" MUCH of the charm of ' Three Loving Ladies ' lies 
 in the rare artistry, witty and humorous, of its dia- 
 logue and descriptions which reveal character. Her 
 most happy effects reveal powers to which modern 
 novelists seem for the most part to be indifferent; 
 to be compared more justly with polished, gay fin- 
 ish of Jane Austen. One and all are conspicuously 
 vital, firmly realized and presented with an easy 
 and dramatic touch. We are inter sted in every one 
 because they reveal men and I Birmingham 
 Post. 
 
 " Mrs. Dowdall writes the kind c books that Jane 
 Welsh Carlisle might have written had she married 
 a decent man of business and b 'gotten a pair of 
 children of her own. . . . She ip honest as Arnold 
 Bennet would like to be, . . . Slu 'an turn observa- 
 tions into print without missing a stroke. She can 
 make cold type mimic sounds till the pages purr." 
 Liverpool Courier. 
 
 " Mrs. Dowdall is a writer whose work I look for- 
 ward to with immense and unholy glee. She wan- 
 ders through the world apart from it, yet always 
 keeping a glinting eye on its funny side. And its 
 funny side is of course that side which everybody 
 takes most seriously." The Taller.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 . o.
 
 THREE LOVING 
 LADIES 
 
 By 
 THE HON. MRS. DOWDALL 
 
 v ~ 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFL1N COMPANY 
 
 1921
 
 Printed in Great Britain
 
 TO 
 
 KATIE BURRILL
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MESSRS. BURRIDGE and Go's pantechnicons bumped 
 majestically along the streets of Millport early in the 
 morning. Mud seemed to be unaccountably falling 
 from the sky through a close filter of smoke draped 
 high above the town ; for although there was no fog, 
 the great stucco offices on either side of the street 
 were slimy with coffee-coloured moisture, and the 
 people who hurried along looked cold and slippery, 
 like panic-stricken snails compelled to leave their 
 shelters. The same mysterious mud oozed also 
 from below the paving stones, and would continue to 
 ooze long after the sun had penetrated the smoke 
 filter and made the houses and the pedestrians 
 comparatively dry. 
 
 Millport is one of the largest cities of the empire, 
 and one of the richest. I have never heard of any- 
 one living there for choice, or for any reason but an 
 alleged opportunity for making money. Those who 
 settle there are hi the habit of transplanting them- 
 selves at regular intervals ; removing to a house 
 further away from the premises to which the bread- 
 winner carries a neat bag or attache case every 
 weekday morning, between eight and ten. The 
 removals mark a rise in the social scale, and are 
 celebrated by new responsibilities, in the addition 
 
 7
 
 8 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 of servants, greenhouses, garages and acres of 
 ground requiring " upkeep." The heights of Elysium 
 are, in the end, reached by train. Between the 
 main railway station and the outskirts of wealth, 
 lie nearly two miles of shops, and a professional 
 quarter where the inner darkness of blocks and 
 terraces shades into the dim glory of semi-detached 
 houses. The next stage of grandeur is seen in the 
 increase of laurel bushes and gravel paths round 
 each semi-detached pair. When the flower-beds 
 in front, and the tennis lawns at the back, reach a 
 certain standard of importance they flow into each 
 other by connecting paths between the buildings, 
 and each house then stands alone, detached, in the 
 full radiance of encircling " grounds." 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock before Messrs. Burridge's 
 stately pantechnicons reached their destination, a 
 large, square, cinnamon-coloured house, standing in 
 about two acres of ground on the borders of Mill- 
 port's largest and most satisfactory park. General 
 Fulton, who had taken a five years' lease of it, 
 wondered many times what had induced him to 
 leave his comfortable little house in Westminster. 
 He had meant to retire from the army at the end of 
 the war, and had been turning over in his mind 
 many agreeable plans for the future, when he was 
 offered the command of a military district of which 
 Millport was the centre. In a rash moment he 
 confided the offer to his wife, hoping for some enter- 
 tainment from her habit of commenting seriously 
 on matters which he regarded as trifling. To his 
 surprise and disgust, she surpassed his expectation, 
 and pointed out unanswerable reasons why the 
 command must be accepted. She confronted him
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 9 
 
 with facts about his income, which had hitherto been 
 sufficient. But he neither read the papers nor 
 practised arithmetic, and, as she observed at the 
 end of the argument, " seemed to suppose that 
 girls' clothes grew on their backs." His reply to 
 this last shot produced a silence which he knew to be 
 ominous of a settled programme ; he knew that he 
 had thrown away his last chance by " saying some- 
 thing coarse," and that any further excuses would 
 be flung unregarded into the flame of her spiritual 
 nature (a possession which is supposed by women 
 who boast of it, to guarantee also a sound business 
 judgment). He appealed in vain to his daughters 
 Evangeline and Teresa. Evangeline said carelessly, 
 " Oh, do let's, father," and left the room to post a 
 letter. She informed the maid whom she passed on 
 the stairs that, " we are all going to Millport, and 
 isn't it fun ? " Teresa ran her fingers through her 
 untidy hair, done up for the first time, and said, 
 " If it is by the sea couldn't we have a cottage ? " 
 
 General Fulton, avoiding his wife's eye, mixed 
 himself a whisky and soda. It was the only way to 
 drown his bitter regret at having ever mentioned the 
 appointment. " You'll never get another house as 
 nice as this," he suggested feebly. " I've been to 
 Millport once, and it's a filthy place. There was 
 a great black church opposite the hotel, and drunken 
 old women poking stale fish about." Teresa 
 shivered, but said nothing. 
 
 " I don't suppose those poor old women ever 
 thought of drinking until they were taught by their 
 husbands," said Mrs. Fulton, glancing at the tumbler 
 he held, but she added hurriedly, before he had time 
 to protest, " and I believe it is perfectly necessary
 
 io THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 to poke fish before you can tell whether it is fresh 
 or not. You would see that kind of thing in any 
 town you went to, Cyril. And, anyhow, one 
 doesn't live down there. Father and mother lived 
 in Millport for years, and I know father said every- 
 one lived right out." 
 
 " Well, I don't think I want the thing," he said 
 bravely. " I am not going to take it." He gathered 
 up his morning's correspondence. " I'm out to 
 lunch, Sue." 
 
 " Do you mind paying some money into the bank 
 for me as you go past ? " she said gently. " The 
 last quarter hasn't been nearly enough. I suppose 
 it is the income tax and the price of every- 
 thing." 
 
 General Fulton looked at her in exasperated 
 admiration as she sat there, quietly warming her 
 toes in front of the fire, meditative and candid ; 
 the typical gentle wife who patiently adds up the 
 problems of life for her husband, and leaves his 
 wisdom to unravel the answer. 
 
 " Why didn't you say at the beginning that we 
 were in debt ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't know that we are, dear," she said, 
 looking at him in perfect innocence. " I only said 
 that I couldn't manage on what you gave me. I 
 don't know what your shares come to ; it is all 
 Greek to me." 
 
 " Well, have it your own way, damn it," returned 
 her husband. " Perhaps you've inherited business 
 instincts, and they always go with turpitude." 
 
 " I wish you would think a little of the children 
 sometimes," she said, glancing at Teresa who sat 
 lost in thought by the window, hearing what they
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES n 
 
 said, and trying in vain to understand what the 
 argument really meant. 
 
 " Do you want to go to Millport, Dicky ? " her 
 father asked kindly. 
 
 " I don't know," she said. " It is on the sea, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 " It's on shrimps," he replied, " and docks things 
 that open and shut at you and it is as black as 
 night, and people walk about with bread under 
 their arms. Well, goodbye, dear ; your mother 
 says we're going, and she knows she cares God 
 bless her." He kissed Teresa affectionately, and 
 left the room. 
 
 And so, the course of time showed Messrs. 
 Burridge's pantechnicons casting the contents of 
 Cyril's happy little home into the ornate cinnamon 
 jaws of a house that he said made him think some- 
 how of the late Prince Albert. " The sort of thing 
 he'd have built for the head gamekeeper, Sue," he 
 remarked after lunch on their first day there. " And 
 the park is the very thing for ' interments ' ; you 
 could see them winding all the way from end to end. 
 I hope it will come up to your expectations in the 
 matter of wealthy consorts for the girls ; or is that 
 not part of the scheme ? " 
 
 " I don't like joking about marriage, Cyril, you 
 know that," she replied, " it may mean so much to a 
 girl." She sighed. She had been very beautiful 
 twenty years before, and would have been so still, 
 but for the fact that years of quiet enjoyment of her 
 own skill in getting what she wanted, and a conscious 
 superiority over people who " worried about what 
 couldn't be helped " had obliterated the delicate 
 lines of her face, and given to the fleeting dimple,
 
 12 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 which used to be the despair and delight of her 
 lovers, the coarser appearance of a crease in a satin 
 cushion. 
 
 " It may mean something to her partner, too, 
 
 you come to that," returned Cyril. " It will to 
 Evangeline's, I should think. I wouldn't be in his 
 shoes for something. She's like you, Sue, in some 
 ways ; with all the naughty little point of the story 
 eft out. I never knew such a rough rider in the 
 field of conversation. She'd never have been able to 
 stuff me with the stories you did about the injury 
 to your pure young mind when I kissed you. Lord 1 
 think of it 1 " 
 
 Mrs. Fulton kept a dignified silence for a minute or 
 two, and then sighed again, as if to waft away the 
 possibility of looking at Nature's beauties with a 
 man who had been blind from birth. " How did 
 you like the people you met to-day ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh, some of them weren't bad. Hatton will be 
 here to breakfast. He'll always be about the place, 
 so I hope you'll like him ; he's my A.D.C. And 
 all their wives will be round soon, I suppose, to pay 
 their respects. Hatton hasn't got one I'm glad to 
 say ; though I daresay he'll be as preoccupied with 
 the subject as if he had. I wish I had gone into the 
 Navy instead of the Army." 
 
 " Why ? " she asked, though she knew that the 
 drift of what he was going to say would be somehow 
 unflattering to herself. 
 
 " Because one's subordinates have always got a 
 neat woman in lodgings somewhere, and they just 
 clear off in their spare time and keep themselves 
 employed until one meets them again. Their wives
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 13 
 
 don't litter about the place and fight with each 
 other." 
 
 " I don't know how any woman can care to be a 
 mere tool like that," she replied. " It must make 
 them so one-sided." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " but think of the feelings of the 
 happy man who can say, ' This little side is all for 
 me,' and knows that she has no other to give to 
 one who might like to have it. Why, it would make 
 life a different thing. Where are the girls, by the 
 way ? " 
 
 " I think they are arranging their rooms and show- 
 ing the servants where to put things. They seem 
 to be the most curious creatures that we have got ; 
 but it was so difficult to find well trained ones. They 
 call me ' Mrs. Fulton,' and tell me what they have 
 been accustomed to. I think I shall engage a house- 
 keeper, Cyril. I do hate explaining, and these 
 creatures want to argue about everything." 
 
 " Can't the girls do it ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh no ; they have other things to do. Besides, 
 Evangeline turns everything upside down. I had 
 the greatest difficulty in getting the dining-room 
 table put where I wanted it. Of course I want the 
 dears to have everything as they like, but I do wish 
 sometimes they would be a little more help." 
 
 " Oh, well, we managed all right in the old place." 
 
 " Yes, but then these servants won't do nearly so 
 much," she complained, " and they have more to do 
 as it is. I must say I think it is only right that we 
 should consider them more than we used to do. It 
 must be so dreadful to work all day. I am sure that 
 new girl Strickland would be more satisfied and likely 
 to stop if you kept your room tidier, Cyril."
 
 I 4 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Evangeline poked her head round the door. 
 " Father," she asked, " can I leave your books and 
 have a lesson on the car from that magnificent Fitz- 
 Augustus person of yours ? He says he is going 
 some messages for you, and he wouldn't mind " 
 
 " Anything you like," said her father, " so long 
 as I don't know anything about it ; you can't drive 
 without a licence. Also, if you'll make Dicky go 
 for a walk with me. I must go into the town, and 
 I must have some exercise, and I won't walk alone." 
 
 " I don't think we'll do that business after all," he 
 said as he left the house with Teresa half an hour 
 later. " It only means a small additional coolness 
 to the heels of an unknown gentleman in an office. 
 They'll warm up again to-morrow, like a lodging 
 house chop. You've never lived in lodgings [have 
 you ? " 
 
 " No, never." 
 
 " Well, never do. When I lived in lodgings and 
 used to be a bit off colour in the morning I used to 
 see ornaments about everywhere. I remember 
 I once saw a china dog, with a basket of forget-me- 
 nots in its mouth, on the Colonel's table in the 
 middle of his papers, and I'm hanged if I know to 
 this day whether it was a real one or not. I could 
 never make up my mind about it, though it gave 
 me such a turn that I went round to the chemist 
 and got something." 
 
 " What else," asked Teresa. " That's lovely." 
 
 " Oh, I don't remember anything special ; but 
 they never clean the mustard pot in those places 
 that was another thing. They've no sense. And 
 I never could find the matches. They'd be at the
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 15 
 
 bottom of a vase with dried grass in it, or that kind 
 of thing. I think this ought to take us down to the 
 docks. Would you like to see them ? " 
 
 " Yes, awfully," she agreed, and they walked 
 some way in silence. " They are nicer houses 
 down here if they weren't so dirty, aren't they ? " she 
 said presently, looking up at the windows as they 
 passed along a street to which some bygone architect 
 had bequeathed an indestructible dignity. Their 
 restful proportions and large windows gave her a 
 sudden sense of relief after the turrets and variegated 
 excrescences, coloured bricks disposed in geometrical 
 patterns, and twisted ironwork that adhered to 
 the semi-detached quarter they had passed 
 through. 
 
 " Yes," said her father. " I expect all the old 
 turpitudes pious founders and all that lived down 
 here. Our place was probably a marsh or a coal 
 mine or something, till the influence of the Late 
 Lamented overtook it. A man I met yesterday was 
 talking about slaves. They were up to all sorts of 
 games down at their warehouses. The negro still 
 flourishes apparently," he added, as a group of 
 black men passed them and turned down a narrow 
 street, where tousled women stood at their doors, 
 and children screamed in the gutter. They crossed 
 over a thoroughfare at which main streets intersected 
 one another, and accommodation for sailors was 
 advertised by mission rooms, clubs, public houses, 
 slop shops, and reiterated offers of beds. Blocks 
 of shops, shipping bureaus and warehouses split 
 up further on into single gigantic buildings, the 
 offices of the state and of great trading companies, 
 full as beehives, and glittering with prosperity ; all
 
 16 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 the organism of a seaport in touch with continents. 
 The sea air was fresh in their faces. 
 
 " That's good," said Cyril. " We'll go and hang 
 about." 
 
 They went precariously down a sloping bridge, 
 slippery with mud from the feet of a stream of hurry- 
 ing workers intent on their home affairs which lay 
 on the other side of the river, and stood by a line 
 of iron chains that stretched indefinitely along the 
 gently heaving planks of the stage to which the 
 ferry boats were moored. A red sun hung above the 
 chimneys on the opposite side in a slight fog that 
 was creeping up the river, and, from mysterious 
 shapes behind this veil, hooters, syrens and clanging 
 bells answered one another in warnings to the 
 capering atoms of whom the drowning of even one 
 would affect, in some degree, the life of the city. 
 
 " Do you know," said Teresa presently, " that 
 I haven't seen a single person what we used to 
 call ' person ' since we came out ; nothing but 
 the kind of people who make crowds." 
 
 " That's because you don't know them," said 
 Cyril. " I saw a millionaire get off the boat a 
 minute ago, ' walking quite unaffectedly,' as the 
 newspapers say." 
 
 " No, but the dressed people," said Teresa, " you 
 know what I mean. Where are they ? " 
 
 " My dear, how should I know ? " he replied 
 carelessly. " That's what I tried to explain to your 
 mother before we came; I thought it would put 
 her off. But I shouldn't be in the least surprised 
 if she took up philanthropy." 
 
 " Do you mean that she'd go on committees ? " 
 Teresa asked awestruck.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 17 
 
 " She might quite well, and if I were the com- 
 mittee I should just tell her what I wanted done, 
 and leave her to do it her own way. You'd find 
 it would work out in the end." 
 
 " But those kind of people are generally so interfer- 
 ing," said Teresa. " Mother is not." 
 
 " No, but she is a master of strategy," said Cyril. 
 " I used to read about Napoleon when we were 
 taught strategy. Did you ever hear of his battles ? " 
 
 " You mean Waterloo ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, but that didn't come off. His great success 
 was before then. She may meet her Wellington on 
 the playing fields of Millport for all you know. We 
 shall see. Let's go back to tea. Have a taxi ? " 
 
 " No, let's go on the top of a tram," said Teresa. 
 " I want to have that rod thing arranged over my 
 head. Did you see the conductor running round 
 with a string and hooking the little wheel on at the 
 back ? " 
 
 "Well, I don't mind," he conceded, "but the 
 smell will knock you down." 
 
 " What smell ? " asked Teresa. 
 
 " Demos, a crowd," he replied, as they made 
 their slow progress between the jostling workers 
 who still poured uninterruptedly across the bridge, 
 " see also ' Demosthenes ' and ' demon ' and 
 ' demi-monde '," he added reflectively, as a whiff 
 of strong scent struck him from a girl with a sharp 
 elbow. 
 
 " What a fuss you make about smells and things," 
 she said. " They're all life. They mean all sorts 
 of things." 
 
 " Well, they don't mean anything I want," he 
 grumbled. " I believe everybody in this damned
 
 18 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 place wears fish next the skin." This was said with 
 profound disgust as they took their places on a 
 little seat at the top of the tram staircase, and 
 other swarms of people with pale, serious faces and 
 drab clothing pushed past his knees to the glass 
 shelter beyond. The windows became fogged with 
 human breath and clouds of cheap tobacco, and as 
 the sun disappeared in the drifting fog from the 
 river, the mud began to filter down once more on 
 to the roofs, and to ooze up from under the stones 
 of the pavement. The car swayed under its heavy 
 load, with occasional grinding squeals, stopping 
 every few hundred yards to take up new burdens 
 in place of those who had reached their destination. 
 Teresa watched the squalid forms and weary faces 
 with a new-born ecstasy. Some veiled desire, a 
 love for something unknown, which had led her in 
 pursuit for as long as she could remember, had 
 stopped and shown itself to her for a moment. Then 
 it fled again from her reach.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ONE great source of mental nourishment that 
 Evangeline relied on at this time was the Press. 
 Two thirds of the things she thought about each day 
 came from the newspapers, plain or illustrated, but 
 not political ; that is to say, not political beyond 
 striking headlines and a short very short leading 
 article. Her mind made curious pictures of these 
 scraps of state information. Perhaps the best way 
 of describing what she thought Parliament is, and 
 does, is to imagine oneself very agile, very kind, very 
 interested, perched inside the roof of an immense 
 building, looking down on hundreds of elderly 
 gentlemen all of one type, but some with familiar 
 faces. We, from our perch, know that each of them 
 has gone through a period of anxiety and expense, 
 connected with loss of voice and terrible boredom 
 of his supporters, who have to sit behind him on 
 uncomfortable chairs and wish he would pull his 
 coat down at the back before speaking. This period 
 of trial has ended in an election ribbon and scratch 
 meals and then he got a " seat " here on something- 
 or-other benches (Evangeline had been at school, 
 but she wasn't in the serious lot, at least, not the 
 brainy serious. Her set used only to discuss things 
 like immortality when they felt really friendly). 
 Once on these " benches " men become political, 
 and lose considerably in spiritual value, except when 
 
 19
 
 20 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 they call out the army and navy. Otherwise they 
 spend their time henceforth in committing blunders 
 (the meat blunder, the wool blunder, the tax blunder, 
 the housing blunder, etc.), to the perpetual in- 
 convenience of the public, until something happens 
 to the Cabinet and a lot of well-known people who 
 were IN become OUT, and it makes no difference 
 at all, except as a frail raft for the drowning in 
 conversation. But the rest of the paper is worth 
 reading ; there are things to interest everybody. 
 The eccentric behaviour of criminals, landladies 
 and leaders of society ; adventures, and reports of 
 shipwrecks and calves with two tails. On the last 
 page there is often expert advice on physical fitness 
 and the complexion. 
 
 On the morning following Teresa's walk to the 
 docks with her father Evangeline began to try the 
 effects of the juice of an orange accompanied by 
 half an hour's deep breathing before breakfast. She 
 had walked and deep breathed in the park, and 
 returned full of exhilaration from the sight of the 
 dewy grass, young tulips pushing through the 
 heavy dun soil and the song of birds in smoke-laden 
 trees and bushes that were budding as irrepressibly 
 as herself. She stood on the edge of a pond and 
 watched the ducks performing an ecstatic toilet. 
 Their gutteral sounds of pleasure and the grinding 
 of distant tram wheels were the only sounds besides 
 the chorus of chirping. The only people she met 
 were a policeman on one side of the pond, and a 
 dressmaker's assistant on the other, and she felt 
 that God was the friend of both as of the ducks and 
 the Spring ; they were not at all in the way. When 
 she arrived at home a man in military uniform was
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 21 
 
 standing on the doorstep. He was young and had 
 the face of a reformer. 
 
 " Good morning," she said. " Are you coming 
 in?" 
 
 " Please," he answered gravely, and said no more, 
 while she fitted her latchkey. She led the way into 
 the dining-room, where breakfast was laid, and 
 looked vaguely round. 
 
 " Shall I tell my father you're here ? " she asked 
 hesitatingly, and then, with sudden uncontrollable 
 interest, " are you the man that hasn't got a 
 wife ? " 
 
 He started and frowned. He was embarrassed, 
 and felt that the question was not one that should 
 have been asked by a stranger. " No, I am not 
 married," he snapped. 
 
 " Is your name Hatton ? " she asked next. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh, then Father told us about you. Do you 
 want to see him ? " 
 
 " Very much," said Captain Hatton with 
 emphasis. 
 
 " I'll fetch him," she said, " but do sit down 
 and be comfortable." She went out and called, 
 " Father ! Father ! " at the bottom of the stairs. 
 " Father ! Oh, drat him ! I believe he is still in 
 the bath." Captain Hatton, erect on the hearth- 
 rug in front of the door she had left open, heard, 
 and winced. 
 
 " Dick y ! Dick y ! " she called next. 
 
 " Oh, do come up, Chips, if you want anything," 
 he heard a small weary voice say upstairs. " Father 
 is in the bath ; he'll be out directly." 
 
 " Well tell him to hurry up ; it's Captain Hatton,"
 
 22 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 said Evangeline, and she plunged back into the 
 dining-room. 
 
 " I am afraid my watch must be all wrong," 
 he said, as he glanced round the room in hope 
 of moral support from an accusing clock. " I 
 thought General Fulton said breakfast at half-past 
 eight." 
 
 " So it is," said Evangeline. " It is only twenty 
 minutes to nine now. Father won't get up if he 
 has an interesting post. What time do you get 
 up?" 
 
 " Oh er a quarter to seven usually," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 " A quarter to ? Gracious ! Do you mean 
 
 in the very middle of a minute like that ? It seems 
 just as if you said ' up goes the hand of my watch, 
 down goes my leg on the floor.' I couldn't do that. 
 I have to yawn a long time first and then get out 
 by degrees till it gets too cold not to do something 
 about it." 
 
 There was silence. Evangeline felt depressed. 
 All her gladness in the awakening spring had gone. 
 " Would you like to look at the paper ? " she asked 
 with a sigh. He said, " Thank you," but as he 
 stretched out his hand to take it from her he saw 
 that it was not Country Life, but a lady's paper. 
 Doll-like faces with no noses, shameless trousseaux, 
 ridiculous young men in black, scent bottles and 
 wigs met his eye on the open page. 
 
 " Er thanks very much," he said, " I think I'll 
 wait for the morning paper. What time do you 
 get it ? " 
 
 " I expect it has come," said Evangeline. " The 
 boy generally flings it in at the kitchen window."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 23 
 
 She rang the bell. " Breakfast, please, Strickland, 
 and the paper if it has come," she ordered. 
 
 " I was waiting till Mrs. Fulton came down," 
 said the maid severely. Evangeline sighed again. 
 " How obstructive everyone is this morning," she 
 thought, but said aloud, " No, we'll begin please, 
 and anyhow I want the paper." 
 
 But neither came and the silence grew heavier. 
 She wanted to rush out of the room ; she knew that 
 her hair was untidy and two of her finger nails were 
 grubby owing to having restored a strayed worm 
 to what she thought a safe place on the bank of 
 the pond, where a duck had eaten him at once to 
 her disgust. But she could not move from the 
 sofa where she had taken refuge with her rejected 
 paper. The barrier of Captain Hatton's eye 
 stretched between her and the door and she felt 
 that it might touch her as she ran past ; if it did 
 she would have to scream. Suddenly " A tish 
 u ! " a fearful explosion. Captain Hatton had 
 sneezed. There was a dead silence while Evangeline 
 held her breath and dared not look. Then again 
 the awful sound ; and again ; eight times. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said when all was quiet 
 again. " Extraordinary how these attacks come 
 on." 
 
 The great friendly creature cheered up at once 
 on this crumb of encouragement. " I like sneez- 
 ing," she said. " It almost takes the place of 
 swearing. You feel better and no harm done to 
 anybody." 
 
 " Ah h'm," he agreed without enthusiasm. 
 
 " There's Mother coming," she said thankfully 
 as a gentle rustle was heard in the passage. Susie
 
 24 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 came in in a soft breakfast gown that avoided 
 conclusions with her figure. Her hair was beauti- 
 fully done and her face delicately cared for. Cap- 
 tain Hatton, though he approved of her evidently 
 careful toilet, took a vague dislike to her because 
 it had not been carried through at the specified 
 time. 
 
 " I am so sorry my husband is late," she mur- 
 mured, " I am afraid we got into bad habits in 
 London. Everything is so late there and the 
 morning is really the loveliest time, isn't it ? I 
 remember once being out at six to catch a train 
 and the birds were simply delightful. Do you sing 
 at all ? " she inquired, her eyes brimming with 
 sympathetic interest. 
 
 "I do occasionally," he admitted, heartily 
 wishing that his chief would come and relieve him. 
 
 " I hope we shall often hear you," said Mrs. 
 Fulton. " I always think music is such a happy 
 thing. Evangeline dear, ring the bell." 
 
 " I have rung twice," she said. 
 
 " Servants are very unpunctual as a race," Mrs. 
 Fulton observed. " I wish they would get up 
 earlier, but I daresay they are often tired like we 
 are." Strickland came in with the hot dishes. 
 " We shall want some more toast, I think, Strick- 
 land." 
 
 ' The fire's not hot enough," answered the maid. 
 ' The cook was late this morning." 
 
 ' Then just run up and make a little at the gas 
 fire in the General's dressing-room," Susie ordered. 
 " Will you help yourself, Captain Hatton." 
 
 A few minutes later Cyril entered hurriedly in 
 his dressing-gown. " I say, Sue, what the devil
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 25 
 
 hullo, Hatton, that you ? what the devil did you 
 send that woman to make toast in my room for ? 
 I'd nothing but " 
 
 " Cyril dear, never mind," his wife interrupted. 
 " The kitchen fire wasn't quite ready ; she won't 
 be a minute." 
 
 " Well, I can't go back to dress now," he com- 
 plained. 
 
 " It will teach us to be more punctual to-morrow," 
 said Mrs. Fulton. " We must set them a good 
 example. Dicky ought to be down too." 
 
 Teresa came in quietly and shut the door without 
 looking at anyone. She was flushed and seemed 
 preoccupied and had evidently forgotten Evan- 
 geline's announcement of a guest. " My hair 
 refuses to go up," she began, turning straight to 
 the sideboard. " I shall do it like some women I 
 saw yesterday. The front was all in tiny plaits 
 and the back well, it wasn't hairdressing, it was 
 plumbing. You've been pretty hearty with the 
 kedgeree, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Dicky, darling, I don't think you have seen 
 Captain Hatton," her mother suggested. Teresa 
 turned unconcernedly. 
 
 " I am sorry," she apologised. " How do you 
 do ? I remember my sister did tell me you were 
 here, but I happened to be thinking at the time 
 and I forgot." 
 
 " Please don't bother," he said. He was re- 
 covering his temper under the influence of break- 
 fast and the sense of safety that his host brought. 
 " You'll see so much of me, I'm afraid, that I'd 
 rather you did not notice it." 
 
 " Don't hope for that, Hatton," put in the
 
 26 THREE LOVING* LADIES 
 
 General. " They'll see everything you do. It's 
 a damned noticing family ; except Evangeline and 
 she'll fall over you in the dark every time." 
 
 Captain Hatton looked embarrassed and changed 
 the subject. " Are you going to like being here, 
 do you think ? " he asked Susie. 
 
 " Oh, I think so," she replied. " Of course it is 
 quite different from London, but there must be 
 some nice people. Do you know many people 
 here yet ? " 
 
 " I have got some friends who live a few miles 
 out," he said. " I have stayed with them for 
 hunting, but I've been out of England for the 
 last three years. We were sent to Germany after 
 the armistice and I came back to go into 
 hospital." 
 
 " Oh, dear me, those hospitals ! " she sighed. 
 " Shall I ever forget them ! I couldn't do any 
 actual nursing, of course, though I should have 
 loved it ; but I don't think it was right the way 
 women left their children. But I used to visit 
 the poor boys and wash up. I get such touching 
 letters from them even now. Do you remember 
 young Digby, Cyril ? " 
 
 " No, I don't, but I could make a fair guess at 
 him. You forget that I was in my little wooden 
 hut at the time and couldn't leave it even for you. 
 I wonder if that beastly woman is out of my room. 
 Dicky oblige your father. Go and see if she is 
 there, will you ? I want to get dressed." 
 
 " She is making toast, dear," Mrs. Fulton ex- 
 plained. ' You might ask her for it ; she won't 
 hear the bell." 
 
 Teresa went out and met Strickland in the passage
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 27 
 
 She was dusting the hall. " Can we have the toast, 
 please ? " Teresa asked. 
 
 " It isn't made," Strickland replied coldly. " I 
 couldn't be spoken to like that. I shall leave at 
 the end of the month. I'm not accustomed to be 
 blasted." Teresa touched her on the shoulder. 
 " Never mind Father," she said. " We none of 
 us do. He's most affectionate really. Forget the 
 toast ; I'll tell them." She went back into the 
 dining-room and shut the door. Mrs. Fulton was 
 offering dainty morsels of sentiment about hospitals 
 to Captain Hatton, who disposed of them one by 
 one with the indifference a sea lion shows about the 
 quality of the fish thrown into its mouth. Teresa 
 sat down by her father and said in a low voice, 
 " You mustn't swear at the maids, you know. 
 Strickland is very angry and was going to go, but 
 I told her you are all right. I don't know if she 
 will recover, but you must remember that you 
 don't have the trouble of going to registry offices." 
 
 " What an eternal curse women's feelings are," 
 he grumbled as he pulled out a cigarette case. " I 
 believe they grow fat on them." 
 
 " But then, you see, your men have none at all," 
 she explained, " which is as bad the other way, 
 because you can't make them hear except by 
 blasting and all those kinds of words that mean 
 nothing." 
 
 " But they do mean something," argued her 
 aggrieved father. " They mean, ' You've damn 
 well got to do it and look sharp.' ' 
 
 " Yes, but if you say to a woman, ' Be quick, 
 Pansy dear,' she does it just as well." 
 
 Cyril roared with laughter. " Here, Hatton,"
 
 28 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 he said, " do you know what you've got to say 
 to the mess sergeant the next time he keeps you 
 waiting ? ' Be quick, Pansy dear ! ' Will you try 
 it first or shall I ? " Captain Hatton laughed. 
 
 " What is Dicky saying ? " asked Mrs. Fulton 
 indulgently. 
 
 " Explaining the art of commanding those of 
 unripe station," said the General. " Come on to 
 my room, Hatton, and I'U leave you there while 
 I get some clothes on if they're not all over toast 
 and tears," he added resentfully. 
 
 " Good heavens ! What a man ! " Evangeline 
 exclaimed when the door shut behind them. " He's 
 like an umbrella." 
 
 " Oh, I think he's charming," said her mother. 
 " So much tact, and most interesting, I should 
 think, when one gets to know him. Ring the bell, 
 Dicky dear, and when she comes to clear away 
 tell her I shall be in my sitting-room if she wants 
 me." 
 
 " What are we going to do with ourselves every 
 day in this place, Chips ? " Teresa asked her sister 
 when they were alone. 
 
 " Oh, what we have done before, I suppose," 
 Evangeline answered carelessly. She was reading 
 the paper that had come too late to save Captain 
 Hatton's temper. The Labour Party, she read, 
 were determined to do something which she did not 
 understand, but which foreboded discomfort to 
 everybody including their own supporters. They 
 seemed to do it on purpose, like schoolmistresses, for 
 some end which no reasonable young person desires, 
 even if it could be achieved. Who exactly were the 
 Labour party she wondered ? The paper showed
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 29 
 
 their photographs ; clumsy figures in impossible 
 hats, with impossible wives whose barren heads 
 contrasted grotesquely with the hairiness of their 
 men's faces. She looked over the page. An officer, 
 recently demobilised, had committed suicide owing 
 to the difficulty of maintaining a blue-eyed child, 
 whose portrait was inset below his own. The 
 " night life " of a great city was said to be " glit- 
 tering with unprecedented extravagance ! " A 
 millionaire had made a unique will at a place she 
 had never heard of, providing for the purchase of 
 fifty elephants, which were to be presented to the 
 Corporation, and supported by public funds for the 
 employment of superannuated keepers. 
 
 " But you forget that I haven't done anything 
 except go to classes," pursued Teresa. " I am 
 supposed to be ' out ' now." 
 
 " Jolly lucky for you," remarked her sister. 
 " There was no coming out in my time." 
 
 " I don't see much difference," said Teresa, 
 " except that you brought your own food to parties 
 and didn't wear such low necks. But anyhow, 
 what I meant was that the war is over, and we're 
 in a new place and we've got some maids, and what 
 is the next ? " 
 
 " I don't know," Evangeline answered slowly. 
 " There are days when I want to burst you know 
 with a pop, in the sun on a still day like that, 
 (she waved her hands) and then I should become 
 something quite different. I should be full of ideas. 
 I don't know what they would be but that is the 
 exciting part." 
 
 " This is a very dirty town," Teresa said, as she 
 stood at the window. " I haven't seen any people
 
 30 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 yet who looked as if they liked what they were 
 doing." 
 
 Evangeline's eager interest had faded. " Haven't 
 you ? " she said. 
 
 " No, and I don't know what Mother will do with 
 herself, either. I suppose there must be some 
 ordinary ones. She's a social success, isn't she ? " 
 
 " In a way " Evangeline hesitated. " She's 
 
 not like an American mother in those ways, but if 
 you notice you'll find that you never can stop any- 
 thing happening as she wants it to. I believe she 
 conjures. She seems to sit down by a hat and take 
 no notice of it, and then there's an omelet in it. 
 If Father doesn't want the omelet, or we don't, she 
 says she hasn't made it, and I spend my life trying 
 to find out whether she has or not." 
 
 " Well that hasn't much to do with what I was 
 saying," her sister continued. " We shall drift 
 here if we don't look out." 
 
 " Drift ? " 
 
 " Yes, you know I shah 1 arrange the flowers, and 
 you will play endless games and go to things and 
 perhaps ' take up ' something, and I shall shop and 
 be polite to visitors, and I really don't want to do 
 anything else. I am not energetic, and I should 
 love to live in a cottage. But everything is so 
 hideous here, and those smells and awful faces 
 make me sort of drunk." 
 
 " My dear ! " Evangeline sympathised with little 
 understanding. 
 
 " Everyone has always made me feel a little 
 drunk/' Teresa went on. " They say such stupid 
 things ; sit there gibbering and drinking tea, and 
 yet all the people in history anyone Nebuchad-
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 31 
 
 nezzar or Cleopatra or Anne Boleyn were in society, 
 and all sorts of real things happened to them ; they 
 didn't ask for it. And I believe just as much could 
 happen to the silly people who pay calls. I often 
 understand eating grass and letting one's nails 
 grow." She paused. " And those people who are 
 poor they must know a lot. I want to know what 
 it is." 
 
 "It is like my wanting to burst, perhaps," said 
 Evangeline. " Except that I don't want to know 
 all about those horrors. I hated all that in the war, 
 though, of course, it was so exciting being useful 
 that one forgot the mess. I should like to be in a 
 dangerous country with a lovely climate, and live 
 with a man who had read everything there is. 
 We should ride all day, and perhaps have some 
 children who wouldn't want clothes or governesses 
 nor have diseases." 
 
 " Like a cinema," commented Teresa. 
 
 " Yes, rather. I always get so angry with the 
 film girl who is left in a log cabin with a perfectly 
 beautiful savage who leaves her the room to herself 
 out of chivalry and sleeps in the stable and does all 
 he can for her, and then the silly ass crawls screaming 
 round the walls, and wants to go back to some odious 
 young man in the city." 
 
 " But the city man would be much more likely 
 to have read everything," her sister pointed out. 
 ' Your savage wouldn't know any more than you 
 do, which isn't saying much." 
 
 " No, I know," she admitted with a sigh. " I 
 don't know what I want ; perhaps both of them for 
 different days ; wet Sundays to spend with the 
 young man who reads, and the other days, when
 
 32 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 it is sunny, to gallop about with the dangerous 
 one." 
 
 " I believe there is more in it than that," said 
 Teresa, " and meantime I am going to study Strick- 
 land. I have an idea she can tell me the things 
 I want to know. I had better find her, by the way, 
 and give her Mother's message. I don't think she 
 takes much interest in bells." She left Evangeline 
 to speculate on life as digested for her by the news- 
 paper, and went herself in search of the woman who, 
 she felt, held some clue to the pursuit of her desire. 
 
 At the end of a week she recalled her sister's 
 inspired description of their mother's behaviour. 
 Susie had, it seemed, by some unobservable process, 
 evolved a spiritual omelet out of the most un- 
 promising material among the people who called on 
 her. Most of them belonged to what Strickland, 
 who had begun to unbend towards Teresa, assured 
 her were " some of our leading families." 
 
 " The Manleys are very well known," she said. 
 " Old Mr. Manley did a great deal of good, and was 
 very well thought of all over the town. My grand- 
 father used to work for him, and he always said he 
 never wished to have a better master. I don't 
 know so much about the young ones. My sister lived 
 with Mrs. James Manley, and I can't say she enjoyed 
 it. Everything was very near, and she left because 
 she got run down with the work. But Mrs. Eric 
 Manley, that called to-day, is well enough spoken 
 of, though I don't think much of her myself." 
 
 ' Yes, Mrs. Carpenter," she said, another day, 
 when she was turning down Teresa's bed. " I'm 
 glad you mentioned her. She's another of the sort 
 I was telling you about. They're well enough in
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 33 
 
 public I suppose, but those who have to do with 
 them when they get back know who are the real 
 ladies and gentlemen. Now you'll hear a great deal, 
 I daresay, about Mrs. Carpenter, and how she goes 
 about here and there and all she does, but I wouldn't 
 be the matron of some of those homes she goes to 
 no, I wouldn't for all the money you could give me ; 
 and I wouldn't be one of the inmates, either, with 
 all the advice she gives, and she who doesn't know 
 what it is to have one child left on her hands for a 
 day, let alone six or eight. I don't say she doesn't 
 go about here and there, and so she should, for she's 
 the time and the money, but I don't think it's right 
 for servants to be kept up till all hours washing 
 dishes for those who study the poor, and up again 
 next morning to light the fires in time for ladies to 
 warm themselves while they telephone for the best 
 of everything." 
 
 " Yes," said Teresa, looking into the fire. 
 
 " You'll say I'm a socialist, perhaps, Miss," 
 Strickland added, as she was going to leave the 
 room, " but it isn't that. I know we can't all do 
 alike, and I don't mind the General, if you'll excuse 
 me, now I've got used to his language. He's very 
 thoughtful in some ways, and it seems a man's place 
 to mess things about. But when I took in the tea, 
 and heard Mrs. Carpenter going on at such a rate, 
 and Mrs Manley, too, I felt like speaking out when 
 you mentioned her." 
 
 " How you do gossip with the servants, dear 
 Dicky," said Susie, who had heard the last word 
 on her way to her bedroom, and called to Teresa to 
 help her to fasten her dress. " I never think it is 
 a wise plan." 
 c
 
 34 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Teresa said nothing. Although she always 
 received her mother's remarks with respectful 
 affection, due to the fact that Susie never appeared 
 cross and everything she said was incontrovertible, 
 yet very little that was not a definitely expressed 
 wish penetrated her thoughts. " If Mother wants 
 anything done, of course we do it," was the under- 
 standing between her and Evangeline, but they 
 respected her power as a conjuror, rather than her 
 wisdom as a prophet. Susie's power over men had 
 been great in her youth, and she had had much 
 influence in the lives of women, but no one had ever 
 counted her as friend or enemy. She had been an 
 article of faith to some, of admiration, of liking, of 
 amusement or indefinite irritation to others, but 
 only her children in their nursery days had ever 
 looked to her as a help in time of trouble. Her 
 conjuring ability had been invaluable in the nursery 
 and schoolroom. Her presence would always turn 
 a crime into a bubble, and the indignant nurse or 
 governess was compelled to see her rod break out 
 into the delicate blossom of divine forgiveness under 
 her outraged eyes. The impression of this gentle- 
 ness remained with the girls when they grew up ; 
 but that was all. They might search the corners of 
 the wonderbox where their recollections of her were 
 stored, and find nothing that they could put together 
 and call a mother. 
 
 Teresa had been surprised that day by Susie's 
 immediate success with the women who had called. 
 It is true that they had come prepared to like the 
 Fultons, but they were in no way committed ; 
 and such all-embracing eagerness to love as Evange- 
 line showed to strangers was against their traditions
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 35 
 
 It is one of the customs of Millport before paying a 
 call to consider first the reasons for the newcomers' 
 arrival. A well paid appointment gives them a 
 good start, whereas an indefinite purpose would be 
 thought suspicious. Second to be considered is 
 their pedigree. If they can be traced to some 
 source called " good connections " another point is 
 scored in their favour. A good income comes 
 third, and, provided the rest is satisfactory, adds 
 greatly to their favourable chances, but this item 
 is not so essential as it used to be. People who are 
 not at all nice are often rich at the present time, 
 and even furs have to be more carefully chosen 
 than in the past, for fear they may be the outcome 
 of too recent enterprise. But the thing that tells 
 in the long run is " views." The Provinces have 
 collective " views " in a way that would be im- 
 possible in London. You must either think with 
 the city or carry the city with you. To live in 
 opposition to it you must be either a hermit or a 
 fanatic ; cease to love your neighbour or lose your 
 reason. The apostle of a different creed from that of 
 the city can carry the people with him some distance 
 towards any end-^the best or the worst provided 
 he uses the old ritual cunningly ; but wolves and 
 doves alike must be dressed in sheep's clothing, or 
 out they go. 
 
 " None of that, now, with those feathers," the 
 city says to the intruding dove. " I know you're 
 not a wolf. You don't need to tell me what I can see. 
 But you've got a beak, and I wouldn't put it past 
 you to get pecking at my legs." 
 
 But they received Susie at once with open arms. 
 She came from London, which is always nice ; her
 
 36 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 parents had been born in Millport of absolutely 
 pure wool stock, her husband had inherited money 
 from a good old lady before the war, and Susie had 
 only to appear in her own spotless fleece of nice 
 feeling upon every subject especially wine for 
 them to cluster round her with acclamations and 
 summon their kind from the most distant parts of the 
 county.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Miss ARCHER, reporter for the Millport News, stood 
 just inside the first reception-room at the Town 
 Hall. There was a suite of rooms, leading one into 
 the other, showing a vista of hats and baldish heads 
 and faces of all sorts wedged together in packs or 
 moving in a slow stream with eddies and cross 
 currents. The stream rose in the great entrance 
 hall of the building. It was brought by contributory 
 motors and broughams, from all parts of the town, 
 suburbs and county, and it flowed upstairs and 
 through the rooms and down again through a 
 temporary congestion at the first door where Miss 
 Archer stood with her little note book. A middle- 
 aged woman, mastering fatigue with vivacity, stood 
 beside her and made rapid remarks in an undertone, 
 pointing out this or that noteworthy face or garment. 
 Her hand was conspicuous by being so obviously ill 
 at ease in its white glove. It was a worker's hand, 
 full of strength and sensibility, and the sillily cut 
 glove sat on it like a bonnet on a horse. The 
 Mayor and Mayoress remained just within the big 
 folding doors which were set wide apart, a footman 
 planted on either side. The footman on the left 
 had nothing about him to allay the suspicion that 
 he was stuffed, except his small twinkling eyes 
 that spoke of much experience of humanity, a 
 family life of his own and knowledge of the moral 
 
 37
 
 38 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 difficulties of rich men. His counterpart on the 
 right was unable to give way to the same luxurious 
 calm, being compeUed to undergo the trouble of 
 repeating strange syllables whispered into his ear, 
 such as " siz-an-Miss-S-Arkbury," " stron- 
 misses J'n'per," etc. ; if it had not been that he 
 knew the names of the greater number of the guests 
 he would probably have broken down and been led 
 weeping to the nearest public-house. As it was 
 he battled bravely on, and beyond the momentary 
 annoyance of the Harburys who became " Barleys," 
 and the Muskovilles who became " Musk-and-veal," 
 and so on, it didn't really matter. People who knew 
 them knew them, and those who didn't didn't mind. 
 
 " Who were those last, did you hear ? " Miss 
 Archer bent to ask her friend. " They're new, 
 surely ; I must note their dresses ; they're very 
 good. There the woman in grey with sables, 
 and the two girls." 
 
 " ' Fulton ! ' I thought he said," answered the 
 tired woman. She followed them with her eyes to 
 where they stopped, looking at the crowd and 
 talking now and then to each other. Susie was 
 benevolently dimpling, as if the party were hers, 
 and commenting to her daughters on the beauty of 
 the rooms. " Architecture makes so much differ- 
 ence to a building, doesn't it ? " she said. " It 
 would be so easy to spoil a big place like this by 
 making it clumsy and in bad taste. But I do admire 
 this immensely, don't you ? " 
 
 " There's Mrs. Manley gone up to them now," 
 said Miss Archer's friend. " I tell you won't they 
 be the new general's family that someone said had 
 come ? There's some new arrangement or other
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 39 
 
 about the soldiers. I know my nephew who's a 
 territorial said something about a General Fulton 
 coming to be over the whole lot of them ; not 
 separated as they used to be." 
 
 Miss Archer wrote down, " in a distinguished 
 combination of old gold and palest petunia, relieved 
 by valuable antique buckles. Mrs. Slacks looked 
 well in mauve, with one of the new violet pyramid 
 hats." " What did you say ? Yes, I should think 
 that's very likely. Let me see. Grey poult de 
 soie, isn't it, with sables ? and her two young 
 daughters (she was scribbling again) in girlish foam 
 of niaise crepe in the new swallow blue that has 
 lately come into its own. Yes, that will do." 
 
 " There's Mrs. Carpenter speaking to them," 
 said the friend. " I don't know how you are going 
 to dish up that checked coat of hers again. I 
 must catch Mr. Beaver if I can he has just gone 
 through and see if he will take the chair on the 
 I5th." She disappeared among the crowd, and 
 presently Miss Archer tripped away to take a turn 
 through the rooms to make sure she had omitted no 
 one of importance. 
 
 " Shall we find a table for you ? " Mrs. Manley 
 said to Susie. " It will take us through the rooms 
 on the way and there are several people you must 
 meet." 
 
 A young woman, dressed with the touching pride 
 of the connoisseur on a small income, turned as Mrs. 
 Manley spoke, and smiled at her. 
 
 " How are you ? " Mrs. Manley said. " I am 
 showing Mrs. Fulton the lions. If you want tea 
 we could fill a table. Mrs. Fulton, may I introduce 
 you to Mrs. Vachell. You are sure to meet every-
 
 40 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 where. General and Mrs. Fulton have just moved 
 into the Babley's house," she explained to the other. 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Mrs. Vachell. " I was going 
 to call on you this week (she turned to Susie). Mrs. 
 Babley left me several messages for you about the 
 house, small things that she thought might be useful, 
 but she didn't want to bother you by writing about 
 them. I only came back from Egypt yesterday." 
 
 " Mrs. Vachell's husband," Mrs. Manley explained, 
 " is the most distinguished something-or-other-ist 
 of the century, only I never can pronounce it." 
 
 " Never mind," said Mrs. Vachell. " We'll leave 
 it at that. What a squash there is to-day. Do you 
 suppose we shall ever get any tea ? " They moved 
 slowly on, and Mrs. Vachell found herself separated 
 with the two girls. 
 
 " You must find it rather dreary being turned 
 loose in a strange town," she said almost pityingly. 
 " Has anyone been any use ? " 
 
 " We're quite happy," said Evangeline. " Do 
 tell me why so many people come here. Is a Town 
 Hall a sort of public party place ? Oh dear, what a 
 row that band makes! " 
 
 " If we can get to the tea room we shall be out of 
 it," said Mrs. Vachell. " No, this isn't exactly a 
 public party, but the Lord Mayor has to entertain 
 everybody. You will find later that you meet your 
 friends here, and it isn't so bad. But you will 
 probably be roped in to make yourselves useful 
 before long." 
 
 Teresa thrilled once more with the breath of the 
 thing she sought. " How ? " she asked. 
 
 " All sorts of ways. Child welfare or domestic 
 training or inebriates or perhaps imbeciles/' Mrs.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 41 
 
 Vachell added, mischievously putting on an extra 
 screw as she noted the alarm in Evangeline's face 
 and the throb of excitement in Teresa's. 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter was to be seen through the door- 
 way, pushing slowly towards them, elbowing one, 
 patronising another with a smile, making expressive 
 gestures to friends here and there indicating that her 
 task was nearly impossible but hold on, little 
 sheep ! The shepherdess is coming. You shall have 
 tea if she has to commandeer some one else's table. 
 
 " I wonder if you would mind " she will 
 
 probably say reproachfully. " This lady ought to 
 sit down and it is impossible to find a table. I think 
 we can get six chairs in here if it won't be pressing 
 you too near the wall." It was by some manoeuvre 
 of this sort that she did in the end plant the girls, 
 whom she had volunteered to find, and Mrs. Vachell, 
 whom she could not very well get rid of, at a table 
 where Mrs. Fulton and Mrs. Manley were already 
 seated. The two elderly ladies who were there first 
 drained their cups and withdrew, commenting on 
 the bad management of the tea rooms and the 
 " manners of some people." 
 
 Mrs. Eric Manley, Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. 
 Vachell occupied positions in Millport not unlike 
 those of the kings of England before Alfred. Their 
 territories were less defined, their wars were not so 
 bitter, but, as the history books say, " the country 
 languished under their rule and longed for a just 
 and wise leader to unite their petty factions under 
 his sway." Mrs. Manley ruled over the Fashionable- 
 who-are-charitable, Mrs. Carpenter over the Charit- 
 able-who-are-fashionable-and-educated, and Mrs. 
 Vachell over the Educated-and-incidentally-fashion-
 
 _;2 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 able-and-charitable. They were ripe for the arrival 
 of a visionary like Susie who should unite their 
 people in the peaceful practices of Love love of 
 architecture-and-so-on, love of children, of all 
 weathers, of the poor, " even those poor terrible 
 drunken creatures who have been taught to be 
 wicked," of " your own beautiful homes." We have 
 anticipated this last object of her love. It became 
 one of the stock phrases of those speeches which 
 made her the idol of public meetings in days to 
 come. 
 
 But although Destiny was hovering over the tea- 
 table, they knew it not. Perhaps Teresa felt some- 
 thing of the fate in store for her. Their chairs were 
 near a window, below which the trams stopped to 
 load and discharge their passengers. The faces 
 were there by the hundred, the drab clothing, the 
 mud were as usual. Did the scene never alter she 
 wondered ? Did the stream of people pour on like 
 that under lowering skies perpetually all day 
 Sundays holidays, even through the night ? She 
 had come from the crowded streets of London, but 
 that was utterly different. There was variety, sun- 
 shine, even leisureliness in the squares and quiet 
 places off the main traffic ; and besides that, the 
 significance of any individual was so small that no 
 one could feel responsible for his neighbour unless 
 he were invited to interest himself. In Millport 
 every weary pedestrian seemed to carry a personal 
 grudge against those who had the means to escape 
 from the mud. 
 
 Mrs. Manley was comparing notes with Susie 
 on the eternal subject of prices. Even cakes made 
 at home were almost too expensive to eat every day,
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 43 
 
 she complained. Her husband had had to give up 
 keeping a tin of biscuits at his office, and he often 
 came home to tea to save expense, unless he had 
 to stay and carry on work that the clerks used to 
 do. It was impossible to have the sort of entries 
 one used to, made with just a little sweetbread or 
 cream or something ; even the eggs mounted up 
 
 now " 
 
 ' Yes, yes, I know, my dear women," Mrs. 
 Carpenter interrupted, " but do you realise what 
 it means to Charity ? You are only on the visiting 
 committee of my beloved Institute, you know," 
 she smiled at Mrs. Manley, " and you can have no 
 idea. The very soap the women wash with costs 
 us "20 a year more than it did ; there now ! What 
 do you think of that ? That is just soap alone." 
 
 Mrs. Manley looked a little contemptuous. 
 " Everyone uses soap," she said. " I have to deal 
 it out at our orphanage when it is my week for the 
 store cupboard. But anyhow I believe there is 
 only one thing that hasn't gone up and that is 
 bi-carbonate of soda. That is why everybody's 
 cakes taste of it. (She glanced at Mrs. Carpenter). 
 How do you find things, Mrs. Fulton ? " 
 
 " I try not to worry about it," Susie replied. 
 Love seemed to envelope the table as she spoke, 
 and even Mrs. Carpenter felt that she had not got 
 the nail plumb on the head with her last blow. 
 Mrs. Vachell pricked up her ears. "I do so want 
 those two," Susie continued with a fond look at her 
 daughters, " not to have all their young time 
 clouded by perpetual half-pennies. Of course we 
 are not extravagant, but we have none of us very 
 large appetites and, as I say, I just try not to
 
 44 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 worry. I have no doubt that what we are going 
 through now is somehow for the good of the world." 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter drew a long breath and turned 
 back a piece of fur at her wrist. " Of course we 
 all believe that," she said, " or we shouldn't be 
 here ; at least I hope not. But what do you pro- 
 pose, Mrs. Fulton, to do about the terrible suffering 
 as it is ? " Even the best accredited lamb in its 
 first year at Millport must not have things all its 
 own way in the fold. 
 
 Susie's eyes brimmed. " I think and think," 
 she said earnestly, " but I can't see how it is to be 
 avoided. It seems somehow as if it was meant, 
 and we can only learn the meaning by helping 
 everywhere we can when we get the chance. I 
 think some of the saddest cases are often the least 
 known, don't you ? " Mrs. Vachell was taking 
 an Olympic pleasure in the new forces which Susie 
 was evidently going to bring in on the side of good 
 against evil. She looked on from the high ground 
 of quicker wits than her two sister rulers. She 
 now wanted to see what Susie did with her two 
 daughters. "It is the younger generation that 
 will have to find out these things," she said, looking 
 at the girls. 
 
 " Oh, shall we," said Evangeline, rather bored. 
 Teresa shrugged her shoulders and passed the cake. 
 Mrs. Carpenter alone took up the challenge. " I 
 think girls have lost all taste for the mere pleasure- 
 loving life they used to lead," she said, " I know 
 mine won't look at it. ' Oh, Mother,' they say, 
 ' We're so bored with parties.' They are all going 
 to have professions and Lena is going to do social 
 work." Mrs. Manley, being childless, said nothing.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 45 
 
 " Are they ! " Susie exclaimed, full of interest. 
 " How wonderful ! I often thought as a girl how 
 much I should have liked to be something, but I 
 never had a chance and I am afraid I had no talents." 
 She dimpled at the three leaders. " I could only 
 admire and enjoy. We must really be going, I 
 think, dears. You belong to the University, don't 
 you, Mrs. Vachell ? " she asked as they dispersed. 
 " It must be so delightful." 
 
 " Yes," Mrs. Vachell replied, " my husband does. 
 Have you met Mrs. Gainsborough yet ? " 
 
 " The Principal's wife ? " said Susie. " No, she 
 called last week, but I was out. I was so sorry." 
 They were walking down the great staircase by this 
 time. 
 
 " You must be sure to call on her At Home day," 
 Mrs. Vachell warned her, " or you will frighten 
 her. It is every Tuesday." 
 
 " Frighten her ? " Susie repeated. 
 
 " Yes, because if she hasn't met you first she will 
 have to ask you to dinner without knowing you and 
 she can't bear that. There she is, by the way, 
 still in the hall. Will you come and speak to 
 her ? " 
 
 Susie allowed herself to be the means of violently 
 startling a massive woman there is no other way to 
 think of herdressed in old-fashioned clothes, who 
 was peering timidly through the glass doors that 
 opened on to the street. She turned in a fright 
 when Mrs. Vachell spoke to her. " Oh ! is that 
 you ! " she exclaimed thankfully. " I can't think 
 why my cab hasn't come. I ordered it at a quarter 
 past five and it is nearly six now and it has come on 
 so wet,"
 
 - 
 
 46 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Mrs. Vachell introduced Susie and her daughters 
 and slipped away. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mrs. Gainsborough again (it was 
 her usual beginning) " so delighted to meet you 
 so sorry you were out when I called. And these 
 
 are your girls ? quite so yes " She relapsed 
 
 into silence and went on looking helplessly at the 
 rain. 
 
 " Mayn't we drive you home ? " Susie suggested. 
 " Our car is there." Mrs. Gainsborough threw up 
 her hands and followed, murmuring. As they 
 drove home through the crowded, dripping streets, 
 Evangeline and Teresa crushed suffocatingly under 
 the shadow of Mrs. Gainsborough's knees, Susie's 
 kind little face peeping from behind a bunch of 
 aged ostrich tips in Mrs. Gainsborough's bonnet, 
 all three of them disconcerted by the unusual smell 
 of warm eau-de-Cologne that filled their car, very 
 little was said. Mrs. Gainsborough was at her 
 request left on the doorstep of a house, cinnamon- 
 coloured like the Pultons', at the corner of a cinna- 
 mon-coloured square. Once safely on her own 
 territory her nervousness left her, and her smiles 
 and genuine pleasure in the small service rendered 
 brought Teresa another fleeting vision of the joy 
 she perpetually sought.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MRS. GAINSBOROUGH soon returned the hospitality 
 of Susie's motor by inviting her and Cyril to dinner. 
 Her note was rambling and agitated like her manner, 
 and ended with a postscript, " Please bring one of 
 your daughters if she would care for it. Emma 
 will be so pleased." 
 
 Evangeline and Teresa refused to have anything 
 to do with it when the letter came, but Cyril said 
 with genuine terror to Teresa when his wife had 
 gone out of the room, " Dicky, you must come 
 promise me quick but don't say anything about 
 it " 
 
 " All right, of course," she assured him, " but 
 why ? " 
 
 " They're all schoolmasters," he explained in 
 an undertone as Susie came back. Nothing more 
 was said until breakfast was over and then Teresa 
 plunged for her father's sake. 
 
 " Can I go to the Gainsboroughs', after all, 
 Mother ? " 
 
 " If you like, dear, but I thought you said just 
 now " 
 
 " I know," she interrupted, " but I should like 
 to see the University. I think the Gainsborough 
 girl would like it." 
 
 Mrs. Fulton looked suspiciously at her husband. 
 He was filling his cigarette case from a box on the 
 
 47
 
 48 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 mantelpiece, using unnecessary care to fit them in 
 properly. 
 
 " Strickland should have done that for you, dear. 
 Are you off now ? " 
 
 " Yes, presently," he answered. "I'm not sure 
 I can come to the Gainsboroughs, Sue ; we've some 
 rather special business next week." 
 
