ZMary SWirrihes
 
 tMirrilies :: 
 
 "Iota" (Mrs. Mannington Caffyn) 
 
 Jlnthor of " Jf Yellow Aster" "Poor Max',' "DorinJa 
 and her 'Daughter," etc, 
 
 LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LTD. 
 PATERNOSTER HOUSE. E.C. z :: 1916
 
 Stack 
 ftnne* 
 
 MiU 
 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE fragile, meek-eyed, tired woman at the head 
 of the table went on patiently carving the leg 
 of mutton. 
 
 The German Governess with the large unstable breast, the 
 high aggressive brow, and the tenacity of purpose peculiar 
 to her nation, who had been working steadily through 
 soup and meat to an accompaniment of guttural though 
 suppressed protest, now advanced squarely to the charge. 
 
 " Asparagus," she said, " is to-day sixpence the bundle. 
 In Germany during all the months of the spring it is the 
 everyday dish of the most humble. For complexion 
 and stomach alike is this delicate vegetable indispensable." 
 
 Even in the days of her prosperity the lady who helped 
 the vegetables had a sound soldier-heart, and since Ella, 
 her old pupil, had undertaken foreign governesses 
 rapacious creatures without bowelsshe had made it a 
 rule to look even more warlike than she felt during working 
 hours. Seeing now the pale flush that mounted to the 
 very roots of Ella's white hair she became reckless. 
 
 " May I help you to greens, Miss Engelhardt ? " she 
 rapped out. " Their effect both upon stomach and 
 complexion cannot be beaten." 
 
 " Their effect upon my stomach only too well do I 
 know. May I be permitted a little bread ? " 
 
 She devoured a substantial portion with sublime 
 insolence and some real self-sacrifice, since she was pining
 
 2 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 for meat which in England is succulent. This bucolic 
 nation, although guiltless of culture, at least understands 
 meat, and having a large mind Miss Engelhardt was 
 always careful to do justice to the points of her inferiors. 
 She was universal or nothing. 
 
 " I can quite understand," she said, her attentive, 
 prominent eyes fixed upon the vanishing greens, " that 
 this primitive vegetable should be your national dish. 
 Asparagus is the food of the spiritually rich ; one could 
 hardly expect it here in any abundance." 
 
 " Well, no," said Miss Gaunt grimly. " Not at a guinea 
 a week for bed, breakfast and a three-course dinner." 
 
 Miss Gaunt was by nature and training a Christian 
 woman, but she suffered from the strength of mind 
 engendered by too long a contact with the undesirables 
 of all nations, and by this time all that could be seen of 
 Ella was pale liver colour. 
 
 " Julia," quavered the little frail gentlewoman. She 
 was now carving very delicately, lest the bone should 
 expose itself naked and unashamed to the public eye, 
 and to allow any visitor even to suspect that the joint 
 was nearing its end would indeed have been a degradation. 
 " Oh, Julia, remember we we don't say these things." 
 
 " I shouldn't have said them," said Miss Gaunt, " if 
 the fortunes of war hadn't forced us into such strange 
 company. An alien microbe once admitted into any en- 
 vironment " she paused to sniff " it's difficult to escape 
 infection." 
 
 There was something of the diplomat wrapped up 
 within the warrior in Miss Gaunt and many stricken 
 years of the foreign governess had taught her to veil 
 her irony ; quite delicately enough for the strange tribe 
 which now infested the premises of Ella. 
 
 Miss Engelhardt, although only imperfectly under- 
 standing, glared. Superior education, however, having 
 given her perfect control over her whole being, she switched 
 off her mind and her emotions from asparagus and the 
 preponderance of the German nation, to a careful choice 
 between the two excellent puddings now emitting their
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 3 
 
 fragrance under her fine aquiline nose, finally deciding in 
 favour of canary pudding. 
 
 Miss Vynne helped her with pathetic alacrity. She 
 was fairly thrilling with joy that only this very week 
 she had substituted the recipe of her great-aunt for the 
 far more economical one of Miss Gaunt, and had ordered 
 Gorgonzola cheese instead of the usual excellent but 
 unexciting Canadian Cheddar. 
 
 It was the perennial pleasure of Miss Vynne to do 
 the marketing on Fridays when dear Julia was obliged 
 to sit on a Committee for the relief of indigent gentle- 
 women. The expression on Julia's face at the Friday 
 dinners was often indeed a trial, but Miss Vynne had 
 grown quite used to resignation, and she wished now 
 that she had ventured a little farther and in addition to 
 the Gorgonzola had ordered asparagus. It would probably 
 be at a prohibitive price next Friday. Such was always 
 the luck of this poor lady. 
 
 The drawing-room to which the ladies mounted to 
 consume their coffee was another painful pleasure to 
 the little lady of the house. It was the pale echo of her 
 former home, producing in painted panels and textures 
 faded by art the polished oak and the lovely hues of time 
 of the old stone Manor house on the breezy heights of the 
 Cotswolds. There for long generations her fathers had 
 reigned and had given with both hands. 
 
 It belonged now to the corn merchant who had once 
 served them. 
 
 Ella was all for relinquishing everything to the creditors 
 with a meek heart and a broken spirit, Miss Gaunt, 
 however, at the very point of the sword, saved her 
 bedroom and her drawing-room for the poor little out- 
 cast and then faithfully followed her fortunes. 
 
 Julia Gaunt was then in the prime of her own years : 
 the pick of scholastic appointments were gaping for her, 
 and there was a wonderful hope ahead of her that was 
 to have materialized that very month. But no one but 
 Miss Gaunt and one other ever knew this. 
 
 And now she and her old pupil entertained Home and 
 
 I*
 
 4 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Foreign Governesses at popular prices. Had she had 
 her own way with them little Miss Vynne would have 
 been friend and benefactor to the whole motley crew, 
 and have languished long before her time in the work- 
 house. Miss Gaunt, however, made the concern pay. 
 She gave good value for the money of her clients and 
 was respected by the tradespeople within a radius of 
 three miles. She, of course, would have preferred guests 
 who could have paid properly, and Ella had a splendid 
 connection all anxious to help, but to entertain as P.G.'s 
 friends of the family would have put an end to Ella. 
 
 So once again did Miss Gaunt sacrifice her prospects 
 and her inclinations. And Ella in some soft silken stuff, 
 with old jewels at throat and wrist, and she as neat 
 as wax in a tailor-made, went once or twice a month 
 to Ella's old Club, and had tea there like the rest. And 
 sometimes old friends recognizing them, came up and 
 told them all about their husbands and children. Ella 
 listened with all her heart and told nothing ; and the 
 memories of the comfortable are short, so hardly one 
 of the old acquaintances, except in the vaguest way, 
 realized that the last of the Vynnes kept governesses ; 
 and this to Ella was a source of the deepest consolation. 
 
 Often at slack times Miss Gaunt wished to goodness 
 they did realize it, for with the amount of children they 
 seemed to have produced and the annoyances apparently 
 inseparable from their education, they must have dealt 
 largely in governesses, many of them obviously undesirable 
 and liable to change. 
 
 However, she would as soon have whipped Ella as 
 have deprived her of her one little delusion, the only one 
 left now, and she had always been content with such 
 little ones ! 
 
 Miss Gaunt had not neglected her duty, she had done 
 her best to alter this, to expand and deepen the imagina- 
 tion of Ella ; but all in vain, so in the end she had accepted 
 her as she was, a weaker vessel, to make the best of and 
 to lavish her all upon.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HAVING drunk their coffee, cups of it, the terms 
 were inclusive and the coffee good, glorified 
 their respective nationalities, damned that of their hosts 
 delicately or indelicately according to race, and practised 
 English to their hearts' content, the guests withdrew to 
 their lairs. Whereupon for a full minute the three left 
 behind looked at each other. 
 
 The third, younger by countless years than the other 
 two, had been watching the proceedings at dinner in 
 silence, with wide eyes that, in an odd way, seemed to 
 be dancing as light as moths over two wells of sorrow. 
 She was deep-bosomed, tall and straight, and must have 
 been very beautiful before her young face had become worn. 
 
 Now as she came and stood before the other two, 
 looking down on them, her eyes stopped dancing for a 
 minute. 
 
 " And so this is your life," she said, " and that's why 
 you didn't want me or anyone else to come and stay with 
 you. You might have had me at least." 
 
 Mary Mirrilies was very tall and fine. She looked 
 like those who had everything, and Miss Vynne had 
 grown so used to the hard judgment of those who had 
 nothing, that she shrank back as though from a little 
 blow. She found herself standing before the bar of an 
 absolutely unaccustomed point of view, and she was an 
 arrant coward before the unexpected in pain. 
 
 " It was all so different," she pleaded, " and you 
 oh ! Mary you see, dear," she said deprecatingly, " you 
 were the very happiest little girl I have ever seen, and
 
 6 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 one hates so to make happiness, er uncomfortable 
 you know." 
 
 " I know," said Mary with an odd laugh, " it is horrid 
 I hate it myself. Still, I'm glad I forced myself upon 
 you." She took hold of the chair the large German had 
 just vacated, and carefully brushed it out with her pocket- 
 handkerchief. " I want to get rid of her evil influence," 
 she said, " but it's sure to be the most comfortable chair 
 in the room." 
 
 She sat down quite at her ease, but as upright as a 
 dart. For a long time now it would have been sheer 
 recklessness on the part of Mary either to lie back or to 
 loll, for now she had to eschew support and to strengthen 
 her backbone. 
 
 " Miss Gaunt, do you get many like Behemoth ? " 
 said she. " The rest are harmless enough." 
 
 " It's a type that recurs, Mary, but she's its uttermost 
 limit, thank God, and she's got a situation. She goes 
 there in a week." 
 
 " But not to stay. You'll have her back before you 
 can say ' knife.' ' 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Gaunt. "She'll return." 
 
 " And I'm perfectly certain that Cousin Ella will give 
 her asparagus as a welcome home. I see it in her eyes. 
 I could always see the nicest things in your eyes, Cousin 
 Ella, and they're as pretty as ever they were. I suppose 
 Behemoth's inevitable but is it all inevitable ? " Mary 
 asked gently. 
 
 Cousin Ella was flushing and there were tears in her 
 eyes. Mary's was the first little compliment she had 
 had for years. Miss Gaunt had no time for compliments, 
 and the foreign governesses no inclination. 
 
 Miss Gaunt put herself in the breach while Ella recovered 
 her composure. 
 
 " The house is comfortable and in a good locality, 
 and it pays fairly well," she said. " Ella would hate a 
 shabby address, and she has many opportunities for 
 kindness and more for forgiveness. The concern has its 
 compensations, hasn't it, Ella ? "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 7 
 
 Ella murmured assent. She felt emotional and un- 
 equal to general conversation. 
 
 " The German plays like an angel," said Miss Gaunt. 
 
 " She'll have her asparagus all right ! " said Mary, as 
 she stood up to stroll round the pretty room. 
 
 " I think I remember everything in it," she said. " I 
 used to love my visits to you, Cousin Ella." 
 
 " And I loved having you, my dear," said Ella, still 
 emotional. 
 
 " I know you did. I gave you as many opportunities 
 for kindness and forgiveness as Fraulein herself." 
 
 " Dear Mary don't." 
 
 " I have always heard of you both as looking so nice 
 and well-dressed," said Mary presently, " and you always 
 wrote from your Club. I didn't realize the aliens, and 
 somehow, I never write letters now." 
 
 She moved on, touching old friendly things, and she 
 thought of the pretty girl in draped garments of neutral 
 tints many years ago in the beautiful old house on the 
 breezy heights, and, suddenly, other nearly-forgotten things 
 came drifting back to her remembrance. 
 
 She saw, moving in and out of the rooms as though 
 very much at home in them, a very splendid person, 
 always ready to play with her, and to encourage her in 
 her devilries. And she remembered the moments in the 
 twilight by flickering fires, when, much as she resented 
 the "necessity, she had to make herself scarce. For then 
 as now, Mary liked being in events, and not standing 
 alone without their gates, waiting, as she was doing now. 
 
 But this was not the time to return to that. She 
 thrust it from her, and went up and down the spacious 
 room, picking up the threads and piecing together the 
 scattered shreds of the old story. 
 
 There was another person who came also to that house 
 on the windy hills. He was less splendid than the other, 
 and not so much at home ; but she loved him also, because 
 he had hobnobbed with cannibals, and hoped to hobnob 
 still more before he died, unless indeed they ate him up 
 on sight, before any interchange of social amenities were
 
 8 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 possible. This remote, though not improbable contin- 
 gency had made him very real and precious to Mary. 
 For the rest, he wore a high waistcoat and round collars : 
 seemed rather afraid of people, and disinclined for play. 
 She used to think that perhaps associating with cannibals 
 had made him a little proud and haughty. 
 
 And now the shreds seemed to be falling into a pattern. 
 Even to touch old things from the old hills where one 
 has been happy all over is illuminating, for everything 
 seems to hold a little lit lamp in its heart. 
 
 Once she had come back on a sudden visit to find Cousin 
 Ella lovely instead of just pretty and the man rather a 
 nuisance. He was never off the premises, and never 
 now cared to play. 
 
 The other, on the contrary, whom she knew now to be 
 a missionary, had grown less aloof and more reasonable. 
 He could play well enough when prompted, and he was 
 very biddable, but the magnificent initiative of the other 
 could never be his. 
 
 Then the pattern came to an abrupt stop, leaving 
 ragged edges. The men went and the women stayed, 
 and the old story was told. The meek missionary went 
 off to his cannibals. The splendid lover went off to a 
 girl with money when Ella lost hers. 
 
 For a minute or so Mary forgot her own story, all red 
 and bleeding in her heart, for this old one, the wounds 
 of which, if they were not healed long ago, certainly ought 
 to have been. 
 
 " I think I'll go to bed," said Mary. " Good-night, 
 Cousin Ella." 
 
 " I remember it all now," she continued when Miss 
 Gaunt came out to light her candle. "I'm glad I came 
 here," she said with her gurgling laugh, pausing on the 
 first step and shedding the light of the candle down on the 
 little governess. " I think you know no end of things, 
 and although Cousin Ella knows nothing except what 
 you and the old story have told her, it makes her look
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 9 
 
 most awfully nice. It's only the people who've never 
 had any story at all, who ever really bore you. One must 
 suffer to be interesting, I suppose. And what a brick 
 you've been ! " said Mary, stooping suddenly to kiss the 
 kind, keen, gnarled face looking up at her. 
 
 " My dear ! That's all so long ago. It's only the 
 present that matters now." 
 
 " Not to-night, though," said Mary. " The present might 
 keep one awake. One can always go to sleep on the 
 past, can't one ? Tell me you know all about every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Gaunt cheerfully. " One sleeps 
 sound on the past." 
 
 " Julia," said Cousin Ella nervously, when after a 
 minute or so Julia came back. " She didn't tell us 
 anything." 
 
 " There wasn't much time, my dear," said Miss Gaunt 
 briskly. 
 
 " They don't need time," said Ella plaintively, " to 
 get in all about their husbands and children. They can 
 compress volumes into a minute not that I don't like 
 to listen to them, Julia. You know I do^ but Mary 
 never mentioned hers." 
 
 " That will come. You may have too much of them 
 before you've finished with Mary." 
 
 " But, dearest Julia, don't you think ? " 
 
 " I'm incapable of thinking, child. Let us go to bed." 
 
 " She's very white." 
 
 " So are you, as white as death. Now, Ella, just keep 
 your mind off husbands and children. You're the last 
 person in the world to deal with such ticklish things at 
 the dead of night, for of all created beings they call for 
 the full light of day upon them," 
 
 " Mary " 
 
 " In spite of husbands and sons or because of them 
 Mary has blossomed out into a very fine woman. Good- 
 night, dear. Sleep well." 
 
 Miss Gaunt watched the spent grace of the fragile 
 figure as it trailed in its little resigned way up the stairs.
 
 io MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Let her rest while she can," said Miss Gaunt to her- 
 self. "It's a comfort to know that one of the three of 
 us will have a few winks of sleep, and the only one of the 
 three with any sentiment worth mentioning. There's 
 not a woman living who's spent more sleepless nights to 
 such little purpose over the woes of her neighbours than 
 Ella Poor Ella ! Goodness ! but I'm tired."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 T) ETWEEX the new pain and the old, Mary was 
 X3 tired to death, and with the new so fresh in her 
 mind, she thought to sleep at least a little, and to dream 
 of pensive old sorrows all sweet with pot-pourri. But no 
 such luck for the poor woman ! 
 
 A sorrow old and fragrant enough to send a sym- 
 pathetic heart to sleep had no chance against the sordid, 
 immature bitterness of that now devastating her own 
 wild, modern being. 
 
 It was all so curious and so incredible. Mrs. Mirrilies 
 could not accustom herself to her amazing new position. 
 
 The position already existing had been so entirely 
 satisfactory in its way. It had always seemed to her 
 that she had established and managed it with consummate 
 skill and ability, had strengthened and defended and 
 made it final with perfect aplomb and temper. 
 
 Through the long tired years that it had lasted, she had 
 gone on unfalteringly with an assured confidence of being 
 able to go on indefinitely at the same even pace, never 
 to look tired, much less look bored or dull, but to laugh 
 and to be gay through everything. Even India had failed 
 to subdue her spirit, and it had not touched her complexion. 
 This had been the greatest comfort to her. If a woman 
 can look victorious, can keep her colour, and her ability 
 to laugh and to love laughter, even under partial defeat, 
 it must surely be a guarantee of ultimate and triumphant 
 victory. 
 
 And now she looked as worn as all the rest, and had 
 as little desire to laugh as they, and if there was one thing 
 
 II
 
 12 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 that Mary hated more than another, it was to be one in 
 a crowd. And to be one in the crowd of ineffectual 
 matrimony ! It was unthinkable ! 
 
 The secrecy, the silence of it all the smiling smooth- 
 ness of the horrible thing ! That the ground should be cut 
 from under her feet, her carefully erected defences razed 
 to the ground, her life and Oliver's cut clean asunder, 
 without one breath of scandal the remotest suspicion 
 in the public mind of any real parting of the ways ! 
 
 And yet the thing was done, the ways were parted ! 
 Mary stood aghast before the relentless force of Oliver 
 Mirrilies, the efficiency and the finish in his modes of 
 action. She had always keenly appreciated the intellect 
 of Oliver, as well she might, having married him for it, 
 but it was only now, perhaps for the first time in her life, 
 that she really understood the extraordinary way in 
 which his seniors believed in Oliver. 
 
 It was an odd moment in which to arrive at a full under- 
 standing of the professional ability of one's husband ! 
 Mary laughed as she sat at the window, looking out over 
 the grimy grey roofs. She laughed again, brushed her 
 hair vigorously and remembered a way it had of falling 
 into very wide waves. Oliver used to have a sort of 
 adoration for her hair. His admiration had always been 
 rather a big and splendid thing. She wondered how on 
 earth she would ever get on without it. But that had 
 never been what she wanted, she sternly assured herself. 
 
 She put down her brush, and firmly rolled up the dusky 
 masses of her hair. 
 
 Mary Austin had just left school, having passed every- 
 thing that a girl could pass, and was taking an intelligent 
 look in at the world before going to Girton, when she first 
 met Oliver. 
 
 Oliver was comparatively old, twenty-four, and in 
 the matter of distinctions he had beaten her hollow. 
 Even for a Sapper, he was exceptional. There was nothing
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 13 
 
 that young Oliver Mirrilies couldn't do with his brains 
 Mary fell head over heels in love with them. And Oliver 
 was not in any sort of way behindhand. He was much 
 more wholesale in his methods, however. He fell in love 
 with every atom of Mary. She might have had no brains 
 at all for all he cared. It was Mary herself, the infinite 
 woman, he so wildly loved. He was glad she had an 
 intellect when his delight in the rest of her permitted 
 him to consider the matter at all ; it was part of her 
 completeness ; indirectly as essential to the perfect 
 woman as intuition, but it was Mary herself who intoxi- 
 cated the boy who had never in all his life been drunken 
 with strong drink. It was an experience for the Gods ; 
 it lifted him to Heaven. 
 
 Mary's wings were only sprouting and far too weak to 
 lift her anywhere near Heaven. Oliver, however, was 
 an upstanding, good-looking boy with the nicest blue 
 eyes she had ever seen. His well-trained mind promised 
 her an intellectual harvest far richer than anything Girton 
 could offer, so she dropped Girton like a hot coal and 
 took Oliver. 
 
 Although Oliver was a hard worker and rapacious for 
 knowledge, he had an insatiable appetite for sport, and 
 was anything but a pale-blooded ascetic. His passions, 
 as he knew to his cost, were stronger than those of most 
 men, and they gave him perhaps more trouble than they 
 gave most men. But he had never been afraid of trouble, 
 and from the very beginning he had deliberately taken the 
 matter in hand, and in the same quiet, purposeful way 
 in which he did the other tough jobs, he pulled this through 
 also. It was the only thing for him to do. It must be 
 one thing or the other with him, and he knew it. Some 
 fellows, he supposed, had wide capacities and could live 
 anyhow and do good work at the same time, but he hap- 
 pened to be made differently. Besides, giving in to 
 things had always struck him as being rather cheap. 
 
 But passion suppressed is never passion subdued in a 
 strong man, and when at last the long painful bitting 
 and curbing of nature was at an end, Oliver dropped at
 
 i 4 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 a bound from Heaven to earth, and rejoiced in it with all 
 the powers of his clean and lusty manhood. 
 
 The unfortunate thing was that the new and wonderful 
 revelation of life lifted Mary from earth to Heaven, and 
 made everything to do with earth most horrible and 
 remote, and altogether alien to and unbefitting the soar- 
 ing intellect of a great and good man. She was absolutely 
 aghast at Oliver. 
 
 Work and games having absorbed all her energies, 
 Mary was singularly undeveloped physically, and didn't 
 want to understand Oliver, or his revolting points of 
 view, and Oliver was perhaps too young to find words 
 right and beautiful enough to bring home to a mind and 
 body both immature and unready the knowledge of the 
 difficult things of time. He did not even attempt to 
 do so. The boy had known only a few good women and 
 no bad ones, and so he knew nothing, and was very shy. 
 Whilst like all men conscious of their pitiful ignorance, 
 he was yet aware in the silence of his soul, that considering 
 the price they have paid for it, it is the one thing of 
 which they have the slightest reason to be proud. 
 
 Mary had inherited her power to laugh and her love 
 of laughter. It was in the warp and woof of her, leaving 
 her sense of humour as undeveloped as her other senses. 
 She had some idea of justice, however, so she was reason- 
 able on the whole. She carried off her shock, which had 
 struck deep, with a high hand. She took nothing vio- 
 lently. She refrained from the usual morbidities, in no 
 way abated her attention to her appearance, danced like 
 a sprite, and sang like a bird. She even developed a 
 talent for cookery and made an excellent housewife. 
 
 But she became more intellectual every day, and thought 
 a good deal and quite sensibly upon burning questions. 
 She also consorted with other women interested in the 
 same sort of thing, who were much more foolish even than 
 herself. Indeed, in time, after she had settled down in 
 Quetta, Mary made herself quite a power in the land, and 
 her opinion upon a variety of subjects was well worth 
 attention.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 15 
 
 And yet after the first few months Oliver, strange to 
 say, never asked for it. He worked very quietly upon 
 his own beat and kept counsel with himself. At the 
 same time he admired Mary's intelligence immensely, 
 and nothing he liked better than to dance with her, and 
 to wonder at the fullness and the rich completeness in 
 body, mind, and presumably heart of this marvellous 
 Mary, who so absolutely baffled all desire. 
 
 Her failure to bring all the powers of her fine intellect 
 to help Oliver hurt Mary to her very heart. She knew 
 what she could do for Oliver, she throbbed with the desire 
 to serve him, in her own way. Their ways didn't meet, 
 hers and Oliver's, that was all. 
 
 Oliver was rapacious in all things. He had limitless 
 ideas, and was generous to a degree, and giving every- 
 thing he expected to be given everything in return. 
 
 Reserve and reservations he understood, he was too 
 fine a man not to understand and respect them, but with- 
 holdings were beyond him, especially the withholdings 
 which sit proudly on a usurped throne at the back of a 
 woman's mind. 
 
 He had won his rights, and in true love to Oliver the 
 least was even as the greatest. It was all marvellous and 
 full of shining light, and that Mary should behold darkness 
 where he could see only light was altogether extraordinary. 
 
 Therefore since only the whole of a man or of a woman 
 counts in any vital point that calls for the final and in- 
 fallible judgment of the eternal two become one, it had 
 hardly even struck Oliver now for many years to bring 
 part of himself to consult part of Mary. It was no longer 
 the natural thing. The judgment of any other intelligent 
 and loyal friend would be as good or better. To take his 
 difficulties to Mary now would be to go to her under false 
 pretences, and Oliver was straight to a fault, and had 
 begun to grow hard and stern. 
 
 The constant and enforced repression of a very con- 
 siderable part of a man's nature, when done honestly for 
 the sake of a small God, may make saints in a small way. 
 But when done against any virile modern conception of
 
 16 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 the will of the great God who made men, it becomes a 
 process neither ripening nor expanding. It is silencing 
 also. Oliver said very little. He stood rather aside and 
 watched Mary's scheme of self-development, marvelling. 
 
 That it would have been considerably better had he 
 tackled Mary, brutally if necessary, shown her the utter 
 folly of her ways, and taken his rights at the point of the 
 sword, there is but little doubt. Bludgeon-like methods, 
 however, were not in the nature of Oliver. 
 
 He only used them at last when driven to it by the 
 barren years. 
 
 But women get driven to things too, in course of time. 
 Mary began very early in the day to find dancing and 
 laughing and keeping her house in order, not quite 
 enough. The less women live the more they think, and 
 Mary fell to thinking far more than was good for her. 
 Worse than that, she began to develop theories of life, and 
 to bring them into practice, to try experiments with 
 them. 
 
 Mary's intellectual points of view were admirable. She 
 had been terribly wise at school and was still wise in a 
 rather terrifying way. She had the very highest opinion 
 of love. She loved it from the highest point of view of 
 which she was capable ; but Oliver of the broad brow and 
 the true eye, a god amongst men, to be rooting for truffles 
 when he might be fixing his eyes to a star, was a sight to 
 make women and the gods weep. 
 
 Had Oliver been anyone else, the ordinary young 
 Infantry fool, for example, Mary felt sure she would hardly 
 have minded at all. But Oliver ! Higher Education had 
 apparently some fundamental flaw in it. Oliver to sell 
 his birthright for a mess of pottage, to exchange Heaven for 
 Hell ! To be just like all the others ! 
 
 Any basis of love so low, so abject, so revoltingly primi- 
 tive and incapable of development on its own lines, unfit 
 indeed for anything but ultimate and complete spiritual 
 transformation into something else, must of divine right, 
 be as objectionable to Oliver, at his best, as to herself. 
 Until it had been lifted from earth to Heaven, turned into
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 17 
 
 a new thing altogether, with only a far-away, remote rela- 
 tion with its lowly origin, the thing he apparently called 
 love was not good enough for Oliver. 
 
 While thinking out these matters Mary stumbled upon a 
 little pamphlet entitled " Higher Love." It delighted 
 and obsessed her. She ate it and drank it. It was in her 
 eye every time she looked at Oliver. Any love that she 
 cared to behold with unhooded eyes was now founded upon 
 the sublime sentiments set forth in this very admirable 
 piece of literature for adults, and upon the Oliver founded 
 on this pamphlet Mary could gloat for hours. 
 
 Mary's first and only child, for the moment with his 
 grandmother, was the most beautiful person living, but as 
 she got to know more about these vital questions, until 
 this shuddering barrier between her and Oliver were 
 broken down, she would run no further risks. Her re- 
 sponsibility was too immense. No other child of hers 
 should be born without everything. She would do 110 
 eternal wrong to her own blood and bone. 
 
 So with no words, some heroism, and a good deal of 
 simple dignity, Mary fell to acquiring tons of undesirable 
 knowledge, and waited with much patience for the trans- 
 formation of Oliver, and the perfect birth. Oliver kne^.v 
 very well what she was after. He watched this born mother 
 of men with shame and anguish, and again he marvelled. 
 
 Meanwhile Oliver, she felt certain, was growing day by 
 day, more spiritual, less fond of truffles. She had great 
 hopes. 
 
 And Oliver, true to his principles, gave her all the rope 
 she wanted. 
 
 And then like a bolt from the blue came the stroke of 
 fate, the day of doom, which took from her everything. 
 
 To a woman like Mary the shock was inconceivably 
 crushing. She had been so simply sure of her point of view. 
 To her, spirit was spirit, and flesh was flesh ; hostile forces 
 impenetrable the one to the other. 
 
 Everything in one fell swoop to be torn from her hands ! 
 The hands she had believed, in spite of everything, to be 
 capable of grasping ultimate victory in their strong clasp,
 
 18 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 victory for her, and for Oliver, and for the wonderful 
 children they were going to give to the world. 
 
 And to have stood with empty hands, passive to the 
 blow ! That was so very amazing. The end, the final 
 judgment had been so swift, so inevitable that she had 
 stood mute and unprotesting, accepting the fate meted out 
 to her. She had been reduced to nothingness, without one 
 word, in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 The outrage put upon her seemed to have choked 
 thought, word, and deed. 
 
 As she thought of it now she panted and paled. Great 
 waves of inexplicable pain surged up in her, tumbling one 
 over the other, swallowing her, drawing her down into 
 their icy terrors. 
 
 This was like madness, and Mary prided herself upon 
 being sane. She tried to collect herself, to consider the 
 matter, reasonably and dispassionately, but all she could 
 think of with any logical clearness at all was that Oliver 
 had looked so old when he had uttered her condemnation. 
 He must have grown old while he had been thinking it all 
 out, and she had not noticed it. 
 
 He had looked for so long extraordinarily young for a 
 sapper,' they grow old so much more quickly than the 
 others, that she had got accustomed to his always looking 
 like a boy. It was curious that she should not have 
 noticed that suddenly he had grown old. And yet she 
 hadn't then. Yet now now it seemed the hardest 
 and saddest thing of all to see Oliver grown suddenly so 
 old. And Oliver's words they too had grown old. 
 
 She was sitting in her pretty room when he came in, and 
 she had a new frock on, the heavenliest old rose, and she 
 hoped he would notice it. Perhaps he did. He looked her 
 up and down and all over. Nothing could have escaped 
 him. She was glad that she must have looked her very 
 best. It was the last time he had really looked at her, or 
 would ever look, perhaps.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 19 
 
 She shivered now in the warm air. 
 
 Oliver was moving about, touching things, not nervously, 
 Oliver couldn't be nervous, but it was a curious, rhythmic 
 way he had sometimes when he spoke seriously, a thing 
 he very seldom did, as though he wanted to tune his words 
 to the right key before he began. 
 
 Then he spoke quite quietly and pleasantly. He might 
 have been talking of polo ponies, and in his deep, low, 
 extraordinary voice Oliver couldn't speak loud if he 
 tried, but in a queer way his voice always reminded Mary 
 of the deep bay of the famous hounds long ago in her father's 
 kennels, cruel, awful, gentle creatures that had always 
 been part of home to her. 
 
 But to be thinking of the tone of Oliver's voice now ! 
 Mary sat up and steadied her throbbing head in her hands. 
 
 " I say, Mary," said Oliver, " don't you think we've had 
 enough of this, ten years of it, you know, and pretty barren 
 years at that, and not a step forrader, you and I. I don't 
 know how you feel about it, but I've had just about as 
 much as I can stick. I want to do things, no end of them, 
 you know. I can't, as things are now between us. It's 
 the way I'm made. It may be a bad way, God knows, but 
 I can't live in the same house with you any longer, and live 
 as we're living. I can't live in the same country, or the 
 same Continent, I believe." 
 
 " I I wonder how I looked ? " said Mary, turning her 
 white face to the night ; "for then he stopped and 
 laughed." 
 
 She shuddered. " It was a horrible laugh," she said, 
 falling together in her chair, " and I hadn't a word to say. 
 How on earth could I ? Ah ! it's all coming back now 
 at last " she said, pushing her hair from her forehead. 
 
 Oliver stopped touching the things, and his hands on the 
 table looked so brown and strong and small. " I've been 
 offered two jobs in one week," he said ; " one on the North- 
 West Frontier Dera Ismail Khan the other in Assam. 
 I've taken the one on the North- West Frontier. The place 
 is impossible for you and the boy the boy you begrudged 
 me."
 
 20 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " And and even if I did," she moaned, with burning 
 cheeks, " he needn't have said it like that. Oh, he 
 needn't have said it." 
 
 " I don't intend to be a failure all round at my age," he 
 said, " even for you. And " he said then" still less do 
 I intend to have any more children killed or evaded, for 
 whimsies." 
 
 " Oh ! he said it," she said ; " he said that as if I hadn't 
 thought it all out, as if I wanted to kill or evade my 
 children. Oh ! If Oliver could only just understand ! 
 One could not say it all in words, one couldn't but he 
 might have known." 
 
 For the next few minutes Mary was submerged and 
 strangled in a whirling tornado of sobs. Like all women 
 who keep tears at bay with laughter, her crying, when it 
 began, was a desperate business, it tore curious things in 
 the very centre of her asunder, and ploughed furrows on 
 her smooth young face. Mary was really very simple and 
 sincere in her high-mindedness. 
 
 " It was so final," she said at last, " so quick, and quiet 
 and so utterly utterly unnecessary. Talk of crushing 
 a butterfly with a wheel ! " 
 
 If only she could go to bed and sleep and sleep and wake 
 up different ! 
 
 But she could not leave the past this weary night. She 
 opened the other window and looked down on to the 
 square. One car after the other slipped furtively past. 
 She caught glimpses of flushed men and laughing women, 
 and more than one woman, and several of the men looked 
 horrible to Mary's strained excited eyes. In the shadow 
 of a plane tree a well-dressed man, pathetically young, was 
 talking eagerly to a woman worlds too old for his poor 
 innocence. 
 
 Mary shivered and hid her face. 
 
 " And Oliver " she muttered. " He wanted that ! 
 that ! Oliver ! Is there no escape anywhere from the 
 vile thing ? And and the children I might have had,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 21 
 
 and to speak as he did to make me just like the others. 
 As if I didn't want them too, as if I was not wanting them 
 all the time, As if I didn't want them a million times 
 more than he could." 
 
 She sank deeper in her chair, and other little bits of the 
 old life so lately ended came back etched out sharply 
 against the shadows of the night, and Oliver's words, his 
 quick, clear-cut, final words, so dreadful and un- 
 forgettable. 
 
 She turned in her great anguish from Oliver to his child 
 and suddenly she was afraid also of his child. 
 
 She felt like a worm. And she had never felt like a worm 
 yet. To be afraid of one's own child ! 
 
 Mary had always associated Oliver the Less as little as 
 she could with his father, for reasons which she kept secret 
 even from herself, the only being created of God who can 
 do this is the intellectual woman ! but now he seemed 
 suddenly to have become Oliver's child altogether. The 
 boy was Oliver's, with all Oliver's incomprehensible points 
 of view. After her experience of Oliver her failure 
 she shook and trembled. She was afraid afraid of her 
 own child, and terribly alone. 
 
 She seemed to want help and counsel in the most extra- 
 ordinary way ; she seemed to have wandered into an 
 unknown country, and she wanted some native of the 
 strange dark land to show her the way. 
 
 For an independent creature full of high purpose, Mary 
 felt very sick and faint. 
 
 She crept into bed at last, and in the morning Cousin 
 Ella mourned secretly because of her haggard appearance, 
 and upon the stroke of eleven, Miss Gaunt brought her a 
 glass of her far-famed egg-flip. Mary swallowed it, 
 laughing and protesting. 
 
 It was, to be sure, an odd ending to the high purpose of 
 a life.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE German governess, in spite of certain less 
 agreeable characteristics, had a keen eye for 
 intellect, and a keener for any symptom of marital dis- 
 comfort, howsoever subtle, deep-seated and well-concealed 
 it might be. 
 
 She laid claim herself to no superhuman virtue. Like 
 the meanest of her sex, she too had suffered in her time 
 leanings towards matrimony. She had interviewed and 
 dismissed more than one solid young man of good pro- 
 fessional family, and could now thank God that she had 
 declined to link herself indissolubly to the material needs 
 of anyone, but had preserved herself free of interruption 
 for the confounding of fools and the advancement of culture. 
 At the same time, for the rounding out and the expansion 
 of the soaring mind, all theoretical knowledge is essential. 
 The curiosity of Fraulein was therefore insatiable, and more 
 than all else in life did she love a heart-to-heart conversation. 
 
 Directly she laid eyes upon the tall Englishwoman she 
 had perceived in her an affinity. So bountifully endowed 
 by Nature amidst this flat-chested people, she reminded her 
 of herself. The resemblance went deeper. In howsoever 
 infinitesimal proportions this young person possessed both 
 intellect and soul. Moreover, having stored up her senti- 
 ment as providently as she did her old clothes, and with 
 much less inconvenience to her entertainers, Fraulein had a 
 colossal amount always in stock and always at the disposal 
 of inferior nationalities. 
 
 So after three attempts she had succeeded at last in 
 nailing down Mary to the heart-to-heart. 
 
 22
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 23 
 
 By the time she had her safe in a comfortable chair, 
 for if great Fraulein was also merciful, and her large 
 goggling eyes were firmly fixed upon her, the dimples 
 of Mary had already begun to twinkle. This scandalized 
 the serious German, so little did it go with her preconceived 
 theory of the matrimonial fiasco. For surely if anything 
 in life ever demanded a serious exterior it is husbands. 
 
 " The usual effrontery of thy little nation," said Fraulein 
 in the silence of her soul. 
 
 She was not rigid, however, but always made concessions 
 to the idiosyncrasies of the nations beneath her. With 
 an indulgent smile, she mentioned the weather. 
 
 It was perfect and Mary admitted it. 
 
 She spoke of the Theatre. Mary made fitting reply. 
 Then in an unguarded moment she projected politics 
 into the breach. 
 
 The attitude of the Press was at that moment a slightly 
 amused one. The Kaiser had been lately moved to utter 
 words of wisdom. Mary's dimples deepened. Fraulein 
 may have blundered but she refused to budge. 
 
 The Fatherland being eternal would remain, this young 
 woman throbbing with useful information was only too 
 obviously of time, and might carry herself off at any 
 moment. With a movement that fascinated Mary, so 
 full was it of indomitable will-power, Fraulein, so to speak, 
 consolidated herself. Without a moment's warning, she 
 wheeled all her revolving abundance of contour into 
 line, and sat erect, a solid, purposeful, invincible mass 
 of high purpose. The solidity seemed to project itself 
 out from either flank of Fraulein to be remorselessly 
 filling space. Mary felt as though she were being absorbed 
 by immensity ; that very soon there would no longer 
 be room for her anywhere. The ponderous mass of 
 Germany seemed to be closing her in on every side, slowly 
 and inexorably as the folds of the anaconda compressing 
 her into nothingness. 
 
 " Goodness gracious," reflected Mary. " Is this what's 
 going to happen to us ? Is this what Germany's out for ? 
 Does she mean suddenly to stop wobbling, swell herself
 
 24 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 to her full size, and block us out of the Universe. No 
 Universe could stand much of this sort of thing in the 
 mass." 
 
 " You're very young, Mrs. Mirrilies, even for your 
 years," said Germany with solemn warning. 
 
 " I feel quite a decent age," said Mary meekly. 
 
 " Ach, but that is very likely. It is the insolence of 
 the married, and does not count. You have one husband 
 and one child. You do naturally know all things. The 
 Infinite indeed is not hid from those wide eyes of hem ! 
 Experience. We, who have studied in the great schools, 
 who have spoken of High Things with the learned ones, 
 who have pierced with the trained imagination through 
 experience to the thing that 7s who know " Fraulein 
 sat solider " without experience all things we we 
 are as nothing to her with the one husband and the one 
 child in this so dull land of prose and practice." 
 
 Mary was now beaming with interest. 
 
 " But, Fraulein," she said, " you're quite mistaken 
 really. Having a husband and child does not make 
 one the least uppish. It has, I assure you, quite the 
 contrary effect." 
 
 " Unhappily, in a long life most rich and full, I have 
 missed the exceptions." 
 
 Fraulein sniffed. " Does the miserable married one 
 when she knows not what to do or where to turn, seek 
 her who has looked on and experienced in her rich and 
 hospitable imagination all sorrow and all joy, and has 
 ordered and classified the result with the trained mind 
 of the observer, and is ready and efficient to help, does 
 she seek her ? Ach, no, a thousand times no ! She goes 
 to the nearest creature of her own kind, who without 
 thought or reflection, without foresight or prophetic 
 vision, has brought into the world, as an animal might, 
 helpless souls immortal or not as the case may be, 
 the question is yet an open one and brought them 
 up probably as though the little soul of time if such 
 there be should perish as the grass that makes your 
 so great fields; but, believe me the high matters in
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 25 
 
 this world of so colossal complications can alone be dealt 
 with by the trained mind of the impersonal one ' who 
 thinks.' ' 
 
 The awful enterprising soul of the woman bent on 
 self-development seemed to be getting its tentacles into 
 Mary. But how on earth did it happen ? she thought. 
 From the very first instant she had realized anything 
 Mary had made it a rule never to look mawkish. 
 
 She sighed. Husbands, even if absent, seem to have 
 a fiendish power of betraying you into the hands of the 
 Philistines, and it was just like a German to attack you 
 without any casus belli at all, just when the mood took her. 
 Mary looked at the Ultimate World Power and reflected. 
 
 It would have been quite easy to be haughty, but 
 ridiculous with two round owl's eyes fixed on you, with 
 a glint of benevolence behind their goggled terrors. She 
 laughed instead. 
 
 " The large productive person you describe," she said, 
 " would be the last creature living any one engaged 
 more or less in the same occupation, in a more intelligent 
 way of course, would care to disturb with her own 
 probably vain complications. She'd find the expert 
 less absorbed, and much more helpful, I have no doubt. 
 Still, a little practice in these matters does help, don't 
 you think, in a mixed world ? " she modestly suggested. 
 
 " Most certainly yes ! When for the highest culture 
 of one part of the being, another part, albeit of baser 
 quality, must unhappily be permitted fallow to lie, none 
 but the rare and supreme intelligence can maintain the 
 perfect balance." Here Fraulein paused, and further 
 solidifying herself, sat as an everlasting monument upon 
 its plinth. 
 
 " But it is possible. It is done. And in the German 
 is it never at the expense of the mighty universal heart, 
 so full of sentiment of the colossal, so well-trained intellect 
 of the spirit to which there is no equal, and they are 
 
 all all " she took in the whole of Mary and paused 
 
 as though to digest it, " they are all, I say, at the dis- 
 posal of all nations."
 
 26 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " You are most awfully kind and generous," said Mary, 
 looking with all the solemnity she could muster at the 
 kind round eyes. " I quite understand the size and the 
 weight of the offer you're making. It's really rather 
 immense, and some day when perhaps I may have the 
 ill luck to get tripped up in subtle complications, I'll 
 come to you. With a list of moral qualifications like yours, 
 it would be invidious to ask for practical experience as 
 well. You're a potential expert in everything requiring 
 expert knowledge." 
 
 This spontaneous tribute was gratifying but unsatis- 
 factory. Fraulein adjusted her glasses, and prepared 
 for a fresh attack. Mary's leisurely voice almost imper- 
 ceptibly put on pace. 
 
 " I wonder," she said, " since you're so ready to give 
 so much to high demands, and have so much to give, 
 if you'd help me in quite a little practical way. You're 
 much too all-round a person, Fraulein, not to be practical in 
 the little ordinary things. My husband has been ordered 
 for three years to a station in India, which is too 
 unhealthy for us, my boy and me we'd only add to my 
 husband's cares, we're better at home, but three years 
 is a long time, and I'd like to do something definite with 
 it. I'd like to go to Lectures and things somewhere 
 in Switzerland, I think. I can speak German and French 
 fairly well, and I've passed things here. I hear you've 
 been through the University of Zurich I wonder if I 
 could get in there, as a Student, and work a little." 
 
 " Work a little, work a little," repeated Fraulein, 
 when at last she could speak at all, " Gott Almachtig, 
 work a little ! To obtain a degree in that great University 
 for the least of the human avocations, the drawing of 
 the teeth, the manuring of the soil, the succour of the 
 beasts that perish one must work not a little not 
 as the English work, one hour's work with the half 
 heart, the next three play with the whole heart, but 
 work as those to whom the intellect is as the God in 
 Heaven, sovereign over all. To the intellect we of the 
 Teuton race alone bow. It is our King and ruler. Proud
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 27 
 
 and free we stand erect yet respectful, before Kaiser 
 or King, we humble ourselves in the presence of the 
 Professor." 
 
 " But my little was only a figure of speech," pleaded 
 Mary. " I'll work like anything really. I love work." 
 
 " As the English love it ! Mein Gott I I know the 
 way ! I have had fifteen English pupils." 
 
 " Never mind," said Mary, laughing. " If I can't con- 
 vince you, I'll convince your Professors. You just wait 
 and see." 
 
 " So ! That will I. Also inquiries make, I know 
 the great minds of that great University." 
 
 " That's good luck for me then. I'm glad I came to 
 you," said Mary, whipping out her note-book. " Now 
 please tell me oh ! everything you know." 
 
 And indeed before she knew where she was, Fraulein 
 was being turned inside out by the contemptible intelli- 
 gence she had designed to develop. 
 
 The amount of accurate, ordered, above all essential 
 information that the ignorant islander seemed to have 
 extracted from her in that pregnant and never-to-be- 
 forgotten half-hour, made Fraulein sit up that night 
 in bed and think deeply. She drew round her the flannel 
 bed-gown worn over the chemise of the day to save 
 washing, resumed her glasses, turned on the light, and 
 gasped. 
 
 The young woman had simply emptied her of good 
 marketable information, and given her in return absolutely 
 none. Once again had the colossal and well-trained 
 Intellect of the incomparable Nation yielded up its treasure 
 to this people who have no philosophy, and know not 
 what work is. " They laugh, those ineffectual ones 
 without depth," muttered Fraulein, " and in words of 
 one syllable they take down the herculean efforts of our 
 brains and make use of them, while we still meditate. Ja 
 wohl I they use them," she muttered, gnashing her teeth. 
 
 Presently a kindlier light stole into her outraged eyes. 
 ' But Gott im Himmel," she murmured, sinking to rest, 
 " the asparagus was good."
 
 28 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 It certainly was. In a fierce frenzy of gratitude and 
 contrition, Mary had gone out immediately after the 
 heart-to-heart, and ordered in enough to feed a regiment, 
 and afterwards told the story of how she was moved 
 to buy it in such a way that even Cousin Ella could eat 
 the result of the purchase with a mild twinkle in her proud 
 eyes. 
 
 " And," said Mary, " she told me of a lot of Hotels and 
 Pensions in Zurich, and wound up with a weird place 
 that would best suit me, she thinks. It's acutely respect- 
 able and costs nothing." 
 
 " But, dearest Mary, you have a princely allowance," 
 said Cousin Ella anxiously. 
 
 " But I never can keep money when I'm on my own. 
 It goes somehow." 
 
 " My dear ! You look so sensible." 
 
 " I know," said Mary, she sat for a moment thought- 
 fully musing, then stood up and looked herself all over 
 in a long mirror, " but I'm not so sensible as I look, I 
 think. I doubt if I've come to my senses at all. I'm 
 not so anything, as I look, I fancy," she said with 
 a backward kick to her skirts, looking over her shoulder 
 at her splendid person. " I wonder if I could be a whited 
 sepulchre by any chance. It never struck me before." 
 
 " My dear you look so so very Cousin Ella 
 paused to blush, she found a certain difficulty in describing 
 Mary. 
 
 " So well nourished within and without," said Miss 
 Gaunt briskly. " Is that what you mean, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes well, partly, I suppose. As if she she knew 
 everything," said Ella. " I I don't mean horrid things," 
 she explained nervously, " but I think that Mary looks 
 somehow oh ! you know rich with knowledge of the 
 great things of life." 
 
 " There's a compliment for you, Mary," said Miss 
 Gaunt. 
 
 Mary was looking down at the two women and frowning 
 a little, and suddenly a look of half comical fright seemed 
 to slip into her laughing eyes.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 29 
 
 " It's a, compliment I don't deserve, I think, I'm not 
 sure that Cousin Ella shouldn't have paid it to you 
 Miss Gaunt instead of to me." 
 
 " To me ! Ella knows better than to dare. She and 
 I have stood aside now for a good many years, and looked 
 on. We've sat in the shade in summer, and by the fire 
 in winter and made shots at life. Sometimes, we flatter 
 ourselves, we've hit the mark. But guess work isn't after 
 all the real thing. You have the two keys to life, a husband 
 and a child in a pair of very capable hands, Mary. If 
 you don't know a good deal well worth knowing that 
 we're cut out of, well you ought to, that's all I can say." 
 
 " Goodness gracious," said Mary, balancing herself 
 on the edge of a chair, " this is an educational sort of 
 visit. Not three hours ago one spinster lady tells me 
 that the mere possession of one husband and one child 
 is enough to make the greatest fool going unbearable, 
 that she scorns from the unassailable heights of matrimony, 
 generally undeserved, all the spinsters in creation, and 
 yet free and unburdened these latter can scale heights 
 she never could even attempt with her impedimenta, 
 and now another with twice her brains, admits that 
 she's not so far out. I've gone off the line somehow, I 
 believe, for I can't see at all why the meanest thing in 
 matrimony should score off the highest in celibacy. I 
 feel anything but proud and superior because of my 
 married state. I felt much more puffed up with know- 
 ledge at school than I do now in spite of husband and 
 child ! " 
 
 " Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said 
 Miss Gaunt stoutly. 
 
 " Dearest Julia " 
 
 " If Mary feels like that with all her opportunities, Ella, 
 she ought to be ashamed of herself. With the two and 
 only keys to the great Magic, a husband and a child in 
 her hands, Mary ought to be a treasure-house of beautiful 
 things, and the very fact of her looking it, shows that we 
 have the right to expect it of her." 
 
 " Dear me ! " said Mary.
 
 30 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " So far, my dear Mary," said Miss Gaunt inexorably, 
 " all that you've given us two poor denuded females 
 always craving for the vicarious enjoyment of something 
 Big could be put in a snuff-box. You've given us nothing 
 at all of yourself, except the pleasure of looking at you, 
 which is a very considerable one, and a very succulent 
 and abundant dish of asparagus, which shows a heart at 
 least. For the rest you're a very fine mask of flesh and 
 blood." 
 
 " Julia, how can you ? " wailed Miss Vynne. 
 
 " After a reasonable amount of patient waiting, I 
 generally do say what I think. I've waited three days 
 to say this to Mary, and I shouldn't say it now if she 
 weren't going to-morrow, and she's yours, not mine really, 
 so I'm saying it in your presence." 
 
 " She belongs to us both equally," said Ella gently. 
 
 " Well, I won't be coy. I suppose she does. This 
 will probably be news to you, Mary, but I'd have you to 
 know that you're our one and only child, no one ever 
 gave us the chance of another, and we've waited years 
 and years for you to come to us, and to bring us an echo 
 of some big swinging joy we've never had ourselves. It 
 would have been a sort of compensation, you know, for 
 a variety of unpleasant renouncements. Don't look 
 like that, Ella, for goodness sake, a little truth now and 
 then is an excellent tonic, and your scared face shows just 
 how much you want one. We've never really left you for 
 a moment, Mary ; we've lived your life with you. Your 
 marriage was ours." Ella blushed and clutched Julia's 
 hand. " It was ! we couldn't go to it on account of 
 your mumps, Ella, but we were there all the same. Our 
 spirits, wearing such garments of gold and jewels as never 
 were seen, were cutting capers all the time above your 
 head. 
 
 " When your child came, there we were, too, at our old 
 game. We've followed you with your magic keys, into 
 a thousand locked doors, and sometimes you turned 
 aside when we slipped in. I've seen marvels you've never 
 beheld, my dear, or your face would have told us."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 31 
 
 " Julia ! Oh, Julia ! " 
 
 " Don't be always interrupting, Ella. v I'm speaking 
 for the two of us, so shut up. Indeed since you've 
 come and we've seen you Mary, I'm often inclined to 
 think that the only room you've ever really opened and 
 thoroughly investigated is some Blue-beard's chamber 
 of your own, when Ella and I would give our very souls 
 for your two keys that open everything." 
 
 " Julia ! " 
 
 " Ella ! Do shut up ! Truth is always naked and 
 unashamed. We should give our souls, Ella, and you 
 know it for the two magic keys that Mary has used to 
 open her ridiculous Blue-beard's chamber, and for nothing 
 else. If I've only hinted at the truth for years I'm speaking 
 it now. Mary might have gone to Girton for all she's 
 learnt. 
 
 " I've finished now," said Miss Gaunt, " but I was 
 determined to say it." 
 
 " But having said it, you can't possibly expect me to 
 say anything in reply," said Mary, with the oddest laugh. 
 
 " I don't. I don't think you've got a word to say for 
 yourself." 
 
 " I haven't," said Mary. " I'll go to bed." 
 
 Cousin Ella was crying in her corner. Mary sprang to 
 her. 
 
 " You're quite right. You're both quite right. I 
 know nothing," she said. " I've known it ever since I 
 came here. It's something in your abominable sub- 
 conscious atmosphere. I hate the very name of the 
 thing. It takes the meanest advantage of the undefended. 
 I'm going to Zurich to hear lectures on it and to get the 
 better of it. You see if I don't." 
 
 " Do," said Miss Gaunt. " A little hard work won't 
 hurt you." 
 
 " It's really rather awful to be the centre of romance to 
 two minds so full of theories concerning it as yours," said 
 Mary, pausing with her candle in her hand, to survey 
 the mute, frail, tearful figure and the sturdy, smiling, 
 voluble one.
 
 32 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " The fact of your feeling it so is pretty awful, I 
 admit," said Miss Gaunt cheerfully, " and shows con- 
 clusively enough that you're not fulfilling your natural 
 uses in a world where so few, comparatively, get the 
 chance that in the very midst of abundance you haven't 
 taken in even enough to give out. The owner of the 
 whole waving harvest ought to be able to give something 
 to the poor gleaners in the stubble. There are twenty 
 spinsters of necessity not choice in this stricken house, 
 my dear, and in four days you ought to have been able 
 to round them out a little with your own fullness, and 
 instead you've left them a little emptier than you've 
 found them, except for the asparagus." 
 
 " Julia ! How hard you can be ! " bleated Cousin Ella. 
 
 " I can," said Miss Gaunt self-righteously ; "as hard 
 as nails. I detest waste of good material, and good 
 gracious ! look at Mary's figure, the tall deep- 
 bosomed women, with their children nine and ten. You 
 ought to have had at least six by this time, Mary." 
 
 " Julia ! " 
 
 " Count the years and see ! Your smooth wide brow 
 is painfully intellectual, Mary. How on earth will Oliver 
 get on without it for three years ? " 
 
 " Very well indeed," said Mary, with admirable calm. 
 " He has an all-sufficient intellect of his own." 
 
 " Hem ! I thought as much," murmured Miss Gaunt. 
 " Zurich is a fatal place for a brain open to illimitable 
 development." 
 
 " Oh, well, anyway," said Mary, with spirit, " I was 
 never a prig." 
 
 " No, you have some sense of proportion. A prig with 
 your figure. Heavens ! " 
 
 Mary sighed. 
 
 " I feel like a whipped hound," she said. " May I go 
 to bed ? " 
 
 " Mary dearest, go ! " cried the outraged Ella. 
 
 " There's going to be a storm to-night," said Miss 
 Gaunt. "I'll go up and put pegs in Mary's windows." 
 
 " Julia ! Julia ! Let me go ! "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 33 
 
 " What you want, my dear, is some grog and a hot 
 bottle in your bed. I'll see to you directly." 
 
 " Poor Mary," she said from the step behind Mrs. 
 Mirrilies. " You can't escape me. I'm pursuing you to 
 the very centre of your stronghold. That's what comes 
 of getting into the hands of an experienced spinster. Ella 
 would have wept in secret and spared you and herself, 
 and thought it self-sacrificing. There's a lot of folly 
 and some vanity in the very mixed matter of self- 
 abnegation. Being an old maid for over fifty years is 
 quite self-abnegation enough for any reasonable person. 
 
 " I've given you my impressions. You can make 
 what you like of them, take them or leave them. Oh, 
 Mary ! " she cried, " let me do your hair. How beautiful 
 it is ! I'm afraid Oliver will miss it horribly." 
 
 " There's one thing in all this that puzzles me," she 
 said, after a long pause. " You were an absolutely 
 fearless child. Is it possible that you're afraid of a 
 climate ? " 
 
 " No," said Mary. "I'm not in the least afraid." 
 
 Miss Gaunt brushed with unmoved serenity. 
 
 " Does Oliver know you're going to Zurich ? " 
 
 " No, but he won't mind, he wants Oliver to speak 
 German and French while he's young." 
 
 " You'll go up to the mountains in the holidays ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 " You'll meet men of all nations by the score there," 
 said Miss Gaunt thoughtfully. 
 
 " Oh, at least Oliver trusts me down to the ground." 
 
 " Goodness ! As though I could ever doubt it. I wish 
 he didn't." 
 
 "I'm extremely thankful he does." 
 
 " You would be, my dear." 
 
 " Oh, dear me, what do you want ? " 
 
 " I want you to sit still for a minute longer." She 
 twisted Mary's hair into a massive crown above her head, 
 and looked with swelling pride at her handiwork. 
 
 " There's a good barber lost in me," she said. " Drop 
 that dressing gown, Mary so. And now look at your-
 
 34 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 self, child. I want you to be the woman you look, Mary 
 a marvel, a woman rich and full and strong enough not 
 only to be able to resist temptation, but to be tempted. 
 The first is nothing without the last." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mary blankly. 
 
 " I never saw anything so overflowing with joy as you 
 were up there on the hill-tops, Mary. You were extra- 
 ordinarily receptive. You went out and got everything, 
 and I expected to see the whole of life in your eyes. And 
 look at you ! it's magnificent, but it's not war." 
 
 " You're horribly unfair in every way," cried Mary. 
 " To dare to expect me to educate you ! You know too 
 much already, I think." 
 
 " There's no daring on my part. It's you, my dear, 
 who haven't dared to live, and who by your cowardice 
 have robbed more than me of our rights in you." 
 
 " If you don't go, I'll never be able to sleep again," 
 cried Mary wildly. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you will. I'll be back directly with a hot 
 and potent drink. Don't squirm. I can hold my tongue 
 when I want to. I've taken a most unwarrantable 
 liberty, my dear, but you richly deserved it. That's what 
 comes of being a governess or a parson. Unless you can 
 take unwarrantable liberties with the creatures at your 
 disposal both positions are untenable. Oh, there's one 
 thing I'd better get in before I stop. I simply adore 
 Oliver, and if I could be of any use to him from any point 
 of view, I'd leave our flock to-morrow and desert Ella, 
 and follow him to the ends of the earth. I hope no other 
 female not so disqualified by time and the fortunes of war 
 as myself will feel as acutely as I do in this delicate 
 matter." 
 
 " And to expect me to sleep after this ? " said Mary. 
 
 " You'll sleep as you used to do on the old hills before 
 I've done with you, my dear." 
 
 " You despise and reject me even for the right things," 
 said Mary, " for being worthy of Oliver's trust 
 
 " To be qualified to walk unscathed through a regiment 
 is nothing, Mary. Many a spotless spinster could have
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 35 
 
 done as much at eighteen. The regiment wouldn't have 
 bothered her. Half the feminine virtue going is apathy, 
 inability to live or to be tempted consequently to be 
 debarred from temptation. The real woman with a pure 
 heart can hurt and be hurt. She can do anything and be 
 anything and feel anything, good or bad. She can want 
 all that men want, passionately, primitively, with her 
 whole heart. It's desiring the things that men desire 
 and understanding them, above all being able to give them 
 up when necessary, that alone makes a woman desirable. 
 But to be pluming yourself upon resisting a pressure 
 that's never put upon you has always struck me as wasted 
 energy. The strongest of all natural feeling has been 
 bred out of women to begin with, and what's left in them 
 they train out for all they're worth. And the awfulness 
 of it all for men and women, but above all for the little 
 children ! " 
 
 In spite of her own perturbation and amazement Mary 
 saw with the tail of her eye that Miss Gaunt herself 
 was blushing like a girl. 
 
 " If the good women would expand a little more, I 
 firmly believe the bad would begin to dwindle. No man 
 but likes the best when he sees it, but he likes it whole, 
 not with half of it cut out in deference to a purely feminine 
 ideal. If woman would trust more in God and man and 
 less in her own shears and pruning knife, she'd do better 
 and so would the world." 
 
 " What a torrent ! " said Mary after the pause of a second. 
 " It's like a cloud burst. I'm drenched." 
 
 " It's my only chance. I can't be pouring out this 
 sort of thing on our flock of folded spinsters. If it was 
 anyone else but you I was drenching, oh ! Mary, how 
 happy I should be ! My dear ! My dear ! " 
 
 3*
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 T3ETWEEN the shock of her total immersion in the 
 X3 icy waters of truth, and the drastic correction 
 applied by the inexorable Miss Gaunt, Mary slept for 
 many hours the blissful sleep of a child ; but she awoke 
 eventually to all the discomfort of a woman in her most 
 acute form. Never in all her life had she felt more of a 
 woman and less than she did now, in this grim, grimy 
 London, just before the dawn. For then, stricken and 
 deserted of Heaven and earth, conscious only of the lonely 
 helplessness of her own immensity, and driven of despair, 
 she turns at last her tired and suppliant eyes to Heaven. 
 
 It is the one little hour in which the great weary cities 
 can ever find the time and the silence in which to pray. 
 
 And well may they pray ! It is the hour in which the 
 terrors that fly by night fly swiftest. When the dying 
 die hardest, and the living sin hardest, and the great cities, 
 groaning and travailing in their mortal pain, wait most 
 fervently for the manifestation of the sons of God. 
 
 The sorrow and the pain, and the infinite silence of it, 
 seemed to drift into Mary, and to become one with her, 
 and presently this began to frighten her. The thing, 
 whatever it was, was so intolerably in earnest. It seemed 
 to be wanting to make this one little moment at its dis- 
 posal effective in the highest degree ; and to be clutching 
 at all the forces in the Universe to help it in its great 
 endeavour. It wanted everything in Heaven or on earth, 
 it would seem, for the carrying on and living of the mighty 
 life that seemed to be slipping through fingers weary from 
 too long a clasp. 
 
