINTAGE. By 
 E. F. BENSON. Author of ' Dodo. ' 
 Illustrated by G. P. jACOMB-Hooo. 
 Third Edition, Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' An excellent piece of romantic literature ; 
 a very graceful and moving story. We 
 are struck with the close observation of 
 life in Greece. 1 Saturday Review. 
 ' Full of fire, earnestness, and beauty.' 
 
 The World. 
 
 'An original and vigorous historical 
 romance.' Morning Post. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant. SIR ROBERT'S 
 FORTUNE. By. Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Full of her own peculiar charm of style 
 and character- painting.' Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant. THE TWO MARYS. 
 By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant. THE LADY'S 
 WALK. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 'A story of exquisite tenderness, of most 
 delicate fancy.' Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 W. E. Norris. MATTHEW AUSTIN. 
 By W. E. NORRIS, Author of ' Made- 
 moiselle de Mersac,' etc. Fourth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 'An intellectually satisfactory and morally 
 bracing novel.' Daily Telegraph. 
 
 W. E. Norris. HIS GRACE. By W. 
 
 E. NORRIS. Third Edition. Crown 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Norris has drawn a really fine char- 
 acter in the Duke.' Atltenaum. 
 
 W. E. Norris. THE DESPOTIC 
 LADY AND OTHERS. B- W. E. 
 NORRIS. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A budget of good fiction of which no one 
 will tire.' Scotsman. 
 
 W. E. Norris. CLARISSA FURIOS A. 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 ' As a story it is admirable, as njeu d 'esprit 
 it is capital, as a lay sermon studded 
 with gems of wit and wisdom it is a 
 model. 1 The World. 
 
 W. Clark Russell. MY DANISH 
 SWEETHEART. By W. CLARK 
 RUSSELL. Illustrated. Fourth 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Robert Barr. IX THE MJDST OF 
 ALARMS. By ROBERT BARR. 
 Third Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A book which has abundantly satisfied us 
 by its capital humour.' Daily Chronicle. 
 ' Mr. Barr has achieved a triumph.' Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 Robert Barr. THE MUTABLE 
 MANY. By ROBERT BARR, Author 
 of ' In the Midst of Alarms,' ' A 
 Woman Intervenes,' etc. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' Very much_ the best novel that Mr. Barr 
 has yet given us. There is much insight 
 in it, and much excellent humour.' 
 Daily Chronicle. 
 
 Andrew Balfour. BY STROKE OF 
 SWORD. By ANDREW BALKOUR. 
 Illustrated by W. CUBITT COOKE. 
 Fourth Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 'A banquet of good things.' Academy. 
 ' A recital of thrilling interest, told with 
 
 unflagging vigour. ' Globe. 
 ' An unusually excellent example of a semi- 
 historic romance." World. 
 
 Andrew Balfour. TO ARMS! By 
 ANDREW BALFOUR, Author of By 
 Stroke of Sword. ' Illustrated. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' The marvellous perils through which Allan 
 passes are told in powerful and lively 
 fashion. 'Pall Mall Gazette. 
 ' A fine story finely told.' Vanity Fair. 
 
 3. Maclaren Cobban. THE KING 
 OF ANDAMAN: A Saviour of 
 Society. By J. MACLAREN COBBAN. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 'An unquestionably interesting book. It 
 contains one character, at least, who has 
 in him the root of immortality.' Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 J. Maclaren Cobban. WILT THOU 
 HAVE THIS WOMAN? By J. 
 MACLAREN COBBAN, Author of The 
 King of Andaman.' Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 3. Maclaren Cobban. THE ANGEL 
 OF THE COVENANT. By J. 
 MACLAREN COBBAN. Cr, 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Mr. Cobban has achieved a work of such 
 rare distinction that there is nothing 
 comparable with it in recent Scottish 
 romance. It is a great historical picture, 
 in which fact and fancy are welded to- 
 gether in a fine realisation of the spirit of 
 the times.' Pall Mall Castile*
 
 MESSRS. METHUEN'S CATALOGUE 
 
 R. N. Stephens. AN ENEMY TO 
 THE KING. By R. N. STEPHENS. 
 Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6t. 
 ' It is full of movement, and the movement 
 
 is always buoyant.' Scotsman. 
 ' A stirring story with plenty of movement.' 
 Black and White. 
 
 M. E. Francis. MISS ERIN. By M. 
 E. FRANCIS, Author of ' In a North- 
 ern Village.' Second Edition. Cr. 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' A clever and charming story.' Scotsman. 
 ' Perfectly delightful.' Daily Mail. 
 'An excellently fancied love tale.' 
 Athenauin. 
 
 Robert Hichens. BYEWAYS. By 
 ROBERT HITCHINS. Author of 
 'Flames, etc.* Second Edition. Cr. 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' A very high artistic instinct and striking 
 command of language raise Mr. Hichens' 
 work far above the ruck.' Pall Mall 
 Gazette. 
 
 ' The work is undeniably that of a man of 
 striking imagination.' Daily News. 
 
 Percy White. A PASSIONATE PIL- 
 GRIM. By PKRCV WHITE, Author 
 of 'Mr. Bailey-Martin.' Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 ' A work which it is not hyperbole to describe 
 as of rare excellence.' Pat! AfallGasette. 
 ' The clever book of a shrewd and clever 
 author.' A theniruiii. 
 
 Mrs. Alan Brodrick. ANANIAS. By 
 the Hon. Mrs. ALAN BRODRICK. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Mrs. Orpen, CORRAGEEN IN '98. 
 
 By Mrs. ORPEN. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 'An admirable piece of literary work.' 
 
 Scotsman. 
 '\ vivid picture of the terrible times of 
 
 1 798. ' L loytfs. 
 
 'An able story, well worth reading, and 
 evidently the work of a careful and 
 thoughtful writer.' Scotsman. 
 
 J. Keighley Snowden. THE PLUN- 
 DER PIT. By J. KEIGHLEY SNOW- 
 DEN. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' As original in style and plot as in its title. 
 Truth. 
 
 W. Pett Ridge. SECRETARY TO 
 BAYNE, M.P. By W. PETT RIDGE. 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 ' Sparkling, vivacious, adventurous. St. 
 
 James's Gazette. 
 
 ' Ingenious, amusing, and especially smart. 
 -World. 
 
 J. S. Fletcher. THE BUILDERS. 
 
 By J. S. FLETCHER. Author of 
 
 When Charles I. was King.' 
 
 Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 ' Replete with delightful description*.' 
 
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