THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH HAYNES 
 
 AND DORA HAYNES FOUNDATION 
 
 COLLECTION 
 

THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
BY LEONARD MERRICK 
 
 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 ONE MAN'S VIEW 
 
 THE POSITION OF PEGGY 
 
 CONRAD IN QUEST OF HIS YOUTH 
 
 THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN 
 
 WHISPERS ABOUT WOMEN 
 
 THE ACTOR-MANAGER 
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS GOOD 
 
 CYNTHIA 
 
 At all booksellers 
 
THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 BY 
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 MCMXIII 
 
The Laurels and the Lady I 
 
 The Back of Bohemia 79 
 
 A Weak Imitation 99 
 
 The Life They Said She Ruined 113 
 
 The Girl at Lake Lincoln 125 
 
 The Girl with the Greek Face 138 
 
 With Intent to Defraud I5 8 
 
 The Body and Soul of Miss Azulay 174 
 
 In Rerum Natura l $9 
 
 A Mere Incident 197 
 
 The Social See-saw 217 
 
 "Fluffums" 233 
 
 To Miss Verschoyle 259 
 
 Posthumous 266 
 
 Nemesis 2 7 J 
 
 A Romance of a Coffee-stall 276 
 
 A Reverie 281 
 
 Copyright 1912 by 
 Mitchell Kennerley 
 
THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 
 
 WHEN Willy Childers was sent to the Cape, he went 
 to the last country on the face of the habitable 
 globe to which he was suited. Certainly it is a 
 question whether he would have made a success of 
 life anywhere, but in the Cape he was so glaringly 
 out of place that he became conspicuous. In Paris 
 when he had learnt the language he would at 
 least have felt at home; he would have drifted by 
 degrees into a congenial set in London; even in 
 New York, enthusiasm and diligence may discover 
 an artist on his way to or from one of the European 
 steamers; but on the Diamond Fields, a young man 
 who hoped to be a poet, and who did write verse, 
 was an incongruity that defies comparison. 
 
 To give him his due, he was conscious that his 
 
 existence was absurd there, and justified the chaff 
 
 ^ it received, and he loathed the "Fields" with a 
 
 r deeper loathing than any other member of its per- 
 
 T 
 
 764990 
 
2 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 spiring population ; but he could not go to the length 
 of altering his nature, and becoming brisk and enter- 
 prising, nor did he want to do that. It was not 
 with his nature, but with his environment he found 
 fault. "Lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share," 
 and he was full of confidence that his "mellow 
 metres" were going to make him celebrated one 
 day. He would rather have been left in peace with 
 plenty of stationery than have had the best business 
 of any broker in the market. 
 
 It had been as a broker that he commenced. His 
 uncle, Blake Somerset, was the manager of the For- 
 tunatus Mining Company in Bultfontein, and when 
 Willy had come down from Oxford, Somerset had 
 written to the Dulwich villa, saying that the uni- 
 versity career for which the boy had begged had 
 been "damned folly," and proposing that, now it 
 was over, his nephew should come out to South 
 Africa and try to make a living. 
 
 It must be conceded that Willy had not distin- 
 guished himself at Oxford, and displayed no ability 
 for any of the recognised professions. 
 
 None the less he was inclined to regard the advice 
 as preposterous. Dimly he had had visions of being 
 called to the Bar, and obtaining pleasant chambers 
 where he could write poetry all day without being 
 disturbed; but he had reckoned without his mother, 
 without her faith in her brother's judgment. The 
 letter had made a strong impression on her mind, 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 3 
 
 and at the idea of its being scouted she both showed 
 temper and shed tears. The good lady's antecedents 
 and sympathies were commercial. She, too, had felt 
 Brasenose to be a "folly" indeed, she felt the adjec- 
 tive which as a lady she might not use; and the 
 possession of a son who seemed contented to roam 
 about the garden with a book of Rossetti's, or Wal- 
 ter Pater's, and who confessed that he did not know 
 the multiplication-table, was causing her consider- 
 able disquietude. She wondered if there had been 
 any eccentricity in the past "on poor dear Robert's 
 side," and it had skipped a generation or two. One 
 heard of such things! 
 
 Yes, the maternal view was different from Willy's. 
 She retracted her suggestion that he should read 
 for the Bar it had been but a half-hearted com- 
 promise when she made it and declared that the 
 Cape offered him far finer prospects in every way. 
 Mentally she decided it was just the plan "to take 
 the nonsense out of him," and she answered her 
 brother to the effect that his nephew would sail in 
 two or three weeks' time, though she refrained from 
 explaining to him the manner of young man his 
 nephew was. 
 
 Somerset was not long in finding it out. He him- 
 self looked like a farmer or what one expects a 
 farmer to look like. He had a red face, and a loud 
 laugh, and was powerfully framed. His biceps 
 might have been a gymnast's. Willy was a disap- 
 
4 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 pointment the moment he alighted from the train, 
 being slightly built and consumptive-looking. And 
 rfe had no conception of business : that was evident 
 in their initial conversation. Without a suspicion 
 as yet of the young fellow's tendencies, Somerset 
 instinctively felt there was something wrong with 
 him. The ignorance of things he ought to have 
 known might be excused in remembering the kind 
 of training he had had; but there was something 
 worse than ignorance here: there seemed to be a 
 hint of incapacity. Not only had he no ideas about 
 making money, but he did not appear interested 
 or intelligent on the subject, a fact which promised 
 no brilliant future for him, considering that all he 
 would have at the widow's death was three or four 
 hundred a year. 
 
 Nevertheless, being responsible for his coming, 
 Blake Somerset did his best for his relation, in a 
 rough way. 
 
 "Look here," he said, after a few days, "I think 
 broking will be about your mark here, youngster. 
 You ought to earn ten or twelve pounds a week at 
 it, if you're smart. I'll take you round the market 
 to-morrow and introduce you." 
 
 Willy expressed himself as being much obliged. 
 
 "What do I do?" he inquired. 
 
 "Do ? You sell the stones ! You go into the 
 dealers' offices every morning and ask for parcels, 
 and then you cut about into all the other dealers' 
 
and show 'em. It's a pity you don't know anything 
 about a diamond, but you'll soon pick a smattering 
 up. And you're always safe to say 'I've a nice little 
 lot that will just suit you,' even if it won't." 
 
 The description was not very attractive to the 
 Oxford man, but being already uncomfortably con- 
 scious that his uncle did not think much of him, he 
 made a gallant attempt to simulate an alacrity he 
 could not feel. 
 
 The introductions were duly effected, and, having 
 procured a license, Willy embarked on his career 
 as a diamond broker without delay, equipped with 
 a morocco-leather satchel furnished with many pock- 
 ets, and designed to carry all the "parcels" that 
 should be entrusted to him. 
 
 But he did not receive any. He had not effront- 
 ery enough. When he made his applications he 
 always asked if there was anything for him as briefly 
 as possible, and slunk out mortified as soon as the 
 man said "no," though he did not fail to observe 
 that his more experienced competitors entered with 
 a cheery greeting, an air of confidence, and some- 
 times "Such a good story! I must tell you, Mr. 
 Meyerstein I" which proved much more effectual. 
 Half an hour after the market opened he had usu- 
 ally repeated his dreary formula in every doorway 
 in the street, and obtained a negative in all. Then 
 he returned to his hotel, and dreamed of fame and 
 England. His uncle, hearing of his speedy retire- 
 
6 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 ment, told him that it would not do. If he wished 
 to succeed he must remain on the scene, and manage 
 to look as if he were succeeding. Willy, with a 
 heavy heart, took the hint, and from ten o'clock till 
 four henceforward, with the thermometer at a hun- 
 dred degrees in the shade, he bustled round and 
 round the crooked little road, flourishing his empty 
 satchel for all the world as if it were bursting with 
 brilliants. But this assumption of doing an immense 
 business did not seem to impress any of the dealers, 
 who sat in their shirt-sleeves, gazing through the 
 wide windows into the glare of sunshine outside, and 
 they always replied that they were "not sending any- 
 thing out this morning" when he called just the 
 same. 
 
 At length Mr. Somerset wrote to his sister that 
 he thought her boy had better return to Dulwich. 
 He said wittily that there was "no opening on the 
 Fields for poets" he had discovered Willy's bent 
 by this time and warned her that living was expen- 
 sive there. The future Laureate would loaf more 
 cheaply at home. Mrs. Childers replied that she 
 felt such surroundings were eminently desirable for 
 the formation of her son's character. He had no 
 father, and a young man who did not seem to have 
 any proper ambition would be a great responsibility 
 for her to cope with alone. Perhaps by-and-by Blake 
 might be able to put him into "a clerkship or some- 
 thing" that would enable him to keep himself 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 7 
 
 decently? In the meanwhile the extra expense would 
 not amount to so much as his passage would cost. 
 Somerset, who had lost all interest in his nephew, 
 accordingly looked about, and presently contrived 
 to obtain him a post as desired. This being done, 
 he washed his hands of him, with a sigh of relief, 
 and Willy went into the Magistrate's Court at Du 
 Toits Pan, to keep the Criminal Record, and take 
 affidavits of assault and other offences, at a salary 
 of three pounds a week. 
 
 That was two years ago, and, as if to justify the 
 low opinion Mr. Somerset had conceived of him, he 
 was a clerk in the same place still. 
 
 This afternoon he was sitting at his accustomed 
 desk in the breathless office, watching through the 
 bars of the open window two or three Kaffir pris- 
 oners in charge of a police Serjeant, waiting, until 
 their names should be called, with their backs against 
 a wall and their feet in the hot dust. Through the 
 door which communicated with the shed-like court 
 he could hear the droning tones of the assistant 
 magistrate disposing of the case in hand, and now 
 the voice of the interpreter shouting "Jan Sixpence ! 
 Piccanini ! Tom Fool 1" proclaimed that it was over, 
 and that the turn had come of the negroes he could 
 see. 
 
 The Serjeant gave them a push, and they moved 
 forward apathetically, drawing their blankets more 
 closely about their skinny legs. The baking wall 
 
8 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 and the dust was all that was left to look at. Chil- 
 ders closed his eyes wearily his sight had been 
 troubling him of late and leant back in his chair, 
 wondering if life had any surprises in store for him, 
 if anybody else on earth was so entirely wretched. 
 
 His faith in himself had deserted him by now, 
 and he no longer foresaw himself a celebrity. He 
 was very young indeed for confidence to have gone, 
 but he was not naturally self-reliant, and it had been 
 chaffed out of him. Without perceiving it, he was 
 at this stage sick with an exquisite longing for sym- 
 pathy quite the last thing attainable here. In truth, 
 he presented the most pathetic figure the world 
 affords, though he was regarded in the camp as cut- 
 ting a ludicrous one, for he experienced all the emo- 
 tions of genius, and his Vesuvius brought forth a 
 mouse; he was in temperament an artist, and in 
 destiny a clerk. His verse was graceful; at times 
 much more rarely than he knew there was a 
 flash of something better than grace in it, but in 
 the force to set him free from the environment that 
 was crushing him it was wholly lacking. He flapped 
 feeble wings, like Sterne's starling in its cage, crying, 
 "I can't get out!" 
 
 The interpreter brought in the list for him to 
 enter the misdemeanours and sentences in the record. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Massa Childers; I'm gwine 
 home." 
 
 "Good afternoon, Mukasa." 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 9 
 
 II 
 
 IT was a quarter to five. Released from the bench, 
 the assistant magistrate a young man with a pink- 
 and-white complexion, who had grown a beard in 
 order to make himself look older consulted his 
 watch, and yawned. 
 
 "Heigho, poet!" 
 
 "Are you tired, sir?" 
 
 "Tired and dry. We'll have a liquor directly we 
 shut the shop, shall we? By the way, the mail's in." 
 
 The assistant magistrate was always among the 
 first to know when the mail was in, being engaged 
 to a girl in England. Later on she would make her 
 home here, and cry to be back in Clapham. 
 
 Childers was also dimly interested in the arrival 
 of the mail. He had submitted his volume of poems 
 four months since to the only firm of publishers left 
 for it to go to, and it was within the bounds of pos- 
 sibility there might be a line by this time explaining 
 the grounds of its rejection. 
 
 "Are they delivering yet?" he asked. 
 
 "I didn't hear," said Mr. Shepherd; "my letters 
 always come to the club. I say, are you going to 
 the theatre to-night?" 
 
 "I hadn't thought of it. Of course I shall go 
 some evening or other; but I expect all to-night's 
 seats are gone." 
 
 "No, they say there are still some left to fight 
 
IO THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 for at the doors. All the best ones are gone, you 
 bet two pounds each!" 
 
 "Great Scot! Better than clerking eh, sir?" 
 
 "Better than trying niggers in the Pan, too !" said 
 the assistant magistrate. "Did you ever see her at 
 home?" 
 
 Willy shook his head. 
 
 "Have you^ 
 
 "I saw her once, yes ; in my last holiday. I don't 
 know French, but I shall never forget it as long as 
 I live. She is the greatest actress in the world, 
 Childers, and no kid. She turns you inside out." 
 
 "I wish she played in English," said Childers, 
 filling his pipe; "she might just as well they say 
 she speaks it quite fluently. Have you got a match, 
 baas?" 
 
 Rosa Duchene had been tempted to Kimberley. 
 There had been a rumour of her coming the year 
 previous, but negotiations had fallen through, and 
 a fever of expectation among the exiles, subsiding 
 in disappointment, had been forced to console itself 
 on the border of the Orange Free State with a prize- 
 fight. Now the famous tragedienne had actually 
 arrived. The local papers had been teeming for 
 weeks with all the stock anecdotes about her which 
 had been worn threadbare in the service of Paris 
 and London a decade and more ago. Her eccen- 
 tricities, her extravagance, her pet tiger-cub, and 
 her eighty thousand pounds' worth of costumes the 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY II 
 
 public read the stones all over again, and enjoyed 
 them. Such of the "stores" as sold photographs, 
 had crowded their windows with her likenesses, 
 and the walls of the corrugated-iron theatre, and 
 the buffet beside it, were placarded with the magi- 
 cal name of Rosa Duchene in letters five feet long. 
 Every editor on the Fields had rushed in person 
 to interview her, and in this morning's Independent 
 three leaded columns detailed her "Impressions" of 
 the place, which she had artlessly declared struck 
 her as containing a larger number of handsome men 
 and pretty women than any city of its size she had 
 seen. Even Rosa Duchenes cannot afford to neglect 
 such "impressions." 
 
 Willy lit his pipe, and puffed at it with a sudden 
 sense of pleasurable anticipation. Yes, he would 
 go this evening, if he could get in ! It would be an 
 emotion tasted earlier than he had looked for it. 
 Did Mr. Shepherd intend to be there? 
 
 Ted Shepherd said he did. The five-shilling seats 
 were quite good enough for him, and they would go 
 together if Willy pleased. He glanced at his watch 
 again, and started. 
 
 "The devil!" he exclaimed, "we've stopped five 
 minutes too long ! Come on, poet, we'll go and have 
 that drink!" 
 
 They picked up their wideawakes hurriedly, and 
 strolled into the club. 
 
 The boy behind the bar had fallen asleep, and 
 
12 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 was dozing as peacefully as the flies would let him, 
 for work in the mines did not conclude till "sun- 
 down," and the establishment was almost deserted 
 at this hour. Only a digger, whose enterprise had 
 terminated by reason of exhausted capital, and a 
 law-agent without any clients, and a medical man 
 who had many patients but seldom received his fees, 
 were lolling about. 
 
 The civil servants had brandy-and-sodas, and the 
 assistant magistrate played with the dice-box. 
 
 "I'll shake you who pays for both to-night, if 
 you like, poet," he said. 
 
 Childers nodded, and won, and ordered fresh 
 brandy-and-sodas to celebrate his victory. 
 
 They had scarcely swallowed them when they 
 became aware of an angry mutter mingling with 
 the whir of the buckets and the throbbing of engines 
 across the road, a clamour of impatient voices. The 
 digger, who was looking at a picture of Hyde Park 
 Corner in the Illustrated London News, and wonder- 
 ing how long it would be before he saw the original 
 again, became aware of it also, and dropped the 
 paper with a show of apprehension. 
 
 "I'm afraid that's about me" he said, turning 
 rather pale. "This is very awkward." 
 
 "What's wrong, Johnny?" asked Shepherd. 
 
 "It's the 'boys,' I expect! You see, I couldn't 
 pay them this morning; they'll hammer me if they 
 get the chancel" 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 13 
 
 Childers went to the door, followed by everybody 
 excepting Johnny Teale. A gang of some fifty nig- 
 gers, Zulus, Kaffirs, and Basutos, of all ages, had 
 surged to the foot of the stoep a low, gravelled 
 veranda before the club and were demanding their 
 wages or Mr. Teale's blood. 
 
 "It is the 'boys,' " said Willy. 
 
 "I thought so. Well, tip 'em some of your verses, 
 poet, and calm 'em down !" 
 
 "Why don't you pay the beggars?" said the law- 
 agent, turning. 
 
 "Pay 'em?" echoed the ex-lessee of the Mooi Klip 
 Mining Company. "That accursed ground hasn't 
 yielded working expenses for weeks. Pay 'em? Do 
 you think I'm the Standard Bank?" 
 
 The doctor exhorted him to come forward, and 
 he came gingerly. His appearance was greeted with 
 loud yells, and a hundred naked arms were lifted in 
 execration and appeal. There was a touch of dig- 
 nity, even of tragedy, in the instinctive way the 
 African negroes lifted their arms that would have 
 gladdened a London super-master's heart. Pres- 
 ently, however, by dint of fervid promises which he 
 had no prospect of being able to fulfil, Teale suc- 
 ceeded in inducing the posse to depart, and, this 
 consummation attained, dragged his supporters to 
 the bar jubilantly. 
 
 Childers was not among them. He made his way 
 instead through the dust and ox-wagons on the Mar- 
 
14 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 ket Square to the post-office, only to find the pub- 
 lishers had still not written, and then, retracing his 
 steps, went into his room to lie down. His eyes 
 were paining him badly, and he was sure that he 
 saw even less clearly than he had done. The doctor 
 had told him the trouble was caused by his "general 
 condition," and advised him to rest his sight as much 
 as possible. He had obeyed, but rest did not seem 
 to improve it, nor had the lotion or the tonic done 
 any good. 
 
 Soon afterwards a scream of whistles piercing the 
 air on all sides announced that the principal industry 
 of the camp was suspended for the day, and now 
 men poured up from the mines in shoals, to wash, 
 and dine, and to exchange to-night their bedford- 
 cords and loose jackets for the dress-suits which were 
 relics of a European past. 
 
 In Kimberley, dress-suits were donned more fre- 
 quently, but Kimberley was three miles distant from 
 Du Toits Pan, and, by comparison, quite fashion- 
 able. There were even men in Kimberley who wore 
 stand-up collars and billy-cock hats every day in the 
 week. And the theatre was there. Du Toits Pan 
 had nothing except a tin chapel and a curate, who, 
 it was supposed, preached in it. Nobody had been 
 inside to ascertain. 
 
 It was early when Childers and his chief met 
 again, and drove into the larger township, as 
 arranged, but a respectable crowd had collected un- 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 15 
 
 der the electric lamps of the Main Street already, 
 and when the doors opened, and the pair at length 
 gained seats, they squeezed themselves into them 
 battered and breathless. 
 
 A long procession of "carts" sped over the bare 
 connecting road in the next half-hour, and, reaching 
 the "Rush," was momentarily reinforced. Compar- 
 atively small as the theatre was, it appeared to those 
 in it to contain the entire population of all the camps. 
 Not a familiar face seemed missing, and further 
 recognitions followed at every turn of the head. 
 When the orchestra came in, the house looked like 
 a hill of white arms and bosoms and shining shirt- 
 fronts. A novel and agreeable flutter of suspense 
 stole through the audience, and by a common impulse 
 women glanced and smiled towards one another with 
 little, excited nods. Many had forgotten for the 
 instant where they were, and in fancy were trans- 
 ported to the Frangais or the Gaiety, where they 
 had seen Duchene last. 
 
 Some touch of the electric current communicated 
 itself to Childers upstairs, and when the three por- 
 tentous knocks sounded he leant forward eagerly. 
 The piece was La Dame aux Camelias. It begins, 
 as all the world knows, with a conversation between 
 De Varville, who stands with his back to the fine, 
 and the maid. Childers strove in vain to follow it. 
 With the plot he was acquainted, but the dialogue 
 he could not understand, 
 
1 6 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 The house was not very attentive. Many there 
 did not understand it either, or understood it merely 
 from a knowledge of the English version. They 
 were impatient to behold Duchene Duchene, who 
 had had the temerity to sign an engagement for this 
 Heaven-forsaken desert. 
 
 There was the entrance of Nichette ; De Varville's 
 comment on her name; and at length the expected 
 peal of the bell, and the servant's exclamation, "C'est 
 mad'moiselle !" 
 
 She came on in her best style while the women 
 present caught their breath at her gown affecting 
 unconsciousness that an audience was criticising her. 
 But they would not have it they were too grateful 
 to her. The applause broke out vociferous and 
 sustained. The "Diamond Fields" was welcoming 
 the only important actress who had come to bless 
 them, and it was a minute and a half before she 
 could speak her first line. 
 
 As the act proceeded, Childers found his throat 
 tightening queerly. The story has been as well 
 abused as any ever penned, but sickly, unhealthy, 
 morbid, or not, it is a story that appeals to almost 
 every imaginative young man who is born. It fas- 
 cinates him strongly as it unfolds; perhaps he, too, 
 may one day meet a Marguerite in secret he has 
 often wished to do so! And he identifies himself 
 with its hero, who is so splendid in his romance 
 and passion on the stage, and in the book, by his 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 17 
 
 own confession, as arrant a cad as ever escaped hav- 
 ing his head punched. It has an infinitely greater 
 recommendation from a theatrical point of view 
 it is an opportunity for a leading actress which few 
 modern dramas equal, and to-night Duchene, who 
 had carefully selected it for her opening perform- 
 ance, availed herself of the opportunity to the 
 fullest. 
 
 She was at this time nearly forty years of age, 
 but behind the footlights she did not look a day 
 more than twenty-five. Her grace, her power, the 
 tricks which in their apparent spontaneity con- 
 cealed such cleverness that it demanded a fellow- 
 player to appreciate them as they deserved took 
 one novice among the spectators by storm. At the 
 end of the second act he felt he was in the presence 
 of a revelation. In the third, the tears were drip- 
 ping down his face, and he tried furtively to wipe 
 them away with a corner of the programme, afraid 
 that Shepherd would ridicule him. 
 
 The result of Willy Childers' going to see Rosa 
 Duchene was really a foregone conclusion; gunpow- 
 der had met the spark, and only one thing could 
 happen. A poet that he was a pseudo poet mat- 
 ters very little who had been eating his heart out 
 on the Diamond Fields was confronted for the first 
 time in his life with a beautiful woman who was a 
 genius. When the play was over, and the people 
 rose and screamed at her, Willy did not scream; 
 
1 8 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 he kept his seat, quivering hysterically. He was 
 wrenched by the death he had witnessed; the agony 
 of the lover's cry was in his own soul. He wanted 
 to walk away somewhere alone. The companion- 
 ship of Shepherd was torture to him, and he thought 
 he would have given anything that could be named 
 to be able to go to her and stammer out all that she 
 had made him feel at her feet. 
 
 Reduced to words, such exaltation is apt to sound 
 very absurd, but, closely examined, there is much 
 less absurd in it than there seems. After the illu- 
 sion of intimate confidence created by sympathising 
 with a great actress through the range of emotions 
 she represents laughing with her laughter, and 
 grieving with her when she grieves one leaves the 
 theatre having seen nothing of her real nature at 
 all. But has one been shown much more of the 
 young girl's, dressed in her best, with whom one 
 falls in love at a dance? Both say things that are 
 not natural to them through the evening, and the 
 actress's pretence has, at least, suggested a disposi- 
 tion quite as adorable. One man would like to ask 
 her to supper; another would make of her an ideal 
 and an inspiration. It is a matter of temperament 
 which the fact that the actress would probably pre- 
 fer the supper does not affect. 
 
 He escaped from Shepherd, and taking up a 
 position by the stage-door, waited there in the hope 
 of obtaining a glimpse of her when she left. The 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 19 
 
 hope was not fulfilled, and she must have come out 
 by another exit. 
 
 The intense dry heat and the sun's blinding glare 
 had been replaced by a faint breeze, and as he drove 
 home his mind span more quickly for its freshness 
 and the rapid motion of the "cart." He thought 
 again of his volume of verse at the London pub- 
 lishers', and saw it accepted and successful. An 
 unfamiliar excitement throbbed in his veins, and his 
 imagination mounted beyond control, like a night- 
 ingale's voice, playing all sorts of pranks, unexpected 
 and delightful, till it seemed lifting him into heaven 
 itself. 
 
 It was only when the horses stopped that he per- 
 ceived the lengths to which his illusion had carried 
 him. From the stagnant "pan" came the croaking 
 of frogs and the howling of innumerable stray curs. 
 The mine yawned deeply in the night, and, like gal- 
 lows, the skeleton erections round the reef rose 
 blackly against a luminous sky. The click of billiard 
 balls and a jingle of glasses issued from the club, 
 but he did not go in. Something restrained him. 
 
 Ill 
 
 SHEPHERD was the first to suspect what was the mat- 
 ter. Probably because he saw more of Childers than 
 anybody else did; possibly because incriminating 
 
20 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 compositions fell under his notice on the Govern- 
 ment stationery indeed, it is understood that the 
 girl in Clapham received a tribute in verse from 
 the assistant magistrate about this date ; anyhow it 
 was suspected, and Childers' reception of the tenta- 
 tive chaff was as damning as a plain acknowledg- 
 ment. And much more comical ! It was voted alto- 
 gether the most comical thing "the poet" could have 
 'done. "Childers in love," pure and simple, would 
 have been an amusing object, but Willy Childers 
 and Rosa Duchene was an antithesis that tickled the 
 risible faculties of Du Toits Pan to an extent wholly 
 uncontrollable. It became the favourite pastime of 
 the "Club" to lure him into the smoking-room and 
 invent anecdotes about his divinity. He was old 
 enough to have forgotten how to blush, but he had 
 a marvellous capacity that way, and his face, while 
 the stories were told, supplied them with a super- 
 fluous sauce piquante. And cartoons were made of 
 him, and pasted on the wall. In one he sang 
 
 "Ask nothing more of me, sweet, 
 All I can give you, I give;" 
 
 and was depicted on his knees to the actress, with 
 an ode in one hand and a child's money-box in the 
 other. Life was made in various ways a burden 
 to him, though no one meant any wrong by the 
 raillery. "Good morning; have you been to the 
 theatre, Childers?" became the stock joke, a catch- 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 21 
 
 word with which he was greeted each day by every- 
 body; and when he did go now, he slunk in late, 
 and hid himself at the back of the gallery from 
 sheer shame. 
 
 It was when three weeks of Duchene's season of 
 six had expired that the epidemic of chaff stopped; 
 and it stopped with suddenness. Men spoke, of 
 Willy Childers for the first time in a tone of grav- 
 ity. One morning he had not appeared at the 
 Magistrate's Court; he sent instead a few lines in 
 a painful, sprawling hand, to say that his sight was 
 much worse he was "afraid it was serious;" and 
 a few days after that the news circulated that he had 
 gone blind. 
 
 In improving tales, when the misunderstood boy 
 goes blind, all his acquaintances reproach themselves 
 for their cruelty towards him, and flock to his "sim- 
 ple parlour" to listen to him talking like a tract, 
 and derive a lasting moral from the patience he 
 displays. It did not happen like that in Willy 
 Childers' case, because none of the fellows had the 
 faintest idea they had shown any cruelty, and, with 
 the exception of Ted Shepherd and one or two other 
 very occasional visitors, he may be said to have 
 passed his time in unbroken solitude. 
 
 It was, of course, useless for him to remain on 
 the Fields any longer, and Somerset, who was going 
 to England for a brief holiday, in a few months' 
 time, had arranged to take him home then, when a 
 
22 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 good opinion could be obtained, and perhaps an 
 operation performed. In the meanwhile he was 
 removed to the manager's cottage on the Fortuna- 
 tus works, where a Kaffir went down to the Car- 
 narvon Hotel to fetch his meals, and his uncle came, 
 to sleep, between the hours of the club's closing at 
 night and "sun-up" each morning. No language that 
 could be employed could do anything like justice to 
 the loneliness of his position there to his helpless, 
 hopeless misery. It was one of the things that may 
 only be imagined. He had no one to talk to; he 
 knew none of the pursuits by which the blind con- 
 trive, after years, to occupy themselves. He could 
 only think, and compose verse in his head, while he 
 sat passive in the blazing iron shanty, listening to 
 the clamour of the machinery through the day, or 
 the crooning of the Kaffirs, crouching round their 
 bonfires when the moon rose. And in this fashion 
 a fortnight wore itself past. 
 
 Johnny Teale was the man! Others participated, 
 and so were guilty among them Blake Somerset 
 but Johnny Teale was the man who suggested the 
 trick, let it be stated ! There was a girl in the Rush 
 in those days popularly referred to as Poll Pat- 
 chouli; she had opened a shop at the back of the 
 Diamond Market, where she sold bad scent, after 
 she left the "Ladies' Orchestra," in which she had 
 come to the Fields from Natal. What her name 
 was really, was not known. She called herself Olive 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 23 
 
 Esmond, but that has nothing to do with it. She 
 was not considered pretty; she was, in fact, thought 
 remarkably plain, even in a country where men are 
 not exacting in the matter of feminine attractions, 
 and a little comeliness goes a long way. She was, 
 however, an amusing girl, and educated, in a style; 
 and a fortnight after Childers' retirement to the 
 cottage opposite the Fortunatus tailings-heap, it 
 transpired that she had a singular accomplishment: 
 she could imitate Rosa Duchene to the life. She 
 did it so well, said an enthusiast who had heard her, 
 that she might have obtained an engagement for it 
 at Home at a music-hall. He said more he said 
 you could have shut your eyes, and sworn Duchene 
 was speaking. 
 
 It was precisely this criticism that gave Johnny 
 Teale his idea. If you could shut your eyes and 
 think Duchene was speaking, she might be presented 
 to a blind man as Duchene herself. 
 
 The group to which he propounded it did hesitate. 
 They objected that it would be blackguardly to play 
 tricks with Childers now, and demurred a good deal 
 in an irresolute way; but Teale set himself to argue 
 their scruples into thin air. For Childers to have 
 a conversation with Polly under the impression she 
 was the actress "would not do the poor chap any 
 harm," he insisted on the contrary, it would give 
 him an immense pleasure; and as to the humour of 
 the "sell" well, he would defy anybody to assert 
 
24 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 that a practical joke of such magnitude had been 
 perpetrated in the camp from the earliest days! 
 
 That was true, and a colossal temptation. 
 
 Demonstrating that the victim never need know; 
 that no disappointment was entailed; that the chat 
 would be no less delightful because the happiness 
 was illusory, he at length carried his point, and Polly 
 was interviewed and coached. A deputation went 
 up to Kimberley to see her. 
 
 "We want you to help us in a tremendous spoof, 
 Polly," they said in a breath. "You've heard of 
 Willy Childers?" 
 
 No, she had not heard of him; who was he? 
 
 "Well, he thinks he's a poet, and he has lost his 
 sight, and he's in love with Duchene," explained 
 Teale. "Now, we want to tell him we're going to 
 introduce him to her, and then bring him to you 
 do you see? He'll make as violent love to you as 
 he knows how, and you're to pretend to be awfully 
 taken with him, and kid him on do you see? Of 
 course you'll talk all the time like Duchene, and end 
 by vowing he's the only man in the world for you; 
 and we two or three of us will be hidden about 
 the place somewhere, watching the game do you 
 see? You know! Do you think you can do it?" 
 
 The girl laughed. She was not disgusted by the 
 infamous taste of the project; it struck her as being 
 an uncommonly funny one. 
 
 "You may bet all you've got I can do it," she 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 25 
 
 said; "rather! oh, by Jove, what a lark! When will 
 you bring him, boys?" 
 
 "Well, it's got to be carried out artistically," said 
 Teale; "one of us must go and mention that he has 
 met her, and then, very kindly, say he'll try to obtain 
 her permission to present Childers to her. He's 
 simple enough, but it won't do to rush the thing 
 through as if it were quite easy; he might smell a 
 rat. Say Thursday, eh?" 
 
 "All right," said Polly, "Thursday; that'll do! 
 Is he really 'gone' about her? I mean 'wild'?" 
 
 "Some! He'll tell you you're a genius and an 
 angel, you see !" 
 
 She threw back her head and laughed again, and 
 the deputation joined her. 
 
 "It'll be the biggest joke that was ever worked," 
 she exclaimed; "I shall enjoy it!" 
 
 No time was lost in acquainting Willy with the 
 possible privilege in store for him, and the expres- 
 sions of gratitude into which he broke made the 
 conspirators feel almost as despicable for a moment 
 as they really were. 
 
 Two days later, having left him the while in a 
 state of suspense that bordered upon fever, Teale 
 announced that Duchene had consented to receive 
 him in the company of Ted Shepherd and himself 
 on the following afternoon. Half a dozen other 
 spectators of the farce were to be concealed. 
 
 "I told her you wrote poetry," he said, "and 
 
26 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 er a good deal about you. It was rather cheek 
 of me to make the request, considering I'd only met 
 her once myself, but I wanted to do you a turn, 
 sonny, and, after all, 'nothing venture, nothing have,' 
 you know!" 
 
 Willy, who was trembling, groped for his hand, 
 and pressed it when it was forthcoming. 
 
 Indeed, he could scarcely realise that this bewil- 
 dering thing had befallen him. It was actual 
 actual! he had to repeat it. To sit next to Rosa 
 Duchene and have her talk to him, even though he 
 could no longer see her, was a prospect that beat 
 through his consciousness in sick, almost terrifying 
 throbs. It prevented him sleeping ten minutes dur- 
 ing the night, and he passed the long morning wait- 
 ing and praying to hear each hour strike on the little 
 American clock he had bought to let him know how 
 the time went since his watch became useless for 
 the purppse. When Teale and the assistant magis- 
 trate arrived at length, and guided him up into the 
 "cart," the effort of replying to their questions was 
 a pain, and it was a physical relief when conversation 
 ceased and he could lapse into silence. The same 
 tightness in breathing that he experienced in the 
 theatre was mastering him, and the clip clop sound 
 of the horses' hoofs as they sped along the road 
 seemed raising echoes in his inside. 
 
 The hotel to which they were bound was not the 
 Queen's, where Duchene was in reality staying, but 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 27 
 
 a third-rate one called the Royal, and his compan- 
 ions had misgivings lest he should detect the dif- 
 ference in the route. On reaching Kimberley, Johnny 
 Teale began talking again eagerly, to distract his at- 
 tention; but it was taking unnecessary trouble. His 
 affliction was too recent, and his excitement too 
 great, for the dupe to have such acuteness of 
 perception. 
 
 The driver stopped, and Shepherd, who had 
 agreed to come rather to see that the deception was 
 not carried too far, than because he looked forward 
 to being amused by it, helped the blind man down, 
 with his pink-and-white complexion pinker than 
 usual. 
 
 They were met in the hall by a Kaffir servant, who 
 had been carefully rehearsed in his part. He 
 showed all his teeth in a grin of appreciation. 
 
 "Is Madame Duchene in?" said Teale. "We are 
 expected." Men do not carry visiting-cards on the 
 Fields, and he sent up their names. 
 
 The negro disappeared, and returned after a few 
 minutes to conduct them into a bare apartment on 
 the ground floor, opening on to a stoep and a back 
 yard. A small bedstead was at one end, with a 
 washhand-stand at the foot. The rest of the furni- 
 ture consisted of a chest-of-drawers, a chintz-covered 
 couch, and a couple of basket-chairs. For decora- 
 tions, a few coloured plates from the summer num- 
 
28 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 bers of the English illustrated papers had been 
 pasted on the walls. 
 
 "Madame Duchene soon come," he said respect- 
 fully; "please wait, baas." Then he doubled him- 
 self up with silent ecstasy, and pointed to the win- 
 dow. Half a dozen bearded faces were welcoming 
 them behind it; half a dozen arms waved wildly in 
 the air. 
 
 "Great Scot!" exclaimed Teale, as the waiter re- 
 tired, "We are in a drawing-room again, eh?" He 
 emitted a soft whistle expressive of admiration and 
 astonishment. "What do you think of it?" 
 
 "It's all right," said Shepherd, confusedly. 
 
 Teale nudged him and frowned. 
 
 " 'All right'?" he echoed. "Well, I don't know 
 what you were used to, my boy, but it's about as fine 
 as anything 7 ever saw ! Look at that embroidery, 
 
 and those ivory things over there, and Why, 
 
 the woman must be mad to cart such belongings 
 about the world with her !" 
 
 "What's it like?" asked Childers, in a low, breath- 
 less voice. 
 
 "It's Oriental," said Teale; "shouldn't you call it 
 'Oriental,' Shepherd? Jove! I should like to see 
 her flat in Paris, if this is the style of makeshift she 
 goes in for for six weeks! What is that curious 
 odour; don't you notice it?" 
 
 It was a pastille that had been set burning in the 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 29 
 
 soap dish on the mottled mantelpiece. He affected 
 to explore for it among countless treasures. 
 
 "This is it," he said; "in this swinging affair in 
 the alcove among the palms! Why does she keep 
 her rooms so dark, I wonder; do you like this sub- 
 dued, cathedrally sort of light? Take care! Don't 
 move, Childers, or you'll tumble over a silver idol on 
 the floor near you ! Stupid place to put it ! Hark !" 
 
 There was a woman's step in the passage, and as 
 they caught it, Willy turned a dead white. The 
 group outside, who could see but not hear, puffed 
 their cigarettes and continued to stare in curiously. 
 
 "Here she is," murmured Shepherd; "stand up, 
 boy!" 
 
 Childers obeyed as the door opened, and Polly 
 came in. 
 
 IV 
 
 "GOOD afternoon, gentlemen," she said languidly. 
 "Ah, monsieur, be seated, I beg!" 
 
 Her "monsieur" was the only false note, and of 
 that he was no judge. Every pulse in his body leapt 
 at her entrance; every nerve in him quickened with 
 the rustle of her cheap, little frock across the floor. 
 To him it was brocade of a mysterious rose tint, and 
 there was old lace upon her bosom. 
 
 She sank into one of the basket-chairs, and looked 
 towards his companions for their approval, with her 
 tongue in her cheek. 
 
30 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "I am very pleased to see you," she said; "your 
 friends have spoken about you to me." 
 
 "You see one of your most ardent admirers, 
 madame," said Teale, "and a poet. I'm half afraid 
 that Mr. Shepherd and I are in the way at the meet- 
 ing of two artists." 
 
 Childers lifted his hand in discomfiture. 
 
 "Don't make me absurd," he stammered; "don't 
 laugh at me, madame! I am not an artist, I only 
 hoped to be one. But I am grateful oh, ever so 
 grateful for your letting me come here. To have 
 spoken to you will be something to remember all my 
 life!" 
 
 The girl showed her teeth almost as widely as the 
 negro had done. 
 
 "You are very very what is the word in Eng- 
 lish? complimentary!" she drawled. "You must 
 not make me vain, you know! And you are too 
 modest also is it not so, Mr. Teale? I am told 
 your poems are quite charming." 
 
 Even Shepherd permitted himself a smile; she 
 was doing it superbly. The spectators at the window 
 pushed against one another, excited and inquiring. 
 
 "Will you not recite one to me?" she asked. 
 
 "Bravo!" put in Teale, "the very thing! Go on, 
 Childers; let madame hear something you have 
 done." 
 
 "I couldn't," said Willy. "Forgive me that, 
 madame; I couldn't, indeed!" 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 31 
 
 "In Paris," said Polly, "many poets recite their 
 verses to me. Yes, truly, you are too modest, mon- 
 sieur! Well, as you please; then let us talk! You 
 are fond of the theatre, eh?" 
 
 He bowed. "Passionately of late !" he answered 
 awkwardly. 
 
 "Aha !" she cried, "but he can make pretty 
 speeches, too, our modest poet! You, Mr. Teale, 
 have not said anything so nice to me ! But perhaps 
 you do not feel it, either?" 
 
 "Everybody raves about Madame Duchene," ob- 
 served Shepherd, "Mr. Teale and I among the rest." 
 
 He caught signals from the onlookers, and drew 
 Johnny Teale's attention to them. They were grow- 
 ing impatient out there. The dialogue was lost upon 
 them, and viewed as a pantomime the scene was 
 dull. Polly saw the gestures, too, and shook her fist 
 at the crowd as an enjoinder to be still. 
 
 "To-night," she resumed, "I play one of my 
 favourite roles Marguerite." 
 
 In point of fact she was mistaken : Duchene played 
 Frou-Frou ; but Willy could not read the newspapers 
 any more. 
 
 "I have seen you in it," he said eagerly. "I was 
 at your first performance. I shall never see you in 
 it again!" 
 
 "Why?" she said. 
 
 He flushed crimson. 
 
 "I said 'see' I cannot see you at all." 
 
32 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "How long have you been like this?" asked the 
 girl, deprecatingly. 
 
 "Nearly three weeks. It seems " 
 
 "It seems a year, I suppose? It must!" 
 
 "Yes," said Childers, "it seems much longer than 
 it is. I dare say I shall get used to it by-and-by, but 
 every day is a long while at first; I'm all alone, and 
 there's nothing to do." 
 
 "It must be awful !" she murmured. 
 
 "Mr. Childers is going Home very soon," said 
 Shepherd, "and then all of us poor beggars will be 
 jealous of him." 
 
 "You and he may meet in London, madame," 
 added Teale. "You'll go to the theatre next time 
 Madame Duchene plays in London, won't you, Chil- 
 ders? Perhaps she'll allow you to call on her there, 
 too?" 
 
 Polly shifted her chair irritably. 
 
 "Will you be able to go about in London, Mr. 
 Childers?" she inquired. 
 
 "I do not know many people in England," he 
 said. "I am afraid not. I shall be in Dulwich, with 
 my mother." 
 
 "But you will make friends," she urged, "won't 
 you ? You won't be tied to the house always ?" 
 
 "I shall not be a very lively companion; I do 
 not think that many men will be anxious to be friends 
 to me." 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 33 
 
 "Ah, well," exclaimed Johnny Teale, " 'a boy's 
 best friend is his mother!' Ain't she, madame?" 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Polly, springing up impetu- 
 ously, "I am sure that you two would like a cigar on 
 the stoep ! Don't move, Mr. Childers. They will 
 come back to you !" 
 
 Teale stared in interrogation. 
 
 "You would like a cigar on the stoep!" she re- 
 peated; and as it was evident she meant to be obeyed, 
 they said it was a very kind suggestion, and with- 
 drew. Teale consoled himself with the idea that 
 they were to be afforded the spectacle of Willy on 
 his knees. 
 
 She did not speak for some moments after the 
 door closed. She sat down in the chair Johnny 
 Teale had vacated, with her back to the window. 
 Her expression had changed, and her face was quite 
 soft. 
 
 "Are you pleased they've gone?" she said. 
 
 "Yes," answered Willy, simply. 
 
 "So am 1 1 I want to talk to you I like you. 
 Do you know, I never was so sorry for anybody in 
 the world before?" 
 
 "You make me feel almost glad I'm blind," mut- 
 tered Childers. "I I've prayed to talk to you one 
 day. I used to pray to see you, too; but that's 
 
 impossible now. That night " He paused, 
 
 afraid. 
 
 "What night?" said the girl. 
 
34 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "Your first night here. You know, I wasn't blind 
 
 then, and This seems like a dream ! Is it really 
 
 you I'm telling it to?" 
 
 "It's me," said Poll Patchouli, her eyes shining. 
 "And what? Don't stop." 
 
 "I came away praying to be great, only to have 
 the right to meet you! I have always wanted to 
 succeed, of course ever since I was a child; but 
 that night it was different. It was to know you . . . 
 to hear you say you had read my verse ... to feel 
 there was a sort of sympathy between us. Are you 
 laughing at me?" 
 
