FOOL 
 OF 
 
 JULIAN
 

 
 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIAN HAWTHORNE 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK 1896
 
 Copyright, 1896, by 
 Charles Scribner's Sons
 
 NOTE 
 
 " A Fool of Nature " was written by Mr. 
 Hawthorne for the competition of stories 
 instituted by the New York Herald in 1895, 
 and obtained the first prize of $10,000. 
 
 20463SO
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE 
 
 BEFORE DINNER, i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THEY ASSEMBLE, 17 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 DINNER 3 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 50 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT, 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Two VOICES, 94 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 SILENCE 115
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII PAGE 
 
 AN ESCAPE, 132 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION, 153 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 166 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD, 1 86 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 SOCIETY ETHICS, 200 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RlSDON HAS HIS REWARD, 2l6 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 UNDERCURRENTS, . 243 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE is WHEN NOTHING'S 
 
 LEFT TO HOPE FOR, 260 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 So RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 276
 
 A FOOL OF NATURE
 
 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BEFORE DINNER 
 
 Murgatroyd Whiterduce is supposed to 
 have come into this world on the i3th of 
 November. One and twenty years later 
 Pynchepole Whiterduce gave a dinner in 
 honor of his heir. Some eighteen of the 
 leaders of society sat down to table. 
 
 Despite the irreverence of progress, there 
 is still something sacred about dinner. It 
 is one of the few ceremonies of civilization 
 to which reverence is still accorded. Why 
 is this? Possibly the explanation might im- 
 peril the ceremony. 
 
 Its continued sway may be due to its sym- 
 bolic character. Dinner is man's acknowl- 
 edgment of his dependence upon his envi- 
 ronment. It shows the microcosm assimi- 
 lating the macrocosm. If he did not eat
 
 2 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 his surroundings they would devour him. 
 The personal soul derives its integrity from 
 the impersonal element wherein it subsists. 
 But I can ignore society only under penalty 
 of being annihilated by it. This is the phi- 
 losophy of dinner. 
 
 The Whiterduces had ever dwelt on the 
 summit. Knock on the doors of early Eng- 
 lish history, and from within murmur echoes 
 of Whiterduces. Their escutcheon has been 
 stainless. Even at that remote epoch when 
 they still retained arboreal habits, they were 
 all gentlemen and ladies. Under the sway 
 of monarchical ideas their virtue and ability 
 had opened to them avenues to rank and 
 power, but a refined pride had prompted 
 them to hold aloof from the rewards of royal 
 favor. The trappings of the courtier might 
 obscure they could never enhance their 
 serene but substantial dignity. They could 
 brook no title less noble than that of Whiter - 
 duce. They stood aside, indifferent, while 
 York and Lancaster shrieked and struggled. 
 They neither helped nor hindered the First 
 Charles in his vain career. Beside their 
 serenity, how vulgar appeared the conflict 
 of Court and Commons. The Whiterduces 
 strove with none, for none were worth their
 
 BEFORE DINNER 3 
 
 strife. Loyal to themselves, monarchs nor 
 demagogues might intrude on their reserve. 
 
 Cromwell died without having made any 
 impression on this family, and about the 
 time when the Second Charles was boosted 
 to his throne, they looked their last on Eng- 
 land over the high poop of their westward 
 faring bark. In America, an undistributed 
 kingdom, they may have anticipated a sort 
 of secluded sovereignty not civil and re- 
 ligious liberty exactly, for had they not al- 
 ways owned themselves ? but freedom from 
 creatures outwardly like themselves, but in- 
 wardly how alien and impossible. 
 
 The stern rigidity of Puritanism little in- 
 commoded them ; they in their own fashion 
 had always been Puritans. The austere 
 cloak and frosty bearing sat easily on them. 
 Without obviously deviating from the com- 
 mon path they held a way of their own. 
 They acquired over their crude neighbors 
 the irresistible because spiritual ascendency 
 of attitude, silence, impartiality. But the 
 offices of authority in the little community, 
 often tendered, were as invariably declined, 
 with a gentleness that veiled the scorn. 
 What value had the Judges' Bench or the 
 Governor's chair for those who must step
 
 4 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 down to occupy them? They remained a 
 race of gentlemen and ladies, pure and sim- 
 pie. 
 
 True, they must perforce submit to the 
 common human necessity they must take 
 wives from the depths beneath them. But 
 they did this frankly and uncomplainingly. 
 She who became wife was translated; her 
 life (so far as the Whiterduces recognized 
 it) began at the moment she first crossed her 
 husband's threshold. As for the children, 
 only the elder son was regarded seriously. 
 Second sons were rare in the Whiterduce 
 genealogy, and they were never known to 
 marry. The daughters might wed, if they 
 chose ; but in that case they spontaneously 
 dropped out of sight, like objects fallen from 
 a balloon. In any event, the first-born son 
 held the most august position open to mor- 
 tal ambition he was heir of the Whiter- 
 duces ! The day of his majority was not so 
 much a festival as a sacrament. 
 
 Yet we must not regard this family from 
 too esoteric a point of view. They were 
 flesh and blood, and admitted as much. 
 They did what others do ate, slept, spoke, 
 smiled, bowed (they did not shake hands). 
 They trod the streets and laid their bodies
 
 BEFORE DINNER 5 
 
 in the cemetery. They kept in the back- 
 ground the fact that inwardly they were 
 nevertheless unique. They never dreamed 
 of asserting themselves of " putting folks 
 in their places. ' ' Virtue that needs protec- 
 tion is no virtue ; exclusiveness that fears 
 ordinary contacts is fragility. 
 
 No but to be intimate with a Whiterduce 
 that, if you inquired into the matter, was an 
 unknown experience. None indeed could 
 be more graciously accessible than they; 
 they were hospitable, affable, encouraging, 
 even. They used not the stony stare of vul- 
 gar exclusiveness. You detected no conde- 
 scension in their steady tones ; you were 
 welcome to their house and conversation. 
 All there was serene, orderly and, appar- 
 ently, unconcealed ; no oubliettes nor cup- 
 boarded skeletons. A simple, cultivated, 
 respectable, self-respecting American family. 
 Yet the eye of a very Vidocq would fail to 
 find that nameless thing that makes human 
 intimacy. Upon this polished surface the 
 feet of a fly would slip. Your visit over, 
 whether it had endured twenty minutes or 
 as many years, your departure, you felt, 
 would leave no trace. There was nothing to 
 find fault with ; you could find nothing to
 
 6 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ask for that had not been spontaneously ac- 
 corded you already. 
 
 We might speculate as to whether any 
 Whiterduce had ever been familiar with him- 
 self or with the members of his own family 
 circle. Nay, what might be their attitude 
 toward their Creator? Respectful congrat- 
 ulation, was it ? A fair earth, a sublime uni- 
 verse had He made and an occupant there- 
 of worthy of them and of Him ! Moreover, 
 since a long time had passed since the form- 
 ing of the original Whiterduce, and the race 
 had constantly improved, by this epoch they 
 must needs have reached a point perhaps 
 very little lower than ... In short, after 
 the Divine Initiative had done its best, the 
 Product had taken its own development in 
 hand, and to-day behold ! So we may think 
 of the prayers of a Whiterduce as having the 
 character of friendly consultations, and his 
 religious worship as the manifestation of a 
 sincere regard, remotely modified by a rem- 
 iniscence of indebtedness. But intimacy 
 . . . ? Let us drop the speculation. 
 
 Each age has its spirit, which the Whiter - 
 duces reflected. We are at this moment 
 democratic and spiritual : and the Whiter- 
 daces of to-day are, accordingly, more suave-
 
 BEFORE DINNER 7 
 
 ly friendly, more exquisitely intangible than 
 heretofore. Having passed honorably but 
 undemonstratively through the era of the 
 civil war, they found themselves in an at- 
 mosphere of peace, prosperity, invention, re- 
 finements, and of capital versus labor. Now, 
 wealth a Whiterduce must always have, as 
 the sun brightness ; the wave of civilization, 
 sweep it never so fast, must ever bear them 
 on its crest. Only the more considerate and 
 indulgent were they toward the world. The 
 present head of the house, Pynchepole Whit- 
 erduce, appeared a model of the wise, charita- 
 ble, kindly millionnaire, whose family tradi- 
 tions forbade him the State House or the 
 White House, but did not prevent him from 
 according counsel intelligently sought. His 
 was a mind which looked beyond immediate 
 conditions to future contingencies, and could 
 indicate the course of final expediency. 
 Though his family scruples withheld him 
 from the directorship of the great industrial 
 enterprises of the nation, yet he was willing 
 to enlighten public judgment, at need, by 
 the investment of a loose million here or 
 there. As for the dispute between capital 
 and labor, he smiled at it. 
 
 " They are fighting phantoms," he said ;
 
 8 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " neither really wants what it imagines. 
 The worst luck either could meet with 
 would be to gain its end. The true desid- 
 eratum is . . ." 
 
 Political economy has no place in this 
 story. And, if Pynchepole Whiterduce knew 
 what the desideratum is, that is enough ; we 
 may safely trust the consequences to him. 
 
 The Whiterduce way of life was neither 
 ascetic nor voluptuous. Cool and unpretend- 
 ing it was, and elegant it could not but be. 
 On the other hand, we are not to fancy 
 it oppressively formal. The Whiterduces 
 grudged not the manifestation of social 
 charm ; an entertainment at their house ren- 
 dered other entertainments vulgar; the at- 
 mosphere was rare, perhaps, but it would 
 not do to call it uncongenial. Your host 
 was careful to veil your inferiority with the 
 subtlest tact to make it wear the linea- 
 ments of a personal attraction. 
 
 The following query was once propound- 
 ed at the St. Quentin Club : " What would 
 Pynchepole Whiterduce do were a guest to 
 put his feet on the dining-table ? " 
 
 " What a soap-bubble does when you put 
 your finger through it," said old Roger 
 Hemynge, the lawyer.
 
 BEFORE DINNER 9 
 
 " The feet would wither away," said 
 Stukely Poyntell, the literary critic. 
 
 " Whiterduce would smile his kindliest 
 and say, ' The best service one can do to 
 culture is to emancipate it from prejudice,' " 
 was the reply of the novelist, Verinder 
 Vyse. 
 
 The club applauded the latter solution; 
 but, after all, it was only Verinder Vyse's 
 opinion. Pynchepole Whiterduce himself 
 would probably have handled the problem 
 differently, and if differently, then better. 
 Verinder, as Aubert Frewin, the artist, re- 
 marked, was a wit, but Pynchepole was a 
 Whiterduce. 
 
 Once in each generation society held its 
 breath; a bride was being chosen for the 
 Whiterduce heir. Aubert Frewin said it re- 
 minded him of the Aztec custom of selecting 
 a maiden for the service of the god ; she was 
 treated like a divinity during the period of 
 probation, but at the end of it was laid upon 
 the altar, the priest cut out her heart and 
 she was burned. 
 
 " The intended of a Whiterduce," object- 
 ed Stukely Poyntell, ''can have no heart, 
 and must be too cold to burn." 
 
 General Stepyngstone knocked the ash
 
 io A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 from his cigar with his ring finger. "As a 
 description of the present Mrs. Whiterduce, 
 Poyntell," he remarked, " that seems to lack 
 your usual felicity." 
 
 Mrs. Whiterduce, in fact, had been a 
 belle in her day, was still handsome, was un- 
 derstood to be a model wife and mother and 
 tireless in charities. 
 
 " I remember her as Arabella Murga- 
 troyd," said Judge Hemynge, from the 
 other side of the fireplace. " Damned fine 
 girl ; more than one young fellow after her 
 in those days eh, Stepyngstone ? ' ' and 
 there was a sharp twinkle under his bushy 
 brows. 
 
 The General lifted his chin, and changed 
 his pose from one long leg to the other. 
 "Yes? Dare say," was his only rejoinder. 
 
 To them at this juncture enter the Rev. 
 Christopher Plukerose Agabag, pastor of the 
 Church of St. Sacrosanct. The members of 
 the St. Quentin Club were drawn from all 
 elements of society, only they must be unex- 
 ceptionable in breeding. 
 
 The old Judge eyed the divine critically, 
 as representative of a constituency outside 
 of his jurisdiction. "Well, parson," quoth 
 he, " how is Heaven getting on ? "
 
 BEFORE DINNER n 
 
 The reverend gentleman smiled, drawing 
 off his gloves, with elbows squared and ele- 
 vated, his smooth-shaven comely counte- 
 nance dimpling rosily on cheeks and chin. 
 
 " Too fast, I fear, for some of us," he said. 
 " Why? Are your desires thitherward? " 
 
 " It's a winter resort the Judge is heading 
 for," observed Verinder Vyse. 
 
 " Sh-sh ! " whispered the man of God, 
 gathering up his pendant black coat-tails and 
 sinking gently into an easy-chair. 
 
 " The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," 
 muttered Frewin, chewing his beard ab- 
 stractedly, communing with himself. 
 
 "Only when your digestion is in order, 
 my boy," sighed Vyse. 
 
 " Gentlemen, permit me to change the 
 subject," said Agabag. " I have just come 
 from the Whiterduces." 
 
 "From Heaven's antechamber!" said 
 Vyse. 
 
 "I bear news," the clergyman continued. 
 " Murgatroyd is to marry Isabella Sharing- 
 bourne. ' ' 
 
 General Stepyngstone turned his back 
 upon the company and thoughtfully drove 
 his boot heel into a log upon the hearth. 
 Then he turned again.
 
 12 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 "Touch the bell, will you, Hemynge?" 
 he said. 
 
 The Judge applied the end of his square 
 middle finger to the ivory button in the 
 wainscot. There was a moment of silence 
 before Stukely Poyntell said, 
 
 ''Then we're safe for another thirty 
 years ! " 
 
 " With your leave, gentlemen," said the 
 General, as the waiter appeared, " I'll order 
 a bottle of wine. We'll drink the health of 
 the young couple." 
 
 " I shall join in that toast with pleasure," 
 observed Agabag, arching his white fingers 
 beneath his chin. " Miss Sharingbourne is a 
 charming young lady. Murgatroyd is " 
 
 Here Aubert Frewin emerged for a mo- 
 ment from his habitual abstraction. Said 
 he, " Do you know, Murgatroyd never im- 
 pressed me as being a genuine Whiterduce; 
 I've always felt there was something I 
 don't know human about him." 
 
 Vyse's laugh had a touch of envy in it. 
 "If you were ever awake, Aubert," he 
 said, " you might get the credit of the good 
 things you say." 
 
 " If he were awake he'd never say them," 
 said Poyntell.
 
 BEFORE DINNER 13 
 
 " Murgatroyd has the making of a man in 
 him," the General declared. 
 
 " But not of a Whiterduce; I agree with 
 Frewin," quoth the Judge. 
 
 " Now, I protest ! " exclaimed Agabag in 
 his rich voice. " Pynchepole Whiterduce 
 is a man of men an honor to the city and 
 to the nation. It may be he shows the 
 world too exclusively his intellectual and 
 aesthetic side ; but, trust me, such qualities 
 have their base in a nature profoundly hu- 
 man. The powers of most of us are dissi- 
 pated in superficial, even sensual pursuits; 
 but Whiterduce husbands and concen- 
 trates. ' ' 
 
 Just there a silver salver with a glass of 
 champagne on it came into gentle contact 
 with his left shoulder, and the servant mur- 
 mured, ' ' Beg pardon, sir ! " The clergy- 
 man's eyes dismissed their gazing, pulpit 
 expression, and sparkled pleasurably. "Ah 
 yes yes thanks ! ' ' came from him in 
 dovelike cooings. He took the glass dain- 
 tily by the stem, and held it deftly at a 
 seemly distance from his blooming visage, 
 while the waiter completed his rounds, 
 finally emptying the bottle into the Gen- 
 eral's glass.
 
 14 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 The latter then met the converging glances 
 of all, nodding slightly, and said, 
 
 " Gentlemen, here's to our worthy young 
 friend, and the excellent young lady who 
 er of his choice ! ' ' 
 
 They drank. 
 
 The General then wiped his gray mustache 
 with his silk handkerchief, saluted the com- 
 pany gravely, and stepped out of the room, 
 snugly buttoning up his black Prince Albert, 
 and communicating a rhythmic swing to his 
 long, military legs. 
 
 " Well, I don't mind the wine," re- 
 marked Vyse, thoughtfully, " but I'm sure 
 I don't see the necessity of our celebrating 
 that young animal's " 
 
 Pontell gave a well-bred groan. " Oh, 
 he'll have a million," he said. " I hardly 
 can say I know the creature; I've seen 
 him; he does look like a reversion to a 
 more human type. Is it true they couldn't 
 get him through college? Well, Miss Shar- 
 ingbourne took a double first, didn't she, to 
 make up for it ?" 
 
 " The gray mare will make the running in 
 his case," assented Vyse. "By the way, 
 why does the General take so prominent a 
 part in the congratulatory ceremonies ?
 
 BEFORE DINNER 15 
 
 Does he come in for a commission on the 
 deal?" 
 
 " The commission, if there was one, was 
 paid long ago, ' ' put in old Hemynge, with 
 his saturnine grin. He added, "Ask the 
 parson ; he's the father confessor." 
 
 The Rev. Plukerose Agabag, whose medi- 
 tations had apparently been transporting 
 him to the thymey walks of Paradise, was 
 thus recalled to himself and the world. He 
 rose, with an elastic movement of his fine, 
 full, well -proportioned figure, and smiled be- 
 nevolently. He said he had some visits to 
 pay before dinner. " I suppose we shall all 
 meet to-morrow at our friend's birthday 
 celebration ? " he added, as he smilingly 
 withdrew. 
 
 "He'd make a portrait," said Frewin, 
 presently. 
 
 "Paint him as the Aztec priest with his 
 hand on the young girl's heart ; he'd pose 
 for that, ' ' said Hemynge. 
 
 " Which young girl ? " demanded Vyse. 
 
 " Paint her from a composite photograph," 
 returned the incorrigible Judge. 
 
 "You're a bad old man," said Vyse, 
 twisting his long, red mustaches. " Unless 
 you reform I won't associate with you any
 
 1 6 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 more, and posterity will consign you to 
 oblivion." 
 
 "Will it? Then you must have put me 
 into your forthcoming novel," retorted the 
 eminent jurist, whereupon, in graceful ac- 
 knowledgment of his discomfiture, the nov- 
 elist pressed the magic button and bade the 
 attendent genie take the gentlemen's orders.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 
 
 The persiflage and breadth of phrase ob- 
 taining in clubs is discarded at a private 
 dinner, at least when ladies are present. 
 The price which ladies must pay to see us as 
 we are is to marry us. Perhaps even then 
 we hide from them what is most character- 
 istic. But, on the other hand, do we not 
 hide what is best in us from one another ? 
 And is not the highest self the true man ? 
 It depends on the man ; probably alternation 
 is wholesome. 
 
 The gentleman at whom we have already 
 glanced attended the dinner the next even- 
 ing, in conventional uniform ; and in addi- 
 tion there were Blackmore Risdon, the edi- 
 tor of the Constitution newspaper, and 
 Devereux Scaramanga, the Wagnerian. 
 These, with Pynchepole and Murgatroyd, 
 brought the number of males to ten. To 
 balance the black shoulders there were nine 
 pairs of white ones. The table was round.
 
 1 8 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 Mrs. Whiterduce sat opposite her lord. At 
 his right was Mrs. Dorothy Tiptoft, that 
 wonderful old lady, whose humor and vivac- 
 ity had been enriched rather than tamed by 
 seventy years of social experience ; who 
 looked like a cross between an English 
 duchess and a fairy godmother ; who had 
 known everybody knowable of the last two 
 or three generations, and who was an inex- 
 haustible mine of racy anecdote and good- 
 humored but remorseless satire. At Mr. 
 Whiterduce' s left hand rose the imposing 
 figure of Mrs. Sharingbourne, mother of the 
 Isabella whose lofty destiny has already been 
 disclosed to the reader. Mrs. Sharingbourne 
 was like a Rembrandt portrait massive, 
 richly tinted, aristocratic of feature, with an 
 imperturbable but graciously dignified de- 
 meanor. Mrs. Whiterduce was supported, 
 right and left, by Blackmore Risdon and by 
 General Stepyngstone, respectively ; the for- 
 mer a Websterian personage, broad-shoul- 
 dered, imposing, but markedly gallant tow- 
 ard women, and with a quizzical tilt of 
 eyebrow and a sagacious twitch of the cor- 
 ners of his straight-lipped mouth, which 
 showed that he knew how to appeal to the 
 male sense of humor.
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 19 
 
 The Rev. Christopher Plukerose Agabag 
 bloomed like a rose between Mrs. Jellicoe 
 and Miss Aurelia Estengrewe. Mrs. Jellicoe 
 was a plump, elderly innocent, with puffy 
 pink cheeks and an air of attaching herself 
 to her interlocutor of hanging trustfully 
 about that favored person's neck. Aurelia 
 was the eldest of three sisters, all present to- 
 night, nieces of Mrs. Jellicoe ; each maiden 
 had her line ; and Aurelia, a slender, rather 
 sombre brunette, was addicted to esoteric re- 
 ligion ; so that it was esoteric, the sect 
 was of minor importance. Hannah, next in 
 age, was separated from Aurelia by Verinder 
 Vyse ; her tastes were housewifely and do- 
 mestic, and she had the flaxen hair and firm, 
 ruddy flesh of a Gretchen. The youngest, 
 Sabina, cultivated music ; she was petite 
 and pretty, with brown, wavy hair and a 
 fun-loving nose. She chirped under the 
 long, lean wing of General Stepyngstone. 
 Devereux Scaramanga was on her other 
 hand ; he had independence enough to let 
 his black locks flow down nearly to his 
 shoulders. 
 
 It is an error to suppose that all men 
 who do this are fools ; there have been in- 
 stances much to the contrary. Sacramanga
 
 20 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 also wore an aspect of sallow and deep-eyed 
 romanticism. 
 
 Roger Hemynge and Aubert Frewin were 
 attendant upon Mrs. Stepyngstone, a lean, 
 much bejewelled lady, dowered with the 
 happy faculty of cordial agreement with 
 everybody and everything. Finally, Isa- 
 bella Sharingbourne sat between Stuke- 
 ly Poyntell and her betrothed, Murga- 
 troyd. 
 
 A handsome girl was Isabella, erect and 
 correct, in fine physical condition, with 
 clear, deliberate eyes, and straight, rather 
 severe features. Both her mind and her 
 body had been systematically cultivated up 
 to their highest point of efficiency. She 
 was but twenty years old, but she was ripe 
 for marriage, for society, for a profession, 
 for anything. No illusions imperilled her, 
 nor sentiment enfeebled. " That is a girl," 
 General Stepyngstone had once said, ' ' who 
 never will be guilty of a social mistake, ' ' to 
 which Verinder Vyse had rejoined that apart 
 from social mistakes no woman could attract 
 or interest, instancing Helen of Troy, Sap- 
 pho, Semiramis, Cleopatra, Heloise, Marie 
 Antoinette, George Sand, and others of even 
 later date. But he added that Miss Sharing-
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 21 
 
 bourne was still young, and that he was re- 
 solved to be hopeful of her. 
 
 Such were the component parts of the hu- 
 man instrument which Mr. Whiterduce had 
 put together from which he must elicit an 
 evening's harmony. Yet a word must be 
 said about the Whiterduce trinity them- 
 selves. 
 
 The lady must have been upward of forty 
 years of age, but except for her lack of 
 movement and variety would still have been 
 beautiful. Her repose was not that of a 
 Greek statue, with which her form and 
 features might have been compared, for the 
 Greek is latent activity so poised as to be 
 unchanging, though forever potent of change. 
 Mrs. Whiterduce's immobility had the char- 
 acter of spiritual paralysis. She was desti- 
 tute of initiative; she stirred only in re- 
 sponse to external stimulus. Those who 
 remembered her as a high-spirited, warm- 
 blooded girl were at a loss to account for 
 the change. Her soul seemed held in bond- 
 age by an impregnable force, as bodies are 
 by ice or amber. 
 
 Of course, we are not to imagine Mrs. 
 Whiterduce as literally incapable of motion ; 
 but it is difficult to explain how the effect of
 
 22 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 abnormal stillness was produced. Was it 
 the intent, yet unseeing look in her eyes? or 
 the hush in her voice, as of one who speaks 
 in the presence of an amazing spectacle, or 
 under the influence of a ghastly foreboding? 
 After conversing with her a few minutes, one 
 instinctively lowered the tone of one's voice, 
 as with a vague expectation of some strange 
 event about to happen. Nothing ever did 
 happen, and Mrs. Whiterduce always per- 
 formed with perfect good breeding every 
 requisite social function. She was probably 
 the victim of some obscure affection of the 
 nerves ; her older acquaintances traced back 
 her condition to the epoch of Murgatroyd's 
 appearance. Yet Mrs. Whiterduce was not 
 what is colloquially termed nervous, and her 
 general health was equable. Aubert Frewin, 
 who was occasionally visited by insights, ex- 
 pressed the impression she had on him by 
 saying, "Other people's bodies die; it's 
 the soul is dead in her." 
 
 As for Pynchepole, it was those who had 
 longest known him who were most ready to 
 admit that they knew him not. Was there, 
 then, anything dark or sinister in his nat- 
 ure ? Chemistry assures us that the dia- 
 mond is derived from the blackest of sub-
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 23 
 
 stances, so thoroughly digested as to show 
 only purity and clear reflections. Whiter - 
 duce seemed transparent, yet he could not 
 be seen through. An investigator might 
 fancy he had penetrated him, only to find 
 that he was in an interior corridor, which 
 left him as much outside the real reserves as 
 ever. After your shrewdest inquisition, 
 there still stood the quiet, friendly gentle- 
 man, with clear eyes and invisible manners, 
 within reach of your arm, yet remote as the 
 peak of Everest. His voice was low, clear 
 and nicely modulated, yet his phrases had 
 a careless spontaneity a freedom from ultra 
 precision which in another might have 
 been criticised. Physically he was neither 
 tall nor short, stout nor slender ; his close 
 side-whiskers and clean-shaven mouth and 
 chin imparted an English character to his 
 delicately tinted countenance. 
 
 After all, the practical puzzle about him 
 was that his undoubtedly great forces should 
 be so divorced from great action. He had 
 inevitably gravitated to the social, political, 
 and industrial centre of the community, and 
 the chosen men of mark and mind consulted 
 with and deferred to him ; the reins of in- 
 fluence were gathered ready to his hand, yet
 
 24 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 his fingers never closed upon them. How 
 can a man who has all his life been in the 
 illuminated midst of civilization, visible and 
 accessible by all, remain a mystery? Au- 
 relia Estengrewe suggested that he had re- 
 ceived the freedom of the Fourth Dimen- 
 sion. He was not a club man nor a diner 
 out, nor a man of business, politician, trav- 
 eller, author, inventor. His tastes were do- 
 mestic and static. He sat on Sundays un- 
 der Agabag. There are plenty of hustlers, 
 shouters, and of brainless drones in the 
 world ; does he not also serve who is con- 
 tent to remain a model of serene and intelli- 
 gent passivity ? 
 
 Perhaps Murgatroyd was his father's least 
 comprehensible manifestation. He appeared 
 commonplace. The animal was prominent 
 in him. It glowed in his cheeks, thickened 
 his lips, lowered his forehead. His eye- 
 brows were thick and all but met across the 
 root of his blunt nose ; his dark-brown hair 
 was over - abundant and rebellious to the 
 comb. He was as redolent of good humor 
 as a gambolling retriever ; grins and laugh- 
 ter bubbled from him at the slightest provo- 
 cation. But he was afflicted with bashful- 
 ness, which was forever reddening his face
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 25 
 
 and ears, and blundering into his hands and 
 feet. He was obviously well disposed, lik- 
 ing to be liked and to satisfy expectation, 
 but the primitive impulse within was so 
 alien to the sage outward admonition that it 
 obeyed with difficulty, and the constant 
 sense of failure rushed in, dismally tumultu- 
 ous. Murgatroyd had moments of despair, 
 contrasting what he was with what he ought 
 to be. These alternated with seasons of ob- 
 livious, illicit joy festivals of physical health 
 and strength and delighted marriage of de- 
 sire with gratification. Few youths had 
 more than he enjoyed college life so long 
 as it was a matter of playing ball, rowing, 
 eating, and genial carousing but his inabil- 
 ity to keep to strict training spoilt his value 
 in college athletics, and as for study, neither 
 under the academic shades nor during en- 
 forced retirement to rural solitudes tempered 
 by learned parsons, could he bring his mind 
 to it. The consequence was the indefinite 
 postponement of his diploma. 
 
 On his way home Murgatroyd contem- 
 plated suicide, but he decided to eat once 
 more first, and presently he found himself 
 entering the paternal mansion. 
 
 Mr. Whiterduce happened to intercept
 
 26 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 him on the way to the larder, where he 
 knew that his friend, Sallie Wintle, the 
 housemaid, would give him all the cold pie 
 and cheese he wanted. 
 
 Mr. Whiterduce pleasantly beckoned him 
 into the library, where the unhappy youth 
 confronted him, his interior parts distilling 
 to a jelly, while his skin was as though 
 bathed in nettles. He heard the sound of 
 that low, serene voice, which always slid 
 through him like Saladin's cimeter, but for 
 a while had no idea what it was saying. At 
 length these surprising words reached his 
 consciousness : 
 
 "Don't let it bother you, my boy. A 
 college diploma amounts to nothing. Let 
 the past go. You are a man now, and what 
 I want you to do is to marry. You will like 
 Isabella Sharingbourne, I think. You shall 
 have opportunities of arranging it between 
 yourselves. Have you had your lunch ? 
 Ring the bell and tell Foster to bring what- 
 ever you want. You are to give what orders 
 you like in this house from this time on. ' ' 
 
 Semi -articulate noises strove to emerge 
 from Murgatroyd's throat ; Mr. Whiterduce 
 smiled again, and left him to his own de- 
 vices.
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 27 
 
 Some five months were still to elapse be- 
 fore Murgatroid would be twenty-one. Dur- 
 ing this interval ample opportunities were 
 afforded to come to the point with Miss 
 Sharingbourne. The youth used to go and 
 sit in her presence, picking at the callosities 
 on the palms of his hands while she talked, 
 if she were so disposed, or sewed or read, as 
 it happened. At first Murgatroyd was much 
 distressed because he thought that some 
 manifestation would be expected of him; 
 but Isabella never betrayed any solicitude 
 on the subject of his sentiments. She 
 " minded " him no more than she did her 
 collie dog ; she fed him even oftener, and 
 never caressed him. Murgatroyd was inar- 
 ticulately grateful for this treatment, and be- 
 gan to think that if marriage involved no 
 more trouble than courting, perhaps he 
 might make a husband after all. At all 
 events he was resolved to do his best, to 
 make up for losing that diploma. He con- 
 sidered that his father had shown him enor- 
 mous generosity. He did not take to Isa- 
 bella nearly so much as to Sallie Wintle ; 
 but never mind ! One day, after an abun- 
 dant lunch, while Isabella was pouring out 
 for him an extra cup of coffee, he said :
 
 28 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " I say, Isabella, how do you do when 
 you get married ? What does one have to 
 do?" 
 
 Isabella looked up, with a piece of sugar 
 between the sugar tongs. " Two lumps, 
 don't you? Oh! When Mr. Agabag says 
 ' Will you ? ' you say, ' I will,' and put the 
 ring on her finger." 
 
 "Is that all?" exclaimed Murgatroyd, 
 receiving the cup. "Why, that's easy. I 
 can do that. Any fellow could." 
 
 " Yes, you can, if you care to." 
 
 " Well, let's do it. I mean I will if you 
 will." 
 
 "Very well," said Isabella, after a little 
 silence. She looked aside, out of the win- 
 dow, at the gray November sky. She looked 
 back at her lover, swallowing his coffee. 
 She pushed the silver basket of cake toward 
 him and rose. 
 
 ' ' Have you got everything you want ? ' ' 
 she asked him. 
 
 " Me? Oh, yes ; thank you ! " 
 
 " I have an engagement. Will you ex- 
 cuse me ? " She went out, and it was thus 
 that Murgatroyd Whiterduce won his bride. 
 
 Dinner is served. The damask tablecloth 
 is lustrous in the soft light. The flowers are
 
 THEY ASSEMBLE 29 
 
 massed in the centre of the round table, 
 glowing with color and breathing perfume. 
 There is a sparkle of silver, crystal and porce- 
 lain. The subdued cheerfulness of conver- 
 sation begins to murmur and undulate. 
 Deft servants exchange noiseless signals and 
 step hither and thither. Dinner has begun. 
 There is not a fool present, or not more than 
 one.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The advantage of a round table is that the 
 head of it is always where the best thing is 
 being said. Anyone who can prove a right 
 to it may occupy the position, without the 
 pain of changing chairs. The host is on the 
 same footing with his guests. 
 
 " Which do you prefer, Little Necks or 
 Blue Points?" inquired Hannah Esten- 
 grewe, as she squeezed a segment of lemon 
 over one of the first-named bivalves. 
 
 "Whichever I'm most accustomed to," 
 was Verinder Vyse's reply. 
 
 " Now, I should have thought you would 
 like novelty." 
 
 "Not on the lower, at the expense of 
 the higher plane. Novelty in dinners may 
 be a gastronomic virtue, but it is a moral 
 error. ' ' 
 
 "Do explain, Mr. Vyse. Can Little 
 Necks be immoral?" said Mrs. Sharing-
 
 DINNER 31 
 
 bourne, smiling over -graciously from Han- 
 nah's right. 
 
 "Mrs. Sharingbourne, eating is in the 
 last analysis an animal necessity. The de- 
 gree in which we disguise that fact is the 
 mark of our advance toward civilization. 
 The most civilized dinner is that at which 
 you know not what you eat thereby liberat- 
 ing your intellect for conversation." 
 
 " Ah, that accounts for it, then," said the 
 old lady, with the most innocent air in the 
 world. " It is the dinner's not being civil- 
 ized. I always thought it was something 
 else! " 
 
 " You mustn't mind him, ma'am," chuck- 
 led old Roger Hemynge. " He's trying 
 sentences out of his next novel on us. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Whiterduce gave the discomfited nov- 
 elist a friendly nod. " It's the right social 
 principle the spirit against the flesh," he 
 said. " The ox and the ass are always tram- 
 pling us if we give 'em a chance eh, Aga- 
 bag?" 
 
 " And the swine turn again and rend us," 
 assented the clergyman, unctuously. 
 
 Mrs. Tiptoft sipped her hock and glanced 
 across at the Judge. "You and I were 
 brought up in a farm-yard, Judge," she re-
 
 32 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 marked, " and we cherish the memory of 
 our first loves ! " 
 
 " Ay, ay, Mrs. Tiptoft. I may say I 
 never saw to the bottom of my own nature 
 until I read that passage about the pigs run- 
 ning down the steep place. If we can't be 
 men and women, let's be swine. It's the 
 first alternative." 
 
 "What a pearl hath our little clam pro- 
 duced ! ' ' said Vyse to Hannah. 
 
 "A black pearl, then," said Aubert Fre- 
 win. " Imagination is divine ; it finds the 
 human being in the animal not the other 
 way and society out of solitude. ' ' 
 
 "Anachronism before soup," muttered 
 the Judge, sotto voce, to Mrs. Tiptoft; 
 " should have kept it for the coffee." 
 
 But Aurelia Estengrewe had heard and 
 kindled. 
 
 " Mr. Frewin does say such soulful things 
 in his strange way," she confided to Mr. Aga- 
 bag. "Is it not true that imagination in- 
 volves religion ? It divines the unseen and 
 eternal ! " 
 
 At the same moment Mrs. Jellicoe, on his 
 other side, asked his opinion on another sub- 
 ject. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, anxiously studying
 
 DINNER 33 
 
 the empty shells on her plate through her 
 eye-glasses, " do clams really have pearls ? I 
 never found one, and I've eaten so many ! " 
 
 The man of God disposed first of the ma- 
 terial doubt. 
 
 " No pearls in Little Necks," he said, 
 sympathetically. Then he turned to Aurelia. 
 "The Church, by anticipating the most 
 transcendent surmises of imagination, re- 
 lieves us of the responsibility of accepting 
 imagination as our guide. Nor can imagina- 
 tion be deemed a trustworthy index of the 
 moral. ' ' 
 
 "N-no; still, may not imagination be a 
 sort of personal revelation to the pure in 
 heart, you know ? ' ' 
 
 "Beyond a certain point," struck in 
 Scaramanga, tossing back his hair with a no- 
 ble movement, " morality is pusillanimous. 
 It is a temporary local substitute for spiritual 
 perception. The child is carried whither his 
 nurse thinks best ; the man walks on his own 
 feet where he will. Convention leads us 
 until we are of a stature to think indepen- 
 dently. After that, my wrong may be your 
 right no general rule binds. " As he spoke 
 his eyes glanced across the table and rested 
 an instant on Isabella Sharingbourne, seated 
 3
 
 34 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 nearly opposite, beside Murgatroyd. The 
 color in her smooth, firm cheeks deepened 
 slightly, but Scaramanga was the first to look 
 away. 
 
 " A communist of my acquaintance," re- 
 marked Mr. Whiterduce pleasantly, " was 
 annoyed by some unauthorized intruder, 
 who argued that, since communism held all 
 things in common, he might sit by the com- 
 munist's fire. ' I admit your right to sit 
 there,' said my friend, ' as long as you don't 
 interfere with my right to sit there alone.' " 
 
 Here the stately shoulders of Blackmore 
 Risdon shook in a Jovian chuckle. 
 
 " That's the point, my boy," he rumbled 
 huskily, addressing, not Whiterduce, of 
 course, but Scaramanga; "sauce for the 
 goose, sauce for the gander. You have to 
 keep your eyes on your example quite as 
 much as on your rights. The non-conform- 
 ist who isn't an outlaw must be a hypocrite. 
 The majority rules ! " 
 
 "Is it from the editor of the Constitution 
 that I hear that venerable fallacy ? " de- 
 manded General Stepyngstone, fresh from a 
 playful skirmish with the sprightly Sabina, 
 youngest and fairest of the Estengrewes. 
 "Apart from the editorial page, my dear
 
 DINNER 35 
 
 Risdon, on how many fingers do you count 
 the real majority in this republic ? " 
 
 Hereupon the two fell into a semi -serious 
 political talk, and Isabella, quiescent since 
 Scaramanga's speech, now resumed her duty 
 of harassing Murgatroyd. Harassing is, of 
 course, not the proper word, only Murga- 
 troyd was, for certain reasons, obviously 
 uneasy. 
 
 In the first place, he was never comfortable 
 in evening dress ; his tails embarrassed him, 
 and he feared to crease his shirt-front or mar 
 its purity with a miscarriage of soup or salad- 
 dressing. To-night he was additionally de- 
 pressed by the consciousness that the din- 
 ner was given in his honor (dismal irony !) ; 
 and that he was fain to pose as the joyous 
 lover, triumphant from the conquest of the 
 shy virgin beside him. Had he been merely 
 ignorant of the duties and conduct incum- 
 bent on him he might have better acquitted 
 himself; but the ideal demeanor was vaguely 
 present to his mind, while he felt his per- 
 sonal resources impotent to compass it. The 
 suffering to the sow's ear involved in the at- 
 tempt to make a purse of it is not sufficiently 
 considered. It was inconceivable that a 
 Whiterduce should disgrace his ancestry ;
 
 36 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 yet Murgatroyd was never free from dread of 
 this mortal sin. To be born awkward and 
 stupid is bad enough, but that the awkward- 
 ness and stupidity should spring from a root 
 of demigods was more than humiliating. In 
 his earlier years he had hoped that " growing 
 up ' ' would cure everything ; but now here 
 he was, six feet high, broad-shouldered and 
 stalwart, hair on his upper lip, and yet more 
 wrong than ever ! What had his father said 
 about donkeys trampling on us ? Murga- 
 troyd felt like a donkey trampling on him- 
 self. He groaned in the act of driving his 
 fork through an entree on his plate. 
 
 All the while Isabella was talking to him 
 with imperturbable charm. 
 