 To feel as though you, as part of it, were holding on to 
 
 36
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 37 
 
 life with all your might, and at the same time beating off 
 the terrors that hang upon the flanks of waning life, and 
 all in the silence of the hour before the dawn, might well 
 disturb an Alderman whom his dinner had doomed to 
 wakefulness. The sensation drove Mary to the folly of 
 jumping out of bed and switching on every light in the 
 room. But the pale cold passionless flare seemed to 
 mock some immense eternal demand in some illimitable 
 heart that entreated. Mary switched off the lights and 
 went full of vague pain and vague entreaty to the open 
 window, and suddenly she was aware in the whispering 
 hush, in the ice-blue light of dawn, that the tortured heart 
 of a whole city was at prayer, and involuntarily she knelt 
 down by the window seat, and dropped her head in her 
 hands and her heart seemed to go out to the other hearts 
 and to join in their mute petition. 
 
 She had no words. She seemed to be just one of every- 
 thing wanting to understand. 
 
 And presently high up over the dark roofs from some 
 glory far away there shot out a little shaft of light. 
 
 It looked like a two-edged sword and it flashed as it 
 turned in the darkness and seemed suddenly to gather in 
 all the colour of all the jewels of the earth. 
 
 And somehow as the light spread in the heavens and the 
 sun came up over a thousand roofs Mary felt as though 
 some illimitable prayer were answered and a whole city 
 cleansed from her sin. She was afraid to move lest the 
 glory and the purification should pass her by. 
 
 She knelt breathless, and in spite of the pain and the 
 passion of the prayer in which she had taken part, of which 
 she herself had been a part, she knew that in common 
 with all things she was now lifted above all pain and 
 sorrow and sin and ugliness, and that God saw everything 
 and that it was all very good. 
 
 " And," said Mary in an odd dazed voice : 
 
 " ' God's in his heaven, 
 
 All's well with the world." 
 
 " And it's quite true, and it's the first time I ever believed 
 it."
 
 38 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 She crouched down again by the window and listened 
 with strained ears for more, but the moment had passed 
 and another day was upon the world. 
 
 The buses rumbled and the motors hooted, and the city 
 hummed with life. The monotonous moan of life went 
 on as though it had never ceased. And Mary, chilled to 
 the bone, wrapped herself up in her travelling rug. 
 
 Things, all the common things that had been trans- 
 muted were coming back. She resented their intrusion 
 acutely ; she wanted to go to bed again, and to dress up 
 everything that seemed to be stripping itself bare in 
 dreams, all bejewelled with the fingers of the dawn. 
 
 " You can't recapture anything," said Mary. " I'll 
 look out and see what's going on." 
 
 It seemed to concern her more nearly than ever it had 
 done before, this fierce muttering sound of common toilers. 
 It was hers and as much a part of her as it was of anyone 
 else. That moment now so curious and so far away, 
 when they had been altogether in one tremendous prayer, 
 seemed to have broken down some barrier between her 
 and the world, and having mixed and mingled in the 
 whole of the world, she could not get back to herself and 
 to her comfortable detached atmosphere, all in a minute. 
 She looked very longingly back at her old remoteness, 
 there was a fascination in it, then her eyes turned again 
 to the dawn. If she could not be once again one in the 
 pain and the rapture, or go to sleep again and forget things, 
 she could at least watch the world that seemed suddenly 
 to belong to her out of the window. 
 
 As she looked she saw things of which she entirely 
 disapproved, which only yesterday she had unhesitatingly 
 condemned. Even now she shrunk from the thought 
 of Oliver's being of the same flesh and blood as the people 
 who did them. But the oddest little difference had crept 
 into all her points of view. 
 
 Even the man reeling out of his car into the arms of the 
 chauffeur didn't fill her with the unconditional loathing 
 he would have done yesterday. Suddenly she wanted 
 to know how a person as much a human being as herself,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 39 
 
 could do such things. Oliver couldn't to save his life, 
 but she thought, shivering " but there's still little 
 Oliver." 
 
 Yesterday she would have stamped and hurled the 
 suggestion from her mind, yesterday she would have swept 
 little Oliver into her own circle of light where such deeds 
 of darkness were impossible, but now she knew vaguely 
 but certainly that nothing high or low, or good or bad, 
 is impossible to man. She shivered and shrank and threw 
 out helpless arms to protect her child. Yet now she watched 
 the movements of another belated sinner or so with a 
 strange new pity. 
 
 No one knew less really of the manners and customs 
 of this regrettable class than Mary, but she knew enough 
 to be quite sure that saints don't come out early. 
 
 " Miss Gaunt was right," she said at last. " I know 
 nothing of anything, and I'm afraid of life." 
 
 There were hours before breakfast. She didn't feel 
 equal to thinking of either of the Olivers. She'd go back 
 and look things over in a general sort of way. It was not 
 the slightest use letting yourself feel a worm if it was the 
 other person, after all, who had a " coarse thumb " and 
 planted it down indiscriminately. 
 
 Mary liked big events to which to fix her mind, but it 
 was the little trivial details of her life in the Dep6t lately 
 and before that in India that would keep slipping in and 
 distracting her attention. Things she had half forgotten, 
 and that hadn't impressed her in the past, but now they 
 stood up sturdily and confronted her with a new significance. 
 
 Mary was methodical, she wanted to bring back the 
 school days when she had heaped up knowledge ; they 
 were so very important and meant so much, but all that, 
 with no will of hers, went by at a gallop, to make room 
 for Oliver. 
 
 Of course Oliver was inevitable and could only be ex- 
 pected to take up some room, but he needn't take it all up ! 
 Still, since Oliver was inevitable, he was as good a starting 
 point as any other. So she accepted him just as she had 
 accepted her marriage and her honeymoon.
 
 40 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 And presently she was aware that the self she was 
 seeing now was not altogether what she had intended 
 it to be. She had never been the least superior, never ! 
 She'd have died sooner. She had hated one prim old 
 lady for calling her " an example." She had been furious 
 because Oliver had only laughed. 
 
 But now, as things, ridiculous things not worth re- 
 membering, kept forcing themselves upon her memory, 
 she looked again at herself steadily advancing along a 
 clean white road. 
 
 She saw herself a rather solitary, remote figure, thinking 
 her own thoughts, very fine thoughts really, and not 
 in the least interested in other people's. And although 
 never so much as lifting an eyebrow, she had always 
 been most careful in regard to that, and laughing with 
 seeming carelessness, she was walking delicately, her 
 whole energies bent on keeping her petticoats clean, and 
 sometimes she had put the tips of her fingers in her ears. 
 
 Perhaps the old lady was right after all. Perhaps she 
 had been " an example." There was no doubt at all but 
 they wanted one, and it served them right, said Mary 
 viciously, and she wasn't a prig at any rate. Nothing 
 would induce her to admit that ! 
 
 This vision of her resurrected self made Mrs. Mirrilies 
 hot all over, all the same. 
 
 But even if she had been an example, at least she had 
 never said things about any of them. She had just 
 kept away from them and held her tongue. 
 
 " You never cared enough to say things," said some- 
 thing within her, " much less to do things, to help anyone. 
 You understood too little about anything or anybody 
 but yourself to care." 
 
 " This, after being on every Committee in the Station, 
 and President of three ! " said Mary, aghast. " And and 
 at any rate, Oliver had no right to grin in the way he 
 did. He ought to have told me properly." 
 
 " And," she said after a long pause, " if he had I shouldn't 
 have believed a word he said. I was so sure I knew 
 everything our little life could possibly want. At least
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 41 
 
 I was the cleverest woman there just as clever as Oliver 
 in a way ! " 
 
 " It's all more than unpleasant," said Mary after a long 
 survey of the Station and her own incapacity to grasp 
 its little points of view. " And yet living with subalterns 
 and things must educate you in some degree in the sins 
 and other things peculiar to them. It's all horrible. And 
 I am a sort of whited sepulchre. I look everything 
 and and I'm sort of nothing at all. When even Oliver had 
 to throw me over ! " 
 
 " It's no use crying," she sobbed ; " and I can't cry 
 for ever and ever, or be thinking things out either. I 
 I'll have a bath and put on my new frock. I'll stay a 
 week longer and go out and do things." 
 
 Her activity was indeed astonishing. She did more 
 in that one week than most women can do in six, and 
 she gave the spinsters the time of their life, and got back 
 her colour which was fortunate. She would want every- 
 thing, it seemed, to do all she had got to do. She did not 
 know in the least yet what it was. All she knew was that 
 it was a great deal, and that she must do it all very care- 
 fully. It was to be a very great adventure in the dark. 
 And to what end ? 
 
 That was the question. The dreadful doubt. If 
 Mary had let herself dwell on that she would have lain 
 awake all her nights and been useless all her days. 
 
 But if one has thrown away more than one knows, 
 one must at least find out what it is. 
 
 " Couldn't you attend lectures here as well as in Zurich ? " 
 said Miss Gaunt one day. She had carefully refrained 
 from further direct attack although in no sort of way 
 repenting her of her initial onslaught. 
 
 " I suppose I could, but I want an absolute change of 
 everything, even of language. You would listen to things 
 in German you might resent in English. If I'm to be called 
 a fool I'd prefer to be called it in a foreign language." 
 
 " I shouldn't," said Miss Gaunt. " I've enjoyed that
 
 42 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 privilege in four languages, and especially if it's as untrue 
 an accusation as it would be in your case." 
 
 " I don't think I shall ever know how wise or how foolish 
 I am," said Mary, " until I compare myself with other 
 people properly, and it's easier to do that somewhere 
 else. When I've listened to all the Germans have to say 
 about souls I may know something of them perhaps. And 
 you yourself suggested men of all nations for my moments 
 of relaxation. I'm out for knowledge this time." 
 
 " You look too young for it." 
 
 " But I look everything I don't happen to be." 
 
 " Haven't you forgiven me yet, Mary ? " 
 
 Mary paused, laughed and kissed her. 
 
 " It was never any question of forgiveness between us 
 two. I've belonged to you always in a way, I've belonged 
 to no one else, not even to Cousin Ella." 
 
 " She belongs to both of us." 
 
 " Yes, that's it. You belong to people or they belong 
 to you. In a way, I've never belonged to anyone but 
 myself ! It was just a question of believing you or not, 
 and I believe you, that's all. And, although for the 
 moment, I'm beset with terrors, I'm going to be afraid of 
 nothing. But I must find out first if the terrors I'm 
 afraid of and the prejudices that keep me awake, are, 
 well ! all in my eye or not. If the things some people think 
 necessary to their very existence, and others commit the 
 most unpleasant sins for, are really good enough for all 
 they cost. I'm going to look at the world with eyes wide 
 open, and it's easier to look in that brazen way in a new 
 world than an old." 
 
 " But, Mary, will you ever be able to let yourself go to 
 that extent with your intellect ? " 
 
 " Bother my intellect ! That's got to stand by and 
 take notes. It's souls I'm out for. And since we're now 
 supposed to be porous in our inward parts and not im- 
 penetrable, as we used to be, all you've got to do in a 
 favourable environment is to keep your pores open and 
 let the innermost parts of other people filter into you, and 
 you'll know as much about them as they know themselves.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 43 
 
 You could never do this in England. We're too overladen 
 with civilization. Think of the layers to be penetrated 
 before one got to the essence." 
 
 " You'll never do it anywhere, Mary. That organ of 
 selection, your unfortunate intellect, has been too long 
 picking and choosing. You're too fastidious. You'd 
 never stand other people airing their views in your inside." 
 
 " Fastidiousness," said Mary, after a long pause, " doesn't 
 seem to have paid. I'll try opening the pores." 
 
 " Oh, well, you'll always have little Oliver to go home 
 to, thank God," said Miss Gaunt ; "his eyes will tell you 
 as much or more than the babbling of all the souls in 
 Europe. I wish it was all going to happen here." 
 
 " It would label you here. Everyone who came near 
 you would be regulating his conversation to suit your 
 new occupation, and you'd follow his lead from force of 
 habit or absence of mind. You can't be absent-minded in 
 a foreign language, and getting to know new sorts of people 
 will keep you awake. Besides, they'll say things without 
 considering either your feelings or your prejudices. I want 
 new points of view." 
 
 " To correct the old with ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? Some day I may, and then I'll tell you." 
 
 " Zurich is perhaps just a game ? " 
 
 " But it's a new game, and one is always serious until 
 one has learnt it." 
 
 " If it's seriousness you want, there's the poor and 
 politics." 
 
 " But what have I to give the poor ? The poor must 
 wait, they're poor enough already without me, and so are 
 Politics." 
 
 " The Church ? " suggested Miss Gaunt. 
 
 " The Church, like the poor, has a way of rubbing the 
 ugliness of life into you. Besides, being a grass-widow in 
 England wouldn't appeal either to the Church or to me." 
 
 " But in whatever place the English congregate there's 
 a church and a grass-widow." 
 
 " Yes, with a difference. I want to be able to take 
 sides to be a partisan. Now I'm nothing neither
 
 44 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Guelph nor Ghibelline, neither hot nor cold. There's 
 no place in Heaven or Hell or even in Purgatory for 
 those afraid to take sides and fight. Dante calls them 
 ' wretches who have never lived, they wander for ever 
 in the purlieus of the world/ and you said very much 
 the same thing. If you're up against the necessity for 
 a fundamental change, I'm sure it's best to go through 
 with it in a foreign language. Besides I'd better get 
 away. If I don't, I'll either be boring people or letting 
 them bore me."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IT is only an Englishman in a thousand, especially if 
 he belongs to that England whose normal occupation 
 is to sit tight and be itself, who could ever think for a 
 moment of leaving his Island behind him. Whither he 
 goes must she go also. That is the eternal decree. As 
 securely embedded in his insular sequestration as a fly 
 in amber, he can live amongst friends or foes for ever, 
 without ever becoming one of them. 
 
 He will appreciate and admire them indeed, carefully 
 observe them, and learn by rote all the salient points 
 of view that differentiate them from himself. He will 
 even acknowledge certain of their points to be superior 
 to his own. These he will eventually anglicise and take 
 over. He will also yield courteously to any custom 
 the demands of courtesy make upon him : denationalizing 
 if he will conform. But not until he has entirely broken 
 it into its new ways and practices, and forgotten its alien 
 origin, does it become his point of view or his custom. 
 While everything he has unwillingly accepted, that has 
 been forcibly imposed upon him, he will carry valiantly 
 and without comment, a burden upon his back in his 
 fifty years in any land not under the English flag, but it 
 will slip off him like water off a duck's back, after a week's 
 residence in the real England. 
 
 Anything that belongs to the world, of course, such as 
 Literature, Music, Art, or Science, he will absorb and 
 assimilate and make peculiarly his own. Trust him to 
 see to it that it is English to the backbone before he is 
 
 45
 
 46 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 done with it ! for in the great things of life England to 
 the true Englishman, is the world. 
 
 The friendship, moreover, of the Englishman for one 
 of another race can be as staunch and true, as great and 
 as beautiful as that with his nearest neighbour in the 
 Province that bred them both, but the bonds that bind 
 them, the alien and himself, are woven of English 
 wool and spun in English looms. The Englishman loves 
 the other, not for international, but on the contrary, for 
 wholly national reasons. Delving down through the 
 dross of unessential racial differences, he strikes in the 
 very core of the soul that calls to his in the great Reality 
 an Englishman ! 
 
 This worthy brother would feel himself a traitor to his 
 country were he to admit that the fact of being universal 
 is another thing altogether from being English, and that 
 it is this, and not England, which has bridged the gulf 
 and made of the two, one. 
 
 It is the Englishman's naive expression of his emotions 
 in this great matter that betrays him. 
 
 " A white man that," says he, " as English as they 
 make 'em. He may hate us, poor fellow, but he's English 
 to the backbone. You feel it at every turn. Too good 
 a fellow to be anything else." 
 
 Those others are more adaptable. Perhaps being a 
 nation of Philosophers has made every German universal. 
 At any rate he permits himself to be very readily absorbed. 
 An educated German will find no difficulty in becoming 
 an American citizen dyed in the wool in half a generation. 
 
 After twenty years' residence in England a man of 
 parts has been known to forget the original spelling of 
 his own notable name, and to pronounce it in such a 
 way as to rob it of all significance. 
 
 The German does this sort of thing on a system, for 
 purposes of commerce, diplomacy or convenience, and 
 to show the immense capacity of his great mind in over- 
 coming colossal obstacles. Sometimes he does it to 
 betray our innocence. 
 
 But in any case the eternal gain is no doubt ours.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 47 
 
 Perhaps, after all, the Englishman is right, and that 
 English and Universal are convertible terms. 
 
 As soon as Mary had settled down in an Hotel on the 
 slopes of the vine-clad hills above Zurich, and appeared 
 in Church with Oliver in tow, being tall and straight 
 and a grass-widow as well, with a mark of interrogation 
 behind her, everyone came to call. 
 
 All the English who attended the Church and the great 
 bazaar, and the sewing parties, and were in a general way 
 on the Chaplain's list, came. And the Swiss who were nice 
 enough to be English came. Also the Germans of the 
 same high quality, but of these but a select few. They 
 were much too occupied being purely German, to bother. 
 
 And one and all they adored Oliver the Less ; but 
 even if they had been Hottentots they couldn't have 
 helped doing that ! They all asked Mary to tea, and 
 all the others to meet her. There was a perfect outbreak 
 of festivities, and everything, even the tea parties, seemed 
 to circle in the oddest way, around the Church. 
 
 At first this bewildered Mary. There was too much 
 potential goodness in Mary not to drive her tendencies, 
 in spite of her intellect and other disqualifications, full 
 in the direction of religion. This closing in round the 
 Church, however, and making of it the core and the 
 centre of life, she did not understand. But it came to 
 her suddenly one day. 
 
 The whole process was a sacramental one, and the 
 Church the outward and visible sign of England ! 
 
 It could not be otherwise. It would have been a 
 moral impossibility to turn the British Consulate into 
 a symbol, and so it had to be the Church. Even if a man 
 carries his country all over him, so to speak, he likes to 
 let others see some outward manifestation of it in space. 
 
 In the little society there were very few men, and 
 those who existed were mostly on the retired list, and 
 rarely showed themselves. To Mary, used to India, 
 this was rather awful. She wondered if she could ever
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 and it or how the Chaplain had so long survived the 
 ordeal, he who had lived a man amongst men for so many 
 
 ears. 
 
 But presently she found that besides being a man 
 he was also a Christian and a hero, and his valiant shoulder- 
 ng of the burden of all chaplains, gave her eventually 
 both courage and diversion. And there were always 
 the boys, for both her and the Chaplain. The little 
 trickling stream of boys that flows year in, year out from 
 England into the foreign universities, to learn in their 
 great technical schools more cheaply, possibly more 
 thoroughly, than they can learn at home. 
 
 It is, on the whole, a sad little stream, if the making 
 of young life with all its bitter tragedy, can ever be sad. 
 It is too big an enterprise on the part of God and man 
 perhaps for so small a word. 
 
 When an English lad is plunged from a Public School 
 into one of the Instituts where men of all nations are 
 prepared for the Universities, generally without a word 
 of sensible advice, the shock is tremendous. He must 
 recover himself before he can make anything at all of it. 
 It is all so shattering and unexpected. He had known, 
 of course, as any fool knows, that strange things must 
 happen directly he got amongst foreigners, but this ? 
 
 Brought up in other ways, by other methods, with 
 other points of view, under another public opinion, the 
 average boy is apt, in the first surprise of feeling himself 
 inadequate to the situation, to lose his sense of proportion 
 altogether, and to see himself either too big or too little. 
 
 Anything but a voracious worker, to find himself in a 
 whirling vortex of voracity is alarming in itself. That, 
 although your brains are as good or better than those of 
 the Greek, or the Brazilian, or the Pomeranian or the 
 Bulgarian, he has been trained for sedulous years with one 
 or two objects in view, the University or the Polytechnicum. 
 He knows a hundred facts definitely, of which you have 
 only the haziest idea, or no idea at all. He is stuffed 
 to repletion with facts, mostly useless, and to be dropped 
 like hot coals directly he's got his nose into the university.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 49 
 
 Stuffing oneself with things one can't digest or use, strikes 
 the English boy not only as rot, but to his crude notions 
 it is unjust to be ploughed in the beastly things, when 
 he could pass in everything that matters, so he works 
 honestly enough at the essential and trusts to Providence 
 or the common sense of the Examiners for the unessential, 
 probably fails at his first shot, and resents his failure 
 instead of being ashamed of it. 
 
 He has, in short, failed once again to adapt himself, 
 as the nimbler Greek or Brazilian or Slav has done, and 
 feeling miles above the lot of them, he is yet despised by 
 them all. 
 
 There are other difficulties moreover. The strange 
 mixed population of these Instituts with its strange 
 mixed vices, must inevitably prove an ordeal of fire to 
 any young English boy. A few escape, some are scorched, 
 and many are burnt to the bone. 
 
 The boy finds himself amongst boys of his own age 
 precocious beyond any belief. Of the mysteries in which 
 he has himself walked furtively, with strained and eager 
 eyes and a blush, there is no symptom whatsoever. There 
 is nothing mysterious or that calls for blushes to those 
 others. To them the only thing at all mysterious is 
 the English outlook, which makes still possible the power 
 to blush. For them, they walk as a matter of course 
 in and out of doors thrown blatantly open, which in 
 England from time immemorial have been locked and 
 sealed and guarded by dragons, and since so far neither 
 mystery or locks, or keys or dragons have saved the 
 youth of England or done anything at all but turn them 
 into a nation of hypocrites ! A shrug says the rest. 
 
 And eighteen with a moustache of its own, that knows 
 everything, is an object brilliant with all the glamour 
 of novelty, and his arguments carry weight. 
 
 Even if he accepts all this, if he accepts conditions, how- 
 ever inimical to his upbringing, and works in the way of 
 the others, and gets on at last to University or Technical 
 School, it is even then all very cold and lonely for an 
 English-bred youth.
 
 So MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 The Professors, incarnate intellects, embodied for 
 the most part in German Jews, are sublimely, awfully 
 impersonal. No heart throbs in the great University 
 where strangers come and go, and are forgotten. 
 
 The warmth and love, not only for learning, but for 
 those who learn within their walls, that mellows the very 
 air of our ancient Universities and reacts upon the brains 
 and hearts and souls of their children, turning them for 
 ever back towards the old grey mother, is unknown in 
 the great Swiss seat of learning. Here the intellect reigns 
 supreme. Largely, generously, severely, she rules in 
 the spacious rooms, bestowing triumphantly her cold 
 gifts. Youth comes full of hope and expectancy and 
 with a great desire for things greater and higher and 
 more marvellous than intellect can ever supply. He 
 leaves with his facts in his head and his diploma in his 
 pocket, and nothing else but an aching desire never to 
 look again upon the face of his Alma Mater. The rigid 
 rule of pure Intellect has chilled the heart and soul in 
 him, has dulled even his powers of gratitude. He has 
 no tenderness towards her who has given him all things 
 but her heart. 
 
 This withheld heart is not confined to the great and 
 generous University of Zurich. It chills the very air for 
 every stranger within the streets of this lovely city of 
 gardens. The Ziircher accepts him after careful police 
 inspection. After that he leaves him alone. The Ziircher 
 lives for himself and is more than sufficient unto himself. 
 He keeps his heart and his tongue to himself. This born 
 bourgeois is the most exclusive creature upon earth. 
 
 The Englishman, with all his insular wrappings, the 
 instant he perceives a potential Englishman in any other, 
 no matter what land bred him, will never be contented 
 until he has given him the freedom of both heart and 
 home. For being one with him upon some plane that 
 was before God divided the nations, he withholds nothing. 
 And if he does put this plane of Great Happenings upon 
 English soil how little it matters ! 
 
 Friends who might have stood aside for ever have met
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 51 
 
 and mingled in this holy place. The true Ziircher would 
 die rather than behold a potential Ziircher not born 
 and bred upon his own little cabbage patch, under like 
 conditions to himself. This model parish in the midst 
 of a wild earth, likes things it can understand and classify. 
 It sits proudly behind its closed doors, and the stranger 
 comes and goes. He leaves nothing behind him, and he 
 takes nothing with him of all the things that matter. 
 He is neither welcomed nor missed. 
 
 There are well-regulated minds of all nations, of course, 
 who care not one jot for all this. There are English 
 men and women who can live for long years quite content 
 outside closed doors, so firmly bound up in their little 
 Island around the Church that they never want to storm 
 their way into the doors shut in their faces. 
 
 But the one door so recently shut fn her own face, had 
 given Mary a nervous revolt against any other closed 
 door that shut her out of anything. And to be shut out 
 of a whole City into one little Island round the Church, 
 fairly infuriated her. 
 
 She liked the Island and everything in it. It was 
 new and extremely kind ; but those villas on the hills 
 of woods and vines in their scented gardens eternally 
 judging and condemning her, worse still, making an end 
 of her so far as they were concerned, alternately exasperated 
 and fascinated her. 
 
 It was utterly ridiculous ! She laughed and derided 
 herself but it made no difference. Mary resented violently 
 the attitude of the villas. 
 
 " It's not so much now," she said, " but there's nothing 
 to go home for. I'll probably stay out here when Oliver 
 goes to school, and to be standing outside doors shut in 
 your face for for thirty years perhaps ! I shall never 
 feel properly warm on the hottest day in this so-far-shalt- 
 thou-go-and-no-farther place." 
 
 "Oh, Oliver," she said, as he ran up with his hoop 
 one day they were out together, "think of all the children 
 in all those houses you'll never know." 
 
 " An' none in the English houses, all the ladies there 
 
 4*
 
 52 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 is too busy to have 'em," said Oliver, poking his face 
 between the twisted bars of a beautiful gate. " Oh ! 
 Oh ! Oh ! an' two swings up in the corner." 
 
 " And not one of the children who swing on them will 
 ever know you," said Mary, her eyes thrilling in the joy 
 of him. 
 
 Until she had him here away from everything, the only 
 thing left to her of all her life, Mary's fears for his sex 
 had stood between her and Oliver, half hiding him. Now 
 she could see nothing else but Oliver, and sometimes he 
 stood between her and all her fears. 
 
 " What utter, utter idiots of mothers," rapped out 
 Mary. 
 
 " Why ? " inquired Oliver, round-eyed with astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " To let such a chance as you go by ! Come on, little 
 beloved. It's horribly rude of us to be glaring in. Wo 
 shouldn't dream of doing it in England. It's just like 
 them to betray us into doing things we'd be ashamed 
 of at home." 
 
 " Is they all poor idjits ? " inquired Oliver with some 
 solicitude. 
 
 " No, Oliver. They're all as wise as owls. I was an 
 idiot myself to say that. The only foolish thing they've 
 ever done in their horrible respectable lives is to keep 
 you from playing with their little children." 
 
 Here Oliver broke loose and fled back for another last 
 look. 
 
 " Three chillen an' all boys. An' wid some of the 
 ladies in d'oder houses too big for chillen, an' d'oders 
 too little. An' oh ! Mummy, couldn't you have some 
 more quick if we can't get in." 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, I couldn't." 
 
 " Couldn't you ask Daddy to send some in a ship ? " 
 
 " I couldn't do that either." 
 
 Oliver sighed. 
 
 " I'll ask the ladies," he said at last thoughtfully, 
 narrowing his eyes to review the material at his disposal. 
 " Some of 'em isn't so very big. Dey might try."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 53 
 
 " It's no use, little beloved. They couldn't either. 
 We've all lost our chances." 
 
 Oliver turned it over in his mind for a minute or so. 
 He had thought out many things in his little life, and had 
 come to many conclusions. It was only the things she 
 thought bad for him that Mummy ever refused to give 
 him. But she wanted him to have children. She wanted 
 it just as much as he did. Oliver always knew just how 
 much Mummy wanted things. 
 
 And yet why could none of them give him what not one 
 of them disapproved of and he wanted all the time ? 
 Not Mummy, nor Daddy, nor the ladies, and they all 
 loved him, Mummy and Daddy and the ladies. 
 
 Oliver could make nothing at all of it. It was per- 
 versity, pure and simple. 
 
 " An' chillen behind all them gates," he said at last, 
 pausing to peer through another. " Mummy ! Come 
 home to England where the gates is open." 
 
 " But I can't do that, little beloved. I came out here 
 to find out what the people who know all about the opening 
 and shutting of gates can tell me, and I haven't even 
 begun yet. I can't begin till October, when the big place 
 I showed you where I'm going every day to find out 
 wonderful things opens. I'll tell you all about them 
 as I go along." 
 
 " Will you find out how to open de gates wid chillen 
 behind 'em ? " inquired Oliver. 
 
 " Perhaps I shall," said Mary recklessly. " And in 
 the meantime, perhaps someone with children will come 
 to the Hotel." 
 
 Here was hope indeed ! After that Oliver lost no 
 opportunity. He watched with strained eyes from every 
 coign of vantage for new arrivals, and although quite 
 reconciled to the gentle rule of his young Fraulein in 
 ordinary affairs, here her restraining influence ceased. 
 
 Oliver was as one with a mission to perform. Laws 
 were as nothing to his high purpose. The minute a new 
 arrival appeared on the horizon, he gave a little skip and 
 crowed under his breath. He eluded his guardian with the
 
 54 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 suave slipperiness of a diplomat, or this being impossible, 
 broke from her control to reach his goal. Ancient, elderly, 
 middle-aged, on the verge, no one escaped Oliver. 
 
 Until he learnt better, Oliver was somewhat indiscrimi- 
 nate in his attacks, demanding hostages to fortune from 
 the most unlikely objects. Scowls, remonstrances, even 
 ridicule, left his zeal untouched, but he acquired wisdom 
 in practice and soon began to differentiate. Where 
 children seemed but a remote chance, he began presently 
 to demand grandchildren, and now all the fat was in the 
 fire. Chaste vestal virgins who had kept their figures, 
 and less fortunate ones who had not, poured sour counsel 
 and dark prophecy upon Oliver's mother. Gigglers 
 went giggling upstairs and down, and why he shouldn't 
 demand grandchildren from likely people became one of 
 the problems of Oliver's short life. 
 
 In time, finding that direct attack upon the bigger 
 ladies was apt to give offence, Oliver took to biding his 
 time. 
 
 From his corner he would now survey the material at 
 his command, and having selected a probable provider, 
 he would generally end in getting into her lap. Having 
 next satisfied himself that she was as soft as she looked, 
 with a sigh and a cuddle Oliver would proffer his request. 
 
 Many sweet young eyes filled as Oliver demanded his 
 rights in her, and there and then promised her heart that 
 she would never fail him. For even to look at Oliver 
 in this gentler mood was to feel the crown of womanhood 
 already hovering over one's head. 
 
 But where are girls, there also are boys. One day Oliver 
 got his ears soundly boxed by the sweetest girl of them 
 all, and nothing would induce him to tell even his mother 
 why he cried himself to sleep that night. It was his 
 first little essay in chivalry, and it made even greater 
 the eternal puzzle for the little knight errant. 
 
 " The grandmother people glare at you, an' the chillen 
 ones box your ears, an' yet de tings you wants isn't 
 naughty tings, an' dey all want 'em as much as you." 
 
 Of this Oliver had a solemn conviction that nothing
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 55 
 
 could move. Mary knew better than to attempt to move 
 it, and besides she felt too guilty to try. But Fraulein 
 was a well brought-up girl and betrothed to a pastor 
 more circumspect even than herself. So she ventured 
 upon remonstrance, but Oliver just looked past her to 
 his own firm belief, and devised new means to the old end. 
 
 So occupied and absorbed did he become, and so great 
 were his difficulties even with ladies made for 'em, that 
 Oliver's little head often ached, and sometimes he did 
 not want his dinner. And the only thing then to do was 
 to let Fraulein go out with her pastor, and for Mary and 
 Oliver to make a little expedition together to the closed 
 gates, to watch for the children who never came. There 
 was to Mary in those indecorous vigils an aching note of 
 infinite sorrow, but to Oliver they brought back hope. 
 And then suddenly one day an American family dropped 
 from Heaven upon the Hotel with three children, all 
 nature's own, and naturally fiends incarnate, and before 
 the day was out, Oliver had ceased from harrying the 
 dovecots, and was the most fiendish of the lot, and Mary 
 laughed and blessed God. 
 
 So much for Oliver's first little excursion into the pain 
 of life ! 
 
 Mary found a good deal to think over. She had laughed 
 and rejoiced in Oliver when ladies of all ages, no matter 
 how tender the love they bore him, had fled at his approach, 
 but she had cried too, bewildered, blinding, irrational 
 tears. 
 
 She had done right, she had ! she had waited for 
 the perfect birth, before she would tempt Fate. 
 
 They weren't ready, she and Oliver. What stood 
 between them might spoil a life as so many were spoilt, 
 and then they took their terrible revenge, they hit back 
 and hurt and spoilt other lives. 
 
 Oliver ah ! she had not begun to be afraid when 
 Oliver came not properly, and he had been perfect in 
 spite of her. 
 
 And now all her other children, perfect or imperfect, 
 were gone from her. Mary felt unutterably lonely.
 
 56 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 She had always despised women who wept and did 
 nothing. But what was she to do or to undo that mattered ? 
 
 In a month she would be busy enough wrestling with 
 difficult subjects in a strange tongue no one could accuse 
 her then of idleness, but her day of real doing was at 
 an end. 
 
 It was perhaps in the bitterness of Oliver's vain appeals 
 for " chillen " that Mary first began to weaken upon the 
 pinnacle of her high desire. The sad eyes and the plain 
 speaking of the little governess had given her a shake 
 indeed, and made her sit gingerly for fear of further rude 
 assault, but it was Oliver who made her feel extremely 
 like toppling over altogether. She was too lonely for 
 her years and she resented the isolation. She wanted 
 by her own free gifts to draw nearer to the world. 
 
 Oliver ? Oliver was given, she had not desired him, 
 he was no real gift of hers to the world ! She wanted 
 to leave more behind her when she lay lonely in her 
 grave. 
 
 And at her age to be finished. To be doing work, 
 wearing herself out with work no longer in the least personal. 
 To be outside everything. Nothing was hers, not even 
 Oliver really. She had sometimes looked upon Oliver as 
 an inadvertence ! She had blamed herself for Oliver ! 
 
 She walked alone, out of touch with the past, and 
 the present, and the future. With none of the three could 
 she ever now link up. Her work for the world was done. 
 What she did now she did for herself. 
 
 Mary shivered, and shrank, and covered her face.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MANY a time since he married M.iry, had Oliver 
 Mirrilies found himself wishing that he had had 
 the luck to be born without any intellect at all, a well- 
 grown, well-intentioned fool, with muscle. It would 
 have simplified life for both of them. 
 
 Even in lesser matters being a fool at full pitch would 
 have suited Oliver very well. There were warring elements 
 in Oliver Mirrilies that had always given him a lot of 
 trouble. Even as a boy passing examinations as by 
 magic, he had already begun to resent the iron rule of 
 an intellect that would never let him off, that drove him 
 literally at the point of the sword into using it at every 
 turn, and so getting on ahead of the others before he knew 
 where he was. With such an instrument at his disposal, 
 and a mother who lived for his success in examinations, 
 Oliver would have felt a rotter had he not used it to some 
 purpose. Moreover the masters were decent enough chaps 
 in their way, and seemed to depend on him. Besides 
 it was sport of sorts to romp through things that floored 
 other fellows. 
 
 Oliver had no real grudge against his intellectual powers, 
 he could have put up with them all right if, backed by his 
 mother and the masters they hadn't made the Royal 
 Engineers a foregone conclusion. 
 
 The half of Oliver not exceptional ability longed with 
 all its might to rollick into the Cavalry as his father and 
 his grandfather had done before him, and the part of him 
 that wanted this always seemed to Oliver the larger 
 half, and the half he liked best. It was tremendously 
 
 57
 
 58 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 alive, and could enjoy itself down to the ground, and this 
 sort of thing he felt might be considered out of place 
 in a Sapper ; besides he could not see how he could possibly 
 get in enough Polo in that serious Corps. 
 
 He had no intrinsic dislike to being a Sapper. He 
 liked sharpening his wits on anything, it didn't much matter 
 what, but there was the chance of being often alone, or 
 worse still of being boxed up in a small station bound 
 hand and foot to a brace or so of prigs for months at a 
 stretch perhaps. So long as one had decent work to do, 
 the life of a Sapper was probably the best of the lot, but 
 with a dull job and the society of prigs, and horses a mere 
 incident of the day's work, not part and parcel of it, the 
 thought of his inevitable career often fell like an extin- 
 guisher on Oliver. 
 
 Oliver was possessed of a flaming outlook on things in 
 general, as rapacious and assertive as the exceptional 
 abilities, and it was always breaking in and upsetting 
 things. He suffered more from divided personality than 
 most boys. 
 
 He suffered more than anyone ever knew, for the oldest 
 aim in him, older than any of his own personal desires, 
 was not to distress his mother more than was absolutely 
 necessary. 
 
 She was a gentle, patient, good woman, who had borne 
 her sufferings with such quiet repressed force, that they 
 reverberated now in the big house in Cromwell Road, 
 as they had reverberated for many years through half 
 the stations in Bengal. She could sit calm and smiling, 
 upright and well-dressed, alone with her sorrow for ever, 
 the only expression of her emotions an angel's power of 
 song. Mrs. Minilies was a woman above melodrama, 
 but in one plangent note she could betray her heart and 
 stir a stone. 
 
 Each new infidelity of her husband's was the precursor 
 of a new song from Mrs. Mirrilies. Floating out in the 
 twilight upon the listening Compound from the sufferer 
 alone at her piano, each note, as it came, sounded like a 
 benediction lightly touched with the Commination Service.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 59 
 
 If ever a man was made to suffer for his sins from the 
 magnanimity of his wife it was Colonel Mirrilies. 
 
 " If she'd fly at me, use language, divorce me, or even 
 pray for me," he would groan in the silence of his soul 
 " but to be singing at me there, like an Angel from Heaven." 
 
 But if Colonel Mirrilies suffered, so also did Jean his 
 wife. She suffered dreadful things in that Cavalry Regi- 
 ment, and Oliver was practically brought up on them. 
 
 The two little memories of India that seemed to include 
 all the others for Oliver were sitting on the verandah 
 watching the stars coming out in the dusky velvet evening 
 sky till they spread like a cloth of silvered gold above 
 the world, and listening to his mother's voice from the 
 dark room behind, pouring out trills of liquid pain. 
 
 Or when the chill was in the air and the smell of wood 
 fires rose up like incense in his nostrils and flames danced 
 in his eyes, and in his heart broke the bitter cry of a helpless 
 woman. 
 
 The quality in the music was superb and must have 
 melted the heart of any child who loved music and his 
 mother as Oliver did. 
 
 It was the echo of those songs that made him, in the 
 end, give up the Cavalry and enter Woolwich. 
 
 Thus it was that a gentle woman as acutely civilized 
 as a fiddle-string : too great to complain, too sweet to 
 resist, had her way with two men endowed above their 
 kind with the primitive power of passion. For to the 
 one she made death, in spite of the distractions of life, 
 easy. In the end Colonel Mirrilies was glad to go. 
 
 To the other she made life just about as difficult as 
 even she could have wished. She had seen enough of 
 what an easy life may bring a man and his wife to. 
 
 " One could stick it all better," Oliver Mirrilies was 
 now thinking as he stood watching the last of England, 
 " if one were going out to enjoy oneself among horses 
 say but hard work ? The consolations of hard work 
 seem to break down when you find yourself in a tight 
 place. Even the thought of it only makes your own 
 worries stand out the sharper."
 
 60 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 He turned away from England and fell to considering 
 the immediate past. 
 
 Oliver was impulsive enough much too often for his 
 comfort. In this the Cavalry had often got the better 
 of the Scientific Corps, but in the present arrangement 
 of his life he had not acted upon impulse. It was a 
 deliberate throw of the dice. Half measures or passive 
 resignation to anything forced upon you against your 
 will were both incomprehensible to Oliver. 
 
 If Mary's theories or mode of life were wholesome or 
 natural, or gave her any real enjoyment or were ever 
 likely to do either her or anyone else a penn'orth of good 
 he would have stuck it and waited, knowing the 
 inevitable end. 
 
 He could have v/aited seven years, or seventeen, 
 for Mary. But Mary's heart seemed to him to be the 
 catspaw of some weird perversion, and it would have 
 been sheer waste of good time to stand round watching 
 the vagaries of an intellect. 
 
 He had waited already, passive enough considering 
 everything ; he was going to act now. Now he would 
 win or lose. He would have the whole of Mary or none 
 of her. They would fulfil life together to the uttermost, 
 or go their divergent ways, and make the best of what 
 was left, failures both. 
 
 No one could ever replace Mary for him. And though, 
 so far only sure of Mary's discree$ affection, he knew as 
 surely as he knew every shallow of this chaste esteem, 
 that he was the only man living for Mary. 
 
 And now he was out on a great adventure and had 
 forced a woman weaker than himself, out alone upon 
 the same strange and stormy sea. 
 
 So far as the storms that blow about women were con- 
 cerned, he had the utmost confidence in Mary's power to 
 weather these. Mary's dangers were of another order, 
 he wished to God that his own were. In most of the 
 deliberately chosen actions of his life, Oliver believed 
 himself to have counted the cost. 
 
 He paused now, looking back at England still in full
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 61 
 
 view, to wonder if in the two instances of his mother 
 and Mary, he had really done so. 
 
 Yes, he had, he decided. He had paid his price for 
 both, and they were both worth it. He could never have 
 made the best of any life with a gentle woman singing 
 songs in the twilight full of pain of his making, who had 
 already sung so many of another man's making, and there 
 could only be one woman in the world for him and that 
 was Mary. Mary was his and he was hers, and in the end 
 they'd meet. 
 
 Meanwhile, there were only too many women only 
 too ready to be an obstacle in his path and Mary's. Oliver 
 was honestly afraid of them. He knew too much of them 
 and of himself. He knew too much of the untamed 
 and untamable part of him that, Mary or not, would leap 
 to meet their wildness. 
 
 It was all a puzzle beyond solving to Oliver, sinister, 
 immense, God's puzzle for man, since God had woven it 
 into the warp and woof of His world. 
 
 Perhaps, on the whole for a man of his tendencies and 
 profound ignorance, it were better left to God, that man 
 must see the Eternal riddle as God sees it before he can 
 solve it. Sometimes he had paused with a laugh to watch 
 the futile efforts of the eager-hearted, their futile clutches 
 at the vast subject, more especially Mary's little efforts, 
 but having laughed he hurried on in a panic. The thing 
 was so big and awful. This thing that made and unmade 
 worlds, eternally co-operating in construction and de- 
 struction, was such worlds apart from Mary's chaste and 
 dutiful affection. 
 
 The only time in which Oliver was ever a coward was 
 when he stood in the presence of this eternal puzzle, and 
 of the eternal feminine, its symbol. He was afraid of 
 his very life of women, and especially of women in India, 
 where the native wildness comes more readily to the call 
 of the wild, than in any other land on earth. 
 
 In that fierce land where men have scaled higher heights, 
 and fallen to deeper depths, than any have done since, 
 where mysteries, illimitable, antique, of which no man
 
 62 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 may speak lurk in the quiet of waste places, where a great 
 fatigue falls upon the spirit, it is not good for man to be 
 alone. So knowing India and women and himself, Oliver 
 Mirrilies was afraid of his very life. For India was his 
 destination and he could not do without women. He 
 was too positively a man. He wanted things from them 
 no man could supply, little trivial everyday things, that 
 only men who have reached a certain stage of development 
 find essential to their best work. 
 
 No one was less of a ladies' man than Oliver. Never 
 in all his life had he hung round women's rooms, and he 
 thought of them as little as he could, and rarely spoke 
 of them. 
 
 Even as a boy he had forged on cheerfully, held his 
 tongue, and kept his mind fixed as much as possible to 
 work and play. 
 
 Work and play and human effort are, however, only 
 palliatives. The ultimate force still presses on, and the 
 magic that goes forth from a woman is as positive as the 
 fragrance of her hair, all part of the one great power, 
 and as necessary to the making of the world, as to the 
 development of the man open to its influence, the man 
 who must have everything. Oliver, for his sins, was open 
 at every pore, and the magic is sometimes white and 
 sometimes it is black. Captain Mirrilies knew both 
 varieties, and he shook in his shoes. 
 
 A station without a woman in it was anathema to him. 
 He would inevitably get dull and listless there, and do 
 his work mechanically. The want of women in their en- 
 vironment is fatal for those men who must have complete- 
 ness. It depletes and devitalizes the very air they breathe, 
 robs it of half its quality, shears it of half its strength. 
 
 And yet a station with women ! 
 
 For a minute he could think of no woman alive but 
 Mary, and this was profitless. He tore his heart from 
 England and set his mind to what lay before him. He 
 had counted the cost. He wasn't going back on his 
 own deliberate adventure, but it was a pretty desperate 
 one for a man of his make.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 63 
 
 " I'll be murmuring and muttering of ' the long, long 
 Indian day/ next and after that Good Lord ! " said 
 Oliver to the last white cliff, now a shadowy ghost of a 
 thing that crisped the hair under his grey cap. 
 
 It was just at this moment that Mrs. Quayle came up. 
 
 " You ? " she said, frankly delighted. " And Mary ? 
 And Oliver the Less ? " 
 
 " Mary and Oliver the Less would be too much of an 
 anxiety in Dera Ismail Khan we decided, so they are going 
 to drift about a bit. My mother wants them to stay with 
 her, but I don't think they will just yet. Their plans 
 weren't wheeled into line when I left." 
 
 " Oliver will arrange it all. He always did with the 
 ayahs and the cooks but his grandmother will miss 
 Oliver and Mary, won't she ? " 
 
 " She will miss them," said Oliver after the pause of 
 a second, " and she would have liked to present Mary. 
 She looks upon that sort of thing as part of the divine 
 order, and Mary as a grass-widow on her own as rather 
 on the outer edge of it : but one woman who counts, is 
 quite enough always about a boy, two might be a bit 
 overmuch. I'm rather glad they're going to drift and 
 sample new sensations." 
 
 " You believe a lot in influences, Captain Mirrilies ? " 
 she said suddenly. 
 
 " I do, for my sins. There might be cases in which I 
 could wish I didn't." 
 
 He almost laughed as he found himself thinking half 
 aloud to this kind quiet woman. She was one of the 
 few women he knew who would let you, as a matter of 
 course, forget her, and think of yourself all the time you 
 were talking to her. It was her especial characteristic, 
 so far as he could remember. She gave excellent dinners 
 into the bargain, was apparently fond of her husband, 
 and indefatigable in his service in a gentle unobtrusive 
 way. Otherwise 
 
 He paused and things came drifting back. There were 
 three little children who had died one after the other in 
 a curious, vague, unnecessary sort of way, and upon
 
 64 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 their heels other faint memories seemed to be etching 
 themselves out upon the mist of years. A silent shy 
 girl growing into a woman even more silent, a pretty 
 delicate face steadily fading, a slender willowy figure 
 stooping a little more, blue eyes very much aware and 
 interested becoming absent and a little furtive. 
 
 They were so interested and aware he remembered when 
 first she came, that they had interested him to the extent 
 of recommending Mary to see if she couldn't make some- 
 thing out of the poor little thing so unfit for India, but 
 Mary had apparently found her rather hopeless, for except 
 as an object of consolation, the effort seemed somehow to 
 have dropped. Oliver couldn't remember having thought 
 once of Mrs. Quayle since he had last seen her. 
 
 She was standing on her verandah, alone as usual, 
 she hadn't many friends, and when Mary and he turned 
 round to wave her a last good-bye, she was still watching 
 them. Then remembering the dead babies he had felt 
 sorry for the mother, and had said something about it 
 to Mary, and Mary had acquiesced with a little subtle 
 intonation in her beautiful voice and, with a softening of 
 her still more beautiful eyes, had said that she was afraid 
 Barbara would have brought them up in the sort of 
 dropped-hands way that was growing on herself. Mary 
 was just then bubbling over with theories on education. 
 And then they had both forgotten her. 
 
 After looking back at the little woman they had strolled 
 on down the nullah where once they had had a merry 
 adventure together. 
 
 Memories so intimately bound up in Mary made Oliver 
 look more attentively at Mrs. Quayle, and it struck him 
 that she looked very well. Something probably English 
 air, had brought back the delicate beauty of her com- 
 plexion. She was not quite so thin as when he had last 
 seen her. Her eyes were still rather shy. That, however, 
 was nothing to her discredit after a few years in India. 
 And now that he took the trouble to look at her, her 
 eyes were really rather unusually bright. If they could 
 look as bright as that after Mary's, something plainly
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 65 
 
 must have happened to her. He looked at her with some 
 curiosity and wondered what on earth it could be. It 
 was difficult to imagine anything happening to Mrs. 
 Quayle that could possibly brighten her eyes. That sort 
 of thing doesn't happen somehow to that sort of woman. 
 
 For the first time in her life Mrs. Quayle really sur- 
 prised Captain Mirrilies. For a minute or so he could 
 hardly get over it. It almost lifted itself to the dignity 
 of a problem in his mind. But that in connection with 
 Mrs. Quayle was almost humorous. His eyes twinkled 
 a little as he lit a cigarette, and asked for Major Quayle. 
 
 " I knew, of course, that he was going shooting in 
 Manchuria, but I thought he meant to go home afterwards 
 and join you." 
 
 " No. He met Colonel Lomax and they went up 
 country. They had splendid sport." 
 
 " Sure to have, Quayle is a splendid shot. Well, I'm 
 here and I hope you'll make use of me. I'll be glad of 
 honest work. Not a very promising looking crowd on 
 board. I say, is that your chair ? What's put it there ? 
 Let me fix you up." 
 
 In the leisurely, competent way of a good traveller he 
 established her in great comfort in the best nook on the 
 ship, and went off on his own affairs. 
 
 " Might have been very much worse," he told himself, 
 as he stowed away his belongings. " Don't suppose 
 you'd find a safer woman in India. And on the whole 
 I doubt if she's the bore we thought her, although we 
 never liked to say it on account of the babies. And, 
 any way, she has wit enough to admire Mary up to 
 her lights of course. Still a subdued light you can turn 
 off when you like is better than to be sitting under a glare 
 of gas for eighteen days." 
 
 For some minutes after he had gone Mrs. Quayle sat 
 very still. She steadied her blue eyes on her open book, 
 she clasped her hands under the rug and did her best 
 not to shake. She was a woman who had had an ex- 
 haustive training in quiet effort, and very soon she sat 
 so still that the very air about her seemed to be hushed.
 
 66 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " To let him come out alone and for three years," she 
 said to herself at last, her eyes quite still on her book 
 " that man ! Is Mary mad ? or doesn't she under- 
 stand anything ? because she can't love a man like 
 that ? She doesn't even love him enough to know that 
 he wants to be taken care of, and to be proud that he 
 does. If she knew, she'd despise him for wanting care. 
 That's Mary ! If she knew I knew, she'd put it down 
 to my evil mind, contracted from contact with Frank, 
 or want of education. And to know all that Mary knows 
 and not to know that it's the precious things of life that 
 want protecting, not the things no one wants, like me. 
 Mary does not love him as much as she would a prize 
 dog, or she wouldn't send him out into a den of thieves. 
 Oh 1 I hate the innocence of the ignorant ! Every single 
 thing that makes hay of a man or woman is a sealed book 
 to Mary. She just leaves it sealed and judges men and 
 women by her own highly educated self. What's every- 
 thing to the world is nothing to her. She just walks past 
 and condemns." 
 
 She looked back at the mists that hid England, and 
 straight ahead into a fierce blaze of merciless heat full 
 of terrors. Barbara Quayle had many bitter memories 
 and but few hopes, but her heart was warm with a great 
 love, and an infinite desire to serve, and no one had 
 ever wanted her service ! It seemed so odd to this born 
 server, for humble in all else, she knew well the splendid 
 power of service that lay latent and unwanted within her 
 aching heart. 
 
 " I think I could have given, oh ! well not every- 
 thing," she said presently " to Frank, if he had only 
 wanted it but he didn't. He only wanted children 
 for the two properties and all they wanted, I think, was 
 to die. I'd like to do something for someone I don't 
 think I can go on much longer if I can't. One gets so 
 deadly tired of never being wanted. And to do some- 
 thing, any least little thing, for Oliver so that he'd 
 never even suspect. 
 
 " Oh ! God," she said, with her blue eyes upon the
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 67 
 
 dancing waters, "I do so wish I could do something. 
 And for the first time in my life I'm glad I don't look in 
 the least like what I am, what I could be, what I was 
 meant to be, I think, that I'm insignificant and un- 
 wanted and a bore. But I won't be a bore, ever again," 
 she thought with sudden passion ; " they can stick all the 
 other disqualifications, but no man living could stand a 
 bore ! and then how could one do anything for him ? and 
 even without being a bore I can do dragon over the 
 treasure of another woman, and all the other little things 
 I couldn't even dare to think of doing if I were anyone 
 else but me. One can do a great deal," she sighed, " when 
 one has been of no account for six years, and is known 
 all over India in the character. One can do most things, 
 and men are all the creatures of habit." 
 
 Thus inflated with the missionary spirit, Mrs. Quayle 
 grew in courage and confidence, and the sea air suited her. 
 There were a singularly unattractive and unenterprising 
 company of ladies on board, so as a dragon her services 
 were hardly required, but there are a thousand pre- 
 liminaries to the practice of a role so delicate, and Mrs. 
 Quayle was as discreet as she was zealous. She never 
 thought of herself in the matter at all in fact, except when 
 the pain throbbing in all the ways of her going grew too 
 great to be any longer ignored, then to the best of her 
 ability, she put her own house in order, and having done 
 so, resumed her patient watch upon Oliver's threshold. 
 
 Oliver found the voyage less of a bore than he could 
 have dared to hope, and told Mary in more than one 
 letter that little Mrs. Quayle was quite coming out, and as 
 kind as ever in her quiet way. 
 
 Her slight but promising knowledge of life seemed to 
 have been beaten into Barbara Quayle by a succession of 
 curious little shocks. The first was the amazing differ- 
 ence between her dream of Captain Quayle and the crass 
 reality of that officer and gentleman. From this she 
 recovered considering her age and inexperience, in an 
 
 5*
 
 68 
 
 undemonstrative silence very creditable to her. Captain 
 Quayle was a fact to feel, not to discuss. 
 
 Her silence, however, cut her off from many who might 
 have been her friends. The victim who dilates upon her 
 woes to sympathetic advisers under the seal of secrecy 
 is always more interesting than the dumb dog. If a 
 woman hasn't so much as a woe to contribute to a Station, 
 she soon drops out. 
 
 Then came the deadly, deadening shocks of the fading 
 out of her babies one by one. They just looked out at 
 life, and in at her sad heart, and couldn't stand either, 
 so they went elsewhere to look for happiness. 
 
 She used often to wonder as she sat alone on the verandah 
 under the great lucent stars, if perhaps she could not 
 have kept them had her heart been only a little more 
 
 gay- 
 
 Her habit of blaming herself for everything had always 
 made things much worse for Barbara. 
 
 The most shattering shock of all fell upon her the day 
 when quite suddenly and unexpectedly she discovered 
 that she loved Oliver Mirrilies with her whole heart. 
 
 It was a few days after the death of the third baby. 
 Mary had been kind in the kindest way, but there had 
 been a certain sense of learning experience in it, and a 
 slight touch of disapproval, well-regulated babies ought 
 not to die off like that. 
 
 " As though I didn't know that myself," poor Barbara 
 had thought. It was just then that she found out Mary 
 and was immensely astonished. It precipitated the 
 shock no doubt. 
 
 In the kindness of Oliver there was no wish to acquire 
 experience, and no disapproval. She had lost what he 
 was longing for, the children Mary owed him, the debt 
 she refused to pay and he to claim. His kindness to the 
 bereaved woman was full-blooded enough. There was a 
 certain passion in it. 
 
 Barbara did not misunderstand in the least. She was 
 too pure at heart and too close to the sources of sorrow 
 for that, but for one instant she stood upon the brink
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 69 
 
 of the sources of joy in a great light which showed her 
 all things. 
 
 Then she returned to the keeping of her house and to 
 quiet repentance, for she was a woman persistent in her 
 duty. She had been repenting in a patient reasonable 
 way ever since. There was no hysteria about Barbara, 
 she was only rather too old-fashioned in the ways of a 
 world that has somehow got the bit between its teeth and 
 has run wild. 
 
 But now that the chance to do something definite both 
 for Mary and for Mary's husband had so unexpectedly 
 come into her life, it seemed to her that service in the 
 sheer nature of things, must be better than repentance, 
 so she decided to slip quietly into action and to leave 
 repentance to take care of itself, and above all to keep 
 on being thankful beyond words that she was so utterly 
 harmless.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MEANWHILE Mary was gathering in knowledge 
 and attracting a great deal of attention. She 
 had come to look round, and find out, and it was no use 
 waiting for big events in a select little Island hemmed in 
 by the shut doors of a haughty people, so she took part 
 in everything that came her way, and found it a rest from 
 her labours at the University and her French and German 
 lessons. She went to the dances, and joined the sewing 
 parties, she had even begun with great patience, to learn 
 to knit. A charitable lady, however, perceiving the 
 turning of a heel to be altogether beyond her powers 
 gave her a piece of canvas and some substance manu- 
 factured to look like silk, and showed her how to make 
 sprawling yellow spiders with black points on the canvas. 
 Presently she became an expert in the art and could 
 listen undisturbed to the conversation that went on around 
 her. It was a relief often after a strenuous morning of 
 Psychology, delivered with the inexorable precision of a 
 machine. 
 
 For, simple perhaps beyond any other nation in life 
 and often in heart, the natural and ineradicable tendency 
 of the Teuton, in order no doubt to rob his theme of none 
 of the pomp and ceremony proper to its dignity, is to 
 make his subject as difficult as he knows how. It is 
 only the German Poet who ever speaks as his heart feels. 
 The philosopher takes care to hide his heart and even his 
 thought, in great swelling words. Mary knew it to her 
 cost and for relief listened with all her ears to the pleasant 
 outpourings of the ladies. 
 
 70
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 71 
 
 They were unattached people mostly, widow-women 
 and spinsters of a discreet age, but they all loved children, 
 and Oliver with Fraulein in tow was sometimes permitted 
 to come into the sumptuous teas provided by all the 
 ladies in turn. Nothing Mary liked better than to see 
 him, tall and straight and slim, going round the circle like 
 the scent of a Spring flower. He always looked upon 
 these occasions as though he were made for no other 
 purpose than to freshen up hearts a little tired with the 
 monotony of the years. 
 
 Oliver could always accommodate himself to any 
 company. A demon with demons, he was a cherub from 
 above with the elect, and nothing escaped him. He 
 pondered many things in his heart, and brought them out 
 afterwards at awkward moments. 
 
 The ladies taught Oliver to hold skeins of wool, and 
 talked on over his golden head amiably of the weather, 
 earnestly of the Church, more gravely still of their servants, 
 and whispers might be caught by those with ears to hear 
 that were lurid with meaning. These concerned the 
 various vagaries of vanished chaplains. They always 
 wound up with a whispered pasan of praise for him now 
 present with them. 
 
 Mary at first felt a certain nervousness as to how the 
 Cause -of-rejoicings wife would take it, but her qualms 
 on this score were soon set at rest. This lady having a 
 strong sense of humour, and a sound training in English 
 Continental Colonies, took it in precisely the right spirit. 
 
 The ladies also discussed embroidery, plain sewing and 
 such other safe subjects as railway accidents, the perils 
 of the sea, or mountain ascensions, and then all went well. 
 
 The oldest inhabitant was as genial and approachable 
 as the latest arrival. It was only when an opinion or a 
 thought with any touch of individual outlook that 
 deflected in any way from the trend of the minds there 
 present was adventured, that the air became overcharged 
 and danger threatened. Nothing tangible ever came 
 of it, the elders of the community were women too great 
 and good to convey their disapproval through the common
 
 72 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 medium of speech. Each simply drew her chair slightly 
 aside and froze to her seat, at the same time freezing every- 
 body else. Icicles twinkled as by magic in the mild air. 
 The effect was quelling in a remarkable degree. 
 
 Mary was becoming rather susceptible to it. 
 
 When for the first time in her experience the hush fell, 
 she looked round in a panic, and seeing the congealed, 
 sequestered, images still sewing hard, a great weakness fell 
 upon her, and a horrible desire to scream or to say " Boo," 
 or giggle ; to do anything in short to disenchant the 
 bewitched circle, or even to discover the quarter whence 
 proceeded the alien note. That from the frozen ladies' 
 point of view it is always rather indecent to give little 
 bits of yourself away, she was already beginning to 
 discover. Even if they slip out in spite of you because 
 people have been so kind to you that you want to give 
 them the best you have at the moment, it doesn't do. 
 
 With those bred in the hard rule of the Victorian era 
 to keep yourself to yourself is the inexorable order. To 
 give your personality, your vitality ; to let any human 
 eye discern whither your trend of thought really leads, 
 to give of the precious things that concern the world as 
 nearly as they do yourself, to share your spirit with any 
 of them, is almost as loose and licentious a tendency as to 
 go round offering your virtue to the public on easy terms. 
 
 " 'Ware emotion ! " put classically was the heart's 
 cry of the Victorian. 
 
 It was an atmosphere peculiarly trying just now to 
 Mary so full of varying emotions that seemed all to 
 matter not only to her, but to everybody else. She wanted 
 to be near people who had lived, and loved, and borne 
 children, and lost them ; who had managed or mismanaged 
 husbands, or done without them. They must all have 
 such crowds of information to give away, and one could 
 make such a lot out of it, and perhaps give it back in a 
 way that would make it quite new and delightful. All 
 this and more went floating round Mary's mind as she 
 made rather futile dabs at a spider ; the sinister hush 
 somehow made her feel nervous.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 73 
 
 She looked round again rather resentfully to try to 
 discover the person guilty of the unworthy word, when 
 she became suddenly aware that it was she herself. She, 
 of all people was the sinner who had worked the spell ! 
 
 She paused to think and remembered that almost 
 without knowing it she had let something slip out that 
 was quite peculiar to herself, something that was very 
 pleasant and young, as young nearly as Oliver, she reflected, 
 as she watched him with amused eyes, his hand on a frozen 
 lap. And its one and only effect, was to freeze all the 
 elders of the congregation to their seats ! 
 
