i 
 
 THE DOUGLAS 
 ROMANCE 
 
 DOUGLAS SLADEN
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ' THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE.
 
 SOME OF 
 
 MR. DOUGLAS SLADEN'S 
 
 NOVELS. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE PYRAMIDS 
 
 9th Edition. 
 
 THE CURSE OF THE NILE 3th Edition 
 THE UNHOLY ESTATE 6th Edition 
 
 MY SON RICHARD 5 3rd Thousend 
 
 A JAPANESE MARRIAGE 122ndThoufland 
 THE ADMIRAL 52ndThousand 
 
 WHEN WE WERE LOVERS IN JAPAN 
 
 28th Thousand 
 
 SICILIAN LOVERS 37th Thousand 
 
 TRINCOLOX 37th Thousand 
 
 HIS GERMAN WIFE 4th Edition 
 
 Etc, Etc. 
 
 MR. SLADEN'S WAR BOOKS 
 
 Price i" net each 
 "GERMANY'S GREAT LIE "—TheOfficial 
 
 German Justification of the War Exposed 
 and Criticized by Douglas Sladen. 50lh 
 Thousand. 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF FREDERICK. 
 
 THE GREAT. King of Prussia, and 
 
 TREITSCHKE'S LIFE OF FREDERICK 
 THE GREAT, now for the first time 
 translated.
 
 The Douglas Romance 
 
 By Douglas Sladen 
 
 Author of "His German Wife,' "The Tragedy of the 
 Pyramids, " The Curse of the ^ile," " The Unholy 
 :: :: Sstate, " JJ Japanese 3Warriage,' etc., etc. :: 
 
 LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 VATERNOSTER ROW :: .•; 1916
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 The Right Honble. SIR HERBERT MAXWELL. 
 
 Baronet of Monreith, 
 
 D.C.L.. LL.D., F.R.S.. 
 
 Lord Lieutenant of Wigtownshire, etc.. etc.. 
 
 THE HISTORIAN OF THE HOUSE OF DOUGLAS, 
 
 To the study of whose works I owe the conception 
 
 of this book, and to whose help I owe its completion.
 
 SiH-oL 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. 
 
 II.- 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 v.- 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 XIII. 
 XIV. 
 
 XV.. 
 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 XXII. 
 
 -Introducing Mirabel Douglas 
 
 -Wanted — A Leading Lady . 
 
 -The Babylon Theatre 
 
 -The Lure of Mephistopheles 
 
 -Mirabel's Pact .... 
 
 -Journeys end in Lovers' Greeting 
 
 -Making Acquaintance . 
 
 -Mirabel sees "the Book" of "Mary 
 
 Queen of Scots " . 
 -Mirabel learns her Part . 
 -At Rehearsal .... 
 -The First Night of " Mary, Queen of 
 
 Scots " 
 
 -Home ...... 
 
 -Oliver Gray reflects 
 
 -Betty Farnol protests 
 
 -Oliver pays his First Call upon hi 
 
 Wife ..... 
 
 -A Babylon Dinner 
 -How Archie forced his way into 
 
 Mirabel's Dressing-room at the 
 
 Babylon ...... 
 
 -Mirabel's drive Home 
 
 -How Archie made Mir-\bel receive him 
 
 -The Heirs of the Black Douglas — Paula 
 
 WARNS Mirabel against Archie 
 -Enter the Countess of Douglas 
 -What Lady Douglas thought of 
 
 page 
 I 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 23 
 32 
 
 36 
 
 41 
 
 43 
 
 47 
 
 49 
 
 53 
 64 
 66 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 95 
 99 
 
 lOI 
 
 106 
 
 1X2 
 
 120
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XXIII. — Lady Douglas at Bolingbroke House 128 
 XXIV. — Mirabel's anxiety about the Elderly 
 
 Person , . . . . .137 
 
 XXV. — Enter The Douglas .... 141 
 
 XXVI. — The Rivals meet .... 159 
 
 XXVII. — At Lady Douglas's Salon . . . 164 
 XXVIII. — A Day of Surprises at Bolingbroke 
 
 House ...... 169 
 
 XXIX. — The War begins : How Oliver Gray 
 
 joined the Army . . . -173 
 
 XXX. — How Mirabel tried to realize herself 177 
 XXXI. — Round Table Fort and First Days in 
 
 the Army . . , . . .181 
 
 XXXII. — Barren Days ..... 191 
 
 XXXIII.— The C.S.A.S.A. and the W.R.O. . . 194 
 
 XXXIV. — The Storm : and an Angel's Visit . 197 
 
 XXXV. — How Mirabel became Gray's Fiancee 212 
 
 XXXVI. — How Mirabel visited the Mess . .216 
 
 XXXVII. — Archie's second invasion of Mirabel 232 
 
 XXXVIII. — Re-enter Lord Douglas as the Elderly 
 
 Relative . . . . . .236 
 
 XXXIX. — Respecting a White Lie . . . 240 
 XL. — Mirabel goes to Southampton to see 
 
 her Husband off .... 242 
 
 XLI. — A Stormy Voyage to France. . . 249 
 
 XLII. — En Route for the Front . . . 254 
 
 XLIII. — The Commonplaces of War . . . 258 
 
 XLIV. — Saying Good-bye to Archie . . 273 
 
 XLV.— " A Douglas ! A Douglas ! "—How 
 
 Archie fell ..... 276 
 
 XLVI. — How Captain O'Neill furthered 
 
 Archie's last request . . . 283 
 
 XLVII. — How Archie learned Mirabel's Secret 286 
 XLVIII. — How Mirabel broke the news of 
 
 Archie's death to his Parents . 289 
 
 XLIX. — Lord Douglas learns Mirabel's Secret 295 
 L. — How Oliver Gray, single-handed, 
 
 SAVED A British Trench . . . 302 
 LI. — How Oliver Gray possessed his Soul in 
 
 patience waiting for a Leg . . 307 
 LII. — How Lord Douglas went down to 
 
 Osborne to see Oliver Gray . . 318
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 LIII. — How Mirabel told her Husband that 
 
 SHE COULD NEVER LIVE WITH HIM AGAIN 32 1 
 
 LIV. — How Oliver Gray was a Guest at his 
 
 Wife's Receptions .... 325 
 LV. — How Paula discovered Mirabel's Secret 328 
 LVI. — Lord Douglas declares . . -331 
 
 LVII. — What Paula said to the Douglases and 
 
 Gray about the Secret . . . 333 
 
 LVni. — How Mirabel taxed Lord Douglas with 
 
 betraying her . . . . -339 
 
 LIX. — How Mirabel learned that it was Paula 
 who had divulged her Secret : and 
 how she lost her hold on life . 343 
 LX. — Dr. Cantelupe takes Mirabel to task . 349 
 LXI. — The Douglas Tragedy . . -351 
 
 LXII. — How Tara Treloar took the Divorce 
 
 INTO her own hands .... 357 
 
 LXHL — How Mirabel received the Divorce 
 
 Papers ...... 360 
 
 LXIV. — How Oliver and Mirabel Gray re- 
 ceived THEIR Divorce . . . 362 
 LXV^. — Dr. Cantelupe's Dilemma . . . 367 
 LXVI. — " The Uniform Girl " at the Babylon . 369 
 LXVII. — Captain John Gray, V.C. . . -372 
 LXVIIL — WoRBOYS intervenes .... 382 
 
 Chapter the Last. — Jamais Arri^rk , . . 389
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 You must understand that the twenty-fifth Earl of Douglas 
 who figures in this tale is the lineal descendant of the Good 
 Sir James Douglas — the famous Black Douglas, who forms, 
 with Robert the Bruce and Sir William Wallace, the great 
 triumvirate of Scotland's national heroes. 
 
 You must understand that he traces his descent through 
 James, son of Archibald, Earl of Moray (died 1455), and nephew 
 of James, ninth Earl of Douglas (died 1488), with whom the 
 senior line of Douglas was long supposed to have come to 
 an end, since nothing less than the stamping-out of the great 
 House, to whom Scotland owed her independence of England, 
 would satisfy the jealousy of the Stuart Kings. Twice 
 already had these Royal Jameses, by the assassination of 
 William, the sixth Earl, and his brother David, in 1440, and 
 William, the eighth Earl, in 1452, endeavoured to secure 
 the extinction of the Black Douglas. 
 
 This boy was secreted away, therefore, and lost to sight, 
 his inheritance being mostly handed over to the Red Douglas. 
 If the Red Douglas had stood by his Chief instead of by his 
 King, there is small doubt that The Douglas would have 
 secured the Throne of Scotland, out of the melting-pot into 
 which his nation, like other nations, was thrown at the end 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 And if the virile House of Douglas had been established on 
 the Scottish Throne, Scotland might have been an independent 
 kingdom yet — a debt from our Empire to the Stuarts which 
 has never been properly acknowledged.
 
 X FOREWORD 
 
 You must understand that the boy son of that Douglas 
 Earl of Moray, when restored to the Earldom of Douglas 
 by James v., made no claim to the Earldom of Moray, which 
 James had bestowed on his illegitimate son, receiving in 
 return the privilege of his Douglas Earldom being granted 
 to heirs general, and therefore transmissible by a daughter, 
 if sons failed — which did not once happen in the four centuries 
 between the restoration of the tentli Earl and the succession 
 of the twenty-fifth. 
 
 And you can readily understand, from the fact of fifteen 
 Earls going to these four centuries, that there was an unusual 
 number of minorities among the holders of the title, and that, 
 these minorities coinciding with the periods of great wars, the 
 later Earls of Douglas lost their place in history, like the 
 later Howards of Norfolk, from the days of James I. until 
 their revival in the days of Queen Victoria. 
 
 But in the Middle Ages the Black Douglas and the first 
 four Earls led the hosts of Scotland in their death-grapple 
 with the English, from the days of the Bruce to the days of 
 Harry Hotspur. 
 
 When the Scottish Kings broke the power of the Black 
 Douglas, they broke the power of Scotland with it. From that 
 time forth the great battles all went against the Scots. There 
 was no Black Douglas at Flodden or Solway or Musselburgh. 
 There was no Black Douglas at Dunbar ; there was no Black 
 Douglas of the fighting age for the Jacobite invasions of the 
 '15 and the '45 to lose his head or his title or his lands for 
 the Stuarts, who had been so ungrateful to his House. 
 
 You can therefore understand that the twenty-fifth Earl, 
 who, like the original Black Douglas, bears the name of 
 James, succeeded to a princely inheritance, as well as a family 
 history unequalled by that of any other family in the nobilities 
 of Europe, except his own junior line, which is still repre- 
 sented in the Peerage of Scotland by two Dukes, a Marquis, 
 and three Earls, who own between them six hundred thousand 
 acres of Scotland, as well as a good slice of England, where 
 there are two more Douglas Peers. 
 
 Besides the nine Douglas Peers, there are sundry Douglas 
 Baronets and Lairds, whose pedigrees and possessions go back 
 to the Middle Ages. All of them, like the Peers, spring from 
 the Knight of the Black Water, the fortunate brother of 
 Freskin, and contemporary of Richard Coeur de Lion.
 
 FOREWORD xi 
 
 One Douglas of the junior line married a Queen of Scotland, 
 who was the sister of the King of England, and from the 
 marriage of his grandson with Mary, Queen of Scots, have 
 sprung all the sovereigns of the United Kingdom. His 
 descendant by another wife is Premier Peer of Scotland and 
 Duke in England, Scotland and France. Two Earls of the 
 elder line were Sovereign-Dukes of Touraine in France ; 
 there is a Duke of Touraine and Douglas still, but not in our 
 Peerage. Several Earls of both lines married the daughters 
 of their Sovereigns, and one Red Douglas of the last century 
 married the daughter of a German Sovereign. 
 
 The Douglas Romance is the Romance of Mirabel Douglas, 
 the cousin, and, since, the heir of the twenty-fifth Earl ; of 
 his son, the late Lord Avondale, who, by the older usage of 
 the House, would have styled himself Master of Douglas ; 
 aud of Oliver Gray, Junior, who is the owner and manager 
 of the Babylon Theatre, where Mirabel Douglas made her 
 debut as the leading lady. And in the Romance The Douglas 
 himself plays no little part, down to the beginning of the 
 present year. 
 
 Having made this explanation about the descendants of 
 the " Good Sir James of Douglas," who carried the heart of 
 the Bruce, I will leave the reader to peruse their Romance. 
 But I must digress one moment to add an Englishman's 
 tribute to the splendour of Scotland's achievement in the 
 present war. For while Scotland has furnished us with Haigs 
 and Monros and Robertsons to lead us, she has poured into 
 our ranks the whole of her fighting manhood, who, in their 
 military virtues, are to Britain what the Prussians are to 
 Germany. To use the phraseology of the Bible, which never 
 falls strangely upon Scottish ears, the Empire, in response 
 to its call for men, might say : "I was an hungered, and ye 
 gave me meat." 
 
 I take this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness 
 to Sir Herbert Maxwell's fascinating " History of the House 
 of Douglas," which gave me the conception of this romance, 
 and to his personal help in making clear the points in the 
 story of the Black Douglas about which I was in doubt. 
 
 Also to Mr. W. A. Lindsay, K.C., D.L., Peerage Counsel and 
 Windsor Herald, for very valuable information about the 
 pedigree of the Earls of Douglas and the exceptional use ol 
 the title Master of Douglas by an Earl's son.
 
 XII 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 And I am indebted in a similar way to the undisputed 
 monarch of musical comedy, whom I cross-examined as to the 
 possibihty of my various green-room episodes. 
 
 And, last but not least, to the gallant soldiers recently 
 returned from the fighting line in France, who gave me the 
 material for my battle scenes and criticized them before 
 they went to the printer. 
 
 Douglas Sladen. 
 
 The Avenue House, Richmond, Surrey. 
 Leap Year Day, 191G. 
 
 The Douglas Shield.
 
 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCING MIRABEL DOUGLAS 
 
 THE Villa Visconti, with its tired old arches framing the 
 sky on a rocky headland, is the loveliest spot on 
 Lake Como. A winding stair connects its hanging gardens, 
 and leads down to an old walled harbour, with a worn stone 
 saint guarding its entrance. The crimson of its oleanders 
 flames far down the lake. 
 
 Day after day, on an antique marble bench by the harbour 
 steps, sat a girl, with southern beauty and glorious black 
 hair, as if she dreamed that a fairy prince would arrive for 
 her some day, if only she were ready to spring into his 
 boat, when he came. 
 
 A woman's longings had come to her, and she was growing 
 weary of a lonely life in the midst of so much loveliness. To 
 her a perfect marriage meant perfect bliss, and her beautiful 
 Itahan mother, herself a Visconti, had told her that she 
 must never look for bliss with an Italian husband, and made 
 her turn a deaf car to the charming young princes and counts 
 who came to their villas on the lake in the summer (and set 
 a high standard for fairy princes in their exteriors), though 
 she welcomed their society as a relief from her own company. 
 
 She had been very lonely since her mother died, for her 
 grandmother, who came to keep house for them, was more 
 frightened for her than her mother had been, since the 
 modest inheritance which would be hers, added to her beauty, 
 made her a prize to poor Italian nobles. Mirabel knew only 
 too well what an unhappy marriage meant, for it was her 
 Scottish father's neglect which had driven her mother to 
 the grave, and he came of the race which attaches most
 
 2 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 sanctity to marriage. Now he was so occupied \\dth his 
 gambHng and his friendship for Ginevra, a woman who 
 had given up a high position in the opera at La Scala to be 
 the favourite of the late Duke of Lombardy, that he was 
 almost a stranger to her. 
 
 But it was to Ginevra that she owed her being allowed to 
 live in her grandmother's apartment at Milan in the winter 
 to attend the Conservatorium, and the Conservatorium 
 promised her another of her dreams, a position in opera, 
 like Ginevra had held ; for she had a glorious voice. 
 
 Mirabel worked at her singing and dramatic courses with 
 ardour and delight, until at the end of the second winter 
 she discovered that she had been allowed to go to the Con- 
 servatorium solely because it gave her father more freedom 
 with Ginevra. 
 
 Then she withdrew from it, to return no more, in spite of 
 the protests of the professors at losing a pupil who, with 
 such a voice and such beauty, might come within an ace 
 of being a prima donna. 
 
 When she went back to the Lake with another dream gone 
 she was very bitter. 
 
 She did not upbraid her father : it would only have 
 resulted in her losing the little of him which she still retained. 
 But she sat and brooded on the GinevTas and all their works. 
 The serpent had stolen into her Eden. She had lost her old 
 joy in the green mountains which came down to the lake, 
 with the white Alps behind them ; in the league-long lines 
 of oleanders, which flashed their crimson on both shores ; 
 in the old-world villages, with arcades overhanging the 
 water ; in the villas which recalled the villas of the ancient 
 Romans, with their colonnades and fountains, half hidden 
 in thickets of jessamine and roses, and their broad flights of 
 old grey steps sweeping down to the lake ; in the vineyards 
 and gardens of olives, and groves of solemn chestnuts above 
 them ; in the gay head-kerchiefs and lovely faces of the 
 young peasant women, who swung down the hill-paths with 
 such perfect grace, carrying baskets of great ruddy peaches 
 on their heads ; or in the big brown boats, with shapes and 
 sails which belonged to the youth of the world. 
 
 She could think of them no more because the vision of the 
 baleful Ginevra hung over the lake like the brigand, who 
 was a Pope's brother, in the days of yore.
 
 INTRODUCING MIRABEL DOUGLAS 3 
 
 And so she lived on, in a home which was as beautiful as 
 any in the world, but yet was no home, till her father died, 
 leaving her a small competence. Then, without hesitation, 
 she determined to go to England, to try and win fame upon 
 the stage, partly for its own sake, partly because success there 
 would give her the chance of meeting the husband of her 
 dreams. 
 
 Her grandmother, who was an old woman, and was con- 
 scious that a Visconti, not over-endowed with this world's 
 goods, would not count for the same in London as in Lom- 
 bardy, refused to go with her. So she followed the advice 
 of an English girl she had met while studying at the Con- 
 servatorium, who recommended her to go through a course 
 at the Royal Lyceum of Music in London, before she 
 attempted to go on the London stage. 
 
 " I was there," said LiUan ffoulkes, " and I can give you 
 a letter to the principal. Dr. Cantelupe, and one or two 
 of my friends who haven't left yet. I don't think you'll 
 learn anj'thing in music, but they have a dramatic depart- 
 ment, where you can get some training as an actress. It will 
 make a great difference to you when you are applying for 
 a part, if you have the Lyceum to fly to for protection, in 
 case you run across horrid people, besides having someone 
 to give you references." 
 
 Mirabel Douglas thought she could take care of herself. 
 But she caught at tlie word " references." 
 
 " Do you think that their references could count more 
 than those of the Conservatorium of Milan ? " she asked 
 sceptically. 
 
 " Well, if you want to go in for musical comedy, as you 
 say you do, I'm certain that they would ! Are you ' death 
 on ' musical comedy ? " 
 
 " It was dear old Regalbuto at the Conservatorium who 
 put the idea into my head. He used to say : * You might 
 get into grand opera, Signorina Mirabella, but the people who 
 knew would always say that j^ou were not ' strong ' enough 
 for it. But in musical comedy, with your voice and 3'our 
 appearance and your simpatica, you might be the queen.' " 
 
 " Did Signor Regalbuto say that ? " asked Lilian excitedly. 
 
 " Yes, often." 
 
 " Well, that's something to go on, because he was a singer's 
 agent in London before he came to Milan." 
 
 I*
 
 4 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Thus it was that Mirabel Douglas found herself a student 
 at the Royal Lyceum of Music in London. If she had gone 
 to the Royal College of Music, it is not hkely that her light 
 would have remained long under a bushel. But the Lyceum, 
 though the personality of Dr. Cantelupe was soon to work 
 wonders there, was not yet the equal of either the College 
 or the Academy. Managers did not look to it. Its attractive 
 announcements about a dramatic department had only 
 caught Mirabel because she had always lived in Italy, and 
 did not know the status of the various musical institutions 
 in London. 
 
 As it happened, its dramatic instruction was very good, 
 because, for reasons of economy, the head of its department, 
 Professor Rhodes, was a person of no name as an actor, who 
 really understood his business, instead of a well-known 
 actor, engaged as an advertisement, who would give it as 
 little time and trouble as he might. 
 
 He was, of course, enchanted with Mirabel, in whom he felt 
 that he had a pupil who would take London by storm. 
 
 Her voice and her personality were enchanting, and she 
 had a wonderful presence, for her figure and movements were 
 full of the grace of Italy ; her great eloquent Sicilian eyes, 
 of iron-grey, which looked blue in some lights and black in 
 others, and her shining raven hair drew attention to the 
 beauty of her face and its expression ; and she had the 
 caressing smile and soft, alluring laugh which the women of 
 the South have inherited from Circe, " the daughter of the 
 Sun." 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WANTED — A LEADING LADY 
 
 MIRABEL'S course at the Royal Lyceum was coming 
 to a close, when one day Dr. Cantelupe drew her 
 attention to an advertisement which was appearing in a 
 large number of papers. 
 
 " Wanted : a leading lady for the new musical comedy to 
 be produced at the Babylon Theatre. — Apply, the Manager." 
 
 " You ought to try for this," he said. " From the plays 
 I have seen there, I don't fancy that their leading ladies
 
 WANTED— A LEADING LADY 5 
 
 require to have had much experience in acting ; I have 
 never seen one who could act. And you have an unusually 
 good voice — and, may I say it, dear Miss Douglas ? — an 
 unusually attractive appearance ! " 
 
 Mirabel smiled indulgently, and asked how she should set 
 about applying for it. 
 
 " We can give you testimonials of the highest class," he 
 said. " I can honestly recommend you for the post. And, 
 for the rest, I don't think that you can do anything better 
 than go to the theatre and wait your turn." 
 
 Several of the students, girls as well as men, asked her if 
 she had seen the advertisement, and suggested that she 
 should apply. She was a general favourite, on account of 
 her beauty and unselfishness ; her voice was the pride of the 
 Lyceum. It was significant that none of the other girls 
 dreamed of applying if she was a candidate. 
 
 On the morning appointed she made her way to the 
 Babylon Theatre, and was shown into the office of Mr. Macca- 
 baeus, the assistant manager, who was entrusted with the 
 task of weeding out the applicants — solely, as it seemed, by 
 personal appearance — for he examined them critically from 
 head to foot, and made no suggestion of trying their voices. 
 Those of whom he approved he asked to step into the adjoin- 
 ing room, and Mirabel was among them. 
 
 She felt very ill at ease in that waiting-room, for the 
 others were, without exception, beauties of the old musical- 
 comedy type, very stagej- and ultra-fashionably dressed, but 
 mostly very attractive in their colouring — natural or 
 otherwise. 
 
 She was the last to be called into the managerial sanctum, 
 because they were all known to fame on the " musical stage." 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BABYLON THEATRE 
 
 THE Babylon Theatre, Trafalgar Square, was built in 
 a style which was a vulgar, if impressive, travesty 
 of Babylonian architecture. It had a Babylonian tower at 
 each corner of its facade. Each tower contained a lift and 
 a spiral staircase, one communicating with the theatre offices
 
 6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 and the other with the proprietor's flat, both of which were 
 built on the roof of the theatre, and commanded admirable 
 views of the Thames, the Embankment, and London's 
 chimneys and church towers. 
 
 The theatre belonged to a certain " Oliver Gray, Junior," 
 who had not long left Oxford when, by the murder of his 
 father, he became the king of musical comedy. 
 
 He had been christened John, not OUver, but when he 
 succeeded to the business, yielding to the advice of Ticknor 
 and Fields, the great theatrical lawyers, because the name 
 " Oliver Gray " was worth so much from the business point 
 of view, he decided to conduct his business under the name 
 of " OUver Gray, Junior," his nickname at Oxford, where he 
 had derived importance in the fast set from his connection 
 with a theatre so attractive to the gilded youth. 
 
 Mr. Gray sat in his office, which had four doors ; one led 
 into his secretary's room, one into the hall of the offices, one 
 into the hall of his own apartments, and one into the study 
 adjoining his dressing-room, which contained a private 
 telephone, and the phonographs into which he dictated, if 
 he had letters to answer after hours. 
 
 The office in which he transacted his business was a very 
 large room, with walls decorated in the Babylonian style. 
 This did not inconvenience him, because he needed no books 
 or pictures, but the idea was one of his father's Barnum 
 touches. There was nothing in the room except a large 
 table, also intended to be Babylonian, with writing materials, 
 and various sumptuous arm-chairs, which buried their castors 
 in a luxurious Turkey carpet. The deeper and more sump- 
 tuous a chair was, the more a woman displayed her ankles, 
 and if a woman does not possess neat ankles, her other 
 qualifications for musical comedy must be very special. 
 
 When Mirabel Douglas was shown into the room, she saw 
 sitting at the table a most charming-looking man, much 
 under thirty, slim, well groomed, with a very fair complexion, 
 which was the picture of cleanliness and health — in fact, a 
 well-bred man, who looked as if he had spent his life in active 
 sports. 
 
 There was nothing to suggest the theatrical manager with 
 a reputation for " affairs." Any faint suggestion of influence 
 over women which there was about him was much more 
 noticeable in the Guards' officers who frequented his stalls.
 
 THE BABYLON THEATRE 7 
 
 He rose and came forward to shake hands and show her 
 into the chair which, from the direction of the hght, enabled 
 him to study the physical qualifications of his applicants 
 best. 
 
 Mirabel had walked up from the Royal Lyceum, and as 
 it was a wet day, and she wished to take care of her voice, 
 she had on a favourite rain-proof coat and skirt of silvery- 
 grey cord — silver was her colour — and boots which would 
 stand rain, very ladyhke and beautifully laced. 
 
 When he went back to his seat he took in at a glance the 
 grace of her limbs, and the fact that the rain had been allowed 
 to beat on her clear, colourless cheeks. 
 
 Now it so happened that the applicants who had been 
 interviewing him during the past hour were, most of them, 
 very painted ladies, very florid about their feet, and with 
 cascades of chiffons in their costumes, who had made him 
 shudder with their notions of charm and chic. 
 
 When he contrasted them with this woman, of the class 
 he had met when staying with his Eton and Oxford friends, 
 looking, with her rain-freshened face, as if she had just come 
 in from a round of golf, he felt as if he had suddenly stepped 
 out of the darkness and foul air of a cinema hall into the 
 sunshine of an April afternoon. 
 
 She, at all events, must be tried. He asked her what she 
 could give him to show her powers. She suggested the waltz- 
 song from The Merry Widow. He blew down for Farini, his 
 accompanist, and Stradella, the wonderful Italian who 
 invented the dances and rehearsed the dancing of his pieces 
 for him. Stradella knew every part in every musical comedy 
 — not the words of any of them, but the action, just what 
 you would see in a cinema — and, of course, the music. 
 
 The accompanist, like Stradella, was a Milanese, and they 
 were filled with verve when she gave them their instructions 
 in Italian wliich was not only fluent, but was the language 
 of Lombardy. 
 
 There was no mistaking the result. She could sing 
 gloriously — if not with the greatness demanded by grand ' 
 opera, at any rate with the sympathy and coquetry which 
 are more necessary for musical comedy. Her coquetries 
 with Stradella were reinforced by a stream of arch whispers 
 in Italian. 
 
 Dancing presented more difficulties. The fact that she
 
 8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 did the waltz with uncommon grace was not sufficient for 
 impressing " Oliver Gray, Junior," since she only waltzed 
 as she would in a drawing-room, without the brilliant trick- 
 dancing, which is the feature of the waltz-scene as it was 
 given at Daly's. And the scene was falling rather flat 
 without it, when Stradella, whose soul she had captured, and 
 who was on tenterhooks lest she should not get the post, 
 cried : "La tarantella, Contessa, can you not dance la 
 tarantella ? " 
 
 "La tarantella? ah, si!" she replied, throwing herself 
 into a tarantella pose. " And play it as you would play for 
 the love of God and me ! " 
 
 " La tarantella ! " said Stradella to the accompanist in 
 Italian, grandly. 
 
 Farini, who was much attached to the ardent and whim- 
 sical Stradella, literally threw himself into the spirit of the 
 thing, and in a few minutes (jray, hlase as he was with 
 seeing beautiful and clever dancers exerting every wile to 
 win his approbation and get a post, could not contain his 
 admiration. 
 
 The tarantella is not so much a beautiful dance as one 
 which lends itself to individuality emd humour, and with the 
 accompanist straining every nerve to adapt himself to her 
 moods, Mirabel filled it with her glowing personality. 
 
 Stradella signed to the accompanist : the music died down. 
 Mirabel, panting and radiant, turned to Gray to see the 
 effect on him. 
 
 " Bravo ! " he cried. " Bravo ! You are immense ! " 
 " Am I good enough for the part ? " asked the practical 
 Mirabel. 
 
 " I think so," he said, with a smile which belied the hesita- 
 tion of the words. But the caution of habit arrested him, 
 and he added : "I'll write in a few days to give you a formal 
 decision. I may say that you are one of the selected 
 candidates." 
 
 Mirabel, anxious as she was to ^ei the post, could not 
 resist a feeling of relief at his hesitation, for it soothed an 
 apprehension she had experienced as she noticed the way 
 he was looking at her when she first sat down to be examined 
 and when she finished the tarantella and turned to him for his 
 approval. 
 
 It was his ■ artistic and professional appraise which she
 
 THE BABYLON THEATRE 9 
 
 sought, and she had found something very akin to sex- 
 interest mingled with it. Instinct told her to expect some 
 advance which she dreaded — and it had not come. Therefore 
 she was grateful. 
 
 The girls at the Royal Lyceum, when they heard that she 
 was going to apply for the prima-donnaship at the Babylon 
 Theatre, had laughingly warned her against Oliver Gray, 
 Junior. He was the most dangerous lady-killer in London, 
 they said. Rumour was for ever coupling his name with 
 this or the other beauty of his Cast or his Chorus. His 
 successes were notorious, for in addition to his wealth 
 and his power to push a girl in her theatrical career, he 
 was very good-looking, and had a most engaging 
 personality. 
 
 Mirabel did not realize the full significance of their 
 charges ; she thought they only refered to kissing. But 
 that was quite enough to disgust her. She thought it in- 
 famous of him to use his power in this way. That he should 
 enjoy any success of this sort with her was unthinkable. 
 She told herself that these women, who gave in to him, 
 were of common origin, without traditions of dignity and 
 the spur of honour to rouse their mettle, while she, a Douglas, 
 whose ancestors had resisted kings at the head of their 
 armies, could maintain her own. 
 
 If she received the post, and he afterwards forced himself 
 on her, she would throw it up at once. What the law said 
 about contracts she did not know and did not care. At all 
 events, his behaviour would come out in the courts, and the 
 law must take her side then — she told herself. 
 
 None of her friends in the Royal L3^ceum knew Oliver 
 Gray by sight, and Mirabel had pictured to herself a sleek and 
 particularly gorgeous Jew, turned out to perfection in the 
 full dress of the Stock Exchange. 
 
 In this, at least, she was disappointed. Nothing could 
 have looked less like a Jew than Oliver Graj^ with his short 
 straight nose, short upper lip, ruddy colouring and merry 
 blue eyes. He looked like one of the young Grenadiers who 
 thronged the stalls at the Babylon, and furnished the models 
 of the heroes in most of its pieces. He was dressed in tweeds, 
 with the vague suggestion of sport which distinguishes well- 
 dressed men. 
 
 He was, on the contrary, charmingly respectful and
 
 10 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 considerate. But she could not be unconscious of the fact 
 that he did let his admiration for her person be seen, when 
 she had finished her tarantella, and appealed to his verdict. 
 
 No sooner had she left the room than the Chief, as they 
 called him in the theatre, turned to Stradella and said : 
 " If I engage her, can't you do something to improve her 
 dancing ? That tarantella business is all very well, but you 
 couldn't ask Mary, Queen of Scots, to dance a tarantella in 
 the presence of John Knox, and there's no suggestiveness 
 about her dancing — the stalls simply wouldn't stick it," 
 
 " Suggestiveness is just another name for what you couldn't 
 expect of her," said Mr. Maccabaeus, always known as old Mac. 
 He was accustomed to express himself freely, and Gray, 
 though at first he did not like it, even from his father's right- 
 hand man, had now recognized its utiUty. Old Mac greatly 
 disliked the relations which had existed between the Chief 
 and his last two leading ladies, because the ladies tended to 
 get out of hand. 
 
 " Well, Chief," he continued, " if you're really in earnest 
 about introducing a romantic element into our pieces, I 
 don't see that Miss Douglas needs this kind of dancing. 
 We've never had such a voice at the Babylon before, and she 
 has the makings of a much better actress than we generally 
 get, and as for the dancing — old Strad admits that she can 
 waltz A I, and the ' Widow ' and ' Waltz Dream ' show that 
 we can manage perfectly well with waltzing, if she can't 
 do the other thing." 
 
 " Won't," said Oliver. 
 
 " Well, won't, if you like, and small blame to her ! " said 
 old Mac. " If it's only a leading lady you want, I say you've 
 got her — it's Mary, Queen of Scots, we're looking for, not a 
 Columbine ! " 
 
 " What do you think about it, Strad ? " asked Gray. 
 
 " Well, I don't think you want the dancing more ' popular ' 
 in character than they had it in the ' Waltz Dream ' — not for 
 this piece, which is going to be history." 
 
 " You think she'd do, then ? What do you say, Mac ? " 
 
 " Well, I shouldn't call her an actress, but I don't consider 
 that you've ever had an actress in this theatre. I think 
 she'll draw the public." 
 
 " Even the first four rows ? " 
 
 " Oh. they're all right. They're so biases, that if they
 
 THE BABYLON THEATRE ii 
 
 can't see where a woman's wickedness comes in, they think 
 she must be all the more wicked ! " 
 
 " And do you consider that's all they come for ? " 
 
 " Beauty and Badness — what more ? " 
 
 " And you, Strad ? " 
 
 " Well, dancing doesn't only consist of dancing, and in her 
 movements Miss Douglas is top-hole ! " 
 
 " Then you both think that I ought to have her ? " 
 
 " I should," said Old Mac. " If you advertised because 
 you want to give them something fresh, she's the one." 
 
 Gray thought so, too. It was ultra-important that for 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, one of the most beautiful and romantic 
 figures in history, he should choose a woman with whom the 
 audiences would fall in love, as he had done. That they 
 would share his sentiments he had no doubt. Her black 
 hair, and her great Sicilian eyes, which had such depths of 
 tragedy latent in them, though her face was transformed with 
 mirth when it broke into the exquisite laugh of the Italian 
 beauty, would make her a truly romantic figure for the 
 Queen of Mischance. And being a lady with distinction of 
 manner counted also. Mary, Queen of Scots, must look a 
 lady. It would be easy to spread the impression through 
 the newspapers, he told himself, that Mirabel was one of 
 the Douglases, who had played such a part round the Scottish 
 throne since the days of the Bruce. If it was not a fact it 
 was of no consequence. 
 
 Yes, she was just what the theatre required. And he — he 
 wanted to possess her more than any woman he had ever 
 met. There was but one way to do it. He had only to 
 look at Mirabel to know that she would not be what Tara 
 had been to him. 
 
 That one way was to marry her. It would make her his. 
 And she would be a help rather than a hindrance to his 
 retaining his intimacy with his Eton friends, who could not, 
 if he married the ordinary musical-comedy star, go on seeing 
 so much of him as they had while he was a bachelor. So he 
 dismissed Old Mac and Stradella and took up his pen to 
 write, a very rare thing with him. 
 
 He was not vain enough to think that Mirabel's assent was 
 an assured thing. But he could offer her a dazzling career, 
 and he hoped that she would not consider marriage too high 
 a price for this. He wrote her a brief note :
 
 12 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " The Babylon Theatre, S.W., 
 
 " Monday, August — ih, 1913. 
 " Dear Miss Douglas, 
 
 " Could you call on Thursday afternoon at 4.0 p.m. 
 to discuss terms ? 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " Oliver Gray, Junior." 
 
 She wrote back : 
 
 " 100, Clareville Studios, 
 
 " Gloucester Road, S.W., 
 
 " Tuesday, August ■ — th, 1913. 
 " Dear Mr. Gray, 
 
 " I would much rather that the question of terms ' 
 should be left to Dr. Cantelupe. We can discuss anything 
 else. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " Mirabel Douglas." 
 
 To which he sent her a reply by special messenger : 
 
 " Please keep the appointment. There are other points 
 to settle besides salary, penalties, and length of engagement. 
 
 " O. G." 
 
 To which she sent back a line by the messenger : 
 " Very well ; I will come.— M. D." 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 
 
 MIRABEL had a great belief in her future, yet she dared 
 not believe that it was true that she, who had never 
 acted in public, except at the gala night of the Conservatorium 
 of Singing at Milan — and that in Italian — was to be the 
 leading lady at the great Babylon Theatre ! It was too good 
 to be true. She registered a vow not to tell her friends.
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 13 
 
 But the girls of the college were far too excited about it 
 to let her rest in silence. She had to admit that she was one 
 of the selected candidates, and it was incredible to them that 
 anyone would be prefered to their idol — their lovely, gifted 
 Mirabel, who was as unselfish about competitions as she 
 was about money. 
 
 On the Thursday, when she went to Oliver Gray's office, 
 she was shown straight in, and found herself alone with him. 
 He received her very courteously, but almost shyly,^ which 
 gratified her, and asked where she would sit. There was a 
 chair on the opposite side of the writing table from where he 
 sat ; she took that. He seemed rather disconcerted, and 
 begged her to choose something more comfortable. 
 
 " No, I'll take this chair," she said, " for I have to be very 
 .business-like." 
 
 He grew more uncomfortable. At that close range those 
 eyes of hers seemed to look through him, and he had a difficult 
 explanation to make. 
 
 He was conscious that she must have heard of his reputation 
 as a libertine. His intuition told him that he was dealing 
 with an impulsive woman ; but as she sat there, she was 
 cool and guarded, afraid to be enthusiastic, even about the 
 magnificent prospect which he was opening up before her. 
 He remembered how expansive Tara had been when the post 
 was offered to her. 
 
 The ladies of the Babylon had a large acquaintance amongst 
 the officers of His Majesty's Guards, and lived like rich women. 
 They did say that one of the Guards' regiments took the 
 front row of the stalls by the season, for the privilege of going 
 behind the scenes. 
 
 It was plain that the woman before him did not belong to 
 this school of actress, but to the new school, which passes 
 into private life the moment it leaves the stage door, and not 
 infrequently makes a parade of domesticity. It was the 
 first time that one had invaded the Babylon, which flourished 
 on the wages of sin. Nor under ordinary circumstances would 
 she have stood any chance of acceptance. The Babylon 
 Theatre had not sought the rewards of virtue. It had been 
 willing to let Virtue retain them as its own. 
 
 But Oliver Gray had fallen in love with Mirabel, and he 
 felt a conviction that his patrons would like the novelty, 
 and he judged that she might be sufficiently ambitious and
 
 14 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 in love with her Art to be determined to captivate the pubhc, 
 if she was indifferent or averse to captivating him. Her 
 coolness made him covet her the more, since it made the 
 situation more difficult. 
 
 As is usual with men when they have something very 
 important to say, he avoided the point and wasted time 
 on asking questions so unimportant that Mirabel began to 
 think him as fussy as an old maid. 
 
 In despair of his getting to the point, she interrupted him 
 at last with the plain question : " Have you decided which 
 of the selected candidates is to have it ? " 
 
 " Well, yes, in a way," he said slowly. " I have decided 
 in your favour. But it depends on a condition." 
 
 " And that condition is . . . ? " 
 
 " That you should marry me." 
 
 " That I should marry you ! . . . and what on earth has 
 that to do with it ? " 
 
 " Simply that I can make you the greatest musical- 
 comedy actress of the day, and I don't wish to do it unless 
 you are mine." 
 
 Her anger rose. A rich crimson poured into her clear 
 white cheeks. She looked superbly handsome. . . . She did 
 not caxe if her words cost her the post — she was so furious 
 at what she took him to mean. 
 
 " So you consider that your royal patronage can make 
 me a star in musical comedy ! — that you have only to say 
 it, and the thing is done . . . but you won't say it unless I 
 sell myself to you as 3'our wife ? " 
 
 " Do 3'ou think you're being fair to me. Miss Douglas ? " 
 he asked quietly. 
 
 She looked him over coolly, almost insolently. If he 
 had not been in love with her, he would have closed the 
 interview and the whole matter. 
 
 " No, I don't think I am ; but I don't see what else your 
 words can mean ! " 
 
 " Will you listen fairly to what I am going to say ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, but her voice sounded unconvinced. 
 
 " Well, if you were taking the leading part at the Babylon 
 to-night, the audience might be charmed with your looks 
 and your voice and your coquetries, but as an actress you 
 would be a dead failure. You know nothing of the stage 
 tricks of musical comedy, you know nothing of how to play
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 15 
 
 upon the appreciation of the various elements, which com- 
 pose a Babylon audience. The mere gazing from a brilh- 
 antly-hghted stage into the darkness of the auditorium, the 
 having to speak at people whom you could not see might 
 upset you, and so might the large number of people with 
 whom at intervals you would have to act on my stage. 
 Stage artifices and pretences count for a lot in musical 
 comedy ; improvising to suit the temper of the house counts 
 for a good deal, though not so much for you as for the 
 low comedians. I can't act ' for nuts ' myself, but I've 
 brought the training of my leading ladies down to a fine 
 point." 
 
 " You mean that it is the training you can give me which 
 will make my success ? " 
 
 " Added to your natural gifts and the position." 
 
 " Well, I can understand that, but I don't see what it 
 has to do with my marrying you." 
 
 " There are only two holds you can have on a leading lady, 
 and marriage is the only one which applies to you. Other- 
 wise the moment a contract is up, when she has arrived at 
 her best, America takes her. America can afford bigger 
 salaries than we can, now that leading actors and actresses 
 go to the Halls. Their combination of ' variety houses ' is 
 wonderful. They can give prices which we can't touch. 
 They've got Tara, and they have Daphne Duveen, who was 
 my leading lady before her." 
 
 " And you want to deprive me of these chances ? " 
 
 " I can pay you as much as any actress has a right to 
 desire, and I want to keep you at my theatre. You under- 
 stand now, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes. I think I do." 
 
 " Will you marry me, then ? The post is yours if you 
 will." 
 
 " I don't think that there's the least chance of it, but if 
 you like, I will delay my answer for twenty-four hours to 
 find out more about you." 
 
 " Oh, well, you won't have any difficulty about that ! 
 Get to know Mrs. Candour of ' The Talk of the Town,' and 
 she'll give you all the reasons you want for not marrying 
 me, inside of half an hour." 
 
 " I am not the kind of woman who listens to scandal," 
 said Mirabel proudly. " But you must understand that
 
 1 6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 I am as eager about my life as I am about my Art. A woman 
 with as many attractive points as I have— I think I may 
 say that without conceit — has a right to expect an ideal 
 marriage, with a husband whom she can appreciate, and 
 who will appreciate her. I have enough money to keep 
 me from want, and I shall make money in my profession. 
 Anything my husband makes will be to the good. But I 
 will have a happy married life. I will not sell the happi- 
 ness of my home." 
 
 " I will make you happy — I swear it ! " 
 
 " I want to find out what the chances of that are. If 
 they are favourable, I shall marry you. If they are not, 
 and you stick to your resolution, I suppose you will have 
 to find another leading lady ? " 
 
 " Don't let's imagine anything so awful until we find 
 that it's a certainty. In the interval, will you trust a bad 
 man sufficiently to come into his fiat, and have a cup of 
 tea ? " 
 
 She smiled. " I'm not afraid of anything except doing 
 what I may live to regret. I should hke to see the home 
 which I am invited to share." 
 
 He opened the door which led into his hall, traversed the 
 hall, and opening another door, small and rirched, ushered 
 her into the most extraordinary drawing-room she had 
 ever seen. It had no windows ; and instead of a ceihng 
 it had a huge glass cupola, which had a gallery seven feet 
 wide running round it about fifteen feet from the ground, 
 and leaving an opening about fifteen feet in diameter. The 
 gallery, which was furnished with tables and chairs and 
 lounges, commanded wonderful views of London's roofs 
 and spires, and a fine bit of the Thames, and it could be 
 entered from below by a steep, straight staircase, not two 
 feet wide, and panelled on each side with carved and inlaid 
 dark wood, which had once led up to the pulpit of a mosque 
 in Cairo. 
 
 The drawing-room itself had its walls and the underside 
 of its gallery, which was supported by Moorish arches, 
 covered with gilt and fretted plaster work, copied from the 
 Alhambra. It was furnished with luxurious divans and 
 rare old Eastern rugs, and every species of costly Arab and 
 Persian bric-a-brac. It was intended to present, and it 
 presented, the ne plus ultra of Arab luxury. And the
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 17 
 
 absence of windows, which was to shut out London sights 
 and sounds, completed the illusion. 
 
 " I have had tea laid up in the gallery. Most people 
 enjoy the novelty of taking it in the midst of London's roofs 
 and steeples, but we can easilj^ have it moved down here 
 if you like." 
 
 " Oh, no, • upstairs, please ! " said Mirabel, almost 
 querulously. 
 
 He looked at her in surprise. She did not notice the 
 look — she was preoccupied with her own thoughts. That 
 drawing-room gave her the idea of a harem, and brought to 
 her mind all that the girls had told her of his reputation. 
 She almost gasped to be up in the sunshine of the gallery, 
 surrounded by honest London chimneys. 
 
 " You are quite right," he said. " I hate this room in 
 the daytime. It makes you feel so boxed up, only to have 
 a skylight, for that's what the cupola comes to ! It's one 
 of the governor's ideas. The scenic artist was seldom out 
 of his thoughts." 
 
 She was a little mollified by his tone, though the drawing- 
 room had made a very bad impression. But she did not 
 allow this to interfere with the natural graciousness of 
 manner which had made her popular with tlie Italian 
 aristocracy who had villas round Lake Como. 
 
 He was surprised that the sort of conversation, which 
 had often won him the reputation of a good talker in smart 
 houses, fell flat with her, till she mentioned that she had 
 lived most of her life in Italy. And this gave him an opinion 
 of Italy (concerning which he knew nothing), more applicable 
 to the Balkans. 
 
 His ignorance amused, though it bored her. To escape 
 from it, she said, " What do you do for exercise ? " 
 
 " Pretty nearly everything, except cricket and football. 
 I gave them up when I left Oxford. I don't race, because 
 I prefer to do my plunging on musical comedies, but I hunt 
 a bit in winter, because I shouldn't have the face to go to 
 my country place if I didn't. Everybody golfs and tennises 
 and boats a bit." 
 
 " Are you fond of sport ? " she asked suddenly. 
 
 " Of course I am ! A day never seems a day to me 
 unless I've pla3'ed something in it — if it is only a game of 
 biUiards."
 
 1 8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " And you shoot and fish ? " 
 
 " That's hke hunting — you've got to do it, or you lose 
 the respect of 3'our neighbours ! I'm rather good at pigeons, 
 not far from the first flight." 
 
 He was, in fact, a very noted shot at the Gun Club, to 
 which he often motored down. He liked the shooting, and 
 he gambled heavily on it ; gambling never affected his 
 nerve. 
 
 The conversation about sport soon flagged, because she 
 knew no more about sport than he knew about Italy. 
 
 Partly for something to say, partly because it interested 
 him to learn as much as he could about this beautiful and 
 fascinating woman, he asked if she had any people in London. 
 She had told him that she was living in a studio, when he 
 asked for her address. 
 
 " My father and mother are dead," she replied, " and I 
 haven't a relation in London that I've ever seen." 
 
 " Then — you will excuse my saying so — but a woman 
 who is as beautiful as you are, and intends to make her 
 living in musical comedy, ought to be married." 
 
 " One for me and two for yourself," she said. 
 
 " No ! seriously." 
 
 " Well, I can't possibly marry you till I know more about 
 you." 
 
 " Do think it over," he said, " it's worth it." 
 
 She took a dreary 'bus back to her dreary studio, and 
 lay awake nearly all night, thinking about it. To have 
 London at her feet in a flash of time . . . what a prospect ! 
 And she might have it if she accepted this offer. But two 
 visions held her back : the vision of Faust in the tragedy in 
 which she had gone to see Duse act, while she was wintering 
 in Milan, and the vision which she had so often seen before 
 her, as she sat by the harbour steps at her beloved villa on 
 Lake Como. 
 
 It was the story of Faust over again, but it was Margaret, 
 not Faust, on whom Mephistopheles, decked out in the 
 splendid manhood of Oliver Gray, was pressing his tempta- 
 tions. He was offering her success beyond her rosiest dream, 
 if she would sell her soul to him — a path strewn with gold 
 and flowers . . . instant fame, constant rewards. And 
 nine women out of ten would have been, glad to listen to 
 OUver Gray if he had no rewards to offer them beyond his
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 19 
 
 fascinating personality, and freedom from pecuniary cares. 
 There was nothing in him to which a woman could object, 
 but his past and his profession, and the latter could 
 be no objection to her, since she was trying to enter it 
 herself. 
 
 If she accepted the offer of Mephistopheles she must 
 expect to pay the price, and the price was that she could 
 never, while Gray was alive, look forward to the perfect 
 marriage which to her mind presented the only chance of 
 perfect happiness. As she thought of this, the vision of 
 the plausible Mephistopheles made way for a vision of those 
 hanging gardens, bathed in the spring sunshine, by the side 
 of a tall, fair English Galahad, whom she could adore, and 
 need not mistrust like the guileful lovers of her mother's 
 race. All her dreams had been of a Galahad whose life was 
 like a fresh white page, for her to write on. She had wit- 
 nessed her mother's loneliness, her father's wanderings ; 
 and she hoped that she might never be the unhappy woman 
 that Elisabetta Douglas, born Visconti, had been. 
 
 But on the other hand, she might thrust away the fair 
 flowers of fame only to find that the garland of love, which 
 she chose to gather, had withered in a night. And she, 
 an exile in the land of her fathers, with not a relative whom 
 she knew, might find herself lonelier and more broken than 
 her mother ! 
 
 While, if she accepted the brilliant offer before her, though 
 she might miss love — might miss the perfect marriage which 
 was her dream — in place of the dethroned King there might 
 be a whole republic of delightful friendships, for a beautiful 
 and famous woman may have her pick of the fairest friend- 
 ships which the world has to offer. 
 
 Should the chance of perfect love outweigh the certainty 
 of fame and fair friendships ? 
 
 She knew that she ought to cleave to her ideal ; too often 
 in Italy had she seen the sad spectacle of love dethroned. 
 And she felt an almost invincible repulsion to marrying a 
 man who had not only been guilt}'' of libertinism, but from 
 whom libertinism had been expected, as folly might be 
 prophesied of another. 
 
 So directly she came down in the morning, before she 
 ate a morsel, she»sent a district messenger round to Gray's 
 flat over the theatre, with this answer. 
 
 ^*
 
 20 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " 100, Clareville Studios, 
 " Gloucester Road, 
 
 " South Kensington. 
 
 " Aug. — th, 1913. 
 " Dear Mr. Gray, 
 
 " You will have to find another leading lady. I 
 cannot marry you. 
 
 " M. D." 
 
 Oliver Gray was still at breakfast — he began and ended 
 his day late — when it was brought to him. He knew the 
 writing, and opened it before he gave so much as a glance 
 at the voluminous correspondence from important people 
 which awaited him. 
 
 He set his teeth and put it in his pocket. He was a man 
 not easily deterred when he had made up his mind to a 
 thing. 
 
 A silver clip of telegram-forms always stood beside his 
 letters on the breakfast table, so that he could write a tele- 
 gram while the letter was fresh in his memory. What he 
 did not leave to his secretary to answer, he mostly answered 
 by telegram. He telegraphed to her : 
 
 " Miss Douglas, 100, Clareville Studios, Gloucester 
 Road, South Kensington, S.W. — Please be in at 4.30 to 
 receive a messenger from me. — Oliver Gray." 
 
 Punctually at four-thirty she heard a car drive up to the 
 entrance of the studios, and a few moments afterwards, when 
 she called " Come in ! " to a knock at her door, Oliver Gray 
 himself entered. 
 
 " This is a trick ! " she cried hotly. " You said you were 
 sending a messenger ! " 
 
 " I did it on purpose. If I had said that I was coming, 
 you would have had an aunt die, or anything, as a reason 
 for not being at home." 
 
 " I suppose I should," she said, her anger melting a little. 
 " Well, your cleverness has been successful — what do you 
 want with me ? " 
 
 " I want you to marry me." 
 
 " I wrote to tell you that I wouldn't. That's fiat." 
 
 " It isn't. I don't intend to take no for an answer."
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 21 
 
 " You can't compel me to marry you." 
 
 " I mean to win you to. Why do you refuse ? " 
 
 " Because of your past. You have no right to ask a good 
 woman to marry you." 
 
 " Everybody has a past. If I promise you to turn over a 
 new leaf, and be absolutely faithful to you, will you marry 
 me t 
 
 " And involve your breaking your word to other women ? 
 Certainly not ! " 
 
 " There is no one to break it -to. I told you that Tara 
 had gone to America." 
 
 " There is someone else." 
 
 " There is no one else." 
 
 " No, I could not marry a man who has led the life you 
 have." 
 
 " This is all a misapprehension. You are misjudging me. 
 I will not take no for an answer." 
 
 " You will not take no for an answer because j^ou have 
 taken a mad freak into your head that I am the woman who 
 will suit you for the part of Mary Stuart. Why can't I make 
 a contract with you for five or ten or twenty years, or sentence 
 myself to you for life ? " 
 
 " I have told you," he said, knowing well how disin- 
 genuously he was speaking, " that it is because the first 
 time you have a fortnight's holiday you might take a trip 
 to America, and snap your fingers in my face." 
 
 " Is that so ? " 
 
 " It is." 
 
 Being a woman she knew that this was not the whole 
 truth, that there was another reason behind it — that it was 
 love, not self-interest, which was speaking. And it is hard 
 for a woman not to forgive this. But this would not have 
 made Mirabel Douglas relent, seeing what she had seen in 
 her mother's life. She yielded because she was suddenly 
 struck with the conviction that Gray had entered into her 
 life before, and then she recognized him as the tall, fair 
 Englishman who had figured in her dreams, and she felt 
 an irresistible impulse to give him the trial for which he 
 prayed. 
 
 But she showed no outward sign of her weakening, as she 
 said : 
 
 " Look here, Mr. Gray. If you only want me as a great
 
 22 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 actress — me, who have never played a single part — and are 
 afraid of losing me as soon as you have taught me my 
 business, I'll make a bargain with you. If you'll make the 
 proper settlements on me, so that I shall be free to follow 
 my own life, I'll marry you on this other condition : that if, 
 after living with you for a month, you cannot by fair means 
 make me change my mind, I shall be free to live apart from 
 you without any molestation, legal or otherwise." 
 
 He ran over the aspects of the proposal rapidly in his 
 mind. First, if she was once married to him she could not 
 marry anyone else, so she would be his to win all his life, 
 even if he could take no active measures to conquer her 
 after the first month. 
 
 Secondly, if she gave him a just chance in that month, as 
 he supposed she would, he hoped to make her return his love 
 sufficiently to cancel the embargo. 
 
 Thirdly, he was so in love with her that the idea of having 
 her as his wife, for only a month, appeared to be worth any 
 sacrifice. For though he could not live with her after that, 
 he would see her every day at the theatre, putting forth all 
 her powers of attraction to win the public, as she never 
 would use them to win him. 
 
 And, fourthly, the studio and its furniture looked so 
 dreadfully meagre to him that he must at any cost get the 
 beloved one into a more appropriate setting. 
 
 " I promise," he said, and he wondered how she was going 
 to carry out his banishment, after that month, decently and 
 in order. That she would do nothing that was not respectable 
 he felt certain, for it was her respectabihty which had barred 
 his path. 
 
 " Have you any lawyers ? " he asked. He intended to 
 carry out his part of the bargain with that loyalty to his 
 word which was proverbial in the theatrical world. 
 
 " Yes," she said, intending to ask Dr. Cantelupe whom she 
 should employ, 
 
 " Well, my lawyers are Ticknor and Fields, of Lincoln's 
 Inn, and you might ask your lawyers to communicate with 
 them when they have put into form the conditions you are 
 going to impose." 
 
 This made her feel as if she had been horrid, and as a 
 peace-offering, she volunteered to make him some tea ; if he 
 could put up with awful cake and awful butter.
 
 THE LURE OF MEPHISTOPHELES 23 
 
 " I can eat anything at any time. I have the maw and 
 the digestion of a lobster." 
 
 The viands were not choice, but they meant more to him 
 than the finest dinner which could have been given him at 
 the Carlton. For this exquisite Mirabel was his fiancee, 
 and this was the first freewill offering which she had ever 
 made to him. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Mirabel's pact 
 
 MIRABEL went to Lewis and Lewis to make the 
 settlements for that extraordinary marriage. She 
 did well, for some of its provisions were such as no judge 
 would enforce. They concentrated their attention on the 
 theatrical contract, which was a condition of the marriage ; 
 for here, in consultation with Mr. Garrick, K.C., the great 
 authority on theatrical law, they had the chance of coming 
 to a binding agreement. It was one condition of the mar- 
 riage that Mirabel should be leading lady of the Babylon 
 Theatre, for a period of ten years, at a remuneration to be 
 arranged between the parties. Lewis and Lewis foresaw 
 some keen and protracted negotiating over this clause, at 
 any rate. 
 
 But they were agreeably disappointed, for Ticknor and 
 Fields, acting for Oliver Gray, informed them that they had 
 carte blanche to agree to any terms which were put forward 
 on behalf of Miss Douglas ; but suggested that to avoid the 
 appearance of Mirabel's receiving a salary from her husband, 
 a certain proportion of the profits of the Babylon Theatre 
 should be paid to her. It was twice as great a proportion 
 as Mirabel could be persuaded to accept. 
 
 The only unhandsom^e proviso in the whole affair was 
 Mirabel's insisting that a relatively enormous sum should 
 ••be paid to her, as a fine, if Gray divulged the marriage (which 
 it was agreed should be kept an absolute secret) without her 
 written consent. But when Ticknor and Fields consulted 
 Gray on the telephone about this, he merely replied : " All 
 right— any thing. ' ' 
 
 Lewis and Lewis felt constrained to congratulate their
 
 24 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 client on the evident desire of the other side to be more than 
 fair. 
 
 A few days later the settlements were finished and the 
 great preparations began. Mirabel chose a much less ambi- 
 tious house than Gray wished, and disappointed him in the 
 orders which she proposed giving for decoration and furniture. 
 He, having found his Queen Mary, went ahead with his 
 l)reparations for " Mary, Queen of Scots." 
 
 They were to be married in a month, and have a month's 
 honeymoon, and then rehearsals were to begin, and the edict 
 in the settlements was to come into force. 
 
 The house which Mirabel chose had been the lifelong 
 home of a famous painter. Its price — Gray bought it for 
 her, so that she could do what she liked with it — was low, 
 because it stood on the confines of Hammersmith and Chis- 
 wick on the river-bank. But it had been a country house 
 when it was built, two hundred years ago ; and its ramblings 
 reminded Mirabel of her father's villa on Lake Como ; and 
 it had a glorious studio, with a parquet floor and oak panel- 
 ling ; and the garden was full of quaint devices, put in by 
 no less a personage than Samuel Richardson, the novelist, 
 for the eighteenth-century courtships which he loved to 
 depict. 
 
 They looked dreary in their decay ; with plenty of money 
 forthcoming for their judicious restoration by experts they 
 would offer results not easily to be attained in London. 
 
 Gray recognized this, and applauded Mirabel's judgment. 
 He pictured how delicious she would look wandering along 
 the stone terrace on to which the French windows of the 
 drawing-room opened — when it had all its balusters — or 
 descending the broad flight of steps — when they were 
 mended — to the gold-fish pond — when it had any water in it. 
 
 At the end of the terrace was an odd little circular summer- 
 house, built of stone, and roofed with a battered copper 
 dome. It was like the coitr d'amour of a castle in Provence. 
 There was a sundial ; there were arbours, which in summer 
 were covered with roses. 
 
 Mirabel 'fell in love with that garden, with the gallery- 
 like passages on the upper floors, and with that noble studio, 
 which she pictured full of brilliant people when she came 
 into her own. 
 
 Gra}'' had no idea of helping her with her furnishing. He
 
 MIRABEL'S PACT 25 
 
 was accustomed to give his orders, and leave the carrying 
 out of details to others. He considered it niggling to choose 
 furniture for yourself. 
 
 She had demanded that there should be no Ute-d-tete, 
 no love-making, before they were married. He had yielded, 
 because he meant to yield whenever she insisted, and because 
 he believed that if he did not fight over details, she was more 
 likely to yield absolutely, as he meant her to, some day. 
 
 There was only one way to make her 3deld, and that was 
 to make her fall in love with him ; he was positive of that. 
 And he was going to be immensely busy. It was no trifle 
 to combine the musical comedy and the Beerbohm-Tree 
 historical drama. He meant to go much farther than 
 " Merry England." So he never came to the house again until 
 after they had married and ceased to live with each other. 
 
 No one at the theatre knew that she was Oliver Gray's 
 fiancee ; no one knew that she was his new leading lady. 
 One day, when she had occasion to see him, she had great 
 difficulty in getting into his office ; he was besieged by women 
 who wanted parts, and was overworked. 
 
 " But I am in the new piece — a member of the company ! " 
 she explained to a commissionaire, who looked like Lord 
 Kitchener in his office uniform. 
 
 " I daresay you 'as 'opes, ma'am, but my orders is not to 
 let any ladies past unless I knows 'em, and I don't know 
 
 you." 
 
 " But I must see him — he'll be furious when he knows that 
 you have sent me away ! " 
 
 " That's what they all thinks, but I knows better." 
 
 " Will you take in my name on a piece of paper ? 
 
 " No, Miss — not that I wouldn't be pleased to oblige you, 
 but papers leads to explanations, and they've no time for 
 explanations." 
 
 " What am I to do, then ? " 
 
 " Well, if you'll take my advice. Miss, you'll go to the 
 nearest public-house — public telephone, I mean ; beg pardon. 
 Miss — and ring up 'is office number — 'is secretary will answer 
 you, and take yer message ; and then if Mr. Oliver — that 
 is, Mr. Gray — wishes to see 3'ou, he'll tell me what to do." 
 
 " But it would be just the same sending my name in on a 
 piece of paper, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 " Not at all. Miss, for then I should be responsible for
 
 26 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 disturbing them, not you— whereas if you 'phones, you'll be 
 responsible, not me." 
 
 " Very well, then, to prove that you ought to have ad- 
 mitted me, I'll go and telephone." 
 
 " There's a telephone at the chemist next door, Miss." 
 Mirabel went down to the chemist and rang up Oliver 
 Gray's offices. The chemist looked so hard at her when she 
 asked if it was a public telephone, that she felt sure that he 
 fathomed her errand. He did, of course ; it was the regular 
 avenue to seeing Gray. He might easily have charged a 
 shilling : he kept one of the uncanny chemists' shops of 
 theatre-land. 
 
 " Is that Mr. Ohver Gray's offices ? " she asked, when she 
 had put the twopence into the slot, and turned the handle, 
 and heard the coins drop. 
 " It is, Madam." 
 " Are you his secretary ? " 
 " Yes, Madam." 
 
 " Will you tell him that Miss Douglas has just called on 
 him and been refused admittance ? " 
 
 " Will you tell me what your Christian name is. Madam ? 
 He may know several Miss Douglases." 
 
 " It would be no good giving you my Christian name ; 
 say that it's the Miss Douglas he has just engaged for the 
 new piece." 
 
 " I think you had better write. Miss Douglas." 
 " I assure you that if you don't take my message, and I 
 have to write, Mr. Gray will be very annoyed." 
 
 " Mr. Gray will not be annoyed by it. Miss Douglas. It's 
 what I'm here for — to prevent his being disturbed without 
 a reason." 
 
 " Coxey," said Ohver, coming to the door, " what are you 
 so long about ? I want you to take down this letter." 
 
 " I'm very sorry, sir— there's a lady I can't get rid of. She 
 says that she's been engaged for the new piece, and that she 
 is sure that you will see her ; the name is Miss Douglas, sir." 
 " Douglas, did you say ? I have engaged a lady of that 
 name. I'll speak, and see if she is the right one. Hallo ! 
 who's there ? " 
 
 Mirabel recognized his voice. 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, I want to speak to you, and they won't let 
 me get to you — first the commissionaire, and then your
 
 MIRABEL'S PACT 27 
 
 secretary. They won't even take a message for you : they 
 say you'll be grateful to them for refusing to do it." 
 
 " I'm so sorry ! Where are you ? " 
 
 " At the chemist's shop next door to your theatre." 
 
 " Wait there, please, and I'll send my secretary to show 
 you up ; you'll know him because he will bring my card with 
 ' Admit Miss Douglas ' written on it. Good-bye till I see 
 you." 
 
 In less than a minute the secretary was with her. Gray 
 was acting so unusually that Mr. Coxey thought Miss Douglas 
 must be of some importance. He did not wait for the lift, 
 but ran down the stairs. 
 
 When he saw how lovely she was, his suspicions as to her 
 importance were confirmed : she must be the new Babylon 
 beauty. 
 
 Mr. Coxey was a most agreeable young man — selected for 
 that reason. It was his duty to send most people away 
 without letting them see his chief, but it was also his duty 
 to send them away in a good temper. 
 
 " I'm most awfully sorry. Miss Douglas," he said, as he 
 lifted a hat which shone like a looking-glass, " but Mr. Gray 
 had not mentioned your engagement to me." 
 
 She looked as if she had been shot. He could not under- 
 stand her perturbation, but as she evidentl}' belonged to the 
 upper classes, he thought that shi might object to the term 
 engage, and corrected himself : " Mr. Gray has not mentioned 
 that you have joined his company." 
 
 Sd it was this kind of engagement to which the secretary 
 refered ! She breathed more freely, and said : " Quite so. 
 Will you lead the way ? " 
 
 " I should get what you ha\'e to say over as quickly as 
 possible," he confided to her, as they were being taken up 
 in the lift. " He's awfully busy." 
 
 As they passed the commissionaire, the secretary handed 
 him the card, ' Admit Miss Douglas.' He took it without 
 a word, but the secretary explained to her : " Now he will 
 always send your name in." 
 
 " I don't think I shall ever give him the chance again," 
 said Mirabel, laughing. " This isn't the sort of place where 
 one wants to wait about while a commissionaire sees if 
 she is to be admitted." 
 
 " You set a pretty good value on yourself ! " thought the
 
 28 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 secretary ; but he was a wise man and meant to take her at 
 her own valuation till he knew precisely the value which his 
 employer set upon her. 
 
 This was exactly what Oliver Gray did not intend him to 
 know, as far as personal relations were concerned. So when 
 he showed her into the private office, he found it empty. 
 
 The secretary understood the order of procedure and 
 retired into his own den, whence he told Gray's valet down 
 the speaking-tube to inform his master that the lady had 
 arrived. 
 
 " Well, Oliver," said Mirabel as he entered the room, " do 
 you expect to be assassinated ? I shouldn't think that the 
 Czar took such elaborate precautions as you do ! " 
 
 " My dear," he said, with a magnetic welcome in his hand- 
 shake, " you've no conception how awful women can be when 
 there's a new musical comedy going to be put on — it makes 
 you long to have your office in a yacht ! Every woman who 
 is specially good-looking thinks that she has only to ask 
 for a part to get it." 
 
 Mirabel felt that this was rather a home-thrust, though she 
 was not vain about her looks. 
 
 He read her thoughts and said : " When 5'ou applied I 
 was ' asking for ' it : I had advertised for applications." 
 
 " And you took me largely on my looks ? " 
 
 " You must remember that I was in search of somebody 
 who had to do, not for the ordinary musical-comedy 
 sovereign, but for one of the most beautiful queens in history." 
 
 " And was I the one who did best ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 Mirabel did not wish to pursue the subject further, so 
 she said : " Would you hke to know what I came for ? " 
 
 " I should hke to know, so that I may do it, if it is possible. 
 But I should like it best if you came for nothing except to 
 see me." 
 
 He saw her shrink, and relapsed into ordinary politeness. 
 
 " Well, what did you come for — -Mirabel ? 
 
 " I came to tell you that things are pretty well arranged 
 at Bolingbroke House " — that was the name of the new 
 house — " and I ought to be thinking about my part. It is 
 my turn to do something now," she said, unbending a little. 
 " What ought I to do about it ? " 
 
 He had had his warning just now, so he said quite simply :
 
 MIRABEL'S PACT 29 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! I'm going to teach you your part while 
 we're down at Westernport." 
 
 " Can't I do anything till then ? " 
 
 " Well, the author suggested that you — that is to say, 
 whoever was going to take the part ; he did not know that 
 it was you — should read a lot of books, which he sent, about 
 Mary and the period, before she began to study the part. 
 That sort of thing is all very well for a play like ' Drake,' 
 but you don't want it for musical comedy. There you don't 
 have to think of facts, or what is correct or probable, or 
 anything else. You have to think of the audience, and 
 the limelight, and the scene-painter, and the stage-carpenter — 
 and the music, of course." 
 
 " But I should like to read them ; mayn't I ? " 
 " I hope that I shall never say no to you," he answered, 
 with grave politeness. 
 
 This was getting near the quicksands of sentiment, so she 
 asked hurriedly : " Where are the books ? 
 
 " There," he said, pointing to a small table piled with 
 them. 
 
 " Which shall I start on ? " 
 
 " I can't tell you. I'm ashamed to say that I have not 
 opened any of them, and I don't suppose I ever shall. 
 This historical stuff isn't my business : I should lose 
 myself." 
 
 " I think I'll start on the novels. Mav I take two or 
 three ? " 
 
 "I'll put the whole lot in my car when it takes you home, 
 and tell my secretary to write and tell the author that I 
 have carried out his request, and that my leading lady is 
 much interested in them." 
 
 " I think I'll go home now, and begin them, if you will 
 order the car." 
 
 He blew down the tube and ordered it. 
 " And . . . Ohver . . ." 
 " What ? " 
 
 " When shall you be ready to start for Westernport ? " 
 " In five or six days' time. What are you in such a hurry 
 about ? " A hope glimmered in his heart that she might be 
 relenting. But her reply quenched it. 
 
 " I want to begin work, and 3'ou are going to teach me 
 how to set about it when we are down there."
 
 30 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Don't think me an ungracious brute for what I said 
 just now." 
 
 She wished that he would be less ingratiating, but 
 managed to get out : "I don't think you said anything 
 dreadful." 
 
 " I 'did : I asked what you were in such a hurry about, 
 and that's about as rude a thing as a man could say, when 
 his fiancee came to fix the wedding-day." 
 
 He made her shudder again, but there was absolutely 
 nothing in his words to which she could take objection. 
 She could not let him know that gladness at her reprieve had 
 prevented her noticing how it was given, so she said simply : 
 " I understood that you were not quite ready, and were 
 enquiring if I had any special reason for accelerating our 
 departure." 
 
 He felt the snub. But the elation he felt at her coming 
 to ask when they were to be married made him tread on air. 
 " Well, to tell the honest truth, Mirry — I may call you Mirry, 
 mayn't I ? " 
 
 " Get on with the truth, Oliver. It's your statutory right 
 to call me anything you like ; you might even call me ' dear ' 
 in public without my having any reason to object, except 
 that it might lead to detection." 
 
 " I thought you might not like it," he said humbly. 
 
 " We shan't quarrel about things hke this," she said rather 
 severely. " What is that honest truth vou were talking 
 about ? " 
 
 " That I want to have a honeymoon free from business, 
 and that there are certain things about the production of a 
 big scenic play like this which take time, and I want to get 
 them settled before I go." 
 
 " What sort of things ? " 
 
 " Well, the weaving of special fabrics, which will be 
 required for di'esses, for one thing ■,^ these costume plays want 
 a lot of gold and silver tissue. And the making of the proper 
 arms and armour — the swell people still wore a lot of body 
 armour in our Queen Mary's day. Those are only two things, 
 and there are a lot of others." 
 
 His self-restraint in putting off thinking about his wedding- 
 day until he had finished his business appealed to her more 
 than anything he had done yet ; she said, rather more 
 graciously : "I should not dream of dragging you away
 
 MIRABEL'S PACT 31 
 
 until you had settled all your open business. One time is 
 just the same as another to me." 
 
 " Honest Injun ? " 
 
 She rather liked the slang, too. " Yes, honest Injun. I 
 only raised the question lest you should think that I was 
 causing delays under the pretence of getting my house i^ady." 
 
 " Take just as long as you require. For my part, as I 
 said, I should like another five or six days to settle the 
 things which I have to settle myself, so that I can take a 
 complete holiday. After that," he added, forgetting her 
 cautions, " I am going to have the happiest time in my life." 
 
 There was something so genuine about the way in which 
 he said this that Mirabel felt a brute for not being able to 
 reciprocate. But she could not pretend that she was looking 
 forward to marrying him. Though she tried to be as decent 
 to him as she could, she hated it. How could it be other- 
 wise, when, at the very threshold of her womanhood, holding 
 the ideas which she held on the subject, she was forced into 
 marriage with a man for whom she had no desire, and who 
 in common notoriety had entered into one affair after another, 
 with the fast beauties of his theatre, and who, as far as she 
 knew, did not possess a single taste in common with her, 
 except a liking for open-air pursuits ? 
 
 She was marrying him because marriage with him mean*" 
 beginning her career on a platform of fame, and the chance, 
 after a month of marriage, of devoting the rest of her lilc 
 to her Art — she to whom marriage had always seemed tho 
 chief end of life ! 
 
 For his wealth she did not care. She had 'a pittance of 
 her own, sufficient to keep her from want. And her success 
 in getting such an offer from liini showed that she was not 
 likely to lack employment in musical comedy. 
 
 But she had made her choice after deliberate reflection, 
 and she did not minimize her good fortune in having such 
 a choice in her power. That there was hardly a woman 
 engaged in musical comedy who would have hesitated she 
 knew. But she was marrying for gain and fame only — 
 she could not deny it — and she was not giving her heart for 
 it, but only her pound of flesh. 
 
 She felt so ashamed of herself, that she was seized with a 
 fit of remorse at keeping him. She jumped up, saying : " I 
 mustn't keep you any more : I know how busy 3'ou are.
 
 32 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Let me know what day suits you. It's all the same to me " 
 — which was an odd way of being gracious about one's 
 wedding-day. And though she was his fiancee, he could 
 see that she did not mean him to have a kiss. 
 
 He rose, too, but he spoke down the tube as he did so. 
 " Is the car there ? " he enquired. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 He showed her out, not by the secretary's room, through 
 which she had entered, but through the hall of his flat. His 
 private lift was up and ready for them. He accompanied her 
 down to the street door, and just as he was about to say good- 
 bye, discovered that they had forgotten the books. He blew 
 up the speaking-tube to his valet to bring them down on a 
 tray, while he stole another few minutes' conversation with 
 the beloved. The valet brought them down all too soon 
 and put them in the car. 
 
 " Carry them in for Miss Douglas when you get to the 
 studios, Jennings," said Gray to the chauffeur, and then 
 turned to Mirabel, who was waiting to say good-bye to him 
 with a little more cordiahty because he was so considerate 
 in small things. 
 
 It struck her how honestly he shook hands ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' GREETING 
 
 MIRABEL was married at the Chelsea Town Hall 
 Registry Ofhce at ten o'clock in the morning. 
 It was a mockery, which she could not stand, to have such 
 a marriage in a church. Only representatives from their 
 lawyers were present. 
 
 At the registry office and on the journey Mirabel was 
 pleasant and polite, not more ; and his heart sank a little 
 at the barrenness which confronted him on the threshold 
 of his married life. For one thing, she insisted that he 
 should register as John Gray at the hotel, and have all his 
 correspondence forwarded to him under cover, addressed 
 to John Gray, so as to escape recognition. 
 
 " I shall call you Jack," she said, " and you had better
 
 JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' GREETING 33 
 
 call me Isabel, my own name, which I never use, if you want 
 to call me anything before people." 
 
 At Westernport he told the porter to put their luggage 
 in a taxi — he had not brought his valet because he did not 
 wish any witness of his matrimonial adventure — and ordered 
 the chauffeur to drive to the King Arthur, the Duke of 
 Cornwall, and the Btmgalow, to see where they would get 
 the rooms which they liked best. 
 
 They had only driven about a minute when they came 
 to the Bungalow, a small hotel on the sea front at the 
 corner of the road to the Lizard. It was built in the eastern 
 style, with verandahs a dozen feet broad running round the 
 east and west and south sides, and its southern face was 
 only divided from the sea by the road. It had a garden 
 on the west side, shut off from the road by a thick hedge of 
 tamarisks, and planted with hardy palms and other sub- 
 tropical shrubs. 
 
 " If we can get rooms on the front, I want to go to that 
 hotel ! " she said. 
 
 " Very well — we needn't take our meals there if the food 
 is not good enough for you." 
 
 " It's sure to be good enough for me," she said. " I did 
 not come to Westernport for meals." 
 
 " No more did I," said Gray, though he was fastidious 
 about his eating, and wondered what their cellar would be like. 
 
 October comes between the seasons at Westernport, so 
 they were able to get the grand suite on the ground floor 
 in the south-west corner, which had steps leading down 
 into the garden, and a verandah raised a few feet above the 
 road. The steps led down to a palm walk, which ran the 
 whole length of the garden behind the tamarisks. That 
 palm walk was reproduced on postcards, which were cir- 
 culated in thousands by the Cornish Riviera Association. 
 
 The taxi was dismissed ; they were installed in their 
 rooms ; tea was ordered ; at last they were alone. 
 
 He wondered in what spirit Mirabel would face the 
 marriage to which she had so reluctantly yielded. Would 
 she merely be cordial to him before servants and strangers 
 — in fact, when cordiality took him no further — and at the 
 best be passive to his advances ? or would she not even 
 go so far as that, but be a dignified and indignant slave ? 
 
 That he would have to pay in some way for forcing her 
 
 3
 
 34 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 to marry him against her will he felt certain. It was only 
 human nature in such a proud, high-spirited woman. 
 
 One thing was clear to him, that anything which he might 
 suffer, he had deserved, and that therefore he must meet 
 her mute protests with indomitable good-nature. That 
 they would be anything more than mute he did not believe. 
 Mirabel was too much a lady for that. He did not even 
 imagine that they would be intentional. It was her remorse 
 which he feared. 
 
 She had taken off her hat to cool her head, for it was a 
 very hot day ; she was looking wistfully over the bay, where 
 the water was high, and as smooth as glass. 
 
 His misgivings were fulfilled, it seemed. But he went 
 up to her, and put his arm round her gently, and said, " It 
 is jolly, isn't it, being right over the sea ? " 
 
 To his surprise and rapture, she drew closer, and turning 
 her face up to his with the lovely coquetries of her mother's 
 nation, said, " For this month, Jack, I am yours — abso- 
 lutely yours — for this whole month. If you will let me be 
 alone for an hour or two each day, I shall have no will but 
 yours, and I will try to be as nice to you as ever I can." 
 
 He clasped her to him to kiss her — the first kiss he had 
 ever had. She returned his kisses affectionately. There 
 was no trace of detachment. 
 
 When he had satisfied his wild hunger for his beautiful 
 wife's kisses, he asked : " Why were you looking so pensive, 
 Mirry, when I came up to you ? " 
 
 " It was only homesickness for Italy," she said. " The 
 still water coming right up to the long sea-wall, the blocking 
 out of the entrance of the bay by the island, and the southern 
 vegetation of the garden, make the whole place look like 
 some unfamiliar reach of our lake. I haven't felt so happy 
 or so miserable since I came to England." 
 
 " I hope it is not I that is making you miserable ? " 
 
 " No, indeed. Jack. I need affection badly to exorcise 
 my thoughts, and make me enjoy this lovely day, this lovely 
 view, this English Italy ! " 
 
 He looked down into her face : her lips were quivering, 
 and there were tears in her eyes. He kissed the quiver 
 away, and she smiled. 
 
 " I must go into our room," she said, " and dry my eyes 
 where I shan't be caught doing it by the waiter who is
 
 JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' GREETING 35 
 
 bringing our tea. If he sees these idle tears, he'll think 
 that we're not friends." 
 
 He finished the quotation when she had left the room 
 " Tears from the depth of some divine despair — poor little 
 girl ! What a brute I've been to make her marry me ! But 
 could any man help it ? " 
 
 She was only absent for a minute, and when she came 
 back she found him standing where she had left him, gazing 
 out at " Mirabel's lake." She heard the waiter's step out- 
 side the door and laid her hand on her husband's aim 
 affectionately, to draw his attention to the creepers which 
 almost dipped into the water on the low, red sandstone chffs, 
 just west of them. 
 
 The waiter gave his honeymoon smirk, and said, " The 
 tea, ma'am." 
 
 She thanked him, and he withdrew. She saw that her 
 husband had no suspicion of the pose. This was the first 
 piece of acting which Mirabel Douglas did in the service of 
 Oliver Gray. 
 
 " Jack, dear, can't I ring and make the waiter put the 
 tea out on the verandah ? — it's as mild as midsummer." 
 
 He was disappointed. He had pictured a lovers' tea, 
 and the verandah was in full view of the passers-by, but he 
 saw how the southernness of that verandah appealed to her, 
 and went and rang the bell. The expression her face wore 
 before the waiter rewarded him, though it was the result 
 of conscious effort. Except during the hours of solitude 
 for which she had bargained, she was not going to forget 
 for one minute that this month was his. 
 
 Her eyes dwelt with genuine happiness on the scene, as 
 they sat on the verandah, for the sea wall above that lake- 
 like expanse might have been in their village on Lake 
 Como, if it had been studded with a row of classical gardens, 
 with broad flights of steps dipping down to the water. The 
 illusion was made almost perfect by the rare autumn sunset 
 tinging the motionless mirror of the water. 
 
 Oliver Gray made a mental note that her homesickness 
 was his wife's human side, as he would have made a note 
 at a rehearsal, and after all, tea on the verandah had its 
 compensations. If you have a beautiful wife and you are 
 not certain that you have not ali(Miated her, it is comforting 
 that passers-by should see her smiling gratefully. 
 
 3*
 
 36 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Should you like to take a spin in the car to see the lions 
 of Westernport, Isabel ? " he asked, as the waiter was 
 clearing away the tea. 
 
 " Anything you like, dear — it's all lovely to me ! " 
 " Order the car to come round, waiter." 
 " Did you send your car down here. Jack ? " 
 " How could I ? It would have told Jennings our secret." 
 Night had fallen before they returned from a marvellous 
 drive round the English Nice and its environs, built in a 
 wood on five miles of rocky coast deeply indented with 
 gorges. The villas above the town and the country houses 
 round it were all buried in gardens broken by fantastic 
 masses of rock, and the roads hewn out between them had 
 their stony walls curtained with creepers. The town itself 
 was a mere crescent between the wooded cliffs and the river 
 mouth. 
 
 Nature has given Westernport the rocks and foliage of 
 the south, man has added climbing stairways, and climate 
 the dolcc far niente. Mirabel would have liked to abandon 
 herself to memories, but she owed it to Oliver Gray to be 
 grateful to him for letting her know that there was always 
 a land of make-believe for her half a day's journey from 
 London. So she let herself go, and said, "Oh, Jack, I have 
 enjoyed myself this afternoon ! It was ripping of you to 
 bring me to Westernport for our honeymoon ! " 
 
 She did not ask why he did it : he did not tell her that 
 it was because he thought that no other theatrical person 
 would be so foolish as to go there. His one sane reason 
 was that he thought the sun a good adjunct for loafing. It 
 was quite sufficient for him that she applauded his choice. 
 It was a good beginning. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MAKING ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 " T^ON'T let's put on evening dress. Jack, dear," she 
 
 i_y said, coaxingly. 
 
 " I don't think there is any necessity for you to do so, 
 if you feel tired. I must change into a dinner jacket, at any 
 rate — I shouldn't feel comfortable without it,"
 
 MAKING ACQUAINTANCE 37 
 
 " It isn't that I'm tired, Jack, I'm not going to deceive 
 you by pretending that I am. But it seems so futile to have 
 on a dress in which it isn't easy to walk on a night like this, 
 with the air warmer than June, and the moon flooding the 
 bay." 
 
 " Well, I don't mind walking twenty miles in dress 
 clothes, but if you feel more comfortable in a morning skirt, 
 it will be quite enough if you change into an evening blouse. 
 Or don't change at all, dear — I really don't care a bit, and 
 I won't change myself if you don't want me to." 
 
 " Truly, I'd like you to. You wouldn't look yourself 
 without it, and a man doesn't have to wear trousers 
 trailing a foot on the ground because he is in evening 
 dress." 
 
 This was one of the straws which show the direction of 
 an idle breeze. If Mirabel had been in love with her husband, 
 it would not have been a question of which skirt was most 
 convenient to walk in when they went for a stroll after 
 dinner on their wedding-night. She would have arrayed 
 herself in her most beautiful and becoming and voluptuous 
 evening dress, and as she had no maid, would have sent for 
 a hairdresser to make the most of her glorious black hair, 
 with the object of creating a picture which he would never 
 forget, and making him the richest present of loveliness in 
 her power. 
 
 She would have dressed as a matter of course if they had 
 been dining in the public room, but she had expressed a wish 
 to dine in their own suite, with the French windows, which 
 led on to the balcony outside, open, and the table right 
 in the window, to enjoy the beauty of the Indian summer 
 night, and the full moon playing on the retreating waters, 
 and to have their coffee in the garden. 
 
 It made a romantic setting for their wedding night. He 
 acknowledged this, and had no suspicion that it was all 
 part of her make-believe of Italy, all to bring back the jwst, 
 which stood like the angel with the flaming sword between 
 him and his Eden. 
 
 But though the vision of the moonlit sea, and the tiny 
 waves unfolding themselves on the sand, were a refle.x of 
 the Adriatic shores, she did not let her dreams recoil on him 
 It was their wedding night, and it was his right to liave her 
 tender and smiling and hanging on his words. She set her-
 
 38 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 self to respond to every whim of his mood, as if she were 
 trying to win his love, instead of looking for an escape. 
 
 When they had finished their coffee under the palm 
 trees of the garden, she said, " We'll go for our walk now, 
 won't we ? I'll run in and get my lace scarf." 
 
 It was some minutes before she rejoined him, because she 
 could not remember where she had packed it. When at 
 last she found it, and went out, he said, " Would you be 
 awfully disappointed if we stayed at home ? " 
 
 " Why ? Do you want to stay at home ? " 
 
 " I would rather like to sit in our rooms, so as to have 
 every minute of you to myself." 
 
 " Of course we will, dear, it's all the same to me. I only 
 want to do what you wish." 
 
 " Well, that's what I should like best, if you are sure 
 that you don't mind." 
 
 " Can we sit without lights, looking out into the night ? 
 From a child I have loved looking at the water in the dark- 
 ness ; I used to do it every night from our terrace over the 
 lake." 
 
 " There is nothing I should like better," he said. 
 
 It was exquisite, looking out on the bay, with the island 
 fort which closed the entrance faintly picked out by the 
 moonlight, and the wash of the receding tide on the glitter- 
 ing sands hardly more than a whisper. At first her thoughts 
 flew back regretfully to the vision of the lake, while her 
 husband was raining caresses and caressing words on the 
 beautiful face beside him. Then gradually the woman in 
 her awoke, and she responded with all the adorable 
 womanhness of Italy. 
 
 They sat on till they heard the strokes of ten. Then he 
 said : " Shall we go out for a breath of sea air now, Mirry. 
 before we turn in ? It seems a pity not to, when you kept 
 on that dress on purpose ! " 
 
 " I'd love to. You can't think what it means to me 
 getting back to great spaces of water, which have been mine 
 always till this last year, but which I have not once had 
 since I came to England ! " 
 
 " Well, come along then, dear. Will that scarf be 
 enough ? "
 
 MAKING ACQUAINTANCE 39 
 
 " Quite : I never wrap up." 
 
 " Where shall we go ? " 
 
 " To the very end of the harbour wall. We can get at it 
 from the pier, the waiter says." 
 
 " Would you Hke the car to take us to the pier ? " 
 
 " Of course not — I want a walk. Besides, there's the tram." 
 
 " I don't think I have ever been in a tram," he said. 
 
 " Then, my dear Jack, you'll have to reform. I can't 
 stand un-simple people." 
 
 She stepped out briskly. 
 
 " Why are you flying along ? " 
 
 " I was afraid you had suggested the car because you 
 thought it was rather late." 
 
 " No, I didn't, but . . ." 
 
 " Tell me the truth, dear," she said maliciously. 
 
 " Well, Tara . . ." 
 
 " Yes . . . Tara . . . ? " 
 
 "... It would have spoilt her walk if she couldn't have 
 the car out to take her part of the way and wait for her." 
 
 " So you thought that you would not be doing me well ? " 
 
 " That's about it." 
 
 " You've a lot to learn about me. But I think we will 
 step it out till we get to our point ; I like exercise." 
 
 He put down a sixpence at the pier, which bore the in- 
 scription : Admission 2d. He was just going to tell the 
 man to keep the change, when he caught the look in her 
 eye which said " Swank ! " 
 
 He laughed, and picked the twopence up, and slipped his 
 arm through hers and rushed her along the pier for a little 
 way as a boy would have done. These two were almost 
 strangers to each other. They had never met like fiances, 
 and, in point of fact, had seldom met at all after 
 they had made that strange contract of marriage, 
 because she resented the marriage so much. She did not 
 know whether to feel offended or pleased by this trifling 
 piece of horse-play. But she was his wife, and, having a nice 
 disposition, she determined to be pleased by it, and made 
 laughing expostulations. 
 
 He let her go before they reached the steps which lead down 
 to the harbour wall, and as the light of the big lamp fell on her 
 face, flushed by the romping, he stopped to stare at her, 
 she looked so beautiful.
 
 40 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " What's the matter, Jack ? " 
 
 " I think you're the most beautiful woman I ever saw." 
 He confessed it almost shamefacedly. 
 
 She did not feel as she ought to have felt at receiving such 
 a compliment from her husband, especially as he was one of 
 the most critical connoisseurs of a woman's looks to be found 
 in all London. But the impression left uppermost in her 
 mind was not what he had said, but his profession of chief 
 purveyor of beauty to London audiences. She had a horrid 
 feehng that he was appraising her. But she was determined 
 not to forget that it was his wedding-day, and the vows she 
 had made for the month of honey ; so with the lovely Italian 
 laugh, which is the most alluring grace of the daughters of 
 Eve, she said : " Don't be absurd, dear ! I know I'm 
 pretty, but ' nothing to shout about.' " 
 
 For reply he put his arm round her and drew her to him ; 
 there was not another human being on that interminable 
 harbour wall. 
 
 She submitted with good grace, and when he released her, 
 took his arm affectionately to pursue their way. Before 
 they reached the little lighthouse at the end, she stopped 
 more than once to look now at the moonlit waters of the 
 bay, now at bold hills with all their lights shining out from 
 their masses of dark trees. The scene reminded her of 
 Portofino more than ever. Here, at any rate, she could live 
 in the past — a most unnatural state of mind for a lovely girl 
 of twenty-two. 
 
 He was gratified by its beauty, too ; but he was thinking 
 that, beautiful as it was, it would be hardly possible to 
 reproduce its effects on the stage with any success, till his 
 eye fell on a rakish white steam-yacht which was lying just 
 outside the harbour, waiting to come in when the tide served. 
 
 " Nice, isn't she ? Do you want us to have a yacht, 
 Mirabel ? We can if 3'ou like." 
 
 She did not know if this was intended as a feeler. If they 
 were only going to be us for a month, it was hardly a matter 
 for consulting her. But if it was merely the generous 
 impulse of one who wished to give her anything that would 
 please her, it was different. 
 
 She shook her head. " There are lots of things I want 
 more than a yacht," she replied. 
 
 " If we were only at home," he said, and he was speaking
 
 MAKING ACQUAINTANCE 41 
 
 quite literally, "I'd have Coxey in and make a list of them. 
 But write down any you remember some time to-morrow, 
 and they shall be attended to." 
 
 She smiled indulgently to hide her feelings, and then, recog- 
 nizing the genuine generosity which lay behind his words, said, 
 " I suppose you're wanting to get back now ? " She judged 
 that he would have had as much time as he needed for taking 
 in the aesthetics of the night. 
 
 " Well, I think we might as well, if you've had as much 
 as you want of it, old girl." 
 
 " I don't think we'd better wait for that. I could sit here 
 all night." 
 
 " Then we'll get a move on," he said, sUpping his arm 
 round her, to which she submitted graciously. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MIRABEL SEES " THE BOOK OF " MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 
 
 > > 
 
 THREE days had passed, and Oliver Gray was not very 
 satisfied with his progress. 
 
 In the mere matter of tenderness Mirabel was all that could 
 be desired. She was like wax in his hands for that, and she 
 was ready to yield implicitly to his will in every matter, great 
 and small. This she considered was part of her bargain, part 
 of his pound of flesh. For one month she meant to be his 
 very own, and to leave not a stone unturned to please him, 
 except changing the terms of their contract or her views of it. 
 
 She did not allow this reservation to affect her manner to 
 him. She was as affectionate as any wife need be, if no 
 attempt was made to lift the veil which hung over the thirty- 
 first day. She had herself suggested thai thirty-one days 
 should be counted to the month. And it was not merely 
 passive affection. All day long she was thinking how she 
 could please her husband, and let him have the full value of 
 the sacrifice. She consulted him about everything she wore. 
 She was willing to share every occupation and amusement 
 to which he inclined. She offered to write his letters for 
 him — the few he could not escape. He seldom did more 
 than sign a letter in London ; she knew that telegrams took 
 the place of autograph letters with him. And what pleased
 
 42 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 hiin most of all was that she took care that others should see 
 how she looked to his lead in everything. 
 
 The very day after their arrival Mirabel had coaxed her 
 husband into telling her all about liis plans for Mary, Queen 
 of Scots, and giving her " the book " to look at. She had 
 read all the Mary Stuart books which he had lent her in 
 London ; she wished to form her own plain conception of 
 the character before she learned how it had been adapted 
 to musical comedy. 
 
 One of the strange stipulations which she had made about 
 their marriage was that she should have two hours to herself 
 every day for rest — demanded just as a secretary might 
 demand hours of rest, except that to save her husband's 
 face she had made Lewis and Lewis add the words : " For 
 reading, etc." 
 
 She had not taken the two hours on their wedding-day, 
 naturally, but on the second day she took them after lunch, 
 when it is no hardship for a man to sleep, and carried off the 
 play to the glass shelter. She had wondered how any human 
 being, even if he had the whimsical brain and practised 
 hand of an Adrian Ross, could turn the tragical story of 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, into a musical comedy, but it had been 
 done as easily and naturally as possible. Divining that the 
 public would only care about the name, and would ask very 
 httle history to justify it, and would be best pleased with 
 rollicking fun and glorious pageants, the whole duration of 
 the play was laid between the return of Mary, the widow 
 of Francis IL of France, to her own kingdom in 1561, and 
 her marriage to the Earl of Darnley in 1565, which was the 
 climax of the pla}'. The intrigues which led up to the mar- 
 riage of the beautiful young widowed Queen supplied the fun 
 and the incidents, while Holyrood and Edinburgh Castle and 
 the splendour of the Scottish nobility, some of whom were 
 almost as regal in their followings as their mistress, gave 
 every opportunity for pageantry. All the chief actors in 
 Mary's tragic history were brought into the play without much 
 regard to date — the Earl of Darnley and the Earl of Bothwell, 
 the Earl of Moray and the Earl of Morton, the chief Douglas 
 of his day, the Earl of Huntly and Lord Seton, John Knox 
 and David Rizzio, jostled each other ; and Rizzio, as a con- 
 venient musical person, was made a serious rival to Darnley, 
 by the Queen's being secretly engaged to him, when her
 
 MIRABEL SEES "THE BOOK" 43 
 
 courtiers' intrigues compelled her to marry Darnley. It 
 made a very effective musical comedy ; it had almost the 
 charm of " The Merry Widow." 
 
 The odd thing, considering the extraordinary position in 
 which Mirabel found herself, was that the part given her to 
 play was the part of a woman who is forced into a marriage 
 which she dislikes, having to smile and make a brave show 
 before the public. As Gray's wife she was in a way the 
 queen of all the puppet lords and ladies who were to crowd the 
 stage of the Babylon Theatre in the great historico-musical 
 comedy. 
 
 It was true that she had no Rizzio in her life like she had 
 in the play, no engagement which she had been forced to 
 abandon in order to marry Gray. But the author of the 
 play had made a good deal of her historical aversion to 
 Darnley, in order to give Rizzio a romantic song. 
 
 The play interested her far more than she had expected, 
 and she was bubbhng over with eagerness for Gray to begin 
 coaching her in her part when she got back to tea. She was 
 so animated and so affectionate that he might well have been 
 rejoiced that he had given in about the two hours' absence 
 every day. But no man can be deeply in love without paying 
 for it in anxiety, and he took her eagerness over the play to 
 be a perpetual reminder that the real link between them was 
 that of manager and leading lady, not of husband and wife. 
 Besides, he was conscious that personal contact had done 
 nothing to fuse the barrier of steel which she had established 
 between them, as he had expected that it would. Only that 
 thin fence lay between him and the promised land, but the 
 gates were barred, and there was not the smallest chink in 
 it. Heaven was as far from him as ever. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MIRABEL LEARNS HER PART 
 
 THE month at Westernport had wild-ducks' wings for 
 both of them — for him because he had never been 
 so much in love before, for her partly because Westernport 
 was more like the luscious South than any place she had 
 visited in England, and partly because she was so interested 
 in being trained.
 
 44 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Without doubt Oliver could coach an actress in musical 
 comedy as no one else could. And the reason was not far 
 to seek. Just as a golfer who has learned golf as a boy 
 achieves a grasp of the game which no one who learns it 
 later in life can ever attain, so Oliver Gray, Junior, who had 
 watched the plays at the Babylon from the stage-box ever 
 since he wore sailor suits, could detect and remember the 
 treatment which every detail required. He was more at 
 home in the theatre than he was in his flat. 
 
 Added to this, he was extremely good-humoured and 
 extreme^ patient, and enjoyed teaching a stupid actress 
 as much as a subaltern enjoys teaching a stupid puppy. Of 
 course he enjoyed teaching the good-looking ones best, but 
 he also thoroughly enjoyed teaching the woman-comedian 
 whose principal asset was her ugliness, and who was to be the 
 Queen's foster-mother in the play. 
 
 Now for the first time he had an ideal subject. For he was 
 training the woman who was the love of his life, and she was 
 willing, and intelligent, and suited to her part. 
 
 Tara, whom he had loved very passionately for a while, 
 was stupid and indolent ; other pretty women had been only 
 stupid or indolent, not both ; and others, who were not 
 pretty, had tried to make up for it by being clever and 
 industrious. 
 
 Mirabel, in addition to her other admirable qualities, had 
 an engaging humility about her acting, and wanted to work 
 all day. For now that she had got the part for which she had 
 longed so much and given so much, she was haunted by a 
 dread that she would not be equal to it, because she had so 
 much technical knowledge to acquire in the time. 
 
 Gray was anxious that she should work hard, because he 
 ha,d built great hopes on her success ; and it did not spoil 
 his honeymoon, because, while they were working, they were 
 always alone, and it was natural to touch her to mould her 
 to his thoughts. 
 
 She was charmingly amenable to his moulding, and at first 
 ready, and afterwards anxious, to receive the caress which 
 told her that she had achieved the lesson. For she recognized 
 that while he was trying to make her do anything or under- 
 stand anything in the play, he was a professional, jealous of 
 his art. It was only when she had succeeded that she was his 
 wife, to be petted and congratulated. And if she was mal-
 
 MIRABEL LEARNS HER PART 45 
 
 adroit, he was unsparing in his criticisms, however kindly in 
 his manner. 
 
 But he would not let her work too hard. He was jealous 
 for her health and her beauty, and knew how arduous re- 
 hearsing is, especially when the work is intensified by your 
 having to learn the rudiments of your art, as well as the busi- 
 ness of your play. 
 
 To create an atmosphere for one who was not yet accus- 
 tomed to the stage, in the five days which elapsed between 
 her calling on him at the theatre and their departure for 
 Westernport, he had made his chief costumier copy for her the 
 dress and head-dress worn by Queen Mary in the famous 
 Hampton Court portrait, and she wore this as a dinner-dress 
 when they dined in their rooms and were going to rehearse 
 her part afterwards. The pearls which shone in her black 
 hair were real — a costly wedding-present. 
 
 She learned her business as an actress and a man's chosen 
 companion by day, her part as Mary, Queen of Scots, in the 
 evening. 
 
 As soon as he saw her made up for it, with Mary's black 
 velvet dress accentuating the alabaster whiteness of her 
 face, and making the wonderful Sicilian eyes shine like stars, 
 he knew that if he could teach her to act at all, she must 
 succeed, because she looked so royal and romantic. He 
 sometimes felt as if he had married a phantom Queen, when he 
 saw her in costume, and inspired by rehearsing, and compared 
 her with the reproductions of Mary Stuart portraits which he 
 had bought for her to study. 
 
 To any of the ninety-nine women the appeal of this honest 
 transfiguration of the beloved would have been overwhelming ; 
 it would have swept her off her feet. But Mirabel was the 
 hundredth woman. Instead of converting her, it created a 
 separate her, who belonged to the theatre and Oliver Gray, 
 and to whom her soul passed temporarily, leaving her real 
 self dormant in her home. It accentuated the unreality in 
 their relations. It made her whole stay with him at Western- 
 port a phase, a play in which she had a part. 
 
 And this was in fair-weather days, when a chamiing cavalier 
 was overwhelming a raw girl with chivalrous kindness, and 
 she was having her first taste of the wealth which never has 
 to consider cost, while the gifts of Mephistopheles seemed 
 inexhaustible, and his purposes obscure. But what would
 
 46 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 happen, when the reminders came of the price which had to 
 be paid ? 
 
 This was what she thought of during the hour or two every 
 day which she had reserved for herself, when she took the car 
 to the wild scenery near the Devil's Wish-bone, to stand upon 
 the windy heights, or scramble down the perilous path to 
 where the fangs of the reefs below seemed for ever snarling at 
 an angry sea. 
 
 There the presence of great waters flung her back on her 
 real self, and she wondered what would happen when she met 
 the ideal man of her dreams. 
 
 For Oliver, though he matched the figure in her dreams, 
 certainly was not that. He was a splendid Englishman, 
 courageous, kind, and physically a noble specimen of the 
 race ; but he was of sport — sporty ; of the theatre — 
 theatrical ; of all the things which her Italy stood for, nothing 
 but passion touched him. The beautiful epicurean existence 
 of which she had dreamed, the striving to live a perfect 
 married life under perfect conditions, indulging the mind and 
 not the body with the best which the world can give — this was 
 beyond his ken. 
 
 She might, she acknowledged, have met a man who had not 
 the aspirations which she desired, and whose personality was 
 yet so overwhelmingly attractive to her that she would have 
 been content to marry him with but little hope of winning 
 him to her ideals. Oliver Gray was not that man, and, good 
 and kind and considerate as he was proving himself to her, 
 she felt no nearer forgiving him for having made her his 
 slave by forcing her to marry him. For it cut her off 
 from the liberty of achieving the ideal which she had cherished 
 from childhood — the reward for the lonely years she had 
 spent in that Lombard Eden, which to her mind was always 
 the setting of her dream. 
 
 And it was in England, too, that she was married, where 
 marriage could only be dissolved by sin. 
 
 Oliver Gray had done her an intolerable wrong, and, if she 
 fulfilled her promise of being as good and affectionate a wife 
 as she possibly could be during the month, for which she was 
 to live with him as his wife, she would have paid the price for 
 the fame and wealth and power which Mephistopheles had 
 offered her in exchange for her soul. 
 
 And she would be better than her bond, too, for — purposely
 
 MIRABEL LEARNS HER PART 47 
 
 or not — nothing had been stipulated regarding her behaviour 
 when their married Hfe was over ; there were no pains and 
 penalties to fall on her if she lived the life which other beauties 
 of the Babylon were living all round her, to console herself for 
 a hated marriage. 
 
 Oliver Gray may have had his own generous motives in 
 saying nothing about it. But it would not injure him, for 
 Mirabel came of a family whose noblesse oblige was historical, 
 long before Catherine Barlass gave its examplar to the proverb 
 " As loyal as a Douglas " in trying to save the life of her King 
 by putting her arm through the staples of a door whose bolt 
 had been stolen. If Mirabel did not mean to live with her 
 husband, she meant to live up to the proverb. Which 
 implied much, since a Douglas might have worn the Crown 
 of Scotland, if the family had not been so loyal. She must 
 live up to the tradition ; she must do nothing common or 
 unclean, because she knew that, though no one might ever 
 have heard of her, the Douglas blood ran pure in her veins. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AT REHEARSAL 
 
 LONDON theatre-goers were electrified when they saw 
 among the theatrical advertisements of the daily 
 papers, Oliver Gray's announcement that the next production 
 at the Babylon Theatre would be " Mary, Queen of Scots," a 
 historico-musical comedy, and that the part of the Queen 
 would be played by Miss Mirabel Douglas, a girl who had 
 never appeared on the stage before. 
 
 The older people, and more responsible papers, spoke with 
 considerable asperity of his farcing the romantic story of the 
 ill-fated Queen. But since all his productions had been 
 uniformly paradoxical and successful, his patrons looked 
 forward to a fresh triumph. 
 
 Concerning the leading lady, the critics, who were never 
 allowed at Babylon rehearsals, could learn nothing from the 
 Company beyond the fact that she fulfilled the beauty tradi- 
 tions of the theatre, and had a wonderful voice. 
 
 The Company of the Babylon TJicalre were themselves 
 frankly mj^stified by the leading-lady. She was beautiful ;
 
 48 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 she had never had a part before ; she called the proprietor 
 OUver, and had had a grand dressing-room built for her ; yet 
 she kept him more at his distance than an}' woman in the 
 theatre. The proprietor's secretary said that he really knew 
 nothing about her, except that she was a woman with high 
 connections (a gratuitous assumption), who had made very 
 special conditions with Mr. Gray. He imagined that the last 
 leading lady's dressing-room was not considered good enough 
 for her. 
 
 They had been rehearsing for a month without any of the 
 Company having any complaint against her. Whatever her 
 birth might have been, she was treated exactly like the rest 
 in every respect, except that the new dressing-room allowed 
 her to enter and leave the theatre by a private entrance, and 
 that she interposed a barrier between herself and famili- 
 arities. Even Oliver Gray — whose attentions, since he was 
 the sole proprietor of the theatre, and a very handsome and 
 dashing man, on the right side of thirty, were welcomed by 
 most of the girls — never took the smallest liberty with her, 
 beyond addressing her by her Christian name, which was 
 only fair, as she called him Oliver. 
 
 Nor had they anything to complain of in her stage tactics. 
 Unlike most leading ladies, she seemed to have no desire to 
 monopolize the stage and the limelight and the best business. 
 She, of course, took the part of the Queen, and behaved like 
 a real Queen, except when the incongruities of musical 
 comedy compelled her to sing the best songs in the piece, 
 irrespective of appropriateness. She had no dancing to do, 
 except at a sort of Royal servants' ball, which was dragged 
 into the play so that the public might be treated to the kind 
 of dancing which it wanted, without compelling the Regent 
 and Darnley and the Queen's Maries — in fact, anyone but 
 Morton — to dance anything less dignified than Court dances. 
 
 The general opinion of the Company was that her voice 
 and her looks were all right ; that she was chosen for them 
 only, because Oliver Gray wanted to have a fresh star for the 
 public ; that she had made so little of her part in the acting 
 that unless Oliver Gray had been infatuated, he would have 
 been bitterly disappointed ; also that the public would be 
 disappointed because she was put before other beauties in 
 the Companj^ who would have made a " speciality " of the 
 part.
 
 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE PLAY 49 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FIRST NIGHT OF " MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS " 
 
 THE great night had come which was to put to the test 
 Mirabel Douglas's capacity to take advantage of the 
 opportunity for which she had sacrificed so much. 
 
 Every seat in the house was crowded. It was a Babylon 
 first night — not only for a new piece of a particularly novel 
 character, but a new leading lady, and everyone knew what 
 was expected in looks of a leading lady at the Babylon. 
 
 The play made not the mildest attempt to fall in with 
 history. The first act presented the grand state entry of 
 Mary into Edinburgh, which never occurred. The back- 
 ground gave a magnificent view of Old Edinburgh, culminating 
 in the castle ; the foreground was an open space with 
 citizens — the popular comedians of the Company, providing 
 their usual bill of fare under a thin veneer of mediaeval 
 Scotland. 
 
 When they had done enough of this to satisfy their patrons, 
 there was a blare of trumpets, and a splendid procession 
 appeared, consisting of the chief Scottish nobles of the time, 
 heading bands of their retainers, with splendid armour and 
 banners — a truly magnificent pageant, followed by the 
 Queen, supposed to be a lovely girl of nineteen, widow of the 
 King of France, seated on a white palfrey. As she raised her 
 eyes to acknowledge the burst of cheering which greeted her 
 entree, the audience realized what a lovely woman the actress 
 who played the Queen was, with her perfect features, her 
 white skin, her glowing eyes, and her jet-black hair, and when 
 she dismounted, for no reason whatever, to sing a song, she 
 presented a figure of queenly elegance. 
 
 When she sang, she swept the audience right off their feet, 
 for she had a glorious voice, and had inherited from her 
 Italian mother a soft alluring grace, and the light laughter 
 which is as intoxicating as a caress. 
 