 "Of course, though, you know, music is 
 quite by itself. We can account for other 
 things, but not for that. Music reveals what 
 language hides ; it's a vision of some beau- 
 tiful country from which we are exiles ; it 
 makes us long to return, but we can never 
 get further than the vision. When I was a 
 child I used to wonder if fairy stories were 
 true ; but music showed me they were not 
 half the truth. Do you prefer Wagner? " 
 
 Murgatroyd made an effort. 
 
 " I guess I never read it. I like that about
 
 DINNER 37 
 
 the ogre in Jack the Giant-Killer. ' ' He de- 
 livered this in his best manner. 
 
 Once more Isabella's eyes and Scaraman- 
 ga's met. But this was but natural. Scar- 
 amanga was a musical genius; Isabella's 
 technical music proficiency had been gained 
 through his influence. He was not a pro- 
 fessional, but he was a creator and a con- 
 noisseur, and the musical temperament, so 
 often brainless, was in him allied with an 
 acute and audacious intellect. It was natu- 
 ral that he and Isabella should sympathize 
 on musical subjects better than she and her 
 future husband could. 
 
 The conversation was now general round 
 the table. 
 
 Old Mrs. Tiptoft was delighting her neigh- 
 bors with humorous anecdotes and scandal, 
 to the bass accompaniment of Judge Hem- 
 ynge. Mrs. Stepyngstone was chanting an 
 odd duet with Aubert Frewin, he singing 
 the fantastical, whimsical air, while she sup- 
 plied the admiring but more or less unintel- 
 ligent chorus. Mrs. Whiterduce responded 
 to the remarks addressed to her with gentle 
 monosyllables and accordant smiles if that 
 may be called a smile in which the eyes play 
 no part. She seldom looked at any one ; if
 
 38 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 she did, it was generally at Scaramanga. 
 Verinder Vyse was making both Hannah 
 and Aurelia laugh, though the latter was 
 trying to put her soul into a serious conver- 
 sation with Plukerose Agabag. The clergy- 
 man, between excursions of magnetic elo- 
 quence, sipped his wine complacently, and 
 sustained with apostolic equanimity the in- 
 vertebrate appeals of Mrs. Jellicoe. The 
 sprightly Sabina, during the General's tem- 
 porary diversion with Blackmore Risdon, 
 turned her bright eyes toward Scaramanga, 
 who answered her with a genial sweetness. 
 The General and his interlocutor had got on 
 the topic of secret societies. 
 
 " One can understand them in Europe," 
 remarked the former, "when plain talk is 
 gagged the cipher code is natural. But 
 what is the pretext here ? ' ' 
 
 " Pretext ! " boomed the helmsman of the 
 Constitution. "What is a fish's pretext for 
 swimming ? In every thousand so many 
 men will be predisposed to secret organiza- 
 tion. They will put forward what pretext 
 you please that they're not allowed to wear 
 petticoats ; that there are but seven days in 
 a week ; anything ! The point is, they want 
 to be the wheel within the wheel control
 
 DINNER 39 
 
 the whole machinery. It's latent in all of 
 us; didn't we have secrets and play mys- 
 teries at school ? ' ' 
 
 Agabag lifted his head out of a warm bath 
 of esotericism. 
 
 " Then you think it's only a sort of imag- 
 inative game? " said he, " that they are sat- 
 isfied with oaths, passwords, and initiations 
 plots and preambles; but stop short of 
 action ? in this country, I mean ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, now and then some crank takes the 
 mummery seriously, and drops a bomb some- 
 where," returned Risdon. "But they will 
 never agree upon any concerted plan of ac- 
 tion. ' ' 
 
 "I admit I disagree with you," said the 
 General. " Setting aside Freemasonry 
 which I believe doesn't claim to be the ad- 
 vocate of any specific social or political re- 
 form ' ' 
 
 " Just a big charity organization without 
 much charity ! ' ' the editor put in. 
 
 ' < Well, leaving that out, what have you 
 to say to the Carbonari, the Mafia, the Nihi- 
 lists, the Molly Maguires, the Highbinders, 
 the " 
 
 " I say, set the cry against the wool, and 
 see what you've got ! "
 
 40 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 "And yet the press " 
 
 Risdon chuckled good-humoredly. 
 
 " Yes, I know ! The newspapers make 
 the most of it why not ? That serves two 
 uses : First, it turns an honest penny for us 
 newspaper men; secondly, it's an escape- 
 pipe for the conspirators. What they crave 
 is notoriety ; so long as the press gives 
 them that you may rest secure about dyna- 
 mite." 
 
 " What's that ? All a secret society wants 
 is notoriety? " came from the Judge. 
 
 Risdon joined in the general smile, but 
 stuck to his paradox. 
 
 Whiterduce said: "We may still believe 
 that secret societies rule the world a single 
 such society, maybe. But it would need to 
 be really secret. Its very existence must be 
 unsuspected. Most of its active agents, 
 even, must be unaware that there is any 
 such thing. Perhaps full knowledge of it 
 would be confined to one person only. 
 Given a man of adequate ability, and he 
 may control civilization, while appearing to 
 his nearest friends a mere indolent trifler. 
 He must be wise enough to apply his impulse 
 in the line of natural forces and human ten- 
 dencies never against them. Each of his
 
 DINNER 41 
 
 tools would imagine himself to be acting in 
 his own interest. From the imaginative 
 point of view the idea has always struck me 
 as attractive. Won't you work it up for us, 
 Vyse?" 
 
 "I see; you want to make me one of 
 the ignorant tools! " returned the novelist. 
 " Under the delusion that I was inditing 
 original fiction, I should be obeying the be- 
 hests of a secret tribunal ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, they could help you get rid of an 
 edition," said Poyntell, "and might even 
 influence me, without my knowledge, to 
 give you a favorable review. ' ' 
 
 " There's one thing no secret tribunal 
 will ever have the power to do, though, and 
 that is to make me read the book," ob- 
 served the remorseless Judge. 
 
 " The great fascination of a secret organi- 
 zation should be that it should be everlast- 
 ing, but if it depended on one man as Mr. 
 Whiterduce suggests it must die with 
 him." 
 
 This was Aubert Frewin's idea. 
 
 " The world is never without one first- 
 rate man," replied Whiterduce. "And 
 first-rate men always know each other. Of 
 course, in treating the subject artistically,"
 
 42 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 he added, smiling at Vyse, ' ' the inheritance 
 should go from father to son, through count- 
 less generations." 
 
 " How terribly fascinating ! " murmured 
 Aurelia, with a shudder in her voice. " Is 
 there such a family, do you suppose ? Fancy 
 knowing such a man, without knowing, you 
 know ' ' 
 
 The Judge cocked an eyebrow at her. 
 " Fancy marrying him, my dear young 
 lady ! " 
 
 ' ' A living death ! ' ' said someone, in a 
 husky whisper. 
 
 Who had spoken? They all looked at 
 one another. Singularly enough (owing to 
 the general preoccupation wrought by the 
 discussion) no one could tell. There was a 
 moment's awkward pause. 
 
 "Shouldn't you say, Mrs. Whiterduce," 
 asked Scaramanga then, turning his eyes 
 on that lady's expressionless countenance, 
 " that it's rather straining the theory of he- 
 redity to suppose an uninterrupted lineage of 
 Julius Caesars ? ' ' 
 
 " The fable of the phoenix warrants it," 
 remarked Poyntell. 
 
 " He'd be able to select his wife scientifi- 
 cally, you know," said the General, "and
 
 DINNER 43 
 
 to train his successor from infancy. The re- 
 sources of modern physiology and psychol- 
 ogy can now unite in wedlock such individ- 
 uals that er " 
 
 ' ' In wedlock ? ' ' queried the Judge. ' ' The 
 more advanced students are saying that the 
 very security and serenity of the married re- 
 lation militate against the engendering of 
 genius." 
 
 " Hemynge, I'm ashamed of you ! " said 
 Mrs. Tiptoft. "You've drunk too much 
 wine. Anyone would know you were a 
 bachelor ! ' ' 
 
 " What else could any man be whose 
 youthful hopes you had blighted ? ' ' retorted 
 the irrepressible jurist. 
 
 " After all, what surer test of human 
 greatness could be required than the ability 
 to make the proverbial silk purse ? ' ' asked 
 Poyntell. 
 
 " It seems to me, if there's any sewing to 
 be done it's better to let a woman do it ; 
 don't you think so, Mr. Agabag?" said 
 Mrs. Jellicoe, plaintively. 
 
 "A propos de bottes," exclaimed Black- 
 more Risdon, swaying his big shoulders, 
 " this is a coming-of-age party, I under- 
 stand ; are we not to hear any remarks suit-
 
 44 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ed to the occasion ? How about proposing 
 the toast of the evening, eh ? " 
 
 " All you have to do is to get up and go 
 ahead," said Hemynge. 
 
 "No, no ! You would be saying to-mor- 
 Jow that I had my speech set up at the office 
 before I came down here," rejoined the 
 sagacious editor. " Come, Whiterduce ! " 
 
 Mr. Whiterduce looked amused. 
 
 " I nominate General Stepyngstone," said 
 he. " If anyone can do credit to the emer- 
 gency he can." 
 
 " General Stepyngstone !" was murmured 
 approvingly round the table. Murgatroyd, 
 meanwhile, totally unconscious of what lay 
 before him, went on cracking English wal- 
 nuts with his strong teeth, and feeling an 
 interior peace. 
 
 The gallant officer arose. He touched 
 his gray mustache with his napkin, straight- 
 ened his shoulders, lifted his pointed chin, 
 and bestowed a genial, comprehensive glance 
 upon the company. He cleared his throat. 
 In the moment of silence ensuing a nut 
 cracked portentously between Murgatroyd's 
 jaws. 
 
 " Pshaw ! It's rotten," muttered that pre- 
 occupied young gentleman, reproachfully.
 
 DINNER 45 
 
 Eloquence is a sensitive thing, and the 
 General felt that his opening was spoiled. 
 And since every rose postulates a bud, he 
 was embarrassed also as to the body of his 
 address. The peroration, too how was that 
 to come off without the due preliminaries? 
 Thus it happened that one of the most prac- 
 tised after-dinner orators of the day was ac- 
 tually rattled by so trifling an incident as a 
 mistake in a walnut. The General retreated, 
 covering his retreat, however, with the skill 
 of a veteran. 
 
 " Er brevity, we know, my friends, is 
 the soul of wit. But it can be something 
 more it can be the er dictate of genuine 
 feeling. My knowledge er my friendship 
 with our host and hostess goes back many 
 years. I have seen our young friend Mur- 
 gatroyd, in whose honor we are met to-night 
 (gentle applause) I have seen him grow 
 from a boy to a man. He is now putting 
 away boyish things (here Murgatroyd, with 
 the dawn of consternation in his face, shoved 
 away his plate of nuts) and I contemplate, 
 with sympathetic emotion, his entrance upon 
 the stern realities of life. He looks forward, 
 with the bright, unclouded anticipations of 
 youth (Murgatroyd cast a desperate glance
 
 46 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 round the table, his face ghastly pale, and 
 shoved back his chair, thereby producing a 
 harsh, scraping noise, which in a moment 
 turned him crimson), and let us, in this 
 genial hour, rather share his confidence than 
 apply the sad wisdom of experience in 
 short, my friends, it is my pleasure to give 
 you the health and prosperity of Murgatroyd 
 Whiterduce. May he live to be an honor 
 to his ancestry, as he has ever been the pride 
 of his parents and the er favorite of all 
 who know him ! " 
 
 Amid cheers and feminine hand -clappings 
 all the guests rose to their feet, with rustle 
 and bustle, and drank the toast standing, and 
 "Murgatroyd, Murgatroyd!" went from 
 lip to lip. The General felt that his re- 
 marks had not been just the thing, but he 
 was uncommonly glad they were over. And 
 he shared the general curiosity as to the 
 heir's reply. 
 
 Murgatroyd, in his panic, had stood up 
 with the rest, and emptied his glass without 
 enough sense left to know whether he were 
 drinking champagne or salad oil. Then the 
 recognition that he had drunk his own health 
 took all the remaining starch out of him, 
 and he came down on his chair with a thump
 
 DINNER 47 
 
 that shook the room. He was now expected 
 to get upon his legs and return thanks in a 
 few well-chosen but heartfelt words. 
 
 " Murgatroyd, Murgatroyd ! " 
 
 "Speech, speech ! " 
 
 His dizzily swimming eyes, to which the 
 ring of faces seemed a misty whirlpool, sud- 
 denly felt the impact, as it were, of a steady, 
 rather severe regard, and he realized that he 
 was confronting the gaze of Isabella Sharing- 
 bourne. 
 
 It gave him a sensation, not agreeable, but 
 in the nature of a stimulus. It gave him to 
 understand that her credit was involved with 
 his own. Finally, it awakened in him, if 
 but temporarily, a certain perception, in- 
 evitable soon or late to all of us, which is 
 one of the forlorn experiences of mortal ex- 
 istence. 
 
 For Murgatroyd, up to this moment mis- 
 led by his own warm and trustful heart, had 
 imagined that his fellow-creatures cared for 
 him. However open he might be to criti. 
 cism, he had supposed that at bottom every- 
 body meant well toward him. If his friends 
 found fault with him, it was only to the end 
 of making him better and happier. 
 
 But now, when he felt, as never in his life
 
 48 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 before, need of the sympathetic support and 
 love of those around him in this crisis of 
 direst distress he saw that the very persons 
 who were pretending to do him honor, from 
 whom he might rightly expect the gentlest 
 consideration, in reality despised and ridi- 
 culed him, and cared for him not one jot. 
 In the midst of the lights, the luxury, the 
 compliments, the cries of encouragement, he 
 saw with a flash of relentless insight that he 
 stood alone, the object of thinly veiled con- 
 tempt and aversion. There was no one to 
 whom he could look for countenance ; to the 
 girl who was to be his wife, the most inti- 
 mate guest of his heart and soul to Isabella 
 least of all. 
 
 All this, welded together and pointed by 
 that glance from Isabella, pierced him like a 
 sword. The pain took away his bashfulness. 
 It was too poignant even for tears. 
 
 He stood up, slowly and heavily, and 
 faced them all. 
 
 " I guess I oughtn't to be here," he said. 
 " I'm no use to you except to laugh at. I 
 don't feel as if I belonged here. It seems 
 queer I should have been born the way I am. 
 I'm not like any of you. I've tried to be, 
 but I don't think I really want to be. I
 
 DINNER 49 
 
 know you're better than me, but still I 
 well, I guess you don't care to hear this 
 I guess I'd better Excuse me, please; 
 good-night ! " 
 
 Such was Murgatroyd's birthday speech to 
 the guests who had come to celebrate his 
 majority. There was not the faintest trace 
 of animosity in his tone, or even of griev- 
 ance. It was simply a painfully guileless 
 blurting out of what he believed were facts. 
 It was unpardonable, atrocious ; but it is safe 
 to say that Murgatroyd's speech produced a 
 stronger effect than he had any idea of or 
 than anyone present anticipated. As he 
 spoke the last words he pushed back his 
 chair and went awkwardly toward the door. 
 No one spoke or stirred except Mr. Whiter - 
 duce, who got up and opened the door for 
 the young man and laid his hand on his 
 shoulder as he went out, and said kindly, 
 " Good-night, my boy ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 
 
 In a narrow back street, within sound of 
 the tramway-car bells on one of the chief 
 thoroughfares of the city, yet as distant 
 from it socially and ethically as if it were in 
 another planet, stood a musty, dingy beer 
 saloon known as the Hobby Horse. 
 
 It was a place even the existence of which 
 was unknown to the kind of people we have 
 hitherto been associated with. And yet it 
 was by no means such an evil-minded and 
 murderous dive as might be found in less un- 
 promising localities. You could get good 
 beer there and meet people whose conversa- 
 tion had points of interest. The host kept 
 order, and was also a philosopher. He was 
 a cubical, pale-eyed German, five feet nine 
 inches high, weighing 250 pounds. He 
 was calm, courteous, resolute, and ordinarily 
 serious, though sometimes, when only a few 
 well-known customers remained, late at
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 51 
 
 night, he would come from behind the bar, 
 sit at one of the tables, and talk with sagac- 
 ity and humor. 
 
 He had a wife nearly as big as himself, 
 ugly, shrewd, and good-humored, who occa- 
 sionally helped her husband attend to the 
 guests. The latter made her the object of 
 sprightly compliments and badinage, which 
 she returned full measure, like her schoppens 
 of beer ; but if anyone ventured too far in 
 gallantry, she gave him reason to regret it 
 promptly. 
 
 The landlord was called Heinrich and his 
 wife Frau Pilsen. They had occupied the 
 house a long time and did a good business. 
 Herr Heinrich used to say, with quiet com- 
 placency, that the police had made no com- 
 plaints against him since he had been there ; 
 and he would sometimes add that he would 
 see to it that they never did. Any guest 
 might express any opinions he chose, pro- 
 vided his language was neither indecent nor 
 over-loud ; but any attempt to do anything 
 not in harmony with law and order was 
 strictly (and effectively) forbidden. 
 
 This was good sense and good business. 
 Many of sturdy Herr Heinrich's patrons had 
 sat at his tables almost nightly for a dozen
 
 52 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 years or more. Frivolous and rowdy people 
 found the society uncongenial ; there were 
 men there, perhaps, who held and discussed 
 theories or even designs of an extravagant 
 or outrageous nature ; but they paid for 
 their beer and conducted themselves respect- 
 ably while they were within the realm of 
 Herr Heinrich. The most bloodthirsty 
 anarchist, the most relentless nihilist who 
 ever planned to decimate society for the sake 
 of abstract human happiness, would have 
 plunged through the door of the Hobby 
 Horse head-foremost, with the toe-mark of 
 Herr Heinrich's massive boot tingling in his 
 rear, had he presumed to disregard the un- 
 written rules of that establishment. But so 
 long as he was orderly in his demeanor, Herr 
 Heinrich would not only extend hospitality 
 and welcome to him, but would, if oppor- 
 tunity served, sit down with him and listen 
 to plans and suggestions which would have 
 turned any ordinary citizen's hair white. 
 But the big beer-seller would only nod his 
 head and smile, and say in his sleepy bass 
 voice, " Gut das is gut, mein lieber. Do 
 vat you laik and dake der gonsequences 
 dat is der prieflege of all man. Der worlt is 
 full of wrong dings ; I will be glad myzelf
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 53 
 
 when dey are removt. But vatefer vill be 
 done, es muss bier getrunken werden nicht ? 
 Well, I shdays here and I sell beer, more 
 als dwelf year now. When you sets dose 
 wrongs righd, you gome here by me, and we 
 drink ; if you vail, you gome and we drink 
 just da zame ja? Na, also noch eins? 
 Ja, wohl ! " 
 
 Men like this will survive and prosper 
 when the bomb of social regeneration has 
 swept all other life from the planet. They 
 are mortised down to the hard pan of crea- 
 tion. The last relic left of human occupa- 
 tion of this globe will be a beer -keg. Per- 
 haps it will form the nucleus of a new plan- 
 etary system. 
 
 About midnight of the 1 3th of November 
 two men were sitting with Heinrich at a 
 table in the corner of the small back room 
 at the Hobby Horse. Thjs room was be- 
 hind the bar. To get into it you must be 
 admitted through the gate in the bar and 
 then pass through a doorway in the rear 
 partition. It was a sombre, ill-ventilated 
 little closet of a room, but it was a compli- 
 ment to be invited into it, and it was seldom 
 crowded. Frau Pilsen sat on a stool within 
 the bar, so that she could both attend to
 
 54 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 business in the outer saloon and yet exchange 
 a congenial look and word with the deni- 
 zens of the interior shrine. 
 
 The two favored guests on this occasion 
 were about the same age, but widely differ- 
 ent in other respects. 
 
 One sat erect, with a straight back and a 
 full chest ; he wore a dark beard, close 
 cropped, but his head was bald except at 
 the sides and back. He had a bold, frank, 
 keen face, with force and meaning in every 
 feature. There was a pair of gold-rimmed 
 eye-glasses on his rather full, penetrating 
 dark eyes. There was a various play of ex- 
 pression over his countenance as he spoke or 
 listened ; his laugh was soft and pleasant, his 
 smile full of quick and subtle comprehension. 
 You felt in him a nature of immense strength, 
 warmth, and fineness a capacious, vigorous 
 intellect, and an ardent heart. Learning to 
 know him better, you would find him capa- 
 ble of savage satire, fierce independence, vio- 
 lent enmities. He was a tremendous friend, 
 a terrible foe ; he had more foes than friends. 
 Both in love and hate he was blind and un- 
 calculating, He was a physician, learned in 
 theory and almost unrivalled in practice. 
 He believed himself to be an atheist, and
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 55 
 
 laughed good-humoredly at all efforts to con- 
 vert him, but would never argue the point. 
 On the other hand, he was a devout believer 
 in astrology, and was always ready to vindi- 
 cate the truth of its principles and prognos- 
 tications. He was a descendant of New Eng- 
 land farmers, but had studied his profession 
 in Germany and France, and had seen that 
 singular phenomenon, the world, great and 
 little, rich and poor, outside and in. With 
 all his knowledge and experience the boy in 
 him, in this his forty-fifth year, was rampant 
 and inextinguishable. He was a tireless and 
 fantastic joker, and had a strange love of 
 puns the worse they were the better he en- 
 joyed them. He once concocted the follow- 
 ing abominable quatrain, and delighted to 
 repeat it, as if it were really an exquisite 
 stroke of humor : 
 
 If I were pun-i-shed 
 
 For every pun I shed, 
 
 I shouldn't have a puny shed 
 
 To hide my punished head ! 
 
 It is needless to say that a character of 
 this quality was hardly adapted to be the 
 pet of conventional society. His skill, 
 amounting to genius, made him sought after
 
 56 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 in dire emergencies by the "aristocracy" 
 as urgently as by others ; but he did not get 
 on smoothly with them. His preposterous 
 jokes, his headstrong independence, his utter 
 irreverence toward all conventions, and his 
 terrific sarcasms on all humbugs made him 
 a storm centre in the higher social latitudes ; 
 and there is no denying that he generally 
 had a chip on his shoulder when he went in 
 that direction. His patrician patrons were 
 in a quandary whether he or death were the 
 more formidable. But when it came to the 
 pinch, they were apt to resign themselves to 
 the former. When he was in a practicable 
 mood he could be the best company imag- 
 inable ; only be careful not to awaken the 
 barbarous prejudices of this man who held 
 himself to be incapable of prejudice. If he 
 loved you, indeed, you could say anything 
 to him, and he would only laugh with con- 
 tagious glee, and clap you affectionately on 
 the back. But otherwise beware ! He 
 was at one time a member of the St. Quentin 
 Club, and, coming in on a certain memor- 
 able afternoon, saw Mr. Pynchepole Whiter- 
 duce sitting there, in the midst of a reveren- 
 tial group of the bluest blood in town. 
 Now, he had a short time before attended
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 57 
 
 Mrs. Whiterduce in a dangerous and obsti- 
 nate illness, and had brought her through it 
 in the teeth of all the prophecies of the 
 faculty. He walked up to Whiterduce, and 
 brought down a heavy hand on his shoulder. 
 "Well, old cock! " exclaimed he in a 
 jovial, ringing voice, " when are you going 
 to pay me that bill you owe me ? ' ' 
 
 No human being had ever before thus 
 accosted a Whiterduce. Everyone within 
 hearing turned pale or red, and shuddered. 
 Mr. Whiterduce retained his self-possession 
 and said quietly, " How much do I owe 
 you, Dr. Maydwell ? ' ' 
 
 "Ten thousand dollars, old Stick-in-the 
 Mud ! " replied the Doctor, settling his 
 eye-glasses on his nose, and chuckling in a 
 peculiar manner. The two men looked at 
 each other for a moment. 
 
 Whiterduce took out his check-book, and 
 a fountain pen, and wrote a check for ten 
 thousand dollars. He held it out to Mayd- 
 well with an air of polished contempt. 
 
 "There is your pay," said he. "Let 
 me advise you, when you deal with gentle- 
 men, to make your applications for money 
 through the mails. It will compensate in a 
 degree for the recklessness of your charges. ' '
 
 58 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 Such a rebuke, from such a source, 
 would have crushed all but one man in a 
 million. Maydwell was the exception, and 
 Whiterduce had made the mistake of his life. 
 
 Maydwell, in truth, had long been resent- 
 ful of a certain assumption of superiority in 
 Whiterduce's demeanor, and had been spoil- 
 ing for a fight. The publicity of the situa- 
 tion just suited his fell purpose. 
 
 He took the check out of Whiterduce's 
 slender fingers and neatly tore it into four 
 pieces, which he twisted up into a pellet, 
 with a quaint grimace at the rapt circle of 
 onlookers, as if to invite their appreciation 
 of the most charming joke in the world. 
 
 " Pynchepole, my boy," said he, with a 
 sort of subdued laugh in his tone, rolling the 
 pellet between the palms of his powerful 
 hands, "I know you up to the handle, but 
 you haven't got on to my curves yet. You 
 are the dirtiest old fraud in America. You 
 sit here and mince and twiddle your thumbs, 
 and there isn't a blackguard in town low 
 enough to look up to you. I wouldn't use 
 your soul to wipe my feet on, Pynchepole. 
 You know I wouldn't, and you know why, 
 and you daren't say a word. I can respect a 
 thief who does his own stealing, and a thug
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 59 
 
 who does his own murders, and even a liar 
 Avho tells his own lies ; but you see, Pynche, 
 you're not one of that sort. I don't want 
 your money ; I know where it comes from 
 and where it goes to. Now, you're a pretty 
 sick man, and I'm going to give you a pre- 
 scription, and I shan't charge you anything 
 for it." 
 
 He stepped forward, still laughing in that 
 peculiar manner. Whiterduce tried to rise 
 from his chair, but Maydwell forced him 
 back. He seized his nose between his right 
 thumb and forefinger, and as the other in- 
 voluntarily opened his mouth to catch his 
 breath, he crammed the ten -thousand-dollar 
 pellet down his throat. It was a hideous, 
 revolting spectacle, and those who witnessed 
 it were stricken so aghast that not a man of 
 them stirred. It was as if a spirit from the 
 infernal regions had suddenly risen and di- 
 lated in the quiet and well-bred midst of 
 them. 
 
 The next minute there was a general out- 
 cry, and half a dozen sprang to their feet ; 
 some gathered about Whiterduce; others 
 made threatening demonstrations toward 
 Maydwell. He stalked to the fireplace, set 
 his back against the mantel, and stuck his
 
 60 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 hands in his pockets. He called to one of 
 the waiters, hovering in panic on the out- 
 skirts of the agitated throng, and ordered a 
 sherry and bitters. "And mind, John not 
 too much bitters ! You know how I take it. ' ' 
 
 Then he looked around at the hostile and 
 bewildered faces, and smiled invitingly. 
 
 "Well, fellows," he said, " it will take 
 John about five minutes to get that thing 
 ready. Meantime, if any of you, or any 
 number of you, want to say or do anything 
 to me, or to call in a policeman to say or do 
 it for you, now's your chance. Don't let 
 Pynchepole dissuade you, if you feel that 
 way. He has forgiven me already, because 
 he's a Christian ; but that needn't influence 
 you. Come, now ! " 
 
 There were men enough there who lacked 
 neither courage nor strength ; but they hesi- 
 tated. The whole affair was un precedent - 
 ed, incredible. It seemed as if some explana- 
 tion must spontaneously appear. Would not 
 Whiterduce say something ? Or perhaps Gen- 
 eral Stepyngstone's suggestion gave the true 
 clew : " The man is crazy stark, staring 
 mad insane, sir ! " 
 
 Before anything could be decided on, John 
 came with the glass of sherry and bitters on
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 61 
 
 a silver tray. Maydwell took the glass and 
 put a silver dollar in its place. " I shall 
 want the glass as well as the sherry, John," 
 he observed; "if there's any change you 
 can keep it. Now then," he continued, " I 
 drink to the whole damned, currish, snob- 
 bish pack of you. The whole infernal club 
 boiled down together hasn't got soul enough 
 to salt a cup of gruel. Here's to what I think 
 of you ! ' ' 
 
 He emptied the contents of the glass into 
 his mouth, then turned and spat it out into 
 the fire ; he lifted the glass and dashed it 
 into splinters on the hearth. He settled his 
 hat on his head and sauntered to the door, 
 seeking defiantly to meet the eyes of one 
 after another, but none cared to encounter 
 him. When a man chooses to overstep a 
 certain limit of behavior the majority of his 
 fellows are solicitous only to keep out of his 
 way. In the West there might have been 
 some shooting, but here all that happened 
 was an immediate special meeting of the di- 
 rectors of the club, and, a quarter of an hour 
 later, the posting on the bulletin board of the 
 notice of the expulsion from the St. Quentin 
 Club of Horace Maydwell, M.D. Beyond 
 dispute he richly deserved it, but neither was
 
 62 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 there room to doubt that he had discounted 
 the club's action. He had kicked them first. 
 This event happened two or three years pre- 
 vious to our date. No solution of the mys- 
 tery of the row had ever come to light. 
 Whiterduce, out of regard for the reputation 
 and privacy of the club, generously forbore 
 to prosecute Maydwell for assault. Society 
 self-sacrificingly inflicted the only punish- 
 ment it could ; regardless of its physical 
 health, it sent him to Coventry. Nobody 
 who was anybody ever again made applica- 
 tion for his professional services. His in- 
 come, from many thousands a year, dwindled 
 to a mere maintenance. It was hoped that 
 he would be driven from town, but he was 
 not of that fibre. He was unaffectedly 
 pleased with what he had done, and often 
 went out of his way to stroll up the fashion- 
 able promenade of a Sunday afternoon for 
 the gratification of grinning in the faces of 
 his former aristocratic acquaintances. He 
 was obliged to change his office to a less ex- 
 pensive quarter, but he was anything but re- 
 pentant or repining. He devoted his unsur- 
 passed talents to the poor and to the lower 
 middle class, and was idolized by them. He 
 had never cared for money except to give it
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 63 
 
 away or to spend it with friends ; now that 
 he had less to use in this way he gave them 
 more of his time and skill that was all the 
 difference. He got no more $10,000 fees, 
 but he felt richer and happier than ever, be- 
 cause he had freed his mind and unloaded his 
 spleen. It was characteristic of him that, on 
 the evening of the row, he called on one of 
 his dearest friends, Gabriel Negus, an astrol- 
 oger. Gabriel was an immense, placid, im- 
 perturbable creature, with a huge, smooth- 
 shaven face, the complexion of a girl, and a 
 slow, fateful, self-enjoying manner of speech. 
 
 " What were the indications for to-day, my 
 old love ? ' ' asked Horace. 
 
 Gabriel opened a small, well-thumbed vol- 
 ume, containing to the profane understand- 
 ing nothing but columns of figures and an 
 array of queer, cramped characters. He 
 turned over the leaves for a few moments, 
 murmuring softly to himself, and then looked 
 up with a slow, arch smile. 
 
 "Why, Horace, my dear, I guess you've 
 been up to something to-day. Guess you've 
 been shaking out a reef to-day, eh ? Put 
 your foot in it, up to the neck, to-day, 
 Horace ! Say, Horace, the planets sort of 
 jumped on you this time, didn't they? But
 
 64 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 I should say you jumped on somebody first 
 pretty hard. Cost you a good deal, but you 
 did it yes you did it ! Looks a good deal 
 like a general flare-up to me, eh ! Any 
 bones broken or windows smashed ? ' ' 
 He referred to the book once more. ' ' Doesn' t 
 seem to be a hanging matter, quite. Loss 
 of social standing yes and money 
 stacks of it ! Guess you must have been 
 bucking the tiger, Horace, and when you 
 found they'd done you you kicked 'em 
 down stairs ! " 
 
 And the astrologer leaned back in his chair 
 and shook gently with silent laughter. 
 
 Horace was fairly enchanted with this re- 
 markable verification of his favorite hobby. 
 He proceeded to unbosom himself. Gabriel 
 listened to the tale with the humorous en- 
 joyment of one who knows it has all been 
 written in the constellations since the begin- 
 ning of time, and that spilt milk is past cry- 
 ing for. "But, look here, my dear," he 
 said, after turning it over in his mind for 
 a while, " what started you after Brother 
 Pynchepole at such a rate ? Don't appear 
 that he quite played up to you, from what 
 you say? If he'd stolen your scalp while 
 you was asleep, or poisoned your sister-in-
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 65 
 
 law's aunt with a cup o' tea, you couldn't 
 have gone for him much worse than you 
 did. There ain't really anything spe- 
 cially out of the way about Brother Pynche- 
 pole is there ? ' ' 
 
 " Now, don't you worry your dear old 
 head about that," Horace replied. " I was 
 with that wife of his when she didn't know 
 her head from a hole in the ground, and 
 when women are like that they will talk, 
 though they don't remember it themselves 
 afterward. I don't give away my patients 
 you know that ; but if Pynchepole knew 
 what she told me, he'd risk a noose for the 
 sake of insuring its not going further. Then 
 there's another thing. I was called in the 
 other day to fix up a fellow who'd had a 
 knife put into him down in a thieves' den 
 they call the Pigstye. There's several good 
 fellows, friends of ours, down there. They 
 will stick each other now and then, and I'm 
 always glad to pull them through if I can. 
 This poor devil had to croak, though, and I 
 told him so. Well, then he began to feel 
 bad in his mind, the way some of those poor 
 little damned fools will, and he blabbed some 
 stuff that opened my eyes more than I ex- 
 pected. When he got through, he said : 
 5
 
 66 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ' For Christ's sake, don't you go to cure 
 me now, Doc; if they was to know I'd 
 squeaked, they'd pull out my guts and fill me 
 up with red-hot gravel ! ' I told him not to 
 worry, but he wouldn't be easy except I 
 stayed by him till he was out of harm's way. 
 That made me look about a little afterward, 
 and I found he'd given me a straight tip. 
 You can leave me alone with Brother Pynche, 
 every time. I wish you'd seen the way he 
 looked this afternoon ! ' And Horace Mayd- 
 well smiled and settled his eye-glasses. 
 
 Gabriel contemplated him thoughtfully, 
 sitting with his hands spread out on his 
 knees like an Egyptian king. "Yes," he 
 muttered "yes yes; the doctors hear 
 funny things, don't they? and so do I so 
 do I so do I ! I'm a doctor, but I don't 
 cure I only diagnose only diagnose ! 
 Well, my dear, you'll have to ran away 
 now," he added, sitting up and sighing. 
 "I've got the anteroom full of females, 
 waiting to know what they were made for ; 
 and I've got to explain it to 'em before 
 nine o'clock. Heigho ! " 
 
 The two friends exchanged a prolonged 
 and mighty grip it was one of their mutual 
 jokes to try to crush each other's ringer-
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 67 
 
 joints and bade each other an affectionate 
 farewell. 
 
 This will suffice to introduce Dr. Horace 
 Maydwell to the reader, but before going 
 further it is but fair to present his compan- 
 ion. 
 
 Polydore Scamell that was his name 
 was a teacher of singing. He was a dark- 
 complexioned, straight-haired, weary-look- 
 ing man, with a portentously long nose, a 
 drooping mustache, and sombre, brooding 
 eyes. His face was narrow and meagre, with 
 deep furrows slanting from the nostrils to the 
 corners of his mouth ; his chin was heavy 
 and square. His lean throat, with its prom- 
 inent Adam's apple, and the outstanding 
 veins on his long, knotty hands indicated a 
 plentiful lack of flesh on his bones ; though 
 the bulky clothing he habitually wore the 
 massive overcoats and flapping trousers 
 seemed designed to avert this revelation. He 
 was addicted to a preposterous hat, of the 
 old-fashioned army pattern, but with a brim 
 of exaggerated breadth ; it matched his big 
 overcoat well enough, but seemed to be kept 
 from slipping down over his narrow visage 
 only by the ears that stood out on either 
 side. Upon the whole, he would have
 
 68 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 served as an ideal model of Don Quixote, in 
 the earlier years of that famous gentleman's 
 existence, before the perusal of works of 
 chivalry had finally tuned him up to the 
 pitch of knight-errantry. Weariness, melan- 
 choly, and eccentricity were his ruling expres- 
 sion in repose. 
 
 No sooner did he engage in a conversa- 
 tion that interested him, however, than a 
 transformation came over him. His dark 
 eyes sparkled and laughed, and a sort of 
 caressing courtesy shone out all over him, 
 made additionally winning by a boyish gay- 
 ety and naivete. The deep, melodious tones 
 of his voice (though his accent in speaking 
 was a marked nasal drawl) carried out this 
 charming impression ; one recognized a man 
 whom it was impossible not to like and 
 trust. Here were a kind heart and a gener- 
 ous soul. There was an ingenuous comicality 
 about him withal that rendered him irresisti- 
 ble. 
 
 Polydore had two special weaknesses. One 
 was for women, of which be it only said 
 that his success with that mysterious sex was 
 fully equal to his enterprise ; his numerous 
 pupils in the vocal art were not attracted to 
 him by the superiority of his "method"
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 69 
 
 alone. His second foible was concerned 
 with this method itself. It was to him what 
 all distressed damsels and heroic emprises 
 were to him of La Mancha. Any allusion 
 to it aroused his every energy, to argue, to 
 advocate, to denounce, to combat, to pour 
 forth the vials of wrath or the incense of 
 praise, as the case might be. His method 
 was natural, logical, perfect ; all other meth- 
 ods were not merely imbecile, vicious, and 
 suicidal, but all who taught them were 
 thieves, liars, and assassins. There were not 
 half a dozen singers living, or who had ever 
 lived, who had the least notion how to pro- 
 duce a note correctly. The so-called great 
 singers had attained their fame in spite of 
 incredible mismanagement of the vocal or- 
 gans ; had they followed the method they 
 would have been infinitely greater than they 
 were, and would moreover have retained 
 their powers unimpaired to the utmost limit 
 of old age. This method was not the inven- 
 tion of Polydore himself ; had it been so, he 
 would not have cared nearly so much about 
 it, nor been so fiercely resentful of any an- 
 imadversions upon it. It was the discovery 
 of a friend of his, a man now lost to earth, 
 but doubtless eminent in that world where
 
 yo A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 singing is done as it should be. Polydore 
 seems to have been the only pupil the in- 
 ventor ever had ; how much his appreciation 
 of the discovery was influenced by his affec- 
 tion for his friend we need not inquire. At 
 all events, when his friend died, unhonored 
 and unsung, Polydore Scamell gave up his 
 profession as eccentric actor, in which he 
 was making a good living, to devote himself 
 henceforth wholly to the vindication and in- 
 culcation of the method, and, incidentally, 
 of his dead friend's virtues, genius, and neg- 
 lect. And whoever wished to take the di- 
 rect road to Polydore's inmost heart need do 
 no more than profess his adherence to the 
 method. With that to recommend him all 
 faults were dazzled out of sight. Horace 
 Maydwell, who really approved of the method 
 on physiological grounds, was the nearest 
 brother of his soul, ever ready to listen and 
 sympathize ; and in return Polydore was al- 
 ways prepared to celebrate the supreme value 
 of a discovery of the doctor's how to make 
 hair grow on bald heads. Maydwell, before 
 publishing his discovery to the world, was 
 testing it upon his own bare poll, and had 
 been doing so for ten years past, believing, 
 and persuading Polydore to believe, that it
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 71 
 
 was producing a marvellous effect, albeit to 
 the eye of love and faith alone was any effect 
 discernible. There was no question (having 
 in view the number of bald people, anxious 
 for hair, in the world) that the invention, 
 once it was launched on the market, would 
 bring in millions of money, and the two 
 friends often solaced themselves with discus- 
 sions of how, when the physiological hair- 
 grower and the natural singing method 
 should be established in public favor, they 
 would make each other, and all good per- 
 sons, happy with the pecuniary returns. 
 Gabriel Negus was admitted the third in 
 their councils, filling the post of soothsayer 
 and prophet in ordinary. Polydore was 
 quite as ardent an astrologer as either of the 
 others, and was unwearying in hunting out 
 favorable dates and aspects. History men- 
 tions several triumvirates, but none so mutu- 
 ally well disposed, so free from internecine 
 jealousies, and so fruitful of innocent felicity 
 as was this. 
 