 She put out her hand and touched him. She 
 had given her hand to many men before, but never 
 quite like that. Childers had a wild impulse to lift 
 it to his lips, but did not afraid again. She had 
 hoped he would. 
 
 "Do you like me as much as you thought you were 
 going to?" she said after a silence. 
 
 "Yes," said Willy; "you are just what I was sure 
 you must be." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Really!" 
 
 "That's good!" she declared, smearing a tear off 
 her cheek with the hand that was not resting on him. 
 "Shall you come again I mean alone?" 
 
 "May I?" he cried. "Do you mean it? Oh, but 
 how can I I forgot! I can't go anywhere alone 
 any more. This is the first time I've been out since 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 35 
 
 I lost my sight, and you know Teale and Ted Shep- 
 herd offered to bring me." 
 
 "The beasts!" said Poll Patchouli in her throat. 
 
 "If I may come again with them " he said 
 
 diffidently. 
 
 "No, don't do that! Where do you live? Per- 
 haps one day, since you're all by yourself, / may 
 come and see you. But I don't want you to talk 
 about it, if I do. I No, I never shall come !" 
 
 "Why?" he ejaculated. "Why not? I won't 
 speak a word of it to a soul if you don't wish me to; 
 but it would be a charity I'm sure you'd have no 
 need to mind. Oh, I would bless you, madame ! 
 Please!" 
 
 "Why do you like me?" she said sullenly. "You 
 must be an awful fool to like a woman you don't 
 know!" 
 
 "I do know you now," he murmured, shrinking. 
 "And besides " 
 
 "Besides what?" said Polly. 
 
 "I had seen you on the stage; is that nothing?" 
 
 "Never mind the stage. Imagine you've only seen 
 me here to-day." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You want me to come ?" 
 
 "I implore you to!" 
 
 "Oh, yes, because I'm Duchenel If I weren't a 
 great actress, you wouldn't care a button whether 
 
36 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 I was sorry for you or not. Well, what is the 
 address?" 
 
 "I'm in the manager's cottage Mr. Somerset's 
 cottage on the works of the Fortunatus Mining 
 Company," he gasped. "Any driver will take you 
 to it; it's in Bultfontein." 
 
 "I know!" she said. 
 
 "You know?" 
 
 "I mean I have heard the name ! No, my acquain- 
 tance with the Diamond Fields is not so extensive 
 as all that, monsieur. But I will find it, and I will 
 
 come." 
 
 Her accent was much more marked in the last 
 sentence than it had been a few moments ago, but 
 its resumption was unnecessary. If by degrees she 
 had dropped the voice of Rosa Duchene altogether, 
 it is doubtful whether he would have remarked it. 
 The first impression had been all-powerful, and he 
 was drunk with delight. 
 
 Indeed, when the "entertainment" was over, he 
 was the only one entirely satisfied with it. Johnny 
 Teale and his party felt that the hoax had "panned 
 out less brilliantly," on the whole, than it promised; 
 and Polly, alone in her room, threw herself on the 
 bed, and cried miserably, without knowing why. 
 
 IT was a significant fact that she did not call upon 
 him for three days, though she wanted to do so very 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 37 
 
 much. It was significant also that when she did go, 
 she put on her prettiest hat and frock, and made 
 herself look as dainty as she could, though the young 
 man would not be able to see her. Her visit inten- 
 sified that unfamiliar emotion with her, pity for a 
 man, and the step, once taken, she went again with- 
 out any vacillation and Bad Shilling was despatched 
 for meals for two from the "Carnarvon," and their 
 afternoons were so pleasant that the stars were 
 sometimes out before they parted. 
 
 There was now demanded of the girl an infinitely 
 more difficult achievement than that required at the 
 Royal Hotel; she found herself expected to realise, 
 and respond to, an artist's aspirations. She could 
 not do it, quite; the suspense in which he waited 
 for the publishers' reply, for instance, was outside 
 her range of comprehension. But if she simulated 
 more sympathy than it was natural she should feel, 
 she did by degrees come to gain a glimmer of the 
 blaze within him, too. She had to strain for it hard 
 at first so hard that she was surprised at her own 
 patience; his confidences were meaningless to her, 
 foreign; but during those long afternoons and eve- 
 nings, while Willy talked to "Rosa Duchene," as 
 he had never thought to find himself talking to any- 
 one, Polly sat opposite him in the rocking-chair, 
 with attentive eyes, learning a lesson. 
 
 Once, just as she was leaving, Blake Somerset 
 came in. He had heard that his nephew was receiv- 
 
38 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 ing visits from a "lady" in the cottage, and guessing 
 who the lady must be, intended to put a stop to 
 them. He was rather ashamed of himself for hav- 
 ing allowed the joke to be played at all, and the 
 discovery of the lengths to which it had been carried 
 annoyed him. 
 
 Polly started in alarm, but Childers, who had no 
 cause to be embarrassed, performed what he believed 
 to be the ceremony of introduction with perfect 
 calmness. 
 
 "I don't think you have met my uncle," he said; 
 "have you? Mr. Somerset Madame Duchene." 
 
 Somerset was about to answer with a brutal laugh, 
 but a gesture from the girl checked him. 
 
 When they were outside, and out of earshot, she 
 stopped and looked at him appealingly. 
 
 "Are you going to give me away?" she said; "are 
 you going to tell him? Don't! I'm not doing any 
 harm. Please don't tell him!" 
 
 "This is dam nonsense!" exclaimed Somerset. 
 "The fellow's a fool, but you've no right to have a 
 lark like this with him, you know; it won't do !" 
 
 "I'm not doing any harm," she insisted, "really ! 
 Of course it's a beastly shame in one way, but but 
 it does cheer him up, and give him pleasure! You 
 must see for yourself how much brighter he is ! And 
 and if you tell him, you'll break his heart." 
 
 "Skittles !" said Somerset. "Don't talk such rot !" 
 
 "You'll break his heart!" she flared out. "Not 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 39 
 
 that you'd mind much, I suppose, if you did. Well, 
 go back and do it Go in and say, 'That isn't Rosa 
 Duchene who comes to see you at all; it's a girl they 
 call Poll Patchouli, and everybody's been kidding 
 you !' Go on 1 Then you won't have to take him 
 to England with you because he'll be buried here 
 before you start and it will be you who'll have 
 killed him, as sure as a gun !" 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," said Somerset, blankly, 
 "that you think he'll never find it out? You must 
 be as daft as he is, 'pon my soul I Well, / don't 
 care; do as you like it can't last long, that's one 
 thing! When are you coming to see the idiot next?" 
 
 "I'm coming to-morrow!" said Polly. "And if 
 you consider it all so shocking, I wonder you let 
 those cads bring him to my place when they did. At 
 all events, I don't jeer at him, as you meant me to." 
 
 Then she jumped up into the "cart" and drove 
 away, and Somerset dropped into the club, and told 
 Johnny Teale that, extraordinary as it sounded, he 
 honestly believed "that girl had taken a fancy to the 
 simpleton;" and the little posse of conspirators sat 
 and viewed the development of their plot with open 
 mouths. 
 
 It had been her intention that the imposture she 
 was sustaining should conclude with the actress's 
 departure; and it was only when the time came that 
 she perceived how strange a hold it had established 
 on her, and how much she liked the young man 
 
40 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 who talked to her of things that she had never heard 
 talked about before. The temptation to continue 
 the intercourse was too strong to be resisted, and, 
 prompted by the fact that Duchene's season had been 
 extended a week, she told him, when she went on the 
 morrow, that it was prolonged for six. 
 
 Childers' joy was pitiful to behold. He had been 
 happier of late in his blindness than he had ever 
 been while in possession of his sight, and the sudden 
 intelligence that his paradise would endure, when 
 the groan of its closing gates was already in his 
 soul, was a relief so intense that its outcome fright- 
 ened her. 
 
 She had been aware he was in love with her from 
 the commencement, but now she saw how wildly, 
 and was aghast. Her life had not accustomed her 
 to regard the attachment between the sexes as a 
 serious matter, and though she did not view her 
 deception lightly any longer, she had not grasped 
 the full responsibility of it, either, till then. 
 
 She gazed at him widely, with trembling lips, like 
 a child who has smashed something. 
 
 "Are you so glad," she faltered "so glad as all 
 that?" 
 
 The consciousness crept through her as she asked 
 it, that she, too, was glad not in the whimsical 
 way she had thought, but as a woman is glad to 
 remain with a man who has grown dear to her. 
 She moved slowly over to him, and took his hands 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 4! 
 
 down from his face, and dropped on her knees 
 before the chair, staring up at him wondering at 
 them both. 
 
 "Willy," she whispered, "say something to me 
 I love you !" 
 
 He could not answer, but she felt what she had 
 done, and she forgot then that the whole thing was 
 a lie, forgot what an exclamation would burst from 
 him if he could see her; and it was she herself whose 
 kisses he was returning; herself by whom the tremors 
 that shook him were being caused. 
 
 The deception had gone further still, and there 
 began for the blind man a period in which he tasted 
 all the triumphant rapture of possessing a beautiful 
 and celebrated woman whom he adored. When he 
 embraced Polly, his delusion gave him Rosa Duchene 
 in his arms; when Polly clung about him it 
 was Duchene's touch that thrilled his blood, and 
 Duchene's lips that burned. He lavished on Polly 
 the madness of the passion which Rosa Duchene 
 inspired, and saw with his brain the form of the 
 famous woman who intoxicated him, while' Polly the 
 insignificant was lying on his heart. 
 
 The ecstasy of the delusion dizzied him. Rosa 
 Duchene was his own; visited him daily; vowed she 
 was wretched when they were apart! She, a genius, 
 whose name was renowned all over the world, dis- 
 cussed the prospects of his poems' acceptance with 
 him, and entered into his hopes and fears ! Why 
 
42 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 was he a nobody? If he could only climb nearer to 
 her own altitude! 
 
 One afternoon, a fortnight later, when Polly went 
 to the post-office to inquire if there was anything 
 for him, she found that the reply for which he was 
 waiting so anxiously had arrived at length. She 
 could see from whom the note was by the publish- 
 ers' name on the envelope, and the roll of manu- 
 script which the clerk also handed to her explained 
 the nature of its contents. She took them, almost 
 as disconsolate as her lover would be, and wondered, 
 on her way to the cottage, how she was to break 
 the news to him, how she could be gentle enough. 
 
 He had come out on the stoep to listen for her. 
 He knew where she had been, and the eagerness 
 on his face made the words she had to speak more 
 repugnant to her still. 
 
 "Dearest!" said Childers, and then waited. 
 
 "There is a letter," said Polly, reluctantly; "I 
 haven't opened it yet." The bundle of rejected man- 
 uscript oppressed her, and she put it down on the 
 table with her sunshade. 
 
 "From them?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Read it," he begged, breathlessly. "Read it, 
 Rosa, for Heaven's sake!" 
 
 She opened the envelope slowly, looking not at 
 it, but at him. It was hateful that it should be she 
 who had to bring him the disappointment! The 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 43 
 
 color was fluttering in his cheeks, and the thin hands 
 held out towards her quivered. Suppose she told 
 him a fib? Suppose she said ? He couldn't see 
 the answer! She caught her breath as the notion 
 flashed into her mind, and Willy heard her. 
 
 "They have taken it?" he cried. 
 
 She was endeavouring, confusedly, to perceive 
 what difficulties such a falsehood would entail, but 
 his question decided her; she could not crush him 
 with the truth after that! 
 
 "Yes," she said in a low voice, "they have!" 
 
 "Rosa, Rosa! Oh, my God! Read it to me! 
 What do they say?" 
 
 "They say " she said. "Oh, darling, I am 
 
 so glad for you, so glad! Willy, aren't you happy? 
 I told you it would be all right, now didn't I ?" 
 
 "What do they say?" 
 
 "They say how can I see, if you hold me so 
 tight, silly boy? It is only a line! 'Dear Sir, we 
 shall be pleased to publish the poems you have sub- 
 mitted. They will be' what is it? 'they will be 
 brought out soon.' Nothing more! So so per- 
 haps they aren't going to pay you for them ; but you 
 won't mind that, will you ? They will publish them ! 
 And they say 'pleased.' They might have said 
 'willing,' but they say 'pleased.' !" 
 
 To her the communication she had invented 
 sounded very meagre; but she need not have striven 
 to apologise for it. To him the bare fact was more 
 
44 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 than enough. They were going to issue his book. 
 He would hold it fondle it have it in his clutch ! 
 And soon! He had been thirsty all his life, and 
 on an instant Fortune was raining her favours on 
 him with both hands. Balzac's expression of every 
 artist's prayer recurred to him, "To be celebrated! 
 To be loved!" He marvelled crazy with rejoic- 
 ing that he could be so calm in the face of miracles. 
 He dominated Rosa Duchene, and now his Reveries 
 was to be given to the world! Then a frightful 
 misgiving seized him. 
 
 "You haven't deceived me? It is true?" he 
 gasped. 
 
 "It is true!" said Polly. "How could you think 
 such a thing?" 
 
 They embraced again, and he told her how proud 
 she should be of him by-and-by. 
 
 "You will 'make' me, lift me!" he panted. "If 
 I have written these before I knew you, what shall 
 I do now! I shall be great; Rosa, I shall be great! 
 The man you love will be known, too you will have 
 done it for me! What a beautiful world we live 
 in; is it the same world that was so ugly the other 
 day? Life is a cheval-glass it reflects the attitude 
 in which you look at it. O darling Life, it blows 
 kisses back to me! You fill me with emotions and 
 ideas, that tumble over one another. I shall pour 
 them out in my work my mind and heart are burst- 
 ing sometimes, too small to hold all you wake in 
 
45 
 
 them ! I will dedicate every book to you to you 
 who will have inspired them all ! Oh, I thank God 
 I am a poet! To worship you as I do, and be able 
 to lay nothing at your feet would have been agony !" 
 
 He wandered about the room with her arm round 
 him, while her troubled gaze turned from time to 
 time to the package on the table. 
 
 "Did you believe I was an artist when we first 
 met," he broke out again, "or was it pity only? Did 
 you feel we had something in common, different from 
 the others? Oh, how vain of me that sounds! But 
 you know you know how I mean it!" 
 
 "I know," she said. 
 
 "And you did you did feel there was a bond 
 between us? Tell me. I want so much of you, 
 dearest! I want more, and more, and more every 
 day. I want more than I can tell you, and more 
 than the utmost! It's as if nature hadn't provided 
 for such a love." 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 "You know your thoughts before you speak them ! 
 I'm jealous of that." 
 
 "You're mad!" 
 
 He nodded. "I dare say. Nothing satisfies me. 
 But I can't see you if you knew how I strain ! I'd 
 give my right arm to see you now, Rosa ! Turn 
 your face up, and let me try. Great God! it's a 
 wonderful thing to be born a woman and yet some- 
 how it doesn't seem enough to be a man. One day 
 
4 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 I'll try to tell you how you make me feel. If I can 
 do it, it'll be the grandest poem that was ever penned. 
 And such a relief!" 
 
 When she left, the moon was shining. She slipped 
 the package under her cloak, and, reaching home, 
 hid it away remorsefully at the bottom of her trunk. 
 What would be the outcome of this lie she had told? 
 She upbraided herself for her cowardice bitterly; 
 but for him to learn that the work was rejected now 
 would be a blow a thousand times more terrible still. 
 No, now whatever happened, he must not know; he 
 would curse her! 
 
 VI 
 
 IN the night the remembrance struck her that she 
 had left the note in his possession, and she was seized 
 with a paralysing dread that he might show it to 
 Somerset, and discover the truth with the rudest 
 shock possible. The thought kept her awake, toss- 
 ing in agony, and the sun had scarcely risen when 
 she drove to Bultfontein, with a face of ashes. 
 
 Willy was not visible. He was dressing, with 
 the aid of the negro who attended on him. She 
 sank on to the first chair inside the door, and tried 
 to gather voice to call to him. 
 
 He entered from the bedroom almost at the same 
 moment, and his appearance indicated the occur- 
 rence of all that she had feared. His greeting, how- 
 ever, dispelled her alarm, and he explained. 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 47 
 
 "I have had news about my mother," he mur- 
 mured; "she is dead." 
 
 The mail carrying Childers' poems had also 
 brought a letter for Mr. Somerset. Mrs. Childers 
 had opportunely died of pneumonia thus avoiding 
 the arrival of "a son who had no proper ambition," 
 and who was now blind besides. Somerset had had 
 a long talk with him the previous night, after Polly's 
 departure. The widow's decease placed consider- 
 able difficulties in the way of the young man's return 
 to England. The manager was going merely for 
 a trip, and a few months would see him back on the 
 Fortunatus works again. There would, he pointed 
 out, be nobody now to take charge of Childers at 
 Home, when he left, or, for that matter, while he 
 remained. It was really an awkward thing to de- 
 termine what was to become of him ! A young man 
 who had inherited about three hundred and fifty 
 a year had seldom been so entirely in the way before. 
 
 All these facts Childers imparted to Polly. 
 
 "What I shall do isn't decided," he went on. "I 
 couldn't stop here permanently, even if I wished to. 
 With the best of intentions, I'm bound to be rather 
 a nuisance. It wouldn't be fair for a fellow like 
 me to quarter himself on an uncle for life, if he 
 were willing to have me!" 
 
 "Have you told him about your book?" she asked. 
 
 "No," answered Willy; "it wouldn't interest him, 
 
48 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 and we talked about my mother's death. No, I 
 didn't say anything.". 
 
 "And I wouldn't, if I were you !" she exclaimed. 
 "I wouldn't say anything to a soul till it is printed. 
 Let it be a surprise to them all, and a secret, till 
 the right time comes, between us two." 
 
 "That was what I meant," he said. " 'Between 
 us two,' darling, yes." 
 
 She passed the day at once in relief and dismay; 
 it was piteous to think of the loneliness of his situa- 
 tion. She could not have loved him more tenderly 
 if she had been his sister or his wife, and this further 
 complication which had arisen to harass her ap- 
 peared, temporarily, the gravest of them all. 
 
 Willy also was troubled. Not only by his mother's 
 loss, but by a passionate longing to propose to Rosa 
 Duchene a sacrifice which he told himself would be 
 too much to beg. He had not exaggerated in assert- 
 ing that he felt he was a burden on his uncle, and, 
 though Rosa loved him, he doubted if she, too, 
 would not be reluctant to let him travel to England 
 in her society, and constitute herself his constant 
 companion till it was ascertained whether an opera- 
 tion could be performed. Yet if he were to go, he 
 saw no alternative. 
 
 The solution of the dilemma must have presented 
 itself to her, he thought, sailing shortly, as she 
 would be; but she had not suggested it, and for 
 him to do so was impossible. A little constraint 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 49 
 
 crept into his conversations with the girl now, and 
 while she inwardly commented and speculated on 
 the difference, he was tremulously waiting in every 
 pause for her to make the offer that had never en- 
 tered her head. Their dream might have been 
 continued in England more deliciously than he had 
 ever dared to hope, and, instead, they were to be 
 divided entirely by her own indifference ! He was 
 bitterly wounded, and not even his anticipation of 
 his book arriving the subject on which he chiefly 
 talked with her in order to disguise the one that 
 engrossed him was potent to banish the mortifica- 
 tion from his mind. 
 
 If his allusions to that were made perfunctorily, 
 however, their effect on his listener was disquieting 
 enough. The first of the consequences of her lie 
 was at hand to worry her already. She repented 
 that she had said "soon" in her improvised accept- 
 ance, and wondered how soon publisher's "soon" 
 might mean. Childers was equally ignorant on the 
 point, and in answer to her nervous queries declared 
 that the copies might reach him any week. 
 
 She could do no less, after this, than pretend to 
 go to the post-office every mail-day to inquire for 
 them, and affect to be disappointed as she informed 
 him that nothing had come. She groped, perplexed, 
 in the labyrinth of her creation, questioning help- 
 lessly how to sustain it. If the truth were exposed 
 at this stage she was certain she should make away 
 
50 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 with herself; she would have done him the cruellest, 
 the most cowardly wrong imaginable ! Her only 
 excuse for the deception was that, so far, it had been 
 attended by success. If the avalanche fell, after all, 
 it would be the end of her; she would be like that 
 girl who had taken carbolic acid in Bultfontein Road 
 the other day, and was found in a blue heap on the 
 floor! 
 
 After each mail she drew a breath, reflecting, 
 thankfully, that she had gained another respite; but 
 when four had been delivered, she feared that the 
 delay was as long as he could be expected to put 
 faith in, and, facing the inevitable with the courage 
 of despair, nerved herself to perpetrate a bolder 
 stroke than she had planned yet. 
 
 While she was considering it, all prospect of 
 Childers making the voyage with his uncle was extin- 
 guished definitely. The latter was starting at once, 
 at a couple of days' notice, for a very flying visit 
 indeed. His subordinate on the Fortunatus had been 
 offered a better appointment, and it was necessary 
 the manager's vacation should be taken while the 
 other was still on the works. Willy would be more 
 than ever an encumbrance under these circumstances. 
 
 Somerset explained that he would make time to 
 see the solicitor of the estate, and endeavour to 
 effect some arrangement for the boy to be looked 
 after in London there were always fellows going 
 
over; he could travel with someone else later on 
 but to take him himself was wholly impracticable. 
 
 Willy did not remonstrate, but the end of the 
 additional six weeks which he believed Rosa to be 
 playing in Kimberley was terribly near now (Rosa 
 Duchene, as a matter of fact, was at this time in 
 Monte Carlo, dropping some of the Diamond Fields' 
 receipts at the tables), and he felt hopelessly that 
 the woman he loved was fading out of his life for 
 ever. He could have cried with the pain of it. 
 
 He sat in the slip of a sitting-room the night be- 
 fore the departure, listening while Blake Somerset 
 banged his portmanteau about, and replying miser- 
 ably to his cheerful remarks. Somerset was debating 
 whether to drop the lad a hint about Polly, but 
 thought he would ask Ted Shepherd to keep an 
 eye on him instead. Childers was longing for him 
 to be actually gone, that he might abandon himself 
 to his wretchedness without restraint. 
 
 In the morning he did not feel his forlornness to 
 so acute a degree when the sound of the "cart" 
 wheels had died away, leaving him to the mercies 
 of Bad Shilling for the next two months, as he had 
 done while the preparations were going forward; 
 but the consciousness that they all found him an 
 incubus, and shrank from saddling themselves with 
 him, hung over him like a cloud. 
 
 His welcome of Polly when she appeared was 
 the expression of the consciousness, and struck her 
 
52 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 with a chill. She put off her cape and hat, and, 
 after a few abortive efforts to establish a warmer 
 atmosphere, busied herself with the making of the 
 tea, which had become one of the regular features 
 of their afternoons. 
 
 At last, glancing over at him hesitatingly, she 
 said 
 
 "Has anything happened? You seem very quiet." 
 
 "No, nothing particular. My uncle has gone, that 
 is all." 
 
 " 'Gone!' " she echoed; "gone where?" 
 
 "He has gone to England. It was settled two 
 days ago; didn't I mention it?" 
 
 "No," she said, "you didn't. It is rather strange 
 you should have forgotten such a thing. Then you 
 are alone here altogether now, you poor boy all 
 night, too?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered, playing with her discarded 
 gloves; "all night, too." 
 
 But he did not say any more, and with a stare 
 of puzzlement, and her face a little paler, she con- 
 tinued her occupation silently. She had lit the wick 
 of the spirit-lamp, and filled the kettle, and now 
 stood waiting for the water to boil. 
 
 "It is boiling, Rosa," said Childers; "I can hear 
 it." 
 
 "I was thinking of something else," she said, start- 
 ing. "There! It will be ready in a few minutes." 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 53 
 
 "What were you thinking of?" he asked, after a 
 moment's pause. 
 
 "Of What's the difference ?" said the girl. 
 
 "/ was thinking, too." 
 
 "I know." She ran over to him impulsively, and 
 bent over the chair. "Willy, we aren't the same to 
 each other! What is it? Tell me. ,You aren't as 
 fond of me?" 
 
 He laughed or sobbed in derision. 
 
 "It's you!" 
 
 "I?" 
 
 "Oh! don't make me say it! You know as well 
 as I do I shall be alone in this Heaven-forsaken hole, 
 and that, for all one can see, I may end my life in 
 it. He's gone, and you're going! Picture me here 
 sometimes; it's a charming apartment, isn't it, and 
 I'm a pretty figure to look back on ! You will have 
 a unique recollection; you'll always be able to think 
 of 'the absent one' just as you left him ! That's the 
 advantage of knowing a log!" 
 
 "Willy!" she cried. "What do you mean? Why 
 do you ?" 
 
 "I shall see more of Bad Shilling after you're 
 gone if he's kind ! I shall learn to quite look for- 
 ward to his remembering me, and listen for his big 
 black feet on the boards as I used to listen for you! 
 Has 'anything happened'? Oh, my God!" 
 
 "Why do you talk to me like this?" she exclaimed 
 excitedly. "Don't you think I'm sorry for you 
 
54 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 enough? You talk as if I could help it; hoiv can 
 I help it? If I can, tell me the way ! I'll do it. I'd 
 love to do it You reproach me for nothing!" 
 
 The boy's eyebrows were lifted significantly, and 
 she flung herself on him in a whirlwind of interro- 
 gation. 
 
 "If I can help it, tell me the way! You shall 
 tell me! I don't know what you mean I swear I 
 don't! I won't let you go till you tell!" 
 
 "You haven't thought?" 
 
 She shook her head vehemently. 
 
 "Answer ! Oh, I forgot I was shaking my head ! 
 No, no, no; I do not know, Will!" 
 
 "You will refuse if you want to?" 
 
 "Answer ! Yes, I will refuse if I want to. Answer 
 me!" 
 
 "We you and I might go to England to- 
 gether." 
 
 Her clasp of his neck loosened, and she lay in his 
 arms limp with dismay. This, the natural course in 
 the role she was assuming, was the last complication 
 she had contemplated. 
 
 "How?" she gasped. 
 
 "You don't wish it?" 
 
 "Yes ! yes ! I do ! I do ! But how ?" 
 
 "It would be quite easy. Let your Company go 
 on ahead, and we can follow by another boat. I 
 have thought of everything. Thought! I've thought 
 of nothing else. In that drawer there's my money 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 55 
 
 you would take it, and get our tickets to Cape 
 Town. I don't know exactly how much money there 
 ought to be, but there is nothing like enough for 
 our passages, and when we got down to the Colony 
 I should wire to the lawyer, and he could cable me 
 out a hundred or two. Well, and then " 
 
 "Go on," muttered Polly, feverishly, "go on!" 
 
 The blessed revelation that he did not expect her 
 to pay for her own passage a matter that would 
 have been as impossible for her as to buy the Kim- 
 berley Mine had brought the colour to her cheeks 
 again. The one question that was dizzying her 
 now was how it would be practicable to sustain his 
 delusion about her identity if they travelled on a 
 steamer full of people. 
 
 "Well, and then, when we were Home, we would 
 go to a great oculist a very great oculist some- 
 body who sits in his consulting-room like a judge, 
 and charges a guinea a minute. Or perhaps a Ger- 
 man yes, we might go to a German, who doesn't 
 look like an oculist a bit, but is marvellously clever, 
 like the one in 'Poor Miss Finch' and he'd give me 
 back my sight my sight! my sight! And I could 
 see you when we kiss !" 
 
 She yearned round at him with wide eyes, pitiful 
 and afraid. 
 
 "To think it should never have struck you ! Rosa, 
 I've been breaking my heart because you didn't sug- 
 gest it. I thought you didn't care for me any more 
 
56 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 that you had grown tired. Won't it be glorious 1 
 I shall see your beautiful face close at last, and it 
 will be you who helped me to do it. Sweetest, tell 
 me we are going it seems too wonderful to be true ! 
 Say it!" 
 
 "We shall go," she said. She put her hand 
 through the open window, and pulled at the water- 
 bag that was suspended in a temperature in which 
 no ice would keep. Roughly made of canvas, like 
 a small pillow-case sewn up, with the neck of a beer- 
 bottle inserted for a spout, Bad Shilling filled it 
 with the lukewarm, undrinkable water every day 
 to hang in the air. The iciness of its contact with 
 her forehead now cleared her brain. 
 
 VII 
 
 BESIDE the stupendousness of this new difficulty, 
 the necessity for meeting his demand for the copies 
 of his Reveries, which she had dreaded so, appeared 
 a simple matter enough; and when she came next, 
 she placed a parcel on his knees with so little mis- 
 giving that she was surprised at herself. 
 
 The poet uttered an ejaculation of delight. "My 
 book! It must be my book!" 
 
 She told him to cut the string, but his fingers 
 shook so that he could not manage it. He fumbled 
 futilely in his impatience. 
 
 "Oh," he cried, "I can't! Rosa you!" 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 57 
 
 She took the penknife from his hand, and after- 
 wards let him unfold the wrappings for himself. Six 
 volumes met his touch with an electric thrill alike, 
 identical but each to be caressed separately, each 
 lovable and delicious. How smooth was the delicate 
 surface that he stroked soft as a woman's palm ! 
 He was holding his first- born, and he thanked God. 
 The emotion was the true emotion, though it was 
 conjured up by fraud; it was the bliss of ignorance, 
 but, none the less, bliss. He was holding his first- 
 born, and Polly had given him no meaner a joy 
 than Heaven would have given had it endowed him 
 with the powers which he fancied he had displayed. 
 Six copies of another work, and imagination were 
 as potent as reality. 
 
 "Tell me what it is like," he whispered. 
 
 "It is," she said, "a pale, curious fawn. The 
 edges are stained a deeper shade, and the name of 
 'William Childers' is at the bottom of the cover, a 
 little to the right, in dark, antique lettering." 
 
 "Let me trace it! Show me!" 
 
 She obeyed, terrified, watching his effort breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 "I cannot make it out! But it looks well, Rosa, 
 eh? It looks well?" 
 
 "It looks beautiful," she said. 
 
 "The paper is thin," he murmured; "I hoped they 
 would have given me better paper." 
 
 "It is thin," she confessed, remorsefully, "but 
 
58 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 very good looking. I think it looks more uncommon 
 on the whole than if it had been thick." 
 
 "And the type big? Is there a wide margin?" 
 
 "There is a very wide margin," asserted Polly. 
 "Give me your finger again there, all that is mar- 
 gin ! And the type is splendid ! I can read it from 
 here, without bending." She could. She read: 'The 
 Norman Conquest. Edward was not a vigorous 
 king; he had little authority, while ' ' 
 
 He cuddled the book close, with a long-drawn sigh 
 of content. 
 
 "Perhaps soon I shall be able to see it!" he ex- 
 claimed. "Rosa, when do we go need we wait 
 long? I am on fire! But, oh, I am happy, too 
 happy, happy! I am happier than I ever hoped I 
 should be, although I have no eyes. Since I knew 
 you my whole life has changed ; you have given me, 
 and you are bringing me success ! How can I repay 
 you!" 
 
 Suddenly a passionate desire seized him. "Read 
 me the first poem," he prayed, "read me Sic Itur ad 
 * Astra. Let me hear my verse spoken by you !" 
 
 The blood fell from her face, and she stood 
 speechless. Her head was swimming. 
 
 "Rosa!" 
 
 "Wait!" she stammered, recovering herself; "it 
 is new to me. You are a poet, and it is new to me ! 
 Wait until I know them, Will I have a reputation 
 to lose!" 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 59 
 
 She thanked her guiding star she had kept the 
 manuscript, and he, his disappointment passing, 
 thought how sweet this timidity in such a woman 
 was. He told her so, with triumphant tenderness. 
 She resolved he should have plenty of occasions for 
 the triumph in the future. 
 
 She had proposed that on the journey before 
 them she should adopt his own surname, explaining 
 the unavoidable request by pointing out that while 
 Duchene's features might be familiar to many, Du- 
 chene's name would be known to all, and prove a 
 certain embarrassment in their position. In agree- 
 ing with this which was specious enough Childers 
 had removed her initial anxiety from her mind. 
 
 Freed from it, she made, in the ensuing days, the 
 needful preparations with less of fright in her soul, 
 and now, since they were to go, she was sometimes 
 eager for them to be gone quickly. There was just 
 the contingency that a man might drop in on him, 
 and an accident destroy the whole fabric of the de- 
 ception she had weaved at the final instant. She 
 strove to persuade herself she might preserve her<- 
 lover's delusion more securely where she had only 
 strangers to fear than she could have done on the 
 Diamond Fields, but then her reason mocked her 
 for the hope. So many things might happen she 
 dared not look forward. Alternately she longed and 
 trembled for the hour that should see them start. 
 She was fighting pluckily, but the enormity of the 
 
60 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 undertaking to which she had set her hand paralysed 
 her in moments, and at every step she seemed called 
 upon to vanquish a further obstacle that had nojt Uelen 
 suspected till it barred the way. 
 
 When the morning broke at length, her predomi- 
 nant sensation was pleasure. Her own trunks were 
 ready, and while Bad Shilling was sent for their 
 breakfast she was busy packing the remaining things 
 of Willy's. She was still on her knees, endeavouring 
 to fasten the box, while Childers sat on it, when the 
 "boy" returned. His additional weight for he was 
 a "boy" of about forty years, and weighing twelve 
 stones disposed of the difficulty, and, laughing after 
 their exertions, they sat down to the coffee and steaks 
 at the untidy table quite gaily, reminding each other 
 that it was for the last time. 
 
 The negro had come back with a "cart," which 
 stood waiting for them, and, the meal concluded, 
 they made haste to depart. As they mounted and 
 took their seats, the doors of the cottage and all 
 the sheds about the works banged violently; the 
 sunshine sank, and the long, low swishing sound was 
 heard that heralded a dust-storm. In another minute 
 the air was darkened as by a London fog; windows 
 rattled, and they hid their faces in their hands, in 
 the vain attempt to shield them from the hissing 
 clouds that whirled and stung. Such dust-storms 
 were of constant occurrence, but in this one the little 
 Hottentot Jehu appeared to perceive a significance, 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 6 1 
 
 and he lashed forward the horses furiously. They 
 had gained the station before the rain he had fore- 
 seen began to fall ; but it did fall in floods sweep- 
 ing less fortunate animals off their feet; and Polly's 
 cheerfulness deserted her as she glanced back into 
 the deluge, and she felt superstitiously that the 
 adventure had commenced under ominous conditions. 
 
 VIII 
 
 HOWEVER, the thirty odd hours in the train were 
 uneventful, and they reached Cape Town without 
 any new danger having reared its head. Exhilara- 
 tion was in the ascendant again. The comparative 
 freshness of the atmosphere, the sparkle of the sea 
 beyond the jetty to her, and the scent of it to him, 
 the odour of flowers and rustle of the trees, were 
 delicious after the desert they had left. 
 
 And he drove in a hansom again a white han- 
 som, with a coloured driver truly, but a hansom! 
 They went straight to a little inn, of which Polly 
 had heard, outside the town, almost, it seemed to 
 her, at the very foot of Table Mountain, whose 
 squareness broke off so sharply against the intense 
 blue sky, and here, obtaining rooms the entire inn 
 was at their disposal, if they had wanted it sat 
 down and smiled at each other from sheer delight. 
 
 "How clean everything feelsl" said Childers. 
 "Isn't it? There's a feeling of cleanness about the 
 
62 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 towels, and the chair-covers, and the curtains, that 
 is an absolute novelty to me!" 
 
 He had expressed just what she was thinking. It 
 was clean, and outside it was green and tranquil. 
 The road that the hostel overlooked was, at this 
 part, an avenue of firs, glinting here and there with 1 
 branches of the silver-leaves which are sent to Eng- 
 land as birthday cards, with stiff little views or sen- 
 timents painted on them. Presently a Malay maid- 
 servant a starched, white triangle from the arm- 
 pits down, and with a bright silk fez upon her head 
 came in with their dinner, and they tasted fruit 
 once more; not fruit as it was procurable in Kim- 
 berley, but great luscious peaches, and purple figs, 
 and a water-melon plucked since an hour, that gushed 
 into their mouths. They sat dawdling by the win- 
 dow over their coffee while the moon rose, and now 
 and again the thrum of a banjo was borne to them 
 on the stillness; and Childers smoked a cigarette, 
 because the situation seemed to call for one, though 
 he only enjoyed it with his fingers now. 
 
 In the morning they took one of the trains that 
 potter backwards and forwards between the suburbs 
 and Cape Town, and sent the cable to the solicitor. 
 But they were not impatient for the money to arrive; 
 they contemplated the two or three days they would 
 have to pass here with great fortitude. 
 
 When the answer came, and they issued from the 
 bank with a roll of notes in Polly's pocket, they went 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 63 
 
 to the office of the line which had a boat sailing 
 next, to engage their passages; and here they met 
 with their first disappointment. All the berths were 
 gone, and it was necessary for them to wait for the 
 Union steamer, that left a week later. 
 
 It was disconcerting, but it could not be helped. 
 After all, they were comfortable at the inn, and 
 though Childers experienced more regret than Polly, 
 he was not very seriously chagrined either. They 
 walked home talking for it was an agreeable walk 
 after one had passed the tannery at Papendorp 
 and he confided to her his suspense until he had 
 learnt how Reveries was received; the humilia- 
 tion he would feel if the reviewers sneered at it. 
 And then the girl told him what the scene about 
 them looked like; of the fields of arum lilies, de- 
 spised as buttercups in England, and the clusters of 
 maidenhair-fern that fluttered in every hedge. 
 
 "Look!" she exclaimed once, inadvertently. "Oh! 
 . . . I mean how sweet this is, Will, this villa! 
 Those high cactuses cacti, what do you call them 
 divide the garden from us, but here, at the gate, 
 one can see in. The lawn is yellow with loquat trees 
 and crimson with japonicas. It's all patches of col- 
 our or of shadow. And it's got a perfect duck of 
 a stoep, and oh, a lovely old negress with white 
 hair, who's coming down to us! Let's stroll on; 
 she'd bother us to go over it, perhaps it's to let." 
 
 "We shall find a difference when we get to Lon- 
 
64 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 don, shall we not?" he remarked as they proceeded. 
 "Fancy it! January! The cold, the wet, the black, 
 bustling crowd in the foggy streets, and the mud-carts 
 slopping over with slush. What a contrast!" 
 
 "London has suburbs, too!" she answered hope- 
 fully. "Dulwich, where you lived, is a suburb, isn't 
 it ? It wouldn't be like that if we went to Dulwich ?" 
 
 "No," he said, "we should not find a crowd in 
 Dulwich, because the people who live there never 
 go out; and there would be no mud-carts, because 
 in deadly Dulwich the mud is never cleared away. 
 But its long, dreary, desolate roads aren't like this 
 one, Rosa, in the least." 
 
 Cape Town appeared to him, in spite of his afflic- 
 tion, much more attractive now than it had done 
 eighteen months before, when he saw it. The 
 thought occurred that he might utilise their enforced 
 delay by consulting one of its medical men he 
 doubted its boasting an oculist pure and simple 
 and obtaining a second and more authoritative opin- 
 ion. He propounded the idea to Polly, and, on in- 
 quiry, she ascertained that the best man to whom 
 he could go was an Englishman a Dr. Eben 
 Drysdale. 
 
 Very encouraging accounts were forthcoming of 
 his ability. Though not a specialist, he had effected 
 some remarkable cures in ophthalmic cases, it was 
 affirmed, and Childers, who wrote to him through 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 65 
 
 Polly for an appointment, grew strongly excited as 
 the time for the visit drew near. 
 
 The girl herself did not know what to desire. 
 When they mounted the steps of the house, her knees 
 knocked together. To wish the man might say that 
 no operation would succeed sounded so heartless that 
 she was ashamed to look at Willy while the strug- 
 gle with the hope was going on; yet to hear that his 
 sight could certainly be restored would mean dis- 
 covery to herself and despair to him. She often 
 prayed, though to many it may sound improbable; 
 and as they stood waiting on the doorstep to be ad- 
 mitted, she shaped an inward, irresolute prayer now. 
 She said, "O God, You know all about it help me 
 to want the thing that he'll like bestl" 
 
 Dr. Drysdale did not bear any resemblance to 
 either of the imaginary authorities whose portraits 
 Childers had sketched in Bultfontein. He shook 
 hands with his visitors, observed genially that it was 
 beautiful weather, and received them as if nothing 
 could be further than the existence of any anxiety 
 from his own recollection or from theirs. 
 
 When Willy had finished explaining, he said 
 
 "Yes, yes, to be sure," and tapped his teeth pen- 
 sively with a thermometer that had been lying on 
 the table. "Yes, yes, to be sure ! And you are on 
 your way back to the old country, eh? Well, now 
 let us seel Let us have a look, sir!" He lifted the 
 lids, and scrutinised the boy's eyes one by one under 
 
66 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 the rays of an adjustable electric lamp. "Yes, yes, 
 to be sure! And how long is it since the trouble 
 began?" 
 
 "My sight has been weak a long while," answered 
 Willy. "It's been getting very bad the last eight 
 months, and about nine weeks ago it failed alto- 
 gether. At least, I wore a shade for a few days, and 
 then " 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Dr. Drysdale. 
 
 "Can you give us any hope?" asked Polly. 
 
 The physician mused. "There is hope," he said, 
 "there is hope. I wouldn't say that no one would 
 advise an operation over there. You might go to 
 Pholett or to Maclntyre I dare say Maclntyre 
 would do it and it's just possible it might be par- 
 tially successful; but I wouldn't counsel it in this case; 
 I wouldn't counsel it myself. Your husband?" 
 
 Polly bowed. 
 
 "Your husband, yes ! I wouldn't counsel it myself. 
 Do you think it is advisable, sir, to proceed to Eng- 
 land for the sake of er this remote chance?" 
 
 "I don't understand," said Willy, heavily. 
 
 "In your state of health it will be injurious in the 
 extreme. Here it's quite the reverse you've 
 everything in your favour. My advice would be to 
 stay where you are. Suppose they do see their way 
 to an operation, what of it? Do you mind taking 
 off your coat and waistcoat? Thank you. Now 
 draw a deep breath that's it! Now again!" 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 67 
 
 "My lungs are not strong," stammered Willy, "I 
 know; they never have been! But what you are 
 implying is news to me." 
 
 Polly rose to her feet in consternation. 
 
 "Do you mean that he is ill, doctor?" she ex- 
 claimed "very ill?" 
 
 "I mean," said Dr. Drysdale, suddenly evasive, 
 "that I wouldn't recommend him to go to England, 
 that's all. No need to be alarmed, my dear madam; 
 don't let me startle you ! It's not a climate we choose 
 when there is a tendency to any pulmonary complaint, 
 and and your husband was perfectly aware that his 
 lungs 'aren't strong.' ' 
 
 There was a pause that lasted some time. 
 
 "We may as well go," said Childers, at length. 
 "I am glad to have had your opinion. Good morn- 
 ing." 
 
 But as Polly went forward to the head of the 
 staircase, he stopped, instead of following her, and 
 spoke to the doctor again, on the threshold. 
 
 "I want what you've seen, straight, please!" he 
 said in a low voice. "If I live in England, how long 
 shall I last?" 
 
 "One cannot say," murmured the other, depre- 
 catingly; "nature at times " 
 
 "Roughly? I can bear it I'm not a child! How 
 long?" 
 
 "So far as I can judge from a very cursory exam- 
 ination, I should give you about two years." 
 
68 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "Good God!" said Childers. "And here?" 
 
 "Here? With care, and the avoidance of any- 
 thing like physical or mental excitement, you may 
 live for ten! More! But you must avoid excite- 
 ment, mind; it's imperative!" 
 
 The girl was returning, anxious to miss nothing. 
 Childers caught the frou-frou of her skirt on the 
 floor. 
 
 "If I can't avoid excitement," he questioned, des- 
 perately "if that's impossible?" 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "You will not live so long!" 
 
 IX 
 
 CHILDERS and Polly left the house, and turned into 
 the street silently. She could not express her com- 
 prehension by any words, and loathed the passers-by, 
 who prevented her taking him to her heart. To him 
 the shock was awful, and he knew now the meaning 
 of various sensations which he had mentally set down 
 to lassitude and depression. 
 
 She squeezed the hand that rested on her arm 
 against her side. 
 
 "My poor boy!" she said, chokingly. 
 