 " I think we ought to get to know everybody as 
 much as possible, Cyril, if only for the sake of the 
 girls. And the University are the most interesting 
 of all. If you knew what a pleasure it is to me to 
 talk about something besides wine and money now 
 and then ! " 
 
 Cyril instantly threw diplomacy to the winds and 
 began to enjoy himself, standing with his back to 
 the fire. " I don't want to be a kill-joy," he 
 replied, " but I learned more about those two 
 subjects from old Wacks at Cambridge than I ever 
 have since from anybody. But he wasn't married. 
 I daresay the female dons understand the use of 
 the globes and all that. By George ! I remember 
 their queer get-ups. Must have been some very 
 deep thinking that led to most of those marriages ; 
 which, after all, proves your theory of the Higher 
 mind. Let's go, and take Dicky if she wants to 
 come," he added with the boldness that often came 
 to him suddenly after hunting down one of his 
 wife's insincerities. 
 
 By this time she felt nothing but an irritable 
 longing to get him out of the room. Through the 
 whole of their married life he had amused himself 
 by making a cockshy of the sentiments which she 
 presented to the world as the expression of her 
 thoughts. He often exaggerated her insincerity,
 
 49 
 
 for the sentiments were as much her own as any 
 other jewellery she might have bought to adorn 
 herself. She admired them quite as much as any 
 she could have originated. 
 
 " One of the children will come, of course," she 
 said impatiently, " if Mrs. Gainsborough really 
 wants some young people. It is very kind of her, 
 for I don't suppose you have the least idea how dull 
 it is for them, seeing nothing but soldiers and 
 business people who have nothing to talk about. 
 The Gainsboroughs are probably teetotallers in 
 spite of the set you mixed with at Cambridge and 
 who had probably nothing to do with the life there. 
 Most clever people think very little about their 
 food. But you had better have your wine at the 
 club before you start or they will think there is 
 something the matter with you. Isn't the time 
 getting on ? That clock is a little slow." 
 
 When the time for the party came it turned out 
 to be less of a feast of intellect than had been hoped 
 and feared by the Fultons. In the first place the 
 Carpenters were there, because Mrs. Carpenter 
 was as difficult to keep out of any social gathering 
 as was King Charles's head from Mr. Dick's 
 " Memorial." If the festivity were a heavy duty 
 for the cementing of business connections, Mrs. 
 Carpenter was invited to lighten the dough of 
 wealth with the ferment of culture. If it were a 
 frivolous affair for the benefit of the young and 
 thoughtless, she was there with her daughters. 
 Hostesses included her as a precaution against 
 any subsequent rumour that the scene had been 
 one of unbridled licence. " Really, my dear 
 of course I wasn't there so I can't say, but I believe, 
 
 D
 
 50 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 etc." If it were an ordinary mixed dinner, town 
 and gown, she must be there to make things smooth 
 between everybody ; to interpose when Mrs. Alder- 
 man Snack was talking to Professor Cameo about 
 rabbits, and see that the conversation was switched 
 off at once on to his last book. She had read it 
 of course and was so anxious to contradict him on 
 one point, the condition of India before the mutiny. 
 " My grandfather, you know, was there as a subaltern 
 and he always said he was convinced, etc." " A 
 wonderful woman, Mrs. Carpenter," everybody said. 
 " She talks so well upon anything." 
 
 Mrs. Gainsborough, being so very nervous as 
 she was, of course had not settled on a day to ask 
 the new general and his wife until she had made sure 
 that the Carpenters would come. Mrs. Carpenter 
 had therefore consulted her little note-book and 
 had chosen a day when she had only one or two 
 small committees and dear Amy's dancing lesson 
 to attend, so that she would be " nice and fresh for 
 the evening." Poor Mr. Carpenter, who was the 
 overworked underwriter to an insurance company, 
 was not likely to be at all nice and fresh, even if he 
 had a good twenty minutes to dress after hurrying 
 up from the office. He could be trusted to be 
 punctual, though, and would be quite up to a little 
 educated chaff with anyone of his own set Mrs. 
 Vachell or one of the Manleys so long as he hadn't 
 to tackle a stranger. He was, as it turned out, very 
 happily situated, as there were only the Vachells, 
 and Mrs. Eric Manley and her unmarried brother- 
 in-law and two young men for Emma Gainsborough 
 and Teresa. One was David Varens, whose father, 
 Sir Richard Varens, belonged to a family that had
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 51 
 
 owned land round Millport for three or four hundred 
 years. Sir Richard had given money and land to 
 Millport University and his son David had just left 
 Oxford. It would never have done if Mrs. Car- 
 penter had not been there. 
 
 The third unmarried man was Mr. Joseph Price, 
 the son of Mr. Manley's partner. Eton and Cam- 
 bridge had recently handed him back to the home 
 nest, which he was prepared, with the backing of 
 the Liberal Party and his father's money, to re-line 
 and generally bring up to date. The old birds 
 were to be furbished up and taught new songs ; the 
 young lady birds from neighbouring nests were to 
 be simply knocked off their perches, and Londoners 
 coming to Millport were to understand that Millshire 
 was young Mr. Price's country seat and Millport 
 was his little village where he went to post his 
 letters and chat to the Mayor at election time. 
 You could even buy things in the town now, he 
 was told quite fairly decent ; of course not clothes 
 and all that, but groceries and gloves and that sort 
 of thing his mother found she could get there now. 
 But the hotels were pretty scandalous sort of 
 places. What ? I should say so. Lots of churches 
 though ; some quite decent ones in the old part 
 of the town if you're interested in glass and all 
 that kind of thing. And good music too ; you 
 ought to go to the concerts if music doesn't bore 
 you. There was a fellow there the other day 
 what's his name came all the way from Russia 
 with a little handbag he beat everyone else 
 hollow never heard anything like it thought his 
 arm would come off. Abs'lutely wond'f'l. You've 
 heard him b'fur 'n town, 'f course ? " (I have
 
 52 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 burst into Mr. Price's way of speaking for a moment, 
 but I cannot reproduce it perfectly.) 
 
 This was to Teresa, whom, owing to her father's 
 military position and their having lived in London, 
 he was treating with unusual effusiveness. He 
 knew Emma Gainsborough slightly and had made 
 an honest effort to talk to her. He always tried 
 to keep close to the ideal manner at which he aimed, 
 the manner of the particular social pen through 
 whose doors he had been allowed to squeeze because 
 of his politics and his father's money. He was 
 already getting on very well with the manner, a 
 sort of mincingly polite way of speaking, with the 
 vowels squeezed slowly out as if through a con- 
 fectioner's icing tube, and laid along the sentence, 
 or else omitted altogether ; the exact opposite to 
 the broad flat tones of his native habit. The 
 natural rudeness of vanity was sugared over in this 
 way to just the " right " effect he sought ; en- 
 thusiasm for this or that " discovery," indifference 
 to anything tainted with popularity unless some 
 popular thing became discredited enough in time 
 to make it discoverable as a new taste. 
 
 " Been doing very much lately ? " he had asked 
 Emma Gainsborough dutifully before turning his 
 attention to Teresa who was really his object of 
 the evening. " Seen anything new ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think I have," the poor girl replied, 
 instantly ill at ease. Mr. Price observed the effect 
 he had made, and scored several marks of superiority 
 to himself ; it made him feel good-natured. 
 
 " Peewit's brought out another book, I see," he 
 said, giving her another chance. " 've you read 
 it? "
 
 " No," said Emma, adding hurriedly, " I'm 
 doing welfare just now and it takes such an awful 
 lot of time. I'm too sleepy to read after I've been 
 wading through statistics all day." 
 
 " Welfare ? Let's see what's that now ? " asked 
 Mr. Price. It might possibly be something he 
 ought to know about, though from the way Emma 
 did her hair he thought it unlikely. 
 
 " Welfare ? Oh, it is seeing about children 
 at least, my part is finding out things about them 
 and seeing what happens to them and all that ; 
 I can't explain it, but I have been making records 
 of imbeciles all afternoon." Emma was reckoned 
 a humorist in the family circle and many were the 
 evenings when her father and mother went to bed 
 exhausted by their laughter over things noted by 
 her with a delicacy of perception few people would 
 have suspected. Mr. Price less than any. His 
 " Oh, I see. Splendid work, I'm sure, but don't 
 you get tired of it ? " was followed by a minute's 
 horrid silence and then he devoted himself with a 
 clear conscience to Teresa in the way that has been 
 described. 
 
 Teresa's attention was wandering to her father, 
 who seemed to be doing very well with Mrs. Gains- 
 borough. She wondered what they were laughing 
 at. She caught up Mr. Price at his short pause 
 after the Russian with the handbag. 
 
 " No, I didn't see him," she answered vaguely 
 " What was he doing ? Was there anything in the 
 bag ? " 
 
 Mr. Price was not very pleased. " I don't know. 
 Pro'b'ly the last sponge in Russia, what ? Don't 
 you take almonds ? I shall eat them all if you
 
 54 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 don't stop me. Oh, prihsless caat, what are you 
 
 doing ? come here and talk to me " He broke 
 
 off as Mrs. Gainsborough's blue persian stood up 
 beside him and, having pretended to extract three 
 or four long thorns from his leg, withdrew. 
 
 " I don't mind them one way or the other," said 
 Teresa, " but I want to know something. Who is 
 the man the last at the end opposite by my 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Mr. Vachell do you mean ? Don't you really 
 know him ? No, that's delightful. He's simply 
 won'f'l man been digging, you know Egypt 
 didn't you read about it ? You ought to read the 
 paper, you know. He's our show card. When 
 I was up at Cambridge they were fairf'lly jealous 
 that I knew him. I told my tutor that I'd seen 
 him once act'lly in pyjamas and he became quite 
 respectf'l and let me off a lot of lectures on the 
 strength of it. And then you live here and ask 
 
 who he is ! That's really great, what ? isn't 
 
 it ? You've got to say something really brilliant 
 now to make up or I shall think you've taken to 
 good works like all the dear people here." 
 
 " Do you know you make me feel awfully queer," 
 said Teresa, looking at him with puzzled interest. 
 " What are you talking about really ? I know 
 you answered my question, but what has all the 
 rest to do with it ? Why should your tutor let 
 you off lectures because you saw somebody who 
 lives here in pyjamas ? I don't understand a 
 bit ? " 
 
 " Miss Fulton, it is quite time you left that silly 
 boy and gave me a little attention," said Mr. Manley, 
 whom Mrs. Vachell had neglected so much that he
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 55 
 
 had been keeping a friendly eye on Teresa. He 
 liked the young and had understood that she 
 was not enjoying herself. He included Mr. Price 
 in what he said with a friendly smile and Teresa 
 turned to him gratefully. 
 
 " I believe you are much more old-fashioned than 
 you look," he said to her. " You were not getting 
 on at all well. You didn't mind my rudeness ? " 
 
 " No, I liked it," she answered. " I have met 
 Mrs. Manley heaps of times, but I've never seen 
 you nor your brother to talk to. I have noticed 
 since we came here that you may know people 
 for quite a long time before you are even sure 
 that they have a husband. One has nothing to 
 go by sometimes except the hats in the hall." 
 
 " We come back sometimes to claim them, 
 believe me," said the old gentleman. Teresa's 
 heart wanned towards him as the dinner went on. 
 His kindliness was real, untainted by any wish to 
 shine or obtain credit. He had the quick under- 
 standing of ideas half expressed, succeeding one 
 another like colour in changing light, which alone 
 makes conversation anything but a distorted image 
 of what the mind sees. Questions come so often 
 from a curiosity that wishes to compare others 
 with itself to its own glorification. Each one that 
 Mr. Price or Mrs. Carpenter asked had that end 
 in view. Mr. Manley enjoyed his game of give- 
 and-take without that ghostly referee to balance 
 the score. Teresa began to understand dimly 
 how it was that what Strickland called " our 
 leading families " seemed to have been the pious 
 founders of Millport in a way that no Londoner's 
 ancestors can claim to have built their city. Mill-
 
 56 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 port was the child of dead and gone Manleys ; it 
 was handed on by them to new generations of 
 themselves and of trusted friends who had watched 
 over the early days of its growth. Tutors, governors 
 and servants were appointed for the precious thing 
 with that personal care that Teresa found so 
 puzzling in the words " duty to the city," which 
 recurred constantly in public and in private. 
 Afterwards in the drawing-room Mr. Manley came 
 to her again. 
 
 " If you don't go away and forget all our con- 
 versation," he said, " come to me and tell me what 
 you want to do and I'll show you how to set about 
 it. You'll find my office hat in the hall on Satur- 
 day and Sunday afternoons and that's the one 
 I keep my ideas in. I'd like to show you some 
 pictures I've got of the old town as it was in my 
 great-great-grandfather's time." 
 
 I had meant to say a great deal about David 
 Varens during this dinner party. But Millport has 
 proved too strong for him. It always must have 
 been and is now overpowering for the gentle, 
 detached characters whose strength is in enjoy- 
 ment of the immediate thing that circumstances 
 have put in their way to be done as well as possible ; 
 people who accept inherited comfort and adventitious 
 pain equally, as it comes ; who love and hate by 
 instinct without recognition of any outside interests 
 to modify their decision and who never go back on 
 a verdict given by this tribunal of taste. He is to 
 be Teresa's lover and therefore his first words to 
 her should have been recorded, also his appearance, 
 his manner and what they thought of each other.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 57 
 
 They should have begun at once with definite 
 sensations of like or dislike. But the truth is they 
 hardly exchanged a word. He sat on the other 
 side of Emma Gainsborough and shared with Mr. 
 Price the miasma of her longing for the whole 
 evening to be over. He talked to her as well as 
 he could, patiently and easily, in spite of her 
 stumbles into pitfalls of silence that the least presence 
 of mind should have taught her to avoid. He re- 
 trieved her each time without effort and set her on 
 her legs again, wondering what was the matter 
 with the poor girl, supposing she might feel the 
 fire at her back. He did once suggest drawing a 
 screen further along behind her and they talked for 
 some minutes about the cold of Oxford Colleges, 
 but she didn't seem any better for it so he gave it 
 up. It is no use giving Mr. Varens any more scope 
 just now. He will turn up in his glory when the 
 time comes.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IT did not need many months in Millport to con- 
 vince Teresa that idleness was not one of the snares 
 of the city. She soon found that if any young 
 person of the leisured classes were to attempt to 
 " drift " she would have her aimless career brought 
 to a standstill by some snag of " duty to the city." 
 No one in London had ever reminded Teresa of 
 her civic responsibilities. On thinking it over one 
 day after a particularly strong dose of " duty, to 
 the city," administered by Mrs. Carpenter, she 
 could not remember that the city of London and its 
 chief magistrate had ever laid any personal claim 
 to her services. She tried to imagine any such 
 phrase as, " Have you seen the Mayor about it ? " 
 or, " What does Alderman Teazle think ? " occurring 
 in her father's conversation at his club. It was 
 impossible. In those days no one knew anything 
 of her plans or her wishes but what she told them ; 
 in Millport it seemed that the very paving stones 
 knew who was walking along and why, and that 
 carrier sparrows flitted from chimney to chimney 
 with little messages of information about everybody 
 and an index of probable explanations for their 
 conduct all dead certain to be wrong. 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter had not trusted to the fowls of 
 the air to inform the Fultons that Millport intended 
 them to do their duty. She gave them a few 
 weeks' law, with full access to her own example. 
 
 38
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 59 
 
 She never failed to explain in the street, in the 
 shop, in the ladies' club, across the family pew or 
 on the platform that the fact of her being found 
 where she was would mean the loss of so many 
 heart beats to the city's life. She would say, 
 perhaps, " I ought not to be here, my dear, but I 
 promised dear Mabel Somebody this little treat 
 just to buck her up after the new arrival. Fancy ! 
 I was there just two hours before it happened, and 
 my waifs and strays waiting for a tin of biscuits 
 I had promised them, and Alderman McWhittock's 
 funeral at half-past two. I don't know how I 
 ever got there but now what are you doing here ? 
 Up to the ears, I suppose, getting ready for the 
 dance next week. What it is to be young ! though 
 I saw you resting like a wise girl at dear Emily's 
 party. The men are so naughty now, aren't they ? 
 They won't dance absolutely won't except with 
 their own old favourites. I always say to them 
 now, ' No, it's no use. I am here to rest my old 
 bones and you have just got to look in all the 
 corners and pick out the plainest and dullest thing 
 you can find and send her home happy.' I con- 
 doled with Emily because I know the difficulties, 
 and after all a dance must be a success if it is to 
 be worth all the trouble, mustn't it ? Now what 
 
 church do you go to ? " etc. 
 
 But Susie almost forestalled her remarks. She 
 was there ready equipped by instinct before the 
 call to battle came. Mrs. Carpenter didn't know 
 what to think of it. It is said that birds of prey 
 have their own allotted beats and do not poach 
 on their neighbours' quarry ; but they arrive, 
 warned by some secret telegraphy wherever there
 
 is a vacancy and a corpse. Susie had evidently 
 sensed the prevailing occupation of Millport and 
 had descended out of the blue to fill a gap among 
 the leaders of good works. She could not be said 
 to " take an active part " in anything, because that 
 was against her nature, but her name was soon 
 in everybody's mouth as a member of all the chief 
 committees of private enterprises. Strangely shaped 
 gentlemen in black used to call on her between 
 meals with papers and she listened to them with 
 her gentle smile of the mother was has suffered all 
 things ; she recognised them instantly when she 
 saw them again and remembered with which par- 
 ticular good work they were connected ; and that 
 is really quite enough, as she herself would have 
 said. Ladies with grown-up daughters, who are 
 obliged to entertain a great deal and who have no 
 head for organisation and so on, ought to leave the 
 running about to those who will do it so much 
 better ; what the workers need is sympathy. 
 
 Evangeline and Teresa, being newcomers from a 
 careless place of comfort, were particularly sus- 
 ceptible to the unfamiliar poison of depression for 
 which there seemed no cure. The mud, the damp, 
 the ugly streets, and indignant, tired faces, the 
 grudging service of the working-classes, the self 
 consciousness of the well-to-do who walked every- 
 where in the limelight of recognition, the sharp 
 division between those who thought everything 
 was all right because they were comfortable and 
 those who thought everything was all wrong 
 because they weren't all this made the girls 
 restless. 
 
 A vision of Hyde Park Corner on a sunny day
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 61 
 
 used to haunt Evangeline's mind. She contrasted 
 the space of it, the blue sky, the buildings " polite 
 buildings " was the description that came to her 
 as she recalled their appearance, perfectly groomed, 
 keeping their private life absolutely to themselves. 
 She felt a sudden hatred for the rows of pert little 
 dwellings that she saw all round ; " brick trim- 
 mings ! " she thought with disgust as her eye fell 
 on the oblongs and stars and cubes inlaid in musty 
 red on a background of livid ginger. There was 
 nothing polite about them ; they seemed positively 
 loquacious about themselves and their trimmings 
 and the nice people that lived in them. Horrid 
 houses, she thought. 
 
 Teresa, though she did not know it, was dis- 
 tilling for herself a sort of love potion from the 
 drabness and hostility. As she once said to her 
 sister, the smells and the mysterious purpose 
 behind the faces in the fog intoxicated her. All 
 that she knew about what she felt was that an 
 insistent passion was dragging her towards some 
 end that she could not see. The interest that she 
 found in her conversations with Strickland gave 
 her a clue towards the direction from which know- 
 ledge of her desire was coming to her, and gave her 
 relief from the excitement at the same time because 
 Strickland had no grievance against society ; she 
 only disliked people ladies especially talking 
 " through their hats " about work. For instance, 
 she did not mind Cyril or Teresa being untidy, 
 because " it was their place to leave things about " 
 and she was paid to look after them. They never 
 referred to her duties nor seemed to think about 
 them. Mrs. Carpenter and Susie implied by their
 
 62 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 manner that they were selected by Providence to 
 lead comfortable lives for the reason that every 
 one of their common attributes of humanity, such 
 as their legs and their brains, were of such superior 
 quality that their births, their lives and their 
 deaths must not be confused with similar occurrences 
 in other houses. Work ! Of course they knew all 
 about work ! Did they not exhaust themselves 
 in explaining how early rising and attention to 
 detail actually saves labour ? If you clean a room 
 thoroughly every day there is no need to turn it 
 out once a fortnight ; if you clear up as you go, 
 wipe the plates with paper and burn it directly to 
 avoid clogging the sink, and if you wear gloves for 
 the roughest work and put glycerine on the hands 
 after washing, there should be at least two clear 
 hours in the afternoon for mending stockings or 
 even making clothes. That was the point where 
 Strickland became " horn mad," as she said. "I'd 
 sooner earn me money by being starved and scolded 
 as me mother was," she declared, " than have it 
 explained that there's nothing to complain of. 
 I'd rather have it all wrong and keep my liberty 
 to object." 
 
 " But Strickland," Teresa interrupted, " don't 
 you remember when you first came you said you 
 wouldn't be blasted by father and you were going 
 to leave ? " 
 
 ' Yes," she replied, " and so I should have if 
 he had made out, as some do, that it was all a 
 misunderstanding. But when I saw that it was 
 just his way, as you said, and he wasn't aware of 
 it, you will understand that it was no business of 
 mine and I didn't object. There's never anything
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 63 
 
 personal about the General's language, I will say 
 that for him. It seems it's his nature, like my 
 brother." 
 
 She took no notice of Evangeline, neither liked 
 nor disliked her. " She's a young lady that will 
 marry," she observed, " and change her servants 
 and not notice who comes and goes nor how the 
 work is done. She won't make much of a house, 
 but no doubt she'll keep a housekeeper and not 
 notice how the money goes. She'll always be a 
 favourite with the gentlemen. My brother's wife 
 is like that. You never saw such a house and the 
 mess ! I often tidy it all up for her and it's all the 
 same next day. And yet he thinks the world of 
 her and keeps out of the public house so as he can 
 take her about. And my cousin Gladys is just 
 the opposite ; everything tidy and as it should be, 
 but she'll talk, talk, talk the whole day, pointing 
 out what she's done ; and her husband has taken 
 to drink ; he can't stand it, he says." 
 
 Strickland was right. Evangeline was already 
 proving her capacity for being a favourite with the 
 gentlemen by penetrating, one by one, Captain 
 Hatton's well-ordered defences. Being her father's 
 A.D.C. he was, as he had warned them on the first 
 morning, so much about the house that he preferred 
 they should not notice him ; but then as Cyril 
 counterwarned him, " they were a damned noticing 
 family." 
 
 Captain Evan Hatton had always been shy of 
 women because as a passionately serious little boy 
 he had been for ever baited by a pair of lively young 
 sisters. They meant not an atom of harm, but 
 neither were they at all interested in abstract good-
 
 64 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 ness, which together with mechanisms of any kind 
 were Evan's consolation for the trials of family 
 life. He wanted with all his soul to know what 
 made wheels (including those of the Universe) go 
 round. Nature, which he admired, completely 
 outwitted him there and he developed towards the 
 Maker of the Universe the passionate respect of 
 pertinacious inquiry incessantly baffled. He suc- 
 ceeded in finding out from time to time the ele- 
 mentary rules governing earthly wheels, but the 
 vastness of the world (as he had glimpses of it 
 through the life of his tame rabbits, the beauties 
 of a well-kept garden, geography lessons and the 
 upheaval of his own mind), kept him in a ceaseless 
 ferment of questioning. The most industrious 
 organ must rest sometimes ; so at about fifteen years 
 old he admitted himself beaten by the Higher 
 Inquiry. He rested his poor mind in worship of 
 that which he had questioned in vain, and concen- 
 trated his efforts on wheels which could be explained 
 by those who made them. His sisters thought all 
 this very funny indeed. They themselves approved 
 of the Universe as a first-rate place to live in ; it 
 looked so charming, with hills and fields and woods 
 all of nice colours. Winter, spring, summer and 
 autumn were all nice in their way and could not be 
 improved. The idea of tropical storms and polar 
 silence and danger made it seem all the more cosy 
 in England. Machinery was a delightful invention 
 and they were glad it had been discovered, because 
 it brought all sorts of comfort within reach and 
 gave one's brothers something suitable to do. 
 They did laugh sometimes when Evan took a really 
 good thing to pieces and couldn't put it together
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 65 
 
 again or when he got in such a bait about Emily 
 giggling at the missionary. When the war broke 
 out they stopped laughing at him at first. He 
 was suddenly lifted in their estimation from the 
 position of a dear, ridiculous creature to that of 
 " our brother in France," a god among Olympians 
 " while we have got to stick at home." They 
 worked creditably and humbly at home and when 
 he came back they forgot his ribbons in the agitating 
 question whether Emily's cooking would still do or 
 whether they ought not to scrape up 50 somehow 
 and get that kitchenmaid who was leaving the 
 club. 
 
 When they began to get used to having him at 
 home again they noticed that what had been only 
 serious attention to rectitude in the old days now 
 burned hot in him as passionate morality. They 
 were good girls, secured from evil, if he had known 
 it, by their happy natures. They would have 
 thought it very silly to let a man kiss them unless 
 he were an accepted lover, properly engaged ; 
 because where would be the point in being scrubbed 
 by a hairy face ; unless it were one of the poor 
 darling boys leaving Victoria, and then of course 
 one would hug any stranger. That is enough. We 
 know the girls quite well now. There is nothing 
 at all the matter with them, quite the contrary. 
 But their brother's heavy sense of responsibility 
 for their souls was as much wasted as if he had 
 been Joan of Arc hiding an unexpurgated edition 
 of Shakespeare from the cat. All the mistakes 
 he had made about his sisters he repeated with 
 every woman he met afterwards. He was wrong 
 every time because the attention he gave to their
 
 66 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 conversation was of the same kind as he would 
 have given to a machine that didn't interest him 
 if any such machine could be imagined a musical 
 box perhaps. Now everyone knows what happens 
 to even the cheapest fiddle, still more to a bird, if 
 its music is courted in that way. His sisters saved 
 him from disaster by affectionate amusement that 
 asked nothing of him. He offended a great many 
 other women, but, to return to the simile of the 
 fiddle, their discords meant as little to him as 
 their harmonies, so he learned nothing from his 
 failures. 
 
 Then suddenly fate confronted him with Evan- 
 geline, who also wanted to know how wheels went 
 round and oh, the poor fellow ! my heart bleeds 
 for him the wheels she was interested in were 
 those of love and creation and human nature ; 
 and poor industrious Hatton, who only wished 
 for righteousness and good machines, was put 
 into her hands to take to pieces. It is, as has often 
 been observed, a cruel world in many ways. 
 
 Evangeline's mother had also been on the track 
 of true love in her youth ; her story has been 
 written. But a world of difference lay between 
 them, for Susie had wanted to possess love and 
 had studied to be all things to all men to gain it, 
 giving nothing in return ; her daughter wanted it 
 in order to give it away, as another lavish nature 
 might ask for wealth to spend. 
 
 " Captain Hatton is less like an umbrella than 
 he used to be, don't you think ? " she said one day 
 to Teresa as they walked home through the Park. 
 " When I go riding with him he often stops being 
 polite and tells me about the tanks. Yesterday he
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 67 
 
 told me about men out at the war who had visions. 
 You'd never think he was that sort of man, would 
 you ? " 
 
 " I never think much about him," said Teresa, 
 " I just think of him as a table that Father has 
 brought in to work at." 
 
 " I know he doesn't talk to everyone," said 
 Evangeline proudly. " He never talked to his 
 sisters." 
 
 " Well, what do you do to him ? " Teresa asked. 
 
 " I don't know. I just went on bravely and 
 wouldn't be put down. I was sure there must be 
 something somewhere and I wanted to know what 
 it was. He has a wonderful face, if you look at it. 
 His eyes look so suffering sometimes, like something 
 in a cage. I was sure he couldn't be all ribs and 
 the best waterproof twill really. I said to him once 
 at the Manleys' dance, when we were sitting out," 
 she went on after a pause, " ' You know we can't 
 always go on pretending that you are a pair of 
 trousers and a coat and I am a bag with flounces 
 propped up on two chairs. I'm a person and so 
 are you. We must have heaps and heaps of things 
 to talk about. Do, for goodness' sake, let one of 
 us go ahead ' I really worked myself up. I felt 
 I just would smash into that propriety." 
 
 " And what happened ? " her sister asked. 
 
 " He got red at first and didn't answer and I 
 got awfully frightened. Then he said in quite 
 a natural voice, ' If you will behave just as you 
 like I will try not to put you off. It is very kind 
 of you to trouble about me.' Rather as if I were 
 a dog that he had been asked to exercise. However 
 it was a beginning, and now he starts off by him-
 
 68 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 self. I think the great thing is that he doesn't 
 regard me as a girl." 
 
 " What does he think you are, then ? " 
 
 " I don't know. A sort of inferior Tommy I 
 should think ; uneducated but harmless, and quite 
 useless. I might be his batman, marooned with 
 him in a desert full of baboons." 
 
 " It sounds very unlikely," said Teresa. " You 
 have a very muddled head, Chips, and you read 
 such a lot of scraps that I believe it makes you 
 worse ; but you explain yourself quite clearly. I 
 shall be interested to-morrow when I see that 
 stuffed back at the breakfast table. Father would 
 be amused." 
 
 " You are not to tell him," said Evangeline 
 quickly. 
 
 " I'm not going to. At least I might have if you 
 hadn't told me not to. Why don't you want him 
 to know that his man is nicer than we thought ? " 
 
 " I don't know, except that I discovered him 
 and I don't want to show him to people ; he's not 
 nearly ready. And besides, he is like having a 
 sitting-room of my own. I like a retreat that no 
 one else knows the way to." 
 
 " Is Hatton in the house by any chance ? " Cyril 
 asked one day when he came in to tea. 
 
 " I don't know at all, dear," said Susie. " I 
 should think very likely ; he generally is." 
 
 " He's helping Chips to wash Tricot in the bath- 
 room," said Teresa. 
 
 Cyril stopped in the act of filling his pipe. " H'm," 
 he remarked. " Hereditary instinct, I suppose. 
 Poor fellow."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 69 
 
 " I know by your face that you mean something 
 unkind, Cyril," said his wife, " but I don't see how 
 even you can make out that there can be anything 
 hereditary about washing a dog." 
 
 " Not if there's only one person to do it," he 
 replied. He was holding a match to the tobacco 
 and went on explaining between puffs. " But 
 when Hatton, who is a nervous fellow begins 
 washing poodles with your daughter your own 
 little girl who isn't generally fond of work I 
 seem to see the young Eve adorning herself with 
 the leaf of experiment just as Mother did. Have 
 you ever seen a young chicken begin to scratch 
 the moment it leaves the egg ? It isn't imitation, 
 because it does it just the same if it is raised in an 
 incubator." 
 
 Teresa looked anxiously amused as a mother 
 does whose favourite child is not behaving well in 
 a drawing-room, but Mrs. Fulton was smarting 
 under old sores. She said coldly, " Perhaps you 
 would finish washing Tricot, dear Dicky. You had 
 better tell Captain Hatton that your father wants 
 him." 
 
 " Don't be silly," said Cyril. " I don't want 
 him. I told him there was nothing for him to do 
 this afternoon and as I didn't see him at the Polo 
 ground and found his hat in the hall when I came 
 in I remembered the story of Adam and thought 
 I'd ask, that's all." 
 
 Teresa had gone out while he was speaking. 
 
 " May I ask if you never want the girls to marry ? " 
 Susie asked. 
 
 " Lord, no, I don't care," he replied, " but what's 
 that got to do with Hatton ? I was only joking.
 
 70 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 I suppose he knows all about washing dogs. I 
 expect he likes it. And Chips doesn't know the 
 business as well as you, Sue ; she won't construe 
 a wag of the tail into an offer of marriage. Hatton 
 is a very upright man. He'd probably consult 
 you first and lay out his plans on paper in the 
 approved style." 
 
 " Well, if he did I'm sure I don't know what I 
 should say," she answered thoughtfully. Cyril 
 had once explained to a bewildered friend, " The 
 great charm of an argument with Sue is that you 
 never know which part of a conversation she will 
 choose to take the trick with. You may find that 
 the only lie you have told for years is used as an 
 ace." 
 
 " I mean," she went on, " that I don't think 
 Evangeline ought to be encouraged to act hastily. 
 I like Mr. Varens so much better than Evan Hatton. 
 He will probably come into his father's place very 
 soon." 
 
 " Great Scott ! " exclaimed Cyril, really startled 
 at last. " Has Varens asked her after dining here 
 once ? What in heaven's name possesses the poor 
 devils ! But I oughtn't to talk I suppose." 
 
 " Don't be so absurd, Cyril. I never said he had 
 proposed to her. I only meant that she hadn't 
 had time to consider him." 
 
 " Wliat do you mean, ' consider him ? ' 
 
 " I merely took Mr. Varens as an instance. I 
 don't want her to be pushed into liking Evan Hatton 
 just because she hasn't had time to think of any 
 other. Ill-considered marriages are often so re- 
 grettable." 
 
 " If I were a woman," said Cyril, " I should say
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 71 
 
 that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the 
 tilings you say. Unlace me, Emmeline, and give 
 me some more tea have you got any ? " He 
 passed his cup. 
 
 " But do you see what I mean, Cyril ? " she 
 persisted. 
 
 " Oh, I see all right," he replied. " My eye 
 wants shading if anything ; it's positively dazzling, 
 the light that you throw on matters of the heart. 
 It's a pity you never met Darwin. He wrote on 
 natural selection, but I'm not sure that he mastered 
 
 the subject. You might " He stopped as the 
 
 door opened and Evangeline came in with Captain 
 Hatton. 
 
 Evan glanced at his general, who was peacefully 
 sunk in an armchair, playing with the cat. Tricot, 
 the poodle, followed into the room and walked about 
 shaking himself restlessly as if he missed something. 
 
 " That's all right, old Tricot," said Cyril. " Come 
 here and talk to Pussy ; she's your friend." 
 
 Tricot came in innocent confidence, and the 
 usual recriminations between him and the cat began. 
 
 " It is funny, if you notice, that dogs are all for 
 love and cats all for marriage," said Cyril thought- 
 fully, " and the two together are always chosen to 
 represent domestic life at least the ill-considered 
 domestic life that you were talking about, Sue. I 
 suppose it's handed on for generations." 
 
 Evan Hatton did not hear. He was at the 
 window with Evangeline, trying to make her 
 understand the principle of a magneto. " Here's 
 Emma coming," she announced presently from the 
 window. " She's getting off the tram. Do you want 
 her, Dicky ? "
 
 7* THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 "I'm going out with her," Teresa answered. 
 " She said she would come." 
 
 " Where on earth to at this time ? " 
 
 " She has got a place where children go after 
 school ; she said she would take me." 
 
 " I do wish she wouldn't wear that hat," Evan- 
 geline said critically, watching Emma as she came 
 up the garden path. " I wonder where good 
 milliners go to when they die. They never seem 
 to mix with good people in this world." 
 
 Captain Hatton's face reddened and he turned 
 away from the window. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " asked Evangeline. " Are 
 you going ? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered shortly and then he said 
 good-bye and left the room. He nearly ran into 
 Emma in the hall, so great was his haste and his 
 preoccupation. " I beg your pardon," he apolo- 
 gised. " How could I have been so stupid. Did 
 I knock your hat ? " for she had put up her hand 
 to straighten it. 
 
 " Captain Hatton ! " Evangeline called over the 
 bannisters, " are you coming riding before breakfast 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 " If you wish me to," he answered unsteadily 
 and waited for a moment while Emma ran upstairs. 
 But Evangeline only replied, " All right, eight 
 o'clock then," and disappeared, and he heard the 
 girls' laughter in the drawing-room. He let him- 
 self out and spent the evening and most of the 
 night walking along the sea shore. 
 
 " That's an unlucky hat of yours, Emma," said 
 Evangeline when she went back to the drawing- 
 room. " I believe there's a devil in it. We had
 
 one row about it before you came up." She went 
 off singing. 
 
 Teresa's elusive desire had begun to show itself 
 openly to her since she met Emma Gainsborough. 
 She had been allowed at last behind the curtain 
 where the faces that haunted her in the streets 
 were no longer imaginary characters in a scene 
 at which she looked on as a spectator. She began 
 to know individual Tommys and Gordons and 
 Gladyses and Victorias, Mrs. Potter and Mrs. 
 Jason ; to understand why Mr. Potter was out of 
 work and what it meant to half-a-dozen lives when 
 Mr. Jason brought home only a fraction of his 
 earnings. She saw disease for the first time. She 
 met pleasure and wit and obscenity and tragedy 
 jostling familiarly together without prejudice or 
 distinction, engendered by all possible unions of 
 hunger, love, jealousy, optimism, sensuality, pride, 
 gentleness, patience, brutality, callousness, kind- 
 ness, ambition, hopelessness, fidelity, in all possible 
 conditions of filth or heartrending strife with 
 squalor ; intelligence burning indomitably in fogs 
 of prejudice and lies and stupidity. She had torn 
 the veil which the faces in the street seemed to 
 draw down between Mrs. Carpenter's " duty to 
 the city " and some vital secret that the city kept 
 to itself. The passionate love of fellowship that 
 had tormented her with its insistence and eluded 
 her by its formlessness had taken shape in the 
 places that Emma and her leaders were patiently 
 trying to remake, and now she thought of little 
 else.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IF Evangeline's campaign against Evan Hatton's 
 prejudices had been a public war, the supporters of 
 either side would have seen that the end was now 
 drawing near. Optimists among the Evangelineites 
 would have rubbed their hands and said that she 
 had got the forces of his harsh morality fairly on the 
 run ; the pessimists would have prophesied (though 
 admitting Evangeline's strength) that the struggle 
 would break out again as soon as peace was signed. 
 The Evanites would either have declared that 
 Morality was going to the dogs and was being sold by 
 Self-interest and Pleasure, or they would have 
 prepared to retreat, still fighting, to the height of 
 " A Strong Man's Influence," and determined to 
 reorganise for a new offensive when the enemy 
 should be weakened by marriage. 
 
 An important battle took place during the ride 
 that Evangeline had arranged, when Evan retreated 
 after her flippancy on the subject of dead milh'ners. 
 He called for her and brought her horse from the 
 livery stable at eight the next morning, and they 
 rode away in that state of silent tension which 
 precedes an explanation when two people who care 
 for each other have parted in offence. Evangeline 
 tried hard to make him " start talking by himself," 
 as she had boasted to Teresa that he was now in the 
 habit of doing. She tempted him with proof that 
 she had absorbed his lecture on the magneto and 
 
 74
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 75 
 
 was mistress of its difficulties. She threw him 
 touching confidences about her plans in little every- 
 day matters. But all in vain. At last her temper 
 rose slightly. 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " she asked. 
 " Are you angry with me ? " 
 
 " I have no right to be angry with you," he 
 answered with emotion, " but I don't understand 
 you, and yet I know that you are good and could be 
 great. Why do you pretend to be like the others 
 and say things that are unworthy of you ? " 
 
 Evangeline was overawed. " What things ? " 
 she asked timidly. 
 
 " It was a silly trifle, and I know I am a fool 
 but it made me hot what you said about good 
 milliners not associating with good people in this 
 world. Emma Gainsborough is giving her life to 
 God's work as readily as the saints gave theirs 
 she's a Crusader if you like and you make paltry 
 fun of her hat. There now ! I suppose you won't 
 speak to me again." 
 
 " Yes, I shall," said Evangeline. " If you will not 
 shut yourself up into that dreadful silence you may 
 say anything absolutely anything. You make me 
 see such a long way when you talk. I read the 
 papers by myself and get into such knots because I 
 can't see any connection between different things. 
 But when you hurl me about from Emma's hat to 
 the Crusaders, who I thought were people who 
 fought in nightgowns and red crosses with a feather 
 in their helmets and defeated the heathen why 
 let me see, where am I ? well you see how exhilar- 
 ating it is ! I feel as if my mind had been galloping 
 miles in the fresh air in new places."
 
 76 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Great heavens, what a child you are ! " he said, 
 looking at her in wonderment. Then he smiled 
 and held out his hand. "I'm sorry," he said. 
 
 Evangeline shook it heartily. " So am I," she 
 assured him. " And will you show me how to take 
 the car to pieces next time Father lets you off ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, he won't want it taken to pieces," 
 said Evan. " What's the good of that ? " 
 
 " Just to see the wheels," she begged. " And 
 then I should be so useful if anything went wrong." 
 
 " No, you haven't got any mechanical sense," 
 he argued. " I can see that. You understand a 
 theory when I tell it you, but when it comes to 
 putting it into practice you don't think a bit. I've 
 watched you learning to drive ; you do it all by the 
 book." 
 
 " Well, what should I do it by ?" she asked. 
 
 " Common sense and a thorough knowledge of 
 the reason for everything. The fact that any part 
 of a machine does so-and-so isn't enough ; you must 
 know why, and what will be the result if it doesn't 
 act, and then you must treat it so that it will act." 
 
 " Oh, dear," she said. " There's the sun coming 
 out ! Let's gallop while there is grass." 
 
 It is superfluous to follow this love episode any 
 further. I have met ladies who are always passion- 
 ately anxious to know " what he said " when a 
 girl announces her engagement, and who need no 
 encouragement to tell in return " how John did it." 
 But I am all against emotional indecency, and unless 
 any private conversations in this book have to be 
 recorded in the interests of research, or are betrayed 
 by the genial indiscretions of sympathy, they will 
 be omitted. Evan is the last person who would
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 77 
 
 wish anything to be said of him in that moment 
 when Nature, who had always laughed at his 
 attempts to make her acknowledge the sovereignty 
 of such Divine Rule as he was able to imagine, 
 pushed Evangeline into his arms and commanded 
 him to take her or suffer the pains of hell. 
 
 He saw no reason to refuse. But the end was 
 not yet, though it had become inevitable. Evan 
 had reserves. Evangeline's gallant forces had a 
 tough time of it before they won. Suspicion was 
 the hardest to beat down ; Evan's sisters had helped 
 to make that so strong. He reviewed his bonny 
 black doubts every day, and led them out against 
 Evangeline's joys. But there was all the difference 
 in the world between his sisters' cheerfulness and 
 hers. Their pleasure in life was that of mice in a 
 granary, hers was that of a rush of invaders over 
 a rich country ; she wanted all there was. Her 
 assurance that God loves His world was invincible. 
 Evan's doubts suffered casualties that put them out 
 of action ; but for a happy marriage they should all 
 have been dead. The smallest remnant of a strong 
 army is dangerous. 
 
 These battles went on unobserved by Cyril. 
 Susie noticed and said nothing, because she knew 
 that unasked advice to a girl precipitates a crisis, 
 and she hoped in secret that Evangeline loved her 
 freedom too much to do what her mother would call 
 " anything rash," such as binding herself in marriage 
 before she had reviewed all likely candidates. As 
 weeks went on she became more anxious. There 
 was a look of settled happiness about Evangeline 
 that was not what you would expect of a young 
 girl, Susie said to herself. It is a mistake to wear
 
 78 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 the heart on the sleeve. One of the great joys of her 
 own girlhood had been the security of living behind 
 a veil of misty sweetness that allowed the public 
 free scope for their imagination of what might be 
 behind it and yet committed her to nothing. Mis- 
 understandings had arisen in that way but she had 
 not suffered and those who had done so had only 
 their own imaginations to blame. She still made 
 use of the veil, and the only person who made her 
 feel nervous about it was Cyril. He had the knack 
 of twitching it away, and never tired of the joke, 
 which seemed to compensate him for the nothingness 
 he exposed. In one way only, her disappointment 
 about Evangeline's choice was a good thing to her. 
 She felt it as a revenge on her husband for his 
 cynicism about women and the jibes he aimed at 
 her about their duplicity towards men. " Perhaps 
 he will see now," she said to herself her very soul 
 bridling at the Spirit of Man " that they do need 
 protection after all. If he really cared for her I 
 could have discussed it with him and he could have 
 got another A.D.C. until this had blown over. As 
 it is, it must just go on, and I can't prevent it with 
 the man here all day while the sons of rich people 
 are sitting on office stools, shuffling oats and sugar 
 through their fingers. Why can't some of them 
 come and ride with her and show her their motors ? 
 And I suppose Dicky will marry a rent collector 
 with a wooden leg, or a socialist who stands on a 
 chair and wants to take away our money." Her 
 thoughts wandered into all sorts of bitter pos- 
 sibilities, not at all in keeping with the maxim that 
 " if everyone were happy and contented everything 
 would come right," which she brought in so delight-
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 79 
 
 fully at Mrs. Carpenter's little informal conferences 
 on social reform. " Mrs. Fulton is so original in 
 what she says," was a remark constantly made. 
 But true it was that she thought differently at the 
 moment. Circumstances alter cases, as she so 
 often said. 
 
 Because of this grievance of hers against him, 
 Cyril was not told of her fears, and in due time 
 Evangeline's battle was won. Evan frowned on the 
 tattered remnant of his doubts and bade them go 
 home. He went in, his heart stumbling and stopping, 
 to the study where Cyril was asleep after a day's 
 hunting, and shut the door. 
 
 Cyril came down early before dinner, and found 
 Evangeline reading the evening paper in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " Hullo," he said. 
 
 " Hullo, dear," she replied, and went on reading. 
 
 " So you and Hatton have fixed it up," he began. 
 Evangeline put down the paper, and looked up at 
 him. 
 
 " Is that all right ? " she asked. " You're not 
 cross, are you ? " 
 
 " No, I'm not cross, my dear," he said, as if he 
 were thinking of something else. " I suppose you 
 wouldn't tell me any more, would you ? Why you 
 really want him, for instance." 
 
 " Yes, I would, of course," she answered readily. 
 " I'd tell you anything though that's not true, 
 because I told Dicky weeks ago that he was getting 
 oh well, you know quite tame and she thought 
 you would be pleased, but I wouldn't let her tell 
 you because I didn't want to spoil it." 
 
 " H'm," said Cyril.
 
 8o THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " I mean I liked feeling that none of you knew 
 him properly." 
 
 " H'm," said Cyril again. 
 
 " WeU, what's the matter ? " 
 
 " A powerful apple," he observed. " Power, my 
 dear child, power." 
 
 " Oh, Father," she sighed, " you're not going on 
 again about that dreadful old Eden, are you ? I 
 do wish no one had ever told you the story. You 
 think women are always tempting men to this 
 day." 
 
 " So they are when it comes to marriage," he 
 asserted. " Don't you make any mistake about 
 that." 
 
 Evangeline felt desperate, as if she were caught 
 and entangled. " Do you mean that men never 
 fall in love with them ? " Tears gathered in her 
 eyes. She had had some weary work at the last 
 stand of Hatton's doubts, and now her father, whom 
 she loved and believed in as a friend, was going to 
 take the top off the morning of her happiness. 
 
 Cyril understood and repented. " No," he said, 
 
 " Hatton loves you but " he looked at her 
 
 inquiring face and decided to revise what he was 
 going to say. " Have you ever heard of spontaneous 
 combustion ? It's a troublesome thing, but I should 
 have more faith in your sex if they suffered from it 
 in their emotions. They think too hard for my 
 taste. But that's all. Hatton is the devil of a 
 hard thinker himself, so you had better leave him 
 to scratch his head, and say, ' yes, dear,' like your 
 mother does when I give her the benefit of my 
 wisdom. Then all you need is to go out and do 
 just the opposite, and say afterwards that that was
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 81 
 
 what you thought he meant. Don't incense him 
 at the time, is the great thing. ' The Housewife's 
 Vade Mecum/ as I read somewhere, or ' Little Polly's 
 first steps in efficiency '." He kissed her on 
 his way across the room to turn on some more light. 
 " Just to wish you luck, dear, and to show there's 
 no ill-feeling." 
 
 He returned to the fire and drew up a chair. "I'm 
 in favour of marriage for all, myself," he went on, 
 " young and old, rich and poor, never mind the 
 reason, but get on with the event itself. The advent 
 of little ones is, after all, the only thing that matters, 
 as your mother explained to me. And that was you, 
 Chips. There was a devil of a row before you 
 turned up." 
 
 " Oh, did you and Mother quarrel ? " she asked, 
 very much surprised. 
 
 " You can't call a one-sided thing exactly a 
 quarrel," he said. " No one but a man could 
 quarrel with me." 
 
 " Couldn't they ? " she asked. 
 
 " No. But your mother is very powerful in the 
 way I was describing ; " 
 
 Susie came in just then. Cyril had told her while 
 they were dressing that Evan had " put in a claim 
 as consort for Chips ; which just bears out what I 
 said this style of architecture would lead to when we 
 came ; except that he isn't wealthy. In fact, he 
 has very little except his pay." 
 
 Susie took the line that this was " all that could 
 be expected in a place where people think so much 
 of money that they never leave their offices till it is 
 time to go to bed." 
 
 ' That ought to make them all the more anxious 
 
 F
 
 82 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 to marry," he remarked, " or else how can they 
 enjoy any intellectual conversation ? " 
 
 " Of course you will twist everything I say to a 
 coarse standpoint, Cyril," she said, " because those 
 sort of cheap jokes are so easy to make." 
 
 " Where's the joke ? " he asked, putting on his 
 coat. ' Honi soit qui mal y pense/ as the leaders 
 of taste remind us." 
 
 Susie made no answer, but closed the door between 
 their rooms, and she did not go down until dinner 
 was announced.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 AMONG the people who called on Susie from Mr. 
 Price's Paradise, the county, was Lady Varens, 
 David Varens' s stepmother. Sir Richard and Cyril 
 were admirably suited to one another because the 
 old man was a sportsman by nature and practice. 
 He had had an adventurous youth and " mercifully," 
 as Cyril said, " forgotten the details.' Then, on 
 his father's death, he came back to Millshire and 
 managed the estate with the same thoroughness 
 that had brought him success in less peaceful 
 enterprises. He married first a guest of one of his 
 hunting neighbours. She was lying unconscious 
 on a bank, with her horse grazing beside her, when he 
 saw her for the first time ; and when he had brought 
 her round and taken her home and called every 
 other day to ask how she was it seemed natural to 
 regard her as his own property. She died when 
 David was nine, and Sir Richard married, two years 
 afterwards, a lady whom he thought to have been 
 unjustly divorced from a drunken old peer who had 
 married her from the schoolroom. 
 
 She was good to David and kept her own counsel, 
 so Millshire allowed her to carry on the tradition 
 of Varens hospitality ; in fact there was an extra 
 piquancy about her parties owing to the opportunity 
 they gave for a little private skeleton hunting among 
 intimate friends. Towards the following Christmas, 
 
 *3
 
 84 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 while Evangeline was staying with Evan's sisters, 
 Sir Richard invited Cyril to take a day or two's 
 hunting with him and stay over the week end. 
 Lady Varens hoped that Mrs. Fulton would come 
 too, and bring her daughter, to hunt or not, as she 
 liked. Evangeline being away, Teresa was torn 
 from her heart's delight, the alleys, the rotting 
 garrets and the dingy clubs where she groped all 
 day for the scattered remnant of what seemed to 
 her the lost birthright of the bottom class, their 
 right to the fellowship of common desires and tastes 
 with the people who filled her mother's drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " What is the good of this eternal talk about all 
 men being able to reach any position they are fitted 
 for, if, when you come across the most lovable 
 people in that class, you can hardly bear to sit with 
 them for five minutes because of smells and anxieties 
 and habits that shut them off like a cage that they 
 didn't make themselves and can't get out of ? " she 
 asked Emma Gainsborough. 
 
 " We are trying to get them out," said Emma. 
 
 " I know," Teresa answered, " but I don't see 
 how you can unless you kill Mrs. Carpenter." She 
 and Mrs. Carpenter had perhaps the same end in 
 view when they worked among the dismal crowds 
 that swarmed in the mud and hideousness of the 
 poorer quarters, but to the casual observer it looked 
 as though the " charity ladies," as Strickland called 
 them, were under the impression that in their promo- 
 tion of health and virtue they were pressing some- 
 thing new on somebody who had never heard of it, 
 while Teresa hoped to restore a treasure that had 
 been lost by past generations,
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 85 
 
 Her own experience was showing her that the 
 cage door gives way before devotees who will suffer 
 the violation of everything that makes life sweet 
 to them for the sake of what they hold dearer, and 
 she also learned the freemasonry of hard work ; 
 the point where she stuck was the apparent im- 
 possibility of ever bridging the gulf between Mrs. 
 Carpenter and Mrs. Potter. How to wean Mrs. 
 Carpenter from the idea that the social order was 
 all right because she was on the bright side of it, 
 and at the same time convince Mrs. Potter that it 
 was not all wrong because she was on the dark one ? 
 As one of Emma's friends pointed out, twenty 
 centuries had passed since the only serious attempt 
 had been made to bring about an understanding 
 between the ancestors of those two irreconcilable 
 ladies. The best spiritual engineering had been 
 carried on ever since along the lines then laid down ; 
 communications had been devised and traffic of a 
 sort carried on. But as soon as Mrs. Potter advanced 
 a little and caught sight of Mrs Carpenter and went 
 for her, bald-headed, and when Mrs. Carpenter 
 sailed along from her end of the bridge and then sat 
 
 down and sang to Mrs. Potter . I must stop 
 
 this allegory or the reader will break down in tears 
 of perplexity and perhaps send the book straight 
 back to the library ; unless he has himself lived 
 for a time miserably wedged between the philan- 
 thropists and the slums of a city. 
 
 To get on with the story. Teresa was, as I have 
 said, torn from her absorbing occupation and com- 
 pelled to go with her father and mother to be the 
 Varens' guest at Aldwych Court. 
 
 I believe there is no place so comfortable to stay
 
 86 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 in as an English country house belonging to a good 
 hostess. The luxury of dressing in any part of her 
 room without the penalty of gooseflesh ; the deep, 
 scented bath and warm towel three feet square ; 
 the rich, dry fluffiness under foot, and the cup of tea 
 afterwards, brought by a maid who seemed to have 
 nothing else to do, banished all visions of Mrs. 
 Potter to such a remote corner of Teresa's conscious- 
 ness that when she did remember her again the 
 recollection had no more sting than a bad dream. 
 She ate her dinner, served by willing men and 
 women who performed their duties like priests of 
 Isis, instead of, as dear Strickland did, giving her 
 the uneasy feeling that one course would have been 
 quite enough if ladies were not so greedy. She had 
 observed sometimes to Evangeline that Millport 
 maids treated their mistresses as if they were parrots 
 whose dirty cages had to be cleaned out, and whom 
 it " took up people's time " to feed. 
 
 David Varens is to play his part on the stage now, 
 but there is to be no sudden change in the music 
 to waltz time, nor cries of the villagers, " But here 
 comes the Prince ! Gay and dancing, bright and 
 prancing, sing we now our welcome," nor will the 
 light fade and moon children glide out from under 
 trees and sit upon their mushrooms while he sings, 
 " Queen of the dusk and lodestar of my dreams." 
 He comes on like Cyril's millionaire, " walking quite 
 unaffectedly " among a number of ordinary people. 
 It was not until Teresa and her mother went away 
 on Monday that she began seriously to prefer him 
 to Mrs. Potter. It may be difficult for anyone who 
 is unacquainted with the love of Beauty for the 
 Beast to understand what a disappointment it was
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 87 
 
 to her to find that her heart had betrayed her and 
 was transferring its allegiance to a normal object. 
 It was something between childish terror of the sea 
 and the remorse of a pilgrim whose prayers have 
 grown cold that followed on the joy his presence 
 gave her. " How happy I am.," she thought, and 
 then, as a ghostly voice demanded the truth, she 
 added, " and I don't care a hang what Mrs. Potter 
 is doing." 
 
 There were other people staying in the house, but 
 she did not notice them and no more need we. Lady 
 Varens and Susie talked and knitted and drove, and 
 Lady Varens liked Susie, because it was impossible 
 not to on a slight acquaintance, and Susie liked 
 Lady Varens because there was mystery about her 
 and she had great charm, with her soft eyes that 
 saw much and told nothing, and her sensitive mouth 
 whose utterances led to conversation, but also told 
 nothing. Susie admired in her the ideal woman, 
 and " we are so much alike " was what she chiefly 
 thought of her. Cyril enjoyed his hunting and sat 
 up late in the smoking-room. 
 
 " I hope you will come and see us, Mr. Varens," 
 said Susie before they left. " Your mother, I know, 
 hardly ever leaves this lovely place, and no more 
 should I if it were mine. But I know you do come 
 into town sometimes. We can always give you 
 lunch and it will be such a change to hear about 
 the beautiful country things in the middle of all 
 our ugliness ; I never get used to it. I shall be so 
 anxious to hear whether that dear black cow gets 
 all right again. Cows are such mothers, you know ; 
 one feels so sorry for them having to be parted from 
 those sweet calves. You are going to manage the
 
 88 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 estate now, Sir Richard told me. How delightful 
 that will be, and what a saving of anxiety to 
 him." 
 
 " Yes," said David, " I come in two or three times 
 a week to the University. Perhaps you would let 
 me come one of those days, may I ? Thanks very 
 much." 
 
 He took Teresa through the woods that morning. 
 She said less than usual, and presently he noticed 
 this. " You look worried," he remarked. " Is 
 anything wrong ? " 
 
 " I don't know that you can call it wrong," she 
 answered, " but I feel almost sick at the thought of 
 going back to Emma Gainsborough and her office. 
 It doesn't seem any use from here. I was bent on 
 teaching music to Albert Potter the day I came, and 
 now I want to turn him into a calf or a frog. What 
 is the good of Emma going on sending different 
 kinds of splints for him and telling Mrs. Potter how 
 to put them on ? The money I have eaten since I 
 came here would have saved him from getting like 
 that a year ago." 
 
 " Look here," said David seriously, " I have been 
 along that road while I was at Oxford, and it leads 
 nowhere, except into a sort of maze where you lose 
 yourself and die for want of a fresh argument. If 
 I had ideas I would come down to your place and do 
 what you are doing for as long as you wanted me, 
 but I haven't got any ideas and I have got fields 
 or rather my father has, and can't look after them 
 as he used to and I am going to see what is to be 
 got out of them." 
 
 " I have neither ideas nor fields," she said, " but 
 I had an enormous family when I left home last
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 89 
 
 week, and now I have been happy and forgotten 
 them." 
 
 " Did you forget them ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, quite," she answered sadly. 
 
 " Then you can't really care for them enough to 
 succeed," he said. This struck Teresa a blow. 
 " Don't you ever forget your farms and things ? " 
 she asked, " not for a minute ? " 
 
 " No, except when I'm asleep or hunting." 
 
 " Hunting ! my hunting is done down there," she 
 said illogically. 
 
 " Then where are your farms ? " 
 
 " Oh, blow ! " said Teresa. 
 
 " All right. Well, when will you come back here ? " 
 
 " When I can't bear any more committees of 
 the charitable. I wish you could see Mrs. Carpenter. 
 Do you remember, she was at the Gainsboroughs 
 the night you were there ? " 
 
 " Was she ? I forget. What like ? " 
 
 " Like an hour glass, in pink with the sand quite 
 solid." 
 
 " I didn't notice. I couldn't make your Miss 
 Gainsborough talk, that's all I know. Is there 
 anything the matter with her ? " 
 
 " Dear me, no," she answered in surprise. " She's 
 very amusing when you know her. Mr. Price got 
 her into such a state of nerves. He did me, too. 
 Do you understand him ? " 
 
 " No, but I think he is only trying to mix society ; 
 just what you want to do with Mrs. Potter. If 
 you encourage her you ought to encourage him." 
 
 Teresa looked at him to see whether he was 
 laughing, but they had come to a stile and he was 
 waiting politely for her to get over. Instead of
 
 90 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 climbing she sat down on it and faced him. " It 
 is absolutely different," she began to explain. 
 " What I can't bear is to find people, who would be 
 just like you if they had been sent to school and 
 fed, unable to express themselves and living in such 
 horrible places that one can hardly attend to what 
 they are trying to say because of the awfulness. 
 And it is nonsense to say that they can always get 
 out. All self-made men say afterwards that they 
 were newsboys, but there are thousands of darling 
 newsboys who haven't got just the bit of extra 
 that made Dick Whittington ; and, as my mother 
 says, purring among her furs on a platform, ' they 
 are often taught to be bad.' She does talk such 
 rot, and yet often her platitudes wouldn't be so 
 telling if they were not made up over a small piece 
 of truth. There is nothing like that about that 
 dreadful man Price ; is there now ? Come, speak up." 
 