 Horace Maydwell and Polydore Scamell, 
 then, sat with Heinrich on this night of No- 
 vember 1 3th in the little back room of the 
 Hobby Horse and communed together. 
 Each had a glass of beer before him, and
 
 72 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 Polydore was smoking a cigar. Horace did 
 not smoke, and, indeed, was a very light 
 drinker also, though, out of regard for 
 Heinrich, he would not omit to give his 
 order. 
 
 " Twelve o'clock," said Polydore, taking 
 a look at his heavy German-silver watch. 
 " Time the boy was here." 
 
 "Give him rope," returned Horace; 
 " he doesn't come of age every day." 
 
 "Prehaps," said Polydore, who had his 
 own way of pronouncing certain words, 
 " his rope' 11 tangle him up so he can't get 
 here. ' ' 
 
 " That would be highly imp-rope-er," ob- 
 served Horace, enunciating the atrocity with 
 the most sedulous distinctness, and grinning 
 shamelessly. Polydore, made callous by 
 custom, simply gave a twist to his long 
 nose, as at an unholy odor, and took a swal- 
 low of beer. 
 
 " Funny he ain't any more like the old 
 man than I am like a keg of oysters," he 
 remarked, meditatively. " Knocks out the 
 heredity racket, doesn't it ? " 
 
 Horace turned up his chin and rubbed the 
 short beard on his throat. " Heredity's all 
 right; but you can't expect her to get out
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 73 
 
 two such pills as old Pynche in one genera- 
 tion." 
 
 " Used up all the poison on him, and had 
 nothing left for the youngster but bread and 
 milk was that the way ? ' ' 
 
 " There's solider stuff than bread and 
 milk in little Murgy," replied the other. 
 " He's got a heart fills his body and most of 
 his noddle, too, bless him ! And fists and 
 shoulders, plenty of 'em ; he'll do." 
 
 "And money, a little," added Polydore, 
 sending out two columns of smoke from his 
 nostrils. 
 
 " He'd be better off without that." 
 
 "Well, there's one good thing about 
 money, a fellow can get quit of it easy," 
 Polydore observed, with a sigh. "Hullo, 
 there's our business now ! Come in here, 
 Murgy ; we're waiting for you ! " 
 
 Murgatroyd, in evening dress, with his 
 collar turned up and a distraught expression 
 on his clumsy, guileless phiz, was standing 
 outside the bar. Frau Pilsen leaned for- 
 ward, unhitched the catch of the wicket and 
 admitted him. He took a step or two in 
 the direction of the table and stopped. 
 
 But Horace had jumped up, and met him 
 with o;)en arms.
 
 74 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Why, the little pet ! " cried he ; " did 
 it get here after all ? And was it twenty- 
 one years old ? And didn't it forget its 
 friends that loved it ? Was it loaded up to 
 the neck with nasty champagne and birth- 
 day cake? Never mind ; it shall have some 
 of Herr Heinrich's good beer, to take the 
 taste away ! Gentlemen, I present to you 
 the best little boy in town. Frati Pilsen 
 Heinrich Poly catch hold of him, and 
 give him a shake for luck ! Twenty-one 
 years old, and looks as young as ever ! " 
 All this was accompanied with jolly laughs, 
 huggings, and solid thumps on the back and 
 chest. Meantime, the others had gathered 
 round. Frau Pilsen descended from her 
 stool and waddled up, smiling horribly, 
 volleying guttural good wishes. Polydore 
 had a long arm around his neck, and was 
 intoning, in the natural method, " Good 
 for you, Murgy ! Many happy returns ! 
 You're a sight for sore eyes, boy ! " And 
 cubical Herr Heinrich, who had been sitting 
 with half-closed eyes, taking no further part 
 in the conversation than to exchange a som- 
 nolent glance of intelligence with the others, 
 and periodically to lower the beer level in 
 his schoppen, now set himself on end and
 
 THE HOBBY HORSE 75 
 
 grasped Murgatroyd's disengaged hand in 
 his " Guter freund, I maig you my geburt- 
 stag gompliment ; viel, viel vergnugen ! 
 'Lischen, lass' e'mal fuenf glas bier holen ! 
 Gendlemen, all drink vat heute abend hier 
 bestellt wird, geht ya auf meine rechnung 
 I bays all beers of dis dable to-naid, ver- 
 standten ? Na, gut ! Stosst an, meine 
 Herren Herrn Murger ! Mahlzeit, Gesund- 
 heit, Prosit ! Aus ! " 
 
 Murgatroyd did not drink his own health 
 this time, but the glasses of the others Frau 
 Pilsen's, too met together with a hearty 
 clink, and Aus ! no heeltaps. Herr Hein- 
 rich absorbed his in four swallows ; Poly- 
 dore had to take fresh breath several times 
 before he could get all his liquor down his 
 lean neck ; Frau Pilsen finished a trifle in 
 advance of Polydore, and emerged, crimson 
 and smiling, and daintily wiped her Gorgon 
 lips with a very small and dirty, but lace- 
 edged handkerchief. Horace Maydwell, 
 however, approved himself the champion of 
 this bout. Many a beer duel had he won in 
 the old Munich and Berlin days, owing to a 
 somewhat rare physiological faculty that he 
 possessed. He tilted his head back, and 
 keeping the entrance of his gullet open, emp-
 
 76 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 tied the entire schoppen of beer down it 
 without swallowing at all. One gulp, and 
 all was gone ! It was like magic. The feat 
 was greeted with admiring applause, even 
 from the mighty Heinrich. " Iv you vould 
 drink zo ovton as you can maig it quick, 
 mein lieber," he remarked, with a sleepy 
 smile, ' ' you vas been der largest doper was 
 est gibt ! " 
 
 "I'll do it every time Murgy is twenty- 
 one," said Horace, adjusting his eye-glasses. 
 " Sit down now, old Sweetness, and tell us 
 all about it ! " And they took their places 
 around the table, all except Frau Pilsen, who 
 had waddled back to her stool of office. 
 
 Murgatroyd sat for a few moments, staring 
 straight before him, the corners of his mouth 
 twitching. Was it the difference between 
 this greeting and that which he had lately 
 experienced at his own table that affected 
 him ? Nothing so melts the heart as the 
 glow of lovingkindness following close upon 
 the frigid phosphorescence of selfish conven- 
 tion. It was too much for Murgatroyd, 
 whose soul had been searched as never be- 
 fore that evening. He suddenly dropped 
 his head upon his arms on the table and 
 burst out crying.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 
 
 But the heart of a boy soon recovers itself, 
 and Murgatroyd was helped toward his self- 
 possession by the tact of his companions, 
 who began at once to talk and laugh to one 
 another about anything and nothing, as if all 
 grief and grievance were illusion. The 
 young fellow sat up at last, wiped his eyes 
 on the butt of his hand, and said : " You 
 all know I'm a damned fool, so it's all 
 right." 
 
 " You shall be as much of any kind of a 
 fool as you like," said Horace, tenderly. 
 
 "But if anybody else says he is, we'll 
 smash him," added Polydore. 
 
 " Lischen, hoi' 'mal den Herrn noch ein 
 frisches ! " ordered Heinrich, peremptorily. 
 
 Then they began to have a good time with 
 might and main. Polydore put forth a won- 
 derful gift he had for telling comkal narra- 
 tives, out of his own experience, both on
 
 y8 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 the stage and in the affairs of private life. 
 His mind was like a magic mirror, giving a 
 quaint twist to whatever was reflected into 
 it. Most of them had a touch or so too 
 Rabelaisian for sober print these reminis- 
 cences of Polydore ; but they did no harm 
 as the narrator produced them. Horace 
 studded the talk with puns, from which 
 Heinrich alone emerged unscathed, for he 
 comprehended them not. But, by degrees, 
 Murgatroyd he, himself, who erewhile, in 
 the select circle where he should have felt 
 most at his ease, had been as an alien and 
 miserable Murgatroyd now blossomed forth 
 luxuriantly, and revealed a host of compan- 
 ionable and frolicsome qualities. In this 
 congenial atmosphere and company he could 
 not and sought not to prevent his simple 
 nature from flowing forth and displaying its 
 strength and weakness. Simple, transpar- 
 ent, spontaneous truly he was, yet, as Mayd- 
 well had said, there was something more than 
 bread and milk in his makeup. His social 
 instincts were as thorough as those of a pet 
 Newfoundland dog he responded with every 
 fibre to a human touch. He understood and 
 reacted to whatever was natural ; it was only 
 the artificial that embarrassed and silenced
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 79 
 
 him. Accordingly, his character now de- 
 veloped definite form and quality. He was 
 a type ; he stood for something real, though 
 it was not a patrician reality. He entered 
 into the spirit of the hour, and the spjrit en- 
 tered into him. There is nothing that a 
 boy can say or do to afford intellectual in- 
 terest to grown men, but that is because he 
 has no perspective of memory, no atmos- 
 phere of experience, to compass those effects 
 whereby the intellect is won. The veriest 
 child, however, may command a sort of in- 
 terest in his elders which is far more potent 
 than the intellectual, because it is aroused by 
 the deepest, broadest quality in man's nature, 
 common alike to child and man of the 
 world. Years expand but do not create the 
 essential human things. 
 
 Murgatroyd made his friends happy by 
 showing them how happy they made him. 
 He sang, with spirit and humor, and with- 
 out fear of the method, some college non- 
 sense songs ; he related how he and a glut- 
 ton in the class above his had eaten oysters 
 for a wager, the loser to pay for all the 
 oysters. His antagonist had collapsed on 
 his twenty-second dozen ; Murgatroyd had 
 finished thirty dozen raw, stewed, fried,
 
 So A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 boiled, and steamed with plenty of crack- 
 ers ; and had then walked into town, three 
 miles, and eaten a couple of lobsters for 
 supper. All this occurred while he was 
 training for the crew. The coach heard of 
 it and had ' ' fired ' ' him ; though, really, he 
 had felt better than ever the morning after. 
 He told this anecdote because he thought 
 it would entertain his listeners, as it did, 
 with his telling ; but it did not occur to 
 him to narrate an episode that took place 
 the day following his expulsion from the 
 boat. How, being out in his own wherry 
 to see the crew row by, with the hard-heart- 
 ed coach after them in a steam-launch, that 
 gentleman, in the midst of one of his most 
 frenzied objurgations, had incontinently 
 taken a header off the bows of the launch, 
 which had run over him. Murgatroyd, 
 knowing that the man could not swim, had 
 plunged to his rescue, and not without in- 
 convenience had managed to keep his head 
 above water till the launch picked them up. 
 There was nothing remarkable in this epi- 
 sode, as in that of the oysters and lobsters, 
 so Murgatroyd made no mention of it. 
 
 But he made them laugh with the account 
 he gave of the interview in which the presi-
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 81 
 
 dent of the college had insinuated the in- 
 formation that Murgatroyd would have to 
 slink through the world unprotected by a 
 sheepskin. It had been at the time any- 
 thing but a laughing matter to Murgatroyd 
 himself, but, as he remarked, "somehow 
 when you've got through with a scare, it 
 most always seems funny." "But look 
 here, Murgy," said Polydore, "wouldn't 
 you sooner have the sheep boiled with ca- 
 pers, than the sheepskin ? What was it 
 scared you ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, it was father I was scared of," 
 Murgy replied. 
 
 "Yes gave you hell and Tommy, didn't 
 he?" said Horace, between his teeth. 
 
 " He was just lovely to me," returned 
 the boy, with much feeling. " He always 
 is. I don't see how he can be to such an 
 idiot as I am. What scares me is that he 
 tells me what he'd like me to do and to be, 
 and all that, and then I don't and ain't, 
 and then I think, if I was he, what a dress- 
 ing I'd give me ; but all he ever does is just 
 smile and say, ' That's no matter ; that's 
 all right ! ' But I'm so different from him ! 
 I don't see how a son can be, but I am. I 
 guess that's what scares me and makes me 
 6
 
 82 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 so miserable, because I can't help it. Just 
 think of a man like him, at the top of every- 
 thing, having a son like me ! I'd pretty 
 near kill me, sometimes, if I was him ! It 
 would have been all right, by thunder, if 
 I'd been the footman or the groom ; I could 
 have been that just as well as anybody, and 
 everybody'd been happy. I don't like swell 
 people ; I like you fellows and servants and 
 tramps and I like Sally Wintle, our house- 
 maid ; she gives me things to eat in the 
 pantry, and I can sit and chat with her as 
 thick as you please ; she's right pretty and 
 nice, I think. If I was the footman, I'd 
 marry her ; she'd have me, I guess. I could 
 make her happy, I guess, but what good can 
 
 I ever be to Miss . I tell you what, 
 
 I don't understand these things. I wished 
 I was dead at dinner this evening, but I can 
 see well enough that it wasn't their fault ; 
 it wasn't mine either, for I'd give anything 
 to be able to do the right thing, but I 
 couldn't. It wasn't anybody's fault, and 
 that's the worst of it, for what's to be done ? 
 And now that I'm twenty-one, it'll keep 
 getting worse and worse ! I suppose that's 
 what makes poor mother so unhappy ; she 
 can't bear to talk and be jolly with me, like
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 83 
 
 other fellows' mothers, for fear I'll say or 
 do something beastly. But when I sneak up 
 and sit in the housekeeper's room old Mrs. 
 Ramage she makes me feel as cosey and 
 homelike as can be. I like the way she 
 talks, servants' talk, not grammatical and 
 clever, like the ladies that come to call. 
 And I'd a hundred times rather go and sit 
 with^ the grooms in the stable and chat with 
 them, than go to the St. Quentin Club, 
 where they're all so witty and gentlemanly. 
 There was a fellow in the class above me in 
 college, told me once I was a damned cad, 
 and my fellows said I ought to lick him, and 
 I could have, easy enough ; but I didn't ; I 
 thought he said just the truth. I think the 
 best thing I can do would be to run away 
 and hide, so as they could never find me. I 
 guess they wouldn't try very hard, and I 
 wouldn't blame 'em." Here, Murgatroyd 
 finished his beer. 
 
 " Lischen noch eins schnell ! " said 
 Heinrich. 
 
 " Run away ? Not you ! You stay where 
 you are, and let them run away if they want 
 to ! " said Horace, angrily. "Be as low 
 as you know how ; rub it into 'em ! Sit at 
 table in your shirt-sleeves and eat with your
 
 84 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 knife, and wipe your mouth on the back of 
 your hand ! You've as good a right to be 
 what you are as they have ; if your father 
 and mother aren't suited with you, ask 'em 
 what the devil they begot you for ? You 
 didn't force 'em to ! " 
 
 Murgatroyd shook his head. 
 
 " If I could talk to 'em that way I wouldn't 
 be what I am, and then it would be all right." 
 
 " He might hop the broomstick with Sally, 
 though," observed Polydore, stroking his 
 long nose; "that would bring things into 
 shape in the wink of a goat's tail ! " 
 
 The current of conversation was at this 
 juncture diverted by a new arrival. Through 
 the little wicket -gate came a jaunty and pretty 
 feminine figure, and looming behind her the 
 substantial person of the astrologer, Gabriel 
 Negus. The young lady, as she entered, 
 struck a pose, trilled an arpeggio, executed 
 the neatest and most discreet kick imagina- 
 ble, kissed both her hands to the company, 
 and exclaimed: "Hooray, boys. Keep 
 your shirts on ! It's me and Gabe ; that's 
 all. Knew you'd be here. How's my 
 ducky-daddies?" The latter inquiry was 
 addressed to Polydore, and was accompanied 
 by a pair of little hands passed caressingly
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 85 
 
 down his cheeks and giving a twist to his 
 mustachios. Then she patted the doctor on 
 his bald head, winked at Heinrich, and 
 stuck out her pretty lips in a provoking 
 manner at Murgatroyd. 
 
 "Gabriel and his trumpet in the morn- 
 ing," said Horace, drawing up a chair for 
 her between him and Polydore. "Is the 
 star in the ascendant to-night? Did you 
 bring the astrologer, or he you ? You look 
 the more ' fetching ' of the two, seems to me." 
 
 " Look here, Letitia," said Polydore, 
 "you'd ought to have been abed an hour 
 ago, and you know it. Do you suppose I 
 am going to slave myself to death for you, 
 to have you go and cut up like this ? You'll 
 get the punomonia first thing you know, and 
 instead of writing up the grand success of 
 the charming young prima donna, Letitia 
 Valentine, in her new opera, it'll be 'Sad 
 death from exposure: A prominent pupil of 
 Professor Scamel, the famous instructor in 
 the '" 
 
 The prima donna beat a tattoo on the table 
 with her hands, and made bewitching grim- 
 aces of defiance. 
 
 " I vow, how can you boys sit by and 
 hear him abuse me like that ? Who was
 
 86 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 your nigger last, Mr. Natural Method ? 
 That's all you care about for me to adver- 
 tise your stupid old method ; you don't love 
 me for myself one bit ! All right ; never 
 mind, I know somebody that does ; and he's 
 rich, and he'll marry me for my goodness 
 and beauty, and take me off the stage, and 
 make my every lightest wish his law won't 
 you, Mur-ga-troyd, sweetheart? Only you 
 must take my name instead of me yours, for 
 I never could be the faithful helpmeet of a 
 man who made me have a sore-throat every 
 time I called him ! Talk about pun-umonia ! 
 Well, I don't care. Gabe says I'm bound 
 to be rich and famous anyway. It's written 
 above. Kismet no, Poly, I didn't say kiss 
 me, and I won't forgive you. Please, Herr 
 Heinrich, may I have some beer ? These 
 fellows think, because I'm an angel, I can 
 live without food and drink and sitting up 
 nights now and then. Nobody knows what 
 an angel needs so well as the angel herself. 
 Besides, the doctor can cure me, no matter 
 what I do; can't you, Horace? The man 
 who said prevention's better than cure didn't 
 know how to live. I prefer cure every time ! 
 Only show me the doctor who guarantees 
 that, and I go for him so quick you couldn't
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 87 
 
 see me for dust ! Why, for pity's sake, don't 
 some one say something ? Do you suppose 
 I can talk to you all the morning, after sing- 
 ing to the blessed public all night at $75 a 
 week and find my own maid ? Sjay, why 
 didn't you boys take a box this evening ? I 
 just swept 'em off their feet, didn't I, Gabe? " 
 
 " I expect maybe you would have if 
 they'd been on 'em," answered the sooth- 
 sayer, letting his eyes, with a twinkle in 
 them, slowly travel from face to face, and 
 then bending over in a paroxysm of noise- 
 less laughter. 
 
 " I wish there were more girls of your 
 sort, Letty," said Murgatroyd, grinning de- 
 lightedly at her. "I'd rather hear you 
 than eat, whether it's singing or talking." 
 
 "He's been eating his birthday dinner 
 and it didn't agree with him," Horace ex- 
 plained. " He's twenty-one." 
 
 "Twenty-one? My ! Who'd think it? 
 He doesn't look dry behind the ears yet. 
 My dear, I'd give you twenty-one kisses if I 
 wasn't afraid of spoiling you. Why didn't 
 you invite me to the dinner and put a check 
 for a million under my plate ? Do you 
 think your pa would give me a diamond 
 necklace if I agreed to kick his hat off? I
 
 88 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 wouldn't do it for that, though ; it would 
 bear my stock." 
 
 " What you mean is, if he asked you to 
 kick on those terms you wouldn't kick," 
 said Horace, resolute to let no opening es- 
 cape him. 
 
 " That's rather above your average, 
 friend, ' ' remarked Gabriel. ' ' If you could 
 only make 'em so fine that nobody'd 
 tumble to 'em it would be perfect! " 
 and he bowed himself down once more. 
 
 Polydore opened his mouth and yawned. 
 
 ' ' Gracious ! ' ' cried Letitia, with a dra- 
 matic start ; "to think of me sitting on the 
 edge of such a crater as that, and no insur- 
 ance! Murgy, I'm coming round to you. 
 You've had your dinner, so there's no dan- 
 ger of your swallowing a poor girl alive." 
 She jumped to her feet, when her eyes fell 
 on a violin case standing in the corner. 
 " Oh, Herr Heinrich ! " she exclaimed, 
 clapping her hands, "let's have a dance! 
 Give us a jig and wake the boys up. And 
 then I'll sing you my last new number. 
 Come on, Frau Pilsen, let's we two girls 
 wake these stupids up ! " 
 
 Frau Pilsen's figure was not such as a 
 maitre de ballet would have been likely to
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 89 
 
 select as suitable for a premiere danseuse in 
 the grand opera. Her body had the form of 
 an egg, loosely confined near the middle by 
 a string. Upon the top of this was set a 
 huge head with no neck ; while her large, 
 fat feet bulged out of slippers much too 
 small for them. But one must not judge by 
 outward appearances ; if the spirit be right, 
 the accidents of the material envelope are of 
 small import. 
 
 The hour for closing the saloon had for 
 some time been passed, and every guest in 
 the outer room had departed. The table in 
 the small room was moved into a corner, and 
 Herr Heinrich seated himself upon it, tuck- 
 ing his fiddle under his chin. The other 
 men ranged themselves round the walls. 
 Letitia took up a position on the small va- 
 cant space of floor, and Frau Pilsen, all 
 smiles and graces, planted herself opposite. 
 The music began. 
 
 Letitia' s every movement was grace, and 
 there was in her also a verve, a chic, and a 
 roguish significance that vastly heightened 
 the fascination of her performance. But 
 Frau Pilsen was wonderful almost incredi- 
 ble ! Her movements were not extensive, 
 nor were they violent. They were little
 
 90 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 more than suggestions, but they were the 
 suggestions of genius. The beckoning of a 
 foot, the intimation of a knee, the defiance 
 of a bust, the challenge of a wrist above all, 
 the fathomless diablerie of a pair of eyes 
 which till now had seemed but punctures in 
 a broadside of rubicund visage, and the 
 slightest inclinations and upturnings of the 
 head, hitherto intractable an attempt to 
 convey these things humiliates the writer by 
 the revelation of the total inadequacy of 
 language. What depths of mischievous 
 archness, of knowledge of human nature, of 
 humorous naughtiness, of seductive subtlety, 
 became radiant from this seeming clumsy 
 mass of woman ! What intelligence, what 
 point, what accuracy ! From one point of 
 view she was grotesque, preposterous, ludi- 
 crous, but to a keener penetration the mind, 
 the soul within the outer grossness, became 
 discernible, and beside its achievement even 
 Letitia's sparkling skill must admit itself out- 
 done. The pair of them combined to pre- 
 sent a cancan of merit so transcendent as this 
 dull earth has seldom witnessed. 
 
 Meanwhile Herr Heinrich nodded his head 
 with rhythmic complacency, and sent his 
 bow capering over the strings, and the spec-
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 91 
 
 tators beat time with soft hand-clappings, 
 and occasional irrepressible murmurs of joy, 
 all being done with sedulous precaution to 
 keep within the limit of noise permissible in 
 the place and hour. The little room's win- 
 dow gave upon an inner court, and the shut- 
 ters were closed, so that no one passing along 
 the alley would have detected any sound. 
 But suddenly the fiddle bow stopped and 
 the fiddler lifted his hand. The dancers 
 dropped panting into their chairs and all 
 was still. 
 
 " Harg ! " said Heinrich, elevating his 
 forefinger in front of his nose, and inclining 
 his head to one side. 
 
 A tapping on the outside of the shutter 
 was audible very light, but given in a cer- 
 tain measure. There was a short pause, and 
 then it was repeated in the same way. 
 
 " Bobbies ? " whispered Polydore. 
 
 " Nein, nein ! Was das Polizei betrifft, 
 vor dat we are all right," said Heinrich, 
 getting down from the table and returning 
 the fiddle to its case. " It will be dose vel- 
 lows I had forgodden some beople dat 
 will business disguss privat bedween dem- 
 selves, vat I dold gould gome here. Na, 
 beste freunde, it will be a liddle lade al-
 
 92 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ready. Dill to-morrow it must be gut 
 night. Lischen ! Mac' 'mal die thuer' 
 offen fur den Herrshaft ! Beste empfehlung 
 wohl zu bekommen adieu ! " 
 
 They filed out in silence, each exchanging 
 a nod or a touch of the hand with Frau Pil- 
 sen as she stood beside the open door. The 
 last to emerge into the open air was, as it 
 happened, Murgatroyd. He stopped a mo- 
 ment at the foot of the steps to turn up his 
 coat collar, having neglected to bring an 
 overcoat. The others had gone forward in 
 the darkness. As he moved to follow them 
 he felt a touch on the shoulder and turned. 
 A man of medium stature was before him, 
 but it was too dark to discern his features or 
 any details of his appearance. 
 
 "Beg pardon," said the man, with a 
 slightly Irish intonation, " would your name 
 be Whiterduce?" 
 
 "Yes. Who are you?" 
 
 " Smith is my name. I know your 
 father. Would he be at his office to-morrow 
 morning, do you know ? He did me a ser- 
 vice, and I'd be glad to pay my acknowledg- 
 ments. ' ' 
 
 ' ' At his office ? I guess not. He doesn ' t 
 often go there. By the way, he will be
 
 MAKING A NIGHT OF IT 93 
 
 there to-morrow morning, though, about ten 
 o'clock. I'll tell him " 
 
 "No, no, don't trouble yourself; I'll 
 may be not see him after all. The thought 
 just crossed my mind. Sorry to trouble 
 you; good- night, sir." 
 
 He drew back and was lost in the dark- 
 ness, but Murgatroyd fancied he saw two or 
 three other ambiguous figures in the obscur- 
 ity to the left of the steps. He walked on, 
 and found the others awaiting him at the 
 alley entrance. 
 
 "Hollo, little pet," said Horace, as he 
 joined them, " we weren't sure but you'd 
 gone on ahead of us. Stopped for a flirt 
 with Frau Pilsen, did you ? " 
 
 " Some fellow wanted to see my father. 
 No consequence, I guess. It reminded me I 
 have an appointment with my father at his 
 office to-morrow afternoon. Guess I'd bet- 
 ter trot home now it's cold ! " 
 
 "Be off with you, bless you," was the 
 reply, and with a good-night to the others 
 Murgatroyd jogged away.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TWO VOICES 
 
 " Why did you do it? What can com- 
 pensate for it ? It is a sin against him, too, 
 poor creature, as well as against me and 
 nature ! You cannot justify it ! " 
 
 " Be moderate, Arabella. You are losing 
 your judgment. I was sorry to hear that 
 indiscretion of yours at the table last night. 
 I'm afraid others noticed it. It was bad 
 taste." 
 
 " I can't bear it much longer. Remem- 
 ber what I was, and look at me now ! A 
 living death. Oh, it's the truth ! Twenty- 
 one years of shame and falsehood ! I've 
 done all a woman can do ; but I'm not a 
 woman everything womanly in me has been 
 tortured till it's dead. But sometimes it 
 comes over me what life was and might have 
 been, and then something struggles to break 
 out of me ; I suppose it's madness. Madness 
 is the only life possible for me now ! If you
 
 TWO VOICES 95 
 
 had been husbandlike to me given me your 
 confidence ; but, oh, the loneliness ! Why 
 did you do it ? Have I ever harmed you ? 
 Did I ask you to marry me ? Did you make 
 me your wife because you hated me 2 Then 
 why in mercy didn't you kill me at the be- 
 ginning? Do you hate me so much that 
 you want me to live? What is to be the 
 end of it all ? " 
 
 "Arabella, you're wrong. My motives 
 are simple, though there are reasons why I 
 can't discuss them. In affairs men are one 
 another's trustees ; their secrets are not their 
 own to tell. I have not practised reticence 
 for its own sake. And you must admit that 
 I have been more forbearing than some men 
 would have been." 
 
 " Forbearing about what? " 
 
 " Toward you." 
 
 "Forbearing? What reason. I don't 
 understand ! " 
 
 " Technically that is true; forsince I de- 
 termined, from the start, not to take the or- 
 dinary course in the circumstances, I con- 
 sidered that our mutual comfort would be 
 best consulted by abstaining from all allu- 
 sion to it. I have never accused you in all 
 these many years, nor have you ever con-
 
 96 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 fessed, but I have always presumed that you 
 understood me, as I did you." 
 
 " Confessed ! " 
 
 " You can't imagine I was ignorant? " 
 
 "Why do you smile like that? Con- 
 fessed?" 
 
 " Come, it's not worth while at so late a 
 day. Some things are best left unsaid. Our 
 life has been a comedy a tragedy if you like 
 but don't let us end it with a farce. Be- 
 sides, if explanations were begun, they might 
 go farther than you think for. I have nat- 
 urally felt at liberty to deal with the situa- 
 tion as I found it. But let us stop where we 
 are." 
 
 ' ' No ! Oh if it were all some terrible 
 mistake ! Not terrible, blessed, in spite of 
 all the wrong and ruin. I almost have a 
 hope. . . . But it can't be. I'm afraid. 
 Will you answer me one question ? " 
 
 "If it involves no other person's confi- 
 dence." 
 
 " If I have done you an injustice, I'll lie 
 down and kiss your feet. Oh, my heart ! 
 Ever since Murgatroyd was a year old, 
 I have thought there was an instinct I 
 felt. . . . Tell me the truth ! I have 
 believed he was not our son. ' '
 
 TWO VOICES 97 
 
 " Not our son ? Well, Arabella, I have 
 thought so, too. But what is your ques- 
 tion? " 
 
 " Why do you smile? I ask you. . . . 
 Good God ! " 
 
 " Well, I shall put an end to this. I do 
 it reluctantly. I have believed, and known, 
 that your son was not also mine. You re- 
 member he was an eight month child. Let 
 me finish ' ' 
 
 " Oh, let me laugh let me die oh ! 
 Poor fool ! All these years, indeed ! And 
 you never your forbearance. Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 " I was going to say that this premature 
 birth did not disturb me ; it only served as 
 a minor confirmation of direct evidence. 
 You were very ill at the time ; there was 
 fear of your life. The child suffered, too. 
 I don't know if you recollect a man a 
 groom by the name of James Mouncey? 
 He married a former maid of yours, Annie 
 Swift your servant before your own mar- 
 riage." 
 
 " Yes ! I dismissed her for she was not 
 an honest girl. Yes; well?" 
 
 " But she had your confidence at one time. 
 Very likely she knew more than you suspect- 
 ed of your affairs. She knew of your acquaint- 
 7
 
 98 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ance with General Stepyngstone. There is 
 nothing surprising in you and he having been 
 mutually attracted. To be sure, we had been 
 betrothed at that time, but I am not so un- 
 reasonable as to suppose that you accepted 
 me for my " 
 
 "I understand; I took you for your 
 money, and you me for my beauty. But 
 keep to the story, please. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Your friend, Miss Fenton, who is Mrs. 
 Stepyngstone now, had you down to visit her 
 at her villa in Newport, about a month be- 
 fore our wedding " 
 
 " Yes ah ! I know I see ! He was there 
 all the time. He did make love to me at 
 first. I remember it all. Annie Swift slept 
 in the small chamber opening out of mine. 
 One night he ... but tell me what you 
 found out." 
 
 " As you say, one night he spent in your 
 room. Annie saw him go in. You dis- 
 missed her soon after. She married Moun- 
 cey. He lost money betting on races. She 
 told him what she had seen, with the idea 
 that it would be worth money to me to know 
 it, that I would pension them not to let it go 
 further. You had been my wife then about 
 six months."
 
 TWO VOICES 99 
 
 " Poor husband ! Yes. And you believed 
 her unsupported word ? ' ' 
 
 "No; I did not accept unsupported evi- 
 dence." 
 
 " Where could you get confirmation ? " 
 
 " There was only one possible source. 
 Your friend Miss Fenton confirmed it." 
 
 " Mary Fenton confirmed it ? You asked 
 her if it was true that I had . . . and 
 she said it was ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes ; but you are speaking louder than 
 you are perhaps aware of, Arabella. There 
 is no way out of it, you see. I wish you had 
 taken my hint at first. Silence has been my 
 way from the first, and it is the best." 
 
 " Give me time to breathe and think ! 
 Mary Fenton dared to tell you that ! Your 
 silence served her well, but it ruined us ! It 
 has served her twenty years, but I will have 
 my turn now ! You shall hear what she will 
 say when I ask her the question that you 
 asked her ! Oh, if you and I were young 
 again ! What a waste it has been, a tragic, 
 useless waste ! And yet I'm happier than at 
 any time since my child was born. And so 
 shall you be ! I don't blame you ; I forgive 
 you ; it is no wonder you believed. But it 
 was false ! How could I ever do such a wick-
 
 loo A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 edness ? I loved you ! When he tried to 
 make love to me I let him know what my 
 feeling was, both toward you and him ! He 
 never presumed again. But Mary was in- 
 fatuated with him, and she was a rich match 
 for a poor half-pay officer. When I warned 
 him away he turned to her, partly in pique, 
 maybe, and partly for the reasons of a man 
 of the world, who has social position, but no 
 money. Mary was infatuated ; she had no 
 prudence. I have sacredly kept her secret 
 all these years ; I never dreamed of telling 
 it. And she took advantage of it to destroy 
 all the light of my life. There is no punish- 
 ment severe enough for such treachery. But 
 if you and I understand each other, even at 
 this long last, I do not care for revenge. She 
 shall tell you the truth in my presence, but 
 that is all." 
 
 " You seem to have settled something in 
 your own mind, Arabella ; but I confess I 
 have no notion what you mean." 
 
 " It's terribly simple. She accused me to 
 shield herself." 
 
 " To shield herself from what? " 
 
 " Her little brother, a boy of seven, slept 
 in her room with her. There was a boat 
 moored at the little private pier in front of
 
 TWO VOICES 101 
 
 the villa. I was fond of sailing in those 
 days, and could manage a boat. I had al- 
 ways wanted to take a moonlight sail, and 
 on this night I sat up late looking at the 
 moonlight, and at last I thought I would go 
 down and take a sail. I went to Mary's 
 room to ask her to go with me, but she 
 would not. She had not gone to bed, and 
 was excited, though I didn't notice it then. 
 I went out alone, very quietly, so as to 
 awaken no one. I thought I saw some one 
 in the shrubbery as I went down to the pier, 
 but I was not sure. There was a soft, light 
 breeze ; I unmoored the boat, and hoisted 
 the sail and sailed out. I was gone three 
 or four hours. I thought of you, and of our 
 married life to come, all the time I was sail- 
 ing, and wished you had been in the boat 
 with me. By the time I got back the moon 
 had set, and it was the dark before dawn. 
 As I came up toward the house, through the 
 shrubbery, I saw a man appear at my win- 
 dow, step out, and let himself down from 
 the roof of the veranda. At first I thought it 
 was a burglar, but as he reached the ground 
 and went off I recognized him it was Step- 
 yngstone. I had the key of the side door 
 of the house, and I slipped in and up to my
 
 102 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 room. I met Mary just stealing out. I 
 made her go back in there with me. She 
 went down on her knees ; she almost 
 fainted ; we had a long talk. I promised 
 to keep her secret. The next day I went 
 away. I never thought of Annie Swift 
 neither of us did. But she behaved imper- 
 tinently to me after that, and I missed jew- 
 els and other things, and I found she was 
 misbehaving with some one Mouncey, I 
 suppose ; so I dismissed her. I remember 
 her telling me I would regret it, but I 
 didn't know what she meant. 
 
 " When you asked Mary about Annie's 
 story, she knew that if she denied it so far 
 as I was concerned, the truth would sooner 
 or later come out about her. That is all the 
 affair, my husband . . . my husband ! 
 It comes very late, but that is not my fault. 
 My husband ... It seems as if I had 
 never said that word before ! After all, it 
 isn't too late, is it? We are both alive; 
 we can begin to live, now. Seems to me I 
 feel life running into my veins again. Oh, 
 what a mountain of misery this clears away, 
 and what a night of blind darkness ! And 
 Murgatroyd ! Poor fellow ! I have never 
 treated him like a mother ; I suppose it was
 
 TWO VOICES 103 
 
 my own unnatural state that always made 
 him seem in some way strange to me. But 
 I will make it up to him ! He shall be 
 happy, too. 
 
 " My husband you believe me, don't 
 you? You shall hear it from Mary herself 
 to-morrow no ! to-day. She shall come 
 here to-day and tell you . . . Yes, my 
 husband, look at me ! Come close and 
 look me straight in the eyes with all your 
 might ! There is nothing but truth to see, 
 so far down as you can go. No look ! " 
 
 "I do believe you. I wish that were 
 all." 
 
 "What else? Oh, my heart! don't 
 
 "No, no give me time. It concerns 
 myself what else there is. But, speaking 
 of truth, we must recognize one truth that 
 no great wrong, like this, can ever be 
 righted. You and I can never return in 
 feeling or in character, any more than in 
 years, to what we were when we were lovers. 
 If we have travelled for a score of years on 
 wrong roads, and away from each other, we 
 can't meet in a moment now. We are not the 
 same beings that we should have been. We 
 can never become so, however we might de-
 
 104 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 sire it. We are total strangers to each other. 
 The most we can do would be to begin to 
 make each other's acquaintance. So much 
 I can see plainly ; though what you have 
 said roots up and overturns almost every- 
 thing that I had thought certain and un- 
 changeable. ' ' 
 
 " You mean you can never love me ? Ah, 
 Mary Fenton ! ' ' 
 
 " I don't know you. And I can't learn 
 to know you so easily as if we were ordina- 
 ry strangers, because I've been all this time 
 believing you to be quite another person 
 than you are. So, you see, it is too soon 
 to bring up the question of love, and we are 
 getting old ! Don't think me discourteous. 
 I always try to see things as they are. Well, 
 I must admit I have not succeeded well in 
 the attempt, so far but you understand my 
 meaning. 
 
 " My mind has been locked up so long 
 that I find difficulty in opening it. No one 
 has seen into it, since you looked your last 
 before our marriage. I never meant anyone 
 should again. To change one's habit is like 
 bending back a tree that has grown and 
 hardened awry. Perhaps as much will be 
 destroyed as gained. But some things must
 
 TWO VOICES 105 
 
 be said. Excuse me if I speak in a business 
 tone and phraseology. It is only that I 
 have used them so long that I have no other 
 at command. I don't intend any disrespect 
 or insensibility. 
 
 " I had meant to make my wife the end 
 and occupation of my life, but when circum- 
 stances altered, I looked about for something 
 else to interest me. I could not feel an in- 
 terest in any other woman there's nothing 
 of that in what I have to tell. Of course, 
 the child that was born under the persua- 
 sion I was I didn' t feel drawn to him. It's 
 er painful to think that he was really our 
 own child, after all. I never knew till now 
 that I lost my only son when he died." 
 " It was true, then ? Oh, it was true ! " 
 ''Yes; but kindly let me go on without 
 interruption ; at best, as I said, it isn't easy. 
 You were delirious with fever during your 
 confinement, and a nurse was got for the 
 child, a decent seeming woman of the lower 
 class ; she said her husband was on the rail- 
 road, and was killed a month or two before 
 the birth of her own child. This turned 
 out to be false ; the child was born out of 
 wedlock, and the father was living. But 
 that would not have mattered such false-
 
 io6 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 hoods are common under the circumstances, 
 and do no harm but for a step of my own. 
 "You er our child died in the second 
 month. The nature of your illness, not to 
 speak of other reasons, made it impossible 
 there could ever be another. But I wanted 
 an heir, and I thought it better he should 
 be brought up in the family as my son, than 
 to leave my property to be divided among 
 relatives persons we have never recognized 
 or to openly adopt anyone later in life. I 
 had seen the nurse's baby a fine-looking, 
 healthy child. You can understand that, 
 believing what I did, I thought I might be- 
 come fonder of the boy, after he had grown 
 up and been educated under my eye, than I 
 could have hoped to be of the child who 
 died. So I decided to buy him of his 
 mother, taking measures, of course, that 
 they should be permanently separated at 
 once. I sent her to Australia, with an an- 
 nuity, so long as she stayed there. I pro- 
 vided against blackmail by causing her to 
 sign a confession of infanticide a pure fic- 
 tion, of course but by means of which it 
 would have been possible to procure her 
 conviction, had she broken our contract and 
 reappeared in this country. I entirely over-
 
 TWO VOICES 107 
 
 looked the contingency that actually oc- 
 curred. She got word, after starting on her 
 journey, to the father of her child ; he joined 
 her at Rio, where the vessel stopped ; mar- 
 ried her there, and, as I have suspected, 
 caused her death, after possessing himself of 
 the facts of the case. At all events, I re- 
 ceived a communication from him within a 
 year, claiming the paternity of the child, 
 and making the usual threats. It was then 
 too late for me to disown the boy as my son, 
 and I made terms with the man. But he 
 has been an annoyance to me ever since. 
 And there have been other complications 
 but I need not enter on those now. 
 