 "It's it's rather a blow, isn't it?" 
 
 The sky was of just as hard a blue as when they 
 had entered, she noticed with dull eyes ; the glimpse 
 of bay sparkled just as fiercely; the same traffic was 
 in the roads, producing muffled sounds. 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 69 
 
 "You must stop in Cape Town," she murmured, 
 "and get well here. . . . Are we going back by 
 train?" 
 
 "Yes," he assented, drearily. . . . "Yes, I sup- 
 pose by train." 
 
 His thoughts were not that his sight was lost for 
 ever; not that England would never be anything but 
 a memory to him any more; but that he and she 
 would be divided now. She would go perhaps a 
 little later than they were to have gone together 
 perhaps much later but she would go. 
 
 "It was fated, it seems!" he said. 
 
 "What?" she asked. 
 
 He had assumed that she must be thinking of it, 
 too. She was suffering with her own identity, and 
 had not remembered to view the calamity as 
 Duchene. 
 
 "You will leave me out here, after all !" 
 
 "Leave you?" Then, realising the position, she 
 was staggered. Would Rosa Duchene leave him? 
 Or would she stay, regardless of everything else? 
 She did not know ! It looked incredible to her that 
 the actress would consent to change her whole mode 
 of life, to renounce her career, and make herself the 
 jest of Europe, in order to remain by the side of 
 Willy in Cape Town. And then she argued that it 
 looked incredible because the other woman was noth- 
 ing but a great name to her, and that if she had loved 
 him as he imagined she did, the actress would at 
 
70 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 this minute have been wrung with the identical dis- 
 tress she was experiencing herself. "We we must 
 consider," she said. 
 
 Would consent be equivalent to discovery? or 
 would his belief in the devotion he had inspired be 
 equal to accepting such a sacrifice without suspicion? 
 She sat staring from the window of the railway-com- 
 partment, asking herself the question as the train 
 bore them homeward. She was now grateful for 
 the presence of strangers ; she did not want to speak. 
 
 On the platform Childers said 
 
 "But what do I care we will go together just the 
 same! Rosa, I would rather be with you and die, 
 than live and be left alone. Don't let us think about 
 it any more ; we'll go as we'd determined !" 
 
 "You must be insane !" she said, starting. "I don't 
 want a suicide on my account" 
 
 He persisted, but she would not listen to him. All 
 the afternoon she waited, trying to perceive whether 
 he was ready to receive the suggestion she was aching 
 to make. 
 
 During the evening they were both very quiet. 
 She had wheeled her armchair to the sofa where 
 he lay, and stooped from time to time to kiss him, 
 but her sympathy seemed empty to him without the 
 words he was yearning to hear, and to herself, till 
 they could be spoken, it seemed that she was offering 
 him an insult. 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 71 
 
 "When shall you sail?" he said, breaking a long 
 pause. 
 
 "When you are tired of me," she answered. 
 
 "Ah, you will go before then!" 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 Coquetry appeared heartless to him. He won- 
 dered she could display any in such an hour. 
 
 "For the first time I wish you were a 'nobody,' ' 
 he sighed. "I've been too vain, perhaps, of being 
 loved by Rosa Duchene. Now I'm punished for it 
 it's your position that comes between us. Her 
 lover, or her career what woman would hesitate?" 
 
 He did not know it, or intend it, but the reproach 
 that was her clue was in his tone. She shut her 
 eyes, and shivered with joy before she spoke. 
 
 "I can't tell you what woman would hesitate," she 
 said, with a laugh; "but does it matter much?" 
 
 "What do you mean, Rosa?" faltered Willy. 
 
 "Supposing " she said, curling a piece of his 
 
 hair round her finger. 
 
 ' 'Supposing' ?" he echoed, breathlessly. 
 
 "Supposing that 'once upon a time' there was an 
 actress who came to South Africa, and met a boy 
 she she was silly enough to like very much silly 
 enough to love very much silly enough to love as 
 / love you! Suppose they had meant to go Home 
 together, and then one morning learnt the boy was 
 much too ill, and that the woman must give up 
 everything to stay there with him, or go away alone, 
 
72 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 and give him up. If through that first, long, dread- 
 ful day she wasn't able to decide; if just at first she 
 did hesitate ; if she tried to stamp her love out, only 
 to find what she might have known at the begin- 
 ning that it was worth more to her than the stage, 
 more than her Paris, more to her than her life; if 
 she cried to him, 'Willy, I'm ashamed of myself! 
 Forgive me, and let me stop !' what do you think 
 the boy would say?" 
 
 "Rosa!" 
 
 "I love you! I love you! I love you!" she mut- 
 tered, straining him to her. 
 
 "You will not have so long to wait as you think," 
 he said. 
 
 "You will live for ever," she swore; "you shall 
 be immortal!" 
 
 They went the following day to view the tiny 
 house whose exterior had delighted her so in pass- 
 ing. It was to be let furnished, and the old, white- 
 haired negress she had seen in the garden was 
 prepared to remain as servant. They settled to take 
 it on the spot, and less than a week later they were 
 installed. 
 
 The afternoon that they moved in, Polly went 
 into town alone. She explained that she wanted 
 to buy some trifle a shade for the lamp and 
 Willy, who was taking as vivid an interest in the 
 arrangement of their home as if he could see it, 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 73 
 
 discussed the projected colour with her at great 
 length. 
 
 She left him on the stoep, in a position where 
 she would catch sight of him on her return at the 
 moment she reached the gate; but when her pur- 
 chase was made, she did not hasten to rejoin him 
 there. She turned, instead, up Adderley Street, and 
 entered the Government Gardens. There was a big 
 building on her right, near the foot of the avenue, 
 and she went into it. The stone over the doorway 
 was inscribed with the words "Public Library." 
 
 "Please," she said nervously to the gentleman who 
 was standing behind the counter, "I want a criti- 
 cism on a book of poems. It doesn't matter what 
 poems they are, or who wrote them; but they must 
 be fine poems, and the critic must say that the poet 
 is a genius a great genius one of the greatest 
 geniuses in the world! Can you help me?" 
 
 The librarian was a man who had strong views 
 as to what everybody else should read. He dis- 
 played dryasdust volumes, designed to raise the taste 
 of Cape Town, in a prominent glass-case, that un- 
 wary people might be lured into asking for them, 
 and shuddered when he gave out a novel. A demand 
 on him so vague as this, however, took him aback. 
 
 "What kind of poet?" he said. "There have been 
 many fine poets. Do you mean one who is writing 
 now?" 
 
74 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "I really don't mind at all," answered Polly, im- 
 partially, "so long as he is good." 
 
 "We have just received a work that might suit 
 you, perhaps," he said. "How would this do?" He 
 handed her "Victorian Poets," by Stedman. "If 
 you go into the reading-room, you can glance through 
 it at your leisure." 
 
 She clutched the fat green volume thankfully, and, 
 taking a chair at one of the tables where there were 
 pens and ink, hurriedly skimmed the contents. 
 
 The names looked promising enough. Tennyson, 
 Browning, Swinburne, a host met her eye, including 
 dozens of whom she had never heard. Settling her- 
 self to the perusal, though, it seemed to her eager- 
 ness that the author perceived more faults than 
 merits even in the best of them, and nowhere could 
 she encounter exactly what she sought. 
 
 At length, after infinite pains, she culled a selec- 
 tion of appreciative paragraphs, and contrived to 
 dovetail them into a fairly consistent whole; but 
 a panegyric on Byron, that she observed too late 
 to insert satisfactorily, without omitting a eulogy 
 of Keats, prevented her feeling the satisfaction with 
 her performance to which it was entitled. 
 
 "I am very much obliged," she said, in restoring 
 the book. 
 
 "Have you found what you wanted?" asked the 
 librarian, curiously. 
 
 "Yes, thank you," she declared, "at least it will 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 75 
 
 do for the present; but I shall have to come several 
 times again." 
 
 She now proceeded to the station, and reached the 
 garden just as it was reddened by the sunset. Willy 
 was still where she had left him. She took off her 
 outdoor things, and came out, and went to his side. 
 She had a weekly London paper she had bought, in 
 one hand a Paper he had often referred to latterly 
 with awe and anticipation and behind her she held 
 her sheet of foolscap. She gave him the paper. 
 
 "Sweetheart," she said, "I have brought you your 
 first review." 
 
 He fell to trembling, pale to the lips. 
 
 "What do they say?" he whispered. "What is 
 it in?" 
 
 She mentioned the Paper's name. "Shall I read 
 it to you?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, reverently, "let me hear!" 
 
 She took a seat a few feet away, and read. 
 
 'The minor poetry of the last few years,' she 
 began, 'is of a strangely composite order. We can 
 see that the long-unpopular Browning at length has 
 become a potent force as the pioneer of a half- 
 dramatic, half-psychological method, whose adher- 
 ents seek a change from the idyllic repose of Tenny- 
 son and his followers. With this intent, and with 
 a strong leaning towards the art studies and convic- 
 tions of the Rossetti group, a Neo-Romantic School 
 has arisen, in which Mr. William Childers, whose 
 
76 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Reveries is now under our consideration, leaps at a 
 bound into the foremost place. His songs resemble 
 those of Rossetti in terseness and beauty, while with 
 Browning they escape at times to that stronghold 
 whither science and materialism are not prepared 
 to follow. Art so complex as Mr. Childers' was 
 not possible until centuries of literature had passed, 
 and an artist could overlook the field, essay each 
 style, and evolve a metrical result which should be 
 to that of earlier periods what the music of Meyer- 
 beer and Rossini is to the narrower range of Piccini 
 or Gluck. All must acknowledge that Sic Itur ad 
 Astra is perfect of its kind. Take this and that 
 exquisite ode, To a memory, or My Soul and I! We 
 call them poetry; poetry of the lasting sort, and 
 attractive to successive generations. We believe that 
 they will be read when many years have passed away; 
 that they will be picked out and treasured by future 
 compilers.' ' 
 
 She paused, that he might breathe. Heaven had 
 fallen into the Rondebosch garden, and its glory 
 was flooding him. 
 
 Presently she bent over her manuscript again, and 
 read on for several minutes to the end. 
 
 When she had finished they did not speak, by 
 any words. She leant her head upon his breast, while 
 his soul uttered a thanksgiving upon the eminence to 
 which her lie had raised him. He had touched the 
 apex. He was tasting an intenser joy than comes 
 
THE LAURELS AND THE LADY 77 
 
 to one man among millions a joy so keen that few 
 of us have the imagination to conceive it. 
 
 "Are you happy?" 
 
 " 'Happy' !" His voice was broken, and he pressed 
 his hands over his heart. "You and Fame! Can 
 life have any more to yield?" 
 
 "It shall be so for you always always!" she 
 murmured. "Let us go in." 
 
 The brief Cape twilight was beginning to fall out- 
 side, and she lit the lamp. Viewed from the room, 
 the garden was full of tender tints. She led him to 
 a seat and kissed him. 
 
 "Your chair in Our Home!" she said. "Oh, and 
 the shade ! I had forgotten it." 
 
 "What colour did you choose, after all, Rosa?" 
 
 "It is couleur de rose!" said Polly. And she put 
 it on. 
 
 There was, twelve months later, living on the 
 border of Mowbray and Rondebosch, a famous poet. 
 He had never spoken with his publishers, but from 
 time to time they wrote to him, in terms of respect- 
 ful admiration, and then the celebrated actress, who 
 shared his exile, and acted as his amanuensis, read 
 their letters to him, and subsequently cashed the 
 small drafts that they apologetically enclosed. At 
 the primitive shops from which the villa was sup- 
 plied, the pair was known as "Mr. and Mrs. Chil- 
 ders," but as they had not been to the church, none 
 
78 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 of the neighbours called upon them, and since the 
 poet, being blind, was always attended by the actress, 
 he made no acquaintances in his walks. He had 
 recently published his second work, which, if pos- 
 sible, had increased the reputation he had won by 
 his first. The two volumes were the most treasured 
 of his possessions, and from the shelf on which they 
 were kept he often took them down and fondled 
 them. To a stranger who parted the expensive cov- 
 ers, the contents might have appeared startling in 
 the face of so much pride; indeed, he might have 
 been pardoned the impression that he was looking 
 at Mavor's Spelling Book and a child's History of 
 England. But the poet handled them rapturously. 
 To touch them was almost as thrilling as to embrace 
 his plain companion, whom he always addressed by 
 a name that was not hers, and whom, inexplicably, 
 he believed to be so beautiful. 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 
 
 As TWO ladies came out of the florist's in the Rue 
 Royale, and moved towards their carriage, the 
 younger of the pair gave a start of surprise, and 
 exclaimed 
 
 "Ernest!" 
 
 "Who?" said Lady Liddington, vaguely. 
 "What?" 
 
 Her niece was already shaking hands with him 
 a young man with a voluminous neck-tie and a soft 
 felt hat, who looked poor and clever and Bohemian. 
 
 "Ernest," she cried, "how glad I am to see you I" 
 
 "Kate ! Who would have thought of meeting 
 you over here !" He gazed at her with astonish- 
 ment and admiration. "I should hardly have recog- 
 nised you." 
 
 "I've grown up ! Let me introduce you to my 
 aunt, Lady Liddington. You've often heard of 
 Ernest, Aunt Madge! I was his first critic. And 
 your mother and father?" 
 
 "Quite well, thanks." 
 
 "They are with you?" 
 
 79 
 
80 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "No, oh no; they are still in Coblenz. The gov- 
 ernor grumbles to me regularly every month; the 
 mater bears it better. Poor old governor! he was 
 meant to lounge through life with a rose-bud in 
 his buttonhole, wasn't he? I've been living in Paris 
 nearly five years now." 
 
 "And working?" 
 
 "And working! I'm a painter of sorts at last." 
 
 "I can see you're a painter," laughed the girl, 
 with a glance at the flowing bow. "Why 'of sorts' ?" 
 
 "Art is a very arduous profession, I believe," mur- 
 mured Lady Liddington, politely. She was men- 
 tally praying that no one who knew her would hap- 
 pen to pass while they were standing here. Really 
 the young man cut a figure! "Do you exhibit?" 
 
 "Not yet I only sell." 
 
 "Indeed? I always understood " 
 
 "I am at the lowest of the practical stages, Lady 
 Liddington. At present I sell somehow! Later 
 on I shall manage to exhibit, and be unable to sell. 
 Finally I hope to exhibit and sell, too. But the way 
 is long." 
 
 "I see," she replied, profoundly uninterested. 
 
 "A real live artist!" said Miss Ormerod, gaily. 
 "How proud you must be ! It seems only the other 
 day you were a boy at home, dreaming dreams." 
 
 "Yes, I was good at dreams," he confessed; 
 "dreams don't want anatomy. How well I remem- 
 ber it all ! But I am keeping you." 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 8 1 
 
 "You must come and see us," she said, "and soon ! 
 I have a hundred questions to ask you. What are 
 we doing to-morrow, Aunt Madge?" 
 
 "Er to-morrow? There is the Elysee in the 
 evening, you know, and the next night, I am 
 afraid But if to-morrow afternoon " 
 
 "I shall be very pleased," he declared. He re- 
 peated the address, and raised his distressing hat. 
 The victoria drove away, and the two occupants 
 mused a moment, Kate Ormerod smiling. 
 
 The first to speak was the chaperon whom nature 
 had never intended for one. 
 
 "Your introduction was delicious," she said. 
 "Who is the gentleman you have made me ask 
 home?" 
 
 "Is it possible you don't know him? Ernest!" 
 
 "Yes, I heard you call him 'Ernest.' I shouldn't 
 do it again if I were you. Hasn't he a surname 
 by any chance?" 
 
 "Not call him ? Oh, my dear aunt, how can 
 
 you be so absurd ! He is Ernest Mallock. Why, we 
 were almost like brother and sister until his people 
 had to leave 'Moyamehane' and go abroad. My 
 mother must have spoken of them to you a thousand 
 times." 
 
 "Oh," said Lady Liddington, "he is Cyril Mai- 
 lock's son, is he? But you are not in the wilds of 
 County Roscommon now, remember; you are neither 
 of you children any more, and " 
 
82 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "And the Mallocks have lost all their money," 
 concluded Miss Ormerod, with warmth. "Don't 
 leave that out, because it's really what you mean ! 
 Yes, they are ruined and what of it? If you think 
 it is any reason why I should pass a boy in the 
 streets who " 
 
 "My dear," said the other, plaintively, "I did not 
 suggest that you should pass anybody in the streets. 
 
 You know I did not ! I only hinted It is very 
 
 unkind of you, Kate, to make such accusations." 
 
 The girl turned apologetically. 
 
 "Poor Aunt Madge ! Yes, I was bolting, wasn't 
 I? I'm sorry. But if you knew how happy it made 
 me to see him it was like a bit of my childhood 
 crossing the road to me ! It was Ernest who taught 
 me to sit a horse and how to throw a fly. It was 
 Ernest who taught me not to paint. He used to kiss 
 me up to the time I was fifteen." 
 
 "My child!" gasped her aunt, looking apprehen- 
 sively at the coachman's back. "Don't! So he is 
 Lord Fernahoe's nephew, that young man in the 
 remarkable costume? How painful! Of course he 
 has no chance of the succession, not the slightest. 
 Fernahoe has a son, and I've met him. He is twenty 
 years of age, and quite offensively robust. Wins cups 
 and things, and takes absurd dumb-bells in his port- 
 manteau when he stays anywhere. Your friend can 
 go on dressing like a disreputable glazier for ever, 
 if that is the only prospect he can boast" 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 83 
 
 "I don't suppose he even thinks of it. His clothes 
 seem to jar you like an Anarchist banner. He used 
 to be rather a dandy, I can tell you, until the crash 
 came. And Lord Fernahoe might have paid off the 
 mortgage without feeling it hateful man ! But he 
 quarrelled with the Mallocks years ago." 
 
 "Very strange, isn't it? Perhaps his brother did 
 something disgraceful." 
 
 "Aunt ! Why on earth should it be Mr. Mallock's 
 fault?" 
 
 "Well, I'm sure I don't know, my dear," said Lady 
 Liddington. "Only one of them must have been 
 to blame, it is very certain, and it is always pleasanter 
 to blame the people you don't meet; don't you think 
 so? How sweet those roses smell, but what a mon- 
 strous price ! I'm sorry we bought them." 
 
 Men said of Madge Liddington that she was "a 
 good sort." Her worldliness was not disagreeable 
 not too real. Of herself she said that she knew 
 what she ought to do, but somehow never did it. 
 Her theories were more cynical than her heart, and 
 on the morrow, when Ernest Mallock came, she was 
 gracious, and even cordial. 
 
 He had made some concessions to the occasion. 
 His toilette, if shabby, was less unconventional to- 
 day, and obviously he had no idea of falling in love 
 with Kate. They chatted quite freely. There was 
 too little formality between them for a chaperon 
 to be wholly pleased, but, at the same time, too 
 
84 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 little to suggest the existence of sentiment on either 
 side. 
 
 "Tell me all!" said Miss Ormerod. "Tell me 
 frankly. Does it come up to your expectations? 
 You're a painter, you're in Paris, you're in Bohemia : 
 is it quite as lovely as you thought it was going to 
 be ? Does everybody talk 'Art,' and rave about the 
 time when he will 'make a school,' and discuss his 
 'methods' over 'bocks' and cigarettes? What are 
 you painting now can we see your studio?" 
 
 "What am I to answer first?" he laughed. 
 
 "Don't answer anything talk ! Tell me what the 
 life is like!" 
 
 "It's very much like what I looked for. Yes, 
 some of us do prose about our methods, I'm afraid, 
 and we drink a great many bocks when we've the 
 money to pay for them and my Paris isn't a bit like 
 your Paris; it's a different world." 
 
 "It must be heavenly! If I had had any talent I 
 should have loved to go in for it myself! And do 
 you know any clever people besides artists ? Authors 
 and actors, I mean? Do you know any people with 
 long hair? Frenchmen seem to go to one extreme or 
 the other they either wear their hair waving in 
 the breeze, or they have it cut too short to part it, 
 even. All the people who come here are the cropped 
 and dull ones. 
 
 "Kate!" 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 85 
 
 "Well, they are, Aunt Madge. . . . Do you know 
 Sardou, or Alphonse Daudet, or Sarah Bernhardt?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I don't. I know one or two English correspond- 
 ents. I did a piece of newspaper work myself not 
 long ago." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "In collaboration, yes. Gladstone was expected in 
 Paris, and my friend thought he'd like to send an 
 'Interview' with him to his paper. We wrote it 
 together at one of the tables outside a cafe on the 
 Boul' Miche' while Gladstone was still travelling 
 towards the Gare du Nord. We credited him with 
 some very interesting views." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "So that's journalism?" 
 
 "No, scarcely, Lady Liddington; it's a secret." 
 
 "And do you prefer living here to being in Lon- 
 don," she inquired, "or couldn't you work so well 
 at home, Mr. Mallock?" 
 
 "I've scarcely thought about iu" he replied, with 
 a shrug; "this is my home now. Oh, I should say 
 London would be ghastly unless one were a Fitz 
 John's Avenue gentleman, making a big income. For 
 the smaller. fry " 
 
 "Too dreary?" 
 
 He shuddered. "What could one do with one's 
 self? I've heard about it! One fellow I meet works 
 for London from here black-and-white work, you 
 
86 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 know. Oh, rather funny ! Did you ever see a maga- 
 zine called The Lantern? It's very 'earnest' and 
 only sixpence. Last month poor Tassie had to illus- 
 trate the line, 'He strolled meditatively through the 
 summer night.' He made the man lighting a cigar. 
 The other day he got his sketch back. The editor 
 was politely sorry, 'But in The Lantern they didn't 
 smoke.' " 
 
 He stayed an hour, and, under the circumstances, 
 could one do less, when he rose, than fix an evening 
 for his dining there ? After he had dined there, what 
 more natural than that he should call? 
 
 Two afternoon visits, a dinner, and a strong 
 friendship with one of his hostesses : the earlier inti- 
 macy was fairly renewed, and Lady Liddington 
 resigned herself to the inevitable without further 
 struggling. 
 
 They now saw him frequently. He sent them 
 tickets for the clubs, and met them there to explain 
 the pictures' merits; and if the elder woman, failing 
 to understand why magenta cattle should graze on 
 purple grass, sometimes sat down with a headache, 
 and left Kate to wander round the rooms with him 
 alone, was she a chaperon without defence? 
 
 No, they were not in love, but they were in dan- 
 ger. He had begun to look forward to these meet- 
 ings, and so had the girl. He interested her; she 
 was sympathetic to him. He had been right when 
 he said that they belonged to different worlds; and 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 87 
 
 that their lives were the antithesis of each other 
 had itself a fascination, the deeper for the fact that 
 they had once been almost the same. He knew his 
 Bullier, his Clichy, the minor studios, and the 
 cheaper cafes; he was not unfamiliar with the inte- 
 rior of the nearest Mont de Piete; but of the Paris 
 unfolded to Lady Liddington's niece he knew very 
 little. It was a novel experience to him to see a 
 dinner-table poetised by flowers and a Salviati ser- 
 vice. It was even a strange thing to Ernest Mallock 
 to be sitting in a room with two ladies, and listening 
 to ladies' conversation. 
 
 If he told himself he was being a fool, in moments 
 of candour, as the weeks passed, it must be conceded 
 that the temptation was a strong one; but it must 
 also be acknowledged that he spoke the truth. He 
 was already thinking much too often of Miss Or- 
 merod for a man who could not hope to marry 
 her, and yet he was continuing to see her because he 
 was too weak to stay away. 
 
 Then he knew that he loved her. He ceased at 
 length to excuse himself by saying he found her 
 "companionable," "simpatica" that there was "noth- 
 ing in it." He knew he loved her; that the world 
 was peopled by men, women, and Kate Ormerod; 
 that she stood on a plane by herself different from 
 everyone. 
 
 Paris now the Paris that was open to him 
 stank in his nostrils. When he could not be with 
 
88 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 her in the daytime, he worked doggedly, and badly, 
 finding occupation a relief to his feverish impatience ; 
 but in the evening to paint was impossible, and it was 
 in the evenings that he ate his heart out. 
 
 He had not the faintest right ever to own his 
 feelings to her, and he was aware of it. If he acted 
 properly, he would declare he was leaving the city, 
 and say good-bye, but he could not nerve himself 
 to the necessary point. 
 
 And after all, he argued, since he confessed noth- 
 ing, asked for nothing, why should he deny himself 
 the only happiness he possessed? Yes, he was pas- 
 sionately in love with her but, if he didn't say so, 
 what harm did it do? It would end by making him 
 infernally miserable? Well, that was his affair; he 
 would be infernally miserable anyhow ! 
 
 If the man was not disposed to do his duty, how- 
 ever, the time had arrived when Lady Liddington 
 could not shirk hers. One morning, when he called 
 with some tickets, and was shown into the drawing- 
 room, she was in it alone, reading a Tauchnitz novel. 
 Kate was practising, he was told; indeed, he could 
 hear the piano. 
 
 "I was going to send you a note," said Lady 
 Liddington; "we are returning to London." 
 
 He stared at her blankly. 
 
 "It's a terrible bore. We intended remaining 
 fully two months longer, but my letters this morning 
 make it imperative." 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 89 
 
 "You go soon?" 
 
 "To-morrow. And I am such a wretched sailor. 
 Pity me !" 
 
 Miss Ormerod had begun Chopin's Second Noc- 
 turne. Mallock followed a line of it intensely, with- 
 out realising he was listening. He felt that he had 
 turned pale, and that it was essential to say some- 
 thing if he did not wish to look remarkable, but his 
 mind refused to yield a commonplace. Lady Lid- 
 dington, who had avoided plain-speaking with her 
 niece by means of the same pretext, was no longer 
 confident that she had escaped its necessity. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said, at length. He played with 
 the book she had put down. "Is it good?" he asked 
 desperately. 
 
 "It's a romance," she replied. "No, stereotyped! 
 A romance always ends with a marriage." 
 
 "Isn't that realistic?" he said. "Marriage is al- 
 ways the end of romance." 
 
 "You are practical, Mr. Mallock." 
 
 "It is the last virtue I shall ever attain, I regret 
 to say," he stammered, hot with the sudden fear 
 that she might be imputing mercenary motives. 
 
 Their gaze met in a pause, and she answered 
 him gently. 
 
 "Why regret it, after all?" she murmured. "To 
 be practical is often distressing." 
 
 "This is au revoir, then?" He got up. "Shall I 
 see Miss Ormerod?" 
 
90 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "I don't think she has been told you're here. I'll 
 let her know." 
 
 "Pray don't trouble. I can wish her good-bye 
 as I pass the room. I hope you will have a smooth 
 crossing." 
 
 He was not forbidden, and his face thanked her 
 as he took up his hat. 
 
 Kate lifted her head as the handle turned. 
 
 "You!" 
 
 "So you are going away?" he said huskily. 
 
 "We go to-morrow," she averred, looking at the 
 keys of the piano. Her voice was nervous. 
 
 "Your aunt just told me. I shan't see you again." 
 
 "Not before we leave, I suppose." 
 
 "I mayn't see you again at all. Perhaps you won't 
 come back to Paris." 
 
 "Oh, surely, some time." 
 
 "I shall miss you horribly," he declared. "I don't 
 know what I shall do without you." 
 
 "We have been very good friends." She stroked 
 a note slowly with her finger. "It seems a long 
 while." 
 
 "Good-bye!" said Mallock, jerkily. He put out 
 his hand, and she rose, extending her own. His 
 misery glowed in his eyes. In hers but he dared 
 not read them ! He caught the hand to his lips, and 
 kissed it, and went out. Lady Liddington heard 
 the door close. The Nocturne, however, was not 
 resumed. 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 9! 
 
 II 
 
 WELL, his paradise was ended! He was more 
 wretched than he had ever been before in his life. 
 He walked away heavily, without a destination in 
 his mind. Where he went was nothing to him. Out- 
 side the Grand Hotel he brushed against a gentleman 
 hurrying from the courtyard, and with a muttered 
 apology would have passed on. Both looked round. 
 The gentleman was his father. 
 
 Almost with his ejaculation of astonishment, Mai- 
 lock saw that he was dressed in mourning. The 
 asphalte and the trees lurched. "Good God," he 
 gasped, "my mother ?" 
 
 "Your mother was never better," exclaimed the 
 other gaily, clapping him on the shoulder; "she sends 
 her love, and a thousand messages ! I only got in 
 an hour ago ; I was just taking a cab up to you. Let 
 me look at you. Well, well, well ! it is good to see 
 you again, Ernest. You know the news, don't you?" 
 
 "News? No, what news?" 
 ''What news!' Is it possible? Prepare your- 
 self." He chuckled. "Prepare yourself, my boy." 
 
 "Governor, is it something good?" 
 
 "It is very shocking," returned his father, sud- 
 denly struggling after an expression of great solem- 
 nity, "very lamentable ! But er as it is years since 
 we met them, of course My brother and his 
 
92 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 son are both dead, Ernest drowned. There was 
 a yacht accident. Poor Maurice ! He had his faults, 
 but ah, poor Maurice ! Let's go inside you 
 haven't had luncheon, have you? I'll tell you all 
 about it." 
 
 The Bohemian listened, half stupefied. 
 
 "You are Lord Fernahoe," he said. "You are 
 Lord Fernahoe now? And I " 
 
 "You are the Honourable Ernest Mallock, yes! 
 Better than your profession, eh? Not but what you 
 might have your studio still, if you fancied it. A 
 studio after your own heart! It would be rather 
 chic ! And all the prettiest women would come and 
 have their portraits painted. Very good ! Well, to 
 think you didn't know it you amaze me !" 
 
 "I haven't opened a paper for a week. But but 
 Miss Ormerod is here, with Lady Liddington. It's 
 strange they haven't seen it." 
 
 "They have, you may be sure." 
 
 "I am quite positive they haven't an idea of it. 
 Great heavens, Governor, what a difference for 
 you!" 
 
 "Yes," said the peer, complacently, "it will be 
 a change after Coblenz. I have borne my reverses, 
 Ernest, I have never complained; but my health is 
 not what it was. I I have not the physique for the 
 life of a poor man." He spoke as if he had been 
 condemned to be a dock-labourer. "How do you 
 think I'm looking?" 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 93 
 
 "You are looking as well as ever and as young." 
 
 "Nonsense, nonsense ! Ha ! ha ! What will you 
 drink? I think I should like a little champagne 
 my doctor advises champagne. You must order some 
 clothes, Ernest, at once. You are you are damned 
 shabby. Go to a tailor to-day; don't forget it. What 
 are you doing with yourself this evening?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Mallock, "at least " 
 
 "Nothing that won't wait, anyhow ! You'll meet 
 
 me, and we'll have a little dinner together at 
 
 Bignon's is gone, isn't it?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Where do you go, as a rule?" 
 
 "I?" he smiled grimly; "I'm afraid my haunts 
 would hardly suit you." 
 
 "No, I suppose not. Well, all that is over! 
 You've grown very handsome, Ernie; you remind 
 me of myself when I was your age. I may say that 
 now, eh an old man? But you look dazed! It 
 was a terrible affair poor Maurice ! poor Maurice ! 
 but don't keep looking so dazed !" 
 
 "You've rather staggered me," said Mallock, 
 gulping his wine. "I I if you don't mind, I'll 
 leave you now. Where shall we meet?" 
 
 "Call for me here," said Fernahoe, airily; "I 
 drove here from the station. Say six o'clock. There 
 are some things I've got to attend to: I have to be 
 
 shaved, and By the way, to-morrow I can let 
 
 you have a substantial sum; in the meanwhile, here's 
 
94 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 something to go on with I suppose it will be useful? 
 Six o'clock, then, sharp ! And don't forget the tailor. 
 Ta! ta!" 
 
 "Six o'clock," answered his son. "Thanks! I 
 won't be late." 
 
 He watched Lord Fernahoe sign to a cabman, and 
 instruct him to drive to a coiffeur. He stood stu- 
 pidly on the curb there after the cab had rattled 
 away. His eyes were wide, and his mouth set. After 
 a minute he crossed the road, and turned down the 
 Avenue de 1'Opera, still gazing before him with the 
 fixed stare. Among the carriages of the Rue de 
 Rivoli, he hesitated; he seemed in doubt. Then he 
 shrugged his shoulders, and slouched on and on 
 away from fashion, over the Pont Neuf, on to the 
 Quays, down to the Place St. Michel. On the Boule- 
 vard one or two threw him a greeting. He did not 
 know it. His face was deathly white now and 
 again he smeared the moisture from it with a hand 
 that shook. Threading his way through a maze of 
 the dilapidated streets of the Latin Quarter, he came 
 to a narrow entrance beside a shop-window packed 
 high with charcoal and wood. There was a flight 
 of dirty stairs, and he mounted them slowly, and 
 opened a door. 
 
 The apartment was bedroom and salon in one. 
 The bed was in disorder; on the table the remainder 
 of a ragout that had been hot two hours ago was 
 stiffening in the gravy. A baby of twelvemonths, 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 95 
 
 unkempt, uncared for, lay fretting upon two pillows 
 on the floor, and a woman in a red flannel dressing- 
 gown and list slippers was sitting in an armchair, 
 beading a black-satin cape. She turned her untidy 
 head at his approach, dropping a hair-pin as she 
 moved. 
 
 "Oh, here you are !" said Ernest Mallock's wife. 
 
 He threw himself on the bed. "I'm here." 
 
 "Have you brought back any money?" 
 
 "Take what you want!" 
 
 "How's this?" she exclaimed, with delight. 
 "You're in luck, Ernest!" 
 
 "Yes," he groaned, "I'm devilish lucky!" 
 
 She stooped for the fallen hair-pin, and picked 
 her teeth with it reflectively. 
 
 "You've never sold that old 'Solitude,' surely?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Oh, for God's sake be quiet!" he said, "I'm 
 tired." 
 
 "Where have you been? Your dedgennay's got 
 cold. Shall I hot it up for you?" 
 
 "No, never mind, Bessy, thanks." 
 
 "It won't take a minute." 
 
 "I don't want it." 
 
 "What's the matter with it?" she asked sullenly. 
 
 "There is nothing the matter with it," he declared 
 in a strained voice, "nothing! But I breakfasted 
 out." 
 
 "Oh, you breakfasted out? Who with? You've 
 
g THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 taken to breakfasting out a good deal of late, haven't 
 you? You're all alike a nice lot you are! Drink, 
 and pay for whoever's there one caffy after the 
 other I know it! Never a thought of your wives 
 at home ! I tell you, an artist has no business with 
 a wife." 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 "Yes, I do 'think so,' " she said, angrily imitating 
 his inflection; "yes, I do 'think so,' Mr. Sneerer! 
 And I tell you more: I don't believe there's one 
 among the lot who wouldn't be ashamed to have his 
 doings known. No, I don't do you hear? I don't 
 believe there's one; there !" 
 
 "Oh!" he said calmly. 
 
 "/ saw you the other day in the Rue Scribe, walk- 
 ing with two ladies. Great swells they were to 
 look at. You didn't see me, did you? but / saw 
 you! Who were they, answer me that?" 
 
 "Hush!" he said. "You're making a fool of 
 yourself." 
 
 "Oh, am I? That's very easy to say! And you 
 didn't look at the young one as if you worshipped 
 her, did you?" 
 
 "Be quiet," he said. "Now, then, be quiet! I 
 won't have you speak of her !" 
 
 "Oh, what a fine gentleman ! Not speak of her, 
 eh? His wife mustn't so much as speak of her! 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! We've come to a pretty pass ! Listen 
 to your father, my Blessing! And her figure is 
 
THE BACK OF BOHEMIA 97 
 
 nothing to brag of, either, for all she'd got such 
 grand stays on! And her mouth's too wide, and 
 her hair wants tone." (In case women might be 
 rendered vain by men's admiration, God made other 
 women.) "I haven't been in the studios for nothing; 
 / could see her faults, if you didn't!" 
 
 He clasped his hands on his head, and lay mo- 
 tionless. 
 
 "I am tired," he repeated, wearily; "if you have 
 finished, I want to sleep." 
 
 But it was not true he wanted to think; he 
 wanted to curse himself and die. In memory he was 
 re-living the night of his first meeting with her 
 an English girl in a singing cellar off the Boulevard 
 St. Martin, lured to Paris by a bogus advertisement, 
 and insulted, on the evening of his presence, by a 
 French student. He recalled the enthusiasm with 
 which he had knocked the man down, and the gen- 
 eral row there had been, with the cry of "English 
 chaps for'ard!" terminating by the girl and him 
 standing bareheaded outside on the pavement at two 
 o'clock in the morning. She wept and blessed him. 
 He was a Sir Galahad of chivalry, and afforded the 
 Quarter another example of "the English eccentric- 
 ity." After reflection, he offered to send her home 
 to London. She had been unhappy there she wept 
 again, and did not want to go. He found her em- 
 ployment as a model, and paid the rent of the room 
 he took for her, out of his own pocket. She was 
 
98 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 pretty; was the end surprising? She thought she 
 was in love with him let him see as much and he 
 was in love with his own romance. Whom had he 
 to study? And life with her would be remarkably 
 "jolly!" It was a boy's infatuation for Bohemia, 
 while Bohemia had only shown a smile. Its front 
 had been dazzling he married her. This was the 
 back of it. 
 
 She had picked up her work again, and sat sewing 
 irascibly; he regarded her under lowered lids. She 
 was pretty still, but to him her face was more loath- 
 some than a leper. He hated each line of it; her 
 footstep, every time she moved; each little harmless 
 habit that she had, made his nerves ache. 
 
 It was half-past four; this evening he would have 
 to confess his marriage to his father. How could 
 he do it? He must tell Bessy of the change that 
 had come to her, and witness her rejoicing! 
 
 The hands of the tawdry French clock upon the 
 mantelshelf crept on ; if he meant to keep the appoint- 
 ment, he ought to go soon. 
 
 The satin cape was nearly finished. The flies were 
 swarming about the sticky dish and settling on the 
 meat. When the clock struck six, Ernest Mallock 
 was still lying on the unmade bed looking at his 
 wife. 
 
A WEAK IMITATION 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 CABIN or intermediate? It is the question I have 
 debated since I decided to return. New York de- 
 clines to support me; nobody in London is awaiting 
 me. Capital, translated into English money, twenty- 
 five pounds cabin or intermediate? 
 
 The brilliant adventurer of fiction who always 
 finds it wise to be extravagant would not vacillate an 
 instant; I know it. I know how that successful ex- 
 travagance of his always warms my heart and fas- 
 cinates me, so that I follow his impecunious career 
 in hansoms with far more interest than the struggles 
 of the hero, who is economical, and goes by omnibus. 
 I know how I have admired him, and agreed with 
 him, and rather pined between the paragraphs for a 
 chance to be brilliant and adventurous, too ; but some- 
 how, now the opening is here, I don't seem made for 
 the part. I seem to incline to the hero's point of 
 view, which is narrow and commonplace. The op- 
 portunity is magnificent: twenty-five pounds, and no 
 source of income when I land! Nothing could be 
 finer! I see the Adventurer in the situation to a 
 semi-colon. (A reference would be made at such 
 
 99 
 
IOO THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 a crisis to his "irreproachable linen" and "faultless 
 clothes.") He argues lazily that the true economy 
 is to travel first-class on account of the people to 
 be met He meditates that aboard ship one mixes 
 with distinctly wealthier persons than one knows at 
 home, and adds that for the creation of intimacy 
 a week at sea is equal to a year ashore. Yes, the 
 adventurer would go cabin, and, what is more, he 
 would most certainly be playing a David-and- Jona- 
 than duologue with a desirable passenger by the time 
 of sighting Queenstown. On the whole, I am tempted 
 to back his choice. He is mercenary but acute, and 
 I shall risk it. By surface-car to Bowling Green, and 
 then to book a first-class passage by the Germanic! 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 I have done it! If I did not invariably feel the 
 same way on coming aboard, I should say there isn't 
 a soul on the ship with whom I shall ever have a 
 conversation. Aware by experience, however, that 
 in the course of the afternoon several individualities 
 will emerge from the crowd the last a feminine 
 individuality that I shall be astonished I overlooked. 
 Also aware by experience that she will be the very 
 last person I shall contrive to know. Not that it 
 matters this trip ; I am here on business ! She will 
 attract me by a suggestion of disdain, an air of 
 "le hlg lif" and prove on acquaintance perfectly 
 natural. I shall believe her oblivious to men's exist- 
 
A WEAK IMITATION IOI 
 
 ence, and she will own later that she tried to guess 
 my profession, or wondered if I meant to speak to 
 her. Whereat I shall be flattered, and at the same 
 time disenchanted a shade. 
 
 The familiar first feature of a voyage has oc- 
 curred. Exchanged a few words with some man 
 on deck, and re-encountered him in the smoking- 
 room, where we resumed the chat. Told me he has 
 been to New York on pleasure; must be mad! Has 
 an elderly stockbroker sort of cut about him, but do 
 not know what he is, as we were not confidential. 
 Must admit that if he had been an American, instead 
 of a compatriot, I should be in full possession of 
 his biography related with that superficial simplic- 
 ity of Cousin Jonathan which is as charming as it 
 is deceptive. Other compatriot sits opposite me at 
 table. Travelling with "Charles, his friend," to 
 whom he recited all the French of the bill of fare in 
 patronising tones for the admiration of the neigh- 
 bourhood. Later pronounced "plover" phonetically, 
 and "Charles, his friend," corrected him. Situation 
 strained! 
 
 Passenger-lists crowned the serviettes, and, faith- 
 ful to my model, I have been carefully through one. 
 There is a lord among us ! The model would have 
 "scanned it keenly" over a brandy-and-soda, but at 
 that point the copy fell short. To the height of 
 brandy-and-soda I cannot soar. I am travelling first- 
 class, and I have examined the passenger-list. To 
 
102 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 carry the imitation to the length of a wine bill is 
 asking too much of a novice. May, of course, look 
 mean at dinner without the conventional claret, but 
 if I deny myself beer (which I want) and spend the 
 money on Apollinaris (which makes me ill), per- 
 haps I can convey the idea of abstinence from mo- 
 tives of hygiene. Am going around on the track of 
 the lord! 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 Not found him ! He might get me a Government 
 appointment, and I can't discover which he is. Don't 
 like to inquire the "love of Tommy," and all that ! 
 I thought I had identified him once ; but it was only 
 a major. It is exasperating; twenty-four hours gone 
 without result. And this boat makes a fast passage ! 
 Merely rich people are no use to me, but there are 
 enough dollars on board including the reputed con- 
 tract of a variety actress to sink the ship. She 
 (not the ship, the actress) has already established 
 a little coterie of admirers; they form a rather noisy 
 semi-circle which the other women (and the men 
 who don't belong to it) eye with envious reprobation. 
 Funny the curiosity a professional excites in the 
 philistine. Spoke to her, and referred to it. She 
 said: "Sakes, they stare at me as if I was a 
 'Freak!'" Think "freak" is good! I found the 
 semi-circle very jolly, and enjoyed myself. 
 
 Have had another promenade with him of the 
 stockbroker aspect. He was alone he always is 
 
A WEAK IMITATION 103 
 
 and seemed encouraged when I told him it was a 
 nice day. Found him "doing the mile" with melan- 
 choly determination, and bore him company. 
 
 She has appeared ! She is younger than usual. 
 Saw her as we registered two-thirds of our "consti- 
 tutional." She wears a tailor-made jacket, and a 
 sailor-hat with a wisp of veil attached, deliciously 
 incongruous and feminine. Her eyes met mine ab- 
 sently, as if she did not know I was there. If 
 anything stimulates me to get friendly with a pretty 
 woman it is being looked at as if she didn't know 
 I was there! I think the eyes are gray. She does 
 not seem to have any companion with her, and gives 
 one the idea of being unmarried. Have not learnt 
 her name yet, though; she was reading when we 
 passed again, and the back of her chair was hidden. 
 Mean to glance at the initials on it when she goes 
 below. Wish I could break the ice, and inaugurate 
 a series of talks with her, but it is a wish and not 
 an intention: no time to spare for enjoyment! The 
 bugle is tooting for luncheon; unless she is ill she 
 will move. . . . 
 