 Mary was honestly aghast, but a girl quick at the 
 " uptake." Her first duty clearly was to unfreeze the 
 pillars of the Church, so being courageous if nothing else, 
 she went over steadily smiling to the oldest inhabitant, 
 sat metaphorically at her feet and for ten solid minutes 
 talked linseed poultices. 
 
 The suggestion was a happy one, its effect magical. 
 When presently they drew in around the ample board, 
 the character of Mary was, to a large extent, re-established. 
 
 Accidents, however, will occur in the best regulated 
 families, and everyone hasn't the wit to apply linseed 
 poultices on the instant to a sense of propriety that has 
 fallen below zero from shock. 
 
 The very next week a lady made a " conquer or die " 
 burst upon the quiet scene. She was a woman of character, 
 militant in all things, and with a genuine gift of melo- 
 drama. She came from a young country full of energy 
 and advance, the precocious child of the world. Mrs. 
 Burden came laden more heavily than the Magi with 
 gifts for effete civilization. They were good gifts, and 
 she was determined to deliver them. Catch civilization 
 or anything else freezing her out ! She had things to 
 say that would do a played-out people no end of good, 
 and hear them they should or she would know the reason 
 why. 
 
 So she said them at length and in a deplorable accent, 
 to the tea parties. She spoke, as one in authority on all 
 matters in Heaven and earth. She rampaged round
 
 74 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Creation with a fine flare, and there were germs of truth in 
 all her sayings. She stirred civilization to its depths. 
 The select little Island never felt so small in its life, but 
 it had to listen to her. 
 
 The new points of view might be unpleasant, but being 
 thrown with such vital force, they stuck. 
 
 Mary listened entranced. 
 
 The happy absence of humour in this product of yeasty 
 youth, made the tea parties extremely entertaining. 
 
 In time they all yielded to the fiery influence of the 
 new prophet, save one the oldest inhabitant, and she 
 would have sat frozen, speechless, and sewing to the 
 crack of doom rather than give in tp the lucubrations of 
 anyone who could so far forget herself as to contradict 
 you to your face. 
 
 It took even Mary's breath away to see Mrs. Burden, 
 high-browed, calm, undaunted, her fine nose lifted, her 
 rapt eyes aglow, giving a dramatic representation of the 
 most scandalous of the modern frenzies in the very shadow 
 of this solid front of old-established values. 
 
 To have remained uncontradicted for fifty years in a 
 carefully tilled environment, only to be proved wrong 
 at every point by this product of a virgin soil ! Above 
 all to sit industrious, dumb and commentless in face as 
 in bearing under the amazing ordeal, represented the iron 
 heroism of a sterner time. 
 
 " If I had had the courage of either of them, of the old 
 or the new," said Mary suddenly to herself, "I'd pick 
 up Oliver the Less this minute, and go straight off 
 to my other Oliver, and we'd fight it out together, and 
 I wonder if he'd care, at any rate he'll care less every 
 day now and one makes no way at all single-handed. 
 But I'm the wretched transition weakling and I can neither 
 go back nor forward. I just wobble ; I suppose if you 
 were Mrs. Burden with the eye of the world on you that 
 nothing could stop you." 
 
 " Oh don't, please ! " entreated a gentle voice beside 
 her, and to her astonishment Mary found that she had 
 finished up aloud.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 75 
 
 There was something very winning in the little woman 
 who had spoken. She seemed to be always going about 
 doing things for everybody, and bringing round flowers. 
 It was her habit to wait, and watch, and observe, and 
 Mary's occasional outbursts rather shocked her. She 
 took them to be one of the symptoms of grass- widowhood, 
 and if one appeared, no one could be quite sure that 
 others might not follow. Besides Mrs. Mirrilies wanted 
 nothing. She had everything anyone could want, husband, 
 child, beauty and brains, and to give a few poor little 
 flowers to anyone who could buy such enormous bunches 
 for the decorations, would be absurd, so until now Miss 
 Caldecott had unobtrusively adored Oliver, and quietly 
 avoided his mother. 
 
 She saw a good deal in her quiet way, however, and 
 as she was picking up another lady's stitches, Mary's face 
 being just at the right angle for observation, she paused 
 to look at it, and it seemed to her a little less remote 
 from her accustomed point of view than she had at first 
 feared, and she was always glad to give anyone the benefit 
 of the doubt. 
 
 " I'm so glad you don't approve of suffragettes, and 
 things of that sort," she pursued, trying not to listen to 
 Mrs. Burden, and feeling very nervous. She always 
 found it difficult to make the first advance into new 
 territory. 
 
 " But I neither approve nor disapprove, really. I just 
 don't know." 
 
 Miss Caldecott's pupils sprang apart. She wished to 
 goodness she hadn't begun, and that Mrs. Burden would 
 stop. 
 
 " But not to disapprove of of anything so awful 
 as a suffragette ! " 
 
 That the mother of an angel could not disapprove 
 honestly of anything upsetting them all in the horrible 
 way Mrs. Burden did pained her extremely. 
 
 " But if only I were properly convinced that they 
 were awful," said Mary, with cheerful alacrity, "I'd 
 disapprove for all I'm worth. I'd love disapproving.
 
 76 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 I'd give anything to be a partisan, when I'm sure of my 
 point of view. But when you've begun to wobble on 
 points of view you've been quite cock sure of all your 
 life, you can't start going solid on new ones : you must 
 test them first. Do you think Mrs. Burden knows any- 
 thing ? " inquired Mary, jabbing at a spider's leg. 
 
 " I think she knows very little indeed, thank God." 
 
 " But she's sure she's right. That's the great thing. 
 If I were sure I were right in anything, I could do 
 everything ! It's dissipating your energy trying to find 
 out, that keeps you unprogressive. It must be lovely 
 to be quite sure and then just butt through. It's the 
 spirit that's made England and Mrs. Burden." 
 
 " Oh," said Miss Caldecott, loosening her grip on a 
 stitch recovered after much patient plodding, and nearly 
 dropping it again. 
 
 " But surely," said Mary, " England and Mrs. Burden 
 are indispensable to human progress ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Burden is not indispensable to our progress 
 then," said Miss Caldecott with spirit, " and she'll give 
 Mrs. Holmes a liver attack." 
 
 Mary nailed a spider to her knee, and looked at the 
 oldest inhabitant. 
 
 " Oh ! so that's what happens. Being too high- 
 minded a Puritan lady for vain words, she goes home 
 and gets a liver attack. She'd go to the stake in the 
 same commentless way, for a point of view ! Oh ! 
 if she does get a liver attack I'd love to nurse her. It's 
 magnificent to get a liver attack or to go to the stake 
 for something that perhaps doesn't matter in the least 
 in the end. The only thing that matters in the least is 
 believing down to the ground that it does matter, it's 
 being sure that makes you great." 
 
 In her absorption Mary prodded her knee, and awoke 
 to Miss Caldecott's wide blue eyes trying to shelter her 
 under their English wings. 
 
 " But but it's the tribute of a wobbler to positive 
 conviction," said Mary, aghast. " Oh ! well, if you 
 won't let me help nurse her, I'll be thrown back on Mrs.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 77 
 
 Burden, if by any chance avenging Heaven should fall 
 upon her : nothing less radical would have the slightest 
 effect, and then you'll be sorry, for I'll be having a liver 
 attack myself next." 
 
 " Then I'll nurse you," said Miss Caldecott with a 
 ring of true joy in her voice. 
 
 " I should love you to nurse me, but I should hate 
 to be ill." 
 
 " I'd like to do anything for you," said the little Moth 
 breathlessly. 
 
 Mary looked at her. She looked so beautifully steadily 
 good. She was such a rest ! 
 
 " Then let me just now and then, say exactly what 
 comes into my mind, to you. Suppressed emotions are 
 very bad for you, if they get clotted enough they might 
 give rise to internal inflammation. Don't look like that. 
 It will only be like listening to the delirium of a patient. 
 I've listened in India. You soon get used to it." 
 
 Miss Caldecott blushed, paused, and looked round 
 cautiously. 
 
 " Please say anything you like to me, Mrs. Mirrilies, 
 I'll understand, at least, I'll never repeat a word. But 
 please, please be careful with the others. We're rather 
 quiet people here, perhaps we're unprogressive and a 
 little dull, and we've made up our minds long ago I think 
 about all the things that really matter, and " 
 
 She broke off short, and knitted. 
 
 " And perhaps I'll not have made up my mind about 
 any of the things that really matter till the day of my 
 death. A wobbling mind amidst fixed ones must be a 
 stumbling-block and a rock of offence. I'd better wobble 
 in future in my dressing-gown when Oliver is asleep, and 
 to you at tea parties." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Mirrilies, just whenever you like." 
 
 " Well, when the symptoms get acute, I'll send for you. 
 There's a noble spider for you. You just look at 
 it ! " 
 
 " You're very clever, Mrs. Mirrilies, and these cushions 
 always sell."
 
 7 8 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Mary paused and jabbed her needle into a spider's 
 tail, while she gazed enviously at Mrs. Burden's eager 
 back. 
 
 " It must be beautiful to be like that," she murmured, 
 " even if you do bring on liver attacks, to be so aggres- 
 sively, absolutely sure of yourself, so sure that you're 
 absolutely right and everybody else absolutely wrong. If 
 one has to spend one's whole life finding out what's worth 
 loving or hating why there won't be any life left in the 
 end to love or hate with." 
 
 " But one knows what one loves or hates," said Miss 
 Caldecott nervously. 
 
 " But does one ? That seems the difficulty to me." 
 
 " But you you are so very fearless." 
 
 " Am I ? I wonder." 
 
 Miss Caldecott dropped a stitch and made an effort. 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies*" she murmured, " you are very young 
 and very pretty. You will be exposed to many dangers 
 at these Lectures, and whatever you do, don't let 
 any of those Slavs make friends with you." 
 
 " But," cried Mary, "I'm dying to know them not 
 all but some. They're the most interesting of the lot 
 and extremely exciting. The only trouble is they won't 
 make friends with me." 
 
 " I'm thankful to hear it," said Miss Caldecott stiffly. 
 
 " But the women are so wonderful, and so are the men 
 when they wash." 
 
 " Then I sincerely hope that those in your class will 
 never wash," said Miss Caldecott cryptically. 
 
 " Two do," said Mary, " I have my eye on them." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Mirrilies, speak lower." 
 
 " But surely they're not all unfit for publication ? " 
 
 " I fear they are," she whispered breathlessly. " Indeed 
 I know it, Mrs. Mirrilies " she paused to blush dread- 
 fully. "I'll tell you something, please never never 
 speak of it, Years ago, a cousin just out from home 
 and I went for a walk one evening, We came to an Hotel 
 where the students dance, and standing on the path 
 above the house one could look right into the ball-room,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 79 
 
 we shouldn't have looked, but, oh ! well we did. They 
 danced so beautifully." 
 
 " You danced beautifully yourself," said Mary, glancing 
 at the slight figure in which her merry eyes suddenly 
 discerned a subtle suggestion of litheness and spring. 
 
 " I wasn't allowed to learn," she said, flushing more 
 deeply, " but I could have danced. I wanted to so 
 much. But I don't believe those people had ever to 
 learn, they just danced as they walked. It was part of 
 life for them. They couldn't have lived without it. 
 When they were happy they just danced." 
 
 Mary was watching her with mounting interest, she 
 looked so young, and so innocent. 
 
 " There was one girl especially who danced in a way 
 I couldn't have imagined. She was dancing with a 
 man. If they'd been English I'd have been sure that 
 he was a gentleman and she a lady. After their dance, 
 they stood talking together in a window. It was dreadful 
 to stare, but we did it was so fascinating, and the bushes 
 hid us, and then he said something, and she slapped 
 him in the face." 
 
 " I daresay he deserved it," said Mary. 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies," she said sternly. " It was being 
 Slavs. They do these things." 
 
 " But perhaps it's better than only thinking of doing 
 them. I do like people who can bring their thought 
 into action. Oh ! don't be the least afraid I'd ever do 
 it myself. By the time I'd have been ready to slap 
 him in the face, the man would have escaped to repeat 
 his offence on someone else, and another lost opportunity 
 scored up against me ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies, there's the Chaplain," she murmured 
 warningly. 
 
 " He looks as human as anyone else. I daresay in his 
 extreme youth if he had gone to a dance where Slav 
 girls with their hair coiled up above their ears had danced 
 his wits away, that he'd have deserved slapping as much 
 as the Slav man." 
 
 " Oh, please please "
 
 80 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " But being English doesn't preserve you from every 
 danger." 
 
 " It does from a great many. I'm glad that though 
 I've lived abroad ever since I was eighteen, I feel so very, 
 very English. I think I can honestly say that in all the 
 years I have been here the feeling has never once left 
 me." 
 
 She sighed with soft thanksgiving and started unravelling 
 a heel, that in less competent hands had become a toe. 
 
 " Oh," said Mary, awestricken, " and I'd give anything, 
 but Oliver and another person or so, to be able to 
 feel unEnglish enough on occasion to get into some member 
 of every other nation I come across, just to see how he 
 feels about things, and to remember every word of it and 
 all the feelings, afterwards." 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies, you don't know what you're talking 
 about, please forgive me, but thank God, you don't. 
 The morals of the Slavs ' 
 
 " But," said Mary eagerly, " quite a short stay inside 
 one might explain their morals, and how they got into 
 the state they are, or if the state is just your own point 
 of view ; and it's the point of view, and not the morals 
 that call for treatment." 
 
 " Please a little lower." 
 
 " The nice human Chaplain who's been inside en- 
 thralling members of many nationalities, or he wouldn't 
 be the man he is is tackling Mrs. Burden. I hope he'll 
 take me next, for a rest, and then I'll be as English as un- 
 fortunately I am. I'm only hoping to be the other things, 
 and then I needn't speak any longer under my breath, 
 need I ? Was I very delirious ? " inquired Mary, sup- 
 pressing an inclination to stretch. 
 
 " I'm afraid you were," said Miss Caldecott, with a 
 slightly worn-out smile. " But I'll not say one word. 
 I'm very safe." 
 
 " But I do wish to goodness you weren't, and would 
 let out some of your secrets or other people's," said 
 Mary unctuously ; " I'm sure you're chock full of them." 
 
 She sighed restively as she thought of the tons of sup-
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 81 
 
 pressed information enclosed for the term of her natural 
 life within that spare form. Nothing less than the judg 
 ment day would ever disgorge the mass. 
 
 " It's a beautiful spirit, I know. It's also the spirit 
 with the nicest difference, that made England, and the 
 lady who says nothing, and gets liver attacks. I can't 
 reach to it. I'd give anything to tap this congregation," 
 she said with conviction " any congregation really, 
 to go from one congregation to another with a little lancet 
 letting out all the news. One might cut all the psycho- 
 logical lectures then. It would teach you more than 
 a thousand lectures, and spare you a thousand headaches. 
 Ah ! there's Mr. Gordon coming." 
 
 "It's quite time," said Miss Caldecott drily. 
 
 " It is, I think. It will be nice to talk to a man who's 
 made the Grand Tour in the insides of all the nations, and 
 can still look calm."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was not until long afterwards that Mary could 
 recognize as part and parcel of herself, the profound 
 egoism of which a woman in a state of transition can be 
 capable. Then she could look back at her tea party 
 conversations, at home and abroad, with a laugh, and 
 some contrition, not of a very acute order. 
 
 After all, selfish or not, she had inconvenienced no one. 
 They were all very happy together, and to have a heart of 
 gold always at the disposal of its friends in a sorrow of 
 which no woman can speak is a great consolation. 
 
 An understanding friend would just then, have driven 
 Mary crazy. One who helped her to understand herself, 
 through the medium of her own halting, groping words 
 made for sanity. But she wanted more mediums than one 
 to keep pain at bay, and to find out things that perhaps 
 had escaped her notice. Things that were also perhaps in 
 Oliver the Greater, and might be cropping up in Oliver 
 the Less next, and she didn't want to miss them this time. 
 
 Now moreover the most extraordinary thing was happen- 
 ing to Mrs. Mirrilies ; her curiosity was growing rapacious, 
 and was not by any means so delicately fastidious as it 
 used to be. In India she had never permitted herself to 
 be curious about anything but native customs. She had 
 spent herself digging into these, and in the process had 
 experienced some unpleasant surprises, but it seemed 
 to her that the less one knew of the lives of the men and 
 women of one's own race the better. They did not bear 
 digging into. Besides she had quicker and less brutal 
 methods of investigation at her disposal. One sensation 
 
 82
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 83 
 
 in regard to a man was always enough for Mary. She 
 felt him and passed on. She had rarely been mistaken, and 
 in the silence of her soul Mary plumed herself upon her 
 gift. It had been much the same with women. If any 
 woman in the Station was intimate with Mrs. Mirrilies it 
 amounted to a hall mark of respectability, so to speak. 
 
 So in the midst of the swift rush of life she had walked 
 sedate and unseeing past it, keeping her white robes clean, 
 and now here in this little backwater of life she was restless 
 with desire to see and to know everything ; to lure life 
 itself into betraying all its secrets. It didn't even strike 
 her now to think of her white robes at all ! She was 
 too eager to know new things. She had a right to know 
 them ; she knew so many old ones ! 
 
 She had indeed a multitude of substantial facts at her 
 fingers' end. Her eyes had seen, and her intelligence had 
 understood them like that of many another intellectual 
 woman, in a purely objective way. She had put all she 
 had perceived, numbered and classified, into some water- 
 tight compartment within her own being and had sealed 
 every outlet. She had never permitted any fact or any 
 principle of which she had good reason to disapprove, 
 to mix with the rest of life, to put forward any plea for 
 its own existence, in fact to have any right at all in life. 
 
 If a prisoner did escape and run amok, then to catch 
 him and clap him in again was one's first and bounden 
 duty. To permit him to have any say in the matter, or 
 to plead his own cause had always been beyond the moral 
 conception of Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 Turn him out, convince him, reform him of course, 
 if you can ; but so long as he continues to retain the nature 
 he started life with, keep him in solitary confinement 
 and your own skirts un defiled. 
 
 Thus, when in the midst of it, Mary's intellect had 
 shrunk from the consideration of life as a whole, but now 
 something infinitely more intimate than the intellect was 
 at work in her, egging her on to plunge into life, deep 
 down in it, so that somewhere in its inscrutable depths 
 possibly with all his points of view reorganized to meet 
 
 6*
 
 84 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 hers, she might find Oliver. Mary was only aware that 
 she wanted to plunge immensely. Of the egoism of the 
 woman in search of herself she knew nothing. 
 
 And yet profound egoist though she was in those days, 
 Mary did not often pause to think of herself at all, except 
 in connection with her more urgent object. 
 
 This state of conscious flux in herself, made her restive ; 
 she was too young for her years, and all too pitiably remote 
 from the high ideal of calm finish that floated always 
 ahead of her. 
 
 It was in this mood that her roving longing eyes turned 
 to the English boys learning life, and the Arts, and Sciences 
 in the great cold University. 
 
 The English boys were ready and willing, and presently 
 boys of other nationalities came drifting in, on sufferance 
 at first, and with an apology on the part of the introducer 
 as befits an Englishman in the making, but Oliver and 
 argument soon made them all kin ; whilst Mary, hospitable 
 now to every impression, and more eager than all the 
 rest put together, made of her rooms a pleasant neutral 
 territory where differences dissolved. That is, the differ- 
 ences that mattered, those common to their years and 
 inexperience, swelled as many-mouthed instruments the 
 nearer they got to Mary. 
 
 Mary conducted, so to speak, and the instruments 
 blared, but she took good care that each had its full value 
 in the wild spring-song of the nations, and her own head 
 was often buzzing with new tunes. 
 
 A new atmosphere, sparkling like young wine, was 
 in the air, and Oliver had the time of his life. He was 
 answering to the word of command in a week, and at a 
 more leisurely pace was learning not to bore his betters. 
 Nothing like selfishness at its zenith for twisting it out of 
 the raw beginner ! 
 
 Mary was delighted. She had once feared the possibility 
 of Oliver's becoming woman-bred. 
 
 Except Mary, who under the new educational influences 
 often caught glimpses of her own bewildered folly, they 
 were all as wise as owls, blinking and focussing their
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 85 
 
 eyes, and revealing life in its first promise. And out on 
 her broad verandah with the little lovely city of gardens 
 at their feet they smoked like furnaces. 
 
 Calamities occurred indeed. The kettle was often 
 whisked over in the heat of argument, or the spirit ran 
 out, but in the end the tea was always a dream and each 
 felt that the general high level in the quality of the con- 
 versation was all due to himself. No one ever went out 
 from Mary's small orgies without feeling that he had 
 done credit to himself and his nation. 
 
 Mary sometimes wondered if she weren't spoiling them, 
 but then she couldn't have got anything at all out of them 
 if she hadn't, and she wanted everything ; so she decided 
 to go on spoiling them for their good. Once, hundreds 
 of years ago she used to do things also for Oliver's good, 
 she remembered, but she had never spoilt him ! 
 
 One day she and a select four were cutting a huge plate 
 of bread and butter and all smoking hard ; Mary was 
 too absorbed in the things that were slipping out of their 
 caches to bar smoking over bread and butter, as in her 
 better moments she always did. She was too absorbed 
 even to be shocked, which was worse, when the door opened, 
 and the little White Moth floated in. Her pupils widened, 
 and she dissolved back into the passage for one instant, 
 then valorously advanced. Mary kept her head, and 
 beamed a welcome. 
 
 But another lost opportunity was scrawled up against 
 her on the phantom door. She had just been on the very 
 verge of touching Oliver's hand across the seas, or perhaps 
 his point of view, and she was certain the bread and butter 
 was tobacco-flavoured. 
 
 For the first time in her existence, however, Miss Calde- 
 cott found herself suddenly caught up in the divine afflatus. 
 She waved off the smokers, took over the bread and butter, 
 and laid down the law about the cups. 
 
 After that she often came in, and took over all the 
 preparations. And then she gave the lamb she designed 
 to fold, still more ample opportunity for becoming all 
 too intimately acquainted with the manners and customs
 
 86 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 of the destroyer of the flock in its first crude state, when 
 it lets out all its glory and all its shame at the right touch, 
 because it has not yet learnt the virile art of dissimulation. 
 
 It was a great joy to the little Moth to guard Mary 
 who so very plainly needed guarding. It never even struck 
 her that if Mary weren't quite capable of guarding herself, 
 at her age, all the dragons in creation would be of no avail. 
 
 But with the genus to which this amateur in dragonhood 
 belonged the eventless years slip by so softly that the 
 border line which divides the lamb from the sheep becomes 
 so blurred in dreams, that many long stiffened into sober 
 sheep, still gambol as lambs, and others are startled and 
 shocked when they find this no longer possible. They 
 put it down to a thousand curious causes. 
 
 And Mary, after all, possessed all the attributes that 
 make a lamb above all other creatures want a fold and 
 a shepherd. Although having all that life could give her, 
 her whole life lay still before her. And being singularly 
 ignorant of geography, directly she set out wandering 
 she would inevitably lose her way. 
 
 So Miss Caldecott was not so far wrong after all and a 
 great addition to the tea parties. 
 
 The motley crowd liked her. She brought luck to 
 the tea, and they couldn't explain the rest ! But a heart 
 of gold will find its way at last into the veriest heart of 
 stone, and hearts at eighteen have not yet had time to 
 ossify. 
 
 At any rate the little Moth had the joy of knowing 
 that she was welcome, and she had no doubt at all but that 
 she was useful. 
 
 She wanted some compensation to be sure. The atmo 
 sphere, thick with tobacco of mixed quality made her 
 most deadly sick, and deprived her of her night's rest 
 for a full month. She endured it, however, as she would 
 have endured the fires of Smithfield, and thought as 
 little of her heroism as did those who were turned to 
 cinders in that astonishing locality for the sake of a point 
 of view, and for the making of men.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MARY'S letters to her husband were regular and 
 very well expressed. She told Oliver all about his 
 son, quite enough about the Lectures on Psychology, but 
 very little of her experiments in it. They were so very 
 perfunctory, almost as perfunctory as the boys, and it is 
 difficult to a well-trained mind to put perfunctory things 
 into elegant English when writing to a comparative stranger. 
 
 Oliver laughed after he had finished each letter, then 
 he took violent exercise, or just worked harder. And 
 now on the days of the mail's arrival he had sometimes to 
 remind himself that he was a man after all, and not a 
 machine, and it seemed to him that it was early days to 
 start this sort of thing, while to be obliged to be always 
 pulling yourself together was nearly as bad. 
 
 There was always Mrs. Quayle of course. She had 
 drifted into the Station by some happy chance, but why, 
 it puzzled him to guess. 
 
 Her husband had no need of paying jobs ; he could 
 choose his climate. 
 
 " Perhaps it's because he likes you," Mrs. Quayle said 
 in her passive way, " and he didn't hit it off with the 
 men in the other Station." 
 
 Not an unusual circumstance where Quayle was con- 
 cerned, Oliver reflected, but he had never known him 
 leave a good Station for a bad before. Quayle stayed as 
 a rule where he was comfortable, and where he could make 
 fellows he had an edge on uncomfortable. 
 
 It's an ill wind, however, that blows nobody good, and 
 Mrs. Quayle was a boon in a mild way. Oliver was sorry 
 
 87
 
 88 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 the beastly place made her look rather plain. It wasn't 
 playing the game on Quayle's part when he could afford 
 to live anywhere. He glanced at the kind-eyed little 
 woman, and thought of Mary when even she had drooped a 
 little. Her eyes less radiantly wide-awake than usual, 
 her colour waiting under the clear pallor to come out again 
 with the evening breeze, her busy hands at rest, her active 
 brain brooding. Mary a little under the weather had been 
 more than usually dear and delightful. 
 
 One could only be sorry for poor little Mrs. Quayle. 
 Oliver was sorry quite acutely at times. She really did 
 look very unattractive. 
 
 She had no one to look after her and since she was 
 only Mrs. Quayle, no one in his senses could talk, so Oliver 
 manifested his sympathy in deeds. He put himself out 
 to a quite considerable extent to serve the poor little thing. 
 
 Being safe as a church is sometimes an asset to a woman, 
 he thought once, as he was waiting for her rather longer 
 than usual. One of her little commonplace virtues was 
 never to keep him waiting. But to-day she could hardly 
 endure her dull pallor, her dull eyes, her sad, tired mouth. 
 She had things to make her pretty like other women. 
 More than once her husband's sneers had driven her to 
 them, but never yet had she used them to make herself 
 presentable to Captain Mirrilies. She loathed them at the 
 best of times, and to please his eyes ! 
 
 She shuddered away from her reflection in the glass, but 
 she resisted the temptation, as she had done many another, 
 and came out looking a little plainer and more negative 
 for her silent struggle. The processes of Mrs. Quayle went 
 on too deeply and secretly ever to let out any of their 
 beauty. 
 
 It was just the same with the higher emotions as with 
 hats where Mrs. Quayle was concerned. Nothing ever 
 seemed to suit her. 
 
 And yet some women will look all the better for the full 
 practice of the seven deadly sins ! It was very hard. 
 
 Mrs. Quayle had enough spirit, however, to be slightly 
 amused at her own thankfulness in having kept so
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 89 
 
 rigorously on the safe side, as she now sat and discussed 
 the moonlight picnic Captain Mirrilies had come to arrange 
 about. Little as she guessed it he was going entirely on 
 her account, for unless he did, the poor little thing would 
 be left sitting alone under a deodar tree for three solid hours 
 that night, and for some altogether vague and remote 
 reason he felt himself to be in her debt. He owed her, 
 he wondered how much he really did owe her ! It was 
 difficult to define anything in regard to Mrs. Quayle ; she 
 was so very indefinite, but she filled vacant places, that is 
 all one could say. And with Mary attending Psycho- 
 logical Lectures with apparently no soul in them, so much, 
 at least, her compositions had let him see, at the other 
 side of the world, vacant places must be filled with 
 innocuous material for choice. 
 
 He was sorry when this thought shot out its ugly lip. 
 He did owe her but what the devil did he owe her ? 
 
 Five minutes later, when he had dropped the picnic and 
 gone on to Mary, Mrs. Quayle could have told him. She 
 was giving him, with a white expressionless face, the 
 thousand things for which Mary stood. The myriad 
 invisible essences which weld together the substance 
 necessary in the structure of a man, the things without 
 which some men make no growth at all. She was giving 
 of the best of herself to make Oliver. She was giving with 
 her very best, the little negligible things that Mary had 
 withheld until Oliver was worthy of them ; for having 
 suffered all things, Mrs. Quayle had learnt a few, and so had 
 got a little ahead of Oliver's many-gifted wife. 
 
 But even the chequered stream of silver light in which 
 she sat some hours later couldn't idealize Mrs. Quayle. 
 She was depressed and depressing. She was forcing Oliver 
 to stifle many a yawn, and to long with a great desire first 
 for Mary, afterwards, afterwards he would have been glad 
 of any antidote ! But he sat on patiently. If he left her 
 she would stay left. So Oliver, although dog-tired 
 after a hard day, shook off his languor and fell to cheering 
 up the poor little woman, and he was still so much of a boy 
 at heart that his assumed gaiety turned so real in the end
 
 90 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 that it got into the air, and at last it got even into Mrs. 
 Quayle. In half an hour she forgot herself so much as 
 even to forget her mission, and was another woman 
 altogether. For the second time in their acquaintance, 
 she surprised Oliver. She surprised other people as well. 
 Her laugh, the most attractive thing about Mrs. Quayle, 
 rippled down the hill and transfixed the Station. Within 
 the memory of man such sounds had never before issued 
 from the closed lips of Mrs. Quayle. 
 
 The Usual Thing in the very crisis of an affair of her 
 own, paused to listen. " I never did ! " she gasped. " Is 
 it dead bones coming to life ? or a swan-song, or what ? 
 Is Captain Mirrilies to give us a sensation at last ? Good- 
 ness knows we've waited long enough for either of them to 
 oblige us with one. Heavens ! Listen to that ! Now 
 that's what comes of a man keeping his eyes nailed to the 
 Higher Education too long. Anything in the shape of a 
 woman can make a fool of him." 
 
 Major Carl ton laughed carelessly, as another laugh came 
 rippling down. It was startling enough from Mrs. Quayle, 
 and it reminded him that he had been sorry himself in his 
 time for the poor little woman pretty as paint when she 
 first came out, growing plainer every day under their very 
 noses. To begin anyway by being pretty was always to 
 her credit. If she hadn't he would not have troubled even 
 to pause to think her out. To have any feeling at all for 
 an ingrained ugly woman without the wit to conceal it 
 was altogether beyond the limits of Major Carlton's creed. 
 He liked Mirrilies and his wife, moreover, and knew Quayle 
 better than anyone else did, so his face was graver than she 
 liked to see it as it looked down on his companion, who 
 couldn't have been much prettier had her own capable 
 hands been in at her making. 
 
 " Look here," he said. " Don't start that sort of thing 
 with them. Quite enough suitable material at hand." 
 
 " Where ? " she demanded, wrinkling up her ridiculous 
 little nose. 
 
 " It's always near enough, God knows." 
 
 " The climate's as good as any flaming angel to keep sin
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 91 
 
 off the premises. I've only alighted for a minute or two to 
 preen my wings." 
 
 " Well, stick to your job, then, and don't sharpen your 
 wits or other people's on those three, Kitty. Quayle is 
 enough for any poor woman without women's tongues into 
 the bargain, and I like both the Mirrilies'. I'll be glad if 
 you let them alone, and I thought we were engaged on our 
 own affairs. Hadn't we better return to our muttons, and 
 let the poor little woman have her night out in peace, and 
 give Mirrilies credit for more philanthropy than most of us 
 are capable of ? " 
 
 " What queer people seem to call out the nobler virtues 
 in man. Catch any of you philanthropising over me ! " 
 
 " But do you think you'd like it ? " 
 
 " Depends on the philanthropist. Oh, come back out 
 of this glare," she said, " and talk sense." 
 
 " Euphemistic way of saying our own affairs." 
 
 " Oh well, come on, and we'll talk about things we 
 understand." 
 
 " Or don't." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, my good man," said she, as they 
 melted away into the soft rolling waves of darkness crested 
 with glancing points of light. 
 
 Meanwhile in the curious excitement of her unprece- 
 dented mood, Mrs. Quayle was saying the things her gentle 
 heart felt with a subtle mist of flattery in them which she 
 would not have dreamed of saying in her normal state. 
 Under the silver silence of the moon's rays, in the soft 
 warm hush the desire to be as happy as other women, to 
 show herself at her best as they did, to forget the vileness of 
 life in its ineffable joys, was getting the better of all her 
 resolutions. Her trampled heart and soul and spirit lifted 
 themselves from their degradation panting with eagerness 
 to prove themselves, to do something, effect something 
 after their long, long years of crouching in the dust. 
 
 It was a startlingly stimulating experience to Mrs. 
 Quayle to find that she could even now be what she had 
 never been, an attractive woman. To dare to show a 
 side of her that she had kept secret all these years, to dare
 
 92 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 to assert her all round womanhood was amazingly 
 refreshing. 
 
 She had given good gifts to Oliver Mirrilies, greater and 
 more inestimable than he knew. In her quiet common- 
 place way she had inspired him, and kept him going. She 
 had always known this, and rejoiced in the knowledge, but 
 never before had she dominated him, or anyone else. And 
 now to be able to do this, and to do it triumphantly, and 
 what is more to be able to go on doing it, she knew she 
 could ! was enthralling. Some source within her had 
 opened, and it was for her to draw treasure from it, or to 
 seal it tight and go on as usual. 
 
 For a second she paused, wavering, and in the pause 
 she grew cold in the mellow warmth. To go on as usual, 
 alone along the duU monotonous high-road of daily life, 
 everything worth having in you down-trodden in the 
 dust, to go on dull-eyed, dull-cheeked with a tired 
 mouth, to pass on alone, leaving everything but a little 
 pity behind you. It seemed inconceivable in the radiant 
 glow of her whole being. To seal up your Treasure-cave 
 just as you had discovered it, and to pass on, would only 
 be to leave yourself, and the world, poorer than either 
 you or the world could ever know, she thought crazily. 
 
 Oh ! she couldn't, she couldn't, not just yet. To catch 
 hold of everything she had ever wanted just to let it go, 
 and for what ? She couldn't. No one could. 
 
 Captain Mirrilies was smoking and waiting for more. 
 He was having an unexpectedly agreeable evening, and he 
 was glad of it. Sitting with Mrs. Quayle in the moonlight 
 wasn't as a rule what a man would exactly hanker after. 
 But to-night, why to-night was a bit of a startler. After 
 so many uneventful years of the little woman he could never 
 have suspected her of this, and neither he felt sure could 
 Mary, who had had even more of her. 
 
 Good she was as good as gold, of course ! but to be 
 amusing you and bucking you up ! 
 
 Oliver had always done his best not to let himself get too 
 bored with her. He had to thank her for a lot but there 
 was no talk of being bored to-night. Instead of being bored
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 93 
 
 he was getting things from Mrs. Quayle that goodness 
 solid as a wall could never give a man. 
 
 He had plenty of experience. As a rising man he had 
 taken all the virtue of India in to dinner, and had often 
 found it very hard labour, and indeed Mrs. Quayle herself 
 had not always been a feather-weight, but to-night he could 
 relax, and let her take the field. It was exhilarating to find 
 a woman, who had so often made you yawn now making 
 you laugh, and whether it was the moonlight or a new dress 
 she seemed to have dropped half a dozen hot weathers. 
 She was almost the girl they had known, Mary and he, when 
 she had first come out. 
 
 He stretched unobtrusively but luxuriously. It was 
 good to loaf, and let someone else do the work. 
 
 Captain Mirrilies settled himself so that he could look 
 at her. He laughed under his breath. He had so often 
 wanted to look the other way. Nothing he disliked more 
 than seeing a woman going to pieces under your very eyes. 
 Being of the same make as the fellow who was causing the 
 devastations, you somehow felt yourself responsible, in 
 a way, for his balked job. 
 
 But even in the midst of her first triumph, her miserable 
 little conscience, feminine to a degree, couldn't let Mrs. 
 Quayle alone. 
 
 And yet it was her one little moment, just one in a long, 
 long life, and she must make the best of it. It couldn't 
 last. It might never return. She got pale at the very 
 thought, and at the same time tried to feel that perhaps it 
 were better so, but she couldn't feel it, so she pushed 
 past her conscience, and said gaily and rather at random : 
 
 " Do you know that yesterday at Mrs. Cameron's tea, 
 Mrs. Hanworth said that neither you nor Mary deserved 
 the least credit for being examples, that was her word, 
 not mine, that you're both much too highly specialized 
 for any up-to-date temptation." 
 
 Even before she had finished she hesitated and was 
 sorry. It was so unlike their usual conversations, it was 
 too personal, it might lead to, to anything. At the same 
 time she was glad it was said ; the impulse to be intimate
 
 94 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 for the first time in her life, to break through the chill of 
 acquaintanceship into the warm zone of friendship was 
 overpowering and only one little minute, perhaps in the 
 long, long years ! But she had grown so shy of the reality 
 of people and things, the only reality she knew was so 
 horrible, that she blushed crimson. Oliver only laughed, 
 however. 
 
 " Go on," he said ; " explain her theory." 
 
 " She said that you've both never dealt with instincts 
 as they deserved, but soared right off to the higher plane, 
 hardly pausing on the emotional at all, and are now 
 enclosed in mail coats of intellect impervious to all attacks 
 of the lower nature. That no dart forged by world, flesh 
 or devil could pierce such armour as yours." 
 
 " Ha ! That's interesting, and Mrs. Han worth interests 
 you ? " 
 
 " She does, curiously. And you and Mary interest her, 
 but this is gossip, isn't it, and you've always been above 
 gossip." 
 
 " Who ever said that I was above gossip ? " said Oliver. 
 " Go on. Mrs. Hanworth has introduced a new note into 
 the tea-parties, hasn't she ? " 
 
 It seemed to be all part and parcel of the night to Captain 
 Mirrilies, and over-specialization was a good word for 
 Mary. He wondered how far it would carry her, and why 
 it had failed him. And one could say a lot to Mrs. Quayle 
 without prejudice. 
 
 " Yes, I've been thinking about it a good deal. That 
 sort of woman it's no use pretending not to know about 
 her, " she said quickly, "I've always pretended until 
 now, but to-night I can't. She brought a new note into 
 the dull little gossip, she made it bigger and more impor- 
 tant. I think she rounded it out, made it sort of weld 
 into life, a necessary part of it, not the wretched snippets 
 and shavings and dust of life that it generally is, only 
 fit for the fire or the rubbish heap. I think we all went 
 home thinking in our several little ways, not as we 
 generally do, to forget as fast as we can to make room 
 for the next cargo. Mrs. Han worth's done more evil
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 95 
 
 than any one of us, and she has twice the sense of the 
 lot of us put together, and a bigger outlook, and gossip 
 is horribly mean, really, and I've got miles away from 
 Mary and you." 
 
 " We'll keep, we're eminently solid people, while Mrs. 
 Hanworth's influence must necessarily be as evanescent 
 as it is enthralling. She's here, I have no doubt, on 
 private and evanescent affairs." 
 
 " Major Carlton, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Well, yes, I suppose so, but one may as well give a 
 touch of subtlety to brutal factors on such a night. At 
 any rate she's very quick in her methods, she won't be 
 shedding her enlarging influence for very long on your 
 tea-parties. She has other fish to fry." 
 
 " She'll fry them beautifully," said Mrs. Quayle 
 pensively. 
 
 " She will. I don't say you others haven't chosen the 
 better part. God knows you have, and every man-jack 
 of us, no matter what part he's chosen himself, would 
 be ready, at any hour of the day or night, to stand up 
 and call you blessed. You've done incredible wonders 
 for us and the world, only being selfish brutes with no 
 natural inclination towards the practice or extortion of 
 self-sacrifice, we're sometimes rather afraid of your over- 
 doing it. It's a big job, you see, to keep the world even 
 decently clean, so that it's been a sort of perpetual spring- 
 cleaning with the women who've undertaken it, the 
 faithful women who have kept the flag flying since the 
 first of them left Eden. She's swept out all her own 
 corners, just as she'd like to sweep out all the corners of 
 the Universe. But she's sometimes left herself a bit 
 bleak and bare, as she'd leave the Universe if she had 
 an absolutely free hand. She's swept out things," said 
 Oliver half to himself, "some of us think she'd better 
 have stuck to. She's put many a thing that's offended 
 her perhaps because she's failed to understand it, on 
 the dust heap, and she wants all her gold fresh from the 
 refining-pot, never taking into consideration the fact that 
 the alloy is as necessary as the gold to hold things together.
 
 96 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 I say the moonlight has got to my head," said Oliver, 
 laughing and blinking. "I'm thinking aloud, just as 
 it comes most of it nonsense. Mrs. Hanworth's influence 
 I dare say. Why don't you shut me up ? " 
 
 " Because I want to listen to you. I understand you, 
 to-night, and that's Mrs. Hanworth's influence too. 
 But why has she it ? How does it come ? Why are we 
 blind and over-scrubbed ? and smelling horribly of 
 yellow soap ? " 
 
 " Good Lord ! Don't ! " 
 
 " Don't ! It's been ' don't ' from the beginning of the 
 world, a purely negative process. I want something 
 positive like like Mrs. Hanworth. She and you have 
 the monopoly of the does, and we of the don'ts, and it's 
 unfair to both of us I think." 
 
 Oliver gasped in the silence of his soul and waited. 
 She had better get it said and done with, however, lest 
 worse befall. 
 
 " Go on," he said, lighting a cigarette. 
 
 " Our don't doesn't seem to have been an all-round 
 nourishing diet," she said, looking out into the shining 
 mystery of the Indian night. " Even women started with 
 free will. We must have had a lot to do with our own 
 making from the very first, and it's been a very one-sided 
 making, we've been doing right in the wrong way all 
 the time, and now the passion for spring-cleaning so long 
 in our blood seems to have made us remorseless in our 
 methods to ourselves, as remorseless to ourselves, as we 
 are to you. And I don't think you're any more successful 
 than we are. I wonder if we'd shared the toil, worked 
 out the details of our growth together, if we'd all be any 
 happier," she said with her odd low laugh. " But you 
 see the very minute the woman took her broom the 
 man went hunting, and so our methods of growing have 
 always been kept secret the one from the other, and there 
 has always been a slight antagonism between the two. 
 The man's work was his pleasure, and the woman's her 
 duty, and he had sun and air on it and a blue sky above, 
 while she had dust and soapsuds and a low roof."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 97 
 
 " Heavens above ! What's put all this into your 
 head ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Mrs. Hanworth perhaps. She's thrown 
 her broom over the garden wall long ago and gone hunting, 
 or poaching, or pirating, and I'd be sitting alone 
 to-night except for you being sorry for me, and I'm a 
 good woman who has stuck to her broom, and Mrs. 
 Hanworth, who hasn't, has never had to sit alone in all 
 her born days." 
 
 "I'm sitting with you because I like doing so." 
 
 " Yes to-night because I'm not as good as usual. 
 It's Mrs. Han worth's influence on both of us." 
 
 Oliver felt rather embarrassed, and yet this was not 
 the sort of thing that a woman as reticent as Mrs. Quayle 
 should be bottling up. He was immensely sorry for her. 
 She must have suffered more acutely than one could 
 have supposed from her passive attitude of acceptance ; 
 possibly she knew more of the Major than anyone supposed, 
 and in any case women were beyond him. 
 
 " Women who go hunting, or poaching, or pirating," 
 he said quietly, " often go in very good company, and if 
 they don't leave their consciences at home they revise 
 them before the start, and are ready for anything, and 
 being adventuresses they have no fear of facts, naturally, 
 or of anything else, and being always on the make they 
 must always be on the alert, strung up to victory, you 
 know. They can't afford to be dull." 
 
 " No, they're positive like men, not passive like the 
 broom woman. They've taken their fate into their 
 own hands, and though virtue is never its own reward, I 
 think courage sometimes is. The woman who has the 
 courage begins to question the ' don'ts ' of the ages early. 
 She's not afraid to go into them as we are. Familiarity 
 breeds contempt in the end, and presently she laughs at 
 them. Then it's all a great big joke with limitless 
 possibilities." 
 
 " Mrs. Hanworth is charming, but so are you in your 
 way, and it's the better way, believe me. It's Mary's 
 way," he said, with great gentleness.
 
 98 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " It's Mary's way, yes," she said slowly. " It's Mary's 
 way, but Mary is charming, she can't help it. She is. 
 And I've never charmed anyone in my life." 
 
 She stood up and leant against the tree, silent. 
 
 There was a long pause, and in the pause had Oliver 
 looked, he was too busy thinking of Mary to look, he 
 would have seen a struggle and a victory, and then a 
 great whiteness, not the shining whiteness of the moon's 
 light, but the dead whiteness of infinite pain falling upon 
 her face, then another pause for recovery of her passivity. 
 
 When Oliver did look up she looked just tired again, 
 and he was sorry. She had been rather fine that un- 
 expectedly pleasant evening. 
 
 " It's a matter of courage and encouragement," she 
 laughed at his puzzled face. " I'm speaking of charm," 
 she said. " It's the flowers in the meadow, the flower 
 border in the kitchen garden at the feet of the espaliered 
 pears, and if anyone ever lets her broom or her conscience 
 or expediency, the bugbears of women, rob the meadow 
 or the vegetable garden of their due, she deserves all she 
 gets." 
 
 Her face was shining again, no longer cold and dead. 
 Oliver stood up, still slightly puzzled. 
 
 " No woman wants more than just to be herself," he 
 said kindly. 
 
 " Yes, mat's just all," she said. She was laughing, 
 but she looked very grave, and sweet, and rather young 
 again. " But one must see to the flowers when the 
 meadow and the garden are both young, you know. Later 
 on, one can never make the flowers look quite natural 
 and at home, but still one can always grow good cabbages." 
 
 " Cabbages," said Major Quayle. " You seemed too 
 merry for cabbages as I came up. I've been looking for 
 you this half-hour." 
 
 " Surely not," said Oliver, looking at his watch, " By 
 Jove ! yes. Well, cabbages seem to have shortened the 
 time," he said, laughing. " Good night, Mrs. Quayle, 
 your husband will rob me of the pleasure of driving you 
 home."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 99 
 
 Quayle looked more than the usual rotter, he thought, 
 as he went down the hill. " He looked deep, and she's 
 got to the bottom of him. The dregs at the ultimate 
 depths of Quayle would be pretty thick I fancy for an 
 inexperienced woman. The sort of wisdom that poor 
 little woman is out for isn't for the likes of her, I fancy," 
 he thought presently, " it will only fill her with a few 
 more unfulfilled wants. I wonder what drove her to it, 
 I wish to God something would drive Mary in the same 
 direction. Nature to choose that poor little thing and 
 to pass my magnificent Mary by ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MRS. QUAYLE had now for many years appre- 
 hended, with unerring precision, the myriad 
 glances of her husband, and followed furtively with all 
 the cunning of. frightened creatures all his moods. She 
 thought she knew him. But to-night there was some- 
 thing in both glance and mood that baffled and alarmed 
 her. She had believed until now that she knew the worst 
 of Frank, but now there seemed to be a deeper worst 
 beyond the reach of her plumbing line, and if it was too 
 deep for that, it must be deep indeed ! 
 
 Like all supercilious people, Major Quayle had many 
 other contemptible qualities. If he despised a woman, 
 he let her see it, and see at the same time the worst of 
 himself. He had never scrupled to shock the sense of 
 decency of any creature of as little account as his wife. 
 He hadn't troubled very much to deceive her. He had 
 simply disregarded her, and gone his way. The instant 
 she first betrayed her fear of him and of herself, and had 
 begun to fade, having failed to provide him with a healthy 
 heir, he thanked his stars that he had the luck at least 
 to be tied to a fool, and proceeded to take full advantage 
 of his good fortune. 
 
 The world, after all, can stand a lot, and so far he had 
 never got caught. And even facts he flattered himself 
 he could hide any fact beyond Barbara's finding, for 
 to be sure it never does to let a fool get hold of a fact. 
 
 It was himself he took no trouble to hide, and it was 
 through him that Barbara ultimately arrived at the facts. 
 Since he was what he was, the facts were inevitable. The 
 
 100
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 101 
 
 shock of a man is another thing altogether from the shock 
 of a fact. The man is eternal. The fact a little thing of 
 time. 
 
 When Barbara became intelligently aware of the facts, 
 she had already settled down to patience. It would 
 have been despair but for one latent hope. Some day 
 even now the child for which she lived might still be 
 hers, hers altogether. This was the one fierce resolve of 
 her life. 
 
 The child, the ultimate one that should live at last 
 should be all hers. By sheer force of the bidding of^ her 
 whole being she would shut out Frank Quayle altogether 
 in this affair of her own child. Diffident in regard to all 
 her other powers, of her miraculous ability to exclude 
 Major Quayle from any part or lot in his child she was 
 absolutely sure. It had become a fixed principle in her. 
 The meanest must have something, she would wrest this 
 one concession from fate. 
 
 Frank might have his heir, but she would have her 
 child. When her one or two lukewarm friends wondered 
 why Mrs. Quayle didn't divorce her husband, she pro- 
 bably could, Barbara who knew without any probability 
 that she would have no difficulty whatever, did not do 
 so. She was shy by nature, too shy and retiring for the 
 glare of the Divorce Court, and all her traditions were 
 against it, but it was not that which kept her a passive 
 slave, it was her fear of herself that was robbing her of 
 her freedom. 
 
 To stay on and suffer was her one available chance. 
 If she divorced Frank there was the end of everything, 
 for she felt with the dull certainty of doom that no other 
 man would ever want her. The child of her burning 
 desire could never be hers. And to-night, this night of 
 wonders, the whole world had changed, for she had at 
 last dared to claim her right in it. She need no longer 
 be a childless slave waiting for the chance that never 
 came. She was only twenty-seven after all, and she could 
 easily be pretty again if 
 
 She paused and started. Major Quayle was speaking,
 
 102 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 saying something in the mellow drawl he used to other 
 women but never now to her. It was the oddest, most 
 grotesque echo of the honeymoon. She looked up at him 
 curiously. He was suave and aware pleasantly bent on 
 recognizing her existence. There was something so 
 sinister in the attitude that nervous dread nearly drove 
 her into crackling laughter. 
 
 In readjusting all her values Frank's had risen in a 
 horrible way. He had held the one hope of her life in his 
 cruel unclean hands for so long, that to escape in any 
 hurry from the self-imposed thrall was impossible. 
 Barbara could only recover herself enough to look limp 
 and pale, and just as usual. 
 
 Major Quayle's lips began to form themselves to their 
 accustomed sneer but he checked the inclination and let 
 them smile. 
 
 To have to control your mind and manners in the 
 presence of your wife, the natural order that long habit 
 had corrupted was hard labour of a peculiarly obnoxious 
 kind to the man, but when his immediate interests were 
 involved Major Quayle never shirked a job. He was 
 now smiling quite naturally and agreeably. Barbara, 
 limp as she looked, remembered acutely how once she 
 used to wait breathless for that smile, and put down its 
 increasing rarity to some new deficiency of her own, and 
 how she had walked delicately in fear and trembling lest 
 she should repeat the offence. 
 
 Sometimes in her first bleak agony she had tried to 
 pray back the receding smile. Now she racked her 
 awakening intelligence to discover what it portended, 
 and to frustrate its undoubtedly evil import. But even 
 as her intellect groped about after light, her heart, more 
 adult and virile, cried out against this necessity imposed 
 upon her, the necessity of a slave to propitiate or coerce 
 her master. 
 
 Half an hour ago she had been free and fine, she could 
 give even more than she would take, she could have given 
 anything for a sufficient motive. She had been a reason- 
 able self-respecting creature, fit help-meet for any man
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 103 
 
 with decent instincts ; now she was a worm wriggling its 
 way through life at the mercy of a reckless heel, and Frank 
 was smiling down on her and saying something about the 
 moon ! 
 
 Barbara had put herself into the background to such 
 an extent that practically she had lost touch with herself. 
 She had hardly known what her suppressed, hushed-up 
 self was made of until this fateful night of revelation. 
 A self had come out into the moonlight that night that 
 demanded recognition. 
 
 Conventionally it was a self to be rather ashamed of, 
 and yet instead of being ashamed, she gloried in it. She 
 did love Oliver Mirrilies, Mary's husband. This was a 
 sin, and yet there was no sin in love. The only sin in 
 the whole wide world was want of love. 
 
 In spite of all her weary efforts Mrs. Quayle had never 
 felt quite good until to-night. She had been standing 
 on tip-toes all her life it seemed to her, to reach goodness, 
 and dropping to the ground again with empty hands. 
 But to-night she had touched it, and her hands were full. 
 She was no longer straining after the impossible. Directly 
 she knew absolutely what love was, and knew herself to 
 be part of it, she knew herself to be part of goodness also. 
 
 For one wild instant she wondered if she'd just be the 
 self that had sprung into life like the moth of a night, 
 and astonish Frank to the day of his death. She could 
 do more, she could interest and attract, she could even 
 abash him. Perhaps she might win him back, but the 
 time for that was past ; he had trampled out her love 
 with her life and her hopes. He had given her the 
 ultimate shock from which there is no recovery for 
 women, so she drew the mask of passivity over her nascent 
 face, and in a brooding voice admitted the moon to be 
 altogether admirable. 
 
 Barbara had looked so ripping, so startling even up 
 there on the hill, that Major Quayle's well-practised faculty 
 of jealousy rose all of a sudden to the surface. It was 
 really rather an exhilarating sensation to be still capable 
 of jealousy in regard to the poor old wisp. It made him
 
 104 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 feel quite young and fit. More especially since his own 
 affairs were just then full of promise. It showed certainly 
 some breadth of mind and heart to let poor old Barbara 
 have a look in at all in the circumstances. 
 pj* 1 ' Again he glanced at her. Barbara's late and very 
 definite deviation from herself came in most opportunely, 
 it was indeed almost like a special interposition of Provi- 
 dence distinctly favourable to his own affairs, and yet 
 he lelt both jealous and annoyed as he paused to formulate 
 his course. 
 
 " Whatever she undertakes she's sure to spoil in the 
 end," he thought with mixed emotions ; " she didn't make 
 a bad start," he spurred his halting jealousy back to the 
 honeymoon, " but good God, she soon dropped back to 
 herself, and just now over there was an echo of the first 
 start. And if Mirrilies is fool enough, if habit or the 
 damned climate, or too much frozen intellect and 
 that at the ends of the earth get the better of him, she'll 
 bore him in a month. I'll be sorry for both of them. 
 I shall, by Jove ! " He paused to sigh. " But it's the 
 only way out of it, after all." 
 
 He glanced in spirit back at the hill dressed in silver 
 light, and returned to business, whether from recent 
 tender memories or the moonlight slightly sicklied over 
 with virtue. He'd give the little fool a chance, and if 
 she didn't take it, well then, no matter what happened, he 
 wouldn't have her on his conscience. 
 
 Major Quayle was at this period plainly in a melting 
 mood. 
 
 If certain projects for the future went well, certain 
 remote, half-formulated intentions of turning over a new 
 leaf now vaguely troubled his mind. It was love he 
 supposed and all that sort of thing ; the genuine article 
 this time. It might have been Barbara's all right, he 
 thought, with another glance if well if she hadn't been 
 Barbara. And to be bucking up like that over on the 
 hill why she didn't look twenty ! for the sake of a prig 
 like Mirrilies, it was incredible ! Had the woman no 
 taste no er anything ?
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 105 
 
 Major Quayle squared his fine shoulders, and prepared 
 to speak his word of warning, and at the same time 
 possibly gain some useful information. Fortunately with 
 a fool like Barbara, it was not necessary to use much 
 finesse, had quite enough of that sort of thing to keep 
 on tap for use in other quarters it was a wearing time 
 taking it all round and looking at Barbara didn't rnend 
 matters much anyway. 
 
 If Mirrilies did make a fool of himself, he'd have to pay 
 up well for his sins, serve him right, the damned prig, 
 and that wife of his going round the Station pretending 
 to see nothing, and dissecting you all the time with her 
 confounded scalpel of an intellect. No one was safe. 
 The sooner she was out of India for good the better. 
 
 In his agitation Major Quayle spoke with less studied 
 moderation than he had intended. 
 
 " You don't happen to know, do you, how long Mirrilies 
 is going to be a grass-widower ? " 
 
 " I didn't know that Mary was coming out at all this 
 time." 
 
 " Two and a half years ! Good thing it's Mirrilies." 
 
 " It is," she said passively. 
 
 " He is the saint he pretends to be, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Does he pretend to be a saint ? I thought he was 
 only very fond of Mary." 
 
 " Fool ! " reflected the Major, " or as deep as the 
 pit ! " 
 
 Her face on the hill wouldn't leave him alone. It was 
 damned impudent of such a face. And that laugh 
 and good God ! perhaps not the first time either. It 
 was convenient, he must admit, precisely what he was 
 playing for but Major Quayle pursed his full lips. 
 He flicked up the pony sharply, and rather wished it was 
 Barbara. Sort of woman you could never have a moment's 
 peace with if it wasn't one thing it was another. He 
 flicked again, and the pony made a bolt while Barbara 
 clung limply to her seat. 
 
 " The usual thing not the spirit of a dormouse, and 
 to be peacocking up there as bold as brass. And laughing
 
 io6 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 by Jove ! Barbara laughing ! Had the woman no 
 decency at all ? Was she like all the other prudes ? . . . . 
 
 At the same time business is business. 
 
 " Barbara," he said, forcing himself into civility of 
 speech, " I suppose you write to Mrs. Mirrilies ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Once a year or so." 
 
 " I thought it was heart-to-heart with you in that 
 quarter." 
 
 " I don't think I have a heart-to-heart correspondence 
 with anybody," she said patiently, trying to track his 
 train of thought. He thought of her on the hill, and 
 whistled with a suggestion of insolence. 
 
 Barbara sat on stonily, and suddenly her heart sprang 
 to the truth. He had puzzled her as he had not done for 
 years, but now she knew. At last the thing she had 
 known might come was upon her. She was about, not 
 at once, but when the time was fully ripe, to receive her 
 notice to quit. 
 
 After all her patience he was about to turn the tables 
 on her if he could. Instead of permitting her to dismiss 
 him, he was going to make a well-laid effort to dismiss 
 her, and Captain Mirrilies was to be the scapegoat. 
 
 She saw it all, he meant all this, and at the same time 
 he was all the time bitterly, coldly, impatiently, resenting 
 her own one little moment of living, the moment he 
 had surprised, the one and only circumstance that could 
 ever have justified him in his vile hope, that could have 
 made it even credible at all. 
 
 It was so strange and sinister, so exactly like Frank. 
 
 She grew slowly cold. 
 
 The one secret unspoken hope that when she went she 
 would not go alone, but with her heart's desire in her 
 arms was fading out at last. She knew Frank, anything 
 he meant to do, he would do. And to burn your own 
 boats honestly and without shame is one thing, but to 
 have them burnt for you, and to be cast adrift without 
 one hope is altogether another. 
 
 And that a man she had once loved dearly, and to 
 whom she could have given so much, to want to turn her
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 107 
 
 out without one hope and all the shame into any wilder- 
 ness ! because her last use was gone ! 
 
 He had found someone at last who, all the conditions 
 fulfilled, and the conventionalities satisfied, was willing 
 to provide him with a lawful heir and she must make 
 way for her. 
 
 It was hard, hard and just in the very hour when a 
 woman had found herself, when that which she had 
 thought dead was alive again. And to hate her with a 
 hate more bitter than usual because she had suddenly 
 come to her power of helping him in his nefarious project, 
 because he had seen her at last a potential factor in her 
 own ruin, not merely a passive implement in his cunning 
 hands. 
 
 She had always recoiled from the subtle contradictions 
 in Frank's nature. Now she seemed almost to stifle in 
 their poisonous vapour. 
 
 She shivered as it were under her breath, for now 
 another danger seemed suddenly to confront her, a new 
 one, of which she knew very little. Even if Frank should 
 cast her out, he can do anything, anything, she thought 
 wildly ! with nothing to care for, nothing to gather in 
 her senses about, the life that was born that night would 
 live, and would keep on living and growing, it would 
 grow, grow like a bean stalk, it would stretch out for 
 what it wanted and take it. 
 
 She sat still controlling feeling and thought. And 
 slowly as it had gripped them, the coldness released her 
 trembling senses, and they seemed to expand and stretch 
 themselves anew, and in a sudden warm glow, she saw 
 the man who had despised her for seven long years 
 recognizing the fact that she was a woman after all with 
 the infinite power of a woman in her hands. And if 
 after everything she could convince Frank, she must be 
 a woman indeed ! 
 
 " India," said Major Quayle, " is the land of the un- 
 expected. The one place on earth where cock-sureness 
 never pays. Even a prig may remember once too often 
 that he is a man. If I were you I'd write a veiled state-
 
 io8 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 ment of this fact to Mrs. Mirrilies. Three years' grass- 
 widowhood is a bit too much of a discipline for man or 
 prig." 
 
 " The Station is very limited," said Mrs. Quayle calmly, 
 but again as white as her handkerchief. 
 
 What possessed her anyway with all these quick changes. 
 She was plainly bent on irritating and annoying him 
 at every turn, and putting himself out as he was to serve 
 the little fool ! 
 
 " Oh, well, she's your affair, not mine," he said, " I 
 thought she at least they were your only real friends " 
 
 " I say, be careful," he said wrathful, though righteous 
 still. " You ought to know that step by this time surely."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MARY'S intellect now worked furiously, and it 
 never even struck her to spare it. It was a 
 willing beast in a sound body, and wanted regular exercise 
 to bring out its powers. For this she was thankful. A 
 difficult subject swaddled in German calls out all one's 
 resources, and she had not come all that way to be beaten. 
 She was fascinated moreover by her subject. It sparkled 
 and scintillated with brilliant light, and there was no 
 more warmth in it than in a star or a diamond. 
 
 She herself too seemed to be growing cold in the queerest 
 way, and often now even Oliver the Less couldn't warm her. 
 In spite of her revulsions and revolts, some curious great 
 longing for the fires of life seemed to be taking root in her. 
 
 Since Oliver had found his " chillen," his mother often 
 felt like a deserted nest. It was ridiculous of course. She 
 was only too glad that Oliver should have his heart's 
 desire, should play and be developed, and made a man of. 
 Mary glowed with pride in him, but they had been closer 
 together when they had stood outside unfriendly gates 
 hankering after the children the gates shut in. 
 