 " He wants to get into a better set and explain 
 himself," said David. 
 
 "Nonsense," answered Teresa, "not a better set 
 at all ; only a more fashionable one." 
 
 " Well, but you say that your set isn't any better 
 than Mrs. Potter's, only more fashionable. If that 
 is so then Mrs. Potter is a snob like Price. But 
 if you claim some other advantage that you 
 want Mrs. Potter to share, why shouldn't Price be 
 sensitive about having been born outside a set that 
 claims to be better than his own ? " 
 
 " I wish I could get someone who has as much 
 ' lip ' as you have to talk to you," said Teresa. " I 
 can't do it, but I know you are wrong." 
 
 " Your Potter vocabulary is beyond me," said 
 David politely.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE curtain now goes up on Evangeline's marriage. 
 It took place six months ago. Cyril has a new 
 A.D.C. with a fluffy wife and blue-eyed child ; all 
 three as happy as grigs. His name is Jimmy 
 Trotter (the Trotters of Burnside) and she was 
 Miss Fripps of Ely, a daughter of the famous Dean 
 Fripps. Cyril doesn't mind Trotter, who does his 
 work all right, and Mrs. Trotter is always good fun 
 at a party, though Susie thinks she is rather empty- 
 headed, and can't understand how she can afford 
 a nurse like that for the baby ; it would be much 
 more sensible if she looked after it herself, and got 
 a really nice girl to take charge in the afternoon. 
 Mrs. Trotter thinks not, as she does not believe in 
 nice girls and prefers to save money by doing the 
 cooking in which she is expert and let the baby have 
 the whole attention of a woman whom she can 
 trust. She doesn't believe in making oneself a 
 premature fright by being a Jack-of-all-trades. 
 They have recurrent arguments on this question and 
 Susie gets the worst of it, for Mrs. Trotter disposes 
 of platitudes as she would of kitchen refuse, without 
 a moment's thought whether there may not be 
 diamonds among them. Therefore, Susie says she 
 is empty-headed, and does not care to see more of 
 her than politeness demands. 
 
 And you should see Mrs. Trotter mimicking 
 91
 
 92 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Mrs. General " to the wives of Cyril's staff, all 
 of whom she knows intimately ! Of course it got 
 round in time to Susie through Mrs. Carpenter, who 
 heard of it from the wife of the Staff-Captain, who 
 was rather keen on getting into the University set. 
 
 Evangeline was happy at this time, living at a 
 place we will call Drage, where Cyril had got Evan 
 an appointment. He found there several men who 
 had been with him in the trenches. Their recollec- 
 tions pictured him as a man who had been of the 
 greatest value as an unfailing joke ; a good joke, 
 too, for you never knew when it mightn't blow you 
 sky high. It was always worth while raising him 
 when you had a lot to think of, because his explo- 
 sions of temper were entertaining enough to take 
 your mind off any unpleasantness. And he was 
 such a thoroughly good fellow ; would do anything 
 or go anywhere, and his mechanical genius had 
 earned their admiration and gratitude for many 
 improvised good things. Hicks remembered him 
 taking a Hun's watch to pieces in his dug-out and 
 the story that followed was always a success. It 
 preceded his arrival at Drage, and Evan found every- 
 one pleased to welcome him and his wife. 
 
 Evangeline's enthusiasms and her naivete were 
 soon the talk of the place. Some of the women 
 regarded her as a fool and some as " a very dashing 
 young person." She certainly was, as Strickland 
 had prophesied, " a favourite with the gentlemen." 
 There is a pose of free speech and free living that is 
 as closely bound by its self-imposed limits as any 
 other doctrine, and it is particularly false because 
 the naturally free have never heard of freedom ; 
 as Cyril would have pointed out, " it was knowledge
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 93 
 
 of the damned thing's existence that made Eve a 
 slave to propriety." Evangeline's knowledge of 
 good and evil was, as we have seen, gathered almost 
 entirely from the newspapers, and was therefore 
 negligible. So she thought freely (which is different 
 from being a free thinker) and Evan, who had eaten 
 his apple with attention, was scandalised, and the 
 ladies of Drage, who wore their aprons merely 
 as a class distinction, cutting them long or short 
 or leaving them off altogether, as fashion 
 dictated, were astonished at her behaviour. 
 Indeed when her instincts did, as she once hoped 
 they would, " burst with a pop in the sun " of 
 experience, she loved creation with a generosity 
 that might have led her into all sorts of trouble 
 had she been as faithless a woman as her mother. 
 She was fascinated by the idea of having a child of 
 her own, " a brand new person, whom no one has 
 ever seen before, conjured from the vasty deep," 
 she said (with some school recollection of a quotation 
 connected with impressive magic). She adored 
 Evan as the god behind the machine and lost a 
 great deal of the interest in his character that had 
 made her take pride in his reluctant confidences. 
 Splitting hairs in argument about sin seemed to her 
 an absurd waste of time when it was clear that no 
 one would bother to sin if he were happy ; and who 
 could be other than happy when the war was over 
 and a new generation coming into life ? Evan's 
 friends enjoyed her hospitality in peace, for she 
 never teased them by the militant chastity, provok- 
 ing but unyielding, which turns many a good bride 
 into a firebrand. The average Englishman does not 
 often engage in illicit love affairs unless they are
 
 94 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 offered him ; so Evangeline's lack of decorum was 
 regarded as a new and perfectly innocent game. 
 Evan, with his explosive seriousness, had been a 
 first-class jest in the old days, and here he was back 
 again, married to some one just as funny in an 
 opposite way, and the two together were simply 
 splendid. The jokers were never tired of setting 
 the one against the other in public, without an idea 
 that differences of opinion could hold any danger for 
 two people so obviously in love. They relished the 
 stories that went round about Evangeline's latest 
 indiscretions and told how shirty old Evan had been 
 and how the two had gone off together afterwards 
 talking all the way and you could bet she got it 
 properly in the neck when they reached home. One 
 evening, these mischief makers who had egged on 
 Evangeline to persuade poor old Hicks to do his 
 Fiji dance, with young Blake lashed to a chair in the 
 character of a maiden, went home to bed in the 
 highest spirits, and left Evangeline and her husband 
 alone. 
 
 " I shall chuck my job at once and leave here if 
 you ever encourage that sort of thing again," he 
 said, standing in front of the embers of the fire 
 that had made the little room so cheerful earlier 
 in the evening. He had put young Blake's chair 
 back into its place with a savage push, and was now 
 winding up the string that had been broken in the 
 final ecstasy that brought the house down. 
 Evangeline stared at him with round, startled 
 eyes. " Darling Evan," she said, " it was a game. 
 What on earth is the matter ? " 
 
 " It was outrageous. If you had ever been among 
 savages " he stopped, speechless.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 95 
 
 " But I haven't," she argued. " That's just it. 
 I want to know. It was fascinating. I felt as if 
 I were the girl and he were getting nearer and 
 nearer it was gloriously exciting. And anyhow 
 dear Evan don't be an ass ; it was pure farce, 
 and I don't believe he knows anything about 
 Fijians at all." 
 
 " My mother would have died before she would 
 have allowed such a thing in her drawing-room," 
 said Evan. " You have no womanly dignity. 
 Everyone talks about you and the way you behave 
 as if you were married to the whole staff." 
 
 " Oh, what is the matter with you ? " cried 
 Evangeline. " I was so happy and I have done 
 nothing whatever. I don't know what you are 
 trying to get at. How can I be married to the whole 
 staff?" 
 
 " I assure you no stranger could point out which 
 was your husband in a mixed gathering," he replied 
 coldly. 
 
 " Oh my dear, you're like an eclipse of the sun," 
 she said, getting up and putting her arms round 
 his neck. " I have been so happy that I had for- 
 gotten all your Mumbo Jumbo of this or that being 
 right or wrong, that you used to make my flesh 
 creep with till I thought you really knew about it. 
 I believe you would blow out pleasure like a lamp 
 if you could and make us all sit and eat repentance 
 by corpse light. I am going to make another fire 
 in my room and have tea and cake there, and if you 
 don't come and cheer up I'll telephone for one of 
 my other husbands to come instead." So Evan 
 relented until the next time. 
 
 They came back to Millport for a visit at Easter.
 
 96 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " And when does Mrs. Hatton expect the great 
 event ? " asked Mrs. Carpenter of Susie when she 
 and Mrs. Eric Manley and Mrs. Vachell had remained 
 behind to tea after a committee meeting. The 
 committee had been dealing, among other matters, 
 with the case of Mrs. Potter's daughter, for whom 
 Teresa asked admittance to the maternity home 
 they represented. 
 
 " A particularly sad case," Susie had remarked, 
 " because it seems that she hardly knew the man 
 and only encouraged him because her husband drank 
 and she had nothing to live on. If she had only 
 come to me, as Teresa might have suggested to her, 
 I would have advised her what to do." 
 
 " What would you have advised ? " asked Mrs. 
 Vachell curiously. 
 
 " I should have tried to explain our point of 
 view," said Susie, " and shown her that, apart from 
 the disgrace and all that, the man would probably 
 leave her sooner or later, as he has." 
 
 " But surely, Mrs. Fulton, that is not the main 
 point ? " said Mrs. Carpenter. " Surely we want 
 to awaken something more than self-interest ? We 
 want to make these girls understand that the 
 marriage vow often implies suffering." 
 
 " Oh, of course," replied Susie with a far-away 
 look. " But I think a woman always hoj>es to the 
 end. They are so confiding and they forget that it 
 will probably lead them into trouble." 
 
 In replying to Mrs. Carpenter's other question, 
 however, she took a brighter view of marriage. 
 " Not quite yet," she said, " but to tell you the truth, 
 I never ask many questions of that sort. I always 
 think that the glamour of a young marriage ought
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 97 
 
 not to be rubbed off by too many practical 
 details." 
 
 Mrs. Vachell used to wonder now and then how 
 it was that Susie constantly took the bread out of 
 Mrs. Carpenter's mouth without her victim seeming 
 to experience any sense of loss. Mrs. Carpenter 
 did sometimes hesitate as if she thought she had 
 lost something, but Susie seemed so innocent of her 
 theft that it generally passed as an accident. On 
 the whole, Mrs. Carpenter accepted her as an ally. 
 
 " How do they like being at Drage ? " Mrs. 
 Manley asked. 
 
 " Very much indeed," Susie replied. " She enjoys 
 military society, fortunately, which I never did. 
 Mrs. Trotter envies her, she says, as she doesn't like 
 Millport herself. Of course a place that is building 
 itself up a great position with its University and 
 its social schemes can't have much interest for 
 people who are always packing up and following a 
 drum from one dusty parade ground to another." 
 She paused and, as her audience was busy with cake, 
 went on, " Those dreadful folding beds and bamboo 
 furniture that they all seem to go in for I suppose 
 because it is so light depress me too much. I do 
 love a beautiful home of my own, however small." 
 
 " I don't think you are altogether fair to the army, 
 my dear lady," said Mrs. Carpenter, a trifle piqued. 
 " I lived, until I married, among my dear people 
 who were always on the move, and I don't think you 
 would have said that their ideas were limited. 
 Wherever they went they were feted like princes 
 by all the most interesting people, and I think 
 it gave all of us girls much wider interests and 
 sharpened our wits more than being shut up in the
 
 98 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 same set who all think each other perfect. Your 
 parents felt it a great change, I expect, when they 
 moved to London. One's individuality has to 
 fight so much harder there not to go under with the 
 stream." 
 
 " I daresay," said Susie gently, " but that was 
 some time before I was born. I have always been 
 a Londoner, you know. Of course I missed at 
 first being in the centre of everything, but I have 
 got to enjoy the earnestness and concentration of 
 it all here. Like those wonderful things your 
 friend showed us under the microscope the other 
 day," she added to Mrs. Vachell. " One could 
 hardly believe they were of so much importance 
 until one saw them moving about." 
 
 Mrs. Manley laughed and exchanged a look with 
 Mrs. Vachell and then Cyril came in and they rose 
 to go. They never felt quite at ease with him. 
 Mrs. Carpenter, feeling bound to assert her famili- 
 arity with military interests, stayed a few minutes 
 to question him about his work, hoping incidentally 
 that she might see Evangeline and determine for 
 herself the probable date of her initiation. 
 
 A few days later Evangeline was sitting in her 
 father's study after dinner. Her eyes were red 
 with crying and she sat in a deep armchair opposite 
 him, blowing her nose at intervals. 
 
 " Have a cigarette," said Cyril sympathetically, 
 pushing the box towards her. There had been 
 something like a row at dinner. The Trotters had 
 been invited and David Varens had turned up 
 unexpectedly as he often did now after a late
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 99 
 
 lecture at the University. All had gone well until 
 the dessert, when Mrs. Trotter, with that want of 
 perception that often goes with household efficiency 
 and a bright nature, began telling of a rift in the 
 matrimonial lute of the staff-captain and his wife. 
 " It all comes of her being so keen on the Uni- 
 versity," she concluded. " She was bound to get 
 scorched by Mrs. Vachell, sooner or later, when 
 she took up Egypt with that giddy old professor. 
 He knows too much about the Sphinx altogether." 
 She helped herself to some grapes and winked at 
 Evan Hatton. Evangeline grew nervous as she 
 saw that he was excessively angry. Cyril saw, too, 
 but not realising that the matter was serious he 
 laid himself out for a little fun. 
 
 " Now then, Evan," he said, " we'll drink to the 
 spotless reputation of the Army versus Thought, 
 coupled with the name of Captain Hatton." He 
 poured himself out a glass of port and passed the 
 decanter. " Now then, up you get." 
 
 " I have no joke ready, Sir, about the sort of 
 dirt that women choose to throw at each other," 
 said Evan, and he relapsed into a black silence, 
 fingering his glass. 
 
 " Here, I say, Hatton " began Captain Trotter 
 
 angrily. Evangeline blushed scarlet and looked 
 at her husband in despair. Mrs. Trotter inspected 
 him with amused disgust and waited for her husband 
 to go on. 
 
 " Evan dear, Evan," Susie remonstrated. " What 
 are you talking about ? Mrs. Trotter will think 
 you a great bear if you use such strong language 
 about poor old Professor Vachell' s little flirtation. 
 You'd really think he meant it, wouldn't you ? "
 
 ioo THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 she smiled round the table and was going to change 
 the conversation when Evan rose. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said, " but I should have to 
 finish what I was going to say if I remained, and 
 perhaps I have no right which of us has when it 
 comes to throwing stones ? " He went to the 
 door. 
 
 " Evan ! " pleaded Evangeline almost angrily, 
 
 but he was gone. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Susie, " I expect he feels 
 the heat " (or the cold I forget what the weather 
 was at the time). " You know," she turned to 
 Captain Trotter, " I don't believe any of you have 
 quite got over that dreadful war yet. I met a 
 poor boy only yesterday who was quite sure that 
 Moses had appeared to him in a vision and announced 
 the Day of Judgment." 
 
 " That's what Moses is rather in the habit of 
 doing," said Cyril, grateful to her for once, though 
 the occasion had been unintentional. " You know, 
 Trotter, seriously, you ought to stop those boys 
 gambling at the mess like that. There's some of 
 them don't know the difference between a Hebrew 
 and a bank account." 
 
 The Trotters went home early after dinner. 
 Evan had gone for a walk and not returned, and 
 David Varens and Teresa were arguing in a corner 
 about something, so Evangeline slipped off to her 
 father's room and there wept profusely while he 
 smoked. When she was re-established and had 
 accepted a cigarette, Cyril began to talk. 
 
 " I've seen more of that sort of thing than you'd 
 suppose," he said, " but I'm sorry it should come 
 your way, Chips ; you, of all people/'
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 101 
 
 " Oh, I don't much mind, thanks," she answered, 
 blowing her nose once more with a final blast, the 
 last roll of thunder before sunshine reappears. 
 " Only when it is in public." 
 
 " Do you get much of it in private ? " asked her 
 father. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she sighed. " Father, what do you 
 think it is ? He must be so miserable if he thinks 
 everybody wicked when they are having fun. I 
 would give up everything or do anything to see 
 him happy, but it seems impossible." 
 
 " I always understood he had a reputation for 
 being very good fun," said Cyril. 
 
 " Yes, to the others," she agreed. " They all 
 adore him and he never minds anything they do 
 or if he does they only think it funnier still. It is 
 women he thinks ought not to be amused at any- 
 thing broader than Oh, I don't know, the way 
 
 a canary eats or something like that." 
 
 " Very dry humour certainly," he commented, 
 " but easily gratified. It's a pity more of you 
 don't care for it." 
 
 " Father, don't talk to the gallery," she re- 
 proached him. " You know you detest a perfect 
 lady." 
 
 " H'm. First catch your hare," he replied. 
 " We're not getting on with this, Chips, but I wish 
 I could help you. How does he take the prospect 
 of fatherhood ? If it's a girl and you keep her in 
 good condition I should think his number will be 
 up shortly." 
 
 "But I hate fighting," she objected. "Why 
 can't we be happy ? And suppose it is a boy and 
 he learns to hate Evan ? I should give up then
 
 102 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 and run away with him to the desert and live on 
 dates in the sun. I won't have a little boy brought 
 up in that abominable nonsense about Hell. Anger 
 is hell. I don't believe in a God with a black 
 temper." 
 
 " Have another cigarette," said Cyril. 
 
 " Thanks." 
 
 " What are Hatton's sisters like ? " he asked 
 after a pause. 
 
 " Giggly little people," she said, " awfully kind." 
 
 " Do they like you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, so long as they suppose I think Evan 
 perfect." 
 
 " Does he object to them ? " 
 
 " No, he talks to them about carburettors and 
 their G.F.S. and the dogs." 
 
 " Oh, well, that shows he can be all right if he's 
 interested," Cyril remarked with some relief. " You 
 evidently haven't mastered the art of distraction 
 that I warned you about, you remember. 
 
 ' J. is for James, Maria's younger brother, 
 Who, walking one way, chose to look the other.' 
 
 That is the secret of married happiness, I find; to 
 act like James." 
 
 The front door banged and they heard Evan 
 come upstairs. He stopped for a moment outside 
 the door and then came in. " May I come in, Sir ? " 
 he asked, " I heard Evangeline was here. I'm 
 very sorry I lost my temper at dinner. I've been 
 round to Trotter and apologised ; but I can't stand 
 that woman." 
 
 " Oh, Evan, you are a good bird," said Evangeline. 
 " Come and sit down here and have a cigarette."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 103 
 
 " I had better go down and throw out Varens," 
 said Cyril, looking at the clock, " unless (an idea 
 struck him) unless you care to go, Chips, and tell 
 your mother I think I am a little feverish and would 
 she like to come and rub me with camphorated 
 oil ? " Evangeline stared at him. 
 
 " What on earth for ? " she asked. 
 
 " And tell Varens I'll be down in a minute when 
 the attack has worn off, if he wouldn't mind waiting," 
 Cyril continued. " I'm rather inclined to back up 
 young David against Miss Emma Goliath when it 
 comes to taking up Dicky's time." 
 
 " Where do you get all your Scripture know- 
 ledge from ? " she asked wonderingly. 
 
 " I have often read the lessons," he assured her ; 
 then he remembered his son-in-law and looked at 
 him guiltily, but all was calm. Evan was listening 
 and smoking benevolently. Evangeline resumed, 
 " Mother will never swallow that rot." 
 
 " Then I must do it myself," Cyril decided re- 
 luctantly. " Down with Emma Goliath and her 
 musty cohorts ! " He left the room and a few 
 minutes afterwards they heard him rummaging 
 in a book-case in the passage for the Army List 
 of 1913, while Susie held the candle.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 YOUNG Mr. Price worked quite hard (" rehrly, you 
 know, kait sairys effort ! ") to bring his parent's 
 house up to the requirements of his college friends. 
 He was not likely to ask anyone to his home except 
 for political or enterprising reasons, because Millport 
 .at its richest did not provide much entertainment 
 for unsympathetic guests. Its merchant princes 
 fell short of imagination when it came to spending. 
 They were as unlike the Medici as could well be 
 imagined. They not only failed to encourage art, 
 but they disliked it and fought against it. It took 
 as much pressure of public opinion from rival cities 
 and continents to get anything of value into the 
 town as would have been required to turn Lobengula 
 into a St. Anthony. Sometimes when this or that 
 architect, painter, poet or musician was known to 
 have built, decorated or filled the super-halls of 
 America and returned burdened with contracts 
 and delicious food, Millport used to stir uneasily 
 in its contempt and occasionally went so far as to 
 despatch a clerk to find out if there were any of 
 the stuff left ; because America's habit of apt 
 valuation is only too well krrown in .business circles. 
 The fact that her people also care passionately for 
 their purchases might otherwise pass unnoticed. 
 Neither did Millport indulge itself much in luxuries 
 such as sailing, travelling or sport. The Prices 
 
 104
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 105 
 
 kept a big motor which they used carefully, often 
 suffering the horrors of the local train or the crowded 
 tram rather than be unbusiness-like with petrol. 
 Their clothes were a source of pride rather than 
 pleasure. Mrs. Price was timid in her choice of 
 garments and inclined to the perfect taste pre- 
 scribed by the lady-in-waiting at Messrs. Venison 
 and Phipps. " Mantles this way, Modom," said 
 the junior assistant in black charmeuse, and then 
 Miss Figginbottam, whom Mrs. Price " always 
 reckoned on," aged forty-five, disillusioned and 
 imperative, stepped forward and gave the casting 
 vote between the grey moire velours and the rather 
 richer effect of the petunia and chinchilla. 
 
 But young Mr. Price and his sisters now told the 
 poor old lady that this would not do. Her daughters 
 took her to London and brought her back with 
 monkeys' tails and Balkan embroideries hanging 
 slantwise over her innocent curves ; they trotted 
 her about in high-heeled shoes instead of the soft 
 kid boots that Bollingworth's used to make so well 
 to her pattern. They did her hair in the fashion 
 of Goya's mistress and made her drink cocktails 
 and become a vegetarian, but forbade her to smoke, 
 which she did not understand. Her son taught 
 her the names of the new poets, but could never 
 get six quotable lines of their poetry into her head 
 because there was " nothing to catch hold of " 
 about it. Then they began on Dad ; and he took 
 to it like a bird. There was no trouble with him. 
 He put himseM entirely in the hands of his son's 
 tailor and then was told he looked too smart. So 
 he stood patiently and allowed his trousers to be 
 let down till they corkscrewed ever so rightly down
 
 io6 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 his short legs. He shaved off his beard and grew 
 a very intellectual-looking moustache ; but his 
 daughters told him he looked like a Labour Member 
 and made him shave it off. He smoked a pipe, 
 which he did not care for, and also learned when to 
 smoke it ; as, for instance, when his old friends 
 of the city had all got out their cigars. He was 
 made to eat less and give up carving ; forbidden to 
 press his guests to a second or third helping and 
 privately instructed to let the butler manage. He 
 was persuaded to buy some pedigree dogs for Mrs. 
 Price, and a man was hired to lecture to her once 
 a week on their management and breeding as she 
 wouldn't learn from books. The more they tore 
 up the drawing-room the better the young Prices 
 were pleased, though it caused their mother secret 
 agony. Besides the names of poets and their 
 works, the parents were made to learn the phraseo- 
 logy of farming, lawn tennis, cricket, golf, sex- 
 boredom and the religions of the world. 
 
 It was during the time when these social gym- 
 nastics were being most arduously practised by the 
 Price family that they gave an evening party ; one 
 might almost suppose for the purpose of taking 
 their minds off themselves. " Everybody " was 
 there and a few representative nobodies, just to 
 show that Mr. Price, senior, was in touch with the 
 political movement of the day. " The University," 
 of course, were there, because though it used not 
 to be considered the thing in Millport to encourage 
 people who lived in poky houses and " talked 
 superior " and " made fun," it is different now that 
 the aristocracy have taken to asking even theatrical 
 people about and marrying professors and so on.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 107 
 
 You never know in these days when your local 
 goose won't go away somewhere and become a 
 swan and get written up in the papers and go to 
 Court or even make money. Once bitten, twice 
 shy. Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. James Manley and 
 Mrs. Price had one or two secret grievances against 
 certain home-clad young wives whom they had 
 
 avoided as " not quite " and who had gone 
 
 back on them later by being positively run after 
 by all sorts of people ; people you wouldn't expect. 
 How on earth is one to know ? Jupiter ought to 
 label his protege's in some way from the start so 
 that honest people who can afford the best of 
 everything may know where to look for it. 
 
 " Would you believe it, Mrs. er? " Mrs. Manley 
 had been known to say, on coming to something 
 of the sort in the pages of her Times. 
 
 " No, and if you ask me, I think it's absu-u-rd," 
 replied Mrs. Price in her new accent. 
 
 " I used to think her decidedly peculiar," put 
 in Mrs. Carpenter, " but there never was any 
 question that he was immensely clever. I used 
 to talk to him by the hour." Emma Gainsborough 
 was reported to have said that she hoped that when 
 Millport put up a memorial to Mrs. Carpenter it 
 would be in the appropriate form of a weathercock. 
 
 The Prices' house was about three times the size 
 of the Fultons'. It was of the same pattern as all 
 the other houses in the neighbourhood ; only its 
 square mass seemed to have plumped itself down 
 with more aggressive self-satisfaction than the 
 others. On a close spring day it could almost be 
 heard breathing there on its bit of gravel, puffing 
 and grunting, " Now then ; what dju looking at ?
 
 io8 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Go away. This is Mr. Price's house. We've got 
 four reception rooms, twelve bedrooms, double 
 tennis court, treble croquet lawn, copious vinery, 
 garage and the usual offices." 
 
 It must be admitted that the party was a good 
 one to the extent that the prodigality of limitless 
 self-satisfaction can go. The Prices meant well so 
 far as they could see beyond their own affairs ; and 
 their unfortunate haziness over the rest of humanity 
 was probably not their fault. Some day the school 
 of " Hope-for-all " thought may enlarge its activities 
 and devise a sort of Borstal system for the spiritually 
 deficient, and the habits of the Prices will be in- 
 vestigated and probably traced to some quite 
 simple defect in the marrow ; the juice of a dog's 
 kidney may perhaps be injected and suitable 
 exercises prescribed, and so on. 
 
 Dancing was going on in the larger of the two 
 drawing-rooms, cards were to be played in the 
 other, an " imperial supper," as someone reported, 
 was laid out in the dining-room and Father's den 
 was banked up all round by about a hundred hats, 
 in the middle of which an old retainer with a face 
 like the largest and richest muffin ever seen sat as 
 if in a nest. No one could have approved more 
 thoroughly of the proceedings than he. He had 
 spent nearly all his life in waiting on the ladies and 
 gentlemen of Millport in the evenings and in the 
 small hours. By day it is supposed that he slept 
 and murmured in his dreams, " Cold chicken or 
 galantine, Sir ? Lobster salad or trifle, Miss ? 
 Champagne, Madam ? " He was now too rheumatic 
 for this labour of love, so he sat among the hats 
 and greeted the familiar face* as they came in.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 109 
 
 A few of them, such as Mr. Manley, spoke to him. 
 " Ah, Higgins, so you're here, are you ? " they said. 
 " Wet night, isn't it ? " and then they passed into 
 the bright light and deafening chatter. Cyril came 
 in to leave his coat and hat at the same moment as 
 Sir Richard was receiving his ticket. " Hullo, 
 what brings you here ? " he said. " Didn't know 
 you came to these things." 
 
 " I've laid a foundation stone this afternoon and 
 looked in on my doctor," Sir Richard began, and 
 he paused a moment to dust his sleeve with a 
 clothes brush. 
 
 " Pure coincidence, I hope ? " Cyril asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " No, it's a fact," the old man assured him. 
 " But I'll tell Milly you asked and what's more I 
 won't tell her that Queen Anne sent that joke to 
 Punch. She has got the car here and I thought 
 I might as well go back in it. Young David is 
 here somewhere with her. By-the-bye, Price wants 
 me to let Aldwych to him for the hunting next 
 year. I may have to go abroad, but I can't make 
 up my mind." He spoke in a low voice, but 
 Higgins heard. 
 
 " I shouldn't," Cyril answered. " You never 
 know what those sort of people will do with a 
 place." 
 
 " How d'you mean ? " asked Sir Richard. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," Cyril replied, " but it is 
 never the same afterwards." It was characteristic 
 of him not to connect any mental process with a 
 globe of flesh encircled by hats, so he spoke in his 
 usual tone. " You never get the smell of money 
 out afterwards, and it demoralises tenants worse
 
 no THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 than the plague. And what would you do with the 
 stables ? " 
 
 " He wants to buy the lot," said Sir Richard. 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " Cyril exclaimed, and then 
 words failed him. " Here, come along and let's 
 see where the bottle imp has his lair. That founda- 
 tion stone had your wits in it, I think." 
 
 Mr. Joseph Price had been dancing with Evan- 
 geline and they were now sitting in the winter 
 garden. " You're living at Drage now, aren't 
 you ? " he asked. " Rather a wretch'd sort of 
 place, isn't it ? Not much to do there, what ? " 
 Evangeline looked at him in surprise. " What 
 sort of things can't you do ? " she asked. " I 
 should think you could do anything there is to do 
 as well there as anywhere ; unless you want to 
 shoot bears or ride elephants." 
 
 "I led the strainuous life there for a bit," he 
 replied. " I never was so f'd up in my life." 
 
 " How long were you there ? " Evangeline asked. 
 
 " Oh, on and off f three years in charge 'f a 
 batt'ry." 
 
 " And where did your battery go to ? " She 
 was full of interest. 
 
 " Well, 'n point 'f fact it stayed where 't was," 
 he replied carelessly. " They'd had 'nough, you 
 see, 'f sending out filers not prop'ly trained, and 
 the filers they sent to us then weren't fit f handle 
 a catapult. H'wever, we pushed them off in th' 
 end." 
 
 " And then where did you go ? " she pursued. 
 
 "I'm 'fraid you'll be raather shocked," said 
 Mr. Price, smiling, le but I never got further than 
 Switch'nham. Kait; gairysly though, the Gov'nment
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES in 
 
 took over the Dad's plant there and not a soul knew 
 an'thing about it. I had t' run the whole blooming 
 show by m'self with a handful of r'tired M'thuselahs. 
 Awf'l shaame, I thought, digging the pwur old 
 things out at their time 'f life. But now you have 
 the whole sordid story 'f m' life. Not much of a 
 filer, Price, is he ? I know that's what you're 
 thinking." 
 
 " Well, I want to be quite fair," said Evangeline. 
 " Have you got anything the matter with you ? " 
 
 " No, sound 's a bell," said young Joseph. 
 
 " Well, but had you anything then ? " she per- 
 sisted. " Groggy arms or legs or insides ? " 
 
 " Lac'ration of right forearm 'n' elbow, received 
 when leaving th' theatre in state 'f intoxication 
 during 'n air raid," he replied, grinning at her, 
 " also sustained loss 'f an eye and inj'ry to left 
 ankle." 
 
 " Honest ? " she asked earnestly. " Let me 
 look at your eye." 
 
 " T's glass, but there's nothing green in it," 
 said Mr. Price, holding down one eyelid, and she 
 saw that what he said was true. 
 
 The music of the next dance began and he rose. 
 " You dancing this ? " he asked, " or c'n I get you 
 a partner ? I'm 'fraid I've got to trot out Miss 
 Gainsborough. I shall keep her meuving for she 
 caan't talk." 
 
 " I've lost my programme," said Evangeline, 
 " but I'm almost certain I'm dancing with some 
 
 kind of a Manley, with pink eyes Oh, I'm 
 
 sorry, I expect he is your cousin ; everybody is 
 here." 
 
 " Yes, that's Claud, I expaect, but don't mind
 
 iia THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 me, please," Mr. Price replied. " His mother's 
 my aunt. But I don't see him or my partner ~" 
 He looked round and they waited a moment. " He's 
 great on the pwur, too," he said. " P'haps they're 
 hatching something t'gether. I don't alt'gether 
 b'lieve in it m'self, d'you ? Of course it's awf 'lly 
 fine and all that and I 'dmire it immensely, but I 
 think it 'ncourages them t' have grievances 
 makes them dwell on their p'sition and so on, which 
 after all can't be helped. Don't you rather agree ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Evangeline. She was not 
 attending much for she had caught sight of her 
 husband talking seriously to Mrs. Vachell and 
 wondered what it was about. She recalled her 
 mind to what Mr. Price was saying. " My sister 
 thinks of nothing else," she said, " but I am no 
 good at it ; I am too lazy and selfish." Emma 
 Gainsborough appeared just then and Mr. Price 
 left Evangeline with an apology. 
 
 " Awf lly hot, what ? " he observed to Emma 
 when they had been labouring round the room a 
 few minutes. Emma was not a good dancer. 
 
 " Hot what, what hot ? " she mimicked him rather 
 crossly. " You had better stop and have an ice." 
 
 " Forthcoming ! " he observed as they stopped 
 and he inspected her curiously. " Forthcoming 
 indeed ! You're magnif 'cent actress, you know, 
 Miss Gainsborough. Why couldn't you do thaat 
 when I came to dinner with you, 'nstead of making 
 me think I was boring you all th' time ? " 
 
 Emma ignored his last sentence. " I am very 
 sorry," she said, " but I do so hate parties. I get 
 to know such a lot about the food before I see it, 
 and I know all the time that my father will criticise
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 113 
 
 every dish afterwards and mother will feel she has 
 been a failure and say that she must get another 
 cook ; and we never do. We have had the same 
 one for years and she gets steadily older and worse." 
 
 " Have some coffee or 'n ice ? " he suggested. 
 " What c'n I get you ? I say, th' band seems to be 
 packing up that means supper. Will you excuse 
 me as I merst look after one of the dowagers. 
 Claud will take you in. Here, Claud," he beckoned 
 to his cousin, " '11 you taek Miss Gainsborough ? " 
 and he departed in haste. He found that his 
 mother had allotted Susie to him from among 
 " the dowagers." The parent Gainsboroughs, Sir 
 Richard and his wife, Cyril and the sister of the 
 ex-Lord Mayor, filled a table with their host, and 
 Joseph Price and Susie sat together close by. 
 
 " A most charming young man, that Joseph 
 Price," Susie remarked in her room that night. 
 " I wish Evangeline had met him before dear Evan 
 came to the house so constantly. He is so fond of 
 sport. I hear there is some idea of his father taking 
 Aldwych." 
 
 " Mother Price's diamonds would flash the glad 
 news from tower to tower," said Cyril with more 
 animosity than he generally showed to anyone. 
 " Her searchlights played over me at supper till 
 anyone could have spotted the lobster swimming 
 in the champagne." Susie took refuge hi silence 
 and they went to bed. Evangeline and Evan were 
 talking in their room at the same time. " I hope 
 you had supper," she said, " I feel I don't want any 
 more to eat for days. Whom did you get hold of ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Vachell," he answered. " She is a very 
 charming woman ; most interesting and cultivated."
 
 U4 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Evan, I shall never understand you," she said 
 with amusement. " You disapprove of the most 
 harmless people and Mrs. Vachell does more harm 
 than almost anyone at Drage." 
 
 " Now that is so like a woman," said Evan. 
 " Always running down your own sex if a man 
 praises one of them." 
 
 Evangeline winced under the injustice and her 
 amusement died. ' You will give me a sharp 
 tongue some day that I wasn't born with," she 
 said hotly. " What I meant was that Mrs. Vachell 
 doesn't believe in any of the things you are always 
 fighting about, she isn't kind to people for she 
 doesn't like them, and Mrs. Carpenter " 
 
 " Don't mention her," said Evan. " She's an 
 awful woman." 
 
 " Yes, I know you can't stand her any more than 
 you can stand Mrs. Trotter who is a perfectly harm- 
 less, common little thing, as good as gold. But 
 Mrs. Carpenter is the solid prop of the whole edifice 
 of what I understand you want people to be and 
 yet you hate her." 
 
 " She's a humbug," said Evan, " that's why." 
 
 " I don't think Mrs. Vachell believes in anything 
 except brains," said Evangeline. " That's her own 
 affair," he replied. " That is a matter between 
 her and her Maker. All I say is that she behaves 
 like a lady and talks intelligently, without that 
 silly affectation of chaff that spoils most women." 
 
 " She doesn't work nearly as hard as Mrs. Car- 
 penter," Evangeline laboured on. She would 
 always take up any cause at a moment's notice 
 and sacrifice the approval she loved best in her 
 whole-hearted defence.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 115 
 
 " Well, keep your opinion and I'll keep mine," 
 he said, " I never could help being fond of you, 
 Evangeline, but you do exasperate me sometimes 
 more than I can tell you. I never know whether 
 you deliberately won't see what I am talking about 
 or whether you can't." 
 
 " If that is all," she said contentedly, " I don't 
 mind. I thought you were angry with me." 
 
 The Gainsboroughs were habitually early risers. 
 At half-past nine they generally parted for the 
 day ; the Principal to his principaUing, his wife 
 to the kitchen, fortified by renewed hope of Annie 
 being able to cook something really nice to-day ; 
 Emma to the grimy back street where she had 
 her office. It had been late when they reached 
 home after the Prices' party, and Mrs. Gains- 
 borough's inevitable question, " Would you like 
 anything, dear, before you go to bed ? " was known 
 to the other two to offer no inducement to sitting 
 up ; no one can talk over a feast on digestive 
 biscuits and water. The three bedroom doors 
 were shut within ten minutes after the cab had 
 rattled away down the street and not a sound was 
 heard in the big house except faint snoring from 
 the top floor and the ticking of the grandfather 
 clock on the landing below. Emma got into bed 
 and heard the clock gather itself together with a 
 hoarse rattle and strike one ; four church clocks 
 answered it a minute later. The trams had stopped 
 and the road was so silent that a policeman's foot- 
 step was heard all up the street that lay behind the 
 house, round the corner and down past Emma's 
 window almost to the end of the Square. " Cer- 
 tainly not ! Certainly not I " Emma imagined the
 
 n6 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 footsteps saying, and her heart warmed to the 
 image of faithful Robert, patient and decorous, 
 with order as his means of subsistence and disorder 
 his only hope of pleasure in the monotonous hours. 
 " Certainly not. Certainly not." The clocks chimed 
 two strokes and then one ; half-past one. Robert 
 was coming back. Cats began to quarrel in the 
 sooty flower beds of the Square ; scuffled, spat, 
 shrieked and vanished. Emma thought harshly 
 of them and gradually dozed. The silence was 
 broken by a sudden uproar in the street at the 
 back, near the corner of Robert's beat, where rows 
 of mean little houses led down to one of the railway 
 stations. There were loud sounds of quarrelling, 
 a woman's voice and two or three men ; a splinter- 
 ing of glass, a scream, grumbling, threats and oaths 
 and then " Certainly not. Certainly not." Robert 
 was coming back. 
 
 " 'Ere, what's this ? " she imagined he would 
 say when he reached the corner, but all was silent 
 before he had passed the Square, and any hope of 
 incident for that night faded away as the clock 
 struck two and the rain began to fall gently. Emma 
 was wide awake now and lay for some time thinking 
 of her work with the hopelessness of a tired body 
 and mind. Robert probably never suffered in this 
 way. If he got in the dumps he took something 
 for it, " an' as for that lot up there," he would 
 have said, pointing a thumb up the poverty-stricken 
 scene of the quarrel, " the sooner they was all 
 turned out the better." Mrs. Robert probably 
 understood more than he did about the discouraging 
 habits of matter, which collects again as soon as it 
 is displaced. Teresa's dreams were busy with other
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 117 
 
 plans for settling the difficulty. She wanted to 
 build up the whole mess into a work of art. 
 
 The Gainsboroughs had their deferred talk about 
 the Prices' party at breakfast next morning. 
 
 " Joseph Price is a perfect ass," said Emma. 
 " And yet you can't be as angry with him as he 
 makes you. I want first to slap him and then to 
 turn him right side up again and put him back in 
 his chair." 
 
 " No, I think he is really dreadful," said her 
 mother. " He always was a tiresome little boy, 
 but Cambridge seems to have done him more harm 
 than good. I can't think where he gets that silly 
 way of speaking. It is more like Oxford if any- 
 thing, but it isn't that either. I wouldn't libel the 
 poor things." 
 
 "It is a sort of culture and climbing mixed," 
 said Emma. " Don't you remember when the 
 Mortons came down here to open the Industries ? 
 Some of them talked exactly like that, only it 
 wasn't so obvious because it must have been longer 
 since they did it on purpose. It is almost natural 
 to lots of people I am sure. But Joseph Price was 
 very busy with it then. ' Voila que j' arrive ! ' 
 his whole face said." 
 
 " It was a splendid supper," said Mrs. Gains- 
 borough, " I only wish I could teach Annie to make 
 quenelles like that. I think she must make ours 
 too soft. They always have that curious squashy 
 tastelessness about them, or else too much pepper." 
 
 " My dear Beatrice, you'll never do anything 
 with that woman, so long as you live," said the 
 Principal. He tossed a piece of kidney on his 
 plate. " Look at that ! Leathery, dry a kidney
 
 n8 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 ought to be a dream of tenderness and blood, just 
 poised poised, mind, so that the juices soak 
 through on a piece of toast, neither hard nor soft, 
 browned to a turn " 
 
 " Oh, Father," interrupted his daughter, " do 
 please talk of something else. You make me 
 dribble with envy ; I can't bear it." 
 
 " Poor darlings ! " murmured the mother, com- 
 passionate almost to tears. "It is hard on you. 
 I really will speak to her and see if she wouldn't 
 care to go to Mrs. Plumtre ; I know they don't care 
 what they eat. I'm not sure even that they're 
 not vegetarians." 
 
 " Did you know Mrs. Price has become a vege- 
 tarian ? " said Emma. " But not the duck-made- 
 of-peas kind ; just lettuce and peaches and cheese ; 
 except when she goes to London by herself, she 
 told me. Oh dear, I must go but I am so sleepy," 
 she yawned and got up. 
 
 " Did you sleep well, darling ? " asked her mother 
 anxiously. 
 
 " There was a row going on in Millard Street 
 and it woke me up." 
 
 "I'd have all those people turned out," said 
 the Principal. " When there's a revolution the 
 houses round here won't be fit to live in. And 
 there's that Cranston next door, throwing out 
 literature that is so much rank poison by its stupidity. 
 It is bad enough to harm even educated idiots, for 
 they take it all in, but at least they are not likely 
 to burn down " 
 
 " If you please, Sir, Mr. Fisk wants to know if 
 he can see you for a moment. He is in the library," 
 said Annie at the door.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 119 
 
 Emma escaped, and as she passed the open door 
 of the library she saw a young man with hair a la 
 Kropotkin and immense spectacles whom she knew 
 to be the secretary of the students' debating society 
 and the son of good Mr. Fisk, plumber and decorator 
 in the neighbourhood.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MR. FISK was a good son at home and a pleasant 
 fellow among his friends. Emma, who was liked 
 by the students and went to their gatherings, had 
 often met him. He kept dormice in his bedroom 
 and tended them with care, but if the Communist 
 society he belonged to had called him to do murder 
 in the cause of incomes for all he would have 
 summoned his courage to smite some bald-headed 
 director of a company with a bloody axe. His 
 errand to the Principal that morning was, I am 
 glad to say, of a most peaceful nature, connected 
 with the degree he hoped to take. He met Emma 
 and Teresa the same afternoon at a tea given by 
 some of the students after the meeting of the debat- 
 ing society. Teresa took the cup he offered her, 
 and became fascinated by his withered little face, 
 his immense spectacles and his Kropotkin hair. 
 Her instinct scented suffering and the cage, and she 
 led him on to talk. It must be understood that this 
 was her first experience of his kind and she never 
 forgot it. He began explaining to her, earnestly 
 at first, then excitedly ; he struck his knobbly little 
 hands one against the other. " Blood ! " he con- 
 cluded, " blood ! there's nothing else for it. We 
 shall give our blood when the time comes and we 
 shall take it ruthlessly without remorse." Teresa 
 looked at him fixedly, questioning. " I think that 
 
 ICO
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 121 
 
 is very wicked," she said, when she had made up her 
 mind. " You have no business at all to decide that 
 one person shall live and another shan't ; it is 
 much too serious. Suppose that another lot of 
 people decided that you must be killed because you 
 got a degree and they didn't ? " 
 
 " I shan't have been born into my degree when I 
 get it," he said proudly. " I shall have earned it 
 by my own endeavours. The rich have been born 
 into their property for generations. They come 
 into the world nourished on the blood of my fathers. 
 Show me the signs of toil on your hands, if you 
 please," he looked down with a bitter expression at 
 her little hands that held the cup. 
 
 " I know," she said humbly, " I often think of it. 
 You needn't point it out. But still you oughtn't 
 to murder anybody. It is not their fault ; and 
 anyhow, suppose you burgled my father's house, 
 he would have no right to kill you except in 
 self-defence. I know that is so ; a lawyer told 
 me." 
 
 " What's the law ! " said Mr. Fisk contemptu- 
 ously. " We're going to alter all that ; we're going 
 to make new laws by which man will have the right 
 to live." 
 
 " Yes, but not to stop others living," said Teresa 
 " It's silly ; you know you can't make laws ; and 
 who is going to carry them out if you do ? You 
 can't make people do what you want just by telling 
 them that you have made a law. There's the army 
 and navy too but what is the good of arguing. 
 You must know it is silly." 
 
 " The army and navy are also learning to think, 
 you'll find," said Mr. Fisk. " But I don't wish to
 
 122 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 offend you, Miss er. You are yourself of military 
 stock, I believe ? " 
 
 "Yes I am, but I don't bother about that. It 
 has got nothing to do with what I think," she replied. 
 
 " Don't you know " she went on, with passion 
 
 beginning to rise in her as his words soaked in, 
 " don't you know, you stupid (she shook him 
 delicately by the sleeve), that all the decent people 
 in England and English people are decent, not 
 like the beastly people you try to make your hair 
 like are working their very hardest, day and night, 
 to put things straight ? And the fact that some of 
 them have got white hands is all the better, for it 
 means they have money and time to spend on it, 
 and you have only the time to learn by heart what 
 someone else has written. It does make me so 
 angry when I know what the idle rich, as you call 
 them, are doing." 
 
 " Bah ! charity ! " said Mr. Fisk, and he spat 
 some shreds of tobacco from his cigarette neatly 
 into the grate. 
 
 " Oh, you can't have thought I was talking about 
 charity," said Teresa with real distress. " Of course 
 I wasn't. It is the very thing I dislike most, except 
 your muddle and murder. And besides that, some 
 of the richest people boast of having been newsboys, 
 and they are often the rudest to their servants and 
 their wives are horrid lazy snobs." Mr. Fisk's 
 little withered face twitched with his anxiety to 
 collect some clear dignified retort. 
 
 " Have you ever read much on your subject, may 
 I ask ? " he inquired at last. " Have you studied 
 economics ? Perhaps you have attended Professor 
 Cranston's lectures ? "
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 123 
 
 " No, I haven't," she replied. 
 
 " Then, pardon me, but I think you are hardly 
 qualified for the argument. Capitalism is a highly 
 intricate subject and should involve deep study. 
 To judge how far it is advisable to submit the control 
 of wages to the State, and also to consider to what 
 extent the right of the individual to determine the 
 extent of his earning capacity should be carried, 
 requires a long training and arduous study. I should 
 be pleased to continue our talk at some other time 
 if convenient to you, and I should be happy to 
 lend books if you are interested." 
 
 " Yes," said Teresa with a sigh of fatigue. " I 
 want to know. And you are part of the faces in the 
 fog, I suppose," she added absently, looking at him. 
 
 " I beg pardon ? " 
 
 " I said you were part of the faces in the fog. I 
 used to wonder when we came here what was behind 
 the sort of brick-wall expression that people in the 
 streets and the trams had. When you go to speak 
 in Hyde Park you will see how different your 
 audience is quite merry in comparison." 
 
 " I don't propose to do so at present," said 
 Kropotkin-Fisk, highly offended. " We leave that 
 to the executive. Our body here is concerned at 
 the moment exclusively with study and propaganda." 
 Emma came to look for Teresa and heard the end of 
 the discussion. 
 
 " Aren't you paving the way for a new set of class 
 distinctions, Mr. Fisk ? " she asked. " What you 
 said just now sounded like it. I hope you will take 
 a lesson from the present evil system and pay your- 
 self properly if you are going to keep to the higher 
 activities."
 
 124 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " I don't quite follow," said Mr. Fisk, " but if 
 you'll favour us at the next debate and hear my 
 paper, perhaps you will put your question then, and 
 I shall do my best to parry your thrust." 
 
 " I don't know what Mrs. Potter would do if Fisk 
 were made Chancellor of the Exchequer under the 
 new regime," said Emma, as she and Teresa walked 
 back together. 
 
 " Yes, she would loathe it," Teresa agreed. " But 
 I don't exactly know why. Why do they so often 
 hate their own class in office ? " 
 
 " Well," said Emma, " I suppose if Eddie Fisk 
 is Chancellor of the Exchequer there's no reason 
 why Albert Potter shouldn't go one better and be 
 King. Mrs. Potter ' never would 'ave 'eld with 
 them Fisks,' you'd find, ' settin' themselves 
 up ! '" 
 
 " But Communists don't have a King ; isn't that 
 the whole point ? " Teresa objected. 
 
 " They don't until one of them wants to be it," 
 said Emma. " They would call him something else, 
 but some of them would develope an aptitude for 
 ruling. Even apes do." 
 
 " But then, I suppose the others could depose 
 him if he wasn't hereditary," said Teresa. 
 
 " No, ' Gawd save the Prince o' Wales, bless 'is 
 dear 'eart ! ' is Mrs. Potter's motto. ' That there 
 Fisk is never going to come it over our Albert, you'll 
 find, Miss,' is what she would say. Ask her the 
 next time you see her." 
 
 " Mr. Jorkins doesn't agree with that," Teresa 
 pursued. " When he is out of work the first thing 
 he blames is Parliament. He's dead against it." 
 
 " Well, there will always be two opinions about
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 125 
 
 everything in a country," said Emma. " You 
 had much better leave them all alone to mess 
 about and let us get on with what we are doing. 
 At present Mr. Fisk is rather like the mouse that 
 dipped its tail in the beer and sucked it. He is 
 looking for the cat, that's all." 
 
 " Are you sure ? " her friend asked anxiously. 
 
 " I am only sure after a party like the Prices' last 
 night," Emma answered. " It will wear off to- 
 morrow, and I shall get cross with Father for talking 
 Conservative intellectualism. I can't see any use 
 in the Prices to-day. They give money when there 
 is a list of donations, and Papa Price just hugs 
 himself when someone comes round for a subscrip- 
 tion. He keeps them waiting in his office, and then 
 when he has succeeded in beating them down to 
 less than they asked for and yet finds he is still in 
 the top batch of subscriptions he does think he has 
 been clever. And Mrs. Price and the family ! I 
 would really enjoy seeing the girls working in the 
 fur trade instead of wearing coats of it, and I 
 wouldn't wish that to many people. I would like 
 to see them stop cackling and find out how witty 
 they would be on two pennyworth of refuse. Then 
 the next day, perhaps, I meet Lady Varens, whom 
 I don't grudge anything to, because she keeps a lot 
 of people happily employed and really cares for 
 them and buys beautiful things with her money. 
 And after that the Starks turn up you know the 
 schoolmistress at St. Angelus' school you met her 
 at the Dispensary. Mrs. Potter's life is a screaming 
 farce compared to hers, and the Jorkinses are 
 wallowing in wealth, for at least they enjoy them- 
 selves at the pictures and the pub. when so disposed."
 
 126 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Well, let us add it up," said Teresa. " Under 
 Mr. Fisk's scheme, Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Stark will 
 benefit ; Mrs. Price will be altogether wrecked and 
 mangled she and her family ; Lady Varens will 
 live as she would probably be quite content to live 
 now she never seems to want much and she would 
 upset the apple carts of a lot of happy dependants. 
 But then there are lots of Potters, lots of Starks, 
 comparatively few Prices, a good many Varenses 
 and not a great many happy dependants, so how 
 does the proportion of benefits work out ? I shall 
 have to ask David to unravel it." 
 
 " I beg your pardon David ? " asked Emma. 
 
 " David Varens," said Teresa. " What's the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing. I only wondered for a moment. Do 
 you go much by what he says ? " 
 
 " Yes, more than anybody." 
 
 " Why, may I ask ? " 
 
 " Oh, because he is so simple," she answered 
 readily. " I can never tangle him up in a problem. 
 He lays it all out and sorts it into heaps, and then 
 generally sums up by saying there is nothing in it. 
 It is so restful. And then he tells me about phos- 
 phates and the habits of the teal. But it is only 
 for the rest to my muddled head that I like it so 
 much. It would never put me off my work." 
 
 " Sure ? " asked Emma, and she was obliged to 
 accept the assurance when it was given a second 
 time. 
 
 As they passed the Vachells' house, which was 
 not far from the Gainsboroughs', Mrs. Vachell was 
 just going in. " Come and have tea with me ? " 
 she suggested. Emma explained that they had had
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 127 
 
 tea and that she had work to do at home, but Teresa 
 accepted. She was inclined, like Alice in Wonder- 
 land, to taste and nibble whatever new thing came 
 her way ; she had never been inside the Vachells' 
 house, nor felt that she understood what lay behind 
 the self-possession of the small, graceful lady whom 
 it was said the Professor had found fanning herself 
 by moonlight under an obelisk and brought home. 
 Mrs. Vachell's face was beautiful and full of character 
 but the character was of the reversible kind, of 
 which it is impossible to decide whether it is intended 
 to be good or bad. Such faces seem not, like most 
 faces, to alter gradually with their owner's mind, 
 but to hold always in themselves two distinct 
 characters between which the soul has never chosen 
 a habitation. At death, opinion is generally divided 
 as to which character has been the true one, as in 
 life it was never decided which it would prove to be. 
 " Very like a curious death-mask my father was 
 once given for his study," Susie had described her 
 on first acquaintance. " Dante, or somebody, I 
 think it was, who wrote the ' Inferno.' " 
 
 Teresa followed the small gliding figure into the 
 hall and up the stairs, where photographs of Byzan- 
 tine art and reproductions of drawings from 
 Egyptian tombs were hung right up to the high 
 window that lighted the stairs with a cold north 
 light. The back yards and chimneys of young 
 Millport mixed disagreeably in her mind with the 
 impression of endless centuries of life that she 
 gathered from the procession of antiquity on the 
 walls. There is something alarming to youth in 
 the idea of the early days of a very old person. 
 
 The drawing-room was more cheerful, but Mr.
 
 128 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Vachell's study, which his wife showed her as they 
 passed, made her shiver again. There were objects 
 of stone, of clay, of mildewed bronze ; tiny domestic 
 possessions, gifts of love, weapons, tokens of mourn- 
 ing for the dead, provision even for an eternity of 
 wandering beyond the grave. Everywhere were 
 glass cases to preserve the imperishable ; the 
 penetrating dust of a new city defiling them not- 
 withstanding. If Teresa had seen Life and Death 
 supping together in the silent room, pledging one 
 another from the old vessels that stood upon the 
 Professor's table, she could not have felt more dis- 
 comfort than she did. 
 
 " Do you like these things ? " Mrs. Vachell asked 
 her. 
 
 " Perhaps I might if I got to know them," she 
 admitted, " but they scare me rather." 
 
 " Come into the drawing-room and have tea then." 
 Mrs. Vachell led the way into the next room and 
 rang the bell. " It is only half -past five ; you have 
 lots of time to recover. What have you been 
 doing ? " 
 
 Teresa told her about the Debating Society and 
 Mr. Fisk. " A horrible young man," said Mrs. 
 Vachell. " He isn't one of my husband's students, 
 luckily, or I should have to ask him to tea. They 
 all get brought here at intervals. They sit about in 
 corners and balance cups on their knees and spill 
 tea into the saucer. I wish you would come and 
 help me next time I have to ask some of them. I 
 believe you would be good to them and teach me 
 not to dislike them so much." 
 
 " Very well," said Teresa, " though I am not 
 benevolent. If people won't talk I can't make
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 129 
 
 conversation. Why don't you ask Emma ? She 
 knows them all." 
 
 " That is just why she is no good," Mrs. Vachell 
 explained while she made tea. " It is like a mother 
 and her children in society. They can't talk their 
 own nonsense before an audience, and they can't do 
 the polite to each other. I want you to extract 
 something from the students. They must have 
 interests of the sort that one does not air in the 
 family circle, and strangers are the ideal safety 
 valve for that sort of thing." 
 
 " Are many of them like Fisk ; wanting blood and 
 new governments and things ? " Teresa asked. 
 
 " That is one of the things I want to know," Mrs. 
 Vachell answered. " Emma could tell us so far as 
 statistics go, but I want to hear for myself. You 
 know I sit on Committees with Mrs. Carpenter and 
 her lot because I love organisation, and so many of 
 those women who are always talking and ordering 
 and doing the Nosey Parker everywhere are just 
 tools for anybody in the show who has an axe to 
 grind. Do you understand about Boards of 
 Guardians and Select Vestries and all that part ? " 
 Teresa answered quickly " Oh, no nothing what- 
 ever. Of course I get inspectors and visitors on 
 my track and I have to help Emma with her reports. 
 But a Board of Guardians means nothing to me 
 except a firm eye and questions that I can't answer. 
 Mother has them to lunch sometimes." 
 
 " Can she answer their questions ? " asked Mrs. 
 Vachell. 
 
 " Surely you know that Mother never answers 
 any questions ? " said Teresa very much surprised. 
 " She always tells you something that she thinks
 
 130 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 instead, and makes it seem as if she had answered. 
 But I never know whether it is because she can't or 
 won't." 
 
 " I do loathe poverty," Mrs. Vachell said, as if to 
 herself. 
 
 Teresa went home very little the wiser for her 
 visit, but she felt greatly discouraged by the extreme 
 age of civilisation as it had been shown to her at 
 the Vachells'. It seemed to have accomplished so 
 little in the time at its disposal.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 EVANGELINE'S baby was a boy, very much to 
 Susie's satisfaction. It would be going too far to 
 say that it had been a grief to her that she had no 
 son, for grief and she had met only on the most 
 courtly terms since she outgrew the realities of 
 childhood which no one escapes. Her philosophy 
 had developed early, and since then she had met 
 grief on the terms of cavalier and lady. He had 
 bowed to her and fingered his sword ; she had 
 curtseyed, smiled and turned her back on him, with 
 perhaps a coy glance of mockery above her fan. 
 But he paid his first visit to Evangeline, equipped 
 for battle, when her son was a few months old. 
 Evan began making plans one day for his future, as 
 affectionate fathers will, and the discussion, begun 
 amicably, ended in such a storm of passion from 
 Evangeline as surprised and horrified him. A 
 doctor would have said that she was still weak and 
 unbalanced after young Ivor's birth ; the fact was 
 that resentment suppressed or tided over on many 
 occasions had accumulated, and was now being paid 
 in one sum. Her natural gaiety had made her fairly 
 independent when it was only she who was to suffer 
 from Evan's severity ; but when it went beyond her 
 to the child she became savage in the defence of her 
 offspring. This situation is as old as the hills 
 older than man and the true simile of the tigress
 
 132 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 has become so hackneyed by being tacked on to 
 every thwarted feminine instinct that it hardly 
 arrests the eye on a printed page ; but its accuracy 
 is age-proof. The occasion for her outburst was as 
 trifling as it could be ; it generally is when a storm 
 is long brewing. Evan had chosen for his peroration 
 the unfortunate words, " and we shall teach him 
 discipline early." 
 