 Like a true Italian, she gathered the whole audience into 
 her net. She was encored three times. When the song 
 was finished, a throne was handy, on which she seated her- 
 self, surrounded by her glittering nobles, to receive the homage
 
 50 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 of various people, less important than the nobles in Scottish 
 histor}-, but mucli more important as members of the Babylon 
 Company, who soon relapsed into their ordinary comic 
 business. 
 
 The important comedians reappeared on some excuse or 
 other in the second act, laid in the interior of Holyrood, and 
 the third act, laid in the interior of Edinburgh Castle. 
 
 The second act was given up, when the stage was not needed 
 by the comedians, to the courting of the Queen by the poet 
 Chastelard, who received the indulgence extended to 
 troubadours. The reason was not far to seek : being a 
 troubadour, it was natural for him to sing love-duets with his 
 Royal mistress. He was a baritone to show that he was not 
 to be the successful lover — a magnificent baritone, but an 
 offensive fop of an actor. This was perhaps intentional, in 
 order to make the audience dislike him duly. 
 
 John Knox was usually present to spoil any chance he 
 might have had. It was not necessary. Mirabel's queenly 
 impatience of his presumption was a fine sustained piece of 
 acting. But whenever she had crushed him in the duet- 
 duel, she always had to spoil the effect by turning round and 
 lavishing her smiles on a tempestuous audience. 
 
 The great nobles of the Court, like the Queen's half-brother, 
 the Regent, were as stinted in their opportunities of distin- 
 guishing themselves as the comedians were over-indulged, 
 except the Earl of Morton, whose duty it was to imitate the 
 popular actor of that name who has achieved such a success 
 in revues, and not to pourtray the leading Douglas of the 
 time. 
 
 Half-way through the act Darnley arrived from England, 
 and at once sang a tenor song to indicate that it was his 
 marriage which had been made in heaven. Some use was 
 found for the courtiers in giving him a proper reception. 
 And Mirabel showed charming dignity and graciousness in 
 receiving him. 
 
 The third act, laid in the large hall of the castle, was 
 taken up at intervals with the courtship and duets of the 
 Queen and Darnley, with a dash of Rizzio thrown in. The 
 comedians carried on the really essentiaJ business of the play. 
 The Queen's Maries usually went wherever she went, and 
 danced. In the third act she danced, too, with Darnley, as 
 a form of betrothal. The other important characters,
 
 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE PLAY 51 
 
 except Knox, came in handy for dancing with the Maries. 
 Knox's efforts to stop these innocent gaieties ahiiost threw 
 him into the ranks of the comedians. The parts of the Maries 
 were taken by four out of the five lovely women who played 
 the parts of the Society ladies in the ordinary Babylon pieces. 
 Some of the comedians had courtships with beautiful maidens 
 simmering all through the piece, and these resulted in be- 
 trothals at the same time as the Queen became betrothed to 
 Darnley. 
 
 Hughie Sprot, for instance, as the Lord Provost who 
 manufactured whisky and soda-water, loved Topsy Perks, 
 the soubrette who took the part of Queen Mary's maid, Elsie 
 Ridpath, and when he was bowing himself out of the Royal 
 Presence, used, as he got to the door, to bring the house down 
 by calling out : " Ta-ta, Els' ! " 
 
 The crowning hetise of the author was when he made John 
 Knox join the hands of Mary and Darnley, the match which 
 the real Knox so bitterly opposed, because Darnley was a 
 Catholic. The audience did not know this, or, at all events, 
 did not mind. They would have cheered Knox for letting 
 bygones be bygones, if this kind of interruption had been 
 usual. 
 
 The great nobles were quite forgotten at the finish, perhaps 
 because they were already married, and marrying was the 
 business of this scene. 
 
 Mirabel made the scene. It was plain from the beginning 
 that she resented Darnley's suit, and had given her heart to 
 the courtly Italian singer, Rizzio, who was in attendance on 
 her all through the play. But it was plain also that this part 
 was to come to nothing, since it had not been entrusted to the 
 principal tenor, and sorely against her will she had to consent 
 to marry Darnley, after they had sung two songs to each 
 other. 
 
 She ran through the whole gamut of love's battle with 
 charming grace and sincerity, and always looked a Queen. 
 
 Bothwell, too, was present, looking daggers at Darnley. 
 Huntly and Seton were merely supers at the Royal wedding, 
 with which the play concluded. 
 
 The play had an immense reception. Its music was dehght- 
 ful ; its setting was more than usually magnificent ; and 
 London had a new favourite to take to its heart, a lovely 
 woman with a lovely voice. 
 
 4*
 
 52 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Mirabel had to come forward three or four times. The 
 last time OUver Gray himself brought her on. 
 
 The critics, treading carefully, for Gray was a monster 
 advertiser, went home to say that " Mary, Queen of Scots," 
 was a genuine Babylon success, with plenty of fun, magnificent 
 scenery and dresses, and bevies of beautiful women. They 
 prophesied that the music would catch on like the music of 
 " The Merry Widow." 
 
 The history they tore to pieces : critics have to tear some- 
 thing to pieces to be critics. Those who were friendhest 
 congratulated Oliver Gray on having tried to avoid every 
 semblance of history : which was a grave injustice, for he 
 believed that he was giving the public something quite as 
 historical as Tennyson's " Queen Mary." They were ail 
 agreed that the banalities of the production must be forgiven, 
 as they had given the public such a Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 as Miss Mirabel Douglas. They went home to rave over her 
 voice, to rave over her beauty, her dignity, her grace, and 
 the capabilities she must have as an actress, to have invested 
 that part with any kind of cohesion or interest. With few 
 exceptions they greeted her as one of the greatest accessions 
 musical comedy had ever had. 
 
 She was, of course, the principal toast at the supper which 
 Oliver Gray always gave on a first night to all of the company 
 whose names appeared on the bill. Actors and actresses are 
 very human people, and though they may fight with desperate 
 jealousy against the success of a rival who is just forging 
 ahead of them, they are ready to acclaim any success which 
 they cannot hope to rival, and to range themselves under its 
 banners. For if their leading lady or actor achieves a com- 
 manding success, their play may run so long that every man 
 in the company may become a popular favourite, and every 
 woman, in musical comedy, a countess. 
 
 Hughie Sprot, the chief comedian, who represented a 
 character who does not come into history, and was pro- 
 posing some other toast, crystallized this in an epigram, when 
 he said : " There are some among us who resented the promo- 
 tion over their heads of a bread-and-butter Miss to the post 
 of leading lady, but their sentiments have experienced a 
 sudden change since they perceived that the bread-and- 
 butter Miss is going to be Miss Bread-and-Butter for us all." 
 
 The chorus of praise from the speeches and the conversa-
 
 THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE PLAY 53 
 
 tion of the whole table was unstinted. It is nice to be able 
 to congratulate your proprietor. 
 
 As Mirabel and Gray sat and smiled their thanks for the 
 generous things which were said of them in every speech, 
 one might have suspected them of being the happiest people 
 in London — she because she had justified his expectations, 
 and had the certainty of a career before her ; he, iDccause he 
 had found a new trump-card for his theatre, and, having 
 made her fortune, might justly look forward to a delightful 
 friendship. And this he might do without doubt, but, un- 
 fortunately, it only meant a fall from grace for him. And 
 for her, too, there was a canker at the heart of the rose. 
 
 It took the new Queen fully an hour to say good-bye to 
 all her Court, who were bubbling with champagne. They 
 were much gratified by her staying with their host to the 
 end. 
 
 When the last one had gone, she said : " I am simply dead ! 
 Will you have the car called, Oliver ? " 
 
 It might have been an excuse to escape a situation she 
 desired to avoid, had it not been so obviously true. She sat 
 huddled up with tiredness until one servant came to say that 
 the car was there, and another to bring the cloak she had 
 sent for from her dressing-room. She was too tired to change 
 back into the clothes in which she had come ; the car could 
 fetch them and take back her costume in the morning. >» 
 
 As she was stepping into the car, she took Gray's hand in 
 a most eloquent grasp. " Good night, Oliver," she said. 
 " A thousand thanks for all your generosity and considera- 
 tion. We can be the greatest friends in the world." 
 
 He closed the door carefully, gave her a little nod, and 
 said " Home " to the chauffeur, who had no idea who he Wcis. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HOME 
 
 AS Mirabel sped swiftly in her car along the Kensington 
 High Street to the old house on the river-bank at 
 Hammersmith, which she had insisted on making lier home, 
 she had food enough for thought. The luxurious car in 
 which she was travelling was her own, and the old mansion
 
 54 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 to which she was speeding was her own, and she was assured 
 of plenty of money for their maintenance. And this very 
 night she had made such an impression on the pubhc that 
 she might consider her triumph as a musical-comedy actress 
 begun. 
 
 She had done it all herself, without an introduction from 
 anyone, and she was but two-and-twenty. It read like a 
 fairy-tale. Well might she lean back on the soft cushions 
 and give little sighs of satisfaction. 
 
 But there was the proverbial fly in the ointment, and it 
 was that she had sold her liberty for it — that the vision of 
 the lake had faded out of her life. 
 
 The girls in the theatre had been telling her what a splendid 
 marriage she ought to make, if she played her cards well. 
 " There's no reason why you shouldn't be a countess," they 
 said. 
 
 She knew better, and it seemed intolerable to her that now, 
 when she was rich as well as beautiful, and should, more than 
 most women, have had the chance of making that ideal 
 marriage, she should be irrevocably cut off from it, though 
 she owed her wealth to the fact. 
 
 At any rate, she had the consolation of success, artistic, 
 in some measure, as well as popular, her instinct told her. 
 And since she had abdicated the throne of marriage, she 
 would be one more of the Exiles of Art. 
 
 She found both her man-servant and her Italian maid, 
 Caterina, sitting up for her, as well as Paula Maitland, who 
 not having been^ present at the supper, had arrived home 
 two or three hours before her. Paula was quite worn out 
 with their questions. Mirabel was overwhelmed with their 
 congratulations from the moment that she set foot within 
 the door. The servants, who had very easy places, naturally 
 adored her. 
 
 Paula, of course, joined in the chorus, but reserved her 
 real congratulations till she came into Mirabel's bedroom, 
 carrying a thermos, the companion of many wanderings, 
 now filled with steaming coffee. 
 
 Imperilling the life of the thermos by flinging it on the 
 bed, she embraced Mirabel with the distinction which charac- 
 terized everything she did, and cried from the bottom of her 
 heart : " Oh, Mirabel, you are wonderful ! I knew how 
 gloriously you could sing, and I saw what a talent you had
 
 HOME 55 
 
 for acting when you were the grandmother in that Httle piece 
 they gave at the Conservatorium on the gala night ; but I 
 had no idea that you would hold a whole theatre with your 
 acting and sweep them right off their feet with your singing ! 
 You have made your fortune in a single night ! London will 
 never go back on you ! " 
 
 " Paula dear, you are saying far too much ! " protested 
 the blushing and delighted Mirabel. " But I was a success, 
 wasn't I ? I know I was, because the other women in the 
 company congratulated me so heartily, and John Knox told 
 me at supper that they would never have acknowledged it, 
 if it had been any good trying to deny it." 
 
 " Well, so you were, dear — the audience simply raved over 
 you ! You'll be hearing from the whole of the first four rows 
 of the stalls ! " 
 
 " I shan't ' hear,' because I asked Mr. Gray to open every 
 letter which was addressed to me at the theatre, and return 
 it to the wi"iter." 
 
 " That will be very humorous," laughed Paula. 
 
 " I don't think that you can form any idea how humorous," 
 said Mirabel grimly. 
 
 Paula was looking her very best : she was so excited and 
 enchanted with her friend's success. 
 
 She was rather the antithesis of Mirabel. Both were of 
 a good height, slender and graceful ; both held themselves 
 charmingly ; but whereas Mirabel's grace was of the \dllowy 
 Italian type, so soft, though it was so upright, Paula's came 
 of a very straight back, almost military in its distinction, and 
 her distinction in dress was as marked. The slight figure 
 had its counterpart in very well-chiselled, rather retrousses 
 features, and her rosy complexion was set off by superb hair, 
 full of natural curl and wave, which had gone snow-white 
 when she was hardly older than Mirabel, and become more 
 beautiful than it had ever been when it was golden. 
 
 But none of her friends ever analysed Paula's face as it 
 has been analysed here ; in her brilUant presence the play of 
 the mobile features, and the whimsical smile which accom- 
 panied the sallies of her wit, focused their attention. 
 
 Paula was a w^ell-known novelist, who had more than once 
 made a long stay with Mirabel at the \'illa Visconti, and, by 
 a lucky coincidence, had become an inmate of Mirabel's new 
 house.
 
 56 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 When Mirabel determined to reply to the advertisement for 
 the post of leading lady at the Babylon Theatre, Addison 
 Rhodes, the dramatic professor at the Royal Lyceum, who, 
 like all his kind, was a preposterous optimist, had no doubt 
 whatever that she would get the post, while she did not 
 cherish the smallest hope. 
 
 And when she came back and said that she was one of the 
 candidates who were selected to be tested, his elation mounted 
 still higher, and distressed her. And when she came in one 
 day, a week afterwards, and said that she had got the post, 
 he almost sang a Nunc Dimitiis over her, and could not 
 understand her dismay. All she told him was : " I don't 
 want to be leading lady at the Babylon — it's a hateful place ! 
 I wish I'd never applied for it ! " 
 
 " You'll get accustomed to it, my dear. I know that there 
 must be many things about it which a lady would hate, and 
 you are ..." here he gave his grand bow "... a great 
 lady. But you will get over them. These people are very 
 good-hearted, and, after all, you need not receive . . . 
 addresses, shall we call them ? ... if you make up your 
 mind that you will tolerate nothing of the sort." 
 
 " Oh, that is where it comes in ! " she almost moaned. 
 
 She left the Lyceum immediately. She had paid the fees 
 for the term, and that was where her responsibility to the 
 institution ended. And in less than a month she had 
 gone down into the country and buried herself until the 
 rehearsals began. She left no hint with any of her class- 
 mates as to where she was going. 
 
 " Women are funny ! " Professor Rhodes said to one of 
 them. " You would have thought that a chance like this 
 would have raised her to the seventh heaven ! Instead of 
 which, she goes on as if she was waiting to be executed ! 
 She should have thought of what musical comedy means 
 before." 
 
 Mirabel intended to live, for the present, in an old house 
 on the Mall at Hammersmith, which had taken her fancy, 
 and before she went away she gave orders for it to be 
 done up, and a few rooms furnished temporarily, so that she 
 might have somewhere to go to when she came back for 
 rehearsals. 
 
 The regular furnishing of the house was to be one of her 
 amusements afterwards.
 
 HOME 57 
 
 Her plans in this direction were, however, entirely changed 
 by meeting one day at an art-furnisher's, where she was 
 buying gre}^ felt, Paula Maitland. 
 
 " Why, what are you doing here, Madonna Mirabel ? " 
 
 " I've got a part in the new play at the Babylon for the 
 autumn." 
 
 " And your father ? " 
 
 " Dead." No cloud went over the face which had lighted 
 up so at meeting her beloved Paula. 
 
 " And so you had to do something for your living ? 
 hazarded Paula shyly, lest she should be treading on dehcate 
 ground. 
 
 " W^ell, hardly that — I have enough to live on. The stage 
 had always been my dream ; so when I was free I came to 
 England to pursue it." 
 
 " I hope the part is a good one — I mean, financially ? " 
 
 " Very," answered Mirabel, and to change the subject, 
 said : " But you, Paula, what are you doing here, in this 
 shop, ordering that enormous carpet ? You must live in a 
 palace ! " 
 
 " It isn't for myself," laughed Paula, " but my books don't 
 pay me very well — not well enough to allow me to travel in 
 the wholesale way that I like — so I eke my income out by 
 decorating and furnishing houses for those who have not 
 the brains or the energy to do it for themselves." 
 
 " Do you mean that you do the decorating ? " 
 
 " Not at all ! I only advise and choose." 
 
 " Is your own house very lovely ? " 
 
 " I haven't got a house — I live in rooms." 
 
 " What do you do with them when you go away — when 
 you go awav for months hke you used to spend on Lago di 
 Como ? " 
 
 " Drag all my possessions into the sitting-room, which 
 
 I keep because I have grown accustomed to working in it. 
 
 Any room does to sleep in, and there's generally some room 
 
 n the house which I can have when I come back from my 
 
 wanderings, until my proper bedroom is vacant." 
 
 " What an uncomfortable existence for a woman like you ! " 
 
 " It isn't really, because it allows me to travel, which is 
 the delight of my life." 
 
 " And yet you have to put aside your writing and do 
 drudgery hke this to keep going ? "
 
 S8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " There's no drudgery about it, Mirabel. There is an 
 authorship in furnishing as well as in books. A house is just 
 like a book — if its furnishing is going to be an artistic success, 
 it must have a plot, and if the plot is a good one, everybody 
 who comes into the house will make dialogue about it." 
 
 " That's all very well, but doesn't this kind of authorship 
 make you feel rather sick sometimes, when you've furnished a 
 house for somebody else, just as you would have liked it, 
 down to the very door-mat ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, yes ! It's been my dream all my life to 
 have a house of my own, to live in one of my creations ! But I 
 couldn't do it, because ' it would put the lid on ' my 
 travelling." 
 
 " I can tell you how to do it," said Mirabel. " Furnish 
 my house for me, and come and live in it. It shan't cost 
 you a penny. You can choose two rooms to put your own 
 things in. There are plenty of them, and you can always go 
 away when the spirit moves you, because even if I'm not 
 there, there will be the servants to look after your things." 
 
 " And where do 5'ou come in ? " 
 
 " Well, it will be lonely work for me living by myself, and 
 as a girl of twenty- two, employed in musical comedy, I don't 
 suppose that I shall be any the worse for a chaperon." 
 
 " I don't think you will. For one thing, Wilde was quite 
 right when he said that the stage was the refuge of the too 
 fascinating. And for another, at a theatre like the Babylon, 
 the stage-door is even worse than the stage." 
 
 " There will be no stage-door for me. I'm going to have 
 a private entrance, and am always going to be seen into 
 my car by the manager." 
 
 " By Ohver Gray, Junior ? That's worse ! " 
 
 " No, by his assistant, old Mac." 
 
 " Acting under Gray's orders ? What a set-a-thief pro- 
 ceeding ! The whole business comes from not having tlie 
 same laws for men as they have for women. Scotland Yard 
 would interfere in one second if women hung about the 
 stage-door, and bribed their way into the Green Room, for 
 the very same purpose. So why should men be allowed to 
 do it night after night ? It's because they make the 
 laws." 
 
 Mirabel had no opinion. In Italy, where there are no 
 Parties, the aristocracy have no political influence, and
 
 HOME 59 
 
 most of them take no interest in politics. Those who do, 
 often rise in their Lower House as the heirs to Peerages rise 
 in our House of Commons. Mirabel's own kinsman, the head 
 of the Visconti-Venosta, had recently been Prime Minister 
 of Italy, but the other Visconti had taken no interest in the 
 fact, except when they wanted posts in the Civil Service. 
 
 Mirabel did not mention this to Paula ; she disliked 
 politics, and did not wish to be supposed to have any con- 
 nection with theni. So she changed the subject, and said : 
 " Are you a suffragette, Paula ? " 
 
 " Of course I am ! I don't break windows or march in 
 the processions, because I think that it is vulgar to go to 
 prison. I should hate being handcuffed with a whole lot 
 of people looking on, which so many of these women seem 
 to enjoy — I suppose on the principle of martyrdom. But 
 I subscribe as much as I can afford to the funds of the 
 W. S. P. U., and go to all their meetings, and speak up for 
 them whenever the subject comes into ordinary conversation." 
 
 " Do you ever address meetings ? " 
 
 " No, I should be dumb if I tried." 
 
 " Thankful for that ! " said Mirabel to herself. She was 
 beginning to fear that she had made a mistake in asking 
 Paula to share her home. She had visions of " Votes for 
 Women " meetings in the big room in her house where the 
 boats were. 
 
 " You won't bring the suffragette business to our house, 
 will you, Paula ? " she said. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I'll be a perfect Jesuit about it ! " 
 
 The man who was attending on them had left them ; his 
 commission as a salesman did not seem hicely to be affected 
 until this matter was settled. ]\Iirabers face had evidently 
 betrayed her fears, for Paula's next remark was : 
 
 " Don't change your mind, dearest Mirabel, or I shall die 
 of disappointment ! I am the loneliest woman in the world, 
 and wc two could be so happy together ! I won't be a worry 
 about the W. S. P. U. Did you say Hammersmith ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I am glad you did ; we can live there without any 
 pretence." 
 
 " Have 5'ou done your business ? " asked Mirabel. 
 
 " Practically." 
 
 " Then let's run down there now."
 
 6o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Paula was delighted by the proposal, which appeared to 
 clinch matters. 
 
 Outside the shop Mirabel hailed a taxi, and in a quarter 
 of an hour they were at the gate of an old Georgian house, 
 fronting on the river. 
 
 The gate, which had a hoop for holding a lantern above 
 it, was dislocated, but a grand piece of Georgian ironwork. 
 When Mirabel took a key from her pocket and opened the 
 front door, there was a door open on their left, which 
 revealed the studio. It was so large that there was a row 
 of boats on the floor, which the local boat-builder had been 
 allowed to house there. " This is a nice dining-room for 
 two lone women," said Mirabel. But Paula, though she was 
 staggered at the size of the house where they were going to 
 live so quietty, noted it with satisfaction. 
 
 " That will do for our receptions ... of course, we shall 
 have receptions ? You don't have to furnish a room for 
 receptions. You only put down a drugget and bring in 
 chairs and tables from other rooms." 
 
 All the chief rooms in the house were panelled ; more 
 than one bedroom had its powder-closet, and not the least 
 joy was the garden of an acre or more, with all its old- 
 fashioned conceits, though it was mournfully dilapidated. 
 
 " What couldn't you do with such a place if you had the 
 money ! " came almost with a groan from Paula. 
 
 " Don't distress yourself ! " said Mirabel. " A relative of 
 mine, who is much more pleased about my getting my post 
 at the Babylon than I am, gave me the house, and he's going 
 to pay for putting it in order and furnishing it." 
 
 " Why on earth is he going to do it ? How did you get 
 round him, Mirabel ? " 
 
 " I didn't get round him. It's his own idea entirely. He 
 wants me to cut a proper dash, I suppose. I can assure you 
 that he was horribly disappointed when I chose a house at 
 Hammersmith 1 His idea was somewhere in Mayfair or 
 Belgravia. I only got out of it by saying that I must 
 have the river, to remind of my lake. I should have felt 
 suffocated there." 
 
 " He must be a very rich man," said Paula. 
 
 "He is, I believe." ^ 
 
 " Well, my dear, that's a good thing to have behind you 
 in your profession. People are not so apt to jump on you
 
 HOME 6 1 
 
 if you have a powerful relative, as they are when you are 
 a lone woman." 
 
 " Well, I'd just as soon do without him if I could," said 
 Mirabel. " But I can see that it's a good thing to start in 
 a dignified way." 
 
 " Well, when shall we start decorating it and choosing the 
 furniture ? — if you really mean me to do it ! " asked Paula, 
 when they had gone in, and, woman-like, were sitting on the 
 stairs of that noble Georgian mansion (because there was 
 nothing else to sit on except the boats), and making tea with 
 a spirit-lamp and a couple of enamelled iron teacups, which 
 had made the journey there in a string bag. 
 
 " To-morrow, if you like, dear." 
 
 " And how much may I spend ? " 
 
 " Anything you like, apparently. He's paid a thousand 
 pounds into my bank to begin with, and says I can have as 
 much more as I want." 
 
 " A thousand pounds ! " gasped Paula. " Aren't j^ou 
 frightened, Mirabel, that all this gold is going to turn into 
 dead leaves, as it did in the ' Tales oj the Alhmnbra ? ' " 
 
 " My dear, I am always dreaming of those dead leaves ! " 
 She looked so dejected that Paula cried : 
 
 " Cheer up ! If the money is in the bank, it can't turn into 
 dead leaves, because no gold has ever been taken there, but 
 only a cheque with the proper kind of signature on it ! " 
 
 " I know," said Mirabel, almost morosely. " The money 
 is right enough, but there are hateful things connected with 
 this musical comedy ! " 
 
 Paula thought so, too, and was glad that Mirabel had 
 proper ideas. She had been brought up in an ardently 
 religious circle : she had been called Paula after the noble 
 Paula of the Aventine, who was one of the chief estabhshers 
 of Christianity in ancient Rome. Paula had travelled so 
 much, that she had got out of the way of going to church, 
 but she was still true to her prejudices. 
 
 " You must let me know all your ideas, so that I may carry 
 them out as far as possible," she said, to furnish a distraction. 
 
 " I haven't any ideas," said Mirabel, " except to make the 
 place remind me of the lake as much as possible. You 
 recollect our villa there ? "
 
 62 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Perfectly ! What's become of it ? " 
 
 " It's mine still. I inherited it from my Visconti mother. 
 I couldn't bear to part with it, or a single stick of the 
 contents." 
 
 " Visconti, did you say ? " exclaimed Paula. " Are you a 
 Visconti ? " 
 
 " Of course, though only a poor dilapidated strain of the 
 Visconti who ruled Milan in the far-back times." 
 
 " But a real Visconti ? " 
 
 " Yes. The Sforza swallowed the main line, but there are 
 several branches left. One, not ours, is one of the great 
 famihes of Italy still. Ours has nothing but ancestry and 
 that tumbledown villa on the lake." 
 
 " Oh, Mirabel, fancy a Visconti acting at a place like the 
 Babylon ! " 
 
 " It's no worse than calling it the Babylon ! " 
 
 " Who lives in the villa now ? " 
 
 " I have left it in charge of old Serafina, to whom I give 
 a pension. I could not bear to turn her out into the world 
 at her age." 
 
 " Then shall I begin to-morrow ? " asked the practical 
 Paula. 
 
 " To-day, if you like, dear. I am going down into the 
 country in a week or two for a thorough rest, before I begin 
 my rehearsals. And I suppose that things will turn up in 
 which you will want my collaboration ? " 
 
 " Of course I shall, you silly child ! It's your house, and 
 you have exquisite taste." 
 
 " Well, I'll be very good till I go away." 
 
 " Would you like me to come with you ? " asked Paula. 
 " It's dull work, resting by yourself." 
 
 " It won't be rest at all ; that's only the name we give it. 
 I'm going down to stay with the relative who is giving me 
 the house. He is very fond of me, and I've promised to go. 
 But you can't think how I wish that I hadn't ! " 
 
 " I hope he isn't too fond," said Paula, her rehgious instincts 
 pricking up their ears. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, there'U be nothing that the whole bench 
 of bishops couldn't approve of ! The trouble is that I dishke 
 him so, while he insists on exercising the family privilege of 
 equipping me with sufficient splendour to make the proper 
 impression as mistress of a house ! Isn't it pathetic ? "
 
 HOME 63 
 
 "I'm not quite sure that you don't deserve to be whipped, 
 Mirabel ! Nothing seems good enough for you ! " said Paula, 
 wliose speech was seldom restrained by the fear of giving 
 offence. But, as Mirabel was being so good to her, this 
 time she felt that she had gone too far and began to stammer 
 an apology. 
 
 " Don't apologize. You will always be free to castigate 
 me as much as you like with your tongue, which is sometimes 
 worse than a stick, Paula ! We must be free to speak our 
 minds if we're going to live together." 
 
 "I'm glad you recognize that ! Shall we have the drawing- 
 room panels in cream or ivory ? " 
 
 " In the matter of house-paint," said Mirabel, " I don't 
 think I know the difference." 
 
 " And what can I do for you, Mirabel, in return for all 
 your kindness ? " asked Paula, as they were parting on 
 the day before Mirabel went down into the countr3^ They 
 were not to meet at all on the actual da}^ Mirabel had said, 
 because she had to leave home very early. 
 
 " Get everything finished before I come back, and engage 
 tlie servants. I've told you what I want in that line — and 
 come into the house as soon as you can, and begin running it. 
 I shall have very long hours during the rehearsals, and shall 
 have no time or energy for domestic worries. Rehearsals are 
 always heavy work, but they are worse when you have to 
 justify your appointment to a position for which everybody, 
 except the man who bestowed it, thinks you unfit." 
 
 When she got back from Westernport Mirabel was 
 astonished at the transformation. The Georgian gate had 
 been restored to the perpendicular, and moved complacently 
 on its hinges ; the front door and the dressings round the 
 windows were decorously painted ; the hall, when the man- 
 servant opened the door, gave an impression of deep comfort ; 
 and the whole house looked as it must have looked in the 
 eighteenth century. Paula had been as careful to avoid 
 gorgeousness as she had been to preserve accuracy. It 
 seemed to her absurd for two women living alone to allow
 
 64 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 an5'thing to look pompous, and she had bought no ornaments 
 which did not serve a necessary purpose. Those she left 
 for Mirabel to collect when they were out together. 
 
 The chief transformations were in the garden, and it was 
 too dark to see them. Besides, it was already rather late 
 for the tea, steaming in a dear little, three-cornered panelled 
 room, which was next to Mirabel's bedroom, and looked out 
 on the river — ^not upon Hammersmith's hearse-like bridge, 
 but upon the bargey port of Chiswick, where there were 
 watery phantoms hanging on the curtain of the dusk. 
 
 But the best of it was that Paula was there — Paula, with 
 her face as pink and smooth as a child's, and her noble crown 
 of hair ; Paula, with her alert blue eyes and lurking smile ! 
 
 She hurried forward to give Mirabel a cup of tea. The 
 slight, straight figure was in just the right dress to suit the 
 surroundings and herself ; she had a genius for appropriate- 
 ness. It gave Mirabel a thrill of pleasure to think that she 
 would always have that charming presence to fill the house, 
 and she was in good spirits. A load seemed to have been 
 taken off her mind by having got through her visit, and 
 being free to return to her chosen home. But when she 
 saw how delightful everything looked, she did not forget to 
 be grateful to the self-sacrificing and unwelcome relative 
 whom she had just left, though he was her husband. 
 
 After tea Paula took her over the clean, fragrant, orderly 
 house, to show her all that she had done. The very absence 
 of ornaments was grateful to Mirabel, accustomed to the 
 empty spaces of an Itahan house. She felt that it was indeed 
 a home. 
 
 CHAPTER Xni 
 
 OLIVER GRAY REFLECTS 
 
 WHEN Oliver Gray had seen Mirabel into her car, after 
 that first-night supper, he went up to his flat, to 
 sit in the cupola, his usual smoking-place of a night. He 
 loved that gallery, which commanded such an extraordinary 
 panorama of London by day, and even at night had an 
 amazing view, when the cupola lights were lowered. 
 
 Gray threw himself down into his favourite chair ; the 
 whisky decanter and a syphon and cigars stood on the table
 
 OLIVER GRAY REFLECTS 65 
 
 beside it. He helped himself to a whisky-and-soda, a very 
 temperate one, and hghted a cigar. Then he took out his 
 watch, and saw that it was aheady past three. 
 
 From where he sat he had only to stretch out a hand to 
 reach the switchboard for the electric lights, and as soon as 
 he had emptied his glass he extinguished them, and started 
 furiously to think. 
 
 That woman who had just parted from him, what would he 
 not give to have her here beside him, with that caressing 
 smile of hers, which had taken the audience in his great 
 theatre by storm ! He had felt madly jealous at those smiles 
 going to the audience, instead of himself. He would have 
 given the whole theatre for them. He loved this woman as 
 he had never loved anything before. And he could not have 
 her, not for the mistress of his household, the lady at the head 
 of his table, his daily and hourly companion. 
 
 He had taught her her business as an actress, and found her 
 the most docile and instructable of pupils. He had prided 
 himself on the way in which he had taught her all the stage 
 artifices of musical comedy, and how in this particular play 
 he wished her to burst upon the audience ; what actions she 
 should perform to demonstrate her queenliness ; how she 
 should receive the adventurer Chastelard's advances, and how 
 she should receive the Fairy Prince, Damley's, and a dozen 
 other such matters. He even told her what to do in order 
 to be chic. By his coaching he had always got better results 
 out of his prima donna than any other impresario in musical 
 comedy. Mirabel had taken all his instructions most 
 patiently, and carried them out faithfully. 
 
 But what had happened when the play was presented 
 se\cn hours ago ? No one had given a thought to all the 
 stage tricks, which she had performed exactly as she had 
 learned her lesson. They had been passed by as the laborious 
 exercises of royal etiquette. What really charmed the 
 audience, apart from her singing, was the play of her 
 delightful personality. Seeing her, they could well picture 
 how Mary, Queen of Scots (always royal, and full of the 
 dignity and graciousness which she had acquired while pre- 
 siding over the brilliant assemblages of the gay Renaissance 
 Court of Francis H. of France), received with patience and 
 tact and suppressed merriment the uncouth ceremonies of 
 her unaccommodating Scottish subjects. They could picture
 
 GG THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE J 
 
 how Mary, accustomed to the affectations and license of 
 troubadours, parried the impertinences and the affectation 
 of adventurers, hke Chastelard. The unwilhng surrender of 
 Mary to the real Darnley could not have been marked by 
 greater spirit and consideration than Mirabel showed to her 
 puppet Darnley. 
 
 Not one bit of this, which had so enraptured the critics, 
 was his work. It was all due to her natural good breeding and 
 spirited personality. And the worst of all was that he, like 
 Chastelard, had dared to hope too high, and had been put 
 back into his place by the strength of her personality. 
 
 His admiration was enhanced by the way in which she had 
 concealed his rejection from the rest of the Company. No 
 one obeyed him more cheerfully and literally. No one 
 treated him with more unfailing graciousness. 
 
 The Company rather wondered at her calling him Oliver, 
 when she treated him so formally in other respects, but con- 
 cluded that he called her Mirabel because he called all of them 
 by their Christian names, and that she called him Oliver, 
 which none of them did, in the theatre, to show him that 
 she was as good as he was. She treated him with charming 
 cordiality, but she decidedly had the effect of a wet blanket 
 on the cheery and audacious Oliver Gray. That he was not 
 himself, when she was there, was the general verdict. 
 
 He was not aware that they said so, and it would have made 
 him angry if he had known it, but he would have recognized 
 the truth of the indictment. 
 
 The Company very soon began to think it a bore, for his 
 vagaries had generally been connected with prodigal 
 hospitality. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BETTY FARNOL PROTESTS 
 
 AFTER a play had run for a few nights, unless any 
 changes were required, Oliver Gray left the running 
 of it to his very able assistant-manager, Mr. Maccabaeus — 
 " Old Mac " — who did the solid work of the production, and 
 made the business pay such tremendous dividends. This 
 astute person took a small salary and a very large commission 
 which, since he was honest, paid both himself and his
 
 BETTY FARNOL PROTESTS d^ 
 
 employer. His brain and his vigilance were working cease- 
 lessly. Gray's private expenditure on the ladies of his theatre 
 was paid out of his private income, instead of them having 
 blackmailing business arrangements. Such a reckless and 
 generous man as Oliver Gray needed some 'protection of this 
 kind, and though in contracts with large firms Old Mac was 
 as hard as a flint, he was by no means unsympathetic with 
 employees ; he merely stood out against being exploited. 
 His theatrical knowledge and experience were marvellous. 
 
 Old Mac was an unmistakable Jew of the intellectual 
 rather than the financial type. He had a fat face and a small 
 black moustache, and might have been any age over forty- 
 five. He had a thick Jewish voice, and a slow way of 
 speaking, which enabled him to weigh his words, and dis- 
 concerted the " slim " people with whom he had to deal. 
 
 Oliver Gray gave many dinners at the Babylon Restaurant, 
 which he hoped to make the rival of Prince's, though he pre- 
 fcred a dinner at a club, with two or three men whom he could 
 take round to his box after dinner, whether he was host or 
 guest. Most of them thought seeing a " bit of the show " at 
 the Babylon, and going behind the scenes, a pleasant thing 
 to do after dinner, and he liked to know what was going on — • 
 the play was not the only thing at the Babylon Theatre. 
 
 His big dinners were always on a Sunday night, when he 
 asked some of the Guards' officers and other rich young men 
 who were the chief supporters of the Babylon, and a few 
 Society ladies who wanted to see life like their brothers and 
 husbands, to meet the beauties and stars of his theatre. 
 
 " Mary, Queen of Scots " had now been running for nearly 
 a month, and drawing cn<jrmous houses, and the beauties 
 of the Babylon were grumbling because Oliver Gray had not 
 given a single one of his famous dinners. They had expected 
 them almost weekly, and to meet at them the latest additions 
 to the ranks of the jeunesse dorce in London. 
 
 " What's the matter with the governor ? " asked Topsy 
 Perks, the comedian, who came into every Babylon piece, 
 usually in the dress of a ballet-dancer, as a fast little lady's- 
 maid with beautiful legs. 
 
 Old Mac had a shrewd idea, and he sympathized with his 
 employer, but he said, " He must have something up liis 
 sleeve. If he doesn't know his way about, I don't know who 
 does." 
 
 5*
 
 68 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " He does know a bit," said Topsy, " and he's a tip-topper ; 
 but I wish he'd hurry up ! " 
 
 " I don't see what you've got to shout about ! You've 
 got somebody of your own ! " said Old Mac. 
 
 "A lot of good he is, except for paying ! — he's older than 
 you are ! " They were refering to Heinrich Loewe, a septua- 
 genarian Austrian financier. 
 
 The assistant managing-director did not resent her freedom 
 of speech ; he liked the ladies of the Company to speak out 
 their minds ; it gave him a better idea of what they were 
 doing, and he kept a chart of that in his memory. 
 
 He thought more of it when Beatrice Farnol — Betty to her 
 intimates — who, though curiously ugly, considered herself 
 the beauty of the Company, and had married the heir to a 
 Peerage (forbidden his father's house in consequence) , tackled 
 him. Peers and their sons came a good deal to these dinners, 
 and occasionally their wives, and Betty, who was clever, 
 made good use of opportunities for ingratiating herself. 
 Though no beauty, she was very graceful and witty, and could 
 make the most of a part. She was one of the Queen's Maries. 
 
 Her husband, the Hon. Orlando Jebb, kept her up to it. 
 He had married her because he liked the glamour of musical 
 comedy ; he thought that his life would be a perpetual 
 pantomime thenceforth, and was bitterly disappointed when 
 his wife cut herself off from the frivolities of the Babylon 
 girls, though she was wise enough to keep in with them at 
 the theatre, and tried to live up to his family, " the dismal 
 Jebbs." 
 
 The suspension of the Babylon dinners made his wife's 
 desires and his own for once flow in the same direction. 
 
 " He's never going to drop the dinners, is he ? " she asked 
 of Old Mac. " Already the Company is beginning to lose its 
 esprit de corps." 
 
 His ears pricked ; it was not necessarily a fact because she 
 said so, but the point was a good one if it was true. 
 
 " Miss Douglas is awfully nice," she continued, " but the 
 fact of her seeing absolutely nothing of us except in the 
 theatre does not help our esprit de corps." She liked that 
 expression. It made her feel as if she had been educated. 
 " Besides, who is she ? " added the Hon. Mrs. Jebb, rather 
 vindictively, " that she should consider herself too good for 
 us ? Isn't my family good enough for her ? "
 
 BETTY FARNOL PROTESTS 69 
 
 Old Mac did not think that the Farnol family — in point of 
 fact, its name was not Farnol — had the same breeding as 
 Mirabel Douglas, but he did not say so. What he said was : 
 
 " She may have gone on the stage against the wishes of 
 her people. There are some people, you know, who think 
 that the stage is a sink of iniquity, and are ready to cut their 
 children off if they have anything to do with it." 
 
 " Horrid old beast ! " said Betty Farnol under her breath. 
 " He's rapping me over the knuckles ! How does he come to 
 know such a lot ? " Then, she suddenly changed her mode 
 of attack. " Good old Mac," she said, " do try and manage 
 it for us. We all miss these dinners so much. I didn't mean 
 what I said about Miss Douglas ; she's an awfully nice woman, 
 and she has some good reason, Fm sure. I know I'm a cat, 
 but I can't help it." This she said because his remark about 
 puritanical families reminded her that he was one of the new 
 leading lady's most devoted admirers. 
 
 " There may be something in what 5^ou say, my dear." 
 She did not writhe at the familiarity ; Old Mac was in the 
 habit of my-dearing every woman in the theatre, but he 
 never went any further. 
 
 Oliver Gray was worried when Old Mac ventilated the 
 subject, repeating exactly what the two girls had said, so that 
 his proprietor might form his judgment for himself. For as it 
 happened, Mirabel was in a way at the bottom of it. He had 
 not even thought about the dinners. Although they had 
 served a useful purpose, he had given them, not because he 
 felt under any obligation to do so, but because he had wanted 
 to. Now he did not want to give them because Sunday after- 
 noon and evening constituted his time for seeing Mirabel 
 Douglas. He used to get there in time for tea, and stay on to 
 dinner. 
 
 What exactly his patron's relations with Miss Douglas were 
 Old Mac had no idea. Their attitude to each other was 
 distinctly formal, for a theatre like the Babylon. She never 
 went to his flat, and never went anywhere with him. He did 
 not even know that Gray went to her house on Sundays. 
 
 He considered that Gray had taken leave of his senses in 
 advertising for a leading lady for " Mary, Queen of Scots," 
 and, out of the hundreds of candidates who applied, there 
 were several whom he would have picked out before her. 
 But, when she did the waltz-song in "The Merry Widow"
 
 JO THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 with Stradclla, he saw that she had the makings of a star of 
 the first magnitude if she could do the dancing. She had a 
 gorgeous voice of the sympathetic kind which is necessary for 
 musical comedy, and she had the best smile for an encore 
 which he had ever seen. 
 
 Of her dancing he had not been sure, until Stradella 
 suggested that she should dance the tarantella, which showed 
 that she was graceful and could dance well, and had beautiful 
 limbs, though she might not be a Lily Elsie. She was cer- 
 tainly a lovely and charming woman, and that smile would 
 bring the house down. 
 
 More madness followed. He was not even shown the con- 
 tract which his chief was making with Mirabel Douglas. He 
 was merely told that she had a ten years' engagement at the 
 same salary as the last leading lady — sixty pounds a week. 
 She was the prize pupil of a dramatic school, and he gathered 
 that, although she had never had a part before, she had 
 declined to come unless she received these terms. 
 
 Still, engaging ladies was Gray's affair, not his. And now 
 that she was a success with the public he was quite glad that 
 she had got the post. She would be a much pleasanter person 
 to deal with than women like Tara, who were eternally com- 
 plaining or demanding some fresh concession, and whose 
 vulgarity sickened even him, after his experience of theatrical 
 life. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 GRAY PAYS HIS FIRST CALL UPON HIS WIFE 
 
 " T AM going to be at home always on Sunday afternoons, 
 
 1 Paula," said Mirabel, when she came back from 
 Westernport. 
 
 " Sunday's the best day," said Paula, " if you don't want 
 to go away for week-ends. For many men it's the only after- 
 noon which they have free." 
 
 The last part of her reply was rather obvious, but Mirabel 
 only noticed the first part. 
 
 " No week-ends for me, thank j'-ou, at this time of the 
 year ! " she exclaimed, giving Paula the impression that the 
 visit had not been altogether a success. Paula rejoiced that 
 her fears had been groundless.
 
 GRAY'S FIRST CALL ON HIS WIFE 71 
 
 " Besides," said Paula, " one's Ranelagh friends can drop 
 in on their way back from golf." 
 
 " I haven't got any Ranelagh friends — or any friends, really," 
 said Mirabel, quite simply, " except the girls who were at the 
 Lyceum with me and the people at the theatre ; and there 
 are hardly any of them whom I could call friends, though I 
 get on all right with all of them, except the vulgar ones. 
 You can't think, Paula," she said, with sudden viciousness, 
 " how I hate vulgarity ! And vulgarity is as common in 
 musical comedy as mud on a rainy day ! " 
 
 " Shall you tell them that you are going to be at home on 
 Sundays ? " asked Paula, chiefly for something to say ; she 
 had no reason for asking. 
 
 " Only the Lyceum girls, and the girls in the piece, if they 
 ask me, and I like them well enough. We shall have to 
 depend on your friends for at-homes." 
 
 " Then, may I ask why you are going to be at home on 
 Sundays ? " 
 
 " Because Oliver Gray asked me to." 
 
 " Your manager ? — the proprietor of the Babylon ? Are 
 you going to let him come here ? I thought he was such a bad 
 man ! There's no man in London Vv^ith more affairs to his 
 discredit ! He's as bad as the Guards' officers, who take their 
 stalls for the season to have the right of going ' behind ' \ " 
 
 " What ? " snapped Mirabel. 
 
 " I mean what I say," said Paula. " Everybody knows 
 it! " 
 
 " I don't," said Mirabel stoutly. 
 
 " Well, it's rather decent of Gray to keep it out of j^our 
 sight ! " said Paula. " Perhaps the reason why he gave you 
 a dressing-room with a separate entrance is because he wants 
 you himself." 
 
 " Indeed it's not ; the only reason why he did it is so that 
 I should not be annoyed by the Johnnies who hang about our 
 stage-door." 
 
 " I hope you made a great point of his protecting you from 
 these men who arc certain to try to force their acquaintance 
 on you ? " 
 
 " My dear, he made ever such a point of it liirnsclf ! He 
 has given me a most explicit lecture on their arts and crafts, 
 and has even given me a speaking-tube to Mr. Maccabaeus's 
 office, in case I should ever want to call for assistance."
 
 72 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " He seems determined that nobody should annoy you but 
 himself ! " said Paula grimly, hitting the target right in the 
 centre of the bull's-eye. 
 
 " Well, he's shown no sign of that, anyhow ! " retorted 
 Mirabel. " And if he does, I shall know how to deal with him ! 
 He has, in fact, suggested that he should come and see me 
 here on Sunday afternoons, when you will always be present, 
 instead of being seen having long conversations with me alone 
 at the theatre." 
 
 " What does he want to have long conversations with you 
 f or ? " snapped Paula. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Paula, how could you ask such a banal 
 question ? Would not any man, who had confered such a 
 huge favour on a girl as he has confered on me, by making me 
 his leading lady, wish to have the pleasure of her society 
 sometimes ? I am not so vain as not to be conscious that 
 he gave me the post, where there were others with better 
 claims, simply because for some reason he liked me better. 
 And he has inspired me with such a shrinking that I give him 
 uncommonly little in return ! If he wishes to come and 
 see me on Sunda\^ afternoons, I think it is his right, and I 
 shall be as decent to him as my feelings will allow me ! " 
 
 " Thank heaven for your feeHngs ! " said Paula. " May 
 you always retain them, to preserve you from this Bluebeard ! " 
 
 The first Sunday afternoon after Mirabel's return from 
 Westernport arrived. A late Indian summer had made the 
 early part of it perfect. The pond had been converted into 
 a water-garden, with terraced slopes, and every eighteenth- 
 century garden ornament had been skilfulty restored. The 
 plain windows at the back of the house had been made 
 picturesque with green jalousies. It was quite dark before 
 tea was over, because Oliver Gra}-, who was to be their only 
 visitor, it seemed, did not arrive till after five. Mirabel had 
 warned Paula that she must not be surprised at their calling 
 each other by their Christian names. This was a famiharity, 
 she explained, which it was impossible to resist in musical 
 comedy. 
 
 " Ugh ! " said Paula. " How disgusting ! " 
 " One has to be philosophical about the minor points, 
 if one stands out on essentials," said Mirabel.
 
 GRAY'S FIRST CALL ON HIS WIFE 73 
 
 Paula admitted the force of this more than she expected. 
 
 It was the front-door bell which had started the conversa- 
 tion, and immediately afterwards Don Juan was shown in. 
 
 Mirabel's face broke into its lovely Itahan smile, as she 
 went forward to shake hands with him. " OHver, may I 
 introduce you to Miss Maitland, m}^ greatest friend, who 
 lives with me ? " 
 
 Paula held out her hand, and as he advanced to take it 
 she scanned him narrowly. He was rather a tall man, with 
 a singularly good figure, and the first thing that struck her 
 about him was that she had never seen a man so well dressed. 
 Dress was generally uppermost in her thoughts, even at 
 such a critical moment as this, when she was, as she thought, 
 settling the future of two human beings. She could not 
 say what his well-dressedness consisted in, except in complete 
 absence of fault ; there was nothing to pick out about it. 
 When she had settled this, she looked at his face. He was 
 a fair man, with a face tanned to a 'brick-red. His hair was 
 auburn, and he had gay blue eyes. She thought he was just 
 the best-looking man she had ever seen, and decided at once 
 that she must spread her wings for the protection of her 
 chicken. But she felt that it would be imi)ossible to be angry 
 with him, unless he did something very outrageous, which he 
 seemed disinclined to do. 
 
 " I'm sorry I'm so late, Mirabel," he said, " but I've only 
 just got away from my desk. You can't think what a lot 
 there is to do at the beginning of a rehearsal, even on 
 Sunday, especially when . . ."he was on the verge of 
 adding, " when you've just been away," but stopped, and 
 said — " when you're introducing history into musical 
 comedy for the first time ! " 
 
 That was a lucky phrase. Paula was Scotch and enamoured 
 of useful knowledge. She wanted at once to know how he 
 had treated the story of Mary, Queen of Scots. 
 
 Mirabel was prepared for cold douches, but Gray's pro- 
 fessional instinct for advertising saved him. "Oh, I've 
 left it entirely to experts," he said. " We've had men from 
 the Record Ofhce and Oxford and Cambridge." 
 
 " No one from Edinburgh ? " asked Paula rather fiercely. 
 
 " Edinburgh ? " he said. He di\dncd that Edinburgh had 
 to come in on the top. " What's the exact title that chap 
 has who takes the King's place in opening the Church business
 
 74 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 which they give the Scotch to console them for having no 
 parhament ? " 
 
 " The Lord High Commissioner." 
 
 " Yes, that's it ! Well, I'm going to ask him to the full- 
 dress rehearsal, to say if all the ceremonials satisfy him." 
 
 This was pure audacity, but Paula would have no chance 
 of proving whether that chief subject in Scotland received 
 the invitation or not, so the situation was saved. Gray, who, 
 like Paula and Mirabel, was Scotch, saw that he would have 
 to be very careful with Paula where Scotland was touched. 
 To change the dangerous subject, Mirabel said : 
 
 " I wish you'd been here earUer, Oliver, to see what we've 
 done to the garden. We've . . ." She stopped suddenly, 
 remembering that he was not supposed to have seen it. But 
 Paula had noticed nothing and she changed her intended 
 remark to : " We've got such a jolly old garden, and Paula's 
 made it look twice as nice by turning the old pond there 
 was into one of the new water-gardens." 
 
 " I'll come a little earlier one Sunday," he said, " so as to 
 see it, if I may." 
 
 " I shall be very cross if you don't," said Paula. Her 
 professional pride as a decorator was aroused. She wanted 
 to take this charming, if wicked, young man round all the 
 special points herself, and to tell him that she had done 
 them, and to hear him praise her skill. She, at any rate, 
 had nothing to fear from him. 
 
 He had taken a seat beside Paula. He chose it with care 
 to face a large mirror, in which Mirabel's whole figure was 
 reflected. He could stare at her in the glass without em- 
 barrassing her, or drawing Paula's attention. 
 
 Another woman would have detected him at once, but 
 Paula was in the habit, when she was holding forth, of 
 talking right at the other person without noticing what she 
 or he was doing. If they were out for a long walk, woe 
 betide them unless the other person knew the way. Paula 
 would simply walk on talking blindly. 
 
 While Paula talked, and Oliver Gray fitted in a word 
 where he had an opportunity, or on the rare occasions when 
 she paused for him to do it, IMirabel sat eyeing them indul- 
 gentlv, and breathing the benediction of her smile upon 
 them. She wished them to like each other ; she prefered 
 that his conversation should be with Paula, for fear of his
 
 GRAY'S FIRST CALL ON HIS WIFE 75 
 
 embarrassing her with the ardour of his feelings, or betraying 
 them to Paula. 
 
 While this one-sided conversation was going on — Paula 
 had written a novel on Mary, Queen of Scots, under the title 
 of " The Lady of Lochleven," and was telhng him her views 
 straight on end since she could not get him to state his — 
 Oliver Gray made a critical study of his leading lady's charms, 
 first in one mirror, then in another. There was a big mirror 
 from floor to ceiling at each of the cardinal points, and he 
 could see three of them from where he sat. 
 
 First, he noticed that everything about her was graceful, 
 from the set of her beautiful little head to the finely-moulded 
 feet, so exquisitely shppered. This was a general impres- 
 sion, always before his eyes. 
 
 Second, when Paula became very interested in what she 
 was saying, and he could venture a direct stare at the 
 mirrors, he noted how rarely chiselled was that pure, oval 
 face, with its soft forehead, its perfect eyebrows, its short, 
 straight nose, its sensitive mouth, and its noble chin. 
 
 When Paula grew less concentrated, he could no longer 
 gaze so steadily, and studied more general effects, like her 
 clear, colourless skin, which an emotion of pleasure, excite- 
 ment or anger could flush with crimson so easily, or the 
 jet-black hair, which, like her marvellous eyes, she inherited 
 from her Sicilian grandmother. 
 
 But the eyes themselves he could not fathom where she 
 was seated, a picture of lithe grace, although she had her 
 knees crossed, in a way which would have horrified our 
 grandmothers. For that he would have to wait till he could 
 engage her in conversation, face to face, about theatre 
 business. She must want to hear that. 
 
 As she sat there, her eyes looked quite black. Sicilian 
 eyes are almost Oriental in the dilation of their pupils. Paula 
 flowed on without any sign of intermission, and he saw a 
 look of amusement and sympathy creeping into those eyes. 
 There was no relief until one of Paula's golfuig friends at 
 Ranelagh dropped in, on his way home, to see her in her 
 new abode. 
 
 Paula was very popular with her men friends, on account 
 of hpr wit and her animation. At Miral:)e]'s request, Paula 
 had not told any of the friends to whom she sent at-home 
 cards about her house-mate's profession. There was nothing
 
 ^6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 which Mirabel desired less than to be a peep-show. So when 
 she presented Colonel Dunlop to Miss Douglas, and Miss 
 Douglas presented Mr. Gray to Colonel Dunlop, he thought 
 no more about them than that they were two " jolly good- 
 looking " 3'oung people, who probably would like to be left 
 to themselves. The Colonel would have been wildly interested 
 if he had known that this Mr. Gray was the king of musical 
 comedy, and this Miss Douglas was his new prima donna. 
 
 " Now then, Oliver," said Mirabel, when the Colonel turned 
 back to talk to Paula, " come and sit by me." The eyes, 
 which showed the dark of the irises now, said frankly : 
 " You've been very noble. She's been talking right above 
 your head, and 3'ou've been pretending that you were taking 
 it all in with the highest interest." Her face looked very 
 soft and sympathetic. She was composing herself to let him 
 do the talking. 
 
 " First tell me how you are," he said. " I hope that all 
 the rehearsing has not knocked you up, Mirry ? As it 
 happens, you are more on the stage than anyone else. The 
 author knows that if the leading lady is not, the play does 
 not stand much chance. But you're such a funny girl that 
 I daresay you would rather not be on the stage so much." 
 
 " On the contrar}^ I would rather be on the stage the whole 
 time. But I don't want to be doing things the whole time. I 
 should prefer to watch sometimes, like the guards." 
 
 For a moment he was incHned to say : " The Guards in 
 the stalls ? " But the subject was likely to become too 
 difficult for him to care to joke about it. His late leading 
 lady had been on decidedly friendly terms with them, and 
 their attentions would not be palatable to Mirabel. 
 
 " Well, I want to tell you," he began, " how jolly good you 
 are in your part." 
 
 He thought the look of mingled modesty and pleasure on 
 her lovely face was the most beautiful thing he had ever 
 seen. 
 
 " Do I remember all the things you told me about the 
 stage-tricks and effects of musical comedy ? " 
 
 " I think so — the general result is right, anyhow. But 
 I'm not talking of them ; thej^'re a mere matter of rehearsing. 
 It's what you put into the play, which the author probably 
 intended, but did not put into his directions, that pleases me 
 so much."
 
 GRAY'S FIRST CALL ON HIS WIFE 77 
 
 " You mean the little bits of temperament which I try to 
 put into my attitude to Rizzio and Chastela.rd and Darnley ? " 
 
 " Yes ; you are trying to put some story into the thing, 
 which the author had made a mere string of tableaux vivants 
 to be linked together with songs. I wanted a musical comedy 
 with a good vein of romance running through it. You 
 mightn't think it from the shows I put on. That's why I 
 chose ' Mary, Queen of Scots.' " 
 
 " You must remember that I've never seen any of 
 them." 
 
 " Nor are you likely to, unless 3'ou have to take a night 
 off for voice trouble, or something of the kind, and take 
 the opportunity to go to the front of the house." 
 
 " I hope I never shall. I'm very tough." 
 
 " You tough ! " he said, smiling compassionately at the 
 lovely soft face and the dehcate grace of the figure. 
 
 " And you'll find it out if I'm put to the test," she said, 
 in laughing warning. 
 
 " I hope that you have not had any annoyance at the 
 theatre ? " he said. 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 " I'm glad of that. But it will be a bit more difficult when 
 the piece comes on. The young man about town is a bit 
 difficult to manage when he is making a night of it, even 
 when he isn't the sort who goes on making a row until he 
 has the satisfaction of being turned out. A new leading 
 lady makes a great stir among them." 
 
 " Still, I suppose that they are gentlemen, and don't 
 press themselves where they see that they are not wanted ? " 
 
 " That class . . . yes," he said, after a pause of delibera- 
 tion, " except when they are reckless with drink. It's the 
 old men about town — above all, the very rich no-class Jews — 
 who don't understand a ' no.' " 
 
 " What can one do with them ? " she asked, not terrified 
 so much as with a council-of-war air. 
 
 " Send for Maccabaeus. That alarm which you've got 
 to the office will always bring someone to your dressing- 
 room." 
 
 " It's awfully good of you, Ohver. You're keeping your 
 promise to look after me." There was a look of dependence 
 on him which was as good as a caress. It was difficult to 
 reahze how much it meant to him. He had never been so
 
 78 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 much in love in his hfe, and he was under a bond not to 
 allude to it. 
 
 But there were compensations. If he kept his bond, he 
 could be in her presence for a long while every day. And it 
 was his pleasant duty and interest to be observing her nearly 
 the whole time, for he was responsible for choosing her, and 
 getting over her inexperience by special training. And it 
 was her pleasant duty and interest (as Mary, Queen of Scots 
 — not as the Mirabel Douglas with whom he was in love) 
 to exert her powers of charm to the utmost, so that he always 
 saw her in a favourable mood. 
 
 " Do you like your house, Mirabel ? " he asked, in search 
 of a safer subject. 
 
 " I love it ! It is my own. It was given me by a relative 
 of mine, who wished me to cut a proper dash as leading lady 
 at the Babylon, and just because I was his relative, he not 
 only bought it for me, but told me to have it decorated and 
 furnished at his expense — carte blanche." 
 
 " I'd have done more, if you'd let me." 
 
 " I know you would : but remember our bond." 
 
 " I remember it night and day. It keeps me awake at 
 night." 
 
 " Does it ? You make me feel horribly guilty. But I 
 can't help it, I'm afraid. I gave you full warning before 
 we made our contract." 
 
 " I know : I'm not trying to go back on it, though Heaven 
 knows how I want to." 
 
 " And so do I. And I know that you're being a gentleman 
 about it. But you interrupted me in telling you about my 
 relative." 
 
 " I beg your pardon." 
 
 " I've been staying with him — much against my will. 
 But I had promised, and I owed so much to him. And it 
 wasn't so bad as I expected. I couldn't help respecting 
 him, though I hated going. And he's such a very near 
 relation that nobody could object to my going there, even 
 for a woman who has to be so frightfully careful of her 
 reputation as I have, in my very difficult position." 
 
 " Does anybody know that you went to stay with 
 him ? " 
 
 " Nobody except Paula, and she hasn't the foggiest 
 notion where I went. She doesn't care much, because there
 
 GRAY'S FIRST CALL ON HIS WIFE 79 
 
 is nothing to make her jealous about it. Paula is horribly 
 jealous of my liking anybody but lier, but she sees how I 
 hated the whole thing, and how glad 1 was to get back to 
 her, so my elderly relative is at liberty to fry in his own 
 juice, as far as she is concerned, always provided that he 
 does not come here, and give himself proprietary airs about 
 me. And you can bet that I shall keep him out of Paula's 
 path as long as possible ! " 
 
 " Poor old devil ! I can sympathize ! How hard you 
 women can be ! " 
 
 " Not hard, Oliver, but brave. We don't want to hurt 
 the man ; we want to defend ourselves." 
 
 " Remember that a woman can hurt a man very easily, 
 Mirry." 
 
 " Can she ? Well, I know one woman who never wants to. 
 But she has to be . . . oh ! so careful ! " 
 
 Suddenly they heard Colonel Dunlop's voice a little 
 louder : " Well, I must be getting home, Miss Maitland. 
 I've got to catch a bus and a train, and have a tub, and get 
 into my swallow-tails, all before half-past seven." Then he 
 dropped his voice, and said in tones which did not rcacli 
 them, " Who did you say your pretty friend was ? " 
 
 " Miss Douglas." 
 
 " And the man ? " 
 
 " Mr. Gray." '■ 
 
 " Gray . . . what is he ? " 
 
 " Something in business." 
 
 " He ought to be in the army — he'd make a fine-looking 
 soldier." 
 
 " He's splendid, isn't he ? " said Paula ; the poison was 
 working. 
 
 " Yes, he is splendid." 
 
 Colonel Dunlop came across the room. " Good niglit. 
 Miss Douglas ! good night, Mr. Gray ! " 
 
 " Go and let Colonel Dunlop out, Oliver," said Mirabel. 
 
 " I'll let him out myself, thanks," said Paula, with the 
 air of " he's my friend," and quite forgetting that Mirabel 
 had asked not to be left alone with Gray. 
 
 Mirabel looked a little distressed, and her husband, quick 
 to divine the reason, said, " Til say good-bye very quickly, 
 Mirry, so that I may catch him up at the door, and give him 
 a lift in my car as far as the station."
 
 8o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I've told them to lay a place for you at dinner," objected 
 Mirabel. 
 
 " That is nice of you : but I'm not dressed." 
 
 " We're not going to dress for dinner on Sundays," said 
 Mirabel. " People who are calhng wiU often stay on, won't 
 they, Oliver ? " 
 
 " I know one who will, whenever he's asked ! " 
 
 " He'll always be asked if he does not mistake hospitahty 
 for something else." 
 
 " May I make a habit of dining here on Sunday night 
 then ? " 
 
 " Of course you may, on those conditions." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 
 
 OLIVER GRAY had dined there every Sunday night 
 since, and had won warm approval from both women. 
 Mirabel found that she could trust him absolutely not to 
 speak on the forbidden subject, or to do or say anything 
 which led up to it. Paula had quite given him her heart. 
 
 " I don't care whether he is bad or not," she said. " He's 
 the nicest man I ever met ! Why in the name of heaven 
 don't you marry him, Mirabel ? He's obviously dying to 
 have you, and he must be very rich, and able to help you 
 on in your profession more than anybody in London. As 
 Mrs. Oliver Gray you will always be his leading lady." 
 
 " I can't," said Mirabel, " it isn't possible." 
 
 " Idiot ! " said 'the candid Paula. 
 
 " I believe I am," rephed Mirabel drily, " but still the 
 matter rests there. I'm very well off as I am, and I've no 
 desire to make any change." 
 
 Ohver Gray, too, was a happier man. If he could not 
 have Mirabel as his wife, reigning over his home, he could 
 visit her in her home, for several hours every Sunday, per- 
 fectly disarmed, genuinely glad to see him, and ready to 
 make quite an intimate friend of him, on that one condition. 
 
 The theatre had no notion of where Ohver Gray spent his 
 Sundays. None of the girls had suggested coming to see 
 Mirabel, although she was distinctly liked. They felt some-
 
 A BABYLON DINNER . 8i 
 
 how that the surroundings would be uncongenial, since she 
 fenced herself in so from the gay horde of admirers, who 
 surrounded them. 
 
 Some of the Lyceum girls came once or twice, and Mirabel 
 was most warm-hearted in her welcome of them. But, when 
 they had been once, most of them felt themselves too shabby 
 to go to such a luxurious house. 
 
 The luxuriousness, on the other hand, appealed to Paula's 
 friends, for literary people and artists are accustomed to 
 going to houses of those who are much wealthier than 
 themselves, to be lionized. 
 
 Gray was glad of this, because his name did not mean as 
 much to these people as it did to actresses and theatrical 
 aspirants, and he could remain practically incognito, and talk 
 quietly to Mirabel. 
 
 Suddenly the destructive finger touched the house of 
 cards. It was on a Monday morning that the faithful and 
 candid Maccabaeus had said, " Don't j^ou think it's about 
 time that you gave one of your Babylon dinners, Mr. Gray ? " 
 
 " I don't think there's any time about it," Gray had 
 answered, " and I've been off them lately." 
 
 " Yes, I know that, and everybody's noticing it, in my 
 humble opinion," said the assistant-manager. He took it 
 that Topsy Perks and Beatrice Farnol had only repeated 
 to him what every other woman in the theatre was saying. 
 " I'm afraid that wrong ideas will get about," he said. 
 
 " Wrong ideas ? What wrong ideas ? " 
 
 " Oh, not that tlie Iwokings are bad — the public can test 
 that for itself ! But the stalls might get the idea that you're 
 going to let the character of the place down, and might shift 
 themselves to one of the other musical-comedy theatres." 
 Old Mac's idea of letting the character of the place down 
 struck Oliver Gray as exquisitely funny. 
 
 What Old Mac was afraid of was that the rowdy young 
 officers in His Majesty's Guards would be afraid that he 
 was going to let the character of the place up. But he had 
 no intention of doing this. " Because thou art virtuous," 
 wrote Shakespeare, " shall there be no more cakes and 
 ale ? " Because he had amended his waj^s to win the love 
 of a very particular young lady was no reason for robbing 
 London of one of its pleasant vices. 
 
 " I believe you're right, Mac," he said. " The only 
 
 6
 
 82 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 reason why there haven't been any dinners lately is because 
 I liave drifted into spending my Sundays in a different way." 
 
 " It's that damned golf ! " said Old Mac, quite wide of 
 the mark. " It'll be the ruin of legitimate business ! " 
 
 " Oh, not so bad as that ! " said Gray cheerily, willing to 
 let his lieutenant imagine that golf was the cause. Old Mac 
 knew that Gray was " somewhere down about scratch," 
 and enjoyed nothing more than playing for " big money," 
 and so getting his exercise and his gamble at the same time. 
 
 Old Mac went on his way rejoicing, to have the invita- 
 tion-cards printed for the Sunday week, and to tell Gray's 
 secretary to submit a list for the invitations to his employer. 
 
 On the Sunday week, at six-thirty for seven, with a view 
 to the earlier closing hours of the Sabbath, a brilliant 
 company assembled in the Zenobia Room of the Babylon 
 Restaurant. 
 
 In this brilliant assemblage, apart from any acting al^lity 
 which lurked in the members of the Company who were 
 invited, and Oliver Gray himself, there was not a single 
 person who was known to have any intehect. Their 
 briUiance lay in the fact that they had inherited wealth, and 
 in some instances titles as weh, and obeyed the dictates 
 of fashion in the squandering of money. And some of them 
 were beginning very young. Lord Avondale, for instance, 
 a dear boy, who was almost as pretty as Mirabel, and rather 
 hke her, except that he was very fair and she was very dark, 
 was only twenty. 
 
 Among the guests were Lord Bexhill, a gallant soldier, 
 who had left the army to be a director in a prosperous motor- 
 car business ; the Master of Tantallon, another soldier, from 
 whom even the Babylon girls shrank for his cold-blooded 
 recklessness ; Augustus Baldock, a fool, very rich ; Dudley 
 Niven, an ass, the son of a famous man ; Bob Matthias, 
 like Lord Avondale the darling of the Babylon girls, a brave 
 and charming boy, who was making ducks and drakes of his 
 property as fast as he could ; Orlando Jebb, heir of the pious 
 Lord Lampeter, a rollicking, light-headed person, who had 
 married Beatrice Farnol ; Desmond O'Neill, late of the 
 Munstcrs, a typical mousquctaire ; Hughie Sprot, wliose 
 vacant expression was his fortune as chief comedian of the 
 Company, and Willie Waters, the hero of the piece, a young 
 man with a soft face and long-lashed violet eyes, and very,
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 83 
 
 very sleek hair, who, having a fine voice and a fine figure, 
 had been selected for the part of Darnley. Mary's half- 
 brother, the Regent, Lord James Stuart, was there, too, m 
 the person of a delightful-looking young Welshman, of 
 good estate, named Owen Tudor. Gray gave him good 
 parts because he had been a special friend of his at Oxford, 
 and was a fine athlete, and a regular man-about-town. He 
 was an amateurish actor, and had only a fair voice, but he 
 looked the part in most of the characters he had to play, 
 who were dashing young sportsmen, and Gray would not 
 have that kind o^f part played by any other sort of man. 
 It was not his fault that he was suddenly asked to play 
 the part of the Scottish Lord Burleigh ; Gray gave him this 
 part because he thought he ought to find a good-lookmg half- 
 brother for Mirabel ; and it really did not signify, because 
 he only had to wear fine clothes properly ; he was of no 
 importance in the piece, compared with Topsy Perks, the 
 soubrette who took the part of Queen Mary's lady's-maid. 
 
 Chastelard was there, too, in the person of Mr. Ferdinando 
 Powncy, a tall, French-looking man, with shoulders padded 
 square, a Vandyck beard, a very twirled moustache, and the 
 sort of brown eyes which in a woman go with a picture-hat. 
 He was, for the moment, talking to John Knox, who despised 
 him as heartily as the original would have done. John Knox 
 was, in the Babylon Company, Mr. Colin George Geddes, a 
 very spruce Scotsman, with a little moustache, whose 
 dominant characteristic was that he always looked the best- 
 shaved man in the country. He was one of the wags of the 
 Company, who would really have enjoyed a low-comedy part 
 better but he played the part of Knox with austerity and 
 dignity, although he was only chosen for it because he was 
 the best actor they could lay hands on with a scmtillatmg 
 Scotch accent. As everyone knows, really good actors with 
 a Scotch accent are as rare as Aberdeen Jews, and Geddes, 
 who could speak broad " Perth," was required to be as Scotch 
 as "Bunty pulls the Strings." John Knox was rapidly 
 becoming the most popular man in the Company ; he was sucli 
 a prince of good fellows. 
 
 Most of the women present might just as well have tiaa 
 numbers as names. They were merely beauties for whom 
 idiotic parts had been invented, not a whit more appro- 
 priate than mediaeval typists and telephone-operators, the 
 '■ 6*
 
 84 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 former of whom would have been of great assistance to most 
 of Queen Mary's nobles. 
 
 The female characters in the play who had any significance 
 whatever were only half a dozen, and one of them was Queen 
 Mary's foster-sister, without it ever having been recorded 
 that she had one. But there were imfortunately five prin- 
 cipal beauties at the theatre who had equal claims to be the 
 Queen's Maries, only four in number, so something had to 
 be done ; and exquisite Phyllis Batey — who had a dreadful 
 way of speaking — became the daughter of Mary's foster- 
 mother, an occupation which in commoner circles has a 
 commoner name. This was an inspiration of Old Mac, who 
 was very tactful. 
 
 The part of Mary Hamilton, the principal Mary, clearly 
 belonged to Guinevere Jones, who expected to have been 
 leading- lady when Tara broke her contract and bolted to 
 America. 
 
 As Mary Beaton had a good deal to say, her part was given 
 to Beatrice Farnol, who was the grouser of the theatre, and 
 brought all the complaints to Old Mac. She was forgiven 
 her grousing because she had a natural infirmity in her face 
 which made everything she said appear screamingly funny. 
 Combined with this, she had, oddly enough, an extraordinarily 
 graceful figure, of the staccato kind, which made her very 
 effective. It was a novelty having one of the five principal 
 beauties a really witty comedienne, however ugly her face 
 was. It was also. Old Mac thought, a striking novelty to 
 have an ugly beauty. The Hon. Mrs. Jebb was, of course, 
 not informed that she was promoted for her ugliness ; that 
 was a secret between Old Mac and his employer. 
 
 Mary Carmichael and Mary Seton were merely graceful 
 and beautiful girls, who might in time come on to be leading 
 ladies, or might ah^'ays languish on as principal beauties. 
 The names they had modestly taken were Louise de la 
 Valliere and Carrie Christmas. Louise was as unlike the 
 other fair beauty, who took the part of Mary Hamilton — 
 Guinevere Jones — as any two fair beauties could be ; for 
 Guinevere, who, when she was at the board-school was Jenny 
 Jones, would, it was thought, have already attained the 
 distinction of leading lady if she had had the forethought to 
 classicize her surname as well as her Christian name ; for 
 she was what is called superb, with a face and colouring which
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 85 
 
 were quite beautiful. Others thought she had failed because 
 she looked a shade too massive in a manager's office, though 
 from the gallery, without glasses, she was matchless ; there 
 was no one to touch her when distance lent its enchantment. 
 
 Carrie Christmas was an Irish girl, with the typical blue 
 eyes and dark brown hair, and a robin's perkiness. 
 
 Old Mac, who was never in his seat for five minutes, acted 
 as master of ceremonies at Oliver Gray's delirious dinners. 
 He made no attempt to arrange the seats, beyond the few 
 about which Oliver Gray had given orders. The guests made 
 their own arrangements. 
 
 This system had generally acted perfectly. The hitch at 
 the present dinner was merely due to the youthful Lord 
 Avondale's not playing the game. The heir to the great 
 Earldom of Douglas was a constant patron of the Green Room, 
 and because he w'as such a boy, and so wonderfully good- 
 looking, he was thoroughly spoilt. He was invited chiefl}^ to 
 please the Queen's Maries, and the Chorus beauties. He 
 was so popular that there had been considerable difficulty 
 in appropriating him ; but finally he was placed between 
 Beatrice Farnol and Carrie Christmas, the lively ones of the 
 party. 
 
 There had been a special competition for him on this occa- 
 sion, because he had gone up to Scotland for the Twelfth, and 
 had stayed there, fishing and shooting, and running after a 
 certain lady at a round of country-house visits, until the 
 midnight express of the night before. He had therefore not 
 seen the play. 
 
 The Viscount Avondale had other ideas. He did not in 
 the least care for Beatrice Farnol ; she was far too faddy 
 and self-important. He prefered the loudest ladies of the 
 Chorus to her. But his mind was not with them to-night. 
 He considered the leading lady a jolly good-looking girl, as 
 he put it, and studious inquiries had led him to believe that 
 not one of the adventurous " birds " who haunted the 
 purlieus of the Babylon had been able to get a single word 
 with her. This made him white-hot to achieve it. 
 
 But Mirabel was exactly one of the people about whose 
 placing Oliver Gray was most particular. She was to sit 
 at his right hand, to honour her as the new leading lady, 
 and also — and just as much — in order that she might be 
 under his protection at a banquet from which he would
 
 86 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 have prefered her absence, infinite as was the pleasure her 
 presence afforded to liim. And on her other side he had 
 placed Captain Desmond O'Neill. 
 
 Now, Desmond O'Neill was an arrant flirt, but perceiving 
 that Gray, whom he knew and loved like a brother, was 
 " horribly in love," he was certain to eliminate his own per- 
 sonality while he tried to make her enjoy her evening. But 
 his value did not end there. Desmond, who had spent a good 
 part of his nights of manhood at riotous entertainments, and 
 was a person of infinite tact and experience, could be trusted 
 to stop any reveller who, as the fun grew fast and furious, 
 tried to stray Mirabel's way, by persuasion, or, if necessary, 
 by leading the intruder away with a jii-jitsu grip to have 
 another drink, in spite of its unnecessariness. 
 
 His duties began earlier than usual, for when they filed in 
 to dinner, he found Lord Avondale seated in liis place, as 
 the only one which he cared for, since he could not take the 
 chair. 
 
 " This is my seat, I think," said Desmond. 
 
 " There aren't any seats at Gray's dinners," said the 
 twenty-year-old, who must, by his age, have been to so many 
 of them. 
 
 " But it is my seat, I'm afraid," said Desmond very 
 politely. " You know, if you have been coming to these 
 dinners for years, as you seem to have, that seats are always 
 reserved for Gray's own guests." 
 
 " Well, I mean to have this seat," said the boy, who was 
 as brave as a lion as well as very spoilt. 
 
 Desmond was not in the least ruffled. Like most very 
 strong men, and fine boxers, he enjoyed keeping his temper 
 when there was trouble about. He merely said, " Of 
 course you can have your seat," and, stooping down, put one 
 hand under each side of the chair, lifted it up as if it had been 
 a feather, though his victim stood six feet one, and carried 
 him out of the room, while everyone roared with laughter. 
 
 When he got there he said : " Now, Lord Avondale, you 
 can't have a scrap with me, because I am two stone better 
 than you ; and, as a member of the National Sports' Club, 
 you probably know that I have held the Boxing Champion- 
 ship of the Army. What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " Do ? " said the boy. " I'm going to take your arm, 
 and walk back into the room laughing like the rest of 'em ! "
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 87 
 
 " Splendid ! " said Desmond. " Shake hands ! That takes 
 some pluck ! But you must promise me not to anno}^ Miss 
 Douglas any more to-night — at least, you needn't promise, 
 because you know I'm not going to let you." 
 
 " Why must I promise ? " said the boy. " How do you 
 know I'm not her cousin ? My name's Douglas, just tlie 
 same as hers ! " 
 
 " That proves nothing," said Desmond. " Douglas is a 
 commoner name than Smith in the circles in which you 
 move, young man ! " 
 
 " Oh, I give it up, Captain O'Neill ! " said Lord Avondale, 
 laughing really heartily. " But, I say, you might introduce 
 me afterwards, if I promise to be good ! " 
 
 " I'll ask Gray if he will, if you're not too excited by that 
 time," said Desmond. " But I know that he'll be very 
 particular about it, because he had great trouble in making 
 her come. She'd heard about these Babylon dinners — and 
 they are a bit . . ." What he said was lost, for they reached 
 the room at that moment, and since they were arm in arm, 
 and laughing, the guests, who had grown rather anxious, 
 clapped them uproariously. As they were parting, Desmond 
 whispered to the boy, " I like your pluck — you can say that 
 we tossed and I won." 
 
 For a couple of hours after this people were only eating 
 too well and drinking too well, incited by rag-time music 
 from the orchestra of the theatre, and beauty and high 
 spirits. Then the real fun of the evening began, with John 
 Knox being called upon, as John Knox, to sing " Whisky, 
 whisky, whisky." It was after the whisky had begun to 
 mingle with the champagne that there was an increasing 
 amount of " cheerfulness," in which the men were the 
 victims, and gestures and jokes grew freer. The songs, 
 especially, broadened. 
 
 Mirabel was thankful that she liad not asked for an invita- 
 tion for Paula, and went away long before the end. She 
 could not help feeling a good deal disgusted, though she had 
 kc])t her eyes to tlieir own little circle as much as possible. 
 For one thing, Oliver Gray, who had honourably kept 
 his promise of directing all his conversation to the 
 lady who sat on his left, had, as the evening wore on, 
 been entangled in a fire of ribald repartee with the gay 
 young men who had been chosen as their cavaliers by the
 
 88 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Queen's Maries, either for the night or for a much longer 
 period. It was for them and their kind, whose prodigal 
 support made the theatre the most prosperous in London, 
 that these dinners were chiefly given, and they felt bound 
 to express their cordiality to their host. It was a very free- 
 and-easy cordiality. No doubt was left in Mirabel's mind 
 that if Oliver Gray had been sitting among them, he would 
 have been the most favoured of the cavaliers, and his very 
 type suggested that the stories of his gaiety were true. How 
 was she to live with such a man as his wife ? 
 
 However faithful he was to her, it would be difficult not 
 to suspect him, when his profession made him the target of 
 the most beautiful and unprincipled women on the stage, 
 who would stop at nothing which made them the chief ladies 
 of a theatre, where those who desired it could marry into 
 the Aristocracy, and those who sought to feather their nests 
 in a different way could do so. 
 
 She did not know whether to be angry with Gray, or to 
 applaud his honesty for making her come to see him 
 as the centre of some of the fastest life in London. Of 
 course he was the centre of it, and must continue the centre 
 of it unless he elected to close down his business. But need 
 he have brought it under her nose ? First she wondered ; 
 then she thought that he ought, though she felt the gulf 
 between them widening. 
 
 And now that he had got her there, was she to admire or 
 to resent his inflexible honesty in refusing to make the slightest 
 pretence of playing the plaster-saint ? It was true that he 
 did not initiate any of the lively passages of perilous wit 
 between himself and the ladies of her court, and their 
 admirers, but he made no attempt to wet-blanket them. On 
 the contrary, he drank the toasts and accepted the badinage 
 as he would have at any other dinner, though he said nothing 
 risky himself, and refused all invitations to go and join the 
 circles where the fun was fastest. To these he persistently 
 shook his head, while his eyes said : "I have my own guests 
 whom I cannot leave." 
 
 " That's that Mirabel Douglas ! Isn't he gone ? " said 
 Betty Farnol to Lord Bexhill, whom she had annexed, 
 because he did not come as a lo\-er, but in search of amuse- 
 ment, having a pretty wife of his own, who had a passion for 
 the theatre.
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 89 
 
 Beatrice Farnol did not wish for lovers either. She only 
 accepted the invitations as a matter of business. She was 
 afraid that if she dropped out of the set, she would be sup- 
 planted by some new favourite of the " b-hoys," and as long 
 as she was in it she was bound to be popular, because she was 
 one of the wits. And, further, since Lord and Lady Lampeter 
 continued to rigidly exclude herself and the Hon. Orlando 
 from the home of his ancestors, she maintained the policy 
 of extending her acquaintance with the Peerage through 
 such members and cadets of it as strayed to the Babylon. 
 They generally knew her husband, a popular, idiotic 
 " Johnnie," who was at the present moment thick in some 
 roaring fun on the other side of the table, and took her up 
 cordially. Lord Bexhill, who had met her in this way, had 
 made his wife invite her a year ago, and now Lady Bexhill 
 said that no party was complete without her wit. 
 
 When Betty Farnol repeated her remark to him, he said : 
 " I don't agree with you. While we've been here, Fve been 
 looking across you at her a good lot. I wanted to make out 
 why . . . why . . ." 
 
 " Why what ? " 
 
 " Why he had given her the post instead of you," he said, 
 wishing to be polite. 
 
 " Keep your sarcasms to yourself, Bexhill ! " said Betty, 
 firing up. 
 
 " Fm not trying to be sarcastic. I'm merely expressing 
 the fact that he ought to have given one of you Maries the 
 chance, and you're the Mary Fm talking to." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Betty, a httle mollified. " Go on ! 
 You've been looking at her all the time that you have been 
 talking to me. It's what I had to expect, I suppose — all men 
 ai-e alike ! Give a moth a new candle ! Let me see . . . 
 you were trying to say something . . . ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was trying to say that I had been watching them 
 a good deal, and that he has only spoken to her as much 
 as bare politeness demanded. He's been devoting his whole 
 attention to Lady Paradox on his otlier side." 
 
 " I should think he had to, when he had put her on his left, 
 and young Mirabel on his right ! " 
 
 "That's quite proper," said Lord Bexhill. "It's the 
 first of his dinners that she has been at, and she's the new 
 leading lady, and she's given him a tremendous success ! "
 
 90 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I can't see that she's had much to do with it ; she's only 
 a cipher with a voice ! " 
 
 He had tlie courage of his opinions. " I think she's the 
 biggest catch musical comedy has ever had." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Lord Bexhill ! You are pohte, aren't 
 you ? — ramming this interloper down my throat ! " she said, 
 and turned round to Lord Avondale, who sat on her other 
 side, with a mischievous smile on his face. He, too, had 
 been watching Mirabel, equally to the disgust of Carrie 
 Christmas, who sat on the other side of him. 
 
 " What do you think of her ? " asked Betty. 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 " That Douglas woman." 
 
 " Out of her place. She's a ripper, and I daresay that 
 she does her part all right. But she isn't fit to be leading lady 
 in this place, because she isn't going to live up to its traditions." 
 
 Betty did not make any rejoinder. She was really longing 
 to cut the stage altogether, and be chaperoned round by her 
 mother-in-law, as the future Lady Lampeter. Her ambitions 
 were social since she had landed the Hon. Orlando. 
 
 " Hang it all ! " he continued. " It's pretty thick — asking 
 a lot of people here, and not introducing one of them to 
 his precious Mirabel ! I should have thought that that was 
 the whole object of the show ! " 
 
 " He knows you too well, Archie ! He's in love with 
 her." 
 
 " Well, hasn't he been in love with any of the others ? " 
 
 " It depends on what you call love. He never lost the 
 whip-hand of the others till they bolted, and he doesn't seem 
 to be able to move her an inch in any way she doesn't want 
 to go." 
 
 " What does that prove ? " , 
 
 " That he wouldn't stand it unless he was in love with 
 her." 
 
 " I don't see your reasoning, but I think that your assump- 
 tion is correct, because he was going to introduce me to her 
 if he could get her permission." 
 
 " What do you think of her, Johnnie ? " he demanded 
 of John Knox, alias Geordie Geddes, who was sitting 
 opposite to them. " You have a lot to do with her in the 
 show, don't you ? " 
 
 " An awfu' nice wummun, wha gangs thro' the hale pair-
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 91 
 
 formance as if it had a' liappened in her ain hoos — a pairfect 
 leddy a' the time." 
 
 " That doesn't sound very dramatic," sneered Betty. 
 
 " There's nae drama aboot it. There ha'e been folk wha 
 saw even tragedy in the heestory o' oor Mary, but the author 
 is nane o' tliem. A'm thinkin' that he jist stairted oot tae 
 pit some co-medy intilt, and richt puir co-medy it was, until 
 the Company misremembered their pairts, an' hed, as A micht 
 say, tae improveese." 
 
 " And did ' the pairfect leddy improveese,' too ? " asked 
 Archie. 
 
 " Na, na ; she's rale partic'lar aboot her words." 
 
 " Where does she come in, then ? " 
 
 " Weel, weel, A'll tell ye ! There's a durrty pairson — na, 
 A'm no thinkin' aboot you, Maister Powney, but jist o' the 
 meeserable character ye're preesumed tae represent — ^this 
 durrty pairson is there tae mak'luv tae her in the sairvice o' 
 the French croon, tae keep her frae makking a ralely daicent 
 mairrage, tae mak' her sikkar on her throne. He's jist been 
 writin' a wheen vairses — no the halesome Scots sort, wi' 
 eight in yae line and sax in the ither, aboot his mither or 
 his bairns, butt a lasceevious body wha coonts the pairts o' 
 a wummun's pairson ! Aweel ! she jist pits liim in his place 
 like, wi'oot wishin' tae bee exack'ly unceevil — a pairfect 
 leddy a' the time, untul Dairnley comes bye, wha she has tae 
 mairry, gin she wud save Scotland frae an unfreen'ly country 
 tae the south o' it. She's nae mair attrackit tae hum than 
 tae " — he waved his hand — " Maister Powney— A'm no 
 wishin' to gi'e ye the ither man's name, hit's so fierce-like. 
 This Dairnley was only a spune-fed descendant o' King 
 Henry VH., of 'Ngland, wha oor freens tae the south micht 
 set up ^ a Prcctendcr, if he was na takken intul the 
 faimly." 
 
 " And wliat did ' the pairfect leddy ' do aboot him ? " 
 
 " A was aboot tae tell ye whan ye unceevily interruppit 
 me." 
 
 " Sorry, my mistake ! " said Archie. 
 
 " Aweel, A tliocht she was jist dccsplayin' the richt con- 
 descension o' a Queen, fur instead o' playin' them the ane 
 contrairy tae the ither, she deescouraged first the ane and 
 then the ither, untul Dairnley, in the coorse o' the last twa 
 acks, sang her iuUil a richt frame o' mind. But, mind ye,
 
 92 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 there was a body ca'd Reetzio, wha was richt weel acket by 
 ma freen on the richt, Sir Parsifal, wha had something tae 
 say tae hit. No that he said onythin' direck'ly tae the pint, 
 as far as A could see. He was a kind o' secretary-body, wha 
 she hed takkcn on, no for his typing nor his shorthaand, but 
 because he could hit like a mavis. ..." 
 
 " How much ? " said Archie. 
 
 " Hoot, mun ! . . . a mavis, or a merle, or something ! 
 A dinna ken the English names for they birds. But dinna 
 interrup' me . . . what was A sayin', Betty ? 
 
 " You were saying something awful about Parsifal." 
 
 " Aweel, as A was sayin', when yc unceevilee interruppit 
 me, that he liltit like a mavis." 
 
 " Poor brute ! " muttered Archie. 
 
 " An' could accompany her Majesty richt bonnily on the 
 lute, hwan she sang her ain sangs." 
 
 " I thought he was on the loot ! " said Archie. 
 
 " Losh me ! wha iver heered o' there being that kind o' 
 loot in Scotland, hwan a' but a meeserable twa or three 
 milhons o' us hev left the countree fur nae ither reason ! " 
 
 " I don't quite follow you," said Archie. 
 
 " I think it's only a matter of grammar," said Betty 
 sarcastically. 
 
 " Grammar be dammed ! " said John Knox. " What are 
 Colin Geordie Geddes an' James Airchie Douglas, wha is 
 ca'd Lord Avondale, daein' here at this table if Scotland 
 wud gi'e us a leevin' ? What was A sayin', Powney, hwan 
 these ither folk interruppit me ? 
 
 " You were sayin' that Rizzio accompanied Her Majesty 
 very prettily on the lute, with which I don't agree." 
 
 " Maybe no," said Knox, " but ye maun admeet that a 
 lute was a mair conveenient eenstrument to lak' aboot wi' 
 ye than a pianny, afore the days o' motor-trakshun ? 
 
 " What are you driving at, Johnnie?" said Archie, who 
 was becoming tired of a general conversation, and wanted 
 to get back to the lively conversation of Carrie Christmas. 
 
 " A'm cumin' tae the pint, if ye'll stap unceevily inter- 
 ruppin' me." 
 
 " The next man that opens his mouth I shall shin him 
 under the table ! " said Archie. " Or John Knox won't get 
 home in time to say his prayers before he goes to bed." 
 
 " There's mair chance o' me sayin' them than you, Airchie ;
 
 A BABYLON DINNER 93 
 
 hit's deed cairtenthat ye'll be put tae bed, gin A judge by the 
 condeeshun o' your remairks ! " 
 
 The laugh was now against Archie, and John Knox was 
 able to finish the story of liis " Honey Pot," Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, as it had been presented at the Babylon Theatre. 
 
 " The fack is, ma freens, that this Reetzio could play 
 upon her hairt-strings rtair pairfectly than he could play 
 upon the lute, an' she wudna heed eether o' them, if it 
 hed'na been tae mak' a guid curtain — ^jist for that, an' 
 naethin' else, she mairrit Dairnley-Waters there, at the same 
 time as her maid — that's Topsy, on the ither side o' you — 
 mairrit Hughie Sprot." 
 
 During this broken monologue Parsifal Shelley, who was 
 sitting immediately next to John Knox, a slim young man, 
 with a sensitive, lantern-jawed face, and large, dark, melan- 
 choly eyes, had been writhing in his seat. He was new to 
 musical comedy, being a concert singer, imported to deliver 
 one beautiful tenor song, and then be a lay-figure. His 
 voice was even better than Darnley's, and his gentle dignit}^ 
 as a lay-figure was not inferior to Darnley's acting. He dis- 
 liked these personalities immensely, having had no previous 
 experience of Babylon dinners. 
 
 John Knox, who, in spite of his part, was a kindly man, 
 bit his lip in annoyance at having turned the stream of chaff 
 upon so inoffensive an object, and looked round for a foeman 
 more worthy of his steel. Not far away on the opposite 
 side he perceived Simon Scrymgeour, a big, powerful man, 
 who had been selected to play the part of Both well, for his 
 protruding chin and malevolent eye, since he had nothing 
 to do in the pla}^ except glower at Darnley. 
 
 " Ye ocht tae be ca'd Scrimjer in the play, Simon — hit's 
 sick a muckle mair terrifyin' name tlian Bothwcll fur knockin' 
 the stuffin' oot o' puir Waters ! " 
 
 " These parsons," said " the Scrimmager," as he was called 
 in the theatre, looking down on him from his superior inches, 
 " will have their little joke ! " 
 
 John Knox turned to Rizzio once more. " He canna tak' 
 a joke like ye can, Parsifal ! A'll bet that ye hed your wee 
 joke wi' oor Mary the while she was playin' wi' Dairnley ! 
 The stage-whispers that dinna form pairt of the play mak' 
 the grandest drawin'-room co-medy that was never written ! " 
 Rizzio was now seriously annoyed, and said, quite stiffly,
 
 94 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 to the ribald Knox : "As my name is Shelley — Percy 
 Shelley, in fact — ^you will allow me to say ' one word is too 
 often profaned for me to profane it ' — and that word is not 
 love ! " 
 
 " Damm ! " said John Knox. " I've put my foot in it 
 again ! " 
 
 There was a hush at this which made everyone hear : 
 " Oh, Archie, you are a dull boy to-night ! " from the pouting 
 Carrie Christmas. 
 
 " Don't bother ' Charlie ' ! Can't you see that I'm in 
 love ?" 
 
 " What business have you to be in love with anybody 
 but me ? " 
 
 " Ask me another ! There are a lot of ' records ' in my 
 heart ! " 
 
 " You're quite right — I wish I'd never had anything to do 
 with such a blooming gramophone ! " 
 
 " His mistress's voice ! " said Archie, and there was no 
 look of reproval on John Knox's face. 
 
 Carrie said nothing, but put a sticky cherry down the 
 back of Archie's neck, and applied herself to a simulated 
 consolation of Parsifal Shelley, which was really directed 
 through him to the edification of John Knox. But she soon 
 tired of this, and returned to Archie, who had his back to her, 
 and was not to be moved, for at that moment Mirabel was 
 getting up to say good-bye. 
 
 Gray prepared to see her off, but she said, quite brusquely. 
 Lady Paradox thought : " No, you mustn't leave your 
 guests, Oliver ! Mr. O'Neill ..." 
 
 " Captain," said Oliver, and the correction was so smiling 
 that he did not appear to have noticed any brusqueness. 
 
 "... Will see me to my car, I'm sure ? " 
 
 " Of course I will ! " 
 
 When he returned a few minutes later he said : " If I were 
 you. Gray, I should try and marry that woman." 
 
 The almost sickly expression on Oliver Gray's face showed 
 him that he had made a Jaux pas, and he added under his 
 breath : " So you think so, too ! "
 
 INTO MIRABEL'S DRESSING-ROOM 95 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HOW ARCHIE FORCED HIS WAY INTO MIRABEL'S DRESSING- 
 ROOM AT THE BABYLON 
 
 OLIVER GRAY should have known that it was not 
 necessary for the sort of man, whom he had asked 
 that night, to be introduced to a woman at the dinner ; 
 in point of fact, such a man is a great deal more interested 
 if he is not introduced. Almost every man who was there 
 wrote to him and asked for an introduction. To all of them 
 he returned the same answer, to the effect that he would 
 have introduced them on the evening itself if Miss Douglas 
 had not expressly requested him not to do so, because she 
 wished to keep her private life and her stage life entirely 
 separate. 
 
 There was one of the guests at that dinner who did not 
 intend to take a no, and that was the very youthful Lord 
 Avondale. A few nights afterwards, by the venality of an 
 attendant, he made his way to her dressing-room, at the 
 end of the second act. It was a carefully-laid plan, for he 
 knew that she was not on the stage for the first quarter of 
 an hour of the third act. He made his dash the moment 
 the curtain fell, and waited behind a turn in the passage till 
 the attendant came to say that she had passed into her room. 
 The same man had let him understand that she did not 
 have her dresser in till tlie bell rang for the curtain to rise. 
 The woman was a prattler, like all her kind, and Mirabel 
 liked to have a few minutes' perfect quiet to rest her brain 
 when she came off the stage. 
 
 She heard a knock at the door. 
 
 " Don't come in ! " she called out languidly, " I want 
 to rest a little longer," She took it for granted that it was 
 the dresser. 
 
 But the door opened, and when she turned to chide the 
 woman, she saw not a woman, but a delightful-looking boy, 
 who probably was twenty or more, to judge by the partic- 
 ularity of his dress, but who did not look more than seven- 
 teen. He had perfectly smooth checks, dazzhngly fair, and
 
 96 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 his small features would have done for a Greek statue, if it 
 had not been for the expression of dogged, schoolboy pluck 
 on his face. He had clear blue eyes and corn-coloured hair. 
 But the feature about him which you could never forget lay 
 in his teeth, when he laughed. Mirabel, born and bred in 
 Italy, was accustomed to exquisite teeth, but it was not only 
 the dazzling whiteness and the shape of his teeth which 
 charmed so, but the extreme beauty with which they were 
 set in crimson gums. Mirabel had never thought about 
 anyone's gums before she saw how perfect this boy's were. 
 She could not help glancing down at the ermine and crimson 
 velvet of the crown she had just laid down. She felt her 
 breath catch at his beauty. 
 
 But in an instant she was on her feet, with her own cheeks 
 flaming. She did not know who he was, for she had turned 
 her eyes away in shame and half-sympathy when Captain 
 O'Neill had humiliated him by carrying him, chair and all, 
 out from the dinner. She did not care who he was. He 
 had forced his way into her dressing-room, which was the 
 same thing as forcing his way into her bedroom, for she 
 should have been dressing, if she had not felt so tired. 
 
 " Leave my room at once, you naughty little boy ! " she 
 said to the six-foot Guardsman. 
 
 He laughed. It was really the guilty laugh of a boy who 
 has been caught, and if he had been an actor, doing it on the 
 stage, the house would have been enchanted by its ingenu- 
 ousness and its charm. But Mirabel was far too angry, by 
 this time, to notice such things. 
 
 He tried to brazen it out. " Not so fast, my dear ! I 
 am not a little bo}^ — I am an officer in His Majesty's Foot 
 Guards ! " 
 
 " That makes it much worse," she said, getting up and 
 putting her hand on the bell. " Now, are you going, or am 
 I going to summon the manager ? " 
 
 " That won't frighten me ; he's out of town, I know ! 
 He's staying with a man in my Regiment." 
 
 " I should say, the assistant-manager ! " she said severely. 
 " Mr. Gray would not come merely to turn you out ! " 
 
 " Gray wouldn't turn me out ; he's a friend of mine ! " 
 he said, with boyish boastfulness. 
 
 " Mr. Maccabaeus will, in double-quick time. Now, are 
 you going ? " she said.
 
 INTO MIRABEL'S DRESSING-ROOM 97 
 
 " Not just yet. How pretty you are, close to ! And I 
 see you don't use any make-up to get the dead-white cheeks 
 of Queen Mary's portraits ! " 
 
 Still she did not ring. What an odd boy it was, discussing 
 the colouring of the Mary Stuart portraits, when he was just 
 on the verge of being thrown out of the Babylon Theatre ! 
 What on earth could he know about them ? Though he was 
 quite right — the accepted portraits did have dead-white 
 cheeks, and the author had remarked that she would do 
 without any make-up. 
 
 " But, I say, our portrait of her has red hair, and you've got 
 black, and they haven't made you put a wig on ! I suppose 
 they thought it was so effective, or something, that they let 
 you do without ! And, of course, it is stunning hair ! " 
 
 " Are you going to leave my room ? 
 
 " I will soon, I promise you, and I promise faithfully not 
 to give you any trouble — I did come for a lark, but I see 
 you're not that sort ! I do want to have a good look at 
 you now that I'm here : I don't suppose I shall ever see 
 you so close again ! 
 
 Mirabel's finger was sliding off the bell. This time she 
 said, " You really must go, or I shan't have time to dress ! " 
 
 " Mayn't I see your eyes ? " he said. " I thought they 
 didn't look quite right through the glasses, and I see they're 
 not brown, but something mixed." 
 
 Mirabel gave a half-smile — how humiliating to have her 
 eyes described as " something mixed " by this brat ! But 
 he seemed to be engaged in a serious historical study, accord- 
 ing to some picture which his family swore by. She wondered 
 whether it was in a book, or a miniature. He really spoke 
 as if it was authentic, and she imagined that all the authentic 
 paintings of Mary were in well-known galleries. 
 
 " You're Scotch, too," he said — " I can see that by your 
 cheek-bones." 
 
 Mirabel forgot herself so far as to say, " Why, do they 
 stick out ? " 
 
 " No," he said, " but they make your face turn down, 
 instead of up, like an English face." 
 
 The air of wisdom with which he delivered this remark 
 was too much for Mirabel. She burst out laughing, but at 
 that moment her eye fell on the clock on her dressing-table, 
 and she saw what tlio time was. She rang the bell so
 
 98 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 furiously that old Mac came flying to her room to know 
 whether the theatre was on fire, or she was being carried off 
 by masked highwaymen, 
 
 " This boy has mistaken his way," she said. " Please 
 show him out." 
 
 Lord Avondale gave Old Mac a wink^ — he had known 
 him ever since he became a man, not very many months ago, 
 by receiving that commission in the King's Foot Guards — 
 and Old Mac told the attendant, who had accompanied him 
 in case of an emergency, what to do with him, and addressed 
 himself to what he considered the much more serious emer- 
 gency of Mirabel barely having time to change her costume 
 before she went on. He knew perfectly well what must 
 have happened, and decided on the dresser's dismissal that 
 night. She must have had pecuniary reasons for not coming 
 to dress Mirabel at the usual minute, and be meant to find 
 out which of the attendants was responsible for the enemy 
 slipping through the defences. The question for his swift 
 decision was : Should she scramble into her other costume 
 as quickly as possible, and chance being behind time, or 
 should she go on as she was ? He decided for the latter. 
 If she dressed too hurriedly there might be something just 
 wanting to the picture, and there was no earthly reason 
 why she should have a different costume for the beginning 
 of the third act, when she was going to change into her 
 wedding-dress half-way through it. The only person who 
 would really care — Oliver Gray — was out of town. 
 
 Having made this decision in his own mind, he confided 
 it to Mirabel. " I hope that you weren't seriously annoyed ? " 
 he said. 
 
 .. " I was very much annoyed!" she said. "But as he 
 was so young, and behaved like a gentleman when he saw 
 what a mistake he had made, I don't think I need complain 
 to Mr. Gray about him. You'll deal with the dresser, of 
 course, and any other persons who were concerned with 
 letting him through ? " 
 
 She said this with a relentlessness that rather surprised 
 Old Mac. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " Til deal with them. The dresser will 
 have been late for dressing you because she was intoxicated, 
 and will be discharged accordingly. This is a sufficiently 
 unforgivable crime in a theatre, and needs no investigation.
 
 INTO MIRABEL'S DRESSING-ROOM 99 
 
 Whoever it was who let him through will be discharged for 
 being absent from his post : he will know what it means, and 
 will not protest." As he was going out of the room he turned 
 back, bubbling over with merriment as only a Jew can. 
 " It's a pity it couldn't have all happened on the stage, 
 Miss Douglas — you'd have been so much more in the real 
 line of our stalls than you ever can be as Mary, Oueen of 
 Scots!" '^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIl 
 
 Mirabel's drive home 
 
 AS her car bowled swiftly home Mirabel thought of the 
 affair in her dressing-room. 
 
 Her first feelings were of disgust. How horrible it was 
 that such a child should be trying to force his way into 
 actresses' dressing-rooms ! He ought to be at school instead 
 of in the Guards, and he had behaved hke a school-boy when 
 she ordered him out. 
 
 Then she could not help thinking of his singular beauty 
 and charm — that cupid's mouth — no, it wasn't a cupid's 
 mouth, for there was no suggestion of the baby archer's 
 bow about it. It reminded her more of Apollo's mouth in 
 the exquisite statue in the Vatican, which represents the 
 god in an elegant woman's dress and shoes and coiffure, 
 surrounded by statues of the Nine Muses, a favourite presen- 
 tation of Apollo, before the conquests of the Great Alexander 
 made it the fashion to give Apollo his features and attributes. 
 Not that there was anything effeminate about the boy's 
 lovely face. The honest and fearless eyes were those of 
 a man who finds no pleasure equal to that of discovering a 
 fine fresh way of risking his neck. He was a darling, that 
 boy, though he had tried to break into her dressing-room ! 
 IIow glad she was that he had not gone away when she sent 
 him ! She liked his grit ; she liked his ingenuous discussion 
 of her appearance and make-up ; above all, she liked his 
 breeding— she was sure that he was " a man of family." 
 
 She half regretted now that she called Old Mac and had 
 him put out; for she would probably never see him again. 
 Old Mac knew far too well how wrathful Oliver Gray would 
 be to let the incident recur. Of course, she could get his 
 
 7*
 
 loo THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 name from Old Mac, but her pride revolted at the very 
 idea of any advances from her. 
 
 Ah me ! this was the first time that she had ever felt like 
 falling in love, and the whole romance was over in a quarter 
 of an hour ! Besides, what was the good ? He would not 
 want to marry her, and if he did, it was impossible. She 
 could never marry for her ideals now, till death parted her 
 from Oliver Gray. 
 
 Even at the time when she married him it had hardly 
 seemed worth while, though it gave her a start in life such 
 as she had never dreamed of ; though her fortune would 
 be made before she was twenty-three years old, and though 
 she had never known what it was to fall in love, in spite of 
 meeting some of the most delightful men in the Italian 
 aristocracy, who had summer villas round Lake Como. 
 
 Yet the boy's escapade belonged to exactly the same cate- 
 gory as the episodes in Oliver's history which prevented her 
 from falling in love with him. He had not come to her room 
 to discuss his father's picture with her. She knew enough of 
 the world to be quite certain of that. 
 
 She did not tell Paula anything about it. 
 
 What would her feelings have been had she known that 
 her car was followed, eill the way home, by a taxi containing 
 the aggressor ? 
 
 Archie, when he had been turned out of her dressing- 
 room, after a vain attempt to catch her eye across the foot- 
 lights from his stall, had gone outside with this object. 
 Round the corner from the stage door he found another 
 door at which was standing a Rolls-Royce car with the 
 Douglas crest on the panels. Guessing that this must be 
 Mirabel's, he had jumped into a taxi and told the driver 
 to follow that car wherever it went until its mistress left it. 
 
 As soon as Mirabel started, the taxi followed and, straining 
 its powers, managed to keep the Rolls-Royce in sight until it 
 stopped at a house on Chiswick Mall at the corner of the 
 Weltje Road, where its mistress got out and let herself in 
 with a latch-key. The name painted on the gate was 
 Bolingbroke House. That then was her home.
 
 MIRABEL RECEIVES ARCHIE loi 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HOW ARCHIE MADE MIRABEL RECEIVE HIM 
 
 ON the next morning she had only just finished breakfast, 
 and was passing the telephone-room on her way to 
 the garden, when its bell rang. " I'll go to it ! " she called 
 out to Paula. 
 
 " Thank you, dear," said Paula, who did the catering of 
 the household, and was at that minute engaged in puzzling 
 the cook. 
 
 " Is that ' Hammersmith four fives ' ? " said a voice which 
 she seemed to recognize. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Who am I speaking to ? " 
 
 " Miss Douglas." 
 
 " Miss Douglas ?— that's all right ! Well. I am Lord 
 Avondale, and I want to know if I may call upon j^ou some 
 time this afternoon ? — any hour which suits you." 
 
 She did not in the least connect him with the naughty 
 boy, and she had a great curiosity to see Lord Avondale, for 
 which she had her own reasons. But after the experience 
 of last night, she felt the necessity fur being cautious. She 
 wanted to find out if he was telephoning from his father's 
 house. It would have been much more to the point if she had 
 asked him how he got her telephone number, seeing that it 
 was not in the book. As a matter of fact he got it because the 
 mess-butler had a friend at the central telephone ofiice who 
 found out addresses for him, since the junior officers were 
 for ever telling him to ring up somebody whose initials and 
 address they did not know. 
 
 Archie, finding that there was no Miss Douglas, Boling- 
 broke House, Chiswick, in the telephone book told the mess- 
 butler to ask at the Central Exchange if she had a number, 
 and if she had to get it for him. The answer came back that 
 her number was " Hammersmith 5555." 
 
 When she asked Archie where he was speaking from, and 
 the answer came, " Belgravia Bairacks — I'm supposed to be 
 on parade," it struck her like a cold douche. But it put a
 
 102 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 new point into her head. The Bclgravia Barracks were 
 always occupied by Guards, and if Lord Avondale was in 
 the Guards, and she was very adroit in her cross-examination, 
 he might be able to tell her something about that boy. All 
 Guards officers would know about each other, she supposed, 
 though reflection might have suggested that this was what 
 he would have called " a large order." 
 
 " Yes, I will be at home if you call at three o'clock," she 
 said. She wished to see him without Paula, and Paula 
 was going to a matinee. She would be able to let him stay 
 a decent time, and dismiss him before Paula would return. 
 
 Punctually at three o'clock a taxi drew up at Bolingbroke 
 House. Mirabel was in the drawing-room awaiting her 
 visitor. 
 
 The door was opened, and her manservant announced : 
 " Lord Avondale." 
 
 It was not without emotion that she saw her boy, of whom 
 she had been thinking so much. But she was almost purple 
 with anger as she strode across the room to reach the bell. 
 
 " What is this new trick which you are playing on me ? 
 I think I deserve better of you after my leniency last night ! " 
 
 " But I don't understand you ! " he said. " You told me 
 on the telephone that I might come ! " 
 
 The voice did seem the same. " I think it was you who 
 spoke to me on the 'phone this morning," she admitted, 
 " but it docs not prove that you are Lord Avondale." 
 