 They had been each other's only consolation then. 
 Having Oliver also hi his little way an outcast always 
 so close to her, had kept her warm perhaps. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was not grumbling. She was only trying 
 to account rationally for her growing coldness. She even 
 tried to pretend to herself that it was the general unfriend- 
 liness in everything that chilled her. It might even be 
 
 109
 
 i io MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 the churlish stoves that shut out the glory of flame from an 
 entire nation, just as the gates had shut out the glory of 
 Oliver from its children. 
 
 The boys indeed were a perennial joy, but they didn't 
 take the cold away. Very often they increased it. Their 
 naive revealings sometimes brought little chills creeping 
 down her back for Oliver the Greater, of all people in the 
 world. He also had been a boy, and if the boy is father to 
 the man, then Oliver, even in the heart of India, might 
 perhaps be having cold fits too ! 
 
 Mary had counted so much on the satisfying effect of 
 work on a man's intellect, but the boys were clever enough 
 and work didn't satisfy them. Far from it. Work 
 indeed filled their days most profitably, Mary permitted 
 no slackers in her circle ; but when the work was done, 
 they put it up on the shelf with their drawing-boards and 
 returned to the things that mattered. Games mattered a 
 good deal to the English boys, and " Corps " to the others, 
 but what mattered most to all of them was something 
 feminine, reputable or disreputable, something ex- 
 pressed or implied, and it ran, a principle rather than a 
 person, through all their youth. But principle or person 
 it seemed to keep out the cold. It was plainly the fire of 
 the world of youth. The sacred fire of the hearth that 
 warms and cleanses, or the wanderer and the vagabond 
 that burns and destroys. 
 
 Mary liked the thing expressed best, when implied it 
 frightened her. It got itself so mixed up with other 
 terrifying implied things, and now, contrary to all former 
 usage, she would lure out into speech what once she had 
 lured back into silence, and watch cold and apprehensive, 
 the stupendous and plumbless power of this strange world 
 force. 
 
 The strenuous exercise and training to which Mrs. 
 Mirrilies was subjecting her very adult intellect, may have 
 acted as a slight stimulus upon her very young soul, for 
 there was given to her a very pleasant way of breaking a 
 silence, rather of permitting it to be broken, to which 
 convention has accorded a certain sort of sanctity. A
 
 MARY MIRRILIES in 
 
 stupendous fact in life, a fact apparently engaging the real 
 attention of half the world, and without any doubt at 
 all filling every heart except her own and the little Moth's 
 at all her tea-parties, becomes difficult to ignore. 
 
 They were nice boys. Oliver must have been like them 
 in a way. If it filled their hearts, perhaps it had filled 
 his. Perhaps it filled it still. If it did, it was her busi- 
 ness also. What was good enough for Oliver was good 
 enough for her but this she admitted with a wry mouth, 
 sometimes even when it struck her too sharply, she covered 
 her face in her bed-clothes and cried. And yet she must 
 know she must understand at any cost. 
 
 So simply, straightforwardly, thinking only of her two 
 Olivers, Mary forgot herself, and listened with an open mind, 
 and very rarely she spoke. 
 
 She was like a diamond or a star herself to the boys. A 
 lifter of hearts, a cooler of fires, and as such, with an inter- 
 lude or two, they would worship her to the day of their 
 deaths. 
 
 They did say a good deal. Years afterwards they will 
 remember that they said more than they suppressed. 
 Speaking to stars one can say so much they can't possibly 
 understand. 
 
 They were right in some degree in this surmise. Mary's 
 investigations were purely empirical. She was still trans- 
 muting earth into a substance fit neither for Heaven or 
 earth, as they would later know. But she understood 
 many things in her own way, and all those things of which 
 the boys spoke in parables, they said everything in the 
 right way, and for this she was very grateful to them, 
 must have been all the time lying silent in Oliver, forced 
 into silence by her own great unspoken fear. 
 
 So the boys stood for a warm earth, she for a cold Heaven. 
 She for reason ; they for revolt, and in neither was the 
 young vision keen enough to discern that the two are 
 eternally one, indivisible ; that the star and the fire are 
 one in the same purpose, except when man with his free 
 will goes meddling. That the star tempers the fire, and the 
 fire takes the chill from the star, and that the eternal
 
 ii2 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 victory lies in the hands of Beauty which is both star and 
 fire. 
 
 It was a young Russian Count with English proclivities 
 studying Philosophy in the University, who brought the 
 first hitch into the tea-parties. Lasotovitsch was a well- 
 washed, well-groomed specimen of the great Slav group. 
 
 Mary herself had brought him in. She had marked 
 him from the first. He showed race in every line, and 
 reeked of Temperament. Dangerous possibly but un- 
 doubtedly an object-lesson for the boys, with his face like 
 that of an experienced angel. 
 
 Besides, Mrs. Mirrilies had to be reforming even if it were 
 now under her breath, and she had perceived valuable 
 possibilities in Lasotovitsch. 
 
 The face of Lasotovitsch was one that any young 
 Englishman in his senses must distrust on sight. The 
 face and the soul of which it is the expression. 
 
 To pray God to be with him when he goes briganding, or 
 after his neighbour's wife, and honestly to mean it, is 
 altogether beyond the conception of our nation of hypo- 
 crites, all too used to artificial bridges with virtue going 
 delicately up one side and vice rocking gaily down the other, 
 each eternally convicting the other. 
 
 So seeing the young lion preparing to lash its tail, Mrs. 
 Mirrilies took a mean advantage, and identified Lasoto- 
 vitsch with herself. The lion could then only grind his 
 milk teeth. 
 
 It was a very mean advantage, seeing that Mrs. Mirrilies 
 and her protege being engaged in the same pursuits, 
 could score over the rest of them, all on the engineering 
 side, worlds away from Philosophy. 
 
 It was the Englishmen who were most resentful. The 
 others, not having had the advantage of being brought 
 up in the Public Schools of a little Island, had been listen- 
 ing to everything for years, and sniffing airs impregnated 
 with strange philosophies. They had also been taught 
 sometfiingin their schools, and though they certainly didn't
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 113 
 
 want this Russian genius with his baffling insight into 
 things in general, and a touch of anarchy up his sleeve, in 
 their very midst, they had no fear of being put out of the 
 running straight off by the strange allusions of an unknown 
 species, as the English had. All nations indeed looked 
 slightly askance at Mrs. Mirrilies, but Young England 
 was already on its hind legs, glowering. Of this attitude, 
 however, Mary would have none. She knew better than 
 it did itself the masterful desire of her guard of honour 
 to bowdlerize the latest foreign importation, but it struck 
 her in her growing tolerance that if she wasn't now old 
 enough to bowdlerize her own guests she never would be. 
 
 " Count Lasotovitsch speaks English," said Mary, 
 " in the charming way of his people." 
 
 Lasotovitsch advanced with friendly eagerness. He 
 had lost nothing of the glower but took it to be part of 
 England, one more little idiosyncrasy. And what matters 
 one, after all, among so many ? 
 
 " I have long desired to know the English," said Lasoto- 
 vitsch, with an acutely angelic face and the usual objection- 
 able bow. " And indeed why should you learn the other 
 languages when we must all learn yours ? " He was quite 
 honestly glad to be able to pay so honest a compliment, 
 but there was a look of damning appeal in his pellucid eyes. 
 
 " He might be a flapper on her first trial," thought 
 Heron, one of the knot huddled together in the middle of 
 the room. 
 
 At the first note of danger, Englishmen not yet cosmo- 
 politan, will always flow together, and even after they 
 become cosmopolitan, being always the centre of the 
 Universe, they will naturally make for the centre of the 
 room. 
 
 No matter what his private opinion may be, an English- 
 man, however, can generally rise to the occasion. 
 
 Hallowes, the most remarkable perhaps of the little 
 group, rose first. 
 
 Lasotovitsch might be padded with bombs and vices, 
 utterly unfit for ladies' society, and a nuisance generally, 
 but he was the guest of Mrs. Mirrilies, and even if he's 
 
 8
 
 ii4 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 slow about it, an English gentleman must act as such. 
 So the gloom resolved itself into a smile, which, being slow 
 and sure, and slightly touched by duty, seemed to Lasoto- 
 vitsch most attractive, and entirely English, and just what 
 he had expected. The glibber, less self-conscious smiles 
 of the Italians and French struck him as almost common 
 place in comparison. A nation that did very much the 
 same as other nations, and can yet take itself seriously, 
 was a stimulating novelty to this thoughtful young man, 
 and it amused him. 
 
 Lasotovitsch could be immensely amused under his 
 angelic exterior. If he had lived as the English boys 
 did, in a free land, he could have laughed like Thor. 
 
 " Happy nation," thought Lasotovitsch, as he looked 
 with a friendly eye at the fair, frank, charming group, 
 "that needn't think until forced into it by life! We 
 others have had thought imposed upon us from our cradles. 
 It is doom, we cannot escape it. It is the sadness of the 
 great steppes, and the great forests, and our innumerable 
 people. It all makes us think too young and hampers our 
 actions. We are oppressed by the greatness we have not 
 yet learnt to handle." 
 
 The pupils of Lasotovitsch were expanding in the oddest 
 way. Hallowes put it down to diffidence, and rather liked 
 the fellow for it. He took him out on the verandah, and 
 applied cigarettes. Mary was delighted. To take a 
 foreigner out on the verandah almost on sight, was a 
 wholesome sign. 
 
 From her own point of view Lasotovitsch was the precise 
 thing she was out for. He let you see him thinking and how 
 the thoughts came and why. He never seemed to learn at 
 all. He just knew while she stumbled on in the wake of 
 the others. Above all she felt sure, that presently she 
 would see Lasotovitsch living, and the living process in 
 any life, one could always make allowances for racial 
 differences, must be the same. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies laughed as she made the tea, then blushed 
 like a girl. She was at her old game again, the game she 
 had resolved for the thousandth time to throw up.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 115 
 
 Even in this Russian boy with the mystery of genius 
 suspect in him, she must be tracking Oliver's point of view, 
 trying, why she could not tell, to justify Oliver or was it 
 herself she wanted to justify ? Mary was honest with 
 herself. She did not know. 
 
 She gave up the tea- making with joy directly Miss 
 Caldecott appeared, and went out to the boys. 
 
 The boy like a bean-pole who had taken over Lasoto- 
 vitsch had a face like an effete baby, and teeth like pearls. 
 He did everything, good and bad, and did it well, and the 
 spirit of change was in him. He had crowded his years 
 which were twenty-one, with events, and his tastes were 
 wide and varied. No sooner did he see anyone do anything 
 well, than he proceeded to do it better, not for vain-glory 
 but simply to prove himself, and having proved himself 
 he passed on, his eyes on the next obstacle. He had a 
 passion, extremely trying to his family, for trying experi- 
 ments. 
 
 When about nine years of age he had begun to experi- 
 ment in scholarships, and having convinced himself and 
 everyone else that he would have no difficulty later on in 
 paying his triumphant way through any University, he 
 turned his back on an Academic career, and his attention 
 on the Navy. 
 
 He passed first into the Britannia, and having narrowly 
 escaped expulsion, passed out second, then smilingly 
 proceeded to review the situation. 
 
 Once an Admiral, of course, nothing could be better. 
 He thrilled with all the power essential to the Admiral who 
 should one day hold the fate of England in his hands. He 
 had no more doubt of himself than he had of England, but 
 to be a unit hanging on to the end of a wireless system for 
 a matter of perhaps forty years didn't somehow appeal to 
 Hallowes, so he went off whistling to try the other Service. 
 He astonished the examiners into giving him a first, and 
 was rejected because of chest measurement. In any case 
 as in the Navy job, the probation was too long, so, docile 
 as ever, and always ready to oblige his distracted family, 
 he paused to think of the Foreign Office. He knew as 
 
 8*
 
 ii6 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 surely as though he had already done it, that if anyone 
 living could make Europe sit up, it would be himself, but 
 the years that must inevitably lie between him and an 
 Ambassadorship were too long. A gentleman jockey was 
 a quicker thing, but having trained himself down to a 
 raisin a day, his lanky frame rebelled, and he found himself 
 constrained to go abroad for rest and recuperation. His 
 parents, a severely academic and erudite pair, also long and 
 lank, with the pale blood of the scholar flowing in stately 
 measure through their veins, were immensely proud of 
 their all-too-versatile son, and immensely apprehensive. 
 They accompanied him on his travels. After some shy and 
 spectacled investigations into the morality of the more 
 southerly lands, they deposited him, at last, in the 
 educational establishment of an old governess in a discreet 
 city of Switzerland, to perfect himself in languages. 
 
 Hallowes chuckled with glee. The girls were charming, 
 and the Assistant Mistresses did not fall far behind, and 
 when he chose to exert himself, he could always look like 
 a baby bejore it became effete. He rapidly acquired per- 
 fection in languages, as rapidly put on flesh, and practically 
 very soon ran the school. 
 
 Eventually he had to leave somewhat hurriedly, and 
 entered the University of Zurich, to show the wide world 
 of Europe what he could do with Engineering. 
 
 Here, contrary to all precedent, he was gaily breaking 
 every rule, and setting many a German Jew, in spite 
 of his enlightened Atheism, hankering after the God of 
 vengeance he had discarded, if only to pour His plagues 
 upon this unaccountable infant. 
 
 It was only because of his colossal intelligence that 
 he was kept in his Classes at all, so all the Professors 
 said. 
 
 It was the unaccountableness of Hallowes to the German 
 Jew mind that really saved him : not his colossal intelli- 
 gence at all, for being colossally intelligent themselves, 
 the Professors were anxious to account for this Anglo- 
 Saxon freak who could do anything apparently but 
 support himself, or settle down respectably into a Fach.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 117 
 
 Genius they knew. They had suffered from it. But 
 this wasn't Genius. Genius belongs to the world, and 
 leaves treasure behind it. It justifies itself of Posterity. 
 
 This audacious and infantile creature who handled 
 the weightiest subjects of Science, as lightly as he would 
 his cricket bat, and Gott Allmdcktig, played as skilful a 
 game with them, belonged to England, and would leave 
 nothing behind him but his debts. 
 
 In the interest of scientific investigation even a Teutonic 
 Hebrew can wink the other eye. So Hallo wes was kept 
 on for purposes of observation. 
 
 "It is inconvenient," said the most colossally endowed 
 intellect of his Professors. " It is even scarcely respectable 
 to accept drawings with skilfully executed portraits of 
 all you others on the margins he leaves me out but 
 the drawings, they are superb, and as for the portraits 
 he has the artist's eye, and er the devil's humour. 
 It is not genius, It has not the divine permanence of 
 the Teutonic genius, the sparkle of the French, the 
 feeling of the Italian, the mystic power of the Slav. It 
 is the English insolence which will beat each nation at 
 its own game and then on on picking his way amongst 
 the vanquished ones. Caring not to stay, to specialize 
 in any Fach on on to some new goal, of which one 
 must be English to know anything. It is the national 
 insolence that has made this contemptible Island a 
 World Power." 
 
 " But " he paused solemnly, "it is the serious nation 
 who works at the great subjects, not plays games with 
 them, that will in the end, win the world. Ach Gott. 
 It is we." 
 
 Hallowes rejoiced in the reasons which kept him from 
 being turned out, he liked being observed just as much 
 as the Professors liked observing him. Anything with a 
 hint of danger and enterprise in it fascinated Hallowes. 
 Work became fairly drenched in glamour. He outstripped 
 even the German in his unremitting and laborious exertions. 
 
 The English boy does not as a rule shine in the Univer- 
 sities of the Teuton, but Hallowes under this agreeable
 
 ii8 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 impetus, became as confirmed a sweater as though he'd 
 been born and bred an Alien under the Eagle's eye. 
 
 The hint of enterprise and danger in Lasotovitsch 
 appealed directly to him. He recognized at the second 
 glance or so possibilities in Lasotovitsch. Once he set 
 his mind to it, Hallo wes was not long in discovering that 
 what was baffling Heron and the others, the angel's 
 face on probably a low-down sinner the mean mask 
 that anyone but a Russian genius would be ashamed 
 to be seen with, was no mask at all, but quite fair and 
 honest, so far as it went, and probably covered as 
 much religion as it did sins. 
 
 Hallowes had played as good a game with religion as 
 he had with everything else, and had brought as much 
 on with him. He knew well enough, that the fellow was 
 as honest inside and out as any of them, and knew just 
 as well that the other fellows would find it out in time, 
 and give the Russian his just dues. Meanwhile he'd 
 find out if he knew anything about horses. He looked 
 as though he had a seat and hands, those long, supple, 
 sinuous hands would handle anything. 
 
 Directly Hallowes opened the subject the eyes of the 
 Russian lit up like flame, and Heron looked the other 
 way. It embarrassed him to see a fellow shooting out 
 emotion like that, and when Lasotovitsch began to talk 
 horses with quiet well-bred passion, it was passion, 
 anyone must admit that, he naturally got rather red, 
 and Hallowes grinned maliciously. 
 
 As Lasotovitsch told of the little strong shining creatures 
 he knew on his kinsmen's estates in Bessarabia, his voice 
 rose and fell, he turned English words to the most melo- 
 dious uses, he might, according to Heron's abashed 
 reflections, have been quoting poetry, but he made no 
 mistakes, he knew what he was talking about. 
 
 After a moment's attention, Hallowes, in good horsy 
 jargon, was as keen as Lasotovitsch, and Lasotovitsch 
 was accepted lock, stock, and barrel, by the listening 
 crowd. 
 
 Heron might be the social example, the Professors'
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 119 
 
 pride, and he could speak German like a native, but 
 he had never ridden a flat race in his life and probably 
 never would. He was on the high road to be a consulting 
 Engineer, of course. Every one knew that, but Hallowes 
 was on the high road to be anything, and the real leader 
 of all of them. He beamed upon the Russian, and 
 the Russian had come to stay ! 
 
 He listened with all his ears to Hallowes' vernacular, 
 and although good-natured to a degree, Hallowes some- 
 times forgot to translate, he understood mystically never- 
 theless, and gurgled appreciation in an attractive way 
 peculiar to himself. It flattered Hallowes, it was the 
 way he felt himself when talking of horses, but Heron 
 having seen Mrs. Mirrilies' gratified face, and being acutely 
 anxious to humour her, only just managed to swallow 
 the gurgle with a commentless face. 
 
 The painfully deferential way in which the new importa- 
 tion waited to ascertain if Hallowes were quite finished 
 before he burst forth himself also annoyed Heron. To 
 be hanging on the utterances of a fellow like Hallowes 
 you have to be shutting up every other minute if you 
 want to get in a word edgeways, was a bit too much. But 
 here again his good British fair play came to the rescue. 
 After all, if the fellow, still more or less on his trial, had 
 ventured to interrupt Hallowes, he'd have got short 
 shrift from the rest of them ! 
 
 He had a strong suspicion moreover that what Hallowes 
 had seen in a flash he'd be seeing himself, in a week. 
 
 Heron was as solidly sure of his own future as was 
 Hallowes of his power over any future. He felt an 
 assurance as well-grounded that he would probably be 
 the more successful of the two in the end, in the way 
 your people appreciate, and yet if there was one creature 
 on earth whom Heron admired and envied it was Hallowes. 
 
 His own monument he felt sure would one day adorn 
 the County Town, and his obituary notice would be in all 
 the daily papers, he might even be a Baronet in the end, 
 while Heaven alone knew what would be the end of 
 Hallowes. And yet to the day of his death he'd always
 
 izo MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 be seven days behind Hallowes, and sometimes deep 
 down he knew that in this sort of time measurement 
 seven days may be as long as the seven days of Creation. 
 And suddenly he told himself that he might also be seven 
 days behind Lasotovitsch, even if he ended in a mad- 
 house, or was pulverized by his own bombs. 
 
 For an instant Heron looked too sad for a well set-up 
 solid personable youth predestined to success, and who 
 had never given his parents a moment's anxiety. It 
 was the recurring tragedy of sudden Vision to the prosaic 
 hard worker, the cry of the wild to the sober citizen, the 
 backbone of England, the plodder who arrives, and 
 it hurts solidly, and bewilders vaguely. 
 
 Hallowes also had his little griefs, but his pain was 
 all to come. His conscience so far was an instrument 
 to cajole and not to castigate. He had wrought havoc in 
 many a breast, caused head-shaking to the pitch of palsy, 
 yet never in all his gay reprehensible life had he suffered 
 as good, honest Heron, his parents' pride, who lived in 
 favour with God and man, had suffered, and would suffer 
 intermittently till death should deliver him. 
 
 For sheer malignity and insolence the sorrow for the 
 glories we've foregone, beats all the others hands down.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CH ! the horses," said Lasotovitsch, with an eye 
 that in an Englishman one would have called 
 rolling, " the horses ! they bring the high thoughts ! " 
 Heron suppressed a gasp, Lasotovitsch was almost 
 at home now in the genial atmosphere and more like 
 himself. " The horse is the true comrade, he carries you 
 to the wild winds where the high thoughts dwell, and 
 understands you in silence. He betrays you not into 
 speech, humiliates you not by misunderstanding. With 
 the horse one need not suffer as among men we must. 
 He is as the good wine, an equalizer and an expander. 
 The want of the universal atmosphere of the stable in 
 this so small clean town that so highly thinks of itself, 
 is a calamity." He paused to sigh with acute feeling. 
 " In this land of freedom one walks in chains, the thought 
 fettered. One cannot be for ever ascending the great 
 mountains to set free the high thoughts. But to fly to 
 the stable, to mount the horse and away at full speed 
 out on the wild steppe when the thought soars to Heaven ! " 
 
 Again he glanced round sensitively for encouragement. 
 He would undoubtedly have shrunk back into his own 
 dungeon of dungeons had he discovered anything but 
 tolerant expectation behind the amused stare. " Ach ! 
 my friends, one cries for the speech. One does not speak 
 in this small nation so small, so moral, so cold, so 
 full of churches that knows not religion, and is all good 
 works. Religion, that rapture of emotion, mein Gott ! 
 it lives not here." 
 
 " Oh Lord ! " muttered Heron. 
 
 121
 
 122 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Shut up ! " said Hallowes, with a deftly applied 
 kick. 
 
 " Neither religion nor the true atmosphere of the horse," 
 resumed Lasotovitsch. " Between man and horse is 
 the great unity, the hideous necessity of mutual forgiveness 
 does never divide us, the horse and we." Lasotovitsch 
 paused and cast an eye full of divinely innocent trust 
 round the startled group, but again beheld nothing but 
 an appreciative glance in the infantile orbs of Hallowes : 
 upon this he concentrated himself, and pursued his theme. 
 " Ach ! the subtle and intolerable pain of forgiveness. 
 I am pursued by this tormenting presence. It will not 
 
 leave me, " he was aware of a certain vague inquiry in 
 
 the air, and always diffident in regard to his English, 
 he paused to make himself more clear. 
 
 " Just now, my friends, I suffer much. It is part of 
 human friendship, one escapes it not. You will all know 
 what the Greatest of the Sane and of the Insane has 
 
 said, " he glanced with trustful hope at Mary, and 
 
 included the rest with a fine sweep of his delicate hand. 
 Nor did he doubt for one moment the correctness of his 
 surmise, his intimacy with young England being as yet 
 in the bud. 
 
 " If a friend doeth thee wrong, then say, ' I forgive 
 thee what thou hast done unto me, that thou hast done 
 it unto thyself how could I forgive thee that ? ' 
 
 Again he looked for encouragement. The group bore 
 up well. Possibly a warning glance from Hallowes 
 quelled derision. The silence, however, seemed likely to 
 last. Hallowes was plainly absorbed in lighting a 
 cigarette, and Mary suspected that, with all his learning, 
 he knew no more of the Greatest of the Sane and of the 
 Insane, than the rest of them, so she plunged in herself, 
 rather glad to snine for once. 
 
 " Then you still pin your faith to Nietsche," she said 
 as glib as you like. " I thought I noticed a tendency in 
 some of the lectures to dump him into the valley of 
 recently discharged gods with Hegel, and some of the 
 others."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 123 
 
 " Ach ! Madame, no but no ! The few regrettable 
 moments of divine insanity, the drunken wrath of the 
 Gods dies, but their divinity endures for ever. The 
 divinity that speaks to our hearts and our souls, and our 
 hopes and our fears, but above all to our sorrows, what 
 can kill ? " He shrugged off some weight of woe and 
 smiled. " The subtle pain for which h'-re is no relief, 
 the poison for which there is no anodyne, And it is 
 these that sometimes we leave behind us at the stable 
 door And here on Madame's pleasant verandah, it is as 
 though we stood in the true home of the horse, the atmo- 
 sphere and the bonne camaraderie of the stable. It en- 
 courages the soul. Is it not true my friends ? " 
 
 " Now," said Mary hastily, not daring to meet any 
 English eye, " there's a charming compliment for you. 
 Only you oughtn't to know so much of sorrow yet, Count 
 Lasotovitsch. I hope your friend didn't do anything 
 very bad." 
 
 " He took from me my beloved," said Lasotovitsch 
 simply. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mary, with only the slightest suspicion 
 of haste in the monosyllable. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons, however, who knew quite as much 
 of Beloveds, as Lasotovitsch did, all stood at attention, 
 a stout body-guard to folded virtue. The first uncon- 
 scious impulse of youth who thinks it knows the world 
 being always to take good care that its womenkind doesn't. 
 Lasotovitsch meanwhile seemed to be muttering some- 
 thing at which they all cocked suspicious ears. It was 
 apparently " the Sane and Insane " one again at his 
 ravings, and curiosity for the moment overcame virtue. 
 
 " Thus speaketh all great love," came the mutterings. 
 " It surpasseth even forgiveness and pity. I thought," 
 said Lasotovitsch, " I had found such love in my friend 
 and in my beloved. Now I must forgive the one un- 
 forgiveably and pity the other, pitilessly." 
 
 " Good Lord ! Shut him up, or I will," whispered 
 Heron. 
 
 " Oh no, you don't," said Haliowes, " 1 think he's
 
 124 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 harmless, and Mrs. Mirrilies is all for letting him have it 
 out, can't you see ? " 
 
 Mary's attitude was only too plain to Heron's notions. 
 He glowered. But perhaps since she was working for 
 all she was worth at these Philosopher fellows, it was 
 natural. 
 
 Mary herself was anxious to show Russia that England 
 isn't all undiluted stable. 
 
 " But attend also to this word," she quoted vain- 
 gloriously, " ' All great love is above all its pity, for it 
 seeketh to create what is loved. Myself do I offer unto 
 my love, and my everything.' I'm wondering if the 
 friend and the beloved were the only people in fault, if 
 the love and the unselfishness were great enough in your 
 own spirit." 
 
 " Ach, Madame, she was one to whom the high sayings 
 of the Divine one do not apply. The dangerous toy, 
 one too light for the great sayings, too frail and faith- 
 less, The dangerous plaything to the great mind the 
 recreation of the warrior. I being humble wanted not 
 dangerous play. I wanted a pure jewel set in pure 
 gold." 
 
 " You're very unforgiving," said Mary, her eyes on his 
 relentless face. 
 
 " I experience no anger. It is not for me to forgive or 
 to refuse forgiveness. The punishment comes to the 
 thing that must be punished. The destroyer carries 
 within him the power for self-destruction. One waits." 
 
 " But," said Mary, still vain-glorious and nearly 
 choking with theory, " The soul is deep, it gusheth in 
 subterranean caverns, it is no mobile stormy film on 
 shallow waters." 
 
 " But, Madame," said Lasotovitsch simply, " the soul 
 in question was of my own creation. There was none in 
 that rounded breast. ' When thou goest to women,' said 
 the Great One, ' do not forget the whip.' I loved and 
 trusted and forgot the whip. Frail and faithless was the 
 Beloved, and I forgot the whip. I was not the first I 
 have since found."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 125 
 
 But if the boys had a trust to keep, so had Mrs. Minilies 
 also, and no one could accuse her of not pulling in the 
 rope she had dealt out too abruptly. 
 
 " I say," said she, " come in and have tea. If it's 
 not ready it ought to be, and we'll have to hustle our 
 tea-maker." 
 
 Tea was a sound, wholesome English meal. High 
 thoughts were kept rigorously in their place. It was the 
 time of Lasotovitsch's life. He revelled in new sensations, 
 new food for thought ; new points of view. They all 
 danced deliciously, with occasional collisions, with the 
 old. Above all he was getting intimate, ecstatic glimpses 
 into the great English bugbear, Respectability. This 
 incomprehensible fetish to the Alien, to whom the acts 
 of the English are patent enough, but the point of view 
 that permits or forbids them, so entirely incomprehensible. 
 
 Lasotovitsch panted to throw himself upon the im- 
 pregnable position, as only a very young philosopher can. 
 In the intolerance of breathless youth he felt a grave con- 
 viction that this respectability was an amiable creature 
 at heart, that if properly approached would render up 
 its secret. It was a very funny secret, of that he had 
 no doubt whatsoever. A rippling gurgle of delight put 
 down by the English to the fellow's appreciation of their 
 conversation, was the result of his private cogitations on 
 this matter. 
 
 There were breathless moments during that tea, but 
 the Russian's behaviour to the little Moth won Mary's 
 heart for ever. 
 
 After tea, Hallowes in his artless way drew Mrs. Minilies 
 to that corner of the verandah furthest removed from the 
 others, with Lasotovitsch in their midst, and put her 
 courteously through her facings. 
 
 " You and Lasotovitsch seem to be out on a new game," 
 he said. " What were you both quoting out of, just 
 now ? " 
 
 ' Thus spake Zarathustra,' by Nietsche," said Mary. 
 
 " I thought as much. They seem to be soaked in 
 him, unless they're soaked in beer, but after all the
 
 126 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 one doesn't prevent the other. Have you got him, Mrs. 
 Mirrilies ? Will you lend him to me ? " 
 
 Mary paused, and looked dubious. 
 
 " You're the one single person of all my friends here 
 I'd rather not lend Nietsche to. If you read him he'll 
 catch hold of you, and have an effect, and I'm not sure 
 whether it will be for good or for evil." 
 
 " Now I like that ! You land Lasotovitsch in on the 
 top of us, and if ever a fellow was made to have effects, 
 and mixed at that, it's he. And yet you don't want 
 to lend me a book, for fear it may burn me. However 
 hot it is, getting it out of German into decent English '11 
 turn its fire to cinders, you may bet your life on that." 
 
 " You know your German is perfect, and if you don't 
 take Nietsche in the right spirit, he'll just burn you to 
 the bone." 
 
 " Do you think he's burnt Lasotovitsch to the bone ? " 
 inquired Hallowes jealously. 
 
 " I think he has," said Mary, " or he wouldn't be 
 hankering to apply Nietsche's horrid little whip even to 
 discarded Beloveds." 
 
 " Oh, that's the quality in the blood of both Lasotovitsch 
 and Nietsche," said Hallowes, in his light, shrewd, 
 unexpected way. 
 
 One never quite knew what Hallowes did know, still 
 less with what he occupied his, so to speak, unofficial 
 brain. 
 
 " The fellow Nietsche was three-fourths a Pole," he 
 went on, " and though the Germans claim him for all 
 they're worth, he'll not get properly acclimatized in 
 Germany till Doomsday. I know that much anyway." 
 
 " Oh well," said Mary. " Perhaps it was the tragedy 
 of the Past aching in him that may account for most of 
 the insane things he says. He can be sane enough, and 
 quite sweet and reasonable too, and as human as any 
 philosopher can hope to be, and although he vilified 
 Christ as no man has yet done, he was sometimes very 
 near Him, I think." Mary's quiet face shone in a way 
 that Hallowes liked immensely. " Almost nearer, I
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 127 
 
 think, than any other philosopher of whom I know 
 anything." 
 
 " And yet you want to head me off him," said Hallowes. 
 
 " You'll see him so differently from me," said Mary. 
 
 " Very likely, but it needn't follow that I'll see him all 
 wrong." 
 
 " Well, no," said Mary, laughing. " I didn't imply 
 quite that." 
 
 " You implied a good deal," said Hallowes, with a grin. 
 " Well, anyway, I'd like you to trust me with the fellow, 
 but if you won't, I'll get him somewhere, and I'll go 
 at him then till I get the hang of him." 
 
 " But," said Mary, appalled, " he takes time, and every 
 hour is already filled up with your own work." 
 
 " There's not much going on now and I'll sit up a 
 bit. I can keep awake all right, if I like a book enough 
 to bother." 
 
 " You'll get ill, and what will your mother say to me ? " 
 
 " Oh, something quite vague and charming," said 
 Hallowes easily. " What she'll be really interested in is 
 your scholarship. Besides, I'd rather be ill, than stand 
 like a stuck pig while Lasotovitsch goes soaring off over 
 my head." 
 
 " I doubt if the pretensions of the whole of Europe 
 would make you look like a stuck pig 1 But, do you 
 know what you're attempting ? " 
 
 " Probably not. Good thing too or I mightn't attempt 
 it. I'll know soon enough. And on the whole I think 
 I'd put this business through quicker than any of the 
 others, and someone's got to do it anyway." 
 
 " There's not one spark of seeking Truth for Truth's 
 sake about you," she groaned. " You'll just fall to on 
 it, to get the better of Lasotovitsch. I wonder I wonder," 
 she persisted pensively, " what your father would think 
 about Nietsche." 
 
 " Read the last Oxford utterance about the fellow and 
 you'll know. Catch my father attempting the ascent of 
 Nietsche without a guide." 
 
 " Only to think of what you're undertaking ! Nietsche
 
 128 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 isn't the only one, and in this atmosphere of the stable 
 he likes so much, Lasotovitsch won't spare you any single 
 one of the host." 
 
 Hallowes whistled. 
 
 " In that case, I'll only have to keep pace with him," 
 he said after a pause. 
 
 " And in that case," said Mary to herself, " I needn't 
 always be worrying myself to death over other things, 
 Hallowes will insist on a nightly audience to wreak his 
 philosophies on." 
 
 " It's nice to be starting a colossal undertaking with 
 so light a heart," she said, feeling now quite cheerful. " I 
 only hope it will keep light." 
 
 " Oh, I'll see to that," said Hallowes with god-like calm. 
 " We're not Germans, after all, to turn every little diffi- 
 culty into a millstone round our neck." 
 
 " Oh, well," she sighed, " joking apart, I suppose you've 
 got to do it now for the honour of England, and you're 
 the only one who can. I wish you looked stronger. 
 Heron," she resumed presently, " could do it, but he'd 
 be too laborious, too conscientious. You couldn't 
 breathe in the air those two would choke up with big 
 words." 
 
 " Well, I never ! But I have a conscience too ! " 
 
 " It's a little versatile, don't you think ? " said Mary. 
 " At any rate, it's one that will never depress a tea-party. 
 Heron's might, if he weren't quite sure he was doing 
 justice to philosophy." 
 
 " Well, who sprang Lasotovitsch on us ? If I do peg 
 out with brain fag, or conscience, you're the responsible 
 party." 
 
 " In bringing in Lasotovitsch to tea, I never meant to 
 bring Nietsche too," said Mary on her defence. 
 
 " You did it all the same, and will probably rob me 
 of my night's rest for years." 
 
 " And perhaps make Nietsche turn in his grave," said 
 Mary. 
 
 " Do him good, shake some of the nonsense out of 
 him, and let in some common sense."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 129 
 
 " Have you no reverence ? " 
 
 " For the maggot the old chap seems to have set 
 wriggling in the German brain ? not a scrap. The 
 Slav fellows get more good out of him, I think. I say ! 
 Sneak the book off the shelf, will you ? and let me put 
 it into my overcoat pocket. I'm going to see Lasotovitsch 
 home." 
 
 " You won't hurt his feelings ? " 
 
 "I'll civilize one or two of them." 
 
 " Civilization isn't a purely English monopoly." 
 
 " It is, but the fact still wants recognition by the 
 less civilized nations." 
 
 "I'm inclined to think that Lasotovitsch, with at 
 least a suspicion of culture, is a very necessary innovation," 
 said Mary serenely, " and an inspiration on my part." 
 
 " It's the woman that inspires the big jobs, and the 
 man that works 'em. Wouldn't mind being a woman 
 myself for the next year and a half." 
 
 " You'd hate it. You couldn't be having your finger 
 in every pie then." 
 
 " Oh ! Couldn't I ? " 
 
 " No, you couldn't. It's only just at first that you 
 think you can. You soon find out " 
 
 " Indirectly you're all over the place." 
 
 " But I like direct measures, and being first in just as 
 much as you do." 
 
 " But we've all got to put up with a lot of indirectness, 
 especially in the way of work, as soon as ever we put 
 our noses outside England. We can't just slog in as we 
 ought to be able to do, we're too busy keeping our eyes 
 skinned, trying to keep England's end up. If the rest 
 of England that sits at home and battens on its past, 
 would bustle up and start making England's future, her 
 end would keep up by sheer faith in itself, as it used 
 to do, not take all one's time keeping it stiff." 
 
 " Yes, I see, the same sort of faith that will make 
 you outstrip Lasotovitsch in the end. Meanwhile," said 
 Mary, " speak gently to the erring." 
 
 " ' The divine manner,' is there in my pocket," said
 
 130 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Hallowes noncommittingly, " and you must be wanting 
 a rest by this time. Your way as far as the Church is 
 mine," said Hallowes to Lasotovitsch, "so we may as 
 well start together." 
 
 Lasotovitsch beamed, and with a deep bow, a fervent 
 gleam, and a thrilling hand-kiss to both the ladies, 
 followed his leader. 
 
 Hallowes liked to let fellows with their feelings too near 
 their skins, down lightly. So he reverted to horses for 
 the length of the street, then in touching lightly and 
 tentatively on philosophy, he elicited all the facts he was 
 out for. It was always essential to get a good look in 
 at a comparatively new subject before you tackled it. 
 Then firmly, unswervingly, and with great ingenuity, he 
 applied the facts he had just accumulated, slightly twisted. 
 
 The dreamer watched with apprehensive admiration 
 the methods of the man of action, quite unconscious, 
 in his naive diffidence, and the rapid power of assimilation 
 of the other, that the data, the accuracy of which he 
 so whole-heartedly approved, had all been supplied by 
 himself. 
 
 " It's been pretty much the same from the beginning, 
 don't you think," said Hallowes after a passionate outcry 
 of acutely modern thought on the part of Lasotovitsch. 
 
 " Aristotle and Plato used to say very much the same 
 sort of thing, only in a more classical way. You couldn't 
 imagine fellows draped in flowing robes, and cameo 
 brooches, and all furnished from birth with Greek noses " 
 here he remembered his ignorance, " or Roman as the 
 case might be, with the very pots and pans, the very cups 
 they got drunk out of, all grinding dignity of demeanour, 
 and reticence of speech into them, howling with passion 
 like the modern chaps. There's nothing new so far as I 
 can see. It's just the old game." 
 
 " The divine discontent " 
 
 Hallowes was sorry to interrupt, but, he had to get it 
 out while he had it all properly at his fingers' ends. 
 
 " But other people besides Nietsche sat in tubs and 
 scolded," said he ; " only they did it in the classical
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 131 
 
 style, with gesture to match, and a sort of leisurely 
 Olympian god-like look about 'em. The new chap seems 
 to be always in a devil of a hurry. He's all for getting 
 it out in a gulp for fear of being interrupted. Looks bad 
 for the manners of the age, don't you think ? He always 
 seems as if he wanted to empty himself at a sitting. It's 
 a bit too violent, don't you think, for the unlearned 
 stomach ? The stomach of the usual sort of fool likes 
 that sort of thing in homoeopathic doses, or in gilded pills. 
 Flowing robes, you know, and Greek noses, and temperate 
 language, not belched out with disordered action, and any 
 sort of a nose. Somehow that Philosophy that erupts 
 itself like a volcano never feels washed," said Hallo wes 
 with cheerful audacity. 
 
 Lasotovitsch, though deeply interested, looked pensive. 
 The Englishman with the so-young eyes, was difficult 
 to put right at a moment's notice. To such an one the 
 Message must be delivered in the way he will receive it, 
 and Lasotovitsch, with all his burning desire to make space 
 ring with his Message, perceived intuitively that in this 
 case, the time for that had not yet come. He could not 
 conscientiously gurgle, but he made a sufficiently en- 
 couraging sound to set Hallowes off again. 
 
 " It may all be racial," said Hallowes, with even a 
 younger smile than usual. " The fellows that pounded 
 the classics into us at school could always make infernal 
 nuisances of themselves, but there was a sort of aristocratic 
 seclusion and fastidiousness about them. They were 
 gentlemen, in fact, and we couldn't somehow ever imagine 
 a philosopher who wasn't. It gave us a sort of liking for 
 prophets properly washed. It's insular prejudice, being 
 a nation of hypocrites very likely. You're just as likely 
 to be right as we are," said he, with sublime tolerance ; 
 " but we're made like that, and will have to stay made 
 until we see the necessity for a change, and then I 
 daresay we'll creak round on our old hinges. Meanwhile, 
 if a prophet feels bound to swear at his neighbour, he 
 may just as well do it decently as not." 
 
 " And," he added dreamily through a cloud of smoke, 
 
 9*
 
 i 3 2 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " there are lots of things it's as well not to discuss at all 
 before ladies." 
 
 Lasotovitsch flushed sensitively. " I have offended 
 then." 
 
 " You've done nothing of the sort. Only we keep the 
 goings on of Beloveds you know and things of that sort, 
 to ourselves, and since you're going to be one of us, you 
 ought to know our ropes a bit. It's almost impossible 
 to keep her out altogether, of course, she will slip in, but, 
 oh, you know, keep her vague. Don't let her get too 
 personal." 
 
 " Gott Almdchtig ! " said Lasotovitsch. 
 
 " It's easy enough," said Hallowes soothingly. " You'll 
 fall into it in a week. It's just as well you should make 
 this small concession to the nation of hypocrites, don't you 
 see ? " 
 
 " I see," said Lasotovitsch, frowning with thought. 
 
 Hallowes having got out all he had to say waited with 
 great courtesy. 
 
 " The Great One," said Lasotovitsch at last, " said that 
 women will not think. The Englishman says that she 
 must not think. She should if she can, is what I, who 
 know nothing, but hope some day to know all things, 
 say. The English are as the mighty one with a colossal 
 difference. They will swaddle the mouths of the little 
 truths that hurt the ladies who know them mein Gott! 
 and suffer from them, but must never understand them. 
 All the little truths swaddled," murmured Lasotovitsch, 
 " that they scream not, and disturb the ladies. Ach so ! 
 and under our cloaks we must carry the swaddled truths. 
 And yet the life that lives goes not with swaddled mouth. 
 It does scream, it does not consider the ladies. The 
 aristocracy to which the old philosophy belonged cannot 
 shut the little screaming mouth that cries sharp and 
 shrill, so that the new people hear, and even the ladies 
 do listen with one little pink ear." 
 
 " It's only racial really," said Hallowes, still serene and 
 soothing. " You like your ham and anchovies served 
 raw, we like 'em cooked, that's all the difference."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 133 
 
 " And the Lectures ? The gracious Lady is a^ good 
 pupil. The Professors swaddle not the mouths of any 
 truth." 
 
 " You don't suppose that any Englishwoman with her 
 head screwed on will be stopped for a trifle," said Hallo wes 
 grandly. " But a Lecture room is one thing, and a draw- 
 ing-room or what stands for it, is another. Don't you 
 see ? " 
 
 " Mein Gott! yes, I see," said Lasotovitsch after an 
 interminable pause. " Madame she knows life. She 
 has thought ? 
 
 " She knows it in a way, of course, and has her own 
 opinions on it, but oh ! well, she doesn't sort of talk 
 it out in mixed company. When you know her well 
 enough she'll not funk warning you about lots of things 
 in life. I can tell you that." 
 
 " And at other times the little truths must be put in 
 the shameful corner like the wicked child ? " 
 
 " That's about it." 
 
 " Gott Almachtig ! So ! You are a subtle nation." 
 
 " The conversation anyway is getting a jolly sight too 
 subtle for me," said Hallo wes, laughing. 
 
 " And the Miss ? " said Lasotovitsch, " the lady who 
 is adorable, but no longer young ? " 
 
 " Unless you look out, you'll be the death of her in a 
 week." 
 
 " Ach ! That will I never be ! " said Lasotovitsch 
 devotedly. 
 
 " Talking of horses ? " said Hallowes ; " did I tell 
 you ? " 
 
 " Lord," said he when at last he strolled on alone, 
 " that's the sort of thing to make a man take to drink."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN spite of Philosophy, and boys, and Oliver the Less, 
 and Tea-parties, Mary's restless heart would give 
 her no peace. The letters of Oliver the Greater were so 
 distracting. He wrote pages about all his doings, and 
 told nothing about himself, and Barbara seemed always 
 to be hanging round, interesting and amusing Oliver, 
 " but how on earth ? " thought Mary confusedly. " Anyone 
 in his senses to be amused or interested by Barbara ! 
 I do hope Oliver isn't sickening for fever." 
 
 She looked again at the letter and was forced to admit 
 that it did not sound like raving. At the same time 
 Barbara kept on buzzing in her ears like a mosquito. 
 
 She was just then struggling through an unusually 
 impenetrable German, and this continual buzzing seemed 
 to make her mind wobble. She could no longer nail it 
 to its subject. 
 
 " And to be put back by Barbara ! " lamented Mrs. 
 Mirrilies. 
 
 She hoped that the Germans were not undermining 
 her reason. 
 
 It was now nearing Christmas, and the holidays, and 
 the mountains weren't very far off. Mary was sincerely 
 thankful. She was apparently in serious need of, some- 
 thing. 
 
 She took long walks by herself, and short ones with 
 Oliver, and uttered herself in parables to Miss Caldecott, 
 but nothing seemed to affect the buzzing of Barbara. 
 
 134
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 135 
 
 It was simply impertinent of an unconsidered quantity 
 like Barbara to be interrupting serious study across two 
 Continents And if Oliver wasn't sickening for typhoid 
 the Station must be inconceivably dull to give any 
 importance at all to any spoken word of which Barbara 
 was capable. 
 
 If she were in any of her little sordid troubles, of course 
 then naturally she'd turn to Oliver, she had no one else, 
 and Oliver was very soft-hearted. But she seemed to 
 be wonderfully well for Barbara, and peacocking round 
 quite on her own, so far as Mary could gather. 
 
 It was puzzling to a degree. 
 
 In its dim pain Mary's heart turned to England, but 
 came back discouraged. England can be every bit as 
 lonely as Europe, and she couldn't sit down under the 
 shadow of Oliver's mother just now. Nothing would 
 induce her, moreover, to let Oliver be sung into blind obe- 
 dience in the twilight, or to be at the mercy of a woman 
 with a slave and a tyrant wrapped up in her. Some spirit 
 of revolt she only partially understood, was at work in 
 Mary in regard to the elder Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 Hitherto she had hardly criticized her mother-in-law 
 at all. She had admired what she could in her, and left 
 the rest. But now she was beginning to resent her mother- 
 in-law actively, for the sake of the two Olivers. No 
 woman who had borne a man child should spend valuable 
 time hanging withered wreaths on willow trees, and 
 Mrs. Mirrilies had been at it all her life. 
 
 The odd thing was that things in Mrs. Mirrilies she had 
 once envied and admired, she found herself now resenting 
 more acutely even than she resented the funeral wreaths. 
 Above all the apparently illimitable spirit of renounce- 
 ment that distinguished Oliver's mother, and had always 
 set her as one apart. 
 
 It now struck Mary that if you are always renouncing 
 things on your own account, you'll think nothing in the 
 end of letting other people renounce everything for you ; 
 they'll hate it, of course, being new to the business, while 
 from long habit it's become your most exquisite enjoyment.
 
 136 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 In short, Mary wanted a new Heaven and a new Earth 
 for herself and her two Olivers, and she felt certain she 
 would find neither in Cromwell Road, amidst the moulder- 
 ing wreaths. 
 
 She paused with a pang of remorse to recall the religious 
 rapture in Mrs. Mirrilies' Sunday evening hymns. It 
 was honest, as honest as the rigorous virtue that inspired 
 it, but it left her cold. 
 
 " The sting of conscience tendeth ever to sting," and 
 the conscience of Mrs. Mirrilies, now that she was away 
 from it, and dared to confess it to herself, had always 
 been too much even for Mary. 
 
 " And once I was nearly as good as my mother-in-law," 
 Mary thought, with a curious shock. She wondered 
 what it was ; what was wrong with her and with her 
 world. 
 
 At any rate, a letter she had received that morning 
 from her mother-in-law, begging her to bring Oliver 
 over for Christmas, had brought about in Mrs. Mirrilies, 
 an unprecedented amount of internal dislocation. 
 
 What she seemed to want this Christmas for herself, 
 and her two Olivers, and for all the world, was, was 
 laughter at the top of its voice, if it liked, so long as 
 it expressed real joy extravagant, wild, unexpected, 
 magnificent ! And life living itself at full pitch, not 
 cowering away under funeral wreaths. 
 
 For the first tune in her high-principled life, Mary was 
 being driven and pushed and prodded full in the line of 
 least resistance, and the passive aloofness of her conscience 
 was worrying her to death. 
 
 " Work's over for to-day," said Mary at last. " I'll 
 go for an immense walk." 
 
 So booted and hatted she started for the road ; up the 
 high sleek hill flanked by beautiful villas and orchards, 
 and cunningly and lavishly strewn with nice green seats 
 for short-winded citizens, and little baskets for ugly human
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 137 
 
 remains. Then away from the villas out amongst the 
 old beautiful farms, turned now to drinking and dancing 
 saloons for a thirsty and pleasure-loving people, their 
 snow-clad gables standing out of their ruddy wood yards, 
 and lying as quiet and simple and picturesque as though 
 still the innocent homes of thrifty peasants. 
 
 Everywhere the smooth surface of the young snow 
 was being wrought into tracery of finest lace by the sun, 
 and jewelled wreaths hung from all the trees of the wide 
 woods running for miles along the foothills that encircled 
 the lake. 
 
 Mary was soon in the heart of the woods, making for a 
 high clearing she knew well, from whose wide open platform 
 one could see, on a clear day, the curving sweep of the 
 great mountains of Europe, one of the finest views in 
 the world. From East to West past lakes of emerald, 
 and jade, and sapphire, the giants stand sentinel, and on 
 this early afternoon the air was as clear as crystal. 
 
 Peak after peak shone out pure and virginal in its fresh 
 robes of snow, and each seemed to take a living, sentient 
 pride in catching the sun's rays, and setting them to 
 rhythmic strange dances upon their own sublime im- 
 mobility, revealing with each stately measure myriad 
 mystic beauties. The music of the spheres revealing 
 itself in primeval dance upon the everlasting hills. 
 
 Mary watched the elements at play, breathless and 
 absorbed. She forgot what had brought her out until an 
 aching longing for Oliver to see the wonder of the sun 
 upon the mountains also, brought back her mother-in- 
 law with a rush. She brushed the feathering snow off 
 a green seat and sat down. 
 
 But it was impossible to think out things. The sun 
 had caught hold of all the rainbows of the world not on 
 active service, and was winding them in and out the 
 mazes of the dance, and when tired of dancing, the colours 
 and the light melted and mixed, and then in one incom- 
 parable glory of radiance, the sun rock:d over the moun- 
 tains, and the snows returned to their rest. 
 
 And Mary, remembering that she had been warned a
 
 138 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 thousand times that solitary walks in lonely woods where 
 several murders had been committed were not only 
 unsafe, but very far from respectable, turned hastily back 
 down the ghostly arches of the trees, and fixed her mind 
 on her mother-in-law and other problems. 
 
 There was a glory of great calm in the inviolable Silence 
 of the woods, and presently it seemed to Mary that she 
 was \valking through the very atmosphere of faith itself. 
 It encompassed and enfolded her, and lay in a little secret 
 spring of its own in the heart of every waiting tree and 
 shrub. And so each with its own private assurance of 
 its own full possession in the ultimate fullness of life 
 refused to be abashed by snow or frost, or hail, or storm, 
 but just waited quietly for its own. In such an atmosphere 
 Mary's whole being revolted against spoiling all their 
 holidays for the sake of Oliver's mother. 
 
 Who perhaps wasn't so very lonely, after all. She had 
 a God to love who quite satisfied her, and that seemed a 
 great deal upon this sparkling night. Moreover Mrs. 
 Mirrilies loved her own virtue also, and was as sure of that 
 as of her God. She loved her memories too. She had 
 had a variety of stirring experiences to look back on in 
 the winter evenings. Mary remembered now with a 
 sort of curious amused awe some of these she had divulged 
 to her. 
 
 She had been tempted, and that more than once, and 
 had always nobly resisted. In an odd chastened way 
 these temptations had always been a sort of feather in the 
 widow's cap. 
 
 Mary recalled it all as she went over the snow in the 
 splendid silence of the faithful trees. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was incapable of a lie or even of a pose in 
 that sort of thing ; but Mary remembered wondering at 
 the time at the astonishing unction with which her mother- 
 in-law had referred to these incidents. She felt certain 
 that if such things had happened to her, wild horses 
 shouldn't drag them out of her. It had then seemed an 
 appalling fact, a thing to hush up, to pass with averted 
 eyes. If Oliver's mother weren't safe from such horrors,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 139 
 
 who could escape ? Mary had experienced a tornado of 
 indignation against all men. 
 
 It had been a matter of such extreme importance then 
 to Mary ! Now as applied to a woman such as the elder 
 Mrs. Mirrilies it didn't matter really in the least. The 
 only thing that did matter was her mother-in-law's speak- 
 ing of her surprising experiences in just the way she did. 
 To her immense astonishment Mary laughed out into the 
 crystal silence. 
 
 What had come to her, and all her points of view ? 
 to her conscience ? She could dismiss her mother-in-law 
 with a laugh, and not feel even a brute for refusing to bring 
 Oliver to Cromwell Road for Christmas. It would be 
 like looking back now to go to the great dull charnel- 
 house of a place looking back into death instead of 
 forward into life. 
 
 She paused to try to feel right, and at least a little 
 remorse for her selfishness, and to fix her mind upon the 
 self-denying ordinances ; but it refused to be fixed to 
 budge from her importunate self that clamoured for 
 freedom and not for sacrifice. 
 
 " I'll just have to go on and look forward," said Mary 
 breathlessly, " to something. I'll just drop the unessen- 
 tial things and make for the essential. I wonder which is 
 which I don't know in the least, but I simply can't feel 
 Cromwell Road essential to any one of us just now, and 
 she never had any right to sing Oliver out of the Cavalry 
 into the Engineers. I always knew she hadn't, and now 
 I'll just say it out ! And I can't go back into the past 
 picking up other people's wrong-doings and trying to put 
 them right. I might lose the next instant, and that's the 
 most important thing in the world. All that you can do 
 for your own miserable past, or for anyone else's, is to 
 squeeze all the good out of it you can, and get it soaked 
 up into the present by hook or by crook. The present is 
 your child after all, while the past is only your grand- 
 mother it's like disturbing graves and forgetting there 
 are such things as resurrections. I'm fearfully sorry if 
 Oliver and I make her lonelier, but we've got to go on
 
 i 4 o MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 on, and on, and on, whatever happens, and not back. 
 Oh, you just let me alone ! " said Mary to a sudden 
 prick. 
 
 " However much your grandmother is responsible for 
 you, you're not responsible for your grandmother. She's 
 ceased to be an acute incident in life. And on a night 
 like this," said Mary, drinking in the sparkle and flash in 
 the air. " There's such a thing as self-sacrifice becoming a 
 scourge, isn't there ? It's robbed life, after all, it's killed 
 growth, it's stopped enterprise, it's limited the scope 
 of all of us. There's something extremely retrograde in 
 the self-sacrificing woman. Oh, stop, for goodness' sake, 
 and let me speak as I feel, out here in this air, where you 
 must say, for once, what comes first ! I'll be as bad as the 
 rest of us when I'm back in stuffy, God-fearing rooms. I 
 know that the necessity for self-sacrifice lies at the root 
 of all religion and of some philosophy, more especially 
 when it's in German. And it's all so petty somehow, so 
 petty and slavish. It's like feeling you give real pleasure 
 to God by going without marmalade in Lent. At any 
 rate," pursued Mary, running down a silver slope, " Mrs. 
 Mirrilies just for the moment is the past, and Oliver and I 
 are the present and the future, and we must follow the 
 future up hill, not down, or we'll burst," said Mary, with 
 a disreputable chuckle. 
 
 " And then," she said a moment later, with a face that 
 looked as though it would never chuckle again, " I believe 
 Oliver's points of view would be farther away than ever 
 in Cromwell Road. And no matter what his points of view 
 may be, I want him oh, I want him ! and and and 
 crying ? this wonderful night ! " 
 
 Mary scorned tears, or even a pocket-handkerchief as 
 applied to them. She shook them out of her eyes, and 
 tried to concentrate on the last Lecture, but all she could 
 concentrate on was the something that lay behind just 
 one of the little minutes out of the millions that awaited 
 her. 
 
 " And perhaps I'll not see it when it comes," said Mary, 
 with a dreadful sense of depression. " Perhaps it will be
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 141 
 
 waiting for me, to sort of reclaim it, and bring it out into 
 the light ; and it may have to go back into the shadows, 
 amongst the other lost and disabled things, and wander 
 round looking for someone else to deliver it. And if I do 
 see it, I never thought of that ! it may scare me ; I 
 may take it for a ghost or or a tramp." 
 
 Mary's caught breath went out in a half-articulate 
 squeak, for just ahead of her emerging from a clump of 
 trees, two sinister figures cast gigantic shadows on the 
 snow. 
 
 " Now philosophy," said Mary, making a bold bid for 
 courage, " just keep your end up, or what's the use of 
 you, anyway, and and why didn't I bring a stick ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies ? " cried two welcome voices. 
 
 " Thank goodness ! " said Mary. 
 
 " Fraulein's pretty nearly off her head." 
 
 " I hope she hasn't sent Oliver off his." 
 
 " Oh, Oliver's all right, but old Herman's swearing 
 like mad." 
 
 " Didn't think he had so much good feeling," said Mary 
 light-heartedly. It was so good to be with friends. 
 
 " Good feeling ! Sound commercial instinct. Think of 
 the slur on his Hotel if you were robbed and murdered. 
 Anyway you might have considered us. It's not safe." 
 
 " But how on earth can you find out whether it is or 
 not, if you don't try ? " said Mary, still light-minded from 
 sheer relief. 
 
 " Nice doctrine that ! " said Hallo wes severely. " Talk 
 of Nietsche after that ! " 
 
 " I spoke as a fool," said Mary, " and Ihave the grace 
 to acknowledge it, which Nietsche never has." 
 
 " He left that to Time, and the superman." 
 
 "Or to other fools," said Mary in her gentle way. 
 " Set a thief to catch a thief. Let's talk of nice open 
 English fires or of the dances up at St. Moritz, and plum 
 puddings from home anything sane and simple, and 
 leave that creature." 
 
 " You've decided on St. Moritz then ? " 
 
 " I didn't. It decided itself this very minute."
 
 142 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Were you quoting poetry or anything when we came 
 up ? " said Heron sentimentally. Mrs. Mirrilies looked 
 ripping in the moonlight. 
 
 " Not I. I was calling on philosophy to come to the 
 rescue for once in its life, and wishing to goodness I had 
 a stick." 
 
 " Now there's the history of English philosophy for you 
 in a nutshell," said Hallowes self-righteously. " We 
 don't seem to absorb it in the wholesale way those other 
 fellows do. We give it house-room all right and a fair 
 trial. What we find useful we hold on to and use 
 and chuck the rest. We don't let it accumulate in our 
 systems so as to clog action, like the other chaps, and we 
 always keep our fighting arm free. Don't suppose a 
 German just now would ever have thought of his stick ; 
 he'd have been too swollen out with philosophy, you 
 know. They all keep pulling slabs of philosophers out 
 of their insides, and chucking them at you till you don't 
 know whether you're on your head or your heels, and then 
 they go off shouting ' Deutschland iiber alles,' and thinking 
 you a half-educated ass. It's the most difficult nation 
 in Europe to keep your end up to." 
 
 " Oh ! for goodness sake," cried Mary, " leave high 
 thoughts, and Germans, and other indigestible substances, 
 and be insular, and easy and English to-night ! " 
 
 " I like that ! Who started it all ? Who discovered 
 Lasotovitsch and let him loose on us ? You simply refuse 
 to face the consequences of your own action. You dropped 
 Lasotovitsch like a bomb into the midst of a peaceful 
 community. For reasons of patriotism, not to say self- 
 preservation, we're driven into the lowest depths of 
 philosophy. We're soaking and drenching ourselves in 
 it to keep even with Lasotovitsch, and you expect us 
 to come out of the bottomless pit just as we went in. 
 You've taken the fresh English bloom off us for ever, 
 Mrs. Mirrilies. We'll be sort of mongrels by the time we're 
 through with your importation." 
 
 " Oh, well, anyway, you needn't be prigs until you've 
 learnt to be philosophers," said Mary. "I'm just
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 143 
 
 moithered with speculation. It's the air, and the lectures, 
 and you." 
 
 " Us, indeed ! It's the latest addition." 
 
 " No, it's you. He hasn't had time to affect you yet ; 
 you get old before your time here. I like you best young 
 and callow. One is less disturbed about your future ; 
 you're only subject to the usual idiotcies then. Here one 
 never knows," sighed Mary. " The foreigner is used to 
 his own ways ; you're only amateurs in them. It's like 
 the difference between the Roman Catholic born and 
 bred, and his Protestant understudy. I don't know that 
 all this alien and unnatural stimulation of the sleepy old 
 lion is good for him." 
 
 " Catch 'em stimulating us ! " said Heron, with stolid 
 arrogance. 
 
 " They do, in spite of you. It's inevitable in this air. 
 These very woods are haunted with the ghosts of philo- 
 sophers all tearing their phantom locks because even now 
 they can't find out everything, in order to conform it to 
 the German outlook, and impose it upon the world. I 
 might have been wrestling with the stiffest Lecture my 
 head is so tired. The wisdom of the Teuton is most 
 fatiguing. I don't wonder that so many of them come to 
 England to rest, and get so slack that they forget how to 
 spell their own names. We all want a change to refresh 
 our jaded minds. Dances with a whirling variety of 
 partners, ski-ing, and luging, and ice-hockey. We 
 want something lighter and more malleable than the 
 brain of the Teuton to pit ourselves against. And," said 
 Mary, laughing, "all of us together ought to be able to 
 take off even one little ounce of the stigma attached to 
 the English name abroad. Perhaps being all friends 
 together, we might be the forlorn hope of our misguided 
 nation, and diluther them all into liking us for what we_ 
 are, instead of hating us for what we have. I can't bear 
 being disliked when we're so nice at heart really. 
 You're the very dearest boys in the world for letting me 
 get all my ill-humour off on you. If you hadn't I might 
 have spanked Oliver. There are more things in these
 
 144 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 woods, I think, than tramps. Here we are ! I'll 
 not ask you in, because late visitors always disturb 
 Oliver." 
 