 He spoke from a full heart and meant, as Queen 
 Elizabeth is said to have performed upon the 
 virginals, " excellently well." Evangeline pictured 
 the young creature that was to have been a marvel 
 of joy, crushed by fear of its natural friends, pursued 
 by something dark and threatening that was called 
 " Right," so that all sweetness of the day that was 
 called " Wrong " must be loved and followed in 
 secret. She pictured the child lonely in a garden, 
 with a dog for his friend and his father for an enemy, 
 and she herself, perhaps, under suspicion as being 
 in the confidence of the enemy. He would be like 
 Romulus and Remus, she thought, as her horror 
 gathered volume. She was always a very simple 
 thinker. In any crisis her mind's eye looked over 
 a wide space of whatever emotion was in possession 
 of her, and some episode, historical, literary or 
 personal, often arose before her as a point of focus 
 for the end she was aiming at. Just now she was 
 overwhelmed with pity for the awful loneliness of 
 a child's nature with no human love to comfort it. 
 She knew herself what a place animals can take at 
 such times. Romulus and Remus had been mothered 
 by a wolf, but must her Ivor be abandoned to such a 
 makeshift, while she, adoring him with all her heart 
 and soul, was chained by Evan to the Juggernaut's
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 133 
 
 car that was to pursue the child through life ? At 
 the moment she pictured her husband's religion as an 
 all-devouring monster. 
 
 He sat meanwhile silent, frowning at her grief and 
 wondering how his domestic security had come to 
 collapse like this at the breath of a high ideal. Was 
 his wife wholly worldly and given over to the worship 
 of self-indulgence ? Did she mean to bring the boy 
 up to be a pampered young ass with no sense of 
 duty to God or man ? He said nothing, but thought 
 very dark thoughts. 
 
 Presently Evangeline's indomitable optimism 
 came back to the rescue. She had exhausted her 
 emotion ; Romulus and Remus had played their 
 part in her imagination and retired. Pity remained, 
 but there was also hope and the fighting strength 
 of the jungle mother. She would remain Ivor's 
 mother and play the part of the wolf as well. Evan 
 should never get at her darling while she lived ; 
 she would throw herself between them. It was 
 not until very much later in the tragedy that she 
 began to think of using cunning in her defence. 
 At present she had no idea of decoying an enemy 
 away ; that instinct had not yet been roused in 
 her so she still fought in the open. After the 
 outburst of protest with which she first met his 
 innocent remark, and the passionate tears that 
 followed, she cheered up again and was prepared 
 to shake hands. 
 
 " It will be all right," she said confidently. " I 
 know you love him as much as I do." 
 
 " I love him more, for I care what becomes of 
 him," was Evan's grave reply. 
 
 " You are not going to beat him the first
 
 134 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 time he disobeys you ? " she asked in renewed 
 panic. 
 
 " Control yourself, for goodness sake," he replied 
 impatiently. " He is only a baby. I have nothing 
 to do with your nursery arrangements. Let him 
 tyrannise over you and make his life and yours a 
 misery. There is time enough for you to think 
 over whether I am right, and to see the result of de- 
 priving him of all means of defending himself against 
 ill-fortune in this world and damnation in the next." 
 
 " And when he is older, if I still think you are 
 wrong ? " she pursued breathlessly. 
 
 " Then I am sorry, Evangeline I shall not 
 hesitate to remove him from your charge." 
 
 " You couldn't ! " she exclaimed. " They would 
 never let you ! " 
 
 " I don't know the exact law, but I fancy I could 
 safeguard him and still allow you to see him in an 
 ordinary way without your being in authority. 
 But all this is absurd. We are making ourselves 
 miserable about nothing. Go up to him now and 
 spoil him to your heart's content. But think over 
 what I have said. You have so much good in you, 
 Evangeline, if you would only not let yourself be 
 carried away by this terror of all pain and dis- 
 comfort." 
 
 " I didn't make a sound when Ivor was born," 
 she said in amazement. 
 
 " I know. Don't think you hadn't my admira- 
 tion because I didn't say so. I was thinking of 
 the pains of self-sacrifice and obedience to rules 
 not understood." 
 
 " If I can keep Ivor by bearing those, too, I 
 will," she assured him.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 135 
 
 " Of course you can, darling," he said, mis- 
 understanding. " We shall all be happy at last, 
 you will see." 
 
 At Christmas they went again to stay with 
 Evangeline's parents. Ivor found his grandmother 
 all that he could possibly desire. He fell madly 
 in love with her and she made very little attempt 
 to conceal her triumph from his nurse. Ivor loved 
 the nurse dearly and she loved him, so that alto- 
 gether he never suffered a moment's anxiety during 
 his visit. War was declared over him ; a long and 
 bitter war as it turned out ; yet his life became for 
 the time being all the sweeter in consequence. 
 Susie entered the battlefield on the side of Evangeline 
 and motherhood in general, of " not worrying about 
 things that can't be helped," and of opposition 
 to men who " will be disagreeable." Love, wounded 
 by Ivor's mischievous treachery at times when his 
 grandmother's blandishments must be left for sleep 
 and exercise, brought nurse in on the side of the 
 father and discipline. It was she who had to 
 endure the nerve-racking screams and struggles 
 that took place on the other side of the drawing- 
 room door, and the wakeful nights caused by excite- 
 ment and " the very purest chocolate " from 
 Grannie's drawer which Ivor had learned to open 
 so cleverly. She had to put up with the gentlest 
 and most persistent advice, with seeing windows 
 covertly opened or shut when otherwise arranged 
 by her with the tenderest care for Ivor's comfort, 
 with clothes added to or removed from what he 
 was wearing. Mothers of any civilised country 
 will bear witness that such trifles are more dangerous 
 to domestic peace than the franker brawls of the
 
 136 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 gutter. If Susie and the nurse had let themselves 
 go with the same abandon as the ladies of honest 
 Robert's beat, Ivor would have suffered less in the 
 end and his father and mother might have called 
 quits after the exchange of a black eye and a broken 
 nose. As it was, Evangeline took no part in the 
 daily duels so long as her son remained unscathed 
 between the contending parties ; but she noted 
 Evan's silent criticism. She saw that every scene 
 of wilfulness strengthened his position against 
 her, and her heart hardened towards him. Once 
 when Mrs. Vachell asked her to lunch she arrived 
 there so discouraged that she could hardly keep up 
 a pretence of other conversation. 
 
 " I am very sorry to be so stupid," she said at 
 last, " but I am tired to death. Mother and Ivor's 
 nurse do get on so badly, though I believe it is 
 really one-sided because Mother seems not to notice 
 at all ; but she puts nurse's back up and Ivor 
 takes advantage of it to get everything he wants, 
 and I don't think she would stay through another 
 visit. Evan thinks it is my fault and that I spoil 
 Ivor. I do so hate anger and fuss. What would 
 you do ? " 
 
 " I should tell the nurse that she must be polite 
 to your mother or go," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " I wouldn't do that for a thousand pounds," 
 said Evangeline. " She worships Ivor and would 
 give her life for him I really think." 
 
 ' You would easily find another who would do 
 just the same," Mrs. Vachell remarked, " and it 
 might be good for him not to depend so much on 
 one person." 
 
 " No, no," Evangeline repeated. " I won't do
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 137 
 
 that. But people can make one's life a burden, 
 can't they ! Just by disapproving." 
 
 " I never allow anyone's vagaries to bother me," 
 said Mrs. Vachell coolly. " I do the best I can 
 and am proof against black looks. Angry faces 
 are as soon dead as merry ones and their memory 
 is not kept green." 
 
 " Do you think a man's feeling about children 
 is always different from a woman's ? " Evangeline 
 asked presently. 
 
 " Yes, very different," Mrs. Vachell replied. " I 
 think, if you ask me, they are the most ram-headed, 
 firebrand, poker-fingered lumps of folly that could 
 have been planted on an unhappy world to wreck 
 its comfort." She spoke in a low, deliberate voice. 
 " Damned fools," she added lightly. " Don't you 
 think so in your heart ? " 
 
 Evangeline was just going to answer when she 
 remembered her husband's description of Mrs. 
 Vachell after the Prices' party, " intelligent " and 
 " cultivated " and " talks like a lady." She saw 
 a very old mistake for the first time, fresh in all 
 its eternal comedy, and was lifted right out of her 
 present difficulties by the amusement of it. " How 
 gloriously funny ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " What is funny ? " Mrs. Vachell asked, a little 
 displeased. 
 
 " That you should think that, and Evan was 
 so delighted with you ! " Evangeline blurted out. 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Mrs. Vachell. " I suppose you 
 think I was trying to please him ? " 
 
 " Oh, gracious, no," said the poor girl. " I told 
 him he knew nothing about you." 
 
 " Did you ? Why did you say that ? "
 
 138 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Oh, because I knew you don't believe in any of 
 the things that he likes." 
 
 " My dear girl, how can you know that ? What 
 don't I believe in ? " 
 
 " I mean his kind of religion, and rectitude, and 
 making oneself uncomfortable about nothing, and 
 all that misunderstanding of everybody and looking 
 out for badness." 
 
 " You don't need to look far," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said Evangeline, surprised. 
 " Now that is just what I don't. I think there 
 would be hardly any badness if people didn't make 
 it by believing in it. But why do you think men 
 are so stupid ? You can't have thought so in the 
 war " She became suddenly indignant. 
 
 " If men had not been what they are there would 
 have been no war," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " Oh, but good gracious ! Look how women 
 fight ! " Evangeline exclaimed in amazement, " and 
 all about nothing ! Men fight for something, and 
 I can't bear to hear you say beastly things about 
 
 them when they did " Her voice broke and 
 
 she stopped. Her eyes were bright and troubled 
 as she looked at Mrs. Vachell in the hope of having 
 mistaken her words. 
 
 " Don't take what I say so much to heart," Mrs. 
 Vachell said gently. " You are a very feminine 
 woman. You ought to turn your sympathies on 
 to your own sex, who have to endure seeing their 
 lovers and sons killed because countries are governed 
 by brutes and knaves and idiots. When your baby 
 goes to war and your husband urges him on with 
 applause and he leaves a wife and probably two or 
 three ruined women behind him "
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 139 
 
 Evangeline's tears had vanished in utter astonish- 
 ment at the novelty of this view and her own 
 fundamental disbelief in its reality. There was 
 nothing in it to stir her passion as it was remote 
 from anything she could ever feel and she did not 
 believe anyone else felt it either. 
 
 " Of course Ivor will go without any egging on," 
 she said. " I should die of shame if I had even to 
 open the door for him. And as for ruined women 
 Evan is not like that nor are my people, any of them. 
 I don't see why Ivor should grow up a pig any 
 more than they did. But " she remembered 
 again what had amused her " I do wish you would 
 come and say all that to Evan. I do want to prove 
 to him that I was right, and of course I can't tell 
 him what you said. He wouldn't believe it and 
 would think I was being like a woman." 
 
 This last slip of the tongue was unfortunate and 
 might have led to such divergence of opinion as 
 would have deprived Evangeline of those further 
 talks with Mrs. Vachell that had so much influence 
 on her future. But they heard the front door bell 
 ring and Mrs. Vachell said, " That is probably Mr. 
 Fisk. He said he might come this afternoon. I 
 wish you would stay a little ; he might really 
 interest you." 
 
 " Who is he ? " Evangeline asked. 
 
 " One of the stupidest of the students, but a 
 
 reformer " Mr. Fisk was announced. He 
 
 began of course about the weather and asked 
 Evangeline whether she had " been long in these 
 parts," and so on ; he omitted none of the steps 
 to acquaintance by which his kindred are accus- 
 tomed to reach the more companionable stage of
 
 140 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 invitations to " tea and s'rimps." Mrs. Vachell 
 soon became impatient and cut him short. " Don't 
 let us be social any more, Mr. Fisk," she suggested, 
 " but tell us how your campaign is getting on." 
 
 He plunged at once into oratorical phrases and 
 Evangeline listened, bewildered. Mrs. Vachell led 
 him on by subtle questions to the law of marriage. 
 
 " Are you in favour of the coming of women ? " 
 he asked Evangeline. 
 
 " Where to ? " she asked. She was deeply 
 interested. 
 
 " What people call feminism," Mrs. Vachell 
 explained. " Don't you want to take your share 
 in the world ? " 
 
 " What sort of share ? " said Evangeline. " I 
 thought I had got one ; but I am too stupid to do 
 things, if you mean having a profession." 
 
 " Have you ever tried, may I ask ? " Mr. Fisk 
 inquired. " Perhaps you hardly know your powers." 
 
 " You like people to be happy, I know," said 
 Mrs. Vachell. " Why not take steps to make them 
 so ? Don't you find, for instance, that men have 
 too much power over their families ? " 
 
 Evangeline's private anxieties awoke. " Do you 
 mean when they can say how children are to be 
 brought up ? " 
 
 " Yes, that among other things." Mrs. Vachell 
 observed her closely. 
 
 " They oughtn't to," said Evangeline. " They 
 don't understand " 
 
 " Have you read Iris Smith's pamphlet on the 
 matriarchate ? " asked Mr. Fisk. 
 
 " No, I haven't read anything deep," she re- 
 plied. " What is the thing ? You don't mean
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 141 
 
 that sort of solid turquoise ? " She supposed him 
 to have changed the subject out of modesty. He 
 looked scared and Mrs. Vachell laughed. 
 
 " Mrs. Hatton is only a potential ally," she 
 explained to him. " She has the real instinct, 
 which is worth all the learning in the world. Books 
 are only useful for downing the catchwords of 
 stupid people who won't think. How would you 
 like it," she continued to Evangeline, " if your 
 husband insisted on your boy being brought up at 
 some particular school and you knew that he would 
 be bullied and misunderstood there, and that all 
 the tenderness you love would be crushed out of 
 him ; and suppose you found after he went that 
 he came back despising you in his heart for being 
 of the inferior sex, though he still caressed you as 
 a dear old silly whom he could get material com- 
 forts from and put down with one hand in any 
 discussion ? " 
 
 " Boys aren't like that," said Evangeline frown- 
 ing. " I know they are not not English boys, 
 anyhow," she added with a look at Mr. Fisk's hair, 
 to which she had taken a sudden dislike. 
 
 " They have been just like that since a date so 
 far back that I don't believe you have ever heard 
 of it," Mrs. Vachell assured her. " That is why 
 you will find it interesting to read books some day." 
 
 Evangeline stayed to tea and came back more 
 incensed than ever against Evan's theories and more 
 than ever in love with his masculinity.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ANYONE entering the Prices' house on any Wednes- 
 day afternoon between 3.30 and 6 would hear from 
 the staircase and even from the front door a chatter 
 and clatter of cups and conversation and shrill 
 laughter. In a short time the drawing-room bell 
 would ring, a door would open upstairs and louder 
 sounds of talking would burst out ; then one of 
 the Price girls would be heard to say, " Well, good- 
 bye, then. Tuesday week," or something like 
 that, and a female form, expensively dressed, the 
 remains of a farewell smile still on the face, would 
 pass down the stairs and probably meet the maid- 
 servant on her way up with another batch from 
 the front door. On some Wednesdays as many as 
 thirty women called on Mrs. Price. Susie, who 
 " believed in keeping up with people," as she said, 
 was there one day soon after Evangeline had left 
 her. The Prices made much of her because of 
 her triple connection with Millport, London and 
 the county, and the girls described Cyril as " per- 
 fectly killing ! " They had a great respect for him 
 as soon as they saw that he had none whatever for 
 them. 
 
 Perhaps it was some survival of the days when 
 slavery was upheld from the pulpit by a man of 
 God in their city that gave one or two of the older 
 Millport families their exaggerated esteem for an 
 
 142
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 143 
 
 impressive manner. They knew by ancestral ex- 
 perience that the top dog is the thing to be. They 
 sat as near the top as they could and gazed with 
 admiration at those who pressed on them from 
 above. No one who understood Cyril could suspect 
 him of being impressive, but he took no interest in 
 the Prices, so their natural inference from his be- 
 haviour was that he must be used to something 
 better than themselves, and that would be some- 
 thing very good indeed. The train of thought runs 
 easily to the conclusion that Cyril was worth cultivat- 
 ing. Half the things he said would have con- 
 victed him of " giving himself airs " had he been 
 a poor man and polite to the Prices, but, " Have 
 you heard what the General said ? " they repeated 
 to one another after every occasion when they met 
 him. Even such trifles as " what he said when 
 Father offered him a cigar at the Club," were re- 
 ported, and the answer, " No, thanks ; have you 
 seen the paper ? " produced an avalanche of delight. 
 
 " But what did he mean, dear ? " asked poor 
 Mrs. Price. " I don't see anything particular in 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, mother ! Of course he wanted to get rid 
 of Dad ; can't you see ? ' Have you seen the 
 paper ! ' I think it is delicious. You can just 
 imagine him handing it over and sloping off." 
 
 On this afternoon Mrs. Price sat down beside 
 Susie and began to make herself agreeable. " Your 
 daughter has left you now, hasn't she, Mrs. er ? " 
 she began. " I hope Drage suits her. My son was 
 there for a time and didn't care for it." 
 
 "It is not a beautiful place, of course," Susie 
 replied, " but to see those boys back from the war
 
 144 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 enjoying themselves so much is as good as any 
 scenery. Your son told Evangeline of the un- 
 fortunate accident that prevented him from going 
 out. She was so sorry for him." 
 
 "Well, I wasn't sorry," said Mrs. Price. "I 
 think the whole arrangement of conscription was 
 scandalous. They took people who were absolutely 
 necessary for carrying on what business there was, 
 and sent them out. Joseph has a very weak 
 throat and would have been absolutely useless, as 
 I told him ; though he had made up his mind to 
 go. However, it is all over now and I hope to 
 goodness they will get all the labour troubles 
 settled soon. The price of everything is dreadful. 
 I don't know how we are to go on living." 
 
 " By the bye," asked Susie, " has anything 
 been settled about your taking Aldwych ? " 
 
 An unpleasant recollection rose in Mrs. Price's 
 mind. Higgins had reported to one of the maids 
 after the party " how disrespectful that military 
 gentleman that came had spoke " about wealth 
 in general and the Prices in particular. He had 
 retailed Cyril's remarks about getting the smell 
 of money out of the house and the likelihood of 
 the Prices demoralising the Aldwych tenants 
 like the plague. Higgins had told the infamous tale 
 three times at supper, and Hopkins, Mrs. Price's 
 maid, had repeated it to her mistress. The young 
 Prices had heard of it, but paid little attention. 
 It only stung them to further admiration of Cyril, 
 for since the Profiteering Act had been passed and 
 half the jokes in Punch were about people who 
 looked rather like Dad and Mother they had begun 
 to feel that the gilt on their gingerbread had better
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 145 
 
 be covered a little to prevent rubbing. The parents, 
 however, did not like it. 
 
 " I don't know whether we can afford to take it 
 at all," Mrs. Price continued. " It is only people 
 who have made money in the war that can do that 
 sort of thing now. Of course Mr. Price actually 
 lost more than he made, and with the income tax 
 and everything his idea was really to give up and 
 go into the country. Aldwych would need a great 
 deal of keeping up." 
 
 " Would it ? " said Susie. " I daresay. But 
 you would find the life so delightful, wouldn't you ? 
 I think the unrest in a big town is so trying, and 
 the unemployment makes it so much worse." Mrs. 
 Gainsborough was sitting on a sofa at her left 
 hand, talking to a clergyman's wife, and there was 
 a sudden silence as Susie spoke. The young Prices 
 had gone into the little room beyond to discuss 
 some theatricals they were getting up for a 
 charity. 
 
 " Why does the Principal allow Mr. Cranston to 
 go on as he does ? " Mrs. Price asked, turning to 
 Mrs. Gainsborough. 
 
 " He doesn't," she replied distractedly. " It 
 drives him nearly wild, but he can't do any- 
 thing." 
 
 "He is making it much harder for everybody," 
 said Mrs. Abel, the clergyman's wife. " My husband 
 says he is doing incalculable harm in our neighbour- 
 hood. They are not the very poorest people there 
 and they all have time to read and they are great 
 orators " 
 
 " Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. Vachell," the maid 
 announced.
 
 146 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Ah, this is delightful ! " Mrs. Carpenter ex- 
 claimed, advancing first and shaking hands with 
 everybody. " You are so wise to go on keeping to 
 one day," she said to Mrs. Price. "It is almost 
 the only way of seeing one's friends. I should 
 love it if I had nothing to do, but if I tried to keep 
 an afternoon to myself someone would be sure to 
 call a special meeting somewhere and I should have 
 to go off. And how is your dear girl ? (To Susie.) 
 Wrapped up in hubby and the baby, I suppose. 
 I hope he is not getting his teeth too soon ; it is 
 such a pity when they do ; they only decay earlier. 
 And how is Emma ? (To Mrs. Gainsborough.) I 
 meet her here, there and everywhere. I think she 
 does too much. She has not been accustomed to 
 so much drudgery as an old soldier's daughter 
 like me. Papa used to hear us our Greek Testa- 
 ment every morning at half -past six. You know 
 those were the good old days at Universities ! He 
 never gave it up even when he went to India. 
 Then we had our classes and our riding-master and 
 the old drill-sergeant, and my mother used to take 
 us round among the wives and tell them what to 
 do with their babies. Girls haven't the same 
 strength now. I make Baba lie down for an hour 
 every day after lunch while I write letters, and I 
 am sure Emma ought to do the same. And how 
 is your parish, Mrs. Abel ? " She settled down at 
 last to one victim and let the others go. 
 
 Presently they heard men's voices in the hall, 
 some heavy stumbling upstairs and a door shut. 
 Mrs. Price listened, hesitated and rang the bell. 
 " Has anything happened, Gregory ? " she asked 
 the maid.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 147 
 
 " Mr. Joseph, ma'am, brought home a young man 
 who got knocked down by the car. He wished you 
 not to be troubled as there is nothing serious and 
 he is expected to be all right in a few minutes. 
 Mr. Varens is with him in Mr. Price's study." 
 
 " I had better go and see what is the matter," 
 said Mrs. Price. " Don't disturb yourselves ; I 
 shall be back in a minute." She was gone nearly 
 a quarter-of-an-hour, but her guests waited on. 
 Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. Vachell had begun an 
 animated conversation on strikes and Susie was 
 listening. When Mrs. Price came back she looked 
 quite scared. 
 
 "It is a young man called Fisk," she said. 
 " David Varens says he is one of the students and 
 you would know him," she turned to Mrs. Gains- 
 borough. " He is quite himself again, but he was 
 stunned for the moment and I don't think he knew 
 where he was. He was talking a great deal in a 
 very noisy way about blood, and there wasn't a 
 scratch on him ! I have telephoned for the doctor 
 to make quite sure he is all right, though he says 
 he can go home. Do you know anything of 
 him ? " 
 
 "Yes, I do," said Mrs. Gainsborough, "and if 
 he is talking about blood you may be sure he is 
 quite well. He thinks of very little else ; it is 
 almost a pity in some ways if he hasn't lost any. 
 We all know about him and he is the greatest 
 nuisance and trouble to my husband. How did it 
 happen ? " 
 
 " Joseph was driving Mr. Varens back to tea 
 here and the young man came out from behind 
 some cart when they were crossing the road. He
 
 148 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 was not thinking where he was going and walked 
 right into the car ; but fortunately it was hardly 
 moving." 
 
 " Dear me, what a shock it must have given 
 him ! " said Susie. 
 
 " Have you got brandy in the house ? " asked 
 Mrs. Abel. 
 
 " Of course we have, thank you," Mrs. Price was 
 greatly offended at the suggestion of such incom- 
 pleteness in a perfect establishment. As bad as 
 asking King George whether he kept a hair brush. 
 " That is not the point. Do you mean to say that 
 he is dangerous, Mrs. Gainsborough ? " 
 
 " Not more than a flying soda-water bottle," 
 she answered nervously. The little contretemps 
 about the brandy had flurried her and probably 
 suggested the comparison. 
 
 " I think Teresa mentioned him once," said Susie, 
 who always came to the rescue at any hint of dis- 
 pute. " A Communist, isn't he ? " 
 
 " A very determined one," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " What nonsense ! " Mrs. Price exclaimed. " A 
 great many of my relations are Communists and 
 I am quite sure this young man doesn't look like 
 one. He must be pretending." Joseph came in 
 just then. 
 
 " The doctor has come, ' he remarked, " and 
 says he'd better go t' bed. There's nothing the 
 matter, but David says he'll leave a note on the 
 chap's people on th' way back. They live close 
 by th' station. Kerious sort of filer, he is. Called 
 me ' Moloch ' when he w's coming round. Who 
 was Moloch, d'you remember ? " he asked Mrs. 
 Vachell. " I can't just get it for th' moment."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 149 
 
 " Something to do with blood, wasn't he ? " 
 Mrs. Vachell suggested. 
 
 " Ah, thaat's it," Joseph replied contentedly. 
 " Script'ral allusion 'f some sort I w's sure. He's 
 talking about blood all th' time and not a scratch 
 on him anywhere, 't's most kerious." 
 
 " Some people have such a prejudice against 
 cars, particularly if they are not in them," said 
 Susie. " And if he is a Communist he is quite 
 sure to think he ought to have one. And so ought 
 everybody, I do think, if they can. When cheap 
 ones are made in large quantities I am sure people 
 will be happier and more contented." 
 
 " Except those who make them," said Mrs. 
 Vachell. She was standing up by the mantel- 
 piece, fingering a matchbox on the corner. " Or 
 shall we contrive that Mr. Fisk gets inside one as 
 soon as possible and you and I take a turn at the 
 workshops, Mrs. Fulton ? " 
 
 " No, I think we are all much better where we 
 are," Susie replied smiling. " Every man to his 
 last. But I do certainly think that conditions 
 ought to be made better. I believe if all that sort 
 of thing were arranged everyone would settle down 
 much more comfortably. Beauty is such a happy 
 thing. I find, myself, that I don't mind how simply 
 I live so long as I have music and books and so on 
 and if I can get out into the country sometimes. 
 These ugly streets are so depressing." 
 
 " You must meet Mr. Cranston and see what you 
 can do with him," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " I don't think Mrs. Fulton would get on with 
 him at all," put in Mrs. Gainsborough in a great 
 flurry. Her imagination flew to a possible scene
 
 150 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 of inextricable confusion and she turned quite red 
 with embarrassment. 
 
 " No, do, Mrs. Fulton," said Mrs. Abel anxiously. 
 " I wish you would speak to him and see if you 
 can't influence him. What you say is perfectly 
 true. My husband would be so grateful to 
 
 you." 
 
 " Well, I hope you will ask me to come too," 
 said Mrs. Carpenter. " I can support you with all 
 the facts if you want them. Mr. Cranston talks 
 the greatest nonsense. He should come down to 
 our place and talk to the women I have to deal 
 with and get at the practical side of what they 
 want. He would find that if he stopped the men 
 drinking and made them bring home their wages 
 there would be plenty abundance even to live 
 on ; and if it were made a criminal offence for a 
 man to run after a young girl " 
 
 " Or for a girl to run after 4 a young man," Mrs. 
 Gainsborough interrupted nervously. " They so 
 often do, you know." 
 
 " Not unless they are taught to do it," Susie 
 objected, her eyes wide with reproach. 
 
 Joseph Price sat on the back of a sofa looking 
 from one lady to the other and jingling the money 
 in his pockets. His mother was waiting to ring the 
 bell and have them all shown out. The girls had 
 come from the other room and were standing at 
 the back wondering what it was all about. 
 
 " I am afraid we must be going," said Mrs. 
 Gainsborough, feeling that she had not said the 
 right thing and wishing Emma were there. 
 
 " You m'st have a talk to Fisk," said Joseph to 
 Susie. " You'd like him ; he's really a very
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 151 
 
 int'resting filer. I wonder if he's still talking 
 about blood ; p'raps I'd better go and see." 
 
 " Well, you will come and meet Mr. Cranston, 
 won't you, Mrs. Fulton ? " Mrs. Vachell said. She 
 held out her hand to say good-bye to Mrs. Price 
 and they all went downstairs.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TERESA was staying with Evangeline at Drage. 
 Evangeline had received a letter from her a week 
 before saying, " I want you to ask me to stay with 
 you for a few days. David has asked me to marry 
 him and I can hardly make you understand how 
 much I want to and at the same time explain why 
 I have refused. You will think it silly, because 
 you don't take sayings literally and there are some 
 that I can't take generally. If I had a lot of money 
 I should see written up on the walls all round me, 
 " Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor.' I 
 couldn't live in the middle of it and just dole out 
 what was left from the expenses of a big house. 
 David won't see it. If only his father had not 
 died ! Then we should have been married and I 
 couldn't have gone back ; whatever we settled 
 David and I could not have parted. Though that 
 is just cowardice. It is that I hate having the 
 choice when I am so perfectly certain which I 
 ought to do. David says the money he would get 
 for the estate would make as much difference to the 
 poor as a parcel of dressings in a battle, but I think 
 that is the weakest possible argument, that because 
 one person can't do much no one is to do anything ; 
 everyone has to go as far as they can see and nothing 
 less is enough. He says the money is more useful 
 where it is, in teaching people to make the best out 
 
 152
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 153 
 
 of the land. I asked If we couldn't at least sell the 
 big house and live in a cottage or perhaps use the 
 house as a convalescent home for mothers and 
 children ; but he says, No. It is full of lovely 
 things, hundreds of years old, that belonged to 
 his family and that he has the right to enjoy as 
 much as if he had bought them himself. He says 
 that if Mr. Price bought them, as he would like to 
 do, he wouldn't either give them away or sell 
 them directly. He doesn't care about them, but 
 he would keep them out of vanity and hand them on 
 to Joseph, who would probably sell them to the 
 Jews and they would be lost all over the world. 
 I said, wasn't that a good thing, as then so many 
 people could each have a little bit and enjoy it, 
 but he said there was no sense in that ; they looked 
 much better .all together where they were. Of 
 course you and I have never had a family tree, so 
 I don't suppose we understand any more than 
 Mrs. Potter does though, if you come to think of 
 it, whenever she puts that absurd old tea caddy 
 of hers up the spout she always gets it out again 
 because it was her grandmother's. But Mother 
 found out about David and she goes on talking 
 very gently and persistently, and tells me I am only 
 a little girl and can't possibly think out things 
 that even the greatest men don't agree about, and 
 she doesn't see that that is not the point. I have 
 to follow what my bones say is the only decent 
 thing to do. She does get on my nerves so, and 
 I know you won't argue if I ask you not. I believe 
 I shall get some support out of Evan, as he does 
 so believe in anything uncomfortable, doesn't he ? 
 And this is so uncomfortable I am nearly mad."
 
 154 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Evangeline had written at once, offering all the 
 welcome and freedom Teresa could want, and Evan 
 received her with affection. He liked her thor- 
 oughly. She found an atmosphere of tension and 
 sadness in the house that she had not expected, 
 neither could she see how it came there, for Evan- 
 geline seemed on good terms with her husband, 
 and Ivor was well and in the highest spirits ; except 
 when his father came into the nursery, which was 
 not very often. Then the nurse grew troubled and 
 fidgeted the child and he became exacting and 
 contentious, speaking rudely to her, which was 
 quite unusual with him. One day Teresa and 
 Evangeline were there playing with him in perfect 
 peace, when Evan came in. It was about half- 
 past three on a foggy November afternoon. " Why 
 isn't that boy out ? " he asked his wife. 
 
 " He has been out," she answered, " but Nurse 
 brought him in as it is so foggy and he has had a 
 cold." 
 
 " We were always turned out in all weathers up 
 in Yorkshire, and it never did us any harm," said 
 Evan. 
 
 " Let's turn that gun further round this way, 
 Ivor," said Evangeline, going on with the game. 
 " You see it would be firing right into its own 
 trenches ; try a shot and you will see." Evan 
 looked on. 
 
 " Here, old man, I'll show you," he said, and he 
 took hold of the gun. 
 
 " No, don't 1 " shouted Ivor in great excitement. 
 " Put it down ! I've put it there mythelf." 
 
 " Yes, but you haven't done it properly," his 
 father said, beginning to move it.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 155 
 
 " Leave it, I thay," Ivor screamed, almost beside 
 
 himself. " Get out from my gunth " He 
 
 pushed his father away impatiently. " And you 
 get out too," he commanded Evangeline, pushing 
 her also, suddenly tired of visitors. " All go away 
 downthtairth." Tears of aggravation were in his 
 eyes, but he kept them back. 
 
 " You are not to speak to your mother like that, 
 sir," said Evan. " Apologise to her at once." Ivor 
 had no idea what apologising meant, but it sounded 
 horrid. " Than't," he said. 
 
 " Oh, do go away, please, Evan," said Evangeline. 
 " We're coming down to tea presently. Do go and 
 ring for it." 
 
 " Not till that boy has apologised for his rude- 
 ness," said Evan. Ivor had resumed his game 
 alone and was getting interested and remote. 
 Evidently this tiresome family of his were going to 
 fight among themselves and leave him in peace. 
 
 " You are sorry, aren't you ? " his mother said, 
 then in a pleading tone : " You didn't mean to 
 push, did you ? " 
 
 " Eth," said Ivor, as he place the contested gun 
 carefully back in the position from which his father 
 had moved it. 
 
 " Nonsense," said Evangeline temptingly. " Come 
 here and kiss me and make it up." 
 
 " Take away your 'uthband," Ivor said 
 slowly, as if he were repeating a lesson to himself. 
 His mother and his aunt shouted with delight and 
 could hardly believe that the child had meant it. 
 Ivor's face was quite unmoved. " Come on," said 
 Evangeline, seizing Evan by the arm and dragging 
 him out of the room. " You can't stay after that."
 
 156 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 But he neither smiled nor answered. He followed 
 them downstairs and did not speak for some time. 
 
 When he had gone out again after tea Evangeline 
 sat for a time looking idly into the fire. " Dicky," 
 she began after a little while, " whatever you do 
 don't marry a man with whom you daren't be truth- 
 ful. Before I talk to Evan I have to treat what I 
 want to say as if it were to a foreigner and had to 
 be translated into his language. First I have to 
 cut out the bits that won't do because of the pre- 
 judices he was brought up in. Then I have to 
 change whole chunks that he would associate with 
 other women whom he dislikes and who have said 
 the same things ; we do, as a sex, rather talk about 
 the same things as each other, don't we ? But 
 when he has heard some gas-bag of a creature say, 
 ' Oh, Captain Hatton, I do love children ! ' (which she 
 probably does) he thinks the whole subject ex- 
 hausted, and shamefully exhausted too ! So if any 
 woman uses the word ' love ' at any time afterwards 
 he looks the subject up in his mind and finds a note, 
 ' memo. gas. Mrs. T.' and there's an end of it ; so 
 in future, when I want to say anything about love 
 I have to use another word. It is very hampering." 
 
 " But you can't go on using new words about 
 everything," said Teresa. 
 
 " No, but you see in the kind of things he talks to 
 men about the words can't very well be misused. 
 If you are describing what has gone wrong with 
 an engine you can only use words like ' plug ' and 
 ' spring ' and ' valve,' that have only one meaning. 
 Even a lawyer couldn't say, ' I suggest that when 
 you tell the Court that the valve was defective you 
 inferred that John Brown's baby had a wart on its
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 157 
 
 nose.' But that is what Evan does if I try to tell 
 him what Ivor is thinking things that I know 
 quite well because I remember being a child, and 
 he doesn't." 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Teresa. 
 
 " Well, let us get on to David," said her sister. 
 " Does what I have said apply to him or not ? " 
 
 " No, not at all," (very emphatically). 
 
 " Then why doesn't he do what you want ? " 
 
 " Not because he doesn't understand, but because 
 he doesn't agree. It is rather like statistics ; two 
 people can add up the same figures and prove 
 different results with them, one showing that trade 
 is prospering and the other that it is going all wrong." 
 
 " You know, I agree with him," said Evangeline. 
 " I don't think you could do any good by selling 
 everything. There is nothing you can give to people 
 to make them happy if they don't want to be. I 
 have found that out." 
 
 " But the people I am talking about do want to 
 be happy," Teresa argued passionately. " They 
 are starving for what other people are throwing 
 away because they can't use all of it." 
 
 " I saw in the paper the other day that if you 
 divided up everyone's money there would be only 
 thirteen-and-something a day or a week or it 
 might have been a year I forget ; but only a very 
 little like that for each person." 
 
 " It wasn't finance that I was thinking of," said 
 Teresa, " I know it is no good trying to settle that. 
 There is a horrid boy at the University called Fisk. 
 He is always telling me that I haven't studied the 
 subject, and he is going quite mad himself over it. 
 He devours Mr. Cranston's literature and coughs
 
 158 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 it up again much the worse for wear. Joseph Price 
 ran over him once, ages ago, and brought him back 
 to their house in the middle of a tea-party. Mother 
 was there, and David told me all about it afterwards. 
 Of course Mother told us nothing except that Mrs. 
 Price got frightened at Fisk talking so much about 
 blood, as he always does when he is excited, and 
 that she had said that he couldn't possibly be a 
 Communist, because some of her own relations were ; 
 wasn't that like her ? You know they were all 
 very rich, so I have wondered since how they did 
 mean to divide up their money. But whichever way 
 it was they don't seem to have done it. Fisk stayed 
 in the Prices' house for two days, and at last Mrs. 
 Price sent for Emma, as he seemed to have settled 
 down there very comfortably and said he was too 
 ill to move. I think Joseph encouraged him 
 because he thought it was the kind of thing his dear 
 Mortons, whom he imitates, would do ; keep a 
 revolutionary in bed in their own house and egg 
 him on and feed him up and get lots of notoriety 
 out of him and then manage to get out of any trouble 
 that they raised later on. David says if there were 
 a revolution the Mortons would probably pretend 
 to head it and then slip off to another country where 
 it is all comfortable under a despot." 
 
 " What does Father say ? " Evangeline asked 
 curiously. 
 
 " I haven't told him about David," Teresa replied. 
 
 " Why not ? He always understands, and if, as 
 you say, Mother knows, she is sure to have told him." 
 
 "No, there are some things he doesn't see at all, 
 and one of them is slums. They don't worry him 
 an atom unless he has to walk through them, and
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 159 
 
 if he does that he complains that everyone wears 
 fish next the skin, and wants to go home another 
 way. He never will take the trouble to think about 
 anything horrid that he can't help. I asked him 
 once what he would do if he had to live in a place 
 like that we were in some horrible street near the 
 docks and he said that it was impossible that he 
 should have to, because then he would be somebody 
 else ; he explained that he would have been given 
 gin in his bottle as a baby, and therefore would have 
 grown up quite contented with it all. Of course 
 he would side with David if I told him. The idea 
 of Mr. Price having anything to do with hounds 
 would prevent him from listening to arguments 
 even from an archangel." 
 
 If Teresa had but known, her parents were at that 
 very moment discussing the same subject. It was 
 after dinner, and Susie had mentioned that she met 
 Lady Varens that afternoon opening a bazaar. 
 " They are going to let Aldwych to the Prices for 
 three years," she said. " David refuses to sell it, 
 but he has suddenly come round to the idea of 
 letting it. I suppose the Prices hope to be able to 
 buy it in the end." 
 
 " Well, I'm damned sorry," he said with a sigh. 
 
 " I am afraid it is partly Dicky's fault, Cyril," 
 she suggested gently. 
 
 " How's that ? " he asked. " You haven't sold 
 her to that young Price, have you, Sue ? I couldn't 
 stand that." 
 
 " I wonder if you will ever understand that 
 marriage is not a question of bargaining and arrange- 
 ment," said his wife impatiently. "It is really 
 a pity, I think, that I wasn't able to provide you
 
 160 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 with cattle instead of children. You would have 
 understood me far better if I had been a slave or an 
 animal." 
 
 " We might try," he suggested. " It is not too 
 late to add to your list of female impersonations. 
 But you haven't answered my question." 
 
 " I forget what it was," she answered gravely. 
 
 " Whether you had bestowed (we will say if you 
 prefer it) Teresa on Joseph Price." 
 
 " I have no reason to suppose that he has asked 
 her to marry him," said Susie. 
 
 " Then we may take it that is all right," he said 
 with relief. " She would never invite herself. I 
 am always glad to see Mammon spread his net in 
 vain for your sex, Sue. It makes the world so 
 much brighter and better. But what did you mean 
 that Dicky had done ? " 
 
 " She has refused David ; why I don't know." 
 
 " I am really sorry about that," he said after a 
 pause. 
 
 " I suppose you wouldn't tell her so, would you ? " 
 she asked hopefully. 
 
 " Of course not. If marriage means as much to a 
 girl as you say it does, she isn't likely to invest in a 
 husband to amuse dear old Dad." 
 
 " No, but you might tell her. Girls are so silly." 
 
 " Well, you astonish me ! " said Cyril. 
 
 " Why ? Surely you must know they are." 
 
 " I thought the feminine instinct was infallible 
 on every subject." 
 
 " She can't be expected to have experience," 
 said Susie. 
 
 " Then the divine gift is just a happy little flame 
 that you can blow out when you don't want to see
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 161 
 
 it, is that it ? You can just ask Mother what she 
 saw when she was a girl ? And that was a devil of 
 a lot," he added reflectively. 
 
 " Then it is no good asking you to take the matter 
 seriously ? " she inquired. 
 
 " She is not going to stay away long, is she ? " 
 Cyril asked. 
 
 " I shouldn't think so. I believe Evan's sisters 
 are going to stay there next week." 
 
 " Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder," he 
 observed. " I am very sorry about Dicky. I don't 
 think you made a great success there, Sue." 
 
 " I had nothing to do with it," she protested. " I 
 implored her to wait. If anything it was your fault 
 for having Evan always about here." 
 
 " Now how could I help that ? ' Cyril inquired. 
 " I couldn't have a maiden lady as my A.D.C., and 
 if I had, you would have said that I taught her to 
 be wicked. As it was, I just tried not to worry." 
 
 " Is there anything else I can say for you to twist 
 round, Cyril dear ? " asked his wife. " I am 
 delighted to give you opportunities for your wit, 
 but sometimes it is hardly possible to open one's 
 mouth." 
 
 " I am sorry," he said penitently. " I don't 
 want to tease you, really. I love everything you 
 say. But when you blamed me for not keeping 
 Hatton in a cupboard like a bottle of whisky labelled 
 ' not to be taken,' I thought you were coming it a 
 little strong." 
 
 " They don't seem to me to be very happy," said 
 Susie, prepared to start again amicably. " I wish 
 he wouldn't carry religion quite so far." 
 
 " How far does he carry it ? " asked Cyril, " You
 
 162 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 see, he never had occasion to bring it to me at all, 
 so I don't know." 
 
 " Oh quite ridiculous lengths," Susie replied. 
 " He thinks quite a number of things wrong." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed Cyril uproariously. 
 " Well done, Sue. That's a topper ! Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " My dear Cyril, what on earth is the matter ? " 
 she asked, quite bewildered. 
 
 " Nothing," he replied gravely, as he poured 
 himself out his usual evening drink. " My mind 
 wanders sometimes. Go on, my dear. Evan is 
 suffering from moral unrest, you say ? " 
 
 " Yes, he used even to think it wrong sometimes 
 when I had dear Baby in my room and played with 
 him. I think it is dreadful not to want to see a 
 little child happy." 
 
 " I don't know that I would trust you to bring up a 
 boy, Sue," he said candidly. " You see, your idea 
 of a male is to let it have ah 1 it wants so long as it is 
 only a matter of a little song and dance. But when 
 it begins to want things a bit nearer the bone, you 
 pull it up short and it gets confused. Very few 
 women know how to go on as they meant to 
 begin." 
 
 " I suppose you mean ' begin as they mean to go 
 on,' " said Susie, " but you are quite wrong. Men 
 understand what women mean quite well from the 
 beginning." 
 
 " I meant what I said," Cyril persisted. " Go 
 on as they meant to begin. They meant to begin 
 with a carnival and to end in Lent." 
 
 Susie flushed. " I was saying that I think Evan 
 is far too strict with little Ivor," she said. 
 
 " Someone has got to be sometime," said Cyril
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 163 
 
 carelessly. " It will save the schoolmaster's arm 
 later." 
 
 " But a baby ! It is so cruel," she protested. 
 " I must say, Cyril, to do you justice, you never 
 interfered with the children." 
 
 " No, because they were girls," he replied. " And 
 anyhow, I don't know anything about kids. I don't 
 mind them but I keep out of the way." 
 
 " They were much fonder of you than Ivor is of 
 his father." 
 
 " Don't let's be boastful. And you had much 
 better leave those two to manage their own affairs." 
 
 Teresa came back at the end of the week and saw 
 David once before he went away. The Prices were 
 to move into Aldwych next month and Lady Varens 
 was going abroad when David went to the Argentine 
 to learn farming. 
 
 He met Teresa when he was leaving the University 
 one evening and walked back with her. When they 
 reached the house she invited him in. "I know 
 Mother is out," she said, " and Father probably is, 
 too, but I want you to come in. I have one more 
 thing to say." 
 
 " What is it ?" he asked when they were in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " Do you think you will certainly come back 
 when the Prices' three years are up ? " 
 
 " I shall see what sort of a show they run there. 
 If it is all right I might let them have it and I would 
 buy some land somewhere else." 
 
 " Where for instance ? " 
 
 " Anywhere where they talk English." 
 
 " Even in the Colonies ? And what about all the 
 things in your house ? "
 
 164 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " I should move them." 
 
 " And what about the old people on the place ? " 
 
 " Easily move them too, if they liked. If not, 
 leave them." 
 
 " Would many of them want to go, do you 
 think ? " 
 
 " Not unless your friend Fisk gets too much of the 
 blood he is after. Then they might." 
 
 " David, I do loathe that Fisk." 
 
 " Yes, so do I. Teresa ? " 
 
 " It is the Lady Bountiful I can't do," she said 
 very sadly. " There is something in me that sticks 
 and boggles at it as if I were trying to swallow a 
 fish bone. If you loved someone as much as you 
 could and were told you must only flirt with them 
 wouldn't you feel you couldn't ? It would be like 
 selling one's soul to the devil." 
 
 " No, I do think that is awfully silly," said David. 
 " You can't flirt with a girl you love. You get run 
 away with and then well, you go where it is going. 
 You don't think about whether you ought to stop 
 and pick mushrooms." 
 
 So it seemed. For when Susie came back David 
 had gone, and Teresa's pale little face bore evidence 
 of having paid dearly for her inability to (as she 
 thought) flirt with her love for Mrs. Potter. It is 
 impossible to say whether David carried his idea 
 of the runaway horse any further, or comforted him- 
 self with the possibility of deflecting the course of 
 Teresa's passion for regeneration.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " I AM going to Aldwych to call on the Prices. Will 
 you come with me, dear Dicky ? I wish you 
 would," said Susie. 
 
 Teresa said she would. Sometime the idea of 
 Aldwych without David must be recognised and 
 dealt with. She also wished her mother to forget 
 that " a girl may regret some day " having refused 
 a beautiful old place in the country and a really 
 good husband " just for an idea." Poor little 
 Teresa supposed that any show of reluctance to go 
 back to the house might be taken as evidence of a 
 weak spot in her armour. Neither she nor Evange- 
 line had ever known how much of the world their 
 mother detected from behind her veil of misty 
 sweetness. Anything more candid than her words 
 and actions could hardly be imagined, and yet 
 somehow, as Evangeline had said, omelets were 
 mysteriously made in hats, and whether Susie or 
 the Powers of Darkness made them none of her 
 audience could discern. Cyril had his ideas on the 
 subject and we have seen how deeply they wounded 
 her. 
 
 Mrs. Price was found in the garden, talking in 
 her best manner to one of " the county " who had 
 called ; a crushing sort of woman who made it 
 quite clear to Mrs. Price that she had called in 
 obedience to the tradition that " noblesse oblige." 
 She was known as Mrs. Archie Lake, and newcomers 
 
 165
 
 i66 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 were supposed to be "all right " if she called on 
 them. She had conferred the stamp of recognition 
 on Mrs. Price for several reasons. First, " out of 
 decency to Milly Varens " ; secondly, because the 
 Hunt was not in a very flourishing condition, and 
 Mr. Price was reported to be rich and ambitious ; 
 thirdly, " just to see what they were like." Some- 
 one had met Joseph Price and reported that he was 
 quite possible and that the girls would probably 
 
 have money too in the end . Here Mrs. Lake 
 
 let her train of thought lose itself because one does 
 not think these things out in so many words. Her 
 son was rather a worry to her, but it is impossible to 
 make plans of that sort. The French do, but we 
 don't. Anyhow she called, and Susie and Teresa 
 found her there. Mrs. Price was getting on well 
 with her new manner. " How charming of you to 
 come, Mrs. Fulton. Of course you know this part 
 of the world well. And how is the General ? " She 
 did not wish Mrs. Lake to suppose that Millport was 
 going to be allowed to track her down here, but Susie, 
 of course, was different. She welcomed her. 
 
 " Yes, I think we have met somewhere, haven't 
 we ? " said Mrs. Lake, raising her eyes sleepily to 
 Susie. Mrs. Price made a mental note and tried to 
 look a little sleepy too. 
 
 " I am sure you are enjoying the country," Susie 
 said to her. " Everything is looking so exquisite 
 just now. We want to go away ourselves as soon 
 as we can, but my husband finds it very difficult 
 to get away. He doesn't care for the sea and so 
 many of his Staff have children that he likes to 
 let them off when the schools break up and take his 
 own holiday when the hunting begins."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 167 
 
 " But isn't Millport on the sea somewhere ? " 
 asked Mrs. Lake. Mrs. Price flushed. " We hardly 
 think of a great port like that as the seaside," she 
 said. " Of course when my husband's ancestor 
 went there first and practically built what there was 
 it was on the sea, but that is so long ago and every- 
 thing is so altered he would hardly recognise it if 
 he were alive. There are very few people nowadays 
 who have the courage of those pioneers who went 
 down to the sea in ships and opened up communica- 
 tions with the East. My husband cares so much 
 more for sport and racing and all that, that I tell him 
 he is not half proud enough of the old family he 
 comes from. Something so rugged and adventurous 
 about the sea, isn't there ? " 
 
 " They used to import slaves, didn't they ? " 
 Mrs. Lake inquired, looking quite vacant. " I wish 
 they would begin again now. I am fed up with the 
 search for servants, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Oh, but don't you think that was terribly 
 wrong ? " said Susie. " I can't bear to think of it. 
 I am sure that most of the labour troubles now are 
 largely owing to people having been so inconsiderate 
 for others in the past. Teresa and I both work a 
 great deal in that way, and we see so much of it." 
 
 " Oh, really ? What sort of work do you do ? " 
 asked Mrs. Lake of Teresa. 
 
 " I just sort papers in an office," said Teresa, who 
 would have beaten her mother at that moment. 
 
 " Really ? Don't you find you need exercise ? " 
 said Mrs. Lake. " You had better come and do 
 some hunting in the winter. I have come to the 
 conclusion that the working classes don't need 
 helping any more ; they help themselves to every-
 
 i68 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 thing they want. Do your girls hunt ? " she turned 
 to Mrs. Price. 
 
 " Oh, they are quite mad about it," their mother 
 replied. " Sir David sold his horses before we 
 came. He said he didn't understand that Mr. Price 
 would have bought any that were good enough for 
 the girls, but some others have been ordered, I 
 believe, and in the meantime we have the three 
 motors to get about in, so we are not really cut off." 
 
 Mrs. Lake was startled almost out of her good 
 behaviour. She regretted for a moment having 
 called so soon, in case it should really be impossible 
 to go on with these people, however rich they were. 
 
 " I suppose Sir David is coming back in a year or 
 two ? " she said, anxiously. 
 
 " Well, that of course, one can't say," Mrs. Price 
 replied, " but my husband would have bought the 
 place if he could and he still hopes to if we find 
 we can afford it, that is," she added, recollecting 
 certain warnings from her daughters. " We had to 
 draw in our horns very much since the war, like 
 everybody else." 
 
 " Not quite everybody, do you think ? " said Mrs. 
 Lake, as she made room for the butler and footman 
 who had come in with tea. " There are some people 
 who have taken a place called Fable near here 
 perhaps you know them ? I think they come from 
 Millport or Poolchester, I forget which. He con- 
 tracted for something during the war, boots or 
 cholera belts or cigarettes or something, and not 
 only that, but the price of whatever it was is still 
 up. It is rather sad to see the old places go, one 
 by one." 
 
 " I expect they come from Poolchester," said Mrs.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 169 
 
 Price. " There is a great deal of that sort of thing 
 there. It is a manufacturing town of course." 
 
 " But such an interesting place," Susie intervened. 
 " So much life. I went there once to hear some 
 wonderful music, and the faces all looked to me so 
 strong. No, no sugar, thanks, Teresa, dear, will 
 you take that cup from Mrs. Price ? " 
 
 Joseph came in just then and Mrs. Lake dropped 
 all unpleasant subjects immediately. She en- 
 couraged him and he responded gladly. He infused 
 a quality of ease into the conversation. 
 
 " And how's the what d'you call it ? the 
 welfare of the city, Miss Fulton ? " he asked 
 presently. " Still going strong, what ? Fisk been 
 shedding much blood lately ? " 
 
 " What's that ? " asked Mrs. Lake curiously. 
 
 " Oh, great sport, isn't he, Miss Fulton ? Com- 
 munist, what ? Miss Fulton b'nevolently hands 
 round soup and Fisk gets into it, isn't that it ? No, 
 kait sairysly though. I hope you're getting on. I 
 do immensely admire what you're doing. I couldn't 
 do it for m'Hfe. The smell of the filers on parade 
 used to quite upset me." 
 
 Mrs. Lake didn't like that. " He must learn not 
 to say those kind of things," she thought. " It is 
 dreadfully bad form ; but he is a nice boy in many 
 ways ; we had better make use of him." 
 
 To Teresa the whole thing was little less than 
 torture. Love of humanity was so alive in her that 
 to have it wounded in sport gave her something 
 of the hopeless misery of a child roughly handled by 
 bigger boys. The fact that they were of her own 
 species made her sense of isolation worse. Affec- 
 tionate women fear alien sympathies more than
 
 170 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 force. They also feel it their duty to betray the 
 whereabouts of the thing they love by fighting over 
 it, instead of merely putting it out of range of 
 attack and guarding all approaches as men do. 
 
 " You would have smelt just as bad yourself if 
 you had been a private," she said, blushing and 
 stammering, "it is only just chance that gives you 
 hot baths." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " he laughed heartily. " Of course I 
 should. You're abs'lutely right ; but then I 
 shouldn't have minded, don't you see ? That's 
 th' whole point." 
 
 " How do you know you wouldn't ? " she flamed 
 out. " How do you know they don't care ? They 
 do care. You know nothing about it. You have 
 never talked to them." 
 
 " Teresa, dear," Susie remonstrated. 
 
 " No, no, please," said Joseph. " Come on, Miss 
 Fulton, we must finish this. I'm enjoying it 
 'mmensely. I love people that speak out. I " 
 
 " Oh, do leave it alone," said Teresa. " You don't 
 understand a bit." 
 
 " Yes, I do," he persisted. " I'm 'normously 
 int'rested in th' whole subject. I shall b' sure to 
 have to canvass for my father at the next election 
 and what you were saying is just th' sort of thing 
 th' Labour people will put up, and I shall have t' find 
 an answer. And there isn't any answer, you know, 
 except that somebody's got t' have money there 
 isn't 'nough in th' country for everybody and 
 mining and all that takes generations of training. 
 Somebody's got to do it, and somebody's got t' stay 
 outside and watch them when they come up. Th' 
 question is, Who ? Fisk thinks he ought t' have a
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 171 
 
 turn because he never has. I think I'm going to 
 because I've got int' the habit of it. There's nothing 
 in it as an argument, you see. The only way is t' 
 sit tight. The thing's bound t' settle itself in 
 time." 
 
 " And what is your father's view as a Member of 
 Parliament ? " asked Mrs. Lake, who was a good 
 deal bewildered, a little shocked and a very little 
 amused. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," said Joseph, " he doesn't say, 
 but I don't think he stands much nonsense from the 
 filers down at the works. But he keeps friends with 
 the Labour Party, I b'lieve on principle. The 
 government offered him a baronetcy last year, but 
 that sort of thing isn't done now, thank goodness. 
 He said he'd be a fool t' take it, I remember, but I 
 forget why." 
 
 " How can you pretend to be so silly, Joseph," 
 his mother interrupted. " You know your father 
 doesn't believe in rewards for public service of that 
 sort. No one can ever say he has pushed himself 
 forward." 
 
 " No, my dear mother, that's just what I said," 
 he remarked. " It's such frightf'lly bad form t' 
 have titles and all that sort of thing, now. The 
 Tories stick to it on principle, of course, but they're 
 
 frightf'lly crude in their ideas " He was 
 
 wandering on gaily as a matter of habit, relating 
 as much as he could remember of what he heard at 
 the houses he loved, when Mrs. Archie Lake rose. 
 
 " Don't talk too much about crude Conservatives 
 while you are at Aldwych, Mr. Price," she said. 
 " We don't study politics down here ; we just have 
 them, and we are not likely to change. You had
 
 172 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 better come and play tennis with us next week, 
 and leave abstruse problems alone." 
 
 Evangeline had taken a small house by the sea 
 for July and August. She intended to be there alone 
 with Ivor and his nurse, except for such time as 
 she could persuade Teresa to spend with her. Evan 
 would come down for week ends, and perhaps a 
 whole ten days at the end of the time. She was 
 beginning to lose those sociable tastes that had 
 made her so popular when she came to Drage. 
 Her joy in living that had made her easily throw 
 off the weight of other people's theories of 
 conduct was giving way under continuous fatigue. 
 Her war against Evan's prejudices had broken out 
 again. 
 
 This reassembling of his forces and hers might 
 have been prophesied without much risk from the 
 beginning, but the prophet would have been called 
 cynical and pessimistic by all those genial souls who 
 believe that the best way to prevent war is to invite 
 the hostile parties to a picnic. They fondly suppose 
 that because the guns are left at home there will be 
 no fighting. Even when they look round and dis- 
 cover that half the party are drawn up on one side 
 of the tablecloth with all the teapots and the other 
 half are massed with all the buns on the other, 
 even then they would consider it morbid to suspect 
 them of harbouring old grudges. It may be re- 
 membered that before Evan asked Evangeline to 
 marry him he had reviewed and finally dismissed 
 the remnant of his doubts about the soundness of 
 her character. His inner voices warned him, " She 
 is not your ideal woman ; she is lax and flippant and 
 light-headed," but Nature laughed at and tormented
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 173 
 
 him. No one knows how Nature does this work of 
 uniting opposite temperaments, but she did it, and 
 Evan's misgivings retired muttering. 
 
 By the time we are now speaking of they had 
 gathered again in a strong force. Evangeline's 
 gaiety and confidence and innocence with which she 
 had routed them were now weakened by constant un- 
 expected attacks. The anxiety of never knowing from 
 what quarter disapproval would burst out and turn 
 pleasure into pain made her nervous and depressed. 
 As Ivor grew older the strain was more than 
 doubled, for in every attack of Evan's that she could 
 have dodged or parried for herself she was hampered 
 by Ivor's little body, that would suffer equally from 
 her blows at her husband and her husband's at her. 
 She dared not hide away with him, because that 
 would at once bring about the crisis she dreaded, 
 and Evan would claim his right to take the boy away. 
 There was nowhere she could hide him where he 
 would not be found by the police and given back 
 to his father. She sat sometimes on a gate among 
 fields that overlooked the railway line, and watched 
 with frightened eyes the trains rush by and wondered 
 whether any of them went far enough without a 
 stop to take her and the child out of Evan's reach. 
 She thought longingly of other countries, stretches 
 of hill and forest, new faces, new people ; English- 
 speaking they must be for Evangeline, but there 
 are plenty of these everywhere, on the other side of 
 the globe. She thought once what fun it would be 
 to walk about in bright sunshine, knowing that 
 Evan was asleep in darkness and fog just below the 
 curve of the round world. Only there, on the other 
 side, would she feel safe ; he would never come
 
 174 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 slowly up like a fly over an orange (as she was 
 taught at school when the hemispheres were ex- 
 plained) and look for her. No, she knew he would 
 not. He would search over England, and possibly 
 Europe, but if the police still failed in their clues he 
 would go home at last and explain to Cyril, and 
 retire into a blacker severity than ever with his 
 giggly little sisters. Then she used to shake herself 
 free from these dreams and return home tired and 
 sad. She had looked forward eagerly to being by 
 the sea with Teresa and Ivor, and when they were 
 all there at last, some of her old confidence came 
 back. 
 