 " Well, I have my card, and a beastly presentation watch, 
 and . . ." 
 
 " I'll trust your word of honour. On your word of honour, 
 are you Lord Avondale ? " 
 
 " Upon my word of honour, I am." 
 
 " Well, I accept that. And now tell me to what I am 
 indebted for the honour of this visit ? " 
 
 " I'm so much in love with you that I had to come and 
 tell you how sorry I am for my behaviour last niglit." 
 
 " Lord Avondale," she began, in tones which cut like an 
 icy wind. 
 
 " Well, I can't help it, can I ? " 
 
 " I shall tell your father and mother about you." 
 
 " They wouldn't mind — I mean father wouldn't mind — 
 I mean, he wouldn't be surprised. But you don't know 
 them, do you ? "
 
 MIRABEL RECEIVES ARCHIE 103 
 
 " No." 
 
 " But I'm sure mother'd see you if you wrote and told 
 her that you wished to report me for insulting you. She's 
 frightfully interested in the stage." 
 
 She could not repress a smile. " Lord Avondale, if I 
 didn't hke you so much, I'd have you turned out of my 
 house ! " 
 
 " You do hke me then— a httle ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course I do — or I should not have put up with 
 all your nonsense ! " 
 
 He did not relish this sort of liking much. It was only 
 a shade removed from snubbing. But since he had really 
 fallen in love with her at first sight, he was thankful for the 
 smallest mercy. 
 
 " You must think me a very common sort of person," she 
 continued, " to allow you to force yourself on me in this 
 manner." 
 
 He could not be anything but honest. " Well, I was 
 rather pleased." 
 
 " But I shouldn't have said what I said unless you had 
 really been Lord Avondale." 
 
 " No, don't," he said, " don't tell me that you, to whom 
 I have felt more attracted than anyone whom I ever saw, 
 bow down to a title ! " 
 
 " Why should I, when my grandfather was Lord Avondale 
 till he succeeded to the Earldom ? " 
 
 " Then you're one of us — Mirabel ? " 
 
 She noticed the way he hesitated over the Mirabel, and 
 thought that he must be hinting at the fact that her name 
 did not appear in the peerage, and said, " I'm Isabel Douglas, 
 daughter of your father's uncle Archibald." 
 
 " Then why do you call yourself Mirabel ? " he asked in 
 his inconsequent way. " Is it stage-swank ? " 
 
 " No, it's a nickname they gave mc in our little paese." 
 
 " Our httle how-much? '' 
 
 " Oh, village — I shan't tell you why." 
 
 " I think, if you don't mind, I'll call you Isabel ; it'll 
 save such a lot of explanation when you're meeting my 
 people." 
 
 " I don't suppose that many of them will want to meet 
 me," she said, with perfect complacency. " I'm disgracing 
 them."
 
 104 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " You're sure of the Governor, and he, after all, is the 
 head of the family. He's the best soul that ever was. But 
 he's got the ' peculiars.' " 
 
 " What are 3'ou implying, caro mio ? " 
 
 " Merely that he doesn't do things quite hke other people. 
 I sometimes tremble to think what my pals must be 
 thinking ! " 
 
 " What grammar ! You certainly ought to be at Eton — 
 I suppose it was Eton ? — still." 
 
 " Why do you chaff me about looking such a kid ? " 
 
 " Because I don't like the way you've been talking of 
 your father. I am sure that he is far too good for you ! " 
 
 " Of course he is ! " 
 
 " That's better ! And since we're on the subject of 
 behaviour, I hope you recognize that the reason why I have 
 forgiven you is because I am your cousin, and old enough 
 to be your aunt ? 
 
 " I wish you were my aunt ! " he said sardonically. 
 
 " Why ? " she asked, unsuspiciously. 
 
 " Because then you'd be sure to kiss me." 
 
 " Perhaps I should like to, but it would be far too 
 dangerous." She knew that she had never met any man, 
 whom she would have been so ready to kiss, but she thought 
 of OHver Gray, whom she kept starving for affection. He 
 would have a right to be jealous if she did this. And he was 
 so good and patient ! 
 
 He thought she was hesitating, and pressed his advantage. 
 
 " Do be a good aunt ! " he said. 
 
 " I can't," she replied. " I have a very faithful lover, 
 however much I wish I hadn't." 
 
 " Tell me one thing," he said. " Are you going to marry 
 him ? " 
 
 " No, I can't." 
 
 " Then why don't you give him ' the push ' ? " 
 
 " What would be the good ? I could never marry anyone 
 else while he was ahve." 
 
 " What a ripping good sort she is ! " thought the boy — 
 " won't marry anybody else because this chap is so fond of 
 her, and feels that she can't marry him, because she isn't 
 sufficiently fond of him ! " 
 
 But Mirabel's thoughts were the exact antipodes of what 
 he supposed. Under her placid extenor she was cursing her
 
 MIRABEL RECEIVES ARCEIIE 105 
 
 stars because she could not marry this dehghtful boy, who 
 had told her that his heart was hers, the boy who would 
 one day be head of her family. She loved him, too, and 
 she knew it. 
 
 He saw her weakening, and like the certain man who 
 drew a bow at a venture, he made another allusion to her 
 being his aunt. 
 
 She was sorely tempted. It was the most dehghtful mouth. 
 
 But at that moment the door opened and in came Paula. 
 The matinee had been so stupid that she had left after the 
 first act. With the noveUst's instinct, she detected that it 
 was an interesting situation. 
 
 She drew back towards the door, but Mirabel called out, 
 " Come here, Paula. I want to introduce my cousin, Lord 
 Avondale." 
 
 Paula was fairly gracious to him. It was difficult for a 
 woman to help being gracious to such a delightful boy. But 
 she was a Socialist at heart, even to her Creator, and she 
 meant to have it out with Mirabel when he had gone. She 
 concluded that the quickest way of getting rid of him was 
 to give them an ostentatious opportunit}- for saying good-bye 
 by leaving them alone, so she said that she was going to 
 take her hat off. Also, she wanted Lord Avondale, if he 
 did stay, to see her hair. 
 
 When she had gone, Mirabel said, " Now you must say 
 good-bye, Avondale. I see that Miss Maitland has some- 
 thing important to say to me, which she can't say before 
 you." 
 
 " I expect she has ! " he said significantly. " But, by 
 the way, couldn't you call me Archie ? — I always have been 
 Archie ! There's no reason why you should go on calhng 
 me Avondale, when all those Lizzies of yours call me 
 Archie." This was his way of indicating the Queen's Maries. 
 
 " Well, Archie, you must go," she said. 
 
 " Right-ho ! When can I come back ? " 
 
 " Any afternoon between three and five, if you 'phone 
 up to see if I'm free. I can't have you after five, because I 
 have to have m)- dinner so early, and I can't have \-ou in 
 the morning because ..." 
 
 " Oh, that's no matter : my country needs my services 
 in the morning, taking honible mudd)- marches to Hounslow 
 and that kind of thing ! ''
 
 marching ? " 
 
 io6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 So you really do do some soldiering — drilling and 
 ching ? " 
 
 " Yes, to my misfortune ! Why can't the Army simply 
 fight when it's wanted to, instead of all this sort of tom- 
 foolery ? I should like the fighting all right." 
 
 " But, my dear boy, how's an Army to be an Army if it 
 doesn't do its lessons ? " 
 
 " Ask me something easy ! It's an awful bore ! " 
 
 " Good-bye again, Archie ! " 
 
 " Yes, I will say good-bye. Can I come again to- 
 morrow ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so, if you don't mind going for a run with 
 me in the car — I need every bit of fresh air that I can get ! 
 I simply lived in the open air in Italy." 
 
 " Are you going to be an aunt ? " he asked, as they shook 
 hands. 
 
 " No, of course not ! Miss Maitland might come in at 
 any moment ! " 
 
 As she rang the bell for her man to show him out, she 
 reflected what a foohsh thing she had just said. He would 
 think that it was only the fear of Paula's sudden appearance ! 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE HEIRS OF THE BLACK DOUGLAS — PAULA WARNS MIRABEL 
 
 AGAINST ARCHIE 
 
 PAULA had been watching from her window to see 
 the taxi go off, and lost no time in making her 
 appearance. 
 
 " Well, Mirabel," she began, " I shouldn't have expected 
 it of you ! It shows how places like the Babylon can 
 deteriorate the nicest women ! " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean, Paula ! " 
 
 " Don't know what I mean ! " said the uncompromising 
 Miss Maitland. " You can't take up any scurrilous 
 paper . . ." 
 
 " I never should," said Mirabel. 
 
 " That's quibbling ! . . . You can't take up any scurrilous 
 paper, I say, without finding allusions to the presence of the 
 young men who throw their money about ' in front ' and
 
 THE HEIRS OF THE DOUGLAS 107 
 
 ' behind,' at the Babylon Theatre. There's no name which 
 occurs more frequently in this menage than Lord Avon- 
 dale's, and I don't suppose that there's a single den of dissi- 
 pation in London, which has any pretensions to extrava- 
 gance, where he would not be known by sight ! I own that 
 he's a most charming person to look at, but he's one of those 
 detestable young people whom they call the b-h-o-y-s ! 
 How can you wonder that there are strikes ? " 
 
 " Oh, poor Archie ! " said Mirabel, determined to rub 
 it in. 
 
 " Archie, indeed ! " snorted Paula. " How long have 
 you known him, that you should Archie him ? " 
 
 " Just about eighteen hours," answered Mirabel, calmly. 
 
 " Weh, I call it the most disgraceful thing I've ever heard 
 of ! And to cap it all — your Archie would call it ' putting 
 the lid on ' — you introduce him to me as your cousin ! If 
 you'll excuse my saying so, without any intention of being 
 olfensive, I must say that it reminds me of the cooks in the 
 back numbers of Ptmch, who, when their mistresses dis- 
 covered policemen having supper in the kitchen, always 
 said that they were their cousins ! " 
 
 " Thank you for the simile ? " said Mirabel, who never 
 allowed herself to be offended by Paula's gibes. " But, 
 as it happens, Lord Avondale is my cousin, and if you don't 
 believe me, you can go and look it out in your peerage ! Of 
 course, you have a peerage ? — every Socialist who can afford 
 it has a peerage ! " she added, giving her one back. 
 
 " Yes," said Paula, " I have a peerage ! " She literally 
 blushed to admit it. The only excuse she could think of 
 to defend her conduct was : "A writer must have one, to 
 avoid pitfalls ! Besides, it's only a five-shilling one, which 
 I bought half-price at the Ladies' Marlborough Club when 
 the new one came out." 
 
 " You needn't defend your conduct, Paula," said Mirabel, 
 drily. " I think no evil." 
 
 " I suppose that's a hint to me ! " said Paula wrathfully. 
 
 " Oh, no, not at all ! But hadn't you better get your 
 peerage to settle it ? " 
 
 Paula went and fetched it, and turned up Avondale. The 
 entry read : " Avondale, Viscount (Master of Douglas), 
 son and heir of the Earl of Douglas, q.v." 
 
 She turned to the Earl oj Douglas, and discovered that
 
 io8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 the family were descended from the good Sir James Douglas, 
 the comrade-in-arms and chief General of King Robert the 
 Bruce. No titled relatives were given, except the said 
 James Archibald, Viscount Avondale (Master of Douglas), 
 but the second heir was given as Isabel Douglas. 
 
 " I don't see any mention of you among the relatives," 
 said Paula, in almost vindictive triumph. 
 
 " Of course you don't — that peerage only gives titled 
 relatives, and I have no title." She did not say, " I am 
 that Isabel," for a new idea had struck her. 
 
 Paula could not understand Mirabel's strange hesitation 
 while they were examining the entry. She could see that 
 there was something behind it, some clue which she intended 
 to unravel, with the novelist's holy joy. To her mind 
 Mirabel was guilty of deception in one of two ways : either 
 her claiming Lord Avondale as a cousin was a flimsy subter- 
 fuge and excuse to respectability, or she was a very, very 
 distant — a tenth or twentieth — Scotch cousin, and Mirabel 
 had simply been bragging. 
 
 Presently she said, " Well, of course, it's your house, and 
 you can do what you like with it. I recognize how good it 
 is of you to let me have this charming home without its 
 costing me a penny. And if you want to use me to cover 
 your indiscretions ..." 
 
 Mirabel started, rather impatiently. 
 
 "... No, I don't mean any offence ! " said Paula, feehng 
 that she had gone too far. " What I mean is that, if you feel 
 that you can be freer in asking men to the house if I am 
 about to chaperon you, I am entirely at 3'our disposal, pro- 
 vided that they behave themselves. I really have very 
 advanced ideas — I am not moral, though I hate vulgarity ! 
 I don't care what you do so long as you are decent enough 
 not to annoy people with it. But ragging, and throwing 
 things about, and fastness in appearances generally, revolt 
 me. 
 
 " You give me a nice character, don't you ? " said Mirabel, 
 managing to keep her temper by being amused. 
 
 " I'm not giving you any kind of character : I'm only 
 warning you of the kind of troubles, which a woman can 
 hardlj' avoid if she's leading lady at a place like the Babylon." 
 
 " It's very good of you," said Mirabel, with an intonation 
 which was capable of more than one interpretation.
 
 THE HEIRS OF THE DOUGLAS 109 
 
 " And do be careful aboiit that Lord Avondale ! He's an 
 awful 3^oung roue ! He has beauty and charm enough, if 
 it were in a woman, to lure the Pope from the Vatican ! With 
 such a man a woman never could be sure of not losing her 
 head." 
 
 Paula's unaimed shaft flew home. It was quite true what 
 she had said. Mirabel did not like to contemplate it, and, 
 afraid of what Paula might say next, she said, " I'm going 
 to telephone for the car to come round. I want to do some 
 shopping : don't wait tea for me. I dine so early that I'm 
 really better without it." 
 
 The car was at the door so quickly that she did not stop 
 to change the graceful black satin slippers, ribbanded to 
 her ankles, but slipped into her furs and threw her hat on. 
 Mirabel had not yet learned to treat hats with the proper awe. 
 She had never worn one on Lake Como, except when she went 
 into a town. 
 
 " Hatchard's," she said to the chauffeur — " you know, my 
 bookseller in Piccadilly." 
 
 Hatchard's had not got what she required in stock, but 
 offered to get it for her. 
 
 " I want it now," she said. " Where can I gci one ? " 
 
 " Well, the publisher 's quite near, at 45, St. Martin's 
 Lane — Harrison and Sons, the King's Printers." 
 
 Mirabel flew round to Harrison's. There they seemed to 
 have nothing else, except this particular book, and a lot of 
 pamphlets about the size of Modern Society, wliich were of all 
 thicknesses, some unbound and some in blue paper covers. 
 She paid for her purchase, and told her chauffeur to fly home 
 as fast as the law would let him. 
 
 When she got home, she sailed upstairs, carrying the parcel. 
 She wanted to run, but she felt that being out of breath would 
 put her at a disadvantage. She found Paula still at tea — 
 Paula, when she was alone, alwa>'s read at tea, and lost all 
 count of how man}' cups she drank. 
 
 " Here's a present for you, Paula," she said. 
 
 " What is it, dear ? " 
 
 " A this year's ' Peerage.' " 
 
 Paula cut the string — which was unusual for her — with 
 the cake-knife, and found herself possessed, for the first time, 
 of " Burke " for the current year. She thanked Mirabel 
 profusely, and turned o\-er the leaves with a feverish im-
 
 no THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 patience till she came to the Earldom of Douglas. It occupied 
 two or three pages, and Paula, unaccustomed to " Burke," 
 could not make head or tail of it, though she confined herself 
 to the period after 1850. The parentheses of children by 
 second and third marriages, and the " issues " of younger 
 children, simply bewildered her. But of one thing she was 
 quite certain : between the years 1850 and 1913 there was 
 no Mirabel Douglas mentioned. 
 
 " Look here," said Mirabel, running her finger through it 
 as rapidly as if it was arranged like an A B C, instead of being 
 arranged like a Bradshaiv (Paula wondering all the while 
 whether this intimacy was the result of a journalistic study 
 to substantiate that twentieth cousinship), " that's my father." 
 The name she pointed to was the Hon. Archibald Douglas, 
 second son of the twenty-third Earl, described as of the Villa 
 Visconti, Lake Conio, Italy, who had married in such a year 
 Donna Elisabdta Visconti, daughter of Don Prospcro Visconti, 
 and grand-daughter of the fifth Duke of Alcamo, Sicily, with 
 issue, one daughter, Isabel. 
 
 The Hon. Archibald, it appeared, was brother of the 
 twenty-fourth Earl, and uncle of the present, or twenty-fifth. 
 
 Paula started at the mention of the Villa Visconti. 
 
 " Now, 5^ou see," said Mirabel. 
 
 " No, I don't." 
 
 " Well, I'm that Isabel Douglas." 
 
 " Yes, but why was there no mention of all this when I 
 was visiting you at the Villa ? " 
 
 " Why should there have been ? My father was ahnost 
 Italianized, because he had lived in Italy so many years. 
 He had dropped all communication with people at home, 
 except with the lawyers who sent him what remained of his 
 fortune, and in point of fact, his letters from England were 
 always addressed to the Hon. Archibald Douglas, and his 
 Itahan letters to // Onorevole or II Nobile Don Baldo Douglas. 
 In tlie paese he was simply Don Baldo, as you knew him." 
 
 " So you are first cousin of this boy's father ? " 
 I am. 
 
 " Do you know him ? " 
 
 In point of fact, Mirabel did not know him, but she did not 
 intend to satisfy Paula's inquisitivoncss. " Know my own 
 cousin ! " she said, and she added, because she could see from 
 the triumph in Paula's eyes that she had some question ready
 
 THE HEIRS OF THE DOUGLAS in 
 
 which would embarrass her, " Why, I'm his heir if anything 
 happens to this boy ! " 
 
 " His heir ! " gasped Paula. 
 
 " Yes, the second heir, Isabel Douglas, mentioned in that 
 neat little ' Peerage ' of yours." 
 
 " But you're Mirabel." 
 
 Mirabel repeated the explanation she had made earlier in 
 the afternoon to her cousin. She did not divulge that she 
 had received the nickname for her good looks. 
 
 " Why didn't you mention all this to me before ? " asked 
 Paula. 
 
 " Because ^^ou're such a SociaHst that I was afraid of your 
 setting the house on fire, if you knew it," answered Mirabel 
 sweetly. 
 
 " Mirabel," said Paula, penitently, " I'm not half such a 
 Socialist as you are — keeping all this dark for all the years 
 that I've known you, and being so absolutely unaffected by it ! 
 But rn teU you one thing — I don't think you ought to let that 
 Oliver Gray come round here every Sunday. It isn't good 
 enough for a woman of your position — perhaps I should say 
 of your family — to allow your name to be connected with a 
 man like that." 
 
 " My dear, I couldn't think of altering my attitude to him ! 
 Just think of all he's done for me ! If he hadn't made me his 
 leading lady, I should never have risen beyond ' walking-on,' 
 or at the utmost, getting a part like one of what Archie calls 
 ' the Queen's Lizzies ' ! " 
 
 The Queen's Lizzies ' ! " cried Paula, going off into 
 peals of laughter — " to use a vulgar expression, I could ' eat 
 my hat ! ' But, Mirabel . . ." 
 
 " What, dear ? "—the " Queen's Lizzies " had restored 
 the harmony of the household. 
 
 " A most serious thought has just struck me. I see quite 
 clearly now why that man Gray pays you so much attention, 
 and pretends to have reformed. Of course he wants to many 
 you for your chance of a title." 
 
 " There isn't much chance, is there, with that healthy 
 j^oung cub of an Archie in between ? Another thing— he 
 does not know that 1 have the faintest connection willi any 
 eer. 
 
 " Well, it would be a great match for him, in point of family, 
 even if you never did succeed to the title, and I shouldn't
 
 112 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 think that there were many people fonder of risking their 
 necks than Lord Avondale." 
 
 Mirabel felt quite sick. Now that Paula had said it, she 
 could picture that boy dying in his boots, somehow, before 
 the silky down on his upper lip had given way to a moustache. 
 
 " You needn't be frightened ; I shall never marry Mr. 
 Gray," said Mirabel. " But that doesn't prevent me from 
 being as decent to him as I can, considering all I owe to him." 
 
 Paula was distinctly relieved. " You should marry your 
 cousin, and then you'd be Countess of Douglas anyhow, some 
 day," said Paula, quite sincerely. She had forgotten all her 
 Socialism in a glowing dream for Mirabel's future. Even 
 before she had any idea of the splendour of Mirabel's family, 
 she had been as anxious as if she had been her mother that 
 she should make a marriage worthy of her beauty and her 
 success. Gray's suit she had advocated for professional 
 reasons. 
 
 Mirabel shuddered. Knowing Paula, she knew that she 
 would have Satan at her side night and day, ready to insinuate 
 the idea which she was trying to banish from her thoughts. 
 But for that fatal marriage, there was nothing which she would 
 so have desired as to marry this boy, even if it meant cutting 
 off both of them from the title and every penny that apper- 
 tained to it. She did not want him for worldly advantages. 
 She wanted him because she had found that ideal husband 
 of her dreams. She admitted his faults ; she admitted his 
 vices. But she felt that they would all cease in his love for 
 her. 
 
 She did not see that the same process of reasoning was 
 exactly as applicable to Oliver Gray. She knew that Archie 
 was not particularly clever. She could not tell herself that 
 he had shown any desire to fulfil any useful purpose in life. 
 He was just the most delightful human being she had met. |f 
 
 And that was her notion of an ideal husband ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ENTER THE COUNTESS OF DOUGLAS 
 
 THE next day supplied another instance of the wisdom 
 of the serpent with which Archie's recklessness was 
 streaked. Perceiving that Mirabel did not intend to face the
 
 ENTER LADY DOUGLAS 113 
 
 perils of a tete-d-tete tea, he thought that he might just as well 
 reinforce his suit in another way. 
 
 Lanarkshire House stood on the Kensington Road, just 
 before you reach Knightsbridge. It was one of the two old 
 country-houses which had survived from the days when 
 Kensington was a village. With its fine red brick facade it 
 was more ambitious than its neighbour, Kingston House. It 
 was more like the noblemen's villas scattered round Peter- 
 sham. It was rather far out for a nobleman's house, but 
 Lady Douglas liked it because it had larger rooms for enter- 
 taining, and regular grounds for garden-parties, and her 
 hobby in life was to have a salon. It was also easier for her, 
 as her son said, to " go as you please " on the Kensington 
 Road than in Grosvenor Square. It was certainly not easy 
 for her to lead the life of a great lady, with a husband who 
 would not live at home, and, when she gave a dinner-party, 
 had to be asked like the other guests, and came and went like 
 the other guests. So she started the idea of having a salon 
 on Sunday nights, which in summer began with a garden- 
 reception on Sunday afternoons, and engaged a badly-off niece 
 of hers, MoUie Menteith, who was very plain, but had a nice 
 figure, and charming eyes and teeth, at a liberal salary to 
 attend to the correspondence which it involved, and do the 
 hard work at the receptions. 
 
 There was plenty of money at her disposal, since part of the 
 Lanarkshire coal-fields lay under the immemorial estates of 
 her husband. And as she was popular with her own order, 
 she was able to have irresistible salons, in which such of the 
 nobility as cared for it could meet the people who were famous 
 in the Arts, and people connected with the Arts could have a 
 taste of high Society. These salons had the further advan- 
 tage of inviting the occasional attendance of her husband and 
 her son, theatrical society being almost the only taste which 
 ail three possessed in common. 
 
 She was the daughter of a Scottish peer, of the old-fashioned 
 sort, who prefer having their town residence in the ancient 
 capital of their country, instead of in London. Living in 
 Edinburgh, her parents had moved in the brilliant literary 
 and legal set who reigned in Edinburgh in the middle genera- 
 tion of the last century. Not much of their literary product 
 has any vogue to-day, but the conversation at their gatherings 
 was prodigiously witty and learned, and had inspired her with 
 
 8
 
 114 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 an hereditary taste for salons, which asserted itself now that 
 she was thrown so much on her own resources. The pity 
 of it was that she had no really cultivated tastes herself, 
 beyond an insatiable hunger for brilliant conversation. She 
 chose her new friends partly for that, and partly for notoriety, 
 these being the two qualities which attracted her friends in her 
 own order most. 
 
 But the system was a bad one, and though it made the 
 Sunday evenings brilliant and enjoyable, the stream of small 
 celebrities who invaded the house all through the week 
 rendered its atmosphere intolerable to Lord Douglas, who, 
 since he had grown tired of sport, had given himself up to 
 pubhc movements. He came to his wife's parties for the 
 same reason as he would have gone to Oliver Gray's parties — 
 on the off-chance of picking up an acquaintance which would 
 amuse him. And they had drifted so far apart that it gave her 
 actual pleasure when she could provide him with such 
 amusement. They were excellent friends, but she had no 
 time to participate in his serious interests and occupations. 
 
 London was such a much larger place than Edinburgh, and 
 had such an immensely larger crowd of great people and 
 clever people, that she was able to gather a salon round her, 
 which took up her entire interest. To be the head of that, and 
 made a fuss of by everybody who attended it, gratified every 
 desire and ambition which she had. She was still a lovely 
 woman, and lier hair had retained its colour, and her figure 
 the dignity of its youth. It was easy to see where her son had 
 inherited his beauty. But the expression, which was its 
 crowning charm, and sometimes sat rather oddly on such an 
 uncompromising young " ragger," came from Lord Douglas. 
 
 Lady Douglas was devoted to her son, and he was devoted 
 to her, but " couldn't stick the crowd " — to use his elegant 
 summarization of the most brilliant people in London. When 
 he did come home he patiently allowed his mother to make as 
 much of him as she liked. But he did not repeat the dose 
 very frequently. 
 
 It was therefore a surprise when Grainger, her butler, who 
 answered the telephones, came to her and said, " Lord Avon- 
 dale has telephoned that he is on his way to see you, my Lady." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later he was shown into the small 
 drawing-room, where she had tea if she did not expect a party. 
 After a fervent embrace, to which he not only submitted, but
 
 ENTER LADY DOUGLAS 115 
 
 reciprocated with endearing monkey-tricks, she said, " Have 
 you had your tea, Archie ? " 
 
 " I'll have another," he said. " What I like about your 
 house, mater, is that you always have party-food going, 
 though I can't make out why you do it for that rotten 
 crowd ! " 
 
 " You must remember that they're not all what you'd call 
 rotten, Archie." 
 
 " Oh, yes, they are ! I know what you meai^, but the 
 others are rotten, too, to put up with such people ! People 
 with brains are such bores ; they always want to talk like 
 The Times ! " 
 
 " I don't know why you say that, dear ; I'm sure you 
 don't read The Times ! " 
 
 " Only The Sporting Times, old thing ; but I know they 
 do. Are you hard up for something to brighten up your old 
 parties ? " 
 
 She knew what was coming, and to what she was indebted 
 for the honour of his visit, now. There was no finessing 
 about Archie, unless he was trying to cajole a pretty woman. 
 
 " Why ? " she asked, with an amused smile. " Have you 
 made a new discovery ? " 
 
 " Well, rather, and I was so anxious to give you the benefit 
 of it that I taxied to the nearest public telephone, and rang 
 Ginger up to know if you were at home ! " 
 
 " Grainger, Arcliie — you really mustn't call him Ginger ! 
 He'll catch you some day, and I shall lose the only person 
 who knows all my friends." 
 
 " Don't fret your . . . don't fret yourself about that, 
 mater — it won't do you any good ! I always call him Ginger 
 to his face, except when I'm in your presence." 
 
 Lady Douglas closed her eyes in horror at the thought of 
 the majestic Grainger being exposed to such insults. Her 
 son, who was keeping all the fire off her by standing in front 
 of it, with his hands in his jacket pockets, said : " You don't 
 seem dying to hear about my new discovery ; you're thinking 
 more of poor old Ginger's feelings ! " 
 
 " I'm so sorry, dear, but I really have to depend on him so 
 much more than I have to depend upon your father." 
 
 Archie took his hands out of his pockets to stuff his hand- 
 kerchief into his mouth. The thought of comparmg his 
 father, who was one of the noblest figures in the House of 
 
 8*
 
 ii6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Lords— when he went there— with a bloated toast-master 
 hke Grainger, quite overcame him. 
 
 His mother was so upset that to change the subject she 
 said, rather pettishly : " Well, who is your new discovery, 
 Archie ? " His discoveries were always human, and always 
 of the same sex. 
 
 " You've got a cousin who's a leading lady ! " 
 
 " A leading lady ? " She was still so upset that she did 
 not for the moment remember what a leading lady was. 
 
 " Yes, a leading lady at a theatre." 
 
 She braced herself together at this piece of intelUgence ; 
 she was so excited. " Who is she ? Have I ever seen her ? 
 Has she ever been here without my knowing the relation- 
 ship ? " 
 
 " Well, I can't say if you've ever seen her, because I'm not 
 with you every minute of the day, mater dear. But I don't 
 think she comes here, or . . ." 
 
 " I should see you oftener ? I quite understand." 
 
 " Well ... I shouldn't like to say that." 
 
 " I won't scold ; for a man who has so much to do as you 
 have, you're really not bad about coming to see your 
 mother." 
 
 He pulled a face. " A man who has as much to do as I 
 have ! " 
 
 " Well, do you think I should have seen her ? " 
 
 " Not in the theatre, because I go there every night, and 
 I always take a look round the boxes." 
 
 " Oh, my poor boy, you must be hard hit ! Let me see 
 if she is possible, at once ! " 
 
 " Of course she's possible ; she's a Douglas." 
 
 " What theatre did you say it was ? " 
 
 " The Babylon." 
 
 Lady Douglas gasped. She was fairly broad-viewed as 
 to the people she asked to her house, but she had never 
 gone to musical comedy, or the music-halls yet, in her lion- 
 hunts. " Do you think I can do it, Archie ? " 
 
 " Of course I do ! Didn't I tell vou that she was a 
 Douglas ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know you did, and I know that Forward* has 
 
 * Some of the descendants of the good Sir James Douglas used 
 their motto in its French form, " Jamais aniire," and some in its 
 English form, "Forward."
 
 ENTER LADY DOUGLAS 117 
 
 always been the motto of our family since the Scotch began 
 to use English ! But this might be a little bit too forward 
 for some of our own friends. She must have been pretty 
 Jorward before she got there ! " 
 
 " You don't know her, mater." 
 
 " I've noticed, Archie, that I've generally been rather 
 glad not to have known the people about whom you have 
 said that I Besides, how do you know that she really is our 
 cousin ? " she proceeded, seeing that he did not look so 
 disturbed as he usually did when they were having this form 
 of conversation. " There are lots of Douglases in the world — 
 there are various Peers, not to mention the rest. And if a 
 woman like that is related to one of the families, she'd be 
 sure to think it was ours, because we're the best known. 
 But I don't suppose she's got anything to do with any of 
 them. If a woman hke that . . ." 
 
 " Mother, I must ask you not to use that expression again 
 about her ; it's offensive to me ! " 
 
 Lady Douglas smiled indulgently — Archie had given her 
 many lectures of this sort — and corrected herself. " If this 
 Miss Douglas's name really is Douglas, and has not been 
 adopted as a stage name, she'd be sure to say that she 
 belongs to one of the famihes." 
 
 " Mater ! " he said warningly. 
 
 She felt it her duty to proceed : " But the odds are that 
 her name isn't Douglas at all, and ..." 
 
 " But she's in the ' Peerage,' mater." 
 
 "Oh, that alters the case," said Lady Douglas. " Who is 
 she ? " 
 
 " The daughter of my grand-governor's brother Archibald, 
 who went to live in Italy and was never heard of again." 
 
 Lady Douglas reminded herself that this Isabel was an 
 important person because, if anything happened to her 
 beloved Archie, there would be only this girl left to carry 
 on the title in their branch of the family. What she said to 
 her son was : " Does she act under her own name ? " 
 
 " Douglas ; but she uses a pet name, Mirabel, instead of 
 her own name, Isabel." 
 
 " Isabel ? Yes, that's right," said Lady Douglas. " Her 
 name should be Isabel. And if she's at all what you say, 
 only think of the draw she will be for my parties ! I must 
 look into the matter at once. I'll go and see her to-morrow ! "
 
 ii8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 "I'm going to see her to-morrow, mater." 
 
 " Well, I knew that— at least, I felt sure of it. Does that 
 mean that I am not wanted ? " 
 
 " No, but . . . but . . ." 
 
 " What's the matter, Archie ? It isn't Hke you to hesitate 
 about giving your opinion ! " 
 
 " The fact of the matter is, mater, that she promised that 
 if I'd call for her about three, she'd take me for a spin into 
 the country in her car." 
 
 " And you don't want to waste any of the precious minutes ? 
 Well, I'll do my call before three. By the bye, where does 
 your charmer live ? " 
 
 " Bolingbroke House, The Mall." 
 
 " The Mall ? " repeated Lady Douglas tentatively. 
 
 " Yes ; I don't know whether it's Hammersmith or 
 Chiswick, but I know that you have to go along King Street, 
 Hammersmith, till you come to the — I can't pronounce the 
 name of that road, but I've got it written down in my 
 cigarette-case — and then turn down sharp to the left till 
 you come to the river-bank. And there it is ! " 
 
 " Nice house ? " she asked, while he was picking one of his 
 own cards, on which he had written Mirabel's address, out 
 of his gold cigarette-case. 
 
 " Not much worse than this." He disliked his mother 
 living in Kensington. Personally he would have thought it 
 more decent to live in a house only a quarter of the size in 
 Mayfair. " Here it is, mater." 
 
 She spelt it out. " W-e-1-t-j-e Road — what language 
 is that, I wonder ? " 
 
 " I think it must be Jerry," he said, " invented by the 
 builder. Well, mater, you will ask her, won't you ? " 
 
 " I will, if she's possible, and as you say she is . . . every- 
 thing that is all right, of course I shall ! " 
 
 Archie hated ijs. He liked to have his own way there and 
 then. He wanted to nail his mother to it. So, knowing her 
 love of novelties and excitement, he determined to try and 
 capture her by a coup de main. 
 
 " Mater," he said, " would you like to go on the real razzle 
 to-night ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ! What do \'ou mean to imply by that 
 dreadful word ? " 
 
 " I mean, should you hke to pick me up at the barracks at
 
 ENTER LADY DOUGLAS 119 
 
 six fifty-five, and let me give you dinner in the Babylon 
 Restaurant, and then trot round and see Mirabel in her piece ? 
 Then you can form your own conclusions." 
 
 The idea appealed to Lady Douglas enormously. To dine 
 at a rather outre restaurant with her own son, who would 
 certainly be able to tell her about everybody as much as 
 she could permit herself to hear, sounded delightful. For 
 one thing, he had never encouraged her to go to any of his 
 haunts before. As to food — she loved good food, and could 
 eat bad food without any inconvenience to herself, if she was 
 sufficiently amused. And it would enable her to form a 
 deliberate opinion of Mirabel before she had to speak to her. 
 
 " Oh, Archie, what fun ! But remember one thing, dear — 
 I should hate to see anything I oughtn't to ! " 
 
 " Bless you ! " he said, " the Babylon's quite a strict place ; 
 that old Italian ruflian — I forget his name — is running it 
 against Prince's." 
 
 " Very well, then, I'll call for you at five minutes to seven." 
 
 " Don't be late, will you, mater ? I don't want to miss 
 any of the piece." 
 
 She arrived a few minutes before she was due, and found 
 him ready. 
 
 " Wonders will never cease ! " she said. " I shouldn't have 
 believed that you could have dined at seven, and been in 
 time for your dinner ! Do you do this every night ? " 
 
 " No, not every night, but whenever I've no other engage- 
 ment. I look in at my stall every night." 
 
 " Have you got one by the season ? " she asked, thinking 
 that she was being sarcastic. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " My gracious ! " she said. " What funny things men are ! " 
 
 " What a capital place it is for food," she said, when they 
 came to their coffee. Certainly, he had given her the best 
 dinner the place could produce ; he had telephoned to 
 Viviani as soon as he got to the barracks, to order a table 
 for two and " a dinner." Signor Viviani, and other people, 
 too, wondered very much who the charming society woman 
 was who was willing to be seen dining with Lord Avondale 
 at the Babylon. He seemed very fond of lier, at any rate, 
 they thougjit, and she of him, but elderly ladies do get foolish 
 over a b-h-o-y like him. 
 
 At ten minutes to eight he said : " Now then, mater, we
 
 I20 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 must be shifting. I 'phoned to the box-office to get my stall 
 changed so as to get another one beside it for you, and there 
 may be a crowd round the peep-hole." 
 
 She drew her cloak closer round her shoulders and rose 
 directly. She knew of what vital importance it was to him 
 not to lose one minute of the new inamorata. 
 
 " You settle, Archie, and let me know what it comes to." 
 
 " Not a bit, mater ! This is my show . . . besides, I 
 shan't pay it^ — they'll put it down to my account." 
 
 He certainly was very much at home here. 
 
 When they got into the booking-hall, where a long queu(; 
 was waiting to buy tickets, an attendant came up to him and 
 gave him his tickets, and got a two-shilling piece or half-a- 
 crown — she did not notice which — for saving him having to 
 wait his turn. 
 
 " Have you got an account here, too, Archie ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course — they know me. I've paid up my own 
 stall for the season." 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WHAT LADY DOUGLAS THOUGHT OF MIRABEL 
 
 THEIR seats were rather far back. They had only 
 been able to get them because two had been returned 
 tlie moment before he telephoned. The Babylon was a great 
 stalls' theatre, because of the signalling which went on 
 between the stage and the admirers. 
 
 The curtain rose almost immediately, on Queen Mar^-'s 
 people, represented by the famous Babylon Beauty Chorus 
 and the minor comedians. Being Scotch, Lady Douglas 
 hardly noticed them ; she was too intent on trying to find 
 mistakes in the representation of her native Edinburgh in 
 the scenery. She was rapturous over its beauty, and the 
 admiration it was exciting in the English j^eople all round 
 her ; but that did not prevent her from pointing out to her 
 son that they were seeing a number of Edinburgh buildings 
 at the same time in London which they could not possibly 
 see at the same time in Edinburgh — except on the stage. 
 
 " Oliver Gray is never mean, mater ; he likes to give 
 people as much for their money as he can." 
 
 " And who is Oliver Gray ? "
 
 WHAT LADY DOUGLAS THOUGHT 121 
 
 " The chap who owns and runs the place, and wants to 
 own and run Mirabel as well ! " 
 
 " Oh, Archie, you mustn't say such terrible things to your 
 mother ! " 
 
 ^ Archie, who saw how hurt she was by what she thought 
 his disrespect, said quickly : " No, I don't mean that, mater— 
 I wouldn't say a thing like that to you ! It's all O K ; he's 
 my hated rival for her hand. He's behaving like a white 
 man to her. But I just wish he'd stop it ! " 
 
 Lady Douglas smiled in spite of herself. " Stop behaving 
 decently to her, Archie ? " 
 
 " Stop behaving at all ! He ought to see that he isn't 
 wanted ! " He did not know how much he was speaking 
 by the book. 
 
 By this time Hughie Sprot and Topsy Perks and the more 
 important comedians had arrived, and for a quarter of an 
 hour kept the audience convulsed with laughter by behaving 
 much as the clown and pantaloon in a harlequinade would 
 behave, if they waylaid a vanload of mediaeval clothes and 
 armour on its way back from a theatre to Wardour Street. 
 The audience rocked with laughter, and had to be recalled, 
 by a gorgeous pageant, to a proper state of mind for receiving 
 the tragic Queen of Scots, particularly since she made her 
 appearance as a widow, attended by John Knox and the 
 Regent. 
 
 Archie drew her attention, with one of the httle gestures 
 which women in love with him found so irresistible. The 
 people who knew him by sight wondered at her again. 
 
 After a regular transformation scene of the nobles, Higli- 
 landers, Lowlanders and Mosstroopers, a splendid piece of 
 historical realism, the Queen's Maries debouched on to the 
 stage, doubling the enthusiasm of the audience at one bound. 
 
 " There are the Lizzies." said Archie. " Now she won't 
 be long. The one whose face looks like an accident is Orlando 
 Jebb's wife. You know that ass Jebb, I suppose, mater ? " 
 
 " If he's Lady Lampeter's son, I know who he is ; but 
 Lady Lampeter does not come to my parties ; she makes no 
 distinctions between them and places like this. We are all 
 brands for the burning." 
 
 " How cheery for Jcbb ! " said Archie. " But, d'you know, 
 Betty — that's his wife — wants to get in with them. She'd 
 leave the stage to-morrow, if they'd take her up ! "
 
 122 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 There was another blare of music, and Mirabel rode on to 
 the stage with the Regent leading her white palfrey, and 
 John Knox, looking as if he had just come from church, on 
 her other side. 
 
 There was a storm of applause from the retainers and the 
 chorus and the comedians, and her subjects on the other side 
 of Jordan— the first three or four rows of the stalls being 
 almost exclusively men. Babylon stage conventions 
 demanded that she should acknowledge the salutations of the 
 audience first, before she took any notice of the people in the 
 play, though she was a monarch meeting the nation over 
 which she ruled for the first time. 
 
 When Mirabel came forward to the foothghts, with the 
 diffidence which she had been unable to get over at finding 
 herself suddenly in a position of such prominence, and as the 
 applause restored her confidence, broke into the smile with 
 which an Italian woman greets her lover, Lady Douglas felt 
 immensely attracted to her. And this was enhanced when she 
 sang a song with charming music and showed that she had the 
 voice and the sympathy which would have raised her to the 
 top of the tree in ballad concerts. 
 
 " If it's only one of your escapades, Archie, you must not 
 ask me to help you ! If I did anything, it would be to try and 
 keep her out of it. It's not the same thing as it was, when I 
 had to refuse other girls, whom you've wanted me to invite. 
 They wanted social recognition as their price for what ought 
 to keep them out of any decent society. I had no mission to 
 protect them : they were only too capable of looking after 
 themselves. But this girl's a good woman, besides being our 
 own kith and kin." 
 
 " I\Iater," he said, " you mustn't open your mouth so wide 
 to your Uttle son ! I'm taking this hand as a plaster-saint ! " 
 " We shall see," she said. She had not much faith in 
 Archie on the side of the angels. 
 
 With the piece she was ineffably bored. It was worse than 
 boring to her — it was blasphemy ! She had been brought up 
 to regard Edinburgh and its traditions, and Scottish history, 
 as something sacred. Ordinarily the English were quite good 
 people, as one's associates in a luxurious and sporting life, 
 but at the back of it all, a pure-blooded Scotswoman like her- 
 self was bound to regard the union of Scotland with England 
 as something only less monstrous than the triple partition of
 
 WHAT LADY DOUGLAS THOUGHT 123 
 
 Poland. Therefore it was appalling to her to see one of the 
 most romantic episodes in the history of Scotland turned into 
 a vulgar and silly pantomime. She would not even look at 
 the comedians, whose antics were received with such shouts 
 of laughter by the audience, or the Beauty Chorus, who smiled 
 on the four rows of black-coated Archies in the stalls. 
 
 She looked from her son to Mirabel, and from Mirabel to 
 her son. Except as a very lovely woman and a nice woman, 
 Mirabel did not impress her in the first act. In truth, all 
 Mirabel had to do was to be a spectator of the buffooneries 
 of the comedians, great and small, making a travesty of 
 ancient Scottish sports and customs — blasphemy again. And 
 the worst of it was that Mirabel, being near enough to catch 
 Hughie Sprot's asides, which were intensely funny, wore an 
 honest smile of amusement. Lady Douglas, up in arms for 
 Scotland, thought her a fool, though she forgave her a little 
 when she sang again, a song which gave her more chance, and 
 showed that she had a really glorious voice. 
 
 Disappointed with Mirabel, she leant back and watched her 
 son. His eyes were feeding on everything which Mirabel did. 
 They were glued to her. The gods in the front rows of the 
 stalls do not use glasses. Glasses cut you off from any 
 possible fun which may break out in an unexpected quarter ; 
 they interfere with the signalhng from the stage. And a 
 great many of these gods — not the soldiers, perhaps — Ukc 
 to feel that the audience is looking at them, and pointing them 
 out as b-h-o-y-s. 
 
 Therefore, Lord Avondale was not using glasses, and his 
 proud mother could not helping thinking what a Cupid he 
 looked now that he had found a Psyche. 
 
 Of course she had never read Apuleius ; she would never 
 have heard of Psyche, though she might have heard of Cupid, 
 if Gence had not appeared in Cupid and Psyche at the 
 Coliseum. 
 
 The more she looked at her son, the more convinced she was 
 that he was in love. An ordinary mother might have found 
 even this prospect appalling. But Archie was so head- 
 strong, because she had spoilt him so, that she had already 
 begun to regard it as a miracle if he did not marry somebody 
 quite dreadful — not a woman like Urs. Jebb. even, but one 
 of the girls in the Chorus, with a soul like a cinema. There- 
 fore she would be glad if he laid liis heart on the altar of
 
 124 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Mirabel, though she might be gladder still if the sacrifice was 
 not accepted. And even if it were that voice would make up 
 for many shortcomings. Wlien she sang for the third time 
 and was encored and encored as she had been in the two 
 previous songs, Lady Douglas was no longer surprised at her 
 popularity with the audience and Archie. 
 
 " What do you think of her, mother ? " asked Archie 
 eagerly, when the curtain fell. 
 
 " I think she's quite nice and very lovely, and has a simply 
 wonderful voice ; and I'm perfectly willing to ask her to the 
 house— in fact, it is right that she should meet your father, 
 as head of the family." 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances, Archie would have had a 
 retort ready for this about it being the first perquisite which 
 had ever been attached to the post. But matters were too 
 serious for jesting. Homage of all sorts was to be laid at 
 Mirabel's feet. His father had a duty to perform. 
 
 " Hasn't she a wonderful voice, mater ? " 
 
 " Perfectly wonderful — far the best that I ever heard in this 
 sort of piece." 
 
 " And don't you think she's an awfully good actress, 
 mater ? " said the admirer. 
 
 " No, honestly, I don't." Lady Douglas had not forgiven 
 her for laughing (as she thought) at the comedians' outrages 
 upon Scotland. 
 
 " Well, you wait, and see her in the love-scenes ! She's fine 
 in them ! " 
 
 " Does she make love so beautifully, then ? " 
 
 " She doesn't make it at all : she lets those bounders know 
 what she thinks of them ! " 
 
 Lady Douglas was not impressed. She gathered that the 
 course of the play was agreeable to his feelings as a lover of 
 Mirabel, and that she would be much the same ladylike and 
 good-looking dummy with a voice that she had been in the 
 first act. 
 
 But as the second act progressed, she saw that her estimate 
 of Mirabel's power as an actress was quite wrong. Mirabel's 
 attitude to Rizzio, the man who had her heart (in the play) : 
 the tact and queenliness she showed in her reception of the 
 two unwelcome love-suits, developing into impatience and 
 scorn as the one who had no right to make love to her at all 
 made proposals which he had no right to make to any woman,
 
 WHAT LADY DOUGLAS THOUGHT 125 
 
 and developing into a premonition of evil as the other, who 
 had a right to offer his love, offered it, half perfunctorily, half 
 with ill-concealed exultation, showed her to be a woman who 
 looked for her highest happiness in life to marriage, and 
 resented that affairs of State should be allowed to interfere 
 with a sacrament. 
 
 This time Lady Douglas kept her eyes on the stage, except 
 for an occasional glance at her son, to assure herself that he 
 was still wrapped up in the worship of his divinity, which she 
 did when the comedians were interpolating their silly 
 " business." 
 
 When the curtain fell upon the second act, Archie turned 
 to his mother with his grand air. 
 
 " Well, mater, do you still think she can't act ? " 
 
 " No, I don't, dear : I think she's an extremely good 
 actress, and I'm sorry to see her frittering her talents on a 
 piece like this. But if she's not good enough for grand 
 opera, and has a voice like this, I suppose it is better for her 
 to go in for musical comedy, instead of mincing up the steps 
 at the Albert Hall to give two ballads and two encores in the 
 course of a long afternoon ! Why is there nothing between 
 the drivel of the opera above and the drivel of musical comedy 
 below ? " 
 
 " Drivel of the opera's good, mater — I'm there with you— 
 though I don't agree with you about the other thing. There'd 
 be nothing to do, except gamble, after dinner, if it wasn't for 
 places hke the Babylon." 
 
 The word " gamble " made his mother shudder. Lord 
 Avondale, aged twenty, was a great deal too fond of gambling- 
 places already, and that might spell real disaster some day, 
 because most of the flats he went to were places where you do 
 not stand a dog's chance of an honest run for your money. 
 
 " Doesn't she sing rippingly, mater ? " 
 
 " She does, indeed," said his mother, but it was doubtful 
 if cither of them recognized the greatest charm of her singing, 
 which was that she sang so easily that she could be her natural 
 self — or was it very finished acting— all the time ? 
 
 But more important than the change in her opinions of 
 Mirabel's powers as an actress, was the change in her maternal 
 feelings. She began to think that it would be rather a good 
 thing if Archie was to marry Mirabel. She showed such 
 womanly tact in managing Chastelard and Darnley on the
 
 126 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 stage, that she must have tact in ordinary life. That is what 
 Lady Douglas thought, without sufficient premises. It is 
 well' known that some of the women who are most womanly 
 behind the footlights are perfect fiends in their own homes, 
 and that some men, who are the very souls of honour in the 
 pieces which they generally play, are dirty scoundrels in every- 
 day life. 
 
 Yes, she told herself, Mirabel would be able to manage 
 Archie, and she would have the better chance because he would 
 be doing what she, his mother, had always expected him to 
 do — marrying a beauty of the musical-comedy stage, whose 
 fame was in everybody's mouth. Anything else was too 
 tame for him. 
 
 There was this also : even if— and she could not believe it 
 — Mirabel was not a ladylike girl naturally, in her own sur- 
 roundings, at any rate she knew how to counterfeit it so well 
 on the stage that she could certainly counterfeit it in Society, 
 when there was occasion for her to do so. 
 
 And thirdly, she had an instinctive hking for the girl. If 
 she was as nice and good as she seemed, she would take her 
 for a daughter gladly. 
 
 Nor was Lady Douglas, who was intensely Scotch in her 
 clannishness and love of family, indifferent to the fact that 
 Mirabel was her husband's first cousin, and the next heir to 
 the title after Archie. On the stage she would be very likely 
 to have undesirable people running after her if her relationship 
 to the Douglas title became known, and it would be a good 
 thing for her sake to have her safely married to the heir. 
 Lady Douglas felt compelled to throw in this as a sop to her 
 conscience. Up to this she had only been thinking of Archie. 
 Archie was heir to the ancient earldom of Douglas, as famous a 
 title as any in the Aristocracies of Europe, and a very wealthy 
 one, and he was as beautiful as an angel — if you could make 
 such a transparently absurd comparison. 
 
 But Archie's record of dissipation was a formidable one for 
 a boy of twenty, and on the other side the Recording Angel 
 had no entries to make, though he was a darling, cliivalrous, 
 fearless, British boy. 
 
 On the balance, the match seemed a fair one. She reci- 
 procated Archie's advances to a degree which astonished 
 him. 
 The third act was a vapid affair as it was written. The
 
 WHAT LADY DOUGLAS THOUGHT 127 
 
 Regent and Morton, and other great Scotch lords, whether 
 they had anything to do with the affair in history or not, 
 urged her, in the style of the heavy fathers and uncles of 
 farce, to marry Darnley for their country's good, and she, in 
 a series of carefully-graded songs, passed from freely expressed 
 distaste to the pohcy of submission. With Mirabel's inter- 
 pretation you really appreciated the sacrifice she was making 
 in submitting to a marriage she detested. At moments she 
 was almost tragic. And when she had resolved, after a bitter 
 struggle with herself, to make the sacrifice, you could see her 
 wringing from herself the affection which she considered due 
 to her bridegroom, worthless and ill-conditioned thougli 
 he was. 
 
 Certainly the tragic note seemed to increase the depth and 
 feeling of her singing. Superior people might say that it was 
 only ballad-sentiment, but the fact remained that she con- 
 trived to invest a dull and banal act with some human reality 
 and interest. When the curtain fell on the Royal wedding, 
 and the audience called for her again and again, and she 
 came forward, \vith her face transfigured with pride and 
 dehght, Lady Douglas felt that life would be an empty thing 
 henceforth if she could not have this radiant creature for 
 her daughter. She had forgotten all about the marriage 
 being partly for Archie's sake, and, partly, for Mirabel's sake. 
 She wanted it for her own sake now. It would be the apex 
 to what she honestly beheved she had done for the Arts and 
 Literature in the Southern Metropolis. 
 
 " Can't we go and see her now, Archie ? " said his mother 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 Archie, remembering the course of true love on the previous 
 night, declared that it was impossible. His experience of 
 Green-Room escapades told him that even if Mirabel would 
 condone the invasion, the manager certainly would not, and 
 that the attendants would resist him vi et armis. He would 
 not have been surprised to have been stopped by sentries with 
 fixed bayonets. 
 
 Besides, Archie, who was very ruse in trying to capture 
 theatrical maidens by coups dc main, reflected that the pre- 
 sence of his mother would be a positive disadvantage. 
 Nobody would believe that she was his mother ; they would 
 think that she was some naughty Society lady whom he had 
 brought with him, to counterfeit his mother, for the purpose
 
 128 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 of a fresh invasion, and that this was the explanation of his 
 dining at the Babylon Restaurant with such a companion. He 
 positively gasped at the suspicions to which his mother might 
 be subjected. Indeed, if he had not been so fond of her, it 
 would have been like his impish temperament to have 
 encouraged her in the idea in order to see the fun. 
 
 Between eleven and twelve, p.m., he was dangerously fond 
 of practical joking. 
 
 Instead of this he completed the joy of her evening by 
 giving her supper at a night-club, where the attendants 
 wondered what he was up to in bringing a lady of her age to 
 the club, and going away before the high play began. 
 
 The conversation was of Mirabel, Mirabel, Mirabel, inter- 
 rupted by irrelevant enquiries from Lady Douglas, who was 
 not too excited about the play to have a lively interest in the 
 people at the club and their doings. 
 
 " Aren't you coming upstairs, Archie ? " said the elkborate 
 individual who ran the club, as he was getting his mother's 
 cloak, and his hat and stick. 
 
 " No, old chap," said Archie. " I've just been giving my 
 mother a bit of something to eat." 
 
 The individual wondered what the gigantic game, which 
 Archie had on, was. There must be something worthy of 
 such a combination ! 
 
 When his mother left him at the barracks, he felt quite 
 thankful himself that he had not achieved anything beyond 
 getting a promise out of her that she would go and make 
 friends with Mirabel, and that she would go at some hour 
 which would not interfere with his own plans. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 LADY DOUGLAS AT BOLINGBROKE HOUSE 
 
 AT lunch the next day Paula, who, excited as she was 
 about Mirabel marrying Archie, could not resist the 
 fascination of giving little digs, said, " I suppose that boy's 
 coming to see you again this afternoon ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Miri».bel, " he is. He's going with me, when 
 I take my drive." 
 
 " My dear child, now very unwise you are ! I've no
 
 LADY DOUGLAS CALLS 129 
 
 reason to doubt your statement that you are Isabel 
 Douglas, and consequently his first cousin once removed. 
 But that isn't why he's coming to see you. He's coming to 
 see you because you are the leading lady, and one of the 
 pretty women, of the theatre where he and his foohsh friends 
 go to hurry on the doom of his Order by outraging the ideas 
 of all social reformers. As you very wisely keep yourself 
 out of the detestable fast hfe of the theatre, he is just using 
 his cousinship as a means of getting at you. Of course, if 
 you have any idea of marrying him " — she saw Mirabel 
 wince, and put it down to her cleverness in detecting Mirabel's 
 ambitions — " it's a different matter ! But if you're not, 
 you ought to put your foot down and tell hun that you're 
 not going to have him coming here." 
 
 " Paula," Mirabel said, with spirit, " I must remind you 
 that this is my house, and that I intend to have my cousin 
 here if 1 choose." 
 
 " I know that you have the right, and I am willing to be 
 of any service I can in chaperoning you, if you do have him 
 here. But, think, Mirabel . . . this boy hkes coming here 
 because you're rather pretty " — Paula was never guilty of 
 undue flattery—" and it will doubtless give him prestige 
 with the other naughty boys of his regiment to be seen 
 going about with the leading lady of the Babylon, who ha's 
 so resolutely declined to be known by the Johnnies who 
 hang about the theatre. And you're both of you very 
 young." 
 
 Mirabel disliked the imputation which she put into the 
 word " young." 
 
 " Nobody minds being that if they're old enough to have 
 %ft school," she said. 
 
 " I suppose that's a dig for me ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, not at all— it's only saying what I feel ! " 
 
 Paula felt the snub, and proceeded : " But what I want 
 to know is : what will his father and mother have to say to 
 you ? I forgot— you know his father— and anyhow, Earls 
 will be Earls ! " she added, her Socialistic instincts getting the 
 better of her. " But his mother— I shall very much like to 
 see what she will do." 
 
 "The odds are that she will altogether disapprove of 
 me," said Mirabel. " She will think that I have disgraced the 
 family, and, if not that, that I am the thin end of the wedge." 
 
 9
 
 130 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " Well, I won't explain. In any case, I don't understand 
 the point of cutting myself off from the only member of 
 my family whom I really want to see, because they won't all 
 accept me." 
 
 " I should have more pride," said Paula. 
 
 " Why are Socialists such sticklers for etiquette ? " asked 
 Mirabel. 
 
 Paula was nettled. " It isn't etiquette," she said, " it's 
 
 decency " 
 
 " Decency is a matter of behaviour," answered Mirabel, 
 unruffled. 
 
 " He's a dear boy," said Paula, changing her tactics, 
 "but far too good-looking, if you are not going to marry 
 him ! " 
 
 One of Mirabel's rebellious blushes put her at a decided 
 disadvantage, but Paula put the wrong interpretation upon 
 it, and proceeded : 
 
 " And he hasn't the reputation of being a saint ! " 
 
 " Then you must be assiduous in your precautions, Paula. 
 They will he very welcome. I can assure you that I am most 
 anxious that no foolishness on his part should deprive me 
 of a jolly friendship." 
 
 Paula was not to be satisfied. " Flint and steel," she 
 said, " are kept in the same case, but they only want knocking 
 together to produce a fire." She thought this metaphor 
 such a good one that she caught up a pencil and notebook 
 which hung in a silver case from her belt to write it 
 down for her next book. When she looked up Mirabel had 
 gone. 
 
 It was high-minded of Paula to sternly resist the admis- 
 sion of Lord Avondale into the Castle in the Wood, though 
 it may have been due to a censorious spirit ; for she herself 
 felt irresistibly attracted to him — it must be confessed, for 
 his reputation as much as for his beauty. She was a born 
 old-maid, if ever there was one, but the study of the social 
 evil was more fascinating than any other to her. It was a 
 crusade against that which had made her a Socialist, and 
 she was drawn into the crusade because it was her only 
 chance of contact with the subject. Hitherto, her acquain- 
 tance with it had all been in refuge-work, where discipline 
 was the lot of the victims, and denunciation was justly
 
 LADY DOUGLAS CALLS 131 
 
 militant against the aggressors, whom the lady workers 
 never saw unless they happened to belong to the working- 
 classes. 
 
 It was therefore intensely interesting to her to meet one 
 of the wicked Guardsmen who had so often adorned her 
 eloquence, added to which, though she was an ardent 
 Socialist and untouched by any sex-feelings, she loved the 
 society of the beautiful and well-bom. 
 
 Therefore, as she knew that Lord Avondale was coming 
 shortly, she went up into the drawing-room to see if the 
 flowers were exactly as she should like them — just as if he 
 would criticize chrysanthemums, when Mirabel was there. 
 
 Mirabel, of course, was dressing to go out with him. As 
 she had not re-appeared when the front-door bell rang, Paula 
 thought she would stay in the drawing-room and receive him 
 herself. The idea gave her a good deal of pleasure. 
 
 But when the door opened, it was a woman, not a man, 
 and Jeffreys announced : " Lady Douglas." 
 
 Paula saw a woman still lovely, though she had a son 
 twenty years old. Lady Douglas had Archie's beauty of 
 feature, and her face in repose had the dignity which belonged 
 to her state in life. She had gentle violet eyes, and a gentle 
 smile, which made her popular with high and low. But, 
 when she laughed, you saw the weakness of her face, and 
 knew why she did not show more selectiveness in her salon. 
 
 There was no doubt about her being Lord Avondale's 
 mother. He would have been her living image if it had not 
 been for the honest manliness which tempered his recklessness 
 and his boyish beauty, when he was not escapading. Those 
 serious eyes, however, were lacking in her face, which was 
 not overburdened with character, though she posed as the 
 Egeria of a salon. Her loveliness had one superlative 
 charm : except when she was meeting people of her own 
 order, her face showed a certain timidity, and her affability 
 was sincere. She liked interesting people of every kind ; 
 anyone who would have been welcome in the Edinburgli 
 gatherings of her youth was welcome at Lanarkshire House. 
 She looked rather surprised at finding Paula, not Mirabel, 
 there, but advanced to shake hands. 
 
 " I am Miss Maitland," Paula began to explain. 
 " Paula Maitland, the novelist ? " said Lady Douglas, 
 who hardly ever read a book, though she bought the books 
 
 9*
 
 132 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 of the authors who came to her house. But one book she 
 did read — " Who's Who " — because it told her whom she 
 ought to try and get to her parties, and made her an ideal 
 hostess in introductions. 
 
 " Yes, Paula Maitland." 
 
 " I was just going to get your book about Mary, Queen of 
 Scots— I've forgotten its exact title." 
 
 " I've written two," said Paula, " but I think you must 
 mean ' The Lady of Lochleven ' ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it," said Lady Douglas, not knowing or 
 caring in the least. " If you'll give me a postcard I'll write 
 an order to my bookseller for it now, then I shan't forget 
 which of the two it is. Going to see my cousin in the 
 play last night reminded me that I'd never read your 
 book." 
 
 This was Lady Douglas's favourite form of white lie ; she 
 used it with the necessary variations several hundred times 
 a year. 
 
 " I have a great many books about Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 at Lanarkshire House, Miss Maitland. I hope you'll give 
 me the pleasure of your coming to see them." 
 
 It was her habit to ask every well-known author or artist, 
 whom she met, to come to her house ; the numbers did not 
 signify : it was very roomy. But Paula did not know this, 
 so her Socialism received a damaging blow. 
 
 " Are you staying with Miss Douglas ? " asked Lady 
 Douglas, since Paula had no hat on, and seemed very much 
 at home. 
 
 " I live with her," said Paula. " I have no home, and 
 she's lonely." 
 
 Lady Douglas gave a smile of pleasure, which was polite 
 to Paula, and an outward and visible sign of the satisfaction 
 she felt at this fresh proof of Mirabel's respectability. 
 
 " I'm glad of that," she said, " I don't approve of bachelor- 
 girls living alone." And she added, as a sort of explanation, 
 " Miss Douglas is Lord Douglas's cousin, you know, so we 
 are naturally rather anxious about her, in the difficult position 
 in which she is placed." 
 
 Neither woman understood the biting irony of the situa- 
 tion. Lady Douglas might never have known that Mirabel 
 Douglas was the Isabel Douglas of the succession, if it had 
 not been for her graceless son's repeated attempts to force
 
 LADY DOUGLAS CALLS 133 
 
 himself upon her, as one of the beauties of the Babylon 
 Theatre. And Paula knew nothing of what had happened 
 at the Babylon, and imagined that Lord Avondale had come 
 to see Mirabel because he had read about her in the news- 
 papers, and thought her pretty from his stall in the theatre. 
 It was enough to make the gods laugh. 
 
 At this moment Mirabel came in. It was still a few 
 minutes before three. She was very shy. She felt sure 
 that Lady Douglas had come under protest because her 
 spoilt son had badgered her into it. But she was prepared 
 to show her spirit if there was the least trace of this in Lady 
 Douglas's demeanour. She had not sought her relatives 
 when she came to England, and she did not intend to be 
 patronized by them. 
 
 But when she advanced to shake hands, Lady Douglas 
 bent forward, and gave her an honest cousinly kiss. 
 
 " My dear, why didn't you let me know when you came 
 to England ? You might have stayed at Lanarkshire House 
 till you were settled ! " 
 
 " Oh, I shouldn't have liked to take advantage of you like 
 that ! Besides, think of the humour of the situation — a 
 student going in the bus to the Lyceum ..." 
 
 Lady Douglas looked puzzled. 
 
 " The Royal Lyceum of Music, I mean — not the theatre — 
 every day, from a house like yours ! " 
 
 " I should not have minded, my dear. Besides, my 
 house is very handy for the bus — it's on the main road, 
 though of course I should always have sent you there in one 
 of my cars." 
 
 This picture appeared still more out of drawing to Mirabel. 
 Her heart fell twenty degrees when Lady Douglas, as her 
 next politeness, asked, " I daresay you've seen a lot of Jim " 
 — Jim was Lord Douglas. " He hasn't mentioned it to me, 
 but he's such a detached person that I often don't hear of 
 what he is doing till I see it in the newspapers ! You sec, 
 his latest craze is the Daylight-Saving Bill, which is a very 
 awkward thing to have in the house with you." It certainly 
 was difficult to picture her majestic butler trying to save 
 daylight. This is the last economy of noble minds ! 
 
 Mirabel murmured something about " Jim " having been 
 very kind to her. 
 
 Paula relieved the situation for one moment. " I should
 
 134 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 like Lord Douglas," she said decisively. " I don't get up 
 early, but I think in principle that it's good — in fact, I should 
 get up early if Mirabel did not have such late nights." 
 
 Paula, who found it very difficult to stop talking when 
 she was talking well, and had a sympathetic audience, went 
 on to describe the habits of a musical-comedy leading lady — 
 when she was a good one, like Mirabel— while Mirabel racked 
 her brains to invent meetings with Lord Douglas. 
 
 Lady Douglas was so much more interested in Mirabel 
 than she was in her husband that she soon forgot that she 
 had asked the question, and by this time Paula had got 
 her second wind. She had suddenly made up her mind that 
 the elderly person who had given Mirabel this beautiful 
 house and all her expensive furniture, and her car, and every- 
 thing else which Mirabel could not afford, was Lord Douglas. 
 She knew from the Society papers that he was immensely 
 rich, and if he took as much interest in musical comedy as 
 his son did, nothing was more natural than the wish that his 
 beautiful cousin should cut a proper dash. But, of course, 
 it was quite another thing letting Lady Douglas know what 
 " pals " the cousins had been. Naturally, that was why 
 Mirabel was hesitating. 
 
 At this point Paula's jealousy was roused. She felt that 
 she would be mortally offended if Mirabel told any of this 
 grand secret to Lady Douglas, when she, Paula, her bosom 
 friend, who lived in the same house with her, had not heard 
 a word of it ! She determined, with set teeth, as it were, 
 to keep Lady Douglas off this subject until she had had time 
 to look into it herself. 
 
 She was la3ang the foundations of an elaborate scheme, 
 when Archie burst into the room. He had not waited for 
 Jeffreys to show him up. 
 
 " Time's up, mater ! Mirabel's going to take me out for 
 a drive at three — you must get ! " 
 
 Paula thought she would have fainted. She did not know 
 how this mother and son adored each other. 
 
 Lady Douglas merely said, " You must wait two minutes, 
 Archie, till I place all my worldly possessions at Mirabel's 
 disposal ! My dear child, consider Lanarkshire House yours ! 
 do anything you like with it ; ask people to it, give parties 
 in it, come and live there whenever you hke ! You ought 
 to be living there, considering that you're the only relation
 
 LADY DOUGLAS CALLS i35 
 
 Jim has except myself and Archie." She honestly wished 
 that she would. 
 
 The practical Paula said to herself that if they were all 
 bitten with the same craze for showering their possessions 
 upon Mirabel, it would have been so much better if Lady 
 Douglas instead of Lord Douglas had estabhshed Mirabel 
 in Bolingbroke House. „ 
 
 Seeing that his mother was what he called a bit sticky, 
 the impatient Archie put his arm through Mirabels, and 
 marched her out of the room and out of the house, trying 
 in vain to wriggle free to say a proper good-bye to his mother. 
 
 " Never mind saying good-bye to me," said Lady Douglas, 
 " that's Archie's way ! Come to lunch with me to-morrow 
 instead-you too." turning to Paula. "I know its no 
 good asking theatrical people to dinner. You are engaged 
 to-morrow ?— weU, then, next day." , , . ^ , • •, ,i 
 
 She was rather glad, in truth, that Archie had spirited 
 Mirabel away in this abrupt fashion, for she had nothing 
 particular to do. and Paula was just the kind of person who 
 
 ^''^'' Ife^'ou busy ? " she asked her. _ " Of course, you must 
 be busy, writing your famous books ? " 
 
 " No " said Paula, who was equally interested, as this was 
 the first great lady she had met intimately. ' I give the 
 afternoon up to my friends." j • • 
 
 " Bravo ' Shall we stay here, or shall we take a drive in 
 the car or will vou come home with me and have some tea .-' 
 
 Paulk'who was very candid, said : " I should like to have 
 a short drive, because I can't do without an ainng and I 
 haven't been out yet. I work all the morning. What 1 
 really should like to do is to have this drive first, and then 
 to go home to tea with you, so as to see Lanarkshire House. 
 Fni Scotch and to me the Douglases mean almost as mucU 
 
 as Robert the Bruce." .f^r ■• cnid 
 
 " The Black Douglas was my husband s ancestor, saici 
 
 Lady Douglas, with a real thrill of pride at being able to say 
 
 Tt to somebody who would understand, like the author of 
 
 "The Lady of Lochleven." t an-^rk 
 
 All through the drive, and all the time she wa. at Lanaik 
 
 shire House, Paula was on guard l^^^fh^^f^^"Wnot the 
 thing to betray "the elderly person." She had no the 
 chance. Ladv Douglas did not want to talk about her
 
 136 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 husband at all. vShe wanted to hear about the habits of her 
 new literary treasure, and, not at all inquisitively, about how 
 Mirabel got on in musical comedy, not from the point of 
 view of success, but from the point of view of comfort and 
 annoyance, " because, my dear Miss Maitland, there are some 
 dreadful people connected with it ! You should see some of 
 the women that Archie, my son, has tried to make me ask to 
 my parties to win him their favour ! And they're the best 
 of them, I suppose, or he wouldn't ask me. I can't think what 
 the worst must be like ! " 
 
 " Mirabel simply doesn't know any of them out of the 
 theatre," said Paula. " vShe has a separate street-entrance 
 to her dressing-room, and she leaves the theatre the moment 
 she has finished her part. She doesn't know a single one of 
 the young-men-about-town, who hang round the Green 
 Room." 
 
 " Except Archie," said his mother. " I'm afraid that you 
 must include him among those undesirable eligibles." 
 
 " Oh, that's different," said Paula. " He came to call on 
 her at the house, because he learned that she was his cousin ! 
 Everything's above board there." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear that," said Lady Douglas, " because, 
 being as beautiful as that, and leading lady at the Babylon, 
 she is just the kind of thing which Archie would run after." 
 
 " Well, he didn't," said Paula, " so it's all the more credit 
 to him ! " 
 
 " Anyhow," said Lady Douglas, " it's a great rehef to me 
 to hear that she is such a lady that she has been able to keep 
 herself clear of all that horrible business ! I suppose that 
 you, as her friend. Miss Maitland, keep a very strict watch on 
 the men who come to the house ? " 
 
 " You may be certain that I do ! " said Paula. She meant 
 to be in that very afternoon, when Mirabel ?,nd Archie 
 returned from their drive, so she paid rather a short call at 
 Lanarkshire House, thereby improving her position with 
 Lady Douglas. Even Lady Douglas was afraid of people 
 who reciprocated too much. The aristocracy like difficult 
 people, because, in general, they live in a dread of being 
 rushed by undesirable acquaintances, and their bringing-up 
 makes them poor character-readers.
 
 MIRABEL'S ANXIETY 137 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 MIRABEL'S ANXIETY ABOUT THE ELDERLY PERSON 
 
 MIRABEL was horribly frightened that Lady Douglas, 
 and especially Paula, would find out that she did 
 not know Lord Douglas. So on the drive with Archie she 
 determined to draw him out on the subject of his father. 
 She did not think he would ask awkward questions, and if 
 he did, she meant to " shut him up," as other musical-comedy 
 ladies would " shut him up," if he asked inconvenient 
 questions. She did not see why she should not use her 
 prerogative for once. 
 
 " Do you see much of your father, Archie ? " she asked. 
 
 " Me see much of the governor ? Not much ! " he said, 
 using the words without intending or noticing the pun. 
 " He's given up all his sensible habits long ago ! " 
 
 " What do you call sensible habits ? " asked Mirabel. 
 
 " Oh, racing, seeing a bit of life at night — all kinds of sport, 
 except very occasionally. He's eaten up with cranky wheezes, 
 like this dayhght-saving foolishness, which he's got on now, 
 when every sensible person knows that it's not more day 
 that you want, but more night after midinght ! That's 
 where the shoe pinches ! If they had more day, they'd onl}' 
 give you more drill in it. Except in the Guards, they have 
 a damned sight too much daylight-saving in the Army 
 already — there are lots of regiments wliere they have parades 
 at seven — seven a.m., Mirabel ! Before I'd belong to one 
 of them, and be quartered out of London into the bargain — 
 oh, the whole thing's preposterous ! " 
 
 " Fancy you talking about anyone being sensible, Archie, 
 when about the only sensible thing you do is to have a cold 
 bath every morning ! and I suppose it's afternoon before 
 you get that sometimes ? " 
 
 " When I'm on leave," he said, considering the point 
 quite gravely. " And it is a ripping feeling to know that it's 
 the afternoon alreadj', when 5-ou'rc only just having your 
 tub ! It brings everything so much nearer ! " 
 
 " Archie ! " she said, " I shall turn you out of the car if
 
 138 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 you talk like that ! It makes me thorouglily ashamed of 
 you, you miserable young decadent ! " 
 
 " Are you serious, Mirry ? " 
 
 " Quite serious ! Haven't you ever gone in for sports ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course I have — I was in the Eton Eleven," 
 
 " Well, then, why do you talk drivel hke this ? — as if life 
 consisted of nothing but dining, with dissipations to follow ? 
 I've no use for this sort of thing ! I'm an open-air girl. 
 Now that I've seen so much of musical comedy . . ." 
 
 " How long ? " he snapped in. 
 
 " Getting on for two months, including the rehearsals. 
 I wouldn't stay in it another day, unless ..." 
 
 " I know what you're going to say," he said, " unless you 
 were out for the money ! ' ' 
 
 " Yes," she said, doggedly, " unless I was out for the 
 money. You needn't be frightened of my disappearing 
 from your favourite haunts, because I've signed a contract 
 for ten years." 
 
 " Thank God for that ! You are a holy terror, you know ! " 
 
 " And I hope I always shall be. You understand, Archie, 
 don't you, that I know you as my cousin, and not as the 
 other thing ? " 
 
 " I'm not out for the other thing ! I'm out to make you 
 my Viscountess in double-quick time ! " 
 
 " Well, I'm not going to be your Viscountess, in double- 
 quick or any other time ! " 
 
 " I can't help being in love with you. I plumped on you 
 the very first time I saw you." 
 
 " I don't know what that means, but I'm sure it can't be 
 as vulgar as it sounds." 
 
 " It isn't vulgar at all, Mirry — it means ... it means . . . 
 it means that I planked my whole happiness in life on 
 it." 
 
 " Is it so bad as that ? " she said, trifling with her own 
 feelings, which were just as strong as his. 
 
 " Yes, 'pon my honour, it is ! " 
 
 " I don't mind your being in love with me, Archie," she 
 said, "so long as you don't plague me with it in any way. 
 I like you to love me ; you're an awfully nice boy. And I 
 feel old enough to be your aunt. You can love me as an 
 aunt as much as you like." 
 
 " Aren't you funny ! " he said grimly.
 
 MIRABEL'S ANXIETY 139 
 
 She could not make out whether he made these puns on 
 purpose or unconsciously, but they horrified her. 
 
 " Well, do you see much of your father ? " she persisted. 
 
 She wanted to change the conversation now, as well as 
 to get an answer. 
 
 " See much of him ? When he spends his time at a 
 wretched villa at Richmond, which he's called the Hermit- 
 age, after an old place of the Douglases." 
 
 " What does he do there ? " 
 
 " God knows, except see cranks and write to the news- 
 papers." 
 
 " Is he a recluse ? " 
 
 " How much ? " said Archie. 
 
 " A man who hates his fellow-men — and, more especially, 
 his fellow-women." 
 
 " Judging by results, I should say not. There are gener- 
 ally about twenty people waiting to see him, by the time 
 he comes out from breakfast, even when he saves daylight 
 over it." 
 
 " How do you know ? — ^you're never up in time to see it." 
 
 " I shouldn't go there if I was — I should go to a cabby's 
 coffcc-stall, and have a cup of the strongest tea they could 
 brew ! I have it from the mater— she couldn't stand it, 
 you know ; she insisted that if he wanted to do this kind of 
 thing, he must have a separate place to do it in." 
 
 " Perhaps he's only a recluse about women ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, he isn't ! He goes to all the first nights, and 
 when I give one of my suppers, he always comes if I ask him, 
 and he's a great ' bird,' though you wouldn't think it." 
 
 Mirabel began to feel very interested in the " elderly 
 person." " Don't you think that perhaps he lives the life 
 that he does because he's tired of empty parade, and wants 
 to have the privileges of a human being ? " 
 
 " The privileges of a human being ? " He looked at her, 
 to sec if she was trying to be risky. After all, she was in 
 musical comedy. But he had seen the expression which 
 goes with that on many women's faces, when they were 
 talking to him, and there was no trace of it on Mirabel's. 
 She was perfectly serious. " Well," he said, " if he does, 
 all I can say is that all those people who go to his place take 
 a mean advantage of him, for they go on as if he was just 
 as cranky as they are on their stunts."
 
 I40 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Mirabel began to feel that she would be more than 
 interested to see " the elderly person." But the question 
 was, how was she to see him ? She could not ask Archie 
 without letting him know that she had not met his father. 
 The difficulty of the situation was enhanced by the fact that 
 unless she knew that Paula was going to be out, she could 
 not ask him to her house, until he knew that he was " the 
 elderly person," and what he had showered on her. She 
 must contrive to see him somehow, and that immediately. 
 
 Archie suggested that they should run down to the Guards' 
 Club at Maidenhead for tea. But Mirabel had the firmest 
 objections to going to any such place with him. Besides, 
 she meant to be back in good time, so as not to make Paula 
 troublesome at the beginning of their friendship. 
 
 Paula, who had only been in a few minutes before they 
 arrived, was very pleased with Mirabel's discretion, and 
 laid herself out to entertain Archie. He was glad, because 
 Mirabel was worried about something, and not very com- 
 municative. 
 
 Knowing that Paula was not likely to let him escape, she 
 went to the telephone in her bedroom, and turning up the 
 number, " Richmond 3500, Douglas, The Earl of. The 
 Hermitage, Richmond Hill," she rang up the exchange. 
 
 " Number, please." 
 
 " Richmond 3500." 
 
 The reply came in a servant's voice : 
 
 " Is his Lordship in ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 " Can I speak to him ? " 
 
 " His Lordship doesn't like the 'phone, ma'am, unless it's 
 on business, but Fll give him your name, ma'am, and, might 
 I suggest, ma'am, a message as to what you require his 
 Lordship for ? " 
 
 " It will be sufficient if you say his cousin, Miss Douglas." 
 
 " Yes, Miss — hold the line, please." 
 
 It was some time before he came to the telephone, and 
 when he did come, he said, in a very gentle and pleasant 
 voice : " Did you say that you were my cousin ? I only 
 have one cousin, and she is in Italy." 
 
 " She is not in Italy, she is speaking — I am Isabel, your 
 Uncle Archibald's daughter." 
 
 " Oh, how do you do, Isabel ? What can I do for you ? "
 
 MIRABEL'S ANXIETY 141 
 
 " I don't think I want you to do anything for me, but 
 I should like to see you, now that I am in England." 
 
 " Well, I should think so ! Will you come to lunch 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 Mirabel was engaged, as she had told Lady Douglas. 
 But she was in too great a tangle to refuse, so she said : 
 " I shall be charmed. What time. Lord Douglas ? " 
 
 " Oh, at twelve. Lm making a trial of a very interesting 
 thing, the dayhght -saving idea." 
 
 " Very well, twelve o'clock. I hope we shall be alone ? " 
 
 " Certainly if you wish it, but I shouldn't have asked 
 anyone, anyhow. It would only be a dropper-in. We must 
 have lunch in my hermitage ; then I shan't be at home." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye, Isabel," he said. He was charmed with her 
 voice. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ENTER " THE DOUGLAS " 
 
 THE HERMITAGE occupied between two and three 
 acres of the slope between the road and the river, 
 half-way up Richmond Hill. The house was at the top of 
 the slope, a discreet number of yards from the road. The 
 name " The Hermitage " properly belonged to a stucco copy 
 of Pius IV.'s pavilion in the gardens of the Vatican, which 
 stood at the very bottom of the garden, on the wall over- 
 hanging the river, and was connected with the main house 
 by an underground passage, dignified with the name of the 
 crypto-poriicns, and not altogether unlike the famous passage 
 on the Palatine in which Caligula met his end. 
 
 The garden had evidently been laid out by someone who 
 knew his Rome well, because it had the gloomy evergreen 
 fohage and ambitious stucco ornaments of a Roman villa, 
 and the house itself was a copy of the small Villa Farncse 
 which stands on the Palatine above the Forum. The original 
 proprietor had called it Farnese (wliich was locally pro- 
 nounced Farnecs) Villa, and Lord Douglas had changed its 
 name to the Hermitage, after the ancient stronghold of 
 the Douglases, though he used to point to the pavilion in
 
 142 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 the garden as the hermitage. He had no appreciation of 
 Itahan things ; he bought it merely because the paviUon in 
 the garden, with its subterranean approach, was a great 
 convenience to one who often Hked to deny himself to his 
 callers, if he could do so without discourtesy and without 
 absenting himself from home. He had sleeping accom- 
 modation also in his hermitage, and frequently used it. 
 
 It could be entered from the garden as well as from the 
 crypto-porticus , which terminated in a door opening on to the 
 towpath. 
 
 It being a fine daj^ ]\Iirabel was conducted by the butler 
 to the hermitage through the garden, along a broad paved 
 path, broken by numerous flights of steps, and bordered by 
 beds of acanthus. He opened the front door by a simple 
 turn of the handle, and showed her into the ground-floor 
 room on the left, in which a huge log fire was burning on 
 a fiat hearth. 
 
 She found Lord Douglas awaiting her. The Douglas 
 was a huge man, like his ancestors in history, still very 
 upright, though he had rather lost his slimness. He had the 
 same clear eyes as his son, but otherwise was not very like 
 him, for his features were slightly aquiline, and where the 
 son's face was reckless, the father's was dignified and com- 
 manding. A human touch was given to the face by a rather 
 audacious moustache, which modified the effect of the grave 
 eyes. This was true to his character, for he had been a 
 beau sabreur, and a great racing man in his youth, when he 
 was Master of Douglas.* Now he was one of those useful 
 
 * Until the succession of the present Earl, the heirs of the Earls of 
 Douglas had, like the heirs of Viscounts and Barons in the Scottish 
 Peerage, styled themselves the " Masters of Douglas," to commemorate 
 the fact that the 4th Earl of Douglas and ist Duke of Tourainc, under 
 whom the family had attained its highest splendour, had, when Master 
 of Douglas, won a great victory against the English. But on the 
 present Earl succeeding, at the request of the College of Arms, to bring 
 this earldom into line with other Scottish earldoms, his heir assumed 
 his second title, " Viscount Avondale," instead of styling himself 
 " Master of Douglas." 
 
 Undoubtedly Lord Douglas had an unique position among the public 
 men writing to the Press, because he was willing to back his opinions 
 with his time, his energies and his money. He subscribed liberally to 
 every movement which he advocated ; he was willing to accompany 
 its deputations to the Government, and to fulfil any duty from chair- 
 man to " chucker-out " at its public meetings. 
 
 He was one of those who were most insistent in favour of proclaiming
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 143 
 
 people who take an active part in all the chief movements of 
 the day, and since he held no office, and seldom went to the 
 House of Lords, he could give more time to them than most 
 men of his position and influence. These were great, for 
 he was by history the chief noble of Scotland, though his 
 title was only an earldom, and that exceeded in antiquity 
 by certain others. Added to this, he had great wealth, for 
 he held large portions of the ancient estates of The Douglas 
 all over the south-west of Scotland. 
 
 He received his cousin most cordially. " Well, Isabel," 
 he said, " I am very glad to see you." 
 
 He shook her hand warmly, and looked as if he was about 
 to kiss her, but drew back. If she had been an old and 
 ugly woman, as his sole relative outside of his household, he 
 would have felt it his duty to kiss her on such a formal 
 
 Universal Service at the beginning of the war ; of making cotton 
 contraband ; of Umiting exports to neutrals by their average con- 
 sumption ; of arming all our merchant steamers and trawlers, so as 
 to make them a menace instead of an easy prey to submarines ; of 
 turning all public-houses in munition areas into canteens, under 
 official control ; of prohibiting the menace caused to our supply of 
 doctors, for the nation as well as the army, by medical students leaving 
 their work to become combatants ; of supplying the shortage of drugs 
 and dyes at the present moment, and re-establishing the English drug 
 and dye industries, during and after the war, by a most rigid system 
 of protection against German competition ; of encouraging the exten- 
 sion of the wheat and other food-producing industries in the United 
 Kingdom by Government purchase-guarantees for a fixed period, 
 so as to make England self-supporting in case her sea-supplies are cut 
 off ; of developing our munition-making industries so as to stop the 
 absurdity of the premier coal-and-iron country having to l)uy its 
 munitions abroad, and pay fictitious ]nices for them ; of interning all 
 enemy subjects and sympathizers in the United Kingdom ; of abolish- 
 ing the panderings of Donington Hall and treating German prisoners 
 in Britain exactly as British prisoners are treated in Germany ; of 
 inaugurating a national campaign against national waste, whether of 
 grossly overpaying the men who have not gone to fight, for fulfilling 
 their civil duties, or of actual extravagance in stores, and undertaking 
 unnecessary public works ; and, not long alter this, he achieved his 
 chief usefulness in providing a machinery for maintaining our crippled 
 soldiers and sailors in comfort, and utilizing them for releasing able- 
 bodied men to fight in their places, and as recruiting-agents in a 
 house-to-house canvass. 
 
 Those two great movements, the C.S.A.S.A. and W.R.O., inaugurated 
 by his influence, were to be, after the Red Cross movement, the largest, 
 and perhaps in importance, the chief national movements of the war. 
 
 And in the midst of all this he found time to work at movements 
 which were of general and permanent value, and not merely of war- 
 value, such as the DayHght-Saving Bill, and the Society for the 
 Preservation of our National Monuments.
 
 144 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 occasion as their firsi meeting ; but as she was young and 
 beautiful, instead of seeming a duty, it seemed to be presuming 
 on their relationship. 
 
 " Aren't you going to kiss me ? " she said, interpreting his 
 mind. " I've come to you as I should have gone to my 
 father." 
 
 " You can use me as a father, if you Hke, but I'd rather you 
 regarded me as a cousin," he said, and the kiss he gave her 
 was cousinly. 
 
 " Well, Isabel," he continued, " though you told me over 
 the 'phone that there was nothing I could do for you, I can 
 see by your face that there is. I expect it will be a long 
 job, so you had better send your car back. I shall be going 
 into town when you return and I can give you a lift." 
 
 Mirabel did not see why it need take very long, but she 
 supposed that Lord Douglas had some reason for the request, 
 such as gossiping between his servants and her chauffeur ; 
 and since, in any case, it would save Paula a taxi fare, she 
 made no objection. 
 
 " Well, you see. Lord Douglas . . ." 
 
 " Jim, or James." 
 
 " Jim — I think James is too like a footman or a clergy- 
 man — you see, Jim, I have been leading a double life, and 
 in double lives things are apt to get mixed." 
 
 He was genuinely sorry to hear it ; his fears were worse 
 than the reahty. 
 
 " To begin with, while I am a respectable middle-class lady 
 out at Hammersmith, I am the leading lady of a theatre not 
 far from Leicester Square." 
 
 " What sort of a theatre ? " 
 
 " Musical comedy." 
 
 " That accounts for it ! " he said under his breath, but 
 she overheard him. 
 
 " Accounts for what ? " she said rather indignantly. 
 
 " For many things — for anything, in fact." 
 
 " Well, so it does," she confessed, " especially in my 
 instance." 
 
 " Why especially in your instance ? " 
 
 " In the first place, the proprietor of my theatre wants me 
 as his wife." 
 
 He was distinctly interested. " I am glad that you came 
 to consult me about it, Isabel."
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 145 
 
 " I am always called by my nickname, Mirabel." 
 
 " Well, Mirabel — because, as the head of the family, I am 
 the right person to consult. Wliat theatre is it ? " 
 
 " The Babylon." 
 
 " It might be worse from the worldly point of view," he 
 said. " Young Gray is a rich man, and when you get him 
 away from the Beauty Chorus, I believe, a very nice one. 
 He has decent friends, too, because he was great at games 
 when he was at Eton and Magdalen. You might do worse 
 than young Gray. He could, of course, help you tremendously 
 with your profession. What sort of position do you hold 
 under him ? " 
 
 " I'm his leading lady." 
 
 ' Oh, then, I saw you on your first night, but I did not 
 recognize you as the same woman without your fancy kit. 
 I congratulate you on a really great performance. No 
 wonder he wants to marry you ! I know I should if you 
 were my leading lady. So he wants you to be his wife, does 
 he ? Well, there's a great deal to be said for it. But, on 
 the other hand, with your beauty and the advertisement you 
 get as leading lady at the Babylon, you're sure to get the 
 offer of a peerage." 
 
 " I've had one already from the heir of a very ancient 
 peerage." 
 
 " You'll very likely get one from my son before you've 
 done," he said, perfectly unconscious of the reality. " Well, 
 if it's a rich peerage, of course, that would be a hundred times 
 better. But it's no good doing it if there isn't sufficient 
 money. I've seen far too much trouble arising from that 
 source." 
 
 " I didn't come to consult you about that, Jim. I've 
 made up my mind on that point, though I'm not going to 
 announce it yet." 
 
 " Well, how can I be of use ? " 
 
 " In the first place, I told Lady Douglas a lie — at least, 
 I let her believe one." 
 
 " When was that ? " 
 
 " When she came to see me yesterday." 
 
 " And what was the lie ? " 
 
 " I let her believe that I knew you." 
 
 " How did 5'ou do that ? " 
 
 " Like this : She said, ' I suppose you've met Jim lots of 
 
 10
 
 146 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 times already — he never tells me anything,' and as it was 
 essential that Paula Maitland, who lives ^vith me, should go 
 on thinking that I knew you, I said, ' Jim has been very kind 
 to me.' That was for Paula's consumption." 
 
 " And what did Janet say ? " 
 
 " She did not say anything, because Paula told her some- 
 thing which diverted her attention." 
 
 " So you told ' Paula ' that you knew me ? " 
 
 " Not exactly — I let her believe it." 
 
 " You seem specially good at letting people believe 
 things ! " 
 
 " Is it not my profession ? " 
 
 " Oh, I forgot your profession ! But there's nothing very 
 heinous about that sin." 
 
 " Not if you bear me out, to Janet and Paula, that I did 
 meet you before I went to live in my house." 
 
 " What has that to do with it ? " 
 
 " Everything hangs upon this circumstance." 
 
 " I take your word for it. I'm game to tell such a very 
 little white lie as that I met my own cousin more than two 
 months ago. Is that all ? " 
 
 " As regards Janet, yes ; as regards Paula, she's got to 
 swallow a much bigger one. She's got to beheve that j^ou 
 gave me my house, and all its lovely furniture, and my car, 
 and a few things of that kind." 
 
 A churchy person would probably have insisted upon 
 knowing who gave Mirabel these costly presents, and what 
 she gave him in return. The Douglas, who had gone through 
 the same dissipations and escapades as other men of title 
 and great wealth in the army, though he knew what such 
 presents were likely to signify, forebore to humiliate a woman 
 by any such inquisition. 
 
 " I see," he said. " You have done this, which was very 
 foolish, if the facts are not what it would imply, and you 
 want me to come forward as the donor of them, if you have 
 to say how you came by them, because I, as the head of your 
 family, might be supposed to have made some provision for 
 you on 3'our coming to London. Why didn't you come to 
 me ? I would have bought them for you gladly." 
 
 " But you must let it be understood that you did, if I have 
 to refer people to you, in order — I will be frank — to save my 
 good name."
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 147 
 
 " Of course I'll do it," he said. 
 
 " If you insist upon knowing my story, I'll tell it to you in 
 confidence, but I'd much rather not." 
 
 " I'd much rather not hear it. If there was anything to 
 cover up for the sake of our family, I'd rather pay for the 
 covering than have to hear what it was, where a woman was 
 concerned, but I gather that we are up against a very novel 
 proposition. I am not to pay anything, but merely to admit 
 the soft impeachment that I have paid it — to show a receipt 
 without a cheque having passed ? I will do it for you, my 
 cousin. I'm glad that you came to me when 5^ou found 
 yourself in a scrape." 
 
 " Oh, Jim, you're an angel ! " cried Mirabel enthusiastically. 
 " There's one thing I can tell you — it sounds worse than it 
 really is. I haven't done anything dreadful, I assure you, 
 beyond staying with the donor for a month." 
 
 He looked very grave at this, but he said : " Whatever 
 you have done, it would be my duty to help you to get out 
 of it without spoiling your young life." As he said these 
 words, his soldierly, masterful face was transfigured with 
 compassion. 
 
 " What a good Christian you are, Jim I " she said, from 
 her heart, but instantly changed to a lighter vein with the 
 remark : " But you must be prepared for a blow to your 
 feelings." 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " You are an ' elderly person.' " 
 
 " I don't follow," he said, with puzzled but amused eyes, 
 searching for the joke. That there should be a joke at all 
 reassured him a little, for though he, hke his son, had been 
 a favourite of the Green Room when he was a young officer 
 in the Scots Greys, he thought it a terrible thing that a beautiful 
 and well-born girl, only just in the twenties, should be in the 
 tentacles of the octopus. " Why am I an ' elderly person ' ? " 
 
 " Because Paula— Paula Maitland, who lives with me — 
 knows that an ' elderly person ' gave me all the lu.xuries I 
 possess, except my income, from Bolingbrokc House to my 
 Rolls-Royce." 
 
 " Well, I hope the ' elderly person ' has not been a villain." 
 
 " Not to me— he's been a model. Frankly, he's an admirer, 
 who gets no change out of me at all, but he goes on admiring, 
 and would like to go on gi\dng." 
 
 10*
 
 148 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " How did you come to let him give you all these things, 
 little cousin ? You must have known that it would put you 
 in a false position." 
 
 " He got me in a cleft stick, and forced me to accept 
 them. I expected awful things, but they never happened. 
 He really was a man of his word. He's a harmless 
 admirer." 
 
 " Then why can't you tell Miss Maitland who he is ? The 
 rest of the world, I gather, does not know that you have 
 come by your possessions in any unordinary way ? 
 
 " You don't know Paula. She would not believe me or 
 spare me." 
 
 " But she's under such an obligation to you, if she lives 
 with you — probably in considerable luxury — and does 
 nothing and pays nothing in return." 
 
 " That would not weigh with Paula. She would leave the 
 house, and could not help embellishing the story of her 
 martyrdom." 
 
 " She must be a very dangerous woman. If I were you, 
 I should get rid of her as soon as possible, and have nothing 
 more to do with her." 
 
 " But I love her dearly, and she loves me : we have the 
 most ideal friendship that two women ever had. It's the 
 next best thing to a perfect marriage." 
 
 " Preserve me from women ! The older I get, the less I 
 want to see of them. That is the chief reason why I live in 
 this hermitage. I could not stand all the falseness which 
 surrounds Janet at our house in Kensington. The women in 
 what she calls her salon exploit her the whole time. I never 
 was in such a hotbed of hypocrisy. The Chorus is down- 
 right, if it is greedy — that place is a regular incubator." 
 
 " I haven't been in the house yet, Jim, though Janet came 
 to see me 3'esterday, and created me a sort of daughter of 
 the house. But I am sure, from my knowledge of these 
 ' salons,' as you call them, that you are quite wrong about 
 the people who go to them. There is an ' incubator ' atmo- 
 sphere of flattery for the powerful person who is lavish in 
 her hospitality, to those from whom she expects nothing but 
 the distinction and amusingness which they give to her 
 parties, but it springs from gratitude and not from intrigue. 
 Believe me, there is nothing farther from these people's 
 minds than intrigue ! They go there to enjoy the lovely
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 149 
 
 surroundings and the luxury, and to meet the Society people 
 who have brains enough to appreciate them." 
 
 " Well, that puts things in a new light. I'll study the 
 position from that point, and see if I can agree with you. 
 But in the interval, can't you throw a little more light on 
 the ' elderly person ' ? " 
 
 " Well, he gave me my house — the freehold of it ; he 
 gave me carte blanche for its decoration, and paid the bills ; 
 the furniture ditto ; and he gave me the car. He would 
 like to have thrown in a country cottage, but I was able to 
 resist that by pointing out that I should never use it." 
 
 " And I am supposed to be the ' elderly person ' who has 
 done all this." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did he help you choose and decorate things ? " 
 
 " No, except that when I had chosen a house, he came to 
 inspect it with his lawyers before he made the purchase — 
 chiefly, I think, to see that I was not being taken in. He 
 never saw anything until I was occupying the house, and 
 he came to call." 
 
 " In strict confidence, does Miss . . . Miss Paula know 
 him ? " 
 
 " Yes, and mistrusts him very much. She regards him 
 as a regular wolf in sheep's clothing." 
 
 " Well, I hope she's wrong." 
 
 " She is wrong. I trust him as I trust you." 
 
 " My dear Isabel, don't you know how dangerous it is 
 for a man of fifty-five to have a beautiful young woman of— 
 how old are you ? " 
 
 " Twenty-two." 
 
 " A beautiful young woman of twenty-two saying these 
 things to him ? " 
 
 " I always say what I mean," said Mirabel. 
 
 " A very dangerous habit ; you will find people taking 
 advantage of it." 
 
 " They'll find me once bitten, twice shy, if they do." 
 
 " It may be all right if you're sufficiently ruthless, but 
 you don't look very ruthless, little cousin," 
 
 " I hope you'll never try." 
 
 " No, by God, I won't. Until my son has children, you 
 come next to him as my successor, just as much as if you 
 were my daughter, instead of my cousin. And I shall look
 
 150 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 upon 3'ou as if you were my daughter ; that's the soundest 
 position." 
 
 " Then it is quite certain that I mustn't call you Jim." 
 
 " Do," he said, " it's music to me." 
 
 " I wasn't serious, Jim dear." 
 
 She saw that her cousin was going to be the sheet-anchor 
 of her life. She had never felt so attracted to any man 
 — not, of course, in the way in which she felt attracted to 
 Archie, and tried to feel attracted to Gray, but for sheer 
 absolute liking and feeling of trust. She knew now that 
 it was the strain of him in Archie which made Archie so 
 irresistible to her. 
 
 " When are you going to show me all the things which 
 I — which that ' elderly person ' gave you ? " he asked, while 
 they were lunching in that strange, almost unfurnished, 
 make-believe piece of Italy, which was like home to her. 
 
 She thought for a minute, and then she said, " This after- 
 noon. Paula will be out to lunch with Mrs. Peroxide, who 
 is a great deal too grand to lunch before two — the place 
 where I ought to be if I had not come down to see you on 
 business." 
 
 " Does Miss Paula — I wish I could remember her proper 
 name — know where you are ? " 
 
 " Of course she does. It suited the elaborate fiction 
 which she is creating in her mind about my affairs, to believe 
 that you do all my business for me." 
 
 " What is this fiction, Mirabel ? " 
 
 " Wait and see. It includes, among other things, that 
 you were the ' elderly person ' with whom I spent that 
 month." 
 
 " Well, that very easily might have happened if you were 
 anxious to visit Scots Castle. I should not think it necessary 
 to put you off if Janet couldn't leave London when you had 
 your holiday. If a man of my age can't invite his own 
 cousin to stay with him, the world is too rotten to matter. 
 Besides, a lie isn't a lie if it is to save a woman's good name, 
 without injuring another woman to do it." 
 
 He gave her a lunch worthy of the Ritz, with a steaming 
 
 dish of Irish stew set in front of himself, the only dish of 
 
 which he partook, except cheese, which he ate with oatcake 
 
 and salt butter. 
 
 When the butler — there was no other servant in the room
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 151 
 
 — began to fill her glass with champagne, she put up her 
 hand. " May I drink water, after I've drunk your health 
 in this drop ? I do take a glass of champagne sometimes, 
 but only when I need a tonic, or don't wish to look peculiar. 
 The night we had the Babylon dinner, for instance, I took a 
 glass. But I like water, or very weak red wine and water, 
 the drinks I've been accustomed to in Italy, very much 
 better." 
 
 " Have some red wine and water now ? I've got some 
 very light claret." 
 
 " Many thanks — I prefer water alone. I am sorry that 
 you had the champagne opened for me." 
 
 " Don't apologize," he said, " champagne in moderation 
 is one of my weaknesses ; one of the few privileges in being 
 wealthy which I value is being able to drink champagne like 
 beer. Fancy food is thrown away on me — I like beefsteak 
 pudding and Irish stew, and any amount of potatoes." 
 
 His simplicity captivated her, especially when she dis- 
 covered that he had sent her car home because he intended 
 to leave the house by the towpath entrance and meet his car 
 in the Petersham Road, his hall being full of organizers, 
 flavoured with journalists, who persisted in waiting to waylay 
 him there, though they had been told. that he was out. 
 
 " Are those the Daylight-Saving people ? " she asked. 
 
 " At least one of them. I'm very closely in touch with 
 that movement. I think it one of the best things we've 
 had for a long time." 
 
 " Do you practise all its precepts yourself ? " 
 
 " I do my best. I get up early enough to have my break- 
 fast at sunrise." 
 
 " What a pity you don't live in town," she thought. 
 " Archie could have his early morning tea with you, instead 
 of at the cabmen's shelter." She said, " I admire a man wlio 
 practises what he preaches in the small hours of the morning." 
 
 " I can assure you that I enjoy getting up at five mucli 
 more than sitting up till five, as I used to in my salad da3'S. 
 I should advise you to go steadily on the salad days, Mirabel, 
 they're so indigestible." 
 
 " They present no attraction to me," she said. " My 
 dream is to be happih' married." 
 
 " Well, I shouldn't'^ think there was much difficulty about 
 that, with all your advantages."
 
 152 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " It may seem perfectly simple, but I find it the most 
 difficult thing in the world." 
 
 Mirabel had given the chauffeur directions how to find 
 her house. It was an easy matter from Richmond, since he 
 had only to take the Chiswick Road into town, and turn 
 down when he came to Weltje Road. 
 
 When they got there, and Jeffreys opened the door to 
 them, she said, " Give Lord Douglas's chauffeur a cup of 
 tea, or anything else he prefers, please, Jeffreys." 
 
 She did not wish there to be any unnecessary mystery 
 about the ' elderly person.' The chauffeur was a discreet 
 man, as chauffeurs go, but he could not resist asking Jeffreys, 
 as he settled into a comfortable seat by the pantry-fire, 
 " Do you think she's really his Lordship's cousin ? " 
 
 Jeffreys, who was desperately in love with his beautiful 
 mistress, said, " Of course she is ! Her Ladyship was here 
 yesterday ! " 
 
 " Oh, that settles it," said the chauffeur, " settles it for 
 her, and settles it for us ! We shan't be here much with 
 her Ladyship knocking round : he can't stand all the fuss 
 she makes ! " 
 
 " Don't they hit it ? " asked Jeffreys, who had no aversion 
 to gossip, where his mistress was not concerned. 
 
 " It's as I said," replied the chauffeur, " they hit it all 
 right, but when her Ladyship is to the fore, his Lordship 
 takes a back seat : what he just hates is palaver ! " 
 
 " He seems a nice gentleman, too," said Jeffreys. 
 
 " Nice isn't the word for it — he's one of the best ! But 
 he's had so much of everything, that he's getting tired ; 
 he's gone stale on Society, and is taking up cranks — that's 
 the Aristocracy's form of turning religious before they 
 die." 
 
 " Then my young missus '11 be the best thing for him ! " 
 said Jeffreys, with proud confidence. 
 
 " That's so," said the chauffeur, " if her Ladj'ship lets 
 the old man have a look in." 
 
 " I shall have to see to that," said Jeffreys, with 
 calm superiority, quite unmoved by the fact that he was 
 dealing with the most illustriously born un-royal person in 
 Europe.
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 153 
 
 " I think we'd better see the garden first, Jim," said 
 Mirabel. 
 
 " Yes — dayhght doesn't last for ever." 
 
 When she had taken him round, he said : 
 
 " By Jove ! this is a ripping place ! Have I done all 
 this ? " 
 
 " You've paid for it, but have not seen it before. But 
 nothing here gives me so much pleasure as the Italian orna- 
 ments in your garden." 
 
 " You're welcome to the lot. I don't care about them, 
 except the crypto-porticus and the pavilion, and they'd be 
 rather difficult to move." 
 
 " Perhaps I'll let you give me some of them at some 
 future time, but it would break Paula's heart if I touched 
 the garden now." 
 
 " Don't do that," he said, as if she meant to throw it on 
 the ground there and then, like an empty bottle at a picnic. 
 
 She smiled indulgently, and said, " You put in most of 
 the flowers in the same way, and that row of oleanders in 
 tubs which is just going to be taken from the terrace to the 
 studio for the winter." 
 
 " I had no idea that I was such a good gardener," he 
 said, " but I'm Scotch, so I suppose that it was born in me." 
 
 " Now, quick, into the house, Jim, so that we can see 
 everything before Paula comes back." 
 
 " This modern idea of having all the walls painted white 
 does brighten things up ! " he said. " I shall work it in at 
 the Hermitage." 
 
 " It isn't white, and it isn't paint — Paula saj-s that it's 
 ivory aqua tinta." 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't sec the difference, but in any case 
 I like it." 
 
 She drew his attention to Paula's ideas and devices all 
 over the house. 
 
 " Everything is Paula in this house," she said, " e.vcept 
 my bedroom, which I'm going to show you now. I would 
 not have my walls white ; I insisted on having an Italian 
 artist in to do a fresco of Lake Como all round the walls. 
 We are fond of using the scene-painter in our houses in 
 Lombardy. That's my villa which you see in front of you." 
 
 The artist had executed his task successfully. The side 
 facing the bed he had given up to the promontory witii the
 
 154 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Villa Visconti crowning its summit, and with the quaint old 
 harbour, guarded by the stone saint, at its foot. The room 
 contained absolutely nothing, except a green carpet, which 
 looked quite like grass, with its long woollen blades, in the 
 half-light, and a low bedstead of heavy walnut, enamelled 
 white, with a bookcase and teacup-shelf coming out like an 
 ear on each side of its head, and its foot decorated with the 
 famous Douglas motto, Jamais arriere, in gilt, surrounded 
 by a gilt scroll. 
 
 " I see you've got our old Forward motto in its French 
 dress," he said, " but why don't you have the other as well ? 
 I like it even better." 
 
 " I don't know about it — what motto is it ? " 
 
 " Pro patria." 
 
 "I'll have it put underneath the other." 
 
 " No, over it. We always use this at the top and the 
 other at the bottom. You know what it means, don't 
 you ? " 
 
 " I can guess. It shall go at the top." 
 
 When they had finished with the motto, she said, " Isn't 
 this a modern bedroom ? With absolutely nothing in it 
 but the bed. Everything else is in the dressing-room." 
 
 " Where is the dressing-room ? " he asked. 
 
 " Through that door." 
 
 " Where is the door ? " 
 
 Even when she pointed to it, he could hardly distinguish 
 it, so skilfully had the two doors been made to resemble the 
 walls, in order that they might come into the frescoes without 
 disturbing the effect. 
 
 " I shall have a Scottish moor bedroom at the Hermitage 
 on the same plan," he said. " I often long for my moors, 
 and I hardly ever pay them a visit." 
 
 Candidly, Mirabel thought that purple moors stretching 
 up the walls would be rather oppressive, but she did not 
 air her opinion. 
 
 " You have bought some very good pieces," he said, when 
 they had finished their tour of inspection, and returned to 
 the drawing-room for tea. 
 
 " It was not I, but Paula." 
 
 " Your Miss Maitland must have good judgment." 
 
 " That must be her," said Mirabel, catching the rustle 
 of a skirt outside the door. " Paula ! " she called out.
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 155 
 
 " Yes, dear ? " 
 
 " Come in here ! " 
 
 As she came in, a big man of great nobiUty of face and 
 bearing, but with a charming affabihty, rose with noticeable 
 promptness from his seat. 
 
 " Jim," said Mirabel, " this is Miss Maitland. Paula, 
 let me introduce Lord Douglas." 
 
 " I have just been admiring your taste in decorating and 
 furnishing," he began, when he caught a warning glance 
 from Mirabel, and he hastily continued, " I'd no idea that 
 you could do so much with such a ramshackle old shop ! " 
 
 " I have improved it, haven't I ? " said Paula triumphantly. 
 
 " Wonderful ! I couldn't have believed it." 
 