 She was just rising as I reached her they are 
 gray ! Left the book in her place "Aurora Leigh" 
 and a glove; size, five-and-a-fraction, or I'm a 
 Yankee. Her chair is marked "N.B." (Superflu- 
 ous injunction!) She is "Miss Nellie Bret" found 
 it in the passenger list. If I did have the leisure 
 now But it is out of the question ! 
 
104 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Friday. 
 
 It was a moment of weakness or rather an hour 
 but it happened! I was sitting near her, divided 
 by one; and presently the "one" got up. I had a 
 view of her from time to time across the novel I 
 had borrowed from the library, in the pages of 
 which the Adventurer figured again. I was search- 
 ing for something to say when a bold old beggar 
 stopped deliberately in front of her, and, presuming 
 on his age, robbed me of my opportunity. I con- 
 sidered it exceedingly "pushing" of him, though I 
 envied him the coup. I caught fragments of a tale 
 about himself, and the Prince of Wales, and India 
 especially himself; but he failed to entertain her, I 
 was delighted to observe, for she was monosyllabic 
 and inaudible. He lounged away after ten minutes, 
 and our eyes met. I fancied hers had a half-amused 
 protest in them. As well as I could manage it, my 
 own gaze expressed comprehension. 
 
 "You were so unkind," I said, diffidently, "that 
 I am frightened to risk boring you myself!" 
 
 That was the way it began. 
 
 She laughed; and when she answered me her voice 
 had that timbre of the unexpected in it which one 
 always feels on hearing a woman one has admired 
 speak for the first time. 
 
 She is an art student, going to Europe to study. 
 The insolent opulence does not claim her, I imagine. 
 She alluded to the pecuniary prospects of the career, 
 
A WEAK IMITATION 105 
 
 and complained that it was so long before a palette 
 produced a purse. I owned to her I wrote tried 
 to write, hoped to write ; said the pen was no mightier 
 than the brush. What a bond there is between art- 
 ists, particularly when one of the pair is a girl ! We 
 talked without restraint for an hour; I might even 
 say "without cessation." She mentioned the class 
 she is joining; she called it the "mstitootion." Noth- 
 ing is perfect the peach has a stone, and the nice 
 American woman declines the vowel "u"; but when 
 she is nice, probably la belle Americaine gets as near 
 perfection as a New Yorker chasing the dollars 
 comes to perpetual motion. And that is about u as 
 near as makes no difference." She has the geniality 
 of her husband and brothers, with a refinement that 
 is her own; the charm of her sex allied to the spon- 
 taneity of her nation. Miss Bret is eminently com- 
 panionable; under other circumstances she would 
 represent the interest of my trip. Even as it is, 
 there may surely be moments? I can't monopolise 
 the lord from breakfast-time to cheese-and-crackers ; 
 
 there is no reason why in intervals Yes, I am 
 
 compromising, I feel it ! Banish the sentiment ! The 
 remainder of the day shall be devoted to relentless 
 investigation for the personage who is to slap me 
 on the shoulder, and say, "My boy, a sinecure, five 
 hundred a year! Take it, and woo Melpomene in 
 peace I" 
 
106 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 Can only conclude he is suffering in his state-room. 
 How plebeian! In the meanwhile why not Miss 
 Bret as well as another? Saving the "stockbroker" 
 I am not particularly chummy with anybody else, and 
 I distinctly prefer the lady. Throgmorton Street is 
 getting unnecessarily attached to me. That is the 
 worst of a passenger who doesn't thaw to the multi- 
 tude; when he does take a liking, he is apt to be 
 importunate. He is all the time hanging on to me 
 when I want to drift Miss Bret-ward. 
 
 They are getting up a concert for Monday night; 
 Miss Bret is to sing. Been practising her accom- 
 paniments with her, and then strolled with her on 
 deck, and then took her down again to look for tea. 
 Asked the steward if any was "going." She thought 
 it funny; seems they don't say that in America. She 
 declared it would be better if I asked if any was 
 "coming." So it would, but it never struck me be- 
 fore. We "refreshed" at a table tete-a-tete, and 
 were witty about the other people in the saloon. She 
 had a box of sweets, and offered me some called 
 them "candies," of course. Am not sure the Ameri- 
 can language hasn't a certain piquancy. "Candies?" 
 It sounds pretty, I think. Could not avoid noticing 
 how nice she looked with a caramel in her mouth 
 the provoking movement of the lips, don't you know. 
 (By Jove, I have just written it! And she has been 
 chaffing me about that British "don't you know" like 
 
A WEAK IMITATION 107 
 
 anything!) Suppose there is nothing intrinsically 
 beautiful in sucking a caramel, but some women are 
 adorable whatever they do. 
 
 Very bad taste, the rowdyness of the actress-group. 
 We went to "do the mile" before dinner, and I dis- 
 liked passing it very much. That kind of thing 
 seems to me disrespectful to the other ladies on 
 board. I suggested to Miss Bret that we should 
 limit ourselves to the opposite side of the boat. 
 
 I had helped her on with her jacket, and found 
 her the pin belonging to the sailor-hat. What a sense 
 of intimacy there is in helping a laughing woman 
 to put on her "things !" What a curb one has to 
 keep on oneself not to say too much ! 
 
 Don't think I shall turn in yet. It's a heavenly 
 night: go up and smoke, and look at the stars! 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 Great Scot! the "stockbroker" is the lord! Was 
 there ever such good fortune ! Verily hath the 
 Adventurer wisdom, and I, his disciple, am in luck. 
 I learnt it from her after Service; she had thought 
 I knew, and alluded to the fact quite casually. As- 
 tonishing thing that before a woman has been abroad 
 twelve hours she knows everything about everyone 
 from the domestic relations of the first officer to 
 the history of an improvident person with thirteen 
 children in the steerage. 
 
 Have not had any conversation with him since I 
 
108 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 made the discovery, because I could not leave Miss 
 Bret abruptly, but I design the afternoon for him in 
 its entirety. 
 
 Hope I am not beginning to take too lively an 
 interest in Miss Bret. Must confess to a feeling of 
 restlessness which I am aware is premonitory of a 
 cropper. Think, on the whole, it would be as well 
 to give her a wider berth during the remainder of 
 the voyage. To think is to do : wider berth resolved ! 
 
 Conversation with the lord as determined; we 
 sauntered about together some time. Not the entire 
 afternoon indeed it was only for twenty minutes 
 but after being with Miss Bret so much I felt it 
 would look rude to neglect her utterly. It is obvious 
 one must use tact in affairs like this, and edge away 
 by degrees. 
 
 A migration to port was taking place when I 
 joined her; it was warmer that side. I moved her 
 chair round for her, and placed it behind a boat, 
 out of the way of the promenaders. Stayed with 
 her rather longer than I intended; we had tea on 
 deck. When the bugle sounded for dinner I carried 
 her rug down to the door of her state-room. Our 
 hands touched as I gave it to her; fancied hers wasn't 
 withdrawn as quickly as it might have been. Know 
 mine wasn't! Am convinced my resolution was well 
 taken ; the less I see of her in future the better. Will 
 have just one turn in the moonlight with her this 
 
A WEAK IMITATION 
 
 evening, and to-morrow limit myself to a few passing 
 words. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Had forgotten to-day was fixed for the concert; 
 it has, of course, been impossible to avoid her. We 
 had to have a last rehearsal, and there were several 
 things to be discussed. Most prejudicial to my 
 chances, all this, upon my soul! have scarcely said 
 a word to my intended benefactor except "Good 
 morning. 
 
 Don't go in for gushing about sunsets, as a gen- 
 eral rule, but the one this afternoon was really glo- 
 rious. We considered it the loveliest we had seen; 
 we had been walking, and paused to look at it. The 
 sea was like at lake, and everything was purple and 
 orange in turn. Couldn't help reminding her we 
 should not watch many more together, and she said 
 "no" very thoughtfully; and there was silence. I 
 asked if she would be sorry when we landed, and 
 she answered "for some things she thought she 
 should." I said women often fancied they regretted 
 it very much when a voyage ended, but twenty-four 
 hours on shore was sufficient to blot the remem- 
 brance out. She said she had no doubt that was so. 
 The silence was longer this time. 
 
 She found she was growing chilly a moment later, 
 and decided she would go below. It was simply 
 balmy, so I bowed a dignified assent, and refrained 
 from expostulating. Suppose it was silly to have 
 
IIO THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 said that about women forgetting, but, after all, if 
 she is offended it simplifies my position with regard 
 to her. Didn't sit beside her at the concert, which 
 was as slow an affair as I ever endured. She thanked 
 me rather coldly at the conclusion of her song, and 
 I said "It was a privilege !" with formal politeness. 
 Ghastly dull thing, a passage, anyhow; wish to good- 
 ness it was over ! 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 Not spoken six words to her all day ! Not spoken 
 to anyone; got nothing to say. Smoked an ounce 
 of tobacco, and am going to turn in. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 She has been lodged unapproachably between two 
 old dowagers since breakfast A deliberate plan to 
 repulse me! And to judge by her expression one 
 would imagine it was her daily custom to sit there. 
 
 Great mind to stop and have it out with her in 
 front of the whole row. Did hesitate when I lifted 
 my cap, but she only inclined her head with a smile, 
 and went on with her book. Perhaps one of the old 
 crones has moved go up and see ! . . . 
 
 Not moved! Both in a state of fixity suggestive 
 of a ninety-nine years' lease. Miss Nellie Bret 
 reading as placidly as ever. Hope she didn't see me 
 lounge round. 
 
 Couldn't address her when she went to luncheon. 
 I meant to tried to, but I bungled, and she figura- 
 
A WEAK IMITATION III 
 
 tively walked over me. Afterwards I saw her en- 
 sconced in that detestable place again, with an air 
 of being settled for the rest of the afternoon. And 
 we are to be landed early to-morrow ! This is simply 
 infernal. . . . 
 
 I was scribbling at one of the double desks in 
 the writing-room, and, as I made a blot, I looked in 
 her face ! She had been writing a letter on the other 
 side. We lifted our heads at the same moment, and 
 our eyes met through the scallop in the top of the 
 partition. 
 
 It was my chance at last, and I threw it away! 
 Don't know what demon possessed me. I said, "I'm 
 afraid I'm disturbing you," and moved to another 
 chair. Think I must have been crazed! She will 
 never forgive me, never; and in twenty-four hours 
 we shall be flying across England in opposite direc- 
 tions. 
 
 The coast of Cork is getting clearer every minute. 
 Everybody on deck, staring and chattering. The 
 idiot who fancies his French accent has lent her his 
 field-glasses, and she is flirting with him outrage- 
 ously. Will she ever be alone? I only live to 
 apologise to her ! 
 
 Couldn't see my dinner for watching her across 
 the saloon. She left the table early, and I bolted 
 up after her in the middle of an entree. Cannoned 
 against the lord in the companion-way just as I was 
 reaching her. He caught me by the arm and began 
 
112 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 to talk. It was maddening! Nellie was leaning 
 over the taffrail; the air had freshened, and the lace 
 thing round her neck was fluttering in the breeze. 
 I flung his hand off, and left him affronted 
 
 She is an angel of tenderness and patience ! Must 
 try to find a ring in pearls or pink coral for a fiver. 
 
THE LIFE THEY SAID SHE RUINED 
 
 HAVE you ever known moments in which you have 
 yearned, with an intensity that was almost pain, for 
 an unmet woman's love? Moments when mother, 
 brother, friend all have been insufficient to ease 
 the restless aching of your heart, which cried in its 
 sudden loneliness* for sympathy and consolation? 
 When, like a far-off, unattainable star, through the 
 gloom of your unuttered thoughts, there still gleamed 
 that ideal of a visionary being with a gentle voice 
 and pitying eyes, who should comprehend, and 
 soothe, and whisper "hope" when in your solitude 
 of mind and soul it seemed Heaven could bestow 
 no sweeter blessing than a confidante like this? No; 
 you have known no such folly? You have never, 
 in fancy, talked with her, and listened to tender 
 words which have no existence but in the secret day- 
 dreams of your own imagination? You have never, 
 in a great gust of pictured gladness, defined your 
 longings at this woman's feet? My friend, you are 
 a happy man; or, you are an animal! 
 
 My name is Christian Arbroath, and from the 
 peace of this, my new-found home, where the moun- 
 tains round us rise into an azure sky, and existence 
 passes so tranquilly that the outside world is nothing 
 
114 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 but a feverish memory, I send forth the story of my 
 life a life they would tell you I have "thrown 
 away." Yet it is less of myself I would speak therein 
 than of Her; let it be with Her my narrative com- 
 mences, far from the present place, one long-gone 
 summer's day. 
 
 She knows that she is dying; she knows that she 
 will die unmourned, unmissed. The consciousness 
 is bitterer than the fiercest pangs of the hunger she 
 has endured till it faded in the numbness of exhaus- 
 tion, more terrible than her fears of the eternity 
 towards which she is slowly drifting out. It is the 
 Nemesis of her guilt that there will be no one to 
 weep for her, no one to care; the parched lips quiver 
 at her loneliness, and her eyes moisten. To the 
 fallen woman dying on a wayside seat it seems that 
 heaven nor hell could devise a ghastlier satire on 
 the price at which she has purchased love in life than 
 this utter isolation in her hour of death. 
 
 Her dress is of silk; once considered too rich for 
 outdoor wear, to-day white with dust that lurks be- 
 tween its greasy folds, and clings in patches to its 
 ragged hem; there is dust upon her hair, dust upon 
 the broken boots half-hanging from her blistered 
 feet; and, trickling down one wounded heel the roads 
 have cut, comes a little stream of blood to mingle 
 with the dust upon the ground. 
 
 It is Sabbath morning: the hedges are gay with 
 
THE LIFE THEY SAID SHE RUINED 115 
 
 the bloom of wild flowers and the twitter of birds; 
 she feels herself more loathsome here in the hush 
 of the suburb than in the London beyond; the im- 
 mensity of sky frightens her; Respectability shrinks 
 from her appalled; the church-bells cry to her of 
 an outraged God. 
 
 "Charity!" 
 
 Degraded, and unpitied, she stands in the path 
 of Religion, and craves the means to live and to 
 atone. 
 
 "Charity!" 
 
 The people pass her by with decorous, averted 
 gaze, and hymn-books in their hands. 
 
 "Charity!" 
 
 She sinks back upon the bench; the bells have 
 ceased, and through the open door the voluntary 
 peals out upon her ears. 
 
 Hazily, dreamily, the half-forgotten music recalls 
 another scene. In fancy, the scent of lavender is 
 blown again across her nostrils; in memory she hears 
 the lowing of the cattle driven homeward in the 
 eventide. She sees a girl standing at a cottage porch, 
 listening to the clutter of the chickens, and the rattle 
 of the tea-things in the tiny room within. The girl 
 is innocent and pure, and the woman shudders where 
 she lies, for two years have rolled away as the chords 
 swell softly on the solemn stillness of the air, and 
 it is the ghost of her former self, this girl she sees. 
 
 It is she, who has for man to-day nothing but 
 
Il6 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 scorn and hatred, who is roaming through the mead- 
 ows by a stranger's side, thinking him honest, be- 
 lieving him true; she, to whom "man" is now a syno- 
 nym for all that is base and vile, who is blushing 
 under her mother's gaze at this new-found wealth 
 of love, and who, Heaven help her! is presently 
 sobbing out a prayer for strength in the wakeful 
 night, alone. 
 
 The organ is silent; the minister is reading; and 
 one more wraith of her youth floats back to mock 
 her from a buried past. 
 
 She sees two figures standing together in a coun- 
 try lane, under the harvest-moon; their shadows 
 blend in the uncertain light, and the girl's face is 
 hidden by her hands. He has pleaded long and 
 passionately, with eager words and tender tones. His 
 wife in all but name for a little while, and then his 
 own as fast as church and ring can bind them ! 
 
 He will marry her, he swears it ! Will she refuse 
 her trust to him who has given her his heart? 
 
 The same banality ! The tale that drags its sequel 
 through the gaslit streets, or writes "Finis" on the 
 mound above a nameless grave. 
 
 That is what she sees while life is ebbing from 
 her, and I, who pen these lines, in looking back, 
 thank God's full mercy I was in time to save her. 
 
 Was it the very strangeness of that meeting which 
 lent her in my sight a charm? Was it because I 
 found her dying almost at our gates my mother's 
 
THE LIFE THEY SAID SHE RUINED I 17 
 
 gates and mine that from the first her presence in 
 the house to which I bore her, scarcely conscious, 
 filled a void I had not dared to hint? Who knows? 
 There is a destiny in these things, perhaps, so surely 
 do some rencontres seem pre-arranged by Fate. 
 
 Do you remember the commencement of what has 
 been called the divinest spirit-love that Earth has 
 seen : when Lamartine, then the young poet who had 
 just entranced the world with his "Meditations," was 
 journeying from Rome to Florence, and paused to 
 visit the cascades of Terni? Abstractedly ascending 
 the parapet formed by the rocks, he found, on gain- 
 ing the height, a girl, ignorant of his approach, re- 
 clining against the trunk of a tree. The breeze 
 played with her long golden curls, tears glistened on 
 her lashes, her blue eyes were fixed in melancholy 
 contemplation upon the rushing waters at her feet. It 
 was Delphine Gay, the improvisatrice of France. 
 
 I was no poet, I was a doctor; and in Hester 
 Aubrey I found no woman whose thoughts were 
 familiar to me through the medium of books; but 
 in those weeks during which she tarried with us, 
 while we nursed her back to cheerfulness and health, 
 and her gratitude gave place to interest, as it ap- 
 peared to me, I experienced a new-born happiness, 
 a supreme contentment, a sense of homeliness within 
 the quaint old rooms which had never been so strong 
 to me before a homeliness which, in the inexplicable 
 contradictions of nature, a stranger had been the 
 
Il8 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 one to bring. My mother loved her well, I know. 
 Returning from my daily rounds, I always came 
 upon them sewing or reading in each other's com- 
 pany, and, by-and-by, I noticed that Hester's face 
 would brighten at my coming, and her gray, sweet- 
 serious eyes grow pensive when I left. Then, when 
 the earliest roses bloomed again in the pale cheeks, 
 she would have said "Good-bye," and gone out into 
 the world once more, but my mother pressed her 
 to remain yet a little longer, for we knew that Hester 
 was without a friend. 
 
 We did not know the whole truth, however. Was 
 it wonderful that she shrank from acknowledging 
 her shame in the simple household which bounded 
 all her chances of redemption? Can I marvel that 
 the deserted mistress taught us to regard her as a 
 widow and it was as "Mrs. Aubrey" that I loved 
 her so. "Loved her," yes! In the old Eastern 
 fancy I had met my "other-half" my dearer and 
 my better self. I discovered I could converse with 
 Hester more freely than I had ever spoken to living 
 soul before; I found affinities too subtle to be ex- 
 plained. In the afternoons, when my mother slept, 
 she and I would sit together under the trees on 
 the lawn, sometimes in reverie, more often talking 
 so earnestly that twilight fell upon us both as a sur- 
 prise. And once, with her hand retained in mine, 
 while the sinking sun touched her hair redly, I asked 
 her, and she promised, to become my wife. 
 
THE LIFE THEY SAID SHE RUINED 119 
 
 It was at this period that my mother became ill; 
 I summoned the aid of one of my most eminent 
 colleagues. Hester and I waited upon her day and 
 night. If devotion could have saved her life, Hester 
 would have saved it as assuredly as I. Skill and 
 affection alike were powerless; my mother died. 
 
 The time which followed was very sad to me. 
 In deference to the prejudices of the world, it was 
 conceded that I was incapable of protecting the girl 
 I was going to marry; that my roof was no longer 
 a fitting shelter for the woman whose honour it 
 would, in a few months, be my sole prerogative to 
 guard. Hester Aubrey was adrift once more, and 
 I was utterly alone. 
 
 She herself suggested her occupation, and I, in 
 my profession, was able the more easily to effect 
 her wish. 
 
 As a sick-nurse (I am recording her own experi- 
 ences now) she felt she was in some measure expi- 
 ating the guilt of her unacknowledged past; in the 
 exercise of her fresh duties she trusted to lose sight 
 of the sin of its concealment. 
 
 All the sophistry that springs from wretchedness 
 was battling with her inborn instincts of holiness 
 and truth. She knew she was beloved, less with the 
 senses than the soul; she knew that the marriage 
 to which she had consented would be a prelude to 
 the finest intercourse in nature, the companionship 
 of two kindred minds; she felt that in this future 
 
120 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 which she held within her grasp she could give hap- 
 piness and find it. Why should she falter, and blight, 
 with the confession of her past, her own prospects 
 and her lover's peace? 
 
 Struggle as she would, they forced themselves 
 upon her, these meditations, In the pauses of her 
 sad vocation. Once, watching the young mother 
 who was her charge, as she lay between the soft 
 silk curtains of the bed, she compared the lot of 
 her wealthy patient with her own. The child-wife's 
 head, with its wealth of golden hair, lay back among 
 the lace-trimmed pillows ; her eyes, which had looked 
 last in feeble ecstasy upon her new-born son, were 
 closed. She dreamt, to judge by the smile that 
 hovered in the faint rose-light of the lamp upon 
 her lips dreamt, perhaps, of the baby grown to 
 manhood, impervious to the charms of other women, 
 and never so pleased as by his mother's side. And 
 the nurse, contemplating her through the mist of 
 unshed tears, envied her wildly for the destiny that 
 gave her portion, home, and child, without taking 
 from her one iota of her fame ; loathed herself for 
 the sudden bitterness of spirit the while, and, with 
 a low sob of misery, hurried from the room. 
 
 When she entered it next, a man was sitting by 
 the bedside, opposite her chair; she knew it must be 
 the husband and father, who was her employer. He 
 lifted his eyes, full of a proud delight, and their 
 gaze met. 
 
THE LIFE THEY SAID SHE RUINED 121 
 
 "Hester!" 
 
 "Frank! O God!" 
 
 They stood looking at each other across his sleep- 
 ing wife the woman who was struggling to regain 
 the footing she had lost, and the man by whom her 
 fall was caused. 
 
 "Hester!" he repeated, under his breath, "why 
 have you come here?" 
 
 "I am her nurse," she answered, slowly; "I did 
 not know !" and then both were silent. 
 
 Between them an embodiment of all that sep- 
 arated the present from the past the girl he had 
 married stirred slightly under the coverlet. 
 
 "I want to speak to you," he said at length; "let 
 us go down." 
 
 They passed together from the sick-chamber to 
 the floor below; and she, in viewing the luxury of 
 his surroundings, remembered where and how she 
 had seen him last. The dismal lodging in a street 
 off the Strand; her desperate supplication to him to 
 keep his word, and marry her; the cowardly fare- 
 well; her own despair; the recollections of the ensu- 
 ing year, when, alone in the mighty city, she had 
 toiled till she could no longer see to stitch; her ill- 
 ness among strangers; the news that her mother was 
 dead; the unpaid bill; the insults and the want all 
 found expression in one curt phrase : 
 
 "What have you to say?" 
 
 Looking at her, he, too, was thinking of that 
 
122 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 last interview, and, despite his agitation, marvelled 
 at the change. 
 
 "Hester, will you ever forgive me? You don't 
 know how my action was forced on me against my 
 will. Believe me, I was penniless, dependent on my 
 father from the beginning. To have done what 
 what I had promised you to do would have meant 
 beggary and starvation for us both!" 
 
 "So you left me to starve alone !" 
 
 "I sought you incessantly, but it was all useless. 
 From the moment my position changed, and I be- 
 came my own master, it was the dearest wish of 
 my heart to make you such reparation as was pos- 
 sible. You had gone disappeared ; I could not trace 
 you." 
 
 "Reparation!" she echoed. "What reparation? 
 Was it to make me your wife you sought me was 
 it to keep your oath? You know that it was not; 
 you know, as I know now, that from the first, you 
 were as false in heart as the name you bore. You 
 were a coward then; you are a coward now for 
 your emotion's fear, and not repentance. What is 
 to prevent me going to that child you have married, 
 and telling her everything, before I leave your house ? 
 Why should I hesitate? For any compassion you 
 have shown to me for any sentiment towards her? 
 She is too young to have learned the world's lesson 
 yet do you think she would turn to you for con- 
 solation? When you were tired of me, you treated 
 
THE LIFE THEY SAID SHE RUINED 123 
 
 me as if I were without heart, or soul, or conscience. 
 If your valuation was correct, I shall go to your 
 wife, and make her hate you." 
 
 "Hester, have mercy! I love her!" 
 
 The words broke from him with a groan, and she 
 pitied him. 
 
 "Ah, don't fear, I am not so vile as that. Try 
 to keep her faith in you intact; don't kill it as you 
 killed mine it is all I beg of you. Good-bye !" 
 
 "If m oney " 
 
 "Money!" The momentary softness faded from 
 her voice, and she faced him with her eyes ablaze. 
 "I would not touch your money if I were without 
 food again, if I were dying as you abandoned me 
 to die; I once asked you for justice, but never *or 
 that! I am going to marry Christian Arbroath; 
 save your money to buy toys for your son !" 
 
 "Dr. Arbroath is going to marry you?" 
 
 She shivered under the amazement of his glance, 
 the incredulity of his tone. It was the supreme 
 moment of her life; it was as though the scorn of 
 the whole universe had been hurled at her by him 
 who was its cause. "Dr. Arbroath is going to marry 
 you ?" In advance she heard the whispers with which 
 the tidings would be received, the sneers that would 
 be levelled at the man who had braved Society's 
 opinions, if once her history were known. She saw 
 his helpless shame, and heard the laughter of the 
 world echoing in his ears. She saw herself as the 
 
124 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 world would see her, and him disgraced by the 
 very love she bore him. 
 
 "Hester, is it true?" There was astonishment 
 and relief in the question. 
 
 "No;" and in the answer each word came slowly. 
 "It is a lie; I shall never be Christian Arbroath's 
 wife!" 
 
 Before me, as I write, is the letter in which she 
 confessed her past, and bade me farewell for ever. 
 Other tears have blotted it than those which fell in 
 the hour that saw it penned. 
 
 Before me, too, is the form which crowned my 
 search, she to whom I pleaded; the "other half" 
 whom God permitted me to join Hester, my wife. 
 
 Sometimes, more rarely now as years roll on, a 
 shadow, like a passing cloud rendering the sun-light 
 brighter, dims the gladness of her gaze; and then 
 I know she reproaches herself with days gone by, 
 and the faithful heart mourns the career they said 
 she ruined. 
 
 Ruined! Come closer to me, dearest; put your 
 arms about my neck; let me look into your eyes! 
 Ruined, do they say? So may my "ruin" cling to 
 me through life; so may I, in the life beyond, where, 
 judged at the foot of Love, all halves shall meet in 
 the Eternal Unity, have thee beside me, purifying 
 amidst purity in spirit hold thee, endless through- 
 out all time! 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 
 
 A YOUNG Englishman was sitting in the hall of the 
 Palmer House, Chicago, gnawing his moustache. 
 He was a journalist, and a week ago no less a per- 
 sonage than the editor of the Chanticleer had of- 
 fered to consider a series of articles from his pen 
 if he could hit on a new idea. He had been cud- 
 gelling his brains ever since. "A new idea?" He 
 must certainly find it a new idea 1 
 
 The hot hall was full, as usual, with the hotel 
 visitors and those who, like Charlie Bartlett, were 
 merely availing themselves of a free lounge. All the 
 red velvet chairs were occupied, and the big black- 
 and-white squares of the marble floor, dotted with 
 vase-shaped, scarlet spittoons, rang with the foot- 
 steps of the people streaming to and fro between 
 the doors. He watched the crowd musingly. He 
 contemplated a pretty woman coming down the stair- 
 case, and the youth at the cable-counter, and the 
 boy behind the bookstall. None of these objects 
 of his scrutiny assisted his meditations, though the 
 pretty woman was less unprofitable than the rest. 
 Then he wiped the perspiration from his face, and 
 bought a newspaper. 
 
 125 
 
126 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Scanning the sheets, he saw an advertisement that 
 suggested possibilities, and he read it through again. 
 It ran thus : 
 
 INTEMPERANCE. Refined Home for a limited number of 
 patients of both sexes suffering from stimulants, chloral, or 
 the morphia-habit. Judicious supervision. Luxury and recrea- 
 tions. Highest references. For prospectus and particulars, 
 Dr. Ferguson, The Retreat, Lake Lincoln. 
 
 The life in such a place ought to furnish very 
 good "copy" indeed. The "patients of both sexes" 
 should make a peculiarly interesting study. 
 
 "I think," said Charlie Bartlett to himself, "I 
 think I may cry 'Eureka.' The thing hasn't been 
 done, and I'll drop a line to the worthy doctor this 
 afternoon." 
 
 He wrote as "a victim to alcohol." He said that 
 he wished to place himself under a firm, restraining 
 influence. Fearing, however, that if he were at all 
 bored, his recovery might be retarded, he would 
 be glad to hear how many ladies and gentlemen were 
 at present residing under Dr. Ferguson's roof. 
 
 The reply, which came by return of post, was 
 satisfactory. The terms were very little higher than 
 he had expected them to be, and the establishment 
 contained twenty patients, of whom eight were ladies. 
 Should he decide to avail himself of the care and 
 attention offered, Dr. Ferguson would be pleased 
 to learn when his arrival might be looked for. It 
 was a plain, straightforward letter, and Charlie 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 127 
 
 answered it immediately, announcing that he would 
 present himself at "The Retreat" on the next day 
 but one. He was now in quite a complacent frame 
 of mind, and he felt that the editor of the Chanticleer 
 would be very agreeably surprised by-and-by. 
 
 Lake Lincoln was a little over an hour's run from 
 the city, and when the train deposited Bartlett at 
 the platform he found that "The Retreat" was well 
 known. A porter pointed it out to him across a 
 clump of trees. The investigator arranged that his 
 portmanteau should be brought across without delay, 
 and made his way to the house, whistling. 
 
 Dr. Ferguson welcomed him cordially. 
 
 "I am happy to see you, Mr. Bartlett," he said; 
 "I guess you will not regret your step, sir. I guess, 
 if you are in earnest, sir, we shall soon have over- 
 come the propensity complained of." 
 
 "You are very good," responded Charlie, with 
 something like a blush; "I hope you are right. I 
 shall do my best to assist you, I promise." 
 
 Certain interrogatories followed, for which he was 
 partially prepared. Among other things, he was 
 asked how long he had been a victim to the habit, 
 and, remembering that his appearance did not re- 
 semble a confirmed drunkard's, he was careful to 
 say that it was only for a short time. He passed the 
 examination, he told himself afterwards, with hon- 
 ours. And then the doctor rang for the coloured 
 servant to show him to the bedroom allotted to him, 
 
128 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 and warned him that he must not feel offended at 
 his "baggage" being examined when it was delivered, 
 in order that it might be seen whether any spirits 
 were secreted in it 
 
 "It's like the Customs," he said, "that's all. One 
 of our necessary 'customs' !" 
 
 He made the same joke to everybody in the first 
 interview. Some patients laughed, and some smiled 
 wryly. Charlie laughed, and the doctor was pretty 
 sure that nothing was being smuggled this time. 
 
 "I am allowed to smoke, I suppose?" 
 
 "Why, cert'nly," said Dr. Ferguson. "You are at 
 liberty to do whatever you choose here, sir all but 
 the one thing, and don't you forget it We take sup- 
 per at six, Mr. Bartlett, and afterwards it is pleasant 
 summer evenings in the grounds." 
 
 Charlie went up to his room, and made himself 
 comfortable on the couch with a pipe and a novel. 
 Presently a gong sounded, and he descended with 
 curiosity. 
 
 It might have been a "spa" hotel, he decided, 
 as he seated himself at the table, and the suggestion 
 grew stronger as the meal proceeded. Everybody 
 here appeard to find the same delight in dwelling on 
 his symptoms. A man next him, sipping Apollinaris, 
 turned and remarked, "No craving to-day this is 
 the third day without any craving, sir. Wonderful !" 
 A woman opposite groaned audibly, and shook her 
 head at her neighbour with a world of significance. 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 129 
 
 "Low," she said, in a whisper, "mighty low! How 
 are you, dear?" This patient, he subsequently learnt, 
 was suffering from the deprivation of her chloral. 
 
 Gazing about him, his view was met by a girl who 
 could scarcely have been more than five and twenty 
 years of age. Her pale face was extremely inter- 
 esting, and her beauty, in connection with her youth 
 and the situation, made her a pathetic figure to be- 
 hold. He wondered for w r hat particular vice she 
 was being treated, and if she would be cured. He 
 hoped he would be introduced to her later. 
 
 The hope was fulfilled. They were made known 
 to each other by Dr. Ferguson in the garden "Mr. 
 Bartlett, Miss Vancouver." She smiled graciously. 
 
 "How do you do?" she said. "I suppose you're 
 already wishing you hadn't come?" 
 
 He refrained from the cheap compliment, and 
 merely answered that it was not so. 
 
 "Why should I be?" he asked. 
 
 "The beginning is so bad for most of us," she 
 said. "/ cried the whole of the first night. But I am 
 getting better now, am I not, doctor?" 
 
 "You are being a very good girl," averred the 
 physician. "We shall send you back to your friends 
 one of these fine days." 
 
 The lady who had groaned at dinner came up to 
 him with some complaint, and Bartlett and Miss 
 Vancouver moved away together. 
 
130 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "May I," murmured Charlie, "if it isn't indis- 
 creet But perhaps I oughtn't to ask." 
 
 "What am I here for, do you mean?" she said, 
 turning her big eyes on him frankly. "Oh, my 
 trouble is morphia I'm a morphomaniac; what's 
 yours?" 
 
 "Er drink," he said, bashfully. "But I'm not a 
 very bad case, you know; I've put myself under re- 
 straint early." 
 
 "Oh!" she said. She laid her hand on his arm 
 as if by a sudden impulse. "Don't you crave?" 
 she whispered. "Aren't you burning to be at it? 
 Tell me all." 
 
 "I should enjoy a little whisky, certainly," he ad- 
 mitted. "And how about yourself? You are getting 
 over the er weakness, you say?" 
 
 "I said," she replied, with a shrug; "that was to 
 him. Don't you believe it! I'm hopeless, that's 
 what / am; nothing will ever cure me. He thinks 
 I am getting on, and I'm quiet, and I deceive him; 
 but when I'm out " 
 
 "You will do it again?" 
 
 "Oh," she gasped, "I'd love it! I'd love it this 
 minute now! Haven't you ever tried it? It's 
 beautiful! Don't let us talk about it. Talk about 
 something else, quick! Tell me the fascination of 
 whisky; I can't understand that." 
 
 So he explained to her, as well as he could, being 
 a temperate young man, the fascination of getting 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 131 
 
 intoxicated on whisky, and she listened with avidity. 
 Then their conversation drifted into pleasanter chan- 
 nels, and he discovered that, her passion apart, she 
 was a singularly bright and intellectual companion. 
 They spoke of Howells' books, of the latest play 
 at Hooley's Theatre which she had seen, only hav- 
 ing been in "The Retreat" a month. They discussed 
 a variety of topics, from literature to lawn tennis, 
 and said "Good night" at last, with the arrangement 
 that they should make up a match on the following 
 afternoon, a couple of decent courts being among the 
 doctor's "recreations." 
 
 In one way and another, Bartlett found himself in 
 Miss Vancouver's society a great deal during the 
 next few days. Primarily, he thought it was because 
 she was able to supply him with so much material 
 for the "series" she was acquainted with the details 
 of every inmate's case but by degrees he was forced 
 to own that it was because he liked her. Strange as 
 it may sound as it did sound to Bartlett she 
 attracted him, no longer as good "copy," but as a 
 girl. 
 
 After their earliest parley, she had seldom men- 
 tioned her temptations, nor did she often question 
 him low about his own, and, when these subjects 
 were tabooed, he frequently forgot that she was a 
 morphomaniac altogether, and chatted with her as 
 gaily as if they were both visitors at the Palmer 
 House or the Auditorium. It was only as his interest 
 
132, THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 in her deepened that the painful fact constantly 
 oppressed him, and then he came to the conclusion 
 that she was occupying his thoughts much more than 
 was desirable, and he determined to bring his inves- 
 tigations to a close. 
 
 He told her one morning that his stay was ter- 
 minating. 
 
 "I have been here three weeks, and I have not 
 tasted a drop of whisky the whole time," he said. 
 "If I can do without it for three weeks, I can do 
 without it always. Miss Vancouver, I am cured." 
 
 She gazed at him sadly. 
 
 "I hope so," she said, "but I never yet heard of 
 so quick a cure. Have you spoken to the doctor?" 
 
 "I intend to do so," replied Charlie. "Anyhow, 
 I have not been placed here I can leave whenever 
 I like." 
 
 They were in the garden as usual; Miss Vancouver 
 was lying in a hammock. She had a white dress 
 on, and her hair was ruffled by the cushion and the 
 breeze. He thought he had never seen her look 
 so charming, so subversive to his common sense. Her 
 dark eyes were regretful, almost tender. 
 
 "How how can I advise ?" said Miss Vancouver. 
 "You must do what you think best." 
 
 "It is best that I should go," he declared. 
 
 He stood frowning at the grass, and, more than 
 ever, he knew that it was true. He was in love 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 133 
 
 with her. Revolting fact! Nothing more hideous 
 could well have happened to him. In love with this 
 girl! Yes, indeed, the sooner he went, the better 
 for his peace of mind. 
 
 "Do you know that you have never told me your 
 name?" he said, huskily. "I should like to know 
 your Christian name." 
 
 "It's Frankie." 
 
 ' Trankie Vancouver' it's curious; somehow, it 
 suits you. I shall go this afternoon, Miss Frankie 
 Vancouver. Will you say good-bye to me now?" 
 
 Was it imagination, or did her lips tremble? was 
 the white face whiter at his words? She put out 
 her hand, and he took it, and held it for an instant 
 tightly. 
 
 "Good-bye," she murmured. 
 
 "Good-bye," repeated Charlie Bartlett. 
 
 Neither spoke advice to the other, though each 
 meant it. He knew, as he turned away across the 
 lawn, that she understood he was fond of her, and 
 she, as she lay watching his receding figure, knew 
 that she cared for him. He thanked the doctor for 
 all his kindness, and announced his intention of de- 
 parting forthwith. But he did not see Miss Van- 
 couver again; she was unwell at luncheon, and kept 
 her room. 
 
 And, of course, it was one of those things that 
 he ought to have ridiculed, and sneered at, and for- 
 gotten. Only he could not. It remained a horrible 
 
134 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 consciousness with him that the girl he loved was 
 shut up in an establishment at Lake Lincoln for 
 treatment for the morphia vice, and he used to have 
 bad dreams, haunted by a frightful form that was 
 Frankie and yet not Frankie dreams from which 
 he woke in a cold sweat. 
 
 Sometimes the picture of what she might become 
 forced itself between him and his work, and the face 
 of Frankie ten years hence glared up at him from 
 the manuscript. Then he shuddered, and left his 
 desk, and the article did not progress very rapidly 
 the rest of that day. 
 
 He found it so difficult to concentrate his attention 
 on what he was doing that it was a fortnight before 
 No. i of the series was finished. After that, how- 
 ever, he fell into the swing of the thing, and went on 
 apace. He had decided to submit the six papers 
 he meant to have six all at once, and, when they 
 were done, he rubbed his hands. They represented 
 an editorial compliment and a very substantial 
 cheque, he calculated. He was more cheerful than 
 he had been since he quitted "The Retreat." 
 
 He was staying in a boarding-house in Indiana 
 Street, and he was inclined to be careless in his habits. 
 What was his dismay the following morning, on 
 unfolding his copy of the Chanticleer, to see that 
 he had been forestalled. He stamped and he swore. 
 There it was, with terrific headlines, and a "leader" 
 calling attention to it, besides "The Liquor and 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 135 
 
 The Ladies ! Life in a Dipsomaniac Home. By our 
 Special Commissioner. To be continued Day-by-Day. 
 Dainty Dames Demand Drink Desperately! Start- 
 ling Stories of Some Sinners in Society." 
 
 Startling indeed! Why, what was this? Ah, it 
 explained the strange "coincidence" the matter was 
 almost identical vith his own! "Curse it!" groaned 
 Bartlett, recovering from his stupefaction; "some- 
 body has got at my stuff; some leaping Yankee 
 bounder has been prying about my room when I've 
 been out! If I can find out who he is, I'll murder 
 the thief!" 
 
 He caught up his hat and cane, and jumped on 
 to the first cable-car that passed him. The editor 
 of the Chanticleer was in, and, as it happened, acces- 
 sible. 
 
 "I want to know who's doing your 'Dipsomaniac 
 Home' series?" began Charlie. "I suppose it isn't 
 a secret. Who is he?" 
 
 "Well," said the editor, "I guess it ain't your 
 affair, but I don't mind telling you. The stuff was 
 sent in by an 'outsider,' and I thought it a good idea. 
 What do you ask for, anyhow?" 
 
 "What do I ask for?" echoed Charlie, excitedly; 
 "look here and here and here!" He showered 
 his manuscripts on the table as he spoke. "You told 
 me to do you some articles on a new subject. I 
 found the subject; I did the articles; and now this 
 
136 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 infernal outsider of yours has robbed me of my 
 matter. I leave my desk open, and he has been 
 at it." 
 
 The editor observed, parenthetically, that it was 
 "smart business." 
 
 "Is it?" said Charlie. "There will be a deal 
 smarter business when I get hold of him, I can tell 
 you ! I have suffered enough over these investiga- 
 tions already, without having my information stolen 
 from me at the end." 
 
 "Well," remarked the other, "all that don't con- 
 cern me." He whistled through a tube, and presently 
 announced that the "outsider" was Mr. George R. 
 Wibrow, and the address given was a street on the 
 North Side. Charlie drew a long breath, and de- 
 parted. 
 
 It was an awkward road to find, but he got to it 
 at last. A German maidservant replied to his ring, 
 and he inquired if Mr. Wibrow lived there, or if 
 he only called for letters. As he was ushered into 
 the parlour, he concluded that the gentleman did 
 live there, though the maidservant's English was not 
 the most intelligible. 
 
 He stood on the hearth-rug, put his hat on the 
 table, and felt the suppleness of the cane. Then 
 the door opened, and admitted Miss Frankie Van- 
 couver I 
 
 Both started violently; both uttered the same mon- 
 osyllable at the same moment 
 
THE GIRL AT LAKE LINCOLN 137 
 
 "You?" 
 
 "But but, how " gasped Charlie. 
 
 " 'George R. Wibrow' is my pen-name," she ex- 
 plained. ''I am a journalist. That is why I was at 
 'The Retreat.' I only shammed the morphia I had 
 to be something terrible, or I couldn't have got in." 
 She contemplated him gravely. "I hope you are 
 keeping sober?" she added. 
 
 "Sober!" he cried; "why, Heavens above! / am 
 a journalist; / shammed the whisky; I, too, have 
 
 written a series of papers, and that's the reason 
 
 Oh, my dear, dear girl ! to think you are a colleague, 
 and not a morphomaniac at all! I expected to find 
 a man, and had come to thrash him. Will you let 
 me shake your dear little hand again, instead?" 
 
 And she did let him, and he kept on shaking it; 
 and then, somehow or other, his arm was round her 
 waist, and she was crying on his shoulder, and and 
 the rest was banal. 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 
 
 FEW social duties demand more patience and effront- 
 ery than the examination of your host's album in 
 the presence of its owner. Indeed, as a general rule, 
 I hold it safest to maintain a respectful silence until 
 the first six pages have been leisurely dismissed, for 
 experience teaches us it is at the commencement of 
 these appalling books that the collector will be found 
 to have assembled en masse the portraits of his rela- 
 tives and loves. 
 
 But Arthur Deane was my best friend. And, then, 
 a bachelor at least confronts you with fewer pitfalls 
 than the Benedict. It is the connections by marriage 
 which are most dangerous ; the unrecognised sisters- 
 in-law over whom you trip; the newly acquired 
 maiden aunt, who lures you into candour and confu- 
 sion. When Jonathan is single surely David may 
 deem himself secure, premising only, as a prepara- 
 tory safeguard, that he has a bowing acquaintance 
 with the house of Saul? Besides, I was so anxious 
 to learn who she was I 
 
 I asked him. 
 