 " I have always felt a kindness for Murga- 
 troyd, and, of late years, a sincere compas- 
 sion for him also. You know him, I sup- 
 pose, as well as I do ; he has not turned out 
 what I hoped to make him ; he is quite in- 
 compatible with the rank of life into which 
 I brought him. But he is a good, genuine, 
 natural creature, and there's no service I 
 would not gladly do him. The question is, 
 what to do ? Of course his real father can- 
 not deprive him of his inheritance ; were I 
 to die to-morrow, that would still be his by 
 the terms of my will. But he does not care
 
 io8 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 for the things which the inheritance puts in 
 his power. Certainly, he might turn the 
 holdings into cash, and make ducks and 
 drakes of it in any way that pleased him ; 
 but he is a very conscientious boy, and anx- 
 ious to do what he thinks I will approve, at 
 the same time that he is never at ease or 
 happy in so doing. The problem has been 
 constantly before me for some time past. In 
 spite of his good will, the poor boy is men- 
 tally incapable of carrying on er certain 
 affairs which have occupied me. But he is 
 now of age, and some action must be taken. 
 I made up my mind to a step which I have 
 arranged to take this very day. Briefly it is 
 this : To tell him the facts about his parent- 
 age, then give him his choice either to 
 keep the secret, or to publish it. He may 
 either continue the artificial life he has here- 
 tofore led, or enter openly and avowedly 
 into the rank and companionship that he 
 was born to. In the former case, he will 
 marry Miss Sharingbourne, and will be bound 
 in honor to maintain the mask of patrician- 
 hood all his life long ; otherwise well, you 
 comprehend the alternative. Should he 
 choose the latter, as I expect he will, I shall 
 arrange that he always receives an adequate
 
 TWO VOICES 109 
 
 support adequate to that station in life so 
 settled on him that rascals could not rob 
 him of it, nor he be deprived of it by impru- 
 dences of his own. His appearing in his 
 true colors would also put an end to the 
 blackmailing annoyance. On the other 
 hand, the social consequences to me to us 
 would be so unpleasant that You wish to 
 say something ? ' ' 
 
 " What can I say? All this seems so piti- 
 able, and yet it's like the rattling of dead 
 bones ! There has been deception, and it 
 has brought its consequences, and they have 
 to be met somehow. Seems to me no open 
 humiliation could be worse than to go on 
 deceiving. I've felt deception in the air I 
 breathe so long that now that this first stir 
 of truth has come I don't think I have cour- 
 age, patience, to argue whether it should 
 continue. My poor mother brought me up 
 to regard worldly things, but my life (if it 
 can be called a life) has taught me that there's 
 nothing real and worth having but love and 
 truth. I'm glad, I suppose, that my instinct 
 about Murgatroyd was right ; I've always 
 thought of our own baby as being happy in 
 Heaven, and I'm glad that hateful fear is 
 gone that forgive me for it ; I was groping
 
 no A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 in darkness, and everything seemed evil I 
 believed he must have the right to call you 
 father. Perhaps I ought to sympathize with 
 your concern about him, but I can find noth- 
 ing in my heart but one want I want my 
 husband ! You say that we are strangers 
 and old, but isn't it putting away love that 
 has made us so ? Isn't love the very life and 
 self of a man and woman ? How can it be 
 strange ? What has it to do with age ? If 
 we were to lift ourselves up and say, ' We 
 will be our own selves ! ' would it not all 
 come rushing back to us? Then I could 
 think of other things, for I should be human 
 again; I cannot say now. Can't you feel 
 what I'm trying to say? Can't you trust 
 it ? Oh, my husband ! ' ' 
 
 " I think perhaps you're right, Arabella; 
 probably you are right. But I find a defi- 
 ciency in myself. I can accept your view as 
 an abstract proposition, but I can't I don't 
 seem able as yet to adopt it in feeling to 
 live it. You spoke of being, so to say, dead 
 of death in life; and now you feel the 
 power to renew life under certain conditions. 
 I fancy it's rather the other way about with 
 me. I've kept up a life in outward things, 
 but I've suffered death inwardly, and that's
 
 TWO VOICES in 
 
 the sort of death, I fear, from which one 
 doesn't recover. I can remember a time 
 when what you say would have had a vital 
 effect upon me, but to be honest with my- 
 self and you I cannot say I am moved now 
 as I should have been then. The intellect 
 seems as active and efficient in me as ever 
 more so, perhaps but I am sorry to dis- 
 tress you, though I might envy you the abil- 
 ity to shed tears ; but you must try to feel 
 the indulgence for me that you would for a 
 cripple, or a deaf or dumb person. Possibly 
 I may improve. I think if I had this affair 
 of Murgatroyd's off my mind I could give 
 more vigorous attention to your suggestions. 
 I feel that I've done him an injury taken 
 an unwarrantable liberty with him. It is 
 certainly foolish to venture on experiments 
 of that kind. But, as I say, having nothing 
 else to occupy myself with, I allowed myself 
 to become deeply absorbed in er certain 
 matters, and very anxious and ambitious to 
 leave some one behind me who could take 
 up and carry on what I had established. I 
 certainly brought up Murgatroyd in order to 
 satisfy this ambition, and in so far you may 
 say the motive was a selfish one, but cer- 
 tainly, too, I had no misgiving but it would
 
 H2 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 be a happy thing for him to be raised into 
 our sphere of life, with its wealth and other 
 advantages instead of remaining in the gutter 
 and tenement-house condition to which he 
 was born. But it seems I was mistaken ; so 
 I want to put it right, as far as I can, even 
 though it involves my our personal discom- 
 fort. That is, if you agree with me as I 
 understand you' re disposed to do. We might 
 arrange to go abroad for awhile ; people's 
 memories are short ; only there are circum- 
 stances which might make it less easy for me 
 to leave, just at present, than for you ; but I 
 could join you later, no doubt. However, 
 I am forgetting that this sort of discussion 
 wearies you. I feel strangely weary myself, 
 though I could hardly say of what I sup- 
 pose the effort to adjust myself to this unex- 
 pected turn of things. Well, I'm not so 
 young as I used to be. Something is gone 
 out of me. Old age reconciles one to the 
 prospect of ending it all ! Especially when 
 one has lived wrong, as I seem to have done. 
 It's queer that we Whiterduces should be 
 coming to an end in this way ! Well, we 
 must end somehow, and what a struggle and 
 pain it is to keep a-going, after all. I've 
 thought, now and then, that perhaps I was a
 
 TWO VOICES 113 
 
 bit insane on the subject of the Whiterduces ; 
 perhaps my ancestors were, too ! Plenty of 
 enemies, plenty of servants and acquaint- 
 ances. I don't know about friends! It's 
 queer. I believe I should begin to envy 
 poor Murgatroyd if I went on ! Don' t mind 
 me, Arabella; I'm getting senile. I'll be 
 better to-morrow. I must be off now. I 
 have some papers to look over at the office, 
 and afterward, my appointment with Murga- 
 troyd. Excuse me for detaining you so 
 long." 
 
 " I want you to do one thing for me be- 
 fore you go. " 
 
 " Certainly ! Don't feel shy, or agitated, 
 about asking me to do anything for you. 
 What is it?" 
 
 "You haven't done this for twenty-one 
 years. ' ' 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " 
 
 " Oh, my husband ! Take my hands in 
 yours look at me I am the girl you loved 
 and married I loved you I love you now 
 we are husband and wife ! Think of it 
 feel it feel it ! Hold my hands firm 
 don't loose them ! There is no comfort or 
 rest but love ; if you will trust in it, it will 
 come. Even to speak its name hopefully
 
 114 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 will help. Do not let yourself be chilled 
 and doubtful ; believe, and you will feel 
 something kindle in you. Look at me 
 speak to me ! Say, ' My wife ! ' Kiss 
 me! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, my wife you are my wife. 
 Ah ! I did not think I could kiss a 
 woman. I must not lose myself if this is 
 myself it's so faint. . . . You are 
 stronger than I. Is that your heart, moving 
 so? Don't unman me. It must be gradual. 
 I'm confused. I don't know myself. My 
 wife! " 
 
 " You shall know yourself in me."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The morning of the i4th of November was 
 crisp and fine ; a bright, clear sunshine, a 
 light, pure breeze, cold enough to call color 
 to the faces of pedestrians ; and whispering 
 to them, perhaps, that the days of foot-ball 
 were come, and that of roast turkey and 
 pumpkin-pie was not far away. They looked 
 cheerful, at all events, as they hastened 
 along the sidewalks, with heads up and 
 hands in overcoat pockets. The clear, blue 
 sky overhead led one to believe that there 
 could be nothing hopelessly unclean in the 
 earth it overarched. Hope was in the air. 
 
 Murgatroyd, after his day of honors, pains, 
 and compensations, had slept sound, and also 
 late, as a young man has a right to do who 
 can win oyster wagers who has no burden 
 on his conscience, and none that he cannot 
 digest on his stomach. He awoke as 
 healthy young folks who have slept well do
 
 n6 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 all at once, and at peace with the world. 
 He jumped up and went over to the dressing- 
 table to look at his watch ; but he had for- 
 gotten to wind it over-night, and it stood at 
 ten minutes to five. So he glanced out of 
 the window, took an observation by the sun, 
 and judged it could not be far from ten 
 o'clock. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later he was down-stairs 
 in the breakfast-room, two hours late. But 
 he knew that old Mrs. Ramage was his true 
 ally, and that Sally Wintle would not fail 
 him ; and, indeed, the latter entered just as 
 his hand was on the bell, and said : "Oh, 
 Master Murgatroyd, ain't you late ! Well, I 
 don't suppose you expect any breakfast this 
 morning, I declare ! ' ' 
 
 " Oh, Sally, be spry, there's a peach ! I've 
 got to meet father down town right off, and 
 I'm as hungry as Old Boots. I can smell 
 steak and omelette hurry now, and I'll 
 give you a kiss ! ' ' 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Murgatroyd ! and you a 
 grown-up man, and married, or as good as ! 
 Yes, I should think you'd blush ! " 
 
 "Oh, well Oh, Sally, do hurry, 
 
 and I'll never say you're a pretty girl again, 
 no matter how much I think so ! "
 
 SILENCE 1 1 7 
 
 ' ' Well, sakes alive, I never see such a 
 man." 
 
 However, the steak and omelette ap- 
 peared, and disappeared almost as quickly. 
 Sally and Murgatroyd parted good friends. 
 As he plunged out into the hall to get his 
 hat Mrs. Whiterduce came down-stairs. 
 
 " Oh, good-morning, ma'am. I got late. 
 I've got to meet father. Good-by." 
 
 " Wait a moment, dear ! " Murgatroyd 
 stopped short ; she had not spoken to him in 
 that tone, nor called him " dear," since he 
 could remember. He stared at her. She 
 did not look the same as usual ; there was an 
 expression in her eyes, and about her mouth 
 a tender, soft, shining expression that 
 gave him a sudden ache in the back of his 
 throat. It was a very different feeling from 
 the one he had had the night before, when 
 he glanced round the table for some sympa- 
 thetic face, and had seen hers, still and cold 
 and remote a mother without love or 
 motherliness. 
 
 "Why, mother! " he said, in a husky 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes, dear, call me mother. You shall 
 feel you have a mother while I live. A 
 real, true, loving mother ! ' ' She came
 
 n8 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 gently up to him, put her delicate hands on 
 his shoulders, drew down his head, and 
 kissed him. 
 
 " Why, mother ! " he said again, with a 
 gulp and a whimper this time. " Why do 
 you What is it ? " 
 
 She looked at him, softly and tenderly. 
 
 "You're so beautiful and lovely," qua- 
 vered he. "I never knew it before. You 
 make me feel so good ' ' 
 
 " God bless you, my dear, and help me 
 to make you always good and happy. Now, 
 I'll give you a message. Tell papa, with my 
 dearest love mind ! tell him not to stay 
 away longer than he can help ; I want him, 
 and tell him not to forget what I told him 
 before he went away. Don't forget about 
 my love ; and tell him I'm very happy 
 happier than I ever was and that I'm sure 
 we shall be always happier and happier. 
 Can you remember all that ? It seems a 
 good deal to remember, doesn't it? and yet 
 it is a simple thing, in itself." 
 
 "I'll remember it ; I'll never forget it, no 
 fear of that ! I couldn't if I tried. It's the 
 best thing I ever heard, and guess father'll 
 think so too. Is this you, really ? You dear 
 mother. Well, I well, good-by ! "
 
 SILENCE 119 
 
 If the morning was fine before, it was now 
 resplendent. But Murgatroyd, as he trudged 
 along the handsome street, felt as if he were 
 poising some valuable object on his head, 
 which, should he make a wrong movement, 
 would fall and be broken. This was a 
 strange event. What did it mean ? He 
 walked, with his eyes fixed, in an abstraction. 
 He beheld always that picture of his mother, 
 his newly discovered, tenderly smiling moth- 
 er, pale, gentle, stately, with dark, delicate 
 brows and softly shining eyes, dressed in 
 some graceful, simple morning robe, like a 
 Greek, but no longer like a statue. There 
 were silver touches on the ripple of her dark 
 hair. She had told him to call her " moth- 
 er." Murgatroyd had never regarded the 
 parental relation as implying anything pleas- 
 urable to the son. If the latter got through 
 the day without being made to feel that he 
 had made a beast or an ass of himself, it was 
 much. This attitude had become matter of 
 course to him. He supposed it to be normal 
 in all families, and that other boys, as a mat- 
 ter of course, enjoyed the society of their 
 Mrs. Ramages the housekeeper and their 
 Oliver Crookets the groom better than that 
 of their father and mother. He had some-
 
 120 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 times wondered why his parents had seemed 
 to be of an altogether different order of cre- 
 ation from himself different in soul and 
 body for he had reasoned that this could 
 hardly be the case in all families. But so 
 far as the distant and critical attitude was 
 concerned, that was no doubt, he thought, 
 natural and inevitable ; parents who did not 
 exhibit it were to be regarded with suspicion. 
 Well, then, what was to be thought of this 
 wonderful transfiguration of his mother ? If 
 she had been his mother before what was 
 she now? And if only now what had she 
 been hitherto? Struggling with this prob- 
 lem, he was reaching the conclusion that she 
 had been transfigured out of a mother, but 
 into something far more delightful, when his 
 name, spoken in a clear, cool voice, brought 
 him abruptly back to the concrete, and to 
 the fact that Isabella Sharingbourne was be- 
 fore him, with Devereux Scaramanga by 
 her side. 
 
 They smiled upon him with patrician 
 serenity ; evidently there had been no trans- 
 figuration in their case. ',' Ah, I was ex- 
 pecting you," said Scaramanga; "I was 
 snatching a hasty joy while opportunity 
 served. You have not indulged me with your
 
 SILENCE 121 
 
 property over long, but I resign her to you 
 with thanks for the shortest favors." And 
 he lifted his hat with ironic courtesy. 
 
 " I don't think Mr. Whiterduce was look- 
 ing forme or thinking of me," said Isabel- 
 la, looking her betrothed over composedly. 
 
 " I wasn't ; I'd no idea you'd be around at 
 this time, " returned the guileless youth. 
 " I'm going to meet my father down at his 
 office; I guess I'm late. Well, good-by." 
 
 Scaramanga glanced at Isabella, arching 
 his black eyebrows with demure amusement ; 
 she smiled, keeping her clear eyes on Mur- 
 gatroyd. " It's very nice of you," she said. 
 " Good-by." 
 
 Murgatroyd hurried along, feeling that 
 perhaps he had not done the right thing, but 
 glad to get away. Etiquette was still an 
 obscure subject to him. He would not have 
 had the audacity to show jealousy toward 
 Isabella his "property," indeed! He 
 could imagine being jealous about other girls, 
 such as Letitia, or Sally ; but if ever a girl 
 was her own proprietor able to take care of 
 herself better than anyone could do it for 
 her the future Mrs. Whiterduce was that 
 young lady. He dismissed the subject from 
 his mind.
 
 122 A TOOL OF NATURE 
 
 His way led him past the St. Quentin 
 Club ; before he was aware of it he was in 
 the midst of a little knot of gentlemen who 
 were going slowly in the same direction. 
 There were Verinder Vyse, Stukely Poyntell, 
 Aubert Frewin, and one or two more. 
 
 " Hullo, Murgatroyd," said Frewin, turn- 
 ing upon him that ever scrutinizing and yet 
 preoccupied gaze of his, which sought what 
 was artistically available in nature, and dis- 
 carded the rest ; " I've just got a subject 
 for a picture ' The Transfiguration of Cali- 
 ban ; ' will you give me an order for it ? " 
 
 " Keep clear of the clutches of poor ar- 
 tists poor in both senses, Whiterduce," 
 said Vyse. " We must call you Whiterduce 
 now. But if you want to encourage art, re- 
 gard the poet and romancer. Establish an 
 American academy with a fortune every 
 year for the best work of pure imagination, 
 ' The Whiterduce Prize.' " 
 
 "And appoint me to pass judgment on 
 the work of the competitors," said Poyntell. 
 "I'll protect you against impostors ! " 
 
 " Come inside : we're going to have a 
 cocktail," said Vyse. " 'Tis not so sweet 
 as woman's lip, but oh, 'tis more sincere ! " 
 
 " Oh, thank you, but I can't," replied
 
 SILENCE 123 
 
 Murgatroyd. " I've got to meet my father 
 at his office, and I guess I'm a little late. 
 Good-by ! 
 
 " They seem always to be making fun of 
 everything," he thought as he trudged on. 
 " Not the way Horace and Polydore and 
 that sort of fellows do ; but so as to make 
 you feel uncomfortable. It makes you laugh, 
 but it doesn't make you feel good. I wonder 
 if I shall ever get the hang of it ! I guess 
 not ; I can't think of the things to say, and 
 I wouldn't like to say 'em, anyway." 
 
 He turned out of the Street of Fashion 
 and approached the business parts of the 
 city. Here was the tall marble building of 
 the Constitution newspaper, and on its steps, 
 with his hands clasped behind him, and his 
 chin on his breast, the great figure of the 
 editor, Blackmer Risdon, listening to Judge 
 Hemynge, who was talking with gesture and 
 emphasis. The big eyes of the man of news- 
 papers, rolling slowly under his deep brows, 
 fell upon Murgatroyd as he drew near, and 
 he put out an arm, like a railroad stoppage 
 signal. The Judge turned brusquely. 
 
 " Murgatroyd," boomed the editor, " we 
 were speaking of an angel, and along comes 
 a cherub at least, I presume cherubs are
 
 124 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 angels' children we'll ask Agabag about 
 that. Do you know if your father thinks of 
 coming down town to-day ? ' ' 
 
 " He's down already at his office ; I was 
 just going there to meet him." 
 
 The Judge tapped impressively with a 
 forefinger on the left breast of the young 
 man's coat, as if to determine whether he 
 were hollow or stuffed with sawdust. " My 
 boy," he said, peering at him with his com- 
 edy scowl, " can you carry a message to 
 him ? " 
 
 " I don't know," rumbled Blackmer, in a 
 half aside. "Eh? I don't know. What 
 do you think? " 
 
 " Hum ! that's so ; may be you're right. 
 Besides, I'm going that way myself present- 
 ly. Yes, my boy," he said, ceasing his 
 sounding experiment, and patting him on his 
 elbow, with his head aslant, " yes well 
 you're pretty stout, ain't you? All you 
 young chaps are gymnasts nowadays. Could 
 knock out Risdon in one round, I expect 
 what? in one round." 
 
 " Well, I reckon he might, now ; they 
 teach 'em boxing tricks ; I get illustrated 
 articles for the paper. But I could have 
 thrown him when I was younger- yes, sir !
 
 SILENCE 125 
 
 When I was logging up in Maine, along in 
 the fifties, I wrastled every man there, and 
 there wasn't one of 'em could down me. 
 But I've been thrown since, now and again," 
 he added, shaking his shoulders with a cav- 
 ernous chuckle. 
 
 " I guess I'm a little late I'll have to 
 go," said Murgatroyd, repeating once more 
 the burden of his song. 
 
 " Go along, my boy; just tell your father 
 I'll look in on him before noon ; say I don't 
 want to miss him ! Ta ta ! In one round 
 what?" 
 
 "Step up stairs," said the editor, taking 
 him by the arm. " Let's have a squint at it 
 sitting down ; there may be nothing in it 
 after all. ' ' 
 
 Murgatroyd turned into another street, in 
 which were still standing some of the older 
 buildings of the city built when twenty-story 
 Towers of Babylon were unknown. There 
 were signs of age everywhere ; the sidewalks 
 were uneven and the pavement of the narrow 
 street had a wavy surface, like an estuary 
 turned into cobblestones. It was a respect- 
 able place, however ; the buildings were all 
 occupied as offices, mostly of lawyers and 
 real-estate agents ; names were legible on
 
 126 A TOOL OF NATURE 
 
 the small brass plates which had been known 
 in the commercial directories for genera- 
 tions. It was a quiet neighborhood, the 
 main lines of traffic were elsewhere, and 
 when a vehicle found it necessary to thread 
 this venerable lane, it proceeded at a walk, 
 steering carefully from the crest of one stony 
 undulation to another. On one side, oppo- 
 site the office buildings, was an old church 
 and churchyard, clustered with dingy monu- 
 ments and gravestones, and with stunted 
 tress growing here and there, now leafless 
 and forlorn. 
 
 To come into this region was like passing 
 from the rattle and sparkle of owe Jin de siecle 
 into the old-fashioned thirties and forties of 
 the century. You involuntarily slackened 
 your pace and drew less hurried breath. 
 
 The greater number of these buildings had 
 been owned by the Whiter duces time out of 
 mind, and it was in one of them that our 
 own Pynchepole had his office. For al- 
 though he had no business, technically 
 speaking, an "office" had been a family 
 appurtenance always, and it was, of course, 
 a necessity for persons with so vast an estate. 
 Appointments with lawyers, agents, and men 
 of business of all kinds were held here;
 
 SILENCE 127 
 
 there was a safe vault, in which securities 
 representing nobody knew how much and 
 other valuable or curious documents were 
 kept ; and no doubt the Whiterduces used 
 to come here sometimes simply for the sake 
 of being alone and inaccessible by the world 
 in which they held such considerable stakes. 
 No one would disturb them here, because 
 they were never supposed to be here except 
 by special appointment ; and even if some 
 chance visitor were to knock at the door it 
 was only necessary to keep silent and he 
 would soon take himself off. 
 
 The Whiterduce office occupied the ground 
 floor of the building. There were several 
 rooms, opening into one another and look- 
 ing out at the back on a small court-yard 
 with a high brick wall. Adjoining this yard 
 was another, belonging to a building on the 
 next street. The rooms were soberly but 
 solidly furnished, and were kept in order by 
 a man and his wife, the latter dusting them 
 every morning and the former walking 
 through them every night to see that every- 
 thing was as it should be. Nothing had 
 ever been otherwise than it should be during 
 the twenty years of their incumbency, and 
 there was no tradition that anything had
 
 128 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ever been, from the beginning. The Whit- 
 erduces and all appertaining to them were 
 invariably all right. 
 
 As Murgatroyd mounted the worn stone 
 steps he said to himself : "I wonder if 
 father '11 seem as different this morning as 
 mother did ! If I could only get over being 
 scared of him I should think we might get 
 on first rate. ' ' 
 
 He stepped into the narrow hallway and 
 knocked on the door the first door to the 
 right. He heard no answer, but he turned 
 the latch and the door opened. " It's me," 
 he said as he went in. 
 
 He shut the door behind him. As he did 
 so he thought he heard a window at the back 
 of the building shut down with an echoing 
 slam. Supposing that Mr. Whiterduce must 
 be in the back room, he crossed the small 
 antechamber which he had entered and 
 passed through the glazed partition into the 
 room next to it. Here was a large desk 
 table, and Murgatroyd, glancing beneath it, 
 saw his father's feet and the lower part of his 
 legs as he sat in the chair at the other side. 
 The upper structure of the desk hid his 
 father's head and shoulders from sight. 
 
 "I guess I'm a little late," said Murga-
 
 SILENCE 129 
 
 troyd, and he came round and looked down 
 upon the other ; "I overslept " 
 
 He stopped. Mr. Whiterduce sat with 
 his head and body bent forward, and his 
 arms hanging down an extraordinary post- 
 ure. His face was pressed down on a litter 
 of papers on the desk. He had fainted. 
 
 After the moment's shock was over, Mur- 
 gatroyd, fetching his breath again, bent for- 
 ward and put his hand lightly on his shoul- 
 der. His purpose was, if his father did not 
 rouse up at once, to carry him to the sofa 
 and try to revive him. The coat, where he 
 touched it, was wet. Had someone else 
 been throwing water over him ? He with- 
 drew his hand ; it felt sticky ; he looked at 
 it ; it was smeared with red was it blood ? 
 It was blood ! He gave back a step or two, 
 as if he himself had been dealt a mortal 
 blow. 
 
 A pang of horror twisted through him from 
 head to foot, like a serpent. It left his body 
 numb ; he was no longer conscious of it ; he 
 was all thought and action. He felt for his 
 father's heart. It was still, but the body 
 was yet warm. Then he remembered that 
 window that had been slammed at the rear ; 
 in another moment he found himself there ; 
 
 Q
 
 130 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 there was a smear of bloody fingers on the 
 sash where it had been seized to open the 
 window ; the murderer had escaped that 
 way. He was not in the yard ; a pack- 
 ing-case stood against the opposite wall ; he 
 had climbed over and passed out through 
 the building opposite. He had had time 
 enough ; it would be useless to pursue him 
 now. 
 
 Then the first thing to be done was to get 
 help. Murgatroyd's mind worked logically 
 but rigidly ; one idea followed the previous 
 one in order, but nothing was mapped out 
 beforehand. 
 
 He hurried back to the front. The sight 
 of the body still in its awkward posture at 
 the desk gave him a new shock ; it was 
 dead ; death is strange. He got past it, not 
 looking full at it, but only too clearly aware 
 of its every detail out of the corner of his 
 eye. Once in the antechamber he sprang 
 through it to the outer door and wrenched it 
 open. 
 
 He threw a look up and down the silent 
 street. His lips were just opening to scream 
 out " Murder ! " when he saw a figure leis- 
 urely advancing in his direction. The 
 straight, strong figure of a man, with his hat
 
 SILENCE 131 
 
 in his bare hand, in spite of the cold, while 
 with his other hand he meditatively felt the 
 surface of his bald poll, as a gardener exam- 
 ines his garden-bed to see whether the seeds 
 have begun to sprout yet. There was no 
 mistaking that bald head, that investigating 
 hand, that independent, leisurely gait, that 
 virile figure. It was Horace Maydwell.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AN ESCAPE 
 
 Murgatroyd felt that Horace was the man 
 of all men for such an occasion, and with 
 that recognition his own efficiency forsook 
 him. Strength went out of his legs, and he 
 sat down heavily on the steps, sweating and 
 nauseated. He panted like one who has 
 overrun himself in a race. 
 
 Horace caught sight of him while yet at 
 a distance of twenty yards, lifted his eye- 
 brows with jocose surprise, and began to 
 smile. 
 
 " Halloo, old Sweetness ! " he began to 
 say; "what you up to? You look tired; 
 been on the go ever since you left us last 
 night ? What you down here for, anyway ? 
 Oh, your old man's office, isn't it ? Why, 
 you're sick, boy ! " he exclaimed, as he drew 
 near. The smile left his face and a stern 
 look came upon it. " Has he been kicking 
 you out, or "
 
 AN ESCAPE 133 
 
 Murgatroyd feebly raised one arm ; his 
 mouth opened, but he could only gasp. 
 
 " Damn him ! I'll kick him out, if you 
 say so ! " continued Horace, between his 
 teeth. 
 
 ' ' Dead ! ' ' croaked Murgatroyd. ' ' Killed ; 
 stabbed in the back ! " 
 
 Horace put on his hat and stood still. 
 
 " Get up," he said, after a pause, "and 
 come in." 
 
 He lifted the youth by the arm, noticing 
 as he did so the blood on his hand. He led 
 him into the passage and through the open 
 door into the antechamber. After closing 
 the door, he said in a low and gentle tone, 
 " Look at me, my dear." 
 
 The other raised a haggard face. Horace 
 gazed at him penetratingly. Murgatroyd 
 never knew what his friend sought to deter- 
 mine by that gaze. 
 
 " It's good you came," he faltered out at 
 length. " Oh, think of poor mother ! " 
 
 " Do you mean that your father is mur- 
 dered ? " demanded Horace, steadily. 
 "When was it? just now? You didn't 
 see anybody? Perhaps he killed himself." 
 
 " He's stabbed in the back. He's in 
 there just as I found him. He was warm
 
 134 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 still, and I heard the back window slam. If 
 I'd started right off I might have caught him, 
 but I stopped to see and the blood he got 
 through to the next street so I ran to the 
 front again for help, and you " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I see. It's all right, and I'm 
 damned glad I happened along. If it had 
 been some fool, instead, there might Is 
 there a washstand here ? Go and wash your 
 hands. It's all right, Murgy. We've got 
 to die, you know, and some of us have got 
 to be killed. The stars do it all, and his 
 tinie had come. Now let's go in and have 
 a look, and then we'll get the police ; they're 
 a lot of asses, but it can't be helped. Brace 
 up, my dear. I'm as big a fool as any of 
 'em. You ought to kick me if I got my 
 deserts, but never mind ! Come on ! " 
 
 The Doctor was familiar with scenes of 
 death, and of violence, as well. He made 
 his examination quietly and coolly, so far as 
 it could be done without disturbing the posi- 
 tion of the body. Mr. Whiterduce had been 
 struck from behind, the knife passing down- 
 ward through the left lung, and probably 
 penetrating the apex of the heart. It must 
 have been a powerful blow, with a keen 
 weapon. The weapon had been withdrawn,
 
 AN ESCAPE 135 
 
 and the murderer seemed to have left no 
 obvious traces of himself. Horace Mayd- 
 well then examined the back window. The 
 murderer had evidently run thither, on hear- 
 ing Murgatroyd at the door, had got out, 
 letting the sash fall behind him, and had 
 dropped to the ground, a distance of about 
 eight feet. His further course, as well as his 
 identity, must be left for subsequent investi- 
 gation to discover. The police must try 
 their skill. " And I guess they'll have their 
 hands full ! " Horace remarked. " It looks 
 pretty dark. Well, we'll see ! " 
 
 There was a police station around the cor- 
 ner, and thither the Doctor went, deeming 
 it better to lodge the information himself 
 than to trust that office to Murgatroyd, who 
 was not in a condition to make himself intel- 
 ligible. If he, the boy's nearest friend, had 
 for a moment suspected him of the deed it 
 would not do to take chances with the po- 
 lice. The fact that Murgatroyd remained 
 on guard in the antechamber would of itself 
 go far to exonerate him should circumstances 
 seem to indicate any sinister complications. 
 Horace would doubtless have felt less solici- 
 tude had he been at this time aware of the 
 details of his young friend's journey from his
 
 136 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 house to the office, telling everyone he met 
 on the way that he was going by appoint- 
 ment to meet his father. 
 
 Horace returned in ten minutes with a ser- 
 geant and a detective from the station. 
 While these individuals were in the midst of 
 their work two distinguished personages 
 made their appearance no other than Judge 
 Hemynge, Whiterduce's confidential legal 
 adviser, and Blackmer Risdon, of the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 " Whiterduce murdered ! " exclaimed 
 Risdon, in a tone that made the windows 
 vibrate. "My friend Whiterduce cut 
 down like that ! God in heaven, is noth- 
 ing sacred in this life? " 
 
 "By the Lord, whoever did it shall hang 
 for it ! " cried the Judge, turning pale, with 
 trembling lips. "No man's life is safe in 
 these infernal anarchistic times ! If they can 
 kill Whiterduce, who's safe ? They may 
 take me next ! " 
 
 "Don't let it worry you, Judge," said 
 Horace, settling the glasses and fixing his 
 eyes on the old gentleman. " These fellows 
 don't care to bother with a man's man ; 
 they go for the man himself. Besides, we 
 don't know yet that it wasn't some com-
 
 AN ESCAPE 137 
 
 mon thief. What put anarchists in your 
 head?" 
 
 " Who are you, sir ? And what the devil 
 ah ! Ain't you Horace Maydwell? " 
 
 " Dr. Horace Maydwell is my name and 
 profession, Judge. What about it ? " 
 
 " Why, you're you're the fellow that 
 insulted ' ' 
 
 " Yes, I'm the fellow that pulled Whiter- 
 duce's nose in the club," said Horace, com- 
 ing quite near, as the Judge backed into a 
 corner. He spoke in a tone so low that it 
 was audible to Hemynge only the others 
 being otherwise occupied. "And what I 
 did to the master I'm ready to do to the 
 man. But that boy there is my friend, and 
 if you raise your voice so that he hears about 
 it, now or later, I'll choke your cur's life out 
 of you." 
 
 " I I don't want any trouble with you in 
 in the house of death, sir; but no man 
 can I shall you shall hear from me, sir ! 
 
 I shall " 
 
 But the other, with an unpleasant laugh, 
 snapped his fingers in front of the Judge's 
 pallid face and turned away. 
 
 Meanwhile Risdon was questioning the 
 police sergeant.
 
 138 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Not a robbery, you say ? Do you infer, 
 then, a personal " 
 
 " We can't say nothing definite yet, Mr. 
 Risdon, and the less said publicly at present 
 the better as I needn't tell you, sir. It 
 don't look to me like nothin' ordinary 
 that's all. There might be things stole 
 see? We'll have to get an inventory to 
 make sure about that ; but it ain't no com- 
 mon thief that gets behind a gentleman's 
 chair, he sitting easy and unsuspectin' like 
 and jabs a knife into him afore he can 
 turn around see? Them two had been 
 havin' a chat, confidential, as I might say ; 
 the fellow he gets up from that chair where 
 he was a-sittin', and he just takes a turn 
 past the back of Mr. Whiterduce's chair 
 see ? And that's when the job was done, 
 to my mind right then and there, in the 
 mid of a word, as it might be. There might 
 'a' been money, or dockyments, or what 
 not, as he wanted, lyin' on the table; or 
 there might not see? If there was, why, 
 we'll find it out; but if there wasn't see? 
 why, then what I says is, this ain't no 
 common thieving job, and what else it might 
 be will appear at the proper time, Mr. Ris- 
 don, if you'll excuse me, sir, for keepin' my
 
 AN ESCAPE 139 
 
 mouth shut, which is the rules, as you 
 know, sir." 
 
 "But you have your theory, eh? I can 
 see that," returned the great editor insinuat- 
 ingly. 
 
 "You can see a good deal further than 
 into the middle of next week, then ? " in- 
 terposed Horace, with that disconcerting 
 grin of his. " What you see is a newspaper 
 ' scoop,' I guess ! But if my friend the ser- 
 geant knows his business, and which side his 
 bread's buttered, he'll let you scoop in the 
 lies to suit yourself." 
 
 Risdon raised his head like a lion accused 
 of robbing hen-roosts, but, being a keen stu- 
 dent of character, he at once perceived that 
 the way to deal with this person was not to 
 roar at him. On the other hand, he scented 
 a possible source of information, and his 
 diplomacy and insight were at once aroused 
 to avail himself of it. 
 
 "Your animadversion on the press has 
 too much justification, Mr. ah I beg your 
 pardon ' ' 
 
 "Dr. Maydwell." 
 
 "Ah, Doctor, I am always glad to meet 
 men of your profession. My own father 
 was a physician. We know we're on safe
 
 140 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ground with you. I was about to say that 
 my inquiries were made, not with the motive 
 you suppose, which my affectionate respect 
 for our deceased friend would forbid in any 
 
 " It may be as well to tell you that there 
 was not much affection lost between your 
 deceased friend and me," Horace put in. 
 " If there was any respect it was all on one 
 side." 
 
 The Titan of the press was disconcerted 
 for a moment. He took another look at his 
 interlocutor and resumed, in another tone : 
 
 " We will agree to differ there, then. I 
 am well aware that my friend had enemies. 
 But you and I, sir, as men of the world, may 
 meet on the common ground of abhorrence 
 of lawless violence, and desire to see outrage 
 brought home to its perpetrators. Now, 
 there came into my possession this morning 
 a letter which, though anonymous, bids fair, 
 in view of what has occurred " 
 
 "Excuse me, Mr. Risdon," said Horace, 
 "I'm a plain man and understand plain talk. 
 All that long language is wasted on me. 
 You're from Maine, ain't you ? If you can 
 remember any of the short words they use in 
 the backwoods up there, we'll get on better."
 
 AN ESCAPE 141 
 
 Blackmer Risdon had his cue now, and 
 being really a man of pith under all his dis- 
 guises, he swung his shoulders, and gave a 
 loose rein to the real contents of himself. 
 
 "By God, Doctor, you're the sort of 
 huckleberry it does me good to run up 
 against ! I want to see more of you. Get 
 around and dine with me to-night just you 
 and me and I'll see if I can't get in under 
 your guard and give you as good as you 
 send. There's my address. Now, you 
 come ! I don't give a damn who or what 
 you hate or you like, but if you don't like me 
 before I'm done with you I'll know why! 
 I guess you'll find I'm not far off some of 
 your notions, though I do run a newspaper 
 for money and talk through my hat to fel- 
 lows who talk through theirs. Now see 
 here. What do you say to that ? ' ' 
 
 He put a piece of letter-paper in the other's 
 hand. It had some writing on it a conven- 
 tional business script, such as is written by 
 a hundred thousand commercial scribes and 
 was to this effect : 
 
 "MR. RISDON, Constitution You at- 
 tended a birthday dinner this evening. Be- 
 fore long you may meet at the same place
 
 142 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 again for a different sort of ceremony. In 
 the midst of life we are in death. Some 
 men outlive their usefulness. Unless they 
 can give satisfactory guarantees, they have to 
 go. Your friend has not done so up to now. 
 I have no hand in this business, but I know 
 of it. If you don't understand what I mean, 
 perhaps Judge Hemynge will. If anything is 
 going to be done, it had better be done quick. 
 So no more at present from yours truly, 
 
 "ONE OF THE BOYS. 
 " November isth." 
 
 " If it was meant to save his life, it came 
 too late, and if not I see no use in writing 
 it," observed Horace, handing it back. 
 " I'm not the detective in this case. Give 
 it to the police." 
 