 " Given the money, of course," said Paula, with a knowing 
 glance at Lord Douglas, which made him blush like INIirabcl — 
 it was a family failing — " it was perfectly easy, and I had 
 carte blanche." The words she used were " I had," but the 
 tones said even more plainly " you gave me " carle blanche. 
 
 " The money was very well spent," he said. She seemed 
 to expect him to say something. 
 
 " I am glad that you approve of what I have done." 
 
 " Of course I do ! " 
 
 Paula felt quite certain that she was right about him. He 
 was " the elderly person "—and what a delightful person he 
 was to have worked for ! 
 
 " Did you go into the garden ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, we went round it directly we got here." 
 
 " Did you think it much altered ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, I never saw it before." 
 
 Mirabel deliberately let a cup and saucer— and they belonged 
 to her best tea-set — fall and break. 
 
 " You see, I never went out in the garden — I took that for 
 granted." 
 
 ' " But I suppose Mirabel looked at the garden before she 
 took the house ? " 
 
 " Of course I did ! " said ^lirabel in haste, to prevent him 
 replying. " I cared more for the garden and the river than 
 the house itself." 
 
 " The house is a gem," said Paula—" Georgian of the best 
 period— don't you think so. Lord Douglas ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," he answered briskly, " I knew it was a good 
 house the moment I saw it."
 
 156 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " It was lucky that Mirabel had you with her when she 
 looked over it." 
 
 Lord Douglas was growing desperate. He felt that he must 
 make some protest in the interests of truth. 
 
 " No, she took it on her own," he said. " I didn't see it 
 till some time afterwards." Then, growing afraid that he 
 had betrayed Mirabel, he added, " Till she had settled 
 everything in her own mind." 
 
 " I'm sure that's just modesty on your part," said Paula, 
 and as he blushed again, she was confirmed in her opinion. 
 " I hope you didn't think the decorations I ordered too 
 expensive ? " 
 
 " You can't have good work without paying for it," he said 
 sententiously. 
 
 " And the furniture ? — it ran into four figures ! " 
 
 " I was saying to Isabel — Mirabel, you call her, but she is 
 Isabel to me, as that is the name by which we have always 
 been accustomed to speak of her. ..." 
 
 " Well, I wish you would call me Mirry," said Mirabel, to 
 make a diversion. 
 
 " I was saying to Mirry just as you came in what very good 
 pieces there were among the furniture, and, of course, you 
 always have to pay for good pieces." 
 
 " I paid very little for them, in proportion to their value," 
 said Paula. 
 
 " I never knew anybody so clever about these things as 
 you are," said The Douglas, and Paula, whose mind was run- 
 ning that way, thought he was praising the bargaining which 
 she had done while she was furnishing the house — though he 
 was talking in the air helplessly, vaguely hoping that he was 
 not betraying Mirabel's secret. 
 
 " Well, you didn't mind the total cost ? " she at length 
 said, right out. 
 
 " Not in the least ! " — and feeling that he ought to say 
 something more gracious to her, after all her trouble, he said, 
 " I should not have liked to interfere, anyway." 
 
 " What a dear man ! " she said to herself. " How pleasant 
 it would be if everyone was like that to work for ! " 
 
 But she had not finished with him yet. There was that 
 month which Mirabel had spent with the elderly relative. 
 
 " I suppose that you have some very lovely things at the 
 place where Mirabel visited you, haven't you ? " She said
 
 ENTER "THE DOUGLAS" 157 
 
 this, not to cross-examine him, or catch him tripping, but 
 just as something pohte and cordial to say. She felt very 
 cordial to him indeed, for nobody could suspect such a man 
 — the man he was now, whatever he might have been in his 
 Scots Greys days — of evil designs on IMirabel, and he spoke 
 of her as if she was so very much one of the family — just as 
 if she had been a sister, or even a daughter. 
 
 In blank desperation he said, " Well, she seemed to think 
 so, but I don't. I couldn't see anything in the things which 
 she admired, myself." 
 
 " I suppose the fact is that you have such heaps of pos- 
 sessions, and some of them so wonderful, that you don't give 
 a thought to the things at the place where she visited you ? " 
 
 " No, frankly, I don't. It's such a small place, and there's 
 nothing in it which is worth looking at, let alone valuable." 
 
 " I'm afraid that you are dreadfully spoilt," said Paula. 
 " You judge everything by the standard of Lanarkshire 
 House." 
 
 " Indeed I don't ! I'm always thankful to be out of it." 
 
 " Well, however small it was, Mirabel enjoyed herself very 
 much when she was with you, didn't you, Mirabel ? " 
 
 " I enjoyed myself awfully ! " said Mirabel — refering to her 
 lunch at the Hermitage. 
 
 " I have found you out at last ! " said Paula, with a peculiar 
 smile, when Lord Douglas had gone. 
 
 Mirabel was in rather a quandary. If she let Paula enjoy 
 her victory unopposed, the enjoyment would be spoilt ; 
 Paula might even become suspicious ; but she was terrified 
 lest by saying the wrong thing, she should break down the 
 useful working fiction which Paula had built up. 
 
 It seemed a good idea to protest with warmth that she 
 never had attempted to make any secret of her friendship 
 with Lord Douglas. This had the advantage of being true, 
 because the friendship was non-existent till a few hours before. 
 
 " You did make a mystery of it, Mirabel : you know you 
 did ! Why on earth didn't you confess before that he was 
 the ' elderly person ' ? " 
 
 " Because," she said in desperation, " I did not see how he 
 could help being annoyed, if I dragged his name into the 
 matter." 
 
 " Well, you see, he wasn't annoyed at all when I let him see 
 that I knew ! "
 
 158 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Men hate being talked about," said Mirabel, " though they 
 don't mind talking about themselves." 
 
 " And women make secrets out of nothing. It would have 
 been years before you told me this, and I got it all out of him 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 " You are very clever, Paula," said Mirabel, with a laugh up 
 her sleeve. " But, for goodness' sake don't breathe a word of 
 this to Lady Douglas, or you will never enter Lanarkshire 
 House again ! We shall be put down for a pair of adventur- 
 esses." 
 
 " I will be careful, I promise you," said Paula, who had no 
 wish to close the golden vistas which had begim to open in 
 that direction. 
 
 " Wasn't it screamingly funny, Jim, the way in which she 
 relieved us from the trouble of inventing ? " said Mirabel, 
 the next time she met her cousin. 
 
 " I wish there was nothing to invent," he said gravely, 
 adding immediately, to her relief, " but I'm not regretting 
 that I stood by you, Mirry." 
 
 " Some day you'll know that it is nothing beyond the pale 
 which you are shielding, but I cannot speak out now, without 
 precipitating the very catastrophe which I wish to avoid." 
 
 " At any rate, I'm not the person to hold up my hands in 
 righteous horror ! If I'd been the man, and someone else 
 had been the woman, I suppose I might have looked at the 
 mystery — whatever it is — quite differently." 
 
 " You forget, Jim, that you are the man — Paula has settled 
 that quite definitely. You've got to convince Paula, and me 
 too, Jim," she said, looking him straight in the eyes, " that 
 you are to be trusted with me." 
 
 " I give you the honour of The Douglas," he said. " Do 
 you know the old Scots proverb about us ? " 
 
 She raised herself on tip-toe to kiss him with delicious 
 frankness, as she answered him. " ' As loyal as a Douglas.' "
 
 THE RIVALS MEET 159 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE RIVALS MEET 
 
 WHILE Mirabel and Paula were with Lady Douglas 
 in the morning-room at Lanarkshire House, waiting 
 for lunch to be announced, Paula, who was always apt to do 
 the talking, said, " I'm so sorry that we could not come 
 yesterday, Lady Douglas, but we were engaged to Mrs. 
 Peroxide, and even then Mirabel had to disappoint her, 
 because Lord Douglas sent for her about some business of 
 hers." 
 
 This was a deduction of Paula's own. Mirabel had only told 
 her that she could not go to Mrs. Peroxide, because she had to 
 see Lord Douglas. Nor had she ever given Paula the slightest 
 ground for her next statement. 
 
 " Lord Douglas helps her in all her business." 
 
 " I remember her saying that Lord Douglas was very kind 
 to her," said Lady Douglas, " and it's only right, considering 
 that he is the head of the family." 
 
 " I hope Jim did all you wanted him to do, yesterday," 
 she said, turning to Mirabel, in blissful ignorance of what a 
 very pointed remark she was making. 
 
 " He was an angel ! He did more than I had any right to 
 expect." 
 
 " Jim would," said the wife who saw so little of him, " he's 
 the most unselfish man I ever knew, except about meeting 
 people. He hates meeting people. When he does come to 
 one of my parties, he just talks to one or two people he hkes 
 outside the room where the singing is going on." 
 
 " Poor Jim ! " said Mirabel. " I can picture how miserable 
 he would be ! " 
 
 This was acting, but not what is called " swank." Since 
 Lady Douglas imagined that Mirabel had known Lord Douglas 
 ever since she came to London, it was necessary to drop a 
 hint of intimacy, now that she really had met him, and knew 
 what she could say with safety ; and though she and Lord 
 Douglas had only met once before Lady Douglas asked the
 
 i6o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 question, the bond of sympathy between them was so complete 
 that they were like sister and brother. 
 
 The hands of the clock were getting nearer two than one- 
 thirty. 
 
 " Archie's coming to lunch," said his mother, " and he's 
 always late. He's so busy." 
 
 It was hard for Mirabel to resist a smile. Lady Douglas 
 was very indulgent to Archie. She had expected that he 
 would be late. She had asked him because she liked giving 
 him a pleasure, and liked having him about. Though he 
 came so seldom he was the light of the house. 
 
 When he did come, his face wore its most charming expres- 
 sion ; he was so in love with Mirabel. He pointed out to her 
 the red-haired portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, with which 
 he had compared her when he was in her dressing-room ; it 
 was by Fran9ois Clouet. Lady Douglas had brought it up 
 from the gallery at Scots Castle, where it had hung since the 
 Queen gave it to the boy Douglas of that day, who was her 
 page. 
 
 " You see I was right about the hair," he said. 
 
 " You were. I think I ought to wear a red wig— when I 
 come here." 
 
 Nothing interesting happened then, or on the Friday .and 
 Saturday, though they met Archie on both days. 
 
 Paula had told Archie that they were always in on Sunday 
 afternoon. She had no doubt that he would come if he got 
 the invitation, and she thought that he would be such a 
 pleasant surprise for her friends. 
 
 Archie promised to come. Paula, though she knew that 
 Archie was one of the " bhoys " at the Babylon, never gave a 
 thought to the fact that this was Gray's day for visiting them. 
 
 Archie came early, and was very much in possession when 
 Gray arrived, but Mirabel got up and devoted herself to Gray, 
 who seemed put out. 
 
 " How did young Avondale squeeze himself in here ? " he 
 asked, having the incidents of the Babylon dinner, and Archie's 
 attempt to force himself into her dressing-room, which had 
 reached his ears, fresh in his mind. 
 
 There was an angry retort on Mirabel's lips, but she managed 
 to hold it back, because she knew what Archie's character 
 was at the theatre, and she knew that Gray, who, as pro- 
 prietor of the Babylon, had kept his promise of shielding her
 
 THE RIVALS MEET i6i 
 
 from annoyance by the Johnnies who haunted the Green 
 Room, so loyally, had a right to feel anxious at seeing one of 
 the most dangerous of the golden youth installed at Boling- 
 broke House. She explained quite pleasantly that there was 
 no squeezing himself in about it, because he was her cousin. 
 
 " A pukker cousin, Mirabel ? — first or second ? Are you 
 really one of his Douglases ? " 
 
 " Truthfully, yes. His mother came to call last Tuesday, 
 and I lunched with her on Thursday, and Lord Douglas on 
 Wednesday." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right, then — up to a certain point. But I 
 rather wish he wasn't your cousin ; there's nothing which that 
 imp isn't up to ! At any rate, I hope he'll have the good grace 
 to stop his larking, where his cousin is concerned ! " 
 
 " I'm sure he will," she said. " He's been here several 
 times, and, don't be annoyed ! — he really is as careful not to 
 distress me as you are." 
 
 Gray was far from happy in his mind. He was afraid that 
 if Lord Avondale was behaving himself so well, he must be in 
 love with Mirabel, which would be the most disastrous thing 
 of all. The only lamp in the darkness was his discovery that 
 his wife was so well-born, a fact to which she had never made 
 any allusion. 
 
 He hoped that Lord Avondale' s attempts to force himself 
 upon her at the Babylon dinner and in her dressing-room were 
 only his way of trying to introduce himself to his cousin. 
 They were strictly in accordance with Archie's precedents, 
 if they were. But they were none the less reprehensible. 
 The one thing that could be said in his favour was that 
 Mirabel's address was not yet in either of the Court directories 
 or the telephone book, and that the strictest precautions to 
 prevent its being known were taken at the theatre, so that he 
 supposed that he must have got it from family sources. 
 
 At that moment their eyes met. Archie nodded to him, 
 and called out, " How do you do. Gray ? " rather off-handedly. 
 He was just as much annoyed at finding the proprietor of the 
 Babylon at his cousin's house, as Gray was at finding him 
 there. He did not think it the least necessary for them to 
 carry their acquaintance beyond business hours. Because 
 she was his leading lady was no reason for her making a friend 
 of him. And lastly, Archie had an even lower opinion of 
 Oliver Gray's morals than Gray had of his. 
 
 II
 
 i62 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " How do you do, Avondale ? " replied Gray, even more 
 off-handed in his manner. 
 
 " You two," said Mirabel, half laughing, half angry, and 
 arrogating to herself the musical-comedy liberty of speech, 
 " just remember where you are, and the fact that one of you 
 is my best friend, and the other my cousin ! Otherwise, you, 
 Archie — I can order you about as a member of the family, 
 though I can't well order Mr. Gray, because he is my ' boss ' 
 — will have to say good-bye. Shake hands, if you want to 
 please me." 
 
 Archie instantly got up, and went over to Gray, holding out 
 his hand, with laughter in his eyes as well as on that lovely, 
 boyish mouth. Gray took his hand warmly. The way in 
 which Archie could " cry peccavi " was quite irresistible. 
 
 " Now both of you come and talk to me," said Mirabel, 
 putting out all the magnetic power of charm which she 
 usually reserved for acknowledging encores, since, far from 
 having any desire to encourage the advances of either Gray 
 or Archie, she dreaded them. " What shall we talk about ? " 
 said Mirabel. " I know ! You two experienced people shall 
 tell me how to behave — I don't mean here, in my own house ; 
 I have my ideas about that — but in the theatre, or the streets, 
 when people try to speak to me without an introduction." 
 
 " I suppose you heard how she squashed me, Gray ? " 
 asked Archie, with a grimace. 
 
 " Yes, I heard, and I'm going to believe that 3'ou were 
 only trying to get to speak to her because you were her 
 cousin." 
 
 " Well, that's rather a fancy view of it, but we'll leave it 
 at that. Do you really want us to coach you, Mirry ? " 
 
 " Of course ! I want you to teach me what to do so that 
 the man may be shamed into behaving like a gentleman, as 
 Archie did just now," she said, smiling a reward to him. 
 
 They gave her the most elaborate directions, capping each 
 other with instances of the wiles of man, which sounded 
 screamingly funny as they told them, and they carried the 
 good humour which arose out of it through dinner, to which 
 both were invited to stay. 
 
 The victory remained with Gray, whom Mirabel asked to 
 stay behind for a few minutes to settle a question of business. 
 And he would have known that the victory was greater than 
 he supposed, if he had overheard the conversation which
 
 THE RIVALS MEET 163 
 
 took place when he waited, sick at heart, while she went 
 down to see Archie off. 
 
 " Archie," she had said, " don't come on Sundays. Sunday 
 is Mr. Gray's day. You must know how much I owe to him, 
 and I should feel a beast and a cad if I gave him nothing in 
 return. He never sees me except on Sunday, and never sees 
 me alone then, so it isn't much for me to devote myself to 
 him on that one afternoon." 
 
 " Poor chap ! he must want to marry you, and I know 
 what that is, so I'll do what you tell me. Only you must be 
 very nice to me on the other six days." 
 
 " It isn't going to be six days, Archie," she said, wishing in 
 her heart that it could be seven. " Three at the outside ! " 
 
 When she got back to her husband, he did not upbraid her. 
 He made not a single complaint about Archie. His compact 
 with her was that he should not mention their marriage, or 
 make advances to her, anywhere or in any way. He could 
 be her friend, an intimate friend, if he was content to be 
 nothing more, and he had accepted the terms. In particular, 
 he was not to attempt to impose any restraint upon her 
 liberty of action. 
 
 His face wore a look of grave friendliness, which relaxed 
 into welcome as she reappeared. Paula had not spoken to 
 him. She was engrossed with the literary critic of the 
 Lancashire Guardian at the other end of their big drawing- 
 room. 
 
 He was paying his call in the evening, because he had been 
 golfing in the afternoon. He was so fascinated with her 
 wit, that when one of her novels was sent him for review he 
 used to review the kind of book he expected her to write, 
 instead of the book which she had written. 
 
 Paula used to accuse him of it herself. " There's no such 
 thing as free criticism," she said. " If the critic is not under 
 the influence of the author, he's under the influence of the 
 editor. The only just critics arc publishers' readers. If 
 a book-review advised the Public as honestly as ' readers ' 
 advise publishers, there'd be something in it, and the Public 
 has a right to expect good advice as to how it shall spend its 
 six shilhngs." 
 
 " Thank you, Oliver," said Mirabel simply, when she came 
 in, but the " tliank-you " was very significant, and he felt 
 rewarded. And she added, as he made a motion to rise : 
 
 II*
 
 1 64 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Don't leave me with those two. He may not go for a 
 long while, and Paula'll want to talk shop to him as long as 
 he stays." 
 
 The sidelong glances of the critic revealed that he would 
 have liked a few words with Mirabel, but she was determined 
 to give herself up to Gray, to compensate him for the 
 interruption. 
 
 " You must not mind Archie," she said. " He's only 
 twenty, and I treat him as a child. I told him not to come 
 on Sundays any more. I don't want ragging conversations 
 when you're here, we have such a lot to talk about." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn 
 
 AT LADY Douglas's salon 
 
 AS the year flew on to the glorious early summer of 
 1914, Mirabel grew troubled about Archie. He was 
 so openly and devotedly in love with her, and she with him, 
 though not a kiss had passed between them. 
 
 Moreover, though she could not make up her mind to live 
 with Gray, she was his wife, and was loyal to him. Her 
 difficulty lay in the getting over her aversion to him as a 
 husband. The monopoly of winning her affections, if he 
 could do it without any overt advances, was his. 
 
 Her outward relations with Archie had not changed. She 
 allowed him no liberties, though she placed practically no 
 restrictions on his seeing her, so long as he did not come to 
 her at the theatre, and did not come to her house on Sunday, 
 or on more than two afternoons a week. This was not a 
 hardship, when they had Lanarkshire House, where they were 
 far freer from interruptions, at their disposal. 
 
 At the same time, she trusted herself more with Gray, now 
 that she found how completely she could trust him. 
 
 He, too, was often at Lanarkshire House. Mirabel, seeing 
 other theatrical managers habitues at those receptions, felt 
 that it would be unworthy of her if she did not introduce 
 him to them, and, as a step towards it, asked Lady Douglas 
 if she might bring him to dinner one Sunday night, because 
 he always dined with her on Sundays, and she wished to be
 
 AT LADY DOUGLAS'S SALON 165 
 
 present at one of the gay dinners which preceded Lady 
 Douglas's receptions. 
 
 Lady Douglas thought it would be most interesting to meet 
 the presiding genius of Archie's favourite Babylon, and sent 
 a cordial note in reply. She was perfectly charmed with 
 Gray when he arrived. He was so distinguished, so entertain- 
 ing, so extremely good-looking. 
 
 " What a charming man to work for ! " she said to Mirabel. 
 
 " He is, I assure you — a perfect angel ! " 
 
 Mirabel stayed by him a good deal that evening. It was 
 his day, and he was her guest, as it were, and she thought 
 that it was due to him to show the public the ideal relations 
 which existed between them. From the first, Lady Douglas 
 had given her the status of a daughter of the house, though 
 there was something incongruous about a daughter calling 
 her adopting parents Janet and Jim. Lord x\vondale, who 
 was always dancing attendance on her, had been frankly told 
 that he must make way for Gray on this occasion. 
 
 Being accustomed to musical-comedy manners, he was 
 not hurt, but he was none the less forlorn at being deprived 
 of her society. There was no one else at his mother's house 
 whom he wanted to meet, but merely to be seeing her was 
 something, so he went and watched. 
 
 She was making herself charming to Gray. She not only 
 hardly left him, but she seemed bent on showing how much 
 she thought of him. 
 
 This lent her new graces, double graces, in Archie's eyes, 
 for it showed her simpatica — this was not the name which 
 Archie attached to it — without the mist of reserve in which 
 she commonly enveloped it, and it gave him a gnawing feeling 
 of jealousy, for it recalled the evening and the conversations 
 of that banquet at the BahyloJi Restaurant, at which he had 
 first seen her. On that night it had been common parlance 
 that the reason why Gray had introduced no one to her 
 but his own special guests like Captain O'Neill, was that he 
 was " desperately gone on her " himself. 
 
 It was true that beyond having her seated next to him, 
 and refusing to let the golden 3'outh be introduced to her, he 
 had shown no signs of paying any attention to her during 
 the dinner, and he was distinctly reserved in his attitude to 
 her to-night— not at all the old Oliver Gray whom Archie 
 remembered talking to the Beauties of the Stage, though he
 
 1 66 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 was always chivalrous to a woman. This disconcerted 
 Archie — he took it as evidence of a serious design on Mirabel's 
 hand— and made the pangs of jealousy keener. He was too 
 nice a man for jealousy to manifest itself outwardly in his 
 actions ; it was a pain with him, not a passion. 
 
 But seeing Mirabel allowing herself to be attractive to Gray, 
 and allowing him to monopolize her, added fuel to Archie's 
 love for her, and he stood a few paces back from the edge of 
 the crowd which filled his mother's winter-garden, with the 
 fox of the Spartan boy eating his heart, as he watched 
 Mirabel. 
 
 Presentty he heard a familiar voice say : " Hullo, Archie ! 
 What's given you the hump ? " 
 
 It was Lord Douglas. The outside edge was his usual 
 position at his wife's parties, though he generally had some 
 attractive woman — of his or her seeking — ^to keep him com- 
 pany. On this occasion he was alone ; like his son, he had 
 come to see Mirabel, and was not taking the slightest notice 
 of the brilliant gathering of celebrities whom Mollie Men- 
 teith, graceful and smihng, was so busily introducing to each 
 other. 
 
 " I'm odd man out," said Archie. " The other blighter's 
 won the toss ! " His eyes indicated Gray. 
 
 " Are you very gone in that direction, Archie ? Is she 
 going to be Viscountess Avondale, and, in due time, when 
 I am gathered to my fathers in the vaults of St. Bride's, 
 Countess of Douglas ? " 
 " I am afraid not, sir." 
 
 " Why not, Archie ? If you marry Mirry, I will withdraw 
 all I have ever said against your marrying a girl from the 
 Babylon, or the Gaiety, or the Halls. I did not think a Douglas, 
 coming of a family which had married a Queen of Scotland, 
 and bred the ancestor of the Kings of England, in its junior 
 line, ought to take his wife from the stage, and you said you 
 would never marry anj'one else because she would be so dull. 
 By your own standards, you couldn't call it dull marrying the 
 leading lady of the Babylon, and she's a Douglas of the senior 
 hne." 
 
 " But, my dear father, I did put the question before I had 
 known her twenty-four hours ; there never was such a little 
 bit of love at first sight, and she turned it down without 
 moving an eyelash. She simply wasn't taking any ! "
 
 AT LADY DOUGLAS'S SALON 167 
 
 " Would it be any good my putting in a word, do you 
 think ? " 
 
 " Where I hadn't a look in ? Oh, father ! " 
 
 Lord Douglas was too modest to suggest that the bearer 
 of the most historical name in Scotland might have had 
 some weight. He only thought of it as a thing of which 
 Archie did not approve. It was Archie's marriage of which 
 they were talking, and Archie had been allowed to decide for 
 himself ever since he was eighteen. 
 
 " Why won't she have you, Archie ? " he asked. " Be- 
 cause she doesn't think you'd make a good husband ? 
 You haven't the antecedents of one ! " 
 
 Lord Douglas was not a Puritan, though he was not " un- 
 faithful " to Lady Douglas. She had been, as the wife of 
 his youth, a great beauty, and was still a lovely woman ; 
 and, even before he lived so much apart from her, he was too 
 much taken up with the serious side of life to devote much 
 time to women, though he liked meeting the pretty women 
 of two worlds — these at his wife's, those at his son's 
 parties. 
 
 But when he was Master of Douglas, and a Cavalry 
 subaltern, he had taken all the gods gave him, like Archie, 
 and considered it only natural for a wealthy young noble- 
 man with great good looks and excellent health — just as 
 natural, in fact, as it had been for him to own racehorses and 
 win the classic events, and play polo. So popular was he that 
 to the day on which he retired to soberer pursuits he was 
 always spoken of as " Jim Douglas," instead of receiving his 
 title. Therefore, he had never " been the heavy father " 
 to Archie. 
 
 Provided that Archie showed himself a good sportsman 
 and what is called the soul of honour, he could sow his wild 
 oats as he pleased. Lord Douglas kept the eye of an elder 
 brother on him, that was all ; and even an elder brotlier 
 might have asked Archie not to make a Chorus-girl an 
 ancestress of future Douglases. 
 
 " Why won't she have me ? " said Archie. " Because she 
 is booked, I believe. I fancy that she is engaged in some sort 
 of a way to Oliver Gray, of the Babylon, though she has never 
 told anybody so. There's a sort of understanding between 
 them which makes both of them generally uncomfortable, 
 and that's rather a sign."
 
 1 68 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " It's not much of a match for one of us," said Lord 
 Douglas, though he did not suffer from snobbishness. " But 
 he must be a good chap, because the Eton men of his time 
 all have a good word for him. I was in the pavilion at Lord's 
 when he made all those runs for Oxford in the 'Varsit}^ 
 match, and people were talking about him, and there was 
 no mistaking how pleased they were that he was the man 
 who had made the runs." 
 
 " He's very popular with the ' b'hoys,' too, though he's 
 so jolly independent." 
 
 " Do you know him well, Archie ? " 
 
 " Do I know him well, when he and I are Mirry's greatest 
 friends ? " 
 
 " Well, then, as, after all, this is my own house, I think I'll 
 get you to introduce me." 
 
 " I'd love to — thought you knew him." 
 
 " No, I don't. I've been very little about since he took 
 over the theatre." 
 
 " Well, here goes, then ! " said Archie, leading the way to 
 where Mirabel was entertaining Oliver. 
 
 " I say, Mirry," he began, " the Governor says he's never 
 met Gray, so I've brought him along to introduce them. I 
 hope you won't mind our breaking into your conversation ? " 
 
 " Of course not ! " Her face said more than her words. 
 She was pleased with Archie's paying this attention to Gray 
 after that Sunday afternoon contretemps. She took over 
 the introduction into her own hands. " Oliver," she said, 
 " I want to introduce you to Lord Douglas, the head of our 
 family. Jim, I want to introduce Mr. Oliver Gray, the 
 faithful friend to whom I owe everything." 
 
 The Douglas was no reader of character ; he merely knew 
 whether he liked people or not. But this served almost as 
 well, because he could only tolerate straight-grained people. 
 He liked Gray, and was quietly cordial. 
 
 Mirabel, wishing them to im^prove the acquaintance, 
 said, " Take me to have two ices, Archie." 
 
 Men are funny things ! Archie's friends in the regiment, 
 chiefly of the jeiinesse doree who haunted the stalls of the 
 Babylon, naturally accompanied him from time to time to his 
 mother's receptions, when he had some reason for gracing 
 them with his presence, and they soon awoke to the fact that 
 the beautiful leading lady of the Babylon, who was so inac-
 
 AT LADY DOUGLAS'S SALON 169 
 
 cessible to the patrons of musical drama, was Archie's cousin, 
 and to be found at his mother's receptions. They took to 
 attending them as they attended the theatre. But the notable 
 feature of their attendance was that, whereas, if they could 
 have forced themselves on her at the Babylon, they might 
 have made suggestions which would have revolted her, when 
 they met her in Archie's mother's house, they treated her 
 with delightful chivalry. And instead of being asked to 
 their bachelor entertainments, with their other musical- 
 comedy friends, she was asked to entertainments which 
 were perhaps not half as amusing, to which she went with 
 Lady Douglas, to meet their wives and their sisters, though, 
 just to see what it was like, she did once let Archie give a 
 bachelor-party in her honour, on condition that no other 
 woman should be asked except Mrs. Orlando Jebb. Mrs. 
 Jebb was decidedly useful. As soon as she saw which way 
 the cat jimiped, she joined Mirabel in a small society of two, 
 dedicated to respectabiUty, at the theatre. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ,. A DAY OF SURPRISES AT BOLINGBROKE HOUSE 
 
 ^'^HE world was going very well with Mirabel. The 
 world seemed to be going very well altogether, 
 when London awoke on the beautiful twenty-second of 
 July, 1914. 
 
 It was true that for two or three days past there had t^een 
 violent fluctuations and falls on the Stock Exchange, but 
 people had grown accustomed to that during the Balkan 
 wars. The Standard Oil Company might be at the bottom 
 of it, as it was at the bottom of the slump in Mexicans. 
 Nobody troubled about it, except those who suddenly found 
 themselves poorer by hundreds and thousands, if they were 
 compelled to realize. For the rest, people went about their 
 pleasures, if not about their business, with lofty British 
 content. 
 
 But that afternoon, towards three o'clock. Gray, who 
 never came on any day except Sunday, was suddenh* an- 
 nounced to Mirabel in the drawing-room of Bolingl^roke 
 House, where she had been spending the last hour with
 
 1 70 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Archie. He had not been kissing her ; for, apart from 
 loyalty to her husband, she had been afraid to let him kiss 
 her, because she was so in love with him that she dreaded 
 a debacle if once their lips met. But they were sitting very 
 near each other, and obviously indifferent to everything 
 else in earth and heaven. 
 
 They started apart guiltily. There was no reason why 
 they should — they had only been living in each other's 
 souls, as the American lady said, and so far as Archie knew, 
 Gray had no more right to feel annoyed than appertained 
 to the fact that he also was a candidate for Mirabel's hand. 
 But instinct made them start. The odd feature in the 
 situation was that Mirabel was obviously glad to see Gray, 
 though she had been surprised by him in a compromising 
 situation. 
 
 She jumped up to shake hands with him, blushing, but 
 smiUng an honest, undisconcerted welcome. 
 
 Archie also shook hands cordially, but without his usual 
 mens aequa in arduis. 
 
 " I came to speak to you alone, Mirabel," said Gray, 
 " because I have had some very private information, which 
 I promised not to repeat to a third person. Perhaps Avon- 
 dale won't mind our going to the other end of the room, as 
 it is purely a business matter ? " 
 
 " No, I'll go. Gray — I can see by your face that it isn't 
 a thing you can tell in half a minute in a whisper. I hope 
 I'm not the cause of it, that's aU ! " 
 
 " Not in the least," said Gray, though he was not a little 
 troubled at the tete-a-tete which he had disturbed. 
 
 Archie, in truth, was glad to make his escape. There 
 was no question of a scene between him and Gray. He knew 
 Gray well enough by this time to be certain of that. But 
 he felt somehow that he had been acting unhandsomely, 
 and he wanted to go away and hide himself from the eyes 
 of his fellows. He hated being unhandsome. 
 
 " Oliver," said Mirabel, going up and laying a hand on 
 his arm, and looking him honestly in the face, " before I 
 hear what you have to say, unless it's something which 
 necessitates wild telegrams this very minute, I have an 
 explanation, which I should hke to make." 
 
 " I think you'd better hear what I have to say first," he 
 said, although he was on tenterhooks with anxiety about
 
 A DAY OF SURPRISES 171 
 
 the scene which he had just witnessed. " If you have any 
 stocks or shares, let me know what they are quickly, so 
 that I can telephone to my brokers about them." 
 
 " What on earth do you mean ? " she asked. 
 
 " I mean, have you any ? " 
 
 " No. Why do you ask ? " she said. " What income I 
 have of my own is paid to me out of the estate of the last 
 Lord Douglas but one." 
 
 " Thank God for that ! " he said, " Half your principal 
 might have gone already ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that old Lowe, the banker, whose name we 
 make so many jokes about at the theatre, a disreputable 
 old gentleman, who cultivates me because our Chorus is 
 his paradise, has just been to see me, and told me that the 
 reason why shares are falling like chimney-pots in an earth- 
 quake — I suppose you don't look at the financial part of 
 the papers, and so haven't noticed what has been going on 
 in the last two or three days ? — Well, old Lowe, who is an 
 Austrian, has had private intelligence that the reason why 
 this nine-pin business is going on at the Stock Exchange 
 is that the big financiers, who are in the know, are unloading 
 their securities on the Stock Exchange, because Austria 
 is going to force a war on Serbia at once, and because Ger- 
 many means it to develop into a universal conflagration. 
 So you see the necessity of acting quickly, if you have got 
 any shares." 
 
 " Well, I haven't ; I don't know anything about tlieni ; 
 I don't know a stock from a share, or a bull from a bear ! 
 Have you got many, Oliver ? " 
 
 " Very few — no investments, just my own little flutters. 
 My money is all invested in theatrical ventures or real 
 estate, except the block of debentures which are invested 
 in the names of trustees, to give me an income to starve on 
 if I ever go ' bung.' But there's going to be war, Mirabel 
 — do you understand that ? — war, a European war, perhaps 
 without England — I believe the Germans are reckoning on 
 that ! War, ruining everybody ! murdering myriads ! 
 deliberately arranged by the German War Party ! " 
 
 He was so disturbed' about it that he hardly remembered 
 the trouble of the scene which he had just witnessed. Mirabel 
 had not forgotten it, however.
 
 172 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I've nothing to say about it, Oliver, nothing ! I can't 
 realize it ! May I make my confession now ? " 
 
 " Your confession ? " he said, looking at her as if he was 
 too stunned to understand her. 
 
 " Yes, my confession ! I love that boy who's just left 
 the room." 
 
 He started violently. Knowing Archie's reputation, 
 knowing his history, in fact, he dreaded the worst from 
 this announcement. " Don't spare me, Mirabel," he said, 
 desperately. " Tell me right out ! let me know every- 
 thing." 
 
 " There's nothing to let you know," she said — " except 
 what I have told you." 
 
 " Nothing to let me know ? Surely love implies some 
 acts ? " 
 
 " Not in our case, beyond meeting each other very often, 
 and saying, and leaving unsaid, the same things over and 
 over again." 
 
 " Oh, Mirabel, do explain ! You can't think how awful 
 it is for me ! " 
 
 " Well, perhaps there is something to explain. Archie 
 is the ideal husband of whom I have been dreaming all my 
 life, and I am your wife." 
 
 " Does he love you as much as you love him ? " asked 
 Oliver in the same stunned way. 
 
 " More, I truly believe." 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do ? " he asked, " if you 
 have done nothing so f ar ? " 
 
 " Try and live it down," she said ; " there's nothing else 
 to be done." 
 
 " Is he trying to live it down, too ? " he asked, with faint 
 irony. 
 
 " He is — honestly," said Mirabel. 
 
 " Well, where do I come in ? What can I do ? " asked 
 Gray. 
 
 " Just beUeve in me, Oliver. Believe that I have been 
 absolutely loyal to my husband, and shall go on trying 
 my hardest. And if ever I fail for the moment, forgive 
 me, and know that I shall go on trying. I love him, Oliver : 
 I can't help it, but I hope that it will wear out in time." 
 
 " I'm glad that you've told me the truth, Mirabel. I 
 shall trust you, and if you fail, you need not mind my know-
 
 A DAY OF SURPRISES 173 
 
 ing. It will hurt horribly, but I'd rather know than be 
 deceived." 
 
 Mirabel gave him the kiss which she had denied to Archie. 
 She had no fears, alas ! of losing her self-control with Oliver. 
 She wished that she could ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE WAR BEGINS : HOW OLIVER GRAY JOINED THE ARMY 
 
 THE LOVER," as he was called in the Green Room 
 of the Babylon Theatre, was right. Though he was 
 an absurd-looking old party, with Francis- Joseph whiskers, 
 whom nobody in his leisure hours had ever taken seriously, 
 he was a king in the City. 
 
 After proper hypocrisy, first Austria and then Germany 
 gave the order, " Full steam ahead." Great Britain was 
 hurried into war before her cranks had time to organize 
 meetings. They could not hire the Queen's Hall and the 
 Albert Hall, because they were booked up for concerts of 
 German music, and nowhere else could they decide the 
 national interests of the country. There were scenes of 
 the wildest patriotism at the Babylon Theatre every night. 
 The audience roared itself hoarse over biographs about the 
 war. This was only natural, because the Babylon was the 
 favourite pleasure-resort of dashing soldiers and their 
 chums in civil life. If recruiting sergeants had been sta- 
 tioned at the entrances, as the audience streamed out, they 
 might have made a good haul among the pit-ites. Possibly 
 many of them did enlist on the following day. 
 
 One person in the theatre, at any rate, was serious in liis 
 patriotism, and that was the proprietor, Oliver Gray. He 
 thought that there was only one thing a man could do, under 
 the circumstances, and that was to go and fight for his 
 country. So, having among the principal patrons of his 
 Green Room a hoary Major-General in the War Office, 
 named Finch-Cocks, he applied to him for aid in getting 
 a commission. The General, happening to preside over 
 some department of the Royal Artillery, put in an applica- 
 tion for a commission for him in that branch of the Service. 
 
 Other young men, with more influential backing, snapped
 
 174 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 up all the commissions in the Royal Horse and Royal Field 
 Artillery. Ohver Gray had to be contented with a com- 
 mission in the Royal Garrison Artillery, which would have 
 weighed heavily on his spirits if he had not determined to 
 do his duty in whatever capacity the Government were 
 wilhng to use him. As it was, it was some time before his 
 apphcation was considered. The wheels of the War Ofhce 
 grind slowly, and generally with exceedingly small results. 
 
 " Ohver," said Mirabel one Sunday night, about a month 
 afterwards, " I suppose you couldn't get away to join the 
 Army, without upsetting the whole business, and throwing 
 hundreds of people out of work ? " 
 
 " I hope it isn't as bad as that," he said, " because I sent 
 in my application the very day the war appeared in the 
 newspapers.'* 
 
 " Oh, Ohver, I am glad ! " she cried, without a thought 
 of how it might affect her own living. " I was hoping you'd 
 do this ! I don't see how any man of the fighting age could 
 bear to do anything else. When war is declared, they ought 
 to run to arms just as the settlers run to arms in the back- 
 woods when their scouts see the Indians coming ! I should 
 hate a man of mine not to come forward ! Of course Archie's 
 a soldier already, though I don't suppose the Guards will 
 leave London — they're sort of toy-soldiers, aren't they, for 
 providing the King with guards of honour ? I expect that's 
 what the Beauties in our stalls go into them for ! " 
 
 " I believe that's what they are recruited for, but in most 
 of our recent wars we had to use them because we were 
 short of men, and they generally came in for the hottest 
 fighting, and always showed themselves the finest Infantry 
 in the world. But we shall have to raise such a lot of 
 soldiers for this war that perhaps they'll be left at home for 
 their proper job." 
 
 " Oh, I hope they'H send them out," she said. " The 
 Aristocracy of England don't do much in time of peace, 
 except enjoy themselves, so one wants them in time of war 
 to throw back true to the military caste, from which families 
 like ours sprang. I hope there won't be a Douglas of the 
 proper age who is not fighting." 
 
 " Archie will go to the front if he gets half a chance," said 
 Gray. " He's a true Douglas." 
 
 " Thank you for that, OUver ; it comes well from you."
 
 HOW GRAY JOINED THE ARMY 175 
 
 " If it wasn't for the people it would throw out, I'd shut 
 the theatre down as fast as the notices could go out. In 
 the time of war I think there ought to be nothing but war 
 — I think it's an outrage, having places hke the Babylon ! " 
 
 " I don't agree with you ! When men aren't fighting, they, 
 want as bright and merry a change as possible. I should let 
 the comedies and musical comedies and music-halls go on, 
 full blast, and should only shut down the tragedies and the 
 Dean of St. Paul's." 
 
 " Anyhow, Mirabel, I am glad that you approve of my 
 going ! You couldn't get Lord Douglas, or any friend of 
 Lady Douglas's, to hurry things up at the War Office, could 
 you ? " 
 
 " I don't think he's very popular there : he's an out-and- 
 out Lord Roberts man, who's been agitating for National 
 Service, and finding fault with every War Office official ever 
 since Lord Roberts started ! But Janet might know some 
 actress who could pull strings at the War Office." 
 
 " Like my old Major-General ! I'm sorry that nothing '11 
 satisfy me except fighting. I believe I could do more good 
 with holding open-air services of the Babylon Company in 
 favour of recruiting. And even then, there might be nobody 
 to take the names of the recruits. I hear there are lots of 
 men who have been waiting as long as I have, though they 
 only want to enlist as Tommies. The authorities want as 
 many men as they can get, but they can only take a certain 
 number of names down each day, because they try and 
 take the recruits for the whole of London in three or four sheds 
 the size of bathing-machines ! If they turned the job over to 
 the theatre-managers, they could manage a million smoothly. 
 But the people they employ arc better suited to be registrars 
 of births and deaths in a country parish ! Oh, the whole 
 thing tires me ! Everything depends on the Fleet. I don't 
 see how the Army can ever be ready." 
 
 Two nights later — it was on Tuesday* — in a long yellow 
 envelope, he received a notice informing him that he had been 
 appointed a Second-Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison 
 Artillery, and that he was to report himself at Woolwich as 
 soon as possible. Enclosed was what looked like a washing- 
 list, but was in reality a list of the clothing allowed to each 
 officer on active service, which made no allowance for the 
 clothes ever being washed, it was so meagre.
 
 176 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Graj' got the letter towards the end of the first act, and 
 knowing that Mirabel did not appear till a quarter of an hour 
 after the curtain had risen in the second act, he did a thing 
 which he had never done since she came to the theatre, and 
 which was flat against his promise. He sent a note to be 
 handed to her when she came off the stage. " Can I come to 
 your dressing-room for a moment ? I have something im- 
 portant to tell you." 
 
 She sent back a message at once : " Miss Douglas says 
 ' Yes, certainly.' " 
 
 He knocked at the door. 
 
 " Come in ! " said the soft voice. " Come in, Oliver," she 
 said, as he appeared at the door. " How do you like my 
 arrangement of the room ? " 
 
 As she had had it done by the same firm as decorated her 
 house, and a lofty screen across the room concealed every 
 detail of preparations for dressing, and left the front part a 
 delightful Oriental lounge, it seemed a great pity that no 
 visitor had ever entered it but Archie that once, and Old Mac. 
 
 " Ripping ! " he said. 
 
 " It was Paula's idea, having a divan, so that I could rest 
 whenever I was not wanted on the stage, though she's never 
 seen the place. Try it, won't you ? You may just as well 
 be comfy while you're talking ! " 
 
 The gracious words — her whole manner — showed that she 
 was condoning the breach in the compact, that she knew that 
 he would not have broken it without good reason. He handed 
 her the letter ; she sat down beside him to read it. 
 
 " George, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond 
 the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India, etc. 
 
 " To our Trusty and well-beloved John Gray, Greeting. 
 We, reposing a special Trust and Confidence in your Loyalty, 
 Courage, and good Conduct, do by these Presents Constitute 
 and Appoint you to be an Officer in Our Royal Garrison 
 Artillery, from the sixth day of September, 1914. 
 
 " Given in Our Court at St. James's, the fifth day of Sep- 
 tember, 1914, in the Fifth Year of Our Reign, by His Majesty's 
 Command. 
 
 " John Gray, Second Lieutenant, 
 " Royal Garrison Artillery."
 
 HOW GRAY JOINED THE ARMY 177 
 
 With this he received orders to provide himself with the 
 uniforms and equipment laid down in the schedule enclosed, 
 and to report himself at Woolwich as soon as possible. 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, I am glad i " she said, when she had finished 
 reading it, and added quickly, " Glad for everything, except 
 losing you 1 I do like you awfully in every other way, and 
 you have been so loyal." 
 
 He made a movement to rise. 
 
 " No," she said, " my dresser won't be here for another five 
 minutes ! Stay and talk till she comes, if you've nothing 
 better to do." 
 
 " I'm glad to do that," he said simply, " because I hope to 
 get to Woolwich by Friday, and goodness knows how long it 
 will be before I shall see you again." 
 
 " Oh, you're sure to have some chance of seeing me between 
 this and then ! " 
 
 " Do you mean it, Mirabel ? " 
 
 " Of course I do ! " she said, and her graciousness meant 
 even more than her words, to which she gave a touch of 
 flippancy to hide feeling — " till you go the Sunday rule is 
 suspended, like the free-list. And, Oliver. . . ." 
 
 " What, dear ? " 
 
 " Miss Mirabel Douglas is going to do what she has never 
 done before — allow herself to be kissed in her dressing-room." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 HOW MIRABEL TRIED TO REALIZE HERSELF 
 
 WHEN Oliver Gray had been at Woolwich a few da\-s 
 he was informed that he would be transfered with 
 two other subalterns and a small draft of men to Westernport 
 on the Monday week. 
 
 In spite of the chastening effect of Paula's presence, Mirabel 
 was so affectionate to Gray on those two Sundays before he 
 went down to Westernport that Paula said to her, when he 
 had bid a long good-night, and left on the first Sunday : 
 ■' Why don't you marry him, and have done with it ? " 
 Partly because she was afraid of betraying the fact that 
 she was already married to Gray, if she started trying to 
 defend herself, partly because she thought that it would be a 
 
 12
 
 178 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 good opportunity to let Paula know her ideals about marriage, 
 Mirabel said : 
 
 " I should like to marry a man with whom I can be abso- 
 lutely in love, and who would be willing to devote our lives 
 to the pursuit of happiness and beauty, as the ancient Greeks 
 did." 
 
 " My dear, I don't think that you have read much about 
 the ancient Greeks. It is true that they devoted their lives 
 to the pursuit of happiness and beauty ; but they did not do 
 it with their wives, whom they locked up in something not 
 very different from a harem, while they went for intellectual, 
 as well as other enjoyment, to the hetcercB, the geishas of 
 Ancient Greece." 
 
 " Did they ? " said Mirabel. " I hate them ! " 
 
 " There's nothing to hate about them," said Paula. " Their 
 wives controlled the establishments for carrying on the 
 family, and the hetcerce, the ' companions,' who would not 
 have done this efficiently, served to amuse them." 
 
 " I don't believe it ! The Greeks, if anybody, knew that 
 beauty is truth — truth beauty." 
 
 " I'm sure they didn't," said Paula. " The Spartans used 
 to kill ugly children. And you stultify that pretentious 
 falsehood in your own life — ^Truth is Oliver, and Beauty is 
 Archie ! " * 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Paula. " Your whole behaviour convinces 
 me that Oscar Wilde's saying that ' it is better to be good- 
 looking than it is to be good ' is far truer than the 
 other." 
 
 " You have no conscience, Paula." 
 
 " I hope not ! Conscience is only another name for moral 
 cowardice — unless it's your sort of conscience ! " 
 
 " And what is that, pray ? " 
 
 " Conscience is the Pharisee's excuse ; and Phariseeism is 
 mostly a form of egotism." 
 
 " I am a Pharisee, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I never doubted it. You wouldn't keep Oliver in torture 
 if you weren't." 
 
 " I'm sure that there isn't a person in the whole theatre 
 who would lay want of kindness to my charge ! " 
 
 " It's easy to be kind to people who don't count ! You 
 need not consider whether you are spoiUng them, for one thing,
 
 MIRABEL REALIZES HERSELF 179 
 
 and it has no consequences to yourself, for another. You 
 know that you daren't be as kind as you want to Archie ! " 
 
 " It would not be right," said IVIirabel. 
 
 " I know," said Paula. " A person who takes a high moral 
 tone has no right to be happy. Prevention is better than cure, 
 and insight is better than foresight ! " 
 
 " All this talking does not affect the fact that I want to 
 do what is right." 
 
 " I shouldn't have thought it ! " said Paula. " You want 
 an excuse for doing what you like : to do right in your case 
 is as easy as falling off a tree ! " 
 
 " Do you mean that I'm to fall, and marry Oliver ? " 
 
 " I didn't say that it was falling : I said that it was as easy 
 as faUing." 
 
 " I don't see the difference." 
 
 " Well, if I said that you were as good as married to Oliver, 
 it would not be the same thing as saying that you were 
 married to him." 
 
 Mirabel blushed to the very roots of her hair. Could 
 Paula suspect ? At all events, she must try and appear not 
 to take the hint. She took refuge in woman's time-worn 
 answer to an unanswerable argument. 
 
 " I think you're very rude ! " 
 
 " I should think it an honour to be married to Oliver, my- 
 self," said Paula. 
 
 " It may be— but that isn't the question which concerns 
 me. My life is a sacrament." 
 
 " If you asked me, I should say that ever since I have 
 known him, Oliver's life has been much more of a sacrament 
 than yours ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, he consecrates his hfe to you, and you don't 
 consecrate yours to anything." 
 
 " I consecrate it to my art." 
 
 " You only do your level best for it, and I'm sure that 
 Topsy Perks does her best — such as it is. You don't fast or 
 get up at three in the morning to do spiritual exercises for it, 
 which even the laziest monk does for his religion. I am afraid 
 that I don't see the sacrament in it, unless doing exercises 
 to perfect your figure, when you come home tired from the 
 theatre, is a consecration ! " 
 
 " Put it in another way— I am tr^dng to realize myself. 
 
 12*
 
 i8o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 You know the saying — ' the reaUzation of oneself is the prime 
 object in Hfe.' " 
 
 " I know the saying well enough. 1 know where you got 
 it from — my shilling Oscar Wilde calendar. But you 
 haven't seen the meaning of it." 
 
 " And what is the meaning that I don't realize ? " 
 
 " What you have to realize is the object for which you were 
 born. There is a function which each class of human being 
 can do better than others. We authors call it the message. 
 You will excuse my saying that I don't see what your message 
 has been so far, except to facilitate the turning of history into 
 musical comedy. Tell me— I'm not trying to be funny — what 
 you think your message is ? I hope it isn't to wreck poor 
 Oliver's life ! " 
 
 " What's yours ? " said Mirabel, at a loss for an answer. 
 
 " To shrivel shams," said Paula promptl3^ 
 
 A gleam of humour, such as did not often illuminate 
 Mirabel, saved her. 
 
 " I think it must be : you've completely shrivelled me I " 
 
 Paula laughed, too, but she proceeded : " Talking of life, 
 Mirry, I don't consider that you do live — Lord Douglas lives, 
 but you only exist, and you spend the portion of your existence 
 which is at your disposal in trying to avoid committing 
 yourself ! " 
 
 Mirabel winced so distinctly that Paula noticed it, and 
 said, " I think I'd better stop, because I don't want to hurt 
 you — I'm only enjoying an argument." 
 
 " Oh, go on," said Mirabel. " I'm very interested, though 
 you do ' get me on the raw,' as Archie says, every now and 
 then. How does Jim live, if I don't ? " 
 
 " Because, recognizing that he has not sufficient ability 
 to make hunself felt in the House of Lords, he makes his 
 political influence felt by putting himself at the head of 
 movements which precede legislation." 
 
 " I see," said Mirabel, as if she did not see. 
 
 " But, Mirr)^" said Paula, and her voice grew fuU of affection 
 as she said it, " don't think that I am making light of your 
 being so serious on the subject of your marriage. In your 
 profession, especially, people don't give half enough fore- 
 thought to their marriages, and a girl who is as beautiful as 
 you, and has such prospects, cannot be too careful about her 
 marriage. I only think that to give it so much forethought
 
 MIRABEL REALIZES HERSELF i8i 
 
 is rather cruel to Oliver, who is a great deal more worth 
 marrying than Archie, even if the marriage is not such a 
 splendid one. You are arresting his development by keeping 
 him on probation so long, when he has reformed splendidly. 
 It is not natural for such a man to be kept on tenterhooks for 
 a woman's whims. It is natural for him to continue his 
 reformed life, and he will do it — but it's not natural for him 
 to behave as if he did not want to marry you, when he is dying 
 to marry you. This pretence is as unfair as it is foolish." 
 
 " I want to live my own life," said Mirabel, reciprocating 
 the sudden change in Paula's tone so little that she spoke 
 almost sullenly. 
 
 " In other words, you want to be thoroughly selfish about 
 it!" 
 
 " I can't love him." 
 
 " Then why are you so affectionate to him ? " 
 
 " So as to send him away happy." 
 
 " Why not do it genuinely ? " 
 
 " I have tried hard, but I can't do it." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Paula, " perhaps absence will make the 
 heart grow fonder ! It's a pity you're such a good actress." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 ROUND TABLE FORT AND FIRST DAYS IN THE ARMY 
 
 THE midnight express to Westernport was nearing its 
 destination. Gray and the two subalterns who 
 were with him, Peter Worboys and Tom Young, had merely 
 turned in their sleep and grunted when the train banged 
 into Exeter, and pulled up with a sudden jerk and clanging 
 in the early hours of the morning. At Plymouth it was 
 dayhght, and there was so much turning-out of officers from 
 their own sleeping-carriage that in self-defence they got up 
 and dressed. 
 
 There was not much " express " after that, and it was 
 well on towards mid-day before they got to the newly- 
 created Cornish fortress of Westernport, which had a bay 
 like Torquay, and a many-branched estuary like the Dart. 
 
 Their destination was the Island fort known as Round 
 Table, supposed to have been the site of King Arthur's palace, 
 
 /^
 
 1 82 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 but which doubtless got its name from the fact that it was 
 a high round rock with a fiat top, with galleries cut in its 
 cliffs which, in the days of muzzle-loaders and round shot, 
 was a practically impregnable fortress. It lay off the 
 entrance to the bay, at the head of which, at the mouth of 
 the river, stood the considerable watering-place of Western- 
 port, where Gray and Mirabel had spent their honeymoon. 
 
 Westemport gave them a welcome, for there was an R.E. 
 Captain at the station, named Chaster, who announced 
 that he had come to see them and their draft over to the 
 Island, and a couple of sappers, who came to wheel their 
 luggage across to the quay on the R.E. lorry, in case they 
 could not find an outside porter. 
 
 " There is a duty-boat here now," he said, " unless you 
 want to get anything in the town before you go, in which 
 case you'll find another one at half-past five. If you have 
 anything to get, you'd better get it, because you'll only 
 have leave every third day, and if it's rough the boat may 
 not run on your day. One of you'll be enough to take the 
 draft over." 
 
 Gray at once volunteered to do this ; but Worboys, 
 obedient to his instincts — one of which was always to taJke 
 a good thing when he was offered it — thought there were 
 a few things which he had better get, one of which was a 
 whisky, and persuaded Young to accompany him. Gray 
 was not sorry ; Captain Chaster and he were so nearly of 
 an age that they were hkely to be better company without 
 these two recently-hatched school-boys. Captain Chaster 
 did not conceal his pleasure in making Gray's acquaintance. 
 Gray did not, of course, give him any clue as to his identity, 
 but Island forts are confined ; and the officers at Round 
 Table were mostly very young, or oldish men who had left 
 the service and come back to it for the war. The Major, 
 for instance, was a man of sixty, and the R.A. Captain was 
 an oldish man for his years. There was no Adjutant, and 
 there were no Infantry officers except subalterns. 
 
 Up to this, the only real companion for Captain Chaster 
 had been the Doctor, a young Edinburgh specialist. 
 
 When they reached the Island, an orderly came up to 
 Captain Chaster, and said, " The Major's compliments, sir, 
 and would you take the new officers up to see him when 
 they arrive ? "
 
 GRAY'S FIRST DAYS IN THE ARMY 183 
 
 The Major, a jovial country gentleman, who had been 
 out of the service for twenty years, came down to the steps 
 of the Mess to meet them. He, too, was evidently im- 
 pressed with the new addition to his officers, asked him 
 into the Mess to have a drink, and enquired if he played 
 picquet. 
 
 " Everything, sir," said Gray. 
 
 " Well, Gray," said the Major, " I'll try and make things 
 as easy for you as possible, but, of course, if you've only 
 just joined — and I understand that it is the case " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You'll have to acquire your Infantry-drill as well as 
 the business of an Artilleryman, and that means drill, drill, 
 drill at first. But we shall make things as unirksome as 
 possible." 
 
 Even without the hint which had been conveyed to him 
 at the instance of General Finch-Cocks, he would have been 
 inclined to let Gray down as easily as possible, as a man of 
 position, who ought to be spared ridiculous situations. 
 
 " I'm quite ready to go through anything that's necessary 
 to make me efficient. Major — my one desire is to be a good 
 soldier, and to be of as much use to my country as I can." 
 
 " Heavens ! I wish there were some more of you," said 
 Major Hyslop. " The one desire of most of 'em seems to 
 be to go ashore ! " 
 
 Then he looked round the Mess-room, and seeing the 
 rather senior subaltern who had charge of the Infantry on 
 the Island, he called out to him, " Primrose, I want to intro- 
 duce Gray," and he added sotto voce, when the Infantryman 
 came up, " Gray is in the unfortunate position of having 
 only just joined, and needing to be taught everything. I 
 want you to do as much as you can towards teaching him 
 the Infantry-drill. He isn't quite the man one cares to see 
 a sergeant handling like an ordinary recruit." Having 
 whispered this, he introduced them, " Mr. Gray, Mr. 
 Primrose." 
 
 Primrose, a pleasant, stolid man, who was a great golfer, 
 said pleasantly, " I'll look after him, sir. I'll show him his 
 quarters if vou like, sir. What quarters have you given 
 him ? " 
 
 " Well, there's only one single room vacant, and I suppose 
 you will like a single room, eh, Gray ? "
 
 1 84 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I don't mind, sir," said Gray. " I am out to take what 
 comes." 
 
 "That's a right spirit," said the Major, "but I think 
 you'd better have it. Show him to it, Primrose, will you ? 
 No. I." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You'll have what comes if you take that room," said 
 Primrose, when they got outside. " He doesn't know why 
 it's vacant — a large room like that, when everybody wants 
 a single room. He's never seen it, because it's opposite the 
 Sergeant's kitchen, and he doesn't like being thought to 
 pry. He's a nice chap, but so indulgent that he needs a 
 good sharp Adjutant to look into things. Over in the town 
 there's the wife of one of our Sergeants, who has the vegetable 
 contract for the whole Island. She does us rather well, 
 but her husband's the man who has to check the supphes 
 as they come in, so it might work very badly." He stopped 
 suddenly, for they were opposite the Sergeant's kitchen. 
 " Where's Poison ? " he asked. 
 
 " Here, sir," said a big fine gunner, coming forward. 
 
 " Is No. I open ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; mind the water." 
 
 No. I was one of the largest " quarters " in the fort, but 
 half the room was wasted, because it was flooded with sea- 
 water. Whenever it was rough the sea came in, and its 
 habits were so notorious that no ofhcer would have it, and 
 Poison had not even taken the trouble to remove the lagoon 
 left by the last storm. 
 
 " The inner part of the room is dry, though, I believe," 
 said Primrose, " but unless you're very particular about 
 having a room to yourself, I shouldn't take it." 
 
 " I daresay I should get over the sea coming into the 
 room," said Gray. " But I don't want to be alone and keep 
 up my civilian habits : I want to be with other people and 
 pick up the run of things." 
 
 " Very sound. Well, if you'll go back to the Mess, I'll 
 nose round, and find where there is a bed vacant. It's 
 pretty tight quarters, when you have about four hundred 
 men in a place that was built to hold forty. I sometimes 
 feel as if I was on board ship." 
 
 The Mess was empty when Gray went in. He picked up 
 a pile of old Tatlers to pass the time, and the first thing he 
 
 1
 
 GRAY'S FIRST DAYS IN THE ARMY 185 
 
 noticed in them was a portrait of Mirabel, labelled " The 
 Aristocracy in Musical Comedy— Miss Mirabel Douglas, 
 cousin of the Earl of Douglas." A paragraph underneath 
 told how he had discovered her. He felt thankful that 
 they had not finished up by giving his portrait underneath it. 
 
 Primrose did not keep him long. He said, " There's a 
 bed in Mitchell's quarters, and a bed in Charlton's, and 
 one of you three will have to take ' Sea-view.' " 
 
 " Well, I don't mind, if it worries the others. I'm pretty 
 hardy, and I've had a lot of wet work. We'll wait and 
 see what they say." 
 
 " All right. I'm afraid I must leave you. It's almost 
 lunch-time, and I must go and see my fellows dismissed." 
 
 " Are they drilling ? " asked Gray, in surprise at Prim- 
 rose not being there if they were. 
 
 " Yes," he said. " There's only enough of them for a 
 Colour-sergeant to handle." 
 
 " Don't you superintend things yourself ? " asked Gray. 
 
 " Of course, I have a look at them every now and then." 
 
 " Well, don't bother about what the Major said about 
 me, if you wouldn't be there naturally. I shall find m>- 
 legs all right." 
 
 " Oh, if I've got you and the yearUngs to look after, I 
 shan't mind being there," said Primrose, who was as 
 innocent of guile as Nathaniel. " Only I get fed up with 
 listening to the Colour-sergeant putting the Tommies 
 through. I want to fall him out and drill him in his h's." 
 
 Just before lunch was served. Captain Chaster brought 
 the Doctor up to introduce him to the newcomer. The 
 Doctor recognized the type of man he was at once, and the 
 Doctor was a civilian who was only just getting into Army 
 ways himself, and wanted to do what he could for a fellow- 
 victim. 
 
 After enquiring what Gray had done about quarters, he 
 said, " He'd better take that other bed in our room, Chaster." 
 
 " Yes," agreed Chaster warmly, and added, to Gray. 
 " It's a tight squeeze — just bet.tcr than being in a tent, 
 that's all. But we can look after you." 
 
 " I shall be most grateful," said Gray, " but I shall be 
 crowding you two chaps out. I'm sure that third bed is 
 never used, and you're only doing it out of kindness." 
 
 " Kindness to ourselves," said the Doctor, who was a
 
 1 86 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Scotchman. " If there had been four of you instead of three 
 in this draft, we should have had our third man, willy-nilly, 
 and the same if another man comes along now." 
 
 " Well done, Heriot ! " said Chaster. " Will you come, 
 Gray ? " 
 
 " Only too thankful ! " he said. 
 
 When lunch was over Gray said to Primrose, " What 
 time shall I be wanted ? " 
 
 " Oh, we shan't trouble you to-day : you'll want some time 
 to settle in." 
 
 " I shan't want any time to settle in : all my worldly 
 belongings are packed into a uniform-case and a hold-all." 
 
 " Well, I'm damned ! " said Primrose. " Of course, you 
 can have an outing, if you're looking forward to it. The 
 squad starts at two ; I'll take you to it." 
 
 In storming an enemy's trench you could not have wanted 
 a better Regimental officer than Robert Primrose. He 
 had never seen fear, and he had the swift presence of mind 
 in anticipating and getting out of a trap which a great 
 batsman shows at cricket. He was hardy, he was cheery, 
 he was thoroughly unselfish in danger, but you could not 
 persuade him to take preparations seriously. His men 
 could entrench as little as they liked when they went to 
 France, as far as he was concerned — in fact, it is not certain 
 whether he would not think entrenching cowardly. He was 
 a stupid bull-dog, was Robert Primrose, but with all the 
 magnificent courage and tenacity of the breed. 
 
 He went with Gray to where the squad was drilling, partly 
 from noblesse oblige, partly because he had told the Major 
 that he would. 
 
 " Colour-sergeant," he said, calling him aside, " the Major 
 says that you are to treat Lieutenant Gray with considera- 
 tion. He isn't a duffer who wants letting down easily — 
 nothing of the sort ; he's very keen. You know what the 
 Major means." 
 
 " Yes, sir — I've got to remember that he's an officer." 
 
 " Precisely," said Primrose, knowing that the Sergeant 
 was given to lapses in this direction, though he was a very 
 good instructor. Then he went back to Gray, and the 
 Colour-sergeant accompanied him, and saluted. 
 
 Gray, with rehearsals in his mind, proceeded to say exactly 
 the opposite to what Primrose had said. " If you make me
 
 GRAY'S FIRST DAYS IN THE ARMY 187 
 
 learn my job in double-quick time, I don't care how you 
 treat me," was the effect of what he said. 
 
 The Colour-sergeant, who was a poor sort of man apart 
 from his proficiency at his job, took good stock of the cut 
 of Gray's uniform. He was the man whose wife contracted 
 for the vegetables ; he knew money when he saw it, and he 
 said, " Begging your pardon, sir — if you want to get on 
 very quickly, you'd better let me give you an hour's private 
 every day, and put it into practice when we're drilling." 
 
 Gray jumped at the idea, and Primrose took leave of him 
 very cordially, before he was compelled to witness any other 
 overt act of foolishness. 
 
 " The chap's a regular mug ! " he said to himself. " But 
 what a ripping chap ! " 
 
 Although the Colour-sergeant, with prospective fees in 
 his mind, was almost unpleasantly respectful to Gray, the 
 great manager could not help feeling a sad fool while he 
 was going through his rehearsal, so much worse than the 
 rest of the squad, wlio happened to be Tommies of about a 
 month's training. The only thing which cheered him was 
 that he saw that any fool could do what they were doing with 
 sufficient rehearsing — that it was all a matter of training and 
 habit. 
 
 Half an hour later Primrose came back, and calling to the 
 Colour-sergeant, asked him in a voice inaudible to the squad. 
 " Well, what do you make of him ? " 
 
 " The best recruit I ever had, sir " — which, of course, was 
 absolutely true, because when a man of Gray's intelligence, 
 accustomed to the most accurate drilling of the stage, makes 
 the British Infantry drill the object of intense study, he 
 deserves to succeed. 
 
 " Come and have a whisky and soda, Gra}'," said the 
 CO. of the Infantry at Round Table. " Tlic Colour- 
 sergeant gives an Ai report of you ! " 
 
 " I'll come and have a cigarette with you if I may." said 
 Gray. " I never drink between meals." And, of course, 
 in his position he would have been a corpse bj' this time 
 if he did. Having whiskies with the patrons was one of 
 Old Mac's duties and perquisites. They had no more effect 
 on him or his health than cigarettes, and he consumed them 
 as other men consume cigarettes. They made him no more 
 affable or quarrelsome than he usually was, and as every
 
 1 88 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 arrangement he made was subject to Gray's veto, it did 
 not signify how affable he was. 
 
 A httle before six o'clock the duty-boat brought in 
 Worboys, who had been enjoying himself very much, and 
 Young. Gray met them at the slip, and brought them up 
 to the Mess. 
 
 "Hallo, old man ! ■' said Worboys. "It" (he meant 
 Westernport) " isn't a bad little hole ! " 
 
 " No, I think it's a very good place," said Gray, who had 
 made it his headquarters for yachting one summer, and 
 on another occasion had spent the loveliest month in his 
 life there. " It's about the prettiest place in England, you 
 know." 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of that," said Worboys, quite frankly. 
 " I meant that it's fairly lively for its size." 
 
 " Lucky, isn't it ? " said Gray. 
 
 " Yes," said Worboys, " it makes a lot of difference to a 
 chap when he's suddenly got to give up London, and all 
 which that means ! " 
 
 It was difficult for the owner of the Babylon, sick at heart 
 at having to leave Mirabel, to refrain from a good-natured 
 smile ; but noblesse oblige saved him, and he said, " I'll just 
 take you up to the Major for a minute, if he's in his room, 
 and ask him about your quarters. Which of you two chaps 
 is senior ? " 
 
 " I am," said Worboys, as complacently as if he had a 
 further term of service to his credit, whereas, in point of 
 fact, he was only senior to Young by the amount that W 
 comes before Y, they having been gazetted on the same day. 
 
 Gray felt sorry to think what a much better impression 
 Worboys, with his fine physique, would make on the Major, 
 than Young, who really had brains, and might develop into 
 a brilliant officer. 
 
 The Major, however, was not in his office. He was lying 
 down. But he had left word that the new officers were to 
 select their quarters, and report themselves to him at Mess. 
 
 Worboys was so pleased with " Sea-view," which he 
 instantly accepted, that Gray knew that it must have some 
 extrinsic merit in his mind, and when he got him alone he 
 asked him. 
 
 " Can't you see, my dear chap," he said, " that it's on the 
 ground-floor, and the sea-wall ? You've only got to tip 
 
 i
 
 GRAY'S FIRST DAYS IN THE ARMY 189 
 
 the sentry, if there is one, and then you can skip ashore any 
 night you want to, if you arrange to have a boat lying off ! " 
 " I shouldn't like to get into a boat off those rocks " <;aid 
 Gray. 
 
 " When I'm out for it," said Worboys, " I don't mind 
 anything." 
 
 " I expect you'll find it harder than you think," said 
 Gray. 
 
 " I haven't thought it out yet," said Worboys, " but 
 anyone could see the possibilities of that room." 
 
 " Except when I have any business to take me ashore, you 
 can have my leave as well as your own, if you promise not to 
 try," said Gray. 
 
 " It wouldn't be the same thing," said Worboys, who was 
 still suffering from the Fifth-Form spirit. 
 
 Day after day the man whose opportunities of seeing life 
 had made him the envy of the first four rows of the stalls at 
 his theatre, could be seen plodding conscientiously through 
 his Infantry drill, first with the sergeant-major alone, and 
 then with the squad or — at his own request — with the 
 recruits who had been selected for punishment. Day after 
 day you could see him taking the same pains over his gun 
 drill. He was glad to drill as much as ever he could, not 
 only because he learned his work, but because it prevented 
 him from thinking, and made him tired enough to sleep on 
 his days for sleep and drill. The longing for Mirabel made 
 it easy for him to keep awake every third day, M'lien lie had 
 to spend twenty-four hours in the Battery Commander's 
 Post, watching out to sea for the enemy. 
 
 He missed nothing else. Now that he had a woman wlioni 
 he really loved, and had known the happiness of married 
 life, he was glad to be away from that auction-room of 
 beauty, the Babylon Theatre. Its wliole atmosphere, of 
 beautiful women hunting for money, and the dissipated 
 wealthy hunting for beauty, disgusted and distressed him. 
 Even Mirabel, unapproachable and discreet as she was, could 
 not help the hot blasts of that impure atmosphere searing 
 her. Sometimes he reflected that it was a ridiculous attitude 
 for him to take up ; he made his living by the theatre, of 
 which these features were the special attraction, and if
 
 I90 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Mirabel had been like the other women whom he had loved, 
 she would have been the leader in every revel. 
 
 Mirabel unconsciously kept up the cult by her attentive- 
 ness, for though she could not contemplate living with him 
 without horror, she devoted a good part of the time which 
 she would have given to him on Sunday afternoons to writing 
 him a letter, and wrote during the week, too, whenever 
 she had anything particular to say. There was no romance 
 in the letters ; they were just news, very bright and amusing 
 news, over the collecting and writing of which time and care 
 had been spent. And there was always affection, though not 
 love, in the message with which they concluded. 
 
 In sending her his replies, which he was expected to 
 limit in number, he enclosed the envelope in another 
 addressed to his lawyers, who had instructions to send it on 
 by the next post. This was because he practically never 
 went ashore, and did not wish the postmaster on the Island 
 to notice how many letters he wrote to " Miss Douglas, 
 Bolingbroke House, The Mall, Chiswick." 
 
 The other officers on the Island were astounded by his 
 never wanting to leave it, but they had no objection to the 
 habit, because he was always willing to take anyone's duty, 
 even the arduous duty of the twenty-four hours' watch in 
 the Battery Commander's Post, which he found quite interest- 
 ing. Most of the officers regarded him as an amiable lunatic. 
 He never told them anything about himself to combat the 
 opinion, and they none of them bothered about his reason 
 for being so amiable, except Dr. Heriot, who, being a really 
 eminent medical man, and sharing a room with him, could 
 not help studying the pathology of the case. He could see 
 that some — to Gray — great event must be governing the 
 procedure of this young man's hfe, for he was not of the type 
 of the slave to duty, but rather of the class which combines 
 prowess in sports with skylarking. As a room-mate, as 
 a companion at Mess, he found him one of the nicest men 
 he had ever met. He knew that there must be some reason 
 why he should be sorry for him.
 
 MIRABEL'S BARREN DAYS 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 BARREN DAYS 
 
 THERE was something wanting in Mirabel Douglas's 
 life while Oliver Gray was away at Westernport. 
 
 It was true that she had Archie, with whom she was so 
 desperately in love. But platonic friendships are poor sport 
 for Puritans, especially when Plato has a mind hke a Punch- 
 and-Judy show, with Punch practical jokes and repartee 
 as its only manifestations of activity. 
 
 If Mirabel had been willing to have an affair with Archie, 
 she could, while her conscience was stunned, have been a 
 deliriously happy woman. Physically, it was not easy for 
 a human being to be more charming than Archie ; he made 
 love adorably. As a husband, licensed to make love to her, 
 she would have found him completely satisfactor^^ 
 
 Paula was quite right when she said to her : " By all the 
 rules of the game, you ought to marry Oliver Gray ; but for 
 your own happiness you ought to marry your Archie. What 
 you want in a husband is someone whom you adore, so that you 
 will be satisfied with his making love to you, without demand- 
 ing any other quahties in him whatever, except that he 
 should be a credit to you. I don't say that your Archie 
 would be a credit to you in the ordinar^^ sense of the word, 
 but he would take a first prize if they had shows for men like 
 dog-shows, and in the ordinary course of events, he will one 
 day be a first-class Earl. You couldn't ask more ! " 
 
 " I don't know where your judgment has gone to, Paula ! 
 I'm just as fond of the higher side of life as you are ! " 
 
 " You may be, but you don't want it from your husband. 
 You might, and I suppose would, go to it for consolation 
 when you hadn't got him ; but when you had him, the 
 higher life might go to heaven ! " 
 
 " A nice animal you make me out ! " 
 
 " Not at all ! You are very selective ; the man you have 
 chosen and won for a lover is physically as perfect as you 
 could want ; but you won't let him be your lover unless he 
 is your husband, because you are a Puritan by nature. If
 
 192 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 you married Archie, you would only turn your mind to 
 intellectual pursuits when you hadn't got him to play with. 
 Devotion to a husband is most respectable in a married 
 woman, but it is often a mighty poor comphment to her 
 intellect ! " 
 
 Mirabel felt very angry with Paula, but she knew that 
 she was telling her the truth. She wanted Archie to be her 
 husband, because she was in love with his physical charms. 
 But he could not be her husband, and she was much too 
 piuitanical to have a lover, so they were only beautiful 
 pictures to each other. That they were satisfied to remain 
 at this point spoke highly for both of them, especially for 
 Archie, who, at twenty years old, had already enjoyed a wide 
 experience of what may be accomplished by getting in the 
 thin edge of the wedge. 
 
 There was one prime difference between her and Archie. 
 He wanted to be left alone with her, and she dreaded being 
 left alone with him. She could feast her eyes on him and 
 laugh at his naivete quite well with Paula present, and as 
 Paula was so witty, and being shocked was with her a form 
 of flirtation, Archie was much more amusing if he had her 
 to stimulate him. At Bolingbroke House he might not have 
 a tete-a-tete except by accident ; it was only in his own home 
 that there was a reasonable probability of it. And Mirabel 
 was always on her guard, even there, because she was afraid 
 of herself. 
 
 But Archie was so genuinely in love that he endured all 
 things just to be in the society of his beautiful cousin. 
 
 At the theatre they had given up troubhng about her. She 
 was affable and unselfish in stage mattery and generous in 
 her subscriptions to the fund for helping the necessitous, 
 which was a feature of the Babylon. 
 
 People at the stage-door, as well as in the Company, had 
 left off attempting famiharities with her since her position 
 in Society became known, and very few tried to make 
 friends with her, since her tastes were so different. 
 
 Her position at the theatre with the pubhc rested on a 
 more sohd basis. Every time she appeared, with her voice 
 and her beauty and her simpatica, she was the popular ifiol. 
 
 On the whole, she was rather lonely. The people of whom 
 she really made friends were mostly among the authors she 
 met at Lady Douglas's, or in Paula's parties at their own
 
 MIRABEL'S BARREN DAYS 193 
 
 house. Only authors and artists were interested in her Ital}', 
 and artists do not travel so intelligently as authors, nor arc 
 they so intelligent to talk to. She did not make as much 
 progress with authors as she wished, because they were shy 
 of her. It was difficult for the ordinary author to realize that 
 the beautiful Miss Douglas, the star of the Babylon Theatre, 
 and belonging to the high aristocracy by birth, could be 
 interested in surroundings of plain Uving and high thinking. 
 Whereas, in reality she found plain surroundings restful after 
 the glare of the footlights and the splendour of Lanarkshire 
 House, and had dreamed like an author all her life. 
 
 Their parties became as brilliant as any in Bohemia. 
 Paula positively scintillated with wit and charm at their 
 success. But Mirabel soon began to find them Dead Sea 
 fruit, for Archie was only allowed to come to them on con- 
 dition that he devoted himself to other people. Mirabel had 
 to be hostessing, and did not wish their names to be con- 
 nected, as they certainly would have been if many chance 
 people had seen Archie as devout as he generally was. 
 
 It was not so bad for him as it was for her, because he had 
 the pleasure of looking at her, admired and courted by 
 everybody, and indifferent, as he knew, to them all. But 
 she had no time to look at him, since she was occupied with her 
 duties. 
 
 What she really missed Gray for most was that she could 
 allow herself to be nicer to him than she could to Archie. 
 He was her husband, and there was no fear of her losing her 
 head over him, while she was puritanically afraid of losing 
 her head over Archie. It would have been such a relief to 
 be able to let herself go a little. 
 
 Even her success at the theatre brought no excitement to 
 her. For it would lead to nothing more. She was already 
 an established favourite with the public, and already married. 
 She saw no reason why her hfe should be any different for 
 the next ten years. She had given up her hfe to her art — 
 and she found it becoming very like a hfe devoted to business. 
 She had, in fact, made a business success. 
 
 The fresh celebrities, when they came, were introduced to 
 Paula Maitland, the novehst, and the actress whose beauty 
 was in everyone's mouth. They found the novehst a most 
 charming and distinguished-looking woman, whose dresses 
 were inspirations, and whose conversation sparkled \nth 
 
 13
 
 194 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 wit and the play of fascinating features, and they remained 
 round her in a sort of court. 
 
 It was only very important people, like the greatest authors 
 and subaltern friends of Archie's who had made their acquaint- 
 ance at Lady Douglas's, who neglected her for Mirabel. 
 
 Her greatest admirer of all was a silent worshipper, Dr. 
 Cantelupe, Principal of the Royal Lyceum of Music, who 
 scribbled down her witticisms on his shirt-cuff. 
 
 " I've so little to say except when I have a strong motive 
 for speaking, that I don't see how you can be bothered with 
 me," he said to her one day. 
 
 " On the contrary, dear Dr. Cantelupe," rephed Paula, 
 " a really distinguished man who does not want to do any 
 of the talking is the best card a hostess can have in her 
 hand ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE C.S.A.S.A. AND THE W.R.O. 
 
 IF Mirabel had been a man, she would not have felt so 
 lost as she felt after Gray had gone down to Western- 
 port. But unfortunately women's fingers are so full of 
 instinct that they can work without the mind, and very 
 often without the sight, being devoted to what they are 
 doing. In common with others of their class, Lord and 
 Lady Douglas threw their wealth and time into various 
 schemes for performing services to their country, which the 
 Government failed to perform, chief among them the 
 C.S.A.S.A. and the W.R.O. , which they founded and to a 
 large extent financed. 
 
 The work which Lord Douglas had done on movements for 
 years past was of immense assistance in organizing these two 
 associations, because most of the people who had been asso- 
 ciated with him and Lady Douglas in these movements were 
 only too glad to help one whose co-operation had been the 
 making of their own societies. The C.S.A.S.A. was the 
 Crippled Soldiers and Sailors' Association, and the W.R.O. 
 was the Women's Recruiting Organization. 
 
 It was suggested to Paula, who, before she went to live 
 with Mirabel, had been a prominent member of the Women's
 
 THE C.S.A.S.A. AND THE W.R.O. 195 
 
 vSocial and Political Union, that she should get the right 
 women to help Lady Douglas to form a Women's Recruiting 
 Organization. 
 
 Paula chose helpers of two classes : half of them she drew 
 from the W.S.P.U. — women who were good organizers, 
 and (except where, like Mrs. Pankhurst, they had already 
 taken a notably patriotic part in recruiting) women who 
 before the war had not alienated public opinion by their 
 extremeness ; the other half she drew from the stage, and 
 them she obtained through Mirabel. 
 
 Mirabel was filled with dismay when Paula suggested 
 that she must obtain them. 
 
 " But outside of my own theatre I hardly know a single 
 actor or actress to whom you or Janet have not introduced 
 me, Paula ! " 
 
 " That does not signify in the least," said Paula. " It is 
 easy for you as leading lady of one theatre to write to the 
 prominent actresses at other theatres, and ask them to join 
 Lady Douglas's committee for a national cause ; everyone 
 of them will accept. They are very public-spirited — 
 they like pubhcity." 
 
 Mirabel was astonished by the cordiality of their replies ; 
 most of them wanted her to have lunch or tea with them, 
 and talk it over — ^partly to make her acquaintance, because 
 they were so interested in a woman who had stepped straight 
 into the position of leading lad}', and been more than success- 
 ful in fining it. Nor did it diminish their interest that she 
 was on the footing of a daughter in the houscliold of such 
 a very great lady as her cousin. Lady Douglas. Those who 
 knew her welcomed the opportunity of getting to know 
 her better. Her reputation for straightlacedness was 
 useful. 
 
 What leading actresses could do in a Woman's Recruiting 
 Organization was not at first apparent to Mirabel, but when 
 she discovered that entertainments were at the root of every 
 meeting, she understood, and to her greater surprise, found 
 herself one of the chief assets. 
 
 The women of the W.R.O. set about recruiting as if it 
 was a series of charity concerts. They gave grand variety 
 entertainments, at which the Actresses' Committee provided 
 the performers, male and female, all over the country. In 
 between the items of the programme, recruiting speeches 
 
 13*
 
 196 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 were delivered by clever woman-orators, who showed great 
 quickness in seizing on the idiosyncrasies of the audience. 
 
 They called for recruits at the meetings ; they called for 
 local war-workers at the meetings ; and organized the plans 
 for the local canvassing, for which a swarm of the wounded 
 who were too crippled for other employments were told 
 oft". These men who had been crippled in battle for their 
 country pleaded the need for recruits and munitions more 
 eloquently than anyone else could have done, and were 
 assured of a welcome everywhere. Both they and the per- 
 formers were paid a fair wage. It was only in London that 
 the stars who gave performances without payment could 
 appear, and did appear, frequently — no one more frequently 
 than Mirabel, whose voice and beauty made her almost 
 the greatest draw, especially with the wounded men, who 
 were helping in the entertainment. She longed to recipro- 
 cate by telling them that she had a husband a soldier. She 
 never felt so warmly to Oliver as on these occasions. 
 
 Though Lady Douglas's and Paula's and Mirabel's days 
 were not so eaten up as those of the secretarial staffs, they 
 led days busy and active, as they had never led before. 
 Only those who have conducted a great war-movement can 
 know how crowded their days were. 
 
 Lord Douglas was equally busy at the C.S.A.S.A., seeing 
 the visitors whom the General Secretary considered it useful 
 that he should see — ^visitors who came to offer help of one 
 kind and another, and who took it as a comphment that he 
 should see them in person. He was useful, also, in calling 
 on pubhc officials who had to give permissions or facilities 
 for the work of the Association. But, gradually, as the 
 immense usefulness of the Association manifested itself, his 
 personal interference was less and less needed. The sub- 
 scriptions came in automatically, and it was only occasion- 
 ally that he had to make personal appUcation to any official. 
 
 As time drew on, seeing that he was not seeking for the 
 kudos which accrued to him from the success of the move- 
 ment, he sought fresh opportunities for usefulness, and 
 found them in taking charge of one of the Government 
 Remount Depots, for which he was very suited, having the 
 double experience of a cavalry officer and a breeder and 
 owner of race-horses, who had won most of the great racing 
 events in his time.
 
 THE C.S.A.S.A. AND THE W.R.O. 197 
 
 It was characteristic of him that no matter how long his 
 day at the Remount Depot had been, he always looked in 
 at the C.S.A.S.A. on his way home, to do any work which 
 needed his personal attention. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 THE STORM : AND AN ANGEL's VISIT 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE, 1914, fell on a Thursday. Major 
 Hyslop was sitting in his httle office in the Island 
 fort, which naturally, for observation purposes, faced sea- 
 wards. The windows were rattling, like an express train. 
 Spray was whipping the panes hke a hail-storm, for the 
 sou '-wester was blowing great guns, and the leaden sea and 
 leaden sky were indistinguishable. 
 
 An officer was knocking at the door. 
 
 " Come in ! " said the Major, when at last he heard him. 
 
 It was Second-Lieutenant Gray. " I came to know if 
 I might go ashore and stay over Christmas, sir ? Inglis 
 will do my duty to-morrow, so I shan't be wanted till nine- 
 thirty on Saturday." 
 
 " Well, you are a peculiar young man ! " said the Major. 
 " You've been here more than a month, and only been ashore 
 two or three times at the outside. What on earth made 
 you choose a day like this — ^the very worst I've known since 
 I came to Round Table ? " 
 
 " The same as before, sir — I have somebody down from 
 town to see me." 
 
 " Can't you wait till to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I don't want to, sir." 
 
 " It won't be particularly safe." 
 
 " I don't mind that, sir. I am quite prepared to take 
 any risk there is, but I don't think there is any, except, 
 perhaps, at the slip." 
 
 "I'm sure the skipper will think it too risky," said the 
 Major. " He often does when it seems quite safe to me." 
 
 Gray smiled, but preserved silence ; he knew how much 
 the skipper's timidity was worth to him when some of the 
 choice spirits among the officers were ashore. As a man 
 who had done a deal of yachting, he knew that the skipper 
 need never have been frightened for his tug. but sliould
 
 198 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 have been a great deal more frightened than he was some- 
 times about letting men put off from the steamer when she 
 came to the point where she anchored. The shp might 
 have been safe in almost any weather for a properly-manned 
 naval cutter with a rudder and a coxswain ; but with pro- 
 miscuous boats, manned by Tommies, even when they had 
 a man steering, which was seldom, there was considerable 
 risk in landing, and still more in going off, when they took 
 flying jumps from the slip into a boat which was already 
 rather overloaded. 
 
 In bad weather, if he was not on duty or asleep after his 
 watch, Gray generally went down to superintend the men 
 getting off, and to prevent accidents. He was so careful 
 that he was almost suspected of having too great a respect 
 for the sea. 
 
 The Major gave his permission. " What address will find 
 you if you have to be recalled ? " he asked. 
 
 " The King Arthur Hotel, sir," replied Gray. He expected 
 to be staying at the Club, but he knew that he would be in 
 and out of the King Arthur a good deal, and could tell the 
 porter to take a telephone message. 
 
 The boat was due at one, and long before twelve Gray 
 was ready to go ashore, and gazing out of the Mess-room 
 windows, which looked across the bay to Westernport, to 
 see if he could discover any signs of the tug coming round 
 the spit at the mouth of the river, on which the town stood. 
 From time to time he opened one of the windows for a minute, 
 to train his glasses on the point, but the weather was too wild 
 to leave it open. 
 
 There was not the faintest sign, and towards one o'clock 
 he went back to the Major's office and said, " The boat's 
 not coming, sir, and it's very important for me to get across. 
 May I telephone to the yard for them to send over a tug for 
 me ? " 
 
 " I'm very sorry, Gray, but I've no authority to incur this 
 expense." 
 
 " I don't want you to incur any expense, sir. I'm quite 
 willing to pay for it myself — it's so important for me to 
 get across ! " * 
 
 " They will make you pay through the nose." 
 
 " If they do, they must, sir, but I don't think they will : 
 I've had dealings with them before, when I . . ."he did not
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 199 
 
 say what he was going to say, but changed to, " I suppose 
 you didn't know, sir, that I hold a master-mariner's 
 certilicate ? " 
 
 " No, I'm sure I didn't ! Well, under those circum- 
 stances, if you think it's safe, I've no objection to your 
 chartering a tug to come over for you." 
 
 " As soon as she can get up steam, sir ? " 
 
 " Any time." 
 
 Gray went first to the telephone and arranged for them 
 to send a tug as soon as possible — and another message to 
 the King Arthur Hotel, and then went back to the Mess and 
 said, " Is there anyone who wants to get ashore ? " He 
 had half a dozen eager answers. 
 
 " Well, as our old duffer of a skipper does not want to 
 set any inconvenient precedents, there's a special boat coming 
 over for us^a sea-going tug, as soon as they can send her." 
 
 " Have you seen the water on the slip, Gray ? " asked his 
 Captain — Roger Amory. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, it's no earthly good the steamer lying off for an 
 hour and a half yet — no small boat could live there now." 
 
 " Well, I shall go," said Gray, " because I've made an 
 appointment." But the others, except Worboys, who went 
 for devilment, cried off. There had been some very nasty 
 shaves at that slip in weather not so bad as this. 
 
 "The slip's the dangerous place — there's no doubt of 
 that," said Gray. " I'll just go and 'phone to the skipper 
 to bring a proper boat and a picked crew to take us off." 
 
 " Pretty calm for a sub. who hasn't been in the Service 
 four months ! " said Jenkins, one of the men who had cried 
 off. 
 
 " Oh, shut up, Jinks ! " said the Captain. " Can't you 
 see that the fellow understands what he's about ? I thought 
 it must be that when I saw him trying to knock some fear 
 of the Lord into the Tommies over their antics with the 
 boats ! " 
 
 When Gray returned, he gobbled down a huge plateful 
 of homely shepherd's pie, while he kept his eye on the window. 
 He had chosen the seat which commanded the best view. 
 
 Presently he cried, " There she comes ! It's the Storm - 
 cock, that does the lifeboat work— I know hor rig ! " 
 
 Most of the men who were at lunch put on their mackin-
 
 200 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 toshes and hurried down to the sh"p to see them off. When 
 they got there the tug had come about as near as she could 
 venture, and had lowered a boat, rowed by four sailors, with 
 an old salt at the helm. When the boat came within hail, 
 he called out, " You'll have to be very careful, Mr. Gray, 
 and look very slippy ! You must be ready to jump it as 
 the wave carries her up, for the backwash will have her 
 back before you can say crow ! " 
 
 " I know, Yabsley," he cried, and turning round to 
 Worboys, said, " I'd better jump first — I'm accustomed to 
 it," and he called to his servant, " Make that hne I gave 
 you fast to the handles of my suit-case — it might go into 
 the water if the boat lurched." 
 
 It certainly looked rather terrifying, and the Mess stood 
 watching with the deepest interest and a growing respect. 
 
 " Now then, Yabsley ! I'm ready ! " he cried, going as 
 far down the slip as the sea would let him. 
 
 The coxswain waited for the right wave, and then said, 
 " Let go, lads ! " 
 
 The boat leapt under them, and ran up almost to the 
 top of the slip on the lee-side. 
 
 " Now, sir ! " called Yabsley, and Gray took his jump, 
 landing clean, and his servant tossed the case in after him 
 with such a fine insouciance, that he was almost dragged in 
 after it, by holding on to the line too long. 
 
 The backwash carried the boat right out, and she had to 
 wait for another suitable wave. When she swept up on 
 the next big wave-crest, Worboys jumped. But he had 
 not Gray's skill and experience, and, landing badly on a 
 thwart greasy with seawater, he lost his footing and fell. 
 It was touch and go whether he fell overboard or not, but 
 two of the men had let go their oars, which were lashed, 
 and were on the watch to help him, and they caught him 
 safely in their strong arms, and stood him on the bottom of 
 the boat till the backwash had carried it out to a steadier 
 place, and it was possible for him to scramble aft to where 
 Gray was sitting. 
 
 One or two subs, stayed a few minutes to watch the tug 
 pitching. It had a curious sort of fascination for them. 
 The others went back to the Mess to go to sleep, or play 
 auction-bridge, or read the papers or write letters — in fact, 
 to get through an afternoon, which they had expected to
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 201 
 
 spend ashore, in a poky little mess, which had not even 
 a billiard-table. 
 
 The tug, though she kept burying her nose in green seas, 
 shook them off merrily, and was soon at the quay of the 
 outer basin of the Government dock, where troops and 
 stores were shipped. The quay was roofed over all round 
 the basin, except for a strip a few yards wide round the 
 water. Under this roof, to take shelter from the violent 
 driving rain-storm, was the figure of a woman, which made 
 Gray's heart leap with joy. 
 
 It was a straight young figure, though its grace was buried 
 in costly furs, and Worboys thought that the face was the 
 most beautiful he had ever seen. He had certainly never 
 seen any woman's mouth so lovely when it smiled, or such 
 glorious eyes. 
 
 When Gray had stopped a minute to ask the skipper to 
 send the bill to him at the Island, and to give Yabsley some 
 money to divide with the boat's crew, he gave his suit-case 
 to one of them, and flew up the steps. 
 
 She hurried forward and held out her hand. But her 
 lips did not utter a sound. She smiled all she had to say. 
 
 Worboys stood a few yards off, a sturdy-looking boy in 
 his fleecy pink cocksparrow " British Warm " overcoat, 
 much perturbed in his mind as to whether he ought to hurry 
 off, or wait for Gray till he had done speaking to his friend. 
 
 "When Gray had got over his spasm of excitement, he 
 perceived him, and said, " Oh, Mirry, I want to present Mr. 
 Worboys, who is in my company — Mr. Worboys, Miss 
 Douglas." 
 
 Mirabel, gave him her hand and smiled her welcome, and 
 then turned back to Gray, " Well, Jack, what leave have 
 you got ? " 
 
 Jack ! That was enough for Worboys. He hastily said 
 good-bye and fled from the fiances, as he supposed they 
 were. 
 
 " Over Christmas — to be exact, I have to go back liy the 
 9 a.m. duty-boat on Saturday." 
 
 " Where are you going to stay, Jack ? " she asked. She 
 called him Jack, his real name, instead of the naiuc by 
 which he was always known in town, because they had 
 settled between them before they said good-bye at her 
 house, when he went to Woolwich, that she was never to
 
 202 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 use the name Oliver in her letters, or before any of his Army 
 friends, because in the Army he did not wish to be identified 
 with the proprietor of the Babylon Theatre. It was having 
 to give his proper name, John, when he was attesting, which 
 put the idea into his head that it might be possible to keep 
 his identity undisclosed. 
 
 So far he had been successful. 
 
 " Where am I going to stay ? " he said. " Well, I shall 
 take a room at the Club — it's only just round the corner, 
 and it's the general place for our chaps to stay when they 
 are ashore, because it's so much cheaper than a hotel. I 
 always like to do what the others do." 
 
 " Of course, you'll take your meals with me at the hotel ? " 
 
 " What do you think ? " 
 
 At this point the man who had carried the suit-case ashore 
 came back to say that he had put it in a taxi. 
 
 Gray thanked the man and turned to Mirabel. " Now, 
 let me drive you to the King Arthur ! " 
 
 She smiled her thanks. 
 
 The man led the way to the taxi, and received his tip, 
 and in not much over a minute they were at the hotel. 
 
 While he was seeing Mirabel into the hotel, he left the 
 suit-case with the porter ; he could easily get the page to 
 carry it round to the Club when he was ready to go there. 
 
 Then he rejoined Mirabel. " Where shall we sit ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " In my sitting-room — I've got a suite." 
 
 The King Arthur, in spite of its absurd exterior, supposed 
 to represent an Arthurian palace, had charming suites, com- 
 manding a view of the bay. 
 
 When the lift had taken them up to the third floor, which 
 she had chosen for the sake of the view, she led the way to 
 her suite. 
 
 " And now, Mirry," he said, when they had seated them- 
 selves — she in the bow of the window, where she could look 
 out on the great seas rolling in past the Island, and he farther 
 back in the room, where his eyes could dwell on the lovely 
 shape of her head, silhouetted against the light, " let me 
 hear to what I owe this, the greatest windfall I ever had 
 in my hfe ! " 
 
 " To going to the front, of course. Directly I got your 
 letter saying that you were ordered to the front on New
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 203 
 
 Year's Day, I determined to come down and spend Christmas 
 with you. I got Old Mac to let my understudy take my 
 part to-night." 
 
 " He must love you dearly," said Gray grimly. " He 
 keeps a very tight hand on the sick list." 
 
 " Oh, he does ! But for one thing, he knows that I never 
 ' try on,' as he calls it ! " 
 
 " Well, Mirry, you can't tell how enchanted I am ! " 
 
 " I wanted to see you, too." 
 
 " Did you really ? " 
 
 She answered with the affection in her eyes. 
 
 " I didn't think you cared for me enough." 
 
 " You must not think because I don't feel able to live 
 with you that I have not appreciated the generosity and 
 chivalry and devotion which you have showered on me ! 
 I have given you full credit for all these, and I like you as 
 much as one can like another as a friend, but you wanted 
 something that I could not give, so I have never been able 
 to show you what friends we were." 
 
 " It is balm and manna to my soul to hear this ! " 
 
 " I don't suppose that I should ever have told you this 
 if you had not got your orders. But when it is war, and 
 your friend is off to the trenches, from which, unless he is 
 wounded or invalided home, under the most favourable 
 circumstances he has little hope of returning till the war is 
 over, one has to confess the truth or else for ever after remain 
 silent. I felt that I must come down here, and make this 
 confession to you." 
 
 " It was just ripping of you, Mirry ! " 
 
 " So I wrote to tell you that I was coming, and not wishing 
 to go to the Bungalow where they know that I am your 
 wife, took rooms at the King Arthur. I drove straight to 
 Paddington from the theatre, when the performance was 
 over last night." 
 
 " Did Paula know that you were coming ? " 
 
 " Heaven forfend ! She'd think that I was going to 
 elope with you at the least, if she knew that I was coming 
 to Westernport ! For of course she knows all about your 
 being here, and would be bound to put two and two togetlier." 
 
 " Where did she think you were going ? 
 
 " To stay with Lord Douglas, the ' elderly relative ' whom 
 she imagines to have bought and furnished my house for me."
 
 204 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " But what about your letters ? " 
 
 " I told her to do nothing about them, as I should only be 
 away for a short time. I knew I should not be getting any 
 letters from you, the only ones which mattered." 
 
 " Wliat time did you get down here ? " he asked. 
 
 " Just before I telephoned to you." 
 
 " And how long has Old Mac given you ? " 
 
 " Only till Saturday morning. We have a matinee in the 
 afternoon." 
 
 " That would mean your going up on Christmas night, and 
 I've got leave till the following morning. That'll never do. 
 Besides you won't get any good from the change unless you 
 have three or four days in between the two long railway 
 journeys. I'll wire to him : ' Miss Douglas will not be back 
 from the country till Tuesday's performance ; she has my 
 permission.' " 
 
 " How lovely ! Can you be over here all the time ? " 
 
 " No, I shall have to go back by the 9 a.m. duty-boat on 
 Saturda}^ morning, and I shan't get any more leave, because 
 I have to go and lie down till twelve when I come off duty 
 on Sunday morning, and I'm on duty again from lunch to 
 dinner." 
 
 " Westernport will be rather dull without you." 
 
 " Tell me that you think so really ! " 
 
 " Well, do you imagine that I should have come all this 
 way if I had not thought so ? " 
 
 " My dear, I never dared to contemplate such a thing ! " 
 
 They looked at each other in silence for a little. Then 
 she said, " I was terribly afraid that I should have to do 
 without you to-day, when I saw what a sea there was on ! 
 I told the porter that I was expecting a friend over from the 
 Island, and asked him what time the officers generally got 
 over. He told me that he was sure that the duty-boat would 
 not put out on such a day." 
 
 " She didn't. I had to charter a tug," 
 
 " Oh, Oliver . . ." 
 
 " Jack ! " 
 
 " Oh, Jack, it was just like your extravagance to hire a 
 whole steamer rather than break your word to a woman ! 
 And it needed some pluck, too, to come over in such a sea ! " 
 
 " Only at the landing-place on the Island. The rest was 
 chUd's play."
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 205 
 
 " Well, it didn't seem like child's play to me. I thought 
 it looked terribly rough ! " 
 
 He shook his head. " A bit wet, that's all — in a sea-going 
 tug." 
 
 " There, now I know what a risky passage it was ! " 
 
 " It wasn't, really." 
 
 But she was not to be convinced. 
 
 Tea-time came. It was bliss for the lover, who had been 
 longing for Mirabel as a wife all these weeks, to have tea 
 in her rooms with her. He had the intuition not to besiege 
 her with attentions. He had his reward when she said after 
 tea : " It isn't raining much. Would you like to take me 
 for a walk round some of our old landmarks, before it gets 
 too dark, Jack ? I suppose they ' dowse the glims ' at 
 night here." 
 
 " Not very badly — we're too far from Zeps." 
 
 " Then we can stay out for a bit after lamps are lighted," 
 she said, taking his arm confidentially when they reached 
 the palm-garden in the shallow land-bay between the hills 
 which ran down to a bluff over the sea-road here. 
 
 Gray would barely allow himself to recognize the change 
 in Mirabel's demeanour ; it was too good to be true. But 
 he told himself that it sprang from a sort of pity — pity 
 hardly to be distinguished from the feeling which every 
 nice woman has for the wounded. He was wounded, 
 wounded in the spirit, by her. 
 
 But the hand on his arm was a very human one. And 
 he, of all men, knew a woman's human touch. For in the 
 days when he was using his power at the theatre to demand 
 the favours of the beautiful women in his employ, the women 
 who were selling themselves to him for promotion, usually 
 fell in love with him as they grew to know the charm of 
 his nature. He had received even more of what they called 
 " the glad eye " from the women of his theatre since Mirabel 
 had become his leading lady, and his chief object in life had 
 been to win a restitution of conjugal relations, for now no 
 woman had to seek to avoid his attentions ; though some 
 felt under the necessity of attracting them. 
 
 That Mirabel, charmingly as she behaved to him in pubhc, 
 was on the main question adamantine to him. was no new 
 feature in theatrical life. Heartlessness is part of the 
 armoury of a leading lady. At Bohngbrokc House, though
 
 2o6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 there was no change in her resolution, she had let him enjoy 
 a very pleasant friendship, when she found that he could 
 keep off the tabooed subject. The necessity of maintaining 
 tliis restriction was foreign to Mirabel's nature, which was 
 to be sunny to everyone with whom she was brought in 
 contact. That sunniness had even tempered the ill-feeling 
 with which she was regarded by the women who had ex- 
 pected to get the place which she occupied. 
 
 In that amphitheatre between the hills, favoured by the 
 soft Cornish climate, they had reproduced with the hardy 
 dracaena palms the famous palm-avenue in front of the 
 gaming rooms at Monte Carlo. A feeling of home and content 
 came over Mirabel, for she and her father had generally gone 
 for the coldest months in the year to Monaco. Her father 
 hated Monte Carlo itself ; "At Monte Carlo the whole 
 population are waiters," he said. 
 
 It was strange that her mind should have harped on 
 her life in the South, where her family were more or less 
 exiles with a narrow horizon, when now, at the age of only 
 twenty-three, she was rich and famous and popular, and 
 had realized most of her ambitions. But do what she might, 
 her heart was in the South, and the sight of the palms and 
 the sea gave her the light-heartedness of the old days, when 
 she kept the Gaetani and Orsini princelings at bay with her 
 laughing wit, before she had made the marriage which robbed 
 her of her dreams. 
 
 " Jack dear," she said to him, hanging on his arm, " none 
 of them know it at the theatre, but I could not let you go 
 to the wars without coming to say good-bye to you. I 
 should never have forgiven myself if I had not come, and 
 anything had happened to you ! You have been so good 
 to me. And now that I have come, nothing will happen to 
 you : I am going to be your mascot." 
 
 As she said these words, which came to him as a thunder- 
 bolt, a flood of wild emotions and hopes surged through him. 
 Was his beautiful and adored Mirabel, who had changed the 
 whole current of his life, going to relent and give him some 
 hope at last ? 
 
 " You are a darling, Mirry ! " he said, " though I suppose 
 you will turn to an icicle again if I call you one ! " 
 
 " No, you can call me what you hke to-night ! I am in 
 the mood to be made a lot of." The soldier who would let
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 207 
 
 no weather keep him from crossing the stormy seas to his 
 love had obhterated the manager of the theatre. 
 
 As she said these words, they were leaning on the railing 
 of the verandah of the wind-shelter, which looked seawards. 
 The rain had ceased and the clouds were scudding away ; 
 their eyes dwelt now on the moon-tipped breakers on the 
 bay, now on the Oriental outlines of the Bungalow, down 
 by the sea, where they had spent their honeymoon. 
 
 He laid his arm round her waist. She did not seek to 
 withdraw it. The Admiralty had ordered the lights in the 
 Westernport wind-shelters to be extinguished, and the lamps 
 of the palm-walk did not reach to where they stood, gazing 
 out to sea. 
 
 " Mirry," he said in a low voice, and she turned her face 
 to his. Frank lips met his half-way, and she let his arm 
 remain round her waist as they walked down the dark, 
 zig-zag paths which led to the sea-road. 
 
 There the sea was still flinging its wild spray over the sea- 
 wall, but no longer reaching to the causeway on the inner 
 side of the road. 
 
 " Isn't it lovely ? " said Mirabel. 
 
 " Yes," said Gray. She meant the sea, and he meant 
 the walk, of which the sea had nearly robbed him. 
 
 They rambled round the sea-road back to the town, and 
 when they got into the streets again, she said : " Shall we 
 go back to the hotel now ? My feet are rather tired. I 
 should like to get my boots off." 
 
 " And I must telephone to the Club for a room." 
 
 When he had telephoned they took the lift, and went up 
 to her suite. Mirabel sank into the softest arm-chair with 
 a tired sigh. 
 
 " Shall I unlace your boots for you, Mirry ? " he asked. 
 
 " Do you mind ? It would be such a relief." 
 
 " Of course I don't." 
 
 She surrendered her slender feet into his affectionate hands 
 
 " Now tell me about your life. Jack," she said. 
 
 " Oh, there isn't much to tell ! I'm in the fort o\-cr on 
 that Island at the mouth of the bay, and I have only left it 
 twice before this — once to see my lawy-ers and once on a 
 Sunday, to see Old Mac. I'm tr>'ing dreadfully hard to 
 learn my new business, and I can tell you that it's jolly 
 difficult for anybody to whom it's all so totally new 1 "
 
 2o8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " What sort of things, Jack ? " 
 
 " Well, how should you feel if the Sergeant said to you : 
 ' A high barometer necessitates a minus correction, and a 
 low barometer necessitates a plus correction,' or expected 
 you to remember that the smallest screw in the smallest 
 gun you handled is called a screw-set-screw-securing-plate- 
 locking - bracket - containing - catch - retaining - lever - breach- 
 mechanism-open, when the whole tiling is under a quarter 
 of an inch long ? " 
 
 " What do you ask for when you want one ? " 
 
 " Well, it's such a standard joke that everybody knows." 
 
 " I should think I was going mad I But why are 
 you taught by a Sergeant ? Doesn't your commanding 
 officer " 
 
 " The Major ? " 
 
 " Yes, the Major — doesn't he do anything ? " 
 
 " It isn't his job, which is lucky, because it's a very long 
 time since he learnt it aU." 
 
 " What sort of a man is he ? " 
 
 " Oh, a dear man, with a jolly laugh. He has a round, 
 clean-shaven face and is as bald as an egg — the kind of man 
 we should have for the elderly mug, the deceived father, 
 and that sort of thing in musical comedy. He's a squire 
 with a fine estate, I beheve, who felt it incmnbent on him, 
 as an Englishman, to offer his services as soon as the war 
 began, but whom it would be criminal to send anywhere 
 where he had to dispose of men's lives in a sudden crisis." 
 
 " Is that Sergeant the only one who teaches you youngsters 
 your business ? " 
 
 " Well, the other officers do their bit in explaining, and 
 there's a Sergeant-major-instructor from the School of 
 Gunnery, who comes over every day. He's the only one who, 
 as young Avondale would say, gets on his hind-legs and 
 lectures." 
 
 At the mention of Arcliie's name a cold blast seemed 
 to pass through the room. But she gave herself a httle 
 mental shake, and brightened up again. 
 
 He noticed the chill, and came to the conclusion that she 
 must have quarrelled with Archie about something. 
 
 " And are you allowed to fire one of those big guns, or 
 give the orders which make it fired, or whatever you 
 do?"
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 209 
 
 " No, I haven't got so far as that yet. I only watch the 
 other officers doing it, with respectful awe." 
 
 " Oh, Jack, fancy you such very small beer, when you 
 have enough people for a regiment in your own employ, and 
 as much authority over them as a commander-in-chief ! " 
 
 " I'm a very ordinary person nowadays, Mirry ! " 
 
 " Except to me. Jack," she protested gratefully. " By 
 the bye, what's the time ? " 
 
 " Nearly seven." 
 
 " I thought it must be — I'm so dreadfully hungry. Do you 
 know what time you make me dine at home, you stem task- 
 master ? " 
 
 " Six, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Half -past five ! So are you surprised at my being 
 hungry when my dinner's already almost an hour and a half 
 behind time ? " 
 
 " Dinner at half-past five ! Oh, my lord ! " he said. 
 " And do I make a hundred people eat the finest meal of 
 the day six nights out of seven at that unearthly hour ? 
 I shall join that reform league for having theatres at half- 
 past five, so as to get the piece over before dinner. I believe 
 that most people honestly would like it better ; they could 
 dine in peace then." 
 