 " I say," said Hallo wes, as the two went on, " let us dine 
 in the restaurant round the corner. I told my old woman 
 not to wait." 
 
 It was a silent meal. Hallowes seemed to be pre- 
 occupied. 
 
 " Wait a mo'," said he, " till I light up." 
 
 They went on down the street in silence. 
 
 Heron's affection for Mrs. Mirrilies was mute and uncon- 
 ditional. Hallowes', although ardent, with considerable 
 depths in it, was yet critical. Even on his death-bed 
 Hallowes would be interested and amused in discussing 
 the situation. 
 
 " I'd like to meet that chap Mirrilies," he said at last. 
 " It would take a lot of philosophy, or a little common- 
 sense to understand him." 
 
 " What are you driving at ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies," said Hallowes with serene finality, 
 " is a bit too young for her job, and a jolly sight too like 
 us. I can't put it into words, not being Lasotovitsch, 
 but she is." 
 
 "Oh! Shut up!" 
 
 " Poking round finding out things for herself," pursued 
 Hallowes serenely, " is what she's out for, just like our- 
 selves. A crack or so on the head won't hurt us ; but 
 for her, you see, women aren't used to that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies isn't a fool," protested Heron. 
 
 " Lord, no ! If she was, she'd poke for ever, and never 
 strike a stone wall, or anything else." 
 
 " Cousins of mine know Captain Mirrilies, and they say 
 he's the finest fellow going." 
 
 " Catch her looking at him if he wasn't," said Hallowes, 
 with a touch of proprietary pride ; " but it's the finest 
 fellows that run the worst muckers. It wasn't religion 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was after out there in those woods at this 
 hour of night," said Hallowes thoughtfully. " I wish it
 
 MARY M1RRILIES 145 
 
 was, in a way. If it was only that He paused, 
 
 and Heron said quietly, but with one of the most stu- 
 pendous efforts of his life and a scarlet face : 
 
 " It's a good deal. I wish you'd give it a trial yourself, 
 Jim, you know." 
 
 Jim started. He had always somehow felt the religion 
 in Heron ; and was glad he had made no mistake. But 
 to get that sort of thing into words is a grim job. He 
 wondered at Heron, and felt rather hot himself for a night 
 with an edge on it as he looked for words. 
 
 " I'm not running down religion, don't you think it. 
 The more women have of it the better for themselves, 
 and everyone else. I mean to have a proper look in at 
 it myself when I've got some of the rot it talks out of 
 my head. Being brought up in the bosom of the Church 
 somehow puts you off. You've got to pretend such a lot 
 to ease people's feelings. And never daring to thresh out 
 anything, it gets clotted up in your inside, rot and all. 
 And later on there's no time, you know, to sort it out. 
 Anyway it's not religion that's troubling Mrs. Mirrilies." 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies is the last woman living to go round 
 gassing." 
 
 " She wouldn't, but you'd know. My mother, and 
 my sisters, and cousins, and aunts, want religion in just 
 the way they want silver spoons, and table-napkins. And 
 it seems to be the right way for them, I don't believe, 
 for a moment, that any one of the lot of 'em would 
 even know how to sin, you know if they tried but Mrs. 
 Mirrilies is different." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " 
 
 " Oh, dry up, will you ? She's as good as they make 
 'em, but she's a jolly sight more like us than one single 
 one of our mothers, and sisters, and aunts will ever be. 
 And life for us," he continued, with a glint of the wisdom 
 of all the ages standing straight up in his infant's eyes, 
 " even if we take it a bit easy, isn't all beer and skittles. 
 All the soft jobs seem to have been jumped by women, 
 the sort of women belonging to us, you know. We've 
 got to find out, and finding out often gives you pepper. 
 
 10
 
 146 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 If 7'd the luck to marry Mrs. Mirrilics, hanged if I'd let 
 her go wandering round woods on her own, and I enjoying 
 myself out in India ! " 
 
 " He's not enjoying himself," said Heron, " he's 
 working." 
 
 " Men can't work without enjoying themselves. Women 
 can. That makes all the difference." 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies may be wanting to get the hang of us 
 so as to buck us up, not like most women who start on 
 us before they know a hang about us. It's just the sporting 
 sort of thing she'd do." 
 
 " It might be a jolly sight too sporting for her own 
 comfort." 
 
 " She wouldn't consider that. Women never do. They 
 only think of you." 
 
 "She's not a woman through and through, I tell you." 
 
 " If you had less imagination and more sense you'd do 
 better. To think of Mrs. Mirrilies trying to ape us ! " 
 
 " Did I ever say she was trying to ape us ? There's a 
 lot of us in her, which is another story altogether." 
 
 " In that case," said Heron in an offended tone, " she 
 was probably trying to get over us in the wood." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Hallowes noncommittingly. " If she 
 was, she'll probably succeed in time. Mrs. Mirrilies isn't 
 the one to be beaten ; but as she'll be fifty or so when 
 the job's through, it won't very much matter after all." 
 
 " I can't imagine," said Heron with dogged loyalty, 
 " that Mrs. Mirrilies could ever stop mattering." 
 
 " Oh, well nor I. The part of her that's Mrs. Mirrilies, 
 but the other part will matter in a milder way for all of 
 us at fifty. You see no constitution could stand it. 
 Anyway I'm not so sure," said Hallowes presently, 
 " that I want Mrs. Mirrilies to hurry up getting over us. 
 She wouldn't be half so nice if she did." 
 
 " Good God ! Do you think Mrs. Mirrilies wants the 
 like of us or of what's in us to improve her ? " 
 
 " But I believe it's there already," said Hallowes 
 thoughtfully, " or how'd we get it ? I believe they've 
 been afraid of it, you know, and small blame to 'em,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 147 
 
 and hushed it up. I believe myself, in trotting out things 
 and sort of breaking 'em in ; keeping a vicious filly in the 
 stable won't teach her not to kick. I know that. Are you 
 coming in ? " 
 
 " How can I when you're up to your neck in work ? " 
 " Oh, well, / wouldn't have prevented you." 
 " But you'd jolly well have sworn at me, when it was 
 too late." 
 
 10*
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MARY had always kept up a desultory correspond- 
 ence with her cousin and Miss Gaunt, and all 
 through the season she had sent remittances to buy 
 asparagus for the Teuton stomachs that craved, and 
 had then insisted upon the bottled article to keep under 
 the mortal ache. 
 
 It was becoming quite a problem to Miss Gaunt to explain 
 this continuity of abundance to Ella. 
 
 And then one morning, to her astonishment and delight, 
 if a little to her embarrassment, Mary got a letter from 
 Cousin Ella announcing in agitated thankfulness the 
 inheritance of a legacy which would make her and her 
 beloved friend independent, and deliver them for ever from 
 the intolerable tyranny of the foreign governesses. 
 
 " I have done my best to love the poor women," said 
 Cousin Ella, " strangers in a strange land, and not one 
 with any provision for her old age, and thanks be to 
 God in many instances my efforts have been successful ; 
 but, dear Mary, of late years I have sometimes only been 
 able to pray for them. Needy human nature is, alas ! most 
 trying. I am glad to be delivered from it in the Lord's 
 good time. We have sold this place to the large German 
 who, to my astonishment, had saved some money. She 
 will, no doubt, make it pay." 
 
 " She will," said Mary, laughing. " The P.G.'s will 
 be shrieking for asparagus for years to come, thank 
 goodness ! " 
 
 She was reading the letter aloud to the little Moth, 
 
 148
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 149 
 
 who was deeply interested in Mary's minor affairs, and 
 knew all about her asparagus plot. 
 
 " But, Mrs. Mirrilies," cried Miss Caldecott, " you surely 
 couldn't be revengeful ? " 
 
 So dearly did Miss Caldecott love her idols, and so 
 happily was she constituted, that she could never see a 
 crack in them, and if the public did, she thought it very 
 likely that the fault lay with the public's own eye. If the 
 idol itself had its doubts, her first impulse was to reassure 
 it, to put it in a better light, or rub it up with a little 
 spiritual plate powder, just as she did with the Church 
 brasses. Miss Caldecott was consumed with the passion 
 of the holy housemaid. 
 
 " I have no personal spite against the large lady," said 
 Mary. " She gave me excellent advice, and plays like 
 an angel. But I can't bear anything so frail and delicate- 
 minded as Cousin Ella to be wearing itself out praying 
 for a fine, flourishing intellect that's perfectly well able 
 to take care of itself, and feeling all the time that she's 
 not doing it right. Cousin Ella is very humble and 
 sensitive, she'd know in her bones that her poor little 
 insular imagination could never soar to the God com- 
 placent or colossal enough to deal with the pretensions of 
 so superior a person as Fraulein Becker." 
 " But but why are you so hard on her ? " 
 " Am I hard ? I only happen to know a little about 
 her. I think really I'm rather grateful to her on the 
 whole. She brought home my own ignorance to me. 
 She also gave me an insight into that of my nation, and 
 so prepared me for the general opinion of Europe." 
 ' Oh, Mrs. Mirrilies ! How can you ? " 
 " But you've lived in the midst of it for years." 
 " But I've consistently refused to listen." 
 " And if I didn't listen with all my ears, I'd ' bust.' " 
 " Dearest Mrs. Mirrilies, don't you love your country ? " 
 " I do, like anything, but I don't love its stupidity. 
 v Your country is like your child : the more you adore it 
 the more thoroughly you can spank it." 
 Miss Caldecott shuddered.
 
 150 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Please don't let us think of such horrid things, and go 
 on with your letter. I knew you'd never be revengeful 
 for yourself." 
 
 Mary laughed. "I've never been tried yet." 
 
 "I do so wish you wouldn't always be making little of 
 yourself. It's like a bad dream. One knows it's foolish- 
 ness, but it worries." 
 
 " But haven't you ever been disappointed in a friend ? " 
 said Mary, her curiosity getting the better of her good 
 taste. She was paid off for it, however, in a way she little 
 expected. Miss Caldecott got slowly livid. Her very 
 lips were white. 
 
 " Yes," she said at last, "I've been disappointed for 
 thirty years in the friend I loved best." 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " cried out Mary, with a gesture as though 
 to push back those thirty cruel years from the white 
 helpless face. " It's it's not fair." 
 
 " Please don't say confusing things, Mrs. Minilies," 
 she said at last. " I do so want to feel right in this this 
 old sorrow, and I'm quite absolutely sure that you']! 
 never disappoint me." 
 
 " I'd be a brute if I did. * Women are horribly good," 
 sighed Mary. " I wish I were like them." 
 
 " You're ever so much nicer," said the idol-worshipper. 
 " Go on with the letter." 
 
 " And now, dear Mary, for another great surprise ! 
 We are both longing to see you. Having come back into 
 our life again, we don't seem as if we could bear you to 
 go out of it for very long at a time. So as you have 
 decided not to come home for Christmas, but to go to 
 St. Moritz, we have decided to spend part of the money 
 Fraulein has given us for this house we can well afford 
 it, in going there too. Fortunately we have not quite 
 forgotten our languages, and are daily diligently practising 
 them." 
 
 " Can't you imagine the old dears I "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 151 
 
 " It will be delightful to go once more to a real Hotel. 
 Our little trips abroad of late years have been spoilt, to 
 some extent, by cheap pensions. But, thank God, that 
 also is at an end. Prices we find have risen. We don't 
 want to bother you, dear, only to be near you, so we 
 haven't even asked where you are going. We have taken 
 rooms in a nice quiet hotel, where the English who are 
 not very gay and rich go. It will be like renewing our 
 youth, and I hope we may often have little Oliver. We're 
 sure to find nice children to play with him, since he loves 
 them so." 
 
 " There ! That's all, except loves and things." 
 
 " What a dear woman ! Why aren't you quite glad, 
 Mrs. Mirrilies ? " 
 
 " Now there you are again ! You often jump into my 
 mind in the sudden way Oliver does, and find me 
 out." 
 
 " But you couldn't mind me," she said wistfully, " any 
 more than you could Oliver. We're both so sure of your 
 mind." 
 
 " The thing is," said Mary pensively, " that I'm not so 
 sure myself, by any means. And don't you see, I'm 
 going up there to enjoy every single thing that comes, 
 like anything, and to look round, and find out things for 
 myself, and to hustle everything out of every modern 
 point of view I can strike. I love fooling round new 
 things, and it's a tendency that grows ! and my old dears 
 may distrust the tendency and the points of view." 
 
 " I distrust them also," said Miss Caldecott, prim and 
 decisive ; " but I trust you, dear Mrs. Mirrilies. It will 
 no doubt be the same with your friends." 
 
 " I wonder if it will ? I'd hate to damp the joy of their 
 first real day out for twenty years." 
 
 " You couldn't damp the joy of anyone." 
 
 " But I don't want to damp my own joy either. And 
 don't you see our joys might clash." 
 
 " I doubt it," said Faith, Hope and Charity. 
 
 " I don't altogether," said Instinct. " At any rate,"
 
 152 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 said Mary, "I'll see if we can't meet and all go up 
 together. Then I can fix them in. They'll find ihings 
 rather different from when they were last abroad." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Mirrilies, do ! " cried the little Moth with 
 passionate earnestness. " We come abroad now in such 
 hordes, and we're all so much alike. We so often say 
 we're vegetarians, and we order so few drinks, and some- 
 times I am afraid we make a fuss about our bills. At any 
 rate we are very unpopular with the Hotel keepers. Are 
 they teetotallers ? " she anxiously inquired. 
 
 " No, only from necessity. They drank good wine upon 
 the Hills, and were rather proud of their cellar." 
 
 " Oh, thank goodness ! You must start them in the 
 right way. It will make all the difference." 
 
 " But I never drink anything, and will always have to 
 be unpopular from that point of view." 
 
 " But you can have tea at their hotel," said Miss 
 Caldecott, with marked anxiety. " And when your young 
 
 friends " She broke off gasping, scared to death. 
 
 " And," she murmured, with a pallid giggle, "la total 
 abstainer myself for thirty years ! But indeed I could 
 often wish I wasn't when we all go together up to the 
 mountains and are all total abstainers, and the head 
 waiter brings the wine-list. You know what a very ex- 
 pressive face my dear mother has." 
 
 " I do indeed," said Mary with conviction. " I believe 
 you have to pay almost an exorbitant price for your 
 principles, Miss Caldecott. I'm glad the old dears haven't 
 principles in that direction." 
 
 " Oh, I simply can't help it ; so am I ! " 
 
 " Oh, well, I'll see they placate the powers that be. 
 We'll all help. The old dears shall bring custom to the 
 house or we'll know the reason why." 
 
 " I'm so glad you'll introduce them. It will give them 
 importance at once," said Miss Caldecott, still somewhat 
 breathless. " It's dreadful to be just like the others. 
 To have the waiter's calculating eyes on you always. 
 He seems to follow you with a doubt, even in your sleep. 
 After the first meal the Director doesn't trouble even to
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 153 
 
 look at you, and that's worse. It's more pointed and 
 personal. It's knowing so many of us and finding us so 
 much alike. And it's even people who, I am certain, 
 do take stimulants at home, and can well afford them, 
 who make England so sadly misunderstood. I was once 
 in a very nice Hotel, we lunched in the Restaurant, and 
 one day just as lunch had begun a dear old clergyman 
 came in. He was an Archdeacon, and I am sure he was 
 a saintly man, he looked so venerable. But oh dear ! 
 I could almost have wished he didn't, and was just worldly 
 for once. In the most dignified way he ordered a bottle 
 of soda-water, knives, and forks, and plates, and emptied 
 several paper parcels on to them and ate his luncheon. 
 A quite audible giggle ran all down the room. It was 
 one of the most awful meals of my life. How can you any 
 longer wonder at our comparative unpopularity ? " 
 
 "I'd like to be able to oblige you and drink like a fish," 
 said Mary thoughtfully ; " but since I can't, I'll see that 
 the others do." 
 
 " But, but, it needn't be intoxicating liquors. So 
 long as it's liquid, they'll charge four times over for it 
 and be quite satisfied." 
 
 " Dear Miss Caldecott, you just trust England to me 
 and the boys." 
 
 When Mary met her old dears at the station she was 
 quite proud of the addition to the party. In order to do 
 her credit the ladies had outdone themselves in coats and 
 skirts, their neat grey heads were surmounted by irreproach- 
 able travelling hats. Their luggage light and sufficient. 
 Mary felt quite elated. She had perhaps felt less so had 
 she been aware that both the ladies in their halt in Paris 
 had permitted an artiste in corsets to work her will on them, 
 and were now enduring untold agonies under the pressure 
 of a complicated arrangement of unaccustomed bones. 
 Portions of their person never before imprisoned now 
 groaned in bondage, and all those stricken hours from Paris, 
 they had sat up as straight as bodkins, since lying down
 
 154 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 made matters ten times worse, and they had nothing else 
 to put on. 
 
 Neither of them had reckoned with the fiendish accumu- 
 lative torturing power inherent in the corset guaranteed 
 to defy tune itself, and had left those in their possession to 
 be reorganized by the artiste ; moreover, the woman, who, 
 when on her travels spreads herself in the eyes of a grinning 
 Europe, was anathema to those high-minded ladies. They 
 were resolved that, at all costs, their well-tailored garments 
 should still encase them like a glove, when Mary saw them, 
 and scorned to complain even to each other. 
 
 The dispensation pressed the heavier, perhaps, upon 
 plump Miss Gaunt. She feared more than once that she 
 must succumb. She bore up, however, and her fortitude 
 was well repaid. 
 
 Mary's approving eyes and Oliver's instant adoption of 
 her as " Aunt " were full compensation for her sufferings. 
 Moreover, she discerned a glance of pleased surprise in the 
 faces of the two nice youths laden with rugs in the back- 
 ground. 
 
 After one glance at such well-corsetted elegance, Miss 
 Caldecott was aware of her own formlessness, and shrank 
 back behind the boys to wonder a little at Mary and her 
 fears. Women as uncreased and upright as that after a 
 long journey would surely hold their own anywhere, and 
 what on earth must she be like in Mary's eyes ? 
 
 She was wishing she had put on her best hat when Mary 
 seized her, and brought her into the middle of the group 
 now waiting on the platform, and she was soon her gentle 
 self again. She was finding out to her great encourage- 
 ment little points of likeness through all the unlikeness 
 that had abashed her, and before five minutes were at an 
 end she had decided to go back to the corsets she had 
 renounced some thirty years ago, with tears, as a concession 
 to family prejudice. 
 
 So if the Paris corsets brought forth their meed of suffer- 
 ing, they did their little bit of good also ; they gratified 
 three worldlings, and gave fresh courage to one small saint. 
 
 She smiled to the last on the gay party, then went off to
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 155 
 
 slave happily for three mortal hours, for having perfect 
 trust in her, her genial tyrants had forgotten many things 
 in the last throes of departure, and they all seemed to be 
 acutely important. They gave her only the crumbs from 
 their table, those tyrants, perhaps one couldn't expect 
 any more from such vivid, vital, selfish creatures out for 
 adventure, but Miss Caldecott was well content with it. 
 
 It was the appreciation without which the sensitive soul 
 of a woman must fade and wither. The beautiful gift that 
 the poorest may bestow, and that the richest, throw- 
 ing gold broad-cast, so often withholds, not knowing its 
 priceless value. 
 
 Cousin Ella finding the double duty of accustoming 
 herself to the society of young men and her corsets a little 
 too wearing, declined upon Oliver. Fraulein was taking a 
 holiday before joining her charge, and Oliver recognizing, 
 like the rest of his sex, a willing slave at a glance, used her 
 to the utmost. 
 
 Miss Gaunt dropped into the current of young life like 
 a fish into water. 
 
 The ragtime views of white mountain and green lake 
 through a wild whirl of snow increased the general lightness 
 of head and heart, and all went merrily, until as they were 
 all alighting at the journey's end, Cousin Ella uttered a 
 little squeak, and tottered. 
 
 From the amazing rigidity of her form Mary divined the 
 truth. 
 
 Although she had in a measure missed the fullness of the 
 estate, Mrs. Mirrilies had all the intolerance of the young 
 married woman. She sent the boys on with Oliver and the 
 luggage to her own hotel, loosed the bonds of the prisoner, 
 hustled her into bed, and the instant she could catch her 
 alone, burst out at the poor, fat guardian angel, still in 
 agonized bondage. 
 
 " Oh, how could you let her ? " cried Mary. 
 
 " It was for your sake, my dear." 
 
 " As though I'd mind ! " 
 
 " You'd have minded very actuely if two frumps had 
 descended upon you."
 
 156 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " As if I could want her to suffer like that ! " rampaged 
 Mary. " You shouldn't have allowed it." 
 
 " I defy anyone to protest once she'd delivered herself 
 into the hands of that corseti&re." 
 
 " Beast ! " 
 
 " No. She was a great artist." 
 
 Mary snorted. 
 
 " She needn't have put the screw on all at once then ; 
 even the Inquisitors didn't do that. If her ribs had had 
 an ounce of flesh on them, they'd have reverberated like a 
 drum." 
 
 " She'd better tap me," thought Miss Gaunt grimly. 
 " I'd reverberate to her heart's content." 
 
 " I'll feel her every day in future," pursued Mary. 
 
 " You're as intolerant as when you were eighteen," said 
 Miss Gaunt, regaining her spirit. " Your hands will be 
 quite full enough with those boys, and Oliver, and, um 
 other duties. You just leave Ella's ribs to me." 
 
 " When I think of that poor little unyielding body I 
 feel more selfish even than I thought I was." 
 
 " Oh, I thought conscience came in somewhere ! Never 
 mind, my dear, we both came fully prepared for selfishness, 
 and to enjoy ourselves tremendously in spite of it, which 
 the past generation frequently refuses to do. It prefers 
 to scold the present. Good-night, my dear. Oliver will 
 want his supper." 
 
 " Well ! To suffer to be beautiful is bad enough, no 
 doubt. It's not for me to say," reflected Miss Gaunt, as 
 slowly and painfully she crawled up the stairs, " but to have 
 to suffer only to be still so fat and ugly that no one even 
 suspects your heroic endeavours in the other direction isn't 
 so exhilarating."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THIS was Mary's first visit to the high mountains. 
 She had been conjuring up visions of it for weeks, 
 and the next morning, from the moment she got up the 
 immense intoxication of the high places of the earth was 
 upon her. 
 
 She dressed under a spell. She dressed Oliver also under 
 a spell, and made hay amongst his buttons. She ate her 
 breakfast without knowing what she ate, and she let Oliver 
 eat what he liked. What mattered anything but the new 
 world, and the new life in her blood ? 
 
 Her hands trembled with eagerness as she dressed 
 herself and Oliver to go 'out, and although she was vaguely 
 aware of the fact, she permitted Oliver, as eager as herself, 
 to escape from her hands with one gaiter askew. To get 
 out into the middle of it all without a moment's delay was 
 the one thing needful. The rest could wait. 
 
 She avoided the boys, and fled from the chattering crowd 
 out into the great white silence under the sapphire sky. 
 
 The sun with regal insolence was already turning the 
 great cold mountains into the playing fields of His Kingly 
 Majesty. 
 
 Mary walked Oliver off his legs and clean forgot her old 
 dears. 
 
 " You might have left word where you were off to," 
 said Hallowes in gentle expostulation, when he met her on 
 her return. Heron said nothing. He looked wounded. 
 
 " Oh, Oliver and I wanted the first sight of everything 
 to ourselves," said Mary lightly too radiant to be disturbed 
 by feelings. 
 
 157
 
 158 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Your cousin and the other lady were round looking for 
 you," pursued Hallowes. 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! I forget them." 
 
 " Oh ! We tracked you for an hour, then went to see 
 about the ski-ing and skating," said Hallowes, still kind and 
 patient. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies' face seemed to be shining in a queer way 
 at something quite apart from them. And she was burnt 
 too. This went dead against all Jim's aesthetic principles. 
 He hoped it wouldn't show much at luncheon. 
 
 Meanwhile Heron had Oliver's leg up against the frozen 
 bank, and with painful effort was putting the gaiter right. 
 Hallowes wouldn't have done it to save his life, and in a 
 curious jealous way he resented Mrs. Mirrilies forcing this job 
 upon Harry. It was unlike Mrs. Mirrilies, and hardly playing 
 the game, any more than letting herself get burnt to a 
 brick before anyone could look at her was. Could she by 
 any chance be going off on her own, getting away from 
 them ? Was that to be the result of the holiday ? 
 
 " But I can only skate until Fraulein comes," said Mary, 
 too self-absorbed to discover offence. " My cousin and 
 Miss Gaunt will look after Oliver while we're skating, 
 but one couldn't expect them to toil up the hills after 
 us." 
 
 " My new Aunts said they'd come everywhere," said 
 Oliver firmly, the ache in his legs suddenly snapping off. 
 " I'll go an' ask 'em." 
 
 " You must have a rest first, and be tidied up," said 
 Mary, Oliver's appearance at last recalling her to 
 motherhood. 
 
 " Oh ! " Oliver's eyes widened with disappointment 
 and the ache pounced back into his legs. " I thought 
 nuthin' mattered in mountains. Crooked gaiters, nor 
 coffee as strong as strong, beautiful ! nor nuthin'." 
 
 " Nothing ought to matter," said Mary recklessly, " but 
 unfortunately it does. Come and lie down. We're still 
 in the world, and I thought we'd got above it. And, 
 Harry," she wheedled, with a deprecating glance, " couldn't 
 you do his gaiters till Fraulein comes ? "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 159 
 
 " My new Aunts'll do 'em," said Oliver proudly, " not 
 big mans." 
 
 " I say, darling dear, that's a snub for me. I'd better 
 do them myself, I think." 
 
 " No," said Oliver, taking her hand, and suddenly feeling 
 that a little rest would be rather nice, " my new Aunts'll 
 do 'em an' all the horrid things, and we'll just look at 
 you, like me an' the old Aunt at home always does." 
 
 " But, Oliver," said Mary, as they went up hand in hand 
 to her room, "I'm not a selfish pig." 
 
 " No," said Oliver sleepily, " you're you and we're 
 us." 
 
 " But I do things too," she pleaded. 
 
 " But you can always leave 'em, an' talk. You're 
 darlin' dear, an' my muvver, an' we like lookin' at 
 you." 
 
 " But, little dearest, the description is so utterly inaccu- 
 rate, and not me at all." 
 
 But Oliver was asleep in her arms, and Mary put him 
 thoughtfully to bed. 
 
 " That's it," she reflected, " the usual Bird of Paradise 
 person I've always detested. Dear me ! " she glanced in 
 the glass, and perceiving in herself a tendency to liver- 
 colour she put cream on her face, and went out on the 
 verandah to see the mountains again, but Oliver's little 
 sleepy words seemed to shut them out. She could see 
 nothing but her other Oliver keeping Christmas in the dust 
 and heat of a dull Station, and Barbara buzzing round, 
 probably sending him ridiculous Christmas cards that 
 demanded a reply. It seemed to be Barbara's fate to be 
 the last straw in everything, Barbara ! and on such a 
 day ! " 
 
 Mary tried to cast her out, and to lift her mind to the 
 mountains, to that shining immensity of white and gold. 
 She wanted to recall the careless rapture of the young 
 morning. The wild leap of her spirit, the glory of the day. 
 But such things don't come to call like dogs, and other 
 human creatures. They slip into the soul from every- 
 where when they can find a soul with room to hold them,
 
 160 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 and Mary's soul just then was hardly big enough to hold 
 herself, not to say Infinity. 
 
 Oliver slipped in indeed, a pain and a problem, and very 
 far away. He left her world empty, and she wanted it full 
 to the brim. With an odd half gasp, half sigh, she let him 
 slip back to his lonely work. 
 
 She felt like a wrong note in a great harmony. Oliver's 
 summing up of her, the attitude of her little Court, 
 everything was disturbing. And, it had all to be reckoned 
 with. 
 
 Of course she was pretty, and she had a good figure, 
 which she thought with sudden happy surprise was getting 
 better, and she wasn't a fool very far from it ! and 
 people liked her. If they hadn't, the loneliness would have 
 been rather more than she could have borne. She was 
 doing what she was out for, too finding out things. 
 
 Even from the Lectures she was getting some little idea 
 of the complications to which one's inside, no matter how 
 simple and straightforward it may appear, is apparently 
 subject. 
 
 Moreover, in its task of clearing up the obscurities of 
 human nature, Psychology had sunk human nature in 
 darkness so impenetrable that she could never again 
 dare to judge, much less condemn it. This made for 
 charity, and other high virtues. 
 
 The boys, to be sure, had thrown light upon much of the 
 darkness, but only in spots. 
 
 To penetrate the illimitable mass of the gloom was 
 apparently the work of a lifetime, and Mary was in a 
 hurry. 
 
 She moved restlessly from one foot to the other, and 
 tried to get absorbed in the shining marvel of the sun 
 now at play with the crystals, but no such luck ! 
 
 What the boys had revealed, and the Lectures concealed, 
 had made her kinder perhaps had even made her sweeter, 
 she was so sorry for boys and so fond of them, because 
 Oliver would some day be exactly like them. And if one 
 can't dare to judge mankind at large until one has read 
 every word the books have to say about him, it makes for
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 161 
 
 patience, besides cutting you out of a very great pleasure 
 for the term of your natural life, thus getting in the other 
 virtue of self-sacrifice. 
 
 The Lectures at any rate were not entirely thrown 
 away. Mary kicked out viciously at a stool not the 
 least in her way, and sighed. 
 
 Mankind was getting too big for Mrs. Mirrilies, so again 
 she declined upon herself, the last refuge of the baulked ; 
 and since oneself and mankind are one, it is, after all, 
 but falling from the frying-pan into the fire. 
 
 She was different from what she used to be, that was 
 plain. Everything was different. People even looked 
 at her differently, what was worse, they felt her differently. 
 
 Not the boys oh, no ! not the boys, she thought 
 quickly. She had always been so glad that she had come 
 across the boys. She was the usual episode, of course, 
 but that she had happened to them just at the right time, 
 in the right way, was a great joy to her. Some day Oliver 
 might remember, and be glad too, and perhaps fall on 
 his feet also in the same way. 
 
 But that morning at breakfast she had noticed a differ- 
 ence in the men. 
 
 The glory of sun and snow had wiped it from her 
 memory, but she remembered it now as a thing that 
 might mean something, and might recur. Hitherto Mary 
 had been singularly free from self-consciousness. No 
 inward menace had ever warned her. Nothing that could 
 call for self-consciousness had ever seemed to concern her, 
 herself. 
 
 To inquire into things, and investigate them in the 
 interests of purely impersonal erudition was another 
 story, of course. But now it seemed that there was some- 
 thing in herself, as well as in Oliver, that was not only 
 getting different, but seeing itself differently, that was 
 even wanting to assert itself express itself, something 
 passive that was becoming active, recognizing its right 
 to take its share in things. 
 
 Something in herself seemed to be struggling out from 
 the rest, steadying itself on its own legs, and standing 
 
 II
 
 162 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 over against the rest demanding recognition, and seeking 
 expression. 
 
 It was all very disturbing and perplexing. 
 
 Mary went to the glass to do her hair. The cream had 
 done its work, her colour was pure again, and soft, and 
 transparent. It struck her sharply that she was beautiful 
 now, instead of being just the usual pretty. It was really 
 rather exciting. She caught herself in the very act of 
 breathing more quickly, and laughed. 
 
 " As though it mattered," said Mary. 
 
 But it did matter. She knew it mattered. She felt 
 that it mattered. It mattered so much, that it made her 
 do her hair better than usual. 
 
 Being used to have everything done for her in India, had 
 made hair-doing rather a burden, and she often hurried 
 over it. But to-day it interested her ; she liked brushing 
 and twisting the shadowy soft masses. She was delighting 
 in them, and lingering over them for themselves. She 
 didn't remember until the very end, that Oliver had 
 delighted in her hair too, and lingered over it in very 
 much the same way. It made her hair seem as alive 
 somehow as the rest of her. As though it were enjoying 
 itself also, consciously, and asking to be admired. 
 
 " If everything's to burst out like this asking for its 
 ridiculous rights, what on earth's going to happen ? " 
 said Mary, surveying her handiwork in the glass with 
 pride. 
 
 " I don't believe in too many lectures on your inside " 
 she paused thoughtfully, the tail of her eye still on her 
 hair " it makes it uppish and rather self-assertive." 
 
 She went to the window to try to disengage her wits 
 from their perplexing preoccupations. 
 
 " I wonder," she said, with a sharp tap of the brush on 
 her palm, " if anarchy is in the very air of this smug 
 Republic ? " 
 
 j* And for answer a great'golden blaze of sunshine flooded 
 the room. 
 
 " Oh, and to dare to call it names ! " cried Mary, 
 " to dare to do anything^but cringe in abject gratitude, and
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 163 
 
 adoration, before the sky and the streams, and the moun- 
 tains of the little parochial prodigy ! It's certainly the 
 one and only mountain-producing mouse of the Universe ! 
 
 " And to be thinking of one's poor little self on such a 
 day ! Oh, well ! One won't have much chance now 
 Oliver's awake ! " 
 
 Oliver's little sleep had done him good. It was like 
 dressing a flame to get him into his clothes. And this 
 time Mary was rigorously exact with his buttons. Mother 
 and son had a trying time of it. 
 
 When they came down together, the guests, happy and 
 hungry, and glad of a new arrival to discuss, while they 
 were waiting for luncheon, glanced with interest at the 
 pair. Even as a baby Oliver's movements were curiously 
 rhythmic. Directly he could stand at all, he could stand 
 on his toes, and weave strange little dances to his own 
 little songs. Whenever he was unusually happy, he 
 danced like a leaf in a light breeze. He had danced all 
 the morning with the sun on the snow, and in his little 
 sleep he had danced in a dream. He danced by instinct, 
 and rather like a flame, and wooed eyes to watch him, just 
 as a flame does. And now utterly unable to keep still, 
 he coaxed his hand out of his mother's, and danced out 
 on a little trip of his own. He couldn't help dancing any 
 more than a flame could, and went in and out of the 
 laughing groups, with eyes like stars fixed upon some 
 object all their own. No one could resent the passage 
 of Oliver. He turned the quite simple entrance of his 
 mother into Hotel society into something of a triumph. 
 
 " Looks a bit too young for the place," thought Hallowes, 
 his solicitous eyes glued to her every glance. 
 
 The night before, he and Heron knowing better than 
 to stick themselves forward, had taken up an obscure 
 position in the vicinity of the bar. Heron had soon fallen 
 asleep behind an English paper, but Hallowes kept por- 
 tentously awake, and before the evening was over, he felt 
 as wise as an owl, and at least thirty-five. He sat near 
 enough to the bar to miss nothing, and what intellect 
 failed to assimilate, instinct supplied. 
 
 II*
 
 164 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 This would account for a certain air of fussy motherhood 
 apparent upon the otherwise extreme youth of his coun- 
 tenance as he now approached Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 " The head waiter came to me just now," he said. " He 
 thought I was your brother, or ^ 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mary, laughing. 
 
 " And as a matter of fact I didn't contradict him," 
 pursued Hallowes with a solemnity unbefitting his years. 
 
 " Good gracious ! Why not ? " 
 
 " It's not exactly er a Sunday-school here, and 
 
 " Jim ! You're not proposing to chaperon Oliver 
 and me ? " 
 
 " I'm not a born ass, Mrs. Mirrilies," said Jim huffily. 
 
 It was all very well taking things lightly, but the habit 
 was growing on Mrs. Mirrilies, and she'd be overdoing it 
 next. He knew women. In the midst of languages they 
 don't altogether understand, and a public opinion not in 
 the least like their own, women want a man hanging 
 round to see that things go right. And Hallowes 
 glanced apprehensively at his charge. She needn't have 
 done her hair like that, anyhow in this crowd. 
 
 " You see," he said, looking unusually modest, " that 
 everyone's up here on a spree of sorts, and they always 
 have a way of spreading themselves on mountains, 
 so don't you think it's just as well we all hung together ? " 
 
 " Oh, well," said Mary, " I'm quite resigned. But 
 where's Oliver ? " she said, making a sudden dive after 
 her son, and causing a man to look at her in a way that 
 annoyed Hallowes. It was a harmless glance enough, 
 very unaffected and spontaneous, and considering how 
 charming Mrs. Mirrilies looked in her brief pursuit of the 
 flame, the admiration in it was quite excusable. 
 
 " The head waiter," pursued Jim on her return, " asked 
 me to choose a table, and I thought you wouldn't mind. I 
 got one near the window with a splendid view, and out of 
 range of the full glare of every blighter's eye." 
 
 " But I hope we can see the blighters," said Mary 
 anxiously, " even if they can't see us. Are you sure 
 the blight is so widespread ? " she inquired after a
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 165 
 
 moment's inspection. " They all look rather nice I 
 think. And oh ! who's that ? " she said, with a per- 
 ceptible start, her eyes resting on the man whose glances 
 had annoyed Hallowes. 
 
 " Oh, he's some fellow from the provinces, I believe. 
 His name is Turton," said Hallowes, with a markedly 
 careless glance. 
 
 " Oh, well, at any rate he's not a blighter," said Mary. 
 " He's extremely like my husband. This is the first time 
 in my life I've ever seen anyone else the least like him. I 
 hope we'll get to know him." 
 
 " There's not much doubt about that," said Hallowes 
 grimly, remembering the look. 
 
 " You and Oliver are going to be tremendous favourites," 
 said Heron, with simple satisfaction, returning from an 
 errand upon which Hallowes had dispatched him. " They 
 discuss everything here at the top of their voices the 
 English, I mean. Just look at some of them ! If they 
 only said the things in a quiet way but to be yelling 
 them out ! they all want to freeze on to you. You'll 
 be slipping into all the good things going before we can 
 say knife." 
 
 " Now that's you all over, Harry," said Hallowes 
 gloomily. " You'd walk through Hell and see nothing to 
 make a fuss about. Last place going where anyone 
 ought to slip except on the ice. That's the worst of 
 learning languages. You hear too much, especially about 
 your own people." 
 
 " Oh ! I say 
 
 " Oh, shut up ! You were snoring over the Graphic 
 when it started." 
 
 " You might have given me a kick," said Heron, as 
 red as a turkey cock. 
 
 " Yes, and have you out punching their heads without 
 waiting to inquire. If we're such asses as to give them 
 cause to say things, we can't expect them to hold their 
 tongues." 
 
 Mary looked attentive, which was precisely what 
 Hallowes intended her to look. The bitterest blow to a
 
 1 66 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 clever young man is the inattention of the adored. He 
 felt much happier. 
 
 " Was Mr. Turton there," innocently inquired Mary, 
 " when the foreigners were leaving us without a shred 
 of a character ? " 
 
 The spirits of Hallowes sank to zero. 
 
 ' Yes," he said in a depressed tone. 
 
 " But was he passive and indifferent ? " 
 
 " Now I come to think of it he didn't say a word." 
 
 " But how did he look ? " 
 
 " He hadn't time to look. He was listening for all 
 he was worth." 
 
 " I daresay he hadn't looked at a foreign language," 
 said Mary, " since he left school. I can just imagine 
 Oliver in the same awful hole. Dying to be at them, but 
 his natural sense of fair play keeping him quiet, till he 
 knew." 
 
 She laughed, but her eyes were fuller of dreams than of 
 mirth. " I daresay Mr. Turton sat up last night with 
 Hugo, and will soon be quite equal to shutting them up. 
 Just like you with Nietsche and Lasotovitsch." 
 
 In spite of himself Jim was mollified. When they went 
 in to luncheon Mary plumped down in the best place for 
 purposes of observation, Hallowes having marked that 
 place for himself, and tucked Oliver up in his napkin. 
 " Now make the most of your time, Oliver," said she. 
 " Fraulein comes to-morrow and then it's the children's 
 table for you." 
 
 " Oh ! chillen's table ? Is that why I couldn't find 
 em? " 
 
 " Was that what you were after just now ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said thoughtfully, " an' I couldn't stand 
 still no longer. An' mountains is nice," he said, after a 
 long stare, " but I don't like bein' stopped by 'em, 
 I want to get over. I wish I could fly an' big womans 
 could." 
 
 " And so do I, Oliver, and we'd go off together. We'd 
 fly south like the swallows." 
 
 " Widout our dinner ? "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 167 
 
 " Oh, no ! Flying needs strength, we'd eat an immense 
 dinner and then start." 
 
 Mary was restless too. The mountains seemed to shut 
 her in, and Oliver the Greater out. 
 
 " I don't like bein' stopped," persisted Oliver the Less 
 after his soup. 
 
 " Neither do I," said his mother, with a horrid little 
 inward shiver. 
 
 "I'm just morbid," she thought. " And with all this 
 glory, and with Oliver in my very pocket. It may be 
 hunger." 
 
 So she ate, and laughed, and defied the menace that 
 had slipped in implacably from somewhere. She also took 
 care to lose nothing of all that went on. And presently a 
 large fair woman, clothed in pale blue, studded with 
 motifs of the finest Nottingham lace, one of which was 
 attached to the very centre of that part of the person the 
 French, with delicate precision, describe as le seant, 
 sailed in. She presented a startling back view, and 
 engaged the courteous but absorbed attention of a chic 
 Frenchwoman. The languid dreamy eyes of some ex- 
 quisitely dressed Italians dwelt for a moment upon the 
 curious spectacle, and then lifted themselves to the 
 mountains as though to disembarrass their gaze of the 
 momentary offence. A party of Americans almost wished 
 they didn't speak English like natives. 
 
 She advanced with majestic tread a yard or so in front 
 of a mother so small as to be almost microscopical, a 
 withered anxious atom scored with the criss-cross lines of 
 petty cares. The blue lady disposed herself carefully all 
 down one side of the table, and motioned to her mother 
 to take a seat opposite her, then said an obtrusively silent 
 grace which yet reverberated in every brain present. She 
 addressed the waiters with large condescension in a French 
 entirely her own. 
 
 She condemned the soup as water and grease, and 
 sternly commanded her mother, plainly faint from want 
 of food not to tempt Providence by touching foreign 
 fish. She had no conscientious scruples in regard to wine,
 
 168 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 she proclaimed, but the charge for " vinegar" in these 
 Hotels was a disgrace to civilization. 
 
 Then having chosen something that was at least whole- 
 some she whipped out the Daily Mail from her pale-blue 
 bag, propped it up against the water-bottle, and in a 
 sonorous voice with great carrying power proceeded to 
 instruct her small twittering mother swallowing, in 
 feverish haste, all she was permitted to consume. 
 
 The Daily Mail was at that period strong on Germany. 
 
 Miss Pringle read on lusciously, until at last disturbed 
 by the spasmodic fidgeting of her parent she laid down 
 the paper and fixed her lorgnette on the culprit. 
 
 "But, Mother, aren't you interested ?" she expostu- 
 lated. 
 
 " Oh, my dear, yes ; but I think it hurts the waiter's 
 feelings. He's gone away behind the screen, and I heard 
 something like a sob." 
 
 " You're hopelessly sentimental, Mother. He's probably 
 sneezing." 
 
 " And I fear there are others also who may understand." 
 
 " I sincerely hope there are, and that what they hear 
 may do them good. Temporizing is beneath the dignity 
 of a great nation. It's quite time someone spoke 
 out." 
 
 " But, Bertha, when one remembers the things those 
 German ladies said of us yesterday; you were asleep, 
 dear." 
 
 " But why didn't you shut them up ? " 
 
 " But, Bertha, I quite agreed with them. We do do 
 these things." 
 
 " If we do, I have still to learn it." She paused, her 
 inexorable eyes making a triumphal round of the room. 
 " And I should like to catch the person who would venture 
 to apprise me of the fact." 
 
 " But, dear Bertha, we're not all like you." 
 
 " Now, Mother, do attend ! And I'm sure that cheese 
 soufflee is much too rich for you." 
 
 " It's very good, Bertha." 
 
 " It's not very good for you, though. Waiter ! Take
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 169 
 
 this away and bring some plain hard biscuits. Of course, 
 you haven't thin Captains." 
 
 " No, Madame, I much regret " 
 
 " But, Bertha, I don't like thin Captains," wailed the 
 victim. 
 
 " I will bring Madame what she will like what for 
 the stomach is most good," cried the kind little man, 
 moved to the heart by the sufferings of Madame. He was 
 an anarchist by profession. He disappeared like a streak, 
 while Miss Pringle was recovering from the indecent inti- 
 macy of foreign manners, and presently returned with a 
 box of biscuits strong with cheese, cayenne and celery, 
 as stimulating as vermouth, unearthed from some remote 
 cache only known to Alphonse and his Maker. And being 
 a student of human nature, he knew that anything she 
 imposed upon the stomach of her mother, this daughter 
 of virtue would herself be careful to avoid. 
 
 Mary's enthralled attention was recalled by a slight 
 squeal. Oliver had suddenly toppled over on to a vulner- 
 able spot. 
 
 " But, Oliver," inquired Mary, as she set him up again, 
 " how did it happen ? What were you at ? " 
 
 Oliver was no coward. He was keeping down howls 
 with a strong hand, but to be in agony, and at the same 
 time reviled by your own muwer, was bad to bear. The 
 squeal might have risen to a howl, had not the blue one 
 looked round and quelled him. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Oliver briefly, and swallowed the rest. 
 
 " But, Oliver how did it happen ? " persisted Mary 
 It was so unlike Oliver ! 
 
 " I was wantin' to see how she stuck it on, and if sittin' 
 on it made it hot and it would come off and fall," said 
 Oliver simply. 
 
 " Stuck what on, darling dear ? " 
 
 " The white ting behind an' tryin' to look all round 
 her " 
 
 " I see," said Mary. " But, Oliver, it's not paste, 
 dear. It's good strong cotton, the best English make. 
 It will never come off."
 
 1 70 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Oliver," said Jim, " you're a man of taste. I'll take 
 you skating after lunch. And now, Mrs. Mirrilies, with 
 that sort of thing to judge us by, don't you think it's just 
 as well to pause before we start punching heads ? " 
 
 " Oh, but it's an extreme example." 
 
 " Well, yes. But it's our monopoly. There's not 
 another nation on earth to compete with us in the article." 
 
 It was Oliver in the end who introduced the man to 
 Mary. He brought others, hosts of them, and his mother 
 was just aware of them, and no more. Winter sports under 
 such a sky were all-absorbing. Oliver was as light and 
 lithe and deft as a flame, on the ice as elsewhere, and a 
 go-between in a thousand he was still at large, Fraulein 
 being detained by the illness of her mother and full of 
 eager hospitality. Always ready to offer the best he had 
 to his mother, he now brought each new friend and 
 generously bestowed him. 
 
 It was a royal time for Mary and all her satellites. No 
 one was left out. Each new friend, when he seemed ready 
 to sit still, was brought up and deposited, as one in need 
 of their services, beside the new aunts happy in the sun, 
 for now that the corsets were reorganized, the world was 
 all rose-colour, and it was pleasant to be of a little con- 
 sequence once more after the long years of obscurity. 
 
 Hallowes, with his uncanny intuition, knew that this 
 trip was like a new debut to the old ladies, that Cousin 
 Ella at any rate was all atwitter with maiden tremors 
 as to her reception in this great cosmopolitan world, and 
 shrinkingly apprehensive of snubs, so partly out of sheer 
 goodness of heart, partly because it amused him, he 
 appointed himself the preux chevalier of the two ladies, 
 and was indefatigable in their service. 
 
 It would have been unconditional bliss to Cousin Ella, 
 had not a well-meaning blunderer asked if the tall young 
 man with the nice innocent eyes weren't her grandson. 
 That hurt her to the quick. Some women never outgrow 
 any pain. The years seem to do nothing for them at all.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 171 
 
 They are always the servants of the past. Miss Gaunt, 
 waist-deep in the present, wished with all her heart he 
 was her grandson, and watched Mary. 
 
 Mary was very much alive indeed, and Miss Gaunt 
 doubted grimly if she would any longer be safe in a 
 regiment. 
 
 She looked down the ice at the swift fine poise of Mrs. 
 Mirrilies. She attempted no tricks, but she did all the 
 ordinary movements beautifully. And now with one 
 man, now with another, she looked the very spirit of joy. 
 
 There were younger and prettier women, and incom- 
 parably better skaters, but Miss Gaunt's keen eyes detected 
 in Mary something they had not. She didn't know what it 
 was, it puzzled her and it made her watch Mary. 
 
 She seemed to be as universal as Oliver in her choice of 
 partners, and to like them all as simply. Then suddenly 
 Miss Gaunt started just as Mary herself had done some 
 hours before, as a man taller and broader than most of 
 the others came up and joined Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 Miss Gaunt was struck by an extraordinary likeness 
 to someone, a curious disturbing likeness, and there was 
 a subtle change in Mary's face.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OLIVER THE GREATER lay extremely ill on his 
 string bed, worse than a man of his build ought 
 to be, worse even than the height of his fever warranted. 
 The symptoms pointed to mind, as well as body, and 
 worried the Station doctor used to good straightforward 
 complaints. There were men, of course, from whom one 
 might expect abnormally disturbed cerebral action, and 
 others of whom one could think better if they did show 
 a symptom or so of it. It would argue that they were 
 still in possession of some sort of a conscience. But 
 Mirrilies was the last man who ought to be developing this 
 sort of thing. And yet he muttered, and murmured, tossed 
 and moaned, stretched out clutching hungry hands to the 
 empty air, and his eyes made unpleasant mute demands, 
 searching each face in turn. And now, broken at last by 
 disappointment, he had turned his face to the wall and 
 refused to stir, or to take nourishment, or swallow his 
 physic, or do any other of the reasonable things doctors 
 expect as part of their perquisites from sensible men. 
 
 Mirrilies of all people to be going off the track like 
 this, heading straight for disaster ! 
 
 Then, by good luck a well-known consultant passing 
 through the Station on his way to a case, saw Mirrilies, 
 and prescribed a recent discovery of his own, which, if 
 anything could, would turn the scale. The patient, 
 however, in course of treatment would need the closest 
 watching. It was a case where moments mattered. 
 
 The stars in their courses seemed to fight against 
 Mirrilies. At this juncture his nurse went down with 
 
 172
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 173 
 
 ever, and every other nurse except one in whom the 
 doctor had not the slightest confidence had gone to the 
 Hills, or else her hands were more than full. It was not 
 a case for technical knowledge. Any sensible woman 
 could manage the job. 
 
 Doctor Mason passed all the Station ladies in rapid 
 review. He telephoned right and left, but three women 
 were ill, and the rest away. 
 
 " Thought I might catch one of 'em," he reflected, 
 
 and when she was caught " He shrugged his round- 
 ing shoulders. 
 
 There were Mirrilies' servants, of course, loyal to the 
 bone, tender and deft, " but a man so near death as 
 Mirrilies," the doctor thought kindly, " ought to have some 
 of his own people near. This is a white woman's job." 
 He went out on the verandah to think, and there, drawn and 
 pale, was Mrs. Quayle making inquiries. He had always 
 looked upon her as a poor thing enough, and what was 
 she doing here ? He remembered someone saying that 
 she was going to the Hills to stay with a friend. It struck 
 him suddenly that she and Mirrilies were rather good 
 friends, and little as Station gossip interested him, he 
 remembered hearing scraps of amused comment on the 
 weird friendship. 
 
 Mrs. Quayle had herself well in hand when she came 
 forward and asked a question or so that showed more 
 discrimination than he could have given her credit for. 
 
 He made no secret of the critical condition of his patient, 
 or of his own dilemma. To find a sensible woman, where 
 one has suspected a fool draws out a man. Barbara was 
 soon in possession of all the facts, and rapidly formed her 
 plans. 
 
 " Why are you here ? " he asked suddenly. " I thought 
 you were off for a change. The rest are gone." 
 
 " I couldn't go until I knew," she said simply. " Mary 
 Mirrilies was my greatest friend in India. At least," 
 she corrected herself and blushed, " she was kinder to me 
 than anyone else has been, except her husband. I have 
 no technical knowledge, Doctor Mason, but I have had
 
 174 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 a good deal of practice in nursing. I won't say I'm a 
 born nurse, every woman says that, but at least I can 
 be absolutely obedient. Will you explain things clearly 
 to me and trust me till you can find someone better ? " 
 
 " But," he said, hesitating, " you're not very strong 
 yourself." 
 
 "I'm stronger than you imagine. Besides, it's Hobson's 
 choice, isn't it ? " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " You have me there, Mrs. Quayle. And there's no 
 time to lose. Just come here and I'll show you every- 
 thing. Common sense, care, and obedience are the only 
 qualifications necessary, and these I'll get from you." 
 
 He explained the symptoms for which she had to watch, 
 and the rest, then glanced again at her fragile figure, and 
 her white face. 
 
 " And now," he said, " you must go home at once, have 
 a good tea, and get into your loosest things. Don't hurry. 
 I have plenty of time to stay till you come back." 
 
 Barbara held her hands tight down in her lap as she 
 was driven home and stripped every atom of expression 
 from face and bearing. She knew too much of Indian 
 households not to be careful in every detail. She went 
 in calm, and unhurried, and prosaically stated the case 
 as her ayah helped her in her preparations, wrote a letter 
 to Major Quayle, who was away shooting, so that if 
 opened, must fully satisfy her mute censors, and an hour 
 later, when Dr. Mason had resumed his rounds, he no 
 longer regretted the sudden collapse of his best nurse. 
 
 " She'll do," he said, " and, poor thing, she's as safe as 
 a church." 
 
 He drove on placidly, and presently a rather vivid 
 memory of Oliver Mirrilies' handsome wife drifted into 
 his mind. " And as good as she is handsome," he 
 said, and then he whistled. " But why the deuce isn't 
 she here ? " he said. " It's hard luck on a child to be 
 without his mother, of course, but it's harder luck on a 
 man of Mirrilies' age and build to be without his wife."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 175 
 
 " Mary, Mary, Mary," muttered Oliver, clutching and 
 picking. And once he said wearily: "Why aren't you 
 here, Mary now ? " 
 
 For hours Barbara could do nothing but harden her 
 heart, and steady her hand, and be obedient and infinitely 
 tender, with burning passion pouring spirit and soul into 
 Oliver's depleted being. She could be everything but 
 good ! 
 
 But at last when the violet twilight fell upon the earth, 
 her courage was high enough even for that. Then she 
 sat as still as the stillness that enfolded her, and spoke to 
 him of Mary. Of her love and loyalty, of her kind heart, 
 her largeness of outlook, her splendid sanity, her influence 
 and effect. She made Mary, what Mary at that very 
 moment was groping after in a great darkness. She made 
 her absence just now a disaster indeed, but a necessary 
 everyday thing that had to happen. 
 
 She spoke on in her quiet, monotonous voice with a 
 curious confidence that even if the sick man's wild brain 
 was wandering off on its erratic course, there was some- 
 thing deeper down in Oliver that would eventually under- 
 stand. So she spoke carefully with well-chosen words. 
 She spoke better than she had ever spoken before, and 
 above all she was sincere. 
 
 It was a dreadful day for Barbara, her ordeal of fire, 
 but she passed through it unscorched, and in the evening, 
 when the doctor came to release her, so satisfied was he 
 that he let her stay on, and even permitted her to get 
 what sleep she could in the adjoining room, giving her 
 full authority over the night-nurse. 
 
 Day after day she watched, and waited, and tried to 
 help Oliver back to life from the very gates of death, and 
 over all the rough places by her amazing revelation of 
 Mary. For knowing love she became a Seer and knew 
 all things, and in revealing herself she revealed the inner- 
 most part of them. 
 
 And at last Oliver woke up one day to see Barbara, very 
 white and pasty, and thinner than ever, sitting patient 
 and emotionless beside his bed. It was an uneventful
 
 176 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 coming back, but Oliver sighed happily, and was glad of 
 life, for, in a strange way, Mary and the boy had grown 
 dearer. 
 
 Barbara's efforts had apparently been successful. 
 
 When Oliver had taken all that Barbara gave him, and 
 rested a little, he had strength to notice how worn-out 
 she looked, and to make rather feeble inquiries, the 
 answers to which he only half took in. Coming back 
 from a long journey tires a man. 
 
 As he fell asleep he felt rather sorry for the women 
 who show fatigue in every line, especially when they're 
 so immensely good to a fellow, and a quick exultant 
 pride in Mary's perennial freshness was his last half- 
 conscious sensation. 
 
 Barbara, with a wan smile went out to look at herself 
 in the glass. 
 
 " Poor Oliver ! " she said. " And poor me ! " 
 
 Then she went back to her valiant fight, for Oliver was 
 not safe yet, by any means. There came days when the 
 doctor looked grave and worn, and Barbara's heart failed 
 her for fear, and these always followed the day of rest 
 sternly imposed upon her by Doctor Mason. 
 
 Upon these days Oliver tossed and fretted in his great 
 loneliness, and Mary who had seemed of late to be about 
 the house again, was a Continent or so away, and the 
 gulf of parting had widened to Infinity. Possessing all 
 things, yet having nothing is a problem to a man too 
 weak and devitalized to be a philosopher. 
 
 Although his patient would have been a dead man 
 but for one of the least of them, upon these occasions 
 the good old doctor cursed women. 
 
 It was after the second of these relapses that Barbara 
 began to speak to Oliver in his right mind, just in the 
 way she had spoken to him when it had gone wrong. As 
 she spoke she swallowed her shyness, and nervousness 
 as best she might. She spoke as she saw, seeing herself, 
 She saw Mary as God saw her, as she was meant to 
 be, and " thus she reported " still in the same toneless, 
 monotonous voice, so long repressed that it had lost
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 177 
 
 most things. But the words welling out from a source 
 only just tapped nothing could repress, they sparkled 
 and ran free, and renewed hope in the heart of a man. 
 
 Presently the work that could only be accomplished 
 in the name of Mary, being finished, and the source 
 inexhaustible, Barbara let the pleasant waters flow on 
 in their healing course, but never once did she really 
 forget Mary, or fail to give her first place. Barbara's 
 conscience was still indefatigable. But she supplemented 
 Mary. She let her wander in and out of everything in 
 life, made her part of a thousand things quite remote 
 from Mary, as Oliver had known her. She added on to 
 Mary in fact all that Mary lacked, and in her great new 
 knowledge she made no mistake. 
 
 No one could look much pastier than did Barbara all 
 this time, but it was a joy to listen to her. One felt Mary 
 not very far off, and hope was in the air. 
 
 It was no trying of her powers with Barbara ; no un- 
 leashing of her spirit this time. It was greater than all 
 that, more insidious and more dangerous. It was love 
 showing all her beauty in the beloved's name. 
 
 It was curious that all this time Barbara's attentive 
 conscience did not warn her in a more all-round way. 
 But in the beginning Oliver's danger put conscience off 
 its guard, and later, well later, pure, perfect, personal 
 joy, can deflect the stoutest conscience. 
 
 Besides, conscience after all was in no sort of way 
 goaded, or pushed aside, for was she not rigorously careful 
 in always giving Mary first place ? 
 
 By the time Oliver was convalescent, Mary was dearer 
 than ever she had been, and she loomed larger, greater, 
 and more splendid in his mind, but he was nothing like so 
 lonely, and he had begun to depend a good deal on Barbara. 
 
 12
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IT was not until long afterwards that Mary knew for 
 a certainty how sick unto death her husband had 
 been. Upon this matter Barbara did not expand, nor 
 did the doctor, and of the scope and extent of the minis- 
 trations of Barbara he said little. Barbara naturally was 
 silent on the subject, while for some reason he could 
 never quite explain to himself Oliver Mirrilies did not 
 altogether convey all that Barbara had been to him, and 
 done for him. 
 
 This was a mistake upon the part of Captain Mirrilies. 
 If his wife did not know the facts, she felt them, and 
 exaggerated them, and bitterly resented them. Barbara 
 floated in and out of things more and more, and as Oliver 
 now wrote without an afterthought of depression, and 
 never even hinted at any desire ever to see her again, 
 the existence of Barbara was beginning to make Mary 
 almost reckless. 
 
 Something in the vivid air, the perennial merriment 
 of the English group that has cast the dust of convention 
 off its shoes for a week or so, to be found in every Hotel, 
 all tended to increase this lightness of head in Mary. There 
 were other things also that gave the reckless note. 
 
 Everything contributed, the freedom of the great 
 hills, the exciting contact with wild hearts that have 
 thrown their sorrows to the four winds, with wild hands, 
 that have thrown their caps over the windmill, but who 
 all had money enough, and charm enough, still to rub 
 shoulders with the elect on neutral territory. 
 
 To one accustomed of late months to women, and 
 
 178
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 179 
 
 children, and boys, the adult tragedy, adult comedy, 
 adult passion and pain in the sparkling air, were all acutely 
 arresting. 
 
 Mary felt her womanhood above all, her ignorance and 
 her power, and she was consumed by a great curiosity. 
 She knew that there was some great thing that she had 
 passed by. She often felt rather bleak and denuded in 
 this crowd that had passed by nothing. 
 
 She knew herself to be conventionally, immeasurably 
 better than most of them, being English alone would 
 have taught her that ! yet in the oddest, most exas- 
 perating way, they were nevertheless all richer than she. 
 
 It was just at this juncture that the Guardian angels of 
 Mrs. Mirrilies became most keenly aware of their responsi- 
 bilities. They could not make out what she was after, 
 and why, although outwardly docile enough, yet in a 
 queer way no one could quite put into words, she eluded 
 their best efforts. 
 
 In his precocious talent for eliciting information 
 Hallowes soon found out volumes. He was constantly 
 rescuing Mrs. Mirrilies from undesirable associates. Mary 
 was amused and good humoured, but she also liked making 
 investigations and was too fine at heart to want really to 
 shock anyone. Moreover although the boys thought 
 themselves responsible for Mrs. Mirrilies, Mrs. Mirrilies 
 thought herself responsible for the boys. In their interest, 
 she could have denied herself everything, but this was 
 her affair altogether, and didn't concern them. 
 