 138 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 139 
 
 The entire narrative springs from my inquiry. 
 
 Judging by the photograph, she might have been 
 five and twenty years of age. The lips were delicate 
 to sensitiveness; the chin, contradicting the mouth, 
 betokened more than feminine strength of will; a 
 profound melancholy could be read within the eyes. 
 Involuntarily you cried, "What a perfect face I" at 
 the second glance you said, "But not a happy 
 
 woman." 
 
 In addition to its expression, the charm of the 
 countenance was a peculiar one; an attraction which, 
 baffling definition from the uneducated spectator, 
 would still have riveted his interest by its singularity. 
 Its characteristics were intensely Greek. No artifices 
 of the toilet had been employed to heighten the 
 effect; she might even have been unconscious of it; 
 for, as every figure-painter becomes insensibly some- 
 thing of a physiognomist, I felt that amongst this 
 girl's failings vanity had no place; it was too small. 
 
 To convey, however, the sensation produced upon 
 me by the discovery of the likeness, it is necessary 
 to make a momentary retrogression of eighteen 
 months, and explain the circumstances under which 
 I had encountered the original. 
 
 Imagine the interior of a pawnbroker's shop ! If 
 you cannot imagine it, so much the better for you; 
 and if, being cognizant of my profession, you find it 
 disgusting that I should ever have been reduced to 
 the strait of pledging my watch in order to subsist 
 
140 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 in this mighty nation, which Carlyle described as 
 "thirty-eight millions mostly fools !" let me remind 
 you that an artist is dependent on the wise men. Only 
 a fortnight since, my paper on Art students came 
 back, "declined with thanks," and the following week 
 the contents bill of the periodical to which it had 
 been submitted was "Do Carroty Men make Good 
 Husbands?" "Mostly fools," and that editor caters 
 for the majority. 
 
 Behold me, then, on an afternoon in March, 1882, 
 nervously twirling my moustaches in one of these 
 depots of impecuniosity, not, as the journalists say, 
 a hundred miles distant from Leicester Square, when 
 the door is pushed quietly back by a female hand, 
 and a customer enters who requires fifteen shillings 
 on a locket and chain ! 
 
 I need a brush to paint the creature, not a pen! 
 I saw a goddess, with the tips of her fingers pro- 
 truding through a pair of mended gloves a Venus 
 in a shabby bodice and a shapeless skirt! 
 
 I abandoned myself to admiration. With my 
 ticket lying unheeded on the counter, I simply sought 
 some shallow pretext for remaining near her. At 
 length, after hearing her pronounce the name, real 
 or assumed, of Miss Alma West, I withdrew, fear- 
 ful of offending her by my scrutiny, and waited in 
 the street till she came out. 
 
 Here, incensed at my own stupidity, I missed her 
 in the crowd; and then, on the principle of Hogarth, 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 14! 
 
 who used to divide his thumb-nail by pencil-lines 
 into four spaces, and transfer to it the four visages 
 that in his walks abroad impressed him most, I, on 
 reaching my lodging, had attempted a dozen sketches 
 from memory of those features which, despite my 
 subsequent attachment to the neighbourhood where 
 I met her, I had never been so fortunate as to view, 
 or to have recalled to me again, until this present 
 occasion datum, the nineteenth day of August, 1883 
 when, at Lauriston Vicarage, with his album held 
 out towards him, in surprise, I exclaimed: 
 
 "Good heavens, Arthur! Who is this?" and 
 pointed to my incognita's vignette. 
 
 "Which?" rejoined the Rev. Arthur Deane, in a 
 tone of abstraction, from the window, absorbed in 
 the restoration of an imprisoned butterfly to the 
 flower-beds beyond; "whom do you mean?" 
 
 "Whom which ! The girl with the Greek face, 
 to be sure I" 
 
 I had his attention now; he started as if he had 
 been shot; paused, recovered himself, and then re- 
 sponded with a counter-question, and a curious one : 
 
 "Where does she live?" he cried. 
 
 : 'Where,' my dear fellow 1 How should I know ? 
 I ask you who she is; I never spoke to her in my 
 life!" 
 
 "I fancied you might tell me," he said, painfully; 
 "she is someone I You were away during that 
 
142 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 summer. Antwerp, was it not? Yes, of course; you 
 were in Antwerp." 
 
 The man's struggle for composure was evident; he 
 had grown as pale as death. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," I remarked, hastily; "I did 
 not mean to force a confidence I had no idea " 
 
 "That's it!" he interrupted, with excitement. 
 
 "You never thought nobody thinks Over and 
 
 over again since your return I have intended to tell 
 you. I will tell you, only I must be calm ; I will write 
 it all by-and-by !" 
 
 "One moment, Arthur," I replied, by this time 
 almost as disturbed as he; "the trap is at the gate; 
 I shall just manage to catch my train to town. Write 
 me what you please, withhold what you please; but 
 before I go, here and now, who is she what is she? 
 Answer me that." 
 
 If I had inwardly wronged him by the vaguest 
 doubt, I was the more unprepared for his reply; it 
 came in two words: 
 
 "My wife!" 
 
 II 
 
 [Communicated by the Rev. Arthur Deane~\ 
 
 THE communication I am about to make to you, my 
 dear friend, is at once a humiliation and a relief. 
 A relief, because I have longed for your consolation 
 and advice, although I have lacked the courage to 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 143 
 
 avow my trouble ; a humiliation, since I must say to 
 you: the man you esteem is unworthy your respect; 
 the history of the pastor of Lauriston, a secret of 
 which no one in his parish dreams. 
 
 I have owned to you I am married; it is a truth 
 that has for three years been locked in my own breast 
 a fact unknown to all. Concealment is the extent 
 of my transgression, but such a concealment! It 
 makes my life a lie. 
 
 From my youth my inclinations pointed strongly 
 towards the Church; on the other hand, my parents 
 would have preferred me to study for the Bar. I 
 have always entertained for my parents the most 
 sincere affection, and would have gratified their 
 wishes in this particular, even at the expense of my 
 most precious hopes, but that my predilection for 
 Orders was so marked, they decided opposition 
 would be misplaced, and tenderly accorded their 
 sanction to my plan. 
 
 I quitted college at the age of twenty-four, and 
 after a short delay was fortunate in being appointed 
 to a curacy in the East End. Here began those prac- 
 tical labours I so ardently desired. I embraced with 
 delight the manifold opportunities for occupation 
 which abound nowhere so plentifully as in a poverty- 
 ridden district such as this. My anticipations were 
 fulfilled at last. At the end of five years, having 
 gained the attention of my bishop by my sermons, I 
 
144 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 had the gratification of being installed as incumbent 
 of a densely populated parish. 
 
 I received from Carlsbad, whither my father had 
 at this period been ordered by his physician for a 
 course of waters, a letter containing his warmest con- 
 gratulations, and a postscript brimming with mater- 
 nal pride. I was overjoyed. 
 
 During the ensuing summer, however, my health 
 gave way under the constant strain to which, despite 
 all warnings, I had foolishly subjected it, and which 
 now compelled a temporary cessation from work. I 
 thought of joining my parents on the Continent, but 
 their movements were uncertain, and the journey was 
 too long; of surprising you in Antwerp, but aban- 
 doned this second project for similar reasons. I 
 determined in favour of the English coast, ultimately 
 deciding upon Worthing. 
 
 One of the keenest pleasures of the seaside comes 
 to you on the first morning, when you wake to hear 
 the rolling of the waves. You gaze from the win- 
 dow already invigorated; you descend to breakfast 
 remembering it is a privilege to breathe. 
 
 I had not been long in these apartments when I 
 discovered, by means of a conversation carried on 
 outside my sitting-room door, that I was not the only 
 invalid established there. Conversation, perhaps, is 
 scarcely the term. I should rather say a monologue, 
 for it was my landlady who uttered all the remarks 
 that reached my ears. 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 145 
 
 I gathered from her observations, which were 
 pitched in a somewhat higher key than good breed- 
 ing deems essential, that a mother and daughter 
 lodged above me on the third floor, and the elder 
 woman, being unwell, had sent a petition for some 
 tiny delicacy, which Mrs. Watson, on the grounds 
 of an outstanding bill, was refusing to accord. 
 
 Could this hard voice I now heard belong to the 
 person who presently smirked into my parlour, and 
 hoped I should find with her all the comforts of a 
 home? Oh, the power of prosperity! 
 
 In answer to my interrogatories, she informed me 
 that Mrs. and Miss West had been staying there a 
 fortnight. She understood (her little ringlets shak- 
 ing with humility) that they were from London, and 
 extremely poor. What other particulars she might 
 have afforded me I know not, for I did not seek to 
 pry into their private affairs, but to assist without 
 wounding them, and I nipped her discourse in the 
 bud. As a consequence of my mediation, the jelly 
 was bought and conveyed to the sufferer, ostensibly 
 by Mrs. Watson. 
 
 Thus my intervention continued to procure for 
 her much which she had otherwise been denied, the 
 increased stipend accruing from my rectorate per- 
 mitting my more frequent indulgence in luxuries like 
 this. Nevertheless, until the sixth day I had not so 
 much as seen either of the ladies whom I served. 
 
 It was then that the imposition was detected, and 
 
146 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 I was honoured with a visit from the miserable girl 
 who eventually became my wife. 
 
 I cannot describe to you, my friend, how beautiful 
 she was, with a beauty one is accustomed to admire 
 more often on the canvas than in the flesh, or how 
 embarrassed I felt beneath this dignity of grief. My 
 action no longer presented itself in the light of an 
 ordinary civility, but as an insult I was unable to 
 defend. She thanked me with tears in her eyes for 
 the kindness I was showing to her sick mother, yet 
 making it clear that it was a charity they must cease 
 thenceforward to accept. I could only bow, and 
 acquiesce. 
 
 My condition, which had previously given promise 
 of improvement, now suffered some slight relapse; 
 exercise became a terrible fatigue, and the local prac- 
 titioner in attendance upon the patient upstairs, while 
 assuring me there was no occasion for alarm, averred 
 that my renewed weakness was the result of prema- 
 ture exertion, and insisted upon my absolute rest. I 
 was confined to the house. 
 
 During this melancholy imprisonment I received 
 every evening a bunch of wild-flowers, with Mrs. 
 West's compliments. It was a graceful recognition, 
 but as Mrs. West herself rarely issued from her 
 room, I easily divined they were plucked by the 
 daughter, who, at Dr. Cree's advice, habitually went 
 out towards sunset for an hour's stroll. I grew to 
 watch for these flowers; their arrival was a break 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 147 
 
 in my solitude ; it seemed less dismal when they came. 
 On Tuesday the wonted knock was waited for in 
 vain; I speedily knew why: Miss West had departed 
 that afternoon for town. She returned extremely 
 late the same night, and on Wednesday Mrs. Watson 
 approached me with the stereotyped message of 
 inquiry, and bearing the diurnal bouquet. 
 
 At the end of the week I was rapidly becoming 
 convalescent, and I had an opportunity, on entering 
 the crescent, after a short excursion, of more directly 
 conveying my thanks for this mark of their solici- 
 tude. Miss West, in a jacket and hat, was on the 
 steps. 
 
 "We should have been very ungrateful else," she 
 said in response, "and we were neither of us that, 
 though I was afraid you thought so." 
 
 "No, indeed," I answered lamely; "I only thought 
 I had taken an unwarrantable liberty you would never 
 forgive." 
 
 We stood looking down the crescent at the sea, 
 in the silence that will occur between people newly 
 introduced, even when they are intelligent enough to 
 perceive its absurdity. 
 
 "You are an indefatigable nurse, Miss West; you 
 must enjoy your brief recreation?" 
 
 "If I were less anxious about my mother," she 
 replied, "I should like it more; I feel very selfish in 
 leaving her." 
 
 "I trust she is recovering?" 
 
148 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "I hardly know; but she will have it that I require 
 fresh air, and I cannot shake her belief in the neces- 
 sity. Good-bye; I am glad to see you so much 
 better!" 
 
 This exchange of conventionalities, vapid as it ap- 
 pears, when transcribed in black and white, exhila- 
 rated me to a surprising extent; I retired to my room 
 in higher spirits than I had been in for months. 
 
 It would be but dreary reading, I fear, were I to 
 record the successive stages by which the acquain- 
 tanceship progressed; how from these casual rencon- 
 tres, gradually protracted, I became, by-and-by, the 
 companion of her walks. 
 
 It is enough to say that this hour was the oasis 
 in the desert of my monotony; that, excepting my 
 landlady, she was the only human being with whom 
 I had the chance to talk. Not the faintest bashful- 
 ness of manner marred the frankness of her speech; 
 for any coquetry or hesitation she evinced I might 
 have been conversing with a man. Yet I caught 
 myself continually recalling the latest interview, 
 impatiently speculating about the next. 
 
 So my existence here gained an interest. The 
 arrangement of my furniture ceased to oppress me 
 by its precision; the waxwork fruit and the china- 
 shepherdess no longer struck me as grotesque. I 
 now looked chiefly at the clock. 
 
 Not, however, till she announced to me her pro- 
 jected absence for a few days, did I realise how great 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 149 
 
 that interest was. Business called her mother to 
 London, and it was impossible that she could travel 
 alone; indeed, in her feeble state, the undertaking 
 was fraught with considerable danger. I dreaded 
 the result. 
 
 "I shall miss you very much, Miss West," I said. 
 
 "And I am sorry to go ; besides, the expense is an 
 inconvenience, too !" she rejoined, simply. She never 
 disguised their position, even while she repudiated 
 help. "Do you know, Mr. Deane, that until we came 
 here I had never seen the sea, and now it seems such 
 a bewildering, wonderful thing to me, who view it 
 for the first time. I dare say it sounds odd to own 
 I have never built castles on the sands, and bought 
 toy-buckets, like everybody else, but all my years 
 have been passed in Town, and my childhood was 
 curiously unlike most. There is a sense of satisfac- 
 tion in the knowledge that nearly all our luggage 
 will be left behind to-morrow, and we should be sure 
 to come back to fetch it, even if we did not return 
 to stay; those trunks are a sort of connecting-link 
 between the yellow beach and the 'two-pair-back' in 
 a dirty little road where the milk-cans hang on the 
 area-railings 'from noon to dewy eve,' and our neigh- 
 bours repair their broken window-panes with brown- 
 paper plaisters." 
 
 She had never till then referred, ever so vaguely, 
 to anything beyond the immediate present, and I 
 was flattered by these allusions to her mode of life, 
 
150 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 the one topic which must always be the sweetest to 
 a man in converse with the woman he loves. Yes, 
 loves; I knew it as I stood beside her on the deserted 
 pierhead in the twilight knew this woman was to 
 me what none had ever been before, what none other 
 could be on God's earth again. 
 
 "I told you I should miss you," I repeated; "I 
 cannot say how much ! To-morrow night I shall be 
 here alone, thinking of you, trying to picture you 
 amongst surroundings where I have never seen you, 
 and yet trying, because in imagination it will take me 
 nearer to you !" 
 
 The breeze, blowing fresh across the Channel, had 
 brought a flush to the pale cheek; her breast was 
 heaving irregularly beneath her cape, with some re- 
 pressed emotion her reminiscence had evoked. At 
 my last words she started slightly, and I fancied she 
 looked annoyed. 
 
 "I have not offended you? Tell me I am not quite 
 indifferent to you at least that I haven't presumed ! 
 It is only now that I understand what your society 
 has been to me. Miss West Alma, its loss would 
 be more than I could bear!" 
 
 "You mean that you are in love with me," she 
 said, inquiringly, turning her eyes to mine, "and you 
 have known me a month ? How strange ! Do men 
 fall in love like that? Well, my friend for you 
 have been a very true friend to me if I cared for 
 you in the way you would have, or if I hated you, I 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 151 
 
 might give you another answer; I do neither, and I 
 will be candid ! You admire me it will do you no 
 harm; you will be with me while I am here, you will 
 talk to me, and you will continue to admire. Pres- 
 ently you will go away; in two or three months you 
 will have forgotten I exist, and to console you whilst 
 you still remember, be assured that of all the women 
 in the world, you were about to propose to the one 
 who would have made you the worst wife." 
 
 Suddenly she came towards me. Her self-posses- 1 
 sion appeared to have deserted her; she was trans- 
 figured. 
 
 "Kiss me I" she cried; "kiss me ! You are fond of 
 me it will please you, and I shall feel less bad." 
 
 I took her in my arms. I covered with kisses her 
 mouth, her brow, her hair, she yielding herself pas- 
 sively to my embrace. 
 
 "Now let us go in," she said; "it begins to get 
 cold." 
 
 Five days passed without bringing me tidings of 
 the absentees. On the sixth, Mrs. Watson and I each 
 received a hasty note from Alma, to the effect that 
 Mrs. West was utterly prostrated, and it was still 
 difficult to conjecture how soon they would be able 
 to start. 
 
 They had been gone almost a fortnight, when 
 Selina, the maid-of-all-work, in opening the door to 
 me, informed me that Miss West had just arrived. 
 
 "And Mrs. West?" I said. 
 
152 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 There was no need to ask. I knew it directly the 
 question was framed; Alma, attired in the deepest 
 mourning, her eyelids red with weeping, stood before 
 me in the narrow passage. Her mother was dead. 
 
 "Please don't speak of it," she whispered, pite- 
 ously ; "please don't ! I can't bear that yet" 
 
 For forty-eight hours she kept her room, and 
 when I saw her again she had come to say good-bye. 
 The thought of parting from her, perhaps for ever, 
 was physical pain. A great knot gathered in my 
 throat. I was ashamed of my own emotion; it 
 seemed childish to show her that I suffered so. I 
 implored her to remain. I entreated her to become 
 my wife. 
 
 It was then this girl made me the following re- 
 markable reply: 
 
 "Homeless, penniless, defenceless," she said; 
 "don't tempt me !" 
 
 "If it is a temptation, why do you resist it?" 
 
 She looked at me wistfully. 
 
 "There might be so many reasons, might there 
 not?" she murmured. "Well, I will give you one 
 because I do not love you !" 
 
 "You do not love me !" I said. "And yet " 
 
 "And yet I asked you to kiss me, you mean ! My 
 friend, that was impulse, not passion; you looked 
 so miserable, and I felt so guilty in comparison. No, 
 do not misunderstand me; don't judge me too 
 harshly. You need not blush for the recollection; 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 153 
 
 since I lost my father you are the only man whose 
 lips have ever touched my face. There, very few 
 girls could have told you so much as that; but still 
 I am not worthy, and you would regret." 
 
 "Think!" I exclaimed "think what it is that 
 awaits you. The misery, the poverty! You have 
 just painted that future in three words. Alma, con- 
 sider." 
 
 "You press me hard," she said. 
 
 "I offer you a home, rest, love !" I continued pas- 
 sionately. "You say I shall regret; you misjudge 
 yourself and me ! I have passed the period when 
 a man, in the egotism of youth, pictures a feminine 
 reproduction of his own character, and christens it 
 his ideal. I do not expect to find a woman whose 
 mind will be the mirror of my own, whose remarks 
 will be the echoes of my opinions; I don't want to 
 find her! I want one whom I admire for her indi- 
 viduality, her beauty, and her purity; Alma, you are 
 that woman, and I love you. Pity me, my darling, 
 and say 'yes' !" 
 
 She had paused, her arm behind her, swaying 
 upon the handle of the door. 
 
 "Very well," she said, mechanically; "I consent" 
 
 We were married. 
 
 And it is here I discover how impotent, how weak 
 my writing is. I have not at my command one single 
 sentence towards portraying to you the tranquillity, 
 the supreme contentment of this time. 
 
154 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 I had been her husband a week when a letter 
 reached me from my parents, saying they would be 
 in England (D.V.) that very afternoon. They were, 
 as yet, ignorant of my marriage, since I had desired 
 to acquaint them with the fact by word of mouth, 
 and I determined to wait upon them in Clapham 
 immediately on their arrival, and go back to Worth- 
 ing the following night. Alma, who had been restless 
 and unlike herself since morning, was delighted. 
 
 "Go !" she said, excitedly. "Go ! Let us have no 
 more concealment after to-day." 
 
 I kissed her, and departed, reaching The Myrtles 
 at five o'clock, only to meet with a disappointment, 
 for after I had waited three hours a telegram was 
 delivered to the housekeeper, stating that the return 
 had been unavoidably postponed. 
 
 I was in doubt whether I should remain in Lon- 
 don, as I had intended, or take the next train back 
 to Alma. While I sauntered, undecided, along the 
 Kennington Road, I was brought suddenly to a stand- 
 still by a startling sight. 
 
 At a corner of the gaslit street, hurrying through 
 the crowd, with a white, set face, I saw my wife. 
 She passed without observing me, and I followed 
 her covertly, oppressed by an indefinable fear. Pres- 
 ently she stopped before a rambling, old-fashioned 
 building, which she entered. A moment afterwards 
 I, also, was inside. 
 
 A narrow room, illuminated by two suspended 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 155 
 
 lamps, an attendance of perhaps thirty persons, from 
 infants wailing in their mothers' arms to men and 
 women already on the brink of the grave. All eyes 
 turned expectantly towards a platform at the end, 
 separated from the auditorium by a dingy crimson 
 rope, and communicating by a door with some other 
 room. I could not have told you what I dreaded, 
 but I no longer seemed to breathe. There was a 
 murmur of expectation; the door slowly opened, and 
 Alma confronted us all. 
 
 I understand I was carried into the air unconscious 
 I who had pulled stroke in the 'Varsity boat, for 
 before she had spoken five minutes I had learnt three 
 things : 
 
 1. That she had been known to these people for 
 the past six years; 
 
 2. That she was giving her farewell discourse; 
 
 3. That my wife was an Atheist lecturer. 
 
 The cry I could not stifle attracted her attention; 
 the words died on her lips; she gave a low moan, 
 and I knew no more. When I sought her she was 
 gone. No line from her came to me, nor, despite 
 my efforts, have I ever succeeded in tracing her, from 
 that night down to the present time. If she yet pur- 
 sues this awful calling, if she has found the true 
 Light, if she is dead nothing is known to me ! This 
 is my confession, avowed to you in full. Take it, 
 the manuscript is yours; should you choose to make 
 it public, now or hereafter, you have my sanction, 
 
156 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 for the silence has worn me out, and I can no longer 
 distinguish between right and wrong. My secret 
 is in your hands, my friend; do with it what seems 
 the best ! 
 
 ill 
 [Leaves from the Diary of Alma West] 
 
 September yd, 1884. 
 
 IT is the anniversary of my wedding-day. Shall I 
 never be permitted to forget it? Will that eternal 
 self-reproach haunt me to the end? How good he 
 was how true, although I did not care for him! 
 Yes, this book reminds me of it; I cannot shirk the 
 truth. I married him for the peace he offered, like 
 the coward that I was, and believed I could bury my 
 past in his home. What a wretch! I deserved to 
 be found out! And now now, if I could only lay 
 my head on his shoulder, and say, "Forgive me; I 
 am so ill, and I love you !" I should be happy. 
 
 Oh, am I going to die, alone like this? I can't 
 write; I am crying. 
 
 September $th. 
 
 I have given up the needlework. I cannot see to 
 stitch. The doctor will not come again; I cannot 
 pay him. 
 
 Oh, my mother, my father, where are you ? No- 
 
THE GIRL WITH THE GREEK FACE 157 
 
 body is near me. Arthur, my darling, I am starving. 
 Why are you not here? 
 
 September 6th. 
 
 I shall write till I cannot guide a pen, for my last 
 words will be left addressed to him. The thought 
 has given me strength; it is as if I were talking to 
 him again. Does he remember me, who loved me 
 
 so well then? Shall I meet him when, where 
 
 Oh, why was I born ! 
 
 September i^th. 
 
 I have been worse; these lines are traced in bed. 
 Not a human being has been to see me. I am in this 
 garret by myself. I have pinned a paper to the wall, 
 begging that my diary may be sent to Arthur. They 
 will do it when they find my corpse. . . . 
 
 I have been dreaming, and Arthur has been kissing 
 me. . . . The room is so dark and cold. I suffer; 
 I am frightened. 
 
 September I'jth. 
 
 I can no longer drag myself across the floor. 
 Arthur, come to me; I am dying. Where am I going? 
 I am afraid to think ! Why are you not here to pray 
 for me? Arthur husband, hold me backl Every- 
 thing is slipping from me. Hold me back . . . pray 
 for me, forgive me, pity me 1 Oh, my God my 
 God , 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 
 
 HE wished he were dead. It was not a "phrase," 
 a verbal extravagance ; he wished it. The only time 
 he was free from anxiety was when he was asleep. 
 His days were filled with worries and disappoint- 
 ments, and the ceaseless effort to make civil words 
 do the duty of money; and it often occurred to 
 George Collier, when he lay his head on the pillow, 
 that if no to-morrow morning came to disturb him, 
 it would be a very restful state of things. 
 
 He was a literary man. When he married Eva 
 Kingston he thought he had "arrived." He was 
 nine and twenty, and had already won his spurs. His 
 reviews were splendid; he was called "powerful," 
 "unconventional," "scholarly," "fine;" the press- 
 cuttings his publishers sent him made his heart glow. 
 But, unfortunately, the book did not sell, and he 
 was unable to command any higher price for his 
 ntext one. 
 
 It seemed an anomalous condition of affairs. His 
 work comme'nded itself to the most exacting critics, 
 and yet did not please the public. Of course he 
 hoped, and Eva was sympathetic, and he went on 
 writing patiently. But by degrees he saw that his con- 
 
 158 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 159 
 
 fidence had been premature; and then he saw that 
 his marriage had been premature; and then a child 
 was born, and he gave up his ideals, and sank to 
 pot-boiling, and the pot-boiling did not make the pot 
 boil very violently, either. 
 
 A baby added to his embarrassments a good deal. 
 The long clothes seemed no sooner bought than it 
 needed short clothes, and he had hardly recovered 
 from the cost of these than it had grown out of 
 them. The nurse appeared to lie awake all night 
 thinking what she could ask for next, and she was a 
 superior person, with imagination. 
 
 To-day there were school fees to be paid, and Eva 
 was no longer sympathetic, and their address was 
 Pandora Road, Balham. The little house to the 
 right was called "Fotheringay," and the one to the 
 left rejoiced in the name of "St. Olaph's," and when 
 they moved in, Collier, in a fit of moroseness, had 
 labelled their own abode "Box Cottage," and in- 
 curred the animosity of the street for ever. 
 
 Yes, Eva's sympathy had worn out, like the cheap 
 drawing-room carpet, that had been so pretty when 
 it was new. Benighted Balham and the tedium of 
 Tooting had got on her nerves, perhaps, or George, 
 the failure, was a different man from the brilliant 
 novelist with whom she had pictured herself receiv- 
 ing the notabilities of art and literature at musical 
 "At Homes," where she would be attired in Liberty 
 frocks. Anyhow, when he reflected that there had 
 
l6o THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 been a time when he wrote poetry about her, he 
 turned hot. 
 
 She was a pale, slight woman, with gray eyes and 
 fluffy hair, and a red flannel dressing-gown in the 
 morning. After lunch, when she made her toilette, 
 the gray eyes acquired a depth and soulfulness which 
 was due to black cosmetique, and nobody would have 
 suspected the tart and vulgar reproaches that could 
 fall from her lips. Had she been what she looked, 
 he sometimes thought, contemplating her wonder- 
 ingly when an acquaintance was present, his courage 
 would not have deserted him so soon. But, if he 
 had confessed she weighed on him, the acquaintance 
 would have considered him an unappreciative brute; 
 she looked too wistful, and delicate, and fragile, to 
 weigh on anyone. 
 
 He was forty years of age, and soberly and delib- 
 erately* he wished he were dead. Only one thing 
 deterred him from making away with himself in a 
 painless fashion, and that was the knowledge that he 
 would leave her and the "chick" unprovided for. 
 
 This was his frame of mind when he came to 
 project what can only be described as a fraud. He 
 saw his way to dying comfortably, and still taking 
 care that the "chick" and Eva did not want. That 
 is to say, he would have seen his way if he could 
 have raised the money necessary to pay the premium. 
 He proposed to assure his life, and then commit 
 suicide. 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD l6l 
 
 The curious part of it was that he had always 
 been a singularly scrupulous man, and "as honest as 
 the day" that oft-quoted day which nobody remem- 
 bers. People had often asserted he was "too con- 
 scientious to get on." He had never wronged any- 
 one by so much as sixpence in all his straits, and could 
 have stood in a witness-box, to be cross-examined, 
 without a tremor. His record was blameless, and 
 his integrity notorious. Yet now he was meditating 
 robbery on an extensive scale, and barely perceiving 
 his defection. 
 
 A man he knew very well, and who frequently 
 dropped in of an evening, was Mr. Horace Orkney, 
 a solicitor. George was not sensible of any strong 
 degree of esteem for him, but perhaps for that 
 very reason Orkney looked the likeliest person for 
 what he wanted, and one afternoon he betook him- 
 self to the gentleman's office. 
 
 "I have," he said, when greetings had been ex- 
 changed, "come on rather delicate business. I 
 needn't tell you that what I am going to say is in 
 confidence." 
 
 "Quite so," said Orkney, drawing out the ends 
 of his moustache. 
 
 "The fact is, things aren't going well with me. I 
 am deadly tired of it all, and er it sounds a curious 
 statement I am anxious to make away with myself." 
 
 The lawyer was only thirty-six, and he started. 
 Professional calm reasserted itself a moment later, 
 
1 62 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 however, and he echoed George's last words in meas- 
 ured tones : 
 
 "To make away with yourself ? Oh, nonsense !" 
 
 "I am," repeated Collier; "but my life isn't as- 
 sured. You see the difficulty. I am bound to think 
 of my wife and child, and they would be practically 
 penniless." 
 
 "Assure it," suggested Mr. Horace Orkney, with 
 a shrug, "if you are determined! But, my dear 
 Collier, do let me dissuade you from entertaining 
 such a such a Really, you know !" He with- 
 drew his monogrammed handkerchief, and shook it 
 out daintily, diffusing an agreeable odour of white 
 rose. "You distress me very much." 
 
 "I won't trouble you with my arguments," re- 
 sponded Collier; "I haven't come to discuss the pros 
 and cons, or to waste your time. My mind is made 
 up, and I know my own mind better than anybody 
 else can tell it to me. You say, 'assure it;' the point 
 is that I'm unable to do so, because I can't put my 
 hands on the money." 
 
 "Oh," said Orkney. "The premiums aren't 
 heavy," he added, after a pause. "How much did 
 you think of assuring for?" 
 
 "While I am about it I want to make an adequate 
 provision; I want to arrange so that there shall be 
 an income of, say, four or five hundred per annum. 
 I know what the premium would be on an amount 
 to yield that from a safe investment, and I should 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 163 
 
 pay it for a year down! it would be better. I 
 reckon it three hundred and twenty pounds. Now, 
 my idea was " 
 
 "Was what?" asked the solicitor, blandly, as he 
 hesitated. 
 
 George was a little nervous. His gaze wandered. 
 
 "My idea was that you might be willing to advance 
 me the sum, to be repayable, with interest, at my 
 death. I I am eager to make the proposal as at- 
 tractive as I can. Advance me three hundred and 
 twenty pounds, and I'll have a will drawn up at 
 once, and leave you a thousand. How does it strike 
 you? I think myself it's very fair." 
 
 Horace Orkney tapped his fingers together pen- 
 sively. 
 
 "A company contests the claim in a case of sus- 
 pected suicide," he said; "you are overlooking that." 
 
 "I am overlooking nothing. I have thought it 
 all out, and I know exactly what I shall do. A 
 cousin of my wife's has a cottage in Kent, on the 
 Darenth. We have often stayed there. The lawn 
 slopes to the river's edge, and there is an Indian 
 canoe. No more solitary place, especially after dusk, 
 could exist. Now, I can easily contrive so that we 
 get an invitation to go down for a week. One eve- 
 ning, after working hard all day, I shall say I am 
 going out for a breath of fresh air. I shall ask what 
 time they are going to have supper, and set my watch 
 by their clock, so that I may not be late back. I shall 
 
 \ 
 
164 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 beg my wife to remind me of an important letter 
 I have to write in the morning, and step out through 
 the window in the gayest of spirits. Well, the canoe 
 upsets. It is known I do not swim. Nothing could 
 be simpler!" 
 
 "But your intentions may alter, my friend. And 
 if they do, I have advanced you three hundred and 
 twenty pounds, and where am I? In the natural 
 course of events, you may live for thirty or forty 
 years to come." 
 
 "I thought," said Collier, "of waiting to put an 
 end of my life till the spring, so as to avert any pos- 
 sibility of a suspicious complexion. If you think it 
 judicious, the 'accident' shall occur next month !" 
 
 There was another silence. 
 
 "I will consider," said Mr. Orkney, at length. 
 "Now you must let me send you away; I'm busy." 
 
 Having considered, he agreed. He provided 
 George Collier with the sum of three hundred and 
 twenty pounds to take out a policy, and George made 
 a will by which Mr. Horace Orkney was bequeathed 
 one thousand. The rest went to Eva, who, to give 
 her her due, was an affectionate mother. 
 
 The weary man was now comparatively contented. 
 In April he was to die, and it was already Novem- 
 ber. To make quite certain there should be no hitch 
 in the post-mortem proceedings, it had been decided 
 that he should wait till April. He had had hopes 
 that Orkney would declare it was safe for him to take 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 165 
 
 the step earlier, but on reflection the lawyer had 
 pronounced it inadvisable, and said it would be wiser 
 for him to keep to the date he had originally sug- 
 gested. 
 
 It was a disappointment, but George was too 
 grateful to complain of a crumpled rose-leaf. He 
 had borne the slings and arrows so hopelessly that 
 it was a pity if he could not contemplate their con- 
 tinuance for five more months ! No, he was not un- 
 reasonable, and, as first one week wore away, and 
 then another, his satisfaction increased. He felt like 
 an overworked man looking forward to a long holi- 
 day. 
 
 There was a serious epidemic of influenza in Lon- 
 don that year. Everybody who could afford to do so 
 was flying to the Continent, or to the English water- 
 ing-places, and among those who remained in Town, 
 and were laid low, was Mrs. Collier. This was at 
 Christmas. 
 
 The doctor did not at the beginning regard her 
 case gravely, but she got worse, despite his encour- 
 agement, and after a fortnight in bed she sank and 
 died. 
 
 George was inexpressibly shocked. Though he 
 had long since outlived his illusions about her, she 
 had been his wife, his daily companion. To realise 
 that she was gone dismayed him. He remembered 
 the girl he had loved, and shed tears at the grave 
 of the woman who had developed from her. Not 
 
1 66 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 analysing, not drawing the distinction, but just griev- 
 ing honestly. 
 
 After she was buried, and he sat in the quiet 
 parlour, smoking at night, it occurred to him that 
 as the child would now be doubly an orphan, he must 
 arrange where she was to live when April came. 
 Under the circumstances she would be an heiress, 
 and he wanted her correspondingly educated. For- 
 tunately, he had a maiden sister, upon whom he could 
 depend to carry out his wishes in this respect, and 
 he drew a breath of relief, reflecting how troubled 
 he would have been for the "chick's" future other- 
 wise. 
 
 And January came to an end, and February broke, 
 and then February waned, and it was March. 
 
 Collier was surprised to find how rapidly the time 
 had passed since the funeral. He put "March ist" 
 at the top of a letter very slowly, and sat look- 
 ing at it with startled eyes. A month more, and 
 the consummation would be reached. Poor little 
 "Chick," he would have to leave her! 
 
 Oddly, now the end of it all was so near, he was 
 conscious of feeling less impatience than he had done. 
 He had been sensible, of late, of a certain enjoyment 
 in life a new enjoyment The quiet parlour, with 
 his pipe, and the Chronicle, had been pleasant. He 
 had gone up to his room at night without a groan, 
 and seated himself at his desk in the morning with 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 167 
 
 an unfamiliar zest. Only a month! Well, let him 
 make the most of it. 
 
 But it was difficult. The remembrance that had 
 been so welcome had become, now he was a wid- 
 ower, a skeleton's head, which obtruded its grisly 
 presence into the cosiest hours. Perhaps "Chick" 
 was on his knee, and he was stroking her hair, when 
 it grinned at him. Perhaps he was writing through 
 the small hours interested in a piece of work he 
 was doing and it appeared. Of what use to have 
 "Chick" fond of him, when he would be dead di- 
 rectly? Why polish and revise a manuscript so 
 lovingly, when he would be lying in his grave before 
 it was in print? 
 
 He shuddered. There was no benefit in blinking 
 the truth; the fact was that the conditions had 
 altered ! He would have been a cheerful man to-day, 
 for all his pecuniary worries, if he had been allowed; 
 nor did the worries themselves look so formidable, 
 somehow! Eva had always made the worst of 
 everything, and Heaven forgive him! had never 
 been a manager. It was amazing what a difference 
 her removal caused in every way. He was satisfied 
 with life, and he knew he did not want to die ! 
 
 At last he determined to go to Orkney, and ask 
 him to release him from his undertaking. It was 
 an unpleasant task, but the alternative was more 
 distasteful still, and he went. 
 
1 68 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Mr. Orkney looked at him in blank disapproval 
 when he had stammered to a conclusion. 
 
 "This is very unbusiness-like," he said, "very un- 
 business-like indeed ! You put me in a very awkward 
 situation, Collier. I don't want to see you die, of 
 course I I hope I have a heart but an agree- 
 ment is an agreement, and I have great occasion 
 for a thousand pounds. As it happens, I have a 
 bill " 
 
 "You see," said Collier, helplessly, "there's the 
 child! I don't like to leave her alone in the world." 
 
 "I thought you told me at the time of your wife's 
 death that she could go to an aunt in Dorking?" 
 
 "Yes," George said, "I did. But well, I am very 
 fond of her. The parting is devilish hard." 
 
 "I don't see why it should be any harder this morn- 
 ing than when you came here and made your pro- 
 posal. I did a friendly thing for you, and I must 
 say this isn't at all fair treatment. It wasn't an 
 agreement I could enforce, you know I relied on 
 your honour; and now you put me off with empty 
 excuses." 
 
 "Don't say that!" begged George. "To tell you 
 the honest truth I don't know how it is since I 
 lost my wife I I am not so depressed. I feel 
 lighter, and there's a different aspect to things. I 
 can't explain it." 
 
 "No," said Orkney, firmly, "I won't hear it! I 
 won't have the blame laid at the door of that poor 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 169 
 
 little woman. That is cowardly, Collier! Be a man, 
 and say you have changed your mind, and are trying 
 to back out." 
 
 "Very well, then r " replied Collier, "I have changed 
 my mind. I want to live, and to pay you the thou- 
 sand pounds as soon as I can get it together. How 
 does it suit you?" 
 
 The solicitor smiled finely. 
 
 "It was a very fair rate of interest for the time 
 agreed upon," he said; "but for a period of years 
 Anyhow, we needn't discuss the point. So far as I 
 understand your position, there would be very little 
 prospect of your being able to pay me at all even 
 the principal." 
 
 "In other words," said Collier, rising, "you won't 
 consent?" 
 
 "I regret," said Orkney "I regret very much that 
 you should have put such a suggestion forward, be- 
 cause I am unable to consent to it, and it is a particu- 
 larly painful one to refuse. I do not think it was 
 delicate, Collier; it wasn't good taste." 
 
 ' 'Good taste,' " said George, hotly, "be damned! 
 Finally, you insist on your pound of flesh?" 
 
 "Finally," responded the lawyer, "I repeat that if 
 you are a man of honour, only one course can be 
 adopted. Good day, sir." 
 
 He touched the bell on his table, and Collier 
 passed out into the street. 
 
 It was April already, and he had either to break 
 
170 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 his undertaking or fulfil it without delay. Instinct- 
 ively he saw the grim humour of the situation. It 
 was material for a story; and he perceived that, if 
 he were writing it, there would be a temptation to 
 comment on the budding trees, and the "verdure of 
 the young grass," at such a crisis, in contrast to the 
 hero's despair. Or perhaps it would go better as 
 a comic story? Yes, certainly it would, he decided. 
 How queer ! in reality there was so little comic in it. 
 Why could it not be treated realistically? 
 
 What was he wasting his time for in irrelevant 
 considerations he had to come to a conclusion ! He 
 must die, or tell Orkney he was resolved to "let him 
 in." Which should it be? Both courses repelled 
 him. One was hideous, and the other was contempt- 
 ible. He could not determine. 
 
 He vacillated hourly for a fortnight, and Mr. Ork- 
 ney, meanwhile, seemed ubiquitous. Wherever he 
 went he met him, and Orkney always stopped and 
 spoke, and asked him coldly how he was. 
 
 George would endeavour to reply composedly, but 
 not with success. Then the other would put his 
 eyebrows up, and sigh significantly, and Collier went 
 on his way, feeling despicable and ashamed. 
 
 "To Be or Not to Be," "The Pound of Flesh" 
 what a number of titles suggested themselves for 
 the story that might be written ! He could not put 
 the thought of it away from him, and one evening 
 he actually found himself sitting at his desk com- 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 17 1 
 
 mencing it. It was a foolish proceeding, but it occu- 
 pied more, interested him, and his pen flew rapidly. 
 He treated the subject in a serious narrative. 
 
 At one o'clock he came to the point where the 
 end must be led up to. But how was it to end? He 
 rose, and began to pace the room, mechanically 
 charging his pipe afresh. It would not draw where 
 were the wires? He could not think if he did not 
 smoke, and the thing was stopped up. 
 
 The wires could not be found; perhaps he had 
 used the last. Formerly he had annexed his wife's 
 hair-pins in such emergencies, and, as a last resource, 
 it occurred to him that if he looked in the wardrobe, 
 where her belongings had been put away, he would 
 find some. 
 
 The key was on his own ring, and he went upstairs. 
 The dead woman's trifles had been stored on the 
 shelves. He saw her work-basket and her dressing- 
 case, and the set of ebony brushes, with "E" on the 
 backs in silver, that he had given her on her last 
 birthday. There was a bonnet she had been trim- 
 ming when she was taken ill, with the needle still 
 sticking in it. 
 
 He paused; what he was doing seemed momen- 
 tarily sacrilege. Then he opened the dressing-case 
 and lifted the tray. 
 
 There were some hair-pins scattered at the bot- 
 tom. There was also a bundle of letters, tied to- 
 gether with ribbon, and directed in a handwriting 
 
172 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 that looked familiar. Collier stared at it Was he 
 making a mistake or what had been the purpose 
 of this correspondence? He turned white, and pulled 
 the letters out. 
 
 The dates they bore were of the last two years. 
 There was nothing criminal in them, despite their 
 lengthiness, but they were a man's confidential com- 
 munications to a woman of whom he is fond. They 
 spoke of the writer's "sympathy," of his regret that 
 he could do nothing to alleviate the dreariness of 
 her lot; there were frequent allusions to what "might 
 have been;" and they began, "Dearest Mrs. Collier," 
 and were signed, "Yours with affection, Horace 
 Orkney." 
 
 George stumbled out of the bedroom and returned 
 to the "workshop," where he sank into his chair, 
 with knitted brows, thinking. After a while he 
 picked up his pen again, but he did not continue the 
 tale. 
 
 "DEAR Sm ; " (he wrote) 
 
 "I restore you the enclosed letters, for which I 
 have no use. Henceforth I shall make my home in 
 the country with my daughter. I perceive that her 
 mother's untimely decease frustrated your hope of 
 marrying a widow whose attractions would have been 
 accentuated by the possession of nine thousand 
 pounds, and tender you my condolence. The bequest 
 in my will will stand, but, as you pointed out yourself 
 
WITH INTENT TO DEFRAUD 173 
 
 once, I may live, in the ordinary course of events, 
 for another forty years. Believe me I have every 
 intention of doing so if I can. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "GEORGE COLLIER." 
 