 " Well, run away and play at the Club for half-an-hour, 
 while I dress, and the waiter lays the table. I concluded 
 that you would rather dine in my rooms." 
 
 Gray tried to conceal his surprise by pointing out, while 
 he expressed his delight, the advisability of what she 
 was doing, because the dining-room might contain people 
 who recognized them both. 
 
 She was ready and wailing for him when he returned, for 
 he had taken the opportunity of going to one of Westernport's 
 winter florists and buying her a great bunch of scarlet roses. 
 
 She was wearing the most becoming cvcning-drcss in which 
 he had ever seen her, a severelj'-cut black, that accentuated 
 her dazzling beauty. The waiter could not help staring. 
 But she was accustomed to receiving the fire of eyes without 
 noticing it. She picked out one glorious blossom and pinned 
 it at her breast. 
 
 It was odd to find Gray not changed for dinner ; he 
 explained that in time of war officers do not wear mufti 
 or mess-uniforms. 
 
 14
 
 210 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " What a charming frock, Mirry 1 " he said, drinking in 
 her beauty as he looked at it. " How nice of you to wear the 
 frock I hked so much I " he said, when the waiter left the 
 room to bring in the soup. 
 
 She smiled gratefully at his recognition of it. "I found 
 the champagne which you drink on the wine-card," she said, 
 " so I had a bottle put on the ice." 
 
 " You shouldn't have ordered champagne for me, Mirry ! 
 To start with, it's only a drink for the wounded in war-time." 
 
 " I felt that a glass would be good for me, as I was so tired." 
 
 He had not expected her to be so tired. She always stood 
 the double performance on Saturdays remarkably well, he 
 thought. But he hated railway journeys himself. 
 
 She had ordered them to serve the ordinary table-d'hote 
 dinner, as she did not wish to attract attention, and did not 
 wish to take too much time over it. 
 
 While the waiter was clearing, she said : " You can smoke, 
 if you like. I did not order any cigarettes, because I could 
 not picture you smoking any but your own." 
 
 " On the contrary, I smoke everything with everybody at 
 the Mess — generally threepenny packets of Goldflakes, and 
 I^drink draught beer." 
 
 " Oh, my poor Jack ! " 
 
 " There's no poor about it ! I find that I like the simple 
 life — this form of it. I don't think I'll smoke till I go back 
 to the Club, Mirry, thanks, as you don't smoke." 
 
 " That's very considerate of you." 
 
 Mirabel had told the waiter not to bring the coffee till he 
 had cleared away the dinner. When he left them, she said : 
 " Bring up that little table to the sofa, in front of the fire. 
 Jack. It will be cosier." 
 
 She surprised him by recapitulating all that he had done 
 to advance her in her career, all the great pieces of considera- 
 tion which he had shown her — innumerable recognitions of 
 his generosity. 
 
 " There, you see," she said, " what you have done for me 
 has not been lost on me, though I have been able to give you 
 such a poor return for it. Some day, perhaps, my feelings 
 about our marriage may change, and I shall accede to your 
 wishes. But I do not feel that I can say yes yet, though 
 to-night I feel like clay in the hands of the potter. That is 
 affection for a dear, dear friend, who is going out to face the
 
 AN ANGEL'S VISIT 211 
 
 enemy ; it is emotional ; it is not the spontaneous surrender 
 of individuality which enables a woman to contemplate being 
 a man's shadow for the rest of her existence. Knowing your 
 past, Jack, I don't feel as if I could give up my life to you. I 
 fully believe that you are a reformed character, but you have 
 so many ghosts in your life — horrible, odious ghosts, of 
 beautiful bacchanals without an ounce of brains, like some 
 of the women I have to act with now, women whose inane 
 extravagances and vulgar idiocies you had to pander to if 
 you wanted to have their affections ! " 
 
 " I never cared for any of them like you, Mirry." 
 
 " I'm sure you didn't, or you couldn't have changed your 
 life so completely for one who could give you so little in 
 return. But the fact remains that the marriage you gave 
 me was not a book with clean pages for me to write my life 
 on, but at best like one of the palimpsests in our Ambrosian 
 Library — a manuscript written on parchment, from which 
 other writings have been removed by pumice-stone." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose my heart is one of those palimpsests, 
 though I have never heard of them before. But every bit 
 of the old writing has disappeared. Oh, I say, Mirry . . ." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " You might compare it to a second-hand book, instead of 
 one of those things. Try and think of me as a treasure you 
 have picked up at a bargain counter 1 " 
 
 " That isn't a bad idea, Jack ! If the book is a valuable 
 one, I don't think of microbes. And if you establish your 
 worth, perhaps I shan't think of the . . . microbes of musical 
 comedy ! " 
 
 " It won't be for want of trying, if I don't." 
 
 " And while I am here, I'm not going to remember anything 
 but your goodness and the debt I owe you. I want you to 
 carry to France with you a lively sense of the gratitude of 
 a woman who regards you as her best and dearest friend, and 
 who is about to give you a proof of it. Since >-ou arc off 
 to fight for our country, when the war is over I will try to 
 do what you ask when you return." 
 
 She leaned towards him on the sofa, on which they had 
 been taking their coffee, and kissed liini with the natural, 
 unashamed affection which a wife gives to her husband, the 
 gift of all others for which lie asked the gods. 
 
 14*
 
 212 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 HOW MIRABEL BECAME GRAY'S FIANCEE 
 
 THEY had breakfast in the coffee-room. Gray supposed 
 that if there were any officers staying in the hotel, 
 they would not be down at nine o'clock when they were on 
 leave, and he and Mirabel were having breakfast early so as 
 to get a country walk before lunch. 
 
 But if there were no officers there, the mischief could just 
 as effectually be done by the very pleasant-looking old lady, 
 with a youthful and smartly-dressed figure and hair whose 
 gold was only flecked with silver. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Gray ! " she called out cheerily, as 
 he came in from the Club a few minutes before Mirabel came 
 down. 
 
 " Oh, good morning, Mrs. Hyslop," he replied cordially, 
 though without feehng cheered. 
 
 But his experience stood him in good stead, and when 
 Mirabel made her appearance, he said to her : " That's my 
 Major's wife — may I tell her that you are my fiancee ? " 
 
 " Does she — does anybody here know that you are Oliver 
 Gray, Junior ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Then I suppose that it would be the best thing to do, 
 in case . . ." 
 
 He thought that he had better take the bull by the horns 
 before Mrs. Hyslop began to do any wondering. He had 
 found her a very nice old lady, in her pretty frequent visits 
 to the fort ; but a Major's wife who is very nice to a good- 
 looking subaltern of her husband's, while he is dancing 
 attendance on her at the Mess, may hft her eyebrows when she 
 finds him having a tete-a-tete breakfast with a beautiful young 
 woman, who is staying by herself at a hotel. So he walked 
 over to her table, and said : " Mrs. Hyslop, may I introduce 
 my fiancee to you after breakfast ? " 
 
 Mrs. Hyslop smiled two smiles, one outwardly, to accom- 
 pany a gracious assent, the other inwardly, in amused wonder 
 at whether she really was his fiancee. In the part of Wiltshire
 
 MIRABEL GRAY'S FIANCEE 213 
 
 in which Major Hyslop had his estate they called a spade 
 everything except a spade, and spades were very common. 
 Looking at Mirabel with her shrewd old eyes, she was not 
 in favour of the spade theory ; but if it was so, she was 
 prepared to be broad-minded, because Gray had been clever 
 enough to carry it off and include her in the party. 
 
 She was not, however, wanting in curiosity, and if the 
 girl really was his fiancee, she was ready to be interested in 
 her family. She looked as if she had a family. 
 
 " I'll come over and say how-do-you-do now," she said. 
 " Don't trouble her to get up." 
 
 But Mirabel was on her feet before they got to her. 
 
 " Mirabel, I want to present you to Mrs. Hyslop. Mrs. 
 Hyslop, may I introduce Miss Douglas ? " 
 
 As she had done her breakfast, they pressed her to sit down 
 with them. Her instinct told her that she would be de trop. 
 She was de trop, as far as their enjoyment went, but without 
 any signalling between each other, the inspiration came to 
 both of them that it might be a useful thing, if any other 
 military people came in who knew Gray, for them to be 
 basking in the company of his Major's wife. 
 
 They were so obviously sincere in their invitation that she 
 did sit down, and sitting there, her curiosity got the better 
 of her. Her husband being a squire of ancient lineage, she 
 had pedigrees on the brain. 
 
 " What is your branch of the Douglas family. Miss 
 Douglas ? " she asked. She could have rattled off all the 
 Douglas peerages without pausing to memorize them. 
 
 " I belong to Lord Douglas's family — I am a sort of cousin." 
 She said it purposely with the air of a very distant Scotch 
 cousin ; she wanted to convey the idea to Mrs. Hyslop that 
 she was descended from some remote Earl of Douglas, but that 
 the connection was so faint that it would not be recorded 
 except in her family pedigree, if that happened to bo in 
 writing. 
 
 " Lord Douglas is a very fine man," said Mrs. Hyslop. " I 
 wish he was taking his proper place in governing the country, 
 or leading our armies." His letters to the Morning Post. 
 breathing " the winter of our discontent," made much more 
 impression on her than reports of his speeches would have 
 made, if he had been in the habit of attending the House of 
 Lords.
 
 214 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Seeing that Mirabel made no response, she was sure that it 
 was a very distant Scots cousinship. Still, the girl was a 
 lady, and most charming. So when she had ehcited from her 
 the fact that her visit was to last till Monday, though her 
 fiance's leave expired at 9 a.m. on Saturday, she pressed her 
 to accompany her to the Island by the next day's afternoon 
 duty-boat. And then, knowing the value of a Ute-cL-tete 
 perfectly well, she left them. 
 
 It was the most ideal Christmas Day that Gray had ever 
 had. To begin by seeing Mirabel at breakfast, to have her 
 opposite him, pouring out his tea, just being together as if 
 they were an ordinary husband and wife, was a brilliant start. 
 The walk out to a village a few miles along the shore, where 
 the churchyard had a cross going back to the times of the 
 ancient Britons, and hydrangea bushes, as large as rhododen- 
 drons, still in flower, and the chinks between the stones of the 
 church were as full of Uttle ferns as they were of mortar, 
 enchanted Mirabel. It was almost Italy. 
 
 They came back with a monstrous appetite for lunch. She 
 had ordered the best lunch the hotel could achieve to be 
 served in her suite. 
 
 Mrs. Hyslop looked in vain for them in the afternoon, and 
 concluded that they were lunching at a distant inn. 
 
 The afternoon passed as an afternoon with a fianc^ back 
 from the front might have done. And so did the evening, 
 after a really wonderful Christmas dinner, still tete-d-tete. 
 
 " WeU, Mirry," said Gray, when the waiter had cleared the 
 table and given them their coffee, " this has been one of the 
 happiest days of my life ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid that I haven't done much — not as much as I 
 should have liked — for your entertainment." 
 
 " I don't want to be entertained. I simply want to look 
 at you." 
 
 " Perhaps it's a good thing that I'm accustomed to being 
 looked at, or I might be embarrassed." 
 
 " Don't let's fence," he said. " It's the kindest thing 
 you've ever done in your Ufe, to come down here and say 
 good-bye ! It bucks me up — I can't tell you how much ! 
 I can go to France with a hght heart now, now that I may 
 ' call myself your fiance.' " 
 
 " You only got that out of me by a trick." 
 " By a trick, Mirry ? "he said disappointedly.
 
 MIRABEL GRAY'S FIANCEE 215 
 
 " Well, at any rate, by a lucky accident ! But though I'm 
 not really your fiancee, I'll behave as if I was." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " Well, I'll let you see something of my writing every day, 
 for instance. It shall be a letter if I can manage it, and if I 
 can't, I'll write the direction on a newspaper." 
 
 " Oh, I shall just love that ! You can't think what it will 
 mean to me." 
 
 " I'm afraid that you'll be very disappointed with the 
 letters ; they won't be love-letters — I couldn't write a 
 romantic letter to save my Ufe ! And I don't know what I 
 shall put into them, unless ..." 
 
 " Unless what ? " 
 
 " Unless you'll let me write you a report of the theatre 
 every day — how things are going on, if there's anything you 
 ought to know." 
 
 " Well, of course, my dear girl, there's nothing I should 
 like so much ! It would make me feel as if you really are 
 going to be mine when the war is over, if you are keeping a 
 friendly eye on my affairs — our affairs — all the time." 
 
 " I'll do that. Jack," she said decisively. " I shall enjoy 
 writing if I have a sensible reason for it." 
 
 He thought she was insisting on this rather more than she 
 need have, but knowing her, he knew that it would make him 
 see the beloved handwriting every day, so he was thankful. 
 
 Since tJiis was her good-bye visit, and he had to go back to 
 the Island by the 9 a.m. duty-boat, she let him be as 
 affectionate as he wished, and was properly rcciprocativc, 
 though if no war had come to break the even current of their 
 lives, the barrier between them would have been as rigid as 
 ever. More marriages are made in war than in heaven. 
 
 After a while she shook off his lips, which had been softly 
 pressing that wonderful black hair where the golden lights 
 came into it, and laid her hand on his knee impulsively. 
 
 " Jack," she said, " how would you like Mr. Maccabaeus 
 to bring me the accounts of the theatre every day while you 
 are away, as he used to bring them to you wliilc \'ou wore 
 there ? Then I should have something rcallcr still to write 
 to you about." 
 
 " Well, of course, I should Uke it— for one tiling, though 
 I think Old Mac is as honest as the day, it could not do any 
 harm for him to know that they were going to be inspected by
 
 2i6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 an independent person every day. It would lessen the chance 
 of things getting out of hand," 
 
 " Well, what time will he bring them to me ? " 
 
 " Just whenever you please — ring him up from your 
 dressing-room and say what time suits you." 
 
 " Well, tell me a few things." 
 
 He was surprised at the number and character of the 
 questions which she asked, but very agreeably surprised. He 
 had not expected so much business acumen. And somehow, 
 the more practical they were, the more the barrier between 
 them seemed to be broken down. 
 
 Only one difficulty loomed up. Would she be able to 
 retain her balance of mind if Old Mac had to consult her in a 
 matter where the other women were concerned ? He deter- 
 mined to trust her — a woman's jealousy was not likely to 
 work more injustice than a man's favouritism. And as far 
 as he could make out Mirabel had no feeUngs about the other 
 women, so long as they did nothing outrageous before her. 
 She belonged with a vengeance to the new school, which 
 regards being engaged in a theatre exactly as if it were being 
 engaged in an office, and leaves the one behind it just as com- 
 pletely as it would the other, when the closing hour comes. 
 
 " Well, I'll send Old Mac instructions to do it." 
 
 Then their conversation grew more personal, for these were 
 their last hours together before he went to France. At nine 
 o'clock in the morning he would have to be on board the duty- 
 boat — ominous word. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 HOW MIRABEL VISITED THE MESS 
 
 MIRABEL was not going to see Gray off from the 
 quay. The morning after Christmas Day there 
 was sure to be a crowd of officers, and neither of them wished 
 to invite attention. 
 
 Her suggestion that he should breakfast with her in her 
 sitting-room, and say good-bye to her there, found more 
 favour in his eyes. 
 
 When he came into the hotel he had told the porter to have 
 a taxi ready for him at ten minutes to nine, and his suit-case
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 217 
 
 in it, but he kept it so long that he would certainly have missed 
 the steamer if the numbers returning from leave had not made 
 it shockingly late. 
 
 Mirabel had promised to stay till the Monday, partly because 
 Gray thought that the two extra days of sea-air would do lier 
 so much good, since she had aknost hved in the open air in 
 Italy, partly because he said that it would give huu pleasure, 
 for, though he could not see her again, there was nothing to 
 prevent him talking to her over the telephone from the 
 Fire-Control Post, where he would be on duty. The Fire- 
 Control telephone was in a sort of glass cupboard, in case 
 there was any telephoning to be done while talking was going 
 on in the post, but nobody could remember ever having seen 
 the cupboard-door shut ; military men are accustomed to 
 telephoning under difficulties. Gray's idea was to leave the 
 look-out to the sapper-corporal who was on duty with him, 
 and spend most of the day shut in that glass-house telephoning 
 to Mirabel. There was nothing to look out for — in those days : 
 no Germans were considered likely to come so far west as 
 Westernport. 
 
 But Mirabel was rather disturbed in her mind ; she was not 
 sure how far she ought to encourage Gray to spend the day in 
 telephoning to her. She had an idea that it would be more 
 honourable to go back to London, and place him out of the 
 reach of temptation. 
 
 So when Gray had gone, she went down to look at the 
 " Bradshaw " which was hanging from the telephone in the 
 hall ; there was a separate telephone in her suite, or that 
 would have settled the question, since for lovers' dialogue, 
 having one end of the Hne in the Fire-Control Post of a 
 Battery, is a sufficient handicap, without having the other 
 end by the porter's desk in the hall of the principal hotel. 
 
 While she was looking at it, Mrs. H}'slop came up to her. 
 She was an impulsive woman ; it was no affectation in her 
 when she said. " Fm so glad that you're not going away to-day 
 — you're so pretty that I like looking at you ! " 
 
 Mirabel tried to feel annoyed, but it was impossible. ^^ So she 
 guarded herself with saying, " But I am going back ! " 
 
 " No, don't ! Stay and cheer an old woman by having 
 your meals with her." 
 
 It was difficult to resist this offer, when she had already 
 made all her arrangements for retm-ning on Monday, so she
 
 2i8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 said, " Thank you, Mrs. Hyslop, very much indeed. That 
 offer of yours turns the scales — Mr. Gray wanted me to stay 
 here till Monday, for the change of air, but I dreaded the 
 loneliness of the meals." 
 
 " And you will see him again," said the Major's wife, 
 " because, you remember, we arranged that I should carry 
 you over to Round Table this afternoon." 
 
 " To where ? " said Mirabel. " Oh, yes, the Island ! I 
 never can fit it with its ridiculous name ! If they would only 
 call it The Round Table, perhaps I might." 
 
 They went for a walk in the town in the morning, and had 
 lunch together in the coffee-room, and a little before three, 
 though the sea was very rough for so low a tide, went down and 
 took the duty-boat to the Island. Mirabel had found odd 
 quarters of an hour to telephone to Gray both before and 
 after lunch, and informed him what was going to happen. 
 He told her that so far as he was concerned it would be no 
 good — that he was on duty all day, in the Fire-Control Post, 
 and unable to quit it except when he was relieved for meals. 
 But none the less, she fully expected to see him on the slip 
 at the Island when the row-boat, to which they had been 
 transfered from the steamer, landed them, not without 
 difficulty. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed, my dear, I shall find him," said Mrs. 
 Hyslop. " Ah, there's the Major— I'll tell him what I want 1 " 
 
 That was Mrs. Hyslop's view of fortresses. Her husband 
 was in command of Round Table, and she was in command 
 of him. He had been so accustomed to allowing her to 
 run his estate for the last twenty years, in order that he might 
 spend his time in slacking and sport, that he usually had no 
 initiative when she was present. 
 
 " Ponsonby," she said, " I want to introduce you to Miss 
 Douglas, young Gray's fiancee." 
 
 Mirabel felt inclined to jump into the sea. She was sure 
 that Mrs. Hyslop would multiply her indiscretions the whole 
 time that she was on the Island, and she wondered how she 
 was going to escape some little bird carrying the news from 
 the soldiers here to the soldiers in the front row of the stalls. 
 However, there was nothing to do but to go through with it, 
 and hope for the best, so she smiled on the Major, and said, 
 " How do you do ? " 
 
 The Major, who was a great admirer of the fair sex, though
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 219 
 
 he was not accomplished as a squire of dames, said he felt 
 better — he meant, better for seeing her, but she was so un- 
 prepared for it that she missed the point. It did not signify. 
 He always laughed at his own jokes. Both he and his wife 
 felt that they were creating an event for the Island, which 
 was not supposed to be visited by ladies, and they would 
 hardly have been able to contain themselves, if they had 
 known who Mirabel was in the theatrical world. 
 
 They took her into the Mess, and presented the officers 
 who were there. The ofiicers were very grateful for Mirabel's 
 advent, because Mrs. Hyslop expected every ofiicer who was off 
 duty to dance attendance while she was on the Island, and 
 Mirabel was the kind of woman upon whom soldiers like to wait. 
 
 Their expectations had also been inflamed by the reports 
 of Peter Worboys. This was evidently the girl whom he had 
 seen. Up to this his reports had been regarded as " fish " 
 stories. Worboys was not on hand to identify her, because 
 he had gone to his bedroom, and pretended that he was going 
 to sleep, when he heard that the Major's wife was coming. 
 
 " You mustn't be shy of my introducing so many men to 
 you," said Mrs. Hyslop kindly. 
 
 Mirabel smiled inwardly, when she thought of the four rows 
 of stalls, and wondered how anybody could be shy after that. 
 
 Mrs. Hyslop suggested that they should see the Island first, 
 and have tea when it was dark. 
 
 There was not much for a woman to see on the Island. But 
 she was shown the Mess, and the guns, and the armouries, and 
 the men's quarters, and the searchlight apparatus and, last, 
 but not least, the Fire-Control Post. 
 
 Mirabel was distracted, because she was shown the Firc- 
 Control Post last, and at each fresh point she had expected 
 to see Gray. She did not know what a Fire-Control Post 
 looked like, and was shy of asking if they had come to it, f(ir 
 an obvious reason. Gray had been aware of her presence 
 from the moment they left the Mess, because the F. C. P. 
 commanded a view of the rest of the Island, and the unusual 
 fluster had drawn his attention when he looked landwards. 
 
 He was overjoyed when at last he heard the liglit tread of 
 ladies' feet upon the stair. He was going to see Mirabel 
 immediately, when he had not hoped to set eyes on her any 
 more until he came back from France, whenever that might be. 
 
 Mrs. Hyslop, of course, went in first, and shook hands with
 
 220 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 him. " I've brought someone to see you," she said, beckoning 
 Mirabel in. 
 
 The corporal, looking discreetly through three-quarter-shut 
 eyes, thought that the officers had all the luck, and wondered 
 why the Major's wife should be showering such favours upon a 
 Second-Lieutenant who, to his knowledge, had not been four 
 months in the Service. 
 
 There was, of course, nothing to see in the Fire-Control 
 Post except the telephone and a telescope, and a sort of ledger 
 for the officer to make remarks in. But Mirabel felt in duty 
 bound to take such a keen interest in it that Mrs. Hyslop 
 suggested a return to tea. 
 
 Only the Major had accompanied them into the somewhat 
 confined space, and she felt that though pohteness confined 
 the attentions of Gray to her, his thoughts were with Mirabel. 
 
 " He can come to tea with us, can't he ? " she said to her 
 husband, indicating Gray, of course. 
 
 " Not until he's relieved, I'm afraid," said the Major. 
 " How long is it before you're reHeved, Gray ? " 
 
 " Half an hour and three minutes, sir." 
 
 " Who's relieving you ? " 
 
 " Worboys, sir." 
 
 " Worboys," said the Major, "is, I understand, in bed, 
 resting for his next watch ; it cannot be this reUef- watch ? " 
 
 Gray could not resist a smile. The Major's smile was 
 broader ; he, too, realized the method in Worboys' madness. 
 
 " Ponsonby," said his wife, " you don't take tea ? " 
 
 " No," said the Major. " What time are you going back, 
 dear ? " 
 
 " Not till after dinner." 
 
 " No, I don't take tea," said the Major. " I'll stay here 
 until Worboys comes." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, sir, so much 1 " said Gray. " It is good 
 of you I " 
 
 " No, it isn't — I haven't had a look-out to-day." He knew 
 that he would have to ' watch out ' for his wife if he did not, and 
 if she was going to stay for dinner, he would see plenty of her 
 charming friend, Miss — er — he had forgotten Mirabel's 
 name. 
 
 His wife and her charges went off to the Mess-room. There 
 was an excellent " roll-up " for tea. The British officer likes 
 his tea, with enough buttered-toast to need a cheese-cover,
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 221 
 
 and rumours had gone round the Island. Gray was natur- 
 ally very popular, for he was unassuming, and the most 
 generous man in the Island about taking other people's duty, 
 because he did not care to go ashore. If the girl who had 
 come with Mrs. Hyslop was really his fiancee, they wished 
 to do him the compliment of turning up to the tea. And as 
 she was so unusually elegant and well-dressed, and, according 
 to Worboys' report, was just as pretty as she was smart, it 
 was an occasion not to be missed on that dull old Island. 
 
 Tea went on with the greatest animation for an hour and 
 a half at least, before the Major reappeared. Mirabel, to 
 whom he made his way as straight as a bee going back to its 
 hive, thought that he appeared a little put out. The junior 
 officers thought that he appeared as if he had been " taking 
 it out of " someone. Their opinion was confirmed when he 
 apologized to Mirabel because a junior officer who should 
 have relieved him had overslept himself by half an hour. 
 
 The whole Mess was roaring with laughter inside at the 
 idea of the Major in the Fire-Control Post waiting for the 
 faithless Worboys. 
 
 His absence, however, was all for the best in the best of 
 possible worlds, because when he did appear, the Major had, 
 of course, to be allowed to monopolize Mirabel, and she could 
 not have stood more of his facetice than she endured between 
 six and the dressing-bell for eight o'clock dinner. One by one 
 the officers felt the call of duty, leaving the Major and his 
 wife and Mirabel and Gray. 
 
 Directly the Major appeared Gray had said a word to 
 Mirabel about hoping that she would not have gone before 
 he was relieved for dinner, an hour after the rest. He was 
 guilty of allowing himself to be overheard by Mrs. Hyslop. 
 As it was her habit to be rowed back in the Engineers' 
 cutter when she stayed to Mess, time did not much signify to 
 her. Having said a brief provisional good-bye, he saluted 
 the Major, and said, " I'm going now, sir, to relievo Worboys." 
 
 " It's not necessary," said the Major. The dignity with 
 which he said it showed how seriously he had been annoyed. 
 " Lieutenant Worboys will remain on duty in tlie Firc- 
 Control Post until midnight, and have his dinner taken to 
 him there, for being asleep when he should have been on. 
 duty." 
 
 Gray felt that he would have to make large amends to
 
 222 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Worboys, though it was impossible for him to gainsay the 
 Major now. 
 
 Mirabel, not knowing the impropriety of which she was 
 being guilty, said : " I'm afraid you're doing this for me. 
 Major," 
 
 And the Major, in a thoroughly deceitful way, protested 
 that he was not doing it for her, but merely to punish a breach 
 of duty, in such a half-hearted way that, as he hoped, she 
 did not beHeve him. 
 
 Mirabel was enjoying herself hugely. Apparently no one 
 recognized her, and she had been made the most of by a lot 
 of manly, cheery, unpresuming young soldiers, so free from 
 the taint of the stalls that they gave her an entirely different 
 idea of the Army. But she did not deny to herself that her 
 principal pleasure was in seeing how popular her husband 
 was with his brother officers, and how distinctly he was the 
 pick of the bunch. It put her in better conceit with the world. 
 
 Major Hyslop no longer had many tactical or strategical 
 ideas of any value, but it was a distinct inspiration of his 
 that, for " look-out " reasons, it would be wise to let the 
 officers and the men make merry on different nights, and as 
 the men would have been disappointed if they had not been 
 allowed to have their merry-making on the right night, the 
 officers had to wait till Boxing Day. The Mess was glad to 
 have ladies to help it with its Tom Smith crackers and its 
 champagne. 
 
 Gray, who had taken part in many Amphitryonic feasts, 
 enjoyed this banquet, which would have appeared a picnic 
 Christmas dinner to him in the days before the war, more 
 than he had ever enjoyed any banquet in his life, for he was 
 sitting next to his wife, who was on the Major's right, and 
 the Major had so much to do as chairman, that he contrived 
 to get a good deal of her attention, though she was natur- 
 ally the centre of attraction and conversation for all that 
 part of the table. She was excited, the whole thing being 
 a novelty for her. It gave her a colour which made her look 
 radiantly lovely. 
 
 The officers could not decide exactly what she was, 
 because her conversation lacked the little pieces of " swank " 
 with which most girls, circumstanced as she was that night, 
 let hints drop about their cars or their horses, or the smart 
 people in their neighbourhoods. But they liked her all the
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 223 
 
 better for it ; it is charming to find a lovely woman 
 unsophisticated. 
 
 Suddenly, when the merriment was at its height, Gray 
 looked at the watch upon his wrist, and said : " My good- 
 ness 1 It's half-past nine ! What time did Mrs. Hyslop 
 order the boat, Mirry ? " 
 
 " She doesn't order it," said Chaster, the R.E. Captain, 
 who was sitting near them as Gray's chief friend ; " the 
 boat's on the slip, and my men just stand by till she's 
 ready." 
 
 The moment that looking at watches put the idea of the 
 returning voyage into people's heads, everyone noticed the 
 boisterousness of the night. The Major looked worried ; 
 Gray, who had no fears himself, was concerned about Mirabel's 
 going back in an open boat in the dark, if the crossing was 
 bad. 
 
 He rose and whispered to the Major. " Shall I go out, 
 sir, and see if the men have made proper preparations ? " 
 It was very self-sacrificing of him to ask, because every minute 
 which his wife stayed on the Island was meat and drink 
 to him. 
 
 " Yes, do ; there's a good chap," said the Major, who 
 often lapsed into civilian civilities. 
 
 Gray hastily slipped into his cap and overcoat, which he 
 had left hanging on the pegs behind the screen in the Mess- 
 room, so that he might have them handy if the ladies left in 
 a hurry, and went out. 
 
 He did not return for about ten minutes, and then he 
 went up to the Major with a serious face. " I don't think 
 you know what a heavy sea there is on, sir. I shouldn't like 
 to cross in an open boat ; but, of course, if the ladies go, I'm 
 going. I don't think there's anyone on the Island fit to steer 
 her except me." 
 
 " And why should you know better than the rest ? " asked 
 the Major, a smile of amusement stealing into his worried 
 face ; he thought it was a piece of subaltern's swank. 
 
 " I told you, sir, that I hold a master-mariner's certificate, 
 and I know the water." 
 
 " Of course you did ! " said the Major. " Then I think IM 
 better go and look at it myself." 
 
 The subalterns, who were far enough off, sniggered while 
 the Major was calling for his cap and his cape.
 
 224 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Mirabel asked : " Is it really too bad to go, Jack ? If it's 
 not actually unsafe, I don't care how rough it is." 
 
 " I don't see how you're to embark," he answered. " It's 
 worse than it was when I had to jump on Thursday after- 
 noon, and a woman can't jump — you can only drop her in, 
 as it were, and that's ugly work in the dark, with a sea like 
 this." 
 
 " Well, I leave it to you, Jack. I have given you the right 
 to decide for me." 
 
 " Oh, the Major'll decide, though he naturally will hsten to 
 his wife's wishes." 
 
 " Are you ready. Gray ? " said the Major. 
 
 " Yes, sir. Let me go ahead and see if the man with the 
 lantern is there." 
 
 " Yes, I've just seen to that," said the R. E. 
 
 Preceded by the lantern, they went out of the fort gate 
 and down a slippery causeway about fifty yards long, to the 
 head of the slip, where a boat's crew of Sappers were standing 
 by, with about a hundred men belonging to the garrison, 
 who were ready to lend a hand in launching the boat. The 
 crew were absolutely unconcerned ; the idea of danger did 
 not seem to have struck them at all. They were splendid 
 men, typical Sappers. 
 
 " Take care, sir ! " shouted Gray, as the wash of a big 
 wave, coming right over the slip, soaked the Major up to 
 his ankles. " The backwash is so dangerous, if you are not 
 on the look-out." 
 
 " Thank you, Gray, thank you. I really don't think that 
 it is a fit night for ladies to cross in an open boat." 
 
 " You may take my word for it, sir, that it isn't." 
 
 " The word of a master-mariner — eh, Gray ? " 
 
 " That's it, sir." 
 
 " WOiere's Captain Chaster ? " 
 
 " Here, sir," said the R.E. 
 
 " The boat will not go to-night." 
 
 " Very good, sir." 
 
 They returned to the Mess. 
 
 " I can't let you go. Miss Douglas," said the Major 
 gallantly ; " you would ruin your pretty clothes." 
 
 " There are worse things than that, Major." 
 
 " Is there anything worse ? " 
 
 " Yes — risking the hves of brave men."
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 225 
 
 " You are right, Miss Douglas," he said, the change in his 
 manners showing what good stuff he was made of. 
 
 " Are we really not going, Ponsonby ? " asked his wife. 
 
 " Absolutely impossible, my dear ! " 
 
 " Then what are you going to do with us ? " 
 
 " Have clean linen put on the beds of two of the officers 
 who are on shore, and have fires lighted in the rooms. If 
 you let them burn a couple of hours before you go to bed, 
 they'll be pretty comfortable." 
 
 " What shall we do all that time ? " asked Mirabel. 
 
 " Well, the men have asked us to a concert which they are 
 holding in the armoury," said Gray. " I daresay you'd 
 enjoy it. The soloists, as a rule, ' can't sing for nuts,' but all 
 the songs have choruses, and the men do the choruses very 
 well." 
 
 " It depends on whether Mrs. Hyslop wants to go." 
 
 " I'm dying to. I've been trying to get to one of these 
 sing-songs ever since my husband came here, but I'm alwaj^s 
 sent ashore before they begin. I'm told that the programmes 
 aren't up to much — ' It's a Different Girl Again,' ' A Little 
 Grey Home in the West,' and that sort of thing." 
 
 It was decided to repair to the armoury in a body, since 
 it was expected of the Major, who had to occupy the seat to 
 the right of the non-com. in the chair. Seats to the right and 
 left, more than sufficient to accommodate the officers and the 
 ladies, were at once evacuated. 
 
 ..The men all crowded round the door, so as to get a good 
 view of the officers and the ladies. They attach great import- 
 ance to the officers' attendance at their sing-songs. 
 
 The whole thing appealed to Mirabel extraordinarily — the 
 walk from the Mess to the armoury on that wild night ; 
 the great searchlights sweeping tlie sea from the casemates 
 into which they were permitted to peep ; the little knots of 
 uniformed men scattered about outside the armoury ; the 
 grim armoury itself, formed out of three of the bomb-proof 
 casemates, in which the guns had been mounted in tlie old 
 days of muzzle-loaders ; the decorations, for which all the 
 signalling flags had been requisitioned during the hours of 
 darkness ; and the crowd of sturdy, swarthy Tommies, in 
 all degrees of uniform and deshabille, with whom the 
 armoury was packed. 
 
 The first song, if it had been anything but " God Save the 
 
 15
 
 226 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 King," would have been a horrid failure, for the pianist, an 
 Army Service Corps Sergeant, could not successfully grapple 
 with even that simple melody. When it was over, the 
 chairman apologized. The real pianist was on shore ; he 
 was to have returned by the late afternoon duty-boat, 
 which had not run. He called for volunteers, but none were 
 forthcoming till at last Mrs. Hyslop, who was sitting between 
 the chairman and Mirabel, told the chairman that her friend 
 would not mind playing the accompaniments. 
 
 The chairman gave the announcement amid loud cheering, 
 and conducted Mirabel to the piano. It was early in the 
 war then, and " Tipperary " was the band-less music to 
 which our men marched to their grim fights in France and 
 Flanders, so while the performers, in a fit of stage-fright, were 
 all trying to avoid singing first, she struck up " Tipperary " 
 as a march, with a fine thumping touch, and when she came 
 to the chorus-music, every man in the room joined in at 
 the top of his voice. 
 
 " Tipperary " having been sung without a solo, the soloists 
 came forward, most of them without much voice, but some 
 with excellent humour. Being an accomplished pianist, she 
 made the most of them, and the choruses were splendidly 
 rousing and supported. 
 
 When all of the singers had sung once, and all of them been 
 encored, the sergeant in the chair asked : " Won't the charm- 
 ing lady who is Siccompaning give us a song ? 
 
 " Of course I will," said Mirabel, " if my friends all round 
 me wish me to — and if Lieutenant Gray wiU accompany me, 
 so that I can face my audience." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " roared the delighted Tommies, and Gray 
 jumped over the table and went to the piano. She said 
 something to him, and with a smile and a blush gave them 
 the famous waltz song from " The Merry Widow," which had 
 made her fortune. 
 
 It was almost startling to hear that rich and delightful 
 voice, which was the talk of London, filling those grim case- 
 mates in the old Georgian battery, which formed an armoury 
 in state of war. Now that she was facing them, instead of 
 busying herself with the piano, the whole audience was 
 magnetized with her beauty, and when she had finished, the 
 old casemates fairly shook with the applause. 
 
 In reply to the thunderous encores, she gave them " Land
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 227 
 
 of Hope and Glory," and made many a man feel a lump in 
 his throat by the passion with which she sang it. 
 
 When the applause at length died down, she took Gray's 
 place at the piano, and giving the solo herself, rolled out 
 " Rule Britannia." Once more, as she made the audience 
 quiver with the spirit which she called forth from their poor 
 old piano, the whole assemblage thundered out the chorus, 
 once more there was rapturous applause, and then, as twelve 
 was striking, she called on them to take hands, and struck 
 up the solo of " Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 The Scots in the garrison went wild with emotion at hear- 
 ing it sung in pure Scots — her father in all his years of exile 
 had never lost his Scottish speech. And long after the 
 officers and their guests had passed back to the Mess, the 
 men went on singing it in ever-widening circles, under the 
 Christmas sky. 
 
 She at the piano had been unable to link hands, and the 
 man there with whom she was fainest to link them, had to 
 slip away as the first chorus ended, bidding her good night 
 — ^his last good night — more briefly than King Henry of 
 Navarre used to take his Mass, for he had to go and relieve 
 the interned Worboys in the Fire-Control Post, and remain 
 on duty until breakfast-time. 
 
 Gray had another of the bizarre experiences which the 
 war had brought to him, for, instead of shielding his wife 
 back to the Mess, pointing out the pitfalls of the steep and 
 slippery stone paths and steps in the dark, with a lantern 
 to her feet, he had to scramble up the wooden steps to the 
 F.C.P., to relieve Worboys. 
 
 Being several minutes late, he was prepared for a storm 
 from his excited and injured friend. Instead of which, the 
 words which greeted him were, " Is she still here, and 
 about ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Gray, thinking tliat it was a trifle ingenuous 
 of Worboys to display such a violent interest in his " fiancee." 
 
 " Then go and look after her till she goes to bed. Another 
 hour or two will make no difference to me now — and she 
 can't sit up all night ! " 
 
 But Gray refused. Through no fault of his own, lie had 
 already had a glorious evening off at Worboys' expense, and 
 if there was going to be any more fun now, he thought that 
 Worboys ought to have it. 
 
 IS*
 
 228 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 So while the gay sounds of the piano and Mirabel's voice 
 were being wafted over the waters, the wind having suddenly 
 dropped, and the windows been opened to let the smoke 
 out for the ladies — in those days no one ever thought of 
 Zeppelins in the West — he was pacing up and down the 
 lonely post, full of surging thoughts, and keeping an extra 
 sharp look-out, in order to exorcize them. He longed to 
 sec the periscope of a submarine, or even an enemy squadron 
 — ^Mirabel would be quite safe in the underground passage 
 from the Mess to the batteries, which the Major said would 
 have to be in the Officers' Mess if there was any fighting, 
 since their present building was only a shell-trap. 
 
 But nothing came, so he walked up and down, going over 
 the events of that wonderful day with Mirabel, who had 
 dropped, as it were, from Heaven. 
 
 Though he had not seen her for five minutes alone since 
 the morning, it was, in a way, the most wonderful day which 
 he had ever enjoyed with her, for Mrs. Hyslop having 
 introduced her in the character of his " fiancee," Mirabel 
 had felt constrained to play the part, treating him with 
 charming deference, and looking to him at every turn. She 
 even kissed him when he bade her that hurried good night. 
 When would she be saying good night to him again ? he 
 wondered. 
 
 No one quite caught the name he called her — Mirry ; it 
 was such an indistinct and uncommon name. 
 
 Gradually he ceased to attempt to exorcize his thoughts, 
 and whenever he rested his eyes from watching, and let 
 the corporal take his turn, his mind filled the narrow Fire- 
 Control Post with pictures of the marvellous events of the 
 day — marvellous events, which consisted only in a girl of 
 twenty-three treating him as an accepted lover. It was all 
 too wonderful. 
 
 Yet it was all kindly, generous play-acting. Mirabel 
 felt hardly at all different towards him personally than she 
 had felt ever since she was at the theatre. She was pro- 
 foundly grateful for what he had done for her, but she was 
 really just as unwilling as ever to live with him, when he 
 had such a past. But he was going away to the front, to 
 fight for his country, so she felt it her duty to send him forth 
 rejoicing. Gratitude made it intolerable to her not to 
 come and say good-bye, but for the rest her country was
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 229 
 
 her lover, not he. It was to Britain that she was giving 
 herself. 
 
 But for his sake she played her part so well that the 
 Herald Angels seemed to be singing round that lonely watch 
 this Christmastide, though war was raging from the British 
 Channel to the Yellow Sea. 
 
 Meanwhile, at the Mess, at the Major's special request, 
 Mirabel was giving them a few more songs before she went 
 to bed. She sang the best of her own songs from " Mary, 
 Queen of Scots " — nobody had heard them, and she gave 
 them the impression that she could not remember the name 
 of the opera. She did it from sheer devilment, to see if she 
 had been discovered. Perhaps no one would ever discover 
 that the leading lady of the Babylon, accompanied by the 
 managing proprietor, Oliver Gray, Junior, had sung at the 
 Gunners' Boxing-Night concert at Round Table Island. 
 
 When Worboys made his appearance, there was a round 
 of laughter. 
 
 " This is the naughty boy," said Mrs. Hyslop to Mirabel. 
 
 " I know him," said Mirabel, holding out her hand to him 
 as she spoke, " Mr. Worboys and I met ashore ; he came 
 over on that pleasure-cruise with Mr. Gray. How do you 
 do, Mr. Worboys ? " 
 
 " Well, I needed a change badly. I laid the air in the 
 F.C.P. very relaxing." 
 
 As he came in he had ordered some supper, and a long 
 Scotch and soda. The Mess-waiter came up to tell him that 
 they were ready. 
 
 " They can wait," he said. 
 
 " No, hurry through and join us — we shan't be going to 
 bed yet," said Mrs. Hyslop kindly. 
 
 Mirabel did not mind ; she was already getting into the 
 theatrical habit of regarding an evening as only beginning 
 when the theatre was over. She was popular at the at- 
 homes of intellectuals, to which the Beauties of nuisical 
 comedy pay only angels' visits. 
 
 " How charmingly you sing, Miss Douglas ! " said 
 Mrs. Hyslop. " You would make your fortune on the 
 stage ! " 
 
 " Do you think so ? " laughed Mirabel. " I wonder 
 what ' my young man ' would have to say to that ? " 
 
 " Poor dear— rd forgotten him ! We must do something
 
 230 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 to get him ashore to-morrow. You said he was on duty 
 again to-morrow, didn't you ? " 
 
 "In the afternoon, yes, and as he does not come off to- 
 night's duty till breakfast-time, and is compelled by regu- 
 lations to lie down for so many hours after that, I'm afraid 
 it doesn't leave much time for going ashore. But I shall 
 see him at breakfast, I suppose — you're not going off 
 before breakfast, Mrs. Hyslop, are you ? " she asked, with 
 admirable make-believe. 
 
 " Perhaps we shan't get off for a week," said Mrs. Hyslop, 
 shirking the point, " who knows ? This may be the begin- 
 ning of a spell of bad weather ! Seriously, I'll tell the Major 
 that something must be managed somehow." 
 ' " I'm sure you're conspiring to make me take Gray's duty 
 again to-morrow afternoon ! " said the self -composed 
 Worboys, coming across to them from the corner where he 
 had been having his supper. The Major's wife hked him a 
 great deal better than he liked her ; he was so very " fresh." 
 That was why he had gone to bed in the afternoon. 
 
 " We weren't, I assure you ! " said Mirabel. " We didn't 
 even mention your name." 
 
 " Very likely not," he said, " but you were trying to run 
 in someone ! I know how ladies look when they're arranging 
 a ' try on ' ! " 
 
 " Mr. Worboys ! " cried Mrs. Hyslop, though she was 
 pleased inside. 
 
 " Well, anyhow, I came to offer to take Gray's duty. I 
 don't want to go ashore on Sunday— I think Westernport's 
 a rotten hole on Sunday ! And he's taken my duty ever 
 so many times. Will you tell the Major, Mrs. Hyslop ? " 
 
 She understood that if she asked leave for Gray, and said 
 that she had found a substitute for him, she would get it, 
 whereas if Gray asked himself, the Major might point out 
 that he was ashore from Thursday till Saturday— that he had, 
 in fact, only returned to duty that morning. 
 
 " Yes, ril see to it, Mr. Worboys. And we all appreciate 
 your unselfishness, though you wrapped it up in a joke. 
 It's awfully good-natured of you ! " 
 
 " I hope somebody '11 do the same for me some day, when 
 I find a Miss Douglas," said Worboys. 
 
 ****** *
 
 MIRABEL VISITS THE MESS 231 
 
 The Major, of course, fell in with the arrangement. He 
 prefered it to falling out with his wife. On one point, how- 
 ever, he was obdurate, and that was that Gray should not 
 leave the Island until he had gone to bed for the period 
 laid down in the regulation for officers coming off night- 
 duty. 
 
 Mrs. Hyslop made no objection. It suited her very well ; 
 it took twenty years off her life to be a Major's wife, sur- 
 rounded by young officers, again, and she was not in any 
 hurry to go off the Island. Indeed, rumour said that the 
 Major went about in terror of being reprimanded for having 
 her on the Island so much, and that he had tried to 
 expostulate with her. 
 
 " Very well, my dear," she said, when he put his foot 
 down about Gray, " Miss Douglas and I will not mind 
 waiting till he is ready." 
 
 Miss Douglas did not mind in the least. She played 
 rope quoits with Worboys after breakfast, not because she 
 liked it, but because it gave him the opportunity of mono- 
 pohzing her, which she considered his due. 
 
 They went ashore by the half -past twelve duty-boat, 
 and felt constrained to have lunch in the coffee-room with 
 Mrs. Hyslop. 
 
 Mirabel was rather glad to do so, for Gray's getting this 
 extra afternoon and evening with her was in the nature of 
 an anti-chmax. She had come down to spend Christmas 
 with him, to show her gratitude, and bid him a proper good- 
 bye. All through those two days which he had spent ashore 
 with her she had braced herself up to be as affectionate as 
 possible, to sweeten his memory of her, and save her from 
 remorse when he had gone. She could not help being fond 
 of him, but so far from wanting to live witli liim, her marriage 
 with him caused her more regret than anything she had 
 ever done in her life, for it prevented her marrying Lord 
 Avondale, to whom she had given her whole heart. 
 
 Indeed, she had gone much further than she intended 
 in letting Gray present her to Mrs. Hyslop as his fianc^. 
 
 He himself was astonished by it. 
 
 It was very difficult to spend another afternoon and even- 
 ing at the same high pitch, but her knowledge of liuman 
 nature came to her rescue. She reflected that, being a 
 man, he would like nothing better than passive submission.
 
 232 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 And her judgment was sound. He asked no more, and he 
 was so unselfish and unpresuming that she found herself 
 acquiescing not only without grudging, but with real affection. 
 She could almost have forgiven his past, if she had not 
 coveted her freedom. 
 
 He went back to Round Table by the 9 a.m. duty-boat 
 on the following morning in ignorance of what a great actress 
 his leading lady was. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVn 
 Archie's second invasion of mirabel 
 
 MIRABEL caught an early train back to town, and 
 arrived there just in time to have a hurried dinner 
 sent up from the restaurant to her dressing-room, and see 
 her understudy play her part, as she had arranged not to 
 appear again till the Tuesday. 
 
 While she was eating her dinner, there was a knock at 
 the door, and her understudy came in, wearing her royal 
 robes. 
 
 " I suppose I had better take these off as quickly as I 
 can, and send them round to you, now that you've got back," 
 said the girl, who looked horribly disappointed at missing 
 the opportunity of playing the part again. 
 
 " Not at all," said Mirabel, " I'm not going to play. I 
 couldn't play it, coming in with such a rush. I hurried 
 in to see you play, and to see how the piece looks from the 
 front of the house." 
 
 " Not going to play it ! " the girl could hardly believe her 
 ears. " Oh, Miss Douglas, how sweet of you to let me have 
 another chance ! " 
 
 " Run along, my dear, or you'll be late, and if you want 
 to show your gratitude, don't let anyone know that I'm 
 here." 
 
 Then she spoke down the tube to Old Mac, to know where 
 she could have a seat. 
 
 He came along, much perturbed, to beg her to play. 
 
 " Didn't you get Mr. Gray's wire about my reporting to 
 him ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I want to see it from the front, so as to be able
 
 ARCHIE'S SECOND INVASION 233 
 
 to report to him from my own observation. Where can I 
 have a seat ? " 
 
 " In the stage-box, my dear, and let me entreat you to 
 sit as far back as possible, and to keep your veil down. I 
 should not like the audience to recognize you." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 But with all her precautions, one member of the audience 
 did recognize her. The eyes of love told Archie who 
 that veiled figure was, sitting back in the shadows of 
 the big box. He always scanned the boxes. His battalion 
 was still at the Belgravia Barracks, and his evenings being 
 free, his patronage of the theatre had not diminished. 
 
 He left his stall and went round to the box. He was 
 stopped by the attendant, placed there by Old Mac on purpose 
 to prevent Mirabel being raided. The man would not even 
 take a card, with a half-crown under it, to Mirabel. 
 
 " Well, take me to Old Mac " 
 
 " Yes, my Lord." 
 
 " Mac," said his Lordship. 
 
 " What's up ? " was the laconic reply. 
 
 " I see that my cousin, Miss Douglas, is in the stage-box. 
 and I want to go and speak to her." 
 
 " Now, look here. Lord Avondale— you were nearly 
 cousined out of the theatre last time you tried this game. 
 Can't you give it a bone ? " 
 
 " You don't understand. Mac. We really are cousins-- 
 my mother went and put that right, and now we're all pals." 
 
 " Your mother ! " said Old Mac, with withering irony, 
 and the common familiarity of his type. " You don't often 
 let her into your little games ! " 
 
 " Shows that this one is all on the O.K. ! " said the 
 unabashed Archie. 
 
 " I don't know whether to believe you or not— you're so 
 
 deep." 
 
 " Well, what sort of an idea do you tliink it would be if 
 you went and asked her, while I stay with the chuckcr-out 
 you've so thoughtfully stationed there ? " 
 
 "Well, my idea is that she will be so angry thai I 
 positively won't go unless you promise to stay here till I 
 come back." 
 
 " I'll do a smoke. Are those cigarettes of yours any 
 
 good, Mac ? "
 
 234 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " No, they're for the people who come in to waste my 
 time — they never stay to finish them ! " 
 
 " Then I'll smoke one of my own," he said, helping himself 
 to the manager's chair. 
 
 Old Mac knocked at the door of the stage-box. 
 
 " Come in ! " said Mirabel, thinking that it was the atten- 
 dant. The public have a different knock. 
 
 " That fizzy young Avondale's trying to see you again ! 
 He made a dead set to come into the box. He's got a yarn 
 that he's your cousin." 
 
 " He is my cousin, Mac — but for goodness' sake don't 
 tell anybody, I hate my private affairs being known in the 
 theatre." 
 
 "Well, shall I let him in ? " 
 
 " I don't much want to listen to his chatter to-night. But 
 he's a very nice boy, and I have no real reason for not seeing 
 him, so I suppose you must ! " 
 
 " So that's why she won't giddy-ox like the others ! " 
 said Old Mac to himself, " because she's a real tip-topper ! 
 Well, it would save me some trouble if the rest was, though 
 it wouldn't be good for the business ! " 
 
 " She'll see you," said Old Mac, adding, in his familiar 
 way, " but she doesn't seem very anxious." 
 
 " Anxiety be damned ! " said the Viscount, but he took 
 the hint, for when he got inside the box, he greeted her very 
 quietly. " How do you do, Mirabel ? They told me at 
 your place that you were out of town." 
 
 " I've just come back. I'm rather sorry for myself, 
 Archie ! You can sit with me, but I don't want to talk." 
 
 " Tell me just one thing ; why isn't one of the Lizzies 
 doing your part ? 
 
 " They're far too grand for that. But don't talk, Archie, 
 I want to see how my little understudy does it." 
 
 " All right, Mirry," he said, but he felt that it was rather 
 hard on him, as he had seen the play thirty or forty times, 
 and took less interest in it than usual because Mirabel was 
 not playing the lead. But he respected her wishes, because 
 he loved her so much that he was willing to do anything she 
 Uked. And he reflected that it would make the other fellows 
 wild if they recognized her. This comforted him a little. 
 
 The truth was that Mirabel was in no mood for badinage 
 with Archie, when she had just, as it were, accepted he£^ 
 
 •-»*
 
 ARCHIE'S SECOND INVASION 235 
 
 husband. Had there been only one lover, and tliat one 
 Lord Avondale, what a miserable woman she would have 
 been at parting from him ! and what an eager, happy woman 
 she would have been now ! She had parted from Gray 
 with the regret a woman accords to a favoured cousin, rather 
 than a lover. And she was in love with Archie, to whom 
 she would not allow even a cousin's privileges. But she 
 was trying hard to give Gray more love, and Archie less. 
 
 Just before the play finished she said, " Now, Archie, go 
 back to your stall, please ! " 
 
 " But aren't you coming to supper with me, Mirry ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ! " 
 
 " Well, let me drive you home ? " 
 
 " I've got my own car, thank you." 
 
 " I may see you into your car, mayn't I ? " 
 
 " No, you know you may not ! How can I keep the 
 others off if I am seen accepting these sort of attentions 
 from such a notorious person as you ? You're allowed to 
 come and see me at my home twice every week, and at 
 your own home as well, and that ought to be enough for 
 anyone." 
 
 " So it is, Mirry — it is really ! But a fellow can't walk 
 out of his pretty cousin's box, and just do nothing, as if 
 he was a discharged cab ! " 
 
 " It's a lovely short way of saying good-b^^e ! " said the 
 often-harassed Mirabel. " But to show that my feelings 
 have not experienced any change " — she said this with an 
 air of insincerity, to conceal the truth — " I invite you to come 
 to lunch with Paula and me to-morrow. What time can 
 your country spare you ? " 
 
 " Oh, now that we're not allowed to shift out of uniform, 
 I can be with you by half-past one." 
 
 " Very well, Archie— half-past one." 
 
 He did not go back to his stall. He did not want to see 
 his friends ; but he hoped that they had noticed where he 
 was sitting.
 
 236 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 RE-ENTER LORD DOUGLAS AS THE ELDERLY RELATIVE 
 
 IN the morning, while Paula was ordering the dinner and, 
 with especial care, the lunch, Mirabel was telephoning 
 to Lord Douglas that she would be with him in less than an 
 hour at Richmond. 
 
 She walked to Hammersmith Broadway, and took a taxi. 
 It would not help out her idea for her chauffeur to know 
 where she was going. 
 
 She found Lord Douglas, as she had expected, in the 
 pavilion, with a tremendous log-fire. He remembered how 
 she felt the cold. 
 
 He met his pretty cousin with a fatherly kiss. When 
 they had seated themselves in the deep, downy armchairs 
 which stood on opposite sides of the blaze, he said, " Well, 
 Mirry, what is it ? I'm sure it's some scrape, or you would 
 not have descended upon me so suddenly." 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing — it's only that I've been staying with 
 you again, and that I thought you ought to know it, in case 
 the family discusses it with you." 
 
 " Have you told them that you've been staying with 
 me ? " 
 
 " No," she said, " Paula has told herself. It is part of 
 the stupendous work of fiction which she is composing about 
 my life." 
 
 " What did you tell her, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, that my elderly relative had insisted on my spending 
 Christmas with him ! " 
 
 " Don't think that I'm trying to be sarcastic, or making 
 innuendoes, if I ask if it was the same elderly relative ? " 
 
 " Not half so bad as that this time. I'll tell you frankly 
 and fully what I've been doing." 
 
 His face instantly assumed the kindly seriousness which 
 made her so instinctively apply to him in trouble. 
 
 " Well, you know how good Oliver Gray has been to 
 me? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so."
 
 RE-ENTER THE DOUGLAS 237 
 
 " He not only gave me that splendid position, which, 
 everybody tells me, has made my fortune already, but, 
 though he is awfully in love with me, he never says a word 
 about his love to me, or presses his suit in any way. Un- 
 fortunately, you see, Jim, the idea of living with him as his 
 wife is intolerable to me ; I simply couldn't love a husband 
 who has had as many affairs with odious women as he hsis 
 had ! " 
 
 "Is he such an awful man ? I shouldn't have thought 
 so ! I have always thought him rather a decent chap ; 
 he's a ' bird,' of course ! What young man, unless he was 
 an angel, wouldn't be a ' bird ' if he had the chances which 
 Gray has had ? Because, mind you, Gray's a charming- 
 looking chap, and with his money, and the power his theatre 
 gives him over all those good-looking young women, he would 
 have to be a St. Anthony to escape." 
 
 " But it's because he's a ' bird ' that I hate the idea of 
 being his wife ! I don't want to share my husband with all 
 those memories ! Ever since I can remember, from the 
 time that I was a mere child, living in our beautiful old 
 Villa Visconti, with that lake and Monte Rosa, and those 
 woods and those oleanders, and those fairy-tale castles on 
 the hill-tops in the distance, my dream was to marry a fairy - 
 prince as romantic as those surroundings. \Vlien I grew up 
 and had to translate this idea into hard facts, I dreamed of 
 a marriage with an ideal husband. I never much thought 
 about the money side of it ; what I wanted to do was to 
 share every hour of my life with a man whom I felt I could 
 love, honour and obey from the bottom of my heart ! But 
 how can you love, honour and obey a man who hiis loved 
 and obeyed and been dishonoured by half the beauties of 
 the Babylon ? " 
 
 " Well, if you ask me, I should say by taking as read all 
 his life up to the moment when he met you and reformed, 
 if he hasn't a thought for anything in the world except you 
 now ! Do you know that phrase ?— ' Take it as read '—it's 
 the one we use at the committees of the various movements 
 with which I am connected, to save ourselves being Iwrcd 
 by listening to the minutes of a previous meeting. Don't 
 you think, Mirry, that you might take Gray's ' mmutes ' 
 as read ? " 
 
 " I wish to goodness I could. Jim ! But it isn't in me to
 
 238 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 do it. I want a husband who hasn't got any ' minutes,' in 
 that sense." 
 
 " I am sorry, because I think you're wrong." 
 
 " We're getting off the point, Jim ! The point is that 
 because I owe ah this to Ohver, and because he adores me, 
 and because he is going to the front on New Year's Day, I 
 went and spent my Christmas at Westernport, a few miles 
 from the fort where he is stationed, so that he could come 
 over and see something of me whenever he was off duty, 
 just as he used to come to see me on Sundays in London." 
 
 " Well, if that's all you did, I don't see anything very 
 dreadful in it. He might, in fact, have sent for you, as you 
 are his leading lady, and the success of his present piece is 
 bound up with you." 
 
 Mirabel was constrained to be disingenuous, which she 
 hated above all things. It was the thing which she hated 
 most about Gray's singularly unselfish pursuit of her. She 
 did not think it was prudent to tell her cousin how much 
 time Gray had spent in the hotel : she thought that he 
 might put a wrong construction on it, frankly as he trusted 
 her. 
 
 " There isn't anything dreadful in what I did," she said, 
 " there isn't anything that the purest and most decent- 
 minded woman in the world might not have done. The 
 point is, that Paula would not understand. She is a novelist, 
 and she is unconsciously composing a novel about my life, 
 and in novels, if you are given certain premises, certain 
 results have to follow. If Paula knew that I had done 
 this, you can't imagine what dreadful things she would 
 think I So you'll have to help me, or prepare to read in your 
 Times to-morrow of the body of a well-known actress being 
 found in the Thames at Richmond ! I shall go straight down 
 and do it, Jim, through your own gate on to the towpath, 
 which you were foolish enough to show me that first day ! " 
 
 "I'll do it, Mirry. I told you before that you could always 
 depend on me to try and get you out of a scrape, whatever it 
 cost me ! Please tell me what I am to do." 
 
 " You've got to be the elderly relative again — for Oliver 
 this time." 
 
 " All right. But don't let me be too many people. I'm 
 not very clever at this sort of thing — I'm not an actress^ 
 you know 1 "
 
 RE-ENTER THE DOUGLAS 239 
 
 He could not understand why she stared at him so hard. 
 He looked at her enquiringly, for her to enlighten him. He 
 thought she must be correcting his grammar, and said, 
 "... Actor." 
 
 " I was waiting for that," she said, welcoming the digres- 
 sion. " Do you know why I came down here this morning ? " 
 
 " To tell me this, I suppose." 
 
 " More than that : I came to ease your conscience." 
 
 " To ease my conscience ! I like that ! " 
 
 " Yes : so that you might be able to say truthfully that 
 I had visited you, if the occasion arose." 
 
 " It wouldn't be very truthfully." 
 
 " No, but it would make the lie much easier to tell. Oh, 
 Jim, if you knew how I hate telUng lies ! But I can't help 
 it, if Oliver Gray will go on trying to make me be his wife ! " 
 
 " Then, really, Mirry, the best thing for you to do would 
 be to let bygones be bygones, and let him marry you ! " 
 
 " That is impossible ! " she said. 
 
 " Well, as you can't alter your feelings — I should say, as 
 you seem to be unable to alter your feelings, I'll give Miss 
 Paula to understand, if she refers to me, that you have been 
 visiting me. For how long was it ? " 
 
 " From Wednesday night till Tuesday morning. I have 
 been away from Paula for five and a half days. You can 
 phrase it as you like." 
 
 " Oh, it's five or six days, I suppose, or is it nearly a week ? " 
 
 " I don't mind," said Mirabel. " I've given you the 
 facts. And you're a dear, good Jim ! " she said, getting up 
 suddenly, and giving him a hasty kiss as good-bye, and 
 leaving by the towpath gate to quicken the parting. 
 
 " You're not going into the river ? " he said, with mock 
 alarm, as she went out of the gate. 
 
 " Not if you do as you're told, Jim." 
 
 She had felt that she could not stand another minute. It 
 was horrible, to make such a man tell lies to wriggle out of 
 a trouble which was none of his making.
 
 240 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 RESPECTING A WHITE LIE 
 
 IT was lucky that she had gone down to the Hermitage, 
 for one of the first things which Archie said at lunch 
 was : 
 
 " Has your change done you good, Mirry ? " 
 
 " You can tell better than I can — how am I looking ? " 
 
 " Mirabel ! " said Paula severely. " If you start like that, 
 Arch , . . Lord Avondale will ' rag ' all through lunch, and 
 you know how I hate ' ragging ' ! " Secretly she enjoyed 
 it intensely, but she was always afraid of them getting out 
 of hand. 
 
 If she hesitated to call him Archie, he had no hesitation 
 in calhng her Paula. 
 
 " Paula," he said, " you needn't be frightened ! She 
 won't let me ' rag ' — she hasn't got over it yet. She would 
 hardly let me speak to her last night." 
 
 " Last night ? " said Paula. " Where did you see her ? " 
 
 " In the theatre." 
 
 It was Paula's turn now. " Is that what she meant by 
 saying that she was sitting in the front of the house, watching 
 how her understudy played — watching how the play went, 
 and that sort of thing ? " 
 
 Mirabel coloured. " I was sitting right back in the stage- 
 box," she said, " and Archie spotted me, and sent round to be 
 allowed to join me, not having seen me for six whole days." 
 
 " You haven't told me where you've been yet," he said. 
 
 Paula, who had naturally asked Mirabel where she was 
 going, and had been allowed to believe that she was going to 
 Lord Douglas, without actually being told so, said, " You'd 
 better ask your father." 
 
 " Have you been to the governor's, Mirry ? " he asked, 
 because he was rather surprised that he had heard nothing 
 about it. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " At Richmond ? Lor' ! what a place to go to for Christ- 
 mas ! When you might have gone to the Metropole at 
 Brighton, or . . . ! "
 
 RESPECTING A WHITE LIE 241 
 
 " Can you picture me going to the Metropole at Brighton, 
 Archie ? What have I done that you should think me 
 capable of going to that odious place, to see all the women 
 who disgust me most at the theatre ? " 
 
 " That's just what I don't know," he said. 
 
 " Well, as Paula says, you can ask your father." 
 
 Both Paula and Archie had the delicacy not to ask if Lady 
 Douglas was there, or to mention her name. Both of them 
 felt instinctively that, though his mother adored Mirabel, 
 and saw much more of her than his father did, it would 
 have spoiled Lord Douglas's enjoyment to have Lady Douglas 
 there at the same time as Mirabel, because she would have 
 monopolized the entire conversatioi; with long-winded anec- 
 dotes about her salons, and might have crowned everything 
 by asking some of the salon down to the Hermitage, from 
 which they had been excluded hkc !epers. Archie felt also 
 that if Mirabel had been spending Christmas with his father, 
 it would have been the most enjoyable Christmas whicli he 
 had had for years. Only why have her down to a rotten place 
 like Richmond, when he could have taken her down to the 
 said Metropole at Brighton, or to Scots Castle, that mediaeval 
 stronghold on the Tweed, with its trophies, which had 
 never been removed from it, going back to the daj-s ol 
 the Bruce ? Archie did not think of it in these words ; he 
 simply thought of it as their principal seat, which Mirabel, as 
 a dutiful member of the family, must want to see. He ended 
 by thinking that probably, if his father liked Mirabel only 
 half as well as he did, it would not matter to him where they 
 were, so long as there was no one else there. He, of course, 
 would have regretted even his mother's company, which his 
 father might have welcomed, if only she could have restrained 
 her conversation. 
 
 Paula, for once, agreed with this latter frame of his mind. 
 She felt convinced that if Lord Douglas could have his talks 
 with Mirabel undisturbed, one place would be just the same 
 as another to him. And both she and Archie were perfectly 
 well aware that if Mirabel had gone to Lady Douglas and said, 
 " Jim has asked me to spend Christmas witli him at Rirh- 
 mond," Lady Douglas would have said directly, " I hope you 
 can go — it'll give the dear old chap such pleasure ! " or some- 
 thing of the kind. 
 
 So they accepted the situation without further comment 
 
 16
 
 242 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 or thought, and Mirabel found herself saddled with another 
 imaginary visit to Lord Douglas, the details of which would 
 have to be carefully thought out, in case the conversation ever 
 turned upon something which she might have done there. 
 She felt like J. M. Barrie, when he had used a brother for an 
 excuse, and found that he had to have a brother for ever 
 afterwards, upon whose motives or history he might be 
 challenged at any moment. 
 
 And Archie was so much in love with Mirabel that he was 
 glad that his father had taken such a fancy to her. 
 
 Mirabel did not feel thoroughly at ease until Archie was 
 out of the house. But, providentially for her, both Archie 
 and Paula thought that they understood the situation so 
 perfectly that good taste forbade any further allusion to it. 
 Certainly the stars in their courses fought for Mirabel, who did 
 not deserve any celestial interference. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MIRABEL GOES TO SOUTHAMPTON TO SEE HER HUSBAND OFF 
 
 MIRABEL saw no occasion for making any mystery 
 of her intention to see Gray off from Southampton 
 on the last night of the battered Old Year, 1914. She even 
 went so far as to take Paula with her. 
 
 It might have been different if Gray had been able to do as 
 he wished — come up to London, as much beforehand as they 
 would let him, and go down from Waterloo to Southampton. 
 But before Mirabel paid her visit to Westernport the War 
 Ofiice had decreed that he was to change on to the South- 
 western at Exeter, and go from Exeter to Southampton, with 
 a number of mixed units who were being sent from Western- 
 port to France. 
 
 For one reason he was glad. If he had been in London 
 only one night, he would have had to spend half of it with his 
 people at the theatre — and what was left of the Stalls — in a 
 tremendous send-off. Such a popular man as he was with all 
 who had anything to do with the Babylon could not have 
 escaped that. And Mirabel must have taken a leading part 
 in such a function. There was not the slightest reason why 
 anything should have transpired about his desire to have
 
 TO SEE HER HUSBAND OFF 243 
 
 Mirabel for his wife, or her going down to Westernport to 
 spend Christmas near him : that, at any rate, with any decent 
 luck, would have remained a secret. But though no one in 
 the theatre knew his desires as definitely as Archie, whose lips 
 were sealed, or Paula, everybody knew that he admired her 
 immensely, and used to say that she could have him by lifting 
 her little finger, or the equivalent. There was, therefore, a 
 pretty considerable chance, amid the flow of champagne and 
 sentiment, as they gave their beloved chief Godspeed for the 
 front, that some affectionate and imprudent orator would 
 wish him some species of good luck which would make them 
 both feel horribly shy. He would almost rather go without a 
 private good-bye than face those public good wishes. 
 
 They had not to be on board the boat until midnight, and 
 the train, with Gray and Worboys and Young, and the rest 
 of a job lot of officers and small drafts who were going to be 
 pitchforked into France, arrived at Southampton before 
 eight o'clock. 
 
 Gray, of course, knew the best place to have dinner in 
 Southampton, and forthwith invited Mirabel and Paula and 
 the delighted subs, to have a farewell dinner with him there. 
 Paula had been warned by Mirabel not to disclose by the 
 slightest hint that Gray and Mirabel were the Oliver Gray and 
 the Mirabel Douglas of the Babylon Theatre. And Worboys 
 and Young and Mirabel (by letter) had been warned with 
 equal severity by Gray not to disclose to Paula by the slightest 
 hint that they had met before. 
 
 The fun in Worboys' eyes almost betrayed them. Miral^el 
 felt that she did not understand subs. W'hy should lie see 
 anything so screamingly funny in it ? 
 
 Fortunately, Paula, who, like most women of her ago, 
 adored subs., pictured them in a perpetual delirium of 
 " ragging " — even in their sleep. She was glad that Mirabel 
 was quite friendly with them the moment they met, for slie 
 rather expected her to retire with Gray out of earshot, and 
 leave them to her as if she were a sort of cloakroom. She was 
 also very pleased with the impression that Mirabel made on 
 them. 
 
 Gray, too, disappointed her agreeably. He seemed to want 
 to make a jolly party of it, instead of fishing for a tetc-d-tctc. 
 
 The hotel to which they went made a practice of giving 
 dinner when the boat-trains came in, so they did not have 
 
 i6*
 
 244 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 long to wait. The manager also appeared to know that an 
 oJ6&cer taking his last dinner in England, with his sweetheart 
 when it was possible, would like to have a good dinner, and 
 that those who had no sweethearts would like an even better 
 dinner, and to make it last as much of the interval between 
 eight and twelve as possible. The waiter, when a dinner was 
 ordered, said, " Yes, sir — war-marriage, or field-officer ? " 
 It flattered a sub. to be taken for a field-officer because he had 
 not got a sweetheart, and made him willing to pay for the 
 (much) more expensive dinner. 
 
 Gray ordered five field-officers' dinners. 
 
 From the oysters onwards he exerted himself to be as 
 brilliant and amusing as possible. And he could be extremely 
 amusing, because he had seen more life, in the Babylonian 
 sense of the word, in his twenty-seven years than probably 
 any man in London under thirty. Paula did not know which 
 to admire most, his brilliance or his determination that he 
 would be I' allegro and not il penseroso in his last hours with 
 Mirabel. She wondered why Mirabel could not love him well 
 enough to accept him. He looked such an ideal Briton — 
 Paula never used the word " Englishman " when she was 
 high-falutin' — with his tall, athletic figure in khaki, and his 
 handsome, fearless face weatherbeaten by the winds and spray 
 of Westernport. Since he had been in love, too, every 
 disagreeable suggestion had vanished from his face. 
 
 They had not begun dinner very long when there was a 
 fresh addition to the company. Their waiter brought a card, 
 which bore only three words : 
 
 Earl of Douglas 
 
 and said could he see the gentleman ? He would not keep 
 him a minute. 
 
 " I came to give you a cheer as you went off. Gray, so if 
 you will tell me when and where the boat sails, I'll be there to 
 take charge of the ladies when she has gone." 
 
 " No, no, Lord Douglas — don't go ! Come and join us at 
 dinner, we have hardly begun." 
 
 " I can't eat two dinners, my dear Gray, and I had one in 
 the train coming down. But I'll come and take a glass of 
 wine with you, to drink your health."
 
 TO SEE HER HUSBAND OFF 245 
 
 Mirabel, suddenly catching sight of him, called out, " Oh, 
 Jim, how sweet of you to come ! " 
 
 Paula shook hands with him like a family friend. Worboys 
 wondered if it could possibly be he, and exchanged a little 
 smile with Young when Gray said, " Lord Douglas, may I 
 introduce Mr. Worboys and Mr. Young, who are under orders 
 to go to France with me to-night ? " 
 
 " Very glad to meet you both ! Good luck and safe return 
 to you ! My only son is in the Army, and about your age." 
 
 Worboys. who had been sitting on Mirabel's other side, made 
 room for Lord Douglas between them. " Take my place, sir," 
 he said. They must be very great friends, he argued, or she 
 would not call a man so much older than herself " Jim." 
 
 " No, no, my boy, sit where you are ! " But he made no 
 objection to taking the place which Paula offered him between 
 herself and Gray, because it would enable Gray to devote 
 himself to Mirabel, which he knew he must desire, and give 
 him the opportunity of sa3-ing a word to Gray from time to 
 time. Meanwhile, he devoted himself to Paula, whose wit 
 always gave him great pleasure, and the boys, who were 
 likewise much entertained by Paula's conversation, though 
 they might have prefered talking to Mirabel. 
 
 About 10 p.m. Gray, after a long and earnest conversation 
 with Mirabel, closed the book, as it were, and devoted hiin- 
 self to entertaining the company with no more ado than if 
 they were dining at a restaurant in London, and all going home 
 again when the dinner was over. They were soon all in the 
 highest spirits once more. Lord Douglas, who had not got 
 over the House of Lords habit of using the tags he had learnt 
 at Eton, quoted Horace : 
 
 " Nunc vino pellite cur as : 
 
 Cras ingens iterahimiis aequor." 
 
 " Can't you give us a quotation ? " said Mirabel to Worboys. 
 " You left school much more recently than Lord Douglas ! " 
 
 " I can only quote the Tatler," he said, with a grin at 
 Young. At the same time he pulled out of his pocket a wrll 
 worn picture from the Tatler, which Gray, to his horror, 
 recognized as a cutting from the page tliat had stnick him on 
 that first day at Round Table Fort, when he was turning over 
 back numbers while he was waiting : " The Aristocracy in
 
 246 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Musical Comedy — Miss Mirabel Douglas, cousin of the Earl of 
 Douglas." Fortunately Worboys had either missed the 
 paragraph below it, or had not connected Second-Lieutenant 
 Gray, R.G.A., with the Oliver Gray, Junior, of the Babylon 
 Theatre, for there was evidently no recognition in that 
 direction. 
 
 Mirabel recognized it at a glance, for she had her press- 
 cuttings sent to her by Old Mac — at Gray's request, of course. 
 
 " Give me that, you naughty boy ! " she demanded. 
 
 " What for ? " he asked — " to autograph it for me ? " 
 
 " No, to tear it up." 
 
 " Do autograph it for me I I've got a fountain-pen, and I 
 would so awfully like to have an autographed portrait of you 
 to remember to-night by, when I get a billet at the front ! " 
 It was on his lips to add, " And that night at the Island by," 
 but he remembered in time. 
 
 " You know I can't resist that word ' front ' ! " she said. 
 " Give me your pen." 
 
 He came round to her to give her his Onoto, and she signed 
 it, and he folded it up very carefully, and laid it in his pocket- 
 book. 
 
 " Did you know who I was when I was at the Island, 
 Mr. Worboys ? " she asked, in a voice which no one could 
 overhear. 
 
 " No, I didn't know till yesterday, when I took a pair of 
 scissors, and started sneaking pretty faces from the old 
 Tatlers in the mess. They wouldn't take much room, and I 
 thought that to look at them would buck me so when we were 
 having a slack time in the trenches." 
 
 " If I can do that for you, I shall have achieved something 
 more useful than singing to the Stalls at the Babylon ! " 
 
 And then he set Gray's mind at ease by saying," That's 
 rather rough on you. Gray, isn't it ? I suppose that you're one 
 of those dukes who sit in the stalls of the Babylon, trying to 
 give the girls a chance ? " 
 
 " Indeed, I'm not ! I never take a staU at the Babylon ! " 
 
 " I thought you would have been just the man ! Are you 
 a frequenter of the Babylon, sir ? " he asked Lord Douglas. 
 
 " How can you ask," was the reply, with a httle bow to 
 Mirabel, " when you have just informed us that we have the 
 honour to be in the society of its leading lady ? " 
 
 " Have I done wrong ? " said Worboys penitently, to
 
 TO SEE HER HUSBAND OFF 247 
 
 Mirabel. " I was so awfully bucked at finding that I knew 
 the leadmg lady at the Babylon ! " 
 
 " No. My cousin, of course, knows that I act there, and 
 Miss Maitland knows that I act there, and you have let Mr. 
 Young into the secret, 1 suppose ? " 
 
 " But Gray ? " he said—" Gray's the one who I thought 
 might have been annoyed — have you told him ? " 
 
 " No, I didn't tell him, but I think he knows. All men 
 know a thing like that." 
 
 " We didn't at the Mess the night you sang for us, or, by 
 Jove, you would have had a reception ! " 
 
 " I hked meeting you as just a girl much better. Being 
 such an inferior being, I was able to ask questions about you 
 all, instead of being asked questions about myself." 
 
 By and by Gray got into earnest conversation with Mirabel 
 again, while Worbo3's and Young stared at her, wide-eyed, 
 and Paula was at her best with Lord Douglas. 
 
 And so the night sped, till Gray suddenly called for the bill, 
 which necessitated a bringing-out of five-pound notes. 
 
 When the waiter brought him his change, and had salaamed 
 over his tip, Gray said, " 1 think we had better make a move 
 for the steamer. Waiter, put our things in a couple of ta.xis. 
 You'll come with Mirabel and Miss Maitland and myself, 
 won't you. Lord Douglas ? — the taxis here hold four all right." 
 
 " No, Fm sure I won't ! I have more respect for Miss 
 Maitland's dress. I'm going to take her in a separate taxi ! 
 And, by the bye," he said, " you'll find this useful in France ; 
 it was the real object of my coming down. You can put it 
 on in the cab." 
 
 " Whatever it is, thanks so mucli ! " said Gray. " Now, 
 in we jump, or we shan't be on board this year, and that's, 
 I suppose, why they gave us the order ' Midnight on the 
 thirty-first ' ! " 
 
 In the cab Mirabel broke open the seals of the package, 
 and took out its contents. He was too occupied with gazing 
 fondly at her. It proved to be an Argus — the most wonderful 
 combination \\Tist-watcli ever invented — fitted on to a snap- 
 lock bracelet. She clasped it on his loft wrist. 
 
 " As they claim that you can bathe in it, I .-^hali never have 
 it off till i come back/' he said. " I take it as an omen, 
 Mirry." 
 
 "Then it would have been better locked on my wrist,"
 
 248 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 she said gently. " You need no binding — it is I. But one 
 thing I can promise you faithfully, Jack — you will be in my 
 thoughts just as much, and more, when you are in France 
 than when you are in England. Every day, then, even 
 more than when you are here, I shall ask myself the question 
 why I can't do it. I don't know why I can't, but I can't, 
 Jack, though I would so willingly do it if I could. I'll keep 
 the box of your watch to remind me, if you don't want it." 
 
 " I haven't an ounce of room for it, if I did — we're so 
 limited." 
 
 " It's a watch-stand as well as a case, so I'll use it to lay 
 my own wrist-watch on at night. I will keep it on the book- 
 shelf of my bed." 
 
 " Hullo ! here we are at the boat ! " 
 
 The steamer was not going to start till the morning, but 
 as a precaution against treachery by spies, there was a tug 
 waiting to tow her fifty yards from the quay, to buoys, where 
 she would be moored for the night. Lord Douglas happened 
 to know the embarkation officer, whose duty it was to give 
 the word for the steamer to be cast off and towed to the 
 buoys : and the officer happened to be a Scotsman, so he was 
 persuaded to allow the casting-off to be postponed for half 
 an hour, the matter being entirely in his discretion, and only 
 fixed for midnight in order to get the relations who were 
 seeing officers off away to their beds. 
 
 Consequently, a few minutes before twelve " Auld Lang 
 Syne " rings were formed on the quay, and 1914 passed into 
 1915 to the strains of Burns's immortal farewell. 
 
 The moment the last stroke of twelve rang out all the 
 steamers in Southampton Harbour whistled and hooted to 
 usher out the most fateful year since the beginning of History. 
 
 And a few minutes later the embarkation officer made a 
 mate with a stentorian voice shout, " All aboard ! " 
 
 Gray had just expressed to Lord Douglas his thanks for 
 presenting him with a souvenir which he could use every day 
 while he was at the front — it had every device which a 
 super-watch was capable of having — when they heard the 
 " All aboard ! " Relatives embraced each other ; friends 
 grasped hands with all the eloquence which can be put into 
 human touch ; the merest acquaintances called out God- 
 speeds of varying intensity. 
 
 Lord Douglas had a feeUng of thankfulness when he saw
 
 TO SEE HER HUSBAND OFF 249 
 
 Mirabel throw herself into Gray's arms and yield him a long 
 and fervent kiss. Worboys and Young could not help 
 looking conscious : they were bursting with pride that the 
 beautiful leading lady of the Babylon should have em- 
 braced a subaltern in their own Company on Southampton 
 Quay. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 A STORMY VOYAGE TO FRANCE 
 
 AT daylight the boat sailed. The passage was so rough 
 that Gray, who was a yachtsman, and hked a " good 
 sailing-breeze," was the only one of the three who kept his 
 sea-legs. 
 
 Worboys, by extreme care in his choice of position, and 
 a great eilfort, kept himself from being actually seasick, 
 which was a point of honour with him. Young, a delicate, 
 sensitive boy, who would have been rejected by most medical 
 officers, but had had a point stretched in his favour because 
 he brought such a brilliant character for cleverness from his 
 head-master, was miserably ill. 
 
 It was very cold, and they had no rugs, because they were 
 so limited in their luggage ; but Gray made the quarter- 
 master fetch them the small sail, which was stowed away 
 forward, and only used for steadying the boat in extreme 
 weather, and a couple of chairs, and wrapped himself and 
 Worboys up from the wind. 
 
 " Thanks awfully ! " said Worboys. " I'm letting you do 
 things for me because I am feeling rather cheap, and don't 
 want to give way altogether. I know you're an old salt." 
 
 " You see, we people who sail boats want a bit of wnd 
 before we can do anything, and consequently have to move 
 about more in bad weather than good." 
 
 " How's Young ? " asked Worboys suddenly, remembering 
 his companion in misfortune. 
 
 " In bed, trying to get some sleep ; he's been very sick." 
 
 " Poor chap ! You're a lucky one, Gra> — quite fit. and 
 with that girl to think about ! " 
 
 The last remark struck Gray as rather inconsequent. He 
 did not see how having to part from Mirabel made things any 
 easier for him, but Worboys continued :
 
 250 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " By Jove, she's a ripper ! Fancy a chap like you being 
 engaged to such a lovely girl as that 1 " 
 
 Gray winced, and Worboys put it down to the pain of the 
 parting. 
 
 " And on the stage too ! Actresses are so particular ; 
 there are not many who would look at a Second-Lieutenant 
 in the R.G.A." 
 
 " No, I don't think there are." 
 
 " How did you get engaged to her ? " 
 
 Gray winced again. 
 
 " You don't mind my talking about her, do you ? It 
 keeps me off thinking about being sick, and that's half the 
 battle 1 " 
 
 " No, I don't mind your talking about her," said Gray. 
 Though Worboys was sure to say things which roughed his 
 nerves all the time, it might, after all, be something to be able 
 to discuss the beloved one with a sympathetic Ustener. So he 
 allowed Worboys to proceed 
 
 " Well, of course, a girl as beautiful as that, and leading 
 lady at the Babylon, might expect to marry anyone — the 
 heir to a peerage, at least I " 
 
 This suggested Archie most unpleasantly. It would have 
 been a crushing blow if Gray had not happened to be her 
 husband already. 
 
 " And a peer's cousin, too, which makes it worse 1 " 
 
 " No — better, I think. She had no need to be casting her 
 nets." 
 
 " Well, so long as she didn't go on the stage for advertise- 
 ment, perhaps that's sound." 
 
 Gray really felt as if he could have spanked the boy. The 
 bare idea of connecting his wife with the women who went on 
 to the music-hall and musical-comedy stage to advertise 
 their beauty with a view to marriage was sacrilege to him. 
 
 " But you can see that she's not that sort," said Worboys 
 patronizingly. 
 
 " No, I hope not." Worboys did not detect the ironical 
 note in Gray's voice, and went on : 
 
 " And so jolly nice, too ! She wasn't a bit bored with 
 me and Young ! " 
 
 " She would not be ; she has the most charming disposition 
 I have known in any woman I have ever met." 
 
 This was not true. It certainly was Mirabel's disposition
 
 A STORMY VOYAGE TO FRANCE 251 
 
 to be nice to everybody who did not disgust her — a large 
 category at the theatre — but if she had been as good as he 
 claimed, she would have overcome her prejudices and re- 
 warded his honest devotion long ere this. He had been tried 
 in the fire, and shown what pure metal he was, amply. 
 
 " How did you manage to get hold of her. Gray ? I must 
 say that it was rather smart of you ! " 
 
 " Oh, I knew her before she was on the stage." 
 
 " And she's remained faithful to you in spite of all the 
 offers she's had ? " 
 
 " I don't think she's ever let them get as far as that." 
 
 " Must have ! They'd do it by letter if she wouldn't see 
 them ! " 
 
 " She hands over all the letters she gets from people whom 
 she does not know to me, and I send them to Paula — Miss 
 Maitland, the lady you met last night. Miss Maitland is a 
 novehst, and they might suggest ideas for her books." 
 
 He smiled as he thought how Worboys might, except for 
 loyalty to himself, have contributed " copy " to Paula's 
 books. 
 
 " Does Paula answer them ? 
 
 Gray hfted his eyebrows at the Christian name, but he 
 replied : " I don't know ; it would be good practice for her." 
 
 " I should feel small if I got an answer from Paula — 
 laughing up her sleeve ! " 
 
 " Well, that's what fellows have to risk who wite to Miss 
 Douglas ! " It might do Worboys no harm to know. 
 
 It was almost like a personal snub to hear this, so Worboys 
 felt constrained to say : "I hope you didn't mind my getting 
 her to autograph that portrait of her from the Tatlcr, Gray ? " 
 
 " I don't mind," said Gray, " if you'll swear not to let on 
 to anybody in France that we're engaged, and will get Young 
 to swear the same. If you do that, it will be, of course, a 
 pleasure to me every time I come into your billet. You \nll 
 put it up on the wall, I suppose ? " 
 
 "No, I value it too much." But he added : " I might if 
 we got settled enough for me to buy a frame from the 
 Frenchies for it. I should like the other chnps to know that 
 I knew her. It wouldn't ninttiT tlieir knowing \hA\ T kii.>w 
 her, would it ? " 
 
 " No, I suppose not," he said, not altogether delighted. 
 It seemed hard that Worboys should be able to claim her
 
 252 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 friendship, and not he. " Remember that you'll have to 
 swear, and get Young to swear," he insisted. 
 
 " Of course I shall ! " said Worboys. " I'm proud to be 
 your confidant about her." 
 
 " Well, that's all right," said Gray. 
 
 Young, meanwhile, with a temporary respite from sea- 
 sickness through sheer exhaustion, was lying in his berth, 
 with his face buried in the pillow, and his soul in gloom. 
 His courage had all oozed out. Why had he been sent out 
 when there were so many others who should have gone before 
 him ? Poor in physique, not yet twenty years old, he was 
 not the man whom most commanders would have chosen 
 for the front. At school, where he had apphed for the com- 
 mission, the prospect of directing long-range guns by mathe- 
 matical calculations based on numbered maps and wreless 
 messages from aeroplanes, had appealed to him, a fine 
 mathematician, who would have had a great career at Cam- 
 bridge, as irresistibly interesting. And in spite of his phy- 
 sique, he had always been accounted plucky at football. 
 But the stories of the retreat from Mons, exaggerated by 
 rumour, and wrapped in all the horrors of mystery by the 
 censor, had unnerved him. Tha Field Artillery there had 
 been magnets for the fire of the heavy guns of the enemy. 
 Some of the batteries had hardly an officer left, and the 
 enemy were firing at a range which prevented the field gunner 
 from firing a shot in his own defence. 
 
 Added to which, now that he was going to face them, the 
 chmatic conditions of the front seemed to be crushing for his 
 feeble constitution. 
 
 As he lay there, worn out with sea-sickness, he had an idea 
 that even if he escaped the shell-fire of the enemy, he would 
 succumb in a few weeks, perhaps in a few days, to the hard- 
 ships of the trenches. He did not realize that there were no 
 Siege Artillery in the trenches. Its officers had not even been 
 sent to observation-posts in the trenches in those days. The 
 trenches were merely a vague expression for mud and water 
 up to your ankles or knees, icy winds, rain and shrapnel 
 falling in an unbroken shower, only varied by monster shells 
 which rent the earth, and spread universal death like earth- 
 quakes. The attacks of Infantry, meaning swift death for
 
 A STORMY VOYAGE TO FRANCE 253 
 
 one side or the other, did not lie heavy on his imagination 
 Hke the being shot at without a chance of replying, and the 
 inconquerable obstacles to health. 
 
 How he wished he had had the courage not to join the 
 Army ! At school it had seemed impossible that any man 
 of spirit, whom the doctors would pass, should not join the 
 Army immediately. 
 
 He felt the being cut off from Worboys' robust personality 
 — Worboys, who had no imagination, and never thought 
 about difficulties or dangers till they were right under his 
 nose, and he was asked to rush them at the head of his men. 
 Worboys, who had the temperament of a Tommy, and who 
 was as brave as a bulldog, escaped half the terrors of danger 
 because he never thought of it. And his insouciance was 
 something for Young to lean on. 
 
 At intervals Gray came in to see Young, and offer him 
 remedies and drinks. And for more than an hour he sat 
 with him in that cabin, made stifling with sea-sickness. 
 Worboys would have done the same if the penalty had not 
 been so obvious. 
 
 On a rough day at sea an ordinary man can be a king 
 among extraordinary men if they are victims to sea-sickness, 
 and he is not. 
 
 Lunch was to be served on board before they left, and Gray 
 tried to get Young up for it. He assured him that they would 
 be in waters as calm as the Thames at London Bridge, but 
 had no rejoinder for Young's protest that he could not begin 
 to dress until that happy consummation had been achieved. 
 
 Worboys' spirits, on the other hand, rose like mercury 
 when the waves were left behind, and anchor was droi>prd in 
 the river, abreast of the queer houses, washed cream, yellow, 
 pink and Cambridge-blue, which rise up from the tjuay, 
 and make Havre a southern city. He ate such an enormous 
 lunch that for very shame he had to comfort Young, who 
 came to sit beside them towards the end of the meal, by 
 reminding him that he had saved the price of a luncii by 
 going without.
 
 254 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 EN ROUTE FOR THE FRONT 
 
 THE three Second-Lieutenants felt a sort of thrill when 
 they stepped on to the shores of France in time 
 of war, as their fathers had done in the old time before them. 
 Even Young, exhausted as he was, was not proof against 
 this excitement. 
 
 The old streets of Havre were full of little knots of British 
 officers, from new arrivals like themselves to the men with 
 creased and faded military greatcoats (wherein every variety 
 of device for keeping warm had been laid under contribution), 
 and brown field-boots, almost black with greasing against 
 the wet, and jovial, stem faces under their battered caps, 
 who had just come from facing the enemy. While Thomas 
 Atkins met you at every turn, that immortal man of Homeric 
 simplicity and valour ! 
 
 They found that the chief amusement of Havre for British 
 subalterns was the big cafe, which they frequented for after- 
 noon tea and other things. The first thing which pleased 
 Worboys was an Indian Prince, wearing a full British uniform 
 and a pearl necklace, and the second, a newly-landed High- 
 land officer, filling part of the air of France with strange 
 oaths because he had lighted his cigarette with a French 
 match, before the sulphur had burned off. It was some 
 time before he could do anything but cough. But inside of 
 half an hour he had become experienced, not only in the ways 
 of French matches, but also in the ways of the Countess 
 Odelle and other ladies, who had come to the cafe to lure 
 him to the primrose paths of dalhance. 
 
 When Worboys looked round for Gray to enjoy the dissi- 
 pations with him. Young told him that Gray had gone to 
 the Cercle des £ (rangers, a club which had put up a notice 
 in the Base Commandant's office that all British officers were 
 free to use it while they were in Havre. He understood 
 that he had gone there to write a letter, which seemed a 
 natural thing for Gray to do. But in reality he was afraid
 
 EN ROUTE FOR THE FRONT 255 
 
 of being recognized as Oliver Gray by a chance rencontre. 
 He said that he would wait for them at the Club, which, 
 he was told at the office, no British officer had yet used. 
 
 The three subs, had only been at their camp outside Havre 
 about a week, when they received their orders to entrain 
 for the front. 
 
 The train crept along wearily. It took every bit of thirty- 
 six hours from Havre to the rail-head behind the front. 
 It was a supply-train, which looked about half a mile long 
 — it certainly exceeded a quarter of a mile — and it changed 
 its direction half a dozen times on that journey. But there 
 was no direct line to where they were going, and the train 
 doubtless could go much faster. Its main object seemed 
 to be to arrive at night. It came to a dead stop about a 
 dozen miles behind the trenches. 
 
 From here there was no means of reaching the town 
 where the Headquarters were, except being carted in a 
 motor-lorry. A ride in a motor-lorry on a French pavee 
 is pretty rough work. 
 
 Those unfortunate Second-Lieutenants felt lost at every 
 stage of their journey, for no one seemed able to give them 
 a direct answer. Gray and Young, like good boys, directly 
 they reached the Headquarters' town, reported themselves 
 at Headquarters, and asked what they were to do, while 
 Worboys went off to find some hotel or estaminet where 
 he could get a glass of decent whisky. The only reply they 
 could get from the sub. in temporary charge of the Head- 
 quarters office was, " Oh, someone will roll up and take 
 charge of you presently ! " 
 
 After waiting there for about an hour, Gray, determined 
 as he was to feel cheery, began to feel as full of gloom as 
 Young. Worboys, who had turned up in the interval, went 
 off in desperation to see if there were any Artillery in the 
 town who could answer a few questions. It resulted in 
 his getting to the Artillery Headquarters, which were occupy- 
 ing one of the best houses. The Staff Captain there was so 
 pleased with his sturdiness and his initiative that he wel- 
 comed him quite as a friend, and said, " Well, what are 
 you ? " 
 
 " Anything you Hke, sir," Worboys said— he was very 
 polite. 
 
 " Oh, you're Siege, of course 1 "
 
 256 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Very well, sir," said Worboys, though it filled him with 
 despair, for he had not the vaguest idea of what constituted 
 the new Siege Artillery, and had visions of awful mathe- 
 matical instruments and terrible calculations. 
 
 " You three are to be attached to the 200th Siege," said 
 the Staff Captain. " Just make your way out there." 
 
 " How, sir ? " 
 
 The Staff Captain did not seem to have any idea, or to 
 know very distinctly where the 200th were. 
 
 The best means of getting there which the three subs. 
 9ould find was the Ration wagon of the Battery, which 
 happened to be in town. Worboys rolled himself up inside 
 to try and get some sleep ; he was a philosopher, and quite 
 willing to let Gray and Young have the places on the box- 
 seat. With the enemy about, Young liked to be somewhere 
 where they could see. 
 
 They drove at a walking-pace in the heaviest rain which 
 even Gray had ever experienced. The road was about 
 seven miles in length, and the whole way there the driver 
 described the awfulness of everything. As his pictures were 
 substantiations of the chimeras of Young's own imagination, 
 the boy expected to be shelled or sniped at every yard of 
 the road. 
 
 Gray pulled the driver up sharply. " What's the good 
 of your grousing and pitching these yarns, when you can 
 see how nervous my friend here is ! I am ashamed of you ; 
 I never expected to hear a British soldier talk like this ! " 
 
 " How can I see anything in this light ? " said the man 
 sulkily. 
 
 But he had done his mischief. It was the worst ride 
 Young had ever had in his life. It did not mend matters 
 when, towards the end of the journey, he discovered that 
 they were to drive direct into the Battery. Young thought 
 that they would be in the thick of everything, and had 
 visions of disembarking under a heavy shell-fire. 
 
 The driver admitted candidly that he did not quite know 
 where the Battery was. They had been shifted that day, 
 because they had been shelled out of some place. He was 
 a bom grouser, and in spite of Gray's elbow left nothing undone 
 towards fiUing the boy with despair. 
 
 However, when they did arrive, they found the Battery 
 comfortably ensconced in a farm.
 
 EN ROUTE FOR THE FRONT 257 
 
 " There now ! " said Gray, " I knew everything would 
 be all right ! Wake Worboys, will you ? " 
 
 But their hopes, which had risen high, were soon dashed 
 to zero, when the Major came out to inform them that their 
 billet was not there, but still further to the front, and that 
 the Germans were constantly sheUing the road to it, on 
 the look-out for another Battery, in fact, so that they 
 must look out about faUing into shell-holes. 
 
 Further, as there was no road, there was no means of get- 
 ting there except walking, and the three Second-Lieutenants 
 had to set out in the pitch-dark, as their first experience 
 of war, their first hour under fire. They did not know 
 where their billet was. But the enemy were sending up 
 their horrid " starlights," and that gave the boys their direc- 
 tion, because their billet was somewhere between them and 
 these " starlights." 
 
 As Worboys said, " It seems pretty easy to lose your way 
 in a foreign country in the dark, when you have never seen 
 the place before." 
 
 To add to the horrors of their inexperience, besides the 
 fire-rockets, there was a large amount of enemy rifle-fire. 
 The French Artillery, on their part, as they say in Subal- 
 ternese, were " going it hard — brassing off." But it was 
 quite an ordinary night for those parts, as they soon learned. 
 
 When they got to their billet, they found no one there 
 but a French farmer and his wife, from the adjoining cottage. 
 They did not seem in the least alarmed by being knocked 
 up at night by three English ofticers, all of whom wore their 
 revolvers, and they were quite willing to make a little by 
 attending to them. But they could not speak a word of 
 English, and even Gray could not speak a word of French. 
 
 The three Second-Lieutenants wondered if they ought 
 to take their clothes off or not. Worboys decided to risk 
 it, and took off his boots, his jacket and his breeches. 
 
 It was a stormy night, still raining as it rained on Noah's 
 Ark. Their billet was in an evacuated house. Upstairs 
 there was quite a fine bed, and Worboys, having divested 
 himself of half his clothes, got into it, and Gray was inclined 
 to follow his example hi the next room, but poor little Young 
 was so thoroughly upset that he would not even go upstairs, 
 but making sure that there was a good supply of fuel for 
 the fire which the farmer lighted for them, turned up the 
 
 17
 
 258 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 collar of his big coat, and threw himself on the horsehair 
 sofa. Gray, seeing the semi-hysterical condition he was in, 
 refused to ]ea\e him, and pulling the best chair he could 
 find in the room up to the fire, sat down, until Young might 
 require him, and in two minutes had achieved it. Young 
 dozed off from exhaustion. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 
 
 ABOUT half -past ten, when they were all having a_ sleep 
 of sorts, they were suddenly startled out of it by 
 the most appalling crash which they had ever heard in 
 their lives. All three felt that their last hour had come. 
 The monstrous crashes never ceased for one second. The 
 whole house rocked till it reeled like a falling tree. Worboys 
 sprang out of bed, and into his clothes. The Germans had, 
 he was certain, learned in some underhand way that three 
 British officers had come into the house, and were bombarding 
 it. He wondered what was the routine for shells coming 
 through the walls of a house, and expected to see one every 
 second. 
 
 Gray, too, thought that his last hour had come. He 
 bitterly regretted that it should have come on his very first 
 day at the front, before he had had time to strike one blow 
 for England. Still, he thought that one man can do mighty 
 little but die for his country, and if he offers his life at the 
 very beginning of a war, and finds himself dying for it, and 
 finds that he has the courage to die for it as calmly as if 
 he were playing cricket for his University, then he has 
 finished what he began at School, and carried on at College — 
 to be an every-day hero, sans peur et sans reproche, among 
 his fellows. He was rejoiced to find that he did not fear 
 death. He did not give a single regret to all he had cut 
 himself off from, when he had but twenty-seven years — 
 wealth and power, and the love of a woman renowned in all 
 London for her beauty and charm — for she must love him 
 well, though she would not live with him as a wife should, 
 to have kissed him hke that before Paula and her cousin 
 and all the people on the quay.
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 259 
 
 No ! He was dying for his country, and he regretted nothing, 
 except that he could slay no enemies before he was stretched 
 on the floor. Suddenly his thoughts were diverted from 
 himself b}^ the strange noises that Young, over whom he 
 had laid his own greatcoat, to make his sleep sounder, was 
 making. Young was gibbering like a ghost, and as white 
 as one. The firing may have caused it, but he was past 
 understanding what the firing was ; he was mad with hysteria. 
 
 The only thing that Gray could think of was to grasp his 
 hands, to keep him from trying to do any injury to himself, 
 and because it was easier to touch his brain with the pressure 
 of hands than with speech. It certainly calmed him, and 
 that was something, as Death could only be a question of 
 half an hour. Besides, there was nothing else which he 
 could do till Worboys or the farmer made his appearance. 
 
 Worboys did not keep him long. He dressed in goodness 
 knows how few minutes, and even at such a moment slid 
 down the banister-rail to save time. He had recovered him- 
 self before he entered the room where Gray was, for his first 
 remark was, " They've got us in the neck this time — we don't 
 know where the dug-out is, and we don't know where our 
 guns arc, so there's nothing for it but to hope they'll miss 
 us ! Good God ! what's the matter with Young ? 
 
 " Off his head with hysterics," said Gray briefly. 
 
 " Lucky chap ! — doesn't know what he's in for, like we do. 
 What are you hanging on to him for ? Does he want to 
 kill himself ? " 
 
 "I don't know," said Gray. "I'm doing it because it 
 seems to comfort him." 
 
 " What a rum idea ! " said Worboys. just as he would 
 have said it in the Mess-room at Round Table, thougli those 
 appalling crashes of Artillery came every few minutes, and 
 with each one it seemed as if their hour had come. 
 
 After thinking a minute, he began, " I say, Gray . . ." 
 
 " What is it ? " He spoke shortly ; he was not in any 
 mood for foolery, and it would be so like Worboys to fool 
 till his dying breath. 
 
 " Look here— I haven't got any people, and you've got 
 Mirabel— I don't see why I shouldn't call her Mirabel if I'm 
 just going to die . . ." 
 
 " You can call her Mirabel. I know what you're going to 
 say, and I've been wanting to do it ever since Hell began, 
 
 17*
 
 26o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 only I had to hold poor Young's hands. Just hold them a 
 bit, will you, while I write my good-bye letter — if we live 
 long enough ! I expect the Boches will send it on all right ! " 
 
 Worboys took Young's hands from his with a gentleness 
 of which Gray would never have suspected him. 
 
 Feeling the change. Young started. " Cheer up. Young ! 
 Don't be frightened — it's I, Worboys, who have taken 
 Gray's place." 
 
 Worboys, too, had strong mesmeric hands, which soothed 
 and quieted Young. The boy gibbered on at intervals, 
 though he did not struggle, while Gray wrote his letter to 
 Mirabel, Fortunately his pad and envelopes were in his 
 haversack, the only luggage he had with him. 
 
 "B.E.F., France. 
 " Jan. -th, 1915. 
 " Mirry darling, 
 
 " This is to say good-bye. The end has come sooner 
 than I thought. The Boches are shelling the house in which 
 we three are. We only came up from the Base an hour 
 or two ago. It's bad luck that they should have found 
 us the first night. I've only a few things to say. One is 
 that I have left everything I possess to you. You can tell 
 people or not about — you know what — just as you wish. 
 
 " I'm not frightened of death, as T feared I might be. I 
 thought you would like to know this, so as to have as good 
 an opinion as you can of your faithful 
 
 "Oliver Gray. 
 " Good-bye, Mirry." 
 
 On the letter as well as the envelope was written : 
 
 " I ask anyone who finds this, be he English or German, 
 to forward it to Miss Mirabel Douglas, Babylon Theatre, 
 London." 
 
 " I have done now, Worboys," he said, " Have you any- 
 thing you want to write ? " 
 
 " No — but I'll tell you what you can do for me. If you 
 get through this, and I don't, you will find in my pocket- 
 book that portrait, autographed ' Mirabel Douglas,' which
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 261 
 
 I cut from the Tatler. Keep it till you see her, and then 
 give it to her from me. I've got a married sister, much older 
 than me, whom I have not seen for years — anything of mine 
 that gets to England ought to go to her. I don't know if 
 she'll care for it or not, but I've got nobody else. Her name 
 is Mrs. Elgood, Hertsbourne Manor, Herts. I know where 
 your things are to go. If only one gets through, I hope 
 that it will be you, for her sake." 
 
 Gray longed to groan aloud at the mockery of it. He 
 could not tell Worboys how he feared that he had the better 
 right to live on this strange theory — that Mrs. Elgood must 
 miss a brother more than Mirabel would miss him, when 
 it would free her from the bond into which she so bitterly 
 regretted having entered. 
 
 " Let me take Young," he said. Even to have to con- 
 centrate his attention on Young would be a relief from this 
 tyranny of doubt. 
 
 The three subalterns, having just arrived at the front, 
 had not realized that these were their own guns. It was 
 only another British Heavy Battery, firing at about fifty 
 yards from their billet, carrying out its usual nightly per- 
 formance. But it made the whole night terrible. 
 
 It seemed as if death would be the only end of it, when 
 there came a rap, rap at the house-door, impatient and 
 authoritative. Gray went and opened it — it could only 
 be a friend : an enemy would try to surprise. 
 
 It was a British face, a sergeant of the military-police. 
 
 Seeing an officer, he said, " Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. 
 I didn't know that it was an officer's billet. But you have 
 lights showing to the front, you know, and you must cover 
 them at once." 
 
 "I'll cover anything," said Gray, " if you'll tell me what 
 that hell is, and why they haven't hit us yet, with all that 
 letting-off of ammunition." 
 
 " Because they're firing the other way, sir : it's the British 
 Heavy Battery in front of 3'ou. And as for the other matter. 
 sir, don't let it worry you— I expect there'll be a German 
 shell over here before long." 
 
 This man's explanations were the lirst reassuring word 
 they had heard since they arrived at the front. He like\\nse 
 seeing Young, said that he would send a doctor, who duly 
 arrived, with an ambulance, shortly before midnight, and
 
 262 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 when he had examined Young, gave orders for him to be taken 
 to the Clearing Hospital. 
 
 " He'll be back in a few days," he said. He recommended 
 Gray and Worboys to turn in, and do their best to sleep. 
 " You'll get accustomed to it, now that you know that it's 
 on your side." 
 
 It was clearly Worboys' right to return to the bed which 
 he had been adventurous enough to occupy under such dis- 
 concerting circumstances when they first went there, and 
 it was with something like exultation that he re-established 
 himself on the top of a feather-bed which almost doubled 
 the height of the bedstead, and was the bed of the house. 
 The bed in Gray's room was a very modest affair compared 
 to it. 
 
 Worboys had not been asleep above an hour when there 
 was a tremendous bang on the wall in front of his dressing- 
 table, followed by a thump underneath his back, as if the 
 whole of the other side in a football scrimmage had kicked 
 him simultaneously, and a sensation of the room being filled 
 with cold and wet, and snow which was quite warm to the 
 touch. 
 
 He was still lying there in a half-stunned condition when 
 Gray, who had heard the crash, came in with his electric- 
 torch in one hand and his revolver in the other, to see what 
 had happened. He could hardly see Worboys at all ; he 
 was so buried in feathers, and other feathers were drifting 
 about the room as thick as falling snow. 
 
 But the hole in the wall under the still uninjured window, 
 and the wind blowing the cold and wet of the night through 
 it, told its tale. *A German shell had come into Worboys' 
 room, and exploded under the bed, and the feather-bed 
 had smothered the explosion as if it had been filled with 
 sand, instead of feathers. 
 
 Worboys snowed under with feathers, looked the most 
 humorous sight imaginable : Gray went off into fits of 
 laughter, in spite of the shock at the close shave from death 
 which Worboys had just run. He held out his torch for 
 Worboys, to exhume his clothes and put them on, and then 
 the pair of them made a bundle of the blankets, and retired 
 to the cellar. 
 
 * This actually happened.
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 263 
 
 When their old Frenchman came to wake them, the trail 
 of feathers from the blankets guided him to their place of 
 refuge, even by the light of his miserable little lamp. 
 
 Worboys refered to this incident as the paper-chase when 
 he was telling the story to the Mess. It, at any rate, re- 
 presented what he imagined the " Frenchy " had told him 
 by signs. 
 
 Major Drewston had told Gray and Worboys to present 
 themselves at the Battery at breakfast-time on the following 
 morning. Worboys winced when he heard the hour, but had 
 the sense to realize that this was not a great thing to worry 
 about at the front, when just before daylight is one of the 
 enemy's favourite hours for attack. Fortunately, they had 
 their old Frenchman, who was accustomed to begin his morn- 
 ing in the middle of the night. 
 