 She said nothing to Teresa about the trouble in 
 her mind, because it had increased beyond the stage 
 of being an interesting puzzle and become grief 
 that lies quieter untouched, except by the one who 
 brought it and only could remove it. One great 
 difference between Evangeline and her mother was 
 that Susie counted differences of opinion with her- 
 self as a compliment to her higher understanding ; 
 they were treasures to be turned over and enjoyed 
 in secret. To her daughter they were so many 
 obstructions to love, and must be destroyed if 
 possible ; if persistently obstructive, she climbed 
 over and fled from them. 
 
 Ivor had certainly managed to collect in himself 
 all the elements of discord in his father's and mother's 
 families. If he had inherited his mother's joyousness 
 and been content with that, the two of them together 
 might have weakened Evan's fears through lack of 
 exercise, for his disapproval was not the natural 
 bitterness that uses a creed as the organ of its 
 appetite ; it was his means of following the same
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 175 
 
 desire as Evangeline followed, the desire to know 
 how God works the universe. She felt that she 
 knew how it was done and he thought he knew. 
 But feeling is generally stronger than thought in 
 personal affairs, so if the wretched young Ivor had 
 left well alone and not excited his father's reasoning 
 powers, they might have grown soft like the Roman 
 Legions. But unfortunately he had inherited a 
 great deal of Susie's mischievous tendency to stir 
 up strife without taking part in it. He had her 
 elusive charm and was, like her, uncommunicative ; 
 he loved natural pleasure and was indifferent to 
 public opinion, like his mother, and was as unswerv- 
 ing along his own chosen path as his father. This 
 combination of qualities made him perfectly adapted 
 as a bone of contention, a desirable young person, 
 belonging to both, and yet to neither of the contend- 
 ing parties. There, down by the sea with his devoted 
 mother and aunt and nurse, he played and bathed 
 and went his own way in peace, asking nothing 
 that was unreasonable, kind-hearted, courageous 
 and merry ; the kind of child that terrifies its weaker 
 relatives by the thought of what it has to meet in 
 the future ; of candid eyes coming upon hatred 
 for the first time, small hands roughened by work 
 and stained with blood from the noses of hostile 
 neighbours with predatory instincts and a perverted 
 sense of humour ; visions perhaps, of little trousers 
 that were designed for warmth and comfort removed 
 with trembling fingers at the command of an ogre 
 with a cane in a place far from home a callous 
 creature with lips dripping the literature of a civilisa- 
 tion that worshipped suffering. There is a radical 
 difference between mothers who revere the name of
 
 176 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Caesar and mothers who don't. It is not all 
 children who work upon maternal terrors in this 
 way, but Ivor had the gift to perfection and his 
 unconsciousness of his own power made it the 
 stronger. 
 
 The little party were playing on the sands one 
 day, when two figures, one in a linen dress with a 
 red parasol, the other in baggy tweeds, came to the 
 edge of the cliff above them and sat down. Evange- 
 line heard a small laugh with a familiar tone in it, 
 and looked up. " Hullo, Dicky," she said, " there 
 are the Vachells ; look ! " Mrs. Vachell waved 
 her hand and then said something, and presently 
 both figures rose and came slowly down the sand- 
 hills, Mrs. Vachell with leisurely ease, her husband 
 with the reluctance of a shy man obeying the 
 stronger will of a wife used to society. 
 
 " I had no idea you were here," she said. " Did 
 I tell you of the place by any chance ? There are so 
 few people here generally. You know my husband, 
 don't you ? " Mr. Vachell bowed. " But you 
 two don't count as people," she added. " I don't 
 grudge you your simple pleasures. If you spend 
 your days like this making sand pies you must have 
 very peaceful minds. What I hate are people who 
 put up tents and are always making tea and scream- 
 ing in two inches of water." 
 
 " Your boy seems to be having a good time," said 
 Mr. Vachell. Ivor was busy with a net among the 
 small rocks that appeared at low tide. 
 
 " Yes, he loves it," Evangeline replied. " We 
 are so happy here." She spread her rug hospitably, 
 and they all sat down. Mr. Vachell and Teresa 
 were side by side in a silence that each felt the other
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 177 
 
 ought to break first, but neither was equal to the 
 attempt. 
 
 " Is Captain Hatton with you ? " asked Mrs. 
 Vachell. 
 
 " No, not often," Evangeline replied. " He 
 comes for week ends sometimes. 
 
 " Your boy looks very well," Mr. Vachell 
 remarked. 
 
 " Yes, he is, and he is really no trouble," said his 
 mother. " There are some other children about, 
 but he doesn't seem to want them. He is the most 
 independent creature I ever met." 
 
 " That is a useful thing in a boy, isn't it ? " 
 
 "It is useful in anybody," said Evangeline, 
 sighing. " I think if everybone minded their own 
 business like animals, and were just happy eating 
 together and enjoying each other's society and 
 hopping off in between, it would be much nicer." 
 
 Mr. Vachell's face wrinkled into a smile, but he 
 said nothing. 
 
 Teresa happened to look up. " What are you 
 laughing at ? " she asked. 
 
 " Your sister's idea of living agrees with mine," 
 he said. They missed Mrs. Vachell's reply, but 
 Evangeline went on thinking aloud, incited by the 
 sunshine and the splash of the waves. She had 
 once said to Susie, as a child, that the sea was always 
 telling her to speak out, but that it never said any- 
 thing but " h'm " when she did, and Susie had 
 answered, " Yes, dear, that is quite true." She had 
 found the sea restful herself, when pursued by the 
 eager questioning of lovers. Evangeline went on 
 now, " There is too much busy-bodying about 
 morals. I think that people who like committing
 
 178 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 murder should be put on an island together and 
 settle it among themselves ; people who steal 
 should have all their things taken away and sold 
 for hospitals ; people who say nasty things should 
 be given vinegar tea made with bilge water, and be 
 photographed every day and obliged to look at the 
 proofs " 
 
 " What about people who are stupid ? " asked 
 Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " Oh, poor darlings, nothing about them," said 
 Evangeline quickly, " don't be horrid." 
 
 " Don't you think most vice is stupidity ? " 
 
 " No, certainly not. For instance, I am so 
 stupid that I don't know what two and two make, 
 but I don't mean an atom of harm." 
 
 " But you may do a lot of harm by adding them 
 up to make six. Why not try to learn ? " 
 
 " I don't believe God adds up," said Evangeline, 
 tracing patterns in the sand with her finger. " But 
 then I expect He knows the answer without thinking, 
 so that doesn't come to anything." 
 
 " I don't know your husband, Mrs. Hatton," said 
 Mr. Vachell, " but I hope he is not passionately fond 
 of arithmetic." 
 
 " He has a passion for everything uncomfortable," 
 said Evangeline. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " observed Mr. Vachell. 
 
 " Mr. Vachell, really I don't think you need look 
 like that," said Teresa. " Your study, which I 
 saw once, is the most hauntingly uncomfortable 
 place I was ever led into. I couldn't go to sleep 
 the night after I had seen it." 
 
 " Why, what is the matter with it ? " he asked, 
 surprised.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 179 
 
 " Everything is so dug up," she explained. 
 " Have you ever seen it, Chips ? " she turned to her 
 sister. "I do think when people have finished 
 with their lives they might be allowed to get rid 
 of them decently. To have their bones and their 
 tears and the things they have been happy with 
 
 all brought back and looked at . Suppose 
 
 someone dug up Millport thousands of years after 
 us, and put a whole street full of people together 
 again ! Personal possessions are bad enough when 
 the people who own them are alive ; they are so 
 full of I don't know what associations. But 
 when the owners are dead their things become 
 perfectly horrid. I don't think anyone ought to 
 own anything at all. I would like them to li ve out 
 of doors in tents that don't cost anything, and to 
 eat with their fingers " 
 
 " I am very sorry my things worried you so 
 much," said Mr. Vachell. " I have always looked 
 at them quite prosaically as history ; interesting 
 in their way. In fact, I think I could show you 
 that they are interesting if you came and looked 
 at them again. Some of them are very beautiful, 
 and if people make beautiful things to please them- 
 selves they are worth keeping. The world would be 
 very squalid by now if it had gone on as you suggest. 
 Think of the grass all trampled down with being 
 sat upon and nobody's hair ever having been combed, 
 and how dreadfully they would all quarrel and gossip 
 with nothing to do." 
 
 " I expect I was thinking of a world with fewer 
 people in it," said Teresa. " It makes me giddy 
 ,when I think of arranging a government that will 
 be fair to millions and millions of people, each one
 
 i8o THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 of them just a little different from any one of the 
 others." 
 
 " That is where historians do their humble best 
 for you," said he. " It does sort the masses into a 
 few main heaps that tend to move about in definite 
 directions, and even clear the ground by destroying 
 one another." 
 
 " Yes, that is a man's only idea of deciding an 
 argument," said his wife. " He has never been able 
 to understand anything more intelligent than blood. 
 And as long as women are silly enough to go on 
 providing children and handing them over to him 
 the supply will be kept up and arguments will be 
 decided in that way." 
 
 " I am afraid I must go in and do a little work," 
 said he, rising with a sigh. 
 
 " Good-bye," said his wife, " I'll come along 
 later." 
 
 They sat talking until it was time to go in to tea. 
 Evangeline began to feel her contentment in the 
 outdoor life she loved give way gradually before 
 the force of purpose that Mrs. Vachell brought 
 with her. The Sphinx who looked so calm among 
 hungry crowds had the opposite effect on Evange- 
 line's simple enjoyment of things as they are. The 
 smothered rebellion that is hidden by pride so 
 long as the enemy is overpowering may suddenly 
 break out and inflame a peaceful party of shepherds 
 and set them running and shouting for an end that 
 they never contemplated or desired. Evangeline 
 had been suffering under a sense of heavy depression 
 when she came away to the sea. She felt herself 
 up against an obstacle that was not to be moved 
 because it moved with her and encircled her from
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 181 
 
 all sides, closing her in and shutting out all the new 
 joys of the future that she had seen ahead of her 
 when Ivor was born. Every step she took was 
 hampered by fear that she might be sending him 
 farther away from her, some incident might arise 
 that would strengthen Evan's conviction that she 
 was not fit to have the charge of him. Then when 
 she hid her S3^mpathy from Ivor and forced herself 
 to suffer for the sake of keeping him with her, she 
 could see a look of childish judgment in his eyes that 
 placed her unjustly in the category she dreaded, 
 that of people who have grown up and are beyond 
 the pale of confidence from the young. If she went 
 on pretending for his sake, she said to herself, he 
 would become like Romulus and Remus, living in 
 his own thoughts without a mother. The idea 
 made her almost mad at times. 
 
 Alone with Teresa and Ivor by the sea, she had 
 got back her confidence, her nature being of the 
 kind that expects a trouble left behind to remain 
 where it is without attempting pursuit. She kept 
 no record of the occasions when this hope had been 
 disappointed. The things Mrs. Vachell talked of 
 that afternoon showed her something entirely new 
 to her. She understood, to her great surprise, that 
 all over the world were thousands of other Evange- 
 lines, suffering as she did, from the inexplicable 
 harshness of men towards those precious, irrational 
 gambollings of the mind, that move women to 
 actions that are condemned as " unreasonable," 
 " inconsistent," " illogical," " false," " silly," and 
 generally lacking in orderly sequence. She learned 
 that she was not alone, fighting something sinister 
 that had no shape and perhaps was only a disorder
 
 182 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 of her own imagination. Mrs. Vachell explained 
 that the enemy was terribly real and powerful ; the 
 enemy of all true women whose duty it was to unite 
 in fighting to the last drop of their blood. 
 
 " Women are not stupid," she said in her slow, 
 deep voice, " they are not irrational. What you 
 see in Ivor and dread to lose what your husband 
 does not see is what comes into the world by 
 women, and your husband thinks it foolish because 
 it is not in him. He wants to preserve his own 
 qualities ; you want to preserve yours ; they are 
 wholly contradictory, and one side or the other 
 must impose its will." 
 
 " But I thought men were supposed to adore 
 women for having just what they haven't got, just 
 as we adore them for their physical strength and 
 their brains." 
 
 " So they say, and so we say, because otherwise 
 there would be no marriages," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 " But it is a He. We only love their strength for 
 the sake of getting the better of it. They cultivate 
 our foolishness because it gives them rest from 
 competition, and they can sit down and plume them- 
 selves. Each wants the power, and the centuries of 
 suffering that we have gone through have taught us 
 to see love as the only thing worth having, while 
 they still look on it as a pleasant fad to be indulged 
 in when they have finished arranging who is to get 
 the most of what belongs, by right, equally to 
 all. It is all very pretty, you will find, if you look 
 into it." 
 
 " Dicky," said Evangeline, a few days later, when 
 she and Teresa had settled themselves under the
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 183 
 
 cliff after breakfast, " I have done the most evil bit 
 of mischief. I feel like Guy Fawkes. I have 
 advised Mrs. Trotter to come here, and she is 
 coming." 
 
 " But why not ? " Teresa asked in surprise. 
 " Don't you know how Evan hates her ? No, I 
 suppose you wouldn't. But he does. She is his 
 bete noir." 
 
 " But, then, why have you asked her ? " 
 " I didn't ask her. Mother wrote and said the 
 rooms the Trotters generally go to at Broadstairs 
 have got something the matter with them ; a 
 lodger developed some disease or other, I think. 
 They couldn't get in anywhere, and she wanted to 
 know if I could get rooms here. There are rooms 
 in those cottages down on the left by the church, 
 nurse told me. So I think she is sure to come." 
 
 " But that isn't your fault," said Teresa. " You 
 couldn't do anything else. Evan hasn't bought up 
 the whole place." 
 
 " No, not if I had done it innocently like that," 
 said Evangeline, " but I didn't. I urged her to 
 come and made everything easy, and I have been 
 enjoying the idea ever since. It is deliberate vice. 
 There is Evan coming along now with Mrs. Vachell, 
 of course. He still thinks her a very ladylike 
 woman. Oh, Dicky ! when Mrs. Trotter comes 
 won't she mow them both down with repartee ? It 
 will be lovely." 
 
 " Chips," said Teresa hesitatingly, " you you're 
 
 not so so kind to Evan as you are to the rest of us. 
 
 You used to be so interested in making him talk, 
 
 and now you so often won't listen when he does." 
 
 " He talks such rot," said her sister. " I can't
 
 184 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 be bothered with it." There was silence for some 
 minutes. 
 
 " I'm a pig, Dicky," said Evangeline presently. 
 " But if you knew how deadly it Is being with some- 
 one who doesn't understand the way women look 
 at things " 
 
 " Don't talk about women as if they were all 
 alike," said Teresa impatiently. "It is as bad as 
 Mrs. Carpenter. She is always saying, ' we women 
 are so something or other,' and Mother says, 
 " but then, don't you think women are so ' some- 
 thing else.' But they both give you an idea of 
 somebody very noble and forlorn in the position of 
 Daniel in the den of lions. I am sure that there 
 are certain qualities in people, courage and truth- 
 fulness and meanness and greed and all the rest, 
 and everybody has some of them in different 
 mixtures ; it doesn't make any difference whether 
 they are male or female or rich or poor. It is so 
 silly trying to label people into classes and species 
 according to their incomes or their sex. Nationality 
 divides them up a little, I admit, but otherwise you 
 are just asking for trouble by presupposing any vice 
 or virtues." 
 
 " Well, then, men should stop presupposing that 
 women have no brains and no morals," said Evange- 
 line. 
 
 " I don't believe that any woman with either has 
 ever bothered what was presupposed about her, or 
 had any difficulty in convincing anyone to whom 
 it mattered," Teresa replied. 
 
 " But that is nonsense, Dicky. You know it 
 was only when women had to be employed in the 
 war that they had a chance to show what they
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 185 
 
 could do. Look at women doctors before they 
 began to run their own hospitals." 
 
 " Well, that is exactly what I have been trying to 
 explain. It all came of that abominable system of 
 classifying. Women were this and women were that, 
 and it was very largely their own fault. Which sex 
 was it that used to say, ' My dear, that is unladylike. 
 Don't imitate that nasty bold girl who handles mice 
 as if she were a navvy ' ? Now they are allowed to 
 be competent or incompetent, as nature made them, 
 and you are doing your best to rebuild the whole 
 obstacle by saying, ' All women are not what you 
 think them. They are all something else. They 
 have all got lovely, pure, high-browed minds and 
 all men have horrid brutish ones.' You are only 
 changing a guerilla war into a series of pitched 
 battles. I detest Mrs. Vachell. She looks like a 
 martyr, and she is only a hunger striker." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean she is a rebel with no sense of adventure. 
 She will plot against any sort of power that galls 
 her personally, and I don't think she uses fair 
 means ; there's no gallantry about her. It is all 
 spitting and kicking and causing harmless people 
 inconvenience." 
 
 " I think you are most unfair," said Evangeline 
 hotly. " She is out against all sorts of tyranny, 
 the sort of tyranny that Evan would exercise over 
 Ivor if he could ; the tyranny of horrid vulgar 
 people who never do a stroke of work and have no 
 brains and simply live on enormous incomes, while 
 women are sweated and slave-driven or forced on 
 to the street. It has nothing to do with her 
 personally ; Mr. Vachell is the least interfering
 
 186 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 man in the world, and they are not particularly 
 hard up." 
 
 " Whom does she think she is going to do good to 
 by making you fed up with Evan ? " 
 
 " She doesn't ; but she has made me see why it 
 is that he doesn't understand children and why I 
 have to stand up to him if I want to save Ivor. 
 And you know, Dicky, it is such a joke, because Evan 
 thinks her perfect and is always holding her up as a 
 model of dignity and common sense. That is why 
 I want Mrs. Trotter to come. It does make me 
 so irritated to see him stalking along thinking Mrs. 
 Vachell is listening with the deepest interest to 
 what he says, and all the time she is boiling like a 
 volcano, and when she looks quietest I know she is 
 quite white hot with contempt for something he 
 has said." 
 
 " Then she is an abominable hypocrite," said 
 Teresa indignantly. 
 
 " I know," her sister answered rather sadly, 
 " and if I tell Evan the least little bit of truth about 
 her he flies at me and won't listen ; just thunders 
 me down, and yet I am really fond of him. But she 
 hates him, and the only way she can get in the 
 truths she wants to say is to keep so quiet that he 
 doesn't understand, and then little by little she 
 undermines his ideas. It is quite wonderful to 
 watch." 
 
 When Mrs. Trotter came she surpassed even 
 Evangeline's expectations. It may be necessary 
 to recall to the reader's mind that on the occasion 
 when Evan had burst out at Cyril's dinner-table 
 on the subject of women throwing dirt at each other 
 the exciting cause of his anger had been Mrs.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 187 
 
 Trotter's sarcasm on the wife of the Staff Captain, 
 who wanted to " get into the University set," and 
 was alleged to have incensed her husband by too 
 frequent references to Mr. VachelTs brain power. 
 Mrs. Trotter was devoted with real sisterly affection 
 to the Staff Captain, who was an honest blue-eyed 
 Briton, and she therefore harboured secret dislike, 
 both of the University set and of Evan with his 
 misplaced belief in Mrs. Vachell. The Hattons 
 could not do other than ask her to dinner on the 
 evening when she arrived at her lodgings, alone 
 with the child and its nurse, as Captain Trotter 
 was yachting with a friend. Evangeline had 
 mischievously urged the Vachells to come in after 
 the meal as they often did. When they arrived 
 Evan was in one of his most taciturn moods, having 
 been worried by his wife's daring laughter over some 
 misdemeanour of Ivor's. She was comparing notes 
 with Mrs. Trotter, whose young daughter treated 
 her parents with fearless impertinence, the common 
 result of insensitiveness in favourable surroundings. 
 ' The little scamp ! " Mrs. Trotter exclaimed. 
 " He and Maisie will be great pals I expect. She 
 doesn't care a rap for anybody. Her father can't 
 say boo to a goose when she is knocking round. I 
 tell him he had better give it up and save 
 time." 
 
 Evan glanced at Mrs. Vachell and saw her raise 
 her eyebrows slightly. It soothed him to be assured 
 that she shared his disgust and he sat down by her. 
 " I am very sorry," he said in a low voice. " We 
 ought to have warned you." 
 
 " Oh no, please," she answered. " It is very 
 interesting ; and I am sure Evangeline enjoys it.
 
 188 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 And it is something you have got to learn some time. 
 You may have daughters of your own in days to 
 come, and then you will know how to save yourself 
 needless worry by giving In at once." 
 
 " Yes, it is appalling, isn't it ? " he agreed, 
 supposing her to be commenting on Mrs. Trotter's 
 remark. " But perhaps it is good in some ways to 
 let the thing go on as grossly and blatantly as 
 possible. It will achieve its own destruction all the 
 quicker." 
 
 " How ? " she asked. 
 
 " A revulsion is bound to come, and it will be all 
 the stronger when women see what a monstrous 
 race they have raised. They have rebelled against 
 chastisement with whips and their children will 
 chastise them with scorpions." 
 
 " They will, indeed," said Mrs. Vachell. " I am 
 glad I have no children, though the want of them 
 put out the sun for me so far as marriage is con- 
 cerned. But it is not a world to have children in 
 just now." 
 
 " If you had brought them up to be like yourself 
 they would have helped to keep the balance," said 
 Evan. 
 
 " Well, you shall send your daughters to me to 
 bring up," she said, turning her small sphinx face 
 directly to him. " Evangeline will be engrossed 
 in her boys. She thinks women of no importance." 
 
 " It is not that," said Evan, " but she thinks 
 nothing of importance except liveliness and getting 
 the pleasure out of everything that happens, and 
 throwing away the rest. As soon as anything has 
 to be bought at the price of discomfort it is worth- 
 less to her."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 189 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said she, raising her eye- 
 brows again. " Is your beautiful Ivor worth so 
 little to her ? You surprise me. I thought she 
 was devoted to him." 
 
 " So she is, but she won't give herself the 
 momentary pain of correcting him. It is the most 
 fatal cowardice. I don't know what to do to avert 
 the end that I foresee." 
 
 " You must have been a great deal with children," 
 she remarked, while she looked at him with 
 grave inquiry. " Did you always care for them, 
 or is it just that you understand them so 
 well ? " 
 
 " Every man knows the kind of way a boy ought 
 to be brought up," he replied innocently. 
 
 " And a woman, of course, understands a girl 
 better ? " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so." 
 
 " It is so much simpler that they should start on 
 wholly different lines from the beginning." 
 
 " Well, I suppose they do naturally. I know 
 that my sisters never had the least idea what I was 
 driving at. They were always giggling among 
 themselves." 
 
 " And your mother ? " asked Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " My mother was a wonderful woman," Evan 
 replied. His tone made it clear that discussion was 
 barricaded along that road. 
 
 " I don't want to persuade you to discuss her, 
 but please answer one question truthfully. Suppose 
 you had done something that you knew she would 
 dislike, not because it was wrong in itself, but 
 because she had no experience of a wish to do it 
 herself ; let us take for an instance that delightful
 
 igo THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 story I heard about your taking a German's watch 
 to pieces and what you did with it." 
 
 " Who told you that story ? " he asked, 
 frowning. 
 
 " The Staff Captain's wife told my husband. It 
 amused him and it amused her, because she has had 
 parents who educated her between them ; they 
 didn't believe in female sheep and male goats." 
 
 " I find all that sort of telling of stories very 
 offensive," said Evan. " But if they choose to 
 hear it it is nothing to me. There is no harm 
 in it." 
 
 " But your mother would have held a different 
 opinion if she had known ? " 
 
 " Why are you asking these questions, Mrs. 
 Vachell ? " She saw disappointment in his face, 
 and knew she must pick her way delicately. 
 
 " Because you were good enough to give me some 
 of your confidence in a difficulty and I was trying 
 to make you understand what I think is a point of 
 great importance to you and Evangeline and Ivor. 
 What I say is that you were not perfectly brought 
 up as you think, because you grew up with the 
 idea that what was all right for you as a man would 
 offend your mother as a woman, even to hear about. 
 That means that all through your life you could 
 only enjoy her society within limits, and you were 
 either obliged to worry out every difficulty alone 
 in your head, or else to chance it among outsiders 
 who had not a quarter of the interest in you that 
 she had. You must have felt very lonely, or you 
 wouldn't have shown me so much confidence as you 
 have. Have you ever tried Evangeline as a con- 
 fidante ? She has not been brought up with many
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 191 
 
 prejudices not enough you think. And one thing 
 more. Don't you think that Ivor is better off than 
 you were at his age ? I am sure he is less harassed 
 with problems and he will have a better brain than 
 his father, because it won't have been prematurely 
 worn out." 4 
 
 "It is no use telling me he won't go to bits if 
 he has no principles to fall back on," said Evan 
 doggedly. 
 
 " But what about Evangeline's principles ? " 
 Mrs. Vachell persisted. 
 
 " She has none. That is the whole point. It is 
 where we started from " 
 
 ' You two are carrying on a very long flirtation," 
 interrupted Mrs. Trotter from the other side of the 
 room. " Can't we hear what it is all about ? I 
 heard something about principles just now. Do you 
 believe in principles, Captain Hatton ? " 
 
 ' Yes," said Evan. " I hope you are pleased 
 with the lodgings my wife found for you." 
 
 ' Yes, thank you, they are delightful. But 
 talking of principles, do you know, Mrs. Vachell, 
 that your friend Fisk has been making the most 
 dreadful havoc with his principles ? You see we 
 never get rid of these students like the ordinary 
 undergraduates are disposed of, because they don't 
 go down for the vacs. They are at home all the 
 time. And he has been spending his spare time 
 in stirring up the Welsh and the Irish and every 
 sort of rabble in the place, and holding meetings and 
 passing resolutions. He gets hold of the wives 
 and tells them they ought to be dressed in velvet 
 and silk, and have time to read and play the piano. 
 But Mrs. Price says all that is quite inconsistent
 
 192 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 with Communism. The real Communists want 
 everyone to live as simply as possible and earn a 
 small amount each day and then improve their 
 minds. But since Mr. Fisk spent those few days 
 with the Prices he has lost all his noble ideas about 
 garden cities and honest toil and sandals or what- 
 ever he believed in, and in place of the blood that 
 was to be spilled in the cause of education and 
 leisure and concerts and so on he now wants rapine, 
 and oh ! the most frightful outrages ! so that 
 everyone may change places. He and his friends 
 are to have education and champagne and talk 
 big, while their female relations play the gramophone 
 and order Mrs. Price about. It is all screamingly 
 funny. Dear me, Captain Hatton, pray don't 
 look at me like that. Do you think one ought not 
 to laugh at poor silly creatures ? I do find human 
 nature so very amusing sometimes. What do you 
 think, Professor Vachell ? Do you think the 
 universities are doing good or harm ? " 
 
 " They have hardly reached an age of full-grown 
 responsibility yet," he replied. " When ladies 
 and Labour have joined our deliberations for a few 
 years we shall be able to give a better opinion." 
 
 " Now, don't be sarcastic," Mrs. Trotter warned 
 him with a finger. " That is very naughty of you. 
 I hope it will be a long time before your beautiful 
 cloistered calm is invaded in any such way. I can't 
 imagine women and tradesmen holding forth in 
 Oxford, can you, Mrs. Vachell ? " 
 
 " So long as the present generation of poor weak 
 fools, who will risk nothing, survive it is rather 
 difficult," she answered quietly. Evan started 
 slightly as she spoke. " But even though every
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 193 
 
 year the percentage is less of boys who are brought 
 up to be bullies and of girls whose intelligence 
 is crushed, it will take a long time to destroy the 
 tradition. Don't worry, Mrs. Trotter. Your sys- 
 tem will probably last your time, and if your little 
 girl does scandalise you by learning some other 
 trade than husband hunting, she may make up by 
 marrying a tradesman Prime Minister." 
 
 " I don't think that is at all likely," Teresa 
 broke in. " The tradesman Prime Minister would 
 want a perfect lady for his wife ; they always do. 
 They boast of the work that their women do when 
 they want to compare them with what they call 
 the idle rich ; but the very first thing they want 
 to buy for their wives and daughters is exemption 
 from any kind of work." 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear Teresa," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 " They are the keenest of all that their daughters 
 should have ' the schooling.' ' 
 
 " Yes, but that is only so that they may not 
 have to do housework or be ordered about in shops. 
 They think that education for a girl means her 
 marrying into another class and keeping a servant. 
 They are just like us. They hate squalor and want 
 to live like we do. They don't care for learning in 
 itself any more than we do " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Fulton," Mr. Vachell 
 interrupted. "Do I understand that you put 
 down my laborious work of research to a sordid 
 hope of fitting myself to dine at Buckingham 
 Palace, or even living there some day ? You are 
 wounding me very much." 
 
 " No, of course not," said Teresa. " You are 
 quite different ; you are a man. I am sure lots of
 
 194 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 men wanted to learn because they are interested. 
 I was thinking of what they wanted for their 
 daughters." 
 
 " Well, what do you think the Principal wants 
 for our excellent Emma ? " he went on. " That 
 she should marry the Prince of Wales ? I don't 
 believe she has got the ghost of a chance, so you had 
 better stop her while you can." 
 
 " Don't muddle up what I say like that," said 
 Teresa. " Emma only wants to stop mothers 
 giving their babies rhubarb pie, and to persuade 
 fathers to buy bread instead of beer ; and she 
 wants them to be clean and have time and money 
 enough to find out what they can do." 
 
 " But where does Maisie Trotter's husband come 
 in ? " asked Evan, who was also grateful for the 
 diversion that Teresa had made. 
 
 " I haven't the least idea. I have lost sight of 
 him. Oh, no, I remember ; he was to be Prime 
 Minister. It will be no good for Maisie to live up 
 to him in the way of education, because his sisters 
 will do that. He will want a pink and white princess 
 who can detect a crumpled rose leaf under the 
 mattress. I assure you that is what working people 
 ask for. It is the really valuable thing that they 
 have lost, and they are often so silly, poor darlings, 
 and think it comes with money. You know how 
 fussy people like the Prices are about breeding, 
 and they spend and spend, trying to buy it some- 
 how and knowing that they fail. It is so sad." 
 
 " Oh, everything is sad if you notice it," said 
 Mrs. Trotter impatiently. " I don't believe in 
 pitying people for not being different from what 
 they are. I once met a woman who said she
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 195 
 
 disliked travelling in public conveyances because 
 women's hats were pathetic ; something about the 
 trimming ; if you ever heard such nonsense ! 
 Now I'm off and thank you all very much for a 
 pleasant evening. Anyone coming my way ? "
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 " WELL, I am sure, Roderick," said Mrs. Carpenter 
 as she turned the last page of a letter she was 
 reading, " Evangeline Hatton seems to be laying 
 up a nice future for herself. Emmie Trotter is 
 staying down there with Maisie and she says that 
 Mrs. Vachell is in and out of the Hattons' house 
 the whole time, influencing Evangeline to run 
 down her husband. And that poor Evan Hatton 
 is as blind as a bat and running after Mrs. Vachell 
 all the time. Of course, Amy Vachell is one of 
 those hard women who never see when men are 
 attracted by them. All she thinks of is her social 
 work and I have often told her it is dangerous and 
 that in her anxiety to put women on a higher footing 
 she forgets that men persist in remaining on the 
 lower one and they misunderstand her motives. 
 I knew she would get into trouble some day." 
 There was a note of triumph in her voice. 
 
 " Yers," her husband answered deprecatingly 
 over the top of his pince-nez. " Yers yers 
 very foolish of her." 
 
 " They will come to grief in the end, you will 
 see," said Mrs. Carpenter, as one who observes the 
 first swallow of the season. 
 
 She met Mrs. Eric Manley that afternoon at a 
 sale of work on behalf of an inebriates' home in 
 Mrs. Abel's parish, They wandered together from 
 
 196
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 197 
 
 stall to stall, inspecting photograph frames orna- 
 mented with landscapes in poker work, table centres 
 and tea-cosies of hand-painted satin, pinafores 
 edged with cheap lace, preposterous woollen gar- 
 ments for all ages, dreary confections in flannelette 
 that would make a Hottentot pessimistic, dusters, 
 packets of Lux and grate polish ; everything that 
 could most vividly recall the horrors of the Will to 
 Live and the Desire to Decorate at Random. The 
 two friends sat down presently to tea in a small 
 room festooned with coloured muslin, served by 
 ladies who were beginning to feel the running about 
 rather a strain though great fun. 
 
 " Well, my dear, how is it that you are still 
 here ? " asked Mrs. Carpenter. " I told Mrs. Abel 
 that it was a bad time to have the sale as everybody 
 would be away, but she said that some of the best 
 helpers would have more time now. Of course, 
 we shall get off to Scotland later. I heard to-day 
 that Evangeline Hatton and her husband are not 
 enjoying their holiday very much, poor things. 
 They are at Roscombe with the boy and Teresa 
 Fulton, and the Vachells are there too. I am 
 afraid Amy Vachell is stirring up mischief. It is 
 a great pity for such young married things." 
 
 " Oh, who told you ? " asked Mrs. Manley. 
 
 " Emmie Trotter for one. She is quite worried 
 about it. Captain Hatton is so dogged, you know, 
 with that kind of foolish religious fervour. It 
 does blind people so when it takes hold of them ; 
 they don't seem to see anything else. Of course 
 he is a splendid man ; so upright and devoted to 
 her. But I do think it is a great mistake to get 
 carried away by that kind of thing."
 
 198 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " And what is Mrs. Vachell after, do you sup- 
 pose ? " inquired her friend. 
 
 " Oh, dear Amy ! I am sure I don't know. Of 
 course one knows that she is absolutely straight ; 
 no one could doubt that. But it is a pity, I think, 
 the things she does sometimes with that far-away 
 look of hers, don't you know ? She may have 
 encouraged Evangeline without meaning anything, 
 and made her rebel against his very dogmatic 
 manner. And the Professor is so silly ; he really 
 is. All that about Mrs. Harting was so absurd. 
 She is a very intellectual woman ; I get on with her 
 splendidly, we have so much in common ; and she 
 threw herself into all his excavations and so on, 
 and of course dear Amy was just a little well, 
 she didn't like it ; naturally she wouldn't ; but 
 there was absolutely no more in it than that. 
 However, it may have made Amy bitter and perhaps 
 she has lashed out against men and put Evangeline 
 up to some nonsense. I wonder if I could do any 
 good by having a chat with her mother." 
 
 " I should leave it alone, I think," Mrs. Manley 
 advised. " You won't get anything out of Mrs. 
 Fulton. She is so extraordinarily broad-minded 
 and indulgent and thinks everybody means well." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said Mrs. Carpenter, with 
 her head on one side. " I don't know altogether 
 that I should have said that. Dear Susie Fulton 
 is very shrewd and likes to keep the peace in the 
 family, but she would very much dislike the General 
 getting to hear anything from outside sources, and 
 it might be best to warn her privately. What do 
 you think ? " 
 
 " Well, you might drop in," said Mrs. Manley.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 199 
 
 " I could drive you round there if you have bought 
 all you want now. Perhaps I had better not come 
 in. You would prefer to talk about it alone." 
 
 " Perhaps that would be wise," Mrs. Carpenter 
 agreed. " I really think it is the kind thing to 
 do. It would be such a pity if anything got round." 
 
 She found Susie at home and tea being cleared 
 away. " I have had some, my dear, thank you," 
 said Mrs. Carpenter. " Quite an excellent tea at 
 dear Jenny Abel's little sale, where I was buying 
 for all I was worth. Such a poor lot of things. I 
 am afraid they won't have done very well ; but 
 then they don't manage that place at all as it should 
 be done. They ought to call a meeting and have 
 the whole thing laid out and make a proper appeal. 
 It is no good patching up with little affairs like that. 
 No one wants to buy at all nowadays ; we are all 
 overdone with sales of work. Still, the things 
 won't be wasted. I just pass them on to the next. 
 Your little Teresa is not back again with you yet, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 " No, she is still with Evangeline," said Susie. 
 " They are staying on as long as the weather lasts. 
 The Vachells and the Trotters are there, too, so 
 they are quite a pleasant little party." 
 
 They talked nicely in this way for some time 
 and then Mrs. Carpenter said, lowering her voice 
 mysteriously, " You didn't gather, did you, that 
 there was any little difficulty with Evangeline 
 seeing so much of dear Amy Vachell ? I am not 
 quite sure that she is just the person whom I should 
 choose to be very much with a young mother, 
 who, of course, wants to see everything couleur de 
 rose."
 
 200 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Dear me, no," Susie replied in gentle as- 
 tonishment. " Is there any difficulty about any- 
 thing ? I didn't know. What makes you think 
 so ? " 
 
 " My dear, it was just an impression that was 
 whispered to me by a little bird who knows them 
 very well. I won't tell you whom because it 
 wouldn't be fair, and of course there was nothing 
 wrong anywhere, but just the idea that Evangeline 
 and her hubby were inclined to drift a little in 
 opposite directions and that Amy Vachell who is 
 so open-hearted and sincere and has such a high 
 opinion of women and the place they should take 
 in the home may perhaps have unconsciously 
 made a little mischief. Captain Hatton believes so 
 very strongly in the dogmatic side of religion, 
 doesn't he ? and he may suppose that Amy goes 
 further with him in her opinions than she does. 
 But that is all ; just to put you on your guard. 
 It was the merest trifle that I heard, but it would 
 be such a pity if it went any further when you as 
 a mother could put it all right, probably, in a 
 moment with just a word." 
 
 " Oh, I am sure there is nothing in it," said 
 Susie contentedly. " People make too much of 
 Evan's manner, and he means nothing ; it is all 
 on the surface. He is a most delightful fellow and 
 Evangeline is wrapped up in him. But it was so 
 kind of you to come and tell me. I often think 
 people are not outspoken enough." 
 
 She said nothing about Mrs. Carpenter's visit 
 until Teresa came home, and then she chose the 
 next evening when Cyril was peacefully reading 
 in an armchair. Teresa had put away a bundle of
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 201 
 
 papers from Emma's office, over which she had been 
 toiling with evident fatigue and depression. 
 
 " I hope dear little Ivor is not vexing his father 
 as much as he did while he was a baby," Susie began 
 quietly over her knitting. 
 
 " He doesn't get into many rows," said Teresa. 
 " It would be almost better if he did." 
 
 " How do you mean, dear ? " 
 
 " I mean that Evan says so little, it is rather 
 frightening sometimes. He just looks and you 
 don't know what he is thinking." 
 
 " Evangeline doesn't worry, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think she does. She is much thinner 
 than she used to be." 
 
 " I daresay that is the damp of Drage," Susie 
 remarked. "It is a very relaxing place, I have 
 heard." Teresa laughed, not very merrily. 
 
 " Mother, darling," she asked, looking at Susie 
 with kindly curiosity, " if Father bit you do you 
 think you would say it was owing to the frost ? I 
 believe you would." 
 
 " What an absurd thing to say, dear. I don't 
 talk so much about the weather, do I ? It is a 
 subject I have always detested ; it is so common- 
 place. But if you are laughing because I said that 
 Drage is damp that is ridiculous. Everyone knows 
 it is and there is nothing so depressing as a place 
 that is all on clay." She left the room presently 
 and Cyril put down his book. 
 
 " How old are you, Dicky ? " he asked. 
 
 " Twenty-five next month. Why ? " 
 
 ' You seem to have grown a little and I couldn't 
 remember how long we had been here. It is a 
 devil of a long time. Sit down there for a minute
 
 202 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 and tell me something I want to know. Aren't 
 you wasting your time a bit, young woman ? 
 frousting down there with Emma Gainsborough. 
 Or is it what you want ? " 
 
 " I am rather in a fog," said Teresa. He said 
 nothing and she went on, " I used to look at people 
 paddling along in the mud, streaming past all the 
 time ; you remember the first time we went down 
 to the docks together and came back on a tram ? 
 It fascinated me. I had always felt that there was 
 something that my mind was chasing after, as if 
 I were half asleep and shouldn't wake up until I 
 had found out what I wanted to know. Have you 
 ever felt like that ? " 
 
 " No, I am not much troubled with what is called 
 the Higher Mind," said Cyril. " But I don't dis- 
 believe in it on that account. In fact I think it is 
 a good thing if properly used. But go on. How 
 does it work out ? " 
 
 " Well, they all look so angry and miserable 
 and discontented," she explained. " There was 
 some mystery or other that cut me off from them 
 like a misunderstanding ; some enormous grievance 
 or injustice that divided us and our lot from them 
 and their lot, and I felt as if I wanted to break 
 through it somehow anyhow and say, ' Here ! 
 Let me in ! I won't be left outside. Tell me what 
 you want and I will get it for you somehow.' I 
 wanted to give them everything I had ; not only 
 money, but the kind of pleasure that makes it of no 
 importance whether one has money or not. And 
 then they let me in. Strickland let me in first. She 
 told me such a lot when she found that I wasn't 
 inquisitive or preaching. She explains things so
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 203 
 
 clearly and I began to see what the grievance is 
 and then it got more hopeless than ever, because 
 I saw that before you can get into the frame of 
 mind that is independent of poverty you must be 
 decently fed and warm or else you can't think at 
 all for sheer animal discomfort. I suppose mystics 
 come back down the same road by smashing the 
 body after they have used it to get a mind with. 
 They couldn't begin as slum babies and say, ' I 
 must fast and subdue the flesh.' You see, if you 
 start hungry, unless you have a perfectly sweet 
 nature you probably think of nothing but clawing 
 for food and knocking down someone else who has 
 got some. Then you find people down there with 
 all sorts of wonderful qualities so strong that they 
 manage to keep their end of the stick up in spite 
 of everything. So that topples down all your hopes 
 when you see that all the virtues that you were 
 going to bring in by making more comfortable 
 surroundings are there already in the most wonder- 
 ful perfection. It just thickens the mystery and 
 makes the barrier and the fog more unaccountable 
 than it was from outside. If you could see the 
 horrors that some people contend against and still 
 remain as good as gold and gay as larks, I think 
 you would stop being so perfectly disgusting as 
 you are sometimes about my Potters and people." 
 " No, I shouldn't, my dear," he said, " but not 
 because I don't believe you. But why should I 
 make myself sick with smells that I can't prevent ? 
 I should be of no earthly use sitting by the bedside 
 of an aged fish-wife with my nose in my handker- 
 chief, and I don't understand accounts or babies. 
 I am much more use at my own job, which neither
 
 204 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Emma nor your friend Jason nor even the lion- 
 hearted Fisk could do." 
 
 "No, no, you are much better where you are," 
 she agreed. " And now you see I have got beyond 
 the first fog into a worse one. I feel cut off from 
 the side I left and I can do nothing for the others 
 because they have got all the means of happiness 
 that I wanted to give them. You see, if anything 
 good survives there it gets awfully good because 
 it takes so much exercise." 
 
 " Yes ? " said Cyril. 
 
 " I don't know how much you were ever in love 
 with anyone, but you wouldn't, would you, have 
 married Mother if she had not been rather extra 
 pretty and very, very well washed ? " 
 
 " No, Dicky, you are not going to win on that. 
 I should never have got within speaking distance 
 of her, so the Higher Mind would not have con- 
 tended with the lower. No war, no victory. You 
 see, your Misters and Misseses of the unwashed 
 brigade start on an equal footing. Mr. Potter has 
 nothing to forgive before he inquires into the 
 perfections of Mrs. Potter's character." 
 
 " Very well, we'll try again," she said patiently. 
 " I must make you understand somehow. We'll 
 take Mother. She was devoted to us and she 
 loves babies as she only sees clean ones. Suppose 
 she lived in a slum and had half-a-dozen of them 
 squalling and screaming and covered with every 
 sort of hideous filth and was kept awake all night 
 and saw them being hungry and ill and cold. Just 
 think what a tremendous sort of love she would 
 need to have to make her go on with it ; and how 
 honest she would have to be not to steal for them ;
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 205 
 
 and how unselfish to go hungry so that they might 
 have what food there was, and how patient not 
 to grumble and scold. You need a super quality 
 of every good point in a character in order to 
 keep up at all. You can't say that being used 
 to horrors takes away all the merit of enduring 
 them with real style like you see sometimes down 
 there. 
 
 " No, not all," said Cyril, " but then, Dicky, you 
 must be fair. Lots of things that I find very hard 
 to bear, such as no, I won't go into them ; you 
 are too tender-hearted and I don't want to add to 
 your worries. But I assure you I am a very noble 
 fellow in my way though nothing I have to put up 
 with would rouse any sympathy in your fog-bound 
 heroes." 
 
 Teresa looked at him anxiously, critical and 
 questioning. 
 
 " I am only trying to cheer you up, dear," he 
 assured her. " I have a very tidy mind untidi- 
 ness at the office is one of the things that I was 
 going to mention just now and I dislike arguing in 
 a circle. That is where Emma is more suited to 
 her job than you are. She never stands about and 
 
 says, ' Yes, but on the other hand ' or, ' what 
 
 can we do, because every way you look at it it 
 doesn't make sense ? ' She plugs along as busy as 
 a bee, fitting splints on to one and a flannel petticoat 
 and a book of poetry on to another and doesn't 
 wear herself out in guessing whether the creatures 
 are angels or devils. Dicky, my dear, you are 
 twenty-five and you are missing everything that 
 you have been looking for and that you haven't 
 found. You have said that you only got past one
 
 206 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 fog into another and that you want to give what 
 you have to starving people who need it. What 
 about David ? " 
 
 " I do want so dreadfully to marry him," said 
 Teresa after some hesitation. " But I am sure it 
 is selfish. He won't do what I want and what 
 would make it all right." 
 
 " What won't he do ? " 
 
 " Sell the place and give the money to the work 
 Emma is doing. It wouldn't make much differ- 
 ence, I know, but it would take a few hundred 
 children out of the mud and I should feel I had done 
 my best." 
 
 " You would do much more good by keeping 
 those damned Prices out of Aldwych. You never 
 saw such a mess as they are making of it. It is 
 perfectly beastly. Enough to make the old man 
 turn in his grave." 
 
 " But it is the wrong way to live," she persisted. 
 " I have no right to glide into beautiful things 
 and comfort that I haven't earned." 
 
 " Well, look here. You're pretty comfortable 
 to start with, aren't you ? Your mother and I 
 saw to that. She especially. She married me 
 because she wanted a child and like a good careful 
 bird she chose the downiest nesting-place she could 
 find for the benefit of her young." 
 
 " Oh, Father," said Teresa, awestruck. " Wasn't 
 she in love with you ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it," he replied. 
 
 " I wish she had married a poor man, then," 
 said the girl. " It would have saved me a lot of 
 trouble. But to go back to what you said. I 
 couldn't help being born where I am, but I can give
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 207 
 
 back everything I have got. It makes it worse to 
 marry into a lot more luxury." 
 
 " How much do you think your friends in the fog 
 would give back to you if they dropped into a 
 soft job ? " he asked. 
 
 " That has nothing to do with it." 
 
 " Yes, it has. It means that they go with the 
 stream and don't drown themselves trying to dam 
 it up with a bunch of flowers. Keep those damned 
 hucksters out of Aldwych and keep it the decent 
 civilised place it was ; and breed young Davids 
 to counteract the pernicious spawning of Millport. 
 You'll be far better employed. You can invite 
 all the young Potters to tea and show them what 
 they may attain by thrift instead of greed. They'll 
 only think you a damned fool and not listen to a 
 word of good advice." 
 i> Teresa was silent. 
 
 " They would take the place off you to-morrow 
 if they could and say you weren't fit to appreciate 
 it. And they would undo the work of centuries 
 that have been spent on it and turn it into a hell 
 of their own." 
 
 " They wouldn't. They would want to become 
 gentle people and build it up again in their own way." 
 
 " Rot," said Cyril. " Much better keep it as a 
 model instead of wasting it all first. You must 
 keep something in the show room. It is no good 
 for everybody who wants an airship to destroy all 
 there are and begin again by himself with a glider." 
 
 " Why are you two silly things sitting together 
 in the dark ? " said Susie's voice at the door.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " THERE is a good deal to be said for subscription 
 lists all the same," said Mr. Manley. " How could 
 you have the hospitals and other places kept 
 going ? " Teresa often went to the old man for 
 help in her schemes, as he had invited her to do 
 on their first acquaintance. They were good friends, 
 though his tolerance of institutions, governors, 
 spiritual pastors and masters puzzled her when she 
 tried to piece it together with the other side of his 
 character ; the side which made him impatient 
 with all sorts of pomposity and humbug. He de- 
 lighted in the removal of lifeless traditions and he 
 welcomed to his house the whole of the small army 
 of people who fought for the life of the city against 
 vanity, self-interest and stupidity. 
 
 " But the way people go home to a fat dinner, 
 with servants running round the table with more 
 dishes, after they have sat listening to speeches 
 about all sorts of deadly necessities makes me 
 sick," she said. " They sign a cheque for a sum 
 that is just large enough to look impressive on a 
 list, but that won't make the least difference to the 
 way they live ; and then they think they have done 
 everything that can possibly be required of them." 
 
 " If would be a dull world if there were no kind- 
 ness, only obligation and compulsion," he remarked. 
 " I like people who are charitable to the poverty of 
 
 208
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 209 
 
 my intelligence, so why not to the poverty of my 
 comforts." 
 
 " But if some starving genius were to head a 
 list of people who were kind to Mr. Price's intelli- 
 gence he wouldn't be grateful." 
 
 " Well, if we are going to pounce upon ingratitude 
 and snobbery in one place let us be down on it all 
 round," he said. " I tell you that kindness is a 
 good thing anywhere, and though giving and taking 
 is always a ticklish business because people think 
 too much of themselves, that doesn't make it any 
 less good. By the way, did you know that Fisk 
 has got himself locked up ? " 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it," said Teresa, " but 
 what for especially ? " 
 
 " Inciting to breach of the peace. Of course 
 that has finished him so far as his career goes. He 
 never got his degree and now he is too old and too 
 mad. He was quite a decent boy. I used to employ 
 his father and knew him quite well. He was as 
 keen as possible on educating the lad. Cranston 
 has a great deal to answer for, wasting these boys' 
 time so that they don't work at anything. Fisk 
 will have to be a paid agitator when he comes out 
 in order to make a living. He'll never go back 
 to learn a trade now." 
 
 " How do you manage to stand the Prices ? " 
 Teresa resumed presently, going back to her train 
 of thought. " I have often wondered. And Mrs. 
 
 Carpenter Oh, dear me, I have got to hate 
 
 rich people since we came here. At first I was 
 worried about the poor. I wanted money not to 
 matter either way, so that one could make friends 
 anywhere and there shouldn't be a barrier of habits
 
 210 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 and manners that some of them were born into 
 and that cut them off from their natural friends 
 in other classes." 
 
 " But that is nothing new," he said, " I saw when 
 I first met you that that was what you were after 
 and you thought none of us here had ever had the 
 same idea at all except good old Emma. That is 
 why I wanted to make friends with you. I didn't 
 want the barrier of a rich dinner table to separate 
 you from your natural friend here." 
 
 Teresa laughed. " Well, it didn't, you see. But 
 still, I don't seem able to leap across the pine- 
 apples to Mr. and Mrs. Price. What does she mean 
 by saying that her people are communists ? It 
 does seem the silliest rot." 
 
 " They are intellectual socialists. People who 
 see that the world is untidy, which it certainly is, 
 but they haven't the taste for the characters that 
 can only come out of an untidy world. I am a bit 
 of a reader of the classics, as I haven't a wife to 
 talk to, and I can't see any of the people I love best 
 in books coming out of a world where everything 
 is as neat as a bedded-out garden. I have a great 
 dislike of culture, as it is called. Education is one 
 thing and so is enterprise, and Price is enterprising ; 
 but I must say I don't like Botticelli pictures and 
 cocoa in a public-house, and that is what Mrs. Price 
 means by saying her people are communists. They 
 are wealthy themselves with all sorts of art tastes 
 and live comfortably, and they like to preach. 
 They don't understand commerce and are ashamed 
 of having any connection with it. You may always 
 suspect a man who is prepared to run a business he 
 hasn't served in. I've the same suspicion of par-
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 211 
 
 sons. They see so many notices up everywhere, 
 " Beware of the Devil ! ' that they get tripping 
 about here, there and everywhere in such a state of 
 nerves that they forget they are not there to run 
 God's business, but to find out what He wants done. 
 It is all this assuming of moral responsibility 
 instead of working that I think is the mistake. Now 
 you see what I meant when you were running down 
 charitable institutions. You do your bit, my 
 dear, and help to keep the machinery going. You 
 can't run it alone and improvements are being made 
 all the time." Teresa got up to go. 
 
 " Do you know Mother is making a speech to- 
 day ? " she said doubtfully. " The first she has 
 ever made outside a drawing-room, and I have to 
 go shall you be there ? It is in the small room at 
 the Town Hall." 
 
 " What is the meeting f or ? " he asked. 
 
 " The Mary Popley Home for women." 
 
 " No," he said, " I have given a subscription, but 
 I am not coming to-day. I am sure she will do it 
 well ; she is so gentle and tactful. We want more 
 women like that on our committees. Some of them 
 are so very fierce. That is why I like Mrs. Vachell, 
 though I am never sure what she has got up her 
 sleeve ; she's rather an enigma." 
 
 " She hates men, that is all I know," said Teresa. 
 
 " Does she really ? How very remarkable. I 
 never knew that. And living among such excellent 
 men and great scholars as she does ! Good-bye, 
 my dear, good-bye." 
 
 " I suppose you are not coming, Cyril ? " said 
 Susie, later, putting on her gloves. " We are dining
 
 212 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 with the Gainsboroughs after the meeting ; without 
 dressing." 
 
 " No, your subjects are too deep for me, Sue," he 
 replied. " I'll have something ready to wet your 
 whistle when you come back, and keep up the fire 
 and let the cat out and that sort of thing." 
 
 " Strickland will see to all that, dear," she said. 
 " I think you had better go to bed if you feel tired. 
 I expect one of the maids will be up to make tea 
 if we want it." 
 
 When they arrived at the Town Hall they were 
 shown into a small room where the general com- 
 mittees of charitable institutions were often held. 
 Reports were read, giving an outline of the year's 
 work and a statement of the financial position and 
 requirements ; an attempt was made to rouse public 
 interest, accounts were then passed and votes of 
 thanks to the principal helpers and the chairman 
 were proposed, seconded and carried. Susie had 
 been asked to second the vote of thanks to the 
 committee. 
 
 The audience consisted of a large number of her 
 personal friends, a few dowdily dressed women with 
 serious, lined faces, whom she knew by sight, and 
 dreaded a little for their habit of turning up at tea- 
 parties and saying tactless things about the be- 
 haviour of young girls in the Park after sunset, the 
 cruelty of parents and the tendency of wives to 
 drink to excess, in spite of industrious husbands. 
 Very often they introduced these subjects just when 
 she herself had been expounding the perfection of 
 the mother instinct or the disastrous result of 
 confidence in a young and innocent mind. They 
 had a way of referring to crime as if it were a flaw
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 213 
 
 in a work of art, rather than a snare set by wicked 
 poachers for the Almighty's pet rabbits. A few 
 of the outside public were also present, with the 
 usual vacant faces, perfunctory clothes, thin hair, 
 and those curious eyes of the English stranger, 
 which, if they are indeed windows of the soul, 
 certainly do not belong to a country where romances 
 are carried on at the lattice. Those eyes suggest 
 Nottingham lace curtains and an aspidistra behind 
 the dim panes which the owner never approaches, 
 unless there is a street accident or a ring at the bell. 
 They enclose many human preoccupations, but 
 nothing that is likely to be shared with the passers- 
 by. 
 
 Susie faced the eyes, the friendly eyes, the busi- 
 ness-like eyes and the aspidistra eyes. The chair- 
 man had called on her to second the vote of thanks, 
 after a short-sighted glance round to make sure she 
 was there. Her dimple, the little crease in the satin 
 cushion of her cheek, appeared, and she smiled, 
 catching the attention of the first few rows. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen," she 
 began, " I think it extremely kind of you to ask me 
 to second this vote of thanks, because you are all 
 so busy and I am not used to speaking, nor ex- 
 perienced enough in your work to be of very much 
 help. But in thanking our splendid committee for 
 all they have done, I want to try and tell everybody 
 if I can, how deeply I feel that we all ought to do a 
 great deal more to help these poor women. Vice 
 is so pitifully easy to women in a great city like 
 this (murmured approval was heard at the back). 
 I am not going to say anything against men. We 
 are the wives and mothers and sisters of men, and
 
 214 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 the responsibility lies with us (slight signs of cynicism 
 from an aspidistra eye in the fifth row). But what 
 I say is this. All our influence is necessarily must 
 necessarily be of no use so long as our girls are 
 wilfully misled by the idea that their love and 
 innocent confidence will be understood and valued 
 at its true worth by the naturally coarser and 
 rougher nature. (" How thankful I am father didn't 
 come ! " thought Teresa.) Men go into the world 
 and become accustomed to hardness and cruelty, 
 especially in foreign countries, with which a great 
 port like this is constantly in touch. They drink 
 and quarrel, and their poor homes have so little 
 beauty to encourage them. Is it to be wondered at 
 that a young girl who dreams of romance and her 
 own little home and the sound of baby feet should 
 refuse to believe that these things are of less value 
 to the rough sailor or soldier or merchant, drunk 
 with wine and full of strong passions that have no 
 place in her finer nature ? (The chairman, the 
 treasurer and a doctor, who happened to be there, 
 were gazing meditatively at the electric light 
 fixtures, the desk, the floor, anywhere that would 
 afford a sufficiently obscure resting-place for any 
 involuntary expression of opinion on their faces. 
 They felt a friendly approval of Susie as a nice, 
 tender-hearted little woman, but all the same they 
 hoped she would wind up soon.) What I feel so 
 much is this, that although great sympathy and 
 great patience with these poor girls must be shown, 
 and although they must, of course, be taught to see 
 the dreadful evil that they do, yet until wives and 
 mothers and sisters impress their men with a better 
 understanding of a woman's feeling about these
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 215 
 
 things, and make them see that the finer and higher 
 view is not necessarily foolish and sentimental 
 that they hurt us by coarse jokes and rough actions, 
 by mistaking love of motherhood for vulgar flirta- 
 tion that until they see all this in its true light it 
 is useless to expect that trust will not be betrayed 
 and happy girls flung back into these Homes, ruined 
 and disgraced. Marriage may mean so much to a 
 girl. It is surely worth an effort from us, who have 
 had our trials and difficulties and misunderstandings, 
 to bring home to the boys who are growing up a 
 sense of those qualities which they lack by nature. 
 I have much pleasure in seconding this vote of 
 thanks to our committee." 
 
 She sat down amidst whole-hearted applause 
 from her friends and several of the aspidistra-eyed. 
 The ladies whom she feared gave a few business- 
 like taps with one hand upon the other and fidgeted 
 impatiently. Everything that interested them in 
 the meeting was over and most of them had other 
 engagements or voluminous documents at home to 
 attend to. 
 
 The vote of thanks to the chairman and his reply 
 only occupied another ten minutes, and then there 
 was tea in the Lady Mayoress's parlour. 
 
 " What a splendid speech you made," said Mrs. 
 Eric Manley, coming up to Susie. " I don't know 
 that I go quite as far as you do about the innocence 
 of girls, but still " 
 
 " Oh, don't you ? " said Susie. " Of course a 
 great many are not innocent, because they have 
 been taught so young by seeing all kinds of dreadful 
 things. But I think a woman's natural character 
 is much less suspicious than a man's." Mrs.
 
 216 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Vachell came up and under the pretext of finding 
 a chair drew Susie away from the crowd. 
 
 " I have been waiting to see you," she said. " I 
 have just seen Evangeline off to Drage again and I 
 am very much worried about her. Has she written 
 to you much about herself ? " 
 
 " No, her letters are generally full of darling Ivor," 
 said Susie. 
 