 And he did, and became a very successful man. 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 
 
 "WHEN Ethel Ebden persisted, in spite of her 
 father's arguments and her mother's prayers, it was 
 an instance of the ephemeral strength with which a 
 normally weak and timid nature is liable to startle 
 everybody. No girl more unlikely ever to defy her 
 parents, or to want to go to West Africa as the wife 
 of a missionary, could have beeen imagined, by all 
 accounts, up to the time she was twenty-two. Yet 
 at twenty-two and a half she did both things. She 
 left the house in Lancaster Gate, and her mare, and 
 her maid, and a mountain of millinery that she would 
 never have occasion to use, and sailed with the man 
 of her choice to convert the heathens in Abeokuta, 
 where she was the only white woman within fifty 
 miles, and was found, six weeks after their arrival, 
 lying on the floor in a dead faint, induced by the fact 
 that she had stroked the black body of a negro in 
 the dusk, under the impression that it was her hus- 
 band's dog. 
 
 "Eight months later her nervous terrors were 
 terminated by death. She was buried on the veldt, 
 and the widower read her funeral service. The 
 daughter to whom she had given birth was adopted 
 
 174 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 175 
 
 by her maternal grandparents, and brought up 
 among all the advantages that her mother had re- 
 nounced. The blood of the Society girl and the mis- 
 sionary is mingled in my own veins; the child born 
 in a hut, and educated in Hyde Park, was I. My 
 friend, I do not know whether you are a believer in 
 hereditary or prenatal influences, but I am too 
 strange a mixture to make any man happy as his 
 wife, and I shall marry no one be comforted in 
 the reflection. Remember your career and forget 
 me. You looked awful when I saw you in the Bois 
 to-day. GERALDINE." 
 
 I re-read her letter how many times! Yes, I 
 looked awful, and I felt worse, for I was passion- 
 ately in love with her none the less passionately 
 because I was only five and twenty, and she was a 
 few years my senior; and since she had rejected me, a 
 fortnight before, I had been in a fair way to drink 
 myself into delirium tremens. 
 
 Let me set down the manner of my first meeting 
 with her, for I fell under her spell at once. 
 
 I had gone to the Vaudeville, and she was in a 
 box the most beautiful woman in the house. She 
 bowed to the man who had accompanied me, and, of 
 course, I asked him who she was. 
 
 "Miss Azulay isn't she superb ! She is very rich, 
 and rather curious. Subscribes largely to religious 
 missions, and at the same time spends a fortune on 
 
176 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 dress ; gives one the idea of being indifferent to men, 
 and, for all that, seems bored alone. She has taken 
 a flat on the Boulevard Haussmann, and lives with 
 a "companion" the faded party beside her. Would 
 you care to be introduced?" 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ! I'll take you round in the entr'acte, if 
 you like." 
 
 She received me graciously, and the diffidence with 
 which I had entered was dispelled. A closer view 
 served to deepen my admiration. She was, perhaps, 
 thirty, and many of the things that have been written 
 of the woman of thirty recurred to me as we talked. 
 Though she was still single, I was certain that life 
 had held emotions for her. Experience had given 
 to the lovely face just that suggestion of mystery 
 for want of a better word which a young man 
 finds so fascinating in the opposite sex. For all her 
 serenity and she was mondaine from the flowers 
 in her hat to the hem of her frock here was one 
 who had suffered, I told myself; though the gaze of 
 the grand gray eyes was so indifferent, there was a 
 shadow in them, too. But I did not think she had 
 ever gone to anybody to be comforted in her grief; 
 the mouth was too firm and proud for that. If she 
 had cried, she had cried alone. 
 
 Very ridiculous, you say, these deductions, in the 
 first five minutes I conversed with her? It is quite 
 true ; but remember my age and then, studying Art 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 177 
 
 in Paris, I was inclined to be rather French in my 
 mental attitude. 
 
 A little landscape of mine had been accepted by 
 the Champ-de-Mars that season, and she had seen 
 it, and spoke to me about it. She was very nice to 
 me, very sympathetic. I found myself saying things 
 to her quite frankly, things that do not usually spring 
 to one's lips with a new acquaintance in a box at the 
 Vaudeville; and she seemed interested, and encour- 
 aged my communicativeness. When I rose at length, 
 she gave me permission to call on her. "If you will 
 come in one afternoon, when you are able to spare 
 the time, I shall be glad," she said. I returned to 
 my fauteuil in a seventh heaven of delight. My 
 friend's amused comments jarred on me, and I 
 scarcely knew what the third act was about. I was 
 in love already. 
 
 Well, it will easily be understood that I went to 
 the Boulevard Haussmann, and that I went again, 
 and again. I always found her just returned from 
 her drive, and, without even troubling to remove her 
 hat and gloves, she would sink into a chair, and talk 
 to me as informally as an elder sister. Sometimes, 
 too, she came to my studio. At others, I encountered 
 her in the Bois. Scarcely a day passed, at last, with- 
 out my seeing her somewhere. Paris no longer 
 meant Art to me, but Geraldine Azulay. I went to 
 bed to dream of her; I woke up thinking of her; 
 I regretted that I was not a portrait-painter, or a 
 
178 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 poet, that I might express something of my homage 
 in my work. 
 
 The development I have recorded. One after- 
 noon I confessed the truth; I told her I adored her. 
 She had never flirted with me, and there was no 
 trace of gratification in her manner as she heard. 
 She said she was sorry; and it was not a "phrase." 
 If ever a woman was sincere with a man from the 
 beginning to the end, Miss Azulay was sincere with 
 me! 
 
 I had expected nothing else, and yet anomalous 
 as it sounds the finality of her answer was a ter- 
 rible blow. I did what all boys do under similar cir- 
 cumstances, I dissipated; I neglected my profession, 
 and behaved in a way that I blush to recall. I knew 
 I looked ill, and I wanted Miss Azulay to know it, 
 too. I threw myself in her path for the express 
 purpose. 
 
 She had deserved better things of me, and I real- 
 ised it when that letter came. It was the letter of 
 a woman to one for whom she feels a genuine affec- 
 tion; it made me ashamed of myself. I re-read it, 
 as I have said, until I knew it by heart. Then it 
 seemed to me that, since she liked me so much, my 
 cause might not be hopeless after all. The idea was 
 youthful, but exciting. I resolved to appeal to her 
 a second time, and the same day I called on her 
 again. 
 
 She had, I learnt, just come in; nevertheless, she 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 179 
 
 did not keep me waiting. She entered the room 
 almost as I sat down. Her costume was new to 
 me, and I thought how admirably it became her. 
 She greeted me with a smile, and then stood before 
 the mirror, puttting up her white veil among the 
 roses and the ribbons of her hat, affecting not to 
 notice my agitation. 
 
 "Eh bien," she said, turning, "and is my friend 
 going to be sensible? Is that what he has come to 
 say?" 
 
 "Yes," I answered, "I have come to tell you I am 
 going to be sensible." 
 
 "Thank you ! I mean that. Now give me all your 
 news." 
 
 "But I must always love you, because I can't help 
 it. Only I won't make a fool of myself in the way 
 I have been doing." 
 
 "But, child, I don't want you to love me, either 
 ^not as you do, at least. I thought all that was 
 understood?" 
 
 "Geraldine, is there no chance for me? Not if 
 I am patient, if I wait, and make a name?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Oh, you are cruel! Why?" 
 
 "Because I am not in love with you, in the first 
 place. That's reason enough." 
 
 "In t i m e " 
 
 "In time I shall be forty, and lose my figure, and 
 there will be crow's-feet round my eyes. In time you 
 
l8o THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 may be famous, and sell a picture for two hundred 
 and fifty thousand francs. In time many things may 
 happen; but one never will I shall not marry you! 
 Have you seen Sarah in her new piece? Come, let 
 us forget this nonsense." 
 
 "I never shall forget." 
 
 "You make me angry with you," she said, sharply. 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 "Because I believe you mean it." 
 
 "Indeed I mean it!" I declared. 
 
 "If I weren't fond of you," she said, with a shrug, 
 "I should not care if you chose to be silly, you 
 might. But I am fond of you; interested in your 
 career. I hate yes, I do, I hate myself for having 
 made you think about me so stupidly. I wish I had 
 never been friends with you; I wanted to help you, 
 and do you lots of good, and instead I have done 
 nothing but harm." She put her delicate gloved 
 hand on my sleeve, with a change of tone that was 
 almost wistful: "Do be strong, there's a nice boy, 
 to to oblige me." 
 
 "I can't," I groaned. "Oh, I can't! You don't 
 know I can't tell you how I have been suffering; 
 my life is a hell. If you are so fond of me, why 
 don't you take pity on me? You could make me 
 happy easily enough. You pretend it makes you 
 wretched to see me miserable; you pretend " 
 
 "Hush!" she said. "Don't throw doubts on my 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY l8l 
 
 affection for you. It mayn't be what you want, but 
 it is very real!" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," I muttered. "I'll leave you. 
 You are very 'fond' of me, indeed what you call 
 'fond' ! My life is spoilt, and you are kind enough 
 to try to patch it up with pretty words. I wish I 
 were dead, and you say gently, 'how sorry I am !' It 
 is very generous of you, and I am very grateful. 
 Good-bye, Miss Azulay." 
 
 "Stop," she said. 
 
 She glanced at the clock, and trembled. Her face 
 had turned so white that she alarmed me. 
 
 "Come back at seven," she said, "and dine with 
 me. You shall know whether I am sincere or not. 
 Come back to dinner, and you shall talk to me 
 again." 
 
 I stood gazing at her, dumfounded. 
 
 "I am quite serious. Remember, at seven o'clock. 
 I will marry you, or cure you I promise you that. 
 Now go." 
 
 I descended to the street as one in a dream. She 
 would marry me or cure me, she had said. Stag- 
 gered as I was, I still understood that her intention 
 was to cure me. But how? What could she say 
 that would alter my desire? Nothing! I had her 
 promise, and I would hold her to it. I wandered 
 on, half dazed with joy. My pulses quivered with 
 suspense. 
 
 The impression of that interval is with me now. 
 
1 82 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 The sun had set, but dusk had not yet fallen, and 
 the golden domes and turrets of the Printemps rose 
 gorgeously into an opal sky. Paris stretched around 
 me clear and mauve the brightness faded, but the 
 light not gone, the trees deepening to purple, the 
 electric lamps shining vividly in the reflections of the 
 dying day. On the boulevards it was the hour of 
 vermouth and absinthe, and itinerant vendors of 
 views and toys stopped at the little tables every min- 
 ute to display their wares. A constant stream of 
 pedestrians flowed by the cafes; now and again a 
 woman cast a sidelong glance at one of the occu- 
 pants of the chairs. The guttural cry of "La Presse 
 La Presse!'' was everywhere. Artists and mendi- 
 cants, club-men and cocottes, poured past me inces- 
 santly. I saw without knowing that I saw, heeded 
 without being conscious of any attention. I had 
 reached the Cafe de la Paix, and sat there motion- 
 less, waiting for the high clock to my left to show me 
 it was time to dress. 
 
 I mounted to the flat as my watch pointed to 
 seven, and was obliged to ring twice. I was admit- 
 ted by Geraldine's maid an old woman whom I had 
 often wondered she retained. 
 
 "I am sorry you should have been kept waiting, 
 sir," she said; "I was with Miss Azulay, and the 
 other servants are all out." 
 
 "Oh!" I answered. "What has happened?" 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 183 
 
 "They are out by Miss Azulay's orders, sir. / 
 am to wait at table to-night." 
 
 It sounded rather odd, but I refrained from any 
 further question. I went into the drawing-room, and 
 was told that my hostess would be with me directly. 
 Apparently the "companion" was out also, for five 
 ten minutes passed while I was alone. 
 
 It was nearly a quarter of an hour before the door 
 was opened softly, and Miss Azulay came in. Her 
 entrance had been so quiet that I was unaware of 
 it till she spoke. Then I looked up, and saw her 
 standing on the threshold. As I write, the ghastli- 
 ness of the moment returns to me; I feel the shudder 
 in my veins again, just as I felt it while I looked! 
 She was in evening toilette; the satin trailed the floor, 
 and jewels glittered in her gown. Her arms and 
 bosom were bare, and I saw that she was I can- 
 not say it; I cannot put the word! From her neck 
 down! Oh, God help her! only her beautiful face 
 had escaped! I remained voiceless, frozen with hor- 
 ror. If I lived to be a thousand, I should never 
 forget the awfulness of that silence, as we stared at 
 each other with distended eyes across the room; I 
 should never forget the spectacle of the tortured face 
 lifted to me from a body from which her mind and 
 soul appeared to shrink. 
 
 It was she who spoke at last. 
 
 "I wrote you I was too strange a mixture to 
 
184 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 marry," she said, harshly. "Now you understand 
 me!" 
 
 I could not answer; my tongue would not move. 
 
 "Don't look at me for a moment," she continued; 
 "give me time to compose myself. I have done 
 for you what I have done for no one else in the 
 world!" 
 
 She turned her back on me, and I heard her sob. 
 
 "Geraldine !" I cried. 
 
 "Sh! I am all right again now. I don't mean 
 to break down don't fear. I am a strong woman ; 
 I have need to be ! Come, I am quite steady. There 
 is brandy there you had better take some." 
 
 "Speak to me," I stammered. "Tell me what it 
 means." 
 
 "I was born so," she said, "that's all. Don't you 
 remember my letter? My mother did not know; 
 she was spared the sight. / did not know, either, 
 till I was nearly ten; they kept it from me as long 
 as possible. I actually thought that all children were 
 the same. I recollect my agony of shame when I 
 found out! I loathed the sight of myself; I was 
 frightened at my own limbs, and used to fall into 
 fits of terror in the bed." 
 
 "You poor girl!" 
 
 "Don't pity me, or I shall cry. Ah, dinner is 
 ready let us go in." 
 
 The maid had announced it. We went into the 
 other room, and made a pretence of eating. Mer- 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 185 
 
 cifully, the meal was a short one, and we were soon 
 left at the table alone. 
 
 "I promised you I would cure you," said Miss 
 Azulay, "and you'll admit I've kept my word. No, 
 don't speak; I know all you would say! And please 
 don't think for an instant that I'm wounded, dear! 
 If you had wanted to marry me still, you would 
 have embarrassed me very much, to tell you the 
 truth, for I am not fond of you in that way a little 
 bit. But I am very, very,' very fond of you in an- 
 other way, and I felt I would rather humiliate myself 
 as I have than let you go on suffering, when I could 
 stop it so easily." She hesitated a second, and then 
 touched me gently with her black hand. "You'll 
 never tell anyone while I live?" 
 
 "Oh, by Heaven !" I exclaimed. 
 
 "That's enough; I'm sure you won't! No one 
 suspects, you know you didn't suspect yourself I 
 manage to prevent that! 'Poor Miss Azulay' 
 that's how you'll think of me in future, eh? 'Poor 
 Miss Azulay' !" 
 
 "Have you never never cared for anybody at 
 all?" 
 
 "Never. Thank Heaven, never! That used to 
 be my fear when I was a girl; I used to be afraid 
 I might! It isn't likely to happen now; the danger 
 is almost past. But if I ever did" her chin dropped 
 upon her palms, and she gazed through me into 
 
1 86 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 futurity "if I ever did, do you know what I have 
 always determined to do ?" 
 
 I watched her as she paused. 
 
 "I've determined to do what I have done with 
 you to-night; I should let him see what I am with 
 his own eyes. And if he wanted to marry me then 
 if he did, if he could ! I would be his wife. And 
 ... I would worship that man ! I would give him 
 
 such a love as no man has ever known ! I would 
 
 Oh," she broke off, "please God I shall never have 
 to make the trial 1 I pray I shan't, because . . . 
 because I know so well how he'd look I saw the 
 look on you and the ordeal would kill me. Only 
 ... if ever you should hear of Miss Azulay's mar- 
 rying, my friend, you will understand that there is 
 a wonderful creature in the world a man who fell 
 in love with a woman's mind, and not her body! 
 You will remember my determination, and know that 
 when I fulfilled it, a man was still capable of taking 
 me in his arms. Ah, that isn't a reproach I wish 
 I hadn't said it; go away from me! There, give 
 me your hand, if you will, and say 'good night' and 
 'good-bye.' It is late." 
 
 "You are leaving Paris?" 
 
 "To-morrow. For London." 
 
 "And when shall I see you again? I may see you 
 again?" 
 
 "Some day ! This evening will last you for a long 
 
THE BODY AND SOUL OF MISS AZULAY 1 87 
 
 while." She smiled sadly. "Now go go," she 
 repeated. "Adieu !" 
 
 I did not see her again, though shortly afterwards 
 I returned to London myself. The world is small, 
 but London is very large, and Miss Azulay and I 
 did not meet. Nearly five years passed before I 
 heard of her indeed, and when I did so, it was, 
 strangely enough, in New York, where I had been 
 obliged to go on business. I was glancing at a news^ 
 paper in Dorlon's, one night, and I dropped it, sick 
 and faint. The paragraph ran: 
 
 "SEQUEL TO AN ELOPEMENT. Miss Geraldine 
 Azulay an Englishwoman here concluded to con- 
 sole Colonel Arkas Doyle for his failure to obtain 
 a divorce. This is the lady it was whispered the 
 petitioner proposed to marry, if the law would free 
 him from the degraded virago who bears his name. 
 Now it appears that Miss Azulay was not disposed 
 to let her own and her lover's life be marred by the 
 law's refusal. She promised to live with the Colonel 
 as his wife, and it transpires that the pair left New 
 York City yesterday for the Falls' Hotel, Buffalo, 
 where they were taken by the hotel-clerk for the 
 conventional bride and bridegroom. At an early 
 hour this morning the lady committed suicide by poi- 
 son. She was discovered on a couch in the dressing- 
 room, quite dead, with an empty phial in her hand. 
 It can only be supposed that her sacrifice was no 
 
1 88 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 sooner made than she repented of it, and, distracted 
 by remorse, destroyed herself. Evidently the first 
 intention of the unhappy woman had been to fly 
 from the man for whose sake she had renounced 
 so much, for she had carefully attired herself in her 
 travelling-costume, and was wearing gloves." 
 
 But I knew better! 1 understood Miss Azulay 
 had loved at last, and that her courage had failed 
 her until it was too late. 
 
IN RERUM NATURA 
 
 "You have done me the honour, my good friend, 
 to ask me to be your wife. You reminded me that 
 I am still a young woman, and urged that my widow- 
 hood a solitary state without children has already 
 exceeded the longest limit that Society or sentiment 
 can require. I answered you, 'What you wish is 
 impossible.' I told you something else; I said, 'The 
 woman you revere is worthy neither of your love 
 nor your respect, for she is a coward!' In your 
 turn, you replied, 'It is impossible.' But it is true 1 
 And now that you are gone, and I am sitting here 
 alone, having broken my engagements for the eve- 
 ning, and seeking no other companions than the 
 pictures in the fire, something prompts me to explain 
 to you the words I used to bare my heart for your 
 examination (perhaps also for your pity), and to 
 show to you how constant, and yet contemptible, a 
 soul may be. 
 
 "On the table where I write, the servant has just 
 placed a pyramid of hyacinths. Somebody has sent 
 them to me, I do not know who; but the perfume 
 fills the room; and Balzac spoke truly when he said 
 that perfume reminds one more vividly than words. 
 
 189 
 
THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 The scent of the flowers is associated in my mind 
 with the delights of my youth: the spring when I 
 was a girl of seventeen, and wore muslin frocks, and 
 went out in the woods, needing no other cosmetique 
 than my blushes, to walk with my lover the hus- 
 band you ask me to forget. 
 
 "I am no longer alone save for the fire! The 
 past is with me as I inhale the odour of the hya- 
 cinths; and Lucien has come back, out of his grave, 
 to reproach me with his eyes where you told me of 
 your love this afternoon. 
 
 "Let me arrange my thoughts, and accuse myself 
 with proper method. 
 
 "I lived in a quiet corner of Brittany, with the 
 aunt who recently bequeathed me the fortune I pos- 
 sess. Our menage was of the simplest; for, though 
 my relative was a wealthy woman, her tastes made 
 small demand on her resources, and, so far from 
 seeking to outshine the community which formed our 
 world, she praised, and even imitated, its economies. 
 
 "In looking back, the life I led appears to me 
 most frightfully dull until one May. In that month 
 there descended upon us a young artist. He had 
 come to the place to sketch, and had brought a let- 
 ter of introduction to a neighbour of ours, which 
 oddly enough, as he told me afterwards he had 
 presented. 'For, as a rule,' said he, 'I never present 
 such things, they are a source of equal annoyance 
 to oneself and the person to whom one is recom- 
 
IN RERUM NATURA 19 1 
 
 mended. But one must accept them in gratitude for 
 the kindness by which the stupidity is prompted.' 
 
 "The neighbour to whom he had been introduced 
 was a valued friend of my aunt's, and at an 'evening' 
 shortly after his arrival an evening of syrup-and- 
 water and sugared cakes we met. 
 
 "I shall not detail the history of our acquaintance, 
 nor will I declare that, fondly as I loved him later, 
 I left the house that night with any more serious 
 feeling than the sensation of novel pleasure which 
 the admiration of a talented and handsome man 
 would naturally awaken in the breast of a girl reared 
 in such seclusion as I had been. Women, moreover, 
 fall in love that odious phrase far less frequently 
 at first sight than men. For in woman, love is 
 primarily intellectual, and is born of knowledge; 
 whereas in man, I think, it is born in the senses, and 
 reaches the mind last. No, I will not weary you 
 with the chronicle of our courtship; I will only say 
 that a sympathy spring into life between us so strong 
 that one afternoon the day before he was to return 
 to Paris he asked me to be his wife. 
 
 "We were standing before the easel, where he had 
 been painting in the wood adjacent to our home. 
 Nevertheless, the picture on the canvas was not a 
 landscape, but a portrait of the girl I used to be. 
 
 " 'It is finished,' he said, putting the brush aside, 
 'and I am going away.' And then he asked me was 
 I sorry. 
 
192 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "I cannot recall my answer. How is it that the 
 words of others live in the memory so long after 
 one's own have faded? I cannot recall my answer, 
 but I remember the next thing he said as if it hap- 
 pened yesterday. I remember how we walked back 
 together into the presence of my aunt. And I re- 
 member the sunshine touched her face and smile 
 through the window as she turned at our approach, 
 and watched us curiously, it almost seemed near- 
 ing her along the path. 
 
 "The scent of the hyacinths is very powerful ; the 
 room has grown oppressive. Wait, my friend, till I 
 have breathed some air. 
 
 "We were betrothed for five years. I have told 
 you that Lucien was young, and a painter; to add 
 that he was poor would be a pleonasm; and his pride 
 revolted at the notion of owing everything to my 
 aunt. It is the custom to condemn these long engage- 
 ments, but ours, I am certain, made fruition sweeter. 
 During the waiting we had learnt to know each 
 other so completely that when we wedded we made 
 no adventure we merely fulfilled our dreams; it 
 was not an experiment, our marriage, but a realisa- 
 tion. Never did a woman love more passionately 
 than I; never was a woman given more absolute 
 devotion in return. He told me everything his 
 hopes, his moods, every incident of his past. I read 
 his favourite books, that he might have no experi- 
 
IN RERUM NATURA 1 93 
 
 ences I did not share. Often he would reply to a 
 thought I had not spoken. You ask me my ideal 
 of perfect happiness? I answer, 'My life with 
 Lucien.' 
 
 "We had gone to Venice, and were working there. 
 I say we were working, and I must have explained 
 our union very poorly if the phrase seems bad to you. 
 I was his comrade, his critic, his inspiration! It 
 was when we had been in Venice six months that I 
 fell ill. That it was serious I did not at first suspect, 
 but it soon became apparent that I had contracted 
 typhoid fever. Lucien's anxiety was pitiful to see: 
 he beseeched the doctor for encouragement that he 
 could not give; he upbraided himself for bringing 
 me there ; he would sit beside me day and night, his 
 eyes haggard with despair. 
 
 "Of much that occurred at this time I am neces- 
 sarily ignorant; but one evening I came back out of 
 delirium to understand that I could not live. 
 
 "The room was in shadow; the one bright spot 
 a disc of light upon the ceiling, thrown upward by 
 the lamp. Presently I became aware that Lucien 
 was with me, and that he was crying. I do not know 
 if it was then that I understood I was dying, or if 
 I had heard it earlier in the day. But I recollect 
 that he took my hand and sobbed over it; and feebly 
 because my voice was weak and my wits still wan- 
 dered I strove to comfort him. 
 
 "The last vestige of his self-control deserted him 
 
194 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 at this, and his arm crept beneath my head and neck, 
 and he prayed that I might be spared to him; 
 pleaded to die himself if he must lose me. 
 
 "I remember dimly saying to him once, 'How 
 long?' meaning how long was it to be before the 
 end came; and next it was borne upon me that I 
 could only expect to live about an hour. 
 
 "Lucien's face was white and working; he must 
 have been distraught, or he would not have done 
 what he did. I had been given morphia through the 
 fever, and a phial of it stood upon the shelf. I heard 
 him murmuring that we would not separate ; that we 
 would go together into the unknown as we had lived 
 together in the world. I said to him everything 
 was confused to me I said to him, 'What is it you 
 say, Lucien? I cannot hear.' He answered, 'I am 
 going with you, Beloved; we will enter the new life 
 at the same time !' 
 
 "He came and cast himself beside me on the bed. 
 When he kissed me I could smell the morphia in his 
 breath. We rested beside each other on the same 
 pillow, and I lay in silence, watching the lamplight 
 quivering overhead. From time to time he pressed 
 me to him, and we kissed again. The patch of 
 light above me took queer, fantastic shapes. I felt 
 drowsy, and his voice, when he spoke, sounded far- 
 ther off. 'We are going together what will it be 
 like?' he said. I wanted to reply to him, but I was 
 very tired; and the light on the ceiling went out. 
 
IN RERUM NATURA 195 
 
 "When I came to myself I was in another room, 
 and I asked for him to be brought to me. They 
 said he had been obliged to leave the city, but that 
 he would return in a few days. They added that the 
 crisis of my illness had been miraculously passed just 
 when I was despaired of, and told me I was getting 
 well. 
 
 "I listened to them and remembered. 
 
 "Later in the day I was left alone, and I heard 
 strange noises in the house. I raised myself in bed, 
 and, through the window, I saw Lucien's coffin being 
 carried down the steps. It was my welcome back 
 to health! 
 
 "You may marvel that it did not kill me; / have 
 marvelled, too. But it did not; and you know now 
 why I shall never re-marry. In the irony of fate, 
 Lucien made the Great Journey before myself, and 
 I felt that ever since he has been waiting for me. I 
 like to think, also, that to him, whose standard of 
 comparison is the Eternal, the intervening years may 
 seem more paltry than they do to me. 
 
 "Why, if I find the delay so weary, have I not 
 done the thing that he did, and gone to him before? 
 Let me whisper: Because I have not the courage; 
 because / am afraid! Yes, I will be candid if it 
 shames me. It is no scruple of religion which keeps 
 me back; twice I have held the means in my hand 
 and I was afraid! 
 
 "There is something else, for my confession shall 
 
196 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 be complete. On such a day as this was, when the 
 air is mild, and the people in the streets look happy, 
 and the trees, as I take my drive, are fresh and 
 green, I sometimes feel that it is pleasanter to live. 
 The world wears its gayest frock to me, and I am 
 content. He died to die with me and I am 'con- 
 tent.' It is well said! 
 
 "The oppression of these hyacinths is stifling me 
 Goodnight!" 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 
 
 HE wished it had been issued at another price. He 
 wished it from the moment the specimen cover was 
 submitted to him for approval, with "One Shilling" 
 in aggressive capitals at the top; he wished it still 
 more when the familiar title began to greet him from 
 the railway bookstalls; and, most of all, he wished it 
 when his prophetic dread was realised by the first 
 reviewer, and a weekly journal appeared with half 
 a dozen commendatory lines on Walter Cunning- 
 hame's "Shilling Shocker." 
 
 If it had been eleven-pence, he contended, or even 
 one-and-a-penny, that hideous, mal-a-propos designa- 
 tion would have been impossible; but his publishers 
 had smiled the objection to scorn, and, innocent of 
 a "murder," a "mystery," or a "mesmeric attrac- 
 tion," Mr. Cunninghame had involuntarily perpe- 
 trated a shilling shocker, and must abide the conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Now, amongst the multifarious circumstances un- 
 der which it is unwise to yield to the particular form 
 of vanity that lures a man into endeavouring to make 
 his mark as a writer of novels in London, may be 
 
 197 
 
198 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 accounted the condition when necessity ordains that 
 his existence shall be devoted to totally different pur- 
 suits in the region of Bombay. Yet this is what the 
 author of "The Memoirs of Mona Leigh" had done 
 precisely. Six months ago nothing could have been 
 further from his thoughts ; six months ago he would 
 have told you he had given up "scribbling" with 
 his teens; that he was going back to England to 
 see his people and enjoy himself well, then, pri- 
 marily to enjoy himself, if you would be so accurate 
 adding, very probably, that twelve years in India 
 made a considerable alteration in the ideas of most 
 persons, and in his case had left him with no especial 
 illusions that he could contrive to recollect on any 
 subject under the sun. 
 
 Cynicism is popularly supposed to result from 
 one's experience of an overrated world; it might be 
 more justly attributed to disappointment at the unful- 
 filled ambitions of one's own youth ; and Walter Cun- 
 ninghame's philosophy failed him directly at the test 
 of old surroundings. In London he had dreamed 
 as a boy; in London he wrote again as a man; list- 
 lessly at first, impelled by a sudden whim, in his 
 rooms, one evening, with a pipe between his lips and 
 a pocket-book upon his knee ; and then fiercely, dog- 
 gedly, rising early and working late, while the pile 
 of manuscript waxed bulkier beside his desk, and 
 folk, commenting on his unsociability, oracularly ob- 
 served, "It was a pity Cunninghame had not married 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 199 
 
 out there, for he had come home every whit as eccen- 
 tric as when he left." 
 
 The form of composition to which he set himself 
 was the diary of a woman. He put into it his heart 
 and his brains. If Sir Joshua Reynolds' definition of 
 Genius had been complete, this novel should have 
 startled civilisation; as it was, it did nothing of the 
 kind. He received a cheque in remuneration suffi- 
 cient to keep him in cab-fares and cigars for the 
 remainder of his visit, and his acquaintances in- 
 formed him it was "very nice." "Very nice!" ex- 
 claimed his friends. "An agreeable little story to 
 pass away an idle hour!" declared the critics. "I 
 raced through it at a sitting," he was assured by 
 the most fervid of his admirers, "I was so anxious 
 to discover the end." And Mr. Cunninghame, bow- 
 ing his acknowledgments the while, thought bitterly, 
 "Let me get back to India and the counting-house, 
 for if this be all the effect my deliberation can pro- 
 duce, God help me, I shall never make an author!" 
 It is unfortunate for your chances of contentment 
 when you have expected the public to read your 
 novel as you write it. 
 
 After all, cm bono? He had been living within 
 his pages from the outset, waiting occasionally a 
 morning, a day, for the word which, of all others, 
 could he grasp it, would convey his intention most 
 exactly. Springing from the bed, he had sought, 
 exhausted, to correct some line that failed to give 
 
200 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 him satisfaction, to substitute an expression more 
 felicitous. He had been by turns tender and satiri- 
 cal; he had revised and repolished; he had done the 
 utmost of which he was capable, and he had learnt 
 the result was "very nice." Cm bono? he mused, 
 for the twentieth time this afternoon, where he lay 
 back in the compartment of the express that was 
 bearing him northward to Birkenhead; he had writ- 
 ten a "Shilling Shocker," and now he was going out 
 to India and commerce, once more; and all the 
 unhinted hopes that had sustained him were over, 
 ended like He paused in the midst of his medi- 
 tation for a simile, grimly watching the tiny wreath 
 of blue circling from his cigar point; "aptly enough, 
 like this, in smoke," he concluded, tossing the stump 
 through the window with an impatient gesture; it 
 had been one of the last box his achievement had 
 procured him. 
 
 Birkenhead is not calculated to exhilarate the unac- 
 customed visitor all at once. The roar of Liverpool 
 does not penetrate here; not a hum from the great 
 city on the opposite bank floats across the river to 
 disturb the all-pervading silence of the lesser town, 
 which has long since assumed an air of fixed depres- 
 sion, deprecating geography, as though abased by 
 the comparison it provokes. And when he had dis- 
 missed the notion of crossing by ferry as too much 
 bother, and purposely lingered over a very creditable 
 meal at the hotel where he engaged an apartment for 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 2OI 
 
 the night, Mr. Cunninghame was sorely puzzled 
 what to do with himself. 
 
 There was a theatre, he ascertained, which would 
 open some hours later for the performance of a met- 
 ropolitan success by a touring company, and there 
 was a park the latter Birkenhead's feature par ex- 
 cellence. Perhaps it was natural in a man whose 
 home for an indefinite period was likely to be Bom- 
 bay, that he should bend his steps in the direction 
 of the woodland, glad that his farewell glimpse of 
 England, albeit taken in an unfamiliar place, should 
 include a thoroughly English scene. 
 
 It was very pleasant under the trees beside the 
 water in the autumn sunshine; so pleasant, and withal 
 so quiet, that he decided he alone must have selected 
 the resort, as, after skirting the best part of two hun- 
 dred acres in a ramble, he sank abruptly upon a 
 bench, remembering he had encountered no living 
 creature but a dog. The spot in which he found him- 
 self was screened from the broader walk by a clump 
 of beeches; fronting him was a kind of hollow where 
 the stream resolved itself into an irregular basin 
 fringed by shrubs. He allowed his eyes to rest for 
 an instant on the view in perfect satisfaction; then 
 his gaze, wandering, took in a nearer object, and he 
 became sensible of a paper-covered novel lying at the 
 extremity of the seat. He was very fresh at Liter- 
 ature, and he said "By Jove !" It was his own 
 book. 
 
2O2 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 He picked it up, opening it haphazard at the sev- 
 enth page. There was a marginal note appended to 
 some sarcastic reflection upon friendship he had 
 deemed clever. He started slightly as he observed 
 it; the remark was, "Nasty sentiment!" 
 
 In bold, erect, feminine chirography, this philos- 
 ophaster's conceit was condemned as a "nasty senti- 
 ment," and he smiled. The censure gratified him; 
 he was flattered to perceive that by one person, at 
 least, his composition had been considered, and not 
 skimmed. On page thirty the pencil had been em- 
 ployed again: 
 
 "Are you a cynic or a fatalist, Mona Leigh? I 
 cannot say; I ask myself if I like you, and I answer 
 no, 'no,' a hundred times. Brilliant, unscrupulous, 
 I am alive to your abilities, but I would not shake 
 hands with you !" 
 
 Here was the analysis with a vengeance! Who 
 was this reader who declined to shake hands with 
 his heroine, and called her "unscrupulous"? Pres- 
 ently he discovered a retraction, a pretty apology: 
 a paragraph that had delighted him in the manu- 
 script was marked; everywhere his favourite sen- 
 tences had been annotated those sentences which he 
 had vainly hoped would attract attention of the 
 professional reviewers. At the end of his "Dream 
 Chapter" was written 
 
 "A dream at once repulsive and beautiful, because 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 203 
 
 so wholly typical of finite humanity and God's infinite 
 power!" 
 
 He let the volume drop upon his knees, and fell 
 to speculating on the personality of his commentator. 
 Then he raised it again, hesitated, and hurriedly 
 referred to the final sheet. It was only a line of 
 seven words that he was seeking, but it was his pet 
 passage, and it had escaped all notice by the "fervid 
 admirers"; it was doubly underscored 1 Beneath it 
 the reader had added 
 
 "Dear little story, I am sorry to finish you; you 
 have given me pleasure !" 
 
 Well, she dabbled in letters herself, and she was 
 young; it demanded no exceptional discernment to 
 guess that! It was evidenced by the exalted tone 
 of the rough jottings. He wondered merely who 
 she was, and how it happened she had forgotten 
 the book she had been at so much pains to show 
 belonged to her. Possibly she might still be close 
 by, he mused, and would be returning. As the notion 
 occurred to him he looked round, but a moment too 
 late; for even as he turned, her property retained 
 in his clasp he met her glance. 
 
 She had come across the grass, between the lich- 
 ened trunks that formed a background to her where 
 she paused; her brown hair, curly, not in curls, hung 
 untrammelled about her shoulders; she wore nun's 
 veiling, the palest of pale pinks, and a broad- 
 brimmed hat of straw trimmed with a spray of ivy. 
 
204 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 She might have been a dryad attired by a nineteenth- 
 century milliner; and she was unmistakably but sev- 
 enteen years old. 
 
 As he saw her he was conscious of three distinct 
 sensations. The order was manlike: the first, an 
 appreciation of her loveliness ; the second, a resentful 
 astonishment at her youth; and the last (because the 
 bulk of her comments had been panegyric), a pro- 
 found respect for her faculties of discrimination. 
 
 "This is yours, I suppose? I am afraid I have 
 been taking a liberty, but I believed it ownerless !" 
 
 Her manners were hopelessly behind the Bays- 
 water-Clapham-West-Central standard of British 
 young-ladydom (or else she had been educated above 
 it), for she said "Thank you" without having been 
 introduced. Worse, this audacious little person in 
 nun's veiling further exclaimed, "Oh, my gloves!" 
 and repeated the egregious impropriety of acknowl- 
 edging a stranger's civility when he found them. 
 
 They had fallen under the bench, and, groping 
 on the gravel, Mr. Cunninghame also cast about for 
 some method of detaining her. 
 
 "I hope you do not think I have been guilty of a 
 very awful offence," he questioned gravely; "the law 
 would tell me I should have explored for a police- 
 man." Presuming his object had been to make her 
 laugh, it failed. She replied 
 
 "Pray don't name it, I have been wandering 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 205 
 
 about as if the park were my private garden. Good 
 afternoon!" 
 
 "And my attentions to your book are sufficiently 
 explained?" 
 
 "There is no need for any explanation at all; it 
 would have been my own fault if my book had been 
 lost; good day." 
 
 He could see but one means open to attain his 
 end. 
 
 "Because," he said, suddenly, and he looked her 
 straight in the eyes as he spoke, "there is another 
 excuse I should like to offer I wrote it!" 
 
 He had startled her out of her composure now. 
 She clasped her hands with a little foreign gesture 
 of consternation. 
 
 "You wrote it?" she cried, piteously. The blood 
 flamed into her cheeks and brow, dyeing them crim- 
 son; there were both wonder and incredulity in her 
 voice. 
 
 "Permit me !" He felt in his note-case, producing 
 a card, on which was engraved, "Mr. Walter Cun- 
 ninghame, i, Victoria Mansions," and gave it to her 
 with a bow. "You see, I am no impostor," he con- 
 tinued, quietly; "I may really claim to be the creator 
 of the 'nasty sentiment.' ' 
 
 "You wrote it?" she reiterated; "you wrote it? 
 Oh, what must you think of me I" 
 
 "Don't you understand?" he said; "you have paid 
 the greatest compliment a reader can pay to a 'shil- 
 
206 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 ling shocker'; you have searched for more than a 
 sensation and a plot!" 
 
 The blush faded from her face, and she smiled. 
 He observed how very short her upper lip was, and 
 that the teeth below were particularly small and 
 regular. 
 
 "Then you are not angry?" she asked, timidly. 
 
 "Angry! You have made me very proud!" 
 
 "I dare say if I hadn't, you would not have told 
 me you were the author?" 
 
 "More than probable; I should have preserved as 
 rigid a silence on the subject of my literary flights as 
 you would have done about yours !" 
 
 "About mine! What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean you write yourself; 'not necessarily for 
 publication,' perhaps, because you are too young, but 
 you write for all that ! Novels I am not sure about 
 the novels for the same reason; short stories more 
 possibly; fragments likeliest of all, because they 
 come easiest to imaginative natures, and, being a 
 brunette, you have just ten times the amount of 
 individuality accorded to the ordinary English 
 'Mees,' with a putty character and hay-coloured 
 hair!" 
 
 "This is uncanny !" exclaimed the girl. 
 
 "Not at all," responded Mr. Cunninghame, "it is 
 interest!" 
 
 She drew herself up as if offended. Before he 
 had talked with her five minutes he perceived one 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 2Oy 
 
 of her greatest attractions lay in the endless variety 
 of her moods, which were reflected at once in her 
 expression, her features, her attitude itself. These 
 swift transitions reminded you of an April day, ex- 
 cepting that in each she seemed more irresistible than 
 in the last, and, conversing with her, you were always 
 desirous of the pleasurable surprise she would afford 
 you by the next. When she laughed, you doubted 
 that she could be capable of any deep emotion; when 
 she was serious, you marvelled if this was the coun- 
 tenance that had been so radiant an instant before. 
 He experienced the longing which, when it does enter 
 a man's mind, is a far higher tribute to the woman's 
 fascinations than the mere anxiety to extend their 
 acquaintance he wished he had known her a long 
 while already. 
 
 "Forgive me," he said, "I was rude !" 
 For a man to ask a girl to forgive him is to 
 advance a stride on the road towards familiarity. 
 There is so much difference between "Forgive me" 
 and "I beg your pardon." 
 
 "Do you know," he resumed, "your criticism has 
 almost encouraged me to make another attempt, to 
 fancy I could turn out something better. And yet 
 you are unfair in places, too. Why do you confound 
 the writer's views with his personages'? Given a 
 mondaine and an Ingenue, their sentiments would be 
 precisely opposite, wouldn't they? but he can't be 
 regarded as agreeing with both!" 
 
2O8 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "The truth of that is forgotten when the distinc- 
 tion between the men isn't observed as fully," she 
 retorted "the reader's carelessness, of course, but 
 all the same the author's fault. Why is a woman 
 almost always the central figure in a man's novel? 
 why is your hero so puny a creature in comparison? 
 For instance, you often take a wicked woman, and 
 write a work describing her vicissitudes; do you 
 ever do so much about the adventures of a bad 
 man?" 
 
 "Because, even in their failings, women are the 
 more interesting; because masculine character is 
 much less diverse. I know a dozen girls who would 
 make engaging heroines in fiction; I have never met 
 one man who, put in, as he stands, for the hero, 
 would not be disgusting before the end of the second 
 volume !" 
 
 "You are hard on your own sex, Mr. Cunning- 
 hame!" 
 
 "My own sex," said Mr. Cunninghame, medita- 
 tively, "after due contemplation, I have discovered 
 to be beasts. That sounds conceited, doesn't it, but 
 do me the justice to remember I am not excepting 
 myself in any degree. We are all beasts; some of 
 us drop our disguise more frequently than others 
 that's all." 
 
 And he felt himself "a beast," as he said it, for 
 encouraging her to remain here with him now, when 
 he knew he should object to his sister doing a similar 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 209 
 
 thing. Only it was extremely agreeable, and he did 
 not mean any harm. 
 
 "I wonder if you recollect," he said, "an announce- 
 ment the author of 'Court Royal' makes in his pref- 
 ace but perhaps you don't read prefaces?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "I do; after the story, when 
 the writer's allusions to it are doubly significant." 
 
 "The passage I mean is terse: 'There are two 
 heroines, each the focussing of the good qualities 
 of the two groups, and two heroes, each the con- 
 centration of the infirmities of the same.' That is 
 all; he volunteers no explanation of this adjustment 
 of attributes, no reason why the exemplification of 
 excellence and imperfection should not be reversed. 
 The course, in a word, is so absolutely natural, he 
 trusts to the readers' intelligence to accept it without 
 discussion, and this in a preface in which he is avow- 
 edly not crediting them with overmuch. Don't go 
 yet; sit down!" 
 
 "I ought to go," she said. 
 
 "Please don't," he persisted; "you have plenty of 
 time !" 
 
 "And you want to kill yours?" 
 
 "Well, perhaps; though, without compliments, I 
 should beg you to stay anyhow !" 
 
 "Poor, maligned Time !" she exclaimed, "what 
 plots we weave for its destruction, and how fond we 
 are of it all the while 1" 
 
2 id THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "Are we?" he demurred, laughingly. "I'm not so 
 sure of it!" 
 
 "We are, and I'll give you an illustration: you 
 have a predilection for Literature, you want to excel 
 in it granted so far? Well, putting down a great 
 work that has delighted you, do you ever feel, 'I 
 would give ten years of my life to have written that 
 book ! Could I make that production mine, I would 
 gladly be ten years older to-day' ? Not you, not one 
 person in a million ! And what does it prove ? Log- 
 ically, that the love of Time, we are always pretend- 
 ing we want to kill, is one of the strongest passions 
 in human nature !" 
 