 These people were miles in advance of the boys, and 
 had a clue to things as yet a mystery both to the boys 
 and to her. They had rejoiced and suffered as she had 
 not yet done. They were probably extremely wicked, 
 but yet she felt shallow beside them. They made her 
 feel them, as she was perfectly certain she had never made 
 anyone feel her, and Oliver would have understood 
 all about it ! 
 
 So although she took every care not to hurt the feelings 
 of her guardians, Mary went on in her simple straight- 
 forward way, making friends with the beautiful women 
 
 12*
 
 i8o MARY MIRRIL1ES 
 
 who never encroached, and the courteous men whom 
 life seemed to have calmed a little. Although infinitely 
 more witty, they were quieter than the other foreigners. 
 
 In spite of her diffidence in regard to her own powers, 
 Mary made herself a good deal more felt than she ever 
 suspected, and drew many a gentle smile from this 
 discreet company of sinners who had covered their tracks. 
 
 Even the women smiled kindly, as they might have 
 smiled at a young girl. She was no rival of theirs, this 
 Englishwoman who had never lived. 
 
 The man so like Oliver liked the growing popularity of 
 Mrs. Mirrilies amongst this pleasant crowd as little as 
 did the boys. The dreamer, who could be practical 
 enough when he chose, was getting on very well with 
 his conversational French and German, and took an 
 acute interest in all that went on around Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 He couldn't get over the fact that the strangely consorted 
 group she chose to be interested in, did reign supreme in 
 an odd way, and this had an attraction for Peter Turton 
 that it certainly had not for the boys. 
 
 The note of finality in it, with life not half done, appealed 
 to the strongest part of the man, while to the boys it 
 looked like failure pure and simple. A man to put him- 
 self too early in the shade, or to let himself be put there 
 by anyone else, was a thing no fellow could understand. 
 Peter Turton understood it, or thought he did, and in 
 the most extraordinary way in the world he was afraid 
 for Mrs. Mirrilies ; who yet was the last woman in the 
 world to call for any man's fears. 
 
 She was steady and sure. She was devoted to her 
 boy, she spoke of her husband without any after-thought, 
 simply and with dignity. From her voice he knew she 
 loved him, in a way, and yet there was something 
 else. This he did not understand. It was something 
 she had not, and it was the want of it that made him 
 afraid for her. 
 
 He knew quite suddenly one day that it was this very 
 want that fixed the attention of the distinguished, although 
 slightly sequestered group of foreigners, upon Mrs.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 181 
 
 Mirrilies. It was a want they had themselves plainly 
 never experienced. He was sure that this want picked 
 her out, and made her alluringly new and stimulating 
 to people a little jaded perhaps from too great an 
 abundance. 
 
 At any rate it made Mrs. Mirrilies extremely inter- 
 esting to Peter Turton himself. He found himself 
 spending a great deal of his time taking observations 
 upon Mrs. Mirrilies, and it struck him more than once 
 that he might be better employed. 
 
 He threw himself therefore more vigorously than ever 
 into all the winter sports. He was an expert in most 
 of them, but unfortunately so also was Mary, more or 
 less. They were always meeting on ice and snow. He 
 and Mary's old dears had struck up a cordial friendship, 
 and they had started tea-parties on their own account 
 by this time, so they met there also. 
 
 He could never escape from the atmosphere of Mrs. 
 Mirrilies, or from the want that made him afraid. 
 
 They saw a great deal of each other Mary and Peter 
 Turton, and he was startlingly like Oliver. It was a 
 constant agreeable shock, Mary could never get over it, 
 and never fail to be aware of it. It gave her a sort of 
 all-round right in Peter Turton, the right to know all 
 about him, and to want him to beat all the others at 
 everything, hands down. It was not the least like being 
 with the boys or with other men. But it grievously 
 annoyed the boys. 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies is as nice as they make 'em, of course," 
 said Hallowes one day, as he and Heron were coming 
 back from ski -ing, " but to be as proud as Punch when 
 that fellow beats us ! " 
 
 " But she said nothing She " 
 
 " I see it in her eyes. Being like Mirrilies is all very 
 well of course " 
 
 " That does make a difference." 
 
 " Evidently. I wonder how Mirrilies would like his 
 double always at her heels." 
 
 " He's not," said Heron in his fair way, " any more
 
 1 82 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 than we are. He knows his place all right, and plays 
 the game." 
 
 " I don't say he doesn't, or that he isn't a good fellow 
 all round. He is : about the best here, but I wish he'd 
 move on." 
 
 " So do I, but he won't." 
 
 " Not he. They'll all sit tight. Didn't strike me she'd 
 bother about popularity." 
 
 " She doesn't. She just takes it." 
 
 " And leaves the bothering to other people. If she 
 won't look out for herself someone else must take over the 
 job, that's all." 
 
 Heron suppressed a sigh. He was beginning to realize, 
 in his stolid sensible way, that no one can look after a 
 woman but herself, and that Mrs. Mirrilies, although she 
 was nicer than ever, had somehow slipped out of their 
 hands. She was out for something they hadn't to give. 
 
 It was like seeing something you liked most awfully 
 and were as sure of as you were of yourself receding 
 from your grasp. 
 
 That evening after dinner a little elderly Bishop with 
 the thinnest of thin legs, and a hesitating manner, sat 
 down beside Peter Turton and began diffidently to ask 
 for information. 
 
 His eyes were set in a network of fine lines, and must 
 have looked out for long years into great distances. 
 
 " And without finding it, whatever it was, poor old 
 chap," thought Peter Turton, after a sharp look at him. 
 
 " What's he doing here I'd like to know ? " 
 
 He turned kindly from watching Mrs. Mirrilies to 
 answer the simple inquiries, and was amused to find 
 that the searching eyes had fetched up sharp, and were 
 fixed also on Mary. 
 
 " That young lady," said the Bishop gently, adjusting 
 his glasses, " seems to be intelligently interested in every- 
 body, and to have a wide circle of acquaintances. She is 
 very young. One wonders. Everything emphasizes a
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 183 
 
 changed world," he said presently. " Years ago, when 
 you and that young lady were children, I came out to 
 Switzerland with an old friend and two young ones. 
 One of these was intelligent also, and with a fine sense 
 of humour. She also interested herself in people, but 
 under protest as it were, almost furtively, being scrupu- 
 lously careful to evade her chaperon's eye. She was the 
 best of women, this lady, with an unbending back, and 
 a chestnut front, I think they called it." 
 
 " They are of as many colours now as Joseph's coat," 
 said Peter ; " and they have a French name for 
 them." 
 
 " Ah ! Even these contrivances then keep pace with 
 the age and make me older. Now they wear them openly, 
 I have no doubt, no longer under the rose, like the chestnut 
 fronts. The early Victorian lady had a profound belief 
 in the singleness of eye of her generation. Her grand- 
 daughter defies it ; and to the best of her powers, pleases 
 it. Well ! Perhaps it is better not to make a guilty secret 
 of these things, but it is somewhat startling. Just before 
 I left London I saw a young creature putting powder on her 
 nose upon the top of an omnibus. I must confess that I 
 was sorry." 
 
 " I should have been sorry also that the nose should need 
 whitewashing ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " said the Bishop. " Oh ! " and returned to 
 Mary. " I think I am right in concluding that the young 
 lady over there has never, in all her happy life, been quelled 
 by the eyes of a chaperon." He looked -inquiringly at 
 Turton. 
 
 " I should think your surmise is quite correct." 
 
 " Ah ! " he still gazed pensively at Mary. " She 
 goes straight to her point, I venture to believe, and gets 
 what she wants." 
 
 " I wonder if she does ? " said Oliver's double pensive 
 in his turn. " At any rate, I'll bet my bottom dollar that 
 she doesn't know what she wants yet." 
 
 He broke off with a laugh, and wondered what on earth 
 it was that made him tell the old fellow his thoughts likt
 
 1 84 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 this. As a rule he was a pretty good hand at keeping them 
 to himself. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the old Bishop gently. " You also are 
 interested in her." 
 
 " Like a good many others ! Mrs. Mirrilies isn't often 
 alone." 
 
 " No, happy woman ! " he said fervently. Then 
 seeing a slightly amused inquiry in the other man's face, 
 he added quickly, " I've known too much of loneliness 
 ever to wish to see anyone, especially if she's young, 
 much alone. Loneliness I have never found to be good 
 for the human soul." 
 
 His kind simple eyes rested again upon Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 Turton had been noticing him for a day or so wandering 
 round in a near-sighted way, probably making up his mind 
 to speak to someone, and since Mrs. Mirrilies was otherwise 
 engaged he was quite ready to listen to him. 
 
 " You've been abroad, I think," said Peter. 
 
 " Yes, I've been in Central Africa for thirty years." 
 
 " It's a long time. You'll be glad to be back in 
 England." 
 
 " I am, very glad, but England reminds me that I've been 
 away too long." 
 
 " Oh ! That's only an insular habit of hers, and means 
 nothing ; she does it if you've only been away two years. 
 You'll find her less changed than you think, after a bit. 
 She's too chock-full of impregnable prejudices ever to get 
 much of a move on her." 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Mirrilies moved out of the group, and 
 turned to go down the room. 
 
 " I believe you'd like to know Mrs. Mirrilies," said Peter, 
 with one eye on the Bishop, and the other on himself. The 
 Bishop looked embarrassed, but his eyes shone. 
 
 " I do not wish to presume," he murmured, " but indeed 
 I should." 
 
 Peter Turton caught up Mrs. Mirrilies without more ado, 
 and was already explaining the situation, before the 
 bewildered Bishop had begun even to realize his part in it. 
 Directly he did, he stood up, took a few steps, then paused
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 185 
 
 irresolutely. He had indeed been too long away, and felt 
 giddy in the novelty of a brand-new crisis. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mary, with a rapid glance, " he ought to 
 be in the wilderness eating locusts in a leathern girdle. 
 I'll go to him." 
 
 Mary was seldom bored now. It was one of her growing 
 charms. She helped the returned exile through the initial 
 difficulties. Civilization seemed to chafe tender places 
 in the sensitive being of the man, and to be always putting 
 him to shame. He was more sensitive to his shortcomings 
 than anyone Mary had yet encountered, and less like a 
 Bishop of the Church Militant. This note of novelty 
 arrested all her attention, and naturally she did her best 
 for him. Not only did she restore him to comparative 
 calm, but in reply to an amused challenge in Peter Turton's 
 eyes, she took him seriously in hand, and simply jockeyed 
 him into revealing something of what was in him. 
 
 She won him into forgetting his own insignificance in 
 the abashing face of modern civilization and manoeuvred 
 out of him stories of his wild Diocese, until the face of the 
 little frail man, withered and dried before his time, arrested 
 at last the thoughtful attention of the distinguished- 
 sinner group. For his face looked as it had looked to the 
 savages still with man-eating tendencies, for whose souls 
 he had striven for thirty terrible years. He looked as all 
 men look who have led forlorn hopes, and he sent a thrill 
 through the sentient group, who having sinned and suffered 
 can feel, and who always know a big thing when they see it. 
 
 Mary was quite proud of her Bishop, and looked triumph- 
 antly at Peter who had dared to be amused, and in that 
 second his shyness fell again upon the old Bishop, and he 
 got up hurriedly. 
 
 " I believe I've been monopolizing you," he said. " Do 
 forgive me. And, we'll meet again, shall we not ? " 
 
 " Of course we'll meet, dozens of times. And I've got 
 friends in the Hotel lower down you must meet, and a little 
 son you'll probably meet too often." 
 
 " Ah ! A little son too ! I am very glad : I haven't 
 spoken not really spoken to a white child for nearly
 
 i86 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 thirty years. My visits home have been always very full 
 of, of preoccupations." 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies," inquired Peter Turton, " what made 
 you deliberately effect that transformation ? Was it to 
 please yourself or the Bishop ? or just to show me for 
 my irreverence ? " 
 
 " One always starts everything to please oneself. After 
 that it was partly just to show you ! and partly, oh ! 
 well, just to show a man ! I felt sure there was one in that 
 little body." 
 
 " Are you always successful in finding and revealing 
 men ? " 
 
 Mary paused, hesitated and blushed. 
 
 " No, I'm not," she said, laughing. " Anything but 
 that. My only successes are with Bishops, and boys." 
 
 She lowered her eyes. He was so uncomfortably like 
 Oliver. It seemed as though it were to Oliver she was 
 confessing her failure, and there, like Oliver also, he sat 
 mute and unsuspecting beside her. 
 
 "I'm going to have a tea-party to-morrow on my 
 covered verandah," she said quickly. " It's so sun-soaked 
 that even a broken-down old Bishop won't catch cold, and 
 I'll ask my old dears, and the boys, and you if you like to 
 come. And Oliver shall choose the cakes. ' ' 
 
 " Having proved your powers to such excellent purpose 
 on Bishops and boys, " said Peter presently, " your 
 guardian angels are excellent fellows, when they permit 
 themselves to relax, why not try them on unearthing the 
 hidden treasure of the adult ? " 
 
 " And perhaps awake sleeping dogs. The adult can look 
 out for himself, and wake up his own dogs. That's his 
 affair. He wakes them up at his own peril. And he can 
 muzzle them himself. You can't muzzle other people's 
 dogs for them. You don't know them, and you might get 
 bitten." 
 
 "All adventurers must take risks." 
 
 "I'm not an adventurer ! " 
 
 He laughed. " Oh ! Aren't you ? " 
 
 " It's the wrong word. You have no right "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 187 
 
 " Oh, yes. I have the right of Universal Brotherhood. 
 Everyone who goes fooling round life with all the wits he 
 has about him, outside his own parish, or even within its 
 bounds, is an adventurer. After all life is like the ocean, 
 a drop contains the whole of it. You can't even paddle 
 in life, without the risk of striking adventures that may 
 make a man or a mouse of you. There's nothing poor or 
 depleted in that amazing element. Do you still object to 
 the word ? It's a fine old word and made England. 
 Only we were honester once, and called ourselves Bucca- 
 neers. There's a magic in that word for me. We all 
 want the unknown for its own sake first, and foremost, 
 but afterwards for what it has to give us, unexplored and 
 unmortgaged territory with hidden treasure in the caves." 
 
 " But, but there may be other things in the caves 
 besides hidden treasure " 
 
 " Well, we're ready for dragons, it's part of the fun, and 
 as for sleeping dogs, the sooner you wake them and find 
 out what they're made of the better. Letting them sleep 
 on won't alter their evil tendencies, it only shows them 
 you're afraid of them. Very likely they've only turned 
 nasty from being too long on the chain ; and unless he's 
 hopeless, you can nearly always train or thrash a dog into 
 decent behaviour. I've turned many a hopeless outcast, 
 into an honest dog. If you can't do that, well, get rid 
 of him ! Anyway if you start being afraid of any dog, 
 asleep or awake, from that moment he's top dog, and you're 
 bottom and don't you think it's very much the same 
 thing with life ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Mary. 
 
 " Neither do I. But I mean to assume that it is for the 
 sake of argument." 
 
 By this time Peter Turton's eyes were the eyes of the 
 dreamer, and saw more things than Mary. 
 
 " The minute you begin to distrust dog or life, you get 
 distrust thrown back in your face. You've lost your 
 superiority. The only thing you can do with a thing as 
 huge as life,- as much your master if you give in to it, is 
 to trust it. If you do, it will never betray you."
 
 188 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Mary flushed. He was horribly like Oliver. She knew 
 now that Oliver had thought all this, and had never said it. 
 She had found out very early in the day, in some secret 
 place of his heart, that Oliver had to be protected from 
 many of his moods, and she had always protected him. 
 
 In those early days, to have let even one thought of 
 Oliver hurt her, would have seemed almost like blasphemy 
 to all women, and an injury beyond redemption to Oliver, 
 and in protecting herself, she had protected him. Now 
 she knew that she had only silenced him. She wondered 
 suddenly just how much Oliver had withheld, and her 
 heart seemed to shrivel into a little hard ball and to hurt 
 her. 
 
 She wanted to go away and be alone with Oliver the 
 Less, and to get her heart soft again. But Oliver was 
 too young for such things, and this man would certainly 
 understand all that was baffling and disturbing, just as 
 Oliver the Greater would, and he was as safe and sure. 
 
 All the growing loneliness of the past months seemed 
 to have accumulated, and to be pressing down upon her. 
 She felt so helpless that even to be near some strong thing 
 was an immense help. A strength like Oliver's that had 
 never yielded and would never yield was what she wanted, 
 and it was there, ready to her hand. 
 
 " The sleeping dogs inside people don't yield so easily 
 to treatment, do they ? " she asked. 
 
 " How can they when we're in a blue funk of them all 
 the time ? It's sheer want of pluck and an inherited 
 distrust of humanity. If dogs had been suspected and 
 hated by man from the beginning, in the way he's suspected 
 and hated his fellow man, they'd never have dropped the 
 wolf at all, and have torn the better part of human infancy 
 limb from limb. The wonder is that we're as good as we 
 are the way we've been sworn at, and convicted of sin 
 by priest and prophet. According to them, our own little 
 messes are nothing to the colossal messes of the Creator. 
 If all of us would give every sleeping dog we strike the 
 benefit of the doubt, and let him wake up, and show his 
 paces before we judge him hopeless, we'd all be much better
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 189 
 
 friends, and just as moral as we are now ; it's not much to 
 boast of, but we can always hope for the best." 
 
 " It must be rather nice and easy living among horses 
 and dogs," she said wistfully. 
 
 " Easy ! Good Lord, no ! You have to keep your eyes 
 skinned. But it's never dull." 
 
 Her face amused and touched him. She was so young 
 and so undeveloped. She took things so seriously. It 
 was unpleasant to think of brutal suffering in regard to so 
 gentle and virginal a woman, and yet it would come, and 
 when it came, it would be brutal. He would like to have 
 spared her,- and yet she was too good to be spared. 
 Besides, it was Mirrilies' business after all, and not his. 
 
 " I'm sure there's dancing going on somewhere," he said 
 suddenly. " Shall we go and find out ? How many 
 dances will you give me ? " 
 
 " Two. The rest are promised." 
 
 " It's a short allowance. However, half a loaf " 
 
 For the first time in her life Mary didn't want to dance. 
 Her thoughts were darting, as swift as arrows, from Oliver 
 to his double. They were too bewildered even to be danced 
 into shape, as she had done with many another disturbing 
 problem. With Mary dancing was an extraordinarily 
 vivid living process. The only time when the likeness 
 between her and Oliver the Less was striking was when 
 she danced or skated. Mary was as primitive and ethereal 
 as the sun upon the quiet mountains when she moved 
 rhythmically. And now Peter Turton felt it in every 
 fibre, and it silenced him. 
 
 It didn't silence her guardians, however. As soon as 
 they got hold of Mrs. Mirrilies they were voluble in their 
 differing degrees, upon Peter. He had given a peculiarly 
 objectionable alien a game of billiards and then vanished, 
 leaving the other fellow cock of the walk, and neither of 
 them up to much so far as French billiards were concerned. 
 When put to it, of course, Hallowes had to wire in and win.
 
 190 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 There was nothing else to do. But to evaporate like that, 
 and leave the thing to chance 1 
 
 " I'd like to have seen that game," said Mary 
 appreciatively. 
 
 " You were probably much more agreeably employed," 
 said Hallowes rigidly. 
 
 " I wonder if I was," said Mary innocently. "If I 
 had known that Mr. Turton had deserted his country in 
 his country's need, I shouldn't have been. Still it gave 
 you your opportunity." Her eyes were dancing lightly, 
 in spite of her apparent interest. 
 
 Hallowes glowered. Mrs. Mirrilies recollected herself. 
 
 " I notice you never do your uttermost best until the 
 stimulus is big enough, or of a violent order. That's 
 bad in an everyday world." 
 
 " All one wants to do any job," said Hallowes gloomily, 
 " is a fellow a bit of a bigger fool than yourself who 
 thinks he can beat you." 
 
 " It's a help certainly, but I find the bigger fools so 
 scarce," sighed Mary. " Heron scores off both of us, 
 he'll put the job through even without the fool." 
 
 Hallowes felt sure her mind was far away, he'd like very 
 much to have known what she and the other chap were 
 talking about. Mary hated to see discomfort ravaging 
 her boys unless absolutely essential to their development 
 so she changed the subject. 
 
 "I'm going to have a tea-party to-morrow. You, of 
 course and the others and a Bishop I've just discovered." 
 
 " Oh ! the old chap with big eyes that look scared ? 
 I never saw a Bishop look like that before," said Hallowes 
 who had suffered from Bishops in his own family. 
 
 " That's why I asked him. He's a new variety. But 
 it's only civilization that scares him. He's gone through 
 more grisly dangers than many adventurers by profession 
 and never turned a hair." 
 
 " Do you think he can turn a soul ? " inquired Hallowes, 
 sceptical from too close a contact with ecclesiasticism. 
 
 " I don't know," said Mary, " but he's touched many 
 a heart, and perhaps it's the same thing."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 191 
 
 " He'll be something new at the tea-parties," said 
 Hallowes, still slightly depressed. 
 
 " So was Lasotovitsch once, and now we couldn't do 
 without him." 
 
 " Lasotovitsch gave in to treatment in no time," said 
 Hallowes with insular insolence. " You'd hardly know 
 him from an Englishman now." 
 
 " Except when his genius outstrips his affection, and 
 he talks philosophy like an angel," said Mary. 
 
 " Just now," said Hallowes, ignoring her remark, " I 
 saw the old Bishop dusting snow off a squalling American." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Heron hopefully. " He'll be useful hustling 
 Oliver if Fraulein's mother keeps on being ill." 
 
 " Oliver scores all round and he'll be spoilt all round," 
 said his mother anxiously. 
 
 " Oh, we'll see to that," said Hallowes easily. 
 
 " Set a thief to catch a thief ! " 
 
 " I daresay if I'd had someone to kick me at the right 
 moment I might be a credit to my parents now." 
 
 " You might," said Mary. " It's hard to say. But 
 not having had, you can't judge how much kicks hurt 
 little soft bodies, so just don't kick too hard." 
 
 " Oliver hasn't complained ? " inquired the boys in a 
 breath. 
 
 " Oliver complain of either of you ! Oliver's a soldier, 
 and if his commanding officers kicked him black and 
 blue he'd not even mention the matter to me." 
 
 " You ought to have a dozen sons, Mrs. Mirrilies," said 
 Hallowes, forgetting his discretion in his zeal. 
 
 " I wonder," said Mary suavely, but she blushed pink. 
 And like a foolish woman she kept on wondering, and 
 like a casuistical one, she persuaded herself that the 
 babies who might have been could never be equal to the 
 one who was, and between the two vain wonderings she 
 had a rank bad night.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Bishop ought to feel flattered," said Hallowes 
 dubiously, as he watched Mrs. Mirrilies arranging 
 flowers. It was of Peter Turton Hallowes was thinking, 
 and not of the Bishop. It was Mr. Turton's first tea- 
 party also. 
 
 " These flowers aren't for the Bishop altogether," said 
 Mary, with her head on one side to get the effect. 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " I feel somehow that something's going to happen 
 that calls for flowers at prohibitive prices." 
 
 " The only things that happen to people that could 
 call for flowers as dear as these," said Hallowes thought- 
 fully, " are death and matrimony. No one is out for 
 death just now and none of the lot of us is likely to 
 take to matrimony. It must be Turton who's got to 
 provide the unexpected." 
 
 " It's not Mr. Turton," said Mary, reflecting upon a 
 saffron carnation. " I shouldn't buy flowers, at a franc 
 a head, for any unexpected Mr. Turton could give us. 
 My flowers are for a much milder sort of unexpected." 
 
 " Turton seems very solid and usual," said Hallowes. 
 " I shouldn't have thought him capable of startling sur- 
 prises." 
 
 " You never can tell. And you're not as logical, Jim, 
 as you'd wish us to believe. It's the way of surprises to 
 surprise you." 
 
 " Well, yes. After all any fool can surprise you if he 
 puts his mind to it." 
 
 " Oh, no, he can't. A fool never excites any emotion 
 
 192
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 193 
 
 in you but pity, if you're kind, and a desire to slay him 
 if you're not. Besides our tea-parties have nothing to 
 do with fools," said Mary good-humouredly. " And if 
 the flowers aren't for the Bishop that bread and butter 
 is, Harry ; so you just cut it beautifully." 
 
 Hallowes glanced at the patient toiler in the rear. 
 
 " Trust Harry to do his job, especially if it's the one 
 no one else wants to tackle." 
 
 " That's just the difference between you," said Mary. 
 " One can always bet on Harry. One can only hope for 
 you." 
 
 " One for you, Jim ! " said Heron. 
 
 " And expect the impossible," pursued Mary calmly. 
 " It's a great deal, Jim. It may equal our absolute cer- 
 tainty of Harry in the end. In the meantime, those cups 
 are all askew." 
 
 " Bother the cups ! I was wondering how soon you'll 
 forget either how to bet on Harry, or to hope for me." 
 
 " So that's your idea of friendship, is it ? It's not mine 
 or Oliver's. We never forget our friends." 
 
 " They may get chucked in amongst such a crowd of 
 new ones that they all look pretty much the same." 
 
 " You admit your ability then to get lost in any 
 crowd. If I'd said that you'd both have been down 
 on me like a load of bricks. And You're at your old 
 game, Jim. Doing all the talk, while we do all the work. 
 If your talk amused us, I shouldn't mind. It's your 
 contribution to the show, but when it comes to airing a 
 grievance that doesn't exist ! " 
 
 "I've removed the dust of ages from seven cups and 
 set them out as neat as wax. What more do you want ? 
 Making work is the pastime of the idle. By the way, 
 don't you think a fellow to let out a proper surprise, 
 you know, wants what those others call temperament ? 
 Shouldn't have suspected Turton of that sort of thing 
 myself." 
 
 " Hard to say. With us temperaments are a bit 
 suspect, don't you think ? like er sleeping dogs ? 
 Englishmen have a way of keeping their temperament on 
 
 13
 
 194 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 the chain, till it's wanted. All the other peoples let it 
 1 oose to practice all its antics in the face of the public. 
 I shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Turton had quite a promis- 
 ing temperament somewhere about him. You find out 
 everything, Jim. Find out that, and let us know." 
 
 This was subterfuge. It was pretty plain that Turton 
 had been making his innings the night before, and that 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was considerably too young for the place ! 
 Jim looked out dejectedly at the innocent snow. 
 
 Harry behind his bread and butter was also pensive. 
 
 Of course, in a way, it had always been hopeless from the 
 beginning, but to have a fellow at least ten years older 
 coming between them and their claims and Mrs. Mirrilies 
 actually repeating his bally rot ! There was certainly a 
 note not hers in the conversation. The holidays they 
 had been living for for weeks were as disappointing as 
 everything else in life. 
 
 Mary suddenly conscious of wounding, was anxious to 
 heal. 
 
 " I say," she said. " Everything's ready and we've 
 a full hour to spare. Let us go skating, and collect Oliver 
 and the dears." 
 
 " And watch that fellow's new steps," reflected Hallowes 
 morosely. " He has a dozen a day. To be as vain an 
 ass as that at his age ! " 
 
 Naturally Oliver was at the heels of Peter, and clamoured 
 for his mother to join him and clap the victor. 
 
 " Oh, Jim," said Oliver under his breath, " he's beaten 
 you and Harry, an' I'd be all sorry only he's just exactly 
 like my real Dad, and my Dad must beat everyone." 
 
 " But since he's not your Dad, Oliver, I'm going to beat 
 him in the end see if I don't." 
 
 Oliver's divided mind looked out of his big eyes. 
 
 " Then you'll be like my Dad too," he said slowly. 
 " For he beats everyone in the end. Oh, Jim ! " cried 
 the turn-coat, " be quick, and do it before tea." 
 
 " You probably will," said Mary with a chuckle, " since
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 195 
 
 it's impossible. Come, Oliver, we'll hobble in the wake 
 and see the fight." 
 
 Jim said nothing, but he beat Turton. The stimulus 
 was sufficiently violent. It was a notable contest, and 
 vanquished and victor went in together to Mary's tea 
 like brothers, until woman the severing sword again 
 slipped between. 
 
 " And my real Dad he'll beat you all," whispered 
 Oliver to his two oldest friends. 
 
 " Does your imitation one know of this extraordinary 
 likeness ? inquired Jim. 
 
 " No," said Oliver almost inaudibly. " Big mans 
 mustn't get too proud. It's my own secret and Mummy's, 
 an' yours now. He's too new yet," said the temporizer. 
 
 Mary knew neither the name of the Bishop, nor that of 
 his Diocese, and didn't trouble to ask. It was the man 
 who mattered, and since he had started at cockcrow for 
 a mountain walk neither Oliver nor his aunts had yet 
 made his acquaintance. 
 
 Miss Gaunt sighed as she put on her clothes absently, 
 and wondered if Mary's Bishop might not perhaps know 
 hers, and above all know his wife. There could be no 
 two opinions about Robert, but she had been hankering for 
 years for some authentic information in regard to his wife. 
 
 She looked pensive and depressed as she came in. 
 Meditations upon her saintly supplanter had very effec- 
 tively wrung her withers. 
 
 The power to be hurt badly at any age is one of the 
 penalties for keeping too acutely in touch with life. 
 Indifference, or a gentle misunderstanding of life scores 
 less lines. 
 
 Cousin Ella looked years younger than her contem- 
 porary as they arrived together, but it was Miss Gaunt 
 to whom Oliver ran first, and the boys turned, and quite 
 soon she was almost her happy self again. 
 
 But for some inscrutable reason Mary was mortified 
 at her blatant plainness, and she turned in her perturba- 
 tion to the ever-ready Jim. 
 
 " A pretty old woman as good as Cousin Ella has no 
 
 13*
 
 196 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 business to make an ugly one as ugly as that," she said 
 resentfully. 
 
 " But who cares with such an old brick ? " said Jim 
 easily. " Still " 
 
 Plainly it was a matter of moment to Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 The interest of Jim was secured. 
 
 " Take off her hat," he said, focussing his eyes like 
 an artist. " She has her wrong one on to-day. Put her 
 in the shade, and let her talk, and she'll be as right as 
 rain." 
 
 " Oh, Jim, you always suggest the right thing. What 
 I should do without you both I can't imagine." 
 
 And then having set out Miss Gaunt to the best ad- 
 vantage, Mary let her thoughts wander off to Peter 
 Turton. It was difficult to keep them away now, and so 
 far it was an innocent enough preoccupation and she 
 thought sometimes that it kept a little of the loneliness 
 at bay. She seemed to be less haunted by it than she 
 had been. But sometimes again it made the pain and 
 the loneliness almost greater than she could bear. 
 
 The problem was getting more complicated, the issue 
 more bewildering. What would happen to her and to 
 Oliver ? What was to be the end of it ? In none of his 
 letters did Oliver now ever speak of his return, or of their 
 reunion. She rushed through each letter as it came, 
 hoping for a word, a hint, a hope, but never a one. The 
 letters were full of quiet affection, care, solicitude, Oliver 
 kept her informed of all the details of his life, and of the 
 life of the Station, his one and only omission being the 
 full significance of Barbara in his recovery. A great 
 gulf was widening between them, and Oliver was letting 
 it widen. He threw out no suggestion for any bridge 
 across the yawning gulf. 
 
 Those pleasant thoughtful letters of his turned her 
 heart to ice, a great fear and a great shrinking were 
 taking fast hold of Mary. Her growing feeling of help- 
 lessness shocked and disturbed her. She did not know to 
 whom to turn in her strange need. It had nothing to do 
 with women and boys, or with a little child. It was a
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 197 
 
 relief to turn, even partially, the outermost surface of 
 her, to a strong man, who had that within him which 
 made him kin with the strongest strength, that alone 
 can unlock the closed doors that baffle women. 
 
 What she hoped for from Peter Turton, Mary did not 
 know, but she hoped for something. And at any rate it 
 would be strong. It would be life itself. Many of her 
 other friends, for purposes of their own had set up an 
 artificial barrier between themselves and life. Her 
 stately friends, with a fine proud, whimsical, smile had 
 decided to be done with life. Her spartan friends drew 
 their skirts slightly apart from it, lest they should come 
 in contact with any foreign substance. But neither of 
 these divisions had anything to do with Oliver. 
 
 The brilliant adult creatures who, having drunk too 
 deep of life, had let it pass on without them, or those 
 who, not having drunk deep enough, must for ever be 
 thirsty. 
 
 It was in Oliver, or in his double, that one must look 
 for the fullness and the completion of life. 
 
 The want of development Mary had always in her 
 secret soul belauded as purity was becoming more and 
 more unsatisfying, and unsatisfactory. So much that 
 she had cherished seemed to be grounded upon entirely 
 wrong premises, and to need revision. 
 
 And now it often struck her like a blow that Oliver 
 himself didn't know her any more than she knew herself, 
 or than she knew Oliver. And if she didn't know herself 
 or Oliver, she couldn't possibly know what he wanted, 
 much less give it to him. 
 
 For all she knew, or Oliver knew, she might already 
 have everything to give that Oliver could possibly want 
 that any man could possibly want. 
 
 Perhaps in some things Oliver was right, after all, and 
 she was wrong. It was horrid to think it, but perhaps, 
 after all, he was. Perhaps men know better than women, 
 for all their miserable mistakes, for all the grief they have 
 heaped upon women, for all the wild desire of women 
 to change men.
 
 198 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 The women old enough to be her mother, who loved her 
 like a mother, the boys who adored her as boys do, the 
 child who was the heart of her heart, were as helpless in 
 her great need as though she were a friendless, childless 
 creature without a home. And there was a continent 
 between her and Oliver ! 
 
 The only one to whom she could turn, who could under- 
 stand her and might help her, was a man she had known 
 but a little week or so. 
 
 She pulled herself back from vain speculation to welcome 
 the Bishop. 
 
 Cousin Ella glanced with shy benediction at the holy 
 man. Miss Gaunt pushed her chair back with a small 
 spasmodic screech. The Bishop's spectacled eyes passed 
 lightly but with great courtesy over both ladies to dwell 
 with quiet joy upon Oliver, who was at once attracted by 
 his legs. He went with the child to the window, his 
 eyes followed his every movement. 
 
 " He hasn't spoken properly to a white child for thirty 
 years," explained Mary. 
 
 Tears of sentiment sprang to the ready eyes of Cousin 
 Ella. Miss Gaunt grunted. 
 
 " Have you," said Oliver, pausing for another look, 
 " not chillens ? You're too old a Bishop for chillens, but 
 grand-chillens." 
 
 " No," said the Bishop. " I had a child once rather 
 like you." 
 
 " But where is he ? " 
 
 " He died oh ! years ago. Otherwise you might be 
 playing with my grandchildren." 
 
 Miss Gaunt replied at last to Mary's third invitation to 
 come to the table, and it was then that the Bishop 
 turned with quite a youthful jump, stared, and made for 
 her. 
 
 " It surely isn't, er, Miss Gaunt ? " 
 
 " It surely is," said Miss Gaunt in her gruffest voice, 
 " and she's got a better memory than you. I knew you 
 at once." 
 
 " I, I was looking at the child."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 199 
 
 " I didn't know you ever had a child," she said in a 
 curious low voice. 
 
 " Ah, you never heard ? He died out there. We were 
 in a better Station ; we thought it quite safe, but it was 
 a mistake." 
 
 " Ah ! Come and speak to Ella, Bishop." 
 
 He looked at her quickly. He wished that she had 
 called him Robert. He wondered if by any chance she 
 could have forgotten his name. 
 
 With the fortitude of all the virgins in creation Ella 
 was suppressing her tears. To permit any symptom of 
 untoward agitation to betray itself upon so delicate an 
 occasion would have been the death of Cousin Ella. 
 
 " This is indeed a pleasure," she said, rising with old- 
 fashioned grace. " When my niece asked us to meet you 
 we little expected to meet almost our oldest friend. We 
 made our first acquaintance with Switzerland together, 
 and now we make, perhaps our last." 
 
 " I owed you my first visit. Your aunt most kindly 
 gave me a seat in her carriage that first time." 
 
 " But what should we have done without you ? " said 
 Cousin Ella, blushing like a rose, so well did she remember 
 the poverty of the young curate. " You saved our lives 
 in that mountain accident, and and nearly lost yours ; 
 and you spoke French and German so well, whilst we 
 could hardly speak a word. You were much too young 
 at the time to teach, my dear," she said, turning to Miss 
 Gaunt ; " and besides I was too stupid to learn. And 
 oh, Julia, just think if we hadn't had the Bishop with us 
 that awful night ! " 
 
 As though Julia needed reminding ! Robert had been 
 a hero that night, and he had looked one. Thirty barren 
 years seemed to weigh down upon her, and to crush her 
 into silence. Nothing would ever induce her to believe 
 that Robert's wife ever knew him as she knew him that 
 night, when for the first and last time in her life, she had 
 looked upon the face of a hero, and a hero of such sound 
 quality, as not to be put off even by an ugly face. 
 
 " I do hope," she thought rapidly " that his wife is
 
 200 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 pretty and impossible. I fear she is not. One has heard 
 rumours of her powers of organization. Perhaps she's 
 a manager. Robert couldn't stand a manager." 
 
 She had left him to Ella, and was now helping Mary. 
 
 " What do you think of the luging and ski-ing young 
 ladies, so different from us ? " she asked, turning abruptly. 
 
 " With a great likeness," he said, with a glance at her, 
 " you, I believe, would also have liked to ski and luge, had 
 such pastimes been then in vogue. As to thinking, one 
 doesn't think when one comes back, one wonders or tries 
 to keep out of the way of the sportswomen, or, in case of 
 disaster, to offer them one's very clumsy services. I 
 tried to-day, not very successfully, to assist a lady who 
 had fallen on her back and appeared to be immovably 
 embedded in the snow." 
 
 " Was she incredibly solid," inquired Miss Gaunt, 
 " and dressed like a knitted doll ? And did she scold you 
 severely when you rescued her ? " 
 
 " I don't know about the knitted doll, but she was 
 somewhat heavy, and she did scold me at some length." 
 
 " It's the Blue One," said Oliver ecstatically. " Oh, 
 Mr. Bishop, why didn't you leave her, an' perhaps more 
 snow'd come, and no one'd ever find her again ? " 
 
 " Such a course had, no doubt, its advantages, little one, 
 but if you see a lady helpless on her back, your first duty 
 is to set her on her feet." 
 
 " You needn't look," sighed Oliver. 
 
 " You had to, Oliver. It was an imposing spectacle. 
 It couldn't escape observation." 
 
 " Didn't no one else see her ? " 
 
 " Yes, but they had probably already suffered from her, 
 whereas I had not." 
 
 " Oh, you'll know her the next time, dear Mr. Bishop," 
 wheedled Oliver. 
 
 " Bishops have consciences, Oliver," said Miss Gaunt. 
 " It will make no difference." 
 
 " One never knows oneself, of course," said the Bishop
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 201 
 
 pensively ; " but I hope my conscience is more open to 
 reason now than it was thirty years ago." 
 
 " If it's not," said Mary, " you must break it in at once. 
 Oliver's Blue One is always the centre of some catastrophe, 
 and she always blames the Hotel, or the climate, or the 
 man reckless enough to extricate her." 
 
 " I think these ladies must remember her prototype, 
 who fainted, and required brandy, and scolded also when 
 restored. My old world seems all to be coming back," 
 he said gently. 
 
 "In all essentials," said Miss Gaunt, " the world is 
 pretty much as you left it. We've got older, that's all, 
 perhaps wiser, it's hard to say. Have one of these cakes 
 you used to like." 
 
 " No better than I do now," he said gratefully. " We 
 all ate them together the day of our arrival ; and although 
 youth may go, and friendship, alas ! may die, I hope 
 that the flavour of such cakes, and all it stands for, may 
 be immortal." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Oliver, with a brand new hope. " Is 
 bishops greedy too ? " 
 
 " They have, I believe, a capacity for every vice," said 
 the Bishop, laughing ; " but as a rule the years have 
 robbed them of the pleasant vice of greediness. Having 
 lived for thirty-five years on tinned food, Oliver, must be 
 my excuse." 
 
 " 'Scuses," said Oliver, recalling an axiom, " is for 
 cowards." 
 
 " Well, then, I have no excuse. I'm honestly glad to 
 feel greedy again after all these years of leanness." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Oliver, and fortified by ecclesiastical 
 sanction, he devoured cakes in the shadow of Miss Gaunt 
 at a rate hitherto unprecedented. 
 
 Mary was talking to Peter Turton, so it was Miss Gaunt 
 in the end who descended upon him. 
 
 " Oliver," she counselled, " a bishop may be greedy 
 and get off scot-free. Thirty-five years of tinned meat 
 would break in any stomach to anything ; but it's another 
 story with you. You'll be howling with stomach-ache,
 
 202 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 and upsetting everyone in five minutes, and I can tell 
 you the boys won't thank you for spoiling their tea. 
 And think of the powder you'll have to swallow." 
 
 " Have you a stomach-ache, Aunt ? Your face is red, 
 an' are you cryin' ? " 
 
 " Crying ? Rather not, and no wonder my face is 
 red pouncing down on you. Here ! Give me that plate." 
 
 " I like greedy bishops," said Oliver resentfully, his 
 eyes on the plate. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Miss Gaunt, " they never get greedy 
 until the age for stomach-aches is past." 
 
 " I wish I was a old bishop, then." 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, I'm glad you're not ! " she said. 
 
 Oliver was quite sure that her face got redder, and 
 this time it was real tears. This was interesting. Oliver 
 stared with all his eyes. 
 
 " But, Aunt " She turned sharp round, and Oliver 
 
 forgot the tears, and was only sorry for the cakes. 
 
 When Miss Gaunt returned to the group Peter Turton 
 had joined it. Cousin Ella was gazing with beaming 
 admiration at the Bishop, and the Bishop was patiently 
 awaiting his opportunity. 
 
 " I bring back his lost youth for him like the cakes," 
 thought Miss Gaunt. 
 
 " Do you remember," he said, while she was in the very 
 act of sitting down, and with that he broke into a flood 
 of remembrances, clear, concise, vivid. 
 
 " He's forgotten nothing except to mention his wife," 
 thought Miss Gaunt. " I wish he'd get it over and clear 
 the ground, then I could take my proper place and keep 
 it, now I don't know where I am." 
 
 But the Bishop thought of nothing but his ineffable 
 youth, and the woman he had loved then, and for ever. 
 The inevitable interruption of a wife seemed to fade 
 into some far kind of distance, where all her small insuffer- 
 able virtues lay softly gathered together under a neat 
 mound all strewn with little prim buttony flowers. Alice 
 had had no faults to soften the inexhaustible vigour of her 
 virtues.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 203 
 
 Still, he was a man of sense and experience, and a present 
 with Mary Mirrilies in it could not fail to interest him. 
 He had been a good deal impressed by Peter Turton, and 
 presently he began to ask for a little information in regard 
 to the two. 
 
 " She is very young and sweet and clever," he said. 
 " Why is she not with her husband ? " 
 
 " The usual causes climate, et cetera." 
 
 " Ah ! The usual tragic choice. But in her case ? 
 She is very young and inexperienced." 
 
 " She was in India for some years." 
 
 He paused with another diffident glance. " Still " 
 
 " She has never been in love if that's what you mean," 
 said Miss Gaunt bluntly. 
 
 " Oh ! " he looked startled. 
 
 " Oh ! Don't be under any misapprehension. Mary is 
 extremely fond of her husband, and the best of wives." 
 
 " Yes. I understand." 
 
 " I just wonder if you do," she thought grimly. 
 
 " Being extremely fond of one's husband is an excellent 
 thing in its way," he said at last, " but I don't think it's 
 good enough for that young lady. She is of an eager 
 and inquiring mind, I take it, and will want all things in 
 time. Do you know Captain Mirrilies ? " 
 
 " Yes. Well. I'm not sure that he's not too good even 
 for Mary, and he's the image of that man there." 
 
 " Dear me ! Dear me ! and and to see him daily ? " 
 said he to himself. 
 
 " I have had two long walks with Mr. Turton," he went 
 on. "He interests me in quite an unusual way." 
 
 " He interests Mary also in quite an unusual way," she 
 said uncompromisingly. " He's a good fellow all round, 
 and a man to his toes." 
 
 " Well, yes," admitted the other, who knew just how 
 much that fact added to the difficulties of things in 
 general. 
 
 " It's curious that so clever and eager a woman should 
 know so little of men." 
 
 " How on earth can you know anything at all about
 
 204 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 them until you're in love with one of them ? " she blurted 
 out, then remembering herself, she blushed brick red. 
 
 " You're quite right," he said gently, with lowered 
 eyes. " Love is the only sure guide to anything. You 
 and her other friends will be glad when Mrs. Mirrilies has 
 fallen in love with her husband." 
 
 " It will save us, at any rate, from the haunting obses- 
 sion of the spinster to be always thrusting her finger into 
 some married pie. In this matter of marriage nothing 
 will persuade the unmated female that she doesn't know 
 a precious deal more about the game than the players." 
 
 " Ah ! It's only the expert in the game who can judge 
 it," he said, looking quietly down at his delicate withered 
 hands. 
 
 " What's that apropos of, I'd like to know ? I 
 wish to goodness he'd mention her and get her over." 
 She pushed back her chair with another plaintive screech, 
 and stood up to collect Ella, and her wits. 
 
 " I suppose Mary has told the boys about Robert," 
 she thought. " I see it in their eyes. One tells them 
 everything somehow. Ah ! It's sad to be old. To 
 have nothing more to give, and to amuse the young a 
 little ! I think I could cry for ever."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 1 T SHALL have to clear now, I suppose," said Peter 
 
 J. Turton. " I see the guardian angels collecting 
 eyes." 
 
 " No," said Mary, with a rapid glance. " They're only 
 exchanging impressions." 
 
 " Now there's a firm friendship for you. Even a woman 
 can't upset it." 
 
 " Good gracious ! A woman of my age, and hopeless 
 from the start, to come between my boys ! " 
 
 " She might. I quarrelled with my best friend over 
 my crammer's daughter. She was ten years my senior. 
 The breach might have been permanent, if she hadn't 
 eloped with the fool of the bunch, shortly afterwards." 
 
 " Oh, well, a woman like that ! " 
 
 " The unexpected as usual. She was a B.A. and had 
 taken honours in every subject. She had fine aquiline 
 features, and wore glasses. Nothing light and frivolous 
 about Miss Hermione Sprowle. She had experience too. 
 She was in no sort of way, taken unawares. She had 
 affected in much the same way she did me and Lang, a 
 rapid succession of raw recruits for over a period of eight 
 years. She had a good heart, too, and got Lang through 
 his exams, which it was quite certain no one else could 
 have done. He's doing well now as a country parson." 
 
 " But what induced her ? " 
 
 " What induces anyone to kick over the traces at a 
 moment's notice ? She had been adamant Diana on the 
 hill-top, a star in the frosty Heavens for eight stricken 
 
 205
 
 206 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 years. That's why our hearts became flames of fire for 
 her sake, and we lost our appetites, and suddenly one day 
 the call came, and she obeyed it." 
 
 " Well, if that's all the good of a University educa- 
 tion." 
 
 " No education counts for anything when one is caught 
 in the whirl of some eternal force." 
 
 " But this is rather awful. According to you, anyone 
 is liable to be caught up at any moment by some eternal 
 force on the prowl." 
 
 " Well, yes, unless one is properly protected." 
 
 " But what properly protects you ? " 
 
 " The eternal force itself I suppose. Being properly 
 in love with God or man." 
 
 " Oh, dear me ! Then do discipline, and self-control, 
 and common-sense, go for nothing ? " 
 
 " They do in theory, they don't as a rule in action." 
 
 " You're very depressing, and I ought to be attending 
 to my guests." 
 
 " You're ably represented. Look at Hallowes 1 " 
 
 " But one doesn't exactly care to have one's boys being 
 an example to one." 
 
 " Your discomfort in the matter is probably deserved. 
 The griefs of women are our fault, as a rule, but her little 
 discomforts are her own, don't you think ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I don't think I know anything of 
 women, or of men either," said Mary, rising. 
 
 " Do you think it particularly matters ? " he asked, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " For a woman you mean ? " 
 
 "A man of my age and experience who knew nothing 
 of human beings you'd call a fool." 
 
 " What's folly in a man may be wisdom in a woman." 
 
 " Or a * mush of concession.' ' 
 
 " There's a lot of soft comfort in a ' mush of con- 
 cession.' It's better anyway than earthquakes." 
 
 " Do you know anything of earthquakes ? " she said, 
 turning to him sharply. 
 
 "I was once the victim of one, and I didn't find my
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 207 
 
 University education of the slightest use in it. It's left 
 me with a constitutional distrust of earthquakes and 
 education." 
 
 " And yet you want all the sleeping dogs in creation to 
 be let loose. They may be just as bad as earthquakes." 
 
 " But you can train and domesticate dogs, and you 
 can't earthquakes." 
 
 " They may disclose hidden treasure too." 
 
 " They may, and Hell fires. You never know." 
 
 " You're not the least consistent." 
 
 " If I were, I'd cut my throat. Consistency in the 
 sort of world we're dumped down in would spell despair." 
 
 " It could be such a heavenly world," said Mary 
 restively. " There oughtn't to be any despair in it." 
 
 " Perhaps there's not." 
 
 " But the waiting to find out," she said quickly. 
 
 " You can't wait. You've got to get on somehow. 
 Sitting about philosophizing in ruins or 'in melancholy 
 little houses we built to be so gay with,' is gone out. Get 
 a move on you and leave your ruins to time. He's a con- 
 tractor on a big scale, don't you think, grinding up all 
 the ruins of creation, to provide fresh material to build 
 houses for ' happy people.' ' 
 
 " But," said Mary, " we're such jerry builders, we just 
 build ruins." 
 
 " Yes, we are a firm of jerry-builders, as you say, and 
 make more ruins than the earthquakes of a century. 
 But we can learn our trade at least, and draw from the 
 best designs, and then if we follow pure beauty of line, I 
 don't believe it will lead anyone astray." 
 
 Mary's face, in its eager bewilderment, was very beauti- 
 ful. He watched it long and curiously. 
 
 " And keep clear of earthquakes," he said, laughing. 
 
 Mary smiled a little vaguely. 
 
 " Oh, well, you have a beautiful house built before jerry- 
 builders were invented ' to be gay with,' " she said. 
 " The boys and Oliver told me about your sketches of 
 it." 
 
 " It's beautiful," he said, " and I love every stone of it.
 
 208 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 But it didn't come in time. I'll tell you all about it some 
 day." 
 
 " Tell me to-night," said Mary. " We can sit out a 
 dance. But I say, you haven't asked me for one." 
 
 " You've asked me, so it's all right." 
 
 " Me an' the Bishop," announced Oliver, " is goin' 
 for a walk. He'll mind me in the dark and we'll be home 
 soon." 
 
 " Oh, please don't let him worry you ! " said Mary. 
 
 " The Bishop asked me," said Oliver with dignity. 
 
 " You're a lucky beggar, Oliver," said Hallowes, " having 
 a Bishop to keep you up beyond your time. All bishops 
 ever did for me was to examine me in arithmetic, and send 
 me to bed before mine." 
 
 " Your bishop probably knew his duty while I don't. 
 Oliver must teach me. Come, Oliver, you have a heavy 
 responsibility on your young shoulders. We'll take these 
 ladies home first, and then we'll call all the stars we know 
 by name, and try to remember the others." 
 
 " Fraulein's mother fell sick in the very nick of time," 
 said Hallowes. 
 
 Oliver wriggled his hand farther into the Bishop's. 
 
 " I'm sorry for her mother, an' I like Fraulein, but 
 Bishops is nice." 
 
 " That's all right, Oliver," said his mother to the little 
 half doubt in the child's face. " Liking one friend never 
 makes us forget the others." 
 
 " Like the new aunts an' the old, an' a new Bishop 
 an' new boys. I wonder if any of 'em will ever get 
 lost ? " 
 
 " Never ! " said his mother. " People's hearts get 
 bigger and bigger as they go on until at last they can hold 
 the world." 
 
 " As right as rain in theory as usual," said Peter Turton 
 as he went down the stairs, " and she loves her child, and 
 I wonder if I'm helping or hindering her by staying on.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 209 
 
 She's too good to hinder. And a woman must help her- 
 self. At any rate, if everything weren't finished long ago, 
 I could teach her something she doesn't know, and that's 
 what love is. I wonder if Mirrilies is a fool or if I am ? 
 Whatever we are, she's the one might-have-been for me, 
 the only one I've struck yet."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IN her vivid interest in other people, the insatiable 
 curiosity of the egoist, Mary could even now often 
 forget herself. There was a certain excitement, moreover, 
 in connection with the old romance that was absorbing. 
 
 It was only Peter Turton apparently who made her 
 insist upon herself, and kept it uncomfortably in evidence. 
 Herself and Barbara. It was not only Oliver now who 
 spoke of Barbara. Every letter she got from India 
 seemed to reek of her. Barbara ! whom no one had ever 
 before dreamed of mentioning except in connection with 
 some petty misfortune. 
 
 Barbara in her new light made the pain of longing for 
 Oliver, longing to know and understand him almost 
 unendurable, and at the same time, to know and under- 
 stand and talk to Peter Turton, imperative. He was the 
 one person she had yet met who could help her, in what 
 or to what, she did not in the least know. All she knew 
 was that it was to some new understanding of all things, 
 some new yet ancient freedom in which she had until now 
 walked bound. 
 
 Peter Turton apparently in some wild way was to serve 
 as a stepping-stone to Oliver 1 
 
 Mary was as bewildered and foolish as an unproven girl, 
 and she was desperately alone. 
 
 Only that Oliver's letters, for all their affection, were 
 more iron and inflexible than ever, Mary would have sent 
 little Oliver home with Cousin Ella and regardless of 
 season, or comment, or common-sense, or of anything 
 else, she would have gone straight off to her husband, gone 
 
 210
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 211 
 
 humiliated, bewildered, disappointed, and no wiser than 
 she had left him all agog to get at the root of all knowledge. 
 
 Much good her education had done her, or her intellect, 
 or her explorations and excavations into the minds of 
 boys ! They had given her a dozen different ways of 
 loving, of course, some sorrow, and friends she could 
 never again do without, but Oliver was as far off as ever. 
 
 As for German psychologists, she had a vicious con- 
 viction that if put in her place with Oliver and Barbara 
 reverberating in their great impersonal wide-open ears, 
 they would feel just as idiotic as she did. 
 
 Meanwhile all this play of strange emotion was making 
 Mary more desirable every day to her little world, and 
 more dangerous to a man like Turton, who whether from 
 folly or something better had just brought to a close ten 
 long years of waiting for a worthless woman who had 
 never come. 
 
 Now he was at last free and ripe for any disaster. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies wore some creamy filmy stuff that night 
 and an orange ribbon burnt in and out of her dark hair 
 like a flame. Oliver had made mistakes in his prayers, so 
 overcome was he by admiration. 
 
 " When I'm big and me an' you go down togedder to 
 dinner, will you wear it again ? " said Oliver, instead of 
 saying, " God bless my dear, dear Daddy," and his Mother 
 had kissed him instead of scolding him, and Oliver had 
 wondered why her face was wet. 
 
 The boys wondered, the one with proud, the other with 
 humble despair, if it was for that fellow Turton she tricked 
 herself out like that. For reasons of reprisal, propriety, 
 and retribution they got all the dances they could out of 
 her. She refused everyone else. 
 
 Cousin Ella and Miss Gaunt, as neat as wax and fine 
 with old jewellery, slipped into their usual quiet corner 
 looking almost violently agitated. Miss Gaunt as red 
 as a turkey cock, Cousin Ella of that shadowy indefinite 
 pink one finds in eighteenth-century fabrics with a touch 
 
 14*
 
 212 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 of lilac in it. The ardent hues of Miss Gaunt were due 
 to a robust determination to believe herself the victim 
 of senile decay. Cousin Ella's delicate tints had a purely 
 sentimental origin. 
 
 As a rule they came on dance nights to watch Mary, 
 and pay little tiptoe visits to Oliver. But to-night the 
 Bishop had invited them ! 
 
 And even with this preoccupation they too had time 
 to wonder at Mary. 
 
 When the Bishop had gone to make arrangements for 
 refreshments later in the evening, Cousin Ella turned 
 falteringly to the other. 
 
 " Mary, Mary frightens me a little," she murmured. 
 
 " She doesn't frighten me then. I'd like to whip her, 
 and send her to bed." 
 
 " Dear Julia, don't be harsh. She is very young." 
 
 " Young's no word for it ! She's as callow as a gosling. 
 To have married Oliver and borne him a child ought to 
 teach a woman something, or she might just as well wither 
 on as a spinster." 
 
 " But, Julia " 
 
 " Oh, Ella ! Think of the glory, and the exultation of 
 bearing a child when you love its father ! That to teach 
 a girl nothing except to put a ribbon in her hair, and turn 
 herself into a sorceress, and it wasn't even her husband 
 and her child who taught her that ! " 
 
 " Aren't you hard on Mary, dearest Julia ? and 
 isn't, isn't it all a little indehcate ? " 
 
 " Why should indelicacy always be confounded with 
 plenty in the mind of the woman who's never had 
 enough ? " demanded Miss Gaunt. " There's nothing 
 indelicate in anything but in destitution." In deference 
 to Ella's apprehensive twitter she spoke in a low voice, 
 and smiled valiantly out on the brilliant crowd. 
 
 " Being ashamed of your rags and your sores and 
 trying to hide them, being the beggar at the rich man's 
 gate without even the bitter consolation of an ultimate 
 reward in Abraham's bosom, that's the sort of thing that 
 ought to make you blush really. Nothing wilWjfever
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 213 
 
 persuade me that Heaven really hankers after derelicts 
 any more than earth does. It just puts up with them 
 
 " My dear, dear Julia, pray don't ! " 
 
 But Miss Gaunt was now at full gallop. 
 
 " And a woman with everything, like Mary, to be 
 trying experiments on fools ! Look at her ! " 
 
 " My dear ! Mr. Turton is not a fool." 
 
 " Of course he is with Mary looking at him. She's 
 enough to make a fool of any man." 
 
 She paused to glare. " Look at her ! I believe the 
 devil himself tied that ribbon." 
 
 Cousin Ella gasped, and Julia at last remembered her 
 manners and laughed. 
 
 " Good gracious ! " she said. " What a tornado ! 
 And to see you in full rectitude of mind so like a piece of 
 good old Dresden china blushing for me. It's a wonder 
 I haven't learnt more from you all these long years, Ella." 
 
 " But, dear Julia," said Ella ingenuously, " you're far 
 too clever to learn anything from anybody." 
 
 " Oh, Ella ! Oh, ' Diamond Diamond ' ! " 
 
 " I say there's the oh, call Robert ! Let us behave 
 like human beings," and suddenly, at sight of Ella's puzzled 
 face of entreaty, her friend's spacious laugh rang out. 
 
 The Bishop heard it as he walked with mild, ecclesiastical 
 distinction through the light crowd, with a heavily-laden 
 waiter in tow, and there was a blessing in his kind eyes as 
 he passed. How often in the dark and terrible solitude of 
 those long years had not the fullness of heart and soul 
 articulate in that laugh, restored his own waning forces. 
 It was Julia's laugh, he often told himself, that had saved 
 his little handful of souls. 
 
 " Perhaps I ought to have given God all the glory," he 
 would remind himself " but I can't so long as that laugh 
 rings so true in my heart, and holds my soul as nothing else 
 has ever done to its magnet. And now, at last, to be 
 able to sit down beside it for a little and rest, before begin- 
 ning again," he thought, as he made his way through the 
 smiling groups. " And to be able to offer her some of the 
 little common pleasures of life not yet lost to us like those
 
 214 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 others, which time has taken. It's a wonderful coming- 
 home. It's more than I deserve. Alice was so very 
 efficient, and she died, poor thing, before I was made a 
 Bishop. She would greatly have enjoyed her position, 
 and when one thinks of her efforts on my behalf ! " 
 
 He blushed deeply. 
 
 Those terrible journeys home to hunt up ecclesiastical 
 influence, and Bishops flying before Alice like chaff before 
 the wind ! Although now only five paces from Julia, the 
 Bishop shuddered. 
 
 It spoke volumes for Robert Lindsay that he got his 
 Bishopric, in the end, in spite of his inestimable wife. 
 
 Julia's honest red face and the twinkle in her clear grey 
 eyes, the only presentable feature in her face, soon 
 obliterated every trace of Alice, and the Bishop was himself 
 again. 
 
 " I have invited Mrs. Mirrilies," he said, " and Mr. 
 Turton, and those delightful boys to join us, and meanwhile 
 we shall have the pleasure of watching our young friends, 
 and that very young mother, dancing." 
 
 " Mary is twenty-eight," said Miss Gaunt. 
 
 " She looks eighteen," said Robert, looking more man 
 than Bishop. 
 
 " Thank goodness, Alice hasn't tidied all his humanity 
 out of him, and that he's still young enough to be a fool," 
 reflected Miss Gaunt, relenting towards Mary. 
 
 " I'm glad you're still young enough to be a fool," she 
 said precipitately. 
 
 The Bishop looked scared. A sudden spring back over 
 thirty years being certainly enough to scare any man. 
 
 " But," she cried, " if the years had left us nothing ! If 
 we were all unconditionally wise, think of the horror of it." 
 
 " Still, the usual deposit of the years " 
 
 " Oh, don't say it. Unless widsom is qualified by folly 
 it's as bad as, chalk in our bones. If the years left us 
 nothing but the rags and tatters of wisdom torn off the 
 tree of life probably with bleeding fingers where should 
 we be ? " 
 
 The Bishop was too breathless to reply. In a second or
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 215 
 
 so, however, a whimsical understanding of her slipped in, 
 and he turned, with a quick movement, to watch Peter 
 Turton and Mary in the mazes of the " Boston." 
 
 " It was the ' Trois Temps ' and the ' Blue Danube/ in 
 our day," he murmured, as though to himself. 
 
 " But you never danced," said Miss Gaunt, sharp and 
 accusing. 
 
 " But I wanted to immensely. That, too, was youthful 
 folly," said the Bishop. " A waltz, as graceful as the waltz 
 of those days, could have done no one but a young prig 
 any harm." 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! " said Miss Gaunt. " And to 
 lose all the dances of four weeks for all of us from a sheer 
 error of judgment ! It was you who made me lose them. 
 I didn't want to be outdone in high thinking, or anything 
 else, in those days." 
 
 He watched her with a far-away smile. 
 