 The Captain, Linacre, and two of the three subs, were there 
 when they arrived, and the Captain, as soon as he had heard 
 their tale, sent a sergeant round to see the damage and 
 report to him. He was much impressed with Worboys' 
 sang-froid when he received his report. 
 
 Gray and Worboys discovered that they were super- 
 numeraries, not posted to any Battery, but attached* to the 
 2ooth, so as to learn their work by seeing what the other 
 officers did. 
 
 The subs, informed them, as soon as they were alone, that 
 when they were not in the Observation Post, they would be 
 able to do pretty much as they hked, because Major Drewston 
 hated having supernumeraries attached to his Battery. 
 They said that he was neither a keen man nor an efficient 
 officer, but that the Captain, though a holy terror, was all 
 right, and in case of a serious attack, would have to see the 
 whole job through ; the Major, it appeared, was very jealous 
 of him, and would prevent his giving them. Gray and Worboys, 
 much to do. 
 
 Gray felt scandalized and furious that such things should 
 be possible at the front. Worboys smiled significantly. He 
 was anxious to fight for his country, but the lazier he was 
 allowed to be, when he was not fighting, the better it would 
 meet his ideas. 
 
 The two subs, they were talking to. Sharp and Bagshawe. 
 were quite ordinary, steady boys, who wished to do their 
 duty in war, but displayed no initiative or hustle about doins
 
 264 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 it. Do what he might, the Captain could not inspire them 
 with his own keenness and energy. Major Drewston was 
 the undoing of such boys. He was not fit to have command 
 of anything in war or peace, because his disposition would 
 always spoil the officers under him. 
 
 What Bagshawe and Sharp had told them seemed to be 
 correct, because they were not given anything to do all day, 
 though they wandered about and examined everything in 
 the Battery, chiefly because Gray was keen, and Worboys, 
 who was not at all a sentimental person, was fascinated with 
 Gray. He had not the slightest idea who or what Gray was, 
 though he had been on the brink of discovering it, and only 
 missed it because he was too lazy to do anything except look 
 at the pictures, even in a gossipy paper like the Taller. But 
 he was convinced that there was some mystery about him. 
 Worboys was certain that the look of distinction and authority, 
 which was so noticeable about Gray, in spite of his complete 
 absence of " swank," meant something, though Gray never 
 made the slightest allusion to his holding any position in 
 life, except that of Second-Lieutenant R.G.A. He knew 
 that Gray had been at Eton, because Lord Douglas had said 
 at the dinner, " You'll meet dozens of the men you knew at 
 Eton." 
 
 Gray, much as he felt the parting with Mirabel, was delighted 
 to go to the front. Having joined the Army, he desired 
 to learn the game and excel in it, as he had excelled at cricket 
 and most other games which he had played much. Accord- 
 ingly, he spent that entire day in studying every detail of a 
 Battery in the fighting-line — the way in which the guns 
 wef& concealed in one place, and the horses and wagons 
 in another ; the measures taken for making them invisible 
 to aeroplanes ; the way dug-outs are made ; the way in 
 which the officers and men are disposed for living and fighting ; 
 the kitchen and commissariat arrangements ; and dozens of 
 minor points. 
 
 One thing was obvious at once ; the farm was left looking 
 as like a farm as possible — in fact, the guns, in all pro- 
 bability, only escaped being buried in dung-heaps because 
 the heaps form such very prominent objects in French 
 farms. 
 
 Gray had asked the Major if somebody might show him 
 round, and the Major had shown his absence of courtesy and
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 265 
 
 absence of sense in one breath by saj'ing that it was quite 
 unnecessary for a supernumerary officer to trouble himself 
 about this. Gray said nothing in reply, but his look of blank 
 disappointment and astonishment was not lost on Captain 
 Linacre, who told Sergt. Spencer, one of the best men in the 
 Battery, but incapacitated temporarily by a slight wound, 
 to engage him in conversation, and offer to show him round 
 ij Captain Linacre would give his permission, which was the 
 usual line followed in that Battery in correcting the Major's 
 mistakes. 
 
 " The Major seems a bit sketchy, doesn't he," said Worboys. 
 
 Capt. Linacre suddenly asked the sergeant, "Have we 
 received any bread yet ? " Worboys made a mental note of 
 this, and later in the day came in with eight loaves like the 
 wheels of a luggage barrow which he had got off a Scottish 
 regiment. 
 
 " Well, young man, you have one qualification for a soldier, 
 anyhow. You appear to be a born looter." 
 
 It was not a bad way of discovering what kind of men the 
 new subalterns were. Captain Linacre was aware that the 
 sergeant would be able to give him a very shrewd estimate 
 of them by the time that he had given them a day's instruc- 
 tion of this sort. 
 
 He had a private talk with him when he came back 
 from the Observation Post at dark that evening, and 
 learned that Gray had been taught very little, except the 
 grounding he received from the Sergt. -Maj. -instructor at 
 Westernport, but was extraordinarily keen and quite intelli- 
 gent, while Worboys knew much less, and was neither keen 
 nor intelligent, but would have made a first-rate fighting man 
 for the Infantry. He thought he would take Worboys in hand 
 first, so he said to him, " I want you to go down to the Ob- 
 serving Station with me to-morrow." 
 
 " How am I to get there ? " asked Worboys ; he meant no 
 impertinence, but not in one single order which he had 
 received had this important subject been mentioned. 
 
 " Ride," said the laconic Linacre. 
 
 " Ride what ? " said Worboys—" a bicycle ? " 
 
 " No, a horse." 
 
 " The idea of going through shell-fire on a strange horse, 
 when I had not ridden for years, has kept me awake all 
 night," said Worboys when he came in to breakfast the
 
 266 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 next morning. " The horse worries me far more than the 
 shell-fire. I wonder if I shall ever get there ? " 
 
 In the course of the day before their modest luggage had 
 arrived. So Worboys, in addition to the heavy fur-lined 
 mackintosh in which he had slept so well on that awful 
 drive from Headquarters, and had almost collapsed on the 
 walk up to their billet as he stumbled about in the dark, 
 came laden-up with various other articles, for the state of 
 siege which he pictured in the Observation Post, since Captain 
 Linacre had said, " Come well prepared." Hearing that he 
 was no rider, the Captain had picked an absolutely quiet 
 horse for him. 
 
 It was only with a great deal of help and a dreadful struggle 
 that he ever climbed up on the saddle at all. That sheep- - 
 skin-lined coat was a bulky article. He looked more like 
 a Chinese mandarin than a nineteen-year-old British officer 
 on that pony — mandarins do ride ponies. 
 
 Once there, the weight of his mackintosh, and the exten- 
 siveness of his kit, helped to keep him on, the difficulties com- 
 ing not from his horse, which was doing its best, but the holes 
 in the road made by shell-fire. Though he did not actually 
 come off, the jolting he received by the constant stumbling 
 and efforts not to be thrown would have "knocked out" 
 anyone less constitutionally tough than Worboys. 
 
 He and the Captain left their ponies on the road, for their 
 orderlies to take back. 
 
 " When I heard the Captain say, ' We shall want you 
 here about six o'clock,' my spirits fell to the ground, for it 
 was only about six o'clock in the morning," Worboys told 
 them at mess in the Battery farm that night. 
 
 Even he, hardy young cub that he was, rather dreaded the 
 walk home after Mess. It is a dreary enough job at any time 
 to leave a lot of companions sitting in their slippers over a 
 hearty fire to turn out for a mile-walk in the pitch-dark 
 but when that walk implies also winter, rain, slush up to your 
 ankles, pitfalls dug by shells since you passed in the morning, 
 and shells themselves, the big fish among shoals of shrapnel- 
 bits and single bullets, crossing your path from time to time, 
 human nature almost declines to endure it. Linacre could 
 not imagine how the Major allowed it. He offered to let them 
 shake down on the floor of his own little room. But Gray 
 seemed to rejoice in mortifying the flesh. He had a craze
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 267 
 
 for the realities of war, and Worboys, though he would have 
 liked to accept the Captain's offer, would not see Gray go 
 alone. But, oh, how he hated that stumbhng along in the 
 puddles in the dark ! He wished that Gray was not so 
 grand. 
 
 When they left their horses, they ploughed their way across 
 a muddy field, which was most exhausting for anyone with 
 the weight of things which Worboys had on his back, to the 
 Observation Post. 
 
 " Isn't this rather an unhealthy sort of a spot ? " asked 
 Worboys, when he heard the constant whistle of rifle-bullets 
 and shells overhead. 
 
 " You needn't bother about them — they're not near," 
 said the Captain. 
 
 " They seem too near altogether to me," answered Worboys, 
 who felt that the Captain could not have said less under any 
 circumstances, when he was keeping up the spirits of a 
 novice. 
 
 When they got to the Observation Post, which was in a 
 strongly-built brewery, the Captain said, " Take that woolly- 
 bear ofi — you'll have to swarm up a couple of ladders to get 
 to the top of the building, where we have to go ; there never 
 has been such a thing as a staircase here ; one of the men 
 will carry it up for you." 
 
 " I'll take it off all right, but I can carry it up myself," 
 said Worboys. " I'm much more at home on the top of a 
 ladder than I am on the top of a horse." 
 
 The Captain proceeded to show him, through two funny 
 little slits in the roof, where the enemy's trenches were. 
 
 " What is this place ? " asked Worboys. " It looks like 
 a cross between a chimney and a steeple." 
 
 Something to do with the brewery," said the Captain. 
 
 " It isn't at all clear to me," said Worboys, " which are 
 the enemy and which are our own people. They both seem 
 to have been ploughed in, and those who have not been 
 planted in the furrows" (he refered to tlie rows and rows of 
 trenches) "are muddled up with a whole lot of brick-stacks. 
 The one thing I can make out is that the railway-embankment 
 is entirely held by the enemy." 
 
 " Yes. damn them," said the Captain. " At the begin- 
 ning of the war railway-embankments were only railway - 
 embankments to our people, and the Germans knew that
 
 268 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 they were first-class fortresses, which knocked poor old 
 Maubeuge into a cocked hat ! " 
 
 It was a very quiet day : nothing happened at all. So 
 at evening they trudged back another way across that field, 
 passing numerous French graves — which would have completed 
 Young's demoralization if he had been there : it had been 
 raining hard all day — to the road where the horses, which 
 had been telephoned for, were waiting, at a spot which was 
 then considered safe. It reminded Worboys more of a hive 
 when bees were swarming than anything else, and even 
 the Captain observed that it would be better to keep the 
 horses further down the road, since there was a gap in the 
 ruined village right in front, and all kinds of " hate " came 
 whistling through. On the next day he had them shifted 
 lower down the road. 
 
 Worboys soon discovered that though Capt. Linacre was 
 the fighting man in the Battery, he never neglected any 
 precaution which could be observed. It was the Major who 
 took chances — for other people. He never went to the 
 Observation Post himself. 
 
 It was Gray's turn to go and see how things were done 
 the next day, and he went with Bagshawe ; it was the 
 Captain's day off. It was a quiet day ; the Battery was 
 doing nothing. 
 
 " We're lucky," said Bagshawe. " When we're doing 
 nothing ourselves, there's less chance of the Boches favouring 
 us." He could not understand Gray's obvious disappoint- 
 ment at being in the post when our guns were doing nothing. 
 " You see, if we're firing, they fire," he explained. 
 
 " That's what we're here for," said Gray. " I'm willing 
 to take any chance, if I can see our guns in action." 
 
 " Well, it is interesting, of course," admitted Bagshawe. 
 " But I'm no longer interested in interesting things. I'm 
 sick of the whole thing ; I want to get out of it. I'm fed 
 up with going backwards and forwards to Observation 
 Posts." 
 
 As nothing had happened the day before. Gray had to 
 go down to the Observation Post again, this time with the 
 Captain. 
 
 " He's a chap after your own heart, Linacre," Bagshawe 
 had said, when he returned the night before. " He's always 
 asking for the enemy ! "
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 269 
 
 As they were crossing the field, Gray had his first ex- 
 perience of being shot at by a sniper, who " spotted " them, 
 and put three bullets near enough for them to hear the angry 
 whirr. 
 
 " That was near," said Gray, as he had so often said 
 before. 
 
 This time the Captain did not pick him up, but said, 
 " Quick— into that shell-hole ! " 
 
 The whirr of a bullet which is really near is totally different 
 to the drone of a bullet passing overhead. 
 
 So things went on, till one day the Captain thought 
 Worboys, whose turn it was to accompany him for instiaic- 
 tion, sufficiently advanced for him to say, " I suppose you'd 
 like to do a little shooting now, wouldn't you ? " 
 
 He made him repeat the various terms for instructing the 
 Battery by 'phone, and suggested that he should shoot at 
 a brickstack which the enemy held. 
 
 They saw the shell land, but nowhere near where it was 
 intended to go. They did not know what was wrong. But 
 they tried the prescription again, and knocked a large chunk 
 out of another brick-stack. 
 
 A few minutes later a Guardee arrived, and was quite 
 nice about it, but disclosed that the first sheH had landed 
 in the Guards' communication trench. 
 
 That was Worboys' first shot at the enemy. It was 
 fortunate that it had no results. 
 
 After this they stopped for the day, having fired about 
 three shots altogether. At this period they had a daily 
 allowance to make themselves unpleasant with and used 
 to husband it rigidly for annoying the Germans as much 
 as they could on such a stingy supply. 
 
 The next time Worboys went to the Observation Post 
 he had only Gray with him. He made Gray jump into 
 several shell-holes while they were crossing that field, to 
 get out of the way of shell which were coming over. The 
 Germans were beginning to take an interest in this Observa- 
 tion Post, and showed it with large quantities of their fifteen- 
 pounder field-guns, which are called whiz-bangs, so Bag- 
 shawe had informed him, because you hear the 'dhiz and 
 the hang at the same time, if the gun is any\vhere close. 
 
 Worboys thought that their shells were coming rather 
 near, and was pretending to make himself scarce from one,
 
 270 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 when it hit the building under his feet. Nothing happened : 
 it was a very good building. But Worboys said to Gray, 
 " Suppose it had hit the building a few feet higher up, where 
 should we be ? Would the old sandbags keep it out ? " 
 
 " I think it would depend on whether our numbers were 
 up or not," said Gray. 
 
 It was not long before they saw what would happen. 
 A shell struck the other corner of the room they were in. 
 It burst with a terrific crash, swept away half the wall in 
 a cloud of shrieking splinters and a desert sandstorm of 
 brick and plaster, cleared away the woodwork and threw the 
 sandbags all over the room. But they consoled them- 
 selves with the idea that that corner was not anything hke 
 so weh-built as their own, and that this was the reason why 
 there was no one in it. While they were reasoning this out 
 a shell whooped close over their heads and burst just behind 
 them, then one, two, three in quick sucesssion feU just short 
 and burst in front of them, then two more burst just beyond 
 again. 
 
 To pay the Germans out for the scare which they had 
 received, Worboys suggested shelhng the enemy's redoubt 
 every time that they shelled our people. This was quite 
 a ticklish business, because there was only about a hundred 
 yards dividing the two front trenches. So that when the 
 Observation officer ordered the enemy's front trench to be 
 shelled, the shell of his own guns dropped unpleasantly close 
 to his own trench. 
 
 " It's all very well, Worboys," said Gray, " but I must 
 confess how relieved I am when I see that we have missed 
 our own people." 
 
 What was true of one day was true of another for weeks 
 and weeks. It disgusted Gray that our guns had no plan 
 of their own, but merely fired back when the Germans started 
 shelling. 
 
 Whenever the Germans had got in a new supply of ammuni- 
 tion, they produced a daily programme, as Worboys said. 
 They used to start with the village — what there was left 
 of it : then they went to the buildings round the canal bridge ; 
 then they crossed over to the buildings on the other side : 
 and they ended up with trying to get a shell into his Obser- 
 vation Post. The two subs, used to watch them ranging. 
 They would get one short, and another a bit nearer : then
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 271 
 
 they would probably go into the garden behind, and it was 
 time for the Battery to go to the cellar. 
 
 Gray and Worboys were unable to reply, because they did 
 not know where the German guns were. The Germans 
 usually hit the Observation Post about half a dozen times 
 a day. 
 
 " Big stuff ! " cried Worboys, whenever a six-inch shell 
 came smashing into the post. But the place in which they 
 were observing was never hurt, because there was an un- 
 fortunate estaminet in front. 
 
 " It's rather hard that the poor pub should get it all," 
 said Gray. 
 
 " I don't see it," said Worboys — " an estaminet's a ' place 
 of entertainment under the Act,' isn't it ? " 
 
 When the Germans had finished, the Battery came out 
 of the cellar, and resumed its occupation of observing for 
 nothing. 
 
 " It takes away all feeling of rest to have this ' small 
 stuff ' — these pip-squeaks and whiz-bangs and rifle-bullets 
 coming over you all day," said Worboys, " but they don't 
 count, because our old brewery is so thick-skinned ! " 
 
 Finding the Observation Post so dull, the Germans turned 
 their guns on the village. And they often looked round 
 for an armoured train, which used to worry them, or another 
 Battery well to the rear, before they ceased firing. 
 
 They could never silence that German Battery till one 
 day the Captain told Worboys to shoot at a brewery, in 
 which he had seen people moving about. Worboys, as 
 usual, got the range entirely wrong, but that misdirected 
 shell must have found the offending battery, because it 
 stopped firing for ever afterwards. 
 
 War was brought very close to them as they were returning 
 along the communication-trench to the place where their 
 horses were waiting that night ; there was a German gun 
 firing over their heads, and German shells kept passing. 
 
 " Worboys," said Gray, " those attentive people are 
 shelling the crest of the road over which we shall have to 
 ride. We must time it between two shells, and hug the 
 wall." 
 
 " Right you are ! " said Worboys, with the laugh of a 
 child who is playing Tom Tiddler's Ground. " We'll let 
 about ten of them go by so as to give them beggars a chance
 
 272 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 of using up their ' hate ' while we are finding out how to 
 time them, and then over we go 1 " 
 
 " You'd better let me do it," said Gray — " I made a 
 hundred against Cambridge, and am accustomed to judging 
 the flight of a ball." 
 
 " Oh, let me ! " pleaded Worboys. " I should enjoy it so ! " 
 
 " All right," said Gray. " But remember that we are 
 betting our lives on it ! " 
 
 " Here goes ! " cried Worboys. He thought he had 
 timed it to a T, but the shell burst only about fifteen feet 
 behind him. Gray timed it better, and let it burst well 
 in front of him. All he said was : 
 
 " That was rather a late cut of yours, Worboys — I expected 
 to see you ... or, rather, I did not." 
 
 But the last word was with Worboys, for another shell 
 fell unpleasantly close behind them. " Hurry up 1 " he 
 said, " this is no time for gassing ! " 
 
 And some French soldiers who were passing shouted : 
 " Souvenir ! Souvenir ! " which meant, " Look out for shells ! " 
 
 " ' Souvenir ' seems to be the only English word that the 
 French know," said Worboys. 
 
 Gray and Worboys took their turn with the rest regularly. 
 It enabled the Captain to have two ofiicers together in the 
 Observation Post, with proper intervals for rest, even if 
 someone was temporarily laid up. The Major had not 
 once been to the post since they had arrived. 
 
 Going up and down to the Observation Post was always 
 more or less the same — big and little risks all the time. 
 Worboys quite fascinated Gray by his light-hearted humour 
 whenever he expected the next moment to be his last. Every 
 time a shell made them throw themselves down he had a 
 fresh piece of schoolboy cheek for it. But directing gun- 
 fire was not his line. One day he was trying to silence a 
 German Battery which they had located : the first three 
 shells he directed he never saw at all — they were far too 
 short. So he ceased firing, but presently a Staff Officer came 
 in, wildly excited, saying " Grand ! Grand ! Right in 
 each time ! " 
 
 Worboys did not know what he was talking about, and 
 felt a little nervous, as an Artillery officer always does when
 
 THE COMMONPLACES OF WAR 273 
 
 he does not know where his shell are going to. The Staff 
 Officer explained that they had landed plump in the enemy's 
 trenches. They were at least eight hundred yards from 
 what he was shooting at. 
 
 But this time it was not his fault, for Gray, getting this 
 lead as to where their shell were going, worked the whole 
 thing out, and discovered that the guns were shooting six 
 hundred yards short, because they were wrongly sighted. 
 When he had discovered this error, he took over the direction, 
 and enjoyed himself in knocking about a large, undamaged 
 red-brick mansion, which the Germans had used for many 
 purposes. They had fires and other comforts in it, which 
 was distressing — besides using it for an Observation Station. 
 
 Worboys was green with envy, but he did not want the 
 Staff Officer to see what a bad shot he was, so he let Gray 
 go on, and Gray, improving on that happy misdirection, 
 drove the German Battery off. 
 
 These domesticities were interrupted by a real battle— 
 Neuve Chapelle. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 SAYING GOOD-BYE TO ARCHIE 
 
 SAYING good-bye to Archie was very different from 
 saying good-bye to Oliver Gray, for he went with his 
 Regiment. 
 
 There was an immensely long special train down to South- 
 ampton for the relatives, and such of the officers as were not 
 required for entraining the men, and the band of the Cold- 
 stream Guards had been sent down in advance to play them 
 on board the transports. 
 
 Lord and Lady Douglas, Mirabel and Paula, accompanied 
 Archie. Archie wrote Paula a special note, begging that 
 she would accompany Mirabel and his parents. He was 
 afraid that she would feel lunt if they went without her, 
 and, though he did not think of this, did himself a good turn, 
 for Mirabel felt the parting so deeply that but for Paula's 
 urging she might not have had the courage to face it. 
 
 The Socialistic Paula enjoyed every minute of it all. Her 
 heart swelled with pride at having been specially invited 
 by the most brilliant boy in the Regiment — the beautiful 
 
 18
 
 274 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 and dashing young heir of The Douglas — to go as " family " 
 with his father and mother and the cousin he loved. 
 
 Archie was in boisterous spirits. Not even the prospect 
 of parting from Mirabel could damp his enthusiasm at going 
 with his Regiment to the front. He was the true spit of 
 the Black Douglas and Archibald the Grim and all the other 
 Sir Jameses and Sir Archibalds and Sir Williams who had 
 carried the Douglas banner into battle after battle in the 
 Scottish wars, until the battle came from which they were 
 carried home on a shield instead of riding on their black 
 chargers. 
 
 Mirabel was thankful that he was in this mood, for it 
 exorcized sentiment, and the parting was a tragedy to her. 
 
 When she had parted from her husband she felt the regret 
 and anxiety which she would have felt at parting with any 
 other friend as dear and faithful, had she possessed one. 
 As a husband she could not regret him. The most she could 
 do was to stifle the thought that the battlefield might free 
 her from her life's mistake. She did stifle it, and wished 
 him safe return from the bottom of her heart. The affection 
 she yielded him was for his sake, not her own. She wished 
 him to have no misgivings when he was going to the front 
 to fight for his country. She tried hard to let him carry 
 away with him the remembrances of a wife which should 
 go with a soldier-husband, especially where she is beautiful. 
 But she could not give him any of the regrets and longings 
 which such a woman as she was ought to give to such a 
 husband as he was. 
 
 And these poured out in a tempestuous flood to Archie, 
 whom she had never so much as kissed, in her anxiety not 
 to wrong her husband. 
 
 She sat smiling affectionately, but rather sadly, as Archie 
 bubbled over. It was providential that he had invited 
 Paula, for though she was sad at the idea of the beautiful 
 Archie being torn away from London for the perils of the 
 front, and was quite in love with him in an old-maidish way, 
 she was not losing a son or a lover, and had the high spirits 
 to retort to his sallies. The Aristocracy have a philosophy 
 of their own in parting from their children. When the 
 time comes for childhood to terminate they contemplate 
 no other ending. A son has to go forth as a soldier or an 
 administrator, a daughter to marry a soldier or administrator,
 
 SAYING GOOD-BYE TO ARCHIE 275 
 
 When the war came, the first thought of the Aristocracy 
 was to fight for their country, and, ever since the war began, 
 Archie had been longing for his Regiment to be sent to the 
 front. Lord Douglas, too, fully recognizing the risks, had 
 felt it almost as a slur that Archie had not yet been sent. 
 His feelings were divided between natural regret and anxiety, 
 on the one hand, and satisfaction that the time had come, on 
 the other. So he wore his ordinary expression of grave 
 distinction. The gentle Lady Douglas was frankly a mother 
 who had to take leave of her son. 
 
 When they reached the quay at Southampton, and a 
 thousand and twenty-four fighting men, with their sweet- 
 hearts and relatives, were standing about in little knots, 
 awaiting embarkation, those of his brother-officers who 
 haunted the stalls of the Babylon Theatre were at odd 
 moments interested to see that Archie's cousin, the beautiful 
 leading lady in " Mary, Queen of Scots," who secluded herself 
 from admirers so religiously, had come down with his parents 
 to see him off. Her footing with the family was obvious ; 
 they were prepared now to admit the wisdom of her 
 exclusiveness. 
 
 A few of those who were chosen to look after the entraining 
 and embarkation because they had no one to see them off, 
 and had met Mirabel at Lady Douglas's, came up and said : 
 " How do you do ? " to her, while they were waiting for the 
 hooter to give the signal for the heavy job of embarking the 
 Regiment. But it was only a " How do you do ? " for Mirabel, 
 as they expected, turned back to Archie almost immediately, 
 and they had their men to look after. 
 
 Mirabel could not have believed that so many men and 
 horses and wagons could have been got on board the 
 transports so quickly. It seemed only a short half-hour 
 instead of two hours before the hoarse whistles of the steamers 
 snorted the " All aboard ! " and the minute had come for 
 Archie to say good-bye. He and his father said good-bye 
 smilingly, remembering little things. His mother, when he 
 kissed her as if he was still a child, wept quiet tears, and had 
 no voice. But he was the old Archie when he slipped his 
 arm round Paula's waist in pure mischief, and found her 
 a willing victim, before he took his passionate farewell of 
 Mirabel— his first and last kisses to the woman whom he had 
 loved so devotedly and so chivalrously. 
 
 18*
 
 276 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Though she had never yielded to her feehngs before, she 
 felt as if she had been his wife ever since that night when he 
 forced his way into her dressing-room, and left it so gracefully. 
 She clung to him and clung to him, till Lord Douglas gently 
 separated them, saying, " Time's up, Archie ! God bless 
 you and bring you safe home, when England's won ! " 
 
 The Douglas, Scotland's most historical peer, always 
 spoke of the United Kingdom as England. 
 
 With one more long-drawn kiss Archie was on the gang- 
 way, by which they had been standing, walking across it 
 with the buoyant, manly tread, which showed that he was, 
 above all things, a soldier for whom the bugle had sounded. 
 
 But as the ship headed for France, and the band thundered 
 out " Scotland for Ever," Mirabel's heart failed her. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 ; "A DOUGLAS ! A DOUGLAS ! " 
 
 HOW ARCHIE FELL 
 
 THE Chateau of Villeneuve had resisted the fire of the 
 British Artillery because it happened to stand behind 
 the church, a thirteenth-century building, which, when once 
 its roof had fallen in, and its floor had been torn up, seemed 
 to defy further destruction by shell-fire. The glass had 
 almost disappeared from the windows, but the thick walls, 
 shored up by tremendous buttresses, could not be shifted 
 from the perpendicular, and there was the miracle of the great 
 Crucifix hanging in the Rood Chapel absolutely uninjured. 
 
 The chateau garden was divided from the graveyard 
 round the church by a thick, high, loopholed wall, and the 
 chateau itself was a low building, with thick walls and small 
 windows, flanked at each end by a small round tourelle, with 
 a low steeple — a terrible place to storm when it had been 
 strengthened by Germans with every artifice of modern 
 warfare. 
 
 As it was a strong point in the German defence, and was 
 as difficult to reduce by assault as it was by gunfire, it was 
 decided to mine it. A sap-head was made behind the church 
 unperceived, and a mine was driven under it and the grave- 
 yard, which was to be continued under the garden wall and
 
 HOW ARCHIE FELL 277 
 
 the garden, to right beneath the chateau cellars, where it was 
 to be exploded. 
 
 The British had to go down very deep to get under the 
 foundations of the church. It was a piece of good fortune, 
 for when they were continuing the sap under the graveyard, 
 they heard the movements and footsteps of Germans just 
 above them, the measured thump, thump. 
 
 They could not understand why the Germans should be 
 driving a mine under the churchyard, unless it was to counter- 
 mine them. In point of fact, they were not doing so. They 
 were merely digging graves, using the graveyard for its 
 original purpose, though it almost resulted in the British 
 mine being fired and destroying only a few grave-diggers. 
 But it did not take Captain Chaster, the R.E. officer in 
 charge, an instant to decide to accept the risk of being blown 
 into eternity with his Sappers, on the olf-chance of succeeding 
 in blowing up the chateau ; so they mined ahead with the 
 utmost deliberation and caution. The picks could no longer 
 be used and even the spades had to be handled as silently as 
 possible. The grave-diggers, not being engineers by pro- 
 fession, providentially did not recognize that the sounds 
 which they heard were made by the British mining. The 
 R.E. only discovered what they were doing by twice coming 
 across the body of a recently buried German — the stench told 
 how recently. 
 
 Now it happened that the garden wall of the chateau had 
 been the outer wall of a castle which had stood there before 
 the chateau, and it, too, had deep and strong foundations, 
 like a house, to impede the mining operations of the Middle 
 Ages. When they reached these foundations, Chaster thought 
 that they had reached the chateau, and when they had 
 mined a few yards further, so as to be under its centre, as 
 he believed, he telephoned to Brigade IIcadc[uarters, to ask 
 that the detachment of the Scots Guards, who were to bomb 
 and bayonet their way through when he had fired the 
 mine, might be in readiness. 
 
 The mine, instead of ending under the ch.iteau, ended under 
 the middle of a maze of trenches, whicli filled the entire space 
 between the chateau and its garden-wall, which had once 
 been filled with lovers' walks and Provence roses. 
 
 At last the R.E. decided that the work of so many days 
 and nights was ready, that the time had come for him to
 
 278 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 destroy the masterpiece to which he had been giving all his 
 brains, all his energies, every thought, every waking 
 moment. He telephoned to the Brigade Headquarters again, 
 and a high officer came to inspect. 
 
 He examined the mine, ordered the Guardsmen to be ready 
 to make the rush as soon as the explosion cleared the way. 
 Then he gave word to Chaster, who had placed and linked up 
 all his charges, and connected them with the switch outside. 
 
 The R.E. scrambled out of his sap, a clay-caked figure, 
 blinded by the daylight, and fired the mine. 
 
 In an instant he was caught in an earthquake. The solid 
 ground heaved like the swell of the sea, rocked like a falling 
 steeple, and shook to the roaring blast of the explosion. The 
 shock and rush of air from the mine flung Chaster headlong. 
 For a second he was stunned. The shower of stones and 
 clods revived him with sharp pain. The twilight had gone 
 back to night. 
 
 Even in that stunned condition, he knew by instinct that 
 he had missed his objective, because though the explosion 
 threw up masses of earth, hundreds of tons in weight, there 
 was no concussion such as there would have been with the 
 upheaval of the immense mediseval masonry of the chateau. 
 
 Before the vibration of the explosion had died away, before 
 the last of the blown-up fragments had fallen, with a full, 
 deep-chested roar of cheering the Guards dashed round the 
 church, and swarmed over the disrupted masses of the chateau 
 wall and the craters made in the garden by the linked-up 
 charges of the mine. 
 
 They were no nice judges of sound and vibration, like the 
 R.E. captain. They expected to finish in the chateau, 
 with its centre blown out and fire being rained down on 
 them with rifle, machine-gun, and bomb, from every part of 
 the building which was still standing. 
 
 Archie was one of the officers in command of the assaulting 
 party, who, followed by their men, flung themselves over 
 the blown-up wall and the mine craters and scrambled up the 
 further side of it, before the machine-guns in the upper 
 parts of the chateau could be brought to bear on them. For 
 a while it was impossible for the defenders to see them 
 clearly, for the twilight of dawn had not cleared away, and 
 the mine had sent up a tremendous cloud of dust and stones 
 and dirt.
 
 HOW ARCHIE FELL 279 
 
 The Guards only just escaped another deadly peril, for 
 when they had scrambled up to the crests of the cavities 
 made by the explosion, they found themselves surrounded by 
 the trenches of a redoubt, which were packed with German 
 infantry, and, standing as they did against the sky-hne, they 
 expected to be shot at sight, especially the officers, easily 
 recognizable at close quarters, and always picked off by 
 German sharpshooters detailed for the purpose. 
 
 But the men in the trenches did not fire at them. They 
 were groping about, as if it was still night, feeling for each 
 other's faces and arms. The awful force of the explosion, 
 right in their midst, had blinded and deafened them, and 
 almost deprived them of their senses. 
 
 Without understanding why they were not fired at, the 
 bayoneters leaped down among them, while the bombers 
 flung their bombs at the first floor of the chateau which 
 loomed up in front of them obscurely. 
 
 As soon as the dust cleared away all the British officers 
 except one were picked off by the snipers in the chateau. 
 The one who bore the charmed life was Archie. Those who 
 had only seen him at home, looking such a boy, those who 
 had only seen him in scenes like that dinner at the Babylon, 
 " ragging " with the beauties of the Chorus, could not have 
 recognized him in the fierce soldier who led the six-foot 
 Scotsmen in the tremendous bayoneting, the hand-to-hand 
 shooting which killed with flame as well as bullet, the 
 crunching thud of rifle-butts. The sides of the trenches 
 flaked and fell to pieces, as the machine-guns, fired from the 
 chateau, beat on them like the spray of a cyclone, and cut even 
 the earth to ribbons. In their anxiety to beat off the attack 
 of the British, the Germans in the chateau poured a cataract 
 of bullets into the trenches, regardless whether they mowed 
 down friend or foe. The trenches were soon slippery with 
 streams of blood, and choked and almost impassable witli 
 the slashed-up bodies of the dead. 
 
 But the Guards, led by Archie, fought on in their fine and 
 irresistible way, until every German in the trenches was dead. 
 
 That was only the beginning. No one had expected any 
 trenches, and not a man had reached the chateau yet. 
 
 Archie, boy as he was, and mad with the lust of fighting, had 
 in his veins the blood of all the Douglases, who had led the 
 armies of Scotland against England. He had the coolness
 
 28o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 and leadership to look for a place which his cricketer's eye 
 told him was out of the radius of the machine-guns. The 
 only safe spots were right against the wall of the chateau, 
 which could be reached by his men from the breaches in the 
 trenches made by the explosion. The door of the chateau 
 was guarded by machine-guns, as he detected by the holes 
 knocked through the steps which led up to it. The regular 
 communication-trenches, which led back to the chateau, 
 had machine-guns trained on them from other cellars. But 
 the breaches were unforeseen, and Archie had the leader- 
 ship to perceive this. Right and left of the entrance his 
 men rushed up to the walls of the chateau, and stood there, 
 out of the reach of the machine-guns. The turrets at each 
 end of the chateau did not project sufficiently to enfilade them. 
 
 There they halted to breathe before they tried to storm 
 the chateau. How it was to be done no one could see, unless 
 the Sappers, creeping up through the trenches with high 
 explosives, could breach the chateau. But the trenches were 
 so dominated by the fire from the upper windows that the 
 feat seemed impossible. 
 
 The German commander came to their rescue. To enfilade 
 the Guards sheltering against its walls, he ordered machine- 
 guns to be taken out through the doors of the chateau. But 
 the men detailed to do it were not quick enough. 
 
 Archie, who was nearest the door on the left side, heard 
 the door opening, and calling out to the men on the right 
 side to support him, hurled himself and the men with him 
 on the emerging Germans, who, cumbered with machine- 
 guns, tripods and belts, were overwhelmed by the onslaught, 
 and bayoneted on the spot, or dashed back into the chateau 
 followed hot-foot by the British. 
 
 The Germans dashed up the stairs, but the youthful heir 
 of the Douglases kept his coolness, in spite of the fierce 
 and breathless struggle in which he had just been engaged, 
 and instead of trying to force the staircase, which was certain 
 to be swept by rifle-fire and machine-guns, sent his men 
 into the ground-floor rooms right and left of the door to 
 bayonet the snipers and machine-gunners who were sheltered 
 in them, and thus prepare the way for more British to come 
 up. Reinforcements were already arriving, but, dashing for 
 the open doorway, were mown down by the machine-guns 
 through the holes in the steps below it.
 
 HOW ARCHIE FELL 281 
 
 Then two of Archie's men volunteered to make their way 
 back through the desolated trenches, and tell the reinforce- 
 ments to take the same route as they had taken. 
 
 While they were gone, the British on the ground floor 
 entrenched themselves with the sandbags which they found 
 guarding the windows, hastily transfered to the doors, against 
 the Germans, who were much more numerous, on the first floor 
 and the machine-gunners in the cellar. 
 
 By this time there was a fresh element in favour of the 
 British, for the reinforcements had made a rude parapet 
 by piling up sandbags between the shattered masses of the 
 garden wall, and lined it with machine-guns with which they 
 played on the windows of the chateau's upper floors, thus 
 creating a diversion. 
 
 But this did not satisfy Archie. Not content with holding 
 the ground floor, he ordered the men on his side of the hall 
 to fire up through the ceiling. With their high-velocity 
 rifles they soon knocked it to pieces, and riddled tiie floor 
 above. The great masses of plaster coming down killed some 
 and maimed others, but they did not care. The men could 
 see the ceiling giving way, and they knew that if they went 
 on, the Germans on the floor above, machine-guns and all, 
 would come down through it. 
 
 Not losing his head with the success of his plan, Archie 
 made his men stand as close to the walls as they could, 
 when the floor above began to drop through. But it was 
 too much for them when the top-booted legs of a Boche 
 came down through the ceiling, which was not a high one, 
 and which was now not only smashed through by the terrible 
 force of the rifles, but actually set on fire by the flame from 
 their muzzles. Two big Guardsmen made a dash for the 
 Boche's legs, and, using their weight below, established a 
 leverage which no holding up from above could resist. Ho 
 was run through with a bayonet before he reached the ground, 
 and the efforts of his comrades to save him brought half a 
 dozen of them tumbling through the floor after him, and their 
 fall brought down the whole floor, with every man and gun 
 on it. 
 
 Many British were felled by the falling d6bris and guns. 
 But the Germans who fell, however brave they were, and 
 however lucky in having escaped injury, were at a hopeless 
 disadvantage against the British, ranged against the walls
 
 282 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 to escape the d(^bris, especially since Archie had ordered them 
 to stand clear and shoot. The numbers of the Germans 
 availed them nothing with such a handicap. 
 
 Nor did the carnage end there, for the immense weight 
 falling on the floor crashed through it and into the cellars. 
 
 The British who were not killed or disabled by the collapse 
 of the floors, at once began firing on the machine-gunners 
 in the cellars, who were an easy prey as there were only 
 enough of them to man the machine-guns, and they had not 
 their rifles handy to reply. 
 
 When the Germans whom they could see in the cellars 
 were sufficiently cleared out, Archie ordered his men to cease 
 firing, and twenty volunteers scrambled down the debris to 
 fight their way through, and bayonet the machine-gunners 
 in the cellars under the steps and in the other wing, the work 
 of a few red minutes. The door being no longer swept by 
 machine-guns, the leading company of a wild Irish regiment, 
 coming up in support, dashed in through the machine-gim 
 and rifie-fire from the upper story of the other wing, and, 
 unheeding its losses, swept up the great staircase, and 
 cleaned out the other wing with its bayonets, and all was 
 over. 
 
 All except one thing. When all firing had ceased, and 
 the victors came out in batches to revive themselves in the air 
 of the mine-torn garden, while they were fortifying the far 
 side of the chateau against the counter-attack, which must 
 inevitably come, a sniper, who had been overlooked, shot 
 that true descendant of the Black Douglas, the twenty-year-old 
 subaltern who had stormed the chateau with his swift per- 
 ceptions and iron courage, through the lungs, and he fell, 
 a doomed man. 
 
 " With that there came an arrow hastihe. 
 Forth of a mighty wane. 
 It hath stricken the Earl Douglas 
 In at the breast-bane. 
 
 " Through liver and lungs both 
 The sharp arrow is gane, 
 That never after in all his life days 
 
 He spake no words but ane, 
 That was, ' Fight ye, my merry men, whiles ye may, 
 For my life days ben gane.' " 
 
 From The Ballad of Chevy Chace.
 
 ARCHIE'S LAST REQUEST 283 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 HOW CAPTAIN O'NEILL FURTHERED ARCHIE'S LAST REQUEST 
 
 THE Irishmen had been headed in their rush up the 
 stairs of the chateau by a Captain nearly hfty years 
 old, who had been a Captain when he left the Regiment ten 
 years before, after the Boer War, and had been rejoiced to 
 go back to it with the same rank. It was Desmond O'Neill. 
 The great boxer, being a man of exceptional physique, who 
 had always kept himself in good trim, was able to stand the 
 hardships of the trenches better than many youngsters. 
 
 His record as Champion of the Army made him a hero with 
 the Regiment, so the Colonel had gladly given his company 
 the honour of heading the rush to support the Guards. And 
 Desmond's men, with Desmond at their head, armed with 
 rifle and bayonet hke themselves, had been irresistible. 
 
 Desmond was cleaning his bayonet, and showing his 
 strength at the same time, by driving it into the hard ground 
 up to its hilt, as if the earth had been a sheet of notepaper, 
 when a stretcher-bearer came up to him, and, saluting, said 
 that there was a badly-wounded Guards' officer who wanted 
 to speak to another officer. He hastily went along with the 
 man, and found to his horror that it was Archie, suffering 
 from a spasm of coughing terrible in his dying condition, 
 and which could not be stopped until he spat up the blood 
 in his lungs which caused it. 
 
 " I hope that you're not badly Imrt, Avondale," he said, 
 though he saw by the pallor of the face, which had been so 
 beautifully ruddy, that there could not be much hope. 
 
 " Thanks, old chap. I'm afraid that I have to pass in my 
 checks. No, I'm damned if I'm afraid ! I've never been 
 afraid since that night when you — you know ... it was 
 the night I fell in love with Mirry." 
 
 " I know, Avondale, and to think that it has come to 
 this ! Do you want me to take a message for her ? " 
 
 Slowly, broken by frequent fits of coughing, came Archie's 
 answer : 
 
 " No— I mean, yes, in case of accidents. Tell her, incase
 
 284 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 I don't get to him, that my last thoughts were of her. But, 
 for God's sake, if you can, get me to Gray ! " 
 
 " Gray ? " said Desmond. " Where is he ? " 
 
 " I saw him yesterday morning as we were coming along. 
 He was observing in the front Infantry trench at Givinchy.* 
 I passed the time of day to him as he was going into his 
 Observation Post, and I want to speak to him again before 
 I go out." 
 
 " Of course I'll get you to him, Avondale. Only don't talk 
 of ' going out ' ! There's a chap been fighting by my side 
 to-day who has had a bullet through his brain, and is quite 
 well again. He got through to-day all right, too." 
 
 " It's no good telling me, O'Neill. I shall never see Mirry 
 again, but I mean to see Gray, if you'll help me. I've got 
 something to say to him about Mirry, and I know I shall 
 never rest in my grave if I don't say it." 
 
 " Well, I'll get you there, if I have to ask for leave and 
 carry you myself. Hi— you. Orderly — Captain O'Neill's 
 compliments to your commanding officer, and ask him if I 
 can have a stretcher-party to take a wounded officer, Lord 
 Avondale of the Scots Guards, down to the Givinchy trenches, 
 where he has a relative." Desmond had not the least idea 
 how near the truth he was. He added under his breath : 
 " You see the condition he's in." 
 
 Though Archie was mortally wounded, it was plain that he 
 still had the command of his faculties as well as his powers of 
 speech, because he said in a queer voice : " It would be 
 rather a wheeze if you carried me in my exit as well as my 
 entry ! " 
 
 " We shan't let it be your exit if we can help it, old man ! 
 They have a Field Hospital just behind the lines there." 
 
 " They've got me all right ! But I don't mean to make 
 my bow till I have spoken to Gray, if I can help it." 
 
 As he finished these words, he was interrupted by a spasm 
 of coughing and blood-spitting, followed by a faint. Desmond 
 feared that the end had come, and was beside himself because 
 he did not know what to do to stave off death till the stretcher- 
 party arrived — they would know what to do. But at length 
 Archie opened his eyes again, and Desmond said : " Does 
 it hurt terribly ? " 
 
 * Pronounced bj' our soldiers Givinchy, but written Givenchy.
 
 ARCHIE'S LAST REQUEST 285 
 
 " Not the wound — it's what I have to say to Gray ; he's 
 a good chap." 
 
 " He'll let you say what you like ; he's one of the best." 
 
 At that moment the stretcher-party came up. 
 
 The corporal saluted. " Captain Carruthers' compliments, 
 sir, and we are to ask you for orders." 
 
 " Ask for Lieutenant Gray, R.G.A., at the Siege Artillery 
 Observation Post in the front trench at Givinchy. Lord 
 Avondale has a message for him." 
 
 The corporal already knew Lord Avondale well by sight. 
 All the Guards' Regiments have performed such miracles of 
 self-sacrificing valour that they have filled the hospitals. 
 
 " ni do my best, sir," said the corporal, as he hastily 
 effected in the way of first aid what the nature of the injury 
 required ; he could see that the wound was mortal. I3ut, 
 though he shook his head as he did it, he placed an anti- 
 septic pad over the entrance wound, and secured it in its 
 place with a bandage. 
 
 " Make them promise to take me to him, dead or alive," 
 said Archie, " and then I can close my eyes, if it eases me." 
 
 " I give you my word on it, my Lord," said the corporal. 
 
 " I'm ' my Lord ' again ! " said Archie. " It's like the 
 old times at the theatre ! Good-bye, O'Neill — I'm afraid 
 that it's the Last Post ! " 
 
 The man who half an hour before had been hkc a devil out of 
 hell, as he tore up the staircase with his Munsters, had his eyes 
 full of tears as he grasped Archie's hand in a firm, gentle grip. 
 
 " ril write to your people and Mirry." Ho said " I\Iirry," 
 because he knew that it would be music to Archie's ears. 
 " Ask for Lieutenant Gray, Corporal." 
 
 "V^Tien the bearers, moving as carefully as they could, had 
 disappeared in the sap. Captain O'Neill went to the other 
 side of the chateau, and did the work of three men in altering 
 the trenches against the counter-attack. 
 
 One of Archie's men, who had been his servant, stalked the 
 sniper who had shot their ofticer in cold blood when it was 
 all over. The man, when the Guardsman sprang upon him 
 too suddenly for him to shoot, cried for mercy. 
 
 The Scot, who had dropped his rifle to spring on him, 
 dragged him by the collar to the chateau, to decide what 
 should be done with him. He shook him like a rat all the 
 way, big man though he was, and bumped and battered
 
 286 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 him over the waves of heaps and holes, of smashed-up 
 masonry, of broken beams and jagged planks, of wrecked 
 trenches and barricading, of bulged helmets and broken rifles, 
 of the bloody hashed-up debris of the dead and their 
 belongings. A runaway horse could hardly have smashed him 
 more horribly. Before he got to the chateau the sniper 
 was an obliterated body with the life shaken out of it. 
 The Guardsman threw it on the spot where Archie fell 
 and went back to fetch his rifle. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 HOW ARCHIE LEARNED MIRABEL's SECRET 
 
 ON the morning after the storming of the chateau, Gray, 
 who, since they were expecting an attack, had 
 remained in the Observation Post all night, was about 
 to step out of the basement, below the half-destroyed room 
 in the battered-down house where he had been observing, 
 behind a rampart of sandbags, when his way was barred 
 by a stretcher carrying a tall young Guards' officer, which 
 its bearers had set down just by the broken doorway. 
 The corporal had his foot on the threshold as Gray was 
 coming out. Gray had seen many men die since he had 
 landed in France, and one glance told him that the 
 bleeding figure before him had only a span to live. A 
 second glance. . . . Good God ! it was Archie ! 
 
 " Lieutenant Gray ? " said the corporal. 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 " May I bring him in, sir ? He has something to say to 
 you, sir." 
 
 " Quick, quick ! " cried Gray. " And one of you go and 
 find the medical officer in the trench ! " He dreaded lest 
 the message should be lost. 
 
 " He won't die till he has said it, sir," said the corporal, 
 while the men brought him in as swiftly as they could without 
 giving him unnecessary shaking. " I thought he was dead 
 once as we were bringing him along, but when I turned him 
 over, he told me almost in his natural voice — I know him, sir, 
 he's Lord Avondale — how to get to you, saying, ' I must speak 
 to him before I go out.' He's just living for that. I've seen 
 others that way, and they generally last till they've done it."
 
 ARCHIE LEARNS MIRABEL'S SECRET 287 
 
 He stopped speaking. The men had got the stretcher in 
 through the broken doorway, and lowered it reverently. 
 The corporal made a sign, and they went out. He himself 
 stayed to wipe the mouth of the fainting man, and moisten his 
 lips with diluted brandy from time to time. 
 
 The boy was much worse now, and his life was ebbing fast. 
 Intent as he was on not losing a sound or a symptom of the 
 dying man. Gray kept glancing round to see if medical aid 
 was coming, but there was no sign, and it seemed as if, after 
 all, Archie would not recover sufficiently to give his message 
 before he died. 
 
 But when Gray had given up all hope, the stimulant at 
 last began to tell, and Archie pulled himself together suffi- 
 ciently to recognize the man he had made such a supreme 
 effort to see before he left the earth. 
 
 " Gray," he said in a feeble voice. 
 
 " Oh, Archie ! " he cried, throwing himself on his knees 
 beside him, with tears welling out of his eyes — "don't die, 
 old man ! " 
 
 " Number's up," said Archie, with a last flicker of his gay 
 old self. Then, getting more voice by sheer will-power, he 
 said : " Don't blub, Gray ; it makes it so hard for me to 
 say it. . . ." 
 
 " What, old man ? " 
 
 " Bend low — I don't want that chap to hear." 
 
 Gray bent still lower over him, and Archie gasped out : 
 " Say that you're nothing to Mirry." 
 
 " I can't say that," replied Gray, in a low voice. 
 
 The look of agony, almost of fierceness, which wrung 
 Archie's face, startled him. Unless he did something, it 
 meant the end. Was his promise to Mirabel to kill Archie ? 
 Surely not, for Archie must carry it to the grave with him, 
 unless the corporal overheard it. 
 
 " Archie, dear old man," he said, " you can go to sleep 
 comfortably. I am her husband, and was before e\-er you 
 saw her. I made her marry me, but she only did it on 
 condition that ..." 
 
 He stopped suddenly, as he saw that the rest of the words 
 would be lost on Archie, who had fallen back in a state of 
 collapse, which showed only too plainly tliat death was 
 imminent, now that he had fulfilled his mission. But there 
 was one more flicker.
 
 288 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Married ? Then here goes ! . . . Give her my love and 
 my ring. . . . Bless you both. ... So long ! " 
 
 " Help ! help ! " cried Gray, springing to his feet, and the 
 corporal rushed forward. No medical officer had been 
 found, but the corporal knew sufficient. 
 
 " It's no use, sir — he's ' gone west.' " 
 
 " Oh, my God, it's wicked to think of him dead ! " moaned 
 Gray, taking the boy's hand in a clasp of good-bye and press- 
 ing his lips on the damp forehead. 
 
 " They might have took him last," said the corporal. 
 " He's so young, and with that face — some woman will be 
 breaking her heart. ..." 
 
 " I know her," said Gray, " and if you'll give me the things 
 he's got about him, I'll send them to her." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I'll take the ring on his finger now," he said, bending 
 down to draw it off. He looked at the crest, which had 
 Pro patria above it, and Jamais arriere below. " He's lived 
 up to his mottoes," he said. 
 
 The corporal did not understand him, but said : " Yes, sir," 
 and a little afterwards : " You know the lady, you say, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Gray. 
 
 " Just to think how happy they might have lived together 
 if he'd been spared ! " said the man, genuinely affected. 
 
 Gray shut his eyes, but his face showed the torture he was 
 suffering. 
 
 " I feels like you, sir." 
 
 " You can't, my man, and I hope you never may." 
 
 The man had a sense of disciphne, but none of humour. 
 He said, " Very well, sir," exactly as if he were taking an 
 order. 
 
 The futility of it brought Gray back to reahties. " What 
 did he die of ? " he asked. 
 
 " Shot through the lungs, sir." 
 
 " Could he have lived if he had been picked up sooner ? " 
 
 " We was sent for as soon as he was hit, sir. A sniper 
 did it after the affair was over." 
 
 " A sniper, when it was over ? Damn him ! " said Gray. 
 " I hope they got him, and wrung his neck ! " 
 
 Gray spent that night in going to Archie's funeral, instead 
 of taking his much-needed sleep. It was pitch-dark, and no
 
 ARCHIE LEARNS MIRABEL'S SECRET 289 
 
 salutes are fired at the front, lest they should give away the 
 position to enemy aeroplanes. Gray brought a neat wooden 
 cross, made by the wheeler of the Battery, on which he got 
 the man to bum with a hot iron : 
 
 R.I. P. Archie, Viscount Avondale, 
 Master of Douglas. 
 
 Outside their billet on his return he met Worboys. " Hallo, 
 you naughty man, where have you been all night ? " asked 
 the irrepressible. 
 
 " I've been to the funeral of Mirabel's cousin, who got killed 
 in the fight yesterday." 
 
 " Beg pardon, old man. You know how awfully sorry I 
 am to have made such a blunder." 
 
 " Oh, of course ! It's just what he would have done 
 himself, poor boy." 
 
 " Was Mirabel . . . was Miss Douglas fond of him ? " 
 asked Worboys. 
 
 " Terribly ! " said Gray, and turned quickly away. Was 
 everyone to put his finger on this aching spot ? 
 
 The very air of France seemed to know how his wife had 
 told him that she loved Archie. He would have felt that 
 Archie's blood was on his head, if he had not mourned for 
 Archie so passionately himself. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVni 
 
 HOW MIRABEL BROKE THE NEWS OF ARCHIE'S DEATH TO HIS 
 
 PARENTS 
 
 " The Douglas turned towards us then, 
 Oh, but his glance was high ! " 
 
 W. E. Aytoun. — The Heart of the Bruce. 
 
 WHEN Mirabel heard of Archie's death, she felt iis if 
 the sun had fallen out of the sky. Archie under 
 the earth ! the beautiful Archie blotted out ! the restless 
 Archie at rest ! the irrepressible Archie for ever silent, and 
 lying, like so many of his ancestors before him, with a 
 stricken body under the turf of battle ! The thought was 
 too appalling. She would not, could not, did not, believe 
 her senses. 
 
 19
 
 290 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Gray, always considerate, had wired to her to break the 
 news to Lord and Lady Douglas, if she could, before the 
 official telegram reached them. 
 
 She motored swiftly down to the little Sussex town, whose 
 big race-course and training-stables had been turned into a 
 vast Army Remount Depot, with Lord Douglas at its head. 
 The Government had allowed him to establish the depot 
 there, because he had a house, an oldish country house, 
 there, adjoining his former racing stables, and knew how to 
 lay his hand on the men he required for the horses. 
 
 Lord Douglas had not visited it since he gave up racing, 
 when his jockey had pulled a horse which was winning in 
 a big race, and involved the stable in a scandal. Outside, 
 with the exception of one flank, it had been disfigured with 
 pretentious stucco by the late Lord's architect ; but inside 
 it was a dear old house, with dark, mellow Jacobean panel- 
 ling and staircases, which, perhaps fortunately, bore the 
 appearance of neglect. 
 
 It was poorly furnished, and contained nothing of interest 
 but its panelling, and racing pictures connected with the 
 Douglas stables, which had been left there because Lord 
 Douglas desired to forget that he ever had raced. Another 
 trainer had leased the dower-house and park and stables, 
 but he, too, had left since the beginning of the war. 
 
 The whole house was desolate with desertion, but Mirabel 
 looked at it with a melancholy interest, because this would, 
 according to Paula, be the house of " the elderly relative," 
 since Lord Douglas had no other seat in the South. 
 
 He was on horseback in one of the paddocks, inspecting a 
 fresh draft of horses, when a lad came out, saying : " Miss 
 Douglas has arrived, my Lord." 
 
 " My comphments to Miss Douglas, and tell her that I 
 will be with her when I have given some orders — ^in a quarter 
 of an hour at the outside." 
 
 Mirabel had been shown into the library, which had never 
 possessed any books, except a small collection of turf 
 calendars and other works on racing, but had really been the 
 office then, as it was now. It had the finest panelling in the 
 house, but, except for one square yard, it was entirely 
 covered up with lithographs and oil-paintings of the stables' 
 winners. The portrait of the horse which had not been 
 allowed to win its last race had hung where the gap was left.
 
 THE NEWS OF ARCHIE'S DEATH 291 
 
 One glance at that room was enough for the future owner. 
 She went to the window and stared out on the cheerless day, 
 till presently she heard the sound of hoofs on the drive, and 
 saw her cousin riding up in a Colonel's uniform, with the 
 badges of his old Regiment, the Scots Greys. 
 
 He looked almost too young and alert not to be in France, 
 for it had taken years off his appearance to be in uniform, 
 and in the saddle all day, and frequently mounting the horses 
 which were brought to him for purchase, to test them. 
 
 With a heart like a stone she saw him clatter up proud 
 and erect, and spring from his horse, which the groom was 
 waiting to take. He dashed up the steps two at a time ; 
 it was Mirabel — 'Mirabel ! She was wishing herself in Archie's 
 place ; it was such a dreadful task which she had before her. 
 He could not have heard ! She was, indeed, the only one 
 who had heard, thanks to Gray, who got his message across 
 by one of the wounded going straight through to England. 
 He sent two telegrams ; the first ran : 
 
 " Miss Douglas, BoHngbroke House, Chiswick. — Be pre- 
 pared for bad news about Archie. — Oliver." 
 
 And the second, to be despatched an hour afterwards : 
 
 " Archie killed in storming a German position." 
 
 Mirabel decided that she must tell them in person. Even 
 with the warning telegram in advance, she was so stricken 
 herself, that she felt that she must break it to them ; they 
 must not hear it from any other lips. She meant to see 
 Lord Douglas first, because she could rely on him to be able 
 to refrain from telegraphing to Lady Douglas. 
 
 Thus it was that she found herself in that dismal, half- 
 inhabited house, under the Sussex Downs, waiting to deal 
 that gallant veteran a murderous blow as soon as he had 
 stepped inside the door. 
 
 He came forward briskly, in his gladness at the unex- 
 pected visit. Then their eyes met, and he knew that she 
 had bad news. 
 
 " It's Archie I " he said. 
 
 She only sobbed and buried her face against his shoulder. 
 
 "He is killed ! " Lord Douglas's eyes were dry, and he 
 
 19*
 
 292 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 spoke in a curiously dry voice, as if it was not himself, but 
 only the husk of his body, with the soul taken out of it, 
 which was speaking. 
 
 " Poor Archie ! " she sighed. 
 
 "No . . . poor us ! Archie has died for his country, as 
 the Douglases do ! And he is the first Douglas, of the senior 
 branch, who has died for England. ... We were none of 
 us killed under Marlborough, or Wellington, or at the Crimea, 
 or in any of our little wars. The motto of the house has 
 lain dormant since the Union." 
 
 Yes — " poor us ! " The man was the dead boy's father, 
 and the woman had loved him, and had hoped against 
 hope that she might some day be his wife. 
 
 Which of the two suffered most, the woman who had given 
 her heart to this flower of manhood, or the man who saw the 
 last of his name, the last of the family founded by the 
 Bruce's brother-in-arms six stormy centuries ago, cut off 
 before the rejoicings, which attended the coming to man- 
 hood of the heirs of the great Earls of Douglas, had lighted 
 bonfires on the hills from Lanarkshire's mines to Dum- 
 friesshire's moors ? From a child Archie had carried his 
 life in his hand, till it seemed as if he must be born to hand on 
 the renown of his race. And now he had fallen — fallen in a 
 fight which had not moved the final victory one inch forwards 
 or backwards, which proved nothing except that, given a 
 chance, the English Infantry were irresistible, and that 
 England seemed to possess no generals capable of giving 
 them chances. 
 
 It was so pitiful that the child of such hopes should have 
 died before he had passed the threshold of manhood, as a 
 subaltern leading a handful of Infantry in an isolated minor 
 operation — brilliant as the exploit had been. 
 
 If anything could add poignancy to the loss of an only 
 son, it was this. 
 
 But Lord Douglas bore his loss with Scottish fortitude. 
 There was no outward change in him, except that the death 
 added to his dignity, because it banished every other thought. 
 Every other thought but one : for the wife whose chatter 
 and hospitalities had driven him from his town mansion to 
 that hermitage beside the river. 
 
 When Lady Douglas received a telegram to say that her 
 husband was coming home to stay for several days, she was
 
 THE NEWS OF ARCHIE'S DEATH 293 
 
 frightened with the subconsciousness of something stupendous 
 having happened. Such a thing had not occurred for years ; 
 especially since the telegram added that Mirabel, who had a 
 house of her own in London, was coming to stay also. 
 
 Mirabel, on her part, had telegraphed to Old Mac that 
 she could not appear for that night, at least, and as he knew 
 that her word was law with Oliver Gray, Junior, he simply 
 warned her understudy. 
 
 The question as to who should break the news they left 
 over till Mirabel's car was taking them up to town. But it 
 needed httle time to decide who should tell Lady Douglas. 
 It must be the lover of her youth, who had been her constant 
 companion for so many years. 
 
 Planning how it could be done kept them almost in silence 
 during the whole long drive up to town. Each turned over 
 plan after plan. And every plan seemed useless in the case 
 of one so accustomed to yield to her emotions. 
 
 When they reached the door of Lanarkshire House, they 
 were still at the mercy of the moment. Grainger met them 
 at the door, and while the footman helped Lord Douglas to 
 take off his coat and brought in his luggage with silent 
 expeditiousness, Grainger said in low tones to Mirabel : 
 " Lord Avondale . . . has he gone, Miss ? Her Ladyship is 
 breaking her heart in the small drawing-room ! " 
 
 " Then she has guessed it ? Nobody has told her, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Nobody, Miss. We have had nothing but his Lordship's 
 telegram." 
 
 The moment she had received that. Lady Douglas had 
 been seized with a spasm of silent tears, and had gone on 
 weeping without one word from that moment to this. 
 
 Mirabel told Lord Douglas. 
 
 " What can we do ? "he asked. 
 
 " Nothing ... I don't know ... I mean, you nuist 
 just go to her, and you must do your best when you hear 
 what she says. I'll wait ; I have to give my chauffeur orders 
 about fetching the things for which I sent that 'phone from 
 Horsham." 
 
 " I suppose that's best. Grainger, tell Miss Douglas's 
 chauffeur that she wants him, will you ? " 
 
 " Yes, my Lord," he said, taking it for a signal that Lord 
 Douglas did not wish to be announced.
 
 294 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 When The Douglas entered the room he found Lady 
 Douglas sitting in an upright chair in front of the fire, with 
 bowed head. He stood there in silence for a minute. He 
 heard a tear fall on the hearth, which told him more than 
 many words ; for she was so stricken with grief that she 
 neither moved nor noticed his presence. She did not even 
 raise her head when he called her by name. 
 
 " Janet," he said, a second time, in a low voice. 
 
 And she raised a face so worn with weeping that he hardly 
 knew it. 
 
 " You need not tell me," she said. " I know it already — 
 I have lost Archie." 
 
 " Yes, dear Janet," he said, " for the first time for twenty 
 years we are without a child." 
 
 She said nothing, but her pursed lips were more eloquent than 
 words. He, too, was silent for a little ; then, with his beauti- 
 ful courtesy, he prepared to leave the room, just waiting for her 
 to look up, so that he might not have to break the silence. 
 
 Then at last she spoke : " Yes, Jim, I do want to be alone 
 for to-night. But come and let me kiss you, dear. Nothing 
 you have ever done, in all your kind hfe, has gone to my 
 heart like your coming to be at home now." 
 
 He went over to her, and then slipped out of the room, 
 and was just slipping out of the house when Grainger saw 
 him, and said : " Your hat and coat, my Lord." 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " give them to me." He was going out 
 without them, not thinking of such matters, rather than 
 purposely avoiding them. 
 
 He went into the Park ; there was a gate nearly opposite 
 his house, which was always open, for the traffic to the Great 
 Western station. He passed in, and on to the wide plain 
 where anarchists hold their meetings. If Archie had died 
 in any other way, he would have felt like an anarchist against 
 high Heaven. 
 
 Now he wished to think, and it seemed to him that any 
 place which had a roof between him and the sky would be 
 intolerable. 
 
 When he came in he found Mirabel still up. She had not 
 seen Lady Douglas, and he could frame no words but good 
 night. 
 
 There were three very lonely hearts in the House of The 
 Douglas that night.
 
 LORD DOUGLAS LEARNS THE SECRET 295 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 LORD DOUGLAS LEARNS MIRABEL's SECRET 
 
 MIRABEL had black dresses, and would not let 
 Madame Vendome intrude upon her misery until 
 the sorrowful week at Lanarkshire House was passed. Her 
 maid could make the necessary alterations until she ordered 
 her mourning. 
 
 But after the first night she went to the theatre and played 
 her part, and was the object of great but silent interest. 
 Even Betty Farnol felt what she was going to say die away 
 upon her lips. 
 
 They all knew what had happened : the illustrated papers 
 saw to that. Paula might have made a month or two's 
 income out of biographies of Mirabel, if she had felt free to 
 do so, for she was besieged with offers from Fleet Street, 
 and representatives from " The Daily Mirror " and " The 
 Daily Sketch " and their weeklies sent in their cards to her, 
 when they found that Mirabel was away. Failing every- 
 thing else, they photographed the front of the house. 
 Jeffreys had unconsciously given them one paragraph, when 
 he informed them, not for their benefit at all, but as a piece 
 of gratuitous insolence, that she had gone to Lanarkshire 
 House on purpose to avoid them. They had horrible para- 
 graphs — not meant to be horrible, but merely to feed the 
 inquisitiveness of the public — about the new heir taking up 
 her residence with the parents of the deceased Lord Avon- 
 dale, generally ending with the assumption that she would 
 give up her position at the Babylon at once. 
 
 She was glad now that she had never made friends with 
 anybody in the Company, since no one at the theatre knew 
 her well enough to discuss her affairs with her. It was not 
 that they did not try after the first night or two ; theatrical 
 people are most inquisitive about each other's affairs, and, 
 except where an intrigue is concerned, very open about their 
 own. The modus operandi was generally the same ; first
 
 296 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 they congratulated her, and then they began to ask questions. 
 She accepted their congratulations courteously, and damped 
 their hopes of succeeding to her place by saying that it made 
 no difference to her plans professionally. Beyond that she 
 simply parried their questions, and as her dressing-room was 
 right away from theirs, and she had never made anyone 
 welcome to it, they wormed little out of her. 
 
 On the last morning of her stay with her cousins, she was 
 having breakfast with Lord Douglas alone, at his usual 
 daylight-saving hour, when he said : "I should like to have 
 a talk with you after breakfast, Mirry." 
 
 " All right." she said. " Where shall we have it ? " 
 
 He suggested that they should go and find a seat in the 
 palm-garden, which played such a conspicuous part in 
 Lady Douglas's receptions. It was sunny, and out of the 
 way of the servants. 
 
 Lady Douglas did not have breakfast sent up to her room 
 till ten. By this time she was recovering herself, and leaning 
 very much on Mirabel, so that it would have been difficult 
 to get an hour alone at any other time. 
 
 " I want to have a serious talk with you, Mirry," he said, 
 when they had seated themselves. 
 
 " I hope you've nothing to scold me about, Jim ? " she 
 said affectionately. 
 
 " Oh, no, dear ! But you're going home to-day, and before 
 you left, I thought I ought to remind you that you are now 
 my heir, and that when I am gone you are the last of our 
 Douglases left to carry on the succession. You know, 
 probably, that ours is one of the old titles by estate, and 
 can therefore be inherited by a woman ? " 
 
 " I know that, because I have been down as second heir 
 in the peerages." 
 
 " You may think that this is a subject which need not 
 have been raised yet, but it really is none too soon to warn 
 you of your dangers and responsibilities. When I die, 
 Mirabel, you will be Countess of Douglas in your own right 
 and inherit great wealth. So it is important that you should 
 not make a foolish marriage. It is likewise of immediate 
 importance that you should marry, because you are the last 
 of the heirs of the Black Douglas, who founded our line, 
 the senior line of the Douglas family, and if you as well as I 
 die without issue, the family will be at an end, and the
 
 LORD DOUGLAS LEARNS THE SECRET 297 
 
 estates will revert to His Majesty as King of Scotland, since 
 they were forfeited by the 9th Earl and re-granted to the loth. 
 
 " I mention the first to you because all sorts of undesirable 
 people, especially the men who act with you, or the Johnnies 
 who haunt the theatre, will make a dead-set at marrying 
 you, now that they know of the change in your circumstances, 
 and the second, because I think that with your permission 
 I ought to introduce to you the most suitable and eligible 
 members of Scottish families — they need not in your case be 
 eldest sons — until you find one upon whom your choice can fall. 
 
 " And, in the third place, now that you are direct heir 
 to the Earldom of Douglas, you ought certainly to give up 
 your position at the theatre without delay." 
 
 " My dear Jim, at any less serious time I should have 
 refused to discuss the subject. As it is, I will go into it 
 briefly and seriously with you. In the third place, I cannot 
 leave the theatre, because I have signed a contract for ten 
 years." 
 
 " That's quite simple, Mirry. I know something about 
 theatrical contracts. If you refuse to go on with it because 
 you want to marry and leave the stage, it is simply a question 
 of damages. I don't believe that a decent fellow like Gray 
 would press for them, but if he does, the Douglas estates 
 must pay." 
 
 " But I'm the person who would have to break the 
 contract, and I sliould refuse to do it, because I consider that 
 it would be dishonourable to do so, and defraud my 
 benefactor." 
 
 " I agree that if you think it dishonourable to try and get 
 out of the contract, the matter is at an end in that direction." 
 
 " Secondly, there is not the least likelihood that I should 
 accept any designing actor or hanger-on at the theatre. 
 
 " And, firstly, I have a very particular reason for not 
 allowing you to select eligible husbands for me, which I 
 will tell you on your oath that you will not reveal it to anyone 
 — not even Janet. Will you give me your solemn word and 
 oath, Jim ? " 
 
 " Of course I will ! Here's my hand on it." 
 
 " Well, the reason I can't let you choose a husband for 
 me is because I am married already." 
 
 " Married, Mirry ? " he said, springing from his seat in his 
 astonishment.
 
 298 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Yes, married, and have been for about two years." 
 
 " I think that as head of the family I have a right to ask 
 who your husband is." 
 
 " You may have the right, but I can't tell you unless 
 you promise never to communicate with him, by yourself or 
 through others, by writing or by word of mouth, until I give 
 you my permission." 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 " Then you must know that I am married to John Gray, 
 commonly known as ' Oliver Gray, Junior,' proprietor and 
 manager of the Babylon Theatre." 
 
 " Then all I can say is that Master Gray knew pretty well 
 what he was about when he made you leading lady at the 
 Babylon, and persuaded you to marry him in honour of it." 
 
 " I assure you that he did not. He had not any idea 
 who I was until poor Archie came upon the scene. You 
 must remember that to the world I am Mirabel Douglas, and 
 my contract is made out in the name of Mirabel Douglas, 
 while in the peerage I am Isabel and supposed to live in 
 Italy. Besides, at the time when I married him there was 
 no war, and every prospect of a healthy, vigorous young 
 man like Archie having a family." 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " 
 
 " I'm sorry, Jim. I was seeing with Oliver's eyes." 
 
 " I don't see any reason why he should want to keep the 
 marriage a secret." 
 
 " You don't know the story. Listen ! Until I came, 
 Oliver's leading ladies had always been his mistresses. He 
 made it a condition — you must remember that he was young, 
 not long down from Oxford — and the bait was too dazzling 
 to refuse. 
 
 " Well, when I had been about a year at the Royal Lyceum 
 of Music, I saw an advertisement in all the papers inviting 
 applicants for the post of leading lady in the new musical 
 comedy to be produced at the Babylon." 
 
 " Which was his way of making hundreds of especially 
 charming women parade before him, with a view to selection 
 for a certain purpose." 
 
 " I am afraid that it was so ; that is part of our quarrel. 
 At the same time, he really wanted fresh blood in his Company, 
 because he chose me, and he did not even hint at that 
 degrading condition."
 
 LORD DOUGLAS LEARNS THE SECRET 299 
 
 " He was flying at higher game when he found what a 
 prize had come into his nets." 
 
 " I wasn't much of a prize. I was a student who had not 
 got so far as applying for an engagement." 
 
 " But you might some day be Countess of Douglas." 
 
 " But that was too distant to contemplate on the one 
 hand, and. as I have told you, no one, except the banker in 
 Milan, through whom I drew my income from the Douglas 
 estates, knew that I was Isabel Douglas. ... On the 
 other . . ." 
 
 " You think that is certain ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " I'm afraid that I don't ; but proceed." 
 
 "... Instead of insulting me as he had insulted the 
 others, he did me the honour of proposing that I should 
 marry him." 
 
 " Did he do you this honour before or after he had settled 
 that you were the best recruit for his company ? " 
 
 " After an elaborate examination of my accomplishments 
 by Mr. Maccabaeus, who is his adviser about acting and 
 singing, and Mr. Stradella, who trains and rehearses the 
 dancing. That reduced us to about half a dozen." 
 
 " Was this genuine — this selection of half a dozen, or was 
 it only part of a plot to catch you ? " 
 
 " Genuine, I am sure. They were the women who were 
 on the one hand sufficiently pleasing to him, and, on the 
 other, the most promising candidates for the post." 
 
 " And he was going to choose the one he hked best, shall 
 we say ? " 
 
 " I am afraid that it is so." 
 
 " I am not going to blame him. He is not the only man 
 who would use a pull like this. But I think that it's 
 disgusting." 
 
 " You can't be as disgusted as I was ! After all his kind- 
 ness, I have not got over it yet." 
 
 " And did he in the first instance ask you to consent to this 
 arrangement ? " 
 
 " No, to do him justice, he didn't. His proposition for 
 making me his slave was to marry me." 
 
 " A secret marriage ! I don't see much difference 1 " 
 
 " The secret wasn't his idea. He would have liked to 
 proclaim my capture to the world."
 
 300 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " And why didn't you let him ? It was not a particularly 
 distinguished match for a Douglas, but you might have kept 
 your family a secret, and announced your marriage." 
 
 " Well, the whole thing was so hateful to me that, since 
 he would not give me the part unless I married him, and 
 was wilhng to accept any conditions I Hked if I married him, 
 in return for his making me leading lady of the Babylon 
 Theatre for ten years at a proper salary, I agreed to marry 
 him for a month." 
 
 " Marry him for a month ! Is this England or Japan ? 
 I think it's the most disgraceful thing I ever heard of in my 
 life ! " 
 
 " Well, of course I married him for good — the law settles 
 that ; but I made him promise that he would allow me to 
 give up living with him after one month, and would not 
 divulge our marriage to anyone, or take any measures what- 
 ever to make me return to him." 
 
 " Any judge would upset that as contrary to public policy." 
 
 " Yes, but Oliver is a man of honour." 
 
 " The deuce he is ! " 
 
 " I assure you that he is ; he is the most honourable man 
 — present company excepted — with whom I have ever had 
 any deahngs." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear that," he said. " I like Gray. But 
 may I ask what, under the circumstances, is all the bother 
 about ? You've got a nice young husband, who is pre- 
 pared to treat you awfully well, but you won't live with 
 him, or let it be known that you are married, and you're 
 bound to have all sorts of offers for your hand, now that 
 you're my heir, and ought to be thinking of the succession ! 
 But this secret marriage blocks the way. How on earth 
 could a clever man of business like Gray be party to such 
 an arrangement ? " 
 
 " Just because he had fallen so much in love with me 
 that I believe he would have married me for a day, instead 
 of a month, if I had held out. And, secondly, I suppose, 
 because, being a man, and therefore a vain creature, he 
 imagined that, given a month to win my affections, he would 
 be able to make me live with him always." 
 
 " Oh, he's a decent chap ! Go to him, Mirry, as soon as 
 he gets back — if ever he does get back ! " 
 
 " I wish I could, Jim, but I can't."
 
 LORD DOUGLAS LEARNS THE SECRET 301 
 
 " Then I almost hope that he never will get back ; the whole 
 thing is so false and bad." 
 
 For a moment a little ray shone out of the black clouds of 
 Mirabel's depression, like the dayspring on the eastern 
 horizon, but she blotted it out, and hated herself. 
 
 " Why can't you ? " he persisted. 
 
 " Must you know, Jim ? " 
 
 " As head of the family, I think I have a right to." 
 
 " You don't know how great a right you have ! " 
 
 " Then tell me." 
 
 " I can never look you in the face again, if I do." 
 
 "I'm sure you can, Mirry, considering what you were 
 willing to let me think before you made your confession to 
 me just now." 
 
 " Oh, I can't, I can't ! " she cried, the pallor of her grief 
 giving way to a flush almost crimson. 
 
 He said nothing, but waited with profound sympathy. 
 Presently she began to speak, very slowly, with her ej'es 
 glued to the ground. 
 
 " It's because of Archie," she said. 
 
 " Oh, not that ! " he groaned. " I pray God in Heaven not 
 that ! " 
 
 " No, not that ! I never so much as kissed him till we 
 .said good-bye at Southampton. But, Jim, Archie and I, 
 though we never gave our love to each other, loved each other 
 like Jacob and Rachel in the Bible." 
 
 It was as natural for him to understand it as for her to 
 say it, because they were Presbyterians, brought up on the 
 Bible, though they had drifted from all observ-ances. Archi- 
 bald Douglas had seen no inconsistency in leading the life 
 he led and being a regular supporter of the little Presbyterian 
 chapel at Bellaggio. 
 
 " / know how Archie loved you. But surely, Mirry, since 
 this was so, the chief obstacle to your happiness with Gray has 
 been taken away. Our fathers would have read this as a 
 dispensation." 
 
 " Our fathers might ! " she cried fiercely. " But since this 
 war began the world is upside down ! I can't see it like 
 that. I wish I could. All that I can see in it — oh, Jim, 
 can't you see ? " she asked, moving to him, and burying her 
 face against his shoulder, as she had when she took him the 
 fatal news. '
 
 302 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " See ?— no. What, dear ? " 
 
 " That if it had not been for that accursed marriage I 
 should have been Archie's widow, and about to be the mother 
 of his child ! " 
 
 Then the full tragedy was before his eyes. If Gray had not 
 forced Mirabel into that marriage, his beautiful Archie might 
 not have been lost to the earth without leaving behind one 
 to transmit those gracious qualities to future generations of 
 the seed of the Iron-Grey Man. 
 
 In his passion of regret that Archie should have been 
 robbed of descendants by this untoward barrier to his mar- 
 riage, he gave not a thought to the tragedy that he, too, 
 was robbed of descendants by that same sinister obstacle. 
 
 The Douglas put her from him gently. " I would have 
 given all my possessions for this to have happened," he said. 
 " But it isn't Gray's fault that you met him first, and if 
 Gray did not know who you were, but took you for the 
 ordinary musical student, and, besides marrying you honour- 
 ably, gave you that splendid position in your profession, 
 I don't see that he did you any wrong for which you cannot 
 forgive him, especially seeing that he married you for love 
 just as much as Archie would have done, and has shown up 
 so well, since you have been married ! " 
 [ " My dear Jim, nothing can alter the fact that I have not 
 Archie's child, and I should have, if it had not been for 
 Oh\er. This I shall never forgive ! " 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 HOW OLIVER GRAY, SINGLE-HANDED, SAVED A BRITISH TRENCH 
 
 OLIVER GRAY was in hospital at the base, and never 
 would go to the front again, for his left leg had been 
 bombed off, while he was saving the Infantry trench in 
 which he had been observing, from a sudden rush by the 
 Bavarians. The rush was most skilfully conceived and 
 carried out, just at nightfall, when he was leaving his post 
 for the day to return to his billet. The English in the 
 trench, though taken quite by surprise, flattened the first 
 attack with their rifle-fire. But a second and a third were 
 
 1
 
 HOW GRAY SAVED A BRITISH TRENCH 303 
 
 flung after it, and wiped out the defenders of the trench 
 with their bombs before they wilted away. 
 
 The surprise was effected by throwing wooden gratings 
 about a dozen feet long and four feet wide across the deep 
 muddy ditch, which ran between the two front-hne trenches, 
 making the space between them a sort of no-man's land. 
 These had been brought out from the German trench the 
 night before, and buried a few inches below the surface on 
 their side of the ditch, the turf having been removed so care- 
 fully that it could be replaced without showing, until one 
 was actually walking on it. 
 
 They were left there until the next nightfall, when a 
 strong force of infantry, lavishly supplied with bombs, 
 rushed out in the dusk, and sweeping ofi the turf which had 
 been laid on them, planted them firmly across the ditch, and 
 charged over them against the British trench. 
 
 The parapet flamed and roared with gusts of rapid fire ; 
 but the dusk robbed it of its effect, and the ranks behind 
 came on like a tidal wave, until they were stopped by the 
 wire entanglements. Then they all withered and went down 
 in writhing heaps. But a still fiercer wave smote the trench, 
 when a fresh attack swirled up, flinging hand-grenades and 
 bombs ahead of them as they charged, killing or disabling 
 every man in the trench before they were wiped out. 
 
 In a few minutes there was hardly an Englishman or a 
 German who could stand on either side of the entanglements. 
 
 This was what the Germans were waiting for. They did 
 not in the least mind sacrificing every man who had been 
 sent to the attack, because they had a strong reserve of 
 infantry ready to take their places, and occupy the trench. 
 
 Gray was leaving the Observation Post to go back to his 
 billet when he noticed that the Germans were trying to 
 surprise the trench. He rushed back to his post and tele- 
 phoned for help — S.O.S. — and stood by the telephone wait- 
 ing to see what he could do, though all seemed to be lost, 
 and waiting meant being butchered. 
 
 His eye being very quick with observing, he made out 
 in the dusk fresh infantry surging up from the front Gcrnian 
 trench. A dense column of them was preparing to hurl 
 itself at the British front Hne. There was no one to with- 
 stand them in our trench. It seemed lost, irrevocably, when 
 his eye fell on a machine-gun close to his post ; the whole
 
 304 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 of its crew lay in a ring about the gun dead ; but its belt 
 was attached, and hardly begun, because the Germans had 
 bombed its detachment directly they topped the parapet. 
 
 He could make out in the dusk that the infantry were 
 all heading for one point in the ditch, so he knew that it 
 must be bridged somehow, and, leaving his telephone, he 
 dashed to the machine-gun, and catching it up in his arms, 
 made muscular with games, ammunition-box and all, he 
 got out of the trench and staggered forward till he was near 
 enough to see through the quickly-falling night the spot 
 where the Germans were about to cross the ditch. He 
 planted the gun full in the face of the heavy column of 
 Germans, and there, absolutely alone, he sat down, while 
 his fingers raced the cartridge-belt through the feed-block. 
 Under that spray of death the advancing column wavered, 
 broke, and ran back to the trench from which it had issued, 
 leaving scores of dead, which the spluttering Maxim had 
 mown down. 
 
 Hearing one machine-gun maintaining its fire, the few 
 survivors in the British trench whose wounds allowed them 
 to move, dragged themselves out with what ammunition- 
 boxes they could lay hands on, to where Gray was crouch- 
 ing, and at the same time prepared to protect him by their 
 rifle-fire from being rushed, and to feed him with a full 
 belt as fast as he emptied one. 
 
 It was fortunately too dark for the sharpshooters and 
 machine-gunners in the German trenches to pick them off, 
 though a hail of fire was turned on the flashes of Gray's 
 gun. But a wounded bomb-thrower of the original attacking- 
 party, who had been brought down by the British rifle-fire 
 close to where Gray planted it, managed to hurl a bomb at 
 him, which shattered his left leg. 
 
 At this moment a fresh German column dashed out to 
 the attack, and Gray thought that it was all over. But by 
 a supreme effort he retained his consciousness, and one of 
 the wounded who were with him, by putting his back against 
 Gray's managed to prop him up, and let him continue firing 
 the gun. 
 
 But he could not adapt his fire so rapidly now, and the 
 wounded men who were guarding him with their rifle-fire, 
 one by one fell back, killed or exhausted, and worst of all, 
 the ammunition gave out.
 
 HOW GRAY SAVED A BRITISH TRENCH 305 
 
 The gun made its last sputter. In a minute all would be 
 over, and the great question solved for Mirabel. 
 
 The Germans, hearing the discharges stop, rushed across 
 their bridge with a fierce yell, to trample under foot and 
 stab any remaining hfe out of the men who had been serving 
 that gun till they were shot down. They thought that 
 this was why the gun had ceased to fire. 
 
 They were not more than a few yards from him now. He 
 could see their forms leaping towards him like wolves out 
 of the gloom. 
 
 As a last defence of himself and the stricken man who 
 had held him up so staunchly, he emptied his Browning into 
 them. Fired low, at that hand-to-hand range, each bullet 
 banged through a man, and sometimes through a second, 
 into another. But they were of no more use than feathers 
 in stopping that rush. 
 
 As he lay there, helpless to move a yard, he raised himself 
 on his elbow to look death in the face and die fighting, even 
 if it only meant flinging the empty pistol into the face of 
 the man who was running him through. 
 
 It seemed an age coming, that bayonet-thrust, with a 
 face of grinning hate behind it. While he waited for it, he 
 was trampled into insensibility from behind. 
 
 In an infantry charge at night you cannot see or stop to 
 pick your way, and thus it was that Gray and his comrade 
 were trampled as they lay, by the little men who came from 
 the mean streets on the Eastern edge of London — the sweep- 
 ings of Ratcliff and Stratford, costermongers and corner- 
 boys and boxers, familiar with bloodshed from their cradles. 
 These men, stunted in mind and often in body till they are 
 hardly within recruiting measurements, fear neither God 
 nor man, neither pain nor privation, and nothing can kill 
 their grim humour. They are the Tommiest of Tommy 
 Atkinses. The word " scrap " has a magic for them from 
 their childhood. 
 
 And here they had a " scrap " after their own hearts, in 
 the open, with no barbed wire to stop valour, and in the 
 dark, where machine-guns and rifles fire blindly. 
 
 The fierce Bavarians flung themselves at them as men 
 
 20
 
 3o6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 will who know that impact must win. And they were much 
 bigger men. 
 
 But weight cannot strike like fierceness, and in the dark, 
 where formations are lost, the man who does not care what 
 happens to himself because he is so drunk with the delight 
 of killing, is more than a match for stolid bravery. The 
 side which enjoyed it won, as it always will. The Germans 
 tried to defend themselves ; the East-enders scorned safety. 
 Many of them had thrown down their rifles, and made the 
 attack with bayonets only, using them for thrusting as the 
 Roman legionaries used their dirks against the long swords 
 of the Teutonic barbarians. In such a fight the men with 
 the dirks are cut down right and left till they have broken 
 the formation of the men with the longer weapon, but 
 then it is all over : in the melee the dagger-thrust carries 
 everything before it. 
 
 So fared these Bavarians. No help was sent for them, 
 since there had been no sound of firing, and they had been dis- 
 patched to take possession of an empty trench, which they 
 should hold with ease till the German line moved forward. 
 
 Therefore the fight was fought to a finish. The Terriers 
 were not out to take prisoners ; they were out to kill ; and 
 they killed till there was nothing left to kill, to the very 
 edge of the ditch, where they found the gratings, and carried 
 them back in triumph to the British trench. No more 
 Germans could come over now, and they might serve the 
 British on a later day. 
 
 Ere they got back, the stretcher-bearers, those modem 
 antivalkyrs who snatch the wounded from death, had found 
 the man who had saved a British trench almost single- 
 handed, insensible, and within an ace of death by loss of 
 blood. He lay as still as the dead men round him, but 
 the practised touch detected that this one was alive, and 
 might live, though his wounded leg would never recover 
 from the trampling. So the stretcher-bearers checked the 
 haemorrhage and carried him back to the Field Dressing 
 Station, where the Medical Of&cer prepared him for the 
 journey, and he was put into the ambulance, which had 
 followed close on the heels of the reserves that he had 
 summoned, and taken to the Clearing Hospital. 
 
 There he lay for some time after his leg had been amputated, 
 too enfeebled by what he had gone through to be moved.
 
 HOW GRAY SAVED A BRITISH TRENCH 307 
 
 He revived long before they expected him to, when they were 
 trying to unclasp the watch from his wrist. It was of no 
 use, for though the bracelet was only bent, the bomb had 
 beaten the watch-face into the works, and the nurse thought 
 he might scratch himself with it. But he was so agitated 
 by the attempt to remove it that the medical officer who 
 had charge of the case at once ordered it to be left. 
 
 As soon as he was allowed to see people, Worboys, who 
 was growing as tough as leather with war, rode over to see 
 him whenever he had a chance, and Linacre, who could 
 hardly ever be spared, since the Major was worse than useless, 
 came once. 
 
 Young, who had developed into a most useful and scientific 
 soldier, had found a regular post in another Battery, and 
 had distinguished himself in the great light at Neuve 
 Chapelle. 
 
 CHAPTER LI 
 
 HOW OLIVER GRAY POSSESSED HIS SOUL IN PATIENCE WAITING 
 
 FOR A LEG 
 
 AT Rouen Gray improved rapidly, because he found 
 a touch of home there in the person of Mollie 
 Menteith, the niece of Lady Douglas, who used to help her 
 at her receptions. Sister Mollie was a probationer nurse, 
 and it was her business to wait on the wounded in his WcU^d, 
 and keep them cheered and amused, when their wounds 
 had been seen to by more experienced hands. 
 
 In spite of his change of dress and surroundings, and the 
 fact that he went off to sleep before she could speak to him, 
 she recognized Gray at once, and created quite a little flutter 
 in the ward by telling them who he was. Almost every 
 soldier who had ever been in London knew the Babylon. 
 
 When he woke she brought him his letters. 
 
 " Don't you recognize me, Mr.cGray ? " she asked. 
 
 In her nurse's dress he could not ' place ' her. He thought 
 it was due to the dress, but it was quite as much due to 
 her popularity. At Lady Douglas's she had been over- 
 shadowed by the presence of so many pretty and well-known 
 women, and had shrunk into herself in consequence. Here, 
 where her business in the ward was to attend to the patients' 
 
 20*
 
 3o8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 wants and keep them amused, the qualities which had made 
 her such a good hostess, and the sympathetic expression 
 given to her face by her beautiful eyes and teeth, made 
 her the idol of the wounded men, while the zest of being the 
 favourite of a roomful of fine men made her look a different 
 person ; it was so delightful to come into her own as a woman. 
 
 " Don't you recognize me, Mr. Gray ? " she repeated. 
 " I'm Mollie Menteith, whom you met so often when I was 
 helping my aunt with her receptions at Lanarkshire House." 
 
 " Forgive me for being so rude and stupid," he said, with 
 the charming manners which endeared him to every woman 
 in his employ. " You know that I wasn't looking for you 
 here. Miss Molhe ! " 
 
 " Sister Mollie." 
 
 " Yes — Sister Mollie. How long have you been here, 
 Sister Mollie ? " 
 
 " Only a few weeks." 
 
 " Did you see Mirabel — Mirabel Douglas at all recently 
 before you started ? " 
 
 " Yes, only a day or two before." 
 
 " How was she looking ? — do tell me." 
 
 " As most of us poor women have to in the war — wistful 
 eyes in a cheery face. She was all right in health, but her 
 heart was in France." 
 
 Her heart was in France ! Thank God for that ! Archie 
 did not come into his mind at that moment. Her beautiful 
 cousin was very much in Mollie Menteith's mind. She knew 
 that Gray had been with Archie when he died, but it was 
 flatly against orders to talk of such matters in a ward of 
 wounded men. So, much as she wanted to hear about it, 
 she kept to Mirabel. She had, of course, no idea that 
 Mirabel was Gray's wife, or even that she had anything 
 particular to do with him, beyond being his leading lady. 
 At Lanarkshire House Mirabel was regarded in the light of 
 Archie's latest, and The Douglas's cousin, and to MoUie, 
 who was rather stage-struck, she was above all a beautiful 
 and well-known actress, and therefore much to be envied. 
 Mollie had enjoyed her intimacy with Mirabel immensely. 
 Mirabel was popular with women because, except when 
 she was on the stage and confronting an audience, she never 
 seemed to remember her beauty, and far from desiring the 
 attentions of the men whom she met, she seemed to dishke
 
 WAITING FOR A LEG 309 
 
 attentions from anybody but Lord Douglas, whom she 
 treated hke an uncle. She had been constrained even with 
 Archie, her cousin, a most difficult person for constraint. 
 
 " So you're another of Mirabel's admirers ? — another of 
 the people who are crying for the moon ? " 
 
 " That describes the case exactly, I'm afraid," he said, 
 with a sad httle smile. 
 
 Being nurse in a ward makes one rather an adept in 
 character-reading. Here was a patient who had to be fed 
 on Mirabel Douglas, and encouraged about her. 
 
 He obviously was very hard hit, because he wrote to her 
 every day. To be sure, he wrote to Miss Maitland, Lady 
 Douglas's latest idol, nearly every day also. But as the two 
 ladies lived at the same address, he most likely only wrote 
 to Miss Maitland as a helper or confidante. 
 
 A confidante Paula was, in a rather unusual sense, for one 
 difficulty which Gray had found when he was starting for 
 the front, was to answer the War Office query as to who 
 was his nearest relative for the authorities to communicate 
 with in case anything should happen to him. Beyond his 
 wife he had no relative, and nobody was allowed to know 
 that she was his wife. Moreover, to have news sent to 
 her would be an indirect contravention of the pact that no 
 effort should be made to influence her attitude towards him. 
 
 He finally, with her consent, nominated Paula Maitland. 
 It would not be his fault if news filtered through to his wife, 
 and it made a very important party in the situation his 
 friend. 
 
 Paula, on her part, promised not to communicate any 
 piece of information to his wife until she had first obtained 
 his permission for her to do so. 
 
 Sister Mollie could not see why she should not read and 
 write his correspondence for him, as she was a friend of both 
 Mirabel and Paula. His doing it for himself she considered 
 unnecessary exertion for a man who had lost his leg. 
 
 He thanked her most gratefully, but explained that his 
 correspondence was of too private a nature, as it certainly 
 was. But though he would not let her help him with his 
 letters, she always found her way back to his bedside when- 
 ever she was free. She was fascinated with his lighthearted- 
 ness. Only two things ever worried him ; one was the 
 thought that he would not be able to go into the fighting
 
 310 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 line again, and the other that he would not see Mirabel for 
 some weeks yet, because he did not mean to allow himself 
 to see her before he could use his artificial leg. He had 
 Mirabel's word for it that when he came back from the war 
 she would try to be his. 
 
 His favourite object of conversation was Mirabel. He 
 loved to talk of her triumphs in " Mary, Queen of Scots," 
 which he had never before had the opportunity of doing 
 with anyone but Lady Douglas. Sister Mollie liked any 
 kind of theatrical gossip, and naturally was most interested 
 of all in hearing about Mirabel, who was the only popular 
 actress she knew ; he liked to sing the praises of Mirabel's 
 acting because he could not sing her praises as a woman 
 as much as he wished, without imperilling his secret. 
 
 It was easy to find food for the praises, for she had " made 
 good " the appointment, which he had given her because 
 he was in love with her, beyond all hopes. In the first place, 
 there was her personality. The Douglases were a strikingly 
 handsome family, of the Scottish aristocratic type, and her 
 Visconti mother had been as engaging as she was beautiful. 
 Mirabel had combined the charm of both types. She was 
 so lovely as a child that her baptismal name of Isabel had 
 been twisted by their neighbours, with the Italian fondness 
 for nicknames, into Mirabella — the marvellously beautiful.. 
 
 She had been born with the sunniest disposition, too often 
 frozen, as she grew up, by her father's neglect of her mother, 
 while she was alive, and of herself after her mother's death. 
 His attitude had taught her the defensive which she was 
 practising against a doting husband, because he had forced 
 her to marry him. 
 
 The play in which she was acting exactly suited her mood, 
 for the only dramatic features in it were the unwelcome 
 marriage with Darnley and the immoral advances of Chaste- 
 lard, the latter of which provoked the Queen's anger, while 
 her feelings suffered martyrdom in the former. In her 
 graciousness to Rizzio, and the graces she lavished on the 
 audience when they encored her, Mirabel showed what an 
 adorable wife she could have been to a husband whom she 
 loved. 
 
 Every night she threw into the play the intense disappoint- 
 ment of her own life, and it was put down to her powers 
 as an actress. People raved about the feeling she put into
 
 WAITING FOR A LEG 311 
 
 her songs. It required no putting in : it was the expression 
 of her own longings. 
 
 But the world did not know this. Even her own husband, 
 who was also the owner and manager of her theatre, did 
 not know it. He had not the smallest conception that all 
 the feeling she put into the play was a protest, conscious or 
 unconscious, against their own marriage. He put it all 
 down to the dramatic genius of his adored Mirabel, and it 
 was the unending theme of his conversations with the patient 
 Mollie, who really enjoyed it, partly as a sort of tribute to 
 the Douglas family, partly because, since he came under her 
 care, she had fallen half in love with him herself, and he 
 showed the attractions of a lover to her while he was being 
 a lover to the memories of his wife. Because she was so 
 sympathetic a hstener, some of the sunshine fell upon her. 
 
 She wished increasingly that he would let her be his 
 amanuensis in the correspondence with Mirabel — let her be 
 the confidante instead of Paula ! For she was convinced 
 that his letters to Paula must be a more private edition of 
 his raptures to her. 
 
 He had, indeed, nominated Paula to the War Ofhce as his 
 " next-of-kin," but the War Office had made only a single 
 communication to her since he had been out in France, and 
 that was to say that he had lost his leg. He had made his 
 nurse, at the first hospital to which he was taken, write to 
 Paula to say that he wished the news to be withheld from 
 Mirabel, the fact being that he did not wish to appear to be 
 trading on her compassion. 
 
 In his letters to Mirabel herself, which he wrote as soon as 
 he was allowed to use a pencil, he told her that he was in 
 hospital at the Base, but hoped to be better soon and that 
 he would then be sent home on leave. 
 
 Knowing how keen Gray was to be in the fighting-line, 
 Mirabel was delighted at the prospect of seeing him again 
 before his life was in further danger, but her feelings aliout 
 her marriage, instead of continuing the change in his favour, 
 which had begun at Westernport, had undergone a severe 
 reaction against him, because she felt that she never could 
 forgive him for preventing her from marrying Archie. It 
 was because he could not marry her that Archie had not 
 made a war-marriage before his regiment went out, in the 
 hopes of leaving a son to succeed to the Earldom of Douglas.
 
 312 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 That such a piece of physical perfection as Archie should 
 have passed from the earth without lifting his little finger 
 to leave a child behind him seemed to her too terrible. 
 
 The letters from Mirabel and Paula were couched in very 
 different terms. Paula, who had received the official informa- 
 tion from the War Office, wrote wildly anxious letters, full 
 of enthusiasm and admiration. Mirabel, who had only 
 received the messages which he had dictated to nurses, con- 
 tinued to write to him every day, as she had promised, quietly 
 sympathetic letters, which were much more taken up with 
 giving him satisfactory news about the theatre than with 
 himself. This was largely his own fault, for in his deter- 
 mination not to let her be frightened, he dictated a reply 
 to Paula (who had written to enquire how much she should 
 let Mirabel know), in which he begged her to say that he 
 was not dangerously wounded, and that he was going to be 
 sent on home when he could stand the journey, and he 
 added : "I shall stay over here, if I am allowed, until I 
 am in a state not to alarm her. I should like, if possible, to 
 stay here till I am allowed to wear a cork leg, so as not to 
 shock her when she sees me. God bless you, Paula, for all 
 your kindness. Keep Mirry's spirits up at any price." 
 
 To which Paula replied : 
 
 " Bolingbroke House, 
 " Chiswick. 
 
 " September — th, 1915. 
 " My dear Oliver, 
 
 " What a hero you are ! If Mirabel doesn't marry 
 you after this, she ought to be condemned to singleness for 
 life ! But, oh, why are you so English ? Just as England 
 allowed Germany to make every possible preparation against 
 her, and refused to take the slightest precaution herself — 
 just as we are protecting the interests of German trade in 
 England now, instead of rebuilding British trade by pro- 
 tecting our wheat-growers and dyers and bottle-blowers — 
 so you are trying hard to help Mirry against yourself, instead 
 of accepting all the legitimate chances of the situation to 
 win her ! 
 
 " I have perceived for a long time that you are not allowed 
 to woo her in any way, direct or indirect ; that you have to 
 be strictly a friend, and not a lover, in all your relations to
 
 WAITING FOR A LEG 313 
 
 her. But that is no earthly reason for your preventing me 
 from imparting facts to her which have not come through 
 you, and which might materially influence her decision in 
 your favour. This is mere quixotism, and indefensible 
 injustice to yourself. She doesn't deserve such treatment. 
 
 " Mirry's very charming. She is ever so sweet and affec- 
 tionate to me. But she is shutting you out from her heart 
 by a blind wall of prejudice and hysteria, which is the most 
 unjust thing that I ever remember. I should like to thrash 
 her often. 
 
 " It is plain that if once she was married to you, she could 
 not live a week with you without finding out what a good 
 husband you were, and giving you her whole heart. Do let 
 me tell her everything, and believe me, 
 
 " Always your affectionate, 
 
 " Paula Maitland." 
 
 Any chance Paula might have had of convincing him was 
 obliterated by her prophecy that if once they were married 
 Mirabel would give him her heart. Unfortunately, they had 
 been married, and he knew how little effect a month of 
 absolute devotion had made on her heart. And the case 
 was really even worse than he knew, for he was not aware 
 of the fresh tide of resentment against their marriage which 
 was rising in her heart since Archie's death. 
 
 To Mirabel, as soon as he was allowed to write himself, he 
 had written that he was getting on nicely, and soon, unless 
 he had a relapse, would be sent over to Osborne to rest and 
 refit before he was allowed up to London. 
 
 She had the grace, in spite of her resentment, to write 
 back a letter which began : 
 
 " Poor old Jack, 
 
 " I didn't realize that you were so bad that you would 
 need a term at Osborne before you can come up to London." 
 (This was true.) " I am so rejoiced that you are safe and 
 sound " (and this was true, in spite of that unruly thought 
 which had come into her head for a moment while she was 
 talking to Lord Douglas.) " I am looking forward so to 
 seeing you. I shall come down to meet you at Southamp- 
 ton, if you will let me know when the hospital-ship will 
 arrive," etc.
 
 314 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 At this point he laid the letter down to call Sister Mollie 
 to ask if he might see Colonel Molony, the medical officer in 
 charge of the hospital, who had taken a great interest in him 
 since he found out who he was, and often came to have a 
 chat with him. 
 
 " Well, Gray, what is it this morning ? " asked the Colonel 
 cheerily, when he came in. His cheeriness was one of his 
 principal assets in getting the appointment. He was not 
 as good a surgeon as the two young R.A.M.C. Captains who 
 were under him. 
 
 " My leg. Colonel." 
 
 " Of course, that's what you're here for, but your general 
 condition doesn't seem to be any worse." 
 
 " No, I think it's better — that's why I sent for you." 
 
 " Well, it couldn't be called exactly an urgent case, then. 
 But, after all, it's a pleasure to be sent for to hear that a 
 patient is better, when you're generally only sent for when 
 he's very much the other way. What's the leg doing ? " 
 
 " Nothing, I hope, except resigning itself to circumstances. 
 I sent for you to know how soon I shall be transfered to 
 Osborne, because I want to stop my people meeting me at 
 Southampton." 
 
 " Well, that's funnier still ! " 
 
 " You would not think it very funny for me," said Gray, 
 " if you knew how desperately anxious I am to see one of 
 them ! Can you stop them coming, sir ? " 
 
 " Under the circumstances, I don't see why you want to 
 do it ! " 
 
 " Don't you, sir ? Don't you understand that I want 
 to have my other leg before I see her, so that she mayn't 
 have the shock ? " 
 
 " What a fool I am ! Of course I do, and I think you 
 ought to have a bar to that V.C. when you get it. What 
 you're going through is as bad an ordeal as serving that 
 machine-gun with only two or three wounded men at your 
 back, and several companies of Germans in front. Well, 
 we'll see what can be done. I can stop them coming to 
 Osborne — we often have to pronounce a patient ' not strong 
 enough to see friends yet ' there. But Southampton Quay 
 wiU be open to relatives of the wounded. I expect that all 
 I can do there is to send you from the hospital ship to 
 Osborne on a covered stretcher. I'll promise you that
 
 WAITING FOR A LEG 315 
 
 much, anyway." He stroked his forehead, from which 
 the hair was receding. " The best thing will be for you 
 to write to 3''0ur people, won't it ? — I can write you a note 
 to enclose to them, saying that it is injudicious. But if 
 you'll excuse my saying so, I don't think you need take the 
 trouble — since the lady, if she's worth her salt, will think it 
 an extra attraction to find you minus a leg." 
 
 Gray thought so too. He thought that he would be 
 breaking his word to Mirabel if he let her see him so maimed 
 as he looked at present. It would be using the undue in- 
 fluence which he had pledged himself not to use, for one 
 thing, and it also might be a terrible shock to Mirabel if she 
 suddenly found herself the wife of a man who had had a 
 leg shot off. 
 
 No one but himself, and perhaps Paula, could know what a 
 penalty it was to him, to do without seeing Mirabel for two 
 or three weeks longer than was necessary. 
 
 But he had no doubt in his mind that nothing less was 
 demanded by duty. 
 
 Presently the Colonel brought him his note about it being 
 inadvisable for friends to see him until they received a fresh 
 notice from the authorities, and asked if that would do. 
 Gray replied : " I think you might put in the word ' lady ' 
 before the friends, Colonel, because I want to see my manager 
 very badly. My business needs it, and it will take my 
 thoughts off." 
 
 " Quite so — I suppose you're anxious to hear how the 
 theatre has been doing while you have been winning your 
 laurels." 
 
 " While I have been away, at any rate, sir. And, by the 
 
 way, I should like to give a hundred pounds to any object 
 
 1 in connection with the hospital which you think most 
 
 ( deserving, to show how I appreciate all that has been done 
 
 for me." 
 
 " It will be very welcome — there are many small things 
 urgently necessary, for which I can't get a Government 
 grant." 
 
 " Will you allow me to pay for them all, then ? " said 
 Gray. " I should like everything to be right for the next 
 poor devil whom you receive like you received me. Just 
 let me know the amount which will make things comfortable, 
 and you shall have it."
 
 3i6 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 The Colonel went away with his heart very full, and Gray 
 said, " Give me a sheet of notepaper, will you, Mollie, 
 and a big envelope, to write to Paula ? " 
 
 Mirabel never saw his letters to Paula, because Paula was 
 very secretive about her correspondence, and always had it 
 laid on the bureau in her study, which, as sacred to the 
 absolute silence she required for writing, Mirabel never 
 entered without an invitation. 
 Gray's letter ran : 
 
 " No. 10 Base Hospital, 
 " Rouen. 
 " October — th, 1915. 
 " My dear Paula, 
 
 " I am sending Mirry a letter from the Surgeon-Colonel 
 in charge of the hospital here, which speaks for itself. But I 
 got him to write it, and you know why. He says that I am 
 very, very much better, and may be sent over to Osborne 
 any time now. Mirry is sure to come to you about it, and I 
 must trust to your tact. 
 
 " I made him confine the prohibition to lady-friends, 
 because I want to see Old Mac and others, about the theatre, 
 so as to get my mind off myself. Of course, I'd let you 
 come, but I couldn't do it without letting Mirry come too, 
 or she'd never forgive me. 
 
 " You know what doing without her means to me, but I 
 couldn't let her see me like this. I am right, aren't I ? 
 Write and say that I am. 
 
 " With warmest regards, 
 
 " Always yours, 
 
 " Oliver Gray." 
 
 To Mirabel he wrote : 
 
 " No. 10 Base Hospital, 
 
 " Rouen. 
 " October — th, 1915. 
 " My dear Mirabel, 
 
 " I have good news for myself. I believe that I am 
 to be transfered to Osborne quite shortly, though I am by 
 no means all right yet, and am not going to be allowed to 
 see you for a few weeks more. You can't tell what a trial 
 it is to me to control my impatience, and it will be still worse 
 when I am on Enghsh soil, and yet not seeing you ! But,
 
 WAITING FOR A LEG 317 
 
 humanly speaking, it can be only for a few weeks, and then it 
 will be perfect happiness for me, as perfect as it can be until 
 you are mine. 
 
 " Always yours, 
 
 " Oliver Gray." 
 
 Mirabel did not allow him to use any signature which 
 would betray their marriage if the letter was left about. 
 
 Those words," until you are mine," stabbed Mirabel. How 
 was she to tell honest, affectionate Gray that she was further 
 from relenting than ever — now that she had a concrete as 
 well as a general reason to regret having married him ? 
 Archie's having died unmarried was becoming an obsession 
 with her, and she threw the whole blame of it on Gray, 
 forgetting that if she had not been his leading lady she 
 would, in all probability, have never met Archie at all, 
 unless she had " looked up " Lady Douglas, which she had 
 no intention of doing, for fear of being patronized, apart 
 from the probability that without the glamour of the Babylon, 
 Archie might not have given her a second thought, if he had 
 met her at his mother's. 
 
 If anybody had put this aspect of the case to her in so 
 many words, she might have recognized its justice. But 
 there was nobody to do so. Lord Douglas, the only possible 
 person, had never been told how she came to know the 
 beloved Archie. 
 