 " So, you swear by the police, don't you ! " 
 returned Risdon, tilting his eyebrow. " Let's 
 talk sense. This thing means an organiza- 
 tion, don't it? I showed it to Hemynge 
 this morning. He was Whiterduce's inside 
 man. The Judge is a smart man and a 
 friend of mine ; but what he said was, 
 ' Just another piece of anonymous tomfool- 
 ery : get 'em every mail : it'll work out into 
 a dodge to get money you'll see.' 'But
 
 AN ESCAPE 143 
 
 it's an organization,' I said. ' Organization 
 be damned ! ' says he ; 'if it was an organ- 
 ization, then Whiterduce must be in it, 
 mustn't he? And is it likely that Whiter- 
 duce would be in with a gang that murders 
 its members when they don't pony up right ?' 
 That's the way the Judge put it. Now, you 
 see, he was wrong on his first count that it 
 was only a bluff for cash : he wouldn't have 
 come down here this morning, only I made 
 him ; for when the young chap there told 
 us his father was to be at his office to-day, I 
 put this and that together, and didn't like 
 the look of it. Now what I say is, if the 
 Judge was wrong on one count, he may not 
 have been right on the other. Do you get 
 my point ? I've seen a good deal of Whiter- 
 duce myself, and I've got something of a 
 nose for human nature ; and my totting-up 
 of him was ' Still water runs deep ! ' You 
 might go in and out with him, and pass the 
 time of day, year out and year in, and yet 
 never once get the ghost of a squint at what 
 was at the bottom of the man's mind. And 
 unless you was pretty damned smart you 
 wouldn't so much as get to suspect that there 
 was anything at the bottom of his mind to 
 get a squint at ! Well, now, Hemynge is all
 
 144 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 right, and so are the police; but maybe 
 Whiter duce was a touch beyond 'em. And 
 my idea is," added the editor, taking out a 
 paper of chewing tobacco, offering it to Hor- 
 ace, who declined it, and then detaching a 
 quid for himself, " that there are resources 
 at the disposal of a newspaper that lay over 
 anything else in the world ; I believe there's 
 the biggest sort of a big thing behind this 
 murder. I say such things have no business 
 in a country like this ; and by God, sir, if I 
 have life and means I'm going to follow it 
 up and hunt it down let the stripes fall on 
 whom they may ! You may kick at Ameri- 
 can aristocracy, Dr. Maydwell, and you may 
 say that politics are rotten, and the church a 
 fraud, and the municipal offices dens of pick- 
 pockets ; and you may know that the cost of 
 the trimming on a society woman's dress 
 would keep a slum family in bang-up style 
 for a year ; and you may conclude from all 
 that that there can't be anything very bad 
 in what goes against such things, whether 
 they're legal or whether they ain't ; and you 
 may have personally hated the man who was 
 killed here an hour ago I remember you 
 now, and that affair at the club and to end 
 up, you may say that all I'm after is to boom
 
 AN ESCAPE 145 
 
 my circulation and put money in my pocket. 
 Those may be your opinions, and I may go 
 with you as to most of 'em, though if you're 
 such a donkey as to believe that a man like 
 me can have no motive but a base one in 
 working out this job, then I don't give a 
 squirt of tobacco juice for you and fifty like 
 you ! But that ain't the way I size you up ; 
 I credit you with brains to see that what- 
 ever organization or conspiracy was behind 
 this murder, means no help to the poor, nor 
 lift to labor, nor cleanness and honesty any- 
 where ; what those men are after is money 
 and power, and that means, for such men, 
 robbery and terrorism. And I guess you 
 have a heart in you that ' ' 
 
 "Look here, Blackmer," said Judge 
 Hemynge, coming behind him and plucking 
 him by the sleeve, "I'm off. They've sent 
 for the coroner, and as I have no evidence to 
 offer, and feel pretty seedy anyhow, I'm 
 going to get a drink. Unless you mean to 
 put in that scrap of paper of yours, you'd 
 better come along. ' ' 
 
 " Shall I see you this evening, Doctor? " 
 asked Risdon, taking up his hat from the chair 
 beside which he had been standing, and put- 
 ting forth his hand to grasp the other's.
 
 146 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Come to my office after you've dined 
 and I'll see you," replied Horace, coldly; 
 " I don't dine out. You'll find me in the 
 Directory. Good-morning." 
 
 All this time Murgatroyd had been sitting 
 in a corner, with his elbow on a small table, 
 staring at nothing and apparently inattentive 
 to what was going on. If the policeman or 
 the detective asked him a question, he waited 
 a moment or two, and then answered it in- 
 telligently, relapsing immediately into his 
 brown study. Occasionally he would com- 
 press his temples between the thumb and 
 fingers of his right hand. You would have 
 said, to look at him, that he had had a stun- 
 ning fall and was dully waiting for his wits 
 to come back to him. Horace came up, 
 when the Judge and the editor had gone, 
 and half sat on the little table, putting his 
 arm on the other's shoulder. " Keep a grip 
 on yourself, you know," said he. 
 
 " It's poor mother," answered the young 
 man, in a heavy tone. "I've got to tell 
 her. Poor mother ! ' ' 
 
 " Say, my dear, each fellow's own troub- 
 les are enough for him. It's no use your 
 doing other folks' worrying. Maybe she'll 
 stand it better than you think."
 
 AN ESCAPE 147 
 
 " She sent him her dearest love I was to 
 mind not forget to tell him, and that he was 
 to come home soon she wanted him, and 
 that she was very happy, and we all would 
 be happier and happier right along now. 
 She kissed me she was so sweet and lovely 
 I pretty near cried, I guess and I've got to 
 go home and tell her I shall have to 
 say " 
 
 He stopped and resumed his blank atti- 
 tude. 
 
 Horace was surprised. He thought he 
 had good reason to believe that there was 
 no love lost between this married pair. But 
 there was evidently reason for the boy's 
 thinking otherwise. 
 
 "I'll go home with you, Murgy," he 
 said, presently. " We'll go together, as 
 soon as these duffers are through. I'll stay 
 by you, my boy." 
 
 "But I must tell," he answered, looking 
 up. "I'm the head of the house now; I 
 must do it." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; to be sure. And you'll take as 
 good care of her as anybody could better. 
 Keep your grit that's the way. And count 
 on me, when you want me, every time." 
 
 The coroner came at length, the necessary
 
 148 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 inquiries were made and answered and the 
 permit given. Murgatroyd could now go 
 home. He accepted Horace's companion- 
 ship, but was depressed and taciturn. " I'm 
 glad of one thing she'll know what he 
 wanted and I can have it done," was one of 
 his observations. " I can do what I'm told 
 even fools can do that. I'm the head, 
 but she'll be the brains." 
 
 "Well, I believe she's a good woman," 
 said Horace. 
 
 "I'll be her servant all my life," rejoined 
 the young man. " All I hope is, she won't 
 want me to to marry. I'd rather stay 
 with her than marry the best other woman 
 in the world. I know Miss Sharingbourne 
 is very nice ever so much more so than I 
 need but I want my mother ; seems to me, 
 to make her happy, even I could become a 
 decent sort of fellow." 
 
 " You've got some friends who think 
 you're pretty decent as you are already." 
 
 Murgatroyd answered only with a big 
 sigh. He was evidently struggling to ac- 
 commodate his hitherto boyish mind to the 
 idea of manly responsibilities, and, with the 
 simplicity natural to him, was trusting to his 
 love for his mother to help him out. His
 
 AN ESCAPE 149 
 
 friend smiled to himself at the pathos of this 
 conception. The idea of carrying on the 
 Whiterduce policy on the basis of filial af- 
 fection was at least a novelty. To be de- 
 veloped into a man of the world by the in- 
 spiration of a mother's kiss ! But w.hat 
 perplexed Horace as much as anything else 
 was this enshrining of Mrs. Whiterduce in 
 the chief place in Murgatroyd's heart. He 
 had hardly ever mentioned her before ; and, 
 as has been already intimated, the Doctor 
 had gathered from the unconscious revela- 
 tions of the lady herself, in her feverish de- 
 lirium, hints enough to show that she had 
 never recognized Murgatroyd as her own 
 son. He was forced to conclude that the 
 sudden flowering of this love and devotion 
 must be due to the violent emotional shock 
 of Whiterduce's death, causing the youth to 
 throw himself into imaginative sympathy 
 with the widow. Horace himself, it need 
 hardly be added, was far from anticipating 
 that the news they were carrying to the lady 
 would have anything like such an effect upon 
 her as his companion looked for. She would 
 regard it, he thought, as a blessing, con- 
 veyed, no doubt, in a very objectionable 
 manner, but an essential blessing all the
 
 150 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 same. Thus did he furnish another illustra- 
 tion of the impotence of human sagacity to 
 interpret one's fellow-creatures aright. Love 
 is the only true interpreter ; and even love 
 is, in human beings, so mingled with per- 
 sonal shortcomings that its vision is often 
 blurred. 
 
 As they went up the steps of the house 
 Murgatroyd, instead of appearing more agi- 
 tated, became calmer. It was that strange 
 strength which is begotten of the oblitera- 
 tion of selfish feeling in concern for another. 
 
 " Stay downstairs, please," he said to his 
 friend. " I must go up to her alone." 
 
 Sally Wintle opened the door, the smile 
 with which she greeted Murgatroyd disap- 
 pearing in an expression of decorous formal- 
 ity as she observed the stranger. ' ' Is my 
 mother in her room? " asked Murgatroyd. 
 
 "Yes, sir; I called her for lunch half an 
 hour ago, but she said she'd wait for you. 
 Will I put another plate, sir ? " 
 
 " No," interposed Maydwell ; "I shan't 
 be long. Go up, my boy ; I'll look out for 
 myself." 
 
 Murgatroyd went upstairs, and for some 
 minutes Horace remained gazing absently at 
 a fine engraving of Raphael's " Transfigu-
 
 AN ESCAPE 151 
 
 ration," which hung in the hall. By and 
 by he heard Murgatroyd's voice calling him 
 from the top of the stairs in a singular, 
 hushed tone, ' ' Horace ! Horace ! ' ' 
 
 " Yes," said he, and ran up. The other 
 met him on the landing and grasped his 
 hand in a tremulous grip. 
 
 " It breaks my heart," he said, the words 
 seeming to be shaken out of him. " But 
 oh! I'm glad I'm glad !" 
 
 Horace stood, uncomprehending. After 
 a pause- the other, still keeping hold of 
 his hand, drew him into a room to the 
 left. 
 
 It was Mrs. Whiterduce's boudoir. Hor- 
 ace saw the beautiful, stately woman seated 
 in a low arm-chair, beside a little writing- 
 table of inlaid wood. She had opened the 
 drawer, and there were in her lap some old 
 photographs. They were likenesses of her 
 friends of earlier days, taken before the time 
 of her marriage. Her hand held one of 
 Pynchepole Whiterduce as a young man of 
 thirty the gift of the lover to his mistress. 
 Her head, with its slightly silvered hair, re- 
 clined against the cushion at the back of the 
 chair ; and the light from the window, fall- 
 ing gently on her face through the gauze
 
 152 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 curtain, showed that she smiled, as one who 
 dwells on happy memories. 
 
 But she did not stir nor betray conscious- 
 ness of the presence of the stranger. Her 
 pleasant revery was too profound. 
 
 The two men moved slowly up to her. 
 The physician bent forward j he touched her 
 wrist with his finger. 
 
 " I might have thought of this," he said. 
 " When I attended her three years ago, I ex- 
 amined her heart, and knew that she would 
 be liable to go off at any moment, especially 
 after any strong excitement or emotion. 
 But had you told her? did she know? " 
 
 " No, that's why I'm so glad. She never 
 knew ; she never will now. They'll always 
 be happy together now. It's the best thing 
 in the world ; but I loved her so I ' ' 
 
 His voice broke, and he said no more. 
 
 " This is a queer old world," Horace kept 
 repeating to himself as he sauntered slowly 
 home that evening, his hat in his hand 
 "a queer old world! I wonder what' 11 
 come of it! "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 
 
 Some eighteen months after the death of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Whiterduce there was again a 
 group of elegant idlers in the smoking-room 
 of the St. Quentin Club. 
 
 During the interval, Aubert Frewin, the 
 artist, had been in Europe, for some or all of 
 the purposes that have led our men of paint 
 and canvas thither since the epoch of Ben- 
 jamin West. He had reappeared in the club 
 for the first time since his return, on this 
 particular afternoon to tell the truth, he 
 landed at nine o'clock, and was in the midst 
 of his fellow -members by four. He was rich- 
 ly encrusted with foreign aesthetic culture, 
 and his habits of abstraction and other idio- 
 syncrasies had become softened by a mellow- 
 ing atmosphere of worldly experience. He 
 behaved with great urbanity to his old com- 
 rades, but found difficulty in wholly disguis- 
 ing the fact that these haunts of his youth
 
 154 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 struck him as being just a trifle provincial. 
 He said the Arts Club, in London, wasn't 
 half a bad place ; you met fellows there who 
 knew a thing or two about painting. Paris, 
 Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome, he had 
 found many agreeable features in all these 
 places. He did not indorse the dogmas of 
 the more recent apostles of art. " After all, 
 you know, those old chaps were the great 
 men ; they knew what they were about. ' ' 
 The club listened to this sort of thing for a 
 season with tolerable grace; then Stukely 
 Poyntell said, " Is this to be a series of lect- 
 ures, or are we to get it all at once ? " 
 
 Aubert smiled. " Ah, Stukely, same old 
 boy ! Well, what's been doing here ? Any- 
 thing new ? ' ' 
 
 "The Constitution has a circulation of 
 four hundred thousand copies, bona-f.de sales, 
 exclusive of returns, as may be seen by an 
 examination of the books, which are open 
 to public inspection, if the sworn affidavits 
 of eminent and impartial business men, pub- 
 lished in the second column of the editorial 
 page, should prove insufficient to satisfy ad- 
 vertisers and readers," said Verinder Vyse, 
 making movements with his right arm as 
 he were turning a crank.
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 155 
 
 "Yes; its rejection of Vyse's last novel, 
 though offered free of charge, gave it an im- 
 mense boom," added Poyntell. 
 
 " That, and its amateur detective work on 
 the great Whiterduce murder case," said Will 
 Walwine, a gentleman of coaching and polo- 
 ing proclivities, with short-cropped hair, a 
 high-featured and high-colored countenance, 
 an imposing bust, a pinched-in waist and 
 gaiters. He imparted to whatever he ut- 
 tered the air and tone of an excellent jest 
 or a telling epigram, though nothing of such 
 matters was discoverable in the utterances 
 themselves. 
 
 ' ' Aurelia Estengrewe has become a priest- 
 ess of Isis, and has gone to India with our 
 last visiting Mahatma," said Vyse. " Han- 
 nah has written a cookery book, Sabina is 
 a woman's suffrage advocate and speaks 
 from the platform, and Mrs. Jellicoe, after 
 inheriting another million from her brother 
 in San Francisco, has been married to the 
 Rev. Christopher Plukerose Agabag. ' ' 
 
 " Mrs. Dorothy Tiptoft, at the age of 
 ninety-two, was thrown from her carriage in 
 the Park and broke her leg," said Poyntell. 
 ' ' But she recovered and now walks quite 
 well with a crutch. ' '
 
 156 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Devereux Scaramanga has written and 
 scored a great American opera, ' Pocahon- 
 tas,' and " 
 
 " Yes, by Jove ! " interrupted Will Wai- 
 wine, warmly; "and there's a bang-up lit- 
 tle piece has come out and taken the part 
 Letty Valentine. She's a pupil of what is 
 that chap's name? and old Turlbut, the 
 impresario, pays her four thousand a week." 
 
 11 By the way, how was it about that mur- 
 der business ? ' ' Frewin inquired. ' ' When 
 I left they'd only just got started on it." 
 
 "Well, the hanging isn't in sight yet 
 you're in plenty of time for that," said 
 Stukely Poyntell. " But Risdon is still on 
 the trail. To do him justice (though he is 
 my employer), he has done a wonderful busi- 
 ness with that thing. He's brought the crime 
 home to at least four prominent secret or- 
 ganizations, incidentally giving a history of 
 each, with interviews with its prominent 
 members, and has invented as many more, 
 the details about which are even more 
 bloody and harrowing." 
 
 " The real ones, of course, pay him for 
 writing them up," said Vyse, "but the 
 others are sheer creations of genius and make 
 me jealous. Husbands and wives in society
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 157 
 
 watch each other at the breakfast-table, ready 
 to dodge bombs ; and people get insured 
 against death by poisoning every time they 
 attend an afternoon tea. That's the reason 
 the Mahatma eloped with Aurelia the new 
 fad put his little boom in the soup." 
 
 " Any more murders ? " 
 
 " No ; that's the weak point of the scheme. 
 I told Ridson his circulation depended upon 
 it, but he has his limitations. When I talk 
 about an aristocratic Jack the Ripper, though, 
 the poor man sighs and gnaws his chewing 
 tobacco. ' ' 
 
 " What's become of Murgy ? " 
 
 " Ah ! now you have touched upon the 
 really pregnant marvel of the day," replied 
 the novelist. " You know the sort of bump- 
 kin he was that we thought he was, rather ? 
 We were wrong ! There were depths, boy, 
 that our little plummets had never sounded. 
 Here's a young cub, fresh from school, with 
 shining morning face, of whose talent for 
 after-dinner oratory you, I think, have heard 
 a specimen ; a cabbage-head who takes all 
 your jokes for earnest, but splutters with gig- 
 gles if a lady spills the salt or a servant stum- 
 bles while bringing in the tea-tray ; this ani- 
 mal this sucking Caliban I say, suddenly
 
 I5& A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 tumbles into an unencumbered inheritance 
 of let us be grossly moderate and call it ten 
 millions. This trifling douceur is his, ab- 
 solutely, by will, and (practically) in cash, 
 to do with precisely as he pleases. Guess, 
 now, an thou canst, what he doth with 
 these sudden riches. Spendeth he you a 
 million on gaudy viands and potent sack ; 
 another on a harem in comparison whereto 
 that of Solomon was but as a young ladies' 
 private boarding-school ; a third on haughty 
 palaces, wherein it skilleth him not to dwell ; 
 a fourth in chariots and steeds ; a fifth and 
 sixth in losing bets on the latter to Walwine 
 and his like, and the remainder in furnishing 
 forth a loathly crew of flatterers, sycophants, 
 lick spittles, bravos, and dead-beats in gen- 
 eral ? Doeth he these things or any of 
 them ? Friend, I tell thee nay. Oh ! James, 
 ask the gentlemen what they'll take." 
 
 "A drop of absinthe for me, James," 
 said Frewin. 
 
 The glances of Poyntell and Vyse met 
 over his head. 
 
 " Fetch me a noggin of prussic acid and 
 arsenic," said the former. " I do find my- 
 self somewhat feeble to-day ! ' ' 
 
 " You really ought to try and ease off on
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 159 
 
 those strong tipples, though, Stuke, my boy," 
 said Vyse. " You'll end by regretting it. 
 James, bring me a pint of brandy and laud- 
 anum mixed, with just a dash of red pepper. 
 I learned to drink that, my dear Mr. Frew- 
 in, during my residence abroad, and find 
 it agrees with me wonderfully. As for Wai- 
 wine, he still is faithful to his good old 
 mulled ammonia, ain't you, Wai ? And, 
 really, for a steady day and night stand-by I 
 don't know that one could do better." 
 
 Frewin was fain to grin ; he colored at 
 the delicate rebuke, but took it gracefully. 
 "This is my treat, boys," he said, "and 
 it's fizz. Name your brand. Mumm it is, 
 James. Now, my romantic improvisator, 
 resume your fascinating tale." 
 
 " Praise from Sir Aubert is praise indeed. 
 Where were we? Well, you know, instead 
 of all the above, the man has come out as 
 correct as Hoyle and as stiff as Walwine's 
 stays. He avoids faux pas by saying little, 
 or less, never taking a joke or making one, 
 and studying the arts and sciences eight 
 hours a day, under all the leading professors 
 astronomy to-day, history to-morrow, 
 chemistry on Thursday, fencing Friday, so- 
 ciology and law on Saturday, and on Sunday
 
 160 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 he listens to disputations between rival doc- 
 tors of theology. He'll end as the Francis 
 Bacon of the nineteenth century. But the 
 crisp of the joke is his search, not for the 
 Philosopher's Stone, but for the policy and 
 procedure of the late esteemed and tragic 
 Pynchepole. ' ' 
 
 " As how?" 
 
 "Why, on looking into the records of 
 revenue and expenditure, he made the dis- 
 covery that a good fifty per cent, of the lat- 
 ter, during the last ten or fifteen years, had 
 disappeared without any record at all ! Put- 
 ting the total income of the estate at, say, 
 five hundred thousand, here's two hundred 
 and fifty thousand spent each twelvemonth 
 on nobody can find out what ! Of course 
 one might make certain guesses about at least 
 a fraction of it, if Pynchepole had been a 
 certain kind of man ; but it's notorious that 
 he was never anything of the sort ; the 
 blameless tenor of his daily life was known 
 to all men ; his temperament and constitu- 
 tion alike forbade excesses ; and, as a matter 
 of fact, from the day he entered college to 
 the hour of his decease he was never detected 
 in any species of dissipation or wanton ex- 
 travagance. On the other hand, his legiti-
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 161 
 
 mate expenses were on a grand scale, and his 
 charities are said to have been regal I be- 
 lieve that was the Constitution 's word, wasn't 
 it, Stuke ? The money he spent openly, in 
 short, covers about every avenue of expendi- 
 ture that ingenuity can imagine ; and yet 
 there is that deficit of a quarter of a million 
 annually staring you in the face. It used to 
 be supposed, while he was alive, that he 
 added his superfluous income to his invested 
 capital; but it is now plain that he never 
 did anything of the kind. One of the most 
 entertaining of the late Lord Lytton's ro- 
 mances is called 'What Will He Do with 
 It ? ' But this unwritten tale of ' What Did 
 He Do with It ? ' leaves it at the post and 
 romps in hands down, as Walwine would 
 say." 
 
 "Humph ! " muttered Frewin, staring at 
 the toe of his boot. " Maybe the right man 
 to solve the riddle would be he who stuck 
 the knife into poor Pynchepole's back." 
 
 "Why mightn't he have buried it, the 
 way that pirate chap did Kidd ? ' ' sug- 
 gested Walwine. 
 
 Much to his surprise and gratification 
 for he had not realized that he was being 
 waggish this sally elicited a laugh.
 
 1 62 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Come to think of it, I heard that 
 Pynchepole had had his cellar enlarged 
 about a dozen years ago," said Poyntell. 
 "Shouldn't wonder if you'd hit it, Wai. 
 Propose to tell Murgy the secret on condi- 
 tion he divvies with you." 
 
 "Hadn't old Hemynge where is Hem- 
 ynge, by the bye? hadn't he anything to 
 say about it ? " Frewin asked. 
 
 " Hemynge, I regret to say, is no longer 
 in it," said Poyntell. 
 
 "Dead?" 
 
 " Not physically. We don't know ex- 
 actly what happened ; but Murgy seems to 
 have become dissatisfied with him for some 
 reason, and fired him he used to be Pynche- 
 pole's attorney-general, you know. The 
 impetus of his expulsion seems to have pos- 
 sessed such momentum that the Judge van- 
 ished beyond the limits of polite knowledge. 
 'Tis said that Mrs. Tiptoft sends him ten 
 dollars a week, wherever he is, for old times' 
 sake." 
 
 " So Murgy is trying to find out how his 
 father got rid of his income, is he ? What's 
 his object ? ' ' 
 
 " My dear boy," said Vyse, " his object 
 is to maintain the reputation of the Whiter-
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 163 
 
 duces. And here the tale becomes pathetic. 
 Nobody was ever so wise, you remember, as 
 somebody or other looked ; and so, nobody 
 ever deserved such a reputation as the Whit- 
 erduces enjoyed. But poor Murgy, in his 
 innocence, takes it all au grand serieux, and 
 really believes that he has to compete against 
 an ancestry of demigods. He is persuaded 
 that his father had some divine use for all 
 that money, and he will never rest till he 
 finds what it was, and can quiet his con- 
 science by directing the golden stream along 
 the same channel. He refuses to see the 
 rather obvious fact that if the said money 
 had been applied to any laudable or even 
 mentionable purpose, the beneficiaries of it 
 would long since have declared themselves. 
 Or possibly he thinks that it was dispensed 
 to these hypothetical parties with such ex- 
 quisite delicacy that they never discovered 
 whence it came. Anyway, there it is, and 
 meanwhile, of course, the Whiterduce capital 
 is rolling up, and Plutus only knows what 
 the end will be." 
 
 " Well, I give it up. Where's Stepyng- 
 stone ? has he been retired, too ? ' ' 
 
 " No, but Mrs. S. has gone daft, her first 
 overt demonstration being to spring an ac-
 
 1 64 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 tion for divorce on him. Her complaint 
 shows him up in such colors as would make 
 Don Juan a mere pithless schoolboy in com- 
 parison. But it turned out, before it had 
 got further than the drawing up of the affi- 
 davits, that she had no witnesses and no co- 
 respondents that could be found on earth, so 
 some doctors sat upon her, and she is now in 
 a private establishment. ' ' 
 
 " The poor old General ! " 
 
 " But do you appreciate the real sadness 
 of his condition?" asked Poyntell. "It 
 was not so much being bereft of his wife that 
 made him downcast, as the smiling recogni- 
 tion on the part of all who knew him that 
 her charges against him could by no possi- 
 bility be true. It is one thing to vindicate 
 one's innocence in the teeth of grave and 
 plausible suspicion ; it is quite another to 
 find it taken for granted on the ground of 
 one's incapacity for guilt. The General was, 
 at first, secretly flattered by the magnificent 
 scale of his wife's accusations. He seemed 
 to be saying : 'Of course, morally, I'm ut- 
 terly incapable of such enormities ; but you 
 see what a devil of a fellow I could be if I 
 chose ! ' But wherever he went he was 
 greeted with broad smiles and compassionate
 
 NATURE AND EDUCATION 165 
 
 clappings on the back, and such remarks as, 
 ' Never mind, Stepyngstone, old man ; we 
 might have believed you poisoned your 
 mother, or stole the club spoons, or ate roast 
 baby for supper anything in reason, you 
 know but when it comes to a thing like 
 this, dear old boy, why, you mustn't let it 
 worry you a single moment ! You might as 
 well get nervous about a railway accident 
 that occurred forty years ago forty years 
 ago, my dear Step.' That was the sort of 
 encouragement that corroded the General's 
 heroic soul, and we don't see his fine old 
 legs stalking round here so often as we used 
 to do." 
 
 "Well, you're a sweet, charitable lot," 
 observed Frewin, getting up and stretching 
 himself. " I only hope you'll all die before 
 I do ! " And with that he lounged off.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 
 
 There was a house of modest pretensions, 
 on a quiet but accessible street, which was 
 kept as an Italian restaurant. A bust of 
 Garibaldi stood between the two end win- 
 dows, and there were chromos of Victor 
 Emmanuel, Humbert and his pretty Queen, 
 the Pope, and some less world-famed person- 
 ages distributed about the walls. The house 
 was simply a dwelling of the style of a gen- 
 eration ago, modified into an eating-place ; 
 some doorways had been enlarged, a loggia 
 built out over the back yard, and a large 
 dumb-waiter shaft constructed to communi- 
 cate with the first two floors. The proprie- 
 tor, Signer Gaetano, sat on a high stool at a 
 desk at the juncture of the front and rear 
 rooms ; he was quick and nervous as a lizard, 
 and had the national gift for gesture, but was 
 not in other respects of the conventional 
 Italian type; he was blond, pale, rather 
 bald, in disposition benign and conciliating,
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 167 
 
 most courteous to all guests, and tenderly 
 enthusiastic in his greetings to those of old 
 standing. He was obviously under subjec- 
 tion to an imposing wife, with curly yellow 
 hair, a costly complexion, and a Junonian 
 bust. The waiters were numerous and dili- 
 gent, and grateful for small tips ; the viands 
 were well cooked and the dishes (at 50 cents 
 a head) interminable, with plenty of maca- 
 roni, salad and olives, and straw-covered 
 wine-flasks with round bellies and slim necks, 
 evolving red Chianti with an agreeable blob- 
 bing sound. Bread was abundant and excel- 
 lent, and apparently costless ; there were on 
 every table tall glasses containing celery, 
 and others holding long, crisp sticks of a sort 
 of biscuit, to be devoured between courses. 
 After the regular dinner, there were little 
 cups of black coffee, with cognac to pour 
 over your sugar and set fire to ; and then 
 you lit a cigarette, for the ladies permitted 
 it, and occasionally even took a whiff them- 
 selves. No one ever got up discontented 
 from Signer Gaetano's tables ; and there 
 was a constant buzz of amicable but never 
 uproarious conversation ; and everybody had 
 the air of being more or less acquainted with 
 everybody else.
 
 1 68 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 It is pleasant, once in a while, to get a 
 good dinner without paying for it, not only 
 in twice the fair amount of coin of the 
 realm, but likewise in a rigid respectability 
 of demeanor, a bullying or rapacious waiter, 
 and an insulting desk clerk. After dining 
 once at Signer Gaetano's you made up your 
 mind to go there often, but you seldom car- 
 ried out your resolution, because the place 
 was a little out of the way, and the persons 
 with whom you proposed to dine were usu- 
 ally headed in some other direction. But 
 there were some whose pliant circumstances 
 or valiant souls enabled them to do as they 
 liked, and of these were Horace Maydwell, 
 Polydore Scamell, and, less frequently, Ga- 
 briel Negus. 
 
 On a lovely evening in June the time of 
 year when we first begin to stop being morose 
 about late frosts and snow flurries the tri- 
 umvirate met at Gaetano's by appointment, 
 and with them a distinguished and enchant- 
 ing companion no less than the popular 
 prima donna, Letitia Valentine. Letitia was 
 now a great personage in the world's eye. 
 The gilded youth of the city sighed for her 
 to a dude ; the princes of society sought her 
 company at banquets of Sardanapalus ; she
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 169 
 
 lived in a storm of flattery, flowers, jewels, 
 and millinery, and nothing was too good for 
 her. The little woman, with her wavy red 
 hair, her dancing dark eyes, her radiant skin, 
 her ravishing soprano, and her transcendent 
 impudence, was making her hay while the 
 sun shone, and took a liberal view of human 
 nature and the proprieties. Yet she was 
 neither reckless nor vicious. She knew the 
 price of success as well as the value of it. 
 She did not lose her head, and she even 
 seemed to keep the mastery of her heart. 
 Everyone who came near her had to pay 
 heavily for the privilege, but no one was 
 found to assert that he had been able to buy 
 more than a pretty woman may frankly sell. 
 Let us not be too credulous, but let us not 
 swsrve from that Charybdis into the Scylla 
 of cynicism. 
 
 Meanwhile one thing is certain Letitia's 
 relations with her three friends had not been 
 altered by her prosperity by so much as the 
 twitter of a frog's eyelash, as Polydore ex- 
 pressed it. She knew to whose schooling it 
 was that she owed her elevation, and she 
 had the greatness of soul to choose the gold 
 of sterling friendship to any other kind. Her 
 hosts of this evening never knew what glit-
 
 i 70 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 tering worship she had cast aside for the sake 
 of this Sunday spree in the obscure little res- 
 taurant, and Letitia never so much as thought 
 of telling them. She threw herself into the 
 moment with her characteristic vigor, and 
 rejoiced with childlike glee that no one, ex- 
 cept her entertainers, recognized her, or knew 
 where she was. She had given the slip even 
 to her duenna, for the vicarious monopoly 
 of whose formidable virtues she paid $20 a 
 week. 
 
 They got a secluded table in a corner of 
 the loggia, where the newly budded branches 
 of an elm-tree screened them from back win- 
 dows, and where Letitia could present her 
 back more lively and expressive than the 
 fronts of most women to such of the public 
 as might find their way to the other loggia 
 tables. She was dressed in what she called 
 a plain black frock ; perhaps it was the 
 woman inside it that made it seem like the 
 last triumph of Parisian genius ; and the lit- 
 tle black bonnet, with its crisp white ruche, 
 made a frame for her brilliant and mischiev- 
 ous little visage that added a tang to it like 
 that of kisses stolen in church. The air was 
 so soft and still that even Polydore (who 
 watched over her with the solicitude of a
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 171 
 
 one-chicken hen) could pretend no need of 
 safeguards for her invaluable glottis. 
 
 " Why, Horace, if you don't look like one 
 of those college football players with all that 
 hair ! " exclaimed she. " Doesn't it bother 
 you getting into your eyes ? Do you comb 
 it yourself, or do you keep a maid ? " 
 
 "The poet says," remarked Gabriel, 
 " that ' Love lends a precious seeing to the 
 eye. ' Guess you must be pretty far gone 
 on Horace. Wish you'd take a look at my 
 bank account, some day when you ain't 
 busy ; maybe you'd be able to see a bal- 
 ance ! " 
 
 " She's making my fortune, though I 
 don't let her know it," said Polydore. " I 
 had three new applicants this week for me 
 to make 'em sing like Letitia Valentine." 
 
 " Any of 'em any good? " asked Horace, 
 munching a biscuit stick. 
 
 " One of 'em's got something like a voice, 
 if she hadn't hurt it by the fool training she's 
 had. She's a darned good-looking gal, but 
 she belongs to that rotten swell set that think 
 the sun rises to see them pick their teeth." 
 
 " Ain't you disgusting ! " sighed Letitia, 
 pensively. " What does a girl like that 
 want with learning singing, anyway ? "
 
 172 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Oh, some yarn about wanting to be in- 
 dependent. The old folks are for having 
 her marry some beggar she don't fancy, and 
 she's got her eye on somebody else, I reckon, 
 and wants to cut loose. It's none of my 
 business, as long as she planks up her $5 an 
 hour, but these kind of chaps that come lal- 
 lygagging round engaged gals are mostly the 
 ones that don't take much stock in spooning 
 without it's stealing, too ! " 
 
 " If it ain't an indiscreet question, Poly, 
 who might she be ? " Gabriel inquired. 
 
 " She had a name as long as my leg. I 
 forget hold on, it'll be in my book ! " and 
 he began rooting in his many voluminous 
 pockets. 
 
 Meanwhile Horace, who in some respects 
 was uncomfortably fastidious, was wiping his 
 plate with his napkin and scrutinizing it side- 
 long to detect traces of unauthorized matter. 
 He explained to Letitia, who expressed a 
 curiosity on the subject, that he and Gaetano 
 were close friends, and that he had stipulated 
 for this privilege, in return for which he 
 brought angels like herself to glorify the res- 
 taurant. 
 
 " Sharingbourne that's what she calls 
 herself," Polydore announced, lifting his nose
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 173 
 
 from the pages of the notebook in which he 
 had buried it. " Isabella Sharingbourne. " 
 
 Horace dropped his plate and looked up. 
 " Why, she's Murgy's girl ! " said he. 
 
 " Murgy's girl? My little Murgy's, that 
 I'm keeping to settle down with in my old 
 age ? If any girl meddles with him I'll bite 
 her ! " exclaimed Letitia, looking fierce, like 
 a torn-tit threatened by a sparrow. 
 
 " But Poly says she's going to shake 
 Murgy and take up with t'other chap ; so, 
 if you've no other use for it, I'd like that 
 bite myself! " drawled Gabriel. 
 
 The prima donna went on without notic- 
 ing this gallantry. " It's like her impu- 
 dence, too, to prefer somebody else to my 
 Murgy ! Good-looking, is she ? she'll look 
 like the tattooed woman in the dime museum 
 when I'm through with her ! " 
 
 " I'd give a lock of my hair to be sure you 
 were right about that, Poly," said Horace, 
 rubbing his eyeglasses with his handkerchief. 
 " Who is the other fellow ? " 
 
 Polydore shook his head. 
 
 Suddenly Letitia smote her little palms to- 
 gether and half jumped from her chair. 
 
 " I'll bet my garters I know ! " cried she. 
 " Tell me, Poly ain't the Sharingbourne
 
 174 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 girl tall, with dark hair, and carries herself 
 like this as if the Lord's earth ought to be 
 sugar-coated before she'd put her foot on it ? " 
 
 "I guess you've spotted her, my love," 
 said Polydore, with a grin, for the actress's 
 caricature of Isabella's coolly confident de- 
 meanor was masterly. 
 
 "Well, then, boys," she continued, "the 
 other fellow, if you please, is nobody else 
 but that black-eyed, long-haired gawk that 
 wrote my opera Dev Scaramanga himself! 
 Ah, didn't I see 'em together in the stage 
 box at rehearsal one day ! Dev Scaramanga ! 
 I think I know him just a little bit ! 
 And I see her game ! Throw over Murgy 
 and his millions ? Not much ! She means 
 to have her cake and eat it, too. Oh ! I 
 don't mind a little larking myself, but I play 
 fair I don't stack the cards I don't believe 
 in singing two duets at the same time ! Well, 
 now, you hear me say that Miss Isabella don't 
 marry Murgy mind, you hear me say it ! 
 And you needn't screw up that elephant's 
 trunk of yours, Master Poly. I can do with- 
 out Murgy, and his money, too. But I like 
 him, same as I like all of you fellows, and he 
 shan't be made a fool of you hear me? " 
 
 These sentiments met with general ap-
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 175 
 
 plause. " Good for the little woman ! " ex- 
 claimed Horace; "she's a prima donna in 
 other ways besides singing. We'll break 
 Murgy's nasty engagement off! " 
 
 " Strikes me it's been a little mite 
 long already," remarked the astrologer. 
 
 " Get her birthday date, Poly," said Leti- 
 tia, "and then Gabe can settle the whole 
 thing ! " 
 
 " You can get at hers, pretty close, from 
 Murgy's, can't you, Gabe?" asked Poly- 
 dore. 
 
 " Well," returned the soothsayer, chewing 
 meditatively on a piece of stewed chicken, 
 " I might make a stagger at it. Let's see 
 yes well I tell you what, boys it looks 
 to me now, as if she'd pretty near get 
 him ! " 
 
 For once, Horace opposed his friend. 
 " Letty's as big a star as any of 'em," said 
 he, " and her aspect is favorable to the na- 
 tive. We'll have to count her in ! " 
 
 Gabriel contemplated Horace, with his 
 head tipped over to one side. "There's 
 one funny thing about Murgy's horoscope," 
 said he; "I noticed it, first time I cast 
 it. He'd ought to have died when he was 
 about seven weeks old ; how he came to live
 
 1 76 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 through it is what I never could under- 
 stand ! " 
 
 " Oh, I guess astrology ain't everything," 
 Letitia declared. 
 
 ' ' That was about the cutest thing you ever 
 said, Gabe," Horace observed at the same 
 moment. 
 
 The two men exchanged a peculiar look. 
 "I thought it might be that way," Gabriel 
 said, as if to himself, finishing his chicken 
 and pouring out a glass of wine. 
 
 "I'll tell you by and by," said Horace, 
 taking an opportunity when Letitia and 
 Polydore were engaged over the upsetting of 
 a salt-cellar. Gabriel assented with a move- 
 ment of the eyebrows, and the waiter came 
 in with the salad. Then Signer Gaetano ap- 
 peared, to pass the compliments of the even- 
 ing. 
 
 " How's business, Illustrissimo ? " Horace 
 asked. 
 
 " Ah, Eccellenza ! She come and she go ! 
 We make-a as we can ! New faces old 
 faces; but the old are best, non e vero? " 
 
 "That's according to how they pay up, 
 ain't it? " said the sordid Polydore. 
 
 The Signer's facile shoulders rose. " Ze 
 mon' eez necessar' , oh, si ! ma Santo Dia-
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 177 
 
 volo ! I not-a like zome face more as 1 like 
 zeir mon'. Eef il Signer Horatio geev him 
 ze pain to teep his chair so mi lie grazie ! 
 he zee ze two signori at ze table zrou ze win- 
 dow ; questi ! signori, zey pay zeir mon', zey 
 make-a no trouble ; but I no like-a, no trust-a, 
 no want-a." 
 
 Horace, tilting back his chair, had caught 
 a glimpse of two men, an old and a middle- 
 aged one, conferring deeply over their cheese 
 and celery. He righted his chair with a 
 thump. " How long have they been coming 
 here?" he asked. 
 