 " If you were kind or foolish enough to wish to emulate 
 so egregious a prig, you had at least your reward. I 
 admired your self-sacrifice, and my own, immensely. Now 
 I am sorry to have deprived us both of an innocent pleasure. 
 A most delightful one to have been able to look back upon 
 in sadder days. The years, I fear, have left us all our 
 follies intact, however little they may have added to our 
 wisdom, or even to the chalk in our bones. I fancy 
 we've both escaped rheumatism. Dear me ! I wish 
 that I could repair my early error and yours," he said, 
 smiling at the whirling couples. 
 
 Miss Gaunt roared genially, and Cousin Ella, scandalized 
 as she undoubtedly was, could not restrain a little silvery 
 giggle. 
 
 ' ' But it's Mary's present not our own past folly, we should 
 be thinking of now." 
 
 " My dear Julia," blushed Cousin Ella. 
 
 " The er Bishop," said Miss Gaunt, stoutly, " can 
 see as plainly as we do the way she is diluthering a man with 
 as much common sense as any of us." 
 
 " Mary is absolutely unconscious " 
 
 " Oh, bother, Ella, with that ribbon in her hair ! Is
 
 216 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 that ribbon for us ? or for the boys ? or the Bishop ? Just 
 tell me that." 
 
 " It's it's because she's beautiful." 
 
 " Well, of course it is, but she couldn't have put it in 
 like that a week ago- to save her life, or looked as she's 
 looking now, either. Oliver and the Bishop are already 
 age-old friends, Mary is the business of us all." 
 
 " Or the business of Mrs. Mirrilies," he said gently. 
 
 " We're not busybodies," protested Miss Gaunt. 
 
 " No. But you're the only mothers a young and beautiful 
 woman has, and she, I think, is standing at some parting 
 of the ways, of which even her mothers know nothing." 
 
 " And are we miserable poor little tramps, to stand aside 
 as usual, and let the great ship go down, hoping later on to 
 pick up some corpses ? " 
 
 " Julia ! My dear ! " remonstrated Cousin Ella. 
 
 But the Bishop understood only too well the pain that 
 could wring bitterness from that kind heart. 
 
 " We must do what we can as her convoy," he said, 
 " since you have done me the great honour to include me 
 also. But we cannot take her bearings or read her 
 compass ; we cannot even direct her course. Each one of 
 us is the ' Captain of his own soul.' And I believe, little 
 as I know her, that Mrs. Mirrilies is in good hands." 
 
 He paused to watch her dancing. " Confidence in her 
 convoy is a great help to a ship," he said. " And I don't 
 think Mrs. Mirrilies could hurt anyone permanently, 
 any more than she could hurt her child.'' 
 
 " Mary, just now, is unaccountable." 
 
 " It seems to me that we, you and I," he said in a low 
 moved voice, " understand her only too well. Shall we 
 enjoy the evening with Mrs. Mirrilies and Mr. Turton and 
 the boys ? " he said, in his usual even tones, turning to 
 Cousin Ella, " and leave the rest, knowing it to be quite 
 safe ? " 
 
 With a sigh of acute relief, Cousin Ella dropped Mary, 
 and all she involved, into the ecclesiastical arms. No one 
 but herself knew the inexpressible joy of being taken over, 
 lock, stock and barrel, by a Bishop.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 217 
 
 She turned to watch Mary, no longer the least afraid of 
 the ribbon in her hair. Lazarus in Abraham's bosom could 
 not have felt more sheltered and secure. 
 
 Miss Gaunt looked at her and laughed. 
 
 " I wish I was Ella," she said, not troubling to lower her 
 voice. Ella in her present condition was impervious to 
 irrelevant comment. 
 
 " I'm extremely glad you're yourself," said the Bishop. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was much too good-natured to cut short 
 the boys' dances, and much too fond of the " Boston," not 
 to wait for the interruption of the Lancers, to claim her 
 sit-out and Peter Turton's story. 
 
 Besides, feeling her beauty was still so new as to be 
 extraordinarily stimulating, she did not want to cut that 
 short either, she wanted to enjoy it until she had had 
 enough of it. 
 
 Mary couldn't understand herself in the least. She 
 could have laughed aloud in her ridiculous delight in herself, 
 in the odd, impersonal way in which she shared it with all 
 the others. She felt their joy in her just as though she were 
 one of them. It seemed to give her an illimitable right in 
 the world. A sense of triumphant fellowship she had never 
 before experienced. She seemed to be giving with both 
 hands and getting back more than she gave. The whole 
 world was more beautiful because of her beauty. 
 
 Then all at once she knew that the only one who neither 
 got nor gave was Oliver, probably at that very moment 
 in his painstaking, patient way, trying to dance with 
 Barbara. 
 
 Barbara's steps, like her intentions, were all that anyone 
 could wish, but she couldn't dance. 
 
 Whereupon every atom of delight seemed to be shaken 
 out of Mary, and she was glad enough to turn her back, not 
 on the Lancers, as she had arranged, but on the " Boston " 
 itself, and to sit down beside anything in the very least 
 like Oliver, the outcast. 
 
 " He's shut out of everything everything," she told
 
 ti8 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 herself, " and he's done it himself, or perhaps we've done it 
 between us. I don't know, I know nothing now, it seems. 
 And, and, this other man why can't he say anything, 
 and change the subject ? " 
 
 She glanced vindictively at an innocent fountain at their 
 feet. " The sound of that water will drive me mad," she 
 said. 
 
 So they sat for some minutes with the fountain reiterating 
 silver nothings in their ears. 
 
 Peter Turton was watching with astonishment her face 
 losing all its glory, and once again forgetting himself. It 
 was a rank bad habit and he was always falling into it now. 
 And he, who had never spoken of his ten years' idiocy to 
 one of his many friends, to be about to disclose it now 
 to the acquaintance of a week or so, to give himself 
 away, at last, after the tight grip on what at this 
 moment seemed centuries. It was a weakness of which he 
 would have believed himself incapable a week ago. 
 
 " You never know what you are until you meet a 
 woman," he thought grimly. " And I'd be glad to know 
 why everything that makes me tell her, that's driving me 
 into making some sort of an ass of myself, is fading out of 
 her face, she'll be like any other woman next, and it 
 won't make the smallest difference to my folly ! An old 
 fool has no chance at ah", and when folly has become a 
 
 habit ! I'll go to London after this and get tired of 
 
 women, and then the other confounded habit will be 
 coming in again, and putting its foot in everything. I 
 never deliberately injured a woman yet, and that'll probably 
 trip me up in the end." 
 
 " Women are the deuce, whichever way you look at 
 them. I wish she'd go off in a tantrum, and that a man 
 would stroll in." 
 
 " Do you know what I was just thinking," he said, with 
 a laugh ; " I was wishing you'd get fed up with my abomin- 
 able manners, and sail off in a rage, and yet I have neither 
 enough higher-education or common sense to ask you to go."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 219 
 
 " But I shouldn't go. I want to hear." 
 
 " To sit deliberately down to rake up your past for a 
 woman's benefit is pretty low down, don't you think ? 
 Oh ! I have every intention of making you listen, and yet 
 it's rum." 
 
 " Well, begin then. I have more dances, and the 
 Bishop's reception is at ten. And aren't you glad you met 
 us all and are right in the thick of it, and will be in at 
 the end ? I'm going to have a beautiful wedding at home, 
 and to ask you all to see the finishing touch to the 
 resurrected lovers." 
 
 " When I've finished, perhaps you'll tell me why I told 
 you what in no sort of way could concern you, perhaps 
 it won't even interest you. But you've got to hear it, it's 
 Kismet." 
 
 He was most disturbingly like Oliver. But Oliver, with 
 plainly enough heaps to say, had generally shut up like a 
 clam in the end. She had shut him up. 
 
 " Oh, tell me everything," she said, just as though she 
 were speaking to Oliver. She saw him there, he sat 
 beside her, and never in all her life had she spoken to him 
 in this voice, with this face ; with a prick of intolerable 
 pain she knew this. 
 
 And now he hardly missed the glory of her face for the 
 gentleness of it. 
 
 What is the matter with her or with me ? he thought, 
 and why was she here alone and in despair, or at any rate, 
 on the high road to despair ? 
 
 " The spray from the fountain is sprinkling your dress," 
 he said. " I haven't had anything to do with soft things 
 for a long time, but I seem to remember that water used 
 to hurt them. That's right," he said, as she moved a little. 
 
 " I once spoiled a woman's dress for her in a water-shute. 
 I didn't tuck her in properly, and that's how it all began. 
 It had come from Paris, and things from Paris didn't come 
 every day. She was pretty wild with me, sort of under her 
 breath, but she forgave me, and later on she married me. 
 But it wasn't only to tuck her in, I forgot. I was always 
 forgetting things, and presently she began to think I forgot
 
 220 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 her, I believe I loved her as much as a boy of twenty-one 
 can love a girl of eighteen, when neither of them are quite 
 grown up. We quarrelled and made it up like children, 
 and enjoyed ourselves in our own way. My father gave 
 me an ample allowance, and my expectations were good. 
 My uncle had been married for fifteen years without 
 children, and I was his heir. I had eaten all my dinners, 
 and was about to follow my profession with a comfortable 
 sense of leisure and serenity. I had plenty to give Dolly, 
 and she wanted a good deal. Then suddenly one day a 
 boy appeared at the old place, and the week after Dolly 
 and I, both with very wry mouths, had assisted at the 
 rejoicings, my father died, leaving nothing behind him but 
 debts. So I had to work for all I was worth, too young. 
 
 " We left our house and took a little flat, and the habit 
 of forgetfulness grows with poverty. Now I forgot every- 
 thing except to keep things going somehow, and to ensure 
 some sort of a future for both of us. 
 
 " I was too tired at night even to talk, and I don't think 
 I ever took her out. I was waiting to do it properly. She 
 was meant for a big house and big ways. She looked 
 ridiculous in a little mean flat at Fulham, and I hated to 
 think of her on the top of a bus. She was miserably lonely, 
 I think. 
 
 " I took it for granted, I believe, that I loved her, but 
 there seemed to be no time to let her feel it. I had 
 thrown myself into the future, and was living for it. It 
 was her future of course, but I doubt if Dolly ever grasped 
 that. She was hankering after her present, poor child. 
 And now I look at you, I think she must have been 
 very badly dressed. She was extraordinarily pretty, it 
 must have been hard luck on her, but I was waiting for 
 the future, and Paris, and a thousand hats. 
 
 " I saw nothing but the future. I had an aptitude for 
 Law, a fierce amount of energy, and some influence, the 
 future was nearer than Dolly suspected. That was my 
 secret. When I was too tired in the evenings to do anything 
 else I used to dream of it, and chuckle over it, and make 
 out lists of all we'd do, and the things I'd give her.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 221 
 
 " But dozing and dreaming don't amuse a woman. 
 She couldn't stand it any longer I suppose, and one day 
 she went off with a cousin of hers, a man I detested. He 
 gave her everything, and made her love him, but he was 
 cruel, and careless, and it wasn't in him to be faithful. 
 I hurried on the divorce, but he never married her. After 
 it was too late, I realized that it was all my fault. And 
 just to show you what fate is, my uncle and the boy 
 both died shortly after she left me, and I had the place 
 at twenty-five. It wanted a lot of looking after, so I 
 gave up my profession, and stuck to the land. 
 
 " And since I'd done her all the harm I could, it was 
 really like hurting a child, I thought the only thing 
 I could do was to wait until the other fellow got tired of 
 her, or died, and to have the place ready for her." 
 
 " Oh," said Mary in an odd voice, and he noticed that 
 she was trembling a little. 
 
 " I know now that I never loved her really, but, 
 oh ! well, the only thing one could do, was to keep her 
 chance open for her " 
 
 He broke off short, and Mary knew that he had clean 
 forgotten her. 
 
 She was still trembling a little, and not quite sure of 
 her voice, but she couldn't sit silent any longer, with 
 Oliver so near and so far. 
 
 " And then ? " she said at last. 
 
 He pulled himself back with a jerk. 
 
 " Oh, then he died in Paris, where he had a splendid 
 appartement. Directly she knew of his illness she had 
 gone to him. Afterwards I went over, and found her 
 dead beside him. She had taken laudanum. So that 
 was the end of it all. And why I've told you the story 
 I really don't know." 
 
 " Because we're friends," said Mary simply. 
 
 " It was folly from beginning to end." 
 
 " Perhaps. But the only man I have ever known who 
 would be capable of that sort of folly, to the end I 
 mean, is Oliver, my husband, Ah ! it's ten o'clock and 
 we mustn't keep the Bishop waiting."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 * I "'HERE was another glory altogether upon Mary's 
 
 J_ face as she and Peter Turton came back together 
 to the little group, sitting in patient expectation about 
 several small rosewood tables. 
 
 It was the Bishop's first unofficial reception, and purely 
 of the good warm earth. At the same time he was 
 resolved that it should do credit to the Church, and he 
 and the waiter between them had evolved a light supper 
 worthy of a Cardinal. The everlasting Youth of the 
 world was in that curious meal. 
 
 The sight of the little three-cornered dishes of sandwiches 
 of 'pate de foie gras recalled memories to the Bishop fragrant 
 with Eternal youth. For he had eaten them in his youth 
 with young Julia. 
 
 For some minutes Miss Gaunt watched him, wandering 
 guileless as a child from sandwiches to melange, with 
 occasional sips of champagne for good fellowship. " Thank 
 God," she decided, " a little clotted wisdom, and a thou- 
 sand regrets aren't the only things the years have left us. 
 We've still got digestions. Even with Mary dancing 
 with the wrong man. She's not dancing " she decided. 
 " She's just practising her steps, and she thinks them all 
 brand new, and they're all as old as time. And they've 
 all got to be learned before Mary's finished. And until 
 she knows her steps, I suppose a woman will be dancing 
 to some man's piping. / couldn't have danced to the 
 piping of the archangel Gabriel himself, after Robert, 
 and I wonder if Robert in the least realizes what his little 
 bill for this supper will amount to. Oh ! well. I'm going 
 
 222
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 223 
 
 to enjoy it now, in spite of Mary," said she, with a vicious 
 and apparently aimless kick beneath her chair. The 
 Bishop felt the vibration, and hoped tenderly that she 
 did not suffer from chilblains. Being aware of its bene- 
 ficial effect upon the circulation, he insisted upon more 
 champagne. 
 
 " It is a wine of a good vintage," he said modestly. 
 " The waiter is a most careful man." 
 
 " He had need to be," she said grimly, " with so many 
 of us hardly out of our shell and the rest, in an even 
 more critical condition. To judge by this sybarites' feast 
 you've grown a good deal in darkest Africa, er Bishop." 
 
 " I've been frugal for such endless years," he said, 
 blushing. 
 
 " But you're not apologizing to me ! You must have 
 forgotten me a good deal or you wouldn't think that I'd 
 disapprove, even of, over-abundance, and I'm enjoying 
 every atom of it down to the ground." " To think I'd 
 "disapprove," she thought. " I, who have sat through all 
 the dances of thirty years ! And now with my ten toes 
 swaddled in fur to be making indecorous noises under 
 my chair. Has love no sense of humour even at my age ? " 
 
 " I'd enjoy it all just as much, Bishop, even if you 
 hadn't money to pay the bill, and had to fly in the night." 
 
 " I think you'd pay it for me." 
 
 " Oh, no, I shouldn't. I'd be too interested in the 
 Pharisees' remarks, but Ella would, and ruin herself in 
 tips to placate the kitchen. Where's your Parish to be. 
 Bishop ? " 
 
 " Please let it be Robert, dear Julia." 
 
 She gave a jump that resounded ever so slightly. 
 " Dear me ! " she thought. " And what of Alice ? " 
 
 " I hope it will be immense, and full of fools," she said 
 quickly. " Knowing them and all their folly. Above all, 
 knowing the extraordinary little difference there is between 
 the fools and the wise, you'll be able to make them all 
 as wise as fools may be, and yet remain human beings."
 
 224 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 They were as near together as they would ever be, and 
 as far from the world, and as near. It would be always 
 like this, the world would always pass by with a little 
 smile, and leave them together, the two old fools who 
 loved it ; but it would be always there for them to serve 
 together. Nothing could ever part them any more, or 
 rob the world of their combined service. 
 
 He was so sure of her that for several minutes lie said 
 nothing. She thought wildly of his wife. 
 
 Outwardly they sat together, each with folded hands. 
 
 " Will you help me with the Parish, Julia ? " 
 
 " But, goodness gracious ! where's your wife ? " 
 
 He started. 
 
 " But didn't you know ? She died two years ago." 
 
 " And you never gave me a hint ! I knew you were 
 as unpractical as ever at heart." 
 
 " I've never done anything worth doing without you, 
 Julia, you were always there. And now that the time 
 is short, and the grasshopper is not far off, I want you 
 near." 
 
 " I'd better be near, I think," she said, looking severely 
 at a fresh tray of cakes and liqueurs being planked down 
 before her, " or you'll soon be in the poor house. And 
 oh, Robert ! we'll defy all the grasshoppers in creation 
 without turning a hair, we two together." 
 
 They stood up together, and began as though it were 
 the most natural thing in the world, to wait upon their 
 guests. 
 
 Cousin Ella weeping into her liqueur glass in the end 
 became an embarrassment, and had to be reprimanded, 
 then with the tenderness of mother, sister, child, restored. 
 That was the only hitch in the entertainment. Except 
 Mary, who represented the one poignant note in its 
 folly. 
 
 But even Mary must be put off till the next day. This 
 evening was too full of the folly that has paid its toll of 
 pain, to leave even standing room for Mary with her 
 bitter toll of tribute still to pay. Besides Mary was young 
 enough and sweet enough to rejoice whole-heartedly with
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 225 
 
 the two tired wanderers who had found their home, and 
 she was thrilling with the recent recital of Peter. 
 
 For the Bishop, Mrs. Mirrilies was always the mother 
 of Oliver the Less, but even with Robert by her side 
 for ever, she was always the wife of Oliver the Greater, 
 for Miss Gaunt. 
 
 Directly Oliver knew he decided to change Mr. Bishop 
 into " Granpa." 
 
 " Bishops is for black men, and oder poor shiners, " 
 said Oliver the Pharisee, " not for good little boys." 
 
 " You've given me everything, Julia," said the Bishop 
 gratefully, as next morning they sat together in a sunny 
 window. " Not only yourself but a sister, and a daughter, 
 and a grandchild, and friends, both among men and boys." 
 
 " I wish to goodness I could give you what none of us 
 seem to have just now, commonsense enough to manage 
 Mary. ' ' 
 
 " Won't you leave her to Oliver and herself, dear 
 Julia ? " 
 
 " You're like all the others. Your head is turned by 
 Mary, which is odd," she added, with a whimsical glance 
 into the great mirror opposite them, " having just chosen 
 me." 
 
 " But that's the reason. Knowing you makes me 
 know Mary also. Your exteriors may be somewhat 
 dissimilar," he admitted, smiling, " but there's a strong 
 family likeness in your hearts." 
 
 " Fortunately for Mary it stops there." 
 
 " Fortunately for Mary it goes so deep." 
 
 " You hopeless optimist ! Where does the good fortune 
 for the other man come in ? " 
 
 "If a man chooses to defy convention and other 
 obstacles to his peace or destiny," he said, pausing, " he's 
 got to put up with his punishment. It will probably be 
 severe, possibly permanent. One is immensely sorry 
 he needs so stern a retribution, but it's the size of the 
 man that determines the size of the punishment." 
 
 " To be thinking of her to the day of his death with 
 that ribbon in her hair ! " sighed Miss Gaunt restively. 
 
 15
 
 226 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " And," she reflected in the silence of her soul, " if a saint 
 like Robert is like that, I'll never believe in a sinner again." 
 
 " Mary is too wholesome," he said gently, " to hurt 
 any man's soul." 
 
 " She seems to be rather a drastic remedy all the same, 
 for the souls of men. I should have thought myself that 
 Mr. Peter Turton's soul would have done very well with 
 less heroic treatment." 
 
 " Most of us are given just as much as we're able to 
 bear, we're seldom taxed below our strength. It gives 
 one great confidence both in Mary, and in Mr. Turton." 
 
 " Does Captain Mirrilies love his wife ? " he asked after 
 a long pause. 
 
 " Yes like like anything." 
 
 " In that case I think this desperate experiment will 
 cost much treasure." 
 
 " And all for sheer wilful perversity. Mary might 
 have left us our few little hours together in peace." 
 
 " This from you, Julia ! Even now I count our happi- 
 ness in years, not hours. And think of the delight of 
 having the joys, and sorrows, and mistakes and sins 
 of our own young to occupy our hearts and minds. Other- 
 wise we'd grow abominably selfish. As it is, we won't 
 have either the time or the chance to do so. And presently 
 we'll grow so learned in youth, Julia, and in all its ways, 
 that sometimes we may be able to help it a little."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 MARY'S expanding sense of the consciousness of 
 her own power, and strength, and beauty lent 
 her now a joyous elan that was supremely attractive. 
 
 Moreover, up in the clear, keen air, far from the stifling 
 mists of the valleys, the streets where men walk smileless, 
 the beautiful houses with their gates shut in your face, 
 one can live above the world, and watch from one's eerie 
 Castles of Spain pricking up everywhere. Thus, although 
 the feet of Mrs. Mirrilies were steady as rocks on her 
 skis, the head above them was apparently somewhat 
 light. 
 
 In this state of mind one is impelled to say something, 
 and it's generally the first thing that comes to the listener 
 nearest at hand. This, as it happened, was generally 
 Peter Turton, who if he put his mind to it could always 
 outstrip the others. 
 
 Anyone who has ever skied to any purpose knows the 
 extraordinary freeing, elevating, and expanding power 
 of the exercise. The world is suddenly all good, and the 
 people in it all friends together. One can do no less than 
 give the best one has to him who wants it most. A man 
 will give his sweater, or his last tot of whisky to another, 
 whom the night before he had rooked shamelessly at cards. 
 And in the white silence of the snows the biggest liar in 
 Europe will find himself put out of action. 
 
 Mary had nothing to give but her thoughts, and she 
 gave herself away with them at every turn always in 
 Parables. Mary who had never written anything less 
 serious than an essay or an intelligent letter, became a teller 
 of fairy tales on the shimmering snows. 
 
 227 15*
 
 228 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Peter Turton being, as we know, just then himself in a 
 dangerous transition period, found his role of sole and 
 commentless audience an increasingly onerous one. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was at heart essentially a woman in whom 
 there was no guile, so that there was nothing really for a 
 man to do but to preserve her guilelessness and frustrate 
 the folly in it, and since she was more in love with her 
 own husband than she suspected, this might, in ordinary 
 circumstances, have been quite within the powers of even 
 the average man. 
 
 Had Mrs. Mirrilies not been the first woman for ten 
 years that Peter Turton had permitted himself to think 
 of as a woman at all, if she had not been the only woman 
 he had ever really cared for, had he not had the accumula- 
 tion of years of denial to urge him to folly, he might have 
 enacted the role of a hero. 
 
 As it was Peter might have done better in this matter 
 and, on the contrary, he might have done worse. At 
 any rate he stayed on at St. Moritz when Mary and her 
 escort, now increased by the Bishop and flanked on either 
 hand by a large and mourning crowd, stood ready for 
 departure. 
 
 Mary was glad to go and sorry. She looked like an 
 April day, and just as young, except that in her fine furs, 
 she was too round and full for young April, and really 
 more like June. 
 
 She was so young, nevertheless, that she hadn't even 
 asked Peter Turton, as a mere matter of course, to call 
 on her if he should be passing through Zurich, and now 
 Oliver was solicitously making up for the omission. 
 
 Oliver rarely clamoured: his method was to hold on 
 firmly to a hand until he had got a definite promise, and 
 since no one had ever lied to Oliver, then he was quite 
 happy, but not until the promise was given would he 
 think of releasing the hand. 
 
 It was a moment of some embarrassment for Peter 
 Turton. He meant to call, invited or not, unless better 
 counsels prevailed, but he had no desire to reveal his 
 intention to a dozen cocked ears.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 229 
 
 " But promise ! " said Oliver. " Perhapses is no 
 good. An' if I couldn't see you for ever, an' ever, an' 
 ever Oliver valiantly swallowed an emotion, his 
 
 mother who was laughing gaily, swallowed another, for 
 her heart smote her for Oliver the Less, and for herself, 
 and above all, for Oliver the Greater. But having gone 
 so far she could not stop now. 
 
 She stood already upon the threshold of some new 
 world, and she could not enter it alone, or turn aside from 
 the wonderful city that commanded the entrance to this 
 wonder-world. She had thought it out, and fought it out. 
 
 With her two Olivers and in the midst of friends, 
 there was no reason to be either afraid or ashamed of 
 her growing liking for Mr. Turton, of his growing attraction 
 for her, of her curious dependence upon him, and the 
 strange impression upon her that it was only through 
 him that she could ever gain the freedom of the City of 
 her desire without whose golden gates lonely women 
 must stand for ever. 
 
 Sometimes she would sit up in the silent night with 
 wide frightened eyes and shudder away from the lonely 
 crowd waiting there in hopeless patience. 
 
 She would never have given Mr. Turton a second thought 
 that counted but for his amazing likeness to Oliver. 
 She would have danced, and skied, and skated with him, 
 of course, but to think of him as she was now thinking 
 would have been impossible, or to depend upon him any 
 more than she depended on the boys, ludicrous. 
 
 There was fear somewhere about during these vigils, 
 so latterly she had already shuddered down under the 
 blankets, and got up tired and confused, too confused in 
 the end, indeed, to give Mr. Turton the invitation he had 
 a perfect right to expect. 
 
 And now here was Oliver upon the point of tears ! and 
 she herself feeling like a drowning soul that has just lost 
 hold on its last straw, for a point of conscience perhaps, 
 or a point of view. She didn't know. She knew nothing. 
 
 She smiled as she turned to Peter. 
 
 "But, Oliver," she said soothingly, "of course we'll
 
 230 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 meet Mr. Turton again, in London, and next year here 
 who knows ? " 
 
 " But that's too long It's p'raps never again." 
 
 " But Mr. Turton won't be coming through Zurich 
 probably." 
 
 " But I think I shall," said Mr. Turton. " It's just as 
 well to see the finest panorama in Europe when one is so 
 near." 
 
 " Oh, he'd better come," said Oliver breathlessly, " an' 
 see it, an' de houses dat shut de chillen in behind the 
 gates, and de nice ladies who hadn't no time to have 
 chillen ever." 
 
 " Oliver," shouted Peter, " shut up ! or I'll have to start 
 now, and leave my luggage and my bill." 
 
 Oliver's last hug was for Peter Turton. 
 
 Peter Turton was afraid. He was ashamed of himself. 
 He experienced all the vague and inexplicable sensations 
 that Mary did in an entirely different way, from an en- 
 tirely different point of view, and he had a rank bad time 
 of it, and decided at last that if he was not fortified by 
 experience, he ought to be, and would certainly see Mrs. 
 Merrilies in Zurich or elsewhere at the first possible 
 opportunity.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 OLIVER'S Blue One, after a little careful observa- 
 tion had decided to fix her mind and her inten- 
 tions upon the Bishop. She had tried many younger and 
 more robust men, but had found them ah 1 wanting. They 
 had all lacked intelligence, and had apparently no desire 
 whatever to be lifted to any higher plane. 
 
 She went with a sigh through the long list, and then 
 mentally tore it up, they were presentable men, one 
 might have managed very well with any one of them, 
 while the Church presented many disadvantages. At 
 the same time fifteen years unrelaxed effort tries the 
 nerves, and an uninterrupted Hotel diet the digestion, 
 and the most redoubtable adventurer will wish at last 
 to settle down. So she came to the conclusion with a 
 sigh for the loss of bigger game that the Bishop, after all, 
 would do well enough to marry, that she could desist at 
 last from fruitless effort and rest ; she could, above all, 
 establish her mother in some convenient home, where 
 the Bishop could look after her, while she tried to raise 
 the tone of the Parish. 
 
 Her mother, whom she had at last hustled into acute 
 ill-health, she was now nursing with a high sense of martyr- 
 dom, but even that will pale directly its first bloom is 
 brushed off. It was a positive relief to think possessively 
 of the Bishop and to prepare her way to him when her 
 mother's moans would permit her to do anything but try to 
 convince that unhappy woman of their irrational selfishness. 
 
 Being an authority upon every subject Miss Pringle 
 had naturally not neglected modern German thought. 
 She had wallowed long days in Hibbert Journals, read 
 
 231
 
 232 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 extracts from the theologians by the score, and now 
 when not interrupted by moans, she immersed herself 
 in certain audacious professorial heresies obligingly supplied 
 her by Peter Turton. 
 
 When not thus engaged she kept up her strength by 
 outdoor exercise. 
 
 Now when the Bishop and Oliver took their walks 
 abroad, no matter in what direction, the sight of the 
 Blue One foundering in the snow, two red legs pathetically 
 wobbling, became the rule, not the exception. While 
 now inspired by the craft of the mating instinct she no 
 longer howled for help, or having attained it, called down 
 the vengeance of Heaven upon her saviour. She became 
 mild and full of trust. She leant weightily upon the 
 little Bishop, and made Oliver more than once, very sick 
 with propitiatory offerings of unwholesome sweets. 
 
 After dinner she brought down blood-curdling heresies 
 to be refuted by the dear Bishop, and made illuminating 
 remarks about cannibals and the missionary spirit. She 
 completely ignored Miss Gaunt, who did what she could 
 for her suffering mother and bided her time. 
 
 When she and the Bishop came out one day together, 
 plainly one, anyone might have knocked the Blue One 
 down with a feather. She was stirred to her depths, and 
 the depths of Miss Pringle were abysmal. She cleansed 
 her mind of heretical literature and hatched schemes 
 of vengeance. 
 
 Nothing could make the old fools, or their affairs more 
 ridiculous than their own folly had made them, but they 
 seamed to outdo themselves in senile idiocy over Mrs. 
 Mirrilies. Here one might score, so Miss Pringle fixed 
 Mary with her inexorable eye, and thought it out. 
 
 As a rule she steered clear of grass widows. More than 
 one had proved one too many for her, and even Miss 
 Pringle wasn't too proud to learn by experience. A 
 direct attack upon a grass widow being therefore inex- 
 pedient, the question now was how best to shatter her 
 from some safe ambush. 
 
 Much can be done by correspondence, she reflected.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 233 
 
 Although she had few friends, Miss Pringle had many 
 acquaintances. She enjoyed letter writing. She looked upon 
 it as one of her many gifts, and liked nothing better than 
 to fasten a correspondence upon some unoffending creature, 
 and what a lady may not dare to say face to face even 
 to the most docile, she can quite easily put into a letter. 
 
 So many of her correspondences had died young, however, 
 that the fact added greatly to the difficulties of Miss 
 Pringle, in the matter of Mary. 
 
 She cudgelled her brains for some suitable recipient of 
 her confidences in regard to Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 And one day she remembered, as though by a stroke 
 of Providence, a young woman she had once extricated 
 from a tight place, and on the strength of it enforced a 
 correspondence. It also had broken off short, but she 
 had her address, and it was in India, and in India, as we 
 all know, news spreads. There were other points. The 
 girl had married a sapper. Captain Mirrilies was also 
 a sapper. Nothing could be better ! 
 
 Miss Pringle drew a sharp breath of relief, and wrote 
 her letter with a free hand and a mind assured. 
 
 Elaine Dalton was a vixen at heart, and seven years 
 older than her young fool of a husband. She had always 
 escaped the slightest breath of scandal, and stung by 
 the fact, was merciless to those more fortunate than 
 herself. She was an ideal medium. 
 
 She might not know Captain Mirrilies, indeed, but Miss 
 Pringle knew well that she would know considerably more 
 about him than he knew himself, and that any first-hand 
 information would be used to the best advantage. That 
 was Elaine's affair. Hers was to make her letter all that 
 a letter should be. 
 
 It was, to be sure, a masterpiece, as true as truth, written 
 with a high-minded toleration that would undoubtedly 
 astonish Elaine, and leaving Mrs. Mirrilies not one loop- 
 hole of escape. 
 
 " Mr. Turton was a delightful person," she said, " with 
 a wide, profound, and deeply speculative mind, one of
 
 234 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 the very few young men in whom a woman of real in- 
 telligence could find her complement. Mrs. Mirrilies, 
 although shallow and frivolous, had had an unusually 
 good education, and had enough sense to be immensely 
 flattered by the open attentions of such a man. One 
 was sorry but not surprised at the scandal. They were 
 always together. 
 
 " Mrs. Mirrilies was in the midst of friends, women, 
 Heaven knew, old enough to know how to take care of 
 her, and nice innocent boys, the very contact with whom 
 might at least have made her more careful, to say nothing 
 of her own little son, a charming little child." She wrote 
 with clenched teeth, remembering an evil little trick he 
 had lately played her. 
 
 "It is all very sad," she sighed. " One can only be 
 very, very sorry for Captain Mirrilies. But what manner 
 of man can he be himself to give so young and apparently 
 foolish a woman so absolutely free a hand. It's a most 
 dangerous experiment. 
 
 " I myself would have ventured to speak to Mrs. 
 Mirrilies, but with women old enough to be my mother 
 as bodyguard about her, it would have been absurd. 
 Nevertheless, the friends she has made here and with 
 whom she spends the time not devoted to Mr. Turton, 
 are people to whom I should refuse to say good morning, 
 aliens of high rank and no morals. Transgressors, who 
 have already made history. In this young woman whose 
 follies probably will be but the talk of an hour, they 
 recognize an affinity in an infinitesimally small way and 
 are amused at her little efforts. We are all Bourgeoise 
 of the smallest, my dear Elaine, even to the Excellency 
 and the Highness who has lost her character. 
 
 " It is all unutterably sad, and yet as a student of human 
 nature, I am naturally interested. Possibly your hus- 
 band knows Captain Mirrilies and will be interested also. 
 ****** 
 
 " With even more love than usual, dear, 
 
 " Always yours, 
 
 " BERTHA."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 F*OR some reason best known to themselves, the stars 
 in their courses, seemed now to fight for Barbara 
 in just these very matters, in which formerly they had 
 fought against her. 
 
 Not only were her pretty figure, her delicate colour, 
 the shy surprising light in her hazel eyes coming back 
 to her, but apparently her husband also. 
 
 A remarkable change was taking place in that stricken 
 household. Major Quayle no longer heckled his terrified 
 wife into debasing furtiveness. He was beginning to take 
 an intelligent interest in her. She could now walk upright 
 under his approving eyes. 
 
 It was wonderful to Barbara to be pretty again, and 
 necessary, but it was almost more wonderful still to be 
 free. A free human creature, whom people wanted, 
 and liked to look at ! The change in Frank was extra- 
 ordinary indeed, and from every point of view. He no 
 longer smiled horribly at any mention of Captain Mirrilies, 
 and more horribly still at the little services she continued 
 to offer him, in spite of her husband's petrifying smiles. 
 Major Quayle now identified himself with his wife in 
 kindly attentions to Oliver. He went out of his way to 
 foster the intimacy, and showed a side of himself to Captain 
 Mirrilies never before apparent. 
 
 Oliver had never liked the man, and had detested his 
 behaviour to his poor little wife, but he seemed to be a 
 very different fellow from what he was, and naturally 
 one's first impulse is to give the benefit of the doubt 
 to anyone trying to turn over a new leaf. Captain 
 
 235
 
 236 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Mirrilies met all Quayle's advances half way, and was 
 increasingly surprised at the change that had come over 
 the miserable household. The whole state of affairs 
 seemed to be pulling round, and to watch the rather 
 naive ways of the recently emancipated slave became a 
 pleasure. 
 
 Instead of being the last straw to a tiring day, Barbara 
 was now becoming something of a pick-me-up. Instead 
 of yawning consumedly, and wishing to goodness Mary 
 were there to take her on, Captain Mirrilies found him- 
 self smiling as he strolled across to the other Bungalow, 
 after a hard day's work. 
 
 He knew exactly what to expect. He'd find the two 
 sitting together as thick as thieves. Barbara quite re- 
 freshingly fresh considering what she used to be. She had 
 always seemed to wither the very flowers. At any rate 
 they were never fresh. Now they were as fresh as Barbara. 
 
 It was all new enough to be always something of a 
 pleasant surprise, especially the brand new oneness of the 
 two. Sometimes as he watched them, he wondered what 
 the beloved creature of infinite parts who had never become 
 one with even herself, who didn't know the meaning of 
 the magic word, would think of it all. At any rate, there 
 was one thing about the new Barbara, that would appeal 
 to Mary. 
 
 Whereas formerly she had always said the wrong thing 
 in the presence of her husband, she now invariably said 
 the right. It was a queer reversal of influences, and 
 amused Captain Mirrilies. He was very much over- 
 worked just then, and was glad not to be called upon for 
 any more strenuous emotion. When he came to think 
 of it, Barbara had been a more fatiguing quantity in 
 his life than a woman has any right to be. She owed 
 him some reparation. Often now he took almost a 
 malicious pleasure in making her show her paces. 
 
 Major Quayle, his wife, and Captain Mirrilies had 
 very pleasant half-hours together at this period, but 
 they rarely lasted longer. Then, though the night was 
 still young, Major Quayle would gather up his papers
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 237 
 
 and make off with a laugh, but only into the next room. 
 He always left the door open, and called back from time 
 to time agreeable nothings with his pen between his teeth. 
 
 It was no affectation of work. Major Quayle could 
 work like a German when he wanted to, and he preferred 
 night to day for his labours. 
 
 The ambition of the man was insatiable, and the more 
 complicated his aims the clearer seemingly grew his 
 vision, and the greater his powers of self-control. 
 
 It may be granted that Major Quayle just at this difficult 
 crisis of his fate stood at the very top of his being. 
 
 Anyone who has experienced the same difficulty will 
 know that it requires not alone nerves of steel, and a 
 heart of iron, but positive genius, to conceal as effectually 
 as Major Quayle was now doing a real ingrained aversion 
 to a wife. 
 
 A neighbour or a neighbour's wife, a friend, or even an 
 enemy, can only be an occasional irritant. She can be 
 avoided or, better still, utilized. A wife, that is if she is a 
 fool, and implacably virtuous, is as inevitable as she is 
 worthless. To utilize her from any point of view calls 
 for all the powers, and all the intelligence of the unhappy 
 husband. 
 
 And when a man's whole future hangs on his right 
 manipulation of almost impossible material, subtle intrica- 
 cies within himself, hitherto unsuspected, will inevitably 
 unfold themselves. The depths of his own being just 
 then frequently surprised the Major. 
 
 They surprised Barbara, and Captain Mirrilies con- 
 siderably more, and they quite honestly called the qualities 
 emerging day by day by eminently reputable names, 
 and had increasingly agreeable times together. It was 
 now the most natural thing in the world to give and 
 take as good friends will, without an afterthought. 
 
 It was, of course, the fact that she had at last done 
 a great thing for some human creature, her first high sense 
 of success after the slow long years of defeat, that first 
 effectually woke Barbara to her own significance. 
 
 That after those long unwanted years she too could be
 
 238 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 missed that she too had a place of her own " under 
 the sun," from whence she could govern and give, that 
 she was no longer a beggar at the gates, not daring even 
 to ask an alms, but taking what was thrown, and trying 
 not to offend. 
 
 The change was incredible ! Barbara was humble 
 with gratitude. When she stopped crying for joy in the 
 first great illumination, she was still dazed with it. Her 
 exaltation of delight was so great, so wild, and dazzling as 
 to make her forget even that what she had done, and 
 suffered, was all for a man she had not the smallest right 
 to be serving, and had perhaps just as well not have been 
 done and suffered at all. 
 
 The moral issues, however, did not just then trouble 
 Barbara. She had no time for them. She was only 
 anxious beyond words to be giving. To give, give, give 
 was the one thing that stood out clear in her vague passion 
 of feeling. 
 
 She had had so many things on her heart to give away 
 all those years, that she felt rather like a teapot too full 
 to pour, and laughed like a girl one day as she came out 
 on the verandah, causing her husband to stare, and hazard 
 in the silence of his soul some new conjecture in regard 
 to the creature, more damaging than all the others. He 
 greeted her amiably, however, and asked her to go for 
 a drive ! 
 
 A woman anxious to give the best of her, which is 
 always herself, will never fail for want of a chance. Chances 
 now seemed to crop up under the very feet of Barbara, 
 and the more she gave, the more she had to give. Now 
 that her eyes were opened, she saw things in the little 
 station she had never seen before, and now stories she 
 had never suspected told themselves to her without a 
 word, and she was so gentle and unobtrusive in the way 
 she gave, that the demands upon her store were so many, 
 that even she might have become impoverished but for 
 the accumulations of the silent years. 
 
 It was a wonderful joy, and she enjoyed it to the full. 
 But the station was so small, she wanted a world !
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 239 
 
 Then one day she remembered things that Captain 
 Mirrilies had often said about the many millions that 
 permit us to rule them, of whom we know about as much 
 as we do of our dogs and treat perhaps as kindly in our 
 dim way. Oliver Mirrilies had always had a hankering 
 to know the native, to get to the bottom of his point of 
 view, to plumb the depths of his curious heart, and so 
 to make some sort of a shot as to what he likes and loathes, 
 and his reasons for so utterly despising us after all our 
 efforts on his behalf. 
 
 But he had so little time. He had often said to Mary 
 that this was her job not his, an essentially feminine 
 occupation. That it was the genius of some woman 
 which would in the end unlock the soul of India, and 
 then we should at last know her. 
 
 And now Barbara remembered all this, and Mary's 
 funny little comments, and the capacity with which 
 she managed her servants, her justice, wisdom, kindness, 
 and her absolute ignorance of the native heart. 
 
 Barbara remembered everything. Above all she remem- 
 bered feeling that had she been Mary, she could have 
 understood everything, even a native, and then she used 
 to go home and try little experiments on her own house- 
 hold, and somehow a rapport had grown up between the 
 despised wife and the conquered people. 
 
 Sometimes then Barbara had winced at her pitiful little 
 appeals to the subject race. Now she rejoiced and was 
 proud that in some slight degree, so slight as to be almost 
 unappreciable, she had at least begun. She was spared 
 the shy agonies that beset her, in spite of her eager desire, 
 in all her other efforts. 
 
 Often in the dawning of this new life she felt like a 
 child tottering out to walk. She seemed to herself so 
 clumsy and inept amongst her own people walking con- 
 fidently up and down the hard high road, that still hurt 
 the feet of this poor woman, only learning to walk. 
 
 But with those others who went softly to and fro on 
 the bye-ways, she was already at home and on the way 
 to be friends, and that way once found you can never
 
 240 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 lose again. That is, if you have gone into the bye-ways, 
 with the pain or the blessedness in your own heart that 
 alone will draw hearts to it, hearts that have leisure to 
 sit beside wood fires, and to see the things that are upon 
 films of smoke. 
 
 The want of organization, of even intelligent interest 
 in the bearing of Barbara, let loose speech. She just 
 sat still with a child on her lap, and let those tellers of 
 tales from the beginning, reveal themselves. This Mem 
 Sahib came in and out as a spirit of the night. She had 
 no good counsel to offer, no opinion to impose, no new 
 God to advertise. She sat still and understood. A Mem 
 Sahib to receive the wisdom and experience of those who 
 have lived life. 
 
 The influence of Barbara was so tranquillizing, and so 
 reassuring, that after their first impulse to lie had worked 
 itself out, the women found that it required less effort 
 and imagination to speak truth than lies, and she seemed 
 to like truth, this Mem Sahib, and to love the children. 
 
 So all she could gather of the myriad life upon the bye- 
 ways, that belonged to the soul of the world, she was 
 just putting into words now for a man who had no time. 
 She put it as nearly as she could into the words of those 
 who spoke it, and they were very beautiful, and her 
 voice grew insensibly as soft and as melodious as theirs, 
 and Barbara looked as no man in his senses could have 
 believed that Barbara could look. 
 
 The subject was absorbing, and so was Barbara. 
 Naturally enough Captain Mirrilies became so absorbed 
 in the strange surprise of both that he forgot everything 
 else. 
 
 Major Quayle could make neither head nor tail of 
 what they were absorbed in. Nigger lore had no attraction 
 for him, thank God, but he saw and heard quite enough 
 for practical purposes. 
 
 Sometimes as the evening wore on, and he was clean 
 forgotten, he whistled softly with a little curious smile.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 T)ETER TURTON, through no virtue of his own, 
 JT broke faith with Oliver in the end. The sudden 
 illness of a friend sent him home, at a moment's notice, 
 and at full speed. He took care to explain the matter 
 to Mrs. Mirrih'es in a way that satisfied even Oliver, but 
 it left Mary with a doubt in her heart. 
 
 He said nothing of coming back, or of any future meeting 
 in England. There was something kept back. There 
 was a very great deal being kept back. Of that Mary 
 was sure, and she wondered what it was. 
 
 To wonder acutely about Mr. Turton was not altogether 
 exhilarating, but it was almost a relief now Oliver the 
 Greater was becoming a problem so immense, so insoluble, 
 that it seemed to be crushing heart, power, and imagina- 
 tion. Oliver seemed to be receding every hour, and 
 Barbara to be encroaching upon everything. Instead of 
 being, as she once was, a mere blot on a long letter, she 
 now blotted out the rest of the letter, leaving nothing but 
 herself. 
 
 Barbara was becoming impossible ! 
 
 Mary threw herself headlong into her lectures. She 
 became feverishly industrious. She felt very forlorn and 
 acutely missed Mr. Turton, who, apparently, did not 
 mean to return. And yet it was all so ridiculous, his 
 return was inevitable ! 
 
 He had entered into the life of the whole party, he 
 had made his place, and meant to keep it. Miss Gaunt 
 grimly held her tongue about him, but he babbled in 
 and out of. Cousin Ella's letters, and in a long letter from 
 the Bishop there was a delightful mention of him. 
 
 241 16
 
 242 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 He had done more than anyone would ever know, it 
 seemed, for the boy whose illness had called him home, 
 a creature whom no man could help, and who now, in 
 his last extremity, had begun to wonder if even God 
 Himself can help a failure. The position was beyond 
 Peter, so he had asked the Bishop to take it over. 
 
 Having been himself a leader of forlorn hopes for the 
 greater part of his life, the Bishop knew more of failures 
 than most men, and perhaps a little more of God, and 
 suckled and reared in an atmosphere of hereditary pre- 
 judices too strong and harsh for his feeble powers, very 
 early in the day Gilbert Falconer had seen sin at least 
 kinder and more merciful than religion, and had gone 
 over to the enemy. The little, futile, mean sinning of 
 the feeble soon wore him out, and when the Bishop found 
 him, he was cowering away under the blankets, literally 
 hiding his head to ward off the hideous menace of his 
 awful ancestral religion. 
 
 The Bishop let the light and air in upon the boy's 
 aching head, fed him, and amused him a little, and 
 presently, just as if it were the most natural thing in 
 the world, just a fact that had escaped the sick boy 
 he showed Gilbert himself in Christ, and sin a mere 
 interloper. 
 
 With deft and gentle hands the Bishop pushed the 
 torturing horrors of remembered vice back into the darkness, 
 and drew this foolish child of God out into the light of 
 his Father. 
 
 Barrier after barrier fell, veil after veil was rent in 
 twain as the boy was drawn forth from the darkness, 
 and his dim vision cleared. He understood as he had 
 never understood before the full horror of having failed. 
 He had been too dull to understand it before, too dull 
 to understand anything, to understand above all that, 
 in spite of failure, even he, the outcast, was worth 
 worth everything to God, and the world. 
 
 It was too big a thought, it tired him, and now, 
 that he was just beginning to, to grow to it, he must 
 go, go.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 243 
 
 The boy was still terrified out of his wits as he entered 
 the blackness of the last tunnel that leads to the Land 
 of New Endeavour, but he held on, with the tenacity 
 of Death itself, to the leading hand, till at last he saw the 
 Light. 
 
 This was not the way the Bishop put it, but it was just 
 how it all happened, and how Mary read it. 
 
 Peter Turton needed no imagination. He stood out 
 clear and plain in the kind letter, a white man, which 
 showed the confidence of the Bishop in the goodness of 
 a good woman, or perhaps the irrepressible youth and 
 the irrational faith in this born leader of forlorn hopes. 
 
 No doubt it had its effect in common with the silence 
 of Miss Gaunt in the subsequent awakening of Mary. 
 At the moment it made her think a great deal of Peter 
 Turton and her other friends. It made her at last fall 
 to upon making plans for them all, in her own way. With 
 the debonnaire insolence of the young married woman, 
 she took the affairs of the old lovers and everyone else into 
 her own hands. She decided that the wedding should 
 be in the Easter holidays, when the boys and she would 
 be free. Oliver's mother should have her share in the 
 festivities, since the wedding would be from her house, 
 and Mr. Turton, as a matter of course, should be invited. 
 
 In the exhilaration of her soul Mary therefore cut a 
 Lecture, gave a Tea-party, and put on a new dress for it. 
 
 Since her return from St. Moritz, the behaviour of Mrs. 
 Mirrilies, had in the opinion of all her anxious guardians, 
 been eminently unsatisfactory. The voracious avidity 
 with which she worked, the horrible intelligence of her 
 conversation, her fatal forgetfulness. 
 
 One day, to the mute horror of Hallowes, one shoe 
 had little steel beads all over it, while the other had 
 nothing, and any fool could notice the way she did her 
 hair. She'd be wearing blue glasses next. 
 
 She confounded her bodyguard. It felt in its bones 
 that anything Slav with its uncanny intuition, would 
 notice at once, and misunderstand. No one could blame 
 Lasotovitsch for being a Russian, but as they jelt what 
 
 16*
 
 244 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 he'd be thinking, and inevitably be putting it down to 
 the boys, looked solemnly down their noses. 
 
 With the communal instinct of those in woe to huddle 
 together, the boys and the Moth had now come very close 
 to each other. For she also, in her little sensitive way, 
 could perceive some veil upon her sun and divined a 
 husband, where they divined Peter. 
 
 The three were growing very much attached to each 
 other, not for Mary's sake in the end, but for their own 
 also. The boys had called more than once on Miss Caldecott, 
 and Miss Caldecott had even launched out into a little 
 Tea-party of her own at a Tea-shop, which went like cream 
 in spite of Mary's only coming in at the tail end, having 
 been detained by a Lecture. 
 
 That Mrs. Mirrilies could have permitted any Lecture 
 on earth to keep her from Miss Caldecott's first Tea-party, 
 only drew closer the ties that bound the friends. There 
 was a taste of funeral meats in the cakes that somehow 
 added to their flavour. Miss Caldecott's heart beat 
 with joy at the size of her coming bill. 
 
 When Mary did arrive she ate only two little cakes. 
 Mary ! who could devour like any boy ! This was a 
 tragic note, but in spite of it, and in spite of Mary's only 
 turning up at the end, they hadn't been bored. That was 
 the wonderful thing, the thing to rejoice and be glad in. 
 
 Miss Caldecott had been possessed by a horrid fear that 
 just as she was beginning to know them, she was too old 
 perhaps for boys. The Tea-party reassured her con- 
 siderably more than the Lecture had done Mary. 
 
 It was by a great man upon a subject that must enlighten 
 and illuminate a woman puzzled with life if anything ever 
 did, so keen and alive was it with life. 
 
 Nothing less vital would have induced Mary to play 
 Miss Caldecott's first Tea-party so scurvy a trick, and 
 since she couldn't explain this either to the boys or to 
 Miss Caldecott, she had to put up with their miscon- 
 structions as well as with her own bitter disappointment, 
 besides having her appetite taken away by heartless ab- 
 stractions without one hint in them that might serve as
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 245 
 
 a spur to rational behaviour hurled at her for three parts 
 of a stricken hour. 
 
 The subject was so sharp and terrible with life that it 
 seemed almost miraculous that even a German Professor 
 should kill it dead with one stroke of his tongue, and yet 
 he did, and Mary could have killed him without a qualm. 
 She had lost her tea and hurt the dear little Moth and all 
 for nothing. 
 
 So now the sight of Mrs. Mirrilies in a new frock was as 
 exhilarating as an electric shock to her friends, and with 
 the same snap of incipient danger in it. 
 
 " Her husband," thought Miss Caldecott, with thankful- 
 ness. " It's going better." 
 
 " Peter Turton," thought the boys, with strong dis- 
 favour. The Russian's eyes expanded like black wings, 
 and he quoted poetry of an erotic nature in the silence of 
 his soul. 
 
 Mary divulged her plans quite naturally and at full 
 speed. She looked as guileless as Oliver, who was more 
 like a flame in ecstasy than ever, and had every detail 
 of the wedding cut and dried. 
 
 Miss Caldecott dried two foolish little tears that had 
 forced themselves from their hiding-place. She was 
 feeling rather alone again amidst a thousand duties, 
 just as she used to feel, but now she was no longer accus- 
 tomed to it. It was very ridiculous and very selfish. 
 She had always been happy in her duties and been thankful 
 they were so many. Oh, yes, she had been happy and 
 blessed, and after all she had never had any real place 
 in this antique romance that Mary was making every 
 moment more adorable. 
 
 It really was ridiculous ! Mary's relatives hardly knew 
 her. She would only be in the way, but when one has 
 almost forgotten to be lonely ! . . . All the same it was 
 most ridiculous, and one ought to be able to leave these 
 difficult things to God. Miss Caldecott tried hard to 
 leave them, and was now telling a little story to Oliver
 
 246 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 about bread and butter, and a fairy, who, if a little puri- 
 tanical, was an enthralling person, and took all the dullness 
 out of bread and butter instead of too much cake, in a 
 way to astonish you. And then just as it was finished 
 Mary pounced upon her. 
 
 " And now for your part in the programme," said she. 
 " You're part and parcel of our life ; it would spoil everything 
 if you weren't in it in its first important development, 
 so you'll just have to chuck all your duties and make time 
 to come with us." 
 
 " Oh but " 
 
 " Now just shut up. It's settled. My mother-in-law 
 is giving me a little suite of rooms in her big empty house 
 and tells me to ask anyone I like, so Fraulein will have 
 one room and you the other, and Oliver a tiny dressing- 
 room off mine, and there we all are." 
 
 " But but " petitioned the little Moth. 
 
 " There's no but, we want you. Oliver, and the 
 boys, and I." 
 
 " You just leave her to us and Oliver," said Hallowes. 
 " We'd never get on without you in London, don't you see, 
 not now. I say, Mrs. Mirrilies, look here," he said, 
 displaying a faultless silk sock, " all that was a hole 
 last week, and she put in a heel without the ghost of a 
 ridge in it." 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! " said Mary, " that's more than 
 ever I did for you. Do you mean to say she's actually 
 taken you on like that ! " She took a step forward to 
 reflect upon the group, and turned back to the tea- 
 table. 
 
 " It's plain enough we can't get on without you," she 
 said. " When Cousin Ella would be boring me to death 
 and driving my mother-in-law to funeral marches, you'll 
 be there to take her on. You'll take over Oliver in his 
 evil hours, and be a mother to all our clothes and do all 
 our packing. You'll be worked to the bone by the time 
 we're done with you. Settle it up quick, boys, and let 
 her come and look after the tea. I must try to keep the 
 other boys from feeling out in the cold.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 247 
 
 " Lasotovitsch," she said, coming closer, and in a guarded 
 voice, " said something about going to England in the 
 holidays ; shall we ask him ? " 
 
 The boys stiffened. 
 
 " You can't be expected to ask the whole of Europe. 
 Besides, he's not Greek Church, he's a Roman Catholic 
 and devout in his way. Watching a Bishop who ought 
 to know better at his age, getting married, would amuse 
 him very much." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mary, her eyes still glued to the beautiful 
 youth. " He's intelligent and broad-minded. He'll soon 
 get over that. It would make me feel more at home 
 in those great empty rooms having him in and out. Cousin 
 Ella has offered rooms. I'm rather anxious about him ; 
 he's less expansive, and he's taken lately to mentioning 
 someone of the name of Yolande in a broken voice, when 
 you're not there," hastily interposed Mary. "I'm certain 
 there's some sort of a fall from grace afoot. He'd better 
 come. A fcw weeks of England may modify his views 
 or blur his memory." 
 
 " To have him all day at our heels ? " 
 
 " It won't be your heels. It'll be mine. Oliver, take 
 him into the corner away from the others, and ask him." 
 
 " Yes," said Oliver with alacrity, " but " he paused 
 
 and cast an affectionate glance round room and verandah, 
 " but couldn't we ask 'em all, dear darling ? " 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, we couldn't. Your grandmother would 
 think we were dumping the Tower of Babel down on her. 
 Ladies in England like things they can understand." 
 
 " Will Granny understand me ? " inquired Oliver rather 
 anxiously. 
 
 " No, dear, but she'll love you so much that it won't 
 matter in the least. It's only when we don't love things 
 or people enough," she added with an odd laugh, " that 
 we want so horribly to understand them." 
 
 " But I want to know about everything too," said 
 Oliver, pausing to reflect. 
 
 " Then love it like anything, and it'll tell you all about 
 itself," said Mary the theorist. " And now go over to
 
 248 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Lasotovitsch, and when you're quite sure he can't eat 
 one more cake, ask him." 
 
 " I don't think he can eat much more of 'em now," 
 said Oliver after a lingering inspection, and retreated. 
 
 Watching to see when people can't eat one more cake 
 was easier anyway than this sort of thing. 
 
 " Nice preparation that for his Preparatory School," 
 said Hallo wes with stern disapproval. 
 
 " I've got to try my tap of misapplied and absolutely 
 inapplicable learning on someone, and Oliver's the 
 easiest." 
 
 " Oh, and Lasotovitsch knows just enough, I suppose, 
 to answer you back like all the other dabblers." 
 
 " Yes, just to answer you back in a fruitless sort of 
 way," said Mary serenely, " like the Philosophers them- 
 selves. At any rate what I've just told Oliver and what 
 lots of the philosophers suggest in other language, would 
 do as well, at any rate, as school does, to get you out of 
 a tight place if only you took the trouble to apply it." 
 
 " Oh, no. That's just where you go wrong. If school 
 does nothing else for you, it shows you at least how to 
 get out of a tight place." 
 
 " Oh ! I mean school, or rather The Schools taken 
 seriously," said Mary magnificently, but with a light 
 smile. 
 
 " Even these," said Hallowes gallantly, " can't spoil 
 everyone, although for the last week or so we have been 
 wondering if you hadn't caught something from the 
 air here. Never heard so many hard words in my life 
 before." 
 
 " Being English has saved me. The English are immune 
 from infection in the most intellectual air. Lasotovitsch 
 enjoys my conversation." 
 
 " But he relapsed to Yolande." 
 
 " Oh, well, if being as frankly one-syllabled, not to say 
 one-idea'd, as the rest of you has any high value," said 
 Mary, advancing on her crowd, " he won't relapse again."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE resourceful little lady to whom Miss Pringle 
 had sent her chatty letter, after three concentrations 
 upon it, carefully locked it up to let it settle down in her 
 being. She felt that she had got hold of a good thing, 
 and was anxious to lay it out to the best advantage. 
 
 Mrs. Dalton made it a rule to tell her husband just as 
 much as was good for him, or a little less. He could find 
 out the rest, and truth being always relative, it would be 
 as true as he deserved. 
 
 Young Dalton knew nothing of the letter or its contents. 
 Had he done so, since he was feeling a little sore himself 
 with Mirrilies at the time, he would have been especially 
 careful to have put down his foot in the matter, in the 
 very effectual way he occasionally did. A way well 
 known to his friends, and so very effectual, that to the 
 day of their death none of them could ever quite under- 
 stand how a fellow with so much latent grit in him, had 
 ever knuckled down to Elaine. The amazed young men 
 knew nothing apparently of the miracle that can be wrought 
 by the menace of time upon a resolute woman. Practice, 
 moreover, at last makes perfect. And the monumental 
 energy that can be concentrated upon her last stand is 
 an incalculable quantity. During the brief period it 
 took her to accomplish her purpose, Elaine had been 
 supreme. What the effect of his subsequent disillusion 
 was, only young Dalton himself knew, and he was silent. 
 It had shocked him at least into being a man. 
 
 Unhappily, however, Captain Mirrilies having only 
 known him in his embryo condition under the domination 
 
 249
 
 250 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 of Elaine, had just given the post he coveted to another 
 man. 
 
 A year ago the slight would have hurt Dalton to the heart 
 for Elaine's sake ; it would have been for Elaine that he 
 would have tried to justify himself before the world. 
 Now he wanted to retrieve his reputation in spite of Elaine, 
 to refuse to go under because of her unfortunate intrusion 
 into his life. So he concentrated himself upon his work, 
 and kept his eyes open to every chance, and the expectant 
 eye and chances having a natural affinity to one another, 
 he soon caught a glimpse of his in the far distance. It 
 necessitated a short leave, and a journey too rough and 
 rapid for Elaine. 
 
 Here was Elaine's opportunity. The bungalow would 
 be unendurable without Harry, so she also would take a 
 little journey. 
 
 Having overcome Time in the one great matter, it 
 seemed to be yielding to her now in everything. After 
 achieving the impossible, everything is possible to a 
 woman. 
 
 Mrs. Dalton looked younger by ten years since her 
 marriage, and being set free from all sinister preoccupation, 
 she could now make herself agreeable. She had been too 
 interested in herself as a young girl to interest anyone else, 
 and as an old one had been too anxious to win a position 
 to win hearts. 
 
 She certainly made more friends now than she had ever 
 made before. In her long and ruthless career, however, she 
 had made too many enemies not to be well aware that it 
 was chiefly on account of her, that her husband had been 
 passed over. 
 
 No one knew better than Mrs. Dalton the reputation of 
 her type, or its effect upon promotion, so her one consuming 
 desire now was, first to convince Captain Mirrilies of his 
 error in judgment, and then to make him suffer for it in his 
 most vital part. 
 
 So she now telegraphed off to a friend at Captain Mirrilies' 
 Station whom she hated with the utmost sincerity, accept- 
 ing her long-standing invitation, and as a wise precaution,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 251 
 
 saying that she would be with Mrs. Forth almost as soon as 
 the telegram. 
 
 The hungry look gone, the roving eyes tranquillized, the 
 racked leanness due to being always on active service having 
 given place to a comfortable roundness, Elaine was rather 
 an agreeable surprise to her unwilling hostess, and before 
 her stay was over, had managed to inspire a good deal of 
 confidence even among the women. Victory after long 
 defeat had certainly brightened the intelligence of Mrs. 
 Dalton and brought out in her quite unexpected gifts. 
 