 Mrs. Vachell looked her up and down for an instant 
 as if considering whether she could make a cut in 
 Susie's plump little figure without letting out too 
 much sawdust and spoiling it. 
 
 " She didn't tell you that her husband thinks of 
 sending Ivor away from her ? " 
 
 Susie's eyes grew startled, but she said quietly, 
 " Don't you think you have mistaken a joke of his ? 
 Why should he do such a thing ? " 
 
 " I think he is a little mad," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 " The war shook a good many of them. He was 
 always very strict with Ivor, wasn't he ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, but then men are so silly about children," 
 said Susie, a little reassured. " They never do 
 understand them." 
 
 " You were saying this afternoon that the re- 
 sponsibility for making them understand lies with 
 women," said Mrs. Vachell. " If you really believe 
 that, it is time for you to help Evangeline. Her 
 situation seems to me to be desperate." 
 
 " What did he say he was going to do ? " Susie 
 asked. 
 
 " He told me in confidence that he means to 
 send him away quite soon, in a year perhaps not 
 to a boy's school, of course, but a sort of place kept 
 by religious ladies. But Evangeline was not to
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 217 
 
 know that. He is afraid she might do something 
 violent, come to you and her father or make some 
 public scandal. He hates having his affairs dis- 
 cussed and preferred to wait until the time comes." 
 
 " Men are really very tiresome and difficult 
 sometimes, aren't they," said Susie with a sigh. 
 " I do wish they would keep to their own affairs. 
 Suppose I interfered with my husband's soldiers 
 and you put all Mr. Vachell's diggings upside down 
 on the shelves when he had arranged them. I 
 can't think how they can be so stupid. I am 
 dreadfully worried about what you tell me, because, 
 of course, it is all nonsense. If dear Evan suffers 
 from his head that is no reason why he should 
 vent it on a little boy. Perhaps a doctor might 
 advise some tonic that would do him good." 
 
 " There is no tonic for a bullying disposition," 
 said Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " Oh, don't you think so ? " said Susie. " I 
 am sure the blood has so much effect on those kind 
 of ideas. If people are well, you know, they see 
 things quite differently, though, of course, there are 
 some things that they will never understand, unless 
 they are poets or artists. That makes a great deal 
 of difference, I think, being in touch with beautiful 
 things. Those religious ideas of his are a great 
 mistake, I think ; all about Jehovah, and being so 
 full of judgment and wrath and so on. It gives 
 them quite a wrong idea of the Bible. But I think 
 his mother must have been a masculine sort of 
 woman from what he says. Quite a little joke 
 sometimes upsets him. Teresa and I are going on 
 to the Gainsboroughs. Can we drop you ? " 
 
 All through the evening Susie was a little pre-
 
 2i8 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 occupied. She was thinking out a plan of campaign 
 by which she might save Evangeline from the 
 harsh authority of her husband, as she had saved 
 her from the prosy ethics of the schoolroom when she 
 was a child. But, as in those days so now, she 
 had no wish to reveal herself as a fighter. Once 
 recognised as a partisan she would lay herself open 
 to attack and perhaps be driven from her high 
 ground of superiority to earthly passions. She 
 represented in her own mind idealism, tender 
 remoteness from all ugly thoughts, innocence of 
 all desires save love for everybody. Could power 
 be more strongly hedged about from attack ? 
 
 She had a short time alone with Mrs. Gains- 
 borough, as the Principal retired to work in his 
 study and Emma took Teresa away to her 
 room. 
 
 " I heard from a sister of mine at Drage to-day," 
 Mrs. Gainsborough began, " that they think they 
 will probably be sent to Egypt quite soon. Will 
 that affect Captain Hatton or will the special work 
 he is doing keep him behind ? " 
 
 " I don't know at all," said Susie. " I hadn't 
 heard there was any idea of their going, but I think 
 my husband did say that Evan would probably 
 have to move soon in any case. Those special 
 jobs they get are only temporary." 
 
 " Would Evangeline go with him ? " asked Mrs. 
 Gainsborough ; " would it be all right for Ivor ? " 
 A possible solution to all difficulties at once pre- 
 sented itself to Susie. " I hardly think he could 
 afford to take them both," she said. " Without 
 the extra pay he has been getting they will have 
 to be very careful for a time, and I hear everything
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 219 
 
 in Egypt is an awful price. He may be glad to 
 leave Evangeline and the boy with us ; I hope so." 
 
 "'Oh, poor girl ! " exclaimed Mrs. Gainsborough, 
 " she wouldn't like that." 
 
 " No, of course it would be a dreadful separation," 
 Susie agreed, " but it might be necessary until he 
 got something else. He probably would very 
 soon. He is so popular with everyone and so high 
 principled. Anything to do with engineering de- 
 lights him, and I should think there must be a great 
 deal of that sort of thing going on everywhere just 
 now. The whole world is making an effort to 
 better everybody's lives except ours, of course, 
 who have to pay for it. But one doesn't grudge 
 that. Personally I don't mind how simply I live 
 so long as I can have the things I want." 
 
 " I am very sorry I couldn't come and hear you 
 speak this afternoon," said Mrs. Gainsborough. 
 " But the fact is, my old cook, Annie, is being 
 married and we gave her a little send-off from here. 
 She has married such a nice respectable man a 
 widower a plumber and decorator ; we have 
 known him for years a man of the name of Fisk. 
 But you know all about young Fisk, the son ? 
 How stupid of me ! A horrid nuisance he is and 
 a great worry to his father. He won't have any- 
 thing to do with poor old Annie. Turns up his 
 nose at her altogether." 
 
 " How horrid of him ! " said Susie. 
 
 " Yes, I believe he thinks we arranged it all as 
 a studied insult to him ; vulgar little wretch ! " 
 
 " You will miss Annie, won't you ? " said Susie. 
 " She has been with you such a long time." 
 
 " Oh, she is not exactly leaving us," said Mrs.
 
 220 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Gainsborough. " She will still come for the day 
 about eleven o'clock to do all the cooking, and she 
 will go home in the afternoon to give her husband 
 his tea and then come back and dish up the dinner. 
 You see, her home is only just round the corner 
 and he is out all day so she is glad of the company 
 and to earn the extra money. I fancy young Fisk 
 takes a good bit of what his father makes." 
 
 They had hardly finished dinner when the maid 
 handed a note to Susie. The girl, she said, was 
 waiting for an answer. It was from Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " DEAR MRS. FULTON," it said. 
 
 " You told me you are dining with the 
 Gainsboroughs. I wonder if you would have time 
 to come in here for a few minutes on your way 
 home. If Teresa is tired she could drop you and 
 send the car back ? I have heard from Evangeline 
 by the last post with some reference to what I 
 suggested to you this afternoon. She is sure to 
 have written to you at the same time, but I cannot 
 answer her letter without consulting you, and as 
 you are always so busy it might save time if I can 
 catch you between your good deeds." 
 
 " Would you ask the girl to tell Mrs. Vachell I 
 shall be very glad to come round later," she said 
 to the maid ; then she turned with an apology to 
 Mrs. Gainsborough. " If one once takes up these 
 public things there are so many little details to 
 think out. Mrs. Vachell wants to talk over one 
 or two points that she suggested this afternoon. 
 I will send Teresa home when the car comes in case 
 my husband wonders what has become of us, and 
 it can come back for me to Mrs. VachelTs."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 221 
 
 Mrs. Vachell was alone when Susie was shown 
 up. " My husband is out at one of those dreary 
 men's dinners where they play Bridge till all hours," 
 she explained. " I wanted to tell you, though you 
 are sure to find a letter from Evangeline when 
 you get back, that there seems to be an idea that 
 his regiment is going to Egypt and he will probably 
 have to go with them. In that case he is sure to 
 make it the excuse for the separation I told you of." 
 
 " But surely all such things must be decided 
 between themselves," said Susie. " Evangeline 
 and he are sure to talk it over and decide what is 
 best to be done." 
 
 " Mrs. Fulton, have you seen your son-in-law 
 lately ? " Mrs. Vachell asked, looking at her search- 
 ingly. " Do you know how strongly he has got 
 to feel on this point ? I have been down there for 
 a month with them and I realised that Evangeline 
 has no idea what an obsession it has become with 
 him. He seemed to want to pour it out to some- 
 body and you know yourself how a man always 
 chooses a woman to listen to him because of the 
 very qualities he despises in her shall we call it 
 flexibility of judgment ? He knows she is not 
 likely to say, ' My dear chap, that's all rot. Have 
 a whiskey and soda ? ' 
 
 " That is so true," said Susie with a sigh. " How 
 well I know it ! " 
 
 " You understand then how I come to know 
 more of his intentions than you do. He wouldn't 
 
 feel that you were an impartial judge and also " 
 
 her mouth twitched slightly " I am afraid he 
 thinks you a little frivolous. He mistakes your 
 delicacy of thought for want of earnestness."
 
 222 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Yes, I daresa}'," said Susie, slightly stung, " I 
 am quite used to being thought absurd just because 
 there is so much in spiritual things that one cannot 
 explain in black and white. Those very dogmatic 
 people always seem to me to miss the whole point 
 of everything." 
 
 " Well, now, the question is this. I know I 
 tell you this in all seriousness I know what he 
 means to do with the child at the last moment, 
 and the last moment will come sooner than we 
 expected if he is ordered to Egypt. So please do 
 dispossess yourself of any fancy ideas of its all 
 blowing over or all coming right. What can you 
 do ? You will probably offer to take Ivor and 
 Evangeline too. He will refuse because he thinks 
 you are even worse for the boy than she is." Susie 
 betrayed no sign of anger, but her eyes narrowed 
 a little and there was no dimple in her cheek as she 
 listened attentively. " What will you do then ? " 
 Mrs. Vachell went on. " There are some terrible 
 women he knows of who keep a school away down 
 in Cornwall. I don't mean that they are inten- 
 tionally cruel, but Ivor has your sensitive nature. 
 He is a little boy whom you might as well whip 
 with a cat-o'-nine-tails as send to women like that." 
 
 Tears sprang to Susie's eyes and her lips trembled. 
 " I will do anything you suggest," she promised. 
 " I don't care what it is. I think I could almost 
 kill him. Thank heaven he trusts you ! " 
 
 Mrs. Vachell laughed. " It is against all my 
 principles and theories," she said, " but they force 
 us to do these things. Some day when we are in 
 power we can be our true selves and enjoy the 
 luxury of the straight path. At present we lie
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 223 
 
 for the children and the women like Evangeline 
 who suffer in their foolish reverence for the male. 
 I don't know what you advise, but I don't see any 
 better way out of it than that Evangeline should 
 be supposed to be going overland to join him and 
 just not turn up. The boy will be left with me 
 on the understanding that I take him to Cornwall 
 as soon as Evangeline has left or perhaps a month 
 or two after." 
 
 " It doesn't sound at all the sort of thing Evan 
 would do," said Susie doubtfully. "He is always 
 so very downright." 
 
 " No, you are quite right," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 " He hasn't thought of it yet. He has only got 
 as far as the old ladies. But I can make him see 
 the difficulty of a scene with Evangeline. She is 
 very much liked at Drage. Evan's Colonel and 
 his wife are devoted to her. There would be awful 
 talk and gossip and indignation if she let herself 
 go and got the rest of them down on to it. He is 
 secretive and hates outside interference." 
 
 " But then why not let public opinion have the 
 chance to make him give in ? " asked Susie. 
 
 " He wouldn't do that. He would make some 
 plan for a temporary arrangement with me or 
 someone else and it is safer that it should be with 
 me." 
 
 " But when you have got him off, what next ? 
 The school will be expecting him, they will be 
 furious and write to Evan and he will order you to 
 give up Ivor. He may send a solicitor's letter. 
 He may get special leave and come back." 
 
 " That he couldn't possibly afford," said Mrs. 
 Vachell. " It is a very expensive journey just now.
 
 224 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 And as for the solicitor's letter do you know I 
 am not at all sure that I shouldn't leave that to 
 your husband. I can't tell you why, but I think 
 he could manage Captain Hatton even now ; the 
 only thing is that he wouldn't. You have to get 
 things into a mess first before a man like that will 
 move. They never will do anything to prevent 
 a row if it means making a plan, but they will 
 shovel away the mess afterwards quite willingly." 
 
 " I think I might sound him," said Susie re- 
 flectively. 
 
 " Very well, but remember if you give him the 
 least hint of a plan he will forbid you to do it and 
 then it becomes rather a nuisance ; it would be 
 fifty per cent, more complicated. If you do the 
 thing first you can pretend to be sorry and say 
 how stupid you were not to have thought of the 
 consequences. A man will always swallow that." 
 
 Susie changed the subject. " And what about 
 Evangeline ? " she asked. " Shall I write to her ? " 
 * " No, indeed, you won't. Don't write a line 
 except the usual grandmotherly stuff. I will ring 
 her up and get her to take a day's shopping in 
 London ; I am going there next week. Then 
 after that I will go on to Drage to see a young 
 cousin of mine. Evan will know by that time 
 whether he is going or not. If he does I can per- 
 suade him to lend me Ivor for a month or two or 
 even more. Even he understands that he is rather 
 a baby to go to strangers alone and he is sorry 
 
 for me for having no children " She gave a 
 
 little laugh. " You might, perhaps, make it easier 
 by saying that you want to have Ivor yourself, but 
 that there is difficulty about the nurse. He trusts
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 225 
 
 her, and she doesn't, in fact, like being with 
 you." 
 
 " Doesn't she ? " asked Susie, very much sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " No, not at all. She went so far as to threaten 
 to give notice if she stayed with you again. She 
 complains that you spoil Ivor." 
 
 " What a horrid woman ! " said Susie. 
 
 " Yes, you will probably have to get another in 
 the end. But all that will be much simpler when 
 we once get him out there. It is difficult for 
 anyone to make arrangements with such a long 
 post in between." 
 
 " Dear me," Susie said with a sigh, " it is all 
 very sad. I think I will go home now. There may 
 be a letter from Evangeline and I can see what my 
 husband says." 
 
 " Well," said Cyril when she came back, " Dicky 
 says you are a great orator, Sue. Got the nail 
 plumb on the head and brought tears to every 
 eye. I sent her to bed as she looked tired. Strick- 
 land said she was going to bring you some tea as 
 soon as you came in." 
 
 " Are there any letters for me ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, I believe there are. I put them down 
 somewhere. Evan has written to me to say that 
 the regiment is going to Egypt and he will have to 
 go unless he gets anything else." 
 
 " Is he likely to do that ? " 
 
 " I don't know. He will have to run his own 
 show now. I should think he is most likely to go." 
 Susie found her letters and looked through them. 
 There was nothing from Evangeline. " I wonder 
 why she writes to Mrs. Vachell and not to me," 
 r
 
 226 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 she thought, but she felt no jealousy ; nothing 
 more than a little surprise, such as she might have 
 felt if one of her children had chosen to have tea 
 with the housemaid instead of coming down to the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " What sort of a country is Egypt for children ? " 
 she asked presently when Strickland had brought 
 the tea. 
 
 " I've never been there, but I shouldn't think 
 it was very good for them," said Cyril. 
 
 " Wouldn't it be the best plan for Ivor to stay 
 with us and have a governess ? " she suggested. 
 
 " Well, I suppose that is for Chips to settle." 
 
 " When you talk of her settling do you realise 
 that Evan has very odd views about children and 
 that he is a little obstinate sometimes ? " 
 
 " What are you getting at, Sue ? " he asked. 
 " I haven't studied the insect world enough to be 
 always sure what particular idea you are after. 
 If you will tell me the shape of twig you want to 
 resemble " 
 
 " I haven't an idea what you are talking about, 
 Cyril, but I was asking for Evangeline's sake. You 
 always seem to understand men so much better 
 than I do." 
 
 " That is because they say what they mean," 
 he replied. " There is no difficulty about that." 
 
 Mrs. Vachell scarcely recognised Evangeline when 
 she rose out of a corner of the shop lounge where 
 they had arranged to meet. She was not only 
 thin and heavy-eyed, but she looked hunted. 
 Behind the sphinx face that looked into hers bitter
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 227 
 
 pity was hard at work. " My dear child," Mrs. 
 Vachell said, holding out both her hands, " don't 
 worry. It is perfectly all right." 
 
 " But you don't know," said Evangeline in a 
 low, frightened voice. " I haven't told you. He 
 is going to Egypt and insists on my going too. 
 Ivor is to be sent away " Her voice broke. 
 
 " No, no, nonsense," said Mrs. Vachell. " Here, 
 come and sit down. Ivor isn't going away. He 
 will be sent to me first and you won't go on the 
 boat at all. You can either be supposed to join 
 him at Marseilles, or if that makes too much fuss 
 you can go on board and slip off among the crowd 
 when people are being sent ashore at the last 
 minute. There are lots of ways and we will think 
 out the best. Once he is safely off, you will go 
 back to your parents and he will find the devil of 
 a difficulty in dislodging you. It is a temporary 
 remedy, I know, but we shall have time to think 
 of something else when the next obstacle turns 
 up. He is one man against three women, remem- 
 ber. You know your mother by this time. I am 
 not sure but what she is stronger than either of 
 us. And you will have all the regiment with you 
 if they get to know of it." 
 
 " But Mother doesn't know," said Evangeline. 
 " I didn't think it was any use telling her." 
 
 " Then you are a fool, dear. Never mind ; I 
 have told her ; and if Evan thinks he is any match 
 for her he is mistaken. He might as well try to 
 fight a climate." 
 
 " But how did you know anything about it ? " 
 she asked, more and more puzzled. " He only told 
 me yesterday, and I don't know now where he
 
 228 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 wants to send Ivor. It may be to his sisters, which 
 is bad enough." 
 
 " I knew a month ago what he intended to do 
 some day, and I made plans for you as soon as I 
 heard that he might be going to Egypt. Don't 
 waste time being jealous of me, Evangeline. I 
 would wring the man's neck like a turkey's if I 
 could." 
 
 " Oh, you are wicked ! " gasped Evangeline. 
 
 " No, I am not. Don't be stupid. You will 
 lose your faith in men too some day, and then 
 you won't stick at anything to help a woman. 
 What other weapons have we to defend our lives 
 as yet ? Do you want Ivor or do you not ? " 
 
 " Do I ? " said Evangeline, nervously hunting 
 for her handkerchief. " I didn't sleep last night 
 and I've had no breakfast." 
 
 " Very well, have lunch now, then," said Mrs. 
 Vachell, rising. During lunch they matured their 
 plan. Evan had not yet explained definitely where 
 he intended to send Ivor, though he had once 
 mentioned two friends of his mother's, " the best 
 women in the world," he called them. Mrs. Vachell 
 related all she knew of the place where they lived 
 and their methods of training the young mind. 
 Perhaps she exaggerated and perhaps Evan had 
 laid unfair stress on the items he was most anxious 
 about. " They believe in making a child inde- 
 pendent of physical comforts," she said, " and not 
 allowing a light in the room at night and that sort 
 of thing." 
 
 " Oh, God ! Ivor will go mad," said Evangeline. 
 " He is so good about the dark and getting used to 
 it, but he hates it and without me ! "
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 229 
 
 Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. " I came 
 across men in hospital," she said, " to whom their 
 childish terrors used to come back. Of course it 
 made them able to stand anything as they grew 
 up, for nothing they were likely to meet afterwards 
 in an ordinary life could be such torture. But it 
 seems a little like burning down the house to get 
 roast pig. And, after all, the war has shown that 
 it wasn't worth while, because boys from happy 
 homes were just as undef eatable as the children 
 of brutes. In fact some of them who took it most 
 simply had had the happiest childhood. Good 
 schools do just as well now when the boys come by 
 train as when they were frozen on the tops of 
 coaches on the way and tortured when they got 
 there." 
 
 " Yes," said Evangeline. 
 
 " I shall have to fool your husband a good deal 
 before I get Ivor handed over to me," Mrs. Vachell 
 said, looking at her attentively. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind," Evangeline answered care- 
 lessly. " He doesn't love the real you. That is 
 the only thing that would annoy me." Mrs. 
 Vachell gave a little laugh. 
 
 " Who says women can't stick together or tell 
 the truth ? " she said. 
 
 " Do they ? " said Evangeline with indifference. 
 " I wonder why." 
 
 "Well, let's get on," said Mrs. Vachell. "I 
 must do my shopping in a few minutes. I shall 
 come to Drage next week, and, in the meantime, 
 just behave as you would if you believed it was all 
 going to happen as he says. Try to forget that it 
 isn't ; and when I. come you will find that the old
 
 230 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 ladies will be postponed for a few months at least. 
 And another thing. You had better beg for Ivor 
 to be sent to your mother. I want your husband 
 to have knocked off that idea before I come or I 
 should have to suggest it and fail. He shall tell 
 you himself that it won't do, and he will be getting 
 uneasy about the old duchesses by that time if 
 you are tragic enough." 
 
 " Oh, it is beastly ! " said Evangeline. " Hate- 
 ful ! disgusting ! How can a man be so mean as 
 to force his wife to filthy, low tricks to keep their 
 only son with her while he is a baby and she has 
 done nothing wrong. How dare he do it ! I shall 
 be a wicked woman before he has done with me." 
 
 Mrs. Vachell again shrugged her shoulders. 
 " Wait," she said, " it is coming. There can be 
 no stopping it in the end. We are in Parliament ; 
 we are almost in the Law ; we have one foot in 
 the Church. Wait, Evangeline, my dear. And 
 in the meantime we won't throw away the old 
 weapons till the new are ready. They haven't 
 done bad service in the past."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 " GOD bless you," said Evan, as he let Mrs. Vachell 
 out of his house about a week later. "I'll tell 
 Evangeline as soon as she comes in. It is an 
 enormous weight off my mind, really. I can't 
 tell you what torture it has been to see the poor 
 girl in that state, and yet it was my duty. I 
 couldn't do otherwise, so it had to be gone through. 
 Now she will be comparatively happy as she will 
 trust Ivor with you and Mrs. Fulton can see him 
 when she wants to within limits. Evangeline 
 will like that. I have the utmost confidence in the 
 nurse too. I should never have sent her away from 
 him if it had been possible to keep him at home. 
 I have written to Miss Moseley and told her that 
 his coming is only postponed and that I will arrange 
 with her later when you see how he gets on." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Vachell. "I will write to 
 you every week or so at first. Good-bye. You 
 sail on the 30th, don't you ? I suppose I can make 
 all the final arrangements about trains with Evan- 
 geline. She will like to see him settled in before 
 she goes, perhaps, and it will give her time to pack 
 and settle the house in peace." 
 
 Evan had refused to listen to the suggestion that 
 Evangeline should pick up the ship anywhere on the 
 way out, so that had been given up. Mrs. Vachell 
 had undertaken to bring off the final coup. Ivor 
 
 231
 
 232 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 was to be established in her house a week before the 
 ship sailed. Evangeline was to pack her trunks 
 as much as possible with old clothes and oddments 
 that she did not need. Evan was out all day, so 
 there was no difficulty about that. Mrs. Vacheil 
 would get permission to see them off on board, and 
 would undertake that Evangeline should disappear 
 when the shore bell rang. An errand of mercy 
 in some lady's cabin would prevent Evan from 
 looking for her until some time after the ship had 
 left. Mrs. Vacheil would keep him in discussion 
 till the last moment and tear herself away only 
 at the last imperative shouts from the gangway. 
 After that the deluge, and Cyril in the character 
 of Noah. 
 
 " I don't like the plan at all," Susie said anxiously, 
 when Mrs. Vacheil returned. " I simply don't know 
 how I shall ever make my husband understand. 
 He is quite extraordinarily dense in those ways. 
 And I want to tell the servants to get Evangeline's 
 room ready, and of course I can't. There are all 
 sorts of things to be seen to, and Strickland will be 
 so cross. And I am afraid they will gossip, too. 
 Can't you possibly think of anything else ? Couldn't 
 Evangeline be taken ill on the way out and landed, 
 and then she could just come home ? " 
 
 " I am afraid that soldiers are more easily deceived 
 than doctors," said Mrs. Vacheil, " and Evangeline 
 is such a bad actress ! How I have pulled her 
 through this week I don't know. But I can keep 
 Ivor as long as you like while you make your prepara- 
 tions. When Evangeline comes off the boat and 
 gets to you, she must just have had a fit of temporary 
 insanity to account for it to your husband ; a sort ot
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 233 
 
 mad motherhood. I understand that she has an 
 excuse for a certain amount of eccentricity. For 
 that reason alone any doctor can be got to say that 
 she is better at home." 
 
 " Well, we must try not to worry," said Susie. 
 " I daresay, when you come to think of it, that by 
 the time Evan has several children he will give 
 up a great deal of that absurd nonsense about 
 training. The children themselves will make him 
 forget about it. Marriage does away with so many 
 silly fancies, doesn't it ? " 
 
 All the same, as the time drew near, she became a 
 trifle restless. One day, unknown to her, Cyril 
 went to have a tooth out. It was a bad tooth, 
 and he felt decidedly uncomfortable afterwards, so 
 he telephoned from the dentist's house to put off 
 an engagement he had made, and went straight 
 home. It happened to be the afternoon Susie had 
 chosen for a box containing Evangeline's belongings 
 to be brought to the house, as she knew Cyril had a 
 train journey of a couple of hours, which would keep 
 him out of the way. He was just fitting his latch- 
 key in the door when a van stopped and a man 
 got out and touched his hat. " A box for you, sir," 
 he said, " would you sign, please." Another man 
 was dragging out the box and Cyril took the paper 
 and read it. " It is addressed to Mrs. Hatton," he 
 said. " Just wait a minute and I'll send a servant." 
 Susie, hearing his voice, was peeping rather 
 agitatedly out of the drawing-room door. He rang 
 the front door bell for Strickland, and went up- 
 stairs. 
 
 " There's a man with a box addressed to Chips," 
 he remarked. "Is it all right ? "
 
 234 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Y-yes, I think so, dear," said Susie. " It is 
 just a few things we are to take care of, that she 
 thought might spoil in Egypt. Perhaps I had better 
 see about it. Why are you back so early ? " 
 
 " I had a tooth out," he explained. 
 
 " Well, really, Cyril dear," she said impatiently, 
 " how you men do fuss about every little ache and 
 pain. What would you say if we gave up, our work 
 for as little reason as that ? " 
 
 " I should say you had the wisdom of the serpent 
 and the harmlessness of the dove," he replied. " It 
 wouldn't matter a row of beans." He went off 
 to his room. 
 
 " When are we going to see those two to say 
 good-bye ? " he asked that evening after dinner. 
 
 " They will be coming for a night next week when 
 they take Ivor to the Vachells'," said Susie. 
 
 " I still don't understand why he is being sent 
 there instead of coming to us," he observed. 
 
 Susie made a little face. " It is just Evan," she 
 said. " He thinks we are not to be trusted with 
 children. Of course I couldn't insist." 
 
 " It is very unlike you, Sue, to hand over one of 
 your brood without a murmur. Does Evangeline 
 want him to go there ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said Susie unguardedly. 
 
 "Well then, I bet he won't be there long," 
 said Cyril. Susie began to wonder whether this 
 might not be a golden opportunity put into her 
 hands. 
 
 " If you think it best too, dear, I am not sure it 
 mightn't be the wisest thing to move him here 
 after a little while," she said. Cyril looked at her 
 speculatively, but said nothing at the time. When
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 235 
 
 Evangeline arrived he noticed a great alteration in 
 her. She had lost her easy-going acceptance of 
 everything that was said and done. She seemed 
 anxious and analytical, on the look-out for traps, 
 chary of expressing an opinion. She had said good- 
 bye to Ivor, she told them, and Evan had stayed 
 behind to settle a few last details with Mrs. Vachell. 
 She said all this with so much nervousness and 
 lack of interest, as if repeating a lesson, that Cyril 
 wondered more and more. He thought again of the 
 box that had arrived, of Susie's embarrassment, and 
 her anger at his unexpected return. When she 
 went in the afternoon to pay her fortnightly visit 
 to a women's hospital Cyril asked : 
 
 " You're not acting altogether on the straight about 
 this voyage, are you, Chips ? What's the plot ? " 
 
 Evangeline pushed back her chair and a look of 
 terror came into her face. She hesitated, but said 
 nothing. He looked at her with concern. " My 
 dear child, I am not going to eat you," he said. 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 " I thought perhaps you knew," she stammered, 
 without realising what she had said. 
 
 " What, that your mother had given you away ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, she did, though she didn't mean to. She 
 was a marvel of discretion, but unfortunately I had 
 a tooth out and came here when I ought to have been 
 stowed in the train, and I met your luggage on the 
 doorstep. She told me it was antiques or something, 
 and I didn't, in fact, think much about it until you 
 turned up. So now you had better tell me what 
 you have both been up to. It is quite evident 
 that you haven't parted from Ivor. How do you
 
 236 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 manage that ? Are you going to take him as a 
 cargo of apples or what ? " 
 
 " No, I am not going," said Evangeline. " I 
 won't go, and if you give me away, I'll no, I am 
 sorry. I would have told you at first, but Mother 
 and Mrs. Vachell said that men will only help to 
 clear up a mess. They won't ever make a plan to 
 prevent it." 
 
 " Oh," said Cyril, " so the plot is pretty deep, is 
 it ? How big is the membership ? " 
 
 " Just us three," said Evangeline. 
 
 " Not Dicky ? " 
 
 " No, no, Dicky is impossible. She wouldn't 
 give it away, but she would want me to fight it out 
 with Evan. But I can't, Father, I can't, I can't. 
 He has broken my nerve. I would fight for myself, 
 but I can't risk it when it is for Ivor. I can't afford 
 to lose. It is Evan's own fault. I never thought 
 of being deceitful until I met him." 
 
 " And Mrs. Vachell ? " added Cyril. 
 
 " I daresay," she admitted, " but she doesn't 
 want to any more than I do. She says she does so 
 look forward to the day when women won't have 
 to lie. It will be such a luxury." 
 
 " H'm, yes, perhaps," he replied, " but we won't 
 go into these gilded prospects now. She's evidently 
 still in a very poor way. But if you don't mind me 
 telling you, I think what you are doing is very risky, 
 though I don't exactly know what it is. How are 
 you going to get off ? " 
 
 " Just slip off the boat while Mrs. Vachell is 
 saying good-bye to him. He is to suppose that I 
 am in the ladies' cabin looking after someone who 
 is ill."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 237 
 
 " And do you suppose any man is going to find 
 out that his wife has played him a trick like that 
 and yet go on with his voyage and stay over there ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Vachell said he wouldn't be able to afford 
 to come back," said Evangeline. 
 
 " Good God ! What a fool the woman is," he 
 exclaimed. " And she and her pack of jelly-brained 
 idiots think that well, well, Chips my dear, she 
 is not too big a fool anyhow to have properly done 
 poor old Evan. She must have endured the devil 
 of a lot of self-denial in the way of truth lately. A 
 regular Lent of corkers. Chips, I really don't 
 advise you to go on with this. It is all nonsense ; 
 Evan is a very decent sort of fellow and I don't 
 suppose he understands in the least that he is 
 worrying you seriously. I'll tell him that I am 
 going to keep you here for a bit, and Ivor too, to 
 keep you company, and that we'll think out a 
 scheme later for you to go out there when he has 
 got ready for you. He can't object, for I don't think 
 you are well." 
 
 " No, I am not," said Evangeline, and she burst 
 into tears. " I am going to have another, and 
 I know he will take it away, too, and I shall go 
 mad " 
 
 " Oh, rot ! " said Cyril kindly. " Here, buck up. 
 You're not going if you don't want to. Why on 
 earth didn't you talk over this mess before ? 
 
 There " (the front door bell rang) " that's 
 
 probably the heavy father coming on the stage 
 now." 
 
 " Father," said Evangeline, turning white, " don't 
 
 tell him " She fell forward in her chair and 
 
 fainted, and at the same moment Evan came in.
 
 238 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Here," said Cyril holding her, " go down, 
 there's a good fellow, and get some brandy ; there's 
 some in the dining-room." Evan raced down and 
 brought back the decanter and a glass, and between 
 them they did their best, lifting her on to the sofa, 
 and Evan tried to make her swallow some of the 
 brandy. She opened her eyes and looked at him 
 with terror, and then sat up. " What is it ? " she 
 asked. " Oh please, please, Evan, don't take him 
 away. I will do anything you like." 
 
 " Don't take who away, my darling, I don't know 
 what you mean ? " he said. 
 
 " Here, never mind," said Cyril. " It's all right, 
 Chips. We'll get you put to bed I think, and, 
 there's nothing to worry about ; do you under- 
 stand ? " He rang the bell for Strickland, and she 
 came in and stood gazing at them in surprise and 
 disapproval. 
 
 " Mrs. Hatton isn't well," said Cyril. " A little 
 influenza or something. Will you get her room 
 ready and put her to bed ? Can you walk so far, 
 Chips, if we give you a hand ? " They left her in 
 the bedroom with Strickland, and then Cyril faced 
 his son-in-law in the drawing-room. 
 
 " I think I'll telephone for a doctor," he said, 
 " just to make sure she's all right. Mix yourself 
 a drink while I look the fellow up." He found 
 the number and took up the receiver. " That 
 Doctor Clark ? " he said. " Oh, isn't he ? Well 
 would you ask him to come round to Mrs. Fulton's 
 house as soon as he comes in. Now then, Evan," 
 he went on, while he lit a pipe, " let's have this 
 out. You mustn't take the girl away to Egypt 
 just yet. She's all to bits and she's got a holy terror
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 239 
 
 of you for some reason. What have you been 
 doing ? " 
 
 " I am afraid it has been parting from the boy 
 that has upset her," said Evan. " But I considered 
 very carefully before I did it, and I am quite sure it 
 is the only way." 
 
 " Only way to what ? " asked Cyril. 
 
 " The only way to safeguard him from being 
 ruined by weakness and self-indulgence." 
 
 " It won't do him any harm to speak of for a year 
 or two," said Cyril, " and then he'll go to school and 
 get it put straight. You'll do him far more harm 
 where you've left him at present with that un- 
 scrupulous she-devil of the Nile. Take her back 
 with you on the spare ticket and drop her whence 
 she came." 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," Evan said, getting up. " I 
 can't listen to any abuse of Mrs. Vachell. I am 
 sorry Evangeline has sunk to that last resort 
 of slandering her best friend to achieve her 
 end." 
 
 " Evangeline didn't slander her, my dear boy," 
 said Cyril. " She was full of her praises because of 
 the magnificent plan she had devised for deceiving 
 you. I arrived home unexpectedly a few days ago 
 and met Evangeline's box on the doorstep. The 
 plan was that Cleopatra was to beguile you at one 
 end of the deck while Evangeline nipped off down 
 the gangway and home. They had a plan all 
 thought out about her ministering to a sick friend 
 in a distant cabin so that you wouldn't look for 
 her until you were well out at sea. Ivor was to 
 join her here then, and after that I don't think they 
 had any clear idea, but they were reckoning on
 
 240 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 your finding it cheaper to stay where you were 
 and storm at them on paper." 
 
 Evan's face looked hard and worn, but he showed 
 no other sign of disappointment. " I think I had 
 better go now and ask Mrs. Vachell if it is true," he 
 said. ' You know I have only just come from her, 
 and we made an arrangement that Ivor should 
 stay with her for two or three months and then go to 
 some ladies whom my mother knew in Cornwall ; 
 they keep a small school for very young children 
 whose parents are abroad." 
 
 " Did Chips know of that further arrangement ? " 
 asked Cyril. 
 
 " Not unless Mrs. Vachell told her." 
 
 " Why not ? What sort of a fellow do you think 
 you are, making plans with another woman behind 
 your wife's back as to what you will do with your 
 son while she is away ? " 
 
 " It was the only way," said Evan again. 
 
 " The only way to land yourself in the devil of a 
 mess. Upon my word, Evan, it's a pretty beastly 
 sort of thing to do. If it got round to the mess 
 you'd find yourself up against a devilish hard 
 proposition." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Evan. " It was cowardice. 
 I hate hurting a woman if it can be avoided." 
 
 " Funny how people deny themselves in little 
 ways," Cyril said reflectively. " There you say 
 you hate hurting a woman, and you go a long way 
 round to find a plan that must hurt her more than 
 anything you could have chosen. Evangeline told 
 me that Mrs. Vachell hates lying more than anything, 
 and she " 
 
 " Excuse my interrupting you, sir," said Evan
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 241 
 
 rising. " That is not quite proved yet. I'll be 
 back in half-an-hour." 
 
 Cyril, from the window, saw him rush after a 
 passing tram and board it with the expression of 
 the Chief of Police in a cinema drama. " Poor 
 devil ! " he said to himself with amusement. " She's 
 going to catch it." 
 
 Mrs. Vachell's little maid was greatly surprised 
 when the gentleman whom she had let out of the 
 house not long before brushed past her with some 
 muttered remark when she opened the door, and 
 ran straight up to the drawing-room, where her 
 mistress was having tea. Mr. Vachell had returned 
 from the University and was enjoying himself 
 with a muffin. Evan greeted him hurriedly, and 
 said to Mrs. Vachell, " Can I speak to you a moment 
 alone ? " 
 
 " No, my dear Evan, I don't think you can with 
 that face," she said, looking at him coldly, " you 
 almost frighten me. Sit down there and have some 
 tea, and tell us what is the matter. Ivor is quite 
 happy having his upstairs." 
 
 " He must pack up now and come with me, unless 
 you can contradict what I have just been told," said 
 
 Evan. " But I know you will " his voice was 
 
 almost beseeching. " Evangeline is ill. She fainted 
 and went to bed, and I think she is a little light- 
 headed. She assured her father that you had made 
 a plan to let her slip off the boat as it was starting 
 and to join Ivor here and take him to her father's 
 house " he paused anxiously. 
 
 " Yes, it is quite true," she said without concern. 
 " It evidently isn't coming off now as Evangeline 
 has gone back on it. Still I think she might have 
 Q
 
 242 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 warned me. It is all the same to me what she does, 
 but it is generally considered not to be playing the 
 game to do that sort of thing." 
 
 " Why did you do it ? " asked Evan. 
 
 " Because it was the only way to stop your 
 monstrous behaviour to a woman and her child. 
 I would have done it for anybody." Mr. Vachell 
 had taken no part in what was going on, but was 
 quietly proceeding with his tea. 
 
 " Did you know of this ? " Evan asked, turning 
 to him. 
 
 " Of course not," he replied. " Is it likely ? " 
 
 " Of course he didn't," said Mrs. Vachell. " It 
 had nothing to do with him. But he wouldn't 
 have interfered in any case. We are a normal 
 husband and wife ; not a potentate and his slave." 
 
 " Then would you ring for Ivor and his nurse to 
 get ready, please," said Evan. 
 
 " Where are you going to take him ? " she in- 
 quired. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, but that is no business of 
 yours." 
 
 " Very well, then, wait a moment please." She 
 took up the telephone from a table beside her and 
 asked for the Fultons' number. Cyril answered it. 
 " Is that you, General Fulton ? " she said. " Cap- 
 tain Hatton wishes to take Ivor away at once and 
 will not tell me where he is taking him to. The 
 little boy has hardly had his tea and is tired after 
 the journey. Would you mind telling me what 
 to do." Emphatic sounds were audible from the 
 mouth-piece, and she turned to Evan. " He says 
 I am to tell you not to be a damned fool but to go 
 round there at once. Your wife is very ill. You
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 243 
 
 are to leave the child here for the present. What 
 did you say, General Fulton ? Do you want to 
 speak to him ? " She got up and gave her place to 
 Evan. " Yes hullo," he said. " Is that you, sir ? 
 What's the matter, please, very well I will 
 come." He said good-bye to neither of the Vachells, 
 but stopped at the door. " I should like Ivor and 
 the nurse sent to General Fulton's as early as you 
 conveniently can to-morrow," he said, and went 
 downstairs. 
 
 " Good heavens ! what idiots ! " said Mrs. 
 Vachell, pouring herself out another cup of tea, 
 when he was gone. " It is very difficult to do good 
 in this world." 
 
 " I know you don't want my advice," said Mr. 
 Vachell, " so I won't give it. But I am sorry there 
 has been such a mess and she is ill. I like the poor 
 girl and she seems to have had a bad time one way 
 and another. Little Teresa will be hitting out 
 right and left I expect." 
 
 " Oh, Teresa ! " his wife said contemptuously, 
 " is full of old-fashioned prejudices, and her idea of 
 equality between human beings doesn't go beyond 
 incomes." 
 
 " If people would study the way things have 
 worked out in the past they would get a better idea of 
 what is likely to happen in the future," he observed. 
 " I think I must go down and do a little work,"
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 " THERE is certainly no question of her going to 
 Egypt just yet," said the doctor when he came 
 downstairs. " She seems to have got a sort of 
 nervous breakdown. Can you account for it hi any 
 way ? " 
 
 Susie had come home just before he arrived, and 
 was apparently greatly fluttered by the scene of 
 confusion that she found, but, in fact, she was 
 secretly rejoiced. " It clears the whole thing up in 
 the most wonderful way," she thought. " Really 
 it almost seems as if Providence did interfere some- 
 times." She came into the drawing-room with the 
 doctor and found Cyril and Evan talking with 
 perfect friendliness. She put them both down in 
 her thoughts as " extraordinarily lacking in all 
 feeling," but she expressed nothing but cheerful 
 propriety. 
 
 " Really I don't know," she said, hi answer to the 
 doctor's question. " Evan, Dr. Clark wants to 
 know whether you can account for Evangeline 
 having broken down like this. You were here with 
 her, Cyril, when it happened. Do either of you 
 know of anything ? " Both were silent, waiting 
 for the other to speak. " Well ? " said Susie im- 
 patiently. " You see, I have been out, and she 
 seemed to be all right when she arrived." 
 
 " I think it had to do with her leaving Ivor
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 245 
 
 behind," said Cyril at last. " Really, my dear, you 
 are a mother ; you ought to understand these 
 feelings. She was about to sail on a long voyage, 
 remember." 
 
 Susie blushed. " There has been the move too, of 
 course," she said to the doctor. " Everything was 
 arranged in a great hurry and there was a great deal 
 of packing up ; and as she told you, she is not 
 strong just now." 
 
 " No," he said, " there's that. But I should have 
 thought there was more in it. However, it is not 
 my affair, and if it is a family matter you must do 
 as you like. But whatever it is must be put right 
 somehow, or you may have very serious con- 
 sequences to deal with. I will come back to- 
 morrow morning, unless you want me before then. 
 But please try to set her mind at rest on whatever 
 it is that is worrying her. It would be much better 
 if you had a trained nurse." 
 
 " Little Ivor's nurse is a splendid woman," said 
 Susie. " She has had a hospital training, and 
 Evangeline is used to her. Do you think she could 
 manage ? " 
 
 " No, I think not," he said. " She seems to be 
 worrying about the child as it is. Have him in the 
 house with her and let her know he is within reach 
 with his own nurse, and I'll send you round another 
 woman, if you don't mind." 
 
 Evangeline slept that evening under the influence 
 of some medicine the doctor ordered, and Cyril 
 and Evan were left alone after dinner, while the 
 household were carrying out the numerous require- 
 ments of the nurse and preparing another couple of 
 rooms for Ivor.
 
 246 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 It had been decided that Evan must sail with his 
 regiment, but so far nothing had been said about 
 Ivor's future. Presently Cyril remarked, " We had 
 better settle now about the boy, Evan. It looks 
 pretty clear to me that you have got to wait for 
 him to find his level in the ordinary way at a pre- 
 paratory school. There aren't many years to wait, 
 and I can promise you that there will be nothing 
 morbid about him so long as he is under my roof. 
 You see, if I had had a son I should have had to 
 check his tendencies and all that, and he will quite 
 likely mind what I say more than he would the old 
 women of Cornwall." 
 
 " I shall make no inquiries," said Evan. " Since 
 his mother and I cannot act together, and it seems 
 that I shall be responsible for her illness if we act 
 separately, I shall withdraw altogether. I will send 
 her all the money I have beyond what I need for 
 bare necessities, and she has your very generous 
 allowance. I don't imagine she will miss me at all 
 out of her life. Everything has been as wretched as 
 it could be for the last year or two." 
 
 " I think you will probably find you want them 
 both back again by and bye," said Cyril. " My 
 wife would tell you, I am sure, that absence makes 
 the heart grow fonder which reminds me that I 
 very much hope that is true. However, don't let's 
 take it for granted that all is over and Moab is our 
 wash-pot, and so on. It is wonderful how things 
 peter out if you leave them alone." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Evan gloomily, " but I am 
 afraid not. What is wrong in the beginning is 
 wrong in the end. I shall go away to-morrow 
 before the boy arrives. He is not likely to ask
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 247 
 
 after me much, as he was set against me from the 
 beginning." 
 
 " Have a drink before you go up," said Cyril, 
 as Evan rose from his chair. " I am sure you had 
 better." Ten minutes later they were absorbed in 
 a discussion about Egyptian administration, but 
 Evan remained gloomy. 
 
 When Strickland brought his breakfast next 
 morning she asked whether he had seen Mrs. Hatton, 
 and how was she ? 
 
 " I didn't disturb her," he answered, " but the 
 nurse came to the door and told me she was better." 
 
 " I think Mrs. Fulton will be down in a few 
 minutes, sir," said Strickland, hesitating at the door. 
 She liked Evan, who was always gravely considerate 
 to the maids and, as she once said to the cook, 
 " never passes us with his hat on." " I may be 
 gone before then," said Evan, " but if so, please 
 tell her I was sorry to go without saying good-bye. 
 I have several things to do on the way to the station." 
 Teresa ran down just as he was putting on his coat. 
 
 " Oh Evan, were you going without saying good- 
 bye ? Wouldn't you like to see Chips ? " 
 
 " No, Dicky, I must be off," he said. " Will you 
 write and tell me how she is ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will, and Ivor too," she promised. " I 
 wish you were not going so early and so far off. 
 You look so bleak. But it won't be long before 
 Chips can go out to you." 
 
 " Dicky," he said, stopping with his hand on the 
 door, " don't say anything about Ivor when you 
 write. I would rather not hear. But do what 
 you can for him and if you marry, have him with 
 you sometimes, will you ? " He gave her a kiss
 
 248 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 and went out, and she watched him call a cab 
 from the rank across the road and drive off. She 
 was standing there still when Strickland came to 
 shut the door. 
 
 " I don't like the Captain going off like that," 
 Strickland said, when they were back in the dining- 
 room and she was clearing away the plates and cup. 
 " It doesn't seem right somehow." 
 
 " I wonder what there is about marriage that is 
 so difficult," said Teresa sadly. " People nearly 
 always behave queerly after a bit. Even if they 
 don't actually quarrel they call each other ' dear ' 
 rather short and say ' it doesn't matter, thank 
 you,' and dreary things like that." 
 
 " I think, myself, better have a quarrel and have 
 done with it," said Strickland. "It is a mistake 
 to think over things too much. If a woman is busy 
 all day working she's no time to bother about the 
 man till it comes to getting his wages off him, and 
 then it's best to be civil." 
 
 " But, my dear, it is worse in working men's 
 houses," said Teresa. " If you counted up the 
 quarrels between husbands and wives in some of 
 those small streets ! " 
 
 " Quarrels, yes, Miss, that's what I said," Strick- 
 land replied. " But I thought you were speaking 
 of Captain Hatton going off so cold this morning, 
 and no one able to say exactly what has happened." 
 
 Susie came in at that moment and dismissed 
 Strickland with a rather reproving request for 
 breakfast at once. When the door was shut she 
 said to Teresa, " I do hope the maids haven't begun 
 gossiping about Evangeline already. What was 
 Strickland saying ? "
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 249 
 
 " We were talking about marriage and wondering 
 why it is so difficult," said Teresa. " She was sorry 
 Evan had gone off so drearily." 
 
 " Oh, has he gone ! " Susie exclaimed. " Really 
 he ought not to have done that. They will think all 
 sorts of absurd things, and now there is that nurse 
 to gossip with. You really encourage them some- 
 times, dear Dicky, by talking about a thing instead 
 of pretending there is nothing to notice." 
 
 " But I didn't know there was anything the 
 matter, except that Chips was ill," said Teresa in 
 astonishment. " I was talking to Strickland about 
 married people's manner to each other. What has 
 happened ? " 
 
 " Evan made a very foolish and cruel plan to 
 send poor little Ivor to a strict school in the furthest 
 part of Cornwall. There was no persuading him, 
 so Evangeline very wisely took the whole thing out 
 of his hands." 
 
 " How ? " asked Teresa. " What could she do if 
 he wouldn't do what she wanted ? " 
 
 " Well you will find, dear, some day," said Susie, 
 " that when a man is bent on doing what is wrong 
 the only way is to seem as if it was all to go on as 
 he says and then trust to Providence to find some 
 way of stopping it when the time comes. Opposition 
 only makes him more determined, and he is more 
 likely to take precautions." 
 
 " I thought it was arranged by Evan and every- 
 body that Ivor was to go to Mrs. VachelTs." 
 
 " That was Evan's own silly arrangement, cer- 
 tainly, and Mrs. Vachell agreed just for the sake of 
 putting off the dreadful school time. And now 
 you see, mercifully the doctor says that Evangeline
 
 250 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 must, on no account, be worried, so darling Ivor 
 is to come here after all, as he ought to have in the 
 first place, and everything is all right. It is wonder- 
 ful how things work out if only one has trust." 
 
 " But then, I don't see what you are afraid of the 
 maids knowing, and why Evan is so cold," said 
 Teresa, very puzzled. 
 
 " Well, of course Evan wasn't pleased with the 
 alteration of plan. You couldn't expect him to be. 
 And Evangeline has got so ill with the anxiety. 
 
 If she had only trusted to it's coming out right . 
 
 But she got run down and worried, and what with 
 one thing and another, she didn't want to see Evan 
 or to hear any more discussion, and I thought the 
 maids would think it so odd. You know how in 
 that class everything is sacrificed to the man because 
 he has the money, and they don't understand any- 
 thing between a difference of opinion and actual 
 quarrelling." 
 
 " I see," said Teresa thoughtfully. 
 
 " I wouldn't talk to Evangeline about it, I think, 
 dear," said Susie after a pause. " The doctor says 
 she must be kept very quiet." 
 
 Later in the morning Evangeline asked for Teresa 
 to come up to her room. She was in bed, looking 
 white and tired and the nurse was quietly dusting. 
 
 " Wouldn't you like some tea, Nurse ? " Evange- 
 line suggested. " Strickland is sure to be making 
 some if it is eleven o'clock." 
 
 " I don't mind leaving you for half an hour if that 
 is what you want," said the nurse with a smile. 
 " But don't talk about any worries, there's a dear, 
 or you will get your temperature up again. You'll 
 not let her tire herself, will you ? " she said to
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 251 
 
 Teresa. " And I'll leave this little bell here in case 
 you want anything." 
 
 " Everything is quite all right, you know," she 
 said soothingly, as she arranged the bedclothes 
 before departing. " Your husband sent you his 
 best love when he went off this morning, only you 
 were asleep and he wouldn't disturb you. And 
 everything is ready for the little boy when he comes. 
 He will be pleased to see his Mummy again, won't 
 he?" 
 
 " Oh yes, yes," said Evangeline, "it is all right. 
 Do go and get your tea, Nurse ; we won't do any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Well, did you see him ? " she asked eagerly, 
 when the nurse had gone. 
 
 " Yes, I did. He was very nice about you. He 
 asked me to write and tell him how you are, and I 
 said I would." 
 
 " Forgive me, Dicky, for not telling you what 
 I meant to do," said Evangeline. " But I knew it 
 would make you miserable, and I couldn't stand 
 discussion." 
 
 " I don't mind that a bit," she answered, " but 
 if you get into a mess again, Chips, do tell Father. 
 I think Mother's way of deceiving men on principle is 
 a mistake, apart from whether it is right or wrong. 
 I think you could have got Evan to do anything 
 you liked if you had told Father, because, after all, 
 it was quite reasonable, only I expect he didn't in 
 the least understand. You told me once that if 
 you want to make him see your side of the argument 
 you have to translate it into different terms, because 
 lie uses other ways of expressing the same things. 
 You see, Father would probably have used very
 
 252 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 bad language and said that the school Evan wanted 
 was kept by a lot of damned tea-drinking, blanketty- 
 blank-I-don't-know-what's, and then Evan would 
 have understood that it wasn't really a good plan." 
 
 " Well, it is done now and he is gone," said Evange- 
 line. " I shall never see him again. I've deceived 
 him and that is the end. But if he hadn't told Mrs. 
 Vachell what he meant to do I should never have 
 found out. I knew nothing about the school until 
 she told me." 
 
 " Didn't you ! Oh, Chips, how horrid ! But 
 then, he must have deceived you, too, so it is rather 
 like what Mother says about being ' taught to be 
 wicked.' It is so odd if you come to think of it that 
 what she says should really come true, perhaps for 
 the first time ; though it is too near the bone to be 
 so funny as it might be." 
 
 " Do you know, I never thought of that," Evange- 
 line remarked, " but, of course he did. That makes 
 it a lot better." 
 
 " No it doesn't. It doesn't make any difference 
 either way. But, at least, you can both say you 
 are sorry and start again." 
 
 " But Dicky, I didn't tell you there is going to 
 be a new one, and then everything will begin all 
 over again. I could perhaps have held out until 
 Ivor goes to school in the ordinary way, which of 
 course I want him to, and after that he will be able 
 to look after himself ; but I can't go through it all 
 with another." Her eyes looked large and startled. 
 
 " But he hasn't done Ivor any harm," Teresa 
 protested, " and he will see by and by that he is not 
 a tiresome little boy, and then he won't want to 
 interfere."
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 253 
 
 " But the strain of perpetually smoothing things 
 
 over and avoiding rows . You don't know what 
 
 hell it is. We never laugh now except when he's 
 out of the house, and when I hear his latchkey it is 
 like hearing the prison door shut again after one had 
 escaped." 
 
 " For the Lord's sake don't cry," said Teresa, 
 " or the nurse will never let me up here again. It is 
 all over now, Chips. There's months and months 
 for things to settle, and they always do settle. 
 Nothing ever goes on as it is. I wish it did some- 
 times, but life is a very restless thing, like the kind 
 of person who is always saying, ' Well, what shall 
 we do next ? ' You will see something will turn 
 up." 
 
 But months went by, and nothing did turn up. 
 The carrier sparrows of Millport somehow dis- 
 seminated the news that the Hattons had had a 
 split. One report said that Evangeline was looking 
 ill and went nowhere. This was contradicted by 
 someone who had met her at the theatre, " In quite 
 her old spirits." Mrs. Carpenter determined to 
 sift the matter to the bottom, and invited Evange- 
 line to tea. She refused, so Mrs. Carpenter called 
 on Susie and found Mrs. Gainsborough there. 
 Evangeline had gone to stay for the week-end with 
 her sisters-in-law, Susie announced with secret 
 pleasure. No one but herself knew what a relief 
 it was to have such a respectable piece of news to 
 impart. For since Mrs. Carpenter's visit of inquiry 
 during the summer holiday she had been in daily 
 dread of what the mysterious " little bird " then 
 alluded to might not choose for its subject next 
 time it sang songs of Araby to its kind patroness.
 
 254 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " The Hattons are charming girls and devoted to 
 Evangeline," Susie added. 
 
 " I suppose she will be going out to her husband 
 soon," said Mrs. Carpenter. " She will get the 
 climate at its very best about now I should think." 
 
 " Oh dear no, she is not going to Egypt," said 
 Susie, with great surprise at such an idea. " She 
 gave that up from the very first. It was really 
 foolish of her to think of it at all, but she was so 
 anxious to be with him. But Doctor Clark says it 
 would never do to take the risk. It would be 
 difficult to get a proper nurse out there, and either 
 to keep a baby out in the heat or to bring it home 
 such a long way would be risky. No, there is no 
 idea of that." 
 
 Susie had always had a lurking taste for critical 
 situations requiring skill in manipulating censorious 
 persons, and whenever she managed to get out of a 
 difficult place with credit, she always felt an in- 
 creased sense of safety from the snares of the stupid 
 and downright who persist in making life difficult by 
 wanting everything set down in black and white. 
 
 " Oh certainly, you are very wise," Mrs. Carpenter 
 agreed, " though it always seems hard on a husband 
 when he is away a long time. Dear Mamma 
 always insisted on going out to India whatever 
 happened. One of us was even born at sea when the 
 doctor had said that he wouldn't be responsible for 
 her unless she spent one hot weather at home. 
 However, she was back again that autumn and we 
 were all left with dear Grannie until Papa came home 
 for good." 
 
 " I never think that mothers were so wise in those 
 days as they are now," said Susie. " One reads of so
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 255 
 
 many little lives sacrificed to theories of that sort. 
 Mothers away, careless nurses and governesses, cold 
 bathing and all sorts of tyrannical rules. They did 
 nobody any good that one can see." 
 
 " Don't you think that generation were very 
 much stronger, though, than the present one ? " 
 asked Mrs. Carpenter. " I do, and I think they were 
 more high principled." 
 
 " Oh no, I don't think so," Susie answered in 
 gentle rebuke. " Look at the drinking that went on, 
 for instance. Even gentlemen used to spend their 
 evenings under the table, unable to sit up, and they 
 did just as they liked, and no one dared to say any- 
 thing. The divorce laws are improving all the time 
 now, though, of course, it is still dreadfully wrong 
 whichever way you look at it. Still, I think people 
 have higher ideals than they did." 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter was completely crushed for the 
 moment. Susie had left no opening for her to 
 score, for modern ideals were her own favourite 
 topic, which she was sometimes unwisely tempted 
 to confuse with the superiority of her own infancy. 
 Susie, though she was by nature always anxious to 
 smooth over all friction between other people, and 
 to establish her own spiritual triumph over sordid 
 dispute, had lately passed through a dangerous 
 crisis, owing to the fact that her own intrigues against 
 her son-in-law might be exposed at any moment by 
 Evangeline's impatient candour or Mrs. VacheLL's 
 boastful contempt for male authority. It was 
 necessary that she should build for herself a strong 
 pedestal of Courage-to-do-what-is-right-at-all-costs, 
 and she chose to cement it with a plastering of the 
 Best Modern Thought. Once her position was on a
 
 256 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 solid foundation, she would withdraw again behind 
 her inviolable mist of vagueness. It is easy to 
 imagine how foolish a veiled figure of Mystery 
 would look, toppled over and broken, with nothing 
 left but some meaningless drapery and wire, com- 
 pared to that of, let us say, Nelson, whose every 
 separate feature and limb would retain its in- 
 dividuality, whether erect above the ground or 
 scattered upon it. 
 
 " These strikes are very terrible," Mrs. Gains- 
 borough remarked, seizing upon the nearest current 
 topic in order to save herself from the perils of 
 controversy into which she might be drawn at any 
 moment. Poor woman 1 She chose badly. 
 
 "It is all very largely the fault of so-called 
 education," said Mrs. Carpenter, pulling herself 
 together for a new line of self-assertion. " They 
 insist on everybody being taught to read, and send 
 working-men to the Universities, and then are 
 surprised that they read the wrong things. Of 
 course they read whatever is sensational, just as 
 our maids prefer trashy novels about peers marrying 
 housemaids, and they won't look at the classics. 
 All that the strikers want is gramophones and 
 pianos that they can't play and motors to go to 
 work in instead of trams. They are far better 
 paid than our wretched clergy, for instance. I 
 looked in on little Jenny Abel the other day, and 
 found her and the children having tea with nothing 
 but bread and a scraping of margarine, and all of 
 them with colds, and Jenny simply worn out with 
 doing all the housework and the cooking. The 
 small girl they had had gone off to a place where 
 she was getting 35 a year ; more than Jenny has
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 257 
 
 to dress herself and all the children. The girl's 
 mother took her away because she said she wasn't 
 properly fed and had too much to do. Said she 
 shouldn't touch margarine. ' Nasty poor stuff, I 
 call it ! ' she said ; and the girl must have butter 
 and jam and something hot for supper and every 
 afternoon off from three to six and two evenings a 
 week out until ten." 
 