 ' ' One week two week chi lo sa ! Eef 
 ze signori air of Eccellenza's acquaint- 
 
 " Caro mio, we doctors know everybody, 
 but we don't always recognize 'em capite? 
 Send us some cigarettes, there's a dear, and 
 present our compliments to la bella Signorina, 
 la vostra sposa. That's about all the Italian 
 I know, old boy ; buona sera addio ! ' ' 
 
 Slowly the rosy flood ebbed in the round- 
 bellied flask ; it is astonishing how much 
 these flasks hold, after you make sure they 
 are empty ! The four friends looked amia- 
 bly upon one another, smiling out of mere 
 mutual good-will. Polydore, by the aid of
 
 178 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 a napkin and three fingers, illustrated in ex- 
 cruciating pantomime the miseries of " Gae- 
 tano at home ; ' ' time, a hot July night ; 
 mosquitoes in the air, fleas in the bed. The 
 spectators rocked with laughter at the amaz- 
 ing verisimilitude of the scratchings, tossings, 
 and frenzies of the pigmy sufferer. Then 
 Gabriel, who was an accomplished magician, 
 as well as soothsayer, borrowed a pin from 
 Letitia, and after making it pass through a 
 bewildering series of adventures and meta- 
 morphoses, finally conjured it through the 
 table into an empty wine-glass held under- 
 neath by Letitia herself. The glass upon 
 examination was found to contain, not the 
 pin, but a beautiful little gold enamelled 
 Egyptian divinity, a unique ancient talis- 
 man and protection against all evil chance. 
 Under Gabriel's directions Letitia pressed a 
 concealed spring, the divinity opened down 
 the back, and out fell a little roll of parch- 
 ment, on which was a miniature drawing of 
 the prima donna's horoscope, with the com- 
 pliments of the Triumvirate ! 
 
 " Well," said she, with an unusual liquid- 
 ness in her voice and her eyes, "it's the 
 sweetest thing I ever saw, except you, and 
 Horace, and Poly and poor Murgy ! ' '
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 179 
 
 And she hastily dried her eyes with her 
 handkerchief, laughed absurdly, kissed the 
 divinity (with a glance at the three friendly 
 faces which made each feel that he had been 
 made partaker of the salute), and finally put 
 it in her bosom, at which there was a gen- 
 eral sentimental sigh ! 
 
 "Come, Horace, get a move on your- 
 self ! ' ' then said Polydore. ' ' Do something 
 to amuse the lady." 
 
 " I'm a doctor; all I can do is to cure 
 her when she gets out of order. But the 
 talisman will prevent that eh, my dear ? ' ' 
 
 "I'll be sick on purpose sooner than not 
 have you cure me," said she; "just wait till 
 my season's over and you'll see ! " 
 
 Horace's eyes met hers for a moment ; 
 she colored and he smiled. 
 
 They all sat quiet for a while, enjoying 
 the soft air and the gathering night. At last 
 Polydore, who never kept silent long, en- 
 tered into a discussion with Letitia on some 
 professional topic, and then Gabriel and 
 Horace, on the other side of the table, got 
 their heads together and conversed in mur- 
 murs. 
 
 ' ' Yes, I guess it must be something that 
 way," said Gabriel, after a while. "But
 
 
 180 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 the will's all right, ain't it ? the boy gets 
 the property, whoever he is ? " 
 
 Horace nodded. " He's the heir, what- 
 ever happens. ' ' 
 
 " But he doesn't suspect that little ir- 
 regularity in his parentage, eh ? " 
 
 ".No, and that's what queers the whole 
 thing ! " muttered the other, between his 
 teeth. " If he knew, I'd have my hands 
 free and could make things hum. But 
 neither I nor any of the other people that 
 know it dare tell him ; and so everything's 
 tied up." 
 
 "You daren't tell him ! Come, that's 
 something new, to see you scared ! What's 
 the trouble?" 
 
 " Well, it's this way. For some reason 
 I don't know what he got the idea, some- 
 where about the time they both died, that 
 his father and mother as he thought them 
 were about the best folks living. I've 
 nothing against Mrs. Whiterduce ; I expect 
 she may have been all right, though I know 
 she didn't believe Murgy was her son, and 
 did believe he was Pynchepole's by another 
 mother. As for Pynchepole, he was a big- 
 ger rascal than most people know. I found 
 him out a few years back, and you know
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 181 
 
 what happened in the club. He never fol- 
 lowed it up, of course. I wish he had ! He 
 humbugged everybody, and toward the end 
 he must have humbugged his wife, too ; for, 
 according to Murgy, she was sending him 
 affectionate messages on the very day he was 
 killed. Anyway, Murgy believes 'em both 
 angels, and he has set out to make himself 
 worthy of them, as he calls it. To do that 
 he's been getting himself educated at a rate 
 that nothing else would ever stir him to ; 
 he's making a man of himself ; he's devel- 
 oping a mind and a character that I, for 
 one, never thought was in him, and you 
 know that nobody stands up for Murgy more 
 than I do. I love the boy. One reason 
 may be because I hated Pynchepole, but 
 there's something natural and sweet about 
 Murgy that just suits me, and I love him, 
 and I'll do what I can for him any time. 
 Now, you see, if I was to go to him and tell 
 him he was no more a Whiterduce than I 
 am, it would make him damned unhappy, 
 and would do him harm. He'd feel as if 
 he'd been made an orphan over again, and 
 in a worse way than the first ; and besides, 
 he'd be humiliated before the world he lives 
 in as having posed as a swell when really he
 
 1 82 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 came out of the gutter. You see that, don't 
 you ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes; but why need anybody else 
 know ? ' ' 
 
 " Well, if there was no other reason, be- 
 cause Murgy'd tell them. He'd think it was 
 his duty to relieve the family from the dis- 
 credit of having such a boor as he thinks he 
 is for the head of the house. He has no 
 more egotism than a dog. But it would 
 come out in other ways, anyhow. But that's 
 another part of the yarn. ' ' 
 
 "And as for Miss Isabella, I sup- 
 pose ' ' 
 
 " The first good bit of news I've heard 
 was that about her to-night. Whether he 
 ever learns who he is or not, a girl like that 
 could only make him miserable. But if she 
 really is carrying on with another fellow, 
 that's a way out of one scrape, at least. It 
 won't take me long to find out how that 
 is." 
 
 "Well, now, look here, my dear," said 
 Gabriel, slowly. "My idea is I may be 
 wrong, most likely am but it does strike 
 me that you're making a mountain out of 
 a molehill. I like Murgy mighty well my- 
 self. Don't know just why, but I do.
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 183 
 
 Don't seem to be so much what comes out 
 of him as that you feel there's something 
 good in him and natural, as you say. But 
 I don't think he'd feel bad to know what he 
 is. I think likely he'd feel relieved. As 
 for his education and discipline, he'd keep 
 what he's got already, I suppose, and maybe 
 that's enoxigh. And then again, a thing 
 like that is always pretty sure to get out 
 some time, and it's better it should come 
 now, and come from you, than any other 
 way or time. That's the way I look at it, 
 and if you ain't got any reasons besides 
 what you've told me, I should say don't 
 get too fine strung over it, but sail right in 
 and plump the whole thing right out on 
 him." 
 
 " I haven't told you all the reasons, Gabe. 
 I haven't touched the bottom reason of the 
 lot. And this isn't the place for doing it. 
 But you recollect, just now, Gaetano's speak- 
 ing about two queer guests of his that he 
 didn't like the looks of? Well, I took a 
 look at 'em, and I know them both. One 
 was that fellow Hemynge, whom Murgy 
 found out in a defalcation about a year ago, 
 but didn't prosecute because he'd been his 
 father's man that is, Pynchepole's ; and
 
 1 84 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 the other lean over this way the other 
 
 was Murgy's real father " 
 
 " You don't say so ! " 
 " And Pynchepole's murderer ! " 
 " Say, are you two old stupids singing 
 each other to sleep over there ? ' ' came the 
 clear warble of Letitia's voice. " Do you 
 know what time it is? I'm going home; 
 and all of you have got to come along with 
 me, for I won't trust any of you alone ! 
 And we're going to walk, just like old 
 times ; so uncouple yourselves and come 
 along ! ' ' 
 
 "All ready, most alluring of your sex ! " 
 returned Horace, with cheerful briskness. 
 " Been waiting for you to get through spoon- 
 ing with Poly that's all ! He seems to be 
 a Poly-gone on you, this evening ! How's 
 that for off-hand ? If you catch cold going 
 home and get a frog in your throat, he'll be 
 your Poly-wog, won't he? If we all go 
 home with you, though, it'll be a case of 
 Poly-andry ; but if you live in Poly-nesia, 
 that'll be quite in the fashion. However, I 
 don't want to have the mono-Poly of the 
 conversation ; I always practise what the 
 
 French call Poly-tesse ' ' 
 
 "Death to punsters is my Poly-see!"
 
 AN ITALIAN INTERLUDE 185 
 
 cried Letitia, snatching up the last of the 
 biscuit sticks and plunging it in his breast ; 
 and as nothing could be devised worse than 
 that, they sallied forth, laughing, pursued 
 by the blessings of Gaetano.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 
 
 The four friends walked slowly home, in a 
 cluster, through the lovely night, which 
 made its pure beauty felt even amidst the 
 stone and iron of city streets. The shops 
 were shut, the earth dark ; the sky gained 
 power. The people who passed them were 
 shadowy and phantasmal. They felt them- 
 selves islanded in the vague sea of existence 
 and enjoyed the fanciful solitude. 
 
 They left Letitia, at last, under the lean 
 wing of her duenna, promising to appear all 
 together in the stage box the next evening. 
 " Good-night ! " and the door closed. The 
 three men strolled down to the corner. 
 Polydore did one of his spectacular yawns. 
 "I'm going to bed," he then said. " You 
 fellows may see me home, if you like; if 
 not, be good to yourselves ! " 
 
 "You two are coming home with me," 
 said Horace, in a voice altered from the idle
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 187 
 
 jocoseness of the half-hour passed. " We've 
 got to have a talk, and now's a good time 
 for it." 
 
 "I'm talked empty," objected Poly- 
 dore. 
 
 " Your ears ain't any smaller than usual, 
 though," remarked Gabriel, slipping his 
 thick arm under the other's bony one ; "so 
 come along ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, well, if there's anything up," said 
 the prophet of the Method, and he resigned 
 himself to the others. 
 
 Nevertheless, nothing was said for the 
 next fifteen minutes, by the end of which 
 they were within sight of Horace's dwelling. 
 He occupied two or three rooms in the 
 ground floor of an old apartment building. 
 Someone who had been standing within the 
 shadow of the doorway started forward as 
 they drew near, and they recognized Mur- 
 gatroyd. 
 
 " I'm glad you're come, I can tell you ! " 
 he exclaimed ; "I've been waiting here two 
 hours. They told me you were out, Hor- 
 ace, and I thought you must come back 
 some time, so I stayed here." 
 
 " Why, you old pet, why didn't you 
 wait inside? "
 
 1 88 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " Oh, I couldn't stand it ! I had to be 
 out-doors. ' ' 
 
 " What's the matter ? got the fever ? ' ' 
 
 " I've got something I must tell you all 
 of you. I'd have a fever if I didn't ! You 
 don't mind? " 
 
 " It's just what we're here for, I guess," 
 said Horace, unlocking the door and slap- 
 ping him on the shoulder. " Pile in there, 
 the gang ! Cabinet meeting, all hands ! ' ' 
 
 Horace's rooms were bare, dark, and empty 
 of everything except necessary chairs and 
 tables, and a few professional impedimenta, 
 such as an electric machine. The doctor, 
 when alone, lived in the realm of his own 
 thoughts, and when he had company, he 
 required no other decoration than their 
 presence afforded. 
 
 But the furniture, what there was of it, 
 was of a substantial sort : massive tables, 
 cavernous easy-chairs. " If the boys want to 
 drink," said Horace, " I can give you cherry 
 brandy and water ; and here's some old cig- 
 arettes Cubans that a poor devil gave me 
 a year ago when I cured him of the horrors. 
 Sit by, now, and stick your feet in the oven, 
 as we used to say up in New Hampshire. 
 Well, Murgy," he added, as he turned up
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 189 
 
 the gas, "we've not seen you for a dog's 
 age. How are you? You look as fine as 
 silk! " 
 
 Murgatroyd had not deteriorated in ap- 
 pearance since the day he attained his ma- 
 jority. His face was thinner, and his eyes 
 had more light and purpose. The most 
 noticeable alteration was in his mouth ; it 
 was more controlled, and the lips met in a 
 firmer line. Before, he had looked younger 
 than he was ; he seemed older now. But he 
 did not look happier ; his boyish jollity was 
 gone, and he had the air of supporting a 
 burden. Just at present he was obviously 
 worked up to an unusual pitch of feeling. 
 
 He had dropped into one of the big chairs 
 at first, but the next moment he jumped up, 
 took a turn about the room, and finally half 
 sat on the edge of the table. 
 
 "You know that man, Hemynge," he 
 said, addressing the words to Horace, and 
 then including the others in his glance. " I 
 told him to go, and that I never wanted to 
 see him again. But I've seen him to-day, 
 and he told me something ! " 
 
 " About a deficit of five dollars? " asked 
 Polydore, archly. 
 
 " If what he said was true," went on the
 
 190 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 young man, gathering energy as he spoke, 
 " it will be as if I hadn't lived at all was 
 only like an actor in a play. Only I thought 
 the play was real. But all I've thought and 
 done and it was a big sell an infernal 
 humbug ! " he cried out, striking his fist on 
 the table. " Here I am, and there's noth- 
 ing left of me ! I haven't anything to re- 
 member, or to think of, that I have any 
 business with. I'm nothing if what he 
 told me is so !" 
 
 Horace and Gabriel exchanged a glance. 
 Polydore said: "Then you may bet your 
 bottom dollar, my boy, that he's been tell- 
 ing you a pack of damned lies. ' ' 
 
 "You haven't told us what he said yet, 
 Murgy," said Gabriel, in his self-possessed, 
 imperturbable drawl. 
 
 " He said, ' You're no Whiterduce. Mr. 
 Whiterduce bought you of a woman on the 
 street. Your father was a thieving Irish 
 horse-jockey. Whiterduce paid him to keep 
 quiet all his life, but you'll have to pay him 
 now or he'll blow on you.' He said, 'I've 
 got all the proofs you want,' and he showed 
 me what he said were copies of papers. He 
 said the real Whiterduce boy had died when 
 he was a baby, but there had to be an heir,
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 191 
 
 so they got me. He said, ' Whiterduce 
 could will you the property, but that's all he 
 could do, and if you don't settle with me the 
 whole story will go into the newspapers day 
 after to-morrow.' " 
 
 "Well, for clear gall, Pa Hemynge takes 
 the cake, don't he?" remarked Polydore, 
 fetching his breath. All this was as new to 
 him as to Murgatroyd, but it did not so 
 much as occur to him to put credence in it. 
 
 " Did he tell you anything else, Murgy ? " 
 Horace asked quietly. "Any names, or 
 anything more about Mr. Whiterduce? " 
 
 " No ; that was the amount of it. Then 
 it is true ? and you knew it, Horace ? 
 
 "Ever since I knew you, my dear. If 
 you had been Whiterduce' s son I shouldn't 
 have wanted your acquaintance, Murgy. It 
 was your not being that that made me begin 
 caring for you. I don't take any stock in 
 damned aristocrats." 
 
 " Oh, why didn't you tell me ? " 
 
 " Do you think you'd have been happier 
 to know it ? " 
 
 " And my mother deceived me, too? She 
 wasn't my mother ? " 
 
 " Listen, my dear," said Horace, with a 
 peculiar tenderness. "You've lost nothing
 
 192 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 real. If the woman you took to be your 
 mother loved you, you had her love, and this 
 story makes no difference in it. If you like 
 money and the world you live in you've got 
 them still ; what you are isn't changed by 
 anything Hemynge told you ; nothing can 
 change your flesh and blood and soul if you 
 think you have a soul. Stick to what's real, 
 and you'll lose nothing that a fellow of some 
 sense would care to keep. If you're not a 
 Whiterduce, what's the odds ? no more 
 were you yesterday or any time. All the 
 odds is that now you know it, and then you 
 didn't. Up to now your friends have been 
 keeping a secret for you ; now you've got to 
 keep it, too. The worst that could happen 
 would be having to pay those blackguards 
 hush-money, but maybe we can stop 'em 
 from that before we've done with 'em. 
 There's a good deal more to the yarn than 
 Hemynge thought it healthy to tell. Our 
 side hasn't had an innings yet ! " 
 
 " What you say about mother's true. I 
 didn't think of that," said Murgatroyd, who 
 had listened to this with great intentness. 
 " When she said she loved me she must have 
 meant it. There couldn't have been any 
 humbug in that. It's no matter if I call her
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 193 
 
 * mother ' before you fellows ; and she said, 
 ' I'll be a true loving mother to you.' 
 She said that the last time she spoke to me. 
 She kissed me without my ever expecting 
 such a thing. She must have meant it, and 
 if I wasn't really her own son she must have 
 meant it all the more, for, of course, if I 
 had been her own son she would have cared 
 for me as a matter of course, without think- 
 ing anything particular about it. Isn't that 
 so ? Tell me if it isn't, you fellows, because 
 . . . Her loving me was the only thing 
 I care about ! " he cried passionately, tears 
 breaking through his voice. " She did love 
 me ! She did ! It was what made a man 
 of me! That's why I've been working and 
 studying, so as to deserve it. If that was a 
 lie, everything's a lie ! You're liars ! And 
 I won't live! Tell me! Tell me! Tell 
 me the truth ! " His voice, with its savage 
 eagerness, rang in the room, where the others 
 sat so silent. His face looked dark and red, 
 and his head was thrust forward. His fists 
 were doubled and his half-bent arms vibrated 
 spasmodically as the words went from him. 
 
 But it was not for nothing that he had 
 governed and disciplined himself these latter 
 months. Even at this headlong moment he
 
 194 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 made an effort over himself like that of an 
 athlete struggling to be free from the con- 
 striction of a serpent. With a downward 
 drive of the arms he seemed to thrust the 
 savage to his feet. 
 
 He stood panting for a moment, then 
 turned, walked to his chair, and sat down 
 in it. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, fellows," said he. 
 "I'm not her son. Remember ! I'm a 
 beast, trying to make myself a man. If you 
 only knew how hard it was. . . . But 
 I mean to be a man for her sake, though I'm 
 not her son." 
 
 " By God, old fellow, you are a man ! 
 You've got the stuff ! " said Polydore, with 
 emphasis. " Why, I'd no notion of this ! " 
 
 " Horace is the only one that knows the 
 story," said Gabriel. "We came over 
 here to hear it. Tell us how we can beat 
 'em on the hush-money business, Horace." 
 
 " That won't be any trouble," Murgatroyd 
 observed. " I'm not going to pay any hush- 
 money. Now that I know the thing's true 
 I don't care who else knows it. Why, I 
 used to be ashamed because I wasn't fit to 
 be a Whiterduce, and now that I know I'm 
 not I'll take care everybody knows it. I
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 195 
 
 won't wait for Hemynge to tell. People 
 must have been wondering all this time how 
 such a woman as my mother came to have 
 such a son. I always wondered myself. 
 I'm glad I can show 'em now that it isn't 
 so ! God bless her ! I can do that for her, 
 anyhow ! " 
 
 "There's nothing in you she need be 
 ashamed of, dear," said Horace, gently. 
 " But no matter about that. Be sure you're 
 making no mistake about wanting this 
 known. Most people would give all they 
 have to stand where you are. The reputa- 
 tion of good birth will do what money can't. 
 You can lose money, and make it again, but 
 you can't get back a birthright." 
 
 " Murgy, you'd best take time to think it 
 over," said Gabriel. "There ain't any 
 hurry. Just have a good sleep over it, and 
 see how you feel in the morning. Don't 
 worry about Hemynge. He'll wait ! I 
 guess there ain't anybody more anxious to 
 keep it dark than he is, seeing it's his in- 
 come ! The day it comes out he'll have to 
 begin earning an honest living or starve. 
 So do you take a good look over it and 
 make up your mind sure and easy ! " 
 
 "That's so, Murgy," added Polydore,
 
 196 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 earnestly. " Don't you do any darned 
 foolishness. It's none of other folks' busi- 
 ness that you ain't a Whiterduce. Horace 
 and Gabe and I like you all the better for it, 
 but others ain't like us. It's all right for 
 you to get around and have larks with us 
 once in a while, but if you found the fellows 
 up at the club were making mouths at you 
 behind your back you mightn't like it so 
 well. You've got both sides of the game 
 now, and you'd better keep on that way." 
 
 After a moment's pause, Murgatroyd said, 
 "I guess you don't know the way I feel. I 
 like to be whatever I am. It was all right 
 before I knew I was counterfeit ; but I can't 
 go on with it now that I do know. Hush- 
 money to keep it dark ! I'd pay all I've 
 got if I could manage it no other way to 
 make it known ! Not that I wish I'd been 
 brought up a street beggar or thief ; and I 
 might better have been dead than never 
 have heard her my mother say she loved 
 me ; and I hope to keep whatever good I've 
 got from studying, and all that. But, you 
 see, fellows, there's nothing for me to think 
 over, and only one possible thing to do, and 
 the sooner I do it the happier I'll be." 
 
 " Then I'll say I think you're just right ! "
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 197 
 
 said Horace, sitting even more erect than 
 usual; "and now we can go ahead and 
 make a clean sweep of all this deviltry. I've 
 been aching to get at the job these four years ! 
 Flowers come out of rottenness, Murgy, and 
 so have you. No matter about the woman 
 that gave birth to you she's dead long 
 since ; but the creature that begot you is fit 
 for nothing but the gallows, and that's what 
 he'll get. It was he killed Whiterduce, after 
 blackmailing him for twenty years. I' ve had 
 it on my mind ever since, and neither he nor 
 Risdon nor anybody else suspected it ; be- 
 cause I made up my mind, if I could never 
 tell you, to tell nobody. But the decision 
 you've made to-night will hang that man ; 
 and I hope you won't regret it ! " 
 
 "He the murderer!" muttered Murga- 
 troyd. He sat silent for a while, staring into 
 the gloom beyond the gaslight. It was a 
 grim thought that by his agency the man 
 through whom he had received life was to 
 suffer death ! 
 
 But there was a terrible realism, or natu- 
 ralism, about this young man. He did not 
 take the conventional or sentimental view. 
 As his true mother was not the woman who 
 had given him birth, so he attached nothing
 
 198 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 of sanctity to the thought of the man whose 
 selfish and vagrant impulse had called him 
 into existence and given him no further care. 
 Murgatroyd had cast off the tyranny of names 
 and formulas. 
 
 " It's right," he said at last. " If mur- 
 derers must hang, I ought to hang him. He 
 ruined a woman to beget me ; then he made 
 me the pretext for robbery and murder. It's 
 right that I should bring about his punish- 
 ment, too ! ' ' 
 
 None of the three listeners ever forgot the 
 tone and look with which Murgatroyd pro- 
 nounced these words. They were the sen- 
 tence of death not upon the murderer only, 
 but upon his own youth as well. They 
 marked the stern, inevitable recognition of 
 spiritual realities which the evil of the world 
 imposes on all who advance beyond the 
 merely instinctive and animal stage of being. 
 
 " He's right ! " said Gabriel, nodding his 
 head slowly. 
 
 " There's no getting round it ! " assented 
 Polydore, with a sigh. 
 
 "I wish I'd killed the scoundrel myself 
 first and told Murgy about it afterward ! " 
 said Horace, between his teeth. " But he's 
 right, all the same. And now, fellows, be-
 
 NEWS FOR MURGATROYD 199 
 
 fore I open up the inside of this thing I 
 propose we have in Blackmer Risdon. I 
 came to know Risdon pretty well a year ago, 
 and he's an honest chap, as men go. He has 
 an eye to business, but he wants to do the 
 square thing, too. He'd have got to the 
 bottom of this puzzle long ago if he could 
 have got me to give him a hint ; and it's to 
 his credit that he didn't force my hand some 
 men would have tried it. He knew I knew 
 the secret, and to know such secrets doesn't 
 improve one's own reputation ; but Risdon 
 never took advantage of that. The best way 
 to bring out the yarn is through his paper ; 
 and he deserves whatever good it'll do him. 
 So, if you're agreeable, I'll send a messen- 
 ger-boy to the Constitution office it's close 
 by and Risdon will be here in ten min- 
 utes. ' '
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 
 
 " Where are you going, my dear ? ' ' asked 
 Mrs. Sharingbourne, at nine o'clock in the 
 morning, meeting her daughter coming down 
 stairs with her bonnet on. 
 
 " To take a walk around the Park with 
 Sabina Estengrewe. " 
 
 "A walk so soon after breakfast? That 
 hasn't been your habit, Isabella. And I 
 don't see how this intimacy with Sabina can 
 be of any use or benefit to you. A girl 
 whose elder sister would commit such a dis- 
 graceful folly as Aurelia did and who lect- 
 ures over the country herself I don't ap- 
 prove of it ! " 
 
 "Remember, mamma, that the Church has 
 washed away the sins of the family and made 
 them white as snow. No girls can be unre- 
 spectable, no matter what they do, whose 
 aunt has been wedded to Mr. Agabag." 
 
 " You know, Isabella, that I have always 
 considered Mr. Agabag to be a fool."
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 201 
 
 " But not for marrying a person who had 
 money, mamma! " 
 
 "It is unpardonable for a man to make 
 himself ridiculous, as Agabag did by marry- 
 ing a woman old enough to be his mother. 
 Her money is not an argument, for there are 
 plenty of rich girls whom he might have had. 
 No doubt he counted on soon being a wid- 
 ower ; but that is far from certain. Semi- 
 imbeciles like Mrs. Jellicoe often live to a 
 great age. And she will always be round his 
 neck wherever he goes, and he can have no 
 more interviews in his private study with 
 pretty young penitents. He made the mis- 
 take of his life, and her money will never 
 compensate him for it. Had the sexes been 
 reversed, it would have been another thing. 
 No girl becomes ridiculous by marrying a 
 rich man of any age. Girls cannot support 
 themselves ' ' 
 
 " Isn't that an exaggeration, mamma ? Sa- 
 bina gets twenty-five dollars a night in the 
 season, and the young lady who is singing in 
 Mr. Scaramanga's opera " 
 
 " I am not speaking of girls who compro- 
 mise their social position, or who never had 
 any. My dear, you have theories, but I 
 have experience. In my own case, I suffered
 
 202 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 by a misfortune, not a fault. Mr. Sharing- 
 bourne was wealthy when he married me, but 
 he lost his fortune, and then died. But you 
 know how hard it has been for us to make 
 ends meet. Had it not been for the kind- 
 ness of friends you could not have gone to 
 college, or, for that matter, be about to 
 marry the richest young man in town. Why 
 does not he accompany you in your walks? " 
 
 " Probably he detests me as much as I do 
 him ' ' 
 
 " Why should you detest a man who has 
 no bad qualities and whom you can turn 
 round your finger ? For Heaven's sake, Isa- 
 bella, do nothing indiscreet in relation to 
 Murgatroyd. Indiscretions of any sort, 
 either before or after marriage, are unpar- 
 donable and useless. You gain nothing and 
 you risk everything." 
 
 " Do I understand that you object to in- 
 trigues after marriage, mamma ? Surely if I 
 can twist my husband round my finger it 
 would be foolish of me not to turn my power 
 to my advantage ! A woman with a nin- 
 compoop husband needs variety, and need 
 run no risk in having it. Besides, society 
 helps her, because they all do it." 
 
 " My dear, I think it vulgar to say such
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 203 
 
 things. I don't, of course, imagine that you 
 think them. No woman of good society ad- 
 mits serious attentions from a man not her 
 husband, not only because of the danger of 
 discovery, but for the sake of her own self- 
 respect and her regard for her children." 
 
 "Out of regard to her children? But 
 can't you imagine a case, mamma, where a 
 woman might encourage an intrigue with an 
 eye to her children's benefit their pecun- 
 iary benefit, of course ? Suppose a handsome 
 widow with a daughter, for example, and 
 not enough money properly to educate her. 
 Some rich man an ex -army officer perhaps 
 pays this handsome widow what you call 
 ' attentions,' and she allows him to what is 
 the matter, mamma? allows him to settle 
 her daughter's school and college bills. 
 Could not that be managed, with proper 
 precautions, and yet the lady retain her so- 
 cial position and an easy conscience ? ' ' 
 
 The stately matron put out a hand and 
 caught the banister; she threw a quick 
 glance over her shoulder. Isabella had 
 spoken in her usual clear, bell-like tones. 
 
 "Isabella! can I credit my ears that 
 you dare your own mother to insinu-
 
 204 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 The girl gave a cold smile. 
 
 " What agitates you, mamma? Of course 
 I quite comprehend that we are not human 
 beings ; but it's amusing, sometimes, to 
 imagine what might happen if we were ! " 
 
 "Is nothing sacred to you no vir- 
 
 " Virtue ! Do you mean hypocrisy and 
 lying? Oh, how I should thank God if 
 there is such a Being if some person of our 
 own immediate, impeccable social circle 
 would come out frankly and unreservedly 
 and confess that he or she had been guilty 
 of some genuine, living, natural, human 
 wickedness ! Sometimes it seems to me as 
 if this smooth, tinkling, smirking, rotten- 
 hearted respectability would drive me mad. 
 It has driven me to what is perhaps some- 
 thing worse ! You have cultivated my mind 
 was it so as to kill my heart more easily ? 
 Tell me the truth, for once, mamma ; have 
 you ever been wicked ? ' ' 
 
 " Isabella ! can it be you who " 
 
 " Ah ! that is like the mammas on the 
 stage. Is that all ? " 
 
 " How can you not go down on your 
 knees ' ' 
 
 " I can't act up to you, I'm afraid. I
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 205 
 
 haven't your dramatic talent. So that is 
 all? Well, then, here! " 
 
 With trembling fingers and a face quiver- 
 ing with shame, misery, and contempt, she 
 opened the little morocco bag at her girdle. 
 She took from it a piece of paper folded 
 small. 
 
 "I have carried this with me, night and 
 day, ever since I found it," she said. 
 " You thought you had destroyed them all, 
 I suppose, or put them somewhere else ; but 
 this had got in behind the little drawers in 
 the old desk you gave me, and I found it 
 there, and read it. Here is the date, you 
 see ten years ago ; and the handwriting 
 almost the same then as now ; and here are 
 his initials ' A. D. S. ' Are all love-letters 
 like this, mamma ? Are those you got from 
 papa like it? It is a pleasant thing for a 
 daughter to find, isn't it? It is not at all the 
 way I ever heard General Stepyngstone talk 
 to you ; he has always spoken very politely 
 and ceremoniously. He is a soldier, a brave, 
 true, gallant gentleman, of course. Why 
 does he write so differently from the way he 
 talks ? Take it ; I had never meant to show 
 it to you, but one is sometimes surprised out 
 of the strict proprieties. Oh, mamma ! I
 
 206 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 could have forgiven you the wickedness, and 
 loved you more than ever ; but the lies and 
 the hypocrisy. ... I told you I was 
 going to walk with Sabina Estengrewe ; it 
 was a lie. I am going to meet my lov- 
 er not Mr. Whiterduce my lover ! Why 
 should not I have an intrigue as well as you ? 
 but I will not lie about it ! Good-by, 
 mamma." 
 
 She opened the door, paused on the thresh- 
 old a moment, then shut the door behind 
 her and was gone. Mrs. Sharingbourne re- 
 mained supporting herself against the newel- 
 post, the letter in her hand. She had not 
 at all the aspect of a woman such as a gal- 
 lant soldier would lose his heart to. After 
 a while she heard the sound of a servant 
 coming up from below. She forced her 
 shaking, enfeebled limbs to bear her to her 
 room, entered, and locked the door. 
 
 Meanwhile Isabella crossed the Park, de- 
 laying on the way, as if trying to make the 
 fresh greenness of the grass and trees enter 
 into her parched soul. But Nature seldom 
 helps us at need. Isabella finally reached 
 the other side, traversed the boulevard, and 
 made several turnings, which brought her to 
 the theatre. She passed along a side alley,
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 207 
 
 and was joined at small side door by Scara- 
 manga. He took her right hand in his left, 
 smiling but saying nothing, and led her 
 within. 
 
 It was dark; here and there a gas-jet, 
 partly turned on, lit the narrow passages and 
 the steep stairs. Presently he opened a door 
 and ushered her into a small room profusely 
 but untidily furnished. It was a mixture of 
 parlor and office, with suggestions of the 
 property-room. Three or four huge photo- 
 graphs of handsome actresses stood on tables 
 or were tacked on the walls that of Mile. 
 Letitia in the most conspicuous place. A 
 small door, standing ajar, opened into a 
 dressing-room. The apartment was the busi- 
 ness abode of the manager of the theatre. 
 
 " He never gets here before eleven, so 
 we've a good hour and a half to talk it over 
 in," remarked Scaramanga, throwing back 
 his hair and catching a glance at himself in 
 the looking-glass. " How is the Princess 
 this morning ? Sad ? or nervous ? Let it 
 be anything but irresolute ! " 
 
 "This air is horrible it smells of stale 
 liquor and cigars," said Isabella. " Can't 
 you open that window ? ' ' 
 
 " I fear not the brute has driven a nail
 
 208 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 in the sash ; you won't notice it so much 
 after a minute. ' ' He seated himself on the 
 belittered sofa and drew her down beside 
 him, kissing her hand. She looked at him 
 intently. 
 
 " Ah, those eyes ! they see into my soul," 
 said he. 
 
 " There is nothing I so much desire as to 
 believe in you, Dev," said Isabella. " But 
 I know that my future will depend on my- 
 self, and not on you. If I have not the tal- 
 ent to make my own way, independent of 
 you, we may grow to be . . . anything 
 but lovers ! You are not strong enough to 
 master me, Dev." 
 
 " I want no mastery but what your love 
 gives me." 
 
 " Don't say pretty things to me. I'm 
 not in that mood. A woman fighting for 
 her life is not in tune for compliments." 
 
 " That is a strange way to to describe 
 it ! " said he, raising his head. 
 
 "It is the right way. When you meet a 
 girl in society she is soft and pliable, be- 
 cause she has the world on her side and is 
 secure. But when she cuts loose from so- 
 ciety she must fight for her life. If she de- 
 pends on her lover she will lose him."
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 209 
 
 " Ah, that is not generous ! " 
 
 "It is true, Dev. As soon as you felt 
 that I was helpless and couldn't do without 
 you, you would begin to be indifferent. I 
 shouldn't blame you, for it would be my 
 fault, not yours. Why should I expect you 
 to devote your life to a woman whom women 
 would despise and men insult ? A husband 
 may neglect his wife, because marriage itself 
 still protects her ; but a mistress neglected by 
 her lover what protection has she? She 
 needs ten times as much devotion as the 
 wife, and for that very reason gets not a 
 tenth as much. Yes, Dev and all expe- 
 rience confirms it." 
 
 " In the first place, I deny it. We hear 
 only of those who fail ; the others are silent. 
 But, Belle, let us drop all that and marry ! 
 What end have I but your happiness ? for 
 mine can come only through yours ! " 
 
 She put her hand in his and her eyes 
 softened. 
 
 "Why, that solves it all, then! " cried 
 he, springing up. "I'll get a license at 
 once ! We've wasted too much time al- 
 ready. Where shall I take you in the mean- 
 time?" 
 
 " I will stay here and you with me," 
 '4
 
 210 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 replied she, drawing him down beside her 
 in her turn. 
 
 He put on an air of perplexity. 
 
 She was plainly moved now, and struggled 
 hard to get back her former self-possession. 
 Her bosom went up and down beneath her 
 thin summer dress. She held her face avert- 
 ed, but he kept saying, " Look at me, dar- 
 ling ; look at me ! " till at last she turned, 
 and let her eyes meet his. They leaned 
 slowly toward each other and their lips met. 
 
 " It shall not be that, dear ; it shall not ! " 
 murmured she, letting his mouth feel the 
 movement of hers as she spoke. " Until I 
 am as free as you I will not be your wife ! " 
 
 He laid his hands on her shoulders and 
 looked at her. " Why do you bewilder me 
 so, darling? It shall be anything anything 
 you wish ! Don't you feel how utterly I am 
 yours, body and soul, always ? I care noth- 
 ing for what name you come to me by, only 
 come come! " 
 
 "If passion were only immortal," she 
 whispered, with a tremble, "or if its mo- 
 ment were only eternity ! " 
 
 " Love like ours " 
 
 " No, no ! hush, hush ! Ah, me, how 
 easily a woman is a fool. They laugh at
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 211 
 
 our new education, but we may thank Heav- 
 en for anything that helps us part our heads 
 from our hearts, if only for a few minutes at 
 a time. It is what we think in cold blood 
 that stays true ; what we feel well, if that 
 were true, earth would be heaven ! I be- 
 wilder you ? I bewilder myself on pur- 
 pose, almost, I think. But there are some 
 things I am sure of one is that I cannot live 
 any longer at home. I have said things 
 but no matter about that. And I cannot be 
 the wife of that of Mr. Whiterduce. Those 
 are two certainties. But the wedding is 
 fixed for Midsummer Day, so I have no time 
 to lose. I must go. I have a little money 
 of my own about seven hundred dollars 
 I can live a year on it. I shall go to one of 
 the great cities and try to get on the stage 
 not as a star ; as a chorus girl, if I can do 
 no better at first. I thought of taking a 
 teacher for my voice here, but there's no 
 time. I must go as I am. Well, that is all. 
 Of course, I shall take another name. I will 
 pay so much homage to society. It's the 
 only way I can return my many obligations 
 by self-annihilation." 
 
 This speech startled Scaramanga in ear- 
 nest. He missed from it a feature of leading
 
 212 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 importance namely, himself. His relations 
 with Isabella had always interested him, and 
 since they had seemed to be approaching a 
 crisis, had excited him. Above all, it had 
 awakened the sensuality and the vanity 
 which are at the basis of the true musical 
 temperament. He possessed intellect and 
 prudence, but these could be temporarily 
 overborne by the flattering tide of propensi- 
 ties which, though essentially base, wore for 
 the moment lovely hues of beauty and de- 
 light. Thus he was capable, under due 
 stimulus, of real recklessness ; but the stim- 
 ulus must be largely made up of appeals to 
 egotism. Not that he wished to be coarsely 
 and obviously exalted, for he was a man of 
 refined culture ; but exalted deified he 
 must feel himself to be, implicitly if not ex- 
 plicitly, else his reaction would be incom- 
 plete and stiff. 
 
 He expressed his feeling naively, though 
 gracefully enough. " Don't you see how 
 this humiliates me?" he said, gloomily, 
 resting his cheek upon his hand. " What 
 part do you give me in your plans ? I offer 
 you my life, and you leave me standing with- 
 out a word ! " 
 
 Isabella could doubtless read him aright ;
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 213 
 
 but a woman does not always wish to see as 
 far as she can. 
 
 "I said we must both be free," was her 
 reply. " I do not ask you to take part with 
 me; but I do not forbid you, Dev ! " 
 
 These words, and still more her manner, 
 rekindled him. 
 
 " Oh, let us have no more reserves and 
 ambiguities ! " he exclaimed. " Open your 
 soul to me ! Tell me what I want to hear ! 
 Freedom? I can feel no freedom but in 
 your arms ! ' ' 
 
 To a woman thoroughly and fanatically in 
 love with him, her lover may utter any ex- 
 travagancies, poetic, histrionic, or idiotic, 
 and she will gather them to her heart for 
 pure gold. But so long as she still retains 
 an atom of the critical leaven, or if she has 
 not yet accomplished the assimilation of the 
 man with her ideal of him, he were best be 
 wary not to force the note. 
 
 That poetic paradox of Scaramanga's 
 struck a tiny chill through Isabella. In her 
 present abnormally sensitive state she was 
 morbidly alive to the faintest intonations of 
 insincerity. She had believed herself to love 
 this man with all her heart ; that was her 
 great exculpation in her own eyes ; but at
 
 214 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 this juncture a most inopportune misgiving 
 stirred in the bottom of her mind. " What 
 if I were mistaken in him after all ? " 
 
 She promptly suppressed it ; to extirpate 
 it was beyond her power. But to confess 
 error at this stage was too much for her 
 courage. She had burned her ships; she 
 was destitute of alternatives. She must tem- 
 porize, if nothing more, and doubtless this 
 might prove in the end a false alarm. 
 
 " Can you trust no sense but your ears, 
 Dev ? " she said, letting her eyelids fall. " I 
 am leaving all I have known and going into 
 the unknown. What can I tell you or fore- 
 tell ? You are free, and no one but you will 
 know where I am gone. I cannot say more, 
 and I can promise nothing. Only if you 
 have the will and the power it should 
 be enough." 
 