 Paula did not dare to write and tell him of the philosophical 
 calm, tlie almost air-of-relief, with which Mirabel received 
 the intelligence. It was not want of kindliness or affection 
 which made her like this, but the problem which confronted 
 her, since after the heartiness of her partings with him at 
 Westernport and Southampton, it would be difficult to remain 
 stationary. She had told him that she might relent when 
 he came back from the war, and now she felt that Archie's 
 ghost would always stand between them. 
 
 Therefore she was willing to put off for as long as possible 
 that meeting with a wounded soldier wliich would either 
 betray her into evincing more sympathy than she felt in cold 
 blood, or into behaving unhandsomely to one who had bled 
 for his country with the courage of a hero.
 
 3i8 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 And over in France yet another woman had given her 
 heart to Gray, who had already been loved by so many before 
 he met Mirabel ! Sister Mollie — Mollie Menteith — who had 
 waited on him hand and foot during his last days in the 
 Base Hospital, felt a cold hollow under her heart the day that 
 he was carried on to the hospital-ship, and wrote to Lady 
 Douglas : 
 
 " No. 10 Base Hospital, 
 " Rouen. 
 " October — th, 1915. 
 " Dear Aunt Janet, 
 
 " I told you in my last letter that I had been nursing 
 your friend, Oliver Gray, at Rouen. By the time that you 
 get this he will be at Osborne. But he won't be allowed to 
 see any ladies for two or three weeks, because, to tell you the 
 truth — strictly entre nous — he is so madly in love with Mirabel 
 Douglas that it would not do for him to see her before he is 
 stronger, unless she means to accept him. I can't think what 
 she means by hesitating. I'd marry him to-morrow if he 
 asked me. He's just the nicest man who has been through 
 this hospital. And they are darlings, I can tell you, some of 
 them. I'm always losing my heart. I know that you'll 
 think the same of Oliver Gray as I do, when you know him 
 better. 
 
 " Perhaps you'll be able to talk Mirabel over. I wish you 
 could, though I'm desperately jealous of her. 
 " With best love, 
 " I am, 
 
 " Your affectionate niece, 
 " Mollie. 
 " P.S. — Grey old Rouen is full of Enghsh Society women 
 — especially the pretty young ones." 
 
 CHAPTER LII 
 
 HOW LORD DOUGLAS WENT DOWN TO OSBORNE TO SEE 
 
 OLIVER GRAY 
 
 f^~^ RAY felt very severely the solitude to which he had 
 V-T condemned himself at Osborne. When he cannot 
 move about is just the time when a man needs the society of 
 those whom he loves.
 
 GRAY AT OSBORNE 319 
 
 But Mirabel could not have remained with him in any case, 
 for " Mary, Queen of Scots " was on its last legs, and without 
 its leading lady would speedily have collapsed. 
 
 The chief break in the monotony for him was when Lord 
 Douglas made Gray's being there the occasion of a visit to 
 the Isle of Wight, to see what horses he could raise in it for 
 his remounts. He spent three days in the Island, putting up 
 at East Cowes, which is only a mile or so from Osborne, and 
 each day dined and passed the evening, until he was turned 
 out, with Gray. He also had a car with him, and took Gray 
 for drives every day. 
 
 When he arrived and found him hopping about cheerily on 
 crutches with a leg and a half, his heart went out to him. 
 He would have given much to be able to tell him that he knew 
 his secret, and would do all he could for him with Mirabel. 
 But he had given his promise, and could only talk as if Gray 
 were still a suitor, trying to win her hand, instead of her 
 husband, trying to win her heart. 
 
 He gave no name when he arrived, and the orderly, who 
 would have demanded it if he had been in plain clothes, was 
 content to say simply, " A gentleman to see you, sir." 
 
 " What does he look like ? " asked Gray. 
 
 " A Colonel, sir — a Cavalry Colonel." 
 
 " Well, show him in." 
 
 The man left the visitor at the door, and did not hear Gray's 
 glad exclamation of surprise. " Lord Douglas ! How kind 
 of you to come and look me up ! " 
 
 " Call me Colonel Douglas, will you ? — I know a lot of people 
 in the Island, and if they knew I was here, I shouldn't get so 
 much time to spend with you. Well, how are you, Oliver, my 
 boy ? " 
 
 He had never called him Oliver before, but now he was 
 speaking, he knew, to Mirabel's husband. 
 
 " Better than could be expected, I believe. But I'm a lame 
 duck till I get my other leg, which will be here in a day or two, 
 and then I'm told that with a httle practice I shall be able to 
 hop out of a dog-cart." 
 
 " Let's be serious for a minute, Oliver, while I congratulate 
 you. It was glorious, Oliver, glorious ! To my mind, worth 
 a V.C. — 'far more than the sublime sclf-sacrihce of dashing out 
 to save a wounded man, through tire which no one could 
 expect to survive, is. For the one is fine soldiering, skilled
 
 320 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 fighting, and the other is the heroism of stretcher-bearers. 
 If every stretcher-bearer and mine-sweeper who deserved a 
 V.C. got it, what thousands there would be ! There are no 
 grander people in the world than the Quakers who have become 
 mine-sweepers, because they object to taking human life ! " 
 
 " I think so, too. I feel such an undeserving creature beside 
 them ! " 
 
 " You needn't — ^you've done your bit, and you did it at the 
 right moment ! " 
 
 " Well, I'm glad I saved the trench. But tell me what I 
 am dying to know, Colonel Douglas — ^how is Mirry, really ? 
 
 " In health as well as she could be. But I'm not quite 
 satisfied with her otherwise, Oliver — she's so morbid." 
 
 " Morbid ? " exclaimed Gray anxiously. " What about ? " 
 
 " I suppose you want to hear the truth ? It's no good 
 telling anything but the truth ever, unless it's a white lie to 
 save a woman, is it, Oliver ? " 
 
 " No, tell me the truth. I intend to bear it." 
 
 " Well, the truth is that she's horribly morbid about 
 Archie's death." 
 
 " I was afraid she would be. She told me how deeply in 
 love with him she was." 
 
 " She told you ? " 
 
 " She told me everything. They did no wrong. They 
 could not help loving each other. This was the perfect 
 marriage of which she had always dreamed. And I stood in 
 the way, and I could not remove myself. It was rotten luck 
 for her." 
 
 " Rotten luck to have a man like you wanting to be her 
 husband! It's an honour that hardly any woman deserves." 
 
 " Well, it seems to have got on her mind, and to be preying 
 on her spirits." 
 
 " You must get on your new leg as soon as you can, Oliver, 
 and try and revive her spirits." 
 
 " I will, I can tell you 1 " 
 
 " And anything I can do to help you, you can rely on my 
 doing it. I wish from the bottom of my heart that she'd make 
 up her mind to have you. I came down here on purpose 
 to tell you this. The Isle of Wight was one of a dozen or a 
 score of places which were still on my hst to visit, and I fixed 
 on the Isle of Wight because you were here." 
 
 " Visit ? What for ? Colonel Douglas . . . ? " 
 
 r
 
 GRAY AT OSBORNE 321 
 
 " Didn't Mirry tell you that I was one of the chief men in 
 the Remount Department ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course, she did, but I've forgotten things a bit 
 since I was knocked out. Have you done any good here ? " 
 
 " Yes, there are rather a lot of horses — the fact of having 
 to put them on board ship to get them to their depots had 
 kept them here." 
 
 " So your visit hasn't been in vain ? " 
 
 " My visit would not have been in vain, if I was going to 
 turn straight round and go home after this talk with you. I 
 am sure of what is best for Mirry, since I have seen you." 
 
 Gray tried to stammer out his thanks. 
 
 CHAPTER LHI 
 
 HOW MIRABEL TOLD HER HUSBAND THAT SHE COULD NEVER 
 
 LIVE WITH HIM AGAIN 
 
 AND now the hour had come. Gray had had his arti- 
 ficial leg — 'naturally the best which money could 
 provide — for a week now, since the wound was sufficiently 
 healed, and he limped no worse than if he had fallen on the 
 curb-stone outside the theatre and cut his knee painfully. 
 
 Lady Douglas, after that letter from Molhe, had sent him 
 an invitation to stay for the present at Lanarkshire House, 
 which he had been glad to accept. For the theatre, while 
 " Mary, Queen of Scots," was quietly passing away, did not 
 need his presence, and it certainly was not good for him to be 
 living in his flat over the theatre with no one but his servants 
 to look after him, and far too many people wanting to see him. 
 
 The proper place for him to be, undoubtedly, as Lord 
 Douglas had pointed out to Mirabel, was at his wife's house, 
 but she would not listen to him, nor in her present mood was 
 it even desirable. 
 
 Mirabel was really in a worse state than her husband, for 
 he was recovering from his bodily wound, and there was no 
 improvement in her spiritual wound. On this one point she 
 was practically insane. 
 
 Of course, she was at Victoria to receive him, and watch 
 him from the railway-carriage to the car, and from the car 
 
 21
 
 322 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 into the house, with wifely sohcitude. She had received him 
 with all proper outward demonstrations of affection. But 
 she would not sleep at Lanarkshire House. 
 
 " It might — though I don't see how, for I know you won't 
 give me away, Jim — ^lead to difficult questions, which are not 
 so likely to arise if I come in after breakfast and go home 
 without waiting for tea." 
 
 She and Paula, who, apart from the kiss at the railway- 
 station, which excited so much interest in those who knew 
 the famous Miss Douglas of the Babylon and its proprietor 
 by sight, was really the more affectionate of the two, did not 
 even stay for tea that first day. 
 
 The strain made itself felt on the very first afternoon. Lady 
 Douglas, though she was not in the secret as to their marriage, 
 having been told how devotedly in love Gray was, and how 
 anxious for Mirabel to be his wife, since she liked them both 
 immensely, was eager for the marriage to come off. And as 
 Lord Douglas knew the real facts, he Wcis disposed to take 
 even better care that they should be left alone. But it was 
 when they were left alone that the strain began. 
 
 Since Mirabel, after helping him to the comfiest chair, did 
 not seat herself by him, but facing him on the opposite side 
 of the fireplace, it was clear that she still meant to encourage 
 the fiction among her friends that he was only very much in 
 love with her and a candidate for marriage. 
 
 Though he felt that he could not in honour do otherwise, 
 he had committed a tactical mistake in not seeing her while 
 he was mutilated. For then the mothering instinct which is 
 in every woman might have come to his aid. As it was, he 
 did not see her until he had practically recovered from his 
 wound, and looked almost as spruce and healthy as the day he 
 left England, with the added attraction of the tan which the 
 weather-beating of the trenches had given him. 
 
 Mirabel, when she remembered Archie, mingling with the 
 dust on the battlefield, felt like Hotspur in the first part of 
 Shakespeare's Henry IV., when he says : 
 
 " But I remember, when the fight was done, 
 When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, 
 Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword. 
 Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dressed, 
 Fresh as a bridegroom . . . 
 This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord, 
 I answered indirectly . . . . "
 
 MIRABEL TELLS HER HUSBAND 323 
 
 It seemed somehow to her as if he had got off hghtly, though 
 the papers, in the month after it had happened, were all 
 ringing with his saving a British trench at Givenchy. 
 
 She was not cruel enough to let him see this, but it made 
 the shade of Archie fall chill upon his hopes. 
 
 Now, in the first hours of having her husband back with her, 
 and tortured by her interest in the war, she hung breathlessly 
 on his words, as he told her the tale of the daily wrestle in the 
 trenches, which he had witnessed, restrained unfortunately 
 by modesty from letting her see how manfully he had borne 
 himself when he had left his oxen in the furrow, and caught up 
 his weapons to fight the assailants of his country. 
 
 It was pathetic, how he eclipsed every thought of himself 
 with his chivalrous rhapsody on the death of Archie — in which 
 he could only tell of the fight as he had heard it from others, 
 and of Archie's wish to be carried into his post to see him before 
 he died. He could not tell her the reason of Archie's wish 
 without being questioned for his reply to liim, which was a 
 breach of his word to her. He ended the rhapsody with 
 insisting how much more Archie had done for England than 
 he had, till she almost grudged him the reputation he had 
 won. 
 
 Though she had left him feeling more aloof than ever, she 
 had paid him humble reverence, while she was listening to his 
 tale from the front. But she would have paid the same to 
 any soldier who had bled for his country, and was telling her 
 what he had witnessed in battle. 
 
 To add to the morbidness of the situation, she began to tell 
 him how cheap she felt to be acting in musical comedy while 
 other women were doing war-work, from munition-making 
 even down to being ticket-collectors, in order to take the 
 places of men who might be soldiers. 
 
 " I have often felt the same guiltiness myself, Mirry, to 
 think that I should be employing so many people in trying to 
 be funny, even in trying to be risky, with a knowledge of the 
 base features which arise from our plays, but whenever I 
 have discussed this with men at the front, men who had not 
 the faintest idea who I was, they always told me that I was 
 wrong — that an England, where all this kind of thing was 
 suppressed, so that the actors engaged in it might do war- 
 work, would be a poor sort of England for fighters to return to 
 for their brief holidays from risking their lives. They pro- 
 
 21*
 
 324 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 tested that the strongest asset in the moral of our troops was 
 their invincible Hght-heartedness and determination to have 
 jokes as usual. You can't dismay the man who has ' Jokes 
 as usual ' for his motto. Cockney courage is like radium. 
 That is our justification, Mirry — like Baden Powell at 
 Maf eking, we are helping the nation to keep its tail up." 
 
 This comforted her ; there was a glimmer of a smile. But 
 it was rather a poor homecome for a hero from his wife. And 
 even that did not last, for presently her obsession began to 
 assert itself, and she said : 
 
 "I'm sorry, Oliver, that I can give you no hopes of living 
 with you as your wife. It is a brutal thing to say to my 
 husband at the very first meeting, when he has come back 
 disabled in the service of his country. But on the other hand, 
 it is better that the relationship should be understood from 
 the very beginning rather than that false hopes should be 
 raised which have to be tragically ended. You might have 
 thought from the way in which things were progressing at your 
 departure that we were on the eve of a reconciliation. I 
 thought so, and I advanced beyond what I now think possible. 
 But things have changed since then. Events have happened 
 which have placed them beyond our control. It will spare you 
 pain if I do not explain further, but merely say, with every 
 kindly feeling in my heart, that our relations cannot be closer 
 than they were when you came to BoHngbroke House before." 
 
 " Speak out, Mirry. In vital matters like this I would 
 rather know the worst than be left in the dark. What fresh 
 wrong have I done you ? " 
 
 "Oh, none, Oliver ! " she hastened to say. " It is no longer 
 your work ; it is Fate's. But Fate could never have dealt 
 me the blow if you had not given her the weapon." 
 
 " Don't try and spare my feelings by being enigmatical, 
 Mirry. Tell me right out." 
 
 She took him at his word this time, and poured out her wail 
 about Archie, the same wail that she had made to the bereft 
 father. Nothing that anyone could do would ever repair the 
 wrong. From a wail it passed to a denunciation which grew 
 almost to a curse. An evil had been committed which could 
 only be expiated by isolation and consecration to Archie's 
 memory. She spoke as one who is going to enter a Trappist 
 nunnery. Her great black eyes had the sinister fire of a 
 Hebrew prophet's.
 
 MIRABEL TELLS HER HUSBAND 325 
 
 So obsessed was she that she did not notice that he was still 
 wearing the Argus watch, which she had clasped upon his 
 wrist, when they parted, though the bracelet was contorted 
 and the works had been beaten into ashes when the bomb 
 had shattered his leg. He had meant to wear it until they were 
 united : now he meant to wear it as long as he lived. 
 
 She waited a little to hear if he had any protest to make. 
 But he saw no use in protesting. And then to end the tension 
 which was so exhausting to both of them, she said : " Would 
 you like to see Paula for a few minutes before we go home ? " 
 
 " Yes, I should," he said. " Paula has been very kind to 
 me." 
 
 " Would you like to see her alone ? " 
 
 " No ; for I might be tempted to discuss the situation, 
 which would not be honourable to you." 
 
 Paula showed no lack of cordiality when Mirabel brought 
 her in. She was overjoyed at seeing Gray safe home again, 
 and gave little screams of delight when she saw how well he 
 could manage his false leg, and how difficult it was to detect 
 it. He did not need her help in the least, but she had to be 
 holding him up with affectionate hands. 
 
 " I hope we are always going to have you on Sundays 
 again," she said, " and I shall come and have tea with you 
 here some day, in between this and then, so that you can tell 
 me all you have been telling Mirry to-day. You're not going 
 to the theatre this week, are you ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! I'm going to stay here until ' Mary, Queen 
 of Scots,' is taken off." 
 
 " Then I'll come on Wednesday, so that she won't have 
 to hear any repetitions on Sunday." 
 
 CHAPTER LIV 
 
 HOW OLIVER GRAY WAS A GUEST AT HIS WIFE'S RECEPTIONS 
 
 MIRABEL'S mental aberration, for it practically 
 amounted to that, on the subject of Archie, left 
 Oliver Gray with a terrible hollow in his heart, notwithstand- 
 ing the devotion of the Douglases. They had conceived a 
 very deep and warm affection for him. Lady Douglas could 
 not have told whether she was more attracted to him for his
 
 326 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 heroic exploit at Givenchy, or for the quixotic consideration 
 which he showed to Mirabel. Lord Douglas's esteem was 
 yet further enhanced by his knowing that Gray, who was, 
 except in point of family, a man after his own heart, had 
 married his heiress. 
 
 " Make the most of him, Janet — he needs it," he said, when 
 Gray came back from France, maimed for life, and found 
 that he had lost the little advance which he had made with 
 Mirabel. She needed no second recommendation after Mollie's 
 letter. She was rich in natural goodness of heart, as she 
 had proved by the cordiality and generosity she had shown 
 to the minor lights at her salons ; she felt an overwhelming 
 tenderness for a wounded man ; and a hero interested her 
 more than any other kind of celebrity. Therefore, to have 
 one staying with her during his convalescence meant so much 
 that it could only have been increased by finding that she 
 was doing her duty to the Douglas family in taking care 
 of him. 
 
 She called him Oliver, not knowing that she had a right 
 to, but because she had to fill up with his image the void 
 which Archie had left in her heart. 
 
 That his profession as manager of the Babylon Theatre 
 was so incongruous, both for a hero, and the maternal affec- 
 tions of the Countess of Douglas, was really an additional 
 attraction, because it furnished such an inexhaustible subject 
 for conversation. 
 
 She had a telephone put into his room for his convenience, 
 in the long business talks which he had with Old Mac, and 
 was almost elated with the idea that the gay Babylon Theatre 
 was run from her house. The library was put at his disposal 
 for what Grainger called " the dreadful people who come 
 to see him upon theatre business. " 
 
 It therefore soon became known at the theatre that their 
 wounded proprietor was spending his convalescence with 
 Lord and Lady Douglas at Lanarkshire House. It is nothing, 
 of course, nowadays, to find a popular hero being nursed by 
 strangers during his convalescence, and even if an explana- 
 tion had been necessary, Graj^'s well-known intimacy with 
 Lady Douglas's son would have been an explanation, but 
 it gave " the Theatre " immense gratification, none the less. 
 
 On Sunday afternoons he and his hosts went to Mirabel's 
 at-homes, which had grown large enough to need the studio.
 
 AT MIRABEL'S RECEPTIONS 327 
 
 For Paula had a wide circle of friends among leading authors 
 and artists, and many people who had met Mirabel at Lady 
 Douglas's on Sunday evenings, enjoyed going to the popular 
 actress's house on Sunday afternoons. 
 
 But Paula was no longer the central figure at these recep- 
 tions, because she had abdicated in order to devote herself 
 to Dr. Cantelupe, who never missed a Sunday now. Paula, 
 being really musical, was much flattered by the deference of 
 the Principal of the Royal Lyceum, and gave him a deference 
 in return which made him think that the Principal's Lodge 
 at the Royal Lyceum needed a mistress like her, who would 
 lend distinction to its functions. 
 
 Functions he was obliged to have, and, Hke Lady Douglas, 
 he recognized the value of epigrammatists in giving a function 
 its cachet. There were times when Paula reeled off hons mots, 
 sometimes rising to the verge of epigrams. 
 
 One page of his commonplace book he had filled vnih. a 
 string of them, which he had taken down on his shirt-cuffs 
 from Paula's hps during a single conversation. 
 " Popularity is the verdict of the crowd." 
 " Martyrs are heroes, but martyrdom is waste." 
 " Fm very Scotch ; I go in for my own pronunciation and 
 my own spelling." 
 
 " A vice lasts longer than a passion." 
 
 " Modern crime is a fruit of the tree of knowledge," and 
 a dozen others. 
 
 Although he had these thoughts about Paula he did not 
 dare to put them into words. But this did not prevent him 
 from monopolizing her on Sunday afternoons. 
 
 These closed earlier now, because ]\Iirabel and Paula alwa^'s 
 dined at Lanarkshire House on Sundays, while Gray was there 
 — in addition to Mirabel's going there every other week-day. 
 
 But her going there, which should have brought them 
 together, kept them apart. She came not only to see him, 
 but because the house was full of Archie for her. His mother 
 had never disturbed the bedroom which Archie had used as 
 a boy, or the study which he had made out of the dressing- 
 room adjoining it when he first went to Eton, and a study 
 was necessaiy to his dignity. And there were portraits and 
 trophies of Archie all over the house. When IMirabel left 
 her husband she would sometimes wander about for an hour 
 before she went home.
 
 328 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER LV 
 
 HOW PAULA DISCOVERED MIRABEL'S SECRET 
 
 THE regrets which Mirabel had expressed to Lord 
 Douglas at not being able to marry Archie, and be 
 the mother of his child, had now begun to tinge conversations 
 with Paula whenever they were alone. The subject had 
 become an obsession. 
 
 One day Paula lost her patience and said : " Why on 
 earth didn't you marry Archie ? I don't see what there was 
 to prevent you, except that you were under a great obliga- 
 tion to Oliver, and saw that he wanted to marry you ! " 
 
 " It was impossible," said Mirry, in the firm way in which 
 she had so often closed conversations on the subject. 
 
 " I don't see it," said Paula, who had long been itching 
 to rebel. "It is no reason for refusing A because wants 
 very much to marry you, if you don't intend to accept 0, 
 and are dying to accept A ! I am quite sure that Oliver 
 would have retired in an instant if he had known that your 
 heart was given to Archie." 
 
 " He did know," said Mirabel sullenly. 
 
 " Then tell me why he did not free you — no, I don't mean 
 that . . . why he did not discontinue his attentions when 
 he saw that you wanted to marry Archie." 
 
 " Because he couldn't." 
 
 " I don't see why." 
 
 " I can only say that he couldn't. I can't tell you why 
 without betraying his confidence." 
 
 Paula was not satisfied, but to sound Gray was clearly out 
 of the question. You cannot ask a man why he did not 
 retire in favour of a rival in love when the only handsome 
 course was to do so. 
 
 Slowly a suspicion crept into Paula's mind that Mirabel 
 might be telling her the literal truth when she said that OHver 
 could not make way for Archie. If she was right in her 
 suspicions many strange things which she had noticed would 
 be explained. 
 
 The first person whose aid she sought was naturally
 
 PAULA DISCOVERS THE SECRET 329 
 
 Dr. Cantelupe. He was such an admirer of hers that he 
 would be bound to give her all the help in his power. But 
 he was unfortunately one of the people who were least able 
 to help her, because he knew, and was under an obligation 
 to secrecy. 
 
 The second was Lord Douglas. He, too, was not so sym- 
 pathetic as she expected : in fact, he appeared confused and 
 anno^^ed. 
 
 " My dear Miss Maitland," he said, " I cannot allow myself 
 to be associated with any prying into Mirabel's private 
 affairs. And, considering your connection with her, I think 
 that you would be very wrong in attempting to do so." 
 
 But Paula was a novelist by profession, and the unravelling 
 of tangles was her special gift. A thousand copies of her 
 detective masterpiece, " The Bloodhound," sold for every 
 hundred copies which were sold of " The Lady of Lochleven." 
 
 Lord Douglas's behaviour only confirmed the authoress 
 of " The Bloodhound " in her suspicions. She meant to solve 
 this mystery, even if it involved a quarrel with Mirabel. 
 
 She next sought the aid of her old friend Mr. Gribble, the 
 managing clerk of Ticknor and Fields, who happened, though 
 she did not know it, to be Oliver Gray's Iaw\'ers. He, from 
 his profession, must know how you could find out at some 
 government establishment whether any marriage had taken 
 place between two persons so recently as two years ago. 
 So she asked him to dinner. As she need not dine till two 
 hours later than Mirabel, there was no chance of their clash- 
 ing. Mirabel did not, of course, get home till between eleven- 
 thirty and twelve, and Paula meant to get rid of Mr. Gribble 
 at about ten. 
 
 She did not broach the subject during dinner. She pre- 
 fered to wait till they had adjourned to the drawing-room, 
 and had taken their coffee. 
 
 She rang for the cups to be taken away, and said there 
 would be no letters. Then she began her campaign. 
 
 " I want to find out if two persons were married to each 
 other in the j^ear 1913. How am I to set about it ? Do 
 they keep any indexes of marriages at Somerset House ? " 
 
 " You need not trouble yourself," he said. " I go there 
 every day to have documents stamped, and if you give me 
 their names, I can find out in a jiff}', and will copy out 
 the entry and post it to you — if they have been married."
 
 330 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Their names," she said, " are OHver Gray, Junior, and 
 Mirabel Douglas. I can't say what name she would have 
 registered under, because she was christened Isabel, but 
 always uses her nickname Mirabel." 
 
 " I'm afraid that I can't help you in this matter, Miss 
 Maitland," he said, " because Mr. Gray is a client — perhaps 
 I might say the principal client — of Messrs. Ticknor and 
 Fields, who are my employers." 
 
 Paula retained her presence of mind. " I'm not asking 
 you to do Mr. Gray any injury. I want to do him a great 
 service. Do you see that portrait ? " she said, pointing to 
 a splendid almost life-size photograph of Mirabel. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that is this Miss Mirabel Douglas— 
 I know her by sight. I ... I ... I have been to the 
 theatre where she is . . . employed." 
 
 " Very much employed ! " said Paula sardonically. 
 " Well, she lives in this house. It is her house, and I live 
 with her. She is really Mrs. Gray — a marriage nominally 
 secret, though we have been presuming that everybody 
 knew it. In fact, her reputation would suffer very much if 
 it were not known that she is in reality Mrs. Gray. But some 
 enemies of hers are circulating an ugly rumour that the whole 
 story of the secret marriage is an invention. Now, if I can 
 only find a copy of their marriage-register at Somerset House, 
 and hold that in my hand till the proper time, I can circum- 
 vent their conspiracy. You can save me a great deal of 
 trouble by procuring a copy of it for me ; and you cannot 
 prevent my employing someone else to make a copy of the 
 entry, if you don't." 
 
 The clerk saw that he had given his case away by inju- 
 dicious admissions, and judged that the best thing to do 
 now would be to promise to procure what she required if 
 she would swear that she would not use the information to 
 injure Mr. Gray. 
 
 " Why, of course I will ! My whole object is to help them 
 both by being in a position to say that I hold actual proofs 
 of the marriage." 
 
 " Well, on those conditions, I'll do it," he said, " but I 
 can set your own mind at rest on the subject by mentioning 
 that I saw the marriage with my own eyes, and was one of 
 the witnesses to it, at the Chelsea Town Hall Registry 
 Ofhce."
 
 PAULA DISCOVERS THE SECRET 331 
 
 " Oh, I am thankful ! " she said, sighing with genuine 
 reHef. " Now perhaps I can settle that hideous affair ! " 
 
 " You have sworn not to injure Mr. Gray, haven't you ? " 
 said Mr. Gribble. 
 
 " I would do almost anything in the world to serve him," 
 said Paula. " Don't you know that he is the famous person 
 who kept three companies of Bavarians out of the British 
 trench at Givenchy when all the men who held it were killed 
 or disabled ? " 
 
 " Why, his name was J. Gray ! " 
 
 " It's the same person. Didn't he sign his name J. Gray 
 in the Register ? " 
 
 " I didn't look," said Mr. Gribble. " Ticknor and Fields 
 told me not to see too much, because Mr. Gray wanted it 
 kept very quiet. You're sure it's the same, Miss Maitland ? " 
 
 " Perfectly sure. Miss Douglas, as she still calls herself, 
 and I live together." 
 
 Mr. Gribble took a taxi to the " Daily Mail " office. His 
 duty to Ticknor and Fields prevented him divulging the 
 valuable piece of information that Oliver Gray, Junior, 
 was secretly married to his leading lady, the beautiful Miss 
 Douglas, but it did not prevent him from divulging that 
 the Second-Lieutenant J. Gray, R.G.A., whose saving of 
 the British trench at Givenchy had filled columns in the 
 newspapers, was no other than the famous " OHvcr Gray, 
 Junior," the proprietor and manager of the Babylon Theatre. 
 
 Mr. Gribble often made a semi-honest sovereign out of the 
 newspapers — his taxi to-night would be charged as expenses 
 — by selling the knowledge which came to him in his business, 
 where there was no chance of his being discovered. 
 
 On the next night Paula was in possession of a copy of 
 Mirabel's marriage-lines. How should she use it ? 
 
 CHAPTER LVI 
 
 LORD DOUGLAS DECLARES 
 
 PAULA had mined Mirabel's position, tliough she had 
 not exploded the charge yet. A fresh movement 
 against it was begun a day or two afterwards. 
 
 Before Mirabel went out after lunch the big, old-fashioned
 
 332 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 front-door bell, which Paula had insisted on retaining when 
 the house was being done up, rang, and Lord Douglas was 
 announced. 
 
 " I came to see you here," he said, " because I have tried 
 in vain to get a private talk with you, when you've been to 
 see Oliver lately ? " 
 
 " What do you want to say to me, Jim ? Paula's not at 
 home. She's lunching with Mrs. Peroxide." 
 
 He came directly to the point. " I want you to tell 
 Oliver, or to let me tell Oliver, that I know about your 
 marriage." 
 
 " I don't see why he should be told," she said. " I shan't 
 tell him, and you can't, because you are pledged to secrecy." 
 
 " That's quite true," he said, " and it is the line which I 
 thought you would take. I can do nothing but demonstrate 
 my disapproval by slipping away at the first decent chance 
 whenever you enter a room." 
 
 " By making an exhibition of me, in fact." 
 
 " No — I said decent chance. I should always be parti- 
 cularly careful to act up to this by not leaving you too 
 abruptly. I should naturally leave off coming here, unless 
 you asked me formally to meet people." 
 
 " I was wrong when I used that word exhibition, Jim," 
 she said penitently. " I might have known that you couldn't 
 do anything ungentlemanly." 
 
 She pulled the comfiest easy chair a little nearer the fire 
 for him. 
 
 " I don't see how I can say yes," she said. " At all events, 
 when I have a thing sprung upon me like this. But sit 
 down and talk quietly of other things, and then perhaps 
 an idea will come to one of us." 
 
 " If I could talk things over with Gray, I think it would 
 clear them up a bit," he suggested. 
 
 " But I don't want them cleared up," she answered. 
 " There is only one way in which they can be cleared, and 
 that is by my acknowledging the marriage, and letting him 
 come to live with me, and that is exactly what I am trying 
 to avoid. Frankly, if it was not for his sake, I would rather 
 never see him again. He's a darling, I admit that, but he 
 brings such dreadful nightmares to my thoughts, whenever 
 I am in the same room with him." 
 
 " Why not tell him that I know all about it, and announce
 
 LORD DOUGLAS DECLARES 333 
 
 at the same time that you are not coming to see him again 
 until you are converted ? " 
 
 " I am sure that poor Ohver won't thank you for that. 
 No one could help noticing how he loves to see me." 
 
 " But if he knew that it was for his own good, he would 
 be strong enough to bear it." 
 
 " Oh, Oliver's brave," she said. " I knew that before 
 the papers told the whole world about it !" 
 
 " Well, shall we try that ? " 
 
 " I don't see the good," she said. " I shall hate your 
 cutting me, Jim, in your own house, because now that 
 Archie's gone, there's no one I love so much as you. But 
 it's no good pretending. I don't want him to know that I 
 have told you. For one thing, it will show him that I have 
 broken my word to him." 
 
 "As if that mattered where his whole happiness is at 
 stake ! " 
 
 " It does matter," she said, " because if I had to confess 
 to him that I had broken my word to him, how could I refuse 
 to make the amends which I cannot make ? " 
 
 " I don't see that any good is to be gained by my staying," 
 he said, rather coldly, getting up to say good-bye. 
 
 " Well, if we are going to part, Jim, and it is parting in 
 a way, I know, kiss me to show that we part friends." 
 
 " Better not," he said, shaking hands in an ordinary 
 friendly way. " I belong to the other side." 
 
 CHAPTER LVII 
 
 WHAT PAULA SAID TO THE DOUGLASES AND GRAY ABOUT 
 
 THE SECRET 
 
 PAULA, coming back from Mrs. Peroxide's, went in 
 to see Gray. Her new discovery was burning a 
 hole in the place where she kept secrets, and tackling Mirabel 
 about it meant a battle, which even she, after all the con- 
 versational scratches she had received for her candour, 
 dreaded. 
 
 She asked to see Oliver alone, and when she was shown 
 in, astounded him by beginning, " Dear old man, I know 
 all about it."
 
 334 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " All about what ? " he asked, though he could not help 
 guessing. 
 
 " Your marriage." 
 
 He did not deny it. He merely asked, " How did you 
 find out ? " 
 
 " A friend of mine came across the entry at Somerset 
 House, and sent me a copy of it," she replied, not very 
 ingenuously. 
 
 " Have you told Mirry ? " 
 
 " No," and she added, with a similar absence of ingenuous- 
 ness, " I want to talk to you about it first. Do you 
 mind ? " 
 
 " Mind ? " he echoed. " It'll take a great load off my 
 chest to be able to discuss it with someone." 
 
 " Well, first of all I want to reconcile it with all you have 
 pretended since you came to Bolingbroke House. I want 
 to have the satisfaction of nailing you in a few untruths." 
 
 " I never told you one." 
 
 " Never ? " 
 
 " No, not one." 
 
 " Well, you acted a good many, then ! " 
 
 " That's another thing. And you must remember that 
 I was under a pledge to Mirry never to reveal it by word or 
 deed." 
 
 " Yes, I believe that. But let's try and go through them, 
 so that we may see how you played the game." 
 
 " Well, begin." 
 
 " First of all, there was that relative, who was so pleased 
 with Mirabel's getting the post at the Babylon Theatre, that 
 he gave her a house and carte blanche to pay for putting it 
 in order and furnishing it. He began, I think, by putting 
 a thousand pounds to her credit for the purpose. Do you 
 know anything about that house and that thousand pounds, 
 Oliver ? " 
 
 " Of course I do, but I never told you anything about that, 
 so I haven't got that on my conscience." 
 
 " You were the person who wanted her to cut a proper 
 dash, and were horribly disappointed at her choosing a 
 house in Hammersmith ? " 
 
 " I certainly was. I think that even this house is too 
 far out." Lanarkshire House was considerably east of the 
 Albert Hall, but Gray's flat at the top of the theatre was
 
 WHAT PAULA SAID ABOUT IT 335 
 
 in Trafalgar Square, where London meets the West End. 
 " Who did you think it was ? " 
 
 " Well, I thought it was Lord Douglas. The seed was 
 very cleverly planted in my mind, and you, if I am not mis- 
 taken, encouraged me in it ! No, I don't think it was you : 
 it was Lord Douglas himself, though I think he was like 
 you, and prefered letting a lie go by default to telling it. 
 One of these tainted truths was that he was ' the elderly 
 relative ' with whom she went to spend a month before she 
 began her rehearsals." 
 
 " Did Mirry say he was elderly ? " 
 
 " I fancy she did, but I'm not sure if she originated the 
 idea. I may have understood him to be elderly, and may 
 consequently have alluded to him as being elderly, and she 
 and you and Lord Douglas — all you conspirators — may have 
 encouraged me in the idea, without stating it to be a fact. 
 In any case, I now conclude that you, and not Lord Douglas, 
 were the relative, elderly or otherwise, with whom she did 
 spend that month ? " 
 
 " Exactly," he said. " It was our honeymoon." 
 
 " Your honeymoon ? Why did she leave you ? Did you 
 frighten her ? — or, excuse my being frank, disgust her in 
 some way ? " 
 
 " Oh no. She gave me an excellent character. But 
 unfortunately, it was part of the bargain she made in 
 marrying me." 
 
 " Bargain she made in marrying you ? Will you tell me 
 about that extraordinary bargain ? " asked Paula. 
 
 " No," he said, " I am not at liberty to tell you an5rthing, 
 except that I agreed to her leaving me at the end of the 
 honeymoon, and I promised that if she let me go on seeing 
 her in private, not to make the slightest advance to induce 
 her to change her resolution." 
 
 " How on earth did you ever agree to such a monstrous 
 proposal ? " 
 
 " I would have agreed to any proposal which made her 
 marry me, and I confess that, knowing how I lo\'cd her, I 
 did not think that she would find it possible to adhere to 
 her resolution." 
 
 " You didn't know Mirabel ! " said Paula. " And I think 
 that she's a hateful wretch to have treated you as she has ! " 
 
 " Don't say that ! I can't bear to hear her attacked ! "
 
 336 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Well, she deserves it ! " said Paula, rather crossly. " But 
 let's get on. Didn't she pay you another visit ? She cer- 
 tainly gladdened the solitude of that ' elderly relative ' 
 again ? It is not possible that . . . ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you're going to say, but it isn't 
 possible ! It's last Christmas you're talking about, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, last Christmas. How do you explain that, OHver ? " 
 
 " Simply that when I was down at Round Table Island, 
 she came and stayed at a hotel over at Westernport, so that 
 I could see her to say good-bye, as I was ordered to France 
 at the New Year." 
 
 " And didn't she even relent, when you were going to the 
 front, and might never come back again ? " 
 
 " I don't think I am at liberty to discuss that. But I 
 will say that if I had thought that she was going to be more 
 relentless than ever when I returned, I should have taken 
 care not to survive." 
 
 " I think you did your best to do that as it was, you dear 
 brave thing ! " said Paula. " How I wish I was your wife ! 
 I should be so proud, and I should be so thankful to Provi- 
 dence for having given me such a good husband ! " 
 
 " Thank you, thank you, Paula ! But you mustn't call 
 me that ! No man with such a ' rainbow ' past as I've had 
 could be described as a good husband ! " 
 
 " I don't agree with you," said Paula, " now. I was 
 brought up a very strict Presbyterian, more especially with 
 regard to refusing the good offers of the world, the flesh and 
 the devil. But I am disposed to reject the Church's teach- 
 ing about those who yield to temptations, since you and 
 Archie have taught me that when a man has sown his wild 
 oats, temptations may slide off him like water off a duck's 
 back." 
 
 " They do off me, I can tell you ! I don't care for any- 
 thing in the world except Mirry ! I do wish she'd ..." 
 
 "So do I, Oliver ! I can't think what's the matter with 
 her ! Of course I know it's Archie — that goes without 
 saying ! I mean that I can't make out why her regret for 
 Archie should make her so horribly unfair to you." 
 
 " It was my fault, I suppose, for making her marry me." 
 
 " And wasn't it her fault, too ? She married you with 
 her eyes wide open ; she must have thought that she was ] 
 willing to give up her life to her art, as women are so fond | 
 
 i' 
 
 •1
 
 WHAT PAULA SAID ABOUT IT 337 
 
 of saying. And then when new vistas opened up for her, 
 she wanted to have her Hfe back ; and I don't see that it's 
 your fault that she couldn't ! " 
 
 " It may not be. But the fact remains that what I did 
 robbed her of the dearest thing in the world ! " 
 
 " And if it did," said Paula, " it's all over now, and she 
 ought to go down on her knees, and thank heaven for giving 
 her such a long-suffering husband ! Most husbands would 
 have had a good deal to say." 
 
 " Poor Mirry ! " he said. 
 
 "I'm tired of poor Mirry ! I think she wants ..." 
 
 At that moment Lord Douglas came in, and Paula said, 
 " I've found you out ! " 
 
 " Found me out ? Not in anything very dreadful, I 
 hope ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know what your opinions are on the subject 
 of impersonation, but you let me believe that you were an 
 ' elderly person ' who presented Mirabel with the house in 
 which we live, and paid for my furnishing it as I pleased, 
 while it was really her husband there, who gave it to her, 
 and paid for everything ! And you allowed me to regard 
 you with real suspicion, which was not easily set at rest, 
 because I thought she was in the habit of going away and 
 sta^ang with you ! I didn't like it a bit, I can assure you, 
 though you may be fifty or sixty or seventy, or whatever 
 you are ! And I find that you were just ' swanking ' — that 
 she never went to you at all — that she was quietly staying 
 with her husband, that reprobate there, who used to sit 
 in my drawing-room, going on as if he was trying to get 
 engaged to her, when he was married to her the whole time ! " 
 
 Lord Douglas looked at her in amazement, and she con- 
 tinued : " These are not really my thoughts a bit ! I am 
 just trying to be funny, as the easiest way of letting you 
 know that I've found out that Oliver and Mirry are married 
 to each other, which makes Mirry's behaviour worse than 
 ever ! " 
 
 " May I ask how you found this out. Miss Maitland ? " 
 asked Lord Douglas. " Did Mirry tell )'ou in a fit of 
 confidence ? " 
 
 " Did Mirry tell me in a fit of confidence ? " she said. 
 " It looks as if she wanted to take the secret to her grave 
 with her ! " 
 
 22
 
 338 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Well, how did you find out ? " 
 
 " By the excellent registration system of our country, 
 which compels all marriages to be registered, and keeps 
 copies of the entries at Somerset House ! I have a friend 
 who goes there regularly, and he, knowing that I live with 
 Mirabel, sent me this." 
 
 Being a woman, Paula thought that she was entitled to 
 make a good story of it at a trifling sacrifice of accuracy. 
 
 " And you have confided all you know to Gray ? " he asked. 
 
 " All and a bit," she said, smiling. 
 
 " Thank goodness for that ! " he cried, " Now I can 
 discuss it with him, which I've been dying to do ever since 
 Mirabel told me about it, under a strict pledge of secrecy." 
 
 " Did she tell you ? " asked Gray, with quite unaccountable 
 eagerness. 
 
 " Yes — why ? Oughtn't I to have mentioned it ? I 
 didn't let on — I didn't tell the secret ! The guilt for that 
 rests on Miss Maitland's pretty head." 
 
 " Very much," said Paula, with more meaning in her words 
 than they attached to them. She had the sense to realize 
 that the two men ought to be left to each other at that moment, 
 so she ran out of the room, saying, " After that I shall hide 
 my diminished head ! " 
 
 " Well, Oliver," said Lord Douglas, after the door closed, 
 " I am glad that you are the man on whom the Douglas 
 succession depends." 
 
 " It doesn't seem as if there's going to be much 
 succession ! " said Gray bitterly. 
 
 " I must talk to Mirabel," said Lord Douglas resolutely. 
 " She must put a stop to all this nonsense ! It could not be 
 worse, in any case. But perhaps what she won't do for 
 affection, she may do from a sense of duty. If she persists in 
 this confounded behaviour, the Earldom of Douglas ends 
 with me. You've got a better life than she has, for all your 
 misfortunes in France, and if she won't live with you, and 
 doesn't survive you, we shall have to say ' There was an end 
 of an auld sang,' as Chancellor Seafield said when he signed 
 the Treaty which united Scotland to England. But it can't 
 be ! " he continued. " She can't be so wicked as that ! It's 
 wicked enough for her to treat you as she does ! We'll all 
 talk to her, and try and convince her ! " ^ 
 
 " You know how eternally grateful I shall be, not only for 

 
 WHAT PAULA SAID ABOUT IT 339 
 
 the succession, but because I want my wife . . . you can't 
 think how badly ! " 
 
 After that they spoke httle, because both were thinking 
 and planning. 
 
 Presently a knock came to the door, and Grainger came in 
 to say that when Mr. Gray had finished speaking to Lord 
 Douglas, Lady Douglas would like to see him. 
 
 " Go now, Oliver. Paula — Miss Maitland, has been teUing 
 her ! " 
 
 Oliver jumped up so naturally and easily that it was almost 
 impossible to believe that he had had a leg bombed off, and 
 went off, hardly limping at all, to that famous small drawing- 
 room. 
 
 Lord Douglas looked affectionately after him, and when he 
 was out of earshot, said, " What a white man ! " 
 
 Lady Douglas received him as anyone might have pro- 
 phesied that she would, for she was very emotional. 
 
 " I don't care what Mirabel does ! " she cried. " In this 
 household you will always be a Douglas ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII 
 
 HOW MIRABEL TAXED LORD DOUGLAS WITH BETRAYING HER 
 
 NO one thought of warning Lady Douglas to be careful 
 how she handled Mirabel. She thought a brief note 
 of congratulation was sufficient for that night, and sat down 
 and wrote it. 
 
 It reached Mirabel the next morning at breakfast-time, but 
 she did not mention it to Paula, because it would have entailed 
 teUing Paula about her marriage. Instead of that, she ascer- 
 tained by telephone from Grainger that Lord Douglas would 
 be at home, and said she was coming round to see him on 
 business at ten o'clock. She wished to see him before Lady 
 Douglas came down. 
 
 He was waiting for her in the library when she arrived. 
 She shook hands frostily, and as soon as Grainger had left 
 the room, said : 
 
 " Well, Jim, what do you mean by betraying me ? 
 
 " Betraying you ? " he said. " I haven't betrayed 
 you ! " 
 
 23*
 
 340 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Well, look at this," she said, handing him Lady Douglas's 
 note. " How did Janet find out if you didn't tell her ? " 
 
 " How should I know ? " he said. " I didn't teU her : I 
 didn't tell anybody ! " 
 
 She grew still more wrathful. " Then Oliver must have 
 told her ! " 
 
 " I'm joUy sure that he didn't ! " 
 
 " How can you be sure, unless you know who did ? " asked 
 Mirabel, with bitter scorn. 
 
 " Well, I do know who did ! " 
 
 " You said you didn't just now ! " 
 
 " Excuse me — I said, ' How should I know ? ' '* 
 
 " Well, that's the same thing ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid that I don't think so ! I put it in that way 
 because I did not wish to have the pain of refusing point-blank 
 to tell you, but I repeat that it was not Oliver." 
 
 " Janet will tell me," she said confidently. 
 
 " I hope not ! I shall not take any steps to prevent her, 
 but I beg you not to ask her," he said. " It is so much better 
 that you shouldn't know. It was an awkward thing for you 
 to have to tell Janet about your marriage, after having 
 kept it a secret for so long, so you ought really to be thankful 
 that someone else has done it for you, and that we're all a 
 happy family." 
 
 " Happy family ! " she echoed, in angry derision. 
 
 " Well, I hope we shall be, when you've forgiven every- 
 body ! " 
 
 " I shall not forgive anybody who has had anything to 
 do with it ! " 
 
 " I hope you won't take up that attitude, Mirabel," he said. 
 " The whole thing is too serious ; not only are you being 
 grossly unfair to the best of husbands, but as sole heir to the 
 Douglas Earldom, if you persist in your wrong-headedness, 
 the succession must fail ; there can be no heirs but your 
 heirs, and no one but Oliver can be their father while he is 
 alive." 
 
 " I don't care what becomes of the Douglas Earldom now ! " 
 she said angrily. " While Archie was alive I would have 
 gone through fire and water to maintain the succession ! 
 But Oliver saw to it that I should not have that privilege, 
 and now he has to pay for it ! " 
 
 " Unfortunately, it isn't only he who has to pay for it !
 
 MIRABEL TAXES LORD DOUGLAS 341 
 
 He will, doubtless, now that you are the only possible heir, 
 regret to lose his chance of becoming the ancestor of future 
 Earls of Douglas, but his regret can be nothing to ours, who 
 spring from a line that goes back beyond the days of the 
 Bruce, and which we had hoped that we should pass on to 
 remote posterity. My chance of doing it is dead — it was 
 killed in the trenches ! But yoa still have the chance, and it 
 is your sacred duty to guard and cherish it ! " 
 
 " Sacred fiddlesticks ! " cried the enraged Mirabel. 
 
 Lord Douglas took no notice of the rudeness, but pro- 
 ceeded : " Do remember what is due to the family ! You 
 have been like our own child to us, ever since we met. And 
 every blow you deal to Oliver falls on us with double force." 
 
 " I am sorry to injure you, Jim. . . . You have been very 
 good to me ! But after the injury which OUver has done me, 
 I do not intend to let him have the privilege of perpetuating 
 our f amity." 
 
 " You talk a great deal of the injury he has done you, 
 Mirabel, but, apart altogether from the Douglas succession, 
 you don't appear to remember the other side of the shield — 
 the injury which you have done a splendid Englishman, in 
 the prime of his youth, a man who has covered himself with 
 glory by his bravery in the war, by holding him to a renuncia- 
 tion which he made, as the law says, ' in defiance of public 
 policy.' If you or your lawyers attached any pecuniary 
 penalty to the breach of it, no court of law would enforce it, 
 if, as I cannot picture him doing, he declined to pay it." 
 
 " He made his bargain, and if he is a gentleman, he must 
 stick to it ! " 
 
 " Yes, but that doesn't compel you to stick to it. And in 
 my opinion, there is a solid reason, almost as strong as a 
 legal reason, why you should tear up this unjust treaty. I 
 cannot conceive you making such a condition, except on 
 account of the loose life which he had led up to the time of his 
 meeting you. You know his reputation — which puts you in a 
 not altogether favourable light lor having married him — and 
 because he would not agree to leaving you at the church door, 
 I suppose, you imposed a limit of one month, in case, I 
 presume, you should find yourself confronted by circumstances 
 which you could not forgive. I do not allude to a circum- 
 stance like Archie's death, but to matters which no woman of 
 spirit could endure."
 
 342 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " You're quite wrong. I made the condition intending 
 that it should be observed absolutely ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mirabel ! I can't believe that any decent woman 
 could have made a condition like that without intending to 
 waive it, if her husband behaved like a gentleman to her during 
 the period of probation ! " 
 
 " Then I suppose I'm not a decent woman, because I did 
 not intend anything of the sort ! " 
 
 " That is not all," he said. " Even if this did not influence 
 you, noblesse oblige, which has been the tradition of our family 
 in history, ought to have something to say in the matter. If 
 you don't love Oliver, and never did, as you say you never 
 did, you must have married him wholly and solely for the 
 worldly advantages which you were going to get out of the 
 marriage — an unrivalled start in your profession, and a con- 
 siderable income for life ! Do you think that worthy of a 
 Douglas ? — because I don't ! " 
 
 " Well, if it isn't, I shall give him back the house, and all 
 that's in it, and ask him to release me from my contract, so 
 that I need not be beholden to him for a single penny ! " 
 
 " That's all very fine," said Lord Douglas, " but that isn't 
 restoring things to the siahis quo before your marriage ! For, 
 let alone the injury you've done to him, you have, in plain 
 English, extracted an advertisement from him which should 
 be worth about three thousand a year to you from other 
 managers. What do you say to this ? " 
 
 " That it is not my fault tliat people should discover the 
 gifts which I possess — that if he hadn't made them known, 
 somebody else would ! " 
 
 " I don't say that they wouldn't, but you might have had 
 to wait ten or twenty years for it, as you yourself pointed 
 out ! " 
 
 " I don't know what you're raking all this up for." 
 
 " Because I think that you're behaving infamously ! You 
 have got all you need out of a model husband, and you 
 persist in maintaining this immoral bargain, which you 
 made while you thought that he would be anything but a 
 model. " 
 
 " In fact, I'm so vile that I'm capable of doing anything 
 except insinuating that you are making all this bother because 
 you're frightened that the succession to the Earldom of 
 Douglas will fail ! I don't make that insinuation — I couldn't 
 
 I
 
 MIRABEL TAXES LORD DOUGLAS 343 
 
 believe it of you. But there is no other crime against society 
 which I do not appear to have committed ! " 
 
 " Don't talk hke that, Mirry ! " he said, suddenly changing 
 his tone to one of greater affection. " I stand in the relation 
 of a father to you, more especially since you have become my 
 heir, and it is my duty to tell you when I think you're behaving 
 unworthily, particularly when a little generosity will make 
 two hves so happy ! You were born generous — anyone can 
 see that — but a sort of mania has made you untrue to your 
 natural instincts. And no one could deserve your generosity 
 more than Oliver. He's a splendid chap, and he's behaved 
 like a trump to you ! " 
 
 " I don't care ! " she said. " Nothing shall make me 
 change my mind ! I'm not going to hve with him, that's 
 all ! And he can either cancel the contract, and take back 
 what he's given me, or go on just as we are ! You can settle 
 that between you ! " 
 
 " Mirabel ! Mirabel ! " 
 
 " You'd better not say any more, or I expect I shall say 
 something worse ! I shan't come here again for the present, 
 so I'll go and say good-bye to Janet." 
 
 " You need not make any declaration about not coming 
 here : you wouldn't come until you wanted to, in any case." 
 
 She moved towards the door. " I won't offer to shake 
 hands with you," she said, " you won't want to shake hands 
 with such a bad Douglas ! I won't think hardly of you for 
 anything you have said. . . . You've been the best friend I've 
 ever had, and I know you've said all these horrid, awful things 
 for the best. But they have not moved me a hair's breadth 
 to the right ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LIX 
 
 HOW MIRABEL LEARNED THAT IT WAS PAULA WHO HAD 
 
 DIVULGED HER SECRET : AND HOW SHE LOST HER 
 
 HOLD ON LIFE 
 
 WHEN Mirabel entered the room where she was sitting, 
 Lady Douglas rose to greet her with even greater 
 cordiality than usual. 
 
 " My dear," she said, " I am so glad to find that you and 
 Oliver are married to each other ! I think he's a lovely man : 
 there's no one I'd rather see you married to ! "
 
 344 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 She had got thus far before she noticed how irresponsive 
 Mirabel was. 
 
 " You're all in the conspiracy against me ! " said Mirabel. 
 " You want to make me hve with Ohver ; but it's no good : 
 I'm not going to ! " 
 
 " My dear," said Lady Douglas, " do you realize what 
 you're saying ? Instead of saying this, it would be much 
 better if you were to set to work to explain why you haven't 
 been living with him since you were married, until he went to 
 France ! " 
 
 " Oh, that's easy to explain," said Mirabel. " It was part 
 of our marriage-contract." 
 
 " Then the best thing you can do, Mirry, is to tear it up ! 
 I'm sure Oliver will be wiUing to ! " 
 
 " I know he would ! But I just don't mean to : that's 
 flat, Janet, so please don't talk about it ! " 
 
 " But, my dear, I must talk about it ! It's so wicked of 
 you not to do it ! " 
 
 " Well, if you must talk about it, I must leave you," she 
 said, getting up to bid Lady Douglas good-bye. 
 
 She hesitated a little as their hands met, but Lady Douglas 
 bent forward and kissed her affectionately, saying, " We can 
 part friends, even if we cannot remain friends." 
 
 As Mirabel reached the door, she turned round for a moment 
 and said, " It's very tiresome, this having arisen between us ! " 
 
 " It is, indeed it is ! " sighed Lady Douglas, who was 
 extremely fond of Mirabel. " I'm beginning to wish that 
 Paula hadn't told me ! " 
 
 Mirabel flew down the stairs as if she expected to be shot. 
 Seeing the serene Grainger waiting for her in the hall, she said, 
 " Oh, Grainger, call my car as quickly as you can : I'm in a 
 terrible hurry : I want to catch Miss Maitland before she goes 
 out of town ! " 
 
 Grainger imagined no evil. He considered that authoresses 
 lacked ballast — that it was just the sort of thing they would 
 do to fly out of town without giving the servants any warning, 
 like proper members of society. 
 
 Once in the car, Mirabel clenched her teeth. She meant to 
 have it out with Paula. It was a good thing, perhaps, that 
 the car had to go a couple of miles before she was in Paula's 
 presence, because it gave her time to reflect, and she reflected 
 vigorously.
 
 MIRABEL LEARNS THE TRUTH 345 
 
 When she had let herself in with her latchkey, Paula was 
 in the hall, arranging flowers. Mirabel went straight past 
 her, into the little still-room in which cut flowers were put 
 when they came into the house, until they could be arranged. 
 As she expected, Paula followed her. 
 
 Mirabel stepped back, and closed the door. " How dare 
 you ! " she said. " How dare you go and tell my secrets to 
 Lady Douglas ! " 
 
 " I did it because it had no business to be a secret," said 
 Paula, who abounded in courage, and had dared the risk of 
 being turned out of the house many times rather than not 
 speak her mind. 
 
 Mirabel placed a restraint on her temper. This was the 
 answer she had expected from Paula, when she was anticipat- 
 ing their meeting, as she drove home. 
 
 " It was my secret, and you had no business to reveal it to 
 anybody ! " 
 
 " Pve told you why I couldn't keep it," said Paula 
 stoutly. 
 
 " Perhaps you'll tell me how you came to know it ! " said 
 Mirabel viciously. 
 
 " Yes," said Paula, " I will tell you. Something you said 
 the other day made me suspect it, so I had the registers at 
 Somerset House searched, and there the entry of your marriage 
 was, sure enough ! " 
 
 " And who did you employ to search the registers ? " asked 
 Mirabel, still in the same tones. 
 
 " There's a proper functionary for the purpose," said Paula. 
 
 " Who has prying and spying as his perquisites ! " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose a man has to pry when he's consulting 
 hundreds of thousands of entries," said Paula coolly. " He 
 wouldn't be any good for his job if he didn't ! " 
 
 " Hm ! A nice job ! " 
 
 " There's no harm in the job, Mirabel. If you were to 
 inherit a lot of money, and had to prove your father and 
 mother's marriage to do it, you'd be glad enough to benefit 
 by it — in fact, I don't suppose that when the time comes you 
 will be allowed to inherit the Douglas titles and estates with- 
 out your lawyers doing the very same thing ! And, at all 
 events, none of your descendants could ever be Earls of 
 Douglas unless your marriage-entry could be found there, by 
 some ' prying functionary ' ! "
 
 346 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I suppose not," said Mirabel wearily. " But it isn't nice, 
 is it ? " 
 
 " I don't see anything nasty about it," said Paula, conscious 
 all the time that she had been quite mean in the way she had 
 ferreted Mirabel's secret. 
 
 " Well, if you did find out, I don't see why you need have 
 told my cousins about it ! Surely you could have had enough 
 fun out of it by gossiping with Oliver over my misfortunes ? " 
 
 " I didn't want to gossip with anybody, Mirabel — I wanted 
 to make you live with your husband. And it was no good 
 talking to him about it, with that view, when he had promised 
 never to approach you on the subject. I had to talk to Lord 
 and Lady Douglas about it, because they were the only people 
 who could help ! " 
 
 " Well, it won't help : I don't mean to listen to anybody ! 
 And, Paula " she continued. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " I must ask you to promise never to mention the subject 
 to me." 
 
 " I shan't do anything of the kind," said Paula. " I shall 
 make a point of urging you, whenever I get a chance ! " 
 
 Mirabel was furious, but for the first time in the whole 
 episode behaved hke a lady ; she did not say to Paula, " Well, 
 then, you must find some other place to live ; " she reflected 
 that it would be a gross injustice, and might be a heavy 
 financial blow to Paula, if she was suddenly turned out of the 
 place where she had been invited to make her home. 
 
 " Well, if you won't promise," she said, " let me entreat 
 you not to do it, because I warn you that it will always put 
 me into the vilest temper." 
 
 Paula was so accustomed to putting people into tempers 
 and defying them, that she did not feel at all perturbed, 
 though her home might have been concerned. What is more, 
 she did urge Mirabel, in season and out of season, to make it 
 up with her husband, with the result that, although there was 
 no danger of her being turned out of the house, they were 
 hardly on speaking terms with each other. 
 
 Paula was not much distressed. If only she was firm, she 
 argued to herself, Mirabel must come round. There would be 
 no need for Mirabel to acknowledge herself in the wrong ; she 
 could just, one day, let her defence break down before Oliver, 
 In the interval, Paula conducted herself like any other
 
 MIRABEL LEARNS THE TRUTH 347 
 
 Scotswoman who is buoyed up with the idea that righteous- 
 ness is on her side. The less she saw of Mirabel, the better 
 it was for reviving neglected friendships. She had seen so 
 much of her friends in the old days that she was bound to 
 neglect a few of them when she was wrapped up with jNIirabel. 
 Therefore, when Mirabel was a closed book she went and 
 looked up these forgotten friends, and often had to drink 
 tea at two or three places in one afternoon. 
 
 But it was very different for Mirabel. With her marriage 
 oppressing her like a nightmare, and the Douglases and Paula 
 against her — not caring to see the Douglases, and hardly 
 speaking to Paula, she felt absolutely desolate. She literally 
 lost all desire to live. Her appetite and her strength ebbed 
 away, as her mother's had when she discovered her father's 
 infidelity. 
 
 In a November of unprecedented severity she succumbed 
 to the draughts of the theatre, and contracted a cold upon 
 her lungs, which was so severe that she could not sing, and 
 had perforce to give up her part in the last nights of the piece. 
 
 She was glad to be confined to indoors at Bolingbroke 
 House, glad of any excuse not to have to go to the Douglases' 
 house and confront their pressure, and the generous for- 
 bearance of Oliver. 
 
 How she could have enjoyed the freedom to be at home, 
 if Paula had not been in the enemy's camp ! 
 
 Mirabel did not take to her bed. The one pleasure in Hfe 
 which she had left was the sensation that she was at last 
 able to idle about her home all the day and all the evening, 
 without having to prepare at half-past five for that colossal 
 effort. Never, since she had assumed possession of her 
 delightful Georgian house, had she been able to feel the 
 sweets of home and the sweets of liberty combined. 
 
 She would not have sent for a doctor. Paula sent for 
 him on her own authority, to make him prohibit her going 
 to the theatre, and to get his report for Old Mac. 
 
 Once in the house, he perceived and insisted on the serious- 
 ness of the case. Except in resisting his orders that she 
 should go to bed, Mirabel was docile enough in carrying out 
 instructions. The one thing she would not do was to try to 
 get better, though she took his medicines. The house had 
 central heating, but no more exposure to draughts was 
 necessary to sow the seeds of death in her sj'stem ; it was a
 
 348 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 struggle between pneumonia and vitality, and she would not 
 take a hand in the game. 
 
 Oliver heard about her condition from the report that went 
 to the theatre, and was gravely alarmed. He at once 
 came round to see her, though he had been little in the 
 house since his return from France. She liked their meetings 
 to take place at Lady Douglas's, because there it was 
 for her to terminate them, and she could not tolerate 
 much of his company now. 
 
 A wife whose husband has lost his leg, and gained such 
 distinction in battle, and shows her the chivalry of a Sidney 
 or a Bayard, if she has one spark of worth left in her, cannot 
 help despising herself when she treats him like a man who 
 has made an unsuccessful proposal of marriage, and finds 
 his intimacy as a friend curtailed by his dismissal as a lover. 
 
 Oliver was no longer wearing his uniform. Officers who 
 are so permanently disabled that they cannot go back to 
 the front, do not wear their uniforms. This, combined with 
 the activity which a perfect artificial limb afforded him, 
 might have damaged him a little in her eyes. 
 
 Their meetings were cheerless, in spite of the cheeriness 
 with which he made a point of entering the room where she 
 was. He found her docile rather than friendly — perhaps 
 she was afraid that friendliness might affect her resolution ; 
 Jeffreys must have noticed that Paula, who had formerly 
 made a point of never leaving them alone, was now seldom 
 present when they were together, which was because she was 
 conscious of a tendency to do, in her anxiety to help, exactly 
 the things which had the worst effect on Mirabel. 
 
 Oliver was largely occupied with anxiety about Mirabel's 
 health. Mirabel knew that what he advised was right ; 
 she could not help being aware of his anxiety. But she 
 would not take his advice, because she had no wish to live, 
 and least of all did she wish to be beholden to him for living. 
 When they were not talking about her health, almost the 
 only thing which she allowed him to talk about was the 
 theatre. 
 
 On account of her illness there could be no question of 
 including Mirabel in the new piece, and several of the chief 
 male actors in " Mary, Queen of Scots," were at the front 
 and one had perished. So Gray had to fall back on 
 a Babylon piece of the old type—" The Uniform Girl,"
 
 MIRABEL LEARNS THE TRUTH 349 
 
 with Guinevere Jones as leading lady. For one thing, it 
 was more within Old Mac's scope. Give him anything 
 within stereotyped lines, and he would do it in the best 
 style. But " Mary, Queen of Scots," one of the greatest 
 successes the Babylon had ever had, was entirely over his 
 head ; he had prophesied nothing but disaster for it. 
 
 Hearing all the gossip about the rehearsal amused Mirabel, 
 and she looked more kindly at Oliver for a moment when he 
 told her with genuine concern that he could not have one 
 of his new romantic musical comedies without her. 
 
 He was pitifully careful not to let her perceive that he 
 saw how changed she was, not so much in health as in dis- 
 position. He treated her just as if she was the old Mirabel, 
 so full of Italian esprit. Above all, he dreaded that she 
 should see him wince when he heard one of her hollow coughs. 
 
 None the less, her resentment would not let her receive 
 him in any way but as a duty owed to a wounded friend. 
 Except when she was guarding herself against the pressure 
 of Paula and the Douglases, she never thought of him as 
 a husband, and every time he saw her she was so much the 
 thinner and weaker. 
 
 CHAPTER LX 
 
 DR. CANTELUPE TAKES MIRABEL TO TASK 
 
 THE most difficult person she found to deal with was 
 Dr. Cantelupe, who, in one of the frequent calls he 
 paid upon Paula, found only Mirabel at home. 
 
 He came in holding his lower lip between his forefinger 
 and thumb, a trick he had when he was thinking, or a little 
 disconcerted. He feared that Mirabel would say something 
 about his attentions to Paula, who admired his compositions 
 as sincerely as he admired her novels, and was blind to 
 the humours of his appearance — his rather Hogarthian face, 
 his pedantic manner, his alternative fits, or combinations of 
 untidiness and smartness. What were they in a man who 
 was a composer of genius, and had a talent for bringing 
 out musical gifts which bade fair to make the Royal Lyceum 
 the rival of the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music ? 
 
 " Well, Miss Douglas — I suppose I must call you Miss 
 Douglas ? "
 
 350 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " No, Mirabel, if you like," she said, with sly sweetness. 
 
 " I don't mean that . . . how are you getting on with 
 . . . you know who I mean ? 
 
 " Very well, thank you " (which was not strictly true). 
 
 " I thought so ! I hear very good accounts of him from 
 our people. The general impression is that he has com- 
 pletely given up the affairs which made him so notorious, 
 and is behaving as well as a married man in his rather peculiar 
 circumstances could possibly behave." 
 
 Mirabel was inwardly very much annoyed by this inquisi- 
 tiveness about her husband's behaviour. What did it 
 matter to all these people ? It was her affair, and what had 
 they to do with her affairs ? Nevertheless, as Dr. Cantelupe 
 had been a friend in need, she did not intend to let herself 
 be annoyed with him, and said : 
 
 " Oliver has quite turned over the leaf. He's a very good 
 husband. I have nothing to complain of." 
 
 " Then why don't you acknowledge your marriage and let 
 him live here ? " he asked, without in the least intending 
 to counter what she had said, but only to offer her fatherly 
 counsel on the advisability of putting an end to the un- 
 desirable conditions which she had imposed upon her husband 
 — if she got on with him so well. 
 
 " I don't mean to hve with him anywhere. I let him 
 come to see me here as often as he likes." 
 
 " Well, I think you ought to live with him, Miss Douglas. 
 And if you don't want to live with him here, I should give 
 up this place altogether, and go and live with him at his 
 flat. This divided life is a false existence for a man and 
 wife — believe me, it is ! I am sure of it, though I have 
 never married myself." 
 
 " Well, I hope you'll practise what you preach when you 
 are married," she said, so significantly that she covered the 
 poor man with confusion, and momentarily diverted his 
 blundering overtures. 
 
 " If I am successful in my desires," he stammered out, 
 " I shan't fall into the trap of leaving my wife in the country 
 — you are quite countrified here with your garden. Miss ij 
 Douglas — all the week, while I am earning our bread and ' 
 butter. I shall want to have her society to cheer me and 
 spur me on. Are you satisfied with your hfe as it 
 is? " 
 
 i
 
 DR. CANTELUPE TO MIRABEL 351 
 
 " Very far from it," she said, " but I don't see any way out 
 of it." 
 
 " Oh, it must be quite simple ! I am sure that Mr. Gray 
 would be willing to abrogate this absurd agreement if you 
 asked him. And since, except when rehearsals are on, he 
 could very well manage all that he has to do in the theatre 
 in two or three hours in the morning, and an occasional hour 
 after lunch, there would be no reason why he should not 
 live here." 
 
 " I shouldn't like to ask him," said Mirabel, in savage 
 irony. She wondered how many more pin-pricks this inno- 
 cent was going to inflict on her. 
 
 " May I speak to him about it ? " he pleaded, for he was 
 fond as well as proud of his famous and beautiful pupil. 
 " I don't think he'd mind ; he'd remember that I acted, as 
 I might say, in loco parentis, when he broached the subject 
 of the marriage to you. And I'm a much older man. I'll 
 do it with pleasure. I think I know how to put it to him." 
 
 " I should be exceedingly angry if you did, old friend. I 
 know that you mean most awfully well, but I like to manage 
 my affairs for myself." 
 
 " Well, I'll say no more about it," he said, wishing her 
 an affectionate good-bye, to show how gladly he would have 
 done it for her. But as he stepped out along the river-walk 
 to catch the 'bus at Hammersmith Bridge, he said to him- 
 self : " What a stupid girl, to be sure ! " not knowing what 
 force his words had. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI 
 
 THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY 
 
 LORD DOUGLAS was still at Lanarkshire House. He 
 did not suffer the old annoyances of home, because 
 the idle women who used to hang round his wife were mostly 
 doing war-work or war-play. And it was convenient for 
 him, because he had collected all the horses which were 
 to be collected in his part of Sussex, and had been trans- 
 fered to inspecting the work at the score or two of remount 
 depots which were grouped round London ; for these it was 
 most convenient for him to live in London itself. So, as 
 he had Gray to talk shop to, he established himself at Lanark-
 
 352 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 shire House, and wondered how he could have " bachelored " 
 so long at The Hermitage, when he had such a lovely and 
 charming wife to " mother " him at home. 
 
 He was so tired when he came into dinner — he had often 
 ridden sixty horses in the day — that, though he drank very 
 little except the champagne he took with the meal, he liked 
 to spend a long time over his after-dinner cigar, before he 
 left the table. Lady Douglas, on the other hand, was always 
 impatient to leave the table, receptions having been the 
 business of her evenings, so the two men had good oppor- 
 tunities for a talk before they joined her. 
 
 Mirabel was their ordinary topic of conversation, and 
 caused them more and more uneasiness. She was obviously 
 wasting away, and the hopes of the Douglas succession were 
 growing faint. 
 
 Gray was even sorrier for Lord Douglas than for himself. 
 It was such a cruel combination of misfortunes, that he 
 should lose his only son, and that out of his son's death 
 should arise the mental disorder which was going to make 
 the only other heir die any day without issue. 
 
 He racked and racked his brains for a remedy, with no 
 result, till, as a last resort, he determined to see if Mirabel 
 might be induced to live, supposing that she could divorce 
 him. 
 
 " I'm inclined to think that it might work," he said to 
 Lord Douglas. 
 
 " Not unless she is suffering from madness." 
 
 " I believe that it is hysteria more than anything else." 
 
 " WeU, if it is hysteria, how is she to manage the divorce ? 
 And why should you, who are so anxious for the restitution of 
 conjugal relations, and have been such a good husband to 
 her — why should you be sacrificed ? 
 
 " Well, if it would save her life, and give you the chance 
 of heirs, I should not grudge the sacrifice," said Gray. " It's 
 about the only thing that I can do in the way of sacrifice, 
 now that I am laid on the shelf." 
 
 " I don't see that anyone would be benefited by it except 
 me," said The Douglas. " And while I live there will be an 
 Earl of Douglas, and in the place, where I go to, there will be 
 no heirs for an obvious reason, and I imagine that there will 
 be no information there as to whether the Earldom of 
 Douglas exists or not. Besides, how could it be managed if
 
 THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY 353 
 
 you did not want to do it ? No court would give her a 
 divorce against you, Oliver, after the life that you've led 
 since you met her ! " 
 
 " Oh, that part of it is quite simple ! I have not been 
 owner-manager of the Babylon Theatre for several years 
 without knowing how divorces can be arranged ! If you're 
 lucky, and can find out when there is a judge ready to take 
 your case, it takes very little more than the six months 
 necessary for making a decree nisi absolute." 
 
 " How is it managed ? " asked Lord Douglas, very 
 interested, not because he had the slightest taste for un- 
 savoury details, but because he considered that it would 
 tend to elevate the Aristocracy very much if Peers who made 
 idiotic marriages with chorus-girls, when they were hardly 
 more than boys, were able to divorce them, and make a 
 marriage which suited their station when they arrived at 
 years of discretion. He had a concrete example before 
 him in the person of his dead son. He had felt almost 
 certain that Archie, up to the time when he met Mirabel, 
 would marry some dreadful woman from musical comedy or 
 the music-halls — to be the ancestress of future Earls of 
 Douglas, unless there was a divorce before she had a son ! 
 Therefore he asked : " How is it managed ? " 
 
 Gray explained to him the smooth working of the legal 
 fiction for divorce by arrangement. 
 
 " That is how the infidelity is established," he said, " and 
 in my case it would be easy to prove desertion, because 
 Mirabel would not allow me to live with her after the first 
 month, and until I joined the Army I lived in my flat over 
 the Babylon Theatre, while she lived at Bolingbroke House. 
 Any lawyer could prove desertion on that. The judge pro- 
 nounces a decree nisi, and after six months makes it absolute, 
 unless the business has been managed with such scandalous 
 carelessness that the King's Proctor smells a rat and inter- 
 venes. It would be easy for me to afford Mirabel the chance 
 of getting rid of me in that way." 
 
 " She'd never do it ! I sincerely trust she'd never do it. 
 though all my hopes of heirs depend on it ! " 
 
 "I'm not so sure. This thing is more than an obsession 
 with her now. It's a hallucination. She might regard it as 
 a sacrifice to the memory of Archie." 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 23
 
 354 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 "I'm not sure. And as she will die if it is not done, and 
 kill both our hopes, we might give it a chance. I shall still be 
 able to see her at the theatre." 
 
 " I would not be a party to such a thing — such a disgraceful 
 thing, Oliver ! " 
 
 "I'm sorry. I would do anything to save Mirabel's life." 
 
 That night, when they joined Lady Douglas, they found 
 Paula with her. Gray, full of his scheme to save Mirabel's 
 life, took Paula aside, and explained the scheme to her. 
 
 " I believe that she'd do it in the state that she is in. But 
 ' what price you,' poor Oliver ? " 
 
 " I'd rather that than see her die by inches, Paula ! " 
 " And so would I, though she does not deserve anything ! " 
 " Don't be offended, Paula, if I ask you something. ..." 
 " I don't think you're very likely to say anything that 
 would offend me ! But if you do offend me, I'll forgive you, 
 because I want to hear what you've got to say." 
 " Well, will you . . . no, I can't say it ! " 
 " Will I sound her, you mean ? Ohver, when you first 
 came to Bolingbroke House, this is the sort of thing I should 
 have expected you to say to me, and I could have killed you 
 for it. Now I think that you deserve a V.C. for offering it ! I 
 will do what I can. It may be a dead frost, or my heart 
 may fail me. But hope for the best." 
 
 " Don't let them know," he said, glancing towards their hosts. 
 " I told Lord Douglas that I was willing to do it, and he 
 would not listen to me." 
 
 At breakfast the next morning, when they took their 
 newspapers to the easy-chairs on each side of the fireplace, j 
 Paula, who had lain awake all night, thinking how she should ' 
 broach the subject, said quite suddenly to Mirabel : " I saw 
 Oliver last night. He has offered to give you your freedom." 
 " Offered to give me my freedom ? " echoed Mirabel, with 
 the old flush coming into her wasted face, and a smile that 
 bespoke happiness only too eloquently. " Oh, how will he 
 do it ? " ' ! 
 
 " By letting you divorce him, of course ! " 
 " But how could I divorce him ? Much as I want to be 
 free, I am convinced that Oliver has been faithful to me, and 
 it is ludicrous to think of cruelty in connection with him ! " 

 
 THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY 355 
 
 " He says that unless either of you put in your marriage- 
 contract as evidence, the law would presume desertion on the 
 fact that after a month of marriage he lived in his fiat over 
 the theatre, while you were living at Hammersmith, until 
 he went into the Army ; and to prove infidelity , . ." 
 
 " Infidelity ? — that would be impossible." 
 
 Paula repeated Gray's explanation. 
 
 " And is he willing to do this for me ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Paula. 
 
 " I am not worthy of it ! " 
 
 " Then why do you let him do it ? " 
 
 An instant change came over Mirabel. Once more she 
 grew hard, and the hallucination manifested itself. Paula 
 was quite right in supposing that she would connect it with 
 Archie's memory. Mirabel was willing ; she was more than 
 willing ; she was once more capable of a desire. 
 
 Paula went to see Oliver Gray that night, to announce 
 the success of her ignoble mission, and like the brave man 
 that war had proved him, he prepared to go through 
 with it. 
 
 On the very next morning he took a taxi to the theatre. 
 He had telephoned to Czarto Bihnsky, the divorce lawyer, to 
 meet him at his flat ; he did not wish to go to the laboratory 
 of that unsavoury alchemist, and he could not ask him to 
 Lanarkshire House. He did not use the car which Lord 
 Douglas had put at his disposal. Chauffeurs are as sharp as 
 lawyers. 
 
 When he got out of the taxi, he found a small crowd col- 
 lected round the steps of the theatre. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " he asked, and they pointed out 
 a girl with a basket of white feathers, who was presenting 
 one with insulting words to every man of the military 
 age who passed without either a uniform or a war-worker's 
 badge. 
 
 Seeing a tall young man, something of a Johnny, as it 
 seemed by the distinction with which he dressed, alight 
 from a taxi and prepare to enter the theatre, which had the 
 credit of being such a haunt of dissipation, she darted towards 
 him, and pushed a white feather into his buttonhole. 
 
 " There ! " she said. " I hope that will make you suffi- 
 ciently ashamed of yourself to go and do your duty with 
 the colours ! " 
 
 23*
 
 356 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Gray's commissionaire came down the steps to drive her 
 away. 
 
 " Leave her alone," said Gray — " or, rather, leave her to 
 me ! " He was intensely annoyed at the situation. He 
 felt so ridiculous. Here was he, who had been disabled for 
 life by one of the most heroic actions of the war, being given 
 a white feather in the most insulting way outside his own 
 theatre, because he had not so much as a special constable's 
 badge to put on the lapel of his civilian overcoat. But, in 
 common parlance, " his monkey was up," and he determined 
 to try and make her ridiculous also. 
 
 " Madam," he said, " do you want to know why I am not 
 doing my duty with the colours ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," she said arrogantly, thinking that she had 
 at last shamed a man into recruiting by her caddish trick. 
 
 " Then will you do me the honour of feeling my leg ? " 
 
 The crowd set up a roar of laughter— not very nice 
 laughter. 
 
 " Silence ! " he cried. " I mean what I say. Will you feel 
 my leg — my left leg ? " 
 
 She coloured angrily. 
 
 " You can get the policeman to do it, if you are ready to 
 believe what he says ! " 
 
 " Let the bobby do it, Miss ! " cried the crowd, changing 
 its tone ; " 'e's making you a fair offer ! " 
 
 The policeman did not wait for her orders. He made his 
 way to Gray, and said, in his " move on " voice : " What are 
 you talking about your leg for ? " 
 
 " Feel it and see," said Gray. 
 
 The policeman, not without roughness, felt it ; something 
 puzzled him ; he felt it again, more gently and carefully. 
 Then he looked up to the lady of the white feathers, and 
 said : " Artifishul ! You've been wasting yourself on a cove 
 with a wooden leg ! " 
 
 Seeing a policeman pinching his master's leg, the commis- 
 sionaire came running down the steps again, to see if he 
 needed his assistance. 
 
 " No, I'm all right, Simmonds, thank you," said Gray, 
 going up the steps and into the theatre. 
 
 " 'Oo is 'e ? " asked the policeman of the commissionaire 
 when Gray had gone in. 
 
 " Don't you know him ? " said the commissionaire, as if 
 
 : 
 
 fl
 
 THE DOUGLAS TRAGEDY 357 
 
 it was impossible for anybody not to know so famous a 
 person. 
 
 " No," said the policeman, " or I shouldn't 'ave arst 
 you!" 
 
 " That's Lieutenant Gray, what's going to 'ave a Victoria 
 Cross, and the owner of this theatre ! " 
 
 " Go 'ome. Mother Goose," said the policeman, to the lady 
 with the feathers, " before you puts yer foot in it any wuss ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LXII 
 
 HOW TARA TRELOAR TOOK THE DIVORCE INTO HER OWN HANDS 
 
 AS Gray went into the theatre towards Old Mac's office, 
 whom should he meet coming down the stairs but 
 his last leading lady before Mirabel — Tara Treloar. 
 
 " Hullo, Tara, what are you doing over here ? " he asked. 
 
 " A divorce." Tara could be very laconic. 
 
 " A divorce ? " 
 
 " Yes, I want to marry again, and so does Snooker." 
 
 Snooker (christened Seneca) Claflin was the American 
 Variety Syndicate promoter, who had lured her away from 
 the Babylon to act for his " combine." He had taken the 
 precaution of marrying her, so that she should not give him 
 the slip, directly she got over there. 
 
 This marriage had worn out long ago, because it meant 
 nothing else ; but the parties, whose lives were not affected 
 by the tie, had not troubled to dissolve it, until the occasion 
 arose for Snooker to go through the ceremony again for a 
 business purpose. 
 
 This in a nutshell was what Tara told Gray when he asked 
 her into his office for a chat. 
 
 The irony entered his soul. Here was he, who had been a 
 Galahad since he first became engaged, about to give up 
 his dearest possession and desire in the faint hope of saving 
 Mirabel's life, and the Douglas succession for another ; while 
 Tara, who had made marriage a pawn in a game, was now 
 going to play a fresh marriage as a fresh pawn, for a new 
 lease of profit or pleasure — the latter, she told him.
 
 358 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " I'm going to marry the real thing this time, not a filthy 
 cad like Snooker ! " 
 
 Snooker's solitary merit appeared to have been that he 
 was accommodating about everything but business. Now 
 business necessitated a new marriage on his part — in England, 
 and as he could not marry again in England without getting 
 an English divorce, he had offered Tara a considerable sum to 
 go to England and be divorced. It was better that she 
 should be divorced, though there was ample proof for either, 
 because it simplified matters to have the woman, for whom 
 mere infidelity was sufficient cause, divorced. 
 
 " Wlio are you going to marry when you've got your 
 divorce ? " asked Gray. 
 
 " I don't know," she said. " There'll be plenty want 
 to do it when they know that I'm in the market again." 
 
 " In the market again ! " Gray shuddered. From this 
 point of view, in a few months he would be in the market 
 again — a target, doubtless, for all the Taras, if they found 
 out that he had been divorced by a musical-comedy actress 
 in his own employ ! 
 
 Tara, to his surprise, had not degenerated. Her liaison 
 had been with a leading Democrat politician who might 
 have aspired to the J'residency but for his domestic record, 
 and his force had mesmerized her. 
 
 " And how are you getting on, old dear ? " she asked. 
 " Was your marriage a success ? " 
 
 Your marriage ! His secret was known in the theatre 
 then, for she could not have heard it in America ! 
 
 She had heard it in the theatre — ^not from the faithful 
 Maccabaeus, he might be sure. It was one of the Chorus 
 whom she had met going into his office who had told her. 
 Tara had been to Old Mac to try and get a part in the new 
 piece, but found all the principal parts filled. In any case, 
 he would not have dared to suggest her name to Gray, after 
 her breaking her former contract, though she would have 
 done the leading lady in " The Uniform Girl " far better 
 than Guinevere Jones, whose humour was ponderous. 
 
 Gray paused before he spoke again. Should he tell Tara ? 
 Then he grasped the nettle. If it was his business to be 
 divorced for infidelity, coupled with desertion, it was not a 
 time to be squeamish about appearances. The more they 
 were against him, the easier the divorce would be.
 
 RE-ENTER TARA TRELOAR 359 
 
 " We can't get on, Tara," he blurted out. " I'm going 
 to let her divorce me." 
 
 " And does she want to ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Silly fool ! " she said. " I wish I'd never left you I 
 I've never met such a good 'un since ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Tara, for the character you give me ! " he 
 said bitterly. 
 
 " Well, you are a good 'un, Oliver — quite straight in the 
 grain, if a little giddy ! " 
 
 "I'm not very giddy now, Tara, I'm afraid." 
 
 " It seems not. Well, can't I help you, old dear ? " 
 
 " I don't see how." 
 
 " Well, I could be the lady if I couldn't do anything else ! 
 Snooker wouldn't care ; so long as he can ' off ' the marriage, 
 he isn't particular about the ' enters ' and ' exits ' ! " 
 
 " It's very generous of you, Tara, but I couldn't let you 
 drag yourself through the mire to save me." 
 
 " Oh, skittles ! I see you're just as much of a mug as 
 ever ! I shall have to do the job for you." 
 
 " You'll do nothing of the sort ! " 
 
 " You can't prevent me ! You may spoil what I'm going 
 to do by your muggishness, but you can't stop my doing it, 
 if I want to. And I do want to, because you're a jolly good 
 sort. And a woman of sense can manage these things so 
 much better than a man can." 
 
 " What are you going to do ?" he asked, still unconvinced. 
 
 " That's my affair," she said. " But if you'll give me the 
 name of your lawyer, you needn't do another thing except 
 refuse to defend the case. The evidence will be all right." 
 
 " How shall I know ? " asked Gray. 
 
 " By waiting till your lawyer tells you." 
 
 Very reluctantly he gave her the name — Czarto Bilinsky, 
 9, Elysian Chambers, Holborn. 
 
 " Oh, old Billy ! He knows me ! He'll be glad to work 
 with somebody who understands what she's doing. Will you 
 leave it to me, Oliver ? " she asked, suddenly changing her 
 manner for that of a lady. " I want to spare you the humilia- 
 tion of all this — this sort of thing doesn't mean so much to 
 Tara Claflin as it does to you." 
 
 " I don't see how I can, Tara. I should be such a bounder 
 if I let you ! "
 
 36o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " My dear boy, it isn't a matter of your letting me— I'm 
 going to do it whether you let me or not ! It's a question 
 of whether you're going to spoil my well-meant efforts with 
 your clumsy conscience ! If you do that, I shall have done 
 what I do for nothing, and you'll have to do it all again for 
 yourself. A man like you has to be protected from himself, 
 Oliver ! " 
 
 " Very well, Tara, I'll let you. I know I'm a bounder to 
 let you, but I can't see how I'm to go through with this 
 thing at all without being a bounder ! It's an impossible 
 position, having to accuse oneself of a dishonour one has 
 not committed, in order to rob oneself of one's greatest 
 treasure ! " 
 
 " I know what I should hke to do to Miss Mirabel Douglas ! " 
 said Tara. 
 
 He did not ask her, but she did not wait to be asked. 
 
 " I'd hke to marry her to Snooker ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII 
 
 HOW MIRABEL RECEIVED THE DIVORCE PAPERS 
 
 IN due time Mirabel received from Mr. Czarto Bilinsky 
 the papers for an action for divorce, brought by Mrs. 
 John Gray, commonly known as Mrs. Oliver Gray, Junior 
 (which had not once happened), against Mr. John Gray, 
 commonly known as Oliver Gray, Junior, and Mrs. Snooker 
 Clafiin. 
 
 Paula, coming into the room, found Mirabel with more 
 energy than she had shown for weeks. 
 
 " Do you see these, Paula ? " she cried, pushing the papers 
 over to her. 
 
 " Yes," said Paula, " they seem to be the papers for your 
 divorce." 
 
 " Yes, but do you see who the woman in the action is ? " 
 
 " Well, you are one woman, and the other is your pre- 
 decessor as leading lady at the Babylon, Miss Tara Treloar." 
 
 " It's infamous ! " said Mirabel. 
 
 " Well, did you expect a divorce-case trumped up to let 
 you get out of your \'ows and contracts to be anything else ? "
 
 MIRABEL'S DIVORCE PAPERS 361 
 
 " I didn't expect to have that woman associated with it," 
 said Mirabel sullenly. 
 
 " You had no right to expect anything," said Paula, 
 " except that Oliver would keep his word in going through 
 this miserable business for your sake." 
 
 " What am I to do ? " asked Mirabel desperately. 
 " I don't see what you can do, except bring the action ! 
 You wanted it brought, and I don't see why you should 
 hesitate when you find that there's more reason for bringing 
 it than you thought ! " 
 
 Paula did not think there was more reason, but did not 
 mean to spare Mirabel. 
 
 "If he made her his leading lady as well, that would be 
 the last straw ! " 
 
 " I expect he will ! " said Paula grimly. " As I remember 
 her, she'd be about the best woman he could get for the 
 job ! " 
 
 " Paula ! " cried Mirabel, " you're hateful ! " 
 " No, I'm not, but you'll have to accustom yourself to 
 hearing the truth, if you're going to lose Oliver. No- 
 body else is going to consider your feelings as he has 
 done." 
 
 The word " lose " was like a stab. Why had not Paula 
 said " get rid of " Oliver ? It was she, Mirabel, who was 
 putting an end to the connection. Oliver was not trying 
 to get out of it. She was not " losing " him. 
 " When's the case coming on ? " asked Paula. 
 " In about ten days." 
 
 " Then in less than a fortnight you'll be a free woman ! 
 These cases don't take any time when they're properly 
 managed — that's what Mr. 13ilinsky said when he came to 
 see you. You had been lying down, and while you were 
 putting your dress on, I had a talk with him." 
 
 " You. Paula ? What do you mean by meddling in my 
 affairs ? " 
 
 " I wanted to help," said Paula. She did not mention 
 whom she wanted to help. 
 
 " And what else did Mr. Bilinsky say to you ? " 
 
 " He said that these things, if they're properly managed, 
 
 sometimes take less than half an hour to hear, and then 
 
 presently you get a decree dissolving the marriage, though 
 
 it is only a nisi prius — ^which I suppose mean on appro. — and
 
 362 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 has to be confirmed, made absolute, I think he called it, six 
 months later." 
 
 " I wish it hadn't been that Tara Treloar ! " whined 
 Mirabel. 
 
 " It doesn't matter to you who it is, so long as you get 
 your divorce," said Paula. 
 
 " It doesn't matter to me ? Oh, Paula, are you a woman ? " 
 
 " That's a question I've often thought of asking you, 
 Mirabel ! " 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV 
 
 HOW OLIVER AND MIRABEL GRAY RECEIVED THEIR DIVORCE 
 
 THE case had come before the judge, and, in the ex- 
 perienced hands of Mr. Bilinsky, aided by such a 
 humourist in the role of co-respondent as Miss Tara Treloar, 
 had not occupied an hour, all told. 
 
 Gray, as he had promised, made no defence, and being 
 very popular with the newspapers, for his uniform courtesy 
 to their representatives, and for the part he took in in- 
 creasing the mirth of nations, as well as for his liberality in 
 advertising, the case was unaccountably lost sight of in the 
 reports. 
 
 In due time Mirabel received the notice of the divorce, 
 with the intimation of when, if no reasons against it were 
 proved in the interval, it would be made absolute. 
 
 One troublesome question with reference to it did not 
 arise — whether she should call herself by her maiden or her 
 married name, because, except during her honeymoon in 
 Cornwall, she had never called herself anything but Miss 
 Douglas. Paula's remark upon the convenience of this 
 let loose the flood. 
 
 " I don't see how I've helped myself ! " said Mirabel 
 mournfully. 
 
 " Nor do I ! " said Paula. " I can't think how anybody 
 could have been so inexpressibly foohsh ! " 
 
 " What right have you to say that ? " 
 
 " Because you've got a divorce which you didn't want." 
 
 " Didn't want ? " cried Mirabel fiercely. 
 
 " No, you're regretting it now, when you've only had it 
 five minutes ! "
 
 DIVORCED 363 
 
 << 
 
 I did want it ! How could I go on living with a monster, 
 who went back to that Treloar woman at the very first 
 moment that he was able ? " 
 
 " You didn't hve with him ! " said Paula. " And if he 
 did go back to his Tara, I should like to know who sent him ! " 
 
 " I suppose you mean that I drove him to it ? " 
 
 " Well, he certainly didn't want it ! " 
 
 " He need not have chosen that woman ! " said Mirabel 
 inconsequently. 
 
 " Do you suppose that he had a dozen or a hundred 
 accomplices in guilt to take his choice from ? " asked the 
 merciless Paula. 
 
 " No, I don't ! But still ... he needn't have taken 
 her ! " 
 
 " Did you think he was going to invent a woman for the 
 case ? " pursued Paula. "If he had to commit a sin for 
 your sake, wasn't it natural — wasn't it better that he 
 should have a relapse, instead of beginning a fresh affair ? " 
 
 " No, it wasn't ! " said Mirabel. " It was brutal of him ! 
 He might have known that he was . . . behaving in the 
 worst way that he possibly could ! " 
 
 " Well, I don't think you can blame him ! You ought 
 to be quite satisfied to have got all you want." 
 
 " But I haven't got all I want ! " whined Mirabel. " I've 
 lost Oliver, and that woman's got him ! " 
 
 " Lost ! " said Paula. "When you throw a thing away, 
 anybody may pick it up." 
 
 " Oh, don't sit there mocking me, please ! I'm a miserable 
 woman ! " 
 
 " And I should like to see you a good deal more miserable ! 
 You've thoroughly deserved it ! I think you've behaved 
 rottenly ! " 
 
 " Honestly, Paula ? " asked Mirabel, with something of 
 her old lucidity. 
 
 " Yes, honestly. I never was so disappointed with any- 
 body ! " 
 
 Mirabel did not say another word, but went straight 
 upstairs and threw herself on her bed and cried. She did 
 not even remember how interested the servants would be in 
 the documents which granted her a divorce. 
 
 But they did not escape Paula's notice. She carried 
 them off for safe-keeping— and, it must be added, for perusal.
 
 364 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Meanwhile, the innocent cause of the mischief remained 
 quite ignorant that he had scored a point. He, too, had 
 received a notice of the divorce, and he felt inclined to cut ; 
 his throat. He had lost a pearl of so great price, as far as he ♦ 
 could judge, without having committed a single fault ! For if 
 his compelling her to marry him was the cause of her pining 
 for her freedom, before they had been married two years, 
 he might also reflect that, if he had not compelled her, she 
 never would have been his wife at all. This marriage, 
 evidently, had not been made in heaven ! '; 
 
 Gray received his notice by the same post, and handed it 
 over to Lord Douglas as soon as they were left alone. 
 
 " Well, I call it rotten ! " said The Douglas. " She shall 
 never come into any house of mine again, until she comes into 
 the whole lot at my death ! I've done with her ! " 
 
 " Lord Douglas," said Gray, " as a favour to me, I beg you 
 not to make any difference to her. As this decree has built 
 an unscalable wall between her and me, she will more than 
 ever stand in need of your companionship and guidance, if 
 she is not to come to grief. You've got to take my place." 
 " But you've never been allowed to take it yourself ! " 
 said Lord Douglas. 
 
 " I know I haven't, yet I felt as if I had been a sort of 
 reserve." 
 
 " Well, Oliver, all I can say is that if the meek are going 
 to inherit the earth, you ought to have a look in ! " 
 
 After this they were silent for a little, and then OUver said : 
 " Shall I show this Decree Nisi to Lady Douglas when she 
 comes down ? " 
 
 " Of course. She looks upon you as a son, and she'll expect 
 it, just as she would have expected it from Archie. She 
 won't have anything more to do with Mirabel, even if I do. 
 She hates it— having all this horrible divorce-court business 
 dragged in for nothing. She considers it a disgrace to the 
 Douglases. She thinks Mirabel must be mad, and doesn't 
 hesitate to say so." 
 
 " Well, obsessions may be madness. I'm quite sure that 
 Mirabel considers herself one of the noble army of Master- 
 mans." 
 
 " If you mean martyrs," said Lord Douglas, " she's no more 
 a martyr than the bucking horses which I shall have to 
 reject this morning — she's a bucker, that's what she is ! I
 
 DIVORCED 365 
 
 wonder if the car's here ? It's time for me to be off to the 
 Dolhs HiU depot." 
 
 When OHver showed the decree to Lady Douglas, she said, 
 " What a shame ! There ought to be a law against allowing 
 such things ! " 
 
 " But, my dear Lady D., it was I who thought of getting 
 the divorce, and, if there had been such a law, I shouldn't 
 have got it." 
 
 " Mirabel is hateful ! " she said. " I'm glad that she's 
 no cousin of mine ! " 
 
 " Don't let's think of it hke that. If she hadn't got a 
 divorce, I'm sure that she would have died, and then the 
 Douglas Earldom would have come to an end. Now, as she's 
 got rid of me. ..." 
 
 " She may condescend to hve ! " said Lady Douglas. 
 
 " And have children ! It's much more important that she 
 should have children than that I should have my conjugal 
 rights, as the law calls them." 
 
 " I am sure I hope she won't have any. I think it is better 
 that the Earls of Douglas should die out than that they should 
 be like her. There are half a dozen other Douglas peerages 
 to keep the name from dying out." 
 
 " Lord Douglas does not think so. He did not see any 
 reason, he said, why I should sacrifice mj^self for the Douglas 
 Earldom, but I could see that he thought it a terrible thing 
 that it should die out without an effort being made to main- 
 tain it." 
 
 " Just hke a man ! " said Lady Douglas, who, when she was 
 not warped by anger, thought that the world ought to come to 
 an end before the Earldom of Douglas. 
 
 A little later Paula came in. There was no secret in the 
 family about the divorce, though the secret about the marriage 
 had died hard. And she opened fire at once, before she had 
 finished shaking hands. She was afraid to be serious. 
 
 " I suppose you got your circular this morning, Oliver ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, we're discussing it at the present moment." 
 
 " It's a nice thing to have in a decent family, isn't it ? " 
 said Lady Douglas, still very angry. 
 
 Gray did not think himself entitled to express an opinion, 
 as he had brought it on the family, so it fell to Paula to say, 
 " It might have been worse." 
 
 To her surprise, Lady Douglas said, " Yes, it might have
 
 366 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 been Archie ! — poor boy ! he might have fallen a victim to 
 some designing person ! " 
 
 " I am afraid that I was the designing person in this case," 
 said Gray. 
 
 " Don't be silly, Oliver ! " said the Countess. " As you did 
 not know who she was, all the worldly advantages were on 
 your side." 
 
 " But you can't get out of the fact that I was the one who 
 had to be divorced." 
 
 Soon after this he went back to live at the flat, so that there 
 might be no check on the hours of rehearsal — not, as Mirabel 
 feared, when she heard of it — to renew his intimacy with Tara. 
 
 No one outside of the parties immediately concerned heard 
 of the divorce. Tara, though Mirabel had not the consola- 
 tion of knowing it, returned to America by the first boat after 
 the pronunciation of a Decree Nisi, which gave Snooker his 
 divorce on the same evidence which had given Mirabel hers. 
 
 But Gray and Mirabel were spared the degradation of know- 
 ing that he had been the co-respondent in Clafiin v. Claflin and 
 Another. Tara had not thought it worth mentioning to him. 
 He had made her removing herself from his path as soon as 
 possible a condition of accepting her help ; and she still had 
 enough womanliness left to understand his motives, and 
 respect them. 
 
 This being the case, to her unsophisticated mind it seemed 
 that the best way to please him was to make the same evidence 
 do for Snooker to get his freedom, which would allow her to 
 return to America. The question of domicile while the decree 
 was being made absolute did not worry her or Snooker in 
 the least.
 
 DR. CANTELUPE'S DILEMMA 367 
 
 CHAPTER LXV .; 
 
 DR. CANTELUPE's DILEMMA 
 
 WHEN Paula got back to Bolingbroke House, and 
 found Dr. Cantelupe there, she naturally concluded 
 that he had read some announcement about it in the news- 
 papers, and come to offer his condolences, or, if he had suffi- 
 cient backbone, his censure. It must be for that reason that 
 this was one of his smart days. There were two Dr. Cante- 
 lupes, one which was shaved by a barber and wore an ultra- 
 fashionable morning-coat, a tie wound twice round a very tall 
 collar, and an ultra-shiny silk hat at an angle. The other 
 often forgot to shave, and wore an old velvet jacket, a butterfly 
 tie, and a soft felt hat. 
 
 And this was the Dr. Cantelupe who had won Paula's heart, 
 because this was the student and teacher, who loved the 
 byways of travel, and was becoming a lever in London's 
 music. 
 
 " Good morning, Miss Maitland," he said. He had not yet 
 ventured to call her Paula, though he was dreaming dreams. 
 
 " Good morning. Dr. Cantelupe. It's a most painful 
 business you've come about ! " 
 
 He looked terribly taken aback. His cheeks, which a 
 moment ago had been round and laughing, lengthened 
 ominously, and he looked so shy and awkward, that Paula 
 said quickly, " After all, it's nothing to us, is it ? " 
 
 " Nothing to us. Miss Maitland ? I don't think I under- 
 stand you." 
 
 " Well, I suppose we are indirectly affected — I am, at any 
 rate — and it's really better for me that things should remain 
 as they are." 
 
 Dr. Cantelupe took up his hat, and prepared to rush out 
 of the room. 
 
 " Why, what's the matter. Dr. Cantelupe ? You can't be 
 so vitally affected by Mirabel's divorcing Oliver ? " 
 
 It was the first he had heard of it. His look showed that 
 he was inexpressibly shocked. An idea flashed through 
 Paula's brain, and she stammered out, " You did not enter-
 
 368 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 tain — any feelings — warmer than those which have appeared 
 — for Mirry, did you ? " 
 
 "I, my dear young lady ? No. That is a matter which I 
 hope to clear up to your satisfaction, and still more to my own 
 satisfaction, this morning. But I had not heard of the 
 divorce before, and it is, as you say, most painful. I thought 
 you were refering to something else." 
 
 Paula blushed so furiously that she could not even 
 say : " What else ? " but waited helplessly for him to 
 proceed. 
 
 " The fact is. Miss Haitian d — may I call you Paula ? " 
 
 " Oh, if that is all you came to ask, Dr. Cantelupe," she said, 
 recovering herself, " I have not the slightest objection. I 
 am on terms of Christian names with many of my old artist 
 and author friends, and I shall be charmed to add you to their 
 number." 
 
 " And you must call me Geoffrey ? " 
 
 Paula smiled. " I don't think I can, while we're in this 
 house." 
 
 " What is the difficulty ? " he asked disappointedly. 
 
 " Well, the trouble is that our manservant is called Jeffreys, 
 and he would always look intelligent when I said anything 
 to you ! " 
 
 " Then, Paula," he said desperately, achieving thereby 
 what might have taken him hours of diplomacy, " there is 
 nothing for it but to take you away from here as soon as 
 possible ! " 
 
 Paula blushed again, and again waited helplessly for him 
 to be more explicit. 
 
 " I know I have no right to ask you — it is not as if the 
 Lyceum were the College or the Academy. It is no kind of a 
 position to offer you ...I. ..I. ..I should not have 
 asked you yet, if it had not been. . . ." He broke off, quite 
 unable to remember the reason which had seemed so cogent 
 before he started. 
 
 " I don't see why you are apologizing, Geoffrey ! I don't 
 care a rap about your position ! And, in any case, the Lyceum 
 is just as good as either of the others. And I'm not going to 
 marry the Lyceum — I'm going to marry you ! " 
 
 " Do you mean . . . may I hope . . . that you will marry 
 me ? You're not joking, are you, Paula ? I can tell you that 
 it's a desperately serious matter for me ! "
 
 " THE UNIFORM GIRL " 369 
 
 " Of course I'm not, dear ! I would have married you six 
 months ago, if you'd asked me ! " 
 
 " Six months off my life ! " said the shy professor, with as 
 fine an air as Baldassare Castiglione could have achieved. 
 
 So Paula thought ; her mind was running on Italy. The 
 Lyceum was built in rather an Italian style, and she had 
 already begun to picture its commonplace furniture and 
 decorations giving way to something meagre and mediaeval 
 and Florentine. 
 
 ": CHAPTER LXVI 
 
 " THE UNIFORM GIRL " AT THE BABYLON 
 
 ARCHIE'S death had removed what might have been a 
 check on Mirabel's mad desire to get rid of her hus- 
 band, for it had been a tradition with the Earls of Douglas 
 that a certain estate in Lanarkshire, which brought in a great 
 income from minerals, and a certain castle on the Douglas 
 Water, a dignified residence with fine shootings, should be 
 assigned to the heir, so that he should have a proper provision 
 if the holder of the title quarrelled with him. 
 
 Therefore, when Archie died, these possessions passed to 
 Mirabel, and she found her income trebled. 
 
 She was far too mournful to alter the style of her living. 
 The first use she made of her new wealth was to send for Lewis 
 and Lewis and ask them to arrange with Ticknor and Fields 
 that no further sums should be paid to her on Gray's behalf, 
 and that an equitable sum should be fixed for the purchase of 
 Bolingbroke House and its contents. 
 
 The latter Gray would not contemplate. They were 
 Mirabel's already, he said. As regards the former, he could 
 not help himself, because she had instructed her bankers to 
 refuse the money. 
 
 Nor was he more disposed to retract in the matter of her 
 engagement. 
 
 For " The Uniform Girl," it was obviously necessary to give 
 her leave of absence, because she had been too ill to rehearse, 
 but for subsequent pieces, her law^'ers were informed that, 
 should her health permit of it, she would be held to the letter 
 of the contract. 
 
 24
 
 370 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 For Gray was still as deeply in love as ever with his beau- 
 tiful, ungrateful and contumacious Mirabel, and had not, 
 unless the law compelled him, the slightest intention of giving 
 up the chance of seeing her for several hours each day, and 
 having the authority of an employer over her, if he could not 
 have the authority of a husband. 
 
 Mirabel, on her side, was distinctly relieved to find that 
 if she recovered sufficiently to act again, Gray did not wish to 
 terminate the contract. Lewis and Lewis feared that he would 
 make it the subject of an action, since the marriage had been 
 the consideration for Gray's agreeing to it, and they warned her 
 that if the matter had to be settled by a jury, it was sure to 
 go against her. It was obvious, in spite of their politeness, 
 that they did not approve of the divorce. They had, of course, 
 to be placed in possession of the situation. They were not, 
 in point of fact, any better pleased with her desire to get a 
 divorce than they were with the way in which it had been 
 achieved. They could only account for Mirabel's allowing 
 herself to be connected with such a proceeding as the result 
 of a temporary mental aberration such as is responsible for 
 most suicides. 
 
 After the chastening her spirit had received by Archie's 
 death, and her wanton quarrel with Oliver, Mirabel honestly 
 did feel a disposition " to devote her life to her art," and 
 she meant to devote it so earnestly that Oliver should never 
 repent of his decision to keep her on as his leading lady 
 without raising the question of his legal obligation to do so. 
 
 The divorce had, as Oliver, reading her disposition with 
 the eyes of love and constant intercourse, supposed it would 
 have, a magical effect upon her health. By removing the 
 source of her desire to commit suicide by letting herself 
 die, her youth and vitality were enlisted on the side of her 
 recovery, and almost instantly began to tell. She was 
 soon out of danger and mending rapidly. 
 
 Weeks had passed. " The Uniform Girl " had been pro- 
 duced on Boxing Day, and was an undeniably greater 
 success than a play like " Mary, Queen of Scots," would have 
 been, produced at such a time, partly, no doubt, because
 
 "THE UNIFORM GIRL" 371 
 
 Oliver Gray, to stifle his regrets, had taken unusual pains 
 with its production. The fun lay in the antics of girls 
 suddenly pitchforked into every species of work for which 
 men have worn uniforms. The phases treated were, of 
 course, just those phases for which woman, by reason of 
 her sex and skirts, is grotesquely unfit, and the pretty side 
 was supplied by the anxiety of uniformed women to change 
 from their khaki and dark-blue tunics, and trousery skirts, 
 into lovely feminine garments the moment they were off 
 duty — following in the footsteps of the British officer, with 
 his time-honoured aversion to staying in uniform one minute 
 longer than he is obliged. 
 
 On that first night, following his precedent. Gray had to 
 pass from the ringing plaudits of the stage to the supper 
 in the Zenobia Hall at the Restaurant — a very different 
 spectacle from the great " Mary, Queen of Scots," supper 
 of two years ago. John Knox, Darnley, Bothwell and the 
 Regent Moray, were fighting beside the hereditary allies 
 of Scotland in Artois or Champagne, and the gentlest of 
 them all, Rizzio, had already laid down his life for his country 
 beneath the rugged cliffs which were once familiar to Leander. 
 And the naughtier spirits of the Chorus, tiring of a soberer 
 Babylon, had followed the Archies to Rouen, in any capacity 
 they could. 
 
 The old riotous and risky chaff was replaced by a genuine 
 outburst when Hughie Sprot, who had gone before at least 
 six medical boards in his anxiety to get into the Army, all 
 of which had rejected him for the fatuous short-sightedness 
 which was the backbone of his inimitable business as a low 
 comedian, being now senior member of the company, pro- 
 posed the health of the Chief, who was once more in khaki, 
 having got himself — through the faithful General Finch- 
 Cocks — appointed Recruiting Officer for the Thames Em- 
 bankment, with the local rank of Captain in the Royal 
 Artillery. 
 