 He shook his head. "In your case the capital is 
 so large, you could afford to be prodigal in your 
 investments," he said; "if, at twenty, ten years could 
 purchase fame, we should all be famous. You argue 
 from the standpoint of youth." 
 
 "Which is a polite way of telling me I am talking 
 nonsense ! It always means that, or at least one 
 always fancies so, as inevitably as when people begin 
 'With all due respect' we understand it merely a 
 prologue to something in the very opposite direc- 
 tion. I assure you I am by no means indignant when 
 I am called young, even in the most opprobrious 
 sense of the term; I always think it such a pity that, 
 when it is with us, youth should be a thing we are 
 ashamed of and endeavour to conceal, only to envy 
 and imitate it as soon as it is lost. It seems so dread- 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 211 
 
 ful it should not be capable of exciting anything but 
 our weaknesses." 
 
 "It is like a bird," he said; "it flies so swiftly 
 that we don't note the brilliance of its plumage till 
 it's dead." He felt this was rather good on the 
 spur of the moment, and tried to look as if he didn't. 
 "If I were an editor, I should ask you to let me see 
 some of your manuscripts." 
 
 "You would be so disappointed," she rejoined, 
 frankly; "they are quite silly to everybody but my 
 mother; she knows me, and she reads between the 
 lines, or perhaps I should say she makes allowances. 
 The ones I like least are best those I intend for 
 recitation." 
 
 "You recite?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I am an actress; I am on tour now with 
 the company that is playing at the 'Royal' this week, 
 but when I am in town I often attend 'at homes,' 
 and then original compositions are useful one can 
 be sure they haven't been heard before. I don't 
 pose as the authoress, though," she added, brightly; 
 "as it is, they sometimes get well 'noticed'; if I 
 acknowledged them as my own, the people would 
 cry, 'How dare she, that child!' ' 
 
 He turned to her with a new astonishment; the 
 stage was the last vocation with which he would have 
 associated her, and a fresh phase of her character 
 seemed unfolding itself with her every sentence. 
 
 "And do you write when you are 'on tour' ?" 
 
212 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 "I really don't write much anywhere; I don't be- 
 lieve anybody should try to follow two professions, 
 or she will get on in neither !" 
 
 "A proverb asserts two strings to one's bow are 
 advisable," suggested Mr. Cunninghame. 
 
 "And another one says something quite to the 
 contrary about stools. Never substantiate an argu- 
 ment with a proverb, you can be worsted with your 
 own weapons so easily. No, the pursuits most prac- 
 ticable for a beginner to couple, I should imagine, 
 are Literature and the Bar, and then I have heard 
 there is a prejudice against 'writing barristers' ; but, 
 at least after he is 'called,' Briefless has nothing to 
 do but go to his chambers every morning, and wait 
 till the solicitors send. With us it is different: we 
 have to do our own soliciting, and hunt up engage- 
 ments for ourselves. It is difficult to 'woo the Muse' 
 to advantage indoors when you are conscious you 
 ought to be out and worrying the managers instead, 
 to win bread-and-butter!" 
 
 "Yes," he assented, "but both your callings are 
 anyhow congenial, I presume ; both paths attract you, 
 though you may waver at the cross-roads! With 
 
 me " Confidences were springing to his lips ; he 
 
 checked the impulse, and traced designs among the 
 pebbles with his cane. 
 
 "With you ?" she said. 
 
 He looked up, met her gaze, and continued: 
 "With me it is different! My mission in life is to 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 213 
 
 conduct a business in India, a business that devolved 
 upon me at my father's death; there is no shirking it, 
 the responsibilities are too grave. This production 
 of mine was a 'holiday task,' done during my first 
 trip to England since I went out to Bombay twelve 
 years ago. Now the holiday is over, the boat sails 
 to-morrow; it may be twice twelve years before I 
 see home again !" 
 
 "I am sorry," she said, gently; "I think I under- 
 stand!" 
 
 "I put so much of what I felt into these pages, 
 in parts they are really a reflection of myself. As 
 a boy, I hated all mention of the house I wanted 
 to be a writer, a painter, anything approaching Art; 
 I had all sorts of impossible yearnings the atmos- 
 phere of cent, per cent, seemed death to me. It was 
 all no use, of course; my destiny was mapped out 
 for me from my cradle, and my ambitions were ridic- 
 ulous in my family everything is 'ridiculous' that 
 is not allied to trade" he was talking rapidly, as 
 men do talk when ashamed of their own earnestness. 
 "I do not know why I am telling you this, I am sure 
 it cannot interest you ; but you remind me of myself 
 as I used to be, excepting that you are cleverer. If 
 I had a sister like you, if I had met a friend like 
 you out there, I might have done something in the 
 world after all!" 
 
 4 'Age is opportunity no less than youth itself,' ' 
 
214' THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 quoted the girl; then she added, hastily, "Pardon 
 me. I did not mean that you were old!" 
 
 "No, I am not old," he returned, "not old as years 
 are counted, but I have outlived the belief in my 
 own capabilities. When I wrote my my 'Shilling 
 Shocker' it revived for a while; I almost hoped 
 why should I not admit it? I did hope that my pro- 
 bation was going to bear fruit after all! Often the 
 occupation became a confidant rather than a labour, 
 and I was fool enough to imagine the thoughts I 
 had grown resigned to keeping to myself, because 
 I had no one who cared to listen to them in con- 
 versation, might be deemed worthy of perusal in 
 black-and-white. A stupid blunder, was it not, to 
 fancy I could interest the public where I bored my 
 friends ? But I was speedily undeceived ; the thoughts 
 were not considered; what reader looks for them 
 between the covers of a 'Shilling Shocker'? he 
 wants the story. Until to-day, no one, even in my 
 own circle, has appeared to be aware that they exist; 
 nobody but you has so much as credited them with 
 being anything more than 'padding' necessary intro- 
 ductions put in to fill out the plot; and yet an hour 
 ago we had never seen each other, and if I had fol- 
 lowed my intention of spending the afternoon in 
 Liverpool we never should have seen each other, 
 in all probability, to our lives' end!" 
 
 "You will persevere," she declared; "you will per- 
 severe, though you may not think so now. From 
 
A MERE INCIDENT 215 
 
 India you will submit another manuscript, and an- 
 other, and another, and presently you will command 
 a wider audience. Who knows, when you come home 
 next time you may be a great author!" 
 
 "And find you a celebrated actress!" he rejoined, 
 with a smile. "I wonder if I shall ever go to the 
 theatre in London one evening and recognise my 
 companion of this afternoon? I wonder if you 
 would remember me if I came behind the scenes?" 
 
 "I am going to watch the newspaper columns for 
 the advertisement of that new book of yours, in the 
 meanwhile," she retorted, gaily; "and now I must 
 go, or I shall be late!" 
 
 "It seems a mistake, somehow, that we have only 
 met to say 'good-bye,' " he murmured; "but when I 
 come to the theatre " 
 
 "You will be famous !" laughed the girl. 
 
 "I shall be old, and very likely bald," said the 
 man, sadly, "but I shall come, and I will throw you 
 a bouquet! Will you do me P, favour? I have not 
 known you very long to ask one, but I should like 
 to keep this copy you have marked, and take it out 
 to India with me, and turn to your notes now and 
 then to remind me of your encouragement; will you 
 let me?" 
 
 "Good-bye," she said. 
 
 "Will you let me?" he repeated. 
 
 "You would make fun of them one day," she 
 
2l6 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 objected; "you would be surprised you were not 
 offended, and marvel at 'that girl's audacity.' ' 
 
 "I never will make fun of them," he answered, 
 gravely, "and I shall never marvel at 'that girl's 
 audacity.' Give me this book, and help me to get 
 on!" 
 
 "I give it to you," she said; "take it, and fulfil 
 the old hopes you have told me about." 
 
 She extended her hand, and he held it an instant 
 in his. The sunshine had faded while they talked, 
 and now the pool that had danced so merrily slept 
 in shadow. As he stood looking after her, the nun's 
 veiling made a little stain of colour on the grayness, 
 growing fainter, like the light, with her every on- 
 ward step. The scene was no longer beautiful, it 
 was desolate and bare. Vaguer and more indistinct 
 grew the outline of the receding figure; the pink, 
 merging into amber, was lost amidst the darkness 
 of the trees, and, as a bend in the path hid the last 
 flutter from his sight, Mr. Cunninghame sighed; he 
 sighed because he could hardly have answered why 
 he sighed himself. 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 
 
 THEY were rehearsing at the Empress's Theatre. 
 
 The fog that for the past two hours had been 
 steadily enveloping the London streets had at length 
 found its way inside; and the empty auditorium 
 its brown-holland swathings flapping above velvet 
 and gilding with every current of invading air 
 yawned cynically upon the efforts of the players, who, 
 from time to time, congregated in the wings by 
 knots of twos and threes to mutter anathemas on 
 the weather. 
 
 In the O.P. entrance a little group of chorus-girls, 
 in dripping waterproofs and muddy boots, stood 
 listening apathetically to what they termed the 
 "cackle" of their more favoured sisters with lines, 
 and sullenly inquiring among themselves "why the 
 dickens they were called so early?" 
 
 "He always does it, and we shan't be wanted for 
 an hour yet," remarked Lydia Vavasour, viciously, 
 referring to the stage-manager, with her mouth full 
 of ham-and-beef sandwich. "Beast I I shan't come 
 till twelve to-morrow, see if I do!" Discontent was 
 apparent in the countenances of all. Beneath the 
 general depression, the best parts no longer held out 
 
 217 
 
2I& THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 promise of a "hit;" even to the author, the dialogue 
 had lost its sparkle, and seemed flat. 
 
 "Chorus to-morrow at eleven, please ! You won't 
 be required to-day!" 
 
 At this intimation they flocked, giggling and grum- 
 bling, through the narrow doorway into the passage 
 beyond, honouring with several backward stares upon 
 the step a man who, with gloved wrists protruding 
 from the pockets of his overcoat, was lounging by 
 the fire just inside the hall-keeper's recess. One of 
 their number, a fair, pretty girl, simply dressed, 
 detached herself from the rest, and at sight of her 
 he came forward, and they shook hands. That was 
 all ; there was nothing demonstrative about the greet- 
 ing; it was as cool and collected a "how d'ye do" as 
 could well be conceived; yet these two people were 
 very absurdly in love with each other indeed, and 
 every one of the crowd of chattering young women 
 was perfectly aware of the fact, as the couple, amidst 
 sundry nods and nudges from the lookers-on, pro- 
 ceeded to the hansom in waiting at the bottom of 
 the court. 
 
 "Cissy!" 
 
 "Dick!" 
 
 It was raining hard. The lamps splashed the 
 sloppy pavements with stains of yellow light; in the 
 gutters, the water and the mud flowed fatly. Rat- 
 tling slowly through almost deserted thoroughfares, 
 the cab at length drew up with a jerk before an office 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 2 19 
 
 of melancholy exterior, and the lady and gentleman 
 descended. The driver had discussed a short clay 
 pipe, and imbibed "a drop of summat hot," procured 
 by an accommodating loiterer from the adjacent 
 "pub." before they emerged, and took their seats 
 inside the vehicle again. Around them the shabby 
 plush cushions exuded an indescribable odour of 
 mustiness and damp; the window came down in their 
 faces with a clatter and a bang; and behind the glass, 
 blurred with the moisture that trickled monotonously 
 into the frame, the lips of the male and female fare 
 met silently in a long kiss of promise and content. 
 
 While Jehu had been fortifying himself against 
 the elements with rum and shag, two more fools had 
 blundered, and they who alighted from the hansom 
 Mr. Robert Ashford and Miss Cissy Kent, had re- 
 turned to it as man and wife. 
 
 When it leaked out that Mr. Ashford had mar- 
 ried a chorus-girl, folks received the intelligence with 
 the indifference begotten of contempt. Very many 
 seasons ago he had vanished from "Society," and 
 his mesalliance was merely regarded as the last step 
 in a downward career. In the parlance of clubdom, 
 "Dick Ashford had been going to the bad for years," 
 though, to do him justice, murmured clubdom over 
 its cigarettes, he must have drunk away his brains 
 to a considerable extent before he committed a blun- 
 der as irremediable as this. 
 
22O THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Behind the scenes, however, they had another 
 version. They said that Cissy Kent was as honest a 
 little body as ever breathed, "straight as a die," 
 and possessed of the merit even rarer than histrionic 
 ability among her class, the ambition to get on. 
 They added that she had thrown herself away on 
 a man with nothing to recommend him but the cut 
 of his clothes, and it would not be long before she 
 found it out. 
 
 These criticisms notwithstanding, which tallied 
 only on the point of pronouncing the match a mis- 
 take, the behaviour of the parties principally con- 
 cerned at present evinced no signs of regret for the 
 departure taken on that memorable November morn- 
 ing when they had commenced their honeymoon in 
 a pair of cosily furnished apartments in Great Rus- 
 sell Street. Mr. Ashford, indeed, with a "monkey" 
 to his credit, had proposed a preliminary month in 
 Monte Carlo, but the bride immediately crushed this 
 suggestion as too preposterously extravagant to be 
 considered; and when they came in out of the fog, 
 and went to the "home" they had engaged, it seemed 
 to her, lying back in the chintz-covered armchair, 
 with her hand in his, and her slippered feet extended 
 luxuriously towards the welcome fire, that she could 
 not love the man too much who had given her this 
 delicious sense of security and ease in exchange for 
 the slip-shod poverty of a "combined room" at the 
 wrong end of Waterloo Bridge. 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 221 
 
 In the first flush of matrimonial tenderness, Dick 
 Ashford found the evenings with his wife at the 
 theatre insufferably dull, and before the expiration 
 of a fortnight had urged her strongly to resign her 
 post. "What did they want," he asked, philosophis- 
 ing, on the hearth-rug across a brandy-and-soda, 
 "with a guinea a week from this when they had close 
 upon four hundred pounds lying at the bank? No, 
 no, that was just where women made the mistake ! 
 Trust to him, when a fellow was well-dressed, and 
 could stand drinks enough, he was generally able to 
 hear of a good thing in time, and meanwhile the 
 clever course was to appear as substantially off as 
 they possibly could !" 
 
 So the name of "Cissy Kent" disappeared from 
 the foot of the Empress's programmes, and Mrs.. 
 Robert Ashford had her stall at the West End houses 
 instead, both agreeing that the luckiest day each 
 had known was the day they had married, and, next 
 to that, the one on which they met. To the man, 
 the unfamiliar respectability was refreshing, and the 
 dash of Bohemianism when he took his wife to a 
 cafe a little questionable, for supper, imparted just 
 that flavour to the decorum essential for a palate 
 somewhat too jaded to appreciate les convenances 
 in their entirety. To the girl, the indolence of wit- 
 nessing "a show from the front," the very act of 
 folding her delicately gloved hands, and waiting to 
 be amused, the tiny opera-glass levelled at the stage 
 
222; THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 from that unaccustomed position across the dear old 
 "floats," were all fraught with the fascination of 
 freshness, and as intoxicating as they were new. 
 Thus, both husband and wife were satisfied, and 
 neither being addicted to the analysis o*f sensation 
 for a considerable period each was in ignorance that 
 their contentment sprung from novelty alone. 
 
 It was only for a period. By-and-by Mr. Ash- 
 ford's thoughts turned towards the evenings of his 
 bachelordom, the more varied distractions, the wider 
 range of companionship, he had abandoned; and 
 Mrs. Ashford, amongst the audience, silently pic- 
 tured the players after their exits, and followed them 
 mentally to the dressing-rooms, and listened again 
 in fancy to all the "extras' " tales of hope and disap- 
 pointment in the darling regions "behind" that were 
 now impassable. 
 
 Each had begun to yearn for the life which had 
 been relinquished, and the man returned to it first. 
 Two-thirds of their money had melted, and the 
 "good thing" of which he had discoursed so learn- 
 edly six months since, after assuming various vision- 
 ary forms, now a partnership in a proprietary club, 
 anon an interest in a projected company, was no 
 nearer attainment than before. It was in search of 
 it, he explained, that he had taken to quitting the 
 house in dress-clothes alone about nine p.m., and 
 letting himself in with the latch-key slightly unsteady 
 in his gait, and decidedly husky in his tones. The 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 223 
 
 "good things" appealing to Mr. Ashford's type are 
 not met with in the city. 
 
 The landlady now referred to the solitary lodger 
 upstairs as "a neglected wife," and daylight of late 
 had often discovered her alone on the bed where she 
 had cried herself to sleep. 
 
 At last she went back to the stage. Her voice was 
 no fortune, but it sufficed for the chorus in comic 
 opera, and she was offered an "understudy" of a 
 few lines in the preceding farce. Dick accorded his 
 permission, very red about the eyes after an absence 
 of eight-and-forty hours, and the girl almost forgot 
 her unhappiness. An "understudy!" It was a step 
 in the direction she had always planned; it was the 
 bottom rung of the ladder which, to her heated 
 imagination, bore the dazzling inscription of "Act- 
 ress" on its height. 
 
 Excepting that, being now April, no exterior influ- 
 ence was at work to add to the dreariness of its 
 aspect, the Empress's presented much the same ap- 
 pearance when Mrs. Ashford walked across its 
 boards again as it had borne on the morning that 
 Cissy Kent had hurried from rehearsal to get mar- 
 ried. Knots of women were congregated here and 
 there, expatiating upon the number of their 
 "changes," and the drawbacks and attractions which 
 each attire possessed. Half a dozen who only wore 
 four costumes apiece were bent upon convincing the 
 majority, who were allotted five, that so far from 
 
224' THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 feeling sorry for the deprivation, they esteemed it 
 "a jolly good job." 
 
 "We couldn't change from the pages' things quick 
 enough to come on in the last scene, so we aren't 
 in it !" they cried with tumultuous explanation. "We 
 shall be dressed, and half home, before you are 'off.' 
 How's that for high?" 
 
 It was the old existence wedded to new cares and 
 anxieties, for it became an accepted thing that her 
 salary was to defray, as completely as possible, the 
 weekly bill, and when she hesitatingly petitioned for 
 the requisite assistance from his purse, Dick, with 
 suddenly developed theories on the subject of expen- 
 diture, responded anent the madness of "eating up 
 their capital." Once, waylaid as he was leaving the 
 house in elaborate toilette, earlier than was his wont, 
 he said more; he said "he was damned if he had 
 known his marriage would cost such a lot!" And 
 the girl, bitterly conscious of his extravagance, and 
 at her wits' end herself, with a superfluity of winter 
 gowns, how to save sufficient shillings to run up a 
 few yards of print for the spring, retorted with a 
 passionate rebuke, and then ensued their first quar- 
 rel. He was out when she got back from the theatre, 
 but next afternoon she suggested timidly that Mrs. 
 Barker had two rooms vacant on the third floor; 
 they would be much cheaper than her own, and 
 didn't Dick think they would do quite nicely? 
 
 About a month subsequent to this alteration in 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 225 
 
 their domestic arrangements, the stage-manager 
 beckoned to the astounded little aspirant, at the fall 
 of the curtain, and informed her that, as the lady 
 whom she understudied would be leaving, he had 
 decided to entrust her with the part. 
 
 She hardly knew how she expressed her gratitude, 
 for her head was in a whirl. Half a dozen lines 
 with a sentence sure to get a laugh, if properly deliv- 
 ered! The intelligence seemed too glorious to be 
 real. 
 
 When she reached the dressing-room, in company 
 with the others, all babbling of her good luck, she 
 was astonished to find Miss Vavasour, one of six 
 pages, still before the glass retarded, it transpired, 
 by the carelessness of the laundress, of whose stu- 
 pidity she was launching into furious denunciation. 
 
 Apprised, in a trio, of the improvement in her 
 companion's prospects, she was pleased to offer her 
 congratulations, with the sarcastic comment that 
 some people were artful enough to get around the 
 right people, and their advancement suffered not 
 from any unfortunate ignorance of which side of a 
 slice of bread the butter was laid. This observation, 
 however, might have led to nothing further, for 
 Cissy was in no mood to take offence, if it had not 
 been for a trifling occurrence which was destined to 
 add fuel to the flames. 
 
 Dressing with trembling celerity, she was ready 
 to say "Good night," while Miss Vavasour's counte- 
 
226! THIS STAGE OF, FOOLS 
 
 nance was yet an unpleasant spectacle of vaseline and 
 "make-up." It was the last straw, and drew a shaft 
 of truly feminine malice 
 
 "Make haste, my dear ; your husband '11 be waiting 
 supper for you!" 
 
 The girl turned with flashing eyes 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "Oh, you know ! He'll be sitting on the doorstep, 
 singing 'Home, sweet home,' and watching till you 
 come back!" 
 
 The shriek that followed this witticism echoed in 
 the ears of the unhappy wife all the way downstairs, 
 and when, on issuing into the street, she actually 
 ran into Dick's arms, the revulsion of feeling was 
 so great that she barely noticed that his manner 
 was constrained, or heard his mumbled ejaculation 
 to the effect that he had not expected her to be out 
 so soon. 
 
 A fortnight afterwards the stage-manager patted 
 her approvingly on the arm, and told her she had 
 acquitted herself well; he intimated, moreover, that 
 next Friday night her envelope would contain a 
 trifling increase, in consideration of her extra work. 
 
 That Friday night was a very important one in 
 Cissy's calendar, for the following morning would 
 be the anniversary of Dick's birthday, and by dint 
 of excessive economy, and banishing from her mind 
 the allurements of yards of print, she reckoned to 
 be able to buy him a present. Having not so much 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 227 
 
 as sixpence in the world till treasury time came round, 
 she was forced to postpone her purchase until the 
 conclusion of the performance, and then the lateness 
 of the hour somewhat limited her selection. Few 
 of the shops were open save the tobacconists', and 
 the gift, of necessity, resolved itself into a cigarette- 
 case. She was threading her way among the throng 
 in the Strand, picturing his surprise, the precious 
 packet clasped tightly in her hand, when a block in 
 the pedestrians caused her suddenly to pause, and 
 before she was free to resume her course, a hansom 
 had pulled up almost at her feet, and its occupants 
 got out. They were a man and woman, the former 
 laughing at some remark of his associate's as they 
 brushed past her to the entrance of the restaurant 
 by which she stood. It was the laugh attracted her 
 attention, and then, across the shoulder of the burly 
 constable in front of her, she saw Lydia Vavasour 
 and Dick. 
 
 Sick and faint, she groped her way towards home. 
 The whole universe seemed topsy-turvy under this 
 last indignity. 'She saw squalid virtue huddled, starv- 
 ing and unheeded, in the mouths of the filthy alleys 
 to which it had been crowded off the pavement by 
 successful vice. She saw a woman with yellow hair 
 and diamonds spit in the face of a ragged flower-girl, 
 who was imploring her to spare a penny. She re- 
 flected that both these human beings were of an 
 age, born, in all probability, in the same station; 
 
228: THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 had opened their eyes in life upon similar surround- 
 ings, and she recognised it was the honest one that 
 was destitute, while her sister in satin drove away 
 swearing, to the admiration of a sycophantic mob, 
 who yelled, shrilly mirthful, as the outcast fell back 
 from the horse's feet, wiping the other's offering off 
 her cheek. 
 
 At noon next day passionate words broke the 
 silence of the Great Russell Street lodging. Mrs. 
 Ashford told her husband she had endured his treat- 
 ment long enough; she said if he had no affection, 
 he might have at least shown decency; she cried that 
 his own self-respect would have prevented a gentle- 
 man making his wife the laughing-stock of the thea- 
 tre where she worked to earn their living ! 
 
 "Go your way, and I go mine!" she exclaimed; 
 and the man, stung to the quick, retorted that she 
 might go where she chose, and as speedily. 
 
 The present was stamped on the floor, and then 
 wrath gave way to resolution. 
 
 "It is best for both ! I suppose we were not fitted 
 for each other, but my love is dead, crushed like that 
 silly thing there on the ground; you have killed it, 
 Dick, and you will never see me any more. I've 
 no husband, and no home; I leave you as you took 
 me, penniless, but I have got my profession and my 
 hopes, and I'm Cissy Kent again !" 
 
 A little theatrical, perhaps, but she had been cra- 
 dled in the theatre. 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 22Q 
 
 Before the lamps were lighted, the assistant at 
 the little fancy-stationer's across the road had twice 
 observed Mrs. Barker's maidservant running out for 
 a four-wheeler, once at three, and next at five o'clock. 
 Both departed from No. with luggage, and the 
 first carried away a lady, the second a gentleman. 
 Then a card was put in the window which announced 
 apartments to let. 
 
 Ten years passed before the man stood in London 
 again, and he had changed in the interval. 
 
 "Ashford!" 
 
 He paused, scarcely determining in his degrada- 
 tion whether recognition should be a matter for 
 congratulation or despair. 
 
 He winced as he witnessed the amazement his 
 appearance provoked, the backward step which fol- 
 lowed the inspection of the clothes that he knew 
 were shocking, and the eyes that would look haggard 
 in spite of his will. 
 
 "You find me seedy, old fellow!" The quiver of 
 his lips belied the miserable attempt at ease. "Very 
 seedy," he repeated tremulously; "in fact I'm broke." 
 
 When this man before him was a boy, they had 
 been companions, and Ashford had "shown him 
 life," spending, to give him his due, considerably 
 more in the process than his youthful disciple. There 
 was perhaps a remembrance of this in his mind as 
 he inquired, "And what are you doing?" settling 
 
230 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 his napless hat with a momentary return to his for- 
 mer jauntiness of demeanour, and eyeing the partner 
 of his old extravagance wistfully. 
 
 "I? Oh, I'm running a show a theatre, don't 
 you know; but I must be moving; I've an appoint- 
 ment, or I'd say come and have a bit of lunch. So 
 ta-ta." 
 
 "One moment, Lindsay. Hang it, it's not pleasant 
 to admit, but, by the Lord, I've only twopence I can 
 put my hands on. Can you can't you shove me 
 into something now? you might surely do that." 
 
 "Can you act?" said Mr. Lindsay, facetiously. 
 
 "Act!" echoed Dick; "of course I can't act, you 
 know that!" 
 
 "Then I don't see what / can do, 'pon my honour ! 
 I'm deuced pressed for ready money myself this 
 month. Tell you what: if you're really stoney, and 
 don't mind 'walking on,' take this card down to the 
 'Sceptre,' and ask to see Mr. Smale. And now I 
 must be off. Ta-ta !" 
 
 The first impulse of the wretched recipient of this 
 favour was to fling the pasteboard in the mud; but 
 hunger's influence is very powerful, and prudence 
 prevailed. 
 
 That night Mr. Robert Ashford was huddled in 
 a whitewashed garret with six or eight other super- 
 numeraries, ruddling his cheeks with rouge accord- 
 ing to their instructions, and mutely asking himself 
 if the limits of destiny had now been reached, or if 
 
THE SOCIAL SEE-SAW 23 1 
 
 it could be ordained that he was to sink deeper 
 still. 
 
 Deeper? He thought not, as the call-boy's shout 
 summoned him, with the whole gang, like convicts, 
 to the wings; he prayed not, as, clothed in a miser- 
 able travesty of evening-dress, he leant there, bitterly 
 abashed by his position, awaiting the setting of the 
 "ball" scene, which was to consummate his shame. 
 He reviewed his career; he wondered if he had pluck 
 enough for that final plunge which should end it 
 altogether, and, while wondering, was pushed aside 
 by one of the staff, who bade him roughly, "Get out 
 of the leading-lady's exit!" 
 
 He drew back with a muttered apology, and a 
 woman swept laughing past him from the stage, fol- 
 lowed by a long roar of applause, that sounded to 
 his unaccustomed ear like the rattle of artillery, 
 muffled and far off. 
 
 "Wot an orkerd chap you are !" said the carpen- 
 ter; "blowed if yer wasn't standing right in Miss 
 Kent's way ! Halloa, mate, wot's up ?" 
 
 It was something down; the "orkerd chap" had 
 suddenly gasped for breath, and, before anyone 
 could save him, fallen on the floor. It was some- 
 thing down; a woman on her knees beside him, loos- 
 ening his collar, and smoothing the hair from his 
 poor, wet brow. Pillowed on her lap, the tired 
 eyes opened slowly, with a look of infinite appeal. 
 
23 21 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Aghast and pitiful, the face above him drooped lower 
 lower yet till the word he would have spoken 
 was hushed to silence by her lips. And in that kiss 
 the "super" and his wife had met. 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 
 
 FREDDY LUDLOW was the son of a rector in the 
 shires, and, as he did not manifest any inclination 
 for the Church, his father declared that the only 
 thing for him was to be a barrister. The process 
 by which the rector arrived at the alternative is not 
 very clear, but he did arrive at it, and Freddy accord- 
 ingly went up to Town, and ate his dinners, and 
 prepared himself to shine in the profession of all 
 others for which he was most unfit. 
 
 He was a short young man, with a shock of stub- 
 born hair, mild blue eyes, and an expression of 
 amiable innocence. To look a fool, when you are 
 decidedly the reverse, may be very alvantageous in 
 life, if you are independent of your neighbours' good 
 opinion; but to look a fool if you have to rely on 
 their assistance to reach the first rung of the ladder, 
 is the next worst thing to being one. 
 
 Nobody entrusted Freddy with a brief, and, after 
 a while, he found his vocation distinctly tedious. To 
 perspire in court, and make his head ache in the 
 acquisition of legal knowledge which he would never 
 apparently have an opportunity to display, seemed 
 to him stupid. Even the view of the tulips and 
 
 233 
 
234 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 the murmur of the fountain bored him by degrees, 
 so at last he allowed his wig to repose in its box, and 
 the drab and gray volumes on the shelf to grow 
 dusty, and he took to writing comedies, on which 
 he wasted his postage-stamps, and which returned 
 to him when the managers did not lose them 
 after many days. 
 
 How long he might have continued the occupation 
 if nothing had happened to interrupt him, it is impos- 
 sible to say. As it happened, however, when he had 
 amassed a collection of rejected manuscripts, con- 
 siderably bulkier than the dusty library, his father 
 died the end having been hastened by the collapse 
 of one of those bubbles which seem especially blown 
 for the destruction of widows and parsons. He died, 
 and Freddy was left with nothing but his sorrow 
 and a hundred pounds. He was not very practical, 
 but it was obvious to him that he would have to earn 
 a living now, and, as the shock left him capable of 
 reflection, he began to ask himself what he should 
 do. 
 
 As a result, he decided to go on the stage. He 
 had a passion for the stage; if he could not write 
 for it, he would act on it. He had not the least idea 
 that his appearance intensified the difficulty of his 
 obtaining an engagement a thousand-fold, and he 
 betook himself to an agent, to whom he imparted 
 his desire, and paid a booking-fee. 
 
 The agent was an affable man, but slow so slow 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 235 
 
 that presently the hundred pounds was only fifty; 
 and, in view of the fact, Freddy visited other agents, 
 all of whom seemed strangely to resemble the first 
 gentleman in their characters. 
 
 Then Freddy answered advertisements in the the- 
 atrical papers, but nobody ever answered him, and 
 he was within measurable distance of despair and a 
 clerkship, when, through the interest of an acquaint- 
 ance in the Temple, who also dabbled in dramatic 
 literature, he found himself "walking on" in evening 
 dress at a West End theatre, with nothing to say, at 
 a guinea a week. 
 
 The piece did not run very long, and in the next 
 one there was not a "ball scene," and so no "guests" 
 were required; but, having scented the footlights, 
 he felt that any other vocation was henceforth im- 
 possible, and he had profited, moreover, by the con- 
 versation in the dressing-room. 
 
 He now understood that he had wasted his time 
 and his money by pinning his faith on the agent 
 fraternity before he had played some parts, and 
 gained a few "notices"; and, on the same principle, 
 he realised that it was useless addressing graceful 
 letters to managers who had never heard of him. 
 The only thing he could do was to bombard them 
 with introductions. He went to his friend in the 
 Temple again, and lured him into an adjacent bar, 
 and by-and-by so beneficial is the judicious appli- 
 cation of dry sherry! meek little Freddy Ludlow 
 
236 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 was "shivering his timbers" in a nautical melodrama, 
 to an audience with a discomfiting habit of making 
 facetious remarks. 
 
 Still it was a stock season, and it meant experi- 
 ence. He murdered a new part every week, and 
 sometimes to applause. After the seafaring-party 
 he played a London "rough," "doubling" it with a 
 good clergyman, who came on in the last act, and 
 established the hero's innocence. Then they put on 
 Arrah-na-Pogue, and he was cast for the Serjeant, 
 and when he uttered the famous line to the effect that 
 his prisoner was "A man in trouble, and not a badger 
 in a hole, to be baited by curs like you !" he brought 
 the house down, and subsequently shed tears of tri- 
 umph in his make-up box. 
 
 To follow him through all his vicissitudes would 
 be as unprofitable as he found his profession. It 
 is enough to say that when he had been on the stage 
 for three years counting the intervals between his 
 engagements, which were a good deal longer than 
 the engagements themselves he discovered, to his 
 surprise, that his pen, which he had never relin- 
 quished, had become quite as valuable a factor to- 
 wards a livelihood as the theatre. 
 
 He had taken to writing short stories, and as he 
 was even asked for these sometimes by a certain 
 appreciative editor, and no manager ever asked him 
 to go and join his company, he gradually hung about 
 
FLUFFUMS 237 
 
 the stage-doors less and less, and sat at the table 
 in his bedroom more and more. 
 
 One day he was offered the chance of doing the 
 theatrical notices for a minor periodical. It was 
 a very minor periodical, and the salary was propor- 
 tionate; but the income would at least be regular, 
 and Freddy took a decisive step. He abandoned 
 his hope of becoming an Edmund Kean with an alac- 
 rity he had never conceived to be possible, and called 
 himself proudly a dramatic critic though the laun- 
 dry-bills for so many dress-shirts were a considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Later on he returned to his first love, and wrote 
 another play; but this time he collaborated with a 
 dramatist of some position, and for eighteen months 
 basked in the belief that his fortune was made. 
 
 It was a drama at once sensational and domes- 
 tic. There never was so strong a drama, nor had 
 any novice, since the world began, had such luck 
 as he in finding a well-known man like King willing 
 to work with him I His future was assured now ! 
 A Woman's Crime was submitted to one of the best 
 houses in London, and the managers were delighted 
 with it, and talked of putting it on next. Somehow, 
 though, when the time came, they did not. On 
 the whole, they did not know that it suited them. It 
 was a pity that they had not said so in the first 
 instance, but, albeit a little damped, the authors dis- 
 patched it somewhere else. 
 
238 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Here certain alterations were suggested, with the 
 intimation that if they were made the piece would be 
 produced in the spring. Freddy did not approve 
 of the suggestions he considered they were "artis- 
 tically wrong" but his partner, who had more 
 worldly wisdom (and a large family to bring up), 
 said that "so long as the damned thing was 'done,' 
 that didn't matter a straw !" and they therefore went 
 to work, and chopped and changed as instructed. 
 
 The literary carpentering and joining took a good 
 deal of time and thought, and, in spite of all their 
 pains, it was not so well constructed a piece after 
 they had finished as it had been before they began. 
 The manager, however, signified approval of the 
 manner in which his hints had been followed, and so 
 they drew a breath of relief, and smiled the smile 
 of labour rewarded. 
 
 Their satisfaction, alas! had been premature. 
 When the spring came, it was not A Woman's Crime 
 which was put into rehearsal. The manager said 
 he should probably do that in the autumn ; and when 
 the autumn came, he said he should most likely do 
 it in the spring. They asked him desperately if he 
 would advance a couple of hundred pounds on 
 account of fees, and he "feared it was impossible." 
 Then they threw up their arms, and took the manu- 
 script away from him, and Freddy told his collabora- 
 tor he might keep it as a souvenir of their association. 
 
 But it was an awful blow to him, though he 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 239 
 
 attempted to take it fighting. Until the prospect 
 vanished, he had not known how entirely he had been 
 relying on it, and now his scanty means, his obscurity, 
 and his thirty years, combined to make a situation 
 that crushed him. He felt suddenly tired and hope- 
 less. He wanted to get on to be famous. Instead, 
 he was living in one room in Bloomsbury, and dining 
 for a shilling. It had been endurable while he had 
 something to look forward to even he had not 
 thought about it much then, accepting the life cheer- 
 fully but after dwelling for eighteen months in a 
 castle in Spain, it made his heart ache. He felt like 
 an exile who has dreamt of Piccadilly and wakened 
 to the Cape. 
 
 No further possibility of greatness occurred to 
 lighten his gloom, and he plodded on drearily. It 
 said something for his sweetness of disposition that 
 he did not vent his disappointment in spiteful criti- 
 cisms for the minor periodical at this period. He 
 used to sit in the stalls, and clap his hands, and his 
 "copy" was as fair as usual. If he envied the blissful 
 beings whose names were blazoned to all London 
 on the hoardings and the omnibuses, he kept it to 
 himself, and refrained from remarking that "the 
 reception of the latest musical comedy was another 
 instance of what rubbish may hit the public taste." 
 
 So things went on until a misfortune happened. 
 The minor periodical died of a weak circulation, and 
 Mr. Frederick Ludlow was out of office. 
 
240 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 The cessation of a salary, small as it had been, 
 was a serious matter to him. He made a gallant 
 struggle; he wrote sheafs of short stories, and sent 
 them out broadcast, but, as most of the papers that 
 accepted them kept him waiting six months for his 
 money, his industry did not avail him much. 
 
 He got into arrears with his landlady, and lay 
 in bed half the day because he felt his hunger less 
 there. He often dined on a pipe, because it was 
 cheaper than a chop, and he pawned his watch and 
 chain, and a ring that had belonged to his father, 
 and his evening-suit, which he did not require any 
 more. 
 
 He had been or had called himself a literary 
 man for so long now, that it was a process with him 
 to realise that his pen was useless. He hoped against 
 hope until the humiliating truth forced itself into 
 acknowledgment by sheer persistency. Well, his 
 writing would not keep him it was obvious, he 
 owned it! His difficulties were not temporary; they 
 had come to stay. He was a failure, a complete, 
 ignominious failure, and there was nothing for it 
 he would have to go back to the stage ! 
 
 He was ashamed to beg the influence of the bar- 
 rister who had helped him to get his foot in years 
 ago. The barrister was quite a big man now, and 
 he had not got on a bit! No, he could not do it. 
 He called on all the agents instead, and quoted his 
 experience. He wrote to his old managers; and he 
 
FLUFFUMS 241 
 
 tramped the hot pavements of the Strand daily, try- 
 ing to look cheerful when he met an actor of his 
 acquaintance, but nervous of stopping to talk to him 
 for long, because he could not afford to ask him to 
 "come and have a drink." 
 
 The last engagement that he was able to mention 
 was so very remote that he found it almost as hard 
 to return to the boards as it had been in the first 
 instance for him to get on to them. And he was 
 older his appearance had not improved with time. 
 Inconsistently, too, and as if Nature had been anx- 
 ious to add insult to the world's injury, he had put 
 on flesh. He was now stout. With his tubby figure, 
 and his bristling hair, and his mild little eyes peering 
 out of a weary face, he was as unpromising an appli- 
 cant for a "part" as any stage-manager was likely 
 to receive. People looked at him and smiled. 
 Everywhere he went he was told there was "no 
 vacancy." His exit was always the signal for sub- 
 dued laughter, and it was remarked "how funny it 
 was that a man like that should be bothering the 
 agents !" But it was not funny for Freddy not 
 at all. 
 
 At last he did secure an engagement. It was 
 an awful, a terrible, descent from what he had ex- 
 pected; but he took it because he had to take it or 
 starve. 
 
 He "went out" with the touring company of a 
 London success, as prompter, and to play three or 
 
242 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 four small parts, for twenty-five shillings a week. 
 During the first act he stood in the wings with the 
 book in his hand; and in the second he appeared on 
 the stage as the Foreman of a jury. For half of 
 the third he was in the wings again, and then he had 
 a few lines as an Arab sheik, and so on. 
 
 They "opened" in Wigan; if anything could have 
 intensified his depression, Wigan would have done 
 it, but nothing could. A touring company has more 
 grades and sets than society in Bedford, and lowest 
 of all who figure in the programme ignored by the 
 Lover, and scorned by the Chambermaid is the 
 prompter who plays small parts. To be sure, the 
 prompter, in his turn, may look down upon the 
 baggageman, but Freddy was denied this compensa- 
 tion because it was not in his nature to look down 
 on anyone. 
 
 He went back to his lodging after the first per- 
 formance miserable and exhausted. The constant 
 and hurried changes of costume, coupled with his 
 nervousness for the stage was so new to him again 
 that he was nervous even with half a dozen lines 
 had thoroughly worn him out. It was not until the 
 following night that he really began to take stock 
 of his surroundings or that he knew either how 
 wretched he was going to be. 
 
 His nervousness was observed, and provided mate- 
 rial for excellent jests. He was nicknamed "Fluf- 
 fums," which, in theatrical slang, signifies a gentle- 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 243 
 
 man who "fluffs," or stumbles in his part. He was 
 really such a curious little man that it was refreshing 
 to chaff him ! He might have escaped, otherwise, 
 as being lowly and beneath one's notice, but the 
 Heavy Mother had declared he was "consequential," 
 and the adjective was found descriptive; and a "con- 
 sequential prompter" was an anomaly that could not 
 be tolerated for a moment. 
 
 Freddy grew used to the hasty "changes" as the 
 week went on, and he schooled himself to stand in 
 the wings holding the 'script, without wincing; he 
 grew used to everything except the raillery and dis- 
 dain. When he reflected that a few months since 
 he had lolled in the West End stalls, a dramatic 
 critic, and that then his companions of to-day would 
 have bowed, and scraped, and contemplated him 
 with reverence, his soul revolted. But he could not 
 hint at his former grandeurs that would be ridicu- 
 lous. He was now a prompter, and must be content 
 to be regarded as one. What he had been once had 
 nothing to do with it. 
 
 From his humble position in the wings he com- 
 manded a good view of the stage, and by-and-by, 
 when everybody was sure of his part, and there was 
 no need of a prompter's services whatever, a pecul- 
 iarity was remarked in "Fluffums." It was pointed 
 out that he was never absent from his post during 
 Miss Bellamy's big scene. No matter that she, like 
 the rest, was letter-perfect now, no matter how swift 
 
244 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 a toilette it might necessitate! No sooner did the 
 scene approach than down "Fluffums" bustled, and 
 stood in the prompt-entrance, looking at her with 
 eyes that never wandered from her face. 
 
 And, of course, it only meant one thing, though 
 that thing was so wild, and ludicrous, and unprece- 
 dented, that it was some time before the company 
 could credit it. The prompter had fallen in love 
 with the leading lady! 
 
 He only lived to be noticed by her. He was 
 jealous of everybody she spoke to on the stage and 
 off. He even envied the property-man, for there 
 was sometimes occasion for Miss Bellamy to address 
 a few words to the property-man. To himself alone, 
 the futile prompter, she never had need to speak, 
 nor did he dare to devise an excuse for claiming her 
 attention. 
 
 She was pretty, Maud Bellamy, and rather a clever 
 actress, albeit she was still in the provinces, and 
 admitted to being twenty-six. Her vicissitudes, too, 
 would have filled an interesting chapter, but she 
 had risen to dazzling heights compared to Freddy, 
 and when somebody told her that she had "made 
 a conquest, and his name was Frederick Ludlow," 
 she did not even know who was meant. After the 
 joke was explained she smiled faintly, and begged the 
 other "please not to be so absurd" because she 
 was a personage. But, all the same, she looked at 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 245 
 
 Freddy the next time she passed him because she 
 was a woman. 
 
 And henceforward Freddy was conscious that 
 Miss Bellamy knew he was watching her during her 
 big scene; and Miss Bellamy would instinctively 
 glance across at the prompt-entrance as she tottered 
 through the O.P. archway in the snowstorm, to 
 assure herself of his presence. Once he was not 
 there he could not help it and when he met her 
 in the wings later, waiting to go on in the last act, 
 she stopped and asked him the reason. 
 
 "Mr. Ludlow, do you know you nearly made me 
 forget my lines?" she said. "I missed you, and it 
 made me nervous." 
 