 " But I really don't think you would find those 
 sort of girls very much educated," said Mrs. Gains- 
 borough nervously. " They are not the kind who 
 take scholarships. They are, in a way, more like 
 some of the girls one meets about in society just 
 now ; selfish, you know, thinking of nothing but 
 amusing themselves." 
 
 " I don't know at all where you meet such girls, 
 dear lady," Mrs. Carpenter answered rather acidly. 
 " All my friends' daughters whom I can think of 
 are taking up professions." 
 
 " Yes, but rather for the fun of it, don't you 
 think ? " poor Mrs. Gainsborough suggested, plung- 
 ing more and more wildly. " They don't like to be 
 worried by home life and they prefer working with 
 men and so on. It is very natural, poor young 
 things. Just what I should have done myself if I 
 had been born later." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Gainsborough, how shockingly 
 indiscreet 1 " said Mrs. Carpenter with a silly little 
 laugh. " I hope you won't go round the University 
 saying that women take degrees in order to be with 
 men. You will raise a nice hornets' nest if you do." 
 
 " Oh dear me, no, that is not in the least what I 
 meant," stammered Mrs. Gainsborough. " Most of 
 the girls are splendid and don't run after the boys
 
 258 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 at all. But I meant that I don't think that they 
 care about domestic things so much and that it is 
 partly to escape from them that they take up pro- 
 fessions. I can't believe that some of them who 
 are really pretty and charming can care very much 
 for mathematics and the other subjects of that sort 
 that they take." 
 
 " Evangeline was telling me that she read in 
 some paper that socialism is taking a great hold in 
 the Universities," said Susie. " I think it is a pity, 
 because though it is a nice idea in many ways it 
 doesn't seem practicable. What you were saying 
 just now about Mrs. Abel just shows that everybody 
 is not fitted for the same kind of work ; and either 
 very strong people would get into mischief from 
 not having enough to do or else the weaker ones 
 would die through having too much to do." 
 
 " I think the chief difficulty would be with the 
 ordinary British working man," said Mrs. Gains- 
 borough, innocently. " They do so dislike regula- 
 tions of any sort, and if they chose to stop work 
 for any reason I believe they would always do it. 
 They would take no notice of orders or shots or 
 anything. They are so unused to not doing what 
 they want and you can't argue with them. They 
 would just say it was all nonsense. They are very 
 strong and not at all hysterical like foreigners. 
 They never paid the least attention to rationing, 
 you remember, during the war ; no tradesman dared 
 to enforce it in the industrial districts. They don't 
 mind losing their lives but they seem to think it so 
 silly to be ordered about at home and so it is, I 
 quite agree." 
 
 " Of course," said Susie, placidly, " if anyone
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 259 
 
 could be found who had really enjoyed a revolution 
 it would be different and one would have more 
 sympathy. It is worth any sacrifice to make 
 people happy. But beyond a few brutal kind of 
 men, who I am sure are either naturally disagreeable 
 or not English, it seems to make everyone discon- 
 tented. Even the people who make themselves 
 comfortable in ruined palaces must be afraid of 
 someone wanting to turn them out. It all seems so 
 gloomy from what one reads. Must you really go ? 
 I hope you will come back, Mrs. Carpenter, and see 
 Evangeline when she comes home. Now she is here 
 for good she will want something to interest her. 
 She might help you perhaps at Christmas with your 
 parcels distribution. Dear Evan was so anxious 
 she should be too busy and happy to miss him 
 just now."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 JUST before- Christmas, Teresa met Lady Varens in 
 a shop. " My dear, I am so glad to see you," said 
 the soft voice that reminded her of Aldwych and 
 her first happiness there. " Come and have tea 
 with me somewhere. I have a great deal to tell 
 you." Teresa's heart bounded and bumped. It 
 seemed a year before the girl behind the counter 
 located her particular little wooden ball from 
 among the dozens that were bowling along the wire 
 above her head, carrying little scraps of paper and 
 small change to a stupid public who did not know 
 David. She followed Lady Varens through the 
 crowd to a shop on the other side of the street, 
 where they sat down at a table shut away in a 
 recess off the main room. " What would you 
 like ? " Lady Varens asked ; " tea and crumpets ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, anything, awfully," said Teresa, hardly 
 able to hide her impatience. 
 
 " David is coming back next week, did you 
 know ? " said Lady Varens. " Has he written to 
 you ? " 
 
 " No," said Teresa ; " I haven't heard from him 
 for a year." Tears came into her eyes, but she 
 flattered herself that they were unobserved. 
 
 " We are both going to stay with Mr. Manley," 
 Lady Varens went on. " I had just let my villa 
 and was going to friends in Rome when David's 
 
 260
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 261 
 
 letter came ; but I didn't want to lose any time by 
 bringing him round all that way so I came here and 
 Mr. Manley wants us both to go to him. We must 
 settle finally with the Prices whether we take 
 Aldwych back next year or whether I go out with 
 David to the Argentine. He has a charming house 
 there." 
 
 " Oh," said Teresa, " and which do you think 
 you will do ? " Her heart seemed to have stood 
 still for a year, waiting for the answer, before it 
 came. 
 
 " I don't know at all, but old Bessie, David's 
 nurse, who writes to me sometimes from the village, 
 says they are all longing for him to come back. 
 The Prices seem to have put everybody's back up. 
 None of the outside people will stay if he buys the 
 place and ^he makes all sorts of mischief with the 
 bailiff and the farmers, imagining he is being robbed 
 of sixpence somewhere or other. He says that if 
 he buys it he is going to get an American expert 
 over to run it all on some new system by which 
 everything is organised and checked automatically, 
 and the output, as they call it, of every grain and 
 cow and rabbit and man and boy on the place is 
 ascertained, and if it doesn't work out at the maxi- 
 mum the animal is destroyed and the man is sacked." 
 
 " Oh, David must come back," said Teresa. " It 
 sounds too horrible." 
 
 " Very well then, dear, tell him so," said Lady 
 Varens, drinking her tea peacefully without a hint 
 of intention in her voice. 
 
 " I can't think why the man in the Bible was told 
 to give all his money to the poor if it wasn't the 
 right thing to do," said Teresa. She put her chin
 
 262 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 on her hands and puckered her brow over some 
 inner problem. 
 
 " I think it was probably suggested more for his 
 benefit than for that of the poor," said Lady Varens. 
 " It is the giving that matters much more than who 
 gets the stuff." 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " said Teresa. 
 
 " Yes, personally I do. People can only be 
 governed by the qualities that are in them, and a 
 state can't make them equal, because it is made up 
 itself of inequalities. It can never be made into an 
 automatic machine ; it is alive made of live things. 
 I can't understand how even decent socialists can 
 expect it to act as if it were a machine. Of course 
 one knows what bad communists are after. They 
 are just criminal tyrants who want to be beasts in 
 control instead of controlled beasts. But the good 
 ones make me desperate. It is so impossible to 
 imagine anything but disaster coming from their 
 innocent idiocy. They seem to go on blindly 
 hoping that human intelligence can devise a scheme 
 that is proof against human intelligence. They are 
 dear things but I do wish they would take their 
 hobby horses to some place where the bad boys 
 couldn't harness them to the cart that will land us 
 all in the ditch. They think they can out-theorise 
 history and all forms of religion." 
 
 Two little tears rolled at last down Teresa's cheeks 
 and were lost in the cup with which she tried in vain 
 to hide them. Their salt taste symbolised to her 
 the bitterness of her failure. 
 
 " Oh, bother it ! " she said ; " I give up here and 
 now trying to do any good. It is no earthly use." 
 
 " David said that when he left Oxford," said
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 263 
 
 Lady Varens, lighting a cigarette to avoid Teresa's 
 eye. " But in a way he works harder than ever at 
 it now." 
 
 " Does he ? " Teresa answered with elaborate 
 indifference. 
 
 " Yes ; won't you come to dinner with us while 
 we are with Mr. Manley ? He said I was to ask 
 anyone I liked and he loves you." 
 
 " Yes, I would like to." 
 
 " Very well ; come next Thursday if you are not 
 too busy," said Lady Varens. " By the way, how 
 is your sister ? Are they still at Drage ? " 
 
 " Oh, no dear me, it is a long story to tell you 
 all the things that have happened since you left. 
 But Evan is in Egypt and Evangeline and Ivor are 
 with us." 
 
 " I am sorry ; that sounds dreary," she said. 
 " I never knew your sister well, but I liked him 
 though he seemed so different from her. I often 
 wished he had thought of going out to the colonies 
 or something of that sort. I believe it would have 
 suited her. I can't see her in a garrison town." 
 
 " She used to say she would like to lead two lives 
 at once," said Teresa. " One assort of Wild West 
 business and the other with someone very literary, 
 but Evan isn't either, so I suppose people com- 
 promise or do something different from what they 
 intended." 
 
 " Tell me, Teresa," said Lady Varens, " I am not 
 asking from curiosity ; is it a success ? " 
 
 " Chips could make a success of almost anybody 
 who didn't interfere with her," Teresa replied. 
 " She is not at all exacting and she is so affectionate. 
 But Evan is a little like John Knox or that sort of
 
 264 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 person ; then she does things without telling him 
 and he gets all sorts of ideas into his head. I do 
 hate Mrs. Vachell. I think she does more harm 
 than a thousand mothers-in-law." Lady Varens 
 laughed. 
 
 " Do be careful what you say about mothers-in- 
 law. When David marries I shall remind you of 
 that remark and ask you not to suggest to my 
 daughter-in-law that I interfere, because I don't." 
 
 Teresa blushed and looked vexed. " I had for- 
 gotten about you, really," she said. " But Mrs. 
 Vachell came to stay by the sea when Chips and I 
 were there with Ivor, and it all went wrong after 
 that. I don't think they were ever happy again. 
 And I believe she only did it out of sheer spite 
 because she hates men." 
 
 " Does she ? I should never have guessed that," 
 said Lady Varens. 
 
 " No, nobody would. She never says a word, 
 but she used to get at that wretched boy Fisk, 
 at the University, and put him up to all sorts of 
 revolutions ; not because she cares twopence 
 about the poor, I think, unless they are women, 
 but she wants women to govern everything, and I 
 think she got him to believe that they would all 
 help a revolution for the sake of making laws to 
 get what they want for themselves. Don't you 
 think that Miss Smackfield would probably drop 
 her Bolshevism if there were any women capita- 
 lists ? " 
 
 " I don't know that I or anyone else knows exactly 
 what a capitalist is. But do you seriously suppose 
 Miss Smackfield cares a hang what any row is 
 about so long as she can be in the front with an
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 265 
 
 axe, shouting, ' Off with his head ! ' like the Queen 
 of the pack of cards. She would be forgotten 
 to-morrow if someone put a flower pot over her." 
 
 They talked for some little time and at last Lady 
 Varens said, " It is so difficult to remedy anything, 
 from a disease to a grievance. There is always a 
 ' vicious circle/ not one thing alone that is the 
 matter. People are ill because they fuss and fuss 
 because they are ill. There are some, I think, 
 who want a revolution because they are miserable, 
 and others who are miserable because they want 
 a revolution, another lot who make other people's 
 misfortunes an excuse for making a row and some 
 more who put all their misfortunes down to other 
 people's love of making a row. If you take a 
 human body in that sort of contradictory mess into 
 a doctor's consulting room, he pays no attention 
 to the details, but tells the patient to wash in the 
 Ganges or eat a lightly-boiled onion an hour before 
 sunset with his back to the north ; or else he tries 
 psycho-analysis or hypnotism." 
 
 " Oh, does he ? " said Teresa, who was quite 
 bewildered by this time. 
 
 " Yes, he does, and once upon a time it was done 
 with incantations and charms, or the fat of a 
 dormouse was rubbed under the ear. There was 
 Christianity too, with all sorts of by-products in 
 the way of Reformations and Crusades but you 
 see my point. A really engrossing superstition 
 or a creed with a ritual would be more useful than 
 discussing symptoms of national neurasthenia. 
 Any idea that is unselfish and clean would do, and 
 Bolshevism isn't either ; it is both selfish and 
 dirty."
 
 266 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " But you can't preach unselfishness to the 
 unemployed," Teresa objected, " not, anyhow, so 
 long as there are ' boudoir gowns for my lady when 
 she snatches a moment's rest in her strenuous 
 afternoon,' advertised in the papers. If I were 
 an unemployed, I should want to tear my lady in 
 pieces, and roll her beastly maid with the sofa 
 and the pot of chocolate over and over in the mud 
 on the Embankment." 
 
 " That's illogical," said Lady Varens. " I have 
 to shut my eyes tight when I see advertisements of 
 anything to do with my lady, because I know that 
 that sort of indignation is off the line. Com- 
 munism is dreary and crushing and impossible, 
 I think ; and if you are going to let people keep 
 the money they or their fathers make, then you 
 must let them alone to spend it as they like. There 
 are idiots in every class who chuck money about. 
 But, as I say, if you are going to admit freedom to 
 inherit and make, you must have freedom to spend 
 as well, or else Rule Britannia becomes Rule Bol- 
 shevina, and my dear friend, the British working 
 man, who hates to be hustled, will have to set up 
 his apple cart again in some other place." 
 
 " No, it is quite true, it won't suit him a bit," 
 said Teresa, thinking of Mr. Jason. 
 
 " I have tried to imagine the very beeriest British 
 loafer being made compulsorily drunk at stated 
 intervals by a public authority, and I can't see 
 him getting a bit of pleasure out of it. And as for 
 being compulsorily busy, and .obliged to see nothing 
 but good plays, and sent to hear good music 
 has any real Englishman ever devised such a plan, 
 or are they all those very unhumorous Huns in
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 267 
 
 disguise ? Only a nation that wears spectacles 
 could picture England as a community with rules, 
 except the ordinary policeman rules. But the 
 people have got so used to freedom that they may 
 let the thing go on and stand watching it like a 
 dog fight until it is done and has to be cleaned up." 
 
 " That is what Mrs. Vachell said about Evange- 
 line, that father wouldn't interfere about Evan 
 until he had actually done something. She said that 
 men won't bother to prevent a thing happening." 
 
 " What are you talking about ? " said Lady 
 Varens. 
 
 " Oh, I forgot, I was thinking about what you 
 said. Evan did rather try to work out theories 
 about Ivor and there was a bother that there 
 needn't have been if he and Chips had understood 
 each other instead of working separately. How- 
 ever that is nothing. I expect they will worry 
 through all right." 
 
 " Well, come and see David," said Lady Varens, 
 " and help us to decide what we will do. He is all 
 for stopping a muddle before it is too late." 
 
 Teresa went home in a tram, among the faces in 
 the fog, but she did not notice them. She was 
 tired to death by problems and counter problems ; 
 by desires that seemed to lead straight to a just 
 and happy end, and were blocked always, sooner 
 or later, by some defect of the quality that en- 
 gendered them. Equality had a way of elbowing 
 the grace of respect off the path, social recognition 
 bred snobbery and civic responsibility led to 
 jobbery, philanthropy grew so easily into impertin- 
 ence, reform into self-righteousness and content- 
 ment into smugness ; there seemed no end to the
 
 268 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 fine and stupid ideas that had started along the 
 same road. Innocence and discipline fought for 
 perfection in every imaginative task. She saw 
 a world full of Evans and Evangelines quarrelling 
 irreconcilably for ever, like Tweedledum and Tweedle- 
 dee. 
 
 The car trundled and swayed, grinding along 
 its rails. The distorted, grotesquely-dressed forms 
 that had been made beautiful all these years in 
 her imagination by the belief that they were princes 
 and princesses in disguise, waiting for the magic 
 touch of recognition to restore them to their king- 
 dom, failed for the first time to excite her interest. 
 The desire which used to entice her with the promise 
 of a new world had vanished, and left in its place 
 a message rather like the traditional note on the 
 pincushion left by the escaping heroine of romance. 
 The message said that the only truth on which 
 heaven and earth were agreed was that a marriage 
 would shortly take place. 
 
 She cheered up a little as she looked at the fog- 
 bound faces on either side of her, and thought how 
 greatly any of them might be improved by loving 
 any one as much as she loved David. Another 
 still more cheerful idea occurred to her, that per- 
 haps they did I Perhaps it was only the mud 
 filtering down upon the city that made them look 
 so depressed. Inside their minds there might be 
 an inextinguishable flame that only needed to 
 be kindled to destroy all anger and discontent. 
 " I suppose there will always be Evans and Evange- 
 lines," she thought, " all the Tweedledums and 
 Tweedledees, and they will fight about nothing 
 whenever they meet ; but if they were really in
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 269 
 
 love Evan wouldn't look for trouble and Evangeline 
 wouldn't try to walk round it ; they would go 
 through it together as it came. I am glad David 
 doesn't either worry or shirk but then, of course, 
 he wouldn't." 
 
 When she reached home she went up to the 
 nursery where Evangeline was putting Ivor to bed, 
 it being nurse's afternoon out. When he was 
 tucked up and Evangeline was tidying the nursery, 
 Teresa sat down by the fire and said, " I met Lady 
 Varens and had tea with her. David is coming 
 home in a few days, and they are going to stay with 
 Mr. Manley. They are going to make up their 
 minds what they will do with Aldwych." 
 
 " Oh, are they ? " said Evangeline. " Do you 
 suppose they will go back ? " 
 
 " I should think quite likely." 
 
 " You look very pleased, Dicky," said Evange- 
 line, looking at her sister's face in the firelight. 
 
 " I am so glad if it is all right. But Dicky " she 
 
 hesitated in a frightened way " you know I 
 have no nerves in these days, and I get unnecessary 
 panics , don't build on his being the same as 
 when he went away, will you? You know what 
 men are." 
 
 " Oh, Chips, do drop that men and women 
 business," said Teresa wearily. " There are men 
 and men and David is David." 
 
 " I know," she admitted, " but you see Evan is 
 also Evan, so I warn you from my experience 
 quite kindly meant, and you are angry, quite 
 fairly." 
 
 " I think you would like him best to be Evan if 
 you loved him," said Teresa. " He wouldn't be
 
 270 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 ' men ' any more, and you wouldn't compare him 
 with yourself." 
 
 " I do love him," Evangeline answered ; " but 
 he thinks I don't because I deceived him." 
 
 " Do you suppose he doesn't love you because he 
 deceived you ? " 
 
 " I am sure he doesn't, because men I am sorry, 
 I won't say it. But he is always talking about 
 ' women ' too. In fact, he began." 
 
 " Do you know, as I was coming up in the tram 
 it occurred to me how like Tweedledum and Tweedle- 
 dee you two are, and now what you say makes you 
 more absurdly like. They never knew which began 
 the quarrels. You need a ' monstrous crow ' to 
 send you both flying into one another's arms. Of 
 course if you were in a book Ivor would have a 
 dangerous illness or something silly like that." 
 
 " That would only make us hate each other more 
 because he would say that God did it for our good, 
 and I should say that God was sorry the devil 
 did it." 
 
 " And suppose Ivor died, whose doing would you 
 say it was ? " 
 
 " No one's doing at all. But I should say the 
 devil made the germs and that God did nothing, 
 except that He was glad to have Ivor back." 
 
 " I am sure that is very bad theology," said 
 Teresa, " You can't have Badness with a definite 
 intention and Goodness without any." 
 
 " Why not ? Intentions mean brains and theories 
 and I do loathe them more than I can tell you. 
 I'm content with things that are alive and perfect ; 
 I mean without diseases and sins. One doesn't 
 need any intention for loving the sun and every-
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 271 
 
 thing that I call ' God.' But Evan sets his brain 
 humming and buzzing like a factory to make up 
 the awful Moloch of a creature that he worships." 
 
 "It is very odd," said Teresa, " how people 
 have always been more annoyed by each other's 
 religions than by anything else. I am myself. 
 I could put up with Mrs. Carpenter's face, if it 
 were not for the things she says about the Church. 
 But there we go again ! I suppose if a monstrous 
 crow could frighten quarrellers apart a monstrous 
 dove might prevent them from fighting ; but I 
 don't know, and there would probably be some 
 drawback to that too ; there always is. I am 
 going to meet David next week." 
 
 " You know, I can't go on living at home for 
 ever," said Evangeline. " I shall have to arrange 
 something when all this business is over, and what 
 am I going to tell people ? I can't keep an unex- 
 plained husband in the background all my life. 
 Just think of it ! Very little money, no man, no 
 father for the children and no explanation to give. 
 I shall have to become a paid agitator in self- 
 defence." 
 
 " To agitate about what ? " 
 
 " Oh, anything. Mrs. Vachell belongs to all 
 sorts of societies. I might help to run a paper. 
 I've always liked papers." 
 
 " Yes, I know you have," said Teresa. " I 
 think, Chips, if you hadn't sat so comfortably in 
 the sun, and been content with sensations you might 
 have found out more for yourself. Isn't that why 
 we called you ' Chips,' just because you were always 
 picking up bits of information ? I always think of 
 toast and newspapers when I remember you as
 
 272 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 my elder sister in the nursery. Either with toast 
 and newspapers by the fire or else out in the garden 
 when you ought to have been somewhere else. 
 Do you remember when you brought in a worm 
 when we were away in the country, and you put 
 it on a doll's chair on the tea table, and tried to 
 make it sit up, and Miss Jacks came in ? But to 
 go back to your newspaper ; you can't do that. 
 Do wait until you are well again, and then go 
 away from Mrs. Vachell, and write to Evan. I 
 am not sure you hadn't better leave your family 
 with nurse and me somewhere, and go to Egypt 
 yourself ; but, anyhow, it will be all right. I 
 have told you things are always happening." 
 
 " Evan's sisters are another problem," Evange- 
 line said presently. " They don't know anything 
 yet, but they keep on wanting Ivor to go there, 
 and when they do find out they will do everything 
 they can to get him taken away from me. They 
 will think I am an active danger if I differ from 
 Evan hi any way. And they are so silly with 
 Ivor. They do spoil him so." 
 
 " I think that is awfully funny," said Teresa. 
 " Doesn't it amuse you if you think of it ? " 
 
 " You mean because Evan complains of me 
 spoiling him ? But then, you see, I don't and they 
 do. You never saw such drivel as they carry on. 
 Ivor gets quite imbecile when he is there ; he hardly 
 seems the same. It isn't gaiety, it is a sort of 
 orgie of pranks ; like those wearisome film comedies 
 where a lot of people slip up on a piece of soap, 
 and get covered with whitewash and food. Really 
 when I am staying there I often feel like asking the 
 cook to shoot me into the dining-room by the
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 273 
 
 hatch and fling a basin of custard after me just 
 so as not to damp the party." 
 
 " Doesn't Evan mind that ? " 
 
 " No, he doesn't, because it is something that 
 can be explained. It doesn't amuse him, but he 
 can pigeon-hole it as ' all good girls' ' way of amus- 
 ing themselves. It has nothing to do with him, 
 but it is a necessary cog in the machinery of a nice 
 family so he can get on with something else while 
 they do it. It is almost like a domestic rite. But 
 when I enjoy myself he thinks it is moral indulgence 
 because it isn't planned out and it isn't tiring." 
 
 " I don't know how father gets on so well with 
 all sorts of different people," said Teresa. " It 
 never seems to bother him if they don't understand 
 what he is talking about. He never tries to explain 
 himself or cares whether they agree with him or 
 not." 
 
 "No, I daresay, but then he has only got himself 
 to bother about," said Evangeline. " If he had 
 to protect us from a wife with high principles it 
 might make him think a bit." 
 
 Teresa dreaded telling her mother about the 
 Varens' return. Experience has taught me that 
 there are many painstaking minds who will come 
 to a knot at this point, and want to be told why 
 any young girl with a clear conscience should 
 dread to tell so amiable and good a mother that an 
 eligible young man, dear to them both, has returned 
 to the neighbourhood. But it cannot be made 
 quite clear to all readers. The nearest thing that 
 can be said is that perhaps if Susie had been known 
 to approve less of the possibility with which Teresa 
 was secretly aglow, the girl would have been less
 
 274 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 anxious to keep it to herself. " Alice in Wonderland " 
 is full of the everyday experience of simple people, 
 and in one of those irrational gambollings of the 
 female mind which have been referred to on another 
 page I seem to see Susie represented by the kindly 
 Dodo who said to Alice after she had won the race, 
 " I beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble," 
 and presented her with her own property. Teresa 
 was as straight-forward as Alice, and liked things 
 to work out logically, so she resented being led up 
 to her lover, as much as she disliked hearing Mrs. 
 Carpenter instruct Mrs. Potter in the art of patience. 
 
 She decided now that the dangerous moment could 
 be most successfully faced under Cyril's protection, 
 so she announced at dinner, " I met Lady Varens 
 to-day, and they are both coming back, probably 
 for good." She made the news sound as gossipy 
 and impersonal as she could, and shot a rapid glance 
 at her father. 
 
 " I am glad to hear that," he replied. " The 
 Perkin Warbecks can now resume their normal 
 occupations." 
 
 " Who are they ? " she said. 
 
 " I don't know who they were, but I remember 
 being sent to bed because I didn't know that they 
 aspired to the throne. I've remembered their 
 beastly names ever since." 
 
 " They are staying with Mr. Manley," Teresa 
 went on, " at least she is, and David is going there 
 next week. I promised to go to dinner one evening, 
 so I can tell them about the Perkin Warbecks. It 
 is nice to think how pleased the farmers will be, 
 isn't it ? " She felt some pride in the way she was 
 conducting this affair.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 275 
 
 " Very nice, dear," said Susie quietly. " Do you 
 know at all how he got on in the Argentine ? " 
 
 " No, she didn't say," Teresa answered. 
 
 " I thought perhaps you might have heard 
 sometimes," said Susie. " So often out in those 
 lonely places people are so glad of posts, and they 
 write and tell one all sorts of things about them- 
 selves, just with the idea of getting an answer. I 
 remember I had a cousin who used to write dread- 
 fully dull letters all about the country and then 
 strings and strings of questions." 
 
 Teresa need not have been afraid. Her mother 
 did, as Evangeline had pointed out, achieve what 
 seemed like conjuring tricks in the lives of other 
 people, but she only prepared spiritual omelets in 
 places where no omelet was likely to be made in the 
 ordinary way. Having satisfied herself now that 
 Teresa had been completely cut off from David 
 while he was away and was full of suppressed excite- 
 ment at his return, she was too great an artist in 
 mystery to use apparatus when the laws of nature 
 were already operating in the direction she wished. 
 
 Three days after this was Christmas Day, and 
 both Susie and Teresa had a busy day before them. 
 Susie was to attend a tea and distribution of useful 
 Christmas presents to the inmates of the Mary 
 Popley Home, and Teresa was to help serve dinner 
 to some hundreds of street urchins, members of 
 one of the many organisations with which Emma's 
 devoted band worked ceaselessly and hopefully, 
 undeterred by rumours of class war or theories 
 about the reconstruction of the State. Emma's 
 workers got on with the business of cleaning the city 
 as best they could, while Fisk, the people's friend,
 
 276 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 raved of blood and destruction, and then went home 
 to tend his dormice. Teresa's post was at the end 
 of a trestle table with nearly fifty boys on each side. 
 She was buttoned up to the neck in an overall ; 
 her face was hot from the stove beside her and from 
 the crowded atmosphere ; her head felt bursting 
 from the smell of poor homes and the clapper of 
 voices ; her feet were icy from the draught along 
 the wooden floor which was only separated from the 
 street by an open door and a long stone passage. In 
 front of her was a gigantic hot-pot, replaced by 
 another as soon as empty. She held in her hand a 
 long iron spoon, greasy from top to bottom and 
 heavy to wield. At her elbow were a pile of plates, 
 which were snatched up and borne away by other 
 helpers as fast as she filled them. There were three 
 tables altogether, and the same thing was happening 
 at both ends of each. Other people, visitors and 
 members of the committee, stood about the room 
 and looked on, giving a hand with any extra job 
 that was needed. When the last plate was filled 
 Teresa had a moment in which to look at the faces 
 down the table. They were all faces from behind 
 the fog, but they were young, and the Great De- 
 pression (as she called the public expression of 
 countenance when she first came to Millport) had 
 not yet reached them. Many of them were pale 
 and pinched, many were apple-faced, some fat and 
 white, but they were ail young and as free as 
 squirrels. They bore marks of cold and hunger, 
 some of them of cruelty and disease, every single 
 one of them had a cold in the head and took no 
 
 notice of it. " The plum pudding, Miss . May 
 
 I pass ? " said a voice beside her, and, as she moved,
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 277 
 
 a monstrous pudding was put before her and the 
 helpers pawed the ground in their impatience to be 
 off with the plates. Teresa doled out great helpings 
 of the stuff as fast as she could, grasping her heavy 
 spoon with both hands. Once more she had time 
 to look at the boys. They were not talking now ; 
 they were stuffing, and they had said all they had to 
 say to their neighbours. She saw one of them 
 deposit a large tablespoonful of the pudding in a 
 pocket of his little age- worn waistcoat, and in the 
 horror of the moment she exclaimed, " Child ! what 
 on earth are you doing ? " 
 
 " It's for me granny," he said, " she's sick." 
 Teresa experienced the upheaval of mind and body 
 that used to shake her with a general sense of topsy- 
 turvydom when she first took up Emma's work, 
 and which she had nearly lost during the last years. 
 She remembered Ivor as she had left him that 
 morning, happily engaged in discussion on seasonable 
 topics of revelry, she thought of dirty little faces 
 assembled outside toyshops lighted up early on 
 account of the penetrating fog ; she had a vision 
 of the Price family in paper caps seated among a 
 debris of hothouse dessert and wine and coffee and 
 expensive trifles in leather and gold, recently un- 
 wrapped from parcels, each " novelty " designed 
 to save small discomforts, such as the lighting of a 
 match or the turn of a head to see the time ; she 
 thought of Evan's sisters, giggling happily beneath 
 banners that advertised Peace and Goodwill, and of 
 Fisk at the other end of the Christmas dinner-table, 
 gloomily contemplating his father's mesalliance, the 
 Gainsboroughs' old cook who never could cook 
 anything decently, and who had now become the last
 
 278 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 straw on all that an unjust government had heaped 
 upon him at his birth. Teresa's mind, which had 
 by now established David in its background as a 
 referee in all debated questions, recalled at this 
 moment her first visit to Aldwych and her self- 
 reproach for having eaten the price of Albert 
 Potter's splints. " I have been along that road," 
 David had said, " and it leads nowhere except to a 
 maze where you lose yourself and die for want of a 
 new argument." " David ! " she cried now, in her 
 heart, " David ! get me out of this and take me 
 with you, if you know where you are going."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 SUSIE, meanwhile, was performing prodigies of peace 
 and goodwill at the Mary Popley Home. She 
 radiated the most suitable atmosphere that a lady 
 visitor to a rescue home could possibly have evolved 
 after years of thought, and she did it without any 
 thought at all ! The " inmates," as they were 
 called, and as we will call them for want of a less 
 lively word, literally basked in her smile. Grave 
 kindness they were accustomed to ; breeziness they 
 knew to satiety ; Mrs. Abel's generous pity almost 
 inconvenienced them ; but Susie's veil of aloofness 
 from everything real wrapped them in gossamer 
 of the angels who have no bodies. " Isn't she a 
 nice lady ? " they said among themselves, feeling 
 that, where she was, neither shame nor hope of 
 doing well eventually, nor gratitude for tolerance 
 would be expected of them. " It must be nice to be 
 a lady and able to do what yer like without any 'arm 
 coming of it," was what they mostly thought, in 
 place of the bitter reflections that stung them in the 
 presence of Mrs. Carpenter. " What does she know 
 about it ? " they were used to mutter, when that 
 excellent visitor explained to them the duties of 
 self-respect, the necessity for self-control, the joys 
 of home that they had forfeited, and the useful- 
 even-though-damaged lives they might yet lead. 
 " That there Jack, I used to tell you about, would 
 
 279
 
 28o THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 'ave taught 'er what for," was a favourite comment 
 of one of them after these occasions. " Telling us 
 as men is what we makes them, and 'adn't ought to 
 be encouraged 1 'E don't want much encouragin', 
 she'd find, if she got 'im 'ome, in spite of 'er face." 
 It seems almost a pity that this inmate could not 
 have heard Susie second the vote of thanks to the 
 committee at the Town Hall ; for one feels that 
 justice was hardly done to Mrs. Carpenter, while 
 Susie, who had said the same thing in other words, 
 was so much admired. But that, of course, was 
 never known, and probably if it had been, her 
 manner and her expression would have caused a 
 different interpretation to be put upon her words. 
 The inmates would have pictured themselves as 
 partakers in a scene of innocent pleasure, ended in 
 sorrow by the devil, while Mrs. Carpenter only 
 succeeded in offending them by the suggestion of 
 mischief done to an honest fellow. 
 
 " 'Ain't she a nice lady I " they repeated in admira- 
 tion. " I do like 'er 'at, and the way it is done at 
 the back. Just pass my cup up along there, 
 Veronica, would you ? " 
 
 " Give old pasty-face something to do for 'er 
 living," said Veronica, as she passed the cup up 
 the line, to where the under-matron was presiding 
 over the urns. 
 
 " You know, some of them are such nice girls," 
 Mrs. Abel was saying enthusiastically to Susie at 
 the same moment. " I can't tell you what splendid 
 natures they have. That one down there Veronica 
 Baker it's the saddest history, but I won't tell 
 you now. She is simply devoted to the baby such 
 a darling it is and I am hoping to get her a really
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 281 
 
 good job where she can keep it with her. It is with 
 her mother at present." 
 
 " I do hope the old woman is good to it," said 
 Susie. " It would be terrible if anything happened 
 to it while the mother is here. That is th_e worst 
 of Homes I always think, although they are so 
 necessary and splendid in every way. But so few 
 of them are able to arrange to keep the mothers 
 and children together, and it does separate them so 
 in cases where it isn't possible. Don't you think 
 there is that about them ? " 
 
 " Yes, but then what can one do ? " said Mrs. 
 Abel a little sadly. " One can't leave them to go 
 on with the life, and in many cases it is better that 
 the child should be sent to some place that is known 
 to be all right, so that the mother may not be 
 hampered in finding work. It goes against them 
 very much with some people if the child is seen." 
 
 " I do think," said Susie, " that if the girls could be 
 got to see before they go so far what will happen if 
 they do, it might prevent them. It seems to me 
 sadder than any amount of difficulty in making 
 ends meet." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, it does," said Mrs. Abel, greatly 
 touched, poor little thing. " When I think of 
 my own home and how difficult things are just 
 now, and yet how we have been kept from all 
 unhappiness, I think I hardly know how to be 
 thankful enough." 
 
 " It must be so delightful to have your husband 
 with you in everything," Susie said with a little 
 sigh. " It must make up for any anxiety. If one 
 is thoroughly understood nothing else matters. 
 I was so glad you did so well with the sale of work
 
 282 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 in the summer. Drink is really another of the 
 worst problems, I think. Do you rind many in your 
 Home are any better ? " 
 
 " Well, it is impossible to say whether any of 
 them are really cured," said Mrs. Abel. " But a 
 great many have gone out and kept steady for 
 several years, and now and then we hear from 
 them that they are doing well. But of course some 
 of them relapse and then they sometimes come back 
 for a time. But if we get them quite early on I 
 believe there is every chance of their keeping 
 straight. Only it is so difficult to persuade them 
 to come in then." 
 
 " What a pity it is that wine was ever invented," 
 said Susie. " I can't think what people want with 
 it. It only makes them noisy and stupid ; not 
 really cheerful." 
 
 " I don't think it is wine that matters," said 
 Mrs. Abel. " In fact a little of it would do them 
 good if they could get it. It is the beer and spirits 
 that are so bad, because they take such quantities 
 of beer and so little spirits affects them, especially 
 the stuff they can afford. My husband doesn't at 
 all believe in actual teetotalism, except as a help 
 to those who can't keep away from it. The doctor 
 says a glass of port would do him all the good in 
 the world in the evening, but I can't get him to 
 take it, just for the sake of the example." 
 
 " How splendid of him I " Susie exclaimed. 
 " I wish I could persuade my husband to set the 
 example to his men." 
 
 " You see, it is the evenings that are such a 
 temptation," Mrs. Abel went on. " Their homes 
 are so dreadfully uncomfortable, with the children
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 283 
 
 all about and everything in a mess and nothing to 
 do. Of course they prefer the public-houses and 
 the clubs." 
 
 " But if the children went to bed in proper time 
 and the wives kept their sewing until the evening 
 it would be quite simple," Susie declared. " They 
 seem to have no idea of time." 
 
 " Still, I know myself that it is not easy to have 
 everything straight by the evening," Mrs. Abel 
 sighed. " Now my little maid has gone and I 
 have everything to do for the children, besides the 
 house and the parish, I find it very difficult to be 
 all neat and good tempered, and ready to listen to 
 my husband, though I am longing to hear all about 
 his day. And then, you see, very often with those 
 people the children have nowhere to sleep except 
 the living-room, and there is hardly room for them 
 all to sit round and perhaps no fire and if there 
 is illness and they have no occupations to keep 
 them quiet. And besides, some of the houses you 
 really can't make clean or cheerful, and if the man 
 does get good wages for a time it all goes as soon as 
 there is unemployment or if he meets with an 
 accident ; the insurance doesn't cover it all. At 
 least I know my husband will get his stipend what- 
 ever happens, and people are very kind and good. 
 We were so touched by the amount of the Easter 
 Offering this year, although it is such a poor parish." 
 
 " Mrs. Fulton, would you like to come and see 
 the distribution of presents ? " said the matron, 
 advancing to Susie with a smile that she did her 
 best to make genial. Long years of bringing the 
 passions of other people into line had made it 
 difficult for her to relax at different milestones of
 
 284 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 the Almanack into the requirements of a moral 
 armistice. 
 
 Susie followed her into the next room, where a 
 small Christmas tree was glimmering and dropping 
 wax on to a table ; round it, piled high, were parcels 
 with the forbiddingly soft contours that betray 
 to the experienced eye the presence of wool in 
 unattractive shapes. Two smiling men with eye- 
 glasses and gay waistcoats, and Mr. Abel, well-bred, 
 shabby, harassed, devoted and obviously in need 
 of port wine, stood by with sponges, ready to quench 
 any untoward splutterings between the dim flames 
 and the branches on which they drooped. Festoons 
 of tinselled cotton hung between the pine needles 
 which still smelled of the forest, and on the top 
 spike, precariously inclined, was a cardboard Father 
 Christmas with frosted boots and a face like Mr. 
 Price after dinner. The inmates crowded round, 
 murmuring among themselves in drawling exclama- 
 tions peculiar to the class who spend so much of 
 their lives as onlookers at all kinds of pageantry. 
 
 " Eh, luk ! " they said. " H'm yes, it is, i'nt 
 it ! eh, to be sure ! See, Lily, the li'l moonkey wi' 
 th' baal in its mouth ! See Father Christmas ? 
 Where ? Eh, yes, a see 'im. Seems a pity there 
 a'nt no children here to see it. What's the good 
 of it ? " A terrific sniff raised the speaker's nose 
 in wrinkles almost into her low-growing hair. 
 " Eh, luk 1 the parcel 1 'tis for the paarson ! " 
 Roars of laughter broke out while Mr. Abel un- 
 wrapped a neat silver cigar-cutter and sought in 
 vain for words that should combine truth with the 
 idea that it was the thing he was most in need of. 
 Mrs. Abel received a pocket manicure case, the
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 285 
 
 matron was delighted with Miss Gilworth's Outlook 
 oj the Saints, the under-matron had a sponge, 
 " specially designed for continental use," and the 
 rest of the staff were given various articles ranging 
 from penwipers to plaster dogs with one eye ban- 
 daged. The proceedings ended with a carol, in 
 which Susie joined with her very kindest expression 
 and a most delicate voice, reinforced by the powerful 
 bass of one of the gentlemen with eyeglasses who 
 was a member of Mr. Abel's choir. Mr. Abel moved 
 a vote of thanks in his high-pitched Oxford plaint, 
 and soon after a piercing wind from the front door 
 and a hum of voices and flutter of aprons in the 
 passage betokened that the Mary Popley inmates 
 would be left to their own reflections on a year that 
 was about to slink away like a defaulter with the 
 happiness they had invested. 
 
 Evangeline's daughter was born between Christ- 
 mas and the New Year. Teresa arrived home late 
 from her dinner at Mr. Manley's and was met by 
 Strickland looking as if she were about to perform 
 some religious rite. Her cap lay across her head 
 at an angle that gave her a slightly mystic appear- 
 ance, her eyes were full of indefinite purpose and 
 hor mouth was set tight. 
 
 " Have you got toothache again, you poor 
 thing ? " Teresa exclaimed the moment she saw her. 
 
 " No, Miss Teresa ; it's that," Strickland replied 
 in a hushed voice. " We've got the nurse, and the 
 doctor is coming along now. Mrs. Fulton is up- 
 stairs, but I was to tell you there's nothing to worry 
 about and you was to go into the General's study. 
 I'll bring you a cup of tea and then you'll go to
 
 286 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 bed. It'll be all over in the morning, you'll see. 
 You'll not hinder me by worrying, now, will you ? 
 For I've the kettles to see to and all." 
 
 " N no," said Teresa rather doubtfully. " I 
 won't hinder you anyhow, old lady. Go on with 
 your fussing and don't mind me. But I wish you 
 would come and tell me when it is there. I don't 
 suppose I shall be asleep." 
 
 ' Yes, you will, then, Miss Teresa, or I shall be 
 angry. No, I mean it. You'll be doing very wrong 
 if you're not asleep. The General is in the study, 
 if you'll go up now, so I needn't keep up the drawing- 
 room fire." 
 
 " Strickland here a moment," said Teresa, 
 pulling her into the darkened drawing-room. ' Just 
 tell me before you go. Is it very, very awful ? " 
 
 " No, Miss Teresa, of course it isn't," she replied 
 quite angrily, shaking herself away. " My brother's 
 wife thinks nothing of it. It's what we've all 
 got to go through unless it's a poor thing like me 
 that has no one. And there's the nurse and doctor 
 and everything she can want. There's a great 
 many that hasn't " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes, I know," Teresa interrupted. 
 " I shall stop my ears if you say any more of that. 
 I've finished with it. I'm not going to hear any 
 more until I can begin again. Strickland, I'm 
 engaged ; but please don't tell them downstairs. 
 I want to do it myself when it is all over. Only 
 I am so happy I had to tell you ; and now I have 
 come home to be so frightened. Never mind ; you 
 see, I am not in the least worried. I'm going up. 
 And about twelve o'clock I shall go to my room 
 and take off all my clothes and go to bed and
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 287 
 
 put my head on the pillow Oh, Strickland, you 
 are an ass, aren't you ? How do you suppose I 
 am going to sleep ? Well, good-night." She ran 
 upstairs very quietly and went into the study. 
 
 Cyril was sitting by the fire, smoking and reading. 
 He looked round as she came in and said, " Well, 
 did you have a good time ? I suppose they've 
 told you about Chips ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said. " I shan't go to bed yet if 
 you are not going. We'll wait together if you like. 
 And, Father I saw David." She brought a chair 
 up to the fire. 
 
 " And did he see you ? " Cyril inquired. " You 
 please my eye very much when you are happy and 
 you've been a withered little object lately." 
 
 " Well, that is really about aU about it," she 
 said. " I've stopped withering. You do like David, 
 don't you, Father ? " 
 
 " I'm devoted to him," Cyril answered. " Do I 
 understand that you have fixed it up ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " Oh, Father, listen, 
 what was that ? " 
 
 " I didn't hear anything," he said, rather 
 hastily, " but there's a devil of a draught up 
 those back stairs. I think I'll shut the passage 
 door." 
 
 " I'll do it," she said. 
 
 " No, stay where you are." He went out, shutting 
 the door after him, shut the passage door that led 
 to the top storey and met Strickland coming up. 
 " Keep that door shut, would you ? " he said. 
 " Miss Teresa's in there ; and don't worry her to 
 go tombed. I'll send her when I think it is a good 
 plan." He went back to the study.
 
 288 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " Was that Strickland you were talking to ? " 
 she asked. " There's nothing wrong, is there ? " 
 
 " No, but I can't do with her damned singing. I 
 told her to wait until the Philharmonic was open. 
 Now then, tell us all about it, Dicky ; that is, as 
 much of it as you like." 
 
 " Well, you see, I refused him before," she began 
 slowly. " He wouldn't combine with what I was 
 
 doing and I wouldn't give it up " She stopped, 
 
 and Cyril poured himself out a glass of whiskey. 
 " Have some ? " he asked. 
 
 " Now you know, dear, that is silly," said Teresa. 
 " I don't want to take to drink because I am going 
 
 to be married Oh, father, what is that ? 
 
 Something is bothering me is there a wind or 
 something ? It was quite still when I came 
 back." 
 
 Cyril hesitated a moment and then said, " You're 
 not the woman your mother is. She thought me 
 very foolish I am not sure she didn't say very 
 wrong for spending the night in the Turkish bath 
 when you were born. I should be there now if 
 you weren't at home, but if you are going to sit 
 there behaving like some damned fox-terrier when- 
 ever a door opens I shall have to get out the car and 
 drive you round till we both freeze." 
 
 " All right," she said. " I am sorry, but I didn't 
 know what it was. I just felt creepy." 
 
 They heard the front door slam. 
 
 " That's the doctor," said Cyril. " Now you can 
 go ahead. The pilot is on board and a tot of rum 
 will be served to all those in favour. I wish you 
 would have some." 
 
 " No, I am going to have tea presently," she said.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 289 
 
 " I do wish you wouldn't interrupt. I was going 
 to tell you why I changed my mind." 
 
 " Yes ? " he said, encouragingly. 
 
 " Let's see. You see, the thing is like this. I 
 think David started with the same idea that I did 
 and I don't know exactly what happened but he 
 found that he hadn't enough brains for argument, 
 so he studied fox-hunting which he had always had 
 a passion for, only he got slightly mixed like I did 
 about people who live in towns. He is really very 
 sensitive about cruelty, and his father gave him 
 such a lot of money at college that when he found 
 anyone who wanted it he gave like anything ; and 
 when you have once begun doing that in person, 
 not just by subscription, it is very difficult not to 
 feel that you ought to be earning some instead. 
 But anyhow that is what he did. And then he had 
 to go to Aldwych to help his father who wasn't well, 
 and then he got interested in the land and he met 
 some people who wanted experiments done I 
 forget what in and who couldn't afford to do 
 them ; and, it is very odd, but he seems to find out 
 more by common sense than I ever should by 
 working and working at an idea, trying to make it 
 fit whatever happens, because it never does. As 
 soon as one stops worrying and works at whatever 
 one can do best, the idea one had tried to fit on to 
 all sorts of contradictions seems suddenly to grow 
 up out of the middle of one's work, with a root 
 fastened to all the different things it wouldn't fit 
 before. It is impossible to explain but I assure you 
 you would have found that happen if you had ever 
 had an idea of any sort or done any work." 
 " I should like to direct your next piece of pur-
 
 290 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 poseless labour to respecting the forces of the 
 Crown a little if you can," said Cyril. "I'm damned ! 
 No ideas and no work ! Do you know who I am ? 
 I suppose your mother is right. Marriage does 
 mean something to a girl." 
 
 " Why ? What ? " she asked in bewilderment. 
 " What have I said ? " 
 
 " Go on, my love ; don't let me interrupt you," 
 he said. Strickland came in with some tea and a 
 plate of sandwiches. " I suppose it is no good 
 offering you tea, sir ? " she inquired. 
 
 " No, thank you, I have got everything I want," 
 he answered. 
 
 " I am coming to bed in a few minutes," Teresa 
 said, nodding to her. 
 
 Strickland looked appealingly at Cyril and hesi- 
 tated. " You'd better stay here a bit I think," he 
 said. " You won't sleep after that stuff." 
 
 " Oh yes, I shall. I'm awfully sleepy," she said. 
 
 Strickland pulled herself together and cleared 
 her throat. " I'm sorry, Miss Teresa," she said 
 boldly, " but there's been a slight accident in your 
 room. Your hot water bottle leaked, and the bed 
 was wet through so I've taken the things down to 
 the fire. I'll tell you as soon as they are dry." 
 
 " Very well ; but goodness, how late it is ! " 
 Teresa said as she glanced at the clock. " Nearly 
 one. Has mother gone to bed ? " 
 
 " Not yet," said Strickland. " She'll be down 
 by-and-by. You'll see her if you wait a little." 
 She shut the door and Teresa settled herself again 
 in the armchair with her tea. " The Prices have got 
 Aldwych for another six months," she said, " but 
 David thought perhaps if we were married in the
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 291 
 
 spring I might go out with him to see his place over 
 there and help him to settle up, and then come back 
 when they leave. I shouldn't so much mind leaving 
 all of it if I didn't go straight from Emma's office 
 to a house with hot towel rails and pheasant for 
 breakfast and a peach house." 
 
 " Well, we all have our troubles, but I feel if I 
 were given my choice that that is the one I could 
 face with most courage," said Cyril. " I could tear 
 myself away from Emma's office more resolutely 
 than from almost any luxury I know. But then I 
 can't live up to your friend Mrs. Vachell, who hunts 
 with George Washington and runs with Ananias 
 from a sense of duty. I admit I wasn't happy in the 
 office when you took me there." 
 
 " What are we going to do with Chips when she 
 gets well ? " said Teresa. " I can't bear to go away 
 and leave her here. Mrs. Vachell would get her 
 altogether in time and mother wouldn't be any good. 
 Mother thinks that when she says what fine creatures 
 women are and all that, and when Mrs. Vachell 
 begins on the same subject, they both mean the same 
 thing. But they don't. Did you know that ? Mrs. 
 Vachell is quite serious." 
 
 " Yes, I knew that," he answered. " She told 
 me herself that nothing was too bad to do in the 
 cause of the noblest of God's creatures, and a woman 
 in that frame of mind is always beyond a joke. 
 You can't get it into their heads that there are 
 certain things that are not done, such as vitriol and 
 so on. Not that I have heard of any of them doing 
 that, but she seemed to be speaking inclusively." 
 
 " No, that sort of thing isn't a bit like her. Really 
 father, it isn't. I only meant that the more de-
 
 292 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 pressed Chips gets about being away from Evan 
 the more Mrs. Vachell uses it to make it impossible 
 for her ever to go back. Chips is quite right in 
 saying that she can't live here. It would be so 
 dreary for her and she hates having no explanation 
 for it. People will think that either she or Evan 
 have done something bad. And it is cruel to think 
 of her without a man for the rest of her life ; it is 
 far worse than being a widow. I don't think either 
 you or mother have realised that." 
 
 " It hadn't, as you say, occurred to me that they 
 wouldn't finish it up sometime. I hope marriage 
 doesn't mean too much to her after all. I have 
 always supposed that so long as people mind their 
 own business there is very little to complain of." 
 
 As he stopped speaking, a long, high-pitched 
 sound, seeming to come from nowhere in particular 
 and too faint to be more than just audible, rose, 
 grew and died away again. Teresa turned white and 
 looked at her father with frightened, questioning 
 eyes." 
 
 " Was it a lie that Strickland told me about my 
 hot bottle ? " she asked. " Didn't she want me to 
 go up ? " 
 
 " I expect not," said Cyril. " You can't do 
 anything. Would you like me to get the car out ? 
 We can wrap up quite warm." 
 
 " No, what is the good of running away," she 
 answered. " I have got to know. But Strickland 
 said it was nothing. She was quite indignant and 
 was going to tell me that there are people who 
 aren't as well looked after as Chips, but I wouldn't 
 listen. Let's go on talking. I do so want to get 
 out of this mess of pity on to a road that leads
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 293 
 
 somewhere. It is like being for ever shot at and 
 hurt by something you can't see. Strickland is 
 wrong. Evidently in the main things one person 
 suffers as much as another." 
 
 " I've often told you you were worrying un- 
 necessarily," said Cyril. " I am sorry we didn't 
 send you away just now, but I never thought of it 
 and your mother doesn't descend to details much, 
 as you know. She takes the most alarming things 
 as a matter of course. I believe she was born a 
 favourite of the gods. I found out the other day 
 that she has never had a tooth out. I was away 
 when Chips was born and, as I told you, I spent 
 the night of your arrival in the Turkish bath, so I 
 don't know what happened ; but it wouldn't sur- 
 prise me in the least to hear she slept through it." 
 
 The door opened and Susie came in. As she stood 
 there for a moment a smell unknown to Teresa came 
 in with the air from the passage. 
 
 " What ! are you two still here ? " she said in the 
 gently reproving tone she used when any of them 
 did anything not wholly normal. " Why didn't you 
 go to bed, Teresa dear ? I told Strickland to tell 
 you not to worry. I hope you weren't." 
 
 "Oh no," she replied, " it wasn't that. I got 
 your message, but I'm not sleepy. What is that 
 odd smell ? " 
 
 " Just a little something the doctor used to give 
 her some sleep," said Susie. " I think I shall wait 
 here until he conies down." She had left the door 
 open and Teresa sat tense and agonised, dreading 
 the sound that might come again at any moment. 
 But everything was quiet. Strickland shuffled down 
 the back stairs and shut the kitchen door. Cyril
 
 294 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 got up and shut the door of the study and drew up 
 another chair. 
 
 " Well, and how did your dinner go off ? " Susie 
 asked. " Did you see David ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Teresa. " He he enjoyed himself 
 very much in the Argentine." 
 
 " How nice. And is he going back or is he going 
 to take up Aldwych again ? I do hope he will." 
 
 " Yes," she said still more nervously. " Yes 
 we are going to take it up together we arranged 
 I hope you don't mind. I got a little worried with 
 Chips and everything, or I should have told you. 
 I really came home to tell you I " 
 
 " My darling, I quite understand," said Susie. 
 " Don't trouble to explain. I am so glad that you 
 have come to see what a dear fellow he is. I always 
 told you he was a great deal nicer than you thought ; 
 but you wouldn't believe me." 
 
 Teresa's just feeling of indignation gave way to a 
 second thought that she had much rather her mother 
 supposed her not to have cared for David before, 
 than that she should suspect her of having listened 
 to wisdom on the subject of a prudent marriage. 
 
 " And so that is all settled ! " Susie continued, 
 warming her toes peacefully. " And when dear 
 Evangeline is strong again we must make another 
 effort to put that right. And then we shall have 
 nothing left to wish for, shall we ? Evan is a silly 
 fellow, really. I wish he were here now ; it might 
 bring it home to him." 
 
 " How, Mother ? " 
 
 " I mean that he might see that women have quite 
 enough to go through without being teased about 
 their children when they have got them. All those
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 295 
 
 stupid rules and that kind of thing ! Really, you 
 know, I think that anyone who has had a child I 
 mean any woman, of course, deserves to be let 
 
 alone. Now those poor women I saw last week . 
 
 I don't know that it is a very nice subject for you, 
 Teresa, but as you have taken to work among the 
 poor you are bound to hear of it, and you are going 
 to be married yourself what I was going to say 
 is that those poor women I saw at Christmas have 
 been most foolish, there is no doubt, and the law 
 ought to oblige the men to marry them. But if it 
 won't do that, at least it might be made more easy 
 for the mother to keep the child with her instead of 
 her living alone with that matron, who I am sure, 
 is extremely kind, but with such a cross face. The 
 poor little child has to be brought up elsewhere 
 because the mother has lost her character ! Men 
 lose their characters quickly enough in the public- 
 house, and no one says anything. They are allowed 
 to take the bottle home with them, too, and it is not 
 thought a disgrace, although they do it deliberately. 
 
 Whereas a child " She paused, becoming 
 
 suddenly aware that Cyril's eye was fixed on her 
 with delighted interest. " Cyril, dear," she said, 
 " are you sure you want to wait up ? There is really 
 no need." 
 
 " I wouldn't miss a word, Sue, I assure you," he 
 said politely. " Dicky, pass me the syphon, would 
 you ? " Teresa passed it, and said nothing. No 
 one spoke for a short time, and then a bell rang up- 
 stairs and another sound, a sort of rapid, angry 
 mewing, was heard as Susie opened the door of the 
 study and Strickland vanished up the stairs. Susie 
 disappeared into the passage and presently Strick-
 
 296 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 land ran down again. " It's a dear little girl, sir, 
 the doctor says," she remarked, thrusting her head 
 round the study door, " and now you get to bed, Miss 
 Teresa, please, while I get a cup of something for the 
 nurse. The doctor will be pleased to join you, sir, 
 presently, but he won't stop to have nothing but a 
 glass of wine and a biscuit. He's got another case 
 waiting for him he says." She disappeared before 
 Teresa had grasped the wonderful details of her 
 deshabille. This was indeed a new Strickland, 
 or at least one unknown to the family. " My 
 brother's wife " and Evangeline were one and in- 
 divisible in Strickland's heart that night.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 LADY VARENS and David stayed for some weeks 
 with Mr. Manley, and then took a furnished cottage 
 by the sea, at a place not far from Millport. It was 
 a place of everlasting winds, sandy as the desert, 
 flat as a tablecloth, ugly as every other nest of the 
 speculative builder. It is true that the owners of 
 the land had imposed restrictions on the invaders, 
 but the only result of this was to make a certain 
 style of architecture a duty, instead of an unfortunate 
 occurrence, so the town had as little chance of achiev- 
 ing beauty as a society for the suppression of 
 marriage would have of evolving true love. The 
 little caskets of the home, that were dumped down 
 in groups along the shore, roofed to excess in the 
 prevailing fashion, neatly gardened with rock plants 
 that could not blow away and might be dis- 
 interred from an avalanche of sand without obvious 
 damage, were designed to catch the greatest possible 
 quantity of ozone. Painstaking mothers, whose 
 husbands were occupied in Millport, immured them- 
 selves heroically there all the year round for the good 
 of their offspring, who rewarded them by thriving 
 exceedingly on the hurricanes of health that swept 
 along the mud flats. The tide rose from time to 
 time generally in the night , took a rapid survey 
 of the villas, and fled back into the distant sea. 
 Squadrons of perambulators were marched daily 
 
 297
 
 298 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 along the most exposed part of the shore, which the 
 speculative builder had kindly laid with asphalt 
 for the purpose. There, prevented by stout iron 
 railings from being blown into the sea, the mothers 
 and sisters and aunts and nurses of young Millport 
 wrestled up and down twice a day, their skirts lashed 
 impedingly against their knees or their calves, 
 according to whether they were going to or coming 
 from, the butcher. Their faces were set with a 
 permanent expression of having been blown crooked, 
 nose slightly aslant and a little richer in tone on one 
 side than the other, eyes half closed to keep out the 
 volleying sand, ears all but inside out, and the mouth 
 set at the gasp, owing to the nostrils having been 
 banged to as soon as the owner struggled out of her 
 front door ; heads were mostly a little on one side, 
 cocked to meet the shouts of a succession of acquaint- 
 ances all endeavouring to hear whether Reggie 
 would come to tea with Edna on Thursday or Friday, 
 or whether the bridge party began at three or four. 
 But then, as the inhabitants say when strangers 
 are critical about the place, "we do have such 
 beautiful sunsets. They say it is something phos- 
 phorescent about the mud." So there's always 
 something either way to keep the balance between 
 good and evil. 
 