 " I trust you, arid you shall trust me," he 
 said, with a noble accent that relieved her 
 greatly. "You know how I worship you, 
 but I will show you that I understand you 
 and respect you. You won't forbid me to 
 go with you? I couldn't endure not to 
 have personally cared for your safety and 
 comfort; but beyond that all shall be in 
 your own time and way. I shall need no
 
 SOCIETY ETHICS 215 
 
 words I shall know when my probation is 
 at an end only let me hope that it will end 
 at last, or how can I live ? ' ' 
 
 This was much more nearly the right tone, 
 and he found his reward in her eyes and on 
 her lips. What else passed between them 
 had reference chiefly to the arrangements for 
 departure. 
 
 Scaramanga was a good and earnest actor, 
 and no member of his audience followed his 
 performances with more sympathy and con- 
 viction than did he himself. 
 
 After he and Isabella had gone there was 
 an afterpiece which would have interested 
 them had they known of it. Letitia Valen- 
 tine emerged from the little dressing-room, 
 fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, for it 
 was warm in there. She flung herself down 
 on the sofa, laughed a little, and finally 
 dropped into a revery which lasted till the 
 manager came in.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 
 
 The following day was a memorable one 
 in the annals of the Constitution. At two 
 o'clock in the morning Blackmer Risdon 
 had gone to bed, or, more accurately, had 
 fallen on his bed, in his shirt and trousers, 
 and instantly fallen asleep. He had been 
 up and hard at work for two days and two 
 nights, he was thoroughly happy and he was 
 exhausted. Such conditions are favorable 
 to sound sleep, and he had one. Let the 
 rest of the world wake and be excited now ; 
 he had made his "scoop" and beaten his 
 record, and had earned the right to repose. 
 
 Many hundred thousand cups of coffee got 
 cold that morning, while those who should 
 have drunk them absorbed instead the ex- 
 traordinary story which the Constitution 
 served up to them, covering two pages of the 
 paper. Many a business man, hastening be- 
 times to his office and buying his paper
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 217 
 
 from a stand, allowed himself to become en- 
 tangled in the opening paragraphs of the 
 yarn, and thereafter overrode his station, if 
 he were in a car, or collided on the pave- 
 ment with other pedestrians, loitering like 
 himself with their heads between the pages. 
 Many a wife and daughter of society, too, 
 kept the housekeeper waiting for directions, 
 or delayed their shopping or their morning 
 walk, powerless to tear themselves from the 
 thrilling narrative. Nay, surprising num- 
 bers of the proletariat, whose newspaper 
 reading is uniformly confined to a column or 
 two of the latter pages, found a wealth of 
 unwonted interest in that morning's issue, 
 and spelled it all out sitting on park benches, 
 or leaning against area railings, or declaim- 
 ing the more sensational passages aloud to 
 listening groups in the liquor saloons. As 
 for the clubs, small and great, they re- 
 echoed all day long, and far into the next 
 night, with voices of opinion, criticism, 
 and comment, accompanied and reinforced 
 with much champagne and countless cock- 
 tails. And the electric wire brought the 
 startling news to the President of the United 
 States, in the White House, who perused it 
 with lifted eyebrows ; and to the Senators
 
 2i8 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 and Congressmen in the Capitol, some of 
 whom devoured it with marked uneasiness ; 
 and abstracts of it were read in evening 
 journals of London, Paris, Berlin, and other 
 European capitals. It was a mighty triumph 
 for the Constitution. And Stukely Poyn- 
 tell, to whose supervision the literary excel- 
 lence of the production was due, was after- 
 ward accustomed to remark that no tales 
 that his friend Verinder Vyse had written, 
 or could ever hope to write, would equal, in 
 their entire aggregate of readers, a tithe of 
 the multitude who followed with bated 
 breath the columns of this solitary effort of 
 his own. "I don't blow about my abili- 
 ties, and I don't rely upon romance for a 
 livelihood," quoth he, " but when I do hap- 
 pen to jot down a trifle in that line well, 
 you can see the result for yourself ! ' ' 
 
 Neither indeed would it become the pres- 
 ent writer to enter the lists against a success 
 so conspicuous ; and, therefore, instead of 
 attempting a paraphrase, a few extracts from 
 the Cofistitution, having particular reference 
 to the events treated in this volume, will 
 here be thrown together. It is needless to 
 transcribe the whole article, inasmuch as 
 some of its passages have been anticipated in
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 219 
 
 the foregoing pages, and others would intro- 
 duce matters foreign to our proper theme : 
 
 "As the innumerable readers of the Con- 
 stitution are aware," began the article, " the 
 grandeur and immortality of the republic, 
 both in theory and in the concrete, have 
 ever been cardinal points in our preaching 
 and in our practice. Yet are we far from 
 ignoring the wisdom of the old proverb, 
 ' Safe bind, safe find ; ' or, in phrase more 
 familiar to patriotic American ears, ' Eter- 
 nal vigilance is the price of liberty ! ' 
 
 " For be it confessed that certain features 
 of our system of government render it pe- 
 culiarly open to the insidious and treason- 
 able attacks of ambitious and unscrupulous 
 men. Our very strength and prosperity as a 
 nation have begot an indifference and an 
 easy-going tolerance in respect of hostile and 
 disloyal speech and even action, of which 
 more than one calamity in our recent history, 
 whether political, industrial, or financial, 
 should have taught us the unwisdom. But 
 it may safely be affirmed that never, since 
 the outbreak of the great Rebellion itself, 
 has the integrity and very life of the insti- 
 tutions which we have so well loved and 
 so gallantly defended been so dangerously
 
 220 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 threatened as by the widespread and amaz- 
 ing conspiracy which it is to-day our fortu- 
 nate office (alone among the journals of 
 America) to reveal and describe. For 
 many a month past, indeed, has the Con- 
 stitution camped upon the trail of this 
 stupendous iniquity ; but we were deter- 
 mined to give no hint of our discoveries or 
 our purpose until the moment came to strike, 
 and to strike home ! Weary has been the 
 delay and long the waiting ; but at last the 
 hour has come ! The labor, the anxiety, 
 the detective sagacity which has been put 
 forth without intermission, and the money 
 which has been lavished without stint, have 
 to-day their reward. We have successfully 
 and triumphantly performed what the most 
 reluctant must admit to be a great public 
 service ; and it is with a proud humility 
 that we this morning lay before an audience, 
 which can be only estimated by millions, 
 the final journalistic result. . . . 
 
 " It is not amidst the so-called criminal 
 classes, then, that the most dangerous ele- 
 ments in the community are to be sought. 
 Now and here, as in all times and places, 
 intellect and education, culture and refine- 
 ment, birth and breeding, have furnished
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 221 
 
 forth those individuals who have most seri- 
 ously menaced human progress and welfare. 
 Alexander, Attila, Napoleon to mention no 
 others were men of giant brain and genius, 
 far - seeing and of transcendent ambition, 
 broad and inscrutable in conception, relent- 
 less and daring in execution. And the per- 
 sonage whom we are about to name was, in 
 gifts and accomplishments, not unworthy to 
 be placed side by side with these renowned 
 figures of history. In some respects, his 
 character was unique. He had no craving 
 for the external rewards of eminent achieve- 
 ment, for the applausive shouts of the vulgar, 
 for the devoted enthusiasm of disciples, even 
 for the reluctant admiration of the few com- 
 petent to appreciate his stupendous talents. 
 Power was his single aim ; power absolute 
 and practical, yet abstracted to the verge of 
 spirituality. This man contemplated no less 
 a feat than to gather in his single hand the 
 reins by which the complete internal and 
 foreign policy of this republic are swayed ; 
 he meant to rule with the autocracy of a 
 Cyrus or a Caesar over the public and private 
 life of every American citizen ; nay, he had 
 already advanced beyond the stage of mere 
 intention, and had actually begun to carry
 
 222 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 his despotic schemes into act ! It is the sim- 
 ple truth that at the period of his sudden and 
 tragic decease, this astonishing personage 
 who, to all outward appearance, was one of 
 the most retiring, the least active, the least 
 publicly familiar participants of our civic ex- 
 istence this man, we repeat, was, in fact, 
 an American czar, passing decrees as abso- 
 lute as those of the Russian autocrat, and 
 which, with each passing day, were becom- 
 ing more sweeping in their scope and more 
 certain and punctual in their effect. Nor 
 can the possibility fairly be denied, that, had 
 not his secret and mysterious career been cut 
 short when it was by the hand of violence, 
 we might ere this have awakened (too late !) 
 to find ourselves hopelessly entangled in toils, 
 ability to escape from which had been cun- 
 ningly removed from us, while the tyranny 
 itself had been so subtly adapted to the self- 
 ishness and cupidity of human nature that 
 too few might have been found patriotic and 
 self-abnegating enough to undertake the per- 
 ilous crusade which should restore our pur- 
 loined birthright. Lulled to slumber, like 
 Samson, with the soothing caresses of ingen- 
 ious flattery, the hair of our strength was be- 
 ing shorn and the limbs of our vigor bound
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 223 
 
 with cords fine as silk, but stronger than 
 steel. 
 
 " Unlike Samson, however, we might 
 have awakened only to turn once more to 
 sleep, murmuring that since, after all, our 
 internal resources were never more promis- 
 ing, our arrangements for private comfort 
 and public order never more effective, and 
 our national defensive and offensive abilities 
 never more highly organized and formidable 
 than now, it were mere sentimental folly to 
 find fault with the political manoeuvres to 
 which so materially beneficial a result was 
 due. ' Have we not heard and experienced 
 enough of the robbery, rottenness, and im- 
 positions of all departments of municipal 
 and national administration ? ' we might ex- 
 claim. ' Are we not, under a single strong 
 and wise ruler, a thousandfold freer and 
 more comfortable (save only in theory) than 
 ever heretofore ? If he has been clever 
 enough to fool us so well to our own well- 
 being, let him enjoy the personal fruits of his 
 enterprise and welcome ! The Declaration 
 of Independence was an excellent thing in 
 its time and place ; it filled a felt want. The 
 Constitution of the United States is a very 
 creditable product of statesmanship, whose
 
 224 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 chief defect is only that it is not adapted to 
 our present needs, and the principle of uni- 
 versal suffrage is, as an abstract conception, 
 entirely admirable, and we sincerely regret 
 that it has proved to be so utter a failure in 
 practice. This is a country of industrious 
 men and women, whose controlling desire is 
 to mind their own business and support 
 themselves and their families. The political 
 racket has been decidedly overdone ; its is- 
 sue has been to develop a worthless and idle 
 class of rascals, who think of nothing but 
 how to pick the pockets of honest and hard- 
 working citizens. The latter, moreover, are 
 forced to waste hours of valuable time every 
 day in reading and discussing political 
 schemes and doings, the sole end of which is 
 to determine which of two or more gangs of 
 thieves shall ply their calling at our expense, 
 or whether there shall be a coalition between 
 them to divide the spoils. This preposter- 
 ous state of things has, in our opinion, lasted 
 quite long enough, and not only do we refuse 
 to be indignant with the able gentleman 
 who has quietly and unobtrusively put an 
 end to it, but we are strongly tempted to 
 vote him the thanks of the community and 
 to wish more power to his elbow ! '
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 225 
 
 "In some such terms, we fear, cynically 
 humorous and marked by that characteristic 
 American tone which might be defined as 
 pessimistic optimism, would the mass of our 
 fellow-countrymen have met the discovery of 
 this comprehensive coup d'etaf, had it been 
 allowed fully to mature itself. To some ex- 
 tent the public mind had been made familiar 
 with minor but analogous enterprises. We 
 had witnessed the scandals of the great 
 ' rings ' in New York, San Francisco, and 
 elsewhere, the tyranny of trusts, and the law- 
 lessness of organized mobs. It had become 
 our habit rather to applaud the cleverness 
 and success of rascality than to encounter it 
 with grave moral rebuke. Spasms of ' re- 
 form ' were, indeed, still witnessed ; but 
 these had been so artfully availed of by the 
 rascals themselves (conscious that in the 
 long run the work of politics must be re- 
 signed to professional politicians), that hon- 
 est men had grown sceptical and ' The Star- 
 eyed Goddess ' had begun to take her place 
 as part and parcel of the great American 
 joke. 
 
 " Be that as it may, the present plot dif- 
 fered importantly from all previous ones, not 
 in comprehensiveness only, but in the man- 
 '5
 
 226 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ner of its organization and development, 
 and in the impressive secrecy which veiled 
 the centre of its activity. For, improbable 
 though it might at first sight appear, there is 
 serious ground for believing that the identity 
 of the ruling personage in this great organi- 
 zation as well as his ultimate designs was 
 hidden from the knowledge not merely of 
 the rank and file, but of the inner circle of 
 captains and councillors. Each one of the 
 numberless agents was initiated according to 
 his capacity for usefulness ; his knowledge of 
 the impulse which directed him extended so 
 far and no further; each found his own 
 greed ministered to, his own faculties ex- 
 ploited, his own ambition flattered ; in his 
 own sphere he was permitted verge and room 
 enough ; but the moment he should attempt 
 to pry into the mysteries above him, he was 
 given to understand that the ground was hol- 
 low beneath his feet, and that any further 
 betrayal of idle curiosity would involve him 
 in destruction. Though every detail of the 
 mighty web was woven with spider-like ac- 
 curacy and could be reached in an instant 
 by the intelligence which operated at the 
 centre, yet for all outside of that centre it 
 possessed no coherent or fathomable plan,
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 227 
 
 and was grasped but in fragments or sec- 
 tions. And when obedience and discretion 
 are prompted by the strongest motives of 
 self-interest, they are apt to be accorded. 
 It is quite possible, moreover, that numerous 
 persons of the highest honor and integrity, 
 who would have died sooner than knowing- 
 ly co-operate with such an organization, may 
 nevertheless have ignorantly served some of 
 its most pressing needs. Nothing is easier 
 than to govern a man, provided you know 
 his circumstances and characteristics, and 
 that he is kept from any suspicion that he is 
 being manipulated. 
 
 " In spite of the sinister genius which 
 marks the formulating of this plot, yet, once 
 formed, it was not so difficult to carry out as 
 might be imagined. It was only necessary 
 to begin at the right end, in the right way, 
 and it almost seemed to work itself. The 
 division of parties in this country renders 
 the majorities either way comparatively 
 moderate, and therefore easily controlled ; 
 or, should there be an exceptionally strong 
 opposition on one or the other part, that will 
 not embarrass a manager whose tools are in- 
 differently democratic or republican. Hav- 
 ing filled the minor offices of trust and pow-
 
 228 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 er with henchmen of his own, he will then 
 proceed to lay his snares for bigger game. 
 By slow and patient degrees the State Legis- 
 latures and Governors, the Electoral Col- 
 leges, finally the President and the Cabinet 
 themselves, fall under his sway. Petty judges 
 are easily bought or influenced ; and when 
 he has secured a majority in the Supreme 
 Court his triumph may be deemed secure. 
 He may now make illegality itself legal, and 
 while maintaining the hollow semblance of 
 the republic unimpaired, may fill it with 
 the most uncompromising realities of des- 
 potism. 
 
 "When we say that the prime mover in 
 this affair was probably unknown even to his 
 nearest lieutenants, we refer to him, of 
 course, only in his official capacity. As a 
 private citizen he was well and favorably 
 known ; and there seems to be little doubt 
 that several men, who were in reality his 
 closest coadjutors, imagined him to be not 
 their master, but their innocent and unsus- 
 pecting tool ! They imagined that he knew 
 not even of the existence of the vast engine 
 whose every movement his single hand in 
 fact controlled. He was, they fancied, an 
 easy-going personage, whose paramount re-
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 229 
 
 spectability and enormous fortune rendered 
 him peculiarly useful as a cover and aid to 
 their operations. They came to him to ca- 
 jole him out of the financial means and the 
 aegis of his good name, to enable them to 
 execute designs of which, in truth, he was 
 himself the originator and instigator. We 
 can picture the saturnine humor with which 
 he must often have listened to their argu- 
 ments and subterfuges, and marked the solic- 
 itude with which they hid from the arch 
 conspirator this or that external feature of 
 his own conspiracy ! 
 
 "It has been said that a man who lays 
 aside definitely all moral scruples becomes 
 possessed of enormous power. Still more is 
 he powerful when he also sacrifices the ma- 
 terial rewards of ambition for the sake of 
 more firmly fastening his hold upon its eso- 
 teric reality. In him ' the last infirmity of 
 noble minds ' has freed itself from the main 
 obstacle to its success. He is unknown ; 
 none will ever celebrate his genius or ac- 
 claim his victories ; but, in his lonely pride, 
 he has his own esteem, more worth to him 
 than any other, and he is secure from the 
 base envy and revenge of underlings and the 
 jealousy and hostile combinations of his
 
 230 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 peers. Moreover ' Omne ignotum pro mag- 
 nifico ! ' his decrees have tenfold authority, 
 falling from unknown lips. His attitude, in 
 short, as nearly approaches that of an in- 
 tangible and invisible divinity as mortal man 
 can attain ; and though we must turn with a 
 shudder of reprobation from the spectacle of 
 a great mind devoting itself to the destruc- 
 tion of the freedom of his own native land, 
 we cannot withhold from him our intellect- 
 ual homage, and we may perhaps believe 
 that his purposes were not wholly evil, but 
 that he sincerely thought that America 
 would derive more benefit than injury from 
 his audacious embezzlement of her liber- 
 ties. 
 
 " Mortal, nevertheless, he was ; and in this 
 unavoidable fact lay the cause of his weak- 
 ness and his fall. He must live in society, 
 in personal relations with his fellows ; he was 
 subject to disease and accident, and he could 
 not avoid those personal and private rela- 
 tions and entanglements which, though hav- 
 ing no bearing on his grander interests, might 
 yet inadvertently become an obstacle in their 
 path. So, indeed, it turned out ; and we are 
 now to show how an incident quite foreign 
 to the conspiracy accomplished its overthrow
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 231 
 
 by the death of him in the hollow of whose 
 hand it lay, and apart from whose leadership 
 it must collapse. The murder of Pynchepole 
 Whiterduce for the moment has come to 
 withdraw the veil from this hitherto admired 
 and respected name by the blackmailer, 
 Patrick Barrable, might, with little exagger- 
 ation, be said to have modified the course of 
 human history. For America is the hope 
 and the arbiter of the world, and he who 
 controls her destinies stands within meas- 
 urable distance of the dictatorship of modern 
 
 civilization 
 
 " Having, then, fortified himself at every 
 point with proofs that the pretended heir of 
 the Whiterduces was in fact his own son, and 
 secured himself against personal danger by 
 arrangements to have the truth published in 
 the event of his death or sequestration, Pat- 
 rick Barrable was ready to spring his mine 
 upon his unsuspecting antagonist. He seems 
 not to have been at this time aware that he 
 was about to grapple with the man with 
 whose organization he had recently become 
 distantly affiliated ; nor is it likely that Whit- 
 erduce himself recognized him as a member. 
 There are indications that, later on, they be- 
 came mutually aware of the truth ; but the
 
 232 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 business which now brought them together 
 was a purely personal one, and was conduct- 
 ed without reference to anything else. Bar- 
 rable's position was impregnable, and Whit- 
 erduce recognized it as such. His chagrin 
 must have been unspeakable ; but he seems 
 to have disguised it under a somewhat in- 
 different demeanor, agreeing to purchase si- 
 lence on not too extravagant terms, but in- 
 timating that the secret of the child's birth, 
 while he would prefer to have it maintained, 
 was not, however, of any vital moment to 
 him. A contract was made by which Barra- 
 ble was to receive a sum of money at regu- 
 lar intervals, which any indiscretion on his 
 part would forfeit ; and upon this understand- 
 ing they parted. Barrable, on various occa- 
 sions afterward, seems to have made efforts to 
 have the sum increased ; but, upon the whole, 
 matters went on smoothly for many years. 
 
 " Conditions leading to a change were 
 nevertheless approaching. When Whiter- 
 duce adopted the boy he had looked forward 
 to so educating him as to render him a com- 
 petent inheritor of the great schemes to 
 which his own life was devoted. But there 
 are idiosyncrasies and limitations of temper- 
 ament and capacity with which the most
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 233 
 
 thorough educational methods contend in 
 vain, and as the boy grew toward manhood 
 it gradually became obvious that he would 
 never manifest those exceptional traits and 
 faculties which were essential to his pro- 
 posed destiny. He had neither the type of 
 intellect nor the personal disposition to reg- 
 ulate and control such vast and complicated 
 affairs. He was, in truth, a young fellow 
 whose instincts and sympathies tended to 
 draw him toward the rank in life from which 
 he sprang; frank, simple, and affectionate, 
 and inspiring good-will and kindness in all 
 whom he approached, he was yet in no re- 
 spect adapted to the stern and lonely role to 
 which his adoptive father had hoped to in- 
 troduce him. 
 
 " Bitter, no doubt, must have been Pynche- 
 pole Whiterduce's disappointment. Even 
 the most reserved of men is human, and 
 craves some fellow mortal in whom to con- 
 fide. Whiterduce's suspicions of his wife 
 (the utter baselessness of which we have in- 
 dicated above) had cut him off from com- 
 panionship in that direction, and it was now 
 evident that the youth with whom he had 
 hoped to share his awful responsibilities 
 would fail him also. A certain largeness
 
 234 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 and sense of justice in the man's nature is 
 illustrated by the fact that he never treated 
 the innocent boy otherwise than with consid- 
 eration and even kindness. . . . Hav- 
 ing, then, made up his mind that he must go 
 on to the end of his career in the same soli- 
 tude in which he had commenced it, he cast 
 about to provide the boy with some interest 
 or occupation suited to his predilections and 
 capacity. What is to our present purpose, 
 he appears to have determined to reveal to 
 him the facts of his birth, in order that he 
 might freely choose his own course in relation 
 thereto. More than this, he must have re- 
 solved no longer to keep from the outside 
 world the true statement of this matter, hav- 
 ing reached the conclusion that the change 
 in their common prospects made the con- 
 tinuance of the filial fiction no longer indis- 
 pensable, and that it was desirable to put an 
 end to the prolonged annoyance to which 
 the blackmailer Barrable had subjected 
 him. . .... 
 
 " Meantime he had discovered Barrable's 
 connection with the Order, and Barrable 
 himself, his senses sharpened by the private 
 transactions which had brought him in con- 
 tact with the other, had attained something
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 235 
 
 more than a suspicion that Whiterduce was 
 far more deeply involved in these great un- 
 derground schemes than most of the mem- 
 bers had any idea of. ... 
 
 " Such being the situation, the fatal inter- 
 view took place. Its details will perhaps be 
 brought out at the trial of the murderer ; it 
 is enough for us at present to know that Bar- 
 rable, driven to desperation by this cutting 
 off of his supplies, and realizing that his own 
 very existence might now be imperilled, re- 
 solved to secure revenge and safety at a sin- 
 gle blow. Disguising his purpose, he made 
 an occasion to pass behind Whiterduce's 
 chair, and in another minute the foremost 
 political genius and most profound schemer 
 in statecraft of our era had ceased to breathe ! 
 It was a dastardly, an outrageous crime ; yet 
 in the inscrutable dispensations of Providence 
 it befell at a fortunate moment for the safety 
 of the commonweal. For there is good rea- 
 son to believe that had Pynchepole Whiter- 
 duce survived another three months, this re- 
 public of ours, to create which our forefathers 
 fought to the death, and for whose preserva- 
 tion we recently poured forth oceans of blood 
 and treasure, would have been past praying 
 for!
 
 236 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 " It has always been a mystery why, in 
 view of the large rewards offered for the ap- 
 prehension of the criminal, and the well- 
 known sagacity of our detective service (not 
 to mention unprofessional investigations upon 
 which it is needless to enlarge to our readers), 
 no elucidation of the deed had up to this 
 moment been obtained. The fact is, a curi- 
 ous deadlock was reached in the matter, al- 
 most approaching the confines of comedy. 
 There is no doubt that Barrable's act was 
 known to other members of the organization. 
 It could not have heen the wish of these 
 men to protect the murderer ; for it soon 
 transpired that Pynchepole Whiterduce was, 
 in truth, what few had till then suspected 
 him of being the real head and mainstay 
 of the conspiracy. The cause of this revela- 
 tion is plain it was due to the sudden ces- 
 sation not only of pecuniary supplies, which 
 Whiterduce had been accustomed to dis- 
 burse with a lavish hand, but to the absence 
 of any further orders or directions for the 
 guidance and information of the various 
 chapters of the organization. This abrupt 
 stoppage, occurring simultaneously with 
 Whiterduce's death, placed him for the first 
 time in his true light ; his loss identified him !
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 237 
 
 Inasmuch as his murder was perpetrated, not 
 in fulfilment of any decree of the order, but 
 was the crime of private hatred and fatal to 
 the most vital interests of the order itself, it 
 seems strange at the first blush that Barrable 
 was not either delivered up to justice or exe- 
 cuted by sentence of his fellow-members. So, 
 no doubt, he would have been had not they 
 been actually afraid to denounce or lay 
 hands upon him. The man knew too much. 
 His arrest would have been followed by rev- 
 elations involving many of the leaders of the 
 conspiracy, whose names he had secured, 
 along with incriminating evidence ; while, 
 had they themselves executed him, his meas- 
 ures had been so taken that the exposures 
 would still have been accomplished. Al- 
 though, therefore, Barrable was an outlaw 
 among outlaws, none dare touch him ; they 
 were even forced to contribute to the cun- 
 ning scoundrel's support. 
 
 " But this is not all. Barrable was known 
 to the police. He and a small group of 
 members of his own grade had long been in 
 the habit of meeting unofficially in a small, 
 out-of-the-way beer saloon, kept by two 
 Germans known by the name of Pilsen 
 husband and wife. These persons had al-
 
 238 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 ways evinced sympathy with anarchists, ni- 
 hilists, and social rebels of all kinds, to whose 
 vaporings they lent an apparently approving 
 ear, though any violation of decency and 
 order in the saloon itself was always rigor- 
 ously suppressed by the proprietor, a man of 
 gigantic strength and resolution. It was in 
 a private room of this saloon that Barrable 
 in veiled terms, yet such as hints from 
 other sources rendered clear gave utter- 
 ance, on a certain occasion, to statements 
 defining his relations with Pynchepole 
 Whiterduce. It was on the morning follow- 
 ing these remarks that the murder was com- 
 mitted ; and the Pilsens, putting two and 
 two together, found no difficulty in identi- 
 fying its author especially as he resumed 
 his visits there not long afterward and hard- 
 ly troubled himself to disguise the truth. 
 But what, it may be asked, has all this to do 
 with the police? The answer is that the 
 Pilsens were themselves secret police agents, 
 and had, during upward of a dozen years, 
 been quietly accumulating information as to 
 outlaws of all kinds, and had of late been 
 more particularly on the trail of the great 
 conspiracy itself. Why, then, was not Bar- 
 rable at once apprehended ? Simply because
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 239 
 
 it was desired to complete the evidence con- 
 necting him, and others besides him, with 
 the political crime ; and it was feared that 
 his premature arrest would stampede other 
 men, some of them in high positions in the 
 community, whom it was necessary to secure. 
 Moreover, the testimony of the Pilsens 
 would be requisite at the trial, and, of course, 
 their appearance in the witness-box would 
 have put an end to their further usefulness as 
 informers. 
 
 " This is one side of the deadlock. On 
 the other side, Barrable was in straits for 
 money, his supplies from the organization 
 being small and precarious ; but he dared 
 not apply to the young gentleman at present 
 bearing the name of Whiterduce, and at- 
 tempt to coerce him by the same means that 
 had been successful with the other ; for it 
 was doubtful, in the first place, whether 
 Mr. Murgatroyd Whiterduce would consent 
 to buy his silence ; and, secondly, it was 
 highly probable that his application would 
 suggest inquiries which might end in estab- 
 lishing his guilt as to the murder. . . . 
 It may be mentioned here that Barrable' s 
 intercourse withHemynge (a worthless char- 
 acter, formerly in Whiterduce's employ, but
 
 240 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 dismissed for malfeasance) was the proxi- 
 mate cause of the present revelations. 
 Hemynge ventured to approach Mr. Mur- 
 gatroyd Whiterduce in the role of Barrable's 
 cat's-paw ; but the precious pair had quite 
 misinterpreted the young gentleman's temper. 
 The revelation of his birth acted upon young 
 Murgatroyd as a sort of tonic ; so far from 
 crushing and intimidating him, it seemed to 
 put new life in his veins ; he not only re- 
 jected Hemynge's proposals to purchase si- 
 lence, but he rejoiced to find himself relieved 
 from a false position, which he had long felt 
 (without being able to account to himself 
 for the feeling) to be irksome and unsuit- 
 able; he lost no time in communicating 
 with certain friends of his without whose 
 intelligent and manly co-operation, it may 
 be observed in passing, this newspaper, and 
 society at large, would have lacked much 
 important help and enlightenment and 
 their conference, in which our editor was 
 requested to participate, both hastened the 
 present publication and expanded many of 
 its details. . . , Although by the terms 
 of the elder Whiterduce's will, Mr. Murga- 
 troyd inherits the property by inalienable 
 right, he desires henceforth to renounce all
 
 RISDON HAS HIS REWARD 241 
 
 pretension to the acquaintance and coun- 
 tenance of those who may deem themselves 
 to have been imposed upon. ... It 
 is our opinion that he will find himself 
 possessed of more friends than ever, and of 
 the kind that is worth having ! . . . 
 Among the comedy features to which we al- 
 luded above may be recorded the circum- 
 stance that Mr. Murgatroyd has been anx- 
 iously in quest, ever since the murder, of 
 the party or parties to whom certain large 
 sums of money appeared by the accounts to 
 have been paid. These payments were 
 seemingly more or less regular and periodi- 
 cal ; but the payees were not specified, and 
 Mr. Murgatroyd, desirous to continue to ful- 
 fil (so far as he could determine them) the 
 established customs of the deceased, was at 
 a loss to understand why the former re- 
 cipients of this largess did not come forward 
 to claim it. It is needless to explain that 
 this money represented the elder Whiter - 
 duce's supplies to the secret organization. 
 The latter was at least as desirous to have 
 the payments continued as Mr. Murgatroyd 
 was to continue them, but were withheld by 
 obvious reasons from allowing their wants 
 to transpire. Even ready cash may some- 
 16
 
 242 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 times he bought at altogether too high a 
 price ! . . . 
 
 " It only remains to add, therefore, that 
 Barrable and Hemynge are both in custody, 
 and that the latter has offered to turn State's 
 evidence. It may be necessary to accept 
 this proposal ; for we fear that the difficul- 
 ties in the way of bringing to justice the 
 more prominent and responsible members of 
 this conspiracy will be only too great in any 
 event. The organization, or society, was 
 in so large a degree inspired and we might 
 almost say constituted by Pynchepole 
 Whiterduce, that it not only collapsed at 
 his death, but little that is tangible in the 
 way of testimony against its other members 
 can be looked for. Whatever of such testi- 
 mony was accessible to the guilty ones they 
 have of course destroyed ; some of them have 
 fled the country ; and there will be a dis- 
 position in certain quarters to bear lightly 
 upon others. The evil having been extir- 
 pated, and the chief malefactor beyond our 
 reach, it will be argued that public con- 
 venience and morals will not be advanced 
 by stirring over the dregs of this chief 
 scandal of our generation. ... At all 
 events, we have done our duty ! ' '
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 
 
 Isabella Sharingbourne, after parting from 
 Scaramanga, did not return home. She had 
 meant to do so, for there were in her room 
 things of hers which should have gone with 
 her on the journey she was to make on the 
 morrow. But she could not meet her 
 mother. The terrible scene of the morning 
 had opened a gulf between them never to be 
 crossed. That scene had not been premedi- 
 tated on Isabella's part. The revelation of 
 the letter which she had accidentally found 
 some months before had ever since burned in 
 her heart and weighed upon it ; it had 
 brought home to her as nothing else could 
 have done the ugly reality of human sin and 
 pollution. Its effect had been to make a 
 callousness in the tenderest and most sacred 
 spot in her soul ; a girl can sooner afford 
 almost any loss than that of reverence for her 
 mother. Combined with her distaste for
 
 244 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 Murgatroyd and the fancy (capricious at first) 
 which she had permitted herself for Scara- 
 manga, it had impelled her to her present 
 pass. In her morbid and feverish musings 
 it had almost seemed to her a duty perverse 
 and diabolic, but a sort of duty still to fol- 
 low in her mother's footsteps. 
 
 But she had never contemplated telling 
 her mother of her discovery. Often had she 
 longed, indeed, for some tender and remorse- 
 ful explanation between them some pas- 
 sionate, tragic episode of confession, harrow- 
 ing but wholesome to the soul. Then she 
 could have taken her mother to her heart of 
 hearts closer than ever before, and from those 
 depths of humiliation and forgiveness there 
 would have arisen, she thought, some fra- 
 grant flower of charity and hope. But the 
 girl could not herself give the cue for such a 
 scene; the initiative must come from her 
 mother if it came at all. She waited in vain, 
 and at last the miserable denouement had 
 been forced on in the manner we have seen. 
 After this there could be no reconciliation 
 between the two. 
 
 There was a neat, quiet apartment house 
 in a street not far from the Park, in which 
 persons who applied with satisfactory refer-
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 245 
 
 ences found a safe and comfortable abode. 
 In one of the airy upper floors of this estab- 
 lishment a certain young lady, with whom we 
 are slightly acquainted, was keeping house all 
 by herself. She had three pretty, spotless 
 rooms and a kitchen ; she had a regular in- 
 come from investments, sufficient to pay her 
 board and lodging and for her moderate but 
 tasteful wardrobe, and she earned enough 
 money besides to provide her with some lux- 
 uries. In short, she was an example of a 
 class which has come into existence among 
 us within quite recent memory, and may be 
 regarded as, on the whole, one of our more 
 humane and beneficent institutions. She 
 was a bachelor girl, and her name was Sa- 
 bina Estengrewe. 
 
 Sabina was a New Woman, of not too ag- 
 gressive a variety. She had good sense and 
 some talent ; she was gifted with excellent 
 spirits, and had the prettiness of sound health 
 and a lively temperament. She took a be- 
 nevolent interest in her sex, and during some 
 months in winter accepted invitations to 
 lecture before the various women's clubs and 
 other organizations that have sprung up of 
 late years. She was a successful little creat- 
 ure in her own sphere and measure, and was
 
 246 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 well disposed toward all the world. The 
 marriage of her aunt, to whose charms the 
 fashionable clergyman of the day had, as we 
 know, fallen a captive, had precipitated Sa- 
 bina's independence. Unlike her sister Han- 
 nah, she could not digest the idea of settling 
 down under her step-uncle's wing, and had 
 accordingly taken this little flight on her own 
 account. Some people did not approve of 
 such doings, but Sabina did, and that was 
 enough for her happiness. 
 
 She and the beautiful, clever, and fortunate 
 Miss Sharingbourne had recently seen a good 
 deal of each other ; there were points of sym- 
 pathy between them. Sabina looked upon 
 Isabella as the ideal girl of the period ; the 
 grave, reticent, occasionally sardonic Isabella 
 secretly envied the jolly little female bache- 
 lor, and liked her unconditionally, and they 
 both believed in the future (as it is techni- 
 cally termed) of the sex. Isabella had more 
 brains than Sabina, but could not use them 
 to such practical purpose. Sabina did not 
 see what a girl betrothed to millions could 
 do with brains any way ; but later she di- 
 vined that her friend's matrimonial anticipa- 
 tions, in spite of the millions, were not rose 
 hued. This, of course, interested her im-
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 247 
 
 mensely, and the two young ladies ultimately 
 became quite confidential. But there was one 
 subject of course, the dominant one in her 
 thoughts that of Scaramanga which Isa- 
 bella never once alluded to. She thought 
 Sabina had no suspicions in that direction ; 
 but herein she did less than justice to her 
 sprightly friend's natural sagacity. Sabina 
 did not know how far things had gone be- 
 tween Isabella and the romantic musician, 
 but she was convinced that Scaramanga was 
 an object of no small importance in her 
 friend's eyes. She was sure that Isabella 
 would do nothing wrong ; for the rest, the 
 situation was exciting and delightful. It 
 would come out right somehow, as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 Though silent as to Scaramanga, Isabella 
 allowed it to be understood that she had 
 made up her mind never to marry poor Mur- 
 gatroyd. Sabina did not think Murgatroyd 
 nearly as impossible as did her friend, though 
 she could easily agree that he was not good 
 enough for the latter. Who was, indeed ? 
 What, then, did Isabella intend to do ? Isa- 
 bella replied that she would like to do as 
 Sabina was doing ; but there were obstacles ; 
 she had no income of her own, not even a
 
 248 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 small one ; she could not lecture, nor were 
 her musical or dramatic talents certainly 
 available as a means of livelihood, and, at 
 all events, she could not live in the same 
 place with the man she meant to jilt and in 
 the society that had expected her to be the 
 wealthiest bride in town. Since something 
 must be done, however, she affirmed her 
 purpose to go to some remote place and there 
 do the best she could, with such resources as 
 she had. Sabina spoke sagely of the rash- 
 ness of such an idea, but ended by offering 
 to do anything in her power to help her out 
 with her plan. She could give her intro- 
 ductions, perhaps practical hints, and other 
 useful things. But she avowed her convic- 
 tion that Isabella could not fail to succeed in 
 anything she might undertake. She hoped 
 Isabella would now say something about 
 Scaramanga, and her not doing so made her 
 a little anxious. If Isabella was going to 
 make a run-away marriage with him, why 
 should she not say so ? And if she was not 
 going to make such a marriage, what was she 
 going to do ? Sabina was troubled. 
 
 About noon of the day whose beginning 
 has been recounted Sabina was walking up 
 and down in her little sitting-room declaim-
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 249 
 
 ing a passage in her new speech, when her 
 door-bell rang, and there was Isabella, erect, 
 slender, grave, with dark circles around her 
 eyes. Sabina kissed and welcomed her with 
 joy. Isabella hugged her with more than 
 usual emphasis. " What has happened, 
 dear?" Sabina immediately asked. 
 
 " Nothing. Yes, I'm going to leave I 
 have left. May I stay with you to-night ? 
 You might send a note home to say that I 
 am here. To-morrow I shall go away for 
 good." 
 
 ' ' My dearest girl ! Alone ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes ! " said Isabella, and sighed. 
 
 " Is that just a sigh or is it a lie? " asked 
 Sabina; but unfortunately she did not utter 
 the words aloud. " And where shall you 
 go? " was the inquiry that reached Isabella's 
 ears. 
 
 She took one of the bachelor girl's hands, 
 as they sat side by side, and after a few mo- 
 ments said : " People will ask you that after 
 I am gone, and it will be best if you can an- 
 swer that you don't know. So I won't tell 
 you." 
 
 " Oh ! but I wouldn't mind a little whop- 
 per like that," returned Sabina. ' You tell 
 and I'll forget ! "
 
 250 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 But Isabella shook her head. " I'll write 
 to you afterward," she said. 
 
 " Well, but look here I was just think- 
 ing of running off for a lark somewhere I've 
 nothing to do; mightn't I go with you, 
 wherever it is ? Think what fun we'd have ! 
 And I might put you up to some points, too. 
 You have theories, you know, but I have 
 experience." 
 
 Isabella gave a start and a slight shudder ; 
 Sabina wondered why. " No, dear," Isa- 
 bella said, " there are reasons why it's best 
 not. How good you are, you blessed little 
 thing ! Some day you'll know all about it. 
 Don't talk about experience; you don't 
 know what it means, thank God ! Let us 
 change the subject ; it makes me blue. What 
 are you doing now ? By the bye, you re- 
 member, I had my trunk sent here a while 
 ago ? I'll have to look through it to see if 
 I have all I need. I know I've left some 
 things at home, but they'll have to stay 
 there; I can't go for them." 
 