 He voiced the ardent feelings of everyone present when 
 he said how glad they were to get back " part of our Chief " 
 to preside over the destinies of the theatre, and this and 
 future festive occasions. 
 
 " There are some of us," he added regretfully, " who 
 find it even harder to get there than he did to get back, and 
 he had to leave a leg behind him." 
 
 24*
 
 372 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 The meeting was really more united and enthusiastic 
 than most Babylon first night suppers. 
 
 But this did not prevent Gray, when he went up to his 
 own flat, after it was all over, feeling dull and depressed, for 
 here he was, back at the old mill, with the two great episodes 
 in his life, from which he had hoped so much, over. 
 
 Never again would he be at his Observing Post in the 
 trenches, speaking quick, nervous orders down the tele- 
 phone, as he saw his shells shattering a German position, or 
 feeling again as he felt in that supreme moment when, with 
 his own hand on the deserted machine-gun, and with his 
 own keen eyes piercing the dusk, he was stemming the rush 
 of half a battalion of Germans, and saving a British trench. 
 And never again could he call Mirabel his, Mirabel, whom 
 he had lost just when he discovered that the first son she 
 bore to him, a nobody in family, would inherit one of the 
 proudest titles in Europe, and a share in history possessed 
 by no other family which has not held a throne. Since he 
 had learned of Mirabel's being Lord Douglas's heir, he had 
 read " The History of the House of Douglas," and it had 
 thrilled him to think that he was to be allowed even a minor 
 part in perpetuating such glory. 
 
 And now it had all passed away, like a sigh in the night, 
 and with it the beautiful Mirabel — the Enchanted Princess, 
 through whom it had all come ! If only she had remained, 
 the rest of the vision was welcome to perish, and the heiress 
 of the Douglases to be changed back into a Cinderella in 
 the kitchen. 
 
 But it had ended like a dream : and his own goodly 
 heritage of wealth and power and popularity had lost all its 
 value in his eyes. 
 
 2^ _ CHAPTER LXVII 
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN GRAY, V.C. 
 
 FATE seemed to decree for him everything but what 
 he desired. Soon after a fresh success had solidly 
 established itself at his theatre, came the publication in the 
 Gazette of the names of four new V.C.'s, one of whom was 
 Lieut., with the local rank of Captain, John Gray, Royal 
 Garrison Artillery, for the services set forth below : 
 
 I
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN GRAY, V.C. 373 
 
 " For conspicuous gallantry on September — th, 1915, at 
 Givenchy, when every man in the trench in front of his 
 Observation Post was killed or wounded by a surprise attack 
 of the Germans at nightfall. 
 
 " He telephoned for reinforcements, and, dashing forward 
 to a machine-gun which had its magazine full, and all its 
 crew killed, carried it and its tripod out of the trench, till 
 he was near enough to see where the fourth German attack, 
 three companies of Bavarians, were about to cross the ditch 
 between the two front trenches, and planting it in front of 
 them, played it on them. 
 
 " They fled in disorder back to their trenches, cut to 
 pieces, and leaving scores of dead on the ground. While 
 he was doing this, he had his left leg shattered by a bomb, 
 but Private Stedman (see below), one of the wounded British 
 who had crawled out of the trench to protect him with their 
 rifle-fire from stragglers of the German attack, held him up 
 and enabled him to continue his fire until the British re- 
 inforcements came up and disposed of a fifth German attack, 
 and re-manned the trench, and carried him into cover." 
 
 The first intimation Gray had of it was on the telephone 
 before eight o'clock in the morning. His valet came to him 
 and woke him to say, " Lord Douglas on the telephone, sir." 
 
 Gray slipped on a dressing-gown, and hopped in, minus 
 his leg, to the telephone in his study, which adjoined the 
 room where he slept. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he said, taking up the receiver. 
 
 " Is that you, Oliver? " said the voice he loved best in 
 the world now that Mirabel's was lost to him. 
 
 " Yes, what is it ? " 
 
 " You've got it, Oliver ! I laid a chap at the Marl- 
 borough an even hundred that you would ! " 
 
 " Got what ! " 
 
 " Haven't you seen it in the Gazette ? " 
 
 " No — have they given me a Captaincy ? " 
 
 " Have they given you a Captaincy ? Yes, they have 
 given you a Captaincy local to the Thames Embankment, 
 but I shouldn't have rung you up about that ! They have 
 given you the greatest thing in the world that can happen 
 to any soldier ! You've been gazetted a V.C. ! " 
 
 It was a heart-breaking response that came back. " I
 
 374 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 can't think why ; but if they'd only done it in time, it might 
 have saved me ! " 
 
 " Don't worry yourself ! — a woman like that is not fit 
 to be the mother of a V.C.'s children ! " 
 
 " Perhaps not, but it happens to be the only thing in life 
 that I want ! " 
 
 " Cheer up ! When may I come round and shake your 
 hand on it ? " 
 
 " You can be here in half-an-hour if you don't mind talking 
 to me while I am eating my breakfast. I know your day- 
 light-saving habits." 
 
 " That will suit me exactly, because I have to get out to 
 my remounts." 
 
 Punctually to the minute a card came up from the Uft- 
 man : Earl of Douglas. 
 
 The valet had instructions to show him up directly he 
 came. A tah, serious man, in the uniform of a Dragoon 
 Colonel, stepped out of the lift, not at all what the valet had 
 expected for the gay Lord Avondale's father — Lord Avondale 
 had been a frequent visitor at the flat. 
 
 Lord Douglas's congratulations to Gray were expressed 
 in a handshake followed by silence. But he did not leave 
 him until he had arranged that a fortnight later Gray should 
 attend a dinner to be given in his honour at Lanarkshire 
 House. 
 
 To this dinner The Douglas meant to invite, among 
 others, the two Dukes, the Marquess, the Earls, and sundry 
 Baronets and Lairds who still represent the junior line of 
 the House of Douglas in the Aristocracy of Scotland, and 
 retain most of the ancient possessions of the Douglases, 
 except the lands which he himself held, as head of 
 the senior hne, of which he and Mirabel were the last 
 representatives. 
 
 If Mirabel had not failed her husband so pitiably, nothing 
 could have been more natural than for the Black Douglas 
 to invite all the Red Douglas Peers to meet the husband of 
 the heiress, on whom the survival of the senior line depended, 
 when he had honoured the name by earning the V.C, the 
 one distinction which could add any lustre to the annals 
 of Scotland's most warlike House, which but for the murder 
 of the sixth and eighth Earls of Douglas, and the loyalty 
 of the fourth Earl of Angus, might have ousted the Stuarts
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN GRAY, V.C. 375 
 
 from the throne of Scotland, and might, with their virile 
 quahties, have kept Scotland a separate kingdom to the end. 
 
 Because Mirabel had failed Oliver, Lord Douglas saw no 
 reason why he should not give a Douglas dinner in honour 
 of the new Scots V.C, whom he loved as a son. But he 
 called it a Scots and not a Douglas dinner to Oliver Gray, 
 for fear that remorse should prevent Gray from accepting 
 the invitation. He knew that to any true Scot the word 
 Scots would be irresistible. 
 
 When Lord Douglas drove home to tell Lady Douglas 
 about the dinner, he found Paula there. 
 
 Lady Douglas had called up Paula on the telephone to 
 know how Mirabel had been affected by the news. Neither 
 Mirabel nor Paula had seen it. Womanhke, they did not 
 read the war-news now that they had neither Oliver nor 
 Archie there. Paula decided that before saying anything 
 to Mirabel about it, she would taxi up to see Lady Douglas. 
 
 When Lord Douglas came in, and their first outburst 
 of enthusiasm over Oliver at length calmed down, he told 
 them about his idea of a Scottish dinner to Ohver for that 
 day fortnight, and duly invited Paula. 
 
 " And what about Mirry ? " said Lady Douglas. 
 
 " The woman who has divorced the guest of the evening 
 cannot be asked," answered Lord Douglas coldly, but very 
 decisively. 
 
 " By rights she ought not to be told of the V.C. either." 
 said Paula, " but as we can't stop the mouths of aU the 
 newspapers, I suppose I had better go home and tell her. 
 Will you have a taxi ordered for me ? " 
 
 " My car is at the door," said Lord Douglas. " It will 
 run you down." 
 
 On the way back to Hammersmith Paula thought over 
 what she should say to Mirabel. She did not mean to spare 
 her. She considered that she richly deserved the disappoint- 
 ment which she supposed that she would feel. 
 
 " Mirabel," she cried, bursting into the morning-room, 
 " Oliver's got the V.C, and Lord and Lady Douglas are 
 giving a great dinner in honour of it ! And they've asked 
 me!" 
 
 " Have you just come from them ? " Mirabel asked, before 
 saying one word about the V.C 
 
 " Yes."
 
 376 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " What took you there ? " 
 
 " Lady Douglas telephoned for me." 
 
 " How did they know about it ? " 
 
 " It's in all the papers." 
 
 " Why did they telephone to you ? " 
 
 " Because you've quarrelled with him, and they know 
 that I love him ! " 
 
 " Love him ! " smiled Mirabel. 
 
 " Yes, I love him," said Paula, who had never anticipated 
 the pleasure of making Mirabel jealous of her, as she obviously 
 was at this minute. 
 
 "Who said I had quarrelled with him?" demanded 
 Mirabel. 
 
 " The judge — \v\\en he pronounced the decree — and you 
 yourself, when you brought an action to divorce him." 
 
 " I haven't quarrelled with Oliver. He's the most generous 
 man I ever met," said Mirabel. " Fd sooner he had the 
 V.C. than any man in England." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell him so," said Paula. " You can't have 
 any communication with him, or you'll imperil your divorce." 
 
 " It's wicked ! " cried Mirabel. " And you're a heartless 
 woman to exult over my troubles in the way you're 
 doing ! " 
 
 " I'm not exulting, dear," said Paula. " I'm only sym- 
 pathizing, and warning you." 
 
 " God save us from our friends ! " said Mirabel, gathering 
 up the papers and stalking out of the room. 
 
 All that day Oliver Gray received a stream of visitors, 
 telephones and letters. But not a word came from the 
 quarter where he hoped for it most, though he expected it 
 least. 
 
 He knew, however, how she felt over it, because Paula 
 told him on the telephone when she rang him up to congratu- 
 late him. She poured out her heart over the telephone. 
 When she had finished at last, the crush of telephones from 
 people who had been snubbed with " Number engaged — 
 shall I call you ? " can best be compared to the crowd breaking 
 through, when the police withdraw their cordon at the Lord 
 Mayor's Show. 
 
 Neither was Mirabel any less perturbed in her spirit than 
 he was. It seemed so hard that the only person in all his 
 acquaintance who could neither speak nor write nor tele-
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN GRAY, V.C. 377 
 
 phone congratulations to the hero, whose valour was being 
 proclaimed from the house-tops, was the woman who had 
 been his wife, and had tasted more of his generosity than any 
 person under heaven. 
 
 However hardly she felt towards him as a husband, that 
 paragraph in the Gazette, under the heading Victoria Cross, 
 which described his feat, appealed with extraordinary force 
 to one who had the best fighting blood of the Scots — a nation 
 of warriors — in her veins. What was she to do ? She was 
 ready to do anything but be his wife. 
 
 For the rest of the morning, and all the afternoon, she 
 alternately paced up and down her room, and sat in its 
 window-bay, staring up the long sweep of the river. Paula, 
 fathoming her mood, lunched at her club. 
 
 This was unfortunate in a way, because if Paula had been 
 as sympathetic in her nature as Lord Douglas, she might 
 have done a good deal with Mirabel during the latter's first 
 outburst of feeling over the V.C. 
 
 As it was, she did not see Mirabel again till her heart had 
 hardened once more — ^hardened especially against Paula, who 
 had been invited to that odious Douglas dinner, which seemed 
 to be given on purpose to exclude her in the most marked 
 way possible. She knew that she would not be invited after 
 what Lord Douglas had said to her on the subject of Oliver. 
 
 The first week and most of the second week had sped 
 without a word passing directly between Mirabel and Oliver. 
 
 Nor did Mirabel say anything about the dinner to Paula. 
 Indeed, she hardly spoke to Paula ; she was so angry with 
 her about it. To her mind, it was a conspiracy, and Paula 
 was one of the most deeply involved of the conspirators. 
 In revenge, she would not show Paula a single one of the 
 newspaper-cuttings about Oliver and his V.C, which came 
 in such showers from Old Mac on the square green paper 
 slips of a well-known Presscutting Agency. They spoke 
 more eloquently than anything, which Paula or Lord Douglas 
 could have said, because Mirabel knew that they had no 
 axe to grind, and they brought to light all sorts of lovable 
 facts about him. 
 
 But even they spoke to a deaf heart, whose ears were 
 stopped with prejudice and monomania. 
 
 Oliver Gray himself was heart-broken at not receiving any 
 communication from her, though Paula had told him of her
 
 378 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 feelings about the V.C, and the Douglases felt angry and 
 disappointed because she had not come to them in sackcloth 
 and ashes to proclaim her intention of going to Oliver to say, 
 " Husband, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, 
 and am no more worthy to be called thy wife." 
 
 But madness will not parley with reason, so they had no 
 consolation but in the fact that she had regained her health, 
 and when the divorce had been made absolute, might marry 
 again and have children to carry on the Douglas Earldom. 
 
 But two days before the dinner an assault upon her 
 defences came jfrom a new and unexpected quarter. 
 
 That morning an officer, in clothes very weather-beaten, 
 from the front, had called upon Gray at the theatre. 
 
 " I am afraid that you cannot see him without writing 
 to make an appointment," said the manager of the box-office. 
 
 " But, hang it all, I'm only going to be here for a few days, 
 and half my leave will be gone before I can see him ! " 
 
 " I'm very sorry, sir, but my instructions upon the point 
 are absolute." 
 
 " Are theatres under the War Office ? " asked the officer 
 witheringly. 
 
 " No, sir," said the manager, quite interested, adding 
 very politely, " May I ask what gave you the idea, sir ? " 
 
 " So like a War Office regulation to prevent anybody finding 
 out anything about anything ! " 
 
 " May I give you a hint, sir ? " 
 
 " Any damned thing which will get me forrarder ! " 
 
 " Well, sir, you'll find it much easier to see Captain John 
 Gray, V.C, at the Thames Embankment Recruiting Office 
 round the corner, first door to the left, than it is to see Mr. 
 Oliver Gray, Junior, at the theatre." 
 
 The weather-beaten officer grinned, and took the hint. 
 When he got into the Recruiting Office, he asked, " Can I 
 see Captain Gray ? " 
 
 " I don't know what time he will be down, sir. He's so 
 busy answering letters of congratulation about the V.C." 
 
 " Where is he ? " 
 
 " Up in his flat, sir." 
 
 " Can you get a message up to him ? " 
 
 " Certainly, sir. Shall I send up your card ? " 
 
 " No, send up word that an officer from his Battery in 
 France has a message for him."
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN GRAY, V.C. 379 
 
 " Wellington, take this gentleman up to Captain Gray," 
 said the Deputy Recruiting Officer to the Boy Scout who was 
 waiting to run messages, and was devouring the details of 
 the visitor's appearance. 
 
 " Is his name really Wellington ? " 
 
 " No, we call them all Welhngton because we get a different 
 one each day, and it's easier than remembering their own 
 names." 
 
 " Turn again, Wellington," said the officer to the boy, 
 " and hkewise, ' Lead on, MacDuff.' " 
 
 The boy took him up in the lift, and knocked at and 
 entered Gray's study with more assurance than Guinevere 
 Jones herself would have shown, or even Hughie Sprot. 
 
 No sooner had he ushered in his protege, than Gray's face 
 lighted up as it had not hghted up, even for his V.C. 
 
 " Worboys ! by all that's holy ! " he cried, springing up 
 from his seat as if both legs were pure flesh and bone. 
 
 He got the answer that he might have expected. " There's 
 nothing holey about me except my kit ! " as Worboys flew to 
 grasp his hand. " I saw the paragraph in the Daily Mail 
 about your being you and I've brought you the congratula- 
 tions of the boys," he said, " all that's left of the 200th 
 Siege Battery. And at the hotel I've got a coal-scuttle made 
 out of a misfire from one of your own guns. It isn't much 
 good for holding coal," he explained, " but it shows the 
 warmth of our feelings." 
 
 " Oh, Worboys," said Gray, " this is the happiest moment 
 I've known for weeks ! " 
 
 " Why, what's wrong with Mirry ? I may call her Mirry, 
 mayn't I ? " 
 
 " I don't know — she's divorced me." 
 
 " Divorced you ? I didn't know you were married." 
 
 " I was married before ever I entered the Army, before 
 ever she made her appearance at my theatre." 
 
 " You were married when you let me make the lunning 
 with her at Goodbody's ? — married when she came over to 
 the Island ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you called her )-our fiancee ? " 
 
 Beginning only to explain why he had called 4irr his fiancee, 
 a sudden impulse made Gray tell \\'orboys— the least likely 
 person in his whole acquaintance to choose for a confidant —
 
 38o THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 the whole tragedy of his marriage, which he had never con- 
 fided to anyone before. 
 
 " When she came down to Westernport of her own accord," 
 he said, " I really thought that my troubles were beginning to 
 mend, and that if ever I got safe home again, she would 
 gradually make up her mind to live with me once more. 
 While she was there at Christmas she was almost as sweet 
 as she was when we were there on our honeymoon, and you 
 can't think how delightful to me she was on our honeymoon ! 
 Mirry, when she lets you love her, is an adorable woman ! 
 
 " And she was just as sweet when she came to see me off 
 at Southampton, and she wrote me truly affectionate letters 
 right up to the time of his death." He had told Worboys 
 of her love for Lord Avondale ; he had introduced the two 
 boys when Archie stopped to speak to him on his way to 
 storm the chateau. 
 
 " Well, I wired and wrote to her to tell her of his death, 
 and from that day forward her letters grew steadily colder, 
 and on the very first day that she saw me after my return 
 she took the opportunity to tell me that she could never live 
 with me again because — ^well, what she said is sacred, but I 
 have told you what turned her." 
 
 He had told him almost everything, except Mirabel's wail 
 because she had not been married to Archie, and therefore 
 was not about to become the mother of his child. In that 
 particular he had to be reticent. But he had mentioned 
 that her chief grievance against him for compelhng her to 
 marry him was that it had made it impossible for her to 
 marry Archie, when they were thrown together and fell in 
 love with each other at first sight, and he had told him that 
 she was so miserable about her marriage that the only way 
 to save her from pining to death had been to allow her to 
 divorce him, as he had done. 
 
 Worboys' face was a study as he listened. When Gray 
 had come to the end of his story, shielding Mirabel lovingly 
 in every line of it, Worboys said : 
 
 " It makes me sick ! I think ingratitude is the dirtiest 
 thing in the world ! I don't beheve any man who has been 
 to a public school could behave as women do when they're 
 put to the test. How could a man, for whom you had done 
 as much as you have for her, round on you for no new fault 
 of your own, because something over which you had no
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN GRAY, V.C. 381 
 
 control had happened since your original fault was con- 
 doned ? I don't suppose that you could teach a woman the 
 meaning of noblesse oblige I It's what you would have 
 expected from the Chorus-girls at your place, not from her, I 
 should have thought — though I don't know anything about 
 them ! " 
 
 To change the subject, Gray said, " By the bye, Worboys, I 
 expect you would like to see something of behind-the-scenes 
 while you are over here ? How long have you got, and 
 where are you staying ? " 
 
 " I've got a week — that means five days clear, and I'm 
 staying at the Savoy, because I thought I might just as well 
 do myself well, when I might never have the chance of 
 doing myself anyhow again." 
 
 " Go and fetch your things, and stay with me till you have 
 to go back. It will save you a good bit of money, and you 
 shall have the run of the theatre while you are here — behind 
 as well as in front. I can't be there much myself, but I'll 
 put you in charge of Old Mac — ^my manager, and tell him 
 to give you as good a time as possible." 
 
 " Oh, but I can't sponge on you like that, Gray ! " 
 
 " I don't see where the sponging comes in — I've got to 
 have my meals whether you are here or not, and I don't pay 
 for seats in my own theatre. Besides, I need cheering up 
 badly, and you're the man to do it. And you can tell me 
 all about the Battery." 
 
 "There's nothing very cheering about that. I'd rather 
 talk about the Green Room while I'm at home." 
 
 " I'll promise you, you shall have as much Green Room as 
 you like, if you'll come." 
 
 " Oh, I'll come all right ! Just in time for dinner to-night. 
 I've got something rather particular ' on my chest ' for this 
 afternoon." 
 
 " Right — dinner's at seven, if you want to see the piece. 
 And I'll try who I can get into supper afterwards, to help you 
 to enjoy yourself behind the scenes to-morrow night." 
 
 " Top-hole ! It would have been the biggest day in my 
 life, if only Mirry had been behaving ! "
 
 382 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII 
 
 WORBOYS INTERVENES 
 
 THE next thing which Worboys did when he left Gray 
 was to call Paula up on the telephone. Politeness 
 demanded this, because, learning that his sister did not 
 write to him, Paula had adopted him as the soldier to whom 
 she would write regularly and send a weekly parcel. 
 
 He said that if it was convenient to her he would come and 
 call on her in the afternoon, and he added that he had a 
 message for Miss Douglas, which he would deliver at any 
 time that she chose within three days. 
 
 Paula at once asked him to come to lunch, but he said that 
 he would rather come in afterwards. 
 
 " Very well," she said. " I shall be in all the afternoon, 
 and Mirabel will be back from her drive before five." 
 
 He turned up about two-thirty, looking so healthy and 
 well and soldierly that Paula felt quite sentimental towards 
 the end of the two hours which elapsed before Mirabel sent 
 up word that she had come back, and would see Mr. Worboys 
 in the morning-room before tea. 
 
 She imagined that he had something to say about Archie. 
 So he had, in a way. 
 
 She was struck by the change in his appearance ; he 
 looked so completely the fighting man, and he looked so 
 serious and masterful, that she felt quite drawn to 
 him. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Worboys ? " she said. 
 
 " How do you do. Miss Douglas ? " 
 
 " You had a message for me ? — or, at all events, some- 
 thing particular to say to me ? " 
 
 " Something very particular." 
 
 She was prepared for staggering news, but she was not 
 prepared for the direct onslaught of his words. 
 
 " I've come to tell you how hatefully I think you are 
 behaving to Gray." 
 
 " Mr. Worboys ! " 
 
 " Yes," he said, " somebody has to tell you, and I judge
 
 WORBOYS INTERVENES 383 
 
 that nobody has told you yet, how hatefully you are behaving 
 to Gray ! " 
 
 " Did he ask you to come and tell me that ? " 
 
 " No, I took jolly good care that he should not know, or 
 he would have stopped me ! He does not even know that 
 I have your address." 
 
 " Well, what right have you to come, then ? " 
 
 " The right of a man who sees his best friend being ' done 
 in ' ! " 
 
 The slang scored a point. Anyone except Worboys, who 
 had come to do battle royal with her, would have been angrily 
 formal — could have said nothing less formal than " treated 
 badly," but he was himself, and said, " done in." 
 
 However it was quite resentfully that she said, " How 
 have I ' done him in ' ? " 
 
 " Nobody knows so well as you do. You can't deny it ! 
 You can't attempt to deny it ! " 
 
 " Can't I ? " 
 
 " ril tell you part of it, if you like, but you'll be able 
 to double and treble it yourself ! " 
 
 " You do make me out an abominable character ! " 
 
 " So you are ! " 
 
 " Mr. Worboys ! " 
 
 " And I'll prove it to you, if you like ! " 
 
 " I think you'd better ! " she retorted sardonically. " I 
 might miss some points." 
 
 " Not if your conscience is in full working-order ! " 
 
 " Perhaps it isn't," she said in the same tones. 
 
 " I don't think it can be ! " 
 
 " Well, really . . . ! " 
 
 " It's no good mincing words. Miss Douglas. Will you 
 let me tell you what I think ? " 
 
 Because he was in war-worn khaki, and was fighting for 
 his friend as tenaciously as he had fought for his country, 
 she let him. " Go ahead ! " she said, more gently. 
 
 " Well, to start with, you owe a lot to Gray in your career." 
 
 She gave a little nod. 
 
 " I don't say that he wasn't playing for himself when he 
 began, but he fell in love with you, as any other man would, 
 and had to secure you somehow." 
 
 " You've a novel way of putting tilings, Mr. Worboys," she 
 said ironically, " but it has the advantage of being graphic ! "
 
 384 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 " Perhaps I have," he said, without heeding the irony, 
 " but I'm trying to keep as close to the point as possible. 
 Well, shall we agree that he helped you in your career as no 
 other man could have done, and that he did it for his own 
 advantage ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think we may agree to that." 
 
 " We may put in here that you loathed the marriage, but 
 accepted it because you thought that your career would be 
 made if you got the appointment to be his leading lady for 
 a sufficient time ? " 
 
 " Mr. Worboys, you are very insulting ! " 
 
 " I don't think so. I started by admitting that you 
 loathed the marriage. But, anyhow, you agreed to let me 
 give you a plain statement of the case." 
 
 " Yes, I did, and I suppose that what you have said is, 
 in the main, true." 
 
 " Thank you," he said. " It is better to admit or deny 
 each point as we go along. Now, I am prepared to admit 
 that there was some justification for your making the condi- 
 tion that you should be at liberty to leave him at the end 
 of a month, unless he behaved in such a way as to make you 
 change your mind." 
 
 " That did not come into the agreement at all. I was to 
 have complete liberty." 
 
 " I know it did not come into the agreement. It would 
 have been even more injurious to his feelings than yours to 
 put it in. But I'll bet that your lawyers as well as his under- 
 stood this to be implied ! " 
 
 " It does not matter if they did ; it was my contract, not 
 theirs." 
 
 " Quite so. But that was the implication, and even if it 
 had not been the implication, I ask you, as a fair-minded 
 woman, if it was not natural for him to believe that you put 
 in this condition, because he had been one of the b-hoys, 
 and you didn't know what sort of a husband he would 
 make ? " 
 
 " Honour bright, Mr. Worboys, I did not put in this con- 
 dition with any such idea. I put it in so that my leaving 
 him might not be irrevocable, though I saw no chance of 
 my changing my mind." 
 
 " That may be ; but you will admit that it was natural 
 for him to believe otherwise ? "
 
 WORBOYS INTERVENES 385 
 
 " Yes, 1 see now that he might have put that con- 
 struction on it." 
 
 " You'll bet he did think so. And what happened ? Was 
 he a white man during that month ? " 
 
 " Yes, he was very much what you call ' a white man.' " 
 
 " Then didn't you think it rather unfair to turn him off 
 when the month was over, Miss Douglas ? " 
 
 " I did not look upon it in that light at all. Humanly 
 speaking, my decision was irrevocable ; it did not depend on 
 his behaviour." 
 
 " Weh, pass by that ; is it not a fact that between that 
 time and the time when I saw you at Westernport, he was 
 so good to you that j'ou were growing quite fond of him ? " 
 
 " I don't think you have any right to ask that question." 
 
 " If you won't answer it, I shall have to tell you what I 
 think, which is that unless you thought that he was trjang to 
 do his best, or were so fond of him that you were willing to 
 forgive his not trying, you had no right to treat him as you 
 did treat him, when you were down at Westernport." 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Worboys ? " 
 
 " I mean that you made us all think that you were in 
 love with him. And ditto, ditto at Southampton." 
 
 " Well, and what of that ? " 
 
 " You grant it, then ? " 
 
 " I don't say that I do." 
 
 " What I say is, that if you let a man think that you love 
 him before he goes to the war, and he lives for you while he 
 is there, whenever he is not on duty against the enemy, I 
 say that if he does a big thing for his country, and comes back 
 crippled for life, he has a right to expect you to love him as 
 much as you did before he went away, unless he has done 
 anything to forfeit your love in the interval." 
 
 " My love is my own." 
 
 " Not when it is as good as pledged to him, and lie has done 
 nothing to lose it." 
 
 " But a fresh circumstance had happened which arose 
 entiiely from his having forced me to marry him." 
 
 " You had condoned that already, so no fresh circum- 
 stance could arise out of it." 
 
 " Unfortunately, it did." 
 
 " If you take that attitude, I must remind you that nobody 
 forced you to marry him, or could have forced you to marry 
 
 25
 
 386 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 him. You married him because, all things considered, you 
 thought it was good enough, and then, because, owing to an 
 outside chance, it wasn't good enough, you wreaked your 
 revenge on Gray, who had been as good a husband as any 
 man could be, from the very day that he married you ! " 
 
 " You must own that he persuaded me against my better 
 judgment, and that my judgment was better than his." 
 
 " I don't agree to that at all ; apart from the title which 
 will be yours anyhow, I can't see that you did show better 
 judgment, but I respect your feelings too much to discuss 
 that. What I must say is, that I think that, ever since he's 
 been your husband. Gray has been a ripper ! " 
 
 " I'll admit that — I think he has been a darling. I only 
 wish I could forgive him ! " 
 
 " You've nothing to forgive, except yourself, and that 
 may be pretty hard ! What you've got to do is to ask his 
 forgiveness for persecuting him, if you want any self-respecting 
 soldier to know you ! I'm not going to know you any more 
 till you do ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Won't you have a cup of tea before you go ? " 
 
 " No, thanks ! I'll just run upstairs to say good-bye to 
 Miss Maitland, and make an appointment with her." 
 
 He shook hands with her so coldly that she would rather 
 that he had left without shaking hands. 
 
 The cause of all JMirabel's perturbation did not, of course, 
 when he turned up to dinner, disclose to Gray where he had 
 been, and Gra\^ was glad to get away from his thoughts by 
 showing Worbo}'s a little " life " as the insouciant young 
 soldier understood it. 
 
 They dined at the Babylon Restaurant, where Gray indi- 
 cated the notorieties of both sexes, and after dinner Worboys 
 had " the night of his life," for he and Gray saw the piece 
 from the stage-box ; went behind the scenes between the 
 acts, for Worbo3's to be introduced to the various Beauties 
 of the Babylon, and wound up by a supper in Gray's flat, sent 
 up from the Restaurant, at which Guinevere Jones, the leading 
 lady, Topsy Perks, Carrie Christmas and Betty Farnol 
 were present, with Hughie Sprot. 
 
 It was the first supper which Graj' had given in his fiat
 
 WORBOYS INTERVENES 387 
 
 since he had known Mirabel, and the ladies, not remembering 
 that the venue was largely dictated by the licensing laws of 
 war, were duly elated, and stayed till a not very early hour 
 in the morning. They noticed that Gray was handing all 
 the fun on to Worboys, but they knew the reason, and were 
 sympathetic. 
 
 Worboys, giving Paula lunch at the Savoy on the next day, 
 was very full of the night he had spent, and what he was going 
 to do with his other nights, and he was so naive about it that 
 Paula could not help entering into the fun of the thing, and 
 drawing him out. He would make a good character for one 
 of her books. 
 
 At tea-time she shaped the character out by telling the 
 story of his doings, with Paulesque embellishments, to 
 Mirabel. She did not do it maliciously, but merely to amuse 
 herself. 
 
 The effect was the same. It was the crowning blow, that 
 Oliver should have grown weary of good works, and should 
 have gone dissipating with Worboys, taking him into 
 dressing-rooms, introducing him to all the fastest women in 
 the theatre, and winding up by having his new leading lady 
 and Betty, and those two minxes, Carrie and Topsy, to 
 supper in his flat ! It did not occur to her that Oliver was 
 merely doing it with the intention of showing Worboj's the 
 height of hospitality, or that Oliver was like a teetotaller 
 who does not drink himself, because it does not suit him, 
 but has no mission to make others follow his example. She 
 might have thought of Oliver's favourite motto about the 
 cakes and ale, and remembered that he had turned his back 
 on the life of the Babylon solely because he was so much in 
 love with her, that he had eyes for no other woman. There 
 was no reason why he should harden his heart to them now 
 that he was divorced. In fact, it was rather for the good of 
 the theatre that he should not. 
 
 Mirabel should have reasoned that but fur Worboys's 
 presence, he would have lacked the inclination. 
 
 She was too jealous to do that. She pictured her friends 
 Guinevere, Betty, Carrie and Topsy, plying him with all 
 their graces, as they did, for they were very fond of him ; 
 they had been in his employ for a long time, and he had 
 been uniformly considerate and cordial to them, and he 
 was down on his luck about a woman, Tara, with the best 
 
 25*
 
 388 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 intentions, was incapable of keeping a cat in its bag. That 
 he did not enjoy more favour was merely due to his back- 
 wardness. 
 
 Paula had completely destroyed Mirabel's peace of mind 
 by repeating Worboys's gossip. Guinevere Jones was 
 probably already dreaming dreams, because she took herself 
 seriously. 
 
 Why had that inconvenient Worboys come over from 
 France, and dragged Oliver into these associations again, 
 Jor which he was Jar too good ? Mirabel was sincerely 
 disgusted. 
 
 Mirabel started to think furiously. Here was Worboys, 
 a mere boy, whom she had always treated as a joke, an- 
 nouncing his intention of cutting her if she did not make it 
 up with Oliver ! It was just like Worboys's cheek. But it 
 worried her more than a little. 
 
 It is a serious thing to be cut by a man who does not think ; 
 a man who does not think does not act unless facts stare 
 him in the face. Had it come to this : that her behaviour 
 to the man who was no longer her husband, was staring 
 Worboys in the face ? 
 
 When she parted from him at Southampton Worboys had 
 been a typical boy ; now he was a typical fighting man, with 
 his dogged jaw and his readiness to die for honour. It was 
 not a light thing, to lose the respect of such a man. Had 
 she treated Gray very badly ? The idea was altogether 
 new to her. She had been wrapping herself in a martyr's 
 cloak, which covers as many sins as charity. She had been 
 the injured one, the white snow, which had been trampled 
 and soiled. 
 
 Worboys did not share this view ; he appeared to think 
 her a heartless jilt, a person who had accepted a bribe, and 
 did not wish to perform the service for which she had been 
 paid ; in his eyes she was almost a swindler. 
 
 Why could not other men be like Gray, who thought no 
 evil ; who never complained ; who never reproached ? 
 
 When the day itself came, Mirabel wished she had died 
 when she was ill. It was unspeakable that Paula should be 
 present, and that she should not be present at a dinner of
 
 WORBOYS INTERVENES 389 
 
 the Douglas Peers and lairds given by The Douglas in honour 
 of the man who had been her husband, not onlj^ because he 
 was a Scottish V.C, but because he was one of his dearest 
 friends, a man whom he delighted to honour ! 
 
 It was such a very emphatic way of stating how they 
 sided in the divorce, which possessed significance for all 
 the guests, if the divorce had come to their ears, inasmuch 
 as it concerned the marriage of the future Countess of 
 Douglas. 
 
 She had a long talk on the telephone in her dressing-room, 
 and when her Italian maid brought her her tea, she said : 
 " Tell cook I am dining out. I am going to the theatre." 
 
 The maid was rather surprised by the frock which she 
 chosfe. 
 
 " Oh, Signorina ! the silver is the most beautiful dress you 
 have ! Isn't it too good for the theatre ? " 
 
 " I like to look my best at the theatre," said Mirabel. 
 " I'm an actress." 
 
 The idea pleased Caterina, who felt sure that people would 
 be as much interested in Mirabel sitting in the stalls, as 
 in the heroine on the stage. It also showed that her interest 
 in life was returning, a welcome sign. 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST 
 
 JAMAIS ARRIERE 
 
 C"^ RAY looked forward to the great evening with mixed 
 J feelings. It would be the proudest evening of his 
 life — that was certain — for he was invited to meet some of 
 the heads of the Scottish nobility, not only as a V.C. of 
 Scottish birth, but because Lord and Lady Douglas always 
 treated him as if he were still the husband of the heiress of 
 the Douglases. But it was that "as if " which robbed the 
 evening of half its glory, for it reminded him of the woman 
 who had taken him to that house, who had taken him in 
 appearances as her lover, and a candidate for her hand, 
 when he was her husband, separated by contract. All 
 through the evening her ghost would rise and rebuke him 
 whenever he forgot and was happy. He would hardly have 
 had the courage to go if he had not asked if he might bring
 
 390 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 an officer of his Battery, home from the front on leave, who 
 was staying with him. 
 
 Dinner was at eight-fifteen, but Gray was asked to be 
 there by eight, and the hour was chiming from an old French 
 clock as he and Worboys, who was dreadfully concerned about 
 the war-stains of his uniform, till Gray said that they would 
 be the toast of the evening more than he was, entered the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Two of the guests were already in the room, but that 
 did not prevent Lady Douglas from saying, " You must 
 let an old woman kiss you, Oliver, on this greatest night 
 of our lives ! " before she presented him and Worboys to 
 a Duke and Duchess who were Douglases, though they had 
 another name tacked on to the Douglas. They were elderly 
 people, and very interested and gracious. 
 
 Lord Douglas, who had a roj'al memory, came up at 
 that moment, and said to Gray, " Whj^ didn't you tell me 
 that it was Mr. Worboys whom you were bringing ? Did 
 you forget that we had met at Southampton ? " 
 
 Worboys's weatherburn took on a deeper crimson with 
 pleasure and pride. 
 
 The other guests, too, were unusually punctual, for every- 
 one was anxious to make the V.C.'s acquaintance before the 
 dinner was served. 
 
 The only persons in the room without a title, except Gray, 
 were Worboys and Paula. Paula was a very charming 
 and striking figure as she blushed and smiled her congratu- 
 lations to Gray. People noticed that he detained her for 
 a few minutes' earnest conversation, and were much in- 
 terested to know who she was ; they might have been more 
 interested had they known that every question refered to 
 the wife who had divorced him. 
 
 At dinner Paula found herself sitting between Worboys 
 and the Duke, who had taken in Lady Douglas, and was 
 asked by her, as a fillip to conversation, if he had read Miss 
 Maitland's novel, " The Lady of Lochleven." He had 
 not, but he asked Paula many questions about it, and 
 gallantly offered the use of certain of the " Lochleven " 
 Douglas archives, which were in his possession, if ever she 
 wrote another book on the subject. The George Douglas 
 who enabled Queen Mary to escape from Lochleven had 
 naturally been one of the chief characters in her stor}'.
 
 JAMAIS ARRIERE 391 
 
 He also talked a great deal to Gray, who sat on Lady Douglas's 
 right, and had been assigned to his Duchess, which gave the 
 socialistic Paula a chance to devote herself to her war-godson, 
 on her other hand. 
 
 Whoever he was whom The Douglas delighted to honour. 
 Gray himself won all hearts, as he sat there in his khaki, 
 with the Cross of Valour on his left breast, and a face still 
 tanned with all weathers by the war, the type of the modest 
 and serene soldier, who has had greatness thrust upon him, 
 because he has endured to the end against hopeless odds. 
 
 And when Lord Douglas proposed his health, not only 
 as a Scottish V.C., but " as one whom we have come to 
 look upon as a son," every eye kindled. 
 
 As soon as the ladies left them, the men all drew in their 
 seats round him, to hear the moving tale of the deed which 
 they had met to celebrate, which he was so loath to tell, 
 that the presence of Worboys proved very necessarj'. And 
 Worboj's, under his breath, told those who were near enough 
 a yet more moving tale — how this man had closed the eyes 
 of the dead heir of the House in that Observation Post on 
 the battle-fteld. He was listened to with chivalrous atten- 
 tion ; he was so obviously the fighting man straight from 
 the front. 
 
 Some mournful remembrance, they thought, must have 
 been recalled when suddenly Gray broke down in an episode 
 which he was relating. But it was only that his quick 
 ear had caught the sound of a woman singing. So had Lord 
 Douglas's, for he said, " The ladies are having some music ; 
 that must be a signal for us to join them." 
 
 As they moved up the grand staircase to the drawing- 
 rooms, a glorious \'oice seemed to fill the whole house with 
 the refrain : 
 
 " Ye tak' the high road, an' I'll tak' the low road. 
 An' I'll bo in Scotland afore ye . . " 
 
 Those who were near Gray saw him turn \er>' white, 
 and attributed it to pain from his wound. They hurried 
 to his side, but he said, " It's nothing— it will pass." And 
 to one, whom he knew better, he confessed, " It's merely 
 that this song awakens sad memories for me." which his 
 auditor supposed to be of the battle-field. Onl\- Worboys
 
 392 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 and Lord Douglas knew that the tragedy was not of the 
 battle-field, and they were dumbfounded. 
 
 The men waited outside the door till the song was finished, 
 and then all made way for Gray, the hero of the evening, 
 who had modestly dropped back to the last place as they 
 mounted the stair. When the footmen threw open the 
 door, and he advanced into the great drawing-room, his 
 eye swept over it as keenly as if he were still in an Observation 
 Post. 
 
 Yes, standing by the piano, from which she had just 
 risen, and listening to a chorus of congratulation on her 
 wonderful singing, looking exquisite in a dress of silver 
 lace, with a scarlet rose at her breast, was Mirabel. Her 
 not appearing in mourning, so soon after Archie's death, in 
 his father's house, had a message of deep import to convey, 
 as had that rose. 
 
 It was obvious who had been singing, and the men all 
 followed Lord Douglas as he went across to her. But he 
 did not go to thank and congratulate her. What he did 
 say, almost sternly, was, " Good evening, Mirabel — does 
 this mean . . . ? " 
 
 " Yes, Jim," she said, in tones that brooked no doubt. 
 
 He was doubly glad — glad for Oliver's sake, and glad 
 because it made it possible for him to welcome his lovely 
 cousin, who was unusually beautiful that night. The 
 emotion under which she was labouring, the tears which 
 she had wept in the afternoon, made those wonderful SiciUan 
 eyes burn like black fire, and her expression and attitude 
 were so wistful. 
 
 " What a gorgeous voice ! What a ripping woman ! 
 Who is she ? " said one of the Douglas Peers, who did 
 not know her, sotto voce to the old Duke, who answered, 
 " She's Isabel Douglas, Jim's heir, when she's here, and 
 Mirabel Douglas at the Babylon Theatre." 
 
 And catching her eye at that moment, he gallantly bent 
 over the hand which she held out for him to shake — being 
 of the old school — as he said, " How are you, my dear Scots' 
 cousin ? ' ' 
 
 " Rather a poor creature, I'm afraid, to-night, Duke. 
 You will excuse me for a little, won't you, while I go and 
 offer my congratulations to the guest of the evening ? " 
 All eyes were on her as she advanced, with more emotion
 
 JAMAIS ARRIERE 393 
 
 than she had ever thrown into her part on the stage, true 
 actress though she had proved herself, to where Ohver was 
 standing, devouring her v.ath his eyes. 
 
 She held out both hands when she got up to him, though 
 she half hung back to say, " Do you want to hear your wife's 
 congratulations. Jack ? " 
 
 He grasped her hands firmly in his own, and, looking 
 deep into her eyes, said in low tones, " More than anything 
 in the world, Mirry ! " 
 
 As he said it, her drooped eyes fell on the watch with 
 the shattered face. Then she raised her eyes again to meet 
 his, with that gracious and affectionate smile which the 
 audience at his theatre loved, and then she flushed, because 
 she saw that Worboys was there, and watching her. 
 
 She bowed to him, and he came over to shake hands with 
 unconcealed pleasure. He was proud of being recognized 
 as an old friend, and doubly proud to see that his scoldings 
 had gone home. 
 
 When the)- were out of earshot, a little knot of men began 
 to question the Duke, since he had called himself her Scots' 
 cousin. 
 
 " Is he really the husband of that lovel}' woman ? " 
 
 " Not that I have ever heard of. But some actresses 
 think it spoils their chances in their profession to let it be 
 known that the^^ are married — at least, they used to in 
 my day. You'd better ask Jim Douglas," he said. " She 
 must have told him : she's like a daughter here." 
 
 One of them went over to ask The Douglas. 
 
 " Yes, it's quite true," he said. " There you behold 
 the ancestor of my successors." And seeing that the situation 
 seemed to require some explanation, he said, " They've 
 had a big quarrel, and the V.C. has made it up." He was 
 speaking of the Cross itself, but it was true of the wearer. 
 
 The men, when their spokesman went back to them, 
 wondered why they had not been told in the invitation 
 that Gray was the husband of the Dougkis heiress, and that 
 this was the true occasion of the Douglas dinner. There 
 were present nine Douglas Peers, Black and Red, besides 
 various Douglas Baronets and Lairds, with pedigrees and 
 possessions derived from the Middle Ages, all sprung, hke 
 the Peers, from the Knight of the Black Water, the fortunate 
 brother of Freskin and contemporary of Richard Coeur-de-
 
 394 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 Lion. But Lady Douglas had such a name for eccentricities 
 that no one suspected this part of the programme of being 
 impromptu. It was Lady Douglas's way of doing it, that 
 was all, and it had afforded the company a fine sensational 
 evening. 
 
 Mirabel could hardly avoid starting when some one came 
 up and addressed her as " Mrs. Gray." She had never 
 been called Mrs. Gray since her honeymoon, down at Western- 
 port, though she had been married more than two years. 
 
 She had a difficult role to pla}^ for she knew many more 
 of the people than Oliver did, and these all wished, though 
 they might not say so, for an explanation of why she had 
 never mentioned her marriage. 
 
 Lady Douglas saved the situation with one of her in- 
 advertencies. Her ruling passion was her salon, and Mirabel 
 and Gray had been two of its chief lions. She began to 
 tell people this, and drifted into enlarging on the romance 
 of the proprietor of the Babylon having fallen in love with 
 and married his leading-lady, and without any intent to 
 deceive gave the impression that it was the result of the 
 success of the play. This was the most convenient way of 
 getting over the fact of the marriage having been kept a 
 secret so long : it was comparatively easy to explain their 
 coming separately, and having that dramatic scene in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 Since, after having been the talk of the town in " Mary, 
 Queen of Scots," Mirabel was not playing in " The Uniform 
 Girl," people jumped at the erroneous idea that she had 
 indignantly refused to be seen in such a piece, while the 
 fact was that the management had reverted to their old 
 type of play because IMirabel's services were not available. 
 
 A youthful Marchioness, a keen patroness of the stage, 
 thought it most romantic that " The Uniform Girl " quarrel 
 should have been healed by Gray's getting his V.C. 
 
 It was obvious to everybody how fond of each other the}- 
 were, because, instead of allowing themselves to be lionized 
 separately, which would have been more convenient, the 
 beautiful young wife insisted on dancing attendance on 
 her disabled husband, whose leg-stump was completely healed, 
 and who needed attention less than she did, in her state 
 of health. But it was Mirabel's form of penitence, and as 
 there is nothing more exquisite than the radiance of a
 
 JAMAIS ARRIERE 395 
 
 beautiful Italian woman in love — Mirabel was a Visconti 
 and not a Douglas to the eye — she was enchaining her 
 audience as completely with her own feelings as if she was 
 playing a part. It was her first appearance in tragedy. 
 
 It was some time after eleven before every guest had 
 left, except Gray and Worboys, and Mirabel and Paula, who 
 were standing, Mirabel with her left arm through her 
 husband's, in front of one of the blazing log fires on an open 
 hearth, which The Douglas loved because they reminded him 
 of the banqueting hall at his beloved Scots Castle, which he 
 visited so seldom. 
 
 They were beginning to say good-bye to their hosts. 
 Lord Douglas was looking hard at his cousin. It was long 
 since he had thought her pretty ; beautiful, yes, but she 
 had of late lacked the adorable youthfulness and play- 
 fulness which are the prime constituents of prettiness. 
 
 Now she looked her age, which was twenty-four — or less ? 
 There was not a trace of the leading lady about her : she 
 was more the girl-bride on her honeymoon, smiling to every- 
 one her frank pleasure in possessing a man of her own, 
 in being that woman of the world, a married lad}^ It was, 
 indeed, a honeymoon, for it was the first time that any of 
 her friends had ever seen her as a wife, however often they 
 might have seen her tantalizing her husband. 
 
 " By the bye, Mirry," said Lord Douglas, to tease her, 
 " how did you come to be here ? I know that you weren't 
 asked." 
 
 " I appeal to Janet ! " 
 
 " I asked her," confessed Lady Douglas. " It was such 
 a mockery to ask these people to meet Oliver, without asking 
 Mirry, when I knew that all the Peerage of Scotland, with 
 the Peerages of England and Ireland thrown in, were not 
 worth her little finger to him ! " 
 
 " I asked to be asked," said Mirabel. 
 
 "Which of you two is telling the truth ? " laughed L(nd 
 Douglas. 
 
 " Both of us," said Mirabel. " I asked to be asked first, 
 and then she asked me. Shall I tell you all about it ? " 
 
 " Yes," said everybody. 
 
 " Well, I tho\ight about it and cried with rage all day, and 
 about tea-time I couldn't endure it any longer — the thought 
 that all these people would be hnnging round my husband,
 
 396 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 and I not there, when I wanted him and he wanted me more 
 than all the rest of the world. So I 'phoned to Janet, and 
 asked her if I might come in after dinner. I felt that I 
 could not face the ordeal of dinner — my eyes would not be 
 ready. ' Where are you dining ? ' she asked. ' At my club, 
 the Sesame.' 
 
 Well, start a little early, and come in to see me on the 
 way. I have something to say to you which I shouldn't 
 like to say over the 'phone. 'Phones have ears.' 
 
 " When I got here, she said, ' You're only coming here 
 to-night on one condition, Mirry. Do you understand 
 what that is ? ' 
 
 Yes, I understand,' I said, ' but supposing he doesn't 
 want it after my behaving so badly to him ? Can you ever 
 get him to forgive me, Janet ? ' 
 
 " ' I can answer for that,' she said." 
 " Wasn't I right, Oliver ? " chimed in Lady Douglas. 
 For answer he pressed his lips on Mirabel's head, as it 
 leant against his shoulder. 
 
 " And so I am here," said Mirabel, " with my husband." 
 " He's not your husband, I am afraid, till you have broken 
 the decree by living with him again," said Lord Douglas 
 gravely. 
 
 " I don't care ; I'm going to treat him as if he was," she 
 said, in mock defiance. 
 
 " This is fortunately a case where the observance of the 
 law lies in its breach," he pronounced. 
 
 While Mirabel and Paula were putting on their wraps, 
 Gray stayed for a word with his hosts. 
 
 " You read my heart," he said to Lady Douglas. " What 
 a glorious night you have made it ! " 
 
 And Lord Douglas said to her, " It is not eveiy conspiracy 
 which can be forgiven so easily as this, Janet." 
 " Then you welcome me as Mirry 's husband ? " 
 " There is no one I would welcome so much," replied Lord 
 Douglas, " if, in your fidelity to her, you remember the 
 motto of our house, Jamais Arriere." 
 
 When Mirabel and Paula returned, their hosts went down 
 with them to see them into their cars, which Grainger 
 considered scandalously undignified. 
 
 Paula said her good-bye and got in first. She knew that 
 Mirabel's good-bye might be a long one.
 
 JAMAIS ARRIERE 39- 
 
 When the penitent and lorgiven Mirabel at length kissed 
 her cousins, and was about to step into her car, Gray said, 
 " Mayn't I drive you home, Mirry ? " 
 
 " Of course, dear ! " she replied, and turning to her 
 chauffeur, without the slightest warning, said, " My husband 
 is going to drive me home, Nares." 
 
 Xares's training was equal to the occasion. All he said 
 was, " Yes, Ma'am," instead of, " Yes, Miss." 
 
 Paula drove off. 
 
 While Worboys was waiting for a taxi to take liini 
 back to Gray's flat, Mirabel poured out her heartfelt 
 thanks to him. For it was Worboys who had opened lier 
 eyes. 
 
 " You shall have the finest photograph I have to hang 
 up in your billet, signed Mirabel Douglas on one side, and 
 Mirabel Gray on the other— the first time I shall ever have 
 written Mirabel Gray on a photo — to remind you of your 
 handiwork ! " 
 
 " It won't hang in the billet," he said. " If I get a bullet 
 through my heart when I go back, it will go through some- 
 thing else first ! But I'm rewarded without that, Mirry — 
 may I say Mirry ? " 
 
 " Always Mirry to you, Peter Worboys ! " 
 
 Then there was another long leave-taking. For the Y.C. 
 guest of the evening had grown into something more since 
 the evening began. And when at length they had taken 
 their seats, and the very last good-nights had been spoken, 
 Lord Douglas had a word with the chauffeur, in which he 
 advised him to drix-e from Kensington Gore to Hammersmith 
 by way of the Marble Arch. 
 
 In the car they arranged that Gray should come to Boling- 
 broke House openly as its master on the following afternoon, 
 accompanied by Worboys till the end of his leave. Since 
 the law required a witness of their happiness before the 
 divorce could be quashed, there was certainly no one who 
 had such a good right to witness it as Paula — the ideal 
 person for the purpose, if she would promise not to put them 
 into a novel. And Worboys was a good second. 
 
 Later on they might live at the flat, if Gray really found 
 Bolingbroke House as inconvenient for his business as 
 Mirabel had represented to Dr. Cantelupe. 
 
 All too soon the car drew up at Bolingbroke House. Mirr\'
 
 398 THE DOUGLAS ROMANCE 
 
 had not begun to say good-bye, so the car had to wait outside 
 the house — how long only the chauffeur knew. 
 
 Gray went up the steps with her to see her in. When 
 she had put the latch-key into the door, and opened it, she 
 suddenly kissed him once more. Why should she care 
 what the chauffeur thought, when he would know all about 
 it before the experienced earth was twenty-four hours older ? 
 
 She did not even care what Paula would say about her 
 being so long. It would suit her present mood to be a martyr 
 for her husband. 
 
 But Paula was all smiles. She was too happy over their 
 reconciliation to utter a word of reproach. She was even 
 prepared to be gracious if Mirr}^ after her sudden confidence 
 to her chauffeur, had changed her mind when she was in 
 the car with Oliver, and invited him to take possession of 
 the house there and then, instead of waiting till the next 
 afternoon. 
 
 Paula had spent a whole half-hour in telling Mirabel's 
 maid what Mirabel had told her chauffeur in a second or two. 
 And she did not forget to point out that Oliver must receive 
 the welcome suited to a V.C. and a wounded man. 
 
 The admonition was not needed ; Caterina was in love 
 with Oliver herself, for his patient and chivalrous devotion 
 to her mistress. 
 
 " I am glad, Signora," she said, when she began to help 
 her to undress. 
 
 " Glad at what ? " the happy Mirabel had the audacity 
 to ask. 
 
 " Miss Maitland's told me, Signora." 
 
 Then Mirabel confessed. " I'm gladder than I ever was 
 in my life, Caterina ! Isn't it splendid that he's too badly 
 wounded ever to go back again ? " 
 
 " \^■as he wounded again to-night, Signora ? " 
 
 " I hope not — he could not have been, unless I did it," 
 said her mistress. " Didn't you know that he had lost his 
 leg ? " 
 
 It seemed that the artificial limb had completely taken 
 in Caterina, from the flood of adjectives like " Poverino ! 
 Bellino ! " 
 
 They did not prevent her from being expeditious ; being 
 Italian, she knew how Mirabel must want to be left alone 
 with her happiness.
 
 « 
 
 JAMAIS ARRIERE 399 
 
 Mirabel, now that the scales of remorse and resentment 
 had fallen from her eyes, had recovered the sunniness of her 
 Lyceum days. When she sank to sleep, her face was as clear 
 as a child's. 
 
 Before she switched the light off, she took a long look 
 at the landscape of Lake Conio frescoed on the walls of her 
 room, and when she fell asleep she dreamed of her villa 
 on the Lake. She was sitting once more at the foot of the 
 stair by the harbour-wall, waiting for the perfect love. A 
 boat glided silently into the harbour, and from it stepped 
 out the tall fair man of her dreams. Yes, it was true : he 
 had Oliver's face, and, lest doubt should mar the magic 
 of the vision, even while her eyes were devouring him, his 
 clothes suffered a dream-change into the khaki of a British 
 ofiicer, with a little bronze cross above his heart. 
 
 Press aitting from 
 
 "XTbe ^iincs," 
 
 Date of Issue: Tuesday, Dec 26th, 1916. 
 
 GRAT.~Oii Christmas Day, at Rolingbioke House. The Mall, 
 Chiswick, the wife of Captain John Gray, \'.C.. of the Babylon 
 'I'heatre, of a son.
 
 PRINTED AT 
 
 THE CHAPEI, RIVER PRKSS, 
 
 KINGSTON, SURREY
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 The Wisdom of Damaris 
 
 By LUCAS MALET 
 
 Aulhur i)i "Sir Richard Calmady," etc. 
 
 The above long novel, which is the fruit of many years of 
 thought and work, \vill most probably prove to be the author's 
 best and most important work of fiction. 
 
 The scene of the first portion of the novel is laid in 
 Northern India, where Damaris Verity's father, a famous 
 soldier of the IMutiny, occupies a distinguished command. 
 
 The scene afterwards changes to the neighbourhood of 
 Marychurch, an ancient seaport town on the English south 
 coast, where General Verity owns a small property. Here 
 Damaris passes her girlhood, and learns much about men and 
 things, not, perhaps, usually known by young ladies of her 
 age. The novel should be inteiesting as indicating the social 
 conditions which have gone far to produce in this country 
 the Feminist movement of the present day. 
 
 The Eyes of the Blind 
 
 By M. P. WILLCOCKS 
 
 AiUliur uf "Change," " The Wings ul Desire," 
 "The T'ower Behind/' etc. 
 
 The question asked of the prisoner in the Bastille in 
 Dickens' " Tale of Two Cities " was : " Are you glad to be 
 recalled to life?" Miss Willcocks' new novel has a similar 
 subject, for it is the storj' of one who regained his eyesight 
 after an operation with most disconcerting results. We are 
 often told that it is folly to be wise if ignorance is bliss. 
 In this novel we are asked whether, if blindness means 
 happiness, one should therefore shrink from the light. It 
 is a story inore intense in its drama than her recent books, 
 since, like " \\ings of Desire," it deals mainly with West 
 Country types, and, like "The Wingless Victory, " it is a 
 novel of temptation and of tiie love that conquered after 
 a hard light. IMiss Willcocks has gone back to the old simpK- 
 things that are as old as man and woman, thougli Iierc, too 
 there is the interest of opposing social and religious atmo- 
 spheres, and here again many of the " saints '' are but whited 
 sepulchres. 
 
 3
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 The World-Mender 
 
 By MAXWELL GRAY 
 
 Auilior lit ''The Silence of Dean Mailland, etc. 
 
 "The World- Mender " is somewhat akin to tlie author's 
 previous book, " Tlie Great Refusal,'' and bids fair to 
 be as successful. It is a long novel, and tells the history 
 of a village boy's rise to be Cabinet Minister, his training, 
 psychological development, and the gradual sloughing of his 
 extreme Socialist and Radical principles as he rises. There is 
 a strong love interest, and the charming scenes and characters of 
 country life, which are a characteristic feature of this author's 
 work, are not the least attractive features of this important novel. 
 
 Disentangled 
 
 By CURTIS YORKE 
 
 Author of " llei- .Measure," "The (lirl in Cnxy,'' etc. 
 
 This is the story of a man who loved one woman, and, by 
 a curious mistake, married another. How all seemed to go 
 wrong for a time — how a young woman made mischief, and an 
 old woman made peace — how many interesting things happened, 
 and some sad things, and some amusing things— all nve told 
 in Curtis Vorke's well-known and peculiarly distinctive style. 
 "Disentangled" contains, perhaps, some of the best work this 
 popular author has yet given us, and will undoubtedly add to 
 her already enormous circle of readers.
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 A FIRST EOITION OF 43,000 COPIES. 
 
 The Bars of Iron 
 
 By ETHEL M. DELL 
 
 Author of "The Way of ;ui Eagle," etc. 
 This story will be very widely welcomed by the great 
 novel-reading public, and especially by Miss Dell's large 
 circle of admirers. In this new book she maintains tliat 
 vivacious power wliich has so long held her readers spell- 
 bound, and at the same time she has given us what is un 
 doubtedly tJie best novel thai she has written. 
 
 Piers Evesham, the heir to Sir Beverley Evesham, of 
 Rodding Park, falls in lo\e witli Avery Denys, the Mother's- 
 help at the \'icarage. He afterwards discovers that Avery 
 is the widow of Eric Denys, the man whom he had killed, 
 when he was but nineteen years of age, in a fatal brawl which 
 occurred in Australia. Piers, the passionate lover, struggles 
 with this secret knowledge, which nearly rends his very soul, 
 and he refrains from fulfdling his promise to confess his 
 crime. The battle with his imaginary fate is most ably con- 
 ceived, and the scenes are depicted with vivid realism. 
 
 Avery Denys, the lovable i\Iother's-help, is presented td 
 the reader with a power that will attract all. Aimt Avery, 
 as she is called by the Vicar's children, protects them from 
 llie cruel treatment of their narroAV-minded, severely strict 
 lather. Avery, who avoids Piers, and at first will not listen 
 to his avowals of adoration, at last consents to become his 
 wife. After tlicir union she accidentally hears that it was Piers 
 wIk) caused tlie death of her first husband. Tliis information 
 instantly fills her with bitterness, and she insists that she and 
 Piers shall part. The estrangement and final reconciliation 
 are powerfully described, but the latter is not achieved until 
 Piers has been to the Front and relumed totally disabled.
 
 New 6s. Novels 
 
 Proud Peter 
 
 By W. E. NORRIS 
 
 Aullior of "No New Thing," &c. 
 
 " Proud Peter " is the life story, related by himself, of a man 
 who is led, partly by force of circumstances, but more by the 
 trend of his character, into repeated acts of self-sacrifice. The 
 second son of a west country gentleman, he is at first intended for 
 holy orders, but has to disappoint his parents both in that respect 
 and afterwards, more seriously, in others. The \icissitudes of a 
 :areer which he allows a cloud to darken take him to Queensland, 
 as abreeder of horses, to the precincts of the Divorce Court and to 
 South Africa during the IJoer War. It is some time since Mr. 
 W. E. Norris attained a position in the first rank as a writer of 
 charming fiction, but readers of the present book will admit that 
 he continues to hold them by the magic of his pen. 
 
 The Hut by the River 
 
 By G. B. BURGIN 
 
 Author ot "The Shullers of Silence," etc. 
 
 "The Mut i)y the River" hides a thrilling mystery, worked 
 out with all Mr. Burgin's wonted skill, and deals with the unpre- 
 meditated but fatal revolver shot at her husband and his inamorata 
 by the " leading lady " of a light opera company which reaches 
 Plantagenet, a little township in Ontario. In her flight the 
 " leading lady " is compelled to leave her child behind her, and 
 that child becomes the innocent accomplice in the death of a 
 licentious Seigneur, who persecutes her with his unwelcome 
 attentions. "Old Man " Tucker and Peter van Loo alone are 
 sufficient to hold the reader's attention ; and the sufifering mother, 
 with her noble self-sacrifice when she braves death to see her 
 daughter again, is a convincing study of maternal love and de- 
 votion. The tragedy of the story is lightened by many touches of 
 quiet hvmour and picturesque description. 
 
 6
 
 New 6s. No^'efs 
 
 Twilight 
 
 By FRANK DANBY 
 
 Author of "The Heart of a Child," etc. 
 
 " Twilight " is in a vein that is entirely new for Frank 
 Danby, but it proves the author's versatility, for it is a ron- 
 vincing story of absorbing interest. The principal character 
 in the tale is an invalid woman who takes a country house 
 which she soon discovers to be haunted. She finds that .she 
 possesses, probably owing to her ill health, a faculty which 
 enables her to visualize a woman, Margaret by name, who 
 was once a tenant of the house. This ghostly visitant was 
 during her lifetime a writer with a passing vogue, and her 
 object in haunting the place is actuated by the desire of 
 having her life written. She induces the invalid to undertake 
 this task, and some diaries, letters and notes reveal the story 
 of the dead woman. 
 
 The book is full of minor incidents, and those clever 
 character studies which contribute so much to the vitality 
 and realism of Frank Danby's stories. 
 
 The Douglas Romance 
 
 By DOUGLAS SLADEN 
 
 Author of " His German Wife, " '^ Tlie Tragedy of the 
 I'jrainids," etc. 
 
 In this new novel Mr. Douglas Sladen deals with the 
 vicissitudes of a beautiful girl of good family, who is left an 
 orphan, and just before the war goes into musical-comedy, 
 to make her living. 
 
 Much of the interest of the book lies in the transforma- 
 tion of the men who seek her hand, from rich and dissolute 
 idlers, hanging round the green room, to gallant soldiers at 
 the front. 
 
 The book contains some of the glowing and palpitating 
 battle-scenes which have won Mr. Sladen so many readers in 
 his earlier novels. 
 
 Like " His German Wife," Mr. Sladeii's new novel, which 
 this time has no foreign characters in it, is a dainty and 
 vivacious love-story, full of human nature and humour, 
 thrown into relief bv occasional bursts nf tragedj\
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 The Rise of Raymond 
 
 By F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 Author of "I Forliid the Banns," etc. 
 
 This is the story of a young man who, while having 
 unbounded aspirations, is condemned to a commonplace 
 career for several years, but who, after an arduous struggle, 
 which is the means of developing all his best qualities, succeeds 
 in emancipating himself, and getting within sight of the goal 
 he has been seeking. Being strongly endowed with the 
 temperament of a true artist, it is needless to say that his 
 love-affairs keep pace with his advance in life, though his 
 fidelity to his ideal suffers no change. The period in which 
 the main part of the story takes place is during the early 
 eighties of the last century, when Mr. Du Maurier was 
 satirizing the new " .Tsthetic movement " in the pages of 
 Punch, and George Grossmith was creating the part of 
 Bunthorne in Patience. 
 
 The Night Hawk 
 
 By EDGAR JEPSON 
 
 Author of "The Lady Noggs," etc. 
 
 Tlie story of a wealthy and aiuial>le luan about town 
 who, in his disappointment at being rejected for the army, leads 
 deliberately the life of the complete rotter that the lejection 
 declares him to be. He turns night into day and in the society 
 of a club of like-minded associates, plays the waster from sunset 
 to the dewy dawn. Chance Ijrings him into contact with a 
 charming country girl lost in London. How this meeting leads 
 to his complete reformation and how lie soon linds himself wholly 
 nut of touch with the night-hawk life, must be left for the reader 
 discover. 
 
 8
 
 New 6s. Novefs. 
 
 Tasker Jevons: 
 
 The Real Story By may Sinclair 
 
 AiUlior of " The Thiec Sislers," " The Divine Fire," etc. 
 
 This is the story of a youni^ man of genius. Proliibly no 
 writer of the present day, save Miss Sinchiir, would ]ia\e 
 attempted or could have accomplished the writing of this book. 
 The man with his enthusiasm and his gift for compelling people 
 to do his behests is wonderfully pourtrayed. Tasker Jevons is 
 introduced as an undeveloped youth of unprepossessing features 
 who emerges from the humble strata of a small provincial town. 
 He arrives in London and makes his way easily to a foremost 
 l>o^ltion as a writer, and marries a beautiful girl. When the 
 War breaks out, Jevons, who is not generally embarrassed by 
 modesty, fears that he is a coward, but proves himself anything 
 but one 
 
 Treasure : 
 
 A Romance of the South Seas 
 
 By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 .\uitior of " fix- Blue I^agoon," "The Pearl Fishers," Szc. 
 
 Mr. Stacpoole's new story opens at daybreak in Sydney, 
 where Houghton, the penniless wanderer, meets ^lacquart, 
 the ragged, penniless ex-convict, with a fortune in his heal. 
 The streets of S\dney rise up before the reader, who hurries 
 along, fascinated, in the company of Houghton, Bobby 
 Tillman, Curlewis, Macquart, and the inscrutable Screed, on 
 the business of fitting out a treasure-himting expedition to 
 search for the gold ccjche known to ]\[acquart. The story oi 
 the search, of the finding of Agala, the girl with the corsets oi 
 )>rass, of the great thorn maze of New Guinea, and of how the 
 gold literally seizes the villainous IMacipiart, malcc up a 
 romance of love and adventure fresh and fascinating, and 
 filled with the lij^ht of youth and morning. 
 
 9
 
 New 6s, Novels. 
 
 Miss Million's Maid 
 
 By BERTA RUCK 
 
 (MPS. Oliver Onions) 
 Avuhor of " His Official Fiancee," &c. 
 
 A higli-spirited young girl, beautiful and well-bred, but 
 without a penny to her name, or a decently cut frock to her 
 back, grows tired of belonging to the class of the " ' Come-downs ' 
 wlio have neither the ad\antages of being rich or the fun of being 
 ]ioor. " Defiantly she dons cap and apron in the service of Miss 
 Million, a young heiress who beyan life as a little maid-of-ali- 
 work, and who has very little notion of how to spend her 
 vast inherited fortune. Complications ensue, intertwined with 
 the love stories of mistress and maid. 
 
 The Lamp of Destiny 
 
 By ISABEL CLARKE 
 
 Author of " Whose Name is Legion," .S:c. 
 
 Unlike Miss Clarke's former novels '" The Lamp of Destiny " 
 is not concerned except indirectly with any religious problem. It 
 is the story of a little girl, one of the survivors of a shipwreck, who 
 is adopted by an elderly couple unaware of her real parentage. 
 The secret is known only to the young officer who saves her 
 from tlie wreck. The history of the development of Irene from a 
 little rebellious child into a beautiful tender woman capable of 
 makiiiy the great sacrifice which circumstances demand is 
 louchingly related. 
 
 iO
 
 New 6s. Novels. 
 
 The Scratch Pack 
 
 By DOROTHEA GONYERS 
 
 Autlior of "Tlie Slrayings of Sandy," etc. 
 
 The scene of Dorothea Conyers' new novel is laid on the 
 south coast of Ireland, at the beginning of the war. Owing 
 to the absence of the Master there is no one left to hunt the 
 hounds, and foxes are doing damage ; so crippled Darby 
 Dillon, who can ride but do nothing else, gets together the 
 farmers' foot-dogs and hunts them. Gheena Freyne, who 
 starts the idea, is full of enthusiasm for the war and suspects 
 a certain Basil Stafford, who has not gone to the Front, of 
 being a German agent. She finally, having trouble at home, 
 becomes engaged to Darby Dillon, who has loved her for 
 years, but this does not end matters, and tliough Darby is 
 left alone, it is with the hope of someone else who really cares 
 for him. The foot-dogs kill many foxes and keep the hunt 
 going for the winter. 
 
 3rd Edition 
 
 "Good Old Anna" 
 
 By Mrs. BELLOC LOWNDES 
 
 Aullior of " The Cliink in llie Armour,' "' Tlie Lodger,"' 
 "The End of her Honeymoon," etc. 
 
 " That large public which has made ' The Man Who 
 Stayed at Home ' a popular success on the stage will assuredly 
 read Mrs. Belloc-Lowndcs' new novel with unabating interest. 
 She gives an air of plausibility to a very thrilling plot. We 
 will not reveal more of the story. Its exciting development 
 and the fidelity to truth in respect to the actual social upheaval 
 following the outbreak of war make ' Good Old Anna ' a 
 strilcing and original novel." — Daily Tclrgraph. 
 
 n
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 1/- net NOVELS 
 
 FOR 1916 
 
 Eacli ill cloth, icitJi pictorial xv rappers 
 
 39 SHARROW Baroness von Hutten 
 
 66 MEAVE Dorothea Conyers 
 
 67 SANDY'S LOVE AFFAIR S. R. Crocket 
 
 61 INITIATION Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 68 THE RETURN OF RICHARD CARR 
 
 Winifred Boggs 
 
 69 THE GREAT AGE J. G. Snaith 
 
 70 LONELINESS Robert Huqh Benson 
 
 71 THE THREE SISTERS May Sinclair 
 12 A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS Baroness Orczy 
 
 73 THE CHILDREN OF THE SEA 
 
 H. de V'ere Stacpoole 
 
 74 ODDSFISH Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 76 THE CAP OF YOUTH Madame Albanesi 
 
 77 A DULL GIRL'S DESTINY 
 
 Mrs. Baillie Reynolds 
 
 ALREADY ISSUED 
 
 Each in crown 8vo, 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 55 An Average Man 
 
 46 Come Rack ! Come Rope 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 4 The Stray iiigs of Sandy 
 
 MAUD DIVER 
 
 36 Lilumani 
 
 ELLEN THORNEYCROFT 
 FOWLEf! 
 
 5 A I)oul)Ie Thr ad 
 
 TOM fiAILON 
 
 6 'I'atifrley 
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 7 A Spirit in Prison 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 54 Maria 
 9 The Lordsliip of Love 
 10 The Green I'atch 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 47 Paul Kelver 
 
 cloth, u-ifli pictorial -wrapper 
 
 I FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 12 I Forbid the Banns 
 
 • t BARONESS ORCZY 
 
 13 Pelticoat Governmeni 
 
 14 The Ehiiiive Pimpernel 
 
 15 A True Woman 
 45 Meadowsweet 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 16 The Three Brothers 
 
 ALLEN RAINE 
 
 iS A Welsh Singer 
 
 BERTA RUCK (Mrs. Oliver Onions) 
 
 5.S His (Jthcial l^ancte 
 
 OLIVE SCHREINER 
 
 19 The Story of an African i'arm 
 
 KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON 
 
 20 Ma\ 
 
 WILLIAM LE OUniX 
 
 II The Confessions of a Ladies' 
 Man 
 
 12
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 1/- NOVELS 
 
 FOR 1916 
 
 III croicn Svo, nidh pictorial covers 
 
 37 ADAM'S CLAY 
 75 SWEET LIFE 
 
 Cosmo Mamillon 
 Katlilj'n Rhodes 
 
 ALRldADY ISSUED 
 
 Each in croi.cn Svo. icifh pictorial paper covers 
 
 A SIMNSTHR 
 
 2.5 The Truth aljuui Man 
 
 r. HANCROIT 
 
 ^2 Time and Chance 
 48 The VcUh Dwellers 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 42 The Arrival of Antony 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 50 Concert Pitcli 
 
 26 Let the Roof Fall In 
 
 WAm-R UMANUEL 
 
 Bubble and Squeak 
 
 LUCAS MALET 
 
 ]S Adrian Savage 
 
 ARTHUR MORRISON 
 
 2S Crcen Ginger 
 
 W. B. MAXWELL 
 
 6.\ General Malluc'k"b Shadow 
 37 Mrs. TlioniDboa 
 44 In Cotton Wool 
 
 KATHLYN RHODES 
 
 62 The Will of Allah 
 
 BERTA RUCK (Mrs.OIivci Onions) 
 
 65 Khaki ancl Kissc.T 
 
 H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 31 The Ship of Ci>ral 
 40 The Order of Release 
 
 Mrs. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 49 Moiue Carlo 
 
 RALPH STOCK 
 
 53 The Pyjania Man 
 
 CYNTHIA STOChLEY 
 
 32 Virginia of tlic Khodesians 
 
 Also 
 
 GERMANY'S GREAT HE 
 
 Exposed and Ciiiiciscd by DOUGLAS SLADEN 
 
 WILHELM LAMSZUS 
 
 The Jluinan Slaughter House 
 
 KEBLE HOWARD 
 
 34 "Ciiicot'' in America 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, Kin- 
 of Prussia ; and 
 
 THE LIFE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT 
 
 By Hcinrich von Trcitsclikc. Edited liy Douglas Sladen.
 
 HUTCHINSON'S IL NOVELS 
 
 A new series of successful copyright works of fiction, 
 printed in clear readable type on good paper, and 
 tastefully bound in art cl«th, in foolscap 8vo, with 
 designed title page and frontispiece on art paper and 
 wrapper in colours 
 
 NEW VOLl'MKS for 1916. 
 
 6i 
 
 113 
 
 114 
 
 "5 
 116 
 117 
 u8 
 119 
 120 
 122 
 123 
 124 
 
 125 
 126 
 127 
 128 
 130 
 
 131 
 132 
 
 133 
 134 
 135 
 
 THE SHIP OF CORAL - 
 
 CANDYTUFT— I MEAN VERONICA- 
 
 A WELSH SINGER - 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF SARA - 
 
 HEART FOR HEART - 
 
 THE NECROMANCERS - 
 
 PETTICOAT LOOSE - - - - 
 
 TORN SAILS 
 
 LOVE DECIDES .... 
 
 HALF A TRUTH . - - - 
 
 MADEMOISELLE CELESTE - 
 
 AT LOVE'S COST - - - - 
 
 THE HOUSE CALLED HURRISH - 
 
 NONE OTHER GODS 
 
 THE HOUSE OF SILENCE - 
 
 PAID FOR 
 
 THAT STRANGE GIRL - 
 THE VACILLATIONS OF HAZEL - 
 LOVE AT ARMS . . - - 
 CONCERT PITCH .... 
 ADRIAN SAVAGE . - - - 
 NELLIE 
 
 H, de Vere Stacpoole 
 
 Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
 
 Allen Raine 
 
 E. Everett-Green 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 "Rita" 
 
 Allen Raine 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 " Rita" 
 
 Adele Furguson Knight 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 "Rita " 
 
 Robert Hugh Benson 
 
 E. Everett-Green 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 Mabel Barnes-Grundy 
 
 Rafael Sabatini 
 
 Frank Danby 
 
 Lucas Malet 
 
 Charles Garvice 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED. 
 
 MADAME ALBANESl 
 
 49 Poppies in the Com 
 
 MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY 
 
 Co ThcTliivd MissWtnckrl>y 
 62 I'alricia l'la>s a Part 
 32 Hilary on Her (^wii 
 
 ROBERT HUGH BENSON 
 
 28 The Conventionalists 
 47 Tlie Dawn of All 
 66 A Winnowinp; 
 
 M. E. BRADDOrj 
 
 loi Our Ad\eisary 
 
 14
 
 HUTCHINSON'S T<1. NOVELS 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY lSSVED-coniin»ed. 
 
 M. E. BRADDON- ff'"'""" •'• 
 
 107 Miranda 
 15 Beyond lliese N'uiccs 
 
 41 A Losl Kdcn 
 
 G. B. BURGIN 
 
 65 The Kill;; oi lour Ct>riiei- 
 
 ROSA N. CAREY 
 
 18 Mullie's Prince 
 2 My Lady Frivol 
 76 Lite's Trivial Koiiiul 
 
 MARY CHOLMONDELEY 
 
 3 Prisoners 
 
 DOROTHEA CONYERS 
 
 102 Tlie Arrival of Antony 
 
 68 Aimt J'inc and I'ncle 
 
 James 
 
 69 For Henry and Navarre 
 
 B. M. CROKER 
 
 63 Tlie Serpenl's Toolh 
 91 In Old Madras 
 
 FRANK DANBY 
 
 73 Let the Roof Fall In 
 
 ALPHONSE DAUDET 
 
 <>.\ ]• roniotU Junior and 
 
 Kisler Senior 
 
 SIR A. CONAN DOYLE 
 
 79 Sir Xigcl 
 
 EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN 
 
 HG Miss Malhjry of Mote 
 
 JUSTUS MILES FORMAN 
 
 23 The Stumblini; fUocK 
 
 ELLEN THORNEYCROFT 
 
 FOWLER 
 
 iJS Place and l\>\\cv 
 
 MRS. HUGH ERASER 
 
 42 A Little (ire) Slieei.) 
 
 TOM GALLON 
 
 39 Mci; tie Lady 
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 
 
 90 (iold in llie Gutter 
 
 94 Linked iiy Fate 
 
 io<) Where Love Leads 
 
 98 Love the Tyrant 
 
 104 A CJirl of Spirit 
 
 105 Xell of Sliurne Mill-, 
 
 SARAH GRAND 
 
 96 Habs the Impossible 
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 40 lair Margaret 
 
 A. G. HALES 
 
 99 Litile Piue I'igeon 
 
 COSMO HAMILTON 
 
 71 The Princess uf Xi.-w Wnk 
 103 A Sense of Humour 
 
 HENRY HARLAND 
 
 i; 
 
 The Royal End 
 
 ANTHONY HOPE 
 
 45 The Indiscretion of 
 
 tlie Duel CSS 
 
 BARONESS VON HUTTEN 
 
 ^j KingMiieail 
 
 "IOTA" 
 
 .14 .\ \cllo\v Asler 
 
 VIOLET JACOB 
 
 46 The Sleep Stealers 
 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 05 South Sea Tales 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 8 lonniiy iv Co. 
 75 They and I 
 
 "5
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 7d. NOVELS 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED - ff/i't'i""/. 
 
 GASTON LLROUX 
 
 9J The Mystery ..i the 
 
 WILLIAM LE QULUX 
 
 4 The Under Secretary 
 50 C'onfcssiiins of a I.adic.^' 
 
 .Man 
 1 1 Tlie Gamblers 
 
 A. W. MARCHMONT 
 
 78 A I '^t-ii lor a Thrunc 
 
 VV. B. MAXWELL 
 
 29 Scyinmir (-.'l:iuU>,'n 
 
 F. F. MONTRESOR 
 
 IJ Irilu llie IliL^hway,'- aii-l 
 
 I ledj^es 
 14 At ihc Cross Roads 
 
 F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 74 I foil lid the Banns 
 
 DAVID CHRISTIF. MURRAY 
 
 7 A Rising Sl;ir 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 21 The Thief of ^"irtllc 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 27 Jezehel 
 
 ALLEN RAINE 
 
 77 By Bcrwcn Banks 
 
 MRS. BAILLIE REYNOLDS 
 
 I Thalas.->a 
 10 The Man \\ ho Won 
 
 H. GRAHAME RICHARDS 
 
 S5 Lucrezia Borgia's One 
 
 Love 
 
 "RITA- 
 
 106 Calvar)- 
 
 RAFAEL SABATINl 
 
 no Th(j Siiamo of Mutk-y 
 58 The Trampling of Ihc 
 
 Lilies 
 
 MRS. BAILLIE SAUNDERS 
 
 20 Tfic >huore.?,-.'s Wooi'ij^ 
 4,5 The Bride's Mirror 
 70 Lady O 
 
 MAY SINCLAIR 
 
 .V) Th.c Ilelpniale 
 
 ,U The Divim- Lire 
 
 ^o The C'lmhincd Afaze 
 
 n. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 1 1 2 The Order of Release 
 
 J. A. STEUART 
 
 59 Tiie Eternal Quest 
 
 MRS. K. C. THURSTON 
 
 26 The Gambler 
 Sj Max 
 
 MRS. WILFRID WARD 
 
 100 Horace Blake 
 
 PERCY WHITE 
 
 25 I'ark Lane 
 
 5^1 Love and the Puui Suitor 
 
 M. P. WILLCOCKS 
 
 30 Wings of Desire 
 
 AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON 
 
 'Author of "St. Elmo") 
 
 17 The Speckled Biid 
 
 DOLF WYLLARDE 
 
 22 A Lonely Little Lady 
 EMILE ZOLA 
 
 105 The Monomaniac 
 Si The Ladies' Paradise 
 72 The Mysteries of 
 
 Marseilles 
 Sj A Love Episode 
 
 16
 
 HUTCHINSON'S 6(1. NOVELS 
 
 A Series of COPYRIGHT NOVELS by the 
 leading Authors, clearly and well printed 
 
 OVER TEN MILLION SOLD 
 
 WITH ATTRACTIVE PICTORIAL COVERS IN COLOURS 
 
 NEW VOLUMES FOR 1916 
 
 420 A NAMELESS SIN Charlotte M. Bramc 
 
 421 THE LORDSHIP OF LOVE Baroness von Hutten 
 
 422 LITANY LANE Mrs. Bailiie Saunders 
 
 423 THE DUKE'S SECRET Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 424 LADY BRIDGET IN THE NEVER-NEVER 
 
 LAND Mrs. Campbell Praed 
 
 414 DRAGOONING A DRAGOON 
 
 E. Livingston Prescott 
 
 425 MIRANDA M. E. Braddon 
 
 426 THROWN ON THE WORLD Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 427 SOME HAPPENINGS OF GLENDALYNE 
 
 Dorothea Conyers 
 
 428 HER MEASURE Curtis Yorke 
 
 429 A DARK MARRIAGE MORN Charlotte M. Bramc 
 
 430 THE GREEN PATCH Baroness von Hutten 
 416 THE GARDEN OF DREAMS 
 
 H, Grahamc Richards 
 
 431 CAPTAIN CORBEAU'S ADVENTURE 
 
 Mrs. Hugh Frascr 
 
 432 THE HEIRESS OF HATTON Charlotte M. Brame 
 
 433 LET THE ROOF FALL IN Frank Danby 
 
 A List of HUTCHINSON'S FAMOUS SIXPENNY NOVELS, 
 nearly 300 Titles, will be sent on application 
 
 17
 
 3rd Large Edition at once called for. 
 
 What Germany Thinks 
 
 By THOMAS F. A. SMITH, Ph. D. 
 
 Laic English Lecturer in the University of l'"rlangen. 
 
 Author ol' "The Suul ni Geniian). " 
 
 /n buikram i^ilt, 6s. net. 
 
 This important book, on the current opinions held by 
 the German people of the war, constitutes one of the most 
 original and interesting contributions to the literature con- 
 nected with this subject. Dr. Smith unmasks the gigantic 
 system of fraud and humbug which has been used, and is 
 still being used, by the German Government to excuse itself 
 for the responsibility of the war, and to deceive the German 
 public. 
 
 " A book of no little interest, by a writer who has an 
 intimate knowledge of Germany." — l he Times. 
 
 " This exposition of Teutonic policy is the work of a 
 man with a thorough knowledge of Germany and its people, 
 and it should supply an additional incentive to us and to 
 our Allies in our determination not to sheathe the sword 
 until the attainment of complete victory." — 1 lie Scotsman. 
 
 B\ THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 7th Large Edition. 
 
 The Soul of Germany 
 
 /« hnckrain gill, 6/- ncl. 
 
 "It is to be doubted whether any more searching and 
 scathing indictment of the German people has ever been 
 written. 
 
 " The picture he draws might pass for caricature if 
 recent events had not attested its fidelity to fact. This 
 illuminating book, derived from tlic pain-begotten wealth 
 of twelve years' experience, should be on the shelves of 
 eveiyone who desires to identify the German of Louvain 
 and Dinant with the German of Germany." — Morning Post. 
 
 " Dr. T. F. A. Smith's work is a scathing indictment 
 against the whole German nation." — Spectator.
 
 The Causes and the 
 Consequences of the War 
 
 By YVES GUYOT 
 
 Laic Fiencli Minislci ol I'ublic Worlds, ^;c. 
 /// tttiny Svo cloth ::ilt, 7,6 net 
 
 Translated by V. APPLEBY HOLT, B.A., LL.B. 
 
 At the present day M. Yves Giiyot holds an uni(iuo position. 
 He is not only the doyoi of poHtical economists but he is one of the 
 best known, the most independent and clear headed publicists in 
 Europe. M. Guyot's career of pubHc service goes back to a period 
 before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. He \vas Minister of PubHc 
 Works from 1889 to 1892 and he was one of the earhest advocates 
 for the revision of the Dreyfus case. M. Guyot has long been a 
 staunch friend to lingland and lie was one of the very few French- 
 men who pubhciy supported us during the critical period of the 
 Boer War. 
 
 In his latest, and in some respects, his most important book he 
 has employed his extensive knowledge of l/luropeau history, diplo- 
 macy and political geograpliy to account for the causes of the 
 present war. Without exonerating the ruling classes in Germany 
 from their guilt in devising the war, he shows how historical events 
 have made it possible if not inevitable. Errors of diplomacy, he 
 says, are more dangerous than military errors. For instance the 
 fault committed by Talleyrand and Lord Castlereagh in 18 15 of 
 conceding the Rhine Provinces and Westphalia to Prussia, when by 
 agreement with Russia (hey asked forSaxony, was the fundameutal 
 cause of the wars of 1866 and of 1870. By the same method of 
 reasoning he is able to trace the origin of the Balkan Wars and of 
 the present contlict. 
 
 The book has made a great impression in France and is recog- 
 nised as one of the most valuable and reliable contributions that has 
 appeared in c(;nnection with the subject. It is a hook that no 
 public man, nor indeed anyone interested in current events, can 
 afford to neglect. 
 
 '9
 
 Roumania 
 
 By OSCAR BRILLIANT, M.A., B.Sc, 
 
 of the University of Bucharest. Contribiuor to llic 
 
 Encyclopxdia Brilaiinica — lo llie Oxford Survey of 
 
 llic Brili.sh Linpirc — Assislani l£diU)r of Nelson's 
 
 KncycloiKvdia. 
 
 Ill one handsome volume, 16s. net. 
 
 With numerous illustrations. 
 
 At the present time tlierc is no P2uropean country capable 
 of exciting greater public interest than Kouniania. This book, 
 therefore, by one of the best known authorities on his native land, 
 is most opportune. The few existing books on Roumania at 
 the present time are in every respect inadequate, and ;iie, more- 
 over, mostly out of date. Although one of the Balkan .States, it 
 will be remembered that Roumania did not intervene in tlie 
 first Balkan war (1912), although slie joined in the second Balkan 
 war (1913), and also played a notable part in the Russo-Turkish 
 war of 1877-8, when the map of Europe underwent such vast 
 changes . 
 
 With a ruler who is allied by blood to the Hohenzollerns, the 
 people by race are neither Slavs nor Teutons, but claim to belong 
 lo a Latin stock, and their characteristics and language 
 support this claim. 
 
 In his book Mr. Brilliant nut only treats of the history of 
 Roumania, but he supplies a description of its geographical 
 features, of its reserves, and tells us about the people, their 
 political problems, and their national ideals and aspirations. 
 Sketches will also be found of the leading men of the past and of 
 the present, while the language of the country, the national art 
 and literature, are fully treated of in this, the only comprehensive 
 English book on the subject. 
 
 20
 
 Celebrities and My 
 Table-cloths 
 
 By MRS. ALEC-TWEEDIE 
 
 Author of "America as I Saw It," "Women tlie World Over." etc. 
 
 /;/ dciviv Bvo, clotJi gilt, Ids. lu-l. 
 
 With a coloured plate and iuimeroii5 other 
 
 illiistratioiis irom original dra>\ing;s a::d 
 
 photographs. 
 
 This book owes its origin to a curious chain of circum- 
 stances. Some years ago, shortly after Mrs. Tweedie's 
 marriage, she began her well-known habit of gathering rounil 
 her hospitable table the most celebrated men and women of 
 the day. Practically all the most interesting people who have, 
 atone time or another, visited London, or who are resident 
 there, people who ha\ e done anything in the world that counts, 
 have dined at Mrs. Tweedie's liouse. One of her guests having 
 written his name with a pencil on her table-cloth, it occurred to 
 her to preserve the signature by stitching it over in red cotton. 
 She then made it a practice of requesting her guests to leave 
 some pencilled record of their visit on her table slips, eitlicr 
 a signature or a sketch, and each of these records has been 
 carefully stitched with ?*Irs. Tweedie's own hands and thus 
 preserved. Her four table slips now are literally covered 
 with names and drawings, and form a \ery remarkable 
 record. 
 
 Mrs. Tweedie's book is the roll of friendship of a clever 
 and genial hostess. In some of her chapters she describes at 
 length her l<mg friendshi])s with men such as Sir William 
 Gilbert, G. F. Watts, T.ord Barnes, Walter Crane, George 
 Grossmith, or slcetches of Mr. Marconi, Mr. Lloyd George, 
 Sir Hiram Maxim, I\lr. Harry Furniss, Sir Edward Carson, 
 Lord Buckmastcr, Sir William Crookes, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 The book is fully illustrated from photographs of the 
 famous table-cloths, with portraits of the author's friends and 
 with many original and impublished drawings by Sir William 
 Gilbert. Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. W. K. Hazelden. Mr. G. P. 
 Jacomb-Hood, Mr. Hassnll, etc. 
 
 21
 
 Indo-China and its 
 Primitive People 
 
 By CAPTAIN HENRY BAUDESSON 
 
 With 60 Illustrations from photographs bj' 
 the author 
 
 In demy S7>iy, cloth gilt, 16s. net. 
 
 In the course of his travels Captain Baudesson carefully 
 observed the curious customs of the Moi and Chams, the 
 uncultured people of Indo-China, among whom he dwelt 
 for many years. The author not only describes their rites 
 and habits, but he endeavours to show the origin of their 
 ceremonies with those of civilization. The story of these 
 travels is p>resented in vivid language and is full of local and 
 picturesque colour. The reader is initiated into the life of 
 the jungle, in which, day by day, the hardy pioneers lived. 
 Tigers and elephants were frequently encountered during the 
 journey of the mission, and many members of the expedition 
 were wounded by the poisoned arrows of the natives, while 
 jungle fever and malaria made havoc among them. 
 
 POPULAR POCKET NATURE BOOKS 
 
 In small volumes (11 in. by 5 in.), liclily 
 roundeJ corncr^^/Ss. net. 
 
 Kill, 
 
 Toadstools and Mushrooms 
 of the Countryside 
 
 By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. With 
 plates and 12S other 
 
 8 coloured 
 illustrations. 
 
 Astronomy 
 
 By G. F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S. 
 With 8 coloured plates and 358 
 illustrations. 
 
 Birds of the Countryside 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 12 
 coloured plates,! 18 Illustrations from 
 photographs, and numerous outline 
 drawings. 
 
 Eggs and Nests of British Birds 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 20 
 coloured plates, and many oilier illus- 
 trations, bo'h coloured & uncolourcd, 
 of allithe British Birds' Eggs, repro- 
 duced from actual specimens. 
 
 Pets and How to Keep Them 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.S. With 107 
 illustrations, mostly from photo- 
 graphs, including 12 coloured plates. 
 
 British Fresh-Water Fishes 
 
 By SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, 
 Bart. With 24 beautiful coloured 
 plates. 
 
 Wild Fruits of the Countryside 
 
 By F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S. , 
 F.S A., etc. With 36 coloured plates 
 by the Author, and 25 illustrations 
 from photographs on art paper. 
 
 Our British Trees and 
 
 How to Know Them 
 
 By FRANCIS GEORGi; HEATH 
 With 250 illustrations. 
 
 22
 
 7th LARGE EDITION. 
 
 Memories 
 
 By the Right Hon. LORD REDESDALf^, 
 G.C.V.O., K.C.B. 
 
 In two handsome volumes, 32s. net. 
 With numerous illustrations. 
 
 " A very charming book, written by a man who was 
 born some months before Queen Victoria came to the throne, 
 yet it contains not a word of ' twaddle ' ; its genuine modesty 
 leaves no room for mock modesty, and it is never for a moment 
 dull. He has been everywhere and seen everything. He 
 has travelled far and wide, East and West ; he has known 
 many Courts and Princes. It is useless to attempt analogies 
 of this vast and varied treasury, social, historical, political, 
 personal . ' ' — Times. 
 
 " At length this much-talked-of book is in our possession 
 and it will cause no disappointment. It is a work of genuine 
 and serious interest, curiously varied in its point of view, and 
 supremely graceful in tone and form. It will be permanently 
 studied as a contribution to literature and history." — 
 Mr. Edmund Gosse in the Fortnightly Revienj. 
 
 " Lord Redesdale's ' Memories ' are in every way one of 
 the most notable books of the winter. It is not often that 
 a man with so many things to tell about the great world of 
 government, diplomacy and the Court is so accomplished a 
 man of letters as Lord Redesdale. . . . Altogether a wonder- 
 fully full life, told as lives so rarely are in a way that it 
 deserves." — Queen. 
 
 " Volumes of infinite charm, full of intimate gossip, the 
 author a born raconteur. There is in these two volumes 
 nothing petty or mean, nothing which is rechauffe — almost 
 every story is new, and the jDolitical glimpses very fresh." — ■ 
 World . 
 
 " One of the best books of the last five years. Lord 
 Redesdale's ' Memories ' are not merely interesting, they are 
 indispensable."- — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 -i. " It is impossible to do more than indicate the wealth 
 of anecdote and personal impressions in a work that will 
 take its place among the classic memories of the age." — 
 Standard. 
 
 " A work which everj-onc is reading, and which, there- 
 fore, comes up of an evening at most dinner-tables in tho 
 West End." — Observer.
 
 JUST READY 
 
 Belgium the Glorious 
 
 HER COUNTRY and HER PEOPLE 
 
 The Story of a Brave Nation 
 
 and a Pictorial and Authoritative Record of a 
 Fair Country ruthlessly plundered and destroyed. 
 
 Written by Eminent Authorities. 
 Edited by Walter Hutchinson, M.A., F.R.G.S.. F. R.A.I. 
 
 With about 1,200 BEAlTiri'L PICTL'RP.S, many FINE COLOURED PLATES and MAI'S. 
 
 In 2 handsome volumes, Demy 4-to, cloth richly ailt and allt 
 edges, 10s. each net and in vafious leather bindings. 
 
 The Belgium of yesterday can never be the same again now 
 that the invader has swept over it — buraing here, destroying there, 
 and pillaging everywhere throughout the length and breadth of this 
 fair land. 
 
 The Cathedrals, Town Halls, Churches and examples of Flemish 
 paintings are among the wonders that were lately to be seen in 
 Belgium. Unhappily, many of these are gone for ever, but pictures 
 of them will be found in the work, which is illustrated by a large 
 number of beautiful photographs and other illustrations (selected 
 from many thousand-), besides Maps. In short, this work will 
 give you the last glimp-^e before the war of this glorious country — 
 a treasure-house of art and beauty — which is now a heap of ruins ; 
 and as a record of what has passed it must be of lasting value. 
 
 With the expenditure of many thousands of pounds, and with 
 the assistance of some of the greatest living authorities, a sumptuous 
 work has been prepared that will remain a lastisg and treasured 
 volume in thousands of British homes. 
 
 Hitherto there has been no beautiful and important work 
 in the English languag(> on Belgium and her people, and this 
 publication forms a living monument to the country of the 
 bravest nation ever allied in arms to Great Britain* 
 
 34
 
 "The Brood of 
 False Lorraine*' 
 
 The History of the House of Guise 
 
 (1496-1675) 
 
 "There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land." 
 
 -NrAiALi.\r. -'Ji-ri/." 
 
 With 1 6 illustrations 
 
 By H. NOEL WILLIAMS 
 
 Author of 
 " I'ive Fair Sisters," " Unruly Daughters," "Rival Sultanas,"' etc., etc. 
 
 /n one vol. demy 8vo cloth gilt, 1 6s. net. 
 
 In this volume Mr. Noel Williams relates the historv of the 
 famous House of Ciuise, the most interesting and eventful of any 
 family not actually a royal one in Europe. Founded in 15 13, by 
 the marriage of Claude de Lorraine, Comie de Guise, one of the 
 younger sons of Kene 1 1, Duke of Lorraine, to Antoinette de IJour- 
 bon, it gradually acquired such enormous wealth and power that 
 at length it flominated the throne of France itself and aimed at 
 its usurpation : indeed, hatl it not been for the assassination of 
 the third Due de Guise at the Ch.-iteau of IJlois in 1588, it would 
 probably have realised its ambition, and Henri dc Lorraine, not 
 Henri of Navarre, would have become King of France. The story 
 of the Guises, brave, talented, open-hearted and magnificent, liul 
 insatiably ambitious, unscrupulous, cruel, vindictive, and licen- 
 tious, is one long tissue of conspiracies, assassinations, duels, 
 lo\e intrigues, escapes from prison, and romantic adventiues of 
 all kinds, and written as it is with that lightness of touch and 
 accuracy of detail which ha\'e secured the author so mam- 
 readers, cannot fail to make a wide appeal. 
 
 The North Sea and other Poems 
 
 By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 /// /'(«/ %vo, half-ilvth gi/t. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 In this small collection of poems Mr. Stacpoole strikes a note 
 that should result in a sympathetic response from all those who 
 even faintly realise what the North Sea is to us at tlie present 
 time. It is our chief frontier line, uliere the guardians of our 
 homes keep watch in storm and fog, wind and sun, day and 
 niglit. Among the other pieces in this volume is "The Bells 
 of Rheims," a haunting melody already known to the publii . 
 The book concludes with a few translations from Villon. 
 
 25
 
 37th Year of Issue. 
 
 The Year's Art, 1916 
 
 Compiled by A. C. R. CARTER 
 
 A concise epitome of all matters relating to the Arts of 
 Painting, Sculpture, Engraving, and Architecture, and to 
 Schools of Design which have occurred during the year 1915, 
 together with information respecting the events of 1916. 
 
 Cro7o>i 8vo, (loth, 5s. net. 
 
 Over 600 pages, with illustration.-;. 
 
 In the Morning 
 of Time 
 
 By CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS 
 
 Author of " Red Fox," etc. 
 With eight fine illustrations 
 
 In oo'vn 8vo cloth gilt, 61 - net. 
 
 The stories of this author, dealing with the adventures of 
 animals, of which "The Red Fox" is, perhaps, the best known, 
 have for a long time enjoyed great popularity. In the present 
 work Mr. Roberts gives us a story of a man in primeval times, 
 and he introduces descriptions of the strange scenery and monstrous 
 auna of the time. This story bids fair to be one of the most 
 successful of Mr. Roberts' works of fiction. The interest of the 
 volume is enhanced by the addition of the striking illustrations, 
 which excite the imagination. 
 
 26
 
 Hutchinson's New Part Work 
 
 Deeds that Thrill 
 
 The Empire 
 
 TRUE STORIES OF THE MOST GLORIOUS ACTS OF 
 HEROISM OF THE EMPIRE'S SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 
 DURING THE GREAT WAR 
 WITH A FOREWORD BY THE EARL OF DERBY, K.G. 
 
 With about 700 Original Drawings by Leading 
 Artists ; and many Fine Coloured Plates. 
 
 WRITTEN BY WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS 
 In Fortnightly Parts, Price 7hl. net. 
 
 In this work will be gi\en full authentic accounts in \ivid and popular 
 language of gloriouj acts of indixidual heroism which ha\ e been recognised and 
 gained decorations, but which need to be fully recorded to bring them home to 
 the heart. These undying stories of \alour among officers and men from e\ery 
 part of the world and in all blanches of the British service ha\e been written 
 in almost e\ ery case exclusi\ ely for this publication, from information sup- 
 plied by the heroes thenisehcs or by eye-witnesses, and ha\e been obtained 
 with infinite difficulty inxohing great labour o\er a long period of time. 
 Tliis Gnely illustrated record of the magnificent gallantry of the Sons of the 
 Empire on the Field, on the Sea and in the Air. will constitute "a monument 
 to keep ali\e the memory of high deeds." 
 
 The work will be superbly illustrated throughout, and printed on the best 
 lUitish Art Paper specially manufactured for the publishers by a well-known 
 uiill. Many fine Colom-ed Plates will be included. The illustrations will be a 
 great feature, there will be about ."JO in each Fortniglitly Part and e\ ery care is 
 being taken that they shall be accurate. The artists are leading men in their 
 particular branch and working from authentic descn-iptions they ha\e by re- 
 construction enabled us to visualize the scenes of these heroic deeds and give 
 ihem reality. Amongst the artists are such fa\ourite3 as W. S. Bagdatopulos. 
 .1. Bryan. Allan Stewart. Charles Dixon. R.I.. G. Soper, D. McPherson. C. J. de 
 Lacey. Maurice Randall. .1. H. Valda. Ambrose Dudley and Montague Dawson. 
 
 PART I. contains 58 Beautiful Illustrations and includes thrilling 
 accounts of how S V.C.'s, 4 D.S.O.'s and 15 D.C.M.'s were won ; also 
 photograph reproductions of the various British, French and Russian 
 Medals and a Large Picture of H.M.T. " RIVER CLYDE," measuring 
 22', inches by 30', inches reproduced in colours from a painting 
 made expressly for the Work by Charles Dixon, R.I. This plate can only 
 be sectired by the First 100,000 Purchasers of Part I. of the Work 
 
 ORDER PART I. AT ONCE AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. 
 
 27
 
 TWO IMPORTANT NEW ART BOOKS 
 
 An Artist in the Riviera 
 
 By WALTER TYNDALE 
 With 30 plates in colour by the author. 
 
 In one large haudscme voJuvie, cloth s^ill ami t^ilt top, boxed. 1 5s. vet 
 
 7i<ith Colowed Platen »i0Hnted in gold and 7i<ith Decorated End Papers. 
 
 Edition de Luxe, limited to 100 copies, 42s. net, in box. 
 Bound in parchtnetit, lichjy f^ilt. Each copy nvmhered and signed. 
 
 " A miiiibtr of fxlremcly interesting and picUiro.sque places of 
 which, we imagine, the average visitor to the Riviera knows little or 
 nothing. Tlie book shows a pleasant and facile turn for description. 
 The author shows good judgment in the selection of scenes for 
 illustration, and taste in his composition. The line anci colouring 
 are clear and effective."— .'I //;e»^;/w. 
 
 Vigee Lebrun 
 
 Her Life, Works and Friendships 
 
 By W. H. HELM 
 
 /// one handsome vol time, 7vith a Frontispiece, in Colour. 
 40 full = pajie plates in photogravure and other illustrations 
 
 Ciotk oilt and gilt top, 211- net. 
 
 Edition de Luxe, limited to 50 cop'es, each niDnherea and si;^>^ed, 
 
 4 2S. net in bo v. 
 
 Sir Frederick Wedmore says i>i " The Guardian " : 
 
 " Mr. Helm is exactly the writer who was required, who was 
 wanted, and who has happily presented himself, to take a sensible 
 survey of Vig^e-Lebrun, lier work, and her character. We are 
 indebted to Mr. Helm, as to Messrs. Hutchinson, for what I suppose 
 must prove the worthiest of those gift-books of the season willi 
 which .Vrt is in any way concerned." 
 
 " Madame Vigee-Lebrun was the most famous portrait painter 
 of her day. Mi'. Helm's book is full of stories; it forms a detailed 
 and most human picture of ' high life ' at the end of the French 
 Monarch}'. He makes his story as interesting as any novel ever 
 written. The illustrations are worthy of the artist." — 
 
 Daily Telegraph. 
 2$
 
 The Life of 
 Francois Villon 
 
 The Robber Poet 
 
 By H. de VERE STACPOOLE 
 
 /// ( loih ^Ht, 6s. net. 
 
 Mr. Stacpoole's life of Francois Villon is the first attempt 
 at a biography of the great French poet of the middle ages. 
 Here we have for the first time set forth in English the 
 affair of the Pet nu Diabh, the University hfe of the old 
 University of Paris, the character of Thibault D'Aussigiiy, 
 the Ogre of Menning, and much more that will come as a 
 surprise to those who fancy that they know all about Villon. 
 Mr. Stacpoole demonstrates a fact that every other writer 
 on the subject has ignored, the fact that between the two 
 Testaments there is a difference as vast as the difference 
 between body and soul. The difference between a 
 mind heedless and ribald and the same mind de\cl- 
 c'ped through experience and adversity. 
 
 The story of the life of Villon holds the mind like a 
 novel, from the fust pages, when we lind ourselves in 
 the strange old University of Paris, to the last where 
 Villon disappears into the unkncnvn. 
 
 29
 
 Two New Volumes of 
 
 HUTCHINSON^S NATURE LIBRARY. 
 
 A new series of bouks on Natural History and other 
 
 kindred subjects, written by experts in popular language, 
 
 but with strict accuracy in every detail. 
 
 Each volume in large cretvn 8vo, cloth f;ilt, 6s. net, fully illialraled. 
 
 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 
 
 By FRANK FINN, F.Z.5. 
 
 Author of "Birds of the Countryside," etc. 
 
 Mr. Frank Fiim is well known as cue of our chief authoritios on all that coucfrus 
 bird-life. Those who lu-e familiar with hia books arc aware that he has made it a prac- 
 tice only to write from personal observation. His studies extend over in-iny 
 years, in the course of which he has noted a vast number of facts relating to theh^ibit.- 
 of birds. " Bird Behaviour," the subject of liis new book, has never before rtctivoil 
 serious attention, init it is one in which Mr. Finn is thoroughly at home. Some of the 
 points treated in the volume relate to the locomotion of birds, their nutrition and the 
 reasons for their choice of particular foods— the care of the young, nests, migration 
 senses of smell and sight. Their temper and intelligence, their songs and criis. and tlw 
 . possibility of understanding their language— Their weapons and mode of fighting— The 
 storage of food, their pastimes, plumage and indeed practically every subject that can 
 come within the scoi)e of the title of this most interesting and valuable book is treated 
 by the nuHicr. 
 
 INSECT ARTISANS AND THEIR WORK 
 
 By KDWARO STLI'. F.L.S. 
 
 Author of " .Missmates," "Toadstools and .Mushrooms of the Countryside," etc. 
 
 From quite early days in the study of Entomology it has been generally known that 
 certain Inscuts in the perfection of their industry might almost l)c accepted as the proto- 
 types of the human ••artificer. Thus, the wasp was taken as the first paper-maker, a 
 certain wild bee as a mason, and another bee as a carpenter. Most of the examples dc- 
 gcribed will be quite new to the general reader for whom the work is intended; and the 
 precision and ingenuity displayed is in many cases absolutely startling. 
 
 VOLUMES ALREADY PUBLISHED 
 
 The Courtship of Animals zod Edition 
 
 By W. P. PYCKAFT, A.L.S., P.Z.S.. Zoological Dcpartnic.U. British Museum. 
 
 Author of " A History of Birds," " Slor y of Reptile Lil'c," etc. 
 
 With 40 plates on art paper 
 
 |Ll^a«n\g> f />« • A Book uf Strange Companionships 
 
 m63sinaie:» . ^,^ edwaru step, p.l.s. 
 
 Witti G4 llluslr.ilioiis from photot^raplis on art paper 
 
 The Infancy of Animals ""' ''■ ''• ''"""i^.t'^^.; ,..c.s. 
 
 with numerous lllustriitions on an paper 
 
 J' 
 
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