 Lady Varens took one of the villas for a few 
 months. The place more nearly resembled country 
 than any other in the neighbourhood where she 
 could get a house ; it was at least in the open air, 
 or rather, as she said, hi an open draught, and the 
 mud stayed where it was, instead of going up into 
 the sky and down again all the time. The sun shone 
 a little when it was anywhere handy, and one could
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 299 
 
 smell the sea, and even see it for a few minutes if 
 one looked sharp about it. There was a golf course, 
 and a train to bring Teresa and anyone else who had 
 sufficient patience and a solid enough frame to hold 
 together during the requisite period. Maids were 
 found who, being attached by love to the butcher's 
 assistants, were willing to oblige a titled lady to 
 whom money was no object. The villa was designed 
 for a large family and attendants, so when Evange- 
 line was well again, Lady Varens asked her to stay 
 for a time with the children ; she persuaded her 
 that it would be good for them to be blown into the 
 state of solidity that comes to the young of that 
 scourging place from constant tossing between the 
 consuming ozone and the replenishing butcher. 
 Evangeline accepted, and at the end of a week or 
 two the shadow of Millport and all the human 
 vexatiousness which had darkened the last months 
 for her began to stir and rise, taking with it her 
 newspaper problems, Mrs. VachelTs sphinxery and 
 the episodes of her life at Drage that were stored in 
 her recollection like toys broken in a long-forgotten 
 quarrel. The dear inanities of that tune were 
 like poor Tweedledum and Tweedledee's nice new 
 rattle which had brought them both out armed with 
 deceptions against each other, till the monstrous 
 crow they had brought down frightened them apart. 
 She laughed aloud one day as she thought of Teresa's 
 comparison, and presently she went to the nursery 
 and brought Ivor's copy of " Through the Looking 
 Glass " into the drawing-room and sat down with 
 it in the window seat, where she used to watch the 
 sunsets. She turned up the part where the quarrel 
 begins about nothing, when Tweedledum and
 
 300 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Tweedledee have been sitting together under an 
 umbrella. " That is exactly like us," she thought 
 and she laughed as she read. " But Evan will never 
 see that. I shall have to explain the situation in 
 some other way." Her thoughts wandered back 
 down a train of other things that she had tried to 
 explain to him. Before their engagement she had 
 expounded a good deal and listened very little. To 
 tell the truth, Evan had been attending more to the 
 distraction of her presence than to the matter of her 
 speech, but she did not know that. He had been 
 unaccustomed to the society of women who lulled, 
 and she did lull his natural embarrassment in con- 
 versation by the largeness of her interest in every- 
 that went on in the world. Such luxuriant living 
 and lack of analysis was new to him. He had formed 
 an idea of women from his sisters' giggling little 
 comments on every subject ; they inspected life 
 at too close quarters to make their view interesting 
 to anyone with Evan's passion for Universal study. 
 The world was contained for them in their village 
 interests ; England was a garden where God lived 
 and their village was one of His boundary lodges ; 
 foreign countries were something akin to a noble- 
 man's other residences, managed by agents and let 
 to strangers ; the mission field a wild region that 
 must be brought into cultivation. Evan had loved 
 his sisters while the war was on, for they thought 
 neither to the right hand nor to the left. They had 
 trotted out of their village in the wake of England, 
 Harry and St. George, never doubting that God 
 was with them as they bandaged and stitched and 
 prayed that Ypres might hold out, and that Evan 
 and the men from the village might come home safe.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 301 
 
 They never spoke of the enemy as sheep or devils. 
 War was a medicine which England had to take 
 now and then for the good of her health, and whether 
 it was against Zulus, Boers, or Germans had nothing 
 whatever to do with the village. The Graphic of 
 the past or The Graphic of the present, depicted 
 " the dead," with troops advancing over them 
 through smoke, and dropping as they came ; or a 
 hillock and a gun and a few figures lying bandaged 
 perhaps with the very bandages that Emily had 
 made and that was Victory, and would end some- 
 day in " The Soldier's Return," and a dinner in the 
 village. Such a dinner ! The sisters were at their 
 best at such times ; no one could be cross with them ; 
 but in private life, during peace, Evan found them 
 trying beyond words. He was suffering from re- 
 action against their village interests when he met 
 Evangeline, and listened to her impersonal prattle 
 of sunshine and wide spaces of the earth where 
 parties are unknown and no man is obliged to ask 
 the nymph of his choice how many theatres she 
 has been to. Then, as we know, Evangeline en- 
 couraged him. She wouldn't let him keep himself 
 to himself as he had always done. She forced him, 
 in the name of politeness to his General's daughter, 
 to say something, and it had to be something true. 
 She refused all substitutes for his treasures ; so he 
 brought them out one at a time, and she handled 
 them so respectfully, owing to a " gentleman's " 
 instinct, which was part of her inheritance from 
 Cyril, that in the end he married her ; married her, 
 poor dear, supposing her to be what he called a lady. 
 Then after a time they began to quarrel. He said his 
 nice new rattle was spoiled, his lady was not lady-
 
 302 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 like. She always behaved " like a gentleman " 
 towards him, but that wasn't right ; she must behave 
 like a lady. Then Evangeline said that she had 
 done nothing to the rattle. It was just as it was 
 when he first got it. So he pointed to Mrs. Vachell 
 and said that was what he wanted his rattle to look 
 like, a ladylike woman who could understand a man's 
 idea of the way he wanted his sons brought up. 
 They fought battles and separated in fear of the 
 darkness that came down over everything after 
 
 that and now . " Really, really," she thought, 
 
 "it is too silly for anything. He knows by now 
 that Mrs. Vachell was having him on and never 
 cared twopence for what he said. If he could know 
 that I love him he might see that his rattle isn't 
 broken at all. After all, we were happy . Ivor 
 doesn't seem to mind very much whether he is 
 approved of or not. Evan wouldn't find his 
 ' moulding ' made much difference in a year or 
 two's time, and Father says Ivor is all right ; he 
 is not afraid of things and tells the truth ; and 
 perhaps Evan might let him alone if he came back 
 now. What a good thing Susan is a girl. I don't 
 think he would be so keen about bringing her up 
 to be ladylike after coming such a cropper. Oh, 
 dear ! I do wish we could begin all over again." 
 She remembered the daily event of Evan's home- 
 coming when they were at Drage ; the pleasure of 
 his being in to lunch unexpectedly ; his atrocious 
 singing while he had a hot bath ; the general 
 disturbance in every room ; the comfortable, 
 foolish conversations ; the friendly disputes and 
 dear kisses ; one or two tiresome occurrences, as 
 when there was a drunken cook to be dealt with and
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 303 
 
 people coming to dinner and Evan was so decent 
 and helpful. Then a happy, out-of-door summer, 
 and later on their eagerness about Ivor. After that, 
 Evan began to shun the nursery foolishness and she 
 had got bored by his details of tinkering with the 
 little car he bought. They had gone to Millport 
 one Christmas and Ivor had screamed a good deal, 
 and the nurse complained. There were no com- 
 plaints now. Everything went like clockwork, and 
 life was dull as ditchwater with no man to promote 
 irrationality by treating all episodes with common 
 sense. No household can be really merry without 
 someone to supply the spectacle of common sense, 
 meeting with little accidents from the mischievous 
 contradictions of the human heart. Presently 
 David came in. 
 
 " You can't see to read there, can you ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " I wasn't reading," she answered. " I was 
 wondering. I must do something about Evan, do 
 you know ? It isn't really a quarrel if you come to 
 think of it." 
 
 David looked at her inquiringly, and sat down 
 on the window seat. " I wonder what I had better 
 do. Go out to him, or what ? " 
 
 " The children would be all right with us here, but 
 I suppose you would want them," he said. " Your 
 husband has never thought of leaving the army, has 
 he ? He could get something to do in England 
 that would probably pay him better." 
 
 " What sort of thing ? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know, but I could find out. I know 
 some engineering people." 
 
 Evangeline was silent. " I haven't the least
 
 304 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 idea when it began," she said, after a few minutes' 
 thought. 
 
 " Have you tried writing to him ? " he suggested. 
 
 " No, not yet." 
 
 " Does he know about Susan ? " 
 
 " Dicky wrote," said Evangeline. 
 
 " There is no difficulty in getting out of the 
 army," he remarked. 
 
 "But how am I to put that? What shall I 
 say ? " 
 
 " Just tell him," said David ; " there's no 
 difficulty in that." 
 
 " Oh, David ! " said Evangeline in despair, " don't 
 go on saying there's no difficulty in anything. I 
 daresay there isn't if you can do the things, but just 
 think of it ! He went away in the blackest huff 
 you ever saw, and all about nothing, so there is, in a 
 way, nothing to begin on. I can't say, ' Are you 
 still angry ? ' because he must be, or he would have 
 written. I can't say, ' I am not angry any more/ 
 because I wasn't. I was depressed and frightened 
 to death." 
 
 David sat with his hands in his pockets, slowly 
 swinging his legs and gazing at the floor, wrapped in 
 thought. " I don't think I should think at all," 
 he advised. " I should just take a pen and 
 write." 
 
 " Would you take a J pen or a quill pen ? " 
 Evangeline inquired, while she tossed the volume 
 of " Alice " backwards and forwards. 
 
 " Either," he replied. " There's no difficulty in 
 that." She all but threw the book at his head, 
 but refrained. " No difficulty at all," he repeated, 
 with his eye on the book.
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 305 
 
 " Can I say you thought he could get a job in 
 England ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes, if you like." 
 
 " But do you think I had better ? " 
 
 " I shouldn't begin with it," said David. 
 
 " But you think I might put it in at the end ? " 
 
 " I should see how the letter looks when it is 
 done. If it seems to fit, put that in." 
 
 " I suppose you are doing your best to be helpful." 
 
 " I'd do anything I could for you." 
 
 " But you don't know how frightening he is when 
 he just turns his back. Suppose he says, ' No '." 
 
 " Then you might have to go out there." 
 
 " What ! and just walk up to him ? " 
 
 " Yes, or else wait till he came in." 
 
 " And what should I say ? " 
 
 " You'd have to tell him you had come." 
 
 " I see." 
 
 " I am going to see where Dicky is," he said, 
 getting off the window seat. " I really came in to 
 look for her. You had better have a light." He 
 brought a small lamp over from the writing-table 
 and fastened it to a switch beside her. Then he 
 got a blotting book and some paper and envelopes 
 and took a fountain pen from his pocket. " That 
 will write, you'll find," he said, as he laid the things 
 by her and then he went out. 
 
 She took up the paper and turned it over ; paused, 
 and took up the pen. It was rather like the pre- 
 liminaries to a letter written by planchette, when 
 the fingers are loose upon the board and the eye 
 fixed on vacancy. Presently she began and wrote 
 a few words rapidly, stopped, wrote again, and this 
 time she was off. She filled the four sides of the
 
 306 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 paper with what she wrote, and then folded it, 
 screwing up her eyes resolutely. " I daren't read 
 it," she said to herself, and pushed it, with shaking 
 fingers, into the envelope, stuck it down and 
 addressed it. Then she went into the hall and 
 opened a cupboard, groped in the dark for a coat, and 
 took the first she touched, which happened to be 
 David's. She slipped her arms into it, and without 
 stopping for fastenings, wrapped it round her and 
 opened the outer door. The pillar box was about 
 twenty yards away and the letter was posted before 
 anything but the speed of her actions had time to 
 guide her thoughts. When it was done she felt as 
 if she had given the world a kick and sent a villa or 
 
 two toppling about her ears. " Oh ! " she 
 
 thought, and " Oh ! suppose it doesn't work ! " 
 
 She ran back into the house and flung David's coat 
 upon a seat without thinking. Then she went to 
 the drawing-room and drew the curtains and sat 
 down by the fire. " Suppose I should have to go 
 out," she thought. " Suppose he wouldn't look 
 at me. Suppose he doesn't care for old times after 
 all." She was still sitting there when Lady Varens 
 came in. "I thought there was no wind this 
 afternoon," she remarked, " but there is something ; 
 I think it must be suction, because there is not a 
 twig stirring, but my hat was drawn off my head 
 and my eyes are full of sand. Have you been out ? " 
 
 " Only to the letter box," said Evangeline. " I 
 wrote to Evan and raced out to post it before I had 
 time to think." 
 
 " What made you do that ? " Lady Varens asked. 
 
 " David," she answered. " He kept repeating 
 that there was no difficulty. If anyone goes on
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 307 
 
 saying a thing often enough I begin to believe it, 
 and he went on and on." 
 
 " But I don't understand yet," Lady Varens 
 said. " What sort of a letter was it ? " 
 
 " Just a nice letter. There are a great many 
 things that he may have forgotten. I haven't. 
 It was all right, you know, once." 
 
 " David thinks Evan might leave the army," she 
 went on presently. " I shouldn't have to go out 
 then unless he won't answer." 
 
 " What would he do if he left ? " asked Lady 
 Varens. 
 
 " I don't know, but David seemed to have some 
 idea in his mind." 
 
 " Then I expect if he seemed to, he had. If he 
 goes after a fox there generally is one." 
 
 The post to Egypt is not a very long one, but 
 measured by the emotions Evangeline went through 
 between the earliest day when Evan's answer could 
 be expected, and the day when it came, the interval 
 was about a year and a half. The extra length of 
 time was put in three strips. One between the 
 moment when the postman knocked at the front 
 door and the time it took the maid to examine and 
 bring up the letters. The second was when Evange- 
 line was out in the afternoon and remembered that 
 another post would be there when she got back ; it 
 took the length of several days to look at the letters 
 on the hall table as she crossed the threshold and 
 judge from their appearance whether they were all 
 circulars. The third age was when she and Teresa 
 were talking in their bedrooms before going to bed 
 and went through their nightly review of all the
 
 3o8 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 things he would be likely to say, and compared 
 them with the likelihood of his saying nothing at 
 all. The nights were all right, for Evangeline, when 
 in health, would sleep though the earth cracked 
 asunder. One day people came to lunch and stayed 
 talking, so she did not go out, and the maid brought 
 the letters to Lady Varens before anyone had 
 remembered the postman. 
 
 " Here's yours, Evangeline," Lady Varens said, 
 passing it to her. " Do you know whether the 
 children have gone out yet ? I wanted them to call 
 at the butcher's for me. He didn't send the mutton 
 I ordered this morning." 
 
 " I'll go and see," said Evangeline, and she carried 
 off her letter. Ten minutes or a quarter-of-an- 
 hour went by, and then Ivor came in dressed for 
 going out. 
 
 " Mother's being a dog on the stairth," he said. 
 " It's dangerous ; you'd better not go past, but 
 we're going to do your message now if Nurth can 
 get past." 
 
 " Can't you say your s's yet, darling ? " said the 
 visitor. " Well, I'm quite shocked ! Come and 
 tell me where you are going." 
 
 " Can't thtop," said Ivor. " You oughtn't to 
 path remarkth. Good-bye." 
 
 He went out, leaving the door open, and Teresa 
 got up and shut it. She heard cacklings from the 
 baby and Ivor and respectful protests from the nurse 
 near the top landing. " Now go off," she heard 
 Evangeline say in a tone she had nearly forgotten. 
 " I don't know where the dog has gone ; probably to 
 the butcher's. You may find him there." Teresa 
 shut the door behind her. " Chips ! " she called
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 309 
 
 gently, " shall I come up or are you coming 
 down ? " 
 
 " I don't know what I am going to do," said a 
 dishevelled head through the banisters. " What 
 about those people ? ' Massacre them all ! ' as the 
 Peace Delegate said." Nurse, carrying the baby, 
 brushed past with an apology, and went down, 
 herding Ivor before her. 
 
 " It is quite all right," said Evangeline. " Very 
 much all right. Excessively all right." Teresa sat 
 down on a lower step. 
 
 " David is clever, isn't he ? " she remarked with 
 pleasure. 
 
 " I thought of it first," said Evangeline. " He 
 only suggested writing." 
 
 " Well what is going to happen ? Are you going 
 out or what ? " 
 
 " No, he says Joseph Price offered him a job in 
 their works when the regiment was sent out, but he 
 refused. If he can still get it he will clear out." 
 
 " Why did he refuse it before ? " asked Teresa. 
 
 " Because of Ivor I think but we won't go into 
 that." 
 
 " Where is the Price place ? Would you have 
 to be in Millport ? " 
 
 " No, it is a new one they have started somewhere 
 near London. I forget what the name is ; it is 
 somewhere I never heard of except that I know 
 some famous person was born there." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Teresa. " They're coming out. 
 Let me up, quick ! " They both disappeared into 
 Evangeline's room as the drawing-room door 
 opened. 
 
 "Yes, he's a thoroughly decent filer," said
 
 3 io THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Joseph Price to his father, that evening. " Marv'llous 
 engineer, I'm told. But 'i course, it's just 's you 
 like." 
 
 " What does he want to leave the army for ? " 
 inquired Mr. Price suspiciously. " Nothing fishy 
 about it, I suppose ? The army's a very good 
 profession for a man that has got up in it." 
 
 " 'T's not lucrative, very," observed Joseph, 
 " nor int'resting exactly, I should think. And 
 Egypt's a tedious sort of place ; nothing t' do 
 except learn about it and so on ; th' sort of thing 
 Vachell's good at. You know, so far as Hatton's 
 concerned I c'n understand a man pr'f erring to 
 use his intell'gence in the panoply of war, rather 
 than th' executive ; specially if there's nothing t' 
 execute, if you see what I mean. And, aft'r all, 
 the sort of thing he'd be doing f'r us might be 
 useful in all sorts of ways in 'nother war. There's 
 no earthly reason, if you come t' think of it, why 
 he shouldn't join up again 'n that case and take th' 
 thing up where he left it." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Mr. Price, " but that's not the 
 point. What I want to find out is, has he any 
 business capacity apart from this talent ? " 
 
 " 'Mense capacity, I b'lieve," said Joseph. 
 " It's his strong point." 
 
 " How do you know ? What experience have 
 you of him ? " 
 
 " When I was at Drage the filers talked of nothing 
 else. He was the very man that ought to have 
 taken over your plant then." 
 
 " But surely he was in France at that tune," 
 said the perplexed parent. 
 
 " Yes, I know, but everyone was going backwards
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 311 
 
 and forwards all th' time, and they all knew what 
 th' others were doing. There was a story about him, 
 I r'member " 
 
 " Well ? " said Mr. Price, as his son stopped. 
 
 " No, you must get him t' tell it you himself ; I 
 might spoil it. But kait sairysly, Dad, he's the 
 very filer you're looking for." 
 
 " Why are you so keen about this ? " asked Mr. 
 Price, frowning to himself. " You're not after the 
 wife, are you, eh ? " 
 
 " No, my dear dirty old man, I'm not, and you 
 mustn't say that kind 'f thing now ; 't's not done." 
 
 " I don't see why not," his father remarked. 
 " There's nothing to be ashamed of. I remember 
 a time when a lot of jobs were handled that way, 
 but people are mealy-mouthed now. Well, write 
 and say we'll try him, if you like." 
 
 " I've his letter 'f acceptance here, as a matt'r 
 of fact," said Joseph. " Subject, of course, t' your 
 approval. I sounded him more 'r less befur he 
 went away, but it didn't appeal t' him then. How- 
 ever, Egypt's kait 'mpossible they tell me, f'r a 
 young family ; flies get int' the milk, 'n' so on. I'll 
 fix it up with him for you, 'f you like. By th' bye, 
 when exactly d' we clear out 'f here ? " 
 
 " In June," replied his father. " It's a great 
 disappointment to me, the whole thing. I had 
 thought of settling down here and leaving you with 
 a decent place to call your own. However, there 
 are plenty more in the market. I shouldn't be 
 surprised if Brackenbury didn't come up for sale 
 some time, and of course this doesn't hold a candle 
 to it." 
 
 " If you're thinking of me, I'd leave it," said
 
 312 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Joseph. " You know, the thing's hardly done 't 
 all now. You won't find any decent filers left in 
 houses like this in a year or two, I b'lieve. No- 
 body's got 'ny money, except a few people like you, 
 and you might b' left stranded here with practic'lly 
 no one to talk to. Personally, I should say th' thing 
 to do is to live 's quietly and comf rtably as 
 possible, and say we've lost th' money. You'd find 
 yourself in a far better set t'-morrow." 
 " Tut ! nonsense ! " said his father." 
 " 'T's true, I 'ssure you. I've been sairysly c'n- 
 sidering putting in a couple 'f hours a day at the 
 'lectric light plant at Brackenbury. Th' Duke's 
 fairf'lly keen on getting his daughters off, and they 
 won't look 't anybody 'nless he's a mechanic 'r dust- 
 man or that kind 'f thing. Two 'f them are starting 
 'n old-fashioned inn and calling it ' Th' Star 'nd 
 Garter.' They want t' have th' old filer's trophies 
 framed t' stick up outside. 'T's an awflly jolly 
 little idea 'f you come t' think of it." 
 
 We will here leave Mr. Price to his reflections.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 " WELL now, tell me," said Mrs. Carpenter, drawing 
 her chair near to Mrs. VachelTs tea-table. " What 
 is all this about the Hattons, do you know ? " 
 
 " I haven't heard anything," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 " What have they, or rather, what has she, been 
 doing ? " 
 
 " Haven't you heard that he is coming home ? " 
 
 " Let me see, where was it he went to ? Egypt, 
 wasn't it ? I haven't seen Evangeline for some 
 time." 
 
 " Amy," Mrs. Carpenter said earnestly, wedging 
 her large face close up to Mrs. Vachell, " tell me 
 now you know I never repeat things what did 
 happen then ? You know people say all sorts of 
 things, and some of them have really said so much 
 about you that I want to be able to contradict 
 them." 
 
 " You can contradict them all, certainly," said 
 Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 " I may do that from you, may I ? " 
 
 " No, not from me, from yourself. I don't know 
 what they have said, but whatever it is, I am sure 
 you can safely say it is untrue." 
 
 " You really had nothing to do with his going to 
 Egypt ? I was told to-day, on the very best 
 authority, that you had sent him off because Evange- 
 line you know those young wives they can't bear 
 
 313
 
 314 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 anyone even to look at their husbands, can they ? 
 Do you know, I thought she was quite strange in her 
 manner one evening at our house when he would 
 talk to me all the time about India. We said some- 
 thing about the heat, and I remember I thought to 
 myself, ' Yes, my dear boy, you would find it very 
 hot indeed out there with a wife who looks after you 
 with those eyes ! ' Why, half the women at any 
 station would run after him on purpose, if they saw 
 she was jealous." 
 
 " Yes, women ! " said Mrs. Vachell. " How 
 these Christians love one another, don't they ? We 
 are a very united sex when we are running with the 
 hounds to show what the hare can do to please 
 them." 
 
 " Then it really wasn't you who made him go to 
 Egypt ? " Mrs. Carpenter persisted. 
 
 " No. I am very much flattered at being mis- 
 taken for the War Office, but it wasn't me. I 
 should like to take the credit for ridding the country 
 of the dullest regiment in England, but I am afraid I 
 can't truthfully." 
 
 " That is very sarcastic of you, dear Amy, but I 
 know you don't like soldiers," said Mrs. Carpenter 
 affectionately. " You have never mixed with them 
 enough to know how honest and simple they are. 
 What do you think of General Fulton, though, 
 really and truly ? He is an odd sort of man, isn't 
 he ? I get on with him very well because I love his 
 humour and we have great arguments together, but 
 I know he is not popular as a rule. He is very 
 naughty in the things he says to her sometimes, 
 and she never seems to see. Emmie Trotter doesn't 
 like her at all ; she thinks she is not genuine, but
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 315 
 
 I don't think that. I think she is perfectly sincere 
 in the work she does but I don't think she is business- 
 like. Someone told me that Evan Hatton is coming 
 back and going into business. Had you heard of 
 it?" 
 
 " Yes, I had heard that," said Mrs. Vachell. 
 " And Teresa has given up her work with Emma and 
 is going to study unemployment from the most 
 favourable standpoint, by having nothing to do. 
 She is very lucky, I think, though I couldn't do it 
 myself." 
 
 " You mean you don't care for the Varens' ? " 
 
 " I know nothing about them one way or the 
 other. He used to be in and out of the University, 
 I don't know what for ; learning to make chemical 
 manures perhaps ; but I never saw much of him. 
 He belongs to what Mrs. Harding calls the ' polo 
 set ' and they don't interest me." 
 
 " Oh, now, some of them are very charming and 
 delightful. All the Brackenbury set are dears. 
 Bobo, as they call him, is a splendid player and a 
 real dear boy. However, the Duke says he can't 
 afford to let him play next year and he must do 
 something. You have heard about the girls setting 
 up an inn, haven't you ? It is a pity, I think, but as 
 Bobo says, what are you to do ? He pretends he 
 is going to run a circus, but seriously, I'm sure I 
 don't know. They can't keep themselves in the 
 army now, not even in the Guards. But David 
 
 Varens how did we get off the track ? He is 
 
 all right, apparently. His father seems to have left 
 him plenty of money, and of course he is not ex- 
 travagant like Bobo and that terrible elder brother. 
 Wasn't it dreadful about him ! Did you say Teresa
 
 316 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 is going to give up all her work as soon as she 
 marries ? Now I do think that is a great mistake, 
 don't you ? All the more reason she should go 
 on with it now that she will have money. Of 
 course I can see that she couldn't come in every day 
 in the same way, but there is no reason why she 
 shouldn't visit and take an interest in it all. A few 
 meetings would be good for her and prevent her 
 from getting self-centred." 
 
 The door opened and Mr. Vachell was heard to 
 say, " Come in. I think my wife is in here," and 
 Teresa walked into the room, followed by the little 
 man with a pile of books. " I was bringing these 
 back," she said to Mrs. Vachell. " They are some 
 that you lent to Evangeline and she had forgotten 
 about them. I am so sorry. I met Mr. Vachell on 
 the step and he brought me up, but I am afraid I 
 mustn't stay." 
 
 " Yes, you must," said Mrs. Vachell. " I haven't 
 seen any of you for so long and Mrs. Carpenter was 
 saying just now that I am given credit for all sorts of 
 things in your family for Captain Hatton's regiment 
 being sent to Egypt and what else was it, Mrs. 
 Carpenter ? I have just told her that I never see 
 you, but she is still suspicious." 
 
 Teresa frowned and blushed and had nothing to 
 say for a minute. Then she turned on Mrs. Carpenter 
 in sudden wrath. " I do wish women wouldn't be 
 sweet when they want to make mischief," she said. 
 " I never knew anything like this place. It is like 
 a lot of flies walking in muck and then settling on 
 the jam." The expression on Mrs. Carpenter's 
 face moved her to compunction, and she stopped. 
 After all, the woman had had children and battled
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 317 
 
 with pain and death and denied herself for her 
 fellow-creatures in more ways than Teresa, for she 
 had no love of them to carry her over the discomforts 
 of bearing other people's burdens. If she did gossip 
 and preach and plume herself by the way, she was 
 entitled to that relaxation, knowing no other. So 
 long as Britons never shall be slaves let us allow the 
 Potters their public-house, the Carpenters their tea- 
 table, the Fisks their blood and the passionate 
 philanthropists their feast of reason and flow of 
 soul. The Emma Gainsboroughs will go on patiently 
 and methodically clearing up, taking no notice of 
 themselves, and by-and-bye, as Susie so often 
 justly remarked, " Anything that is really good is 
 sure to make the rest seem so small in com- 
 parison." 
 
 " What was it you wanted to know ? " she asked 
 Mrs. Carpenter gently. " I would so much rather 
 tell you, if you are interested, than have you going 
 about asking all sorts of people whether they have 
 heard anything." 
 
 " Dear little Teresa ! " Mrs. Carpenter said, 
 recovering her usual smile. " What a set-down for 
 poor me ! You fierce little thing ! Well then, since 
 you ask, tell me what Evangeline has been doing to 
 set all the tongues wagging ? I shouldn't have liked 
 to ask you, dear, until you offered me your con- 
 fidence so sweetly. I appreciate it, I assure you. 
 But you know it is distressing to hear a thing hinted 
 at everywhere and not to be able to put it right 
 authoritatively. Now we will have it all fair and 
 
 square, shall we ? Sit down there and tell me 
 
 have they separated ? " 
 
 " No, they haven't,' said Teresa. " Mrs. Vachell
 
 3i8 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 lent Evangeline those books that I have brought 
 back, and they are all written to dish up rows that 
 needn't happen if people's minds weren't as stuffy 
 as mouldy cupboards. Evangeline's is like a wide 
 open door, you know ; she is not at all stuffy ; but 
 she wants so much to have everyone enjoy every- 
 thing they can that she took on the idea of women 
 being oppressed, and of course, wanted to help to 
 let them out, as she thought. That is true, isn't 
 it ? " she turned to Mrs. Vachell. 
 
 Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. "It is 
 true as far as it goes," she said. " Yes." 
 
 " Well then, you know Evan Hatton, don't you," 
 Teresa continued. She had forgotten her anger 
 against Mrs. Carpenter, and was trying to tell the 
 story as if she were in a Court of Justice, presenting 
 Evangeline's case and Evan's as one against the 
 world. " He is not so naturally anxious for every- 
 one to be happy. In fact he doesn't mind whether 
 they are enjoying themselves or not, so long as he 
 thinks they are doing what has got to be done. He 
 got really worried about her trying to undo all the 
 doors and locks everywhere. I think he got a 
 sort of panic about it ; as if she would or could 
 possibly have done any harm ! Anyhow, he thought 
 it was the thing to do, so they had it out ; that is 
 all. And now he is coming back. They hated 
 being away from each other, and he is going into 
 Mr. Price's engineering place, a new one he has 
 started near London. Now aren't you sorry you 
 helped to make people think there was some nasty, 
 frowsy mystery ? " 
 
 " That is nonsense, dear Teresa," Mrs. Carpenter 
 protested. " You ought not to let yourself run away
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 319 
 
 with such ideas. But I am more than delighted it 
 is so simple as you say. You know Mrs. Trotter 
 had quite a different impression, and I must say 
 Evangeline talked to her a good deal when you were 
 all together that summer." 
 
 " Yes, that is what she does," Teresa ad- 
 mitted regretfully. " She talks to everybody as 
 if they were all straight and decent, and she 
 doesn't realise what worms some of them are. 
 Of course they just mix whatever she says with 
 slime." 
 
 Mrs. Carpenter gave the little laugh which she 
 used to express offence. " Hardly flattering to her 
 audience, is it ? " she said. 
 
 " No, I didn't mean to flatter them," said Teresa. 
 " They can do that for themselves when they have 
 finished. " I was telling you how it looks to me 
 when I know how Evangeline loves all sunny and 
 kind things." 
 
 " I hear you are going to be married and give 
 up all your work," said Mrs. Carpenter. " I must 
 congratulate you and I hope you will be very happy. 
 Aldwych is a lovely place and David Varens is quite 
 delightful I think. You find you can't keep on with 
 your poor people, don't you ? With so many new 
 interests, I daresay it is not easy for young people 
 to think of others." 
 
 " Yes," said Teresa, her cheeks glowing. " But 
 you know you will never make anything different 
 out of Mrs. Potter, any more than I have." 
 
 " Who is Mrs. Potter ? I don't remember her," 
 asked Mrs. Carpenter. 
 
 " There are some people called Potter in that 
 long street Boaling Street just by Emma's office ;
 
 320 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 but I don't mean them alone. I was thinking of 
 them as a class, and I forgot you didn't know them. 
 I don't think either you or I are any good to them. 
 They laugh at you for thinking you are wiser than 
 they are, and they think I am mad because I keep 
 on supposing they are feeling the same things as I do. 
 Emma understands everything they say and is 
 never surprised, nor ever tells them anything about 
 herself, so they think she is perfectly normal and 
 never suspect her of being a lady. She is just ' The 
 lady at the depot,' like the girl behind the counter 
 is ' the young lady in the shop.' They go to her 
 when they want sensible things, and I don't suppose 
 they have any more theory as to why she is there 
 than they have about any official. They probably 
 think she is paid by the Government." 
 
 " And you are really sure you are not going to 
 keep it up, even twice a week ? " said Mrs. Carpenter. 
 Then, without waiting for further answer, she 
 changed the subject. " By-the-bye, Mr. Vachell, 
 can you tell me what the Sphinx really is ? Some- 
 one was asking the other day, and I said you could 
 tell us if anyone could." 
 
 Teresa excused herself and went away, depressed 
 by what had happened. She felt crushed by the 
 weight of the heaviest burden that society brings, 
 the failure to impress a living thought on a 
 dead comprehension. She had offered sincerity, 
 and been met with the corpse-like hand of 
 offence. 
 
 " Both those Fulton girls have been very much 
 spoiled," said Mrs. Carpenter, when she had shut 
 the door. 
 
 When Teresa got home she found David sitting
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 321 
 
 stiffly in a chair beside Susie, who was knitting a 
 small coat for her grandchild. There had been a 
 conversation between them which it may be worth 
 recording, and Teresa arrived at a critical moment. 
 Susie's knitting was a curious performance, and 
 David, sadly at a loss for an occupation while he 
 waited for Teresa, had watched it and wondered in 
 what way it differed from his mother's. Lady 
 Varens at work with needles suggested Penelope 
 filling in time to avert the intrusion of emotions. 
 Susie evidently undertook the thing as part of the 
 equipment of a role. It was like all household 
 affairs performed by stage characters, the dusting 
 of a room by a saucy maid who flicks the mantelpiece 
 twice and then gets on with her lines, the dinner- 
 party where everything is swept away after the first 
 morsel of fish has been tasted. Susie's knitting was 
 the " business " connected with the role of " Mrs. 
 Fulton ; beautiful, refined, well-dressed, awaiting 
 the eventide of life with the calm philosophy of one 
 who has known much suffering." She was now 
 " discovered seated, centre R.f., expecting the 
 return of her husband, a typical twentieth century 
 rake." 
 
 " You do a great deal of knitting, don't you ? " 
 David remarked at last. 
 
 " Not as much as I should like," said Susie. " I 
 hope that when you and Dicky are married you will 
 encourage her to do something of that kind in the 
 evening. If she is giving up all her other work she 
 will need something to take its place. You don't 
 sing or play at all, do you ? " 
 
 " No," he said, feeling some apology was needed, 
 " I don't."
 
 322 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 " I almost think I should take up some interest if 
 I were you," she said gently. " Of course there is 
 no doubt that there is no happiness like being 
 married if people understand each other, but at the 
 same time it is impossible not to feel the need for 
 change of thought sometimes. You are not fond 
 of wine, are you, David ? " 
 
 " No, not at odd times, thanks very much," David 
 replied. He was mildly startled by the question 
 and wondered what she was driving at. 
 
 " And no more is Dicky. She never cared for it 
 at all, and yet Evangeline would always take a glass 
 when it was offered her. It gives people quite a 
 different outlook. I don't know how far you have 
 studied Dicky's character but I understand her, in a 
 way, better than Evangeline. Dicky takes a much 
 wider view of spiritual things." 
 
 " Yes, I expect so," said David, polite and non- 
 committal. 
 
 " And just for that reason I am a little sad at 
 her giving up all her work among the poor. I am 
 afraid she will feel the want of it." David was 
 struck dumb, so she went on, supposing his silence 
 to be due to a wish to hear more. " She has no 
 artistic interests, you see. When I was her age I 
 had a great many. I was devoted to music, for 
 instance, and if I had not fallen in love with my 
 husband the course of my life might have been 
 quite different. I hope you will forgive these little 
 bits of personal history, dear David, but I should be 
 so glad if they helped you in any way to clear up 
 difficulties that may come when the ' first fine 
 careless rapture,' as I heard it described the other 
 day at a wonderful lecture of Professor Gaskie's I
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 323 
 
 thought of you two at once when that is over. I 
 felt it so much when I had to give up all that side 
 of things when I married. You see my husband has 
 his wine, for instance, and his men ; he had a great 
 number of old friends when we first married, whom I 
 must say, I thought extremely uninteresting. They 
 talked by the hour about foxes ; not in connection 
 with all the beautiful country life that you have, for 
 he never hunted except when he was asked to stay 
 with people, but they were always talking about 
 that kind of thing. Some of them were purely 
 politicians and some very much worse. Not the 
 old intellectual type like Disraeli, who really cared 
 for beautiful things, but the sort who run away 
 from a drawing-room and hide themselves somewhere 
 with decanters and laugh and roar and sing half the 
 night. I can't tell you how much I used to feel 
 the want of something else. Then the children 
 came, and of course it was all right, and I had 
 friends who were very kind, so that I could go 
 now and then and hear music and talk about the 
 things I cared for. That is why I have taken up 
 the work I do here. It is not an intellectual place, 
 as you see ; and those concerts ! Have you ever 
 been to them ? " 
 
 " Yes, sometimes," said David. " I thought they 
 were supposed to be rather good." 
 
 " The performers are often very good," she agreed, 
 " but there is an atmosphere about the place that 
 I don't like ; a want of appreciation. Have you 
 noticed that there is often quite a fog in the hall ? I 
 have wondered sometimes whether it was anything 
 like what Professor Bole was describing the other 
 day. I forget how he put it, but I thought of those
 
 324 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 concerts and wondered whether people's tastes 
 their love of rich dinners and wine and all that, had 
 been chased out of them by the music and was 
 wanting to get back and preventing them from 
 hearing if fully. Dear little Dicky used to find the 
 fog in the town so depressing when we first came, 
 and I expect she felt the same as I do. Now 
 Evangeline is different altogether, more like her 
 father. She will throw off anything of that sort 
 in a minute and be all ready for a gallop or a dance 
 or party. Haven't you noticed that ? And yet 
 I always think any art is such a happy thing. One 
 
 has no real need of other people " Her knitting 
 
 had gone down on to her lap long ago. 
 
 " No, perhaps not," said David. 
 
 " I am so glad you think so," she continued in 
 her purry voice. " For of course, you will be a great 
 deal cut off in the country. What is that Mrs. Lake 
 like whom I used to meet now and then ? She 
 seemed to have quite taken up the Prices. She is 
 very typical of the society round there, isn't 
 she ? " 
 
 " I don't know much about her," said David. 
 " But I believe she is all right." 
 
 " Dicky will find friends, of course," said Susie. 
 " One can always find some good in everybody if 
 one is prepared to look for it." 
 
 " Yes, I don't think there will be any difficulty," 
 said David. 
 
 " What do you think about Evan going into this 
 business of Mr. Price's ? " she asked. 
 
 " It ought to be quite easy I think," he answered. 
 " It is what he likes." 
 
 " Yes, but Evan does like such curious things,"
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 325 
 
 said Susie. " His is a most interesting nature ; so 
 upright ; but I often wonder how Evangeline, with 
 her very sunny disposition, chose anyone with such 
 very strong religious views. Religion always seems 
 to me to be a thing that should be so helpful in 
 making it easier to stand up against things that go 
 wrong. One sees so much suffering in a place like 
 this that unless one can be sure that it is all intended 
 and for the best, one would be inclined to dwell too 
 much on it. Now Evan, it seems to me, instead of 
 seeing it like that, often makes it sadder by supposing 
 things to be worse than they are. He used to take the 
 gloomiest view of poor little Ivor in his childish 
 naughtiness, though he is really a good little boy 
 and very obedient if one just smooths over difficulties 
 with a little tact. Nurse is not always very wise 
 with him. She goes on persisting at the time, 
 instead of waiting until he has forgotten and letting 
 him do whatever it is of his own accord, when he is 
 interested in something else. That is Evan's 
 mistake I am sure. He is always on the look out 
 for sad things and it makes him so difficult to interest. 
 Now my husband is all the other way. He won't 
 believe that anything matters, and I think that 
 Evangeline is rather like him. They have no 
 sympathy for any aims beyond the present. Do 
 you know Mrs. Vachell well ? " 
 
 " Not very," David replied. 
 
 " Do you like her ? " 
 
 " I don't think she wants people to either like or 
 dislike her, so I haven't got so far," he said. He 
 would have been candid with Teresa or Evangeline 
 or many other people, but he had a deep-rooted 
 distrust of Susie as a receptacle for words. They
 
 326 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 meant so little to her that she was liable to pass 
 them on as coinage in conversation and give no 
 goods of her own in exchange, so there was no 
 bargain that she was likely to respect between her 
 and whoever she talked to. He felt this instinctively 
 and had no dealings with her, not being willing, like 
 Cyril, to declare himself bankrupt for the joy of 
 riotous living. 
 
 " She believes very much in women," Susie went 
 on. " Her idea is that some day all those things 
 that I was talking about, the love of finer tastes 
 and of children, and all the confidence and dislike 
 of harshness and ugliness that woman feels so much 
 will come more to the front and have more influence. 
 There may be something in it, for although I dislike 
 the idea of women going into the world, still, if they 
 can do any good I am sure it is right for them not 
 to hold back ; for the sake of the unmarried ones 
 who have to earn a living. It does seem terrible, 
 don't you think, that there should be no way for 
 those who are not intellectual to live except by 
 pleasing men in the wrong way ; because that is 
 what it comes to, whether they are married or not. 
 And if they are not good looking it is even worse. 
 They ought to be as well paid for cultivating the 
 higher side of life as for pandering to the lower. 
 A loving nature is of as much value to the world 
 as a brain that invents war material ; and, as it 
 is, men only use it as a toy for every sort of coarser 
 instinct." 
 
 " But does Mrs. Vachell suggest a sort of spiritual 
 market ? " David asked, hesitatingly, roused at 
 last out of his burrow by the logical enticements 
 that Susie had been aiming at him. " Aren't
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 327 
 
 there enough people who sell themselves in that way 
 already ? " 
 
 " I don't think you have quite understood my 
 point, dear David," she replied, and at that moment 
 Teresa came in and found them.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 TERESA and Joseph Price were going back to Mill- 
 port together in the rickety^ little train that joggled 
 up and down the coast every few hours. Teresa had 
 spent the day with the Varens' and Joseph had called 
 about tea time with some information from his father 
 for Evangeline about her husband's new work. 
 Evan was expected in about ten days, and was to 
 take up his work at first under Mr. Price's own eye 
 before being entrusted with the final appointment 
 at a distance. Joseph and Teresa were each occupied 
 in trying to hold an evening paper still enough in the 
 dim light to read the last news of a riot that had 
 broken out in the Midlands over a labour dispute. 
 They had hardly deciphered more than a few lines 
 when the train wriggled itself to a standstill, and Mr. 
 Fisk junior jumped into the carriage. He threw 
 himself down in a corner and took some papers from 
 his pocket and then recognised his companions. 
 " How do you do ? " said Teresa. " I don't think 
 you can see anything by this lamp. We were trying 
 to read a paper, but it is no good." 
 
 " How d' you do, Fisk ? " said Joseph. " Been 
 playing golf down here ? " 
 
 " No," said Mr. Fisk, frowning. " What I have 
 been doing is a game to some but deadly earnest to 
 others. If it ends in bloodshed the responsibility 
 will lie with those who treated it as a game." He 
 
 328
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 329 
 
 settled himself into his corner and glared at 
 Teresa. 
 
 " Kait sairysly, though, Fisk, what d' you think 
 of this ? " Joseph asked, tapping his paper. " D' 
 you think it '11 come t' anything, what ? " 
 
 " It has come to something already," said Fisk, 
 " as you will find if you study your newspaper. And 
 it will come to something that you have not yet 
 experienced, the search for a crust of bread by those 
 who have treated the misery of their fellow creatures 
 as a game." 
 
 ' Yes, but you know, that won't do any good," 
 said Joseph. " Somebody's got t' hold the purse, 
 or the money 's bound to get lost. That's been 
 gone into pretty thoroughly. You and I can't decide 
 the thing 'n a railway carriage, like this. Now I'll 
 tell you a thing 's an instance. My father, the other 
 day, was thinking of buying a big place since you've 
 turned us out " he added politely to Teresa, " and 
 I said t' him, ' Don't. I don't want the thing. In a 
 year or two's time we shan't have a soul left t' talk 
 to. All the filers we know will be in trade or driving 
 their own engines and so on, and the people at the 
 top will be the sort that nobody c'n ask out and all 
 that. 'T's abs'lutely not done,' I said, ' 't's played 
 out.' Th' only thing t' do now, 'f you want to be 
 in it, is t' cover yourself with grease and get up at 
 th' most ungodly hours. Th' old aristocracy won't 
 look at you if you offer them a really decent dinner. 
 At my club th' other day, I met a filer ordering tripe 
 and onions ; 't's a fact." 
 
 " Oh, don't be so stupid," said Teresa angrily. 
 
 ' You can't always go on shifting from one branch 
 
 to another as soon as anyone else sits down on yours.
 
 330 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 All people want is to be let alone to do anything they 
 are able to do, and it is snobbery like yours that 
 makes it impossible." 
 
 " No, no, really, I assure you," Joseph protested. 
 " That's not Fisk's idea, I'm sure, is it ? " He 
 appealed to the indignant spectacled form opposite. 
 " What ? I heard about you th' other day, you 
 know. I was down canv'ssing your way for my 
 father and turned up 't your house. Your father 
 gave us his vote 't's a fact, abs'lutely because he 
 said he was f'd up with socialism. ' My son's one 
 of them,' he said, ' and he won't work, and he objects 
 t' me and my wife working.' Now there's snobb'ry 
 for you 'f you like, I think, what ? I'm willing t' 
 associate with people who won't associate with 
 themselves. What are you t' do ? " 
 
 " My father knows nothing about economic 
 questions," said Fisk, with dignity. " He has been 
 ground down to the level he is at now, but he has 
 never been below into the pit from which a class 
 must either become submerged or rise above the 
 one that is holding it down. They may rise through 
 blood " 
 
 " Oh, do stop, Mr. Fisk," Teresa implored him, 
 " I believe England got on a lot better when people 
 only argued at elections and went on with things 
 in between. But look here. Will you tell me what 
 you get paid for stopping people working and I will 
 find you something to do where you shall get the 
 same for being of some use. I have promised to 
 find someone who will give their whole time to 
 doing properly what I did so badly in scraps for 
 Miss Gainsborough. You have had an education 
 which I haven't, and you have much longer legs "
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 331 
 
 " No, pardon me, I don't approve of palliative 
 methods," said Mr. Fisk. 
 
 " Well, you won't argue any more till we get 
 out, will you ? " asked Teresa. " How are the 
 dormice ? " 
 
 He launched into the subject with enthusiasm. 
 He forsaw a great future for dormice in the field of 
 knowledge when their habits had been studied 
 more. After he got out at the next station Joseph 
 remarked : 
 
 " Kerious sort of filer, isn't he ? Typical of a 
 kind that's dying out, I b'lieve. In a year or two 
 you'll find that sort of thing'll hardly be done at all. 
 Abs'lutely the latest thing already is t' work at 
 something and it'll come in, you'll find, and then 
 everybody'll want to do it for a bit. Fisk'll be as 
 jealous as poss'ble when he finds someone else has 
 collared his little shovel and his paint pot and all 
 that, and that there isn't any loose money about to 
 pay him for talking. It's a very kerious thing how 
 'n idea gets out 'f date. I don't know if you're 
 interested in morals and all that ? " 
 
 " Go on," said Teresa, " I shall be grateful if you 
 will make me really cross with you." 
 
 " How's that ? " inquired Joseph. 
 
 " It is like a sneeze that won't come off but never 
 mind ; you have worked me up into an explosion 
 sometimes. What were you going to say ? " 
 
 " I said I didn't know if you are int'rested in 
 morals ; because I b'lieve very strongly that illicit 
 love affairs and all that sort 'f thing's going t' be 
 frightfully stale, what ? Don't you think so ? Of 
 course it'll go on happ'ning ; you can't prevent it ; 
 but people will have t' run the risk of being thought
 
 332 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 middle class. I'm fairf'Uy bored with th' idea of 
 sex, myself, aren't you ? " 
 
 " No, I must say I am glad there are two," said 
 Teresa. " But then I am ' fairf 'lly bored,' as you call it, 
 with the idea of anything being ' middle-class.' Per- 
 haps that is newer still. I hope not for your sake. 
 However, in the meantime I am ever so grateful 
 for what you have done for Evan. My sister is 
 so happy about having him back and that he is 
 going to do something he will like so awfully. 
 I hope it won't bore your father, having him 
 there." 
 
 " Oh no, my father's never bored," said Joseph. 
 " That's really th' thing about him that bores me 
 sometimes, 'f you know what I mean." 
 
 The train stopped for the last time and Teresa 
 got out into the brightly-lit station. Outside it 
 there was semi-darkness, and the mud dripping im- 
 perceptibly. Along the slimy pavements three or 
 four of the little boys to whom she had ladled out 
 hot-pot and plum-pudding ran to and fro, shouting 
 the latest news. " c'lock ' Echo ' special edi 
 shun ! six-o'clock ' Echo ' 'clock edi shun ! 
 ' Echo ' riots in Blankshire forty-seven per- 
 sons injured ! ' Echo ' edi shun serious-riot- 
 ing in Midland town forty-seven 'ere you are, 
 
 sir. 'clock ' Echo ' " and away he sped. " I 
 
 wonder if he has got any awfullness buttoned into 
 his waistcoat for Grannie to-night," thought Teresa, 
 
 " or whether she died . Shall I ever be able to 
 
 stand knowing that ' Grannie ' and the waistcoat 
 are there and I am with David, and not doing 
 anything ? " 
 
 " I met Joseph Price to-day," she said to her father
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 333 
 
 when she got home. " He has really been very good 
 about Evan. I believe he invented the whole idea 
 himself. Mr. Price seems suspicious about it and 
 wants to have Evan at the works here first, to make 
 sure that he is all right. David says he is quite sure 
 that he is in fact what is wanted, and there won't be 
 any difficulty, as he keeps on saying, but how Joseph 
 knew, or why he took the trouble, I can't imagine. 
 He is such an absolute ass and yet he seems to pick 
 up ideas and he makes the old man do just what he 
 likes. He is also the greatest snob and time-server, 
 and yet he will do anything or go anywhere for any- 
 body for no reason. Fisk was in the train, raving 
 about blood as usual, and Joseph said he was going 
 to ask him to stay for a week-end and meet some of 
 the people who are coming down about the election. 
 Joseph will sit there quite undisturbed by his family 
 and get any amount of amusement out of the flutter- 
 ing in the dovecot there will be, and Lady Varens 
 says that Mrs. Lake the select Mrs. Lake thinks 
 he would make a nice son-in-law. She thought 
 that he liked Lady Angela Brackenbury who started 
 the inn, the Star and Garter. They wanted to have 
 the Duke's Star and Garter framed as a sign outside. 
 I am getting so muddled with them all. I couldn't 
 go and live there if it weren't for David. Joseph 
 told me he was bored with sex, so I suppose, as he 
 can't find anything newer than a woman to marry, it 
 won't be either of them and the Price money will 
 have to go to anyone who marries the girls after 
 Joseph has lolled about on it enough. It is dis- 
 tracting to ravel out." 
 
 " You've got an abnormal love of the social order," 
 said Cyril. " You'd much better leave it alone
 
 334 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 and concentrate on your man. He'll repay it with 
 far more gratitude." 
 
 " I don't want gratitude," she said. " It is just 
 the Lady Bountiful idea that has annoyed me 
 from the beginning. I want to feel one of a colossal 
 family, that's all ; not to be the housekeeper in the 
 store cupboard or a cow being milked." 
 
 " Then you must put up with poor relations, and 
 they're always a damned nuisance," said Cyril. 
 " Your mother had a great love of humanity, she 
 said, but her idea was more to be the head of a 
 family of her own than to be mixed up in a general 
 one. Gad ! she used to rope them in, too ! I 
 never saw anything like it. And nothing about it of 
 a grosser nature, like your friend Joseph. All pure, 
 unadulterated love. It's a wonderful gift." He 
 was lost in retrospect. 
 
 " Where have you wandered off to ? " she asked 
 in perplexity. " Mother had only two of us and you 
 said once that she wasn't in love with you. I have 
 thought over that sometimes, and I think you must 
 be wrong. I don't mean to say you oughtn't to 
 have said it, because I don't want nasty things 
 covered up ; I want them not to happen. But you 
 were probably talking to the gallery that time, 
 weren't you ? People forget. Evan forgot a lot 
 of things that Chips remembered afterwards." 
 
 " I wasn't thinking about anything at all nasty," 
 Cyril replied. " There's nothing wrong with the 
 instinct of the nesting season, and the number of 
 eggs laid has nothing to do with it. The selection 
 of a mate has also been sung by poets, so I have 
 every right to use the comparison without being 
 blamed by you. Chips is another of you loving
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 335 
 
 ladies," he went on. " That makes three of you. 
 What a trio for one man to keep under the same 
 roof ! No wonder that I give way sometimes." 
 
 " Chips loves the sun, with people thrown in as 
 something that hatches out under it, I think," said 
 Teresa. " There's not much actual family about it 
 though Ivor goodness ! You talk of birds ! 
 That is nothing to her. Do you know, I think she 
 imagined she had hatched out the whole of creation 
 at once when Ivor was born. And now she lives in 
 him in a way, and doesn't mind how independent 
 he is. She never wants to hold on to him or push 
 him this way or that, like some mothers do. She 
 forgets so easily what other people think, so long 
 as they don't make obstacles and set them up in 
 front of her." 
 
 " I daresay," said Cyril. " Your sex amuse me 
 very much, and I am very fond of a great many of 
 you. But I wish you didn't all think so much. It 
 keeps one for ever tripping about for fear of disturb- 
 ing a valued plan. That's a thing I detested during 
 the war, having to make arrangements. You see 
 a thing to do and you do it or don't. That's the 
 only reasonable way." 
 
 About a fortnight later Evangeline went to London 
 to meet Evan. They were to stay there for a few 
 days while he went to see Mr. Price's engineering 
 works. They were then to take rooms in Millport 
 until after Teresa's wedding, and make arrange- 
 ments for the future. There was not much money 
 to spare for the moment, and Susie had urged 
 Evangeline to economise by staying with them until 
 Evan began to receive his new income. But the 
 sisters' decided between themselves that the sugges-
 
 336 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 tion held too many risks. " He does so hate being 
 looked at," Evangeline had said, at the conclusion 
 of her remarks on the subject in Teresa's bedroom 
 one night. 
 
 " There is too much of what Father calls ' damned 
 noticing ' in this family, isn't there ? " said Teresa. 
 " And yet Mother never tells you she has seen any- 
 thing ; she only points out what someone else has 
 seen. And Father never seems to see anything 
 unless you ask him, and I don't spy round, but still 
 I understand. I should hate not to be away with 
 David. I am so glad we are going away into 
 another continent before we end up among neigh- 
 bours." 
 
 " But this isn't a honeymoon, so it ought not to 
 matter," said Evangeline. " But I know you will 
 all look so nervous if we disagree, and since the 
 Vachell episode I feel that Evan will suspect the 
 devil in every female eye he sees for a long time." 
 
 " Mrs. Vachell is the only person I know from 
 whom I feel absolutely cut off," said Teresa. " I 
 don't mean since the episode, but always. You 
 and I have thought she wasn't human, but that is 
 not true. She is fond I mean fond really of that 
 little Vachell. He fainted one day at his lecture 
 and was brought home in a cab ; I don't know if I 
 ever told you ; and I happened to be there. She 
 didn't say anything hardly, but you can't mistake. 
 That is all I know about her. I think from some- 
 thing she said once that her father ill-treated her 
 mother, but I am not sure. If you had left Evan 
 I have an idea she would have carried the luggage- 
 taken the blame and all that and you would have 
 kept Ivor even if she had to seduce Evan and all
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 337 
 
 the jury, so if you come to principles ! She 
 
 would have been burnt in the Middle Ages and 
 Evan would have burnt her and been burnt himself. 
 Isn't it a mercy there is nothing worse than Fisk to 
 make opinions unpleasant in this country." The 
 hour was very late and honest Robert's footsteps 
 could be heard coming down the street. " Certainly 
 no ; certainly not," they said. But neither Teresa 
 nor Evangeline was aware of him. " But I don't 
 know her in the very least," Teresa added. 
 
 " I was a fool," said Evangeline, reflecting. " As 
 if it mattered ! " 
 
 " As if what mattered ? " 
 
 " Whether Evan understood either her or me. 
 Things come out in the wash. But it would be nice 
 to live with someone whom one could say just any- 
 thing to, instead of only being in love with them, 
 wouldn't it ? But I suppose that hardly ever 
 happens." 
 
 Teresa didn't answer. 
 
 A day arrived when Evangeline stood waiting for 
 the train that was to bring Evan. She was shivering 
 and impatient, like a swimmer about to dive on a 
 rough day ; anticipating the joy of achievement and 
 the thrill after stale security, but aware also of 
 what would happen if she failed. The noise of the 
 station was deafening ; other trains came in, dis- 
 charging crowds that pushed past her in their search 
 for relatives and luggage. An engine let off steam 
 close behind her and then thudded and puffed 
 interminably, it seemed, until the noise added to 
 her nervousness and the smell of smoke and the 
 pushing of unlovely strangers gave her an utter 
 revulsion against the thought of contending with
 
 338 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 Evan's sunlessness. She forgot everything except 
 the weariness of contention. All of a sudden the 
 platform was magically clear except for a line of 
 porters drawn up at intervals along it. The engine 
 was still screeching somewhere near and now a 
 second one appeared before her in a rush of smoke 
 and noise. The powerful movement of the axle, 
 bringing the inexorable moment, was the only thing 
 she noticed, and then she was fairly in the crowd, 
 trying to remember what Evan looked like. She 
 caught sight of him at last, standing a little apart, 
 with a drawn, chilly expression of disappointment. 
 She ran up to him, pushing porters and passengers 
 
 out of her way and caught his arm. " Here " 
 
 she said breathlessly, " I'm here I couldn't find 
 you for ages." He smiled, and she began to feel 
 less at the mercy of events. He said something 
 not very distinctly, that was drowned in a blast 
 from the engine. She made a sign to him to look 
 for his luggage, and after a time they drove away to 
 the hotel. Poor Evan felt as though he had been 
 washed ashore right into his own home after a ship- 
 wreck. He wanted to hear everything, to pick up 
 lost threads of small events ; to hear about this 
 new job, and Teresa's marriage. Evangeline found 
 plenty to talk about over their meal, but she was 
 conscious all the time of the strength of the sea and 
 that she would have to swim again presently. She 
 longed for a sunny beach and warm blue ripples with 
 no danger lurking in them. She was tired with 
 excitement, and all her natural distaste for effort 
 oppressed her with a wish that the man she loved 
 were in charge of the situation, and not she. She 
 wanted to bask in the certainty that nothing she
 
 THREE LOVING LADIES 339 
 
 could say would matter, and yet she knew that his 
 face might cloud at any moment and become chilled 
 by a chance slip of her speech. 
 
 The story ends at the Fultons' house a few weeks 
 after this. Luncheon was over and Cyril had poured 
 himself out a glass of port and pushed the decanter 
 towards Evan. The Hattons were to leave Millport 
 in ten days after Teresa's wedding and move into 
 their new home. Even Mr. Price was satisfied that 
 there was no hanky-panky about the appointment 
 his son had made, and Evan's prospects were bright. 
 He and Evangeline had been to lunch and the 
 children were to go afterwards for a drive with Susie. 
 David was also there. 
 
 " Well, here's luck," said Cyril. " Luck to 
 marriage and all it may mean to a girl. Isn't that 
 it, Sue ? " 
 
 " I will drink the health in my cup of coffee, I 
 think, dear," said Susie. " Hadn't you better send 
 the wine down to this end of the table ? David may 
 like to reply with some idea that is a little brighter." 
 
 " I am not sure that I won't drink Mrs. Potter's 
 health," said David. " May I, Dicky ? " 
 
 " Yes, do," she said eagerly. " And you do 
 really mean it, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course I do," he answered. " Where's 
 the difficulty ? " 
 
 " No, there isn't any, I know," said Teresa. The 
 door was pushed gently open and Ivor came in. 
 Nurse stood in the doorway holding young Susan. 
 
 " I shall be ready in about twenty minutes," said 
 Susie. " I must be at the bank before it shuts. 
 Would you like to walk up and down a little, in the
 
 340 THREE LOVING LADIES 
 
 garden, Nurse, and get what sun there is till the car 
 comes ? " 
 
 The little party went out and Evan got up to 
 watch them from the window. " How they do wrap 
 that child up," he observed to Evangeline. " Just 
 look at the forest of shawls in that thing. I am 
 sure it is not good for her." 
 
 " Oh, Evan," she said, wincing, " please, please 
 don't begin over again. You may find the wheel 
 of the perambulator is loose or something," she 
 added hastily, to make her request sound like a 
 kindly ioke. She opened the window to say some- 
 thing to the nurse, and Strickland, who had come 
 out into the garden, intoxicated with the atmosphere 
 of nuptial gaiety, was heard carolling to the baby, as 
 she pushed the perambulator up and down : 
 
 " It's a long, long trail a winding 
 Unto the land of my dreams 
 
 " I always think that is so true," said Susie with 
 a little sigh.
 
 A 000120106