 Sabina leaned over and kissed Isabella's 
 shoulder. " Bless you, my darling, wherever 
 you go ! Your trunk ? yes. I've whole 
 stacks of things things I don't want un- 
 der things, you know you're about a foot
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 251 
 
 too tall to wear my dresses, unfortunately 
 and you've got to take them. I was going 
 to give 'em to the Women's Exchange to 
 sell to poor folks. We'll rake 'em over pres- 
 ently. But the first thing is lunch ! Gra- 
 cious, my dear, you don't know what lunches 
 I get up for myself now ! And I got a case 
 of that lovely Tokay, you know, yesterday. 
 One can't get tight on it, but it makes you 
 fat and jolly and takes away the black rings 
 under your eyes. By Jove ! I'm glad you 
 happened in to-day you couldn't have hit 
 me in a better spot ! Come in and take a 
 look at my larder ; you've got to learn how 
 we bachelors live, you know. This is going 
 to be a spree ! ' ' 
 
 Truly, what a thing is friendship ! Sexual 
 love is like the tropic sunshine, but friend- 
 ship is like the broad, constant, helpful day- 
 light, blessing all the world. 
 
 The two girls played together, Sabina's 
 jollity gradually spreading its contagion to 
 her friend. And the latter, knowing that 
 her time was short, threw herself into the 
 game with almost too much energy. Ever 
 and anon, in the midst of the laughing and 
 gayety, a sigh would come up from the dark- 
 ling depths and break upon the smiling sur-
 
 252 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 face ; or a wave of strange heat would flow 
 into her cheeks and eyes at the memory of 
 Scaramanga's kiss. Then, conscious of Sa- 
 bina's glance, she would laugh once more. 
 There were moments when she could barely 
 restrain herself from burying her head in the 
 kind little bachelor's lap and sobbing out 
 the whole story. But she would not ! She 
 clung to Sabina's undoubting faith in her as 
 to the one good thing left to her, and she 
 would do nothing to endanger it. Besides, 
 the secret was her lover's as well as hers. 
 Finally, perhaps, she felt that if she told she 
 would never go to him, and that sinister 
 thought held her more strongly than either 
 of the others. 
 
 Toward evening Sabina, at Isabella's re- 
 quest, wrote and despatched a note of a few 
 lines to Mrs. Sharingbourne, saying that she 
 was going to make her friend dine and spend 
 the night with her. " I'll be leaving town 
 before long," she added, "and mayn't get 
 another chance at her. ' ' 
 
 " I can't help feeling awfully sorry about 
 your mother, by Jove I can't ! " she ob- 
 served. " Why don't you tell her ? She'd 
 kick at first, of course ; but she's as good as 
 gold at bottom, though she has such strict
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 253 
 
 notions the old folks always have, you 
 know. And she loves you for all she's 
 worth, and is as proud of you as a peacock. 
 She'd come round, when she saw you'd 
 made up your mind. Just tell her you won't 
 marry Murgatroyd, and stick it out. What 
 if she did fight ? Gracious ! Fighting is 
 larks, when you know you're going to win ! " 
 
 " Tell her I send her my love," replied 
 Isabella, after a pause, in a low voice, "and 
 you mustn't ask me anything more." 
 
 Sabina lifted one shoulder, put up her eye- 
 brows, put out her underlip, wrote, " She 
 makes me open this again to send you her 
 dearest love," quickly folded up and sealed 
 the note, and went out and gave it to the 
 boy in the passage. 
 
 They dined at half- past six, and finished 
 the pint bottle of Tokay which they had be- 
 gun at lunch. Then Sabina said : 
 
 " Now, old chap, I've got tickets to the 
 opera ; it's the last night of the season, you 
 know, and we'll have to take it in. That 
 little Letitia is singing like an angel. She's 
 a love. Come on ! The seats are in the 
 family circle, second row, so there's no risk 
 of anybody seeing us." 
 
 Isabella's mood had now undergone a re-
 
 254 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 action, and she was carelessly compliant. 
 So they put on their things and sallied forth, 
 Sabina, when they reached the pavement, 
 pulling up her little collar, shooting down 
 her little cuffs, and sticking out her little el- 
 bow, with " Take my arm, dear ! " 
 
 " I wish I could live with you always ! " 
 said Isabella, taking it, with a laugh and a 
 sigh. 
 
 The theatre was packed with a good-nat- 
 ured, perspiring, last-night audience. The 
 two girls, from their position, could not only 
 hear well, but could see everything without 
 being seen. The charming prima donna 
 never was more charming or in better voice. 
 
 " Nothing like using your voice for fetch- 
 ing up your general condition," Sabina re- 
 marked. " Singing's the best, of course, 
 but elocution and speaking are good enough. 
 Look at me, how fat I'm getting. Look at 
 my chest ! Put your hand here and feel of 
 that biceps ! That's what you want some- 
 thing to work your lungs. I believe you're 
 going to be the great tragic actress. Getting 
 started is the only trouble. But I'll give 
 you some letters, and when you're settled 
 I'm coming to make you a visit, you know. 
 What's the matter, dear ? "
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 255 
 
 ' ' Nothing. Somebody I knew..' ' 
 
 "Where? Oh, I see. I don't think 
 he's such a bad sort, do you know ? I like 
 him. He's not handsome, exactly, but he 
 looks like a man ; a woman would feel safe 
 with him. If I were you I'd marry him, 
 after all." 
 
 "Marry. . . . What do you mean ? 
 What have I to do with Mr. Scaramanga? " 
 
 " Scaramanga? I'm talking of Murga- 
 troyd, in the stage-box there, with those 
 three fellows. Who are they ? That man 
 with eye-glasses is nice ! How straight and 
 strong he holds himself! I like a man who 
 has respect for his chest ! Look at that big, 
 stout one beside him ; he looks like what I 
 imagine a Dutch Burgomaster. But, oh, 
 my dear, get on to the curves of the nose of 
 that man behind him Don Quixote to a 
 hair, by Jove ! " 
 
 "He's a music-teacher; I met him the 
 other day ; his name is Scamell." 
 
 " Scamell not Scaramanga? Where is 
 he? Yes, I've got him now. Just strolled 
 in to take a last look at his opera. Well, 
 he's handsome, but he'll never really think 
 much of anybody but himself. I wouldn't 
 trust him as far as I could reach ! There's
 
 256 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 more real solid stuff in Murgy's little finger 
 than in all that fine slim body of his. One 
 can stand him at a dinner-table once in a 
 season or so, but fancy living with such a 
 creature all one's life. I'd break all the 
 looking-glasses, and let him die of a de- 
 cline ! ' ' 
 
 This was an impromptu inspiration on 
 Sabina's part, and she did it with an art to 
 deceive the very elect. Isabella was con- 
 vinced that it was an opinion without ar- 
 riere pensee. She made no rejoinder, and 
 the other let it drop there. If it were to do 
 good, it must be by quiet fermentation. 
 Without knowing exactly when or why, 
 Sabina had by this time made up her mind 
 that Isabella was entangled with Scaramanga 
 in an undesirable way. It was no use op- 
 posing her openly, but indirect methods 
 were sometimes effective. Isabella turned 
 very taciturn, and that seemed a not unhope- 
 ful symptom to her companion. 
 
 The opera came to an end with cheers 
 and flowers ; the curtain went down, then 
 went up again, and Letitia sang " Auld 
 Lang Syne," with the audience enthusiasti- 
 cally chorusing. A huge floral emblem was 
 handed over the foot-lights, and laid hold of
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 257 
 
 with smiles and courtesies by the sparkling 
 prirna donna. The curtain went down once 
 more, but once more went up, and this time 
 there was Scaramanga with Letitia's hand 
 in his. 
 
 "Speech ! Speech ! " 
 
 Scaramanga stepped forward. What a 
 graceful, romantic figure ! But he certainly 
 did look conceited. What was he saying ? 
 The usual things ! Then he added a last 
 word : 
 
 " But I know I feel that I could never 
 have been asked to stand before you to-night 
 on my own merits. It is to this lady whose 
 hand I hold that I owe this reception. She 
 has put into my work the soul which alone 
 renders it worthy. I owe her more than can 
 ever be repaid. She more than fulfils the 
 ideal that I had conceived. And I may be 
 permitted to hope, in your interests as well 
 as in my own, that she may consent to con- 
 tinue, in the future, the alliance which has 
 been so precious to me in the past. I can 
 crave no worthier or more fortunate place in 
 your memory than that which I occupy be- 
 fore your eyes to-night side by side with 
 Letitia Valentine! " 
 
 The audience swarmed out and trooped 
 17
 
 258 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 down the winding stairways, wedged to- 
 gether, chatting, laughing, commenting. 
 " She's a daisy, ain't she? " said a man in 
 front of Isabella. "She's right enough," 
 replied his companion, " but that long-haired 
 dude makes me sick to my stomach ! " " He 
 gave her a good send-off, though ; she'll be 
 his wife, I suppose?" "Wife! You ain't 
 half on to the racket ! She's his mistress 
 everybody knows that ! " " Get out ! By 
 George ! these theatre fellows get the soft 
 snaps, don' t they ? " To this mendacious 
 and unholy dialogue Sabina listened with 
 unchristian satisfaction, indifferent to poor 
 Letitia's reputation if only Isabella were ad- 
 monished. The latter held her head severely 
 poised, and her face betrayed no sign. After 
 they had passed the door and were still in- 
 volved in the throng on the sidewalk a voice 
 behind Isabella's shoulder spoke almost in 
 her ear : 
 
 " Five hundred thousand dollars ! Holy 
 poker! What for?" 
 
 " Well, he thinks his money was what she 
 was marrying him for, and he wants she 
 should have it." 
 
 " I'd see my girl further before I'd give 
 her half a million for jilting me ! "
 
 UNDERCURRENTS 259 
 
 " He thinks this story that's coming out 
 to-morrow gives her a right to do it. And, 
 having a fortune, she won't make a fool of 
 herself with the other fellow. ' ' 
 
 " I never heard such darned foolishness ! ' ' 
 
 "Well, that's the sort of fool Murgy is. 
 Easy, here he comes, and Gabe with him." 
 
 Isabella recognized the first voice as that 
 of the long-nosed music-teacher ; the second 
 belonged to the man with the eyeglasses. 
 But what were they talking about ? 
 
 " Shall we take a car ? " asked Sabina. 
 
 " Yes what ? no ; I'd rather walk. ' '
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE IS WHEN NOTHING'S 
 LEFT TO HOPE FOR 
 
 As Isabella passed along the streets the 
 next morning, on her way to the railway 
 station, her chief preoccupation was to shun 
 a chance recognition ; but she presently no- 
 ticed, with a passing curiosity, that almost 
 everyone she met was buried in a news- 
 paper. In turning the corner of Transom 
 Street, she all but collided with Mr. William 
 Walwine ; but he did not see her ; he had 
 no eyes but for what he was reading in the 
 Constitution. She was grateful for the dis- 
 traction ; but it did not occur to her to buy 
 a paper for herself. 
 
 She bought a ticket for a suburban station 
 about five miles out of town. There were 
 few people on the train ; the tide of morning 
 travel sets the other way. Arrived at her 
 destination, she alighted and took a trolley- 
 car to a point twelve miles to the southward. 
 The trolley line crossed another railway
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 261 
 
 here. Isabella left her car and went into the 
 pretty little station building, with its wide, 
 sweeping eaves. Upon examining the time- 
 table, she found that the next outward-bound 
 train was due at ten minutes past ten. There 
 was still an hour to wait. 
 
 All this divagation had been performed 
 merely in order to throw pursuit off the 
 scent. She had set off in one direction, and 
 was now headed in another. It was Scara- 
 manga's Machiavellian brain that had de- 
 vised the ruse, and he was to join her there 
 and accompany her on her further journey. 
 
 It is tiresome work waiting anywhere, but 
 nowhere more so than in an out-of-town 
 station, where there is nothing to amuse one 
 but time-tables, a closed ticket office, and 
 empty benches. There was, however, a man 
 sitting in a corner by the window with a 
 paper in his hands; it was the Constitution. 
 He was reading with all his might. Isabella 
 surveyed him minutely and idly from top 
 to toe, idly wondered what this wonderful 
 piece of news could be that so absorbed the 
 world this morning, and so drifted back to 
 her own thoughts, unwelcome though these 
 were. 
 
 She had come thus far not from desire
 
 262 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 but from necessity, by dint of an impulse 
 communicated when she had regarded things 
 in a light other than she did now. She had 
 burned her ships and must on. She knew, 
 now, that she did not love Scaramanga as 
 she had imagined she did ; the glamour was 
 gone from him. Had all been well and or- 
 derly, she might, perhaps, have been con- 
 tent to marry him in orthodox fashion, but 
 to throw herself thus crudely into his arms 
 was another matter. Was he a man of tem- 
 per and stamina to protect a woman and 
 stand by her against the world ? She saw 
 him as he stood on the stage last night, his 
 self-satisfied, deferential smiles, his artfully 
 artless grace, his thirsty vanity, which an 
 ocean of flattery could not satiate was this 
 a character to give up the world for a wom- 
 an and think it well lost? Could he, who 
 so loved baser things, make love the lord of 
 all? 
 
 Ah, how he bowed and smirked, and tossed 
 back his long hair, and threw noble expres- 
 sions into the lift of his head and the turn of 
 his eyes ! She had admired those gestures 
 in their private converse, but it seems he 
 lavished them upon the public the same as 
 upon her ! Did any thought of her enter
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 263 
 
 his mind while he stood there bowing and 
 scraping, with Letitia's hand in his? Her 
 hand in his ! And it had seemed to Isabella 
 that Letitia had more than once tried to slip 
 her hand away, but he would not let it go. 
 He had not finished his speech, in which this 
 hand-clasp was to play a part. ' ' My ideal, ' ' 
 he had called her ! Yes, it was very likely. 
 Had what that man said on the stairs been 
 true? Isabella bit her lips. Perhaps so; 
 perhaps not ; but Scaramanga's behavior had 
 been not unsuggestive of such a possibility, 
 and on the very eve, too, of their elope- 
 ment ! With all his handsomeness, his poses, 
 and his cleverness, he was not a man whom 
 indifferent persons respected ; they laughed 
 at him ; they despised him. Ah, she would 
 little have minded that, could she have as- 
 sured herself that she knew any reason why 
 she should not despise him, too. And yet 
 his kisses were on her lips. She had told 
 him that . . . She sprang from her 
 seat in bitter rage against herself and paced 
 up and down the room. The man in the 
 corner continued to read his paper, getting 
 his breath now and then, delayed by the 
 spell of the narrative. 
 
 " There's more real stuff in Murgy's little
 
 264 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 finger than in all that fine, slim body of his ! " 
 "I'd break all the looking-glasses and let 
 him die of a decline! " Sabina had said 
 those things. " At a dinner-table, yes ; but 
 all one's life ! " 
 
 ' ' I must have been insane ! ' ' muttered 
 Isabella to herself. " Stark, staring mad ! 
 Yes ; it is easy to scold now, but here I am ! 
 And he will be here directly, with those 
 same smiles and attitudes. Did he kiss Le- 
 titia when the curtain went down last night ? 
 Did he bend over her and look into her 
 eyes, and say, ' Look at me, darling ! ' 
 Faugh ! Am I jealous ? ' ' 
 
 The man finished his reading. He threw 
 down the paper on the bench beside him, 
 stared into vacancy for a few moments, said 
 " Humph ! " and got up to look out of the 
 window. Then he glanced at his watch. 
 Suddenly the ticket window opened. The 
 down train was due in five minutes not 
 Isabella's train. The man went up to the 
 window and engaged in conversation with 
 the ticket-seller. " Great yarn ! " Isabella 
 heard one say ; and they laughed. " Here 
 she comes ! ' ' remarked the ticket-man, and 
 he closed the window and went out on the 
 platform, followed by the other. The train
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 265 
 
 rolled in, paused, and panted off again. 
 Isabella was alone. 
 
 " I wish I'd gone back on it ! " thought 
 she. " No ; I can't go back. I have no 
 place in the world. I must stay here till he 
 comes and then tell him ... He will 
 begin to argue, I suppose. Why should I be 
 angry with him ? It is all my fault. I was 
 engaged, and I encouraged him. He is the 
 same to-day that he has always been not a 
 bit different or worse. What has a girl to 
 expect who has done as I have ? He offered 
 to marry me, and I said no ! Well, I have 
 seen what comes of marriage; if anything 
 could be worse than this, it would be mar- 
 riage. But is there any need of either ? 
 There's Sabina. But I can't make a living 
 like Sabina. I can lie down on the track 
 when the train comes in. Seven hundred 
 dollars that's all ! Why not as well end 
 it now as then ? Or shall I go back to town 
 and marry the richest man . . . What 
 did they mean about half a million dollars ? 
 ' Having a fortune, she won't make a fool 
 of herself with the other fellow ! ' Oh, non- 
 sense ! " 
 
 She walked over to the window in sombre 
 meditation. She picked up a newspaper,
 
 266 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 looked at the heading, stood reading a mo- 
 ment and then sat down, still reading. The 
 spell that had entranced the rest of the 
 world had reached her at last. She read 
 and became insensible to everything else. 
 She did not hear a hack drive up and stop 
 at the door of the station ten minutes before 
 the train was due. She did not notice the 
 opening of the door and the entrance of a 
 young gentleman in a straw hat and a suit 
 of blue serge. But presently she became 
 conscious that he was standing in front of 
 her, and she looked up. The paper rustled 
 sharply in her hands as she rose to her feet. 
 It was not Scaramanga it was Murgatroyd ! 
 ' ' He's all right Scaramanga' s all right ! ' ' 
 were his first words, hastily spoken, with a 
 smile, to forestall her anxiety. "It's been 
 arranged differently, that's all. I came on to 
 let you know. Miss Sabina would have 
 come with me, but she's gone to take care 
 of your mother she isn't very well, your 
 mother. I guess it's nothing very bad but 
 they call it a slight stroke of paralysis. I 
 could drive you back. But if we wait for 
 the next down train we'll get there just as 
 soon, and it'll give me a chance to tell you 
 to say some things come to a friendly
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 267 
 
 understanding, you know. I hope we shall 
 be good friends after this. I want to be 
 with you, I'm sure. Oh, you got a paper ! " 
 
 " Paralysis ! " 
 
 "Only a light touch of it. It prevents 
 her talking a little, but there's no danger. 
 Horace Dr. Maydwell I got him to see 
 her the moment I heard ; he says people 
 live years after it. It's an inconvenience, 
 of course, but " 
 
 "Poor mamma! I'm glad I sent her 
 . . . Sit down, please, I'm rather con- 
 fused. Mr. Whiterduce, I have no right 
 to this kindness from you. I ... 
 But you spoke of him oh then you know 
 oh ! ' ' She did not blush ; the blood 
 rushed to her heart and left her face deadly 
 pale. 
 
 " Hold on, let me tell you ! " He sat 
 down by her, his face full of solicitude and 
 earnestness. " It's come out first rate; just 
 as you'd wish better, if anything ! Well, 
 you've read the paper, so there'll be that 
 much less for me to bother you with. Of 
 course, now that we know who I am or 
 who I'm not, rather rit would never do to 
 hold you to the engagement. I'm not the 
 fellow you thought you were going to marry,
 
 268 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 and a contract made under a false under- 
 standing's no good. I'd have let you off 
 before, for I thought you didn't seem quite 
 to well, I can't put it in a nice way, but I 
 could see you didn't like the idea much; 
 and I had sense enough to know myself that 
 I wasn't anywhere near up to the sort of man 
 you ought to have. I'd have let you off, 
 only I was afraid people might think some- 
 thing that wasn't so, you see; and I knew 
 you wouldn't break the engagement your- 
 self, because your mother wanted it to go 
 on, on account of the advantages I mean, 
 in spite of my being not agreeable myself; 
 so, altogether, there seemed to be no way 
 out. But now this discovery about me 
 makes it all straight. Nobody would ex- 
 pect you not to break the engagement now ; 
 you couldn't do anything else; and your 
 mother well, I've fixed it so she'll be satis- 
 fied, too. And " He stopped, look- 
 ing embarrassed ; but in a moment his hon- 
 est smile shone out again, and he went on : 
 
 " About Scaramanga, you know. In the 
 first place, you don't need to think I'm do- 
 ing anything generous in giving you up to 
 him. I don't mean that there is any girl 
 better worth having than you ; I don't be-
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 269 
 
 lieve there is. All I mean is, you're not my 
 sort ; you care about society, and fine things, 
 and I get on better with low things and 
 commonplace people as is natural, for I'm 
 one of the commonest of the lot myself. So 
 I should always be disgusting you, without 
 being able to help it, and that would make 
 me feel bad ; and the more I cared for you 
 the worse I'd feel. So, in giving you up to 
 him, I'm only being kind to myself. And 
 he's just the right sort of fellow for you I 
 can see that ; he's clever, and good-looking, 
 and elegant if I was to practise a hundred 
 years I never could get to do things and be- 
 have the way he does, let alone look like 
 him ; he's like a man in a picture or on the 
 stage. I wish you could have heard a speech 
 he made last night at the opera ; it would 
 have just suited you ; and I could no more 
 have done it than I could . . . How- 
 ever, I can see that he ought to have you, 
 and then I can see, too, that you did just 
 right, when you found you cared for him, in 
 arranging to marry him ; because no girl 
 could marry one man when she was in love 
 with another; it would make all three of 
 them miserable, and do nobody any good. 
 And it was mighty plucky starting off with-
 
 270 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 out any money except what you two could 
 make yourselves ; though I do wish you 
 hadn't thought I was such a fellow that I 
 wasn't fit to have you tell me about it, and 
 wouldn't want to make it comfortable for 
 you in the only way I could. I'm not bad 
 in the sense that I like to do mean things, 
 and least of all to you ! However, it'll be 
 all right now. I had a talk with Scaramanga 
 this morning, and you'll be able to start 
 housekeeping with something . . . No, 
 I'm not giving you anything ; it's only the 
 money that I was going to settle anyway on 
 your mother when we married ; and she can 
 let you have enough so as to be comforta- 
 ble. Of course, I couldn't take it back just 
 because it turned out to be better all round 
 that you should marry Scaramanga instead 
 of me. I explained that to him, and he un- 
 derstands it perfectly, and thinks the same as 
 I do about it ; you have nothing to do with 
 it anyway." 
 
 " How much money is this? " 
 " Well, that's for your mother to say. I 
 guess she'll give you enough, but as she's 
 sick I couldn't talk to her about it. You 
 and she and Scaramanga can fix that to suit 
 yourselves afterward. It's out of my hands,
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 271 
 
 you see. But what I was going to say is, 
 that I'd thought I'd better come out here 
 after you, instead of having him come ; be- 
 cause until it's known that our engagement's 
 off, it's better you should be seen coming 
 back with me than with him. Besides, I 
 wanted to have this talk with you ; I may 
 not have another chance." 
 
 " Are you going away ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I've nowhere to go in particu- 
 lar ; but I shan't see your kind of people any 
 more, of course, so it'll be about the same as 
 if we lived in different places. Besides, 
 Scaramanga said something about taking you 
 to Europe after you were married. No, I 
 guess most likely I'll never see you again 
 to speak to. But I wanted you should know 
 what I felt, so we could part friends." He 
 was silent a moment and then added : "I 
 have always acted like a fool with you even 
 more of a fool than I am with other people. 
 I didn't know what being engaged meant, at 
 first, nor being married either, for that mat- 
 ter; I didn't know what loving people meant 
 a man loving a woman, I mean. It all 
 seemed to be something arranged for you by 
 somebody else, and all you had to do was sit 
 round and do nothing. I guess you must
 
 2 72 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 have wanted to kill me sometimes, when I 
 used to come and sit up there with you. I 
 was nothing but a sort of overgrown child ; 
 I knew no better ; I supposed that was the 
 way to do. I'm not quite so bad as that 
 no\v. I've had things happen to me that 
 have made me know what it is to love, and 
 to be sorry, and to hate, too ! And I think 
 I can understand now that the man who is 
 good enough to marry you, and that you 
 love, must be the happiest man in the world. 
 I can understand that the same as I can that 
 there are stars a thousand times greater and 
 more beautiful than this earth I live on, 
 though I can never live on them or come 
 near them. But I believe that the right kind 
 of people do live on them, and I like to 
 think how happy they must be there, though 
 I myself can have nothing to do with such 
 things." 
 
 Isabella was sitting all this time with her 
 hands relaxed in her lap, and not wearing 
 that bright and joyful expression that might 
 have been expected in one of her fortunate 
 destiny. Her ordinarily brilliant eyes had a 
 film over them ; the corners of her proud 
 mouth drooped ; she looked not proud, but 
 humiliated. And, after a while, she turned
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 273 
 
 partly round and rested her arms on the sill 
 of the window and pillowed her face on 
 them ; and so she remained a long time. 
 She was not weeping ; perhaps she was not 
 even thinking, but she was passing from one 
 state of life to another ; her nature was un- 
 dergoing a change. She had learned of the 
 existence of something of which she had not 
 even dreamed something strong, simple, 
 gentle, unselfish. But it was not for her. 
 
 Murgatroyd got up and walked about the 
 room, stepping lightly so as not to disturb 
 her. He thought his presence distressed her, 
 but there was no help for that. And the 
 train that was to carry them to town would 
 soon be here. 
 
 It came, and Isabella, with a strange sort 
 of meekness and dependence, got up and let 
 him lead her out of the station and help her 
 into the car and find her a seat. " I guess 
 I'll go forward and smoke a cigarette," said 
 he; "I'll be back before we get in." He 
 went, and if she wished to feel alone she had 
 her wish. 
 
 As the train drew into the shadow of the 
 
 great depot he reappeared, meeting her eyes 
 
 with a certain shy, deprecating good-will. 
 
 " I suppose you want to go straight home ? " 
 
 18
 
 274 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 said he. " You won't mind my driving 
 there with you ? It'll only be a few minutes. 
 Sabina's there, you know. I told Scara- 
 manga ' ' 
 
 " Please don't speak of him, Mr. Whiter- 
 duce," interrupted she, in an humble, be- 
 seeching tone, that astonished him. ' ' If 
 these are to be our last moments together I 
 would rather think of something else. You 
 have been kind to me; I never knew till 
 now what kindness was. Can't I see you 
 once more, after a day or two ? ' ' 
 
 "Why, to be sure you can, if you want 
 to ! " he replied, almost laughing with sur- 
 prise. " I should think so ! " 
 
 " I can't say anything now I don't know 
 what to say. I want to say something, 
 though; perhaps I could in a day or two." 
 
 "All right ; whenever you like. Shall I 
 come day after to-morrow?" 
 
 " Yes, if you please. Then I shall expect 
 you day after to-morrow. Will you come in 
 the morning ? ' ' 
 
 "Any time you like." 
 
 "Well, in the morning, then. Forty- 
 eight hours from now. Don't forget. But 
 I know you won't." 
 
 They got into the hack and drove to her
 
 THE TIME TO HOPE 275 
 
 house. She leaned up in the corner and 
 nothing was said on the way. As he was 
 about to leave her on the doorstep she put 
 out her hand, and he took it ; and the mo- 
 mentary glance she gave him troubled his 
 memory long after.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 
 
 During this interval of eight and forty 
 hours one event of which knowledge came 
 to Murgatroyd gave him great perplexity 
 and pain. It concerned Scaramanga. This 
 young gentleman and genius had abruptly 
 set out for Europe, and it was said that he 
 would not return for three years. He was 
 going to write an opera in Vienna ; he had 
 received advantageous offers from somebody, 
 for something such were the rumors. 
 Surely this was very sudden, thought Mur- 
 gatroyd ; and what did it mean for Isabel- 
 la? Was she going over to join him? Or 
 was it possible they had quarrelled? "If 
 she shouldn't be happy after all," thought 
 Murgatroyd, " what should I do? " 
 
 Accordingly he went to fulfil his appoint- 
 ment in an anxious frame of mind. The 
 door was opened to him by Sabina one 
 might almost think she had been watching 
 out of the window. " How are you ? " she
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 277 
 
 said cordially, giving him a stout handshake. 
 "I'm glad to see you ! Before you see Isa- 
 bella I want to have a word with you. 
 Come into the dining-room." 
 
 He followed her to the room designated. 
 She took up a position on the hearth-rug, 
 with her hands clasped behind her and her 
 immaculate little white collar stiff under her 
 plump chin, like a little bachelor as she was. 
 Murgatroyd leaned against the table before 
 her in silent apprehension. 
 
 " Now, look here, Mr. Whiterduce, I like 
 you ; I'm your friend, and I'm Isabella's 
 too. I am going to tell you some facts. 
 Isabella doesn't know it; if she did she'd 
 forbid me, but nothing venture nothing 
 have; and look here, if you find I'm getting 
 off the track you stop me right there, do you 
 understand ? I don't want to give Isabella 
 away ; but, on the other hand, I'm resolved, 
 by Jove, that a good thing shan't be lost be- 
 cause people hadn't the sense or the courage 
 to open their mouths and say what was in 
 'em. You get me, don't you ? " 
 
 " It's about that money," faltered Mur- 
 gatroyd. "I've been thinking that I ought 
 to have given it straight to Scaramanga and 
 said nothing to her about it. Naturally
 
 278 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 she'd rather have it from him than from me. 
 It was a beastly blunder, but I never think 
 of the right thing at the right time. Can't 
 it be fixed up somehow? Can't you think 
 of something ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, I have thought of something. But 
 before we come to that let me advise you 
 not to make Scaramanga the topic of your 
 conversation with Isabella. She can't 
 stand it." 
 
 " They've had a row, then ? Is that why 
 he went to Europe ? What was the trouble ? 
 Can't I explain it to 'em ? I'll start right 
 after him on the next steamer, if you say so. 
 I'll engage to bring him back ! They're both 
 proud, of course, and but " 
 
 " I'll tell you what would be a grand 
 scheme, Mr. Whiterduce for you to keep 
 quiet for a few minutes and listen to me. If 
 you were to bring that creature back to Isa- 
 bella she'd probably kill him. And I ex- 
 pect he'd rather die some other way than 
 come. There is no misunderstanding be- 
 tween her and him whatever ; she thinks he 
 is about the most contemptible cad afloat, 
 and he knows she thinks so, because she told 
 him so. That's plain, I hope." 
 
 He looked steadily at her. " How can
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 279 
 
 that be ? Three days ago they . . . Le- 
 titia was in the little dressing-room, and she 
 
 " Yes, I know ; and I honor her for do- 
 ing it ! She helped avert a terrible mistake, 
 that might have ended, for all we know, in 
 another Judith and Holofernes case not 
 that Scaramanga is much in the Holofernes 
 style, Heaven knows ; more the Robert Ma- 
 caire, I should say. I'm not a marrying 
 woman, myself, Mr. Whiterduce, but I can 
 put you up to two facts about them a wom- 
 an can persuade herself and she not only 
 can, but for some reason she's exceedingly 
 apt to do it that she adores a man whom 
 she really detests, and hates one whom she 
 really loves. Some day, when I can see a 
 week's clear leisure ahead, I may try and ex- 
 plain to you why that is so ; but we have no 
 time for it this morning. But Isabella is an 
 illustration in point ; she imagined she cared 
 for Scaramanga she made him a sort of 
 clothes-horse on which she hung out all the 
 beautiful garments of heroism and idealism 
 that her imagination had been weaving in 
 the secret places of her heart ; and she 
 thought she hated . . . However, 
 wait a minute ; we're not come to that yet.
 
 280 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 What are you thinking of doing with your- 
 self? Now that your engagement is off I 
 suppose you have some other girl in your 
 eye ? I'm not inquisitive in the least don't 
 make any mistake about that ! But I suppose 
 if Miss Letitia, for instance " 
 
 ' ' I shall never marry anybody, ' ' inter- 
 posed Murgatroyd, with great seriousness. 
 " As for Letty, she jokes about it with the 
 fellows ; she jokes about everything ; but she 
 wouldn't have me if I was to ask her, and I 
 wouldn't ask her anyway. You see, it's this 
 way. I'm spoilt both ways. I can't care 
 for girls in my own class of life, and the girls 
 in the other class wouldn't look at me. But 
 let's not waste time about that ; I want to 
 hear about Isabella. Is she unhappy ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, I expect she is," replied Sabina, 
 stroking her chin. "She is a girl of very 
 deep and strong feelings, and she needs some- 
 one to love her, and that she can love. She 
 feels that she has made a mess of her life ; she 
 is awfully ashamed of herself ; she'd give any- 
 thing to recall her mistakes, but she thinks, 
 like so many people, that the past not only 
 can't be recalled, but that one can't remedy 
 past errors. Of course, the whole history of 
 the human race proves the contrary, but that's
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 281 
 
 nothing. What a girl in her state of mind 
 wants is not the whole human race, but just 
 one man the right man, you understand." 
 
 " What does she mean to do ? " 
 
 " Oh, well, there's no telling what broken- 
 hearted women may do ; die, perhaps, or 
 go into a convent. ' ' 
 
 "Die? Oh! . . ." 
 
 "And yet, by a turn of the hand, she 
 might be made the happiest woman going ! " 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " By the right man, I tell you ! " 
 
 There was a long pause. Murgatroyd 
 slowly lifted his head and stared at Sabina as 
 a man on a desert island might try to make 
 out through the mists the outlines of a ship. 
 It must be admitted that Sabina did her best 
 to render those outlines distinct. 
 
 Suddenly he stood erect ; his face reddened 
 all over, and he drove his fist down heavily 
 against the table. 
 
 "I want to see Isabella," he said, in a 
 sort of deep shout ; "I want to go to her ! " 
 
 "You'll find her upstairs," said Sabina. 
 When he had gone she fetched a long breath, 
 wiped her temples with her handkerchief and 
 murmured, " By George ! "
 
 282 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 No available record of the interview be- 
 tween Isabella and Murgatroyd exists. 
 
 A year went by. The trial of the crim- 
 inals in the great conspiracy was somewhat 
 of a fiasco, and is not worth describing. In 
 the first place, Patrick Barrable succeeded in 
 committing suicide in jail. Then, the gov- 
 ernment decided not to allow Hemynge to 
 turn State's evidence. He was not actively 
 connected with the conspiracy ; but he was 
 convicted of embezzlement and was sen- 
 tenced to a term in State's Prison. Among 
 the audience that heard him condemned there 
 were few who sympathized with him ; per- 
 haps only one did so the aged woman whose 
 withered face watched him led away with 
 such a ghastly look. When the court ad- 
 journed she was led respectfully out by the 
 officers, hobbling feebly on her crutches. 
 Mrs. Dorothy Tiptoft's death was announced 
 a month later. There were long and reada- 
 ble obituaries, recounting her brilliant social 
 career, extending over more than seventy 
 years, from her debut to her death. The 
 Rev. Christopher Plukerose Agabag preached 
 her funeral sermon, and his wife shed tears 
 as she listened to him in the front pew. At 
 the St. Quentin Club, afterward, her innu-
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 283 
 
 merable witticisms, bright sayings, and hu- 
 morous anecdotes were recalled. To few 
 women is it allotted to live so long, so for- 
 tunate, and so happy a life. 
 
 With Hemynge's conviction the case 
 against the conspirators imperceptibly died 
 away. There seemed to be nobody to prose- 
 cute. It came to be thought that Blackmer 
 Risdon was no less noteworthy as a man of 
 imagination than as a news-getter. Society 
 settled quietly down again to its work, its 
 play, and its problems. There were gaps 
 in the ranks here and there, but they were 
 filled up and forgotten. Verinder Vyse and 
 Stukely Poyntell renewed their jousts of wit 
 at fashionable dinner-tables, not saying many 
 radically new things, perhaps, but giving a 
 fresh turn to the old, trustworthy ones. 
 Aubert Frewin painted a fine wall decoration 
 for the new court-house, representing a.fin- 
 de-siecle version of the Search for the Holy 
 Grail. He is making a great deal of money 
 by his excellent portraits. 
 
 Toward the end of this twelvemonth, 
 Murgatroyd Whiterduce gave a dinner to a 
 few of his old friends. He did not live in 
 the old Whiterduce mansion, but in a much 
 smaller and more modest dwelling. In fact.
 
 284 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 Pynchepole Whiterduce's fortune turned out 
 to be very much smaller than had been 
 supposed. He must have expended enor- 
 mous sums on his pet conspiracy, and Mur- 
 gatroyd was anything but respectful to what 
 remained. He bestowed large endowments 
 on various public and private institutions, 
 and built a fine college and theatre for the 
 especial behoof of musical and dramatic stu- 
 dents, who were instructed according to a 
 new method, whose ablest exponent, Mr. 
 Polydore Scamell, was made chief director. 
 Upon the whole, Murgatroyd had few at- 
 tractions to offer to fashionable society, and 
 his house was not overrun with its representa- 
 tives. 
 
 The guests upon the present occasion were 
 Miss Sabina Estengrewe, Dr. Horace Mayd- 
 well, Director Scamell, Mr. Gabriel Negus, 
 and, at the end of the evening, Miss Letitia 
 Valentine, who just dropped in for fifteen 
 minutes after the opera to sing one song 
 and drink a cup of hot bouillon. 
 
 " How many colleges have you endowed 
 altogether, Murgy ? ' ' asked Sabina. 
 
 " There's one I never endowed, though 
 it's the only one where you really learn any- 
 thing," he replied.
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 285 
 
 "What's that, the Reformatory?" in- 
 quired Letitia. 
 
 "The world ! " replied Murgatroyd, sol- 
 emnly. 
 
 ' ' Gracious ! Listen to the philosopher ! ' ' 
 exclaimed Sabina, with a laugh. " All the 
 world has taught me is the moral and pe- 
 cuniary value of women's tongues and that's 
 a thing that all women know by instinct. 
 What has it taught you? " 
 
 ' ' Well, I found the thing I care for most 
 in the place I cared least for, so I have come 
 to the conclusion that the only reason we 
 don't see good things everywhere is because 
 we haven't good eyes. If it hadn't been for 
 you, Sabina, I'd have missed seeing the one 
 thing on earth I was looking for hardest." 
 
 " Why, my dear, you talk in epigrams and 
 riddles, like a graduate of St. Quentin ! " 
 remarked Horace. 
 
 " There's one thing the world hasn't 
 taught Horace," put in Gabriel, sending 
 his slow, humorous glance round the circle. 
 "It hasn't taught him how to make hair 
 grow ! ' ' And he bowed forward in a noise- 
 less chuckle. 
 
 " That is a problem which no longer en- 
 grow-ses my attention," the witty doctor re-
 
 286 A FOOL OF NATURE 
 
 joined. "Well, I used to be an anarchist, 
 to some extent, but the affair in which all 
 the anarchists I ever knew got mixed up 
 turned out to be a despotism ; so I have 
 made up my mind to let things go as they 
 are. But I don't know as there's much of 
 a lesson in that. What is the secret of the 
 universe, Gabe ? You ought to know ! ' ' 
 
 " Well, folks pay me two dollars to tell 
 'em what's going to happen to 'em ; and I 
 do it," said the soothsayer, foldin'g his hands 
 over his stomach; "but the real secret of 
 the universe, as far as I could ever learn it, 
 is, that unless what's coming to folks happens 
 to be what they want they don't believe it 
 till after it's come! So, as far as practi- 
 cal results to them go, I reckon I'm two dol- 
 lars ahead of the game every trip ! " 
 
 " What is your philosophy, Poly? " asked 
 Horace ; " we'll have to diagnose the whole 
 gang, since we've begun ! " 
 
 "The world has taught me that there's 
 nothing like the method," the faithful Poly- 
 dore promptly responded ; " and now I'm 
 busy teaching it back to 'em ! " 
 
 " Well, your reply has one advantage it 
 confirms the general anticipation ! " Gabriel 
 observed. " But we haven't heard from our
 
 SO RUNS THE WORLD AWAY 287 
 
 good hostess yet," he added; "I guess 
 she'll be the one to ring the bell, after all ! " 
 
 "Oh, I'm only learning how to love my 
 husband and my baby," said Isabella, look- 
 ing round with a smile, which finally rested 
 upon Murgatroyd. 
 
 Sabina kissed her. Letitia jumped up, 
 saying: "Well, girls and boys, it's time I 
 was in bed ! ' ' and just then Sally Wintle 
 came in with the whiskey and seltzer.
 
 

 
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