 Not so nervous as he ! His heart thumped, and 
 he stammered at her with a flush on his face. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon I was very sorry! Mr. 
 Shorey couldn't play to-night, you know, and his 
 understudy had to go on, and / had to take the under- 
 study's part. I was 'changing' at the time of your 
 
 scene." 
 
 She nodded, smiling. 
 
 "It doesn't matter; I wondered what had become 
 of you, that was all. It is a very good house, isn't 
 it?" And she passed on. 
 
 It did not occupy thirty seconds, but it was an 
 event that sent him home happy, and it was the 
 forerunner of other fragmentary conversations which 
 made him happier still. She knew he was attracted 
 
246 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 by her, and she saw he was a gentleman, and, though 
 his position in the company prevented her taking 
 his devotion seriously, it interested her, and was 
 not unpleasant. It seemed to her rather pathetic 
 that a man of education should be fulfilling such 
 ignoble duties, and she was sorry for him. Not very 
 sorry, and not very interested, because her ambi- 
 tions did not leave much room in her mind for sym- 
 pathies of any sort, but just a little, yes, or she would 
 not have provoked comment by condescending to 
 talk to him. 
 
 That was at the beginning, and the development 
 was somewhat slow, because Freddy felt so handi- 
 capped; but by degrees he taught himself to throw 
 off the feeling of restraint, and by degrees Miss 
 Bellamy found that she was giving him encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 Still she meant nothing by it; only now she was 
 treating him as an equal, and flashing just such a 
 glance at him sometimes as she would have shot at 
 the leading-man, or any other admirer who stood 
 on a level with her. It was not considerate, and 
 she knew it was not; it was not dignified, and she 
 knew that, too; and so she lectured herself in her 
 dressing-room one night, in the process of changing 
 her frock, and then adopted a manner so very distant 
 towards him that, after twenty-four hours of suffer- 
 ing, he went up to her and begged for an explanation. 
 
 "Have I offended you in any way, Miss Bellamy?" 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 247 
 
 She tried to look as if she did not understand. 
 
 "Offended me? No what makes you ask?" 
 
 "I was afraid that perhaps I had. You you are 
 not being so kind to me; you are different." 
 
 "I did not know." 
 
 "No? I have felt it. . . . You aren't angry?" 
 
 "Why should I be? Of course not. But " 
 
 "Go on!" 
 
 "Do you think it is very good for you that we 
 should talk together quite as much as we have, Mr. 
 Ludlow? Isn't it better that you should not see so 
 much of me?" 
 
 He stood gazing helplessly at the stage; his uncon- 
 cealed misery was very flattering to her. 
 
 "I feared it meant that." he said. "Somebody 
 has " 
 
 "Somebody has done nothing I have been think- 
 ing myself. And I've come to the conclusion that 
 I have not been sensible. If I did not like you I 
 should not say it; I should not mind. But I do like 
 you, and there's my cue !" 
 
 They were behind a canvas door, and she darted 
 forward and opened it, and made her entrance with 
 a peal of laughter which jarred upon him this eve- 
 ning, although he knew it was in the part. 
 
 When the curtain had fallen, and all the players 
 were preparing to go home, Freddy waited at the 
 foot of the ladies' staircase for Miss Bellamy to 
 come down. He asked her if he might walk as far 
 
24$ THIS STAGE OF *OOLS 
 
 as her lodgings with her, so that they could discuss 
 the matter quietly, and, as she had already displayed 
 all the wisdom possible to her in such a connection, 
 she said he might, and he did, and the result was a 
 foregone conclusion. 
 
 She said she should always be his friend, and it 
 was because she was his friend that she wished him 
 to see less of her. And he said that to have her 
 friendship was the greatest earthly honour and hap- 
 piness that he dared aspire to, and so might he not 
 talk to her just as much in future, and even more? 
 There was really nothing to be urged against it, put 
 like that it was simplicity itself; and she let him 
 hold her hand for a minute and a half at the gate, 
 while telling him he was only to think of her as a 
 sister. 
 
 Maud Bellamy had satisfied her conscience, and 
 from that date she flirted with "Fluffums" wickedly. 
 It was not an honest, open flirtation, it was a sly, 
 sneaking, insidious thing, much more deadly, which 
 did its damage under an alias. She called it their 
 "interest in each other," and their "interest in each 
 other" used to take him to her apartments to tea 
 on an average three times a week. He brought her 
 flowers, and she would wear them at the theatre in 
 the first act; and he told her something of his life, 
 and she listened with deep, attentive eyes; and he 
 cried to her how wretched his present position made 
 him, and she comforted him with the "platonic" 
 
FLUFFUMS 249 
 
 pressure of slim white fingers affecting not to under- 
 stand that it principally made him wretched because 
 it placed her out of his reach. 
 
 And meanwhile he thought her an angel, though 
 socially she was only a vain, agreeable, and rather 
 selfish woman, who was amusing herself with him. 
 Almost every woman not positively tedious has the 
 desire to be unconventional at some period or other, 
 and conventionality being, after all, a relative 
 standard for a country actress to be unconventional 
 is difficult. Miss Bellamy had overcome the diffi- 
 culty when she determined to flirt with the prompter. 
 
 How long the novelty would have pleased her, 
 under ordinary circumstances, who shall say? Not 
 many weeks, probably, at best; but as it was, the 
 end of Freddy's illusion was precipitated by a new 
 arrival on the scene. 
 
 The leading-man was transferred to another com- 
 pany, and his successor was quite an Adonis, who 
 once had actually played in London. The glamour 
 of the metropolis clung to him still, and the cut of 
 his numerous suits of clothes was positively fasci- 
 nating. And he paid marked attentions to Miss 
 Bellamy, and the lady did not repulse him. Freddy 
 beheld it all, sick at soul. 
 
 Francis Knight, the new leading-man, and Miss 
 Maud Bellamy used to stand and talk together, with 
 low voices, in the wings and passages, and one eve- 
 ning, when Freddy came upon them, quite by acci- 
 
250 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 dent, Miss Bellamy frowned at him, and turned 
 aside impatiently. As he passed on, she evidently 
 said something about him, for her companion burst 
 into laughter, and the low-comedian, who had ob- 
 served the incident, winked at the "villain" with 
 appreciation. 
 
 Then the chaff took another form, and it was: 
 "Fluff urns, beware of jealousy it is a green-eyed 
 monster!" or "Fluffums, why so merry?" or "Look 
 at Fluffums' nose does it hurt you now it's out of 
 joint? Ha! ha! ha! the time will come, no matter, 
 Fluffums! Pistols and coffee for four!" Which 
 was all very witty, but, as Freddy was not a boy, 
 scarcely in the best of taste. 
 
 It took him some time to realise that her pretences 
 had meant nothing that her earnestness and sym- 
 pathy had been all humbug even though he was 
 invited to tea no longer, and often met her walking 
 with Knight in the streets. It is doubtful, indeed, 
 if he would have realised it when he did but that she 
 very nearly told him so. Of course it was his "fault" 
 it was one of those situations where the man is 
 wrong whatever he does. Of course he had "brought 
 these hard words on himself," and she had been 
 mercifully anxious "to spare him the pain of the 
 interview!" He had gone to her lodgings and ap- 
 pealed to her. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Ludlow," said the leading-lady, 
 with uplifted eyebrows, "I don't know what you 
 
FLUFFUMS 251 
 
 complain of! I can't permit any friend to dictate 
 to me which members of the company I may speak 
 to." 
 
 Then he had done more. The "secret," that had 
 never been a secret, was openly avowed, and he told 
 her that he loved her, that he worshipped her, that 
 her coldness was breaking his heart. He declared 
 that he was not her "friend" had never been her 
 "friend" and that she knew it as well as he. 
 
 Miss Bellamy stared at him in a long silence. 
 
 "So," she said, slowly, "this is my return for 
 consenting to believe you ! I warned you that I was 
 being unwise, and I let you persuade me against my 
 own judgment. Well, 1 should have known better; 
 it serves me right!" 
 
 "Maud!" gasped Freddy. 
 
 "Please don't call me 'Maud,' and please don't let 
 us have any discussion ! 1 made a mistake, and there 
 is nothing more to be said. I was your very good 
 friend, and I hoped I might remain so; but you 
 give yourself the airs of a husband. And something 
 else : when you come spying round the theatre after 
 me, to see what man I am talking to, you do a thing 
 I don't allow." 
 
 "Spying?" he protested. "I? Oh, I have 
 never " 
 
 "If it hurts your feelings to be told the truth, 
 you have only yourself to blame for it. You leave 
 me no alternative when you come here and reproach 
 
252, THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 me. Now, good afternoon, Mr. Ludlow. I am 
 sorry my friendship was so misplaced. I may say 
 I think you might have shown a little more gratitude 
 for it considering!" 
 
 The colour sank from his plain face as if she had 
 lashed him across it. She met his gaze stonily, 
 shrugged her shoulders, and sneered as she did at 
 the "villain" in the piece. 
 
 "Please shut the door quietly after you," said the 
 leading lady; "my head aches." 
 
 He went enlightenment had come, and the dark- 
 ness had fallen; and he was the Foreman of the 
 jury, and the Arab sheik, and the rest of it the same 
 as usual that night. But every nerve in his body 
 was tense with pain, and if Miss Bellamy had known 
 all he was feeling, perhaps when she came into the 
 greenroom and found him crouching there, woebe- 
 gone, in a property-chair, she would have refrained 
 from remarking audibly that she had "always under- 
 stood a greenroom was reserved for the Principals." 
 
 He got up and walked out, with a look towards 
 her like a kicked dog, and she surveyed her figure 
 in the pier-glass, and powdered her nose again com- 
 placently. 
 
 How far they were from suspecting the develop- 
 ment that twelve more hours would bring ! 
 
 When Freddy rose the following morning it was 
 Saturday, and Saturday being treasury, it was neces- 
 sary for him, like everybody else, to present himself 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 253 
 
 at the theatre at one o'clock. He felt so broken, he 
 had suffered so much more keenly about her than 
 she was worth, that before meeting her again he 
 went into a bar to try if he could pull himself to- 
 gether with some brandy. The Era was lying on 
 the counter, in front of him, and mechanically, 
 scarcely knowing what he was doing, he began to 
 turn the leaves. As he did so, the title of // Woman's 
 Crime leapt out of a page in capital letters, and 
 struck him in the eyes. 
 
 It was being produced in London! at the 
 Royal West-Central Theatre ! The house was 
 "Now closed for rehearsals of A Woman's Crime, 
 by Messrs. J. V. King and Frederick Ludlow." The 
 production would introduce a surprising mechanical 
 effect. There had never been so strong a company 
 before even at the West Central as the one which 
 the enterprising management had secured for A 
 Woman's Crime. So much was expected of the 
 piece, that the largest sum of money ever paid be- 
 fore the first night had already been offered to the 
 authors for the American rights. And, of course, 
 his collaborator had written to his old address more 
 than a month ago, to tell him all about it, and the 
 letter had never reached him. 
 
 He grasped the paper with both hands. Fires 
 flashed in the sunshine, and he thought he was going 
 to fall off the three-legged stool. He was no longer 
 "Fluffums," the despised prompter. He was a Lon- 
 
254 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 don playwright, a personage to be conciliated; a few 
 months more, and he would be a rich man 1 A sob 
 shook him of joy and thanksgiving, such as he had 
 never known in his life, and he reeled out into the 
 street as if he were drunk. 
 
 The company were all on the stage when he had 
 composed himself sufficiently to put in an appear- 
 ance, and he noticed that, as he entered, everybody 
 looked towards him with a questioning air. Some- 
 one in the group was holding a copy of the Era, and 
 presently Mr. Knight crossed over to him, and the 
 others hushed their conversation to listen. 
 
 "Any relation to the author, Ludlow?" said his 
 rival, doubtfully. "I see King has been collaborating 
 with a man of your name for the West Central." 
 
 "He has been collaborating with me" said Freddy, 
 with great distinctness. "I'm afraid I shall have to 
 leave you all very shortly, to superintend the final 
 rehearsals." 
 
 Yes, and Miss Bellamy was among the group, and 
 heard his answer! And their eyes met, and then 
 she turned away, with a look on her face that made 
 him feel sorry for her in the midst of his triumph. 
 It does not often fall to the lot of a provincial actress 
 to have a London dramatist in love with her, and 
 as she thought of what Freddy could have done to 
 push her forward, and certainly would have done, it 
 needed all her self-control not to burst into tears. 
 
 He was not chaffed or slighted any more while 
 
"FLUFFUMS" 255 
 
 he remained with them. He was congratulated vio- 
 lently, and slapped on the back, and called "dear 
 boy" ; and he was pressed to have whiskies-and-soda, 
 and asked if he would "use his influence" on various 
 people's behalf. Never was there such a startling 
 change known as that which occurred in everybody's 
 bearing towards the prompter ! There was only one 
 person who did not come up to him and wring his 
 hand, and "hope he would not forget his old friends 
 in his prosperity" ; there was only one actress in the 
 provinces who, for years afterwards, was remarked 
 to show a strong distaste when a certain subject of 
 theatrical interest was mentioned. Her name was 
 Miss Maud Bellamy, and the subject was the Rise 
 of "Fluffums." 
 
SKETCHES 
 
TO MISS VERSCHOYLE 
 
 DECIDEDLY one of the plainest women you ever saw 
 in your life, but when she began to sing you forgot 
 her face. You thought of your ideal woman whom 
 you had never met of the books you meant to write 
 of the country dimpling under an April sunrise 
 of anything you loved or yearned to love. And 
 then, as she continued to sing, you thought of Miss 
 Carmichael herself, and she made your heart stir 
 just as if she had been beautiful, and for thirty sec- 
 onds after she rose from the piano you had to strug- 
 gle against an impulse to fall at her feet. 
 
 I ought not to have gone there. To me a woman's 
 first duty is to be good-looking. She may, of course, 
 do more she may, for instance, be lovely but at 
 any rate she should be good-looking, if she would 
 justify her existence in my eyes, and Miss Carmich- 
 ael's spell, brief as it was, was dangerous. It dis- 
 pleased and bewildered me when I "came to." It 
 made me feel as if I had been behind a horse over 
 which I had nearly lost control. Yet how could 
 I deny myself the delight of listening to her divine 
 voice I And, for that matter, the evil effect was 
 
 259 
 
26d THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 delicious also while it lasted something like that 
 which one imagines opium or hashish eating must 
 produce. Think, I could say to myself whenever I 
 would, "To-day I will go and be breathlessly in love 
 for a minute; for the space of one minute I will 
 taste the excitement of adoring a woman with all 
 my being!" A moral drunkenness, a vice, if you 
 desire to call it so, but one which few men are able 
 to command! I was constantly swearing I would 
 give it up, only to find myself, a week afterwards, at 
 the door of the Earl's Court flat again. And things 
 went on like this for six months, when I met Norah 
 Verschoyle at Hampton. 
 
 We were both staying with the Liddingtons. She 
 did not take much notice of me at first perhaps 
 that was what stimulated my interest in her but 
 I was sensible of the warmest admiration the moment 
 we were introduced. She was very, very pretty, inso- 
 lently pretty, if I may use the term, and she wore 
 big, shady hats, and white frocks, and her hands 
 were the softest little darlings that ever played with 
 a punt pole. 
 
 I used to look at Miss Verschoyle's hands and 
 wonder what it would feel like to hold them. Fool- 
 ish people may suppose that it feels the same to hold 
 one woman's hand as another's, but that is quite a 
 mistake. It is different every time, or we should 
 seldom hear of a man being engaged more than 
 once in his life. 
 
TO MISS VERSCHOYLE 261 
 
 On a certain Thursday afternoon, after our ac- 
 quaintance had progressed, and I had sculled her 
 down to the backwater, I sat with my gaze riveted 
 on those hands of hers. They lay in her lap, and 
 I observed that they had browned a trifle with expo- 
 sure to the sun. The delicate veins were as blue as 
 the sea round the island of Madeira* and they were, 
 if anything, more kissable than before. 
 
 "Isn't it heavenly?" she murmured. 
 
 I agreed; it was heavenly. "Don't you want to 
 talk?" 
 
 "What shall I say?" she asked. 
 
 "Anything you like or nothing. For myself, I 
 am perfectly content." 
 
 "Then I'll dream." 
 
 "Do!" 
 
 Her eyes drooped re-opened, and met my own, 
 which had wandered to the white lids; I thought 
 she looked conscious. She unfurled her sunshade. 
 The fascination of the hands was upon me again. 
 
 "Let me help you," I said. 
 
 I touched one it was warm, thrilling; it sent a 
 shock up my arm like an electric battery. I loved 
 her, and I detained it in a clasp. 
 
 She uttered my name with remonstrance and sur- 
 prise. I had gone too far to retreat, even had I 
 wished to do so. Her fingers and my lips met, and 
 my lips were scorched. Her face glowed, and soft- 
 ened. I meant to ask her to be my wife, and I fore- 
 
262' THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 saw that I should not plead in vain. At that very 
 moment Lady Liddington was heard calling to us 
 from the bank, and the opportunity was past. She 
 had brought me a telegram recalling me to town. 
 
 We all went back to the house together, nor was 
 there any chance between luncheon and the time my 
 train started for me to speak to Miss Verschoyle 
 privately again. 
 
 However, we understood each other I was sure 
 of it; and I travelled up to Waterloo with exhilara- 
 tion. I called on the solicitor whom I had to see, 
 and arranged to affix my signature to a necessary 
 document the first thing the following morning. 
 Then I should be free to return to Hampton, and 
 could propose as orthodoxly as was required. Al- 
 most I whistled as I bent my steps towards my cham- 
 bers leaving him. Norah was fond of me was 
 waiting for me, ready to say "yes." Rapturous 
 reflection! And what jolly rings there were in the 
 jewellers' windows! 
 
 I stopped, and inspected one more closely. As I 
 did so, someone exclaimed: "Mr. Craven, how d'ye 
 do !" and turning, I saw Miss Carmichael. 
 
 I thought how dowdy she looked as I responded 
 to her greeting. She was going home, and I offered 
 to see her as far as the Temple Station. 
 
 "Where have you been?" she asked, as we walked 
 along. "Do you know that it is more than a month 
 since we have seen anything of you?" 
 
TO MISS VERSCHOYLE 263 
 
 I explained that I was staying on the river. 
 Though she was so plain, she was an amusing talker, 
 and when she begged me, if I had no better occu- 
 pation, to accompany her to the flat, and have some 
 tea, I was not inclined to refuse. 
 
 I went, and when tea was over I said, "Won't 
 you sing?" I was in the mood for music, more espe- 
 cially for Miss Carmichael's music. She smiled as- 
 sent, and seated herself at the piano, while I lay 
 peacefully back in an armchair by the window. She 
 never wanted one to turn the leaves for her; that 
 was one of the charms of her performance. 
 
 "What will you have?" she said, glancing at me 
 across her shoulder. 
 
 I hesitated. " 'Whatever you do will sure be 
 right,' " I hummed. 
 
 "Oh, please!'' she murmured, with a mock air of 
 suffering she could not tolerate the drawing-room 
 ballad "Do you know Bizet's 'Vielle Chanson'?" 
 
 She struck a few chords, with an indifferent touch, 
 and then her voice rose. And her voice called 
 "Norah! Norah!" and showed me the backwater 
 and the boat anew. The trees swayed, and the birds 
 in the branches began to twitter, and the water 
 sparkled, and my heart was aching so with love that 
 I wanted to lay my head on my dear one's breast, 
 and feel those fragrant little hands stroking my 
 hair. 
 
 Suddenly I was again in the parlour; the last note 
 
264, THIS STAGE OF. FOOLS 
 
 had Hied, and Miss Carmichael was looking an 
 inquiry. 
 
 "Don't stop, I beg you ! Go on, do !" 
 She obeyed. But why did she not take me as 
 before to the river? I remained in the Earl's Court 
 room this time, and by degrees I was satisfied not 
 to leave it. I was listening with trembling nerves 
 to Miss Carmichael herself, or rather not herself 
 to the other Miss Carmichael, who had always mag- 
 netised me while she sang. She drifted from the 
 "Solvieg's Lied" of Grieg into some Gipsy Songs of 
 Dvorak's ; and I worshipped her ! Drunk or sober, 
 I said that to hold this woman in my arms, and to 
 feel her breathing there, would be the greatest con- 
 summation of my life. Never before had the mas- 
 tery she had established over me been so irresistible 
 and complete. I left my chair, and leant on the 
 piano, gazing down upon her. She had drawn me 
 there with her voice, and now she pulled me closer 
 with her eyes. I did not think her beautiful even 
 in my madness I knew that she was ugly but there 
 was a fascination in her ugliness that I was unable 
 to withstand. I looked at her, consumed with a 
 fever. I forgot that her dress was ill-fitting and 
 shabby; I forgot that when she left off singing she 
 would be merely a plain and ordinary person again. 
 While she did sing, she was as potent as Helen or 
 Cleopatra, and I adored her. 
 
 As she finished I caught her to me. 
 
TO MISS VERSCHOYLE 265 
 
 "I love you," I said, "didn't you know? I have 
 loved you always !" I thought it was true. 
 
 It was a grand moment! 
 
 But now I am engaged to Miss Carmichael, and 
 Norah must be wondering why I do not return to 
 Hampton. She will consider I have behaved very 
 badly; two men whom I invited to dinner, and con- 
 fided in, consider I have behaved very badly. No- 
 body seems to realise that I could not help myself 
 that I am the victim of circumstances over which I 
 had no control. It is in the faint hope of justifying 
 myself to Miss Verschoyle that I have written this 
 narrative. The danger of my Siren seeing it is small 
 besides, if she does, she may be offended with me, 
 and let me off. 
 
POSTHUMOUS 
 
 THERE have been moments, in thinking of her, when 
 I have found it impossible to realise that she was 
 going to belong to me one day. I suppose most 
 men happily engaged have known that "too-wonder- 
 ful-to-be-true" sensation, but with myself I must now 
 call the feeling a presentiment. It is a question 
 whether I should have the right to marry any woman 
 since I have learnt what this cough of mine signifies; 
 but Lilla ! how can I make her my wife, and condemn 
 her to exile in a colonial village for the rest of her 
 days ? Lilla, to whom the world means London and 
 "mamma" ! 
 
 "Go to the Cape, and there is no reason why you 
 should not live for years. You say you are a liter- 
 ary man; you can work as well there as here. But 
 to remain in England will kill you." 
 
 I hear the words still. Still? They have been 
 beating in my head ever since I walked out of the 
 consulting-room, and stared at the street that had 
 altered somehow. I must go to the house this after- 
 noon, and tell her. But it is our "good-bye," and 
 she loves me; it is a horrible duty. I may break 
 down myself. I wonder if she will ever marry any- 
 
 266 
 
POSTHUMOUS 267 
 
 body else now; if it is selfish? I would not say it 
 to anyone, of course, it would sound ridiculous 
 but I don't think that many people can care for each 
 
 other so much as Lilla and I do. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I believed I could write. I am no more able to 
 express the love I feel for this beautiful wife of 
 mine, the supreme tranquillity of our life together, 
 than I am able to describe a perfume ! I try to tell 
 her sometimes, but the words won't come even to 
 Lilla, who is no critic, who cares nothing for the 
 phrasing, and only for the sense. We have been 
 married six months. How can I show myself grate- 
 ful enough to her for the sacrifice she has made? 
 If ever I should be tempted to be irritable or impa- 
 tient, I need merely recall that afternoon in Eng- 
 land, when the tears ran down her white face, and 
 she threw her arms round my neck, declaring she 
 would be my wife in spite of everything, that the 
 exile was preferable to our parting. 
 
 We have a little villa here in Wynberg, with a 
 garden hidden from the road behind gigantic cacti. 
 It is very quiet, but the climate is exquisite; I feel 
 a new man under this sky which has the deep blue 
 colour of the sea we saw around Madeira. My 
 writing-table is screened from too great a glare by 
 the foliage of a huge camelia tree; and a French 
 window opens on to the stoep, where Lilla sits, in 
 soft white frocks, and reads or works, until I join 
 
268 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 her. In the evening we wander out, like two chil- 
 dren, to explore and lose ourselves or buy an 
 enormous basket of purple grapes from one of the 
 neighbouring vineyards for a shilling, going back 
 to eat them on the lawn, under the stars, while we 
 watch the fireflies glinting in the hedge, or a "bush 
 fire," bright for miles, burning on the heights of 
 Table Mountain. 
 
 It was awfully silly, because I knew; but I have 
 just said to her 
 
 "Are you quite sure that right at the back of 
 your head you aren't thinking all this a tiny bit dull, 
 Lilla?" 
 
 If ever there was an Angel upon earth 1 am 
 
 not in banishment, I am in Paradise ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 I have been working very hard. It is pleasant to 
 remember that my last book made a success at Home, 
 now that I am engaged on another. I read some 
 chapters yesterday to Lilla she liked them. How 
 fortunate it is she does take an interest in my pro- 
 fession! Unless you go to Government House 
 (which we don't) the society here is desperately lim- 
 ited; an ordinary girl accustomed to London gaieties 
 would bore herself to death. Even as it is, I can't 
 help asking myself sometimes if she is as contented 
 as she says she is. I dare say I am mistaken, but 
 now and then I have fancied she is moping a trifle. 
 I pray I am mistaken ; it would be a terrible reproach 
 
POSTHUMOUS 269 
 
 to me otherwise! The mail is just in, and she is 
 reading her mother's letter; after her mother's let- 
 ters I always think she looks dissatisfied. However, 
 I am inclined to be hypersensitive, no doubt; under 
 the circumstances it is natural. I expect, if I put 
 it to her, nobody would laugh more merrily than 
 
 Lilla at my "mare's nest" I 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The second anniversary of our wedding-day ! We 
 indulged in a little jaunt to Sea View, and dined at 
 an hotel. Not so lively as I should have liked to 
 make it for her, but the resources are few, and the 
 programme was the best I could devise. A man 
 certainly assumes a great responsibility when he al- 
 lows a young girl to agree to live abroad with him 
 all her life; if she is tired of it, I cannot blame her! 
 If it were a pecuniary interest simply that I sacrificed, 
 I would take her back to England to-morrow, but, 
 meaning what it does, it would be an outrage on her 
 tenderness to suggest such a thing. The novel is 
 progressing very well; in fact, it is nearly finished. 
 A few more chapters, and it will be ready for the 
 
 mail. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Lilla had spoken rather slightingly of the physi- 
 cian's opinion once or twice of late. Nothing tan- 
 gible it was more her manner than her words but 
 it has made me wonder, supposing I did propose to 
 return with her, whether she might not be willing 
 
270 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 to agree. It is a shameful thought to have ; I know 
 I am unjust to her in harbouring it, only I can't get 
 rid of it quite; it sticks, and writhes at odd moments. 
 She is in the garden I have just been to the window, 
 and she smiled. When I look at her, I hate myself 
 that I can wrong her so deeply as to imagine she 
 would consent ! My novel is done, but I do not feel 
 so exhilarated as I ought. I am restless, I cannot 
 get the doubt out of my mind. I know she would 
 refuse, and yet 
 
 She is back on the stoep; she is embroidering in 
 a deck chair; I can see the shadow of her figure on 
 the floor. I will put the question to her, I will say 
 to her, "Let us go Home !" I have said it. 
 
 There is a silence while I count my heart-beats. 
 Two reels of silk clatter from her lap to the ground, 
 and roll along the boards ; and then her voice comes, 
 broken with delight 
 
 "You darling! Oh, how Htavenly!" gasps Lilla. 
 
 I have added "Fin" to the last page. 
 
NEMESIS 
 
 HE was a very good boy, but he had an ideal 
 that was what ruined him. In his early youth he 
 had been fascinated by the short story "From the 
 French," and the aim of his life was to mould 
 himself upon the hero. 
 
 These short stories are always imparted by a 
 young gentleman, against his will, to a guest who has 
 admired the study of a woman's head which he keeps 
 in his portfolio, and "starts visibly to perceive." He 
 always exclaims that he did not know it was there 
 though it sounds unlikely and then sits lost in 
 thought, to "rouse himself with an effort," and com- 
 municate its romantic history without tautology or 
 hesitation. The literary man who bites his pen, be- 
 tween his paragraphs, is envious of this achievement. 
 
 Young Mr. Pettifer was envious, albeit not a liter- 
 ary man he was a clerk in a ship-broker's office 
 and though he had no excuse for purchasing a port- 
 folio, he did as well as he could without one. 
 
 When any other of the clerks paid a visit to 
 Pettifer's lodging, there was generally a cheap pho- 
 tograph lying where it would be noticed, and as soon 
 as Pettifer was asked about the original, he would 
 
 271 
 
272 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 make an ostentatious attempt to conceal it, and mur- 
 mur gloomily, "Don't question me, my friend !" 
 
 He had a habit of displaying sudden emotion, also, 
 at the chance mention of any place or year, so that 
 if conversation touched upon Ashton-under-Lyne, or 
 eighty-seven, Pettifer would be the startled prey to 
 acute recollections, and gaze with a far-away air 
 into his buried past. A blind beggar under the 
 window, with a penny whistle, could frequently re- 
 vive such painful associations in his mind that he was 
 obliged to hurry from the room. 
 
 The trouble with him was that he had no imagina- 
 tion: he was unable to sustain his imitation of the 
 hero. When a sympathetic accountant pressed him 
 for particulars, his narrative was bald, and lacked 
 probability. He hinted at sufferings in a northern 
 town at a date when the accountant knew he had 
 been in Bermondsey. And he acquired photographs 
 that might be bought at the print-shops, and which 
 stamped him a liar. So he was chaffed, and unhappy, 
 and cast about him for means to confound the 
 scoffers. 
 
 The "means" occurred presently in the form of a 
 damsel who dispensed buns and poached eggs in an 
 "A. B. C." initials which might appropriately stand 
 for "Awfully bad coffee," but do not. She permitted 
 Pettifer to offer her little attentions; detailed, she 
 accepted "button-holes" from him, and let him shake 
 hands with her when he left. Her Christian name 
 
NEMESIS 273 
 
 was Sarah, for which Pettifer was sorry; but she 
 was a pretty girl the only pretty girl ever discov- 
 ered in an "A. B. C." shop and he always thought 
 of her without the "h." Impatience to obtain her 
 likeness, with a tender signature at the back, used 
 to keep him awake at night, but things were a long 
 time progressing so far as that, and in the mean- 
 while the incredulity about him continued to wound 
 his self-respect. 
 
 By-and-by, however, she consented to walk once 
 round Lincoln's Inn Fields with him before she took 
 the 'bus home, and a week or so after that he sug- 
 gested the Crystal Palace and fire-works. Sarah said 
 she didn't know "if mother would like her to," but 
 she would ascertain. For herself she blushed. 
 
 "Mother" apparently had no objection, and they 
 went in hansoms, and first-class compartments. He 
 soon began to find he was spending more money than 
 he could afford, and revelled in the knowledge. This 
 was as it should be, he felt. If she neglected him 
 at tea-time, he went out in the evening, and drank 
 two glasses of beer desperately, and hoped he would 
 look haggard and dissipated when he presented him- 
 self at the office next day. He complained of the 
 sparseness of opportunities for talking to her alone, 
 and she answered that there were "plenty of inks 
 and paper." Stimulated by their abundance and the 
 reminder, he wrote Sarah many passionate epistles, 
 for the rapture of having love-letters in reply, to 
 
274 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 leave on his mantelpiece. He smiled with the con- 
 sciousness that he was vindicating his veracity nobly, 
 and at this stage produced- overwhelming evidence 
 to crush his detractors to the earth. 
 
 But he was not fond of her at all; that is the point 
 of it. He did not dislike her, he was deeply grateful 
 to her, but as to being in love with her, not an. 
 atom! After he had begged for the likeness, and 
 received it, and everybody knew about her, he pro- 
 posed to retire from the acquaintance. Only he 
 had reckoned without Sarah. Sarah said she had 
 always understood they were engaged to be married 
 and so had "mother." She told him that men 
 could not trifle with young girls' affections as he 
 seemed to suppose, and inquired how much he would 
 like his letters to her read in court. There was such 
 a thing as "Lor," she said mistakenly. 
 
 Pettifer turned a light shade of green, and sur- 
 rendered to pressure. To do him justice, he framed 
 the best tale he could out of the circumstances, but 
 the materials were scanty, and would not have lent 
 themselves to much embroidering even by defter fin- 
 gers. Two or three of us had dropped into his 
 diggings one night, and his melancholy was so very 
 unfeigned that somebody commented on it, and 
 demanded explanations. 
 
 Young Pettifer shuddered, and then got up with 
 a valiant effort to realise the hero at the moment 
 when he "rises from his chair, and silently unlock- 
 
NEMESIS 275 
 
 ing the escritoire between the windows, takes from it 
 a faded miniature." He took Sarah's likeness out 
 of his chest-of-drawers, and held it up. 
 
 "This, gentlemen," he said, "is a portrait of the 
 lady who to-morrow will become my wife !" 
 
 It was dramatic; and we all congratulated him, 
 and had whisky-and-water. The truth only leaked 
 out afterwards. It was an awful punishment to over- 
 take a harmless liar. Sarah has developed into 
 rather a shrewish little person to-day, and her pret- 
 tiness is more of the housemaid kind than ever. Her 
 jealousy of her lord has certainly subdued his ten- 
 dency to leave photographs about his rooms; but 
 those who liked poor Pettifer are inclined to pro- 
 nounce the remedy worse than the complaint. It is 
 unnecessary to state that this story is designed to be 
 included in a Sunday-school book; the moral is so 
 obvious that its destiny is assured. 
 
A ROMANCE OF A COFFEE-STALL 
 
 IT was as unpretentious a little coffee-stall as could 
 be. Almost the last thing in the world you would 
 have thought of connecting with a romance, or, under 
 ordinary circumstances, have done so much as think 
 about at all. No polished copper-boiler beamed 
 seductively upon the cab-stand opposite to enhance 
 its natural attractions; no new-fangled, patent 
 double burner, flinging a meretricious radiance across 
 the hunks of stale bread-and-butter, professionally 
 known as "door-steps," tended to relieve its gloom. 
 Night after night, for ten years, it had stood at 
 the same corner, as invariably as the lamp-post; and 
 night after night, during the last three, its outcast- 
 clientele of the homeless and the half-starved, creep- 
 ing to its shelter from the thoroughfares beyond, 
 had never failed to notice the peculiar fact that the 
 proprietor's eyes were always the most hungry in 
 the crowd. Ravenous wretches, whose choice of a 
 lodging lay between the bridges and the casual-ward, 
 remarked it with astonishment; women with terrible 
 faces that had once been innocent, commented upon 
 it amongst themselves; it passed into a byword in 
 time "As hungry as Daddy Doorsteps' eyes I" 
 
 276 
 
A ROMANCE OF A COFFEE STALL 277 
 
 The man interested me from the beginning; there 
 was a something so patient, and yet so hopeless in 
 his gaze, which haunted me almost against my will. 
 An unaccountable fascination in an indolent life, but 
 after that occasion when I first saw him peering out 
 into the darkness, I used often to stroll southward 
 from the club before returning to my rooms, and 
 once in the small hours, when trade was slack, and 
 the snow lay thick upon the London pavements, he 
 told me his story if it can be called one told it 
 so simply that I think he only made it more pathetic, 
 and then I knew why "Daddy Doorsteps' " eyes were 
 always hungry, and what it was they sought. 
 
 "I'm looking for my girl, sir !" he said, wistfully 
 "her who left me three years ago, and I haven't 
 never heard on since. 
 
 'Take care of our child, Joe,' said her mother, 
 'when I'm gone !' And I promised her I would. 
 
 "Milly was a little bit of a thing then, as the 
 neighbours used to call 'pretty baby,' not old enough 
 to understand. But as she grew up, and the name 
 seemed to fit her just the same, she was still known 
 as 'Baby' down the court; and we was everything to 
 one another, Baby and me ! 
 
 "Folks said I spoilt the lass, and made a lady of 
 her, but I couldn't bear the thought of her going out 
 to service, and getting them soft white hands of 
 hers rough with work. It sounds strange, I dessay, 
 
278 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 sir, my feeling like that me not being a gentleman, 
 neither but it was just a common man's pride. 
 
 "So she teased me to let her earn some money 
 by sitting to the artist people instead; models got 
 a living so easy, she had heard, and besides, we could 
 be together that way much the same ! 
 
 "That's how it was that one summer evening, 
 when she came in, she brought a pictur' with her, 
 painted by some swell who had seen her in the stu- 
 dios. He was_only an amateur, she said, and had 
 told her she might keep it for herself. It was her 
 own portrait. Not as I had ever seen her quite 
 different, and grand, with a great bunch of yellow 
 roses on her bosom, and pearls twisted in her hair. 
 
 "I could hardly believe it was my little girl right 
 off! 
 
 " 'Why, Baby,' I says, laughing, 'I didn't know 
 you was so beautiful as this !' 
 
 " 'Didn't you, father?' she says, curious-like, and 
 turning away. 'Perhaps that's only how he sees 
 me!' 
 
 "She hung it over the mantel-shelf; but I never 
 got fairly comfortable with that pictur' a-looking 
 down on me; it spoilt my smoke, sir, just as if a 
 stranger was always in the parlour a stranger there 
 was no getting friendly with! Them smiling lips 
 was very lovely, of course, but it wasn't my Baby's 
 smile, and I fancied her best in the old stuff gown 
 she used to wear at home. 
 
A ROMANCE OF A COFFEE STALL 279 
 
 "I suppose I must have been blind, for I never 
 thought of harm, not though she used to be gayer 
 now than I had ever known her, and of a sudden 
 drop down into a chair so quiet that I was frightened 
 she was ill. One day, when I kissed her, she burst 
 out sobbing, and asked me about her mother. 
 
 " 'You haven't never missed your mother, Milly, 
 have you?' I said 'her you can't remember? You 
 haven't been unhappy nor lonely, dearie, with me?' 
 
 " 'You've been father and mother, too, daddy,' 
 she says, sorrowful-like, and putting her arms round 
 my neck; 'the kindest father a girl ever had !' 
 
 "I've often been glad to call up them words of 
 hers since, for that was the night she went. 'Gone 
 away,' so her letter said, 'with the man who loved 
 her, and had solemnly swore to make her his lawful 
 wife.' Her dead mother heard that oath, sir, and 
 Heaven will judge him now he's broke it! for only 
 shame could keep her silent. 
 
 "I don't live in that house no more the furthest 
 place that I could find was homelier than home when 
 she was gone ; but I still held on to the old stall I'm 
 a-waiting here for her! 
 
 "And some time when that villain has abandoned 
 her, and she's in this big, cruel city all alone maybe 
 with a little child upon the breast where he once 
 put them yellow roses she'll think of her poor old 
 father, and come home, to be forgiven, and to 
 rest. . . . Are you going, sir?" 
 
280' THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 Yes, I was going. The tale was told; the stars 
 were growing fainter in the sky; and in the chilly 
 light of dawn I saw the man was crying. I looked 
 back once; his was the solitary figure in the deserted 
 street he was watching for her still. Only death 
 will end his vigil; only death can give the wanderer 
 back to him again. Stunned and conscience-stricken, 
 I knew it! For / had been the villain of whom he 
 spoke, and to the "rest" which is eternal, his baby 
 already had gone "home." 
 
A REVERIE 
 
 REBECCA is in the bedroom, dressing, and Lucy 
 who looked very sweet in her simple frock has gone 
 to some entertainment at her school. So I am alone. 
 The armchair is very soft, and the room is quiet, 
 though overhead I can hear my wife faintly as she 
 moves to and fro between the wardrobe and the 
 toilet-table. Her feet are heavy. I am glad that 
 she is going to the Jacobs's. It will be a rare treat 
 to me to spend the evening by myself. The fire sel- 
 dom burns so clearly, I think, as it does now, and my 
 cigar tastes better than usual. Rebecca makes me 
 sick; she is so fat, and her laugh Gottf her laugh 
 means so little; and all my nerves jump when it 
 shakes her. Yet a good woman! and once she did 
 not irritate me. Nor, had she not been good, 
 would she irritate me now. That is a fact; few 
 wives would have done as much as she did. I 
 ought to remember it, but, instead, she makes me 
 
 remember 
 
 Himmel! how one smokes when one thinks ! Let 
 me have the box beside me. In the tobacco-wreaths 
 I see myself as I was fifteen years ago; and I see 
 
 281 
 
282, THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 the apartment in which I lived with Dora. How 
 small it was 1 on the first floor of a lodging-house ! 
 But with its refinements also, the pretty, little, inex- 
 pensive trifles which girls like Dora purchase and 
 contrive. Why did I not marry Dora ? My parents 
 would have been horrified she was a Christian; I 
 cannot think of any other reason, though at the time 
 reasons must certainly have appeared numerous to 
 me, for I do not recollect that the idea of marriage 
 with her ever disturbed my peace. Perhaps because 
 she did not worry me with entreaties! She had 
 been very poor and friendless when I met her; she 
 may have fancied, in her sensitiveness, it would be 
 ingratitude to ask me for more than I had done. 
 And she loved me; oh, yes, she loved me dearly! 
 And the business was my father's in his lifetime; 
 I could not have afforded to displease him. She 
 must have known that! She must have known I 
 could not quarrel with him, even if I had wished, 
 
 though I did not 
 
 Fervently, although it is all past, and the shrub 
 that was planted on her grave has grown big beyond 
 the railings, I hope she did not grieve; I have won- 
 dered many times since! She was so gentle and 
 I will say it pure, that it has seemed to me she 
 must often have suffered while she smiled and kissed 
 me. And she died, and was buried, and the child 
 the baby Lucy was given to strangers to be nursed. 
 How long ago it feels in another life. But I wish 
 
A REVERIE 283 
 
 that Lucy might have called me "Papa !" . . . 
 Where are the lights ; my cigar is out! 
 
 Rebecca : She was slimmer when her family made 
 up the match between us. Yes, and good-looking; 
 and my sorrow for Dora was faded two or three 
 years had past. I was already my own master, and 
 trade was brisk. I was happy with Rebecca. I gave 
 her many diamonds, and the other women envied 
 her, and at home we got on very well. If we had 
 had children of our own, I wonder ? 
 
 Lucy was four when Rebecca took her. She asked 
 no questions; to this day she has never asked me 
 anything. It shows a big heart I She is like a mother 
 to Lucy. Shall I ever forget how grateful I was ! 
 The tears came to my eyes when she said "yes." 
 She should be worshipped for such a generosity 
 but Lucy reminds me so of Dora. 
 
 Not at first ah, no; just a little thing not able to 
 talk plainly yet! It was afterwards, quite lately, 
 that I noticed the wonderful resemblance. She is 
 fourteen already a tall, slim girl, with the tiniest 
 hands to be conceived, and with every move she 
 brings back Dora before my eyes. She has the same 
 features, the same trick of smiling sometimes with 
 the mouth a little to one side; she grows more like 
 Dora every day. There are hours when I look at 
 her across the table when my wife and she and I 
 sit at meals together, and my throat gets tight. The 
 past is suddenly alive again to me, and I would 
 
284 THIS STAGE OF FOOLS 
 
 spring up and put my arms round her neclc, but 
 Rebecca might guess the truth, and it would pain 
 her to the heart if she suspected. Yet it is true, 
 and I cannot help it, that in the child who reminds 
 me of the dead so vividly my wife has a rival here 
 on our very hearth. It is Lucy, whom she con- 
 sented to adopt, who shows me innocently that my 
 wife is fat and silly; it is Lucy, who, as I watch her 
 at her lessons, recalls to me the thoughtful face of 
 the girl I used to love. And I regret! Ah, the 
 good Gott forgive me, but I regret with all the soul 
 of me, and would be young once more, with Dora 
 by my side, and see her by my side to-day! . . . 
 How warm it has become! the window should be 
 open such a night. . . . Rebecca has come down- 
 stairs. She wears her black satin, and powders her 
 nose again before the mirror. She persuades me to 
 accompany her; I shall be "dull alone?" 
 
 "My head aches; otherwise Adieu, enjoy 
 
 yourself, my dearest 1" 
 
 THE END 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-100m-9,'52(A3105)444 
 

 PR 
 
 6025 
 
 M55th