 The dogged obstinacy underlying the character of Captain 
 Mirrilies made him very tenacious of initial convictions, but 
 even he in the end, felt inclined to look more leniently 
 upon Mrs. Dalton. Perhaps, after all, he ought to have 
 given her the benefit of the doubt, and given Dalton his 
 job. At any rate, the least he could do now was to do all 
 he could for him in the one he was at present out for, and be 
 as civil to the fellow's wife as he could. 
 
 Mrs. Dalton had a delightful visit. She saw a great 
 deal of Captain Mirrilies and of Mrs. Quayle, listened to 
 many kindly amused comments on their weird friendship, 
 and with great tact and discretion filled the minds of the 
 Station with the spirited achievements of Mrs. Mirrilies, 
 so arranging matters that sooner or later Captain Mirrilies 
 must hear all about them. Her long and arduous campaign 
 had indeed been a liberal education to Mrs. Dalton. 
 
 Having done all that was necessary, she returned to her 
 bungalow. 
 
 Captain Mirrilies was certainly almost phenomenally 
 obstinate. Having once embarked upon any course, 
 nothing less than a miracle or an earthquake would move 
 him from it, no matter what it might cost. 
 
 He had changed the whole trend of his life with a laugh, 
 to please his mother, and had, so far, made a triumph of it, 
 but now that Barbara knew him with all her heart, she was 
 perfectly well aware that in his obstinate refusal to turn 
 back from any ideal, any conviction, any path once
 
 252 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 deliberately chosen, he might very easily go doggedly for- 
 ward on the road that leads to destruction. 
 
 Barbara was very loyal, and her long years of silence and 
 neglect had, in some regards, anything but sharpened her 
 wits. They had, indeed, permanently stunted her purely 
 intellectual development, but she felt with great intensity, 
 and so often got to the truth. She knew of Captain 
 Mirrilies' rupture with his wife without any telling, just as 
 she was aware of his obstinacy in sticking to any course 
 he had mapped out for himself. 
 
 That there must be some wisdom in any course chosen 
 deliberately by Captain Mirrilies she knew, but she 
 shuddered before the ruthlessness of his methods, his 
 obstinate refusal to pause and reconsider. And oh ! the 
 horrible anomaly of the whole position, she didn't want 
 him to pause and reconsider : and yet she wanted him to 
 do right. She wanted to do right herself, and yet, and 
 yet ! 
 
 If he went doggedly forward, as he was going, such a 
 vista of utter joy opened before Barbara's eyes as took her 
 breath away, and glorified her being. 
 
 She could be free any day. There was no difficulty about 
 that ! And Mary ? 
 
 Barbara knew too much of women not to be afraid for 
 Mary. Mary did not love enough to be safe in the midst 
 of temptation. Mary was practically no man's, and she 
 was young and strong and vigorous. She was, moreover, 
 consciously intelligent, and thus open to all modern ideas. 
 This Barbara felt rather than knew. Mary was an adven- 
 turer who so far had adventured nothing, and now alone, 
 with adventure in the very air ! 
 
 Young, untried, unprepared, immune from suffering, 
 having touched none of the depths of life, except, perhaps, 
 motherhood, even in this Barbara had her doubts. 
 Mary Mirrilies, to this woman who had suffered so much, 
 seemed extraordinarily helpless and defenceless. In spite 
 of all her knowledge, she knew nothing of anything, and now 
 this man was looming large on her horizon. 
 
 It was Mary herself who had said that he was like Oliver.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 253 
 
 Mrs. Dalton's correspondent had said most of the other 
 things, and that she had come to the Station to injure Mary, 
 Barbara was quite convinced. If one wanted damning 
 evidence against Mary, there seemed to be plenty at hand. 
 If things went on, if no force greater than all the rest came 
 to dissipate the strength of those now at work, Oliver 
 might also soon be free. 
 
 Barbara shuddered, and turned her frightened eyes back 
 to Mary. Mary, the kind, spotless, aloof woman, who had 
 been so good to her and so lenient. But, naturally enough, 
 her eyes soon swerved back to herself. This self so new and 
 surprising that after all these unwanted years would at 
 last be missed. She had made herself indispensable to 
 Oliver Mirrilies. She had saved his life. She understood 
 him. She loved him in a way Mary couldn't under- 
 stand. 
 
 And yet Barbara's conscience would not let her alone. 
 It hurt her unutterably to find that now the very name of 
 Mary seemed to be jigging about in a little vortex of 
 disturbance. It had lost the sense of calm security in 
 which Mary had always seemed to stand upright. 
 
 For some curious reason it had not yet struck Oliver 
 Mirrilies to be disturbed, but that would come, and Barbara 
 was wondering day and night if it ought not to come 
 through her. 
 
 Oliver was anything but well. He could easily get 
 leave. He ought to go to Mary. He ought to go ! 
 
 In a week Barbara looked haggard and lean ; her old 
 self accentuated. Being haunted by Mary had undone all 
 the good of her short spell of happiness. She hated her 
 conscience. She hated her revolt against it. She felt a 
 double traitor, a traitor both to Oliver and to his wife, her 
 first friends, the two who for years had made life possible 
 to her at all. 
 
 She was a more ignoble traitor even than that. She was 
 a traitor to the greatest thing upon earth, to her great love 
 the thing that had saved her. This, dimly as her 
 intelligence apprehended it, hurt Barbara the most. 
 
 The will to be good and the forces of Hell contending
 
 254 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 against it, were fighting a hard battle just then in Barbara. 
 She hated and despised herself, and yet she was silent. 
 
 And then Oliver came in one day with a hard, accusing 
 face and all the cruelty of the outraged man laid bare, and 
 the woman's chance was gone. 
 
 " You knew all this," he said. " Why didn't you 
 tell me ? " 
 
 Barbara cowered in her old terrible way. 
 
 " Don't do that," he said imperiously. His nerves were 
 too strained to stand a woman looking like a whipped 
 hound. 
 
 " Mary to be the talk of the Station ! under its breath 
 too, damn them ! afraid to speak aloud about my wife ! 
 And you've known it how long ? " 
 
 " I've known nothing. There's not been one definite 
 word." 
 
 " There have been a good many indefinite ones, then, 
 all over the place. And equally indefinite fears, no doubt, 
 on the part of the anxious ladies sitting in conclave over 
 our domestic affairs. Fears for Mary, all under their 
 breath, at every tea-table in the Station ! Good God ! 
 It's a new setting for Mary ! " 
 
 " It's not like that at all," said Barbara at last, pulling 
 herself together with an immense effort. " Mrs. Dalton, 
 who doesn't know Mary, is the only woman in all India 
 who would deliberately repeat things about her that could 
 possibly make anyone anxious, and if they hadn't been 
 about Mary, who is so much to us, and who is, is 
 Mary no one would have troubled at all about her little 
 silly gossip. The things she repeated she heard from a 
 friend at St. Moritz, and might have been said of any pretty 
 woman at a big hotel. Mary is sure to have attracted great 
 notice, and she told you herself about the man who is so 
 like you." 
 
 She paused. It was all so hopeless, so impossible. What 
 she was saying was true, but it was not the truth the 
 truth she ought to be telling Oliver, and Oliver's face seemed 
 to be killing her. She lowered her eyes before the hard, 
 accusing mockery in his. She crossed her hands in her
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 255 
 
 old patient way, and all the sad old monotony was back 
 in her voice. 
 
 " I detest Mrs. Dalton," she went on ; "at the same time 
 she said nothing really that matters, if it weren't about 
 Mary. But she said it with a purpose and I ought to have 
 told you." 
 
 " You certainly ought. If I had known it a week ago, 
 I should have gone home, and put an end for good to all 
 these indefinite fears and hopes." 
 
 " But but " she said, and her eyes looked old and 
 hunted, " can't you go now ? " 
 
 " No. I've let Martin go instead." 
 
 Barbara was desperate. She had lost Oliver's chance 
 for him, perhaps she had lost Mary's, and she was hopeless 
 for herself. She was in the mood to say anything. 
 
 She lifted herself up from the old droop back upon her 
 now, with all the rest. She sat up straight and a little 
 rigid, waiting for words to come. She could no longer 
 choose them. She no longer cared to spare either Oliver 
 or herself. 
 
 " If you'd told me a week ago," he muttered. " Good 
 God ! I ought to have known it without any telling. 
 Mary the sport of women's damnable fears ! Mary ! " 
 
 " It's your own fault altogether," she said at last slowly. 
 " Mary shouldn't be over there at all alone. I've known 
 this ever so long. I've known other things ! It wasn't 
 the climate, or the Lectures, or little Oliver that prevented 
 Mary coming back with you. It's an experiment you're 
 trying, and it's a mad and wicked and wild experiment." 
 She paused to steady herself, regardless of his amazed 
 stare. " Mary is not fit for such experiments. She's a 
 child." 
 
 " A child ? " he repeated blankly. 
 
 " Yes, a child," she said inexorably, " without any 
 experience of life at all." 
 
 " What can you know about it ? " he demanded 
 brutally. 
 
 " Oh ! I know everything about it," she said, in a 
 curious tone of wear}' finality. " It was your business to
 
 256 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 make her into a woman, and such a woman ! I see Mary 
 as a woman clearer than ever you've seen her," she said, 
 turning her livid face to him, " it's knowing you that has 
 made me know Mary, and yet and yet " she cried 
 passionately " I can't hate her. That's Mary ! the 
 child you sent away to make herself into a woman over 
 there all by herself. Mary who knows nothing, or at least 
 who knew nothing, either of herself or of women, when she 
 went. That's not a woman's business, not to say a child's. 
 It's too big a job for any woman. It's a man's job, or 
 they must do it together. Oh ! don't look as if you were 
 being ashamed for me," she said drearily. " What does 
 that matter ? I don't want to hide anything, or deny 
 anything, and there's no time for shame. Think of all the 
 years I have before me for that," her voice suddenly broke 
 loose, and rose into a little shrill shriek. 
 
 Oliver turned away his face. 
 
 " Oh, let us keep to Mary," she said, " the child you sent 
 out on a man's job." 
 
 " Do you know what you're saying ? " he said in a 
 hoarse, low voice. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said, a look of age settling quietly down on 
 her face, no older than Mary's. " Oh, yes, I know, and I 
 know it's the truth, and if I'd said it all a week ago, you 
 would be now on your way home, and although I shall 
 never forgive myself, you'll forgive me, for everything, and 
 never despise me. I'm safe in your hands, Oliver. Any 
 woman except Mary would be safe, and that's only because 
 you thought her high above all women, the one exception, 
 before she was a woman at all ! Before she had touched 
 any of the common things of life at all, and couldn't possibly 
 know any of the dangers of being a woman, and so take care 
 of herself." 
 
 Oliver tried to speak, but she waved his words away. 
 
 " Men, decent men, men, I mean," she said, " who are 
 forced when quite young into self-knowledge, are too hard. 
 They expect too much from women who never even suspect 
 what they are, until they're tried. Oh ! men learn soon 
 enough what they are, and so learn to beware of themselves.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 257 
 
 It's part of their nature to know themselves, and part of 
 women's not to. We've blinded ourselves so long, I 
 think, that we've become blind. From the veryjbeginning 
 men have had to go out boldly to face things, while women 
 have sat at home and pretended they didn't exist, till 
 sometimes they believe it. Heaps of women get on quite 
 well in life with half of them held down tightly under the 
 heel of fear, or tradition, or ignorance, or religion, 
 feeling good in a curious, depressed way. If nothing 
 happens they get stupefied, and end happily." 
 
 Her voice was low, impersonal, monotonous, as though 
 it came from a far distance. 
 
 " I was crushing myself down into nothingness, refusing 
 to let myself feel alive, when you and Mary found me. 
 I'm glad you found me. I'm glad you found me," she said 
 gently, " no matter what it costs." 
 
 For a second both were aware of a slight noise in the 
 next room. Barbara paused, and held her breath, and 
 listened warily, then, apparently satisfied that it meant 
 nothing, she went on : 
 
 " Of course many women learn everything, all that love 
 and life mean early, in the normal way, then they're safe 
 anywhere, real love is a woman's unfailing protector, 
 and if a woman's love is great enough, and hurts enough," 
 she said steadily, looking out into the distance, " it makes 
 her want to protect other people, even from herself ! If 
 that fails, as it did just now with me, a woman can never 
 forgive herself, however much a man may forgive her." 
 
 She paused, looking white and faint. 
 
 " Next to Mary," said Oliver, after a long pause, " you're 
 the best woman I've ever known." 
 
 " I am also a fool, and all the goodness I have I've got 
 from you. It's you who's made a woman of me. Any 
 woman loving a man as I love you, must be good, even if 
 it doesn't prevent her from being a fool. Please go now, 
 Captain Mirrilies. If any man living can repair our folly, 
 it will be you. And will you please let me help you if 
 I can ? " 
 
 " If Major Quayle isn't back shall I drive you round to 
 
 17
 
 258 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 the Darrells' dinner ? " said Oliver, turning back from the 
 verandah. 
 
 "Oh, no, you don't," said the mellifluous voice of the 
 Major from his own doorway. " I'll drive her over myself." 
 
 " You back, Frank ! but I thought " 
 
 " So did I ; but I got off sooner than I expected, and 
 came on by the early train. Didn't wire for the cart as 
 Crave offered to drive me. I walked from the corner." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Mirrilies easily, " we'll soon meet again." 
 
 A horrible, slyly amused laugh she was beginning to 
 distrust was on Major Quayle's face. She could feel him 
 carefully choosing his words as he made inquiries as to the 
 cause of her pallor. 
 
 " You looked as fresh as a daisy," he complained, " when 
 I left home. Have a rest, and be fresh for to-night, while 
 I go round for a game of Bridge. It's a big affair, I hear, 
 and when a man has only just got used to seeing his wife 
 growing younger every day, he doesn't want her to go 
 back on him, and rob him of what's really the most stimu- 
 lating experience in this dull hole. Better wear that blue 
 thing you got from Paris." 
 
 He went off, whistling a lively air. 
 
 Barbara stood stock still, trembling. 
 
 " It was Frank I heard," she said at last. " He was in 
 his room listening. I wonder how much he heard ? No 
 matter how little it was, however, he can use it for evil. 
 Everything he touches he seems to corrupt. 
 
 " If if only I weren't a coward, and afraid of him, 
 afraid to my very heart. He can always paralyse me back 
 into what I was." 
 
 She tottered to a chair, and sat down to recover herself. 
 Then presently, with every instinct of the hunted animal 
 acutely alive in her, mutely, furtively, with frightened 
 eyes she slunk round Quayle's room, examining every 
 nook and corner for any trace of him. 
 
 Everything was as she had last seen it an hour ago. 
 There was no trace of him anywhere : and yet he had been
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 259 
 
 there. She felt him there. He made her breathe all 
 wrong. Then suddenly she paused and started. A little 
 corner of a curtain was slightly displaced, an infinitesimal 
 speck of red dust was on the matting. 
 
 " Ah ! yes, he's been," she said, giving up the search, 
 and standing quite still to get her breath again ; " that's 
 the dust of the Station Road." 
 
 " If only I could take opium and go to sleep," she said 
 presently, tossing on her bed ; " but my miserable head 
 will stand nothing. 
 
 " He came in through the other door to listen, he had 
 been warned," she said, when she had rested a little, " and 
 to be at the mercy of that man, and to love the other ! 
 God help the women who fail. 
 
 " And, I've lost another chance. I haven't even the 
 consolation, the glory of having given up Oliver, I 
 haven't even that. It would have been something to hold 
 
 on to when all the rest is gone " Her face twitched, 
 
 she seemed to shrink together. 
 
 " Oh, why couldn't I have cared for Oliver a little less 
 and differently ? more like the others. Then I could have 
 just rested, and let things go on." 
 
 Hours seemed to pass before she could think at all 
 because of the pain in her heart, and then she said wearily, 
 as though in reply to some counter-argument : 
 
 " Oh, yes. Oliver could love me in the end, I'd nearly 
 become indispensable to him. He could have loved me, 
 it seems incredible, but he could, and then steal fire from 
 Heaven, indeed ! I could have stolen Heaven itself for 
 Oliver," she said, with fierce defiance, " and have overcome 
 Hell ! " 
 
 She hid her burning face in her hands, and when she 
 lifted it at last she was steady and controlled again. 
 
 " And what I've got to do after all these heroics," she 
 said, with a strange, low laugh, " is to do the best I can for 
 all of us." 
 
 She sat still to think before calling her Ayah, whom she 
 knew was being stealthily corrupted. " If I possibly can 
 if it's humanly possible at all," she said at last, " I'll prevent 
 
 17*
 
 260 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Frank from making Oliver a co-respondent in his suit. 
 That's what he wants to do." 
 
 " Did the Mem Sahib call ? " said a voice at her elbow. 
 
 " No, Fatima, but she's quite ready for you. How 
 very punctual you're getting. Have you been long here ? " 
 
 " Even in this moment have I come." 
 
 Barbara felt so immensely alone, and she had done with 
 so little all her life, that even the defection of the Ayah 
 seemed to add to her desolation. 
 
 The longing for any crumb from any table came out in 
 her spent voice, and the patient, unresentful, almost amused 
 pleading in her eyes, was quite apparent to the guilty 
 conscience of the little shrivelled woman. The one great 
 passion left to the lean brown creature was the eternal 
 passion for gold. She would sell her soul for gold, and was 
 even then in the very act of doing it, but looking at the 
 Mem Sahib made her feel uncomfortable. 
 
 There was a gentleness and an understanding in this 
 Mem Sahib, who danced so little, and whom no man loved, 
 that brought things to the memory of Fatima, things no 
 woman could wish to remember when she has ceased to be 
 a woman, but that will sometimes come. Small brown 
 soft things about to die that had clung desperately to her 
 aching breast for she was of those whose fruit is doomed 
 to wither ere yet it is ripe. A husband young and comely 
 who loved her tenderly and with great passion, until he 
 knew that the children she bore him he would never keep, 
 all the hopes that had died so hard, and the despairs 
 born of them that can never die. 
 
 The eyes of the Mem Sahib told her all those old things 
 all over again, and set her standing in her youth once 
 more with full breasts. 
 
 She suppressed a sepulchral groan or so, as, with her 
 hypnotic touch, she brushed Barbara's hair, and Barbara 
 knew without any groans at all, that the weak conscience 
 of the woman had been bought by Frank, and that he was 
 clever enough to make even native evidence count. 
 
 " And during Oliver's illness I only thought of Oliver," 
 reflected Mrs. Quayle. " I may have been more foolish
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 261 
 
 even than I can remember now. Frank will leave no stone 
 unturned. He wants to marry someone, I think, someone 
 who will help him on, I wonder who ? And Fatima, 
 who has suffered so much," she thought drearily, "to be 
 ready to sell me for five pounds ! Frank wouldn't give a 
 penny more. I'd rather anyone else had done it. Women 
 with a distinct family likeness shouldn't betray each 
 other." 
 
 She looked back over the creature's history, every page 
 of which she knew. She had often lived through the 
 stolid, sordid, moving tragedy of the last scene as she 
 listened to Fatima. 
 
 When all the negotiations for the new wife were complete 
 and the other left behind, how the sobbing young husband 
 had looked back from the brow of the hill for the last time, 
 and when he vanished behind it, the little roundness still 
 left to the breasts of the deserted wife had withered, and 
 she was no more a woman. 
 
 Barbara had followed her at every step and she wondered 
 greatly. They were to be sure very much alike ! 
 
 But to be thinking of this now with Oliver to be saved ! 
 She pulled herself together and thought only of him, and 
 the means of salvation at hand. 
 
 Barbara had already learnt the way to the soul of the 
 native. Having herself been hunted so long she had learnt 
 to hunt. She could slip as one to the manner born through 
 all the devious approaches till the crouching live thing was 
 tracked at last to its lair. And Fatima, without one direct 
 word spoken, was presently convicted of her crime. 
 
 She trembled with a great awe. By the urge of the 
 Higher Forces that destroy, the Mem Sahib had found 
 her out. 
 
 She was clumsier than one could have believed possible 
 in Fatima. She made strange mistakes. A mighty fear 
 was upon her. Her children were crying in her ears. The 
 Mem Sahib had undoubtedly bewitched her. 
 
 That night, as she sat before the wood fire at her hut- 
 door, for the chill of pain was in her bones, she fell to 
 considering many matters. Gold was a thing greatly to
 
 262 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 be desired, but with a Mem Sahib who can thus bring back 
 the dead, and take the truth out of your very heart, one 
 must go softly. 
 
 The Mem Sahib had once also brought life into her dead 
 heart and the power to weep. She could do all things for 
 others and naught for herself, this Mem Sahib. She 
 had found by divination the amount of the gold that had 
 been given which none but Fatima herself and that other 
 had looked upon. She had then taken from its scented 
 box and laid out upon her lap that necklace of yellow stones, 
 with witchcraft in them, that Fatima had desired for years. 
 That necklace was greater than gold ! 
 
 As Barbara furtively from under her muffler watched for 
 the shadowy thing beside the fire, some hours later, as she 
 and her husband were driving home, she knew that she had 
 conquered. 
 
 " So after losing the chance perhaps of his life for Oliver," 
 she thought, " I've managed to brush a poisonous insect 
 off him, and I have Fatima still. I can't afford to lose 
 even her now."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 MRS. MIRRILIES, Senior, like many another 
 resigned Christian, prided herself upon her con- 
 sistency. In her closely-pruned, well-ordered mind, 
 inconsistency, if it did not partake exactly of the nature 
 of sin, was at least an indecorous anomaly, as much out of 
 place in good society as discord. 
 
 Her habitation, like that of all women who count, was 
 but an expression of herself. 
 
 It stood in the best part of the Cromwell Road, well 
 balanced between the sordid quality of Earl's Court, and 
 the vulgar noise of the Brompton Road. At the time her 
 grandfather had bought it, it was still filled and inflated 
 with an acutely irreproachable atmosphere. High digni- 
 taries in all the great Professions lived in grave dignity in 
 all the great grey houses in the immediate vicinity. It was 
 an atmosphere sound to the core, and seemed to have 
 reached concentration-point in the home of Mrs. Mirrilies' 
 own people, a family of distinguished Lawyers. Her father 
 and his father before him had been Judges in the High 
 Courts. 
 
 Even an atmosphere light as thistledown has a tendency 
 to return very frequently to torment. It will float wist- 
 fully round its old haunts, crooning softly over old follies 
 often to the acute embarrassment of the present decorous 
 owner of the premises. It will persist even for generations 
 in its inconsequent intrusion. But weighted with the 
 wisdom of the wise, and the pedantry of the learned, an 
 atmosphere becomes practically Eternal. It will rever- 
 berate through the ages. 
 
 263
 
 264 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies had been born and bred in an atmosphere 
 of this high calibre. It had become very part and parcel 
 of her. Whithersoever she went, it went also. It had 
 been to her as a trusty buckler, a sure house of defence. 
 It had always, no matter how steep and stony her path, 
 given her a sense of profound security, a coign of vantage, 
 from whence herself unmoved, she could behold the moving 
 scene. 
 
 From such elevated airs, mute and commentless, she 
 could assimilate what belonged to her, and let the rest 
 pass on. 
 
 This atmosphere that protected Mrs. Mirrilies became 
 by judicious manipulation of shifting density. It illu- 
 minated with a cold pure light the essential, and plunged 
 the unessential into decorous gloom. 
 
 In India, although at first forced by conscience to look 
 the wickednesses more peculiar to her own order straight 
 in the eye, warned by a thousand portents that wherever 
 she looked she would behold iniquity she kept her eyes 
 from henceforth fixed upon her husband, and refused to 
 see anything else. He would tell her all that it was neces- 
 sary for a woman to know. To emphasize such information 
 would have been but an unworthy playing with fire. 
 
 Now back in the midst of the old atmosphere, un- 
 disturbed by travel, with the dust of ages upon its venerable 
 tenants, it made the present live and palpitate with the 
 glories of the past, and enabled Mrs. Mirrilies to see 
 dimly, as from a far distance, anything she did not wish to 
 see. 
 
 It sequestered and set her apart. Safely secluded in her 
 big house of distinguished memories, she felt herself 
 surrounded on all sides, as her father and her grandfather 
 had been, by Admirals and Generals, Chief Justices and 
 other distinguished persons, calmly ignoring the fact that 
 she was now hemmed in by Flats and Boarding-houses, 
 belching forth at stated hours pedestrians in waterproofs, 
 and silk hats, betraying their callings severally by attache 
 cases, and little black bags. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies' detached eyes still beheld grave footmen,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 265 
 
 and graver ladies and gentlemen, and a close line of 
 carriages all down the street. 
 
 In no other atmosphere could she have recovered from 
 Colonel Mirrilies and her suspicions of him, several of 
 which, to give him his due, were unfounded. So, soothed 
 and tranquillized in her shaded rooms, refusing to accept 
 anything she could not approve, the atmosphere drew in 
 about her and engulfed her. 
 
 And into this superfine environment Mary, and Oliver, 
 and their very considerable following, broke buoyantly 
 one sunny day in early Spring, and became very soon 
 problems of the deepest dye to Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 Mary had changed, and for the better. She had lost her 
 slight air of modern pedantry, poles apart from the fine 
 classic spirit of the Past wherein she herself had been 
 born and bred. 
 
 Mary had always been all that one could dare to hope for 
 in a daughter-in-law, the atmosphere in which Mrs. 
 Mirrilies could alone breathe freely, discouraged wild 
 enthusiasm. She had long accepted every blessing with a 
 sigh. Physically, Oliver could not have done better. 
 This was ungenerous ! Mary was more than all this ! 
 but she sometimes thrust the world as it was upon the notice 
 of Mrs. Mirrilies, Senior. This gave her curious scares, 
 especially the first day that Mr. Peter Turton joined the 
 group, apparently one of it. 
 
 The man unattached and inexplicable by the simple 
 rule of three, was a dim sad memory to Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 She had always hurried past him, the Atmosphere as a 
 veil before her eyes. But Mr. Peter Turton had no notion 
 of being hurried past, still less of being obscured by atmo- 
 spheres. 
 
 He sat on in a leisurely way, looking painfully like 
 Oliver, and laid himself out to be agreeable to her. Her 
 fine remote face, slightly superhuman, interested him. 
 It must have been a curious change for Captain Mirrilies 
 to pass out of her hands into Mary's, who, after all, if 
 anything but superhuman, could as yet hardly be called 
 human.
 
 266 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Besides, having come up to town altogether against 
 his better judgment, he wanted to make the most of hie 
 folly. Folly that falls flat being, to be sure, only fit for 
 fools. So breaking through the atmosphere, Mr. Turton 
 made himself quite apparent to Mrs. Mirrilies, and set 
 her thinking as women who have not quietly put them 
 aside and walked past them think of men and things. 
 He thus became more comprehensible than the rest of 
 dear Mary's friends, and more disturbing. 
 
 The Bishop of course needed no explanation. If 
 Colonial, he was a man of family and character, to be 
 accepted unconditionally. It was the others one could 
 not reasonably be expected to grasp. 
 
 A woman who, at Miss Gaunt's age, could face the 
 perils of matrimony, and at the same time bring a smile 
 to light lips, seemed to Mrs. Mirrilies, an outrage upon 
 the gravity both of age and of Institution. 
 
 Another who could aid and abet her, with all the senti- 
 ment of youth still unchecked in her, was equally in- 
 explicable. They were welcome to her house as Mary's 
 friends, but so far as she herself was concerned, must 
 for ever remain without its doors. The two young men 
 were no doubt necessary to the world's duration, and 
 certainly interested Mary. She hoped at first there might 
 have been some higher motive involving real self- 
 sacrifice in Mary's frequent invitations, but there was 
 nothing either in Mary's attitude or in theirs to foster 
 this hope. They were heartily welcome to her house 
 and to all it contained, but hardly to be accounted for 
 in it. Fortunately the age of the young Russian Count 
 protected Mary. 
 
 The sudden shock of finding him bent double devoutly 
 kissing her hand, and the half-shuddering, half-pleasing 
 anticipation of the renewal of the operation, kept 
 him indeed vaguely roving upon the outskirts of her 
 mind. 
 
 But neither the age of this new man nor anything else 
 about him protected Mary, or would permit him to pass 
 on unknown and unremembered.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 267 
 
 There was a come-to-stay, persistent, solid look about 
 Mr. Turton that appalled Mrs. Mirrilies so used to shadows. 
 
 He seemed to sit down with his quiet courteous smile 
 so like Oliver's, and to make himself quite at home in 
 her most intimate thoughts. Not that he was the least 
 intrusive, he was much too like Oliver for that, but Mrs. 
 Mirrilies was not used to men about her mind. 
 
 At the same time, that she was able to offer Mr. Peter 
 Turton the hospitality not only of her house but of her 
 thoughts, and that he was never out of place in either 
 though in and out all day, spoke very highly indeed for 
 the young man. 
 
 But if she at her age, and with her experience of men, 
 could be thinking of Mr. Turton as she was thinking, 
 he was too like Oliver not to be thought about, what 
 about Mary ? 
 
 In a carefully-selected, meticulously fine way Mrs. 
 Mirrilies was becoming much disturbed in regard to Mary, 
 and one evening, when Mary was out, true to old habit, 
 she brought forth all her sad old songs and sang them 
 to the listening ghosts. 
 
 Her sweet, worn voice lamenting in the twilight touched 
 the little Moth to the quick. Except Peter, Miss Caldecott 
 seemed to Mrs. Mirrilies as the most surprising feature in 
 Mary's train. Why Mary should have chosen her as 
 a friend she could not imagine, but being frail and delicate- 
 looking and of irreproachable morals and family con- 
 nections, Mrs. Mirrilies was most kind, and principles or 
 not, insisted upon her drinking Port after dinner. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies rarely went back to the old songs. Their 
 use was past, and her voice tired, but now as her indefinite 
 fears for the future got mixed up with her very definite 
 pain in the past, such tremulos of woe quivered out on 
 the ghostly air that Miss Caldecott writing the family 
 letter in her room just above the drawing-room thanked 
 Heaven that Oliver was sound asleep. 
 
 " And the other Oliver," she murmured, " to have 
 been brought up on that ! And to have the nature of 
 the man who could ever have made possible those awful
 
 268 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 sounds in your very blood ! " thought Miss Caldecott, 
 for one instant shutting her ears. But it was all too 
 horribly fascinating, she very soon opened them again. 
 
 " Oh, I'm certain it's her husband," she said, breath- 
 lessly. " Nothing less would ever do it. And a man 
 with a father like that must must find life very difficult. 
 Oh ! I don't think Mary should have left him alone out 
 there in the midst of temptations. I'm sure she shouldn't." 
 
 She paused, shivering a little. She had never, in all 
 her life, let herself think of such things, but now she felt 
 as though they had been coming to a head in her for ever 
 so long, and had to break out. 
 
 " And Mrs. Mirrilies who had a husband of this sort 
 hasn't only heard of these awful things " she sat with 
 her pen pointed upward, rigid in her fingers. " If she 
 didn't sing it all out," she muttered " she'd die of it 
 and this is like listening at the door ! 
 
 " At the same time," she said, lowering her pen and 
 primming her lips, " she's had quite enough of this un- 
 fortunate man for the present. I could almost believe 
 she's enjoying herself," she said after a pause. " She 
 won't want me, but I'm better for her than any more of 
 that." 
 
 Miss Caldecott 's knees trembled under her as she went 
 down the stairs. 
 
 By this time Mrs. Mirrilies was very much overwrought. 
 She started and made a discord at the sight of the shadowy 
 figure beside her. 
 
 " Oh ! But I thought you were all out." 
 
 " I had letters to write so I stayed in. I've been listen- 
 ing to you this long time. I hope you don't mind," she 
 said. 
 
 " No, indeed, if you care to listen to my faded voice. 
 Once of course I used to like to sing to people, but now 
 I only sing for myself." 
 
 " Your voice is very sweet, and true, and full of feeling." 
 
 " Ah, yes," she said, with a low laugh, " feeling is the 
 one thing that time doesn't touch." 
 
 She rose, and began to collect her songs.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 269 
 
 " Oh, please don't let me stop you," entreated Miss 
 Caldecott. 
 
 " But I'm tired. It's quite time I stopped." 
 
 " Ah ! You are tired," said Miss Caldecott, taking 
 the music out of her hands, putting her down in an arm- 
 chair, and with the gentle invincible determination with 
 which she always took care of those who needed care, 
 caring for her. Mrs. Mirrilies slightly gasped, she could 
 not have felt more surprised had a brown sparrow suddenly 
 taken her under its wing, but the sensation was not an 
 unpleasant one. 
 
 The songs had racked her to the marrow of her bones, 
 and the old dim room was full of sadness, and it was 
 Mary, her son's wife, who had made her open again the 
 old songs. 
 
 She was in a strange mood not averse to the ministrations 
 of moths. 
 
 Miss Caldecott, her task completed, took out her knitting, 
 a little silk sock for Oliver, and quietly waited, and pre- 
 sently to her own immense surprise, Mrs. Mirrilies, who 
 until now had invariably sung her thoughts, found herself 
 speaking them. 
 
 They were disjointed, indefinite thoughts and all about 
 Mary. Her eager, abounding life, her clear young eyes, 
 her rounding figure. " Such a very strange variety in 
 her friends," said Mrs. Mirrilies, with delicate hesitation, 
 " and the absolute confidence of all her friends in Mary." 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies was evidently proud of this fact, but 
 there was a slight quiver in her voice. 
 
 " But it wasn't Mary surely who made you sing like 
 that just now," inquired Miss Caldecott, slightly pausing 
 on a needle. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies started. What had she been saying ? 
 Had she said too much ? The first thought of any woman 
 with a silent grief long since merged in her pride, and 
 adding daily to the sum of it. 
 
 And yet in her strange mood under the moon's rays, 
 so aloof from a chattering world, her one listener so 
 shadowy herself as to remind her of her own family, it
 
 2 ;o MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 was almost like speaking to the blessed dead, a mono- 
 logue of shadows ! In this case surely one may speak 
 out without indelicacy. 
 
 So leaning back in her arm chair, her slender feet on 
 the stool, where the little Moth had deposited them, with 
 a gentle smile, she spoke out about Mary, honestly, kindly, 
 and with a good deal of commonsense for one so used to 
 ghosts. And then, almost in spite of herself, but with a 
 sense of unutterable relief, she divulged Colonel Mirrilies. 
 As she went on in a curious way he seemed to become 
 bowdlerized. She spoke very gently, softly, tolerantly, 
 just as a painstaking Recording Angel might have done, 
 and with the same conscientious thoroughness. More 
 than once Miss Caldecott dropped her knitting, blushed 
 and squirmed. She was immensely sorry for all wives, 
 and a little in love with Colonel Mirrilies. 
 
 " And your son ? " she stammered at last. " Has he 
 escaped every trace of his father ? " 
 
 " I am thankful to say he has not, my dear Miss 
 Caldecott," said the Colonel's widow, bridling. " My 
 husband was an extremely handsome, well set-up man of 
 great ability. My son has inherited all this. His soul, 
 thank God, is mine." 
 
 " Oh," said Miss Caldecott only partially reassured. 
 Since her real friendship with the boys had set in, she had 
 found that in male creatures souls and bodies have a most 
 disturbing way of getting inextricably mixed up. 
 
 " Did you tell all this to Mary ? " she asked anxiously. 
 
 " To my daughter-in-law ? " she cried, staring with 
 horror at the Shadow. " But, dear Miss Caldecott, how 
 could I ? " 
 
 " I wonder if Captain Mirrilies may perhaps have 
 done so ? " 
 
 Beholding the Shadow as from a far distance, Mrs. 
 Mirrilies lifted a proud head. 
 
 " Hardly, Miss Caldecott. Oliver loved his father, as 
 indeed did the whole Regiment." 
 
 " He must have been an unusually attractive man," 
 said the Moth, thinking with deep anxiety of his son.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 271 
 
 " Ah," said Mrs. Mirrilies with carefully guarded face, 
 bearing and voice. " There could be no second opinion 
 about that. Shall we turn on the lights, dear Miss 
 Caldecott ? " 
 
 " Ah, not yet, please. It's so delightful as it is. I 
 love Mary very much, Mrs. Mirrilies," she said simply. 
 " Will you tell me about her husband when he was a 
 child ? I've seen his photograph and Mary's told me 
 things, but no one but a Mother can show another woman 
 her child just as he was, and Mothers don't mind, do 
 they ? I've not been impertinent, have I ? " she said 
 suddenly, hot all over at what she took to be a cold glance. 
 
 It was really the momentary hesitation of a proud 
 woman unused to emotional adventure. 
 
 " I shouldn't have taken impertinence to be your 
 besetting sin, dear Miss Caldecott," she said with her 
 gracious smile, " and I like to show you my little son, 
 now six feet two." 
 
 So presently Miss Caldecott knew as much about Oliver 
 the Greater as she did about Oliver the Less. She knew 
 as much as any woman who hasn't borne him can know 
 about a child. She also knew a good deal, for a diffident 
 spinster, of the father of Oliver. She knew more than 
 was good for her, perhaps, for it kept her awake all night ! 
 
 But Mrs. Mirrilies slept well. Her heart was relieved 
 of a great burden, and she had found a friend amongst 
 the shadows who brought her good dreams.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE inviolable confidence of a man who has suffered 
 from a bad woman, in a good one, is not always 
 an unmixed ethical advantage to either side. 
 
 Had Mr. Peter Turton not cherished so profound a 
 belief in the invincible strength and intelligence of Mary 
 Mirrilies, her practical immunity indeed from the tempta- 
 tions that usually beset women, he might not have 
 responded with such indecent haste to the first chance 
 of being near her. And now the unusual capacity of 
 Mrs. Mirrilies for throwing open unexpected doors in her 
 friends, whilst keeping all her own carefully locked, made 
 her increasingly and peculiarly attractive to Peter Turton. 
 
 This keeping of her doors shut arose he felt certain 
 from no churlish inhospitality upon her part. The master 
 key had not yet come into her possession, that was all, 
 or much more probably she had not yet learnt its use. 
 
 Everyone indeed who came near Mrs. Mirrilies was at 
 his best. His faculties all alert, alive and expectant. One 
 must find out all about her, and it would be all good, a 
 big gain for the explorer. What added appreciably to 
 her attraction was this curious fact, that having herself 
 as yet no experience that really counted, her own eyes 
 and those of her observers were largely riveted upon her 
 future. 
 
 In spite of husband and child and the wild worlds of 
 theory she must have traversed, there was all the haunting 
 lure of an unexplored continent about Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 It was impossible to think about Mrs. Mirrilies without 
 thinking about her husband. Peter Turton thought 
 
 272
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 273 
 
 about him a good deal, but this only intensified the rare 
 and special attraction of his wife, this baffler of men. 
 
 The situation was settling down into a peculiar and 
 paradoxical one. 
 
 It was as safe for Mrs. Mirrilies as for him. Peter was 
 only too sure of that. And yet it wasn't fair. It wasn't 
 fair on Mirrilies, or on Mrs. Mirrilies or on himself, and 
 safe or not, there was danger ahead for all of them. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies could have no capacity for adventure 
 except of the most transcendent and ethereal nature, 
 Mirrilies was probably as reckless a theorist as his wife, 
 in a world as yet unfit for theorists. Possibly Mirrilies 
 knew what he was about. He had been too much of a 
 fool himself in a thousand ways, to judge any man off 
 hand, but he knew what rank bad luck meant, so far as 
 high-falutin dreams went. He knew their value. 
 
 Moreover no man knows when the moment in which 
 one is no longer safe, may come. It may be the next 
 for all one suspects. 
 
 If Mirrilies after all was a fool, it wasn't for him, who 
 had plumbed the depths of folly, to follow his lead. It 
 might also be the next minute for Mrs. Mirrilies. Con- 
 cerning that matter no mortal could venture to prophesy. 
 And he loved her. He knew this now. He loved her as 
 those men who love once and for ever love. He loved 
 her too much to hurt her. 
 
 The only straight thing was to go. To cut himself 
 clean out of her life, and make the best of what was left 
 of his own without her. He would wait for the wedding 
 and then he would go. 
 
 He would leave everything to his steward for months 
 to come, and decide where to go at the last moment. He 
 had invitations and schemes to exploit all over the world, 
 he had only to choose. As for kit, he had cupboards of 
 it to fit any expedition. There need be no delay, he 
 thought grimly, and what he had to do had to be done 
 quickly. 
 
 And then talking one day at his Club to a friend, a 
 friend of the first man's came up who started when he 
 
 18
 
 274 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 saw Turton, and came over later to talk to him. He 
 knew Captain Mirrilies it seemed, and was struck with 
 the likeness between the men, and when Turton said 
 that he knew Mrs. Mirrilies he looked rather surprised. 
 He came over again to talk to him, and the two men 
 dined together. 
 
 " Do you know Mrs. Mirrilies well ? " the man asked 
 as soon as they were alone after dinner. 
 
 " Very well," said Turton. " I saw a lot of her abroad, 
 and I see her pretty often now at her mother-in-law's." 
 
 " Have you seen her very lately ? To-day for instance ? " 
 he persisted. 
 
 Turton looked slightly surprised but answered readily. 
 
 " I saw both the Mrs. Mirrilies' this morning." 
 
 " I don't understand in the least then. The mail 
 came yesterday ; she must have got her letters. Oh, 
 well there's no breach of confidence in it. You can't 
 hide such things under a napkin. It'll be all over the 
 place soon and why she hasn't heard is beyond me. 
 You'd know if she'd had bad news ? " 
 
 " I think I should. Yes, I should certainly." 
 
 " The whole thing is a mystery to all of us. We all 
 thought Mirrilies as straight as a die, and devoted to his 
 wife, and she to him, and now a fellow called Quayle, 
 a bad hat, and the devil himself for cleverness, has cited 
 him as co-respondent in a suit. Quayle is far too cunning 
 a brute to do it unless he had evidence, and the woman's 
 a good little woman we all thought, when we thought 
 of her at all. No one ever did except now and then to 
 be sorry she had Quayle for a husband, and was too feeble 
 to resist his bullying. Everything went against her. 
 Her babies died off one after the other. For the rest, she 
 was about the safest woman in India Good God ! when 
 one thinks of her, drab, insignificant. I hear she's bucked 
 up lately, but Mrs. Quayle and Mrs. Mirrilies ! " 
 
 " Are you sure of this ? " 
 
 " Certain, or I shouldn't have spoken of it. Mrs. 
 Mirrilies must know it by the next mail, and then God 
 help her ! I've never regretted anything more, for her
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 275 
 
 sake and Mirrilies' and my own. I hate to be mistaken 
 in an old friend, if indeed I am. The mistake may be 
 on the part of that bounder Quayle. It's India and 
 damned propinquity, if there's any truth in it. Mrs. 
 Mirrilies had no right to leave a man like Mirrilies alone 
 over there. She was always a bit too learned to have 
 much sense. Her mind was lifted far above the common 
 needs of common men. It's a bad business all round." 
 
 " Why did no one warn her ? " 
 
 " Warn Mrs. Mirrilies ! We were all a little afraid 
 of Mrs. Mirrilies and rather on our p's and q's in her presence, 
 you see. There wasn't one of us but would have funked 
 the job." 
 
 Turton slightly smiled. He understood in a measure. 
 
 " And Mrs. Quayle, if you could see her ! Mrs. Grundy 
 herself couldn't have a word to say about the poor little 
 woman. She nursed him in some damned sickness, that 
 was it, if there is any truth in it at all, a lonely man in 
 India can make a pretty big fool of himself if he's put 
 to it. Mrs. Mirrilies shouldn't have left him. We'll 
 owe her a grudge for the rest of our lives. Mirrilies can't 
 be spared and this will ruin him, root and branch. He'll 
 have to go. He stood out too markedly against the 
 rest of us." 
 
 Turton left as soon as he could. It worked like a fer- 
 ment in his blood. It kept him awake all night. It 
 changed everything. It changed even himself funda- 
 mentally. 
 
 With this new knowledge he would not go. His love 
 and pity rose to illimitable heights. All the restrained 
 passion of a score of barren years were escaping from 
 the control of a strong will. 
 
 Mirrilies no longer stood between them. Mary was 
 free, practically, and above all women in the world she 
 would need help and protection. She would need all 
 a man could give her. In such a strait women and boys 
 were of no avail. 
 
 Like one in a dream he went to and fro in his room until 
 the dawn broke, resolved to call directly after luncheon. . . . 
 
 18*
 
 276 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Miss Gaunt was meanwhile very busy getting country 
 clothes. From the beginning she had put down her foot 
 upon any mention of the word trousseau. Robert was much 
 too great and fine, to be made ridiculous by ribald wit. 
 She was not too busy, however, not to keep watchful 
 eyes upon Mary and her general effects. 
 
 The Bishop being mere man maintained, in this regard, 
 his usual high level of calm. 
 
 Naturally she only loved Robert all the more for his folly, 
 but she could have whipped Mary. " She's a wandering 
 fire," said Miss Gaunt, " and she'll burn someone to the 
 bone before she's done." She patiently turned a hat 
 back to front, and from side to side, to try to look less 
 ugly under its smart upturned brim. 
 
 She spoke presumably to Cousin Ella who sat resignedly 
 in an arm-chair being surprised at Julia, but she was 
 hardly conscious of her audience at all really. She spoke 
 to relieve the tension of her feelings. 
 
 " It cost two pounds ten," said Miss Gaunt, " and 
 just look at me ! And what does it matter with Mary 
 riding for a fall ? 
 
 " All the same," she sighed. " I wish Robert was 
 near sighted instead of long. Oh, well, thank God, he's 
 a rank idealist. Mary and I both prove that. I wonder 
 if he'd be quite so sky-high in his judgments if she weren't 
 as attractive as she is, and in her irritating way, getting 
 worse every day. Oh ! It's not the hat, it's me ! I 
 thought I'd got over hating my ugliness, but Robert's 
 brought it all back, that, and a dozen other superannuated 
 sins. To overcome some sins one must be past sinning, 
 I suppose. I'm glad at least I haven't yet reached 
 that stage, the last refuge of the destitute." 
 
 " Oh, my dear Julia, don't ! " 
 
 " I wish you'd turn your deaf ear directly I begin to forget 
 my manners and say what I mean, Ella. Then you could 
 be edified, and watch the new clothes at the same time." 
 
 Cousin Ella relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and to 
 her great discomfort Miss Gaunt discerned moisture 
 in her innocent eyes.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 277 
 
 She talked undiluted clothes for a minute or so, and 
 the small domestic concerns of their future Vicarage, 
 but Cousin Ella having primed herself to the effort, it 
 must be made. 
 
 " Julia ! " she quavered, " I've had what was called 
 beauty, and yet you've got more in the end than I 
 have, dear," she said wistfully, " and now could you 
 forget everything but being happy. It would be very 
 beautiful, don't you think ? It's what Robert does, and 
 it makes us all so happy and, and so safe. To have to 
 be thinking that it is your duty to be afraid for Mary, 
 when you have always only been just proud of her, is so 
 very difficult." 
 
 Her pretty weak lips all scored with little lines were 
 trembling. 
 
 Miss Gaunt dropped her hat and gasped. 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! " she said. " So this is what 
 comes of funk and grousing. I've been undermining 
 Mary's character, it seems, and nearly worried you into 
 doing the same. Whenever your conscience has ventured 
 to assert itself, Ella, it's always proved itself of finer 
 quality than mine. It's given me some well-deserved 
 knocks in its time. Somehow, Ella, I think that you 
 should have been the governess and I the pupil." 
 
 " My dearest ! " cried the pupil all aghast. 
 
 Miss Gaunt laughed. 
 
 " You're right, Ella. It would never have done. We'd 
 have reversed the positions in a week." 
 
 " And think," said Cousin Ella, " of the comfort it's 
 been to both of us, that in our dear life together in any 
 little difference of opinion, you've almost invariably been 
 right and I wrong." 
 
 Somewhat to Cousin Ella's bewilderment, Miss Gaunt 's 
 fine laugh rolled through the room. 
 
 " Ella, you don't know how delightful you can be. 
 You've never known it. If you had, others besides 
 you would have found it out, and carried you off, and 
 left me desolate." 
 
 " No," she said gently, " never anyone else after Henry.
 
 278 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 And in any case wherever I went you would have gone 
 also." 
 
 " Like Ruth of old. Well, I do think that women, 
 even the women who've never been finished and never 
 will be now, not here at any rate, know what friendship 
 means. And oh, Ella, even if one of us has lost every- 
 thing in the great venture, I'm glad we've both staked 
 our all. We've stood at any rate in the outer courts of 
 the Temple, you and I, and seen little gleams of the 
 glory through the chinks. If we hadn't, we shouldn't 
 have loved each other so well or understood, oh 
 anything. The boys would have been sealed books to 
 us, and Oliver, and Mr. Turton, and those fine sinners 
 up at St. Moritz. We'd have seen them all through our 
 own miserable little experiences." 
 
 " But, dear Julia," said Cousin Ella with a scared face, 
 " that's just how I see them now. I don't really under- 
 stand them in the least, but I love them all. And I did 
 enjoy looking at those very interesting people with his- 
 tories. And after all, dear, I didn't understand enough 
 about them to condemn them which really was rather a 
 blessing, don't you think ? " 
 
 " It was a great blessing Ella, a blessing Providence 
 doesn't as a rule shed with a very free hand on the in- 
 experienced. But if you don't understand the boys and 
 the others, my dear, you understand Mary it seems better 
 than I do, and it's Mary who matters. Mary and the 
 two Olivers. And after all these years that I can look 
 at you from a brand new point of view is really rather 
 invigorating. We're on the ' count-all-your-blessings ' 
 tack to-day, so just enter that among them. The fact 
 that we've never bored each other for more than five 
 minutes at a time in all these years, considering all things," 
 said Miss Gaunt with a cryptic grin, " is very remarkable, 
 and undoubtedly a blessing." 
 
 She returned with a slight sigh to her hat. 
 
 " You're sure you'd like me to do everything about 
 your cottage before you come ? " she said presently. 
 
 " But of course I should, dear. You've always done
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 279 
 
 everything about things. It wouldn't be like my own 
 cottage at all unless you'd arranged it all." 
 
 Miss Gaunt smiled rather tenderly for her, as she patted 
 a bow. 
 
 " What a wife for a selfish man," she reflected grimly. 
 " Henry Gray was the most selfish man in a world of them 
 I ever struck. He lost more than he ever suspected." 
 
 Mary on her part, used to watch her old dears paddling 
 on the shores of life, and looking out over the great seas 
 they would never sail. And yet she who had sailed 
 all the seas didn't seem to be much the wiser for her 
 voyages, and she was infinitely more alone. They had 
 each other and the Bishop. She had nothing that belonged 
 to her really but Oliver the Less, and Oliver grew dearer 
 every day and less satisfying. Her heart seemed too 
 big to be filled by one little child. It ached with emptiness, 
 and the gulf widened, and the dividing waters deepened, 
 and the hand of Oliver the builder of bridges, seemed 
 to have lost its cunning. 
 
 Mary was beginning to watch for the coming of Peter 
 Turton. He had chosen loneliness for ten years. He 
 must know something about it. That he also knew 
 something about everything that baffled her, was a firm 
 and growing conviction in her mind. 
 
 He could interpret Oliver to her. What Oliver wanted, 
 and why he no longer wanted her. 
 
 The folly of desperation working in a woman makes 
 hay of her constructive faculties. To take the matter 
 into her own hands, and herself turn bridge-builder did 
 indeed enter more than once into Mary's mind, but she 
 always recoiled chilled and shivering from her own in- 
 competence, her own insufficiency. She had no more 
 to give to Oliver now than she had when she left him ; 
 no more vital an understanding of Oliver's needs. She 
 was indeed now ready at last to put self aside once and 
 for all, and to make for the truth, and should it, after 
 all, be Oliver's truth and not hers, what did it matter ? 
 What did anything matter any more for her but to be 
 one with Oliver ?
 
 280 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 And yet whenever she dared to face all the aspects of 
 the old life, the same sense of non-comprehension, the 
 same deep-seated repulsion, the same amazed wonder 
 at Oliver still possessed her. 
 
 The only difference was that she no longer hugged her 
 own point of view, and condemned Oliver's. To merge 
 all differences and to be one indissolubly with Oliver 
 was her one desire, and in some wild way Peter Turton 
 was to be the stepping-stone to this mystic union. 
 
 The attitude of Mrs. Mirrilies towards Peter Turton 
 brought out many quite unexpectedly charming qualities 
 in her. It made her extraordinarily attractive to him, 
 it disarmed serious criticism. The natural appre- 
 hensions of Mrs. Mirrilies the elder, yielded at last to 
 Mary's frank spontaneous friendship for Mr. Turton. 
 It was obviously as innocent as her feeling for the boys. 
 
 " Mary," reflected her mother-in-law with some sagacity 
 and not a little pride, "is as safe, thank God, as I should 
 have been myself." 
 
 Of the ultimate issue for Mr. Turton she felt a less 
 assured conviction. But here she primmed her lips. 
 " That is Mr. Turton 's affair," she said. 
 
 In a kind Christian way Mrs. Mirrilies liked men to 
 suffer for their sins. 
 
 And so it had gone on. The two with half-humorous, 
 half-serious and purposeful persistence kept on lightly 
 playing with fire. 
 
 The purpose in Mary's play was so sincere that fire 
 seemed to have transcended its own nature. In its eleva- 
 tion to a higher plane it had felt the warmth of its own 
 heart, and could now only spare and protect. 
 
 Even the boys were satisfied. Peter Turton was now 
 one of them ; no longer suspect, a mere partner in woe. 
 They now felt for him as they felt for one another. 
 
 As the wedding drew near Nature overcame common- 
 sense even in Miss Gaunt's case. Her attention frequently 
 now sheered off from Mary, and became riveted upon
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 281 
 
 her own affairs. They were complicated, and called for 
 all her wit and wisdom. It was no easy matter to make 
 an enterprise such as she had let herself and Robert in 
 for only just ridiculous enough to evoke honest laughter, and 
 turn it into an occasion of real enjoyment for her friends. 
 
 Thus it was that Mary had a free hand and played 
 great games with her unknown element. She was in- 
 sufferably unhappy, and the hag-ridden sense of the in- 
 effectuality of the woman who stands alone, was under- 
 mining her proud spirit. 
 
 She stood like a ghost beside her old self, and wondered 
 at her hampering loneliness. She remembered, as in 
 a dream of some past life, her old happy self-reliance, 
 her profound belief in the rectitude of all her attitudes 
 towards Life her gentle aloof condemnation of all she 
 could not understand. 
 
 The uplifting sense of being all-sufficient unto herself, 
 will enable a woman to upset the Universe. That with- 
 drawn or in abeyance, she is capable of being scared by a 
 mouse. 
 
 Mary stood passive in a maze of obstacles of which she 
 knew nothing, which moreover no woman could face 
 alone. With all her knowledge that was all she knew now 
 for a certainty. Her sex could carry her no farther. She 
 had lost faith in herself, and waited and watched for 
 Peter Turton. Not easily and happily now any more, 
 but with a weary ache and a curious sense of inevitableness. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies the elder, in her aloof stately way, now 
 also waited for Peter. He brought in the adult world, 
 so tactfully and in so reassuring and inspiring a fashion 
 that she was preparing herself even to reorganize 
 certain of her theories in regard to it, should she find 
 that they needed reorganization. She had always 
 prided herself upon her breadth of mind. 
 
 She was now listening to Mr. Turton retailing the effect 
 of mixed farming upon a rural population. For still in 
 a dream, Peter had called immediately after luncheon, 
 and in a dream he was now talking to Mrs. Mirrilies and 
 watching Mary, who it was plain knew nothing yet.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 MY dear Mr. Turton," said Mrs. Mirrilies, with her 
 kindest smile, " you've turned the life and 
 death of a turnip into a fairy tale. You must be a great 
 power for good in your neighbourhood. In my recollec- 
 tion of the country the rural population was rarely in- 
 terested in anything but its food and drink, and a rise 
 in wages." 
 
 " But after all we're all out for our own aims, and to 
 turn things to our own advantage. Even turnips don't 
 appeal to you unless you can get them to do their best 
 for you, and to make them do that, you've got to find out 
 all their good points, and to get the better of their bad. 
 To get hold of the life in them you know and to turn it to 
 your own purposes. There's life in everything, after all, 
 even in turnips and the rural population." 
 
 " But doesn't it bore you ? " 
 
 " We haven't time to be bored with each other. You 
 see it doesn't do to limit your horizon to turnips, and to 
 see nothing else. We've got the land under every crop 
 that grows, and no one can complain of any want of 
 variety in our beasts. When I got the place it was all 
 under grass, and we all thought fat cattle, and were bored 
 to extinction. Now we go to the ends of the earth after 
 fodder and seed. With your eyes and the rural popula- 
 tion's on dozens of things living different lives and needing 
 different treatment, there's no time for anything but 
 differences of opinion. We can't find room for our ex- 
 periments. Half the park is cut up into allotments, 
 each telling its own story, week by week, like the serials 
 
 282
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 283 
 
 in the halfpenny papers, and there's not a child in the 
 village but can read the stories." 
 
 " But," cried Mrs. Mirrilies, aghast. " The park ! " 
 
 " Oh, the deer have plenty of room, and we've got 
 a new kind of white goat, that looks rather picturesque 
 among them. One has to consider the shades of one's 
 ancestors you know, and there's a big stretch of moorland 
 that no one in his senses would touch, and glades with 
 nothing more productive than scrubby wild white roses. 
 And I like to see the villagers cruising round on Sundays 
 and holidays looking at the results of their work, and 
 squabbling over theories. If we look like falling back 
 into the sleep of centuries, someone starts the idea of a 
 new crop, and we're all alive again. And two agricultural 
 papers of violently opposed views help by violent con- 
 tention to keep up the spirit of good fellowship at the 
 Pub." 
 
 " The boys say that you give all your people a share 
 in the harvests," said Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 
 " Of course I do. Otherwise the harvests would suffer. 
 The usual thing selfishness." 
 
 " I think it's seeing life living itself in other people's 
 ways," said Mary. 
 
 " But they're all so extraordinarily alike. It's hard 
 to say where theirs begins and yours ends. You never 
 get lonely tracking life, you meet yourself at every turn, 
 even in beasts and beings you'd rather not own up to, 
 but they're close kin all the same. There's only one life 
 after all, ah 1 the difference is in the way you live it. Saints 
 and sinners are all blood brothers, but they all have a 
 constitutional objection to poor relations." 
 
 " It's all very well," protested Mary, laughing and 
 restive, " but we can't be all mixed farmers." 
 
 " But we can admit the truth of a theory without wanting 
 to prove it. To believe in life for all one's worth is the 
 secret of a farmer's success, just as it's the secret of all 
 success, I believe. Being afraid of life is only another 
 name for failure." 
 
 " Dear me ! " burst out Mary. "As if anyone was
 
 284 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 ever afraid of a tangible object. But suppose you don't 
 know what you're afraid of ? " 
 
 " In the case of negatives you can always switch on 
 the electric light. Bogies hate the light." 
 
 " The hay that life has made with the world rather 
 weakens one's confidence in it, don't you think ? " said 
 Mary tentatively. 
 
 " But isn't the boot on the other leg ? Isn't it the 
 world that's made hay of life ? " inquired Peter. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Turton," said Mrs. Mirrilies the elder, 
 with prim apprehension, " I believe your theories to be 
 revolutionary, and dangerous. And," she paused and 
 lifted her eyes as full of pain as though they pleaded for 
 the life of her dearest friend, " where then does original 
 sin come in ? " 
 
 " Very early in the day I should say," said Peter. ' The 
 next man after Adam who made a fool of himself, couldn't 
 always be blaming the woman, the thorns and the 
 thistles of a wild world had taught him that much any- 
 way, and as a man must have something to blame, he 
 invented original sin." 
 
 " Dear Mr. Turton, don't be flippant. Were life all 
 good the world would be very different." 
 
 " I admit the state of the world, Mrs. Mirrilies to the 
 naked eye but I'll stick to my guns. I feel sure that 
 life is as right as rain. May I pull up the blinds and let 
 in the sun," said Peter with gentle audacity. 
 
 Mary looked radiant. Never yet had she seen the sun 
 in that handsome sombre room. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies paused, flushing painfully. It seemed 
 almost sacrilege that a room which had seen so much sorrow, 
 that had endured life so long under the hushing hands of 
 resignation, should be flooded with April sun, but Mary's 
 face compelled her. 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Turton. Draw up the blinds." 
 
 "I've just seen the Bishop and Miss Gaunt," he said 
 when he had obeyed her to the full, and the young sun 
 was rollicking through the chaste gloom. " They were 
 sitting on two chairs in the Park, hatching plots for re-
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 285 
 
 capturing village sheep that had gone astray, in flocks 
 it seems, it's an evil little village, I gather, its principal 
 industry poaching, by bringing back a flavour of the wild 
 into the fold. The Bishop knows the breed. No one 
 living who saw the two and felt the sun could believe 
 in original sin. Keep it till November, Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 Then one can give it a fairer hearing. Original sin isn't 
 for April." 
 
 Mary looked very pretty and perturbed. Peter Turton 
 was perturbed also. He wanted to be saying a thousand 
 such very different things to Mary, for the sun of Spring 
 was in his veins. 
 
 " My belief in original sin, Mr. Turton, doesn't, alas ! 
 depend on the seasons. It is part and parcel of my 
 Faith." 
 
 " Let me telephone for the car, Mrs. Mirrilies, and drive 
 you down to Richmond. You'll forget original sin in 
 the park. If it's true, it's true, and you'll find it again 
 in the dull days. Meanwhile it will be quite happy 
 waiting in the shade, and be a sort of comfort, don't you 
 think, to the floating spirit population that lurks there." 
 
 " You're very kind, Mr. Turton," she said with the 
 smile that always made Peter certain that in spite of 
 everything Colonel Mirrilies liked her to the end. " I 
 should like very much to go with you, but my throat 
 is rather bad to-day. I'm better at home. I am sure, 
 however, that my daughter would like to go." 
 
 " I should love it," said Mary. 
 
 " Where's Oliver, then, and Miss Caldecott ? There's 
 plenty of room. I'll drive myself." 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Mary. " How provoking ! He's spending 
 the day in the Zoo with Cousin Ella and Miss Caldecott." 
 
 " Well, we can pick them up." 
 
 " Oh, but I don't think Cousin Ella would like it. It's 
 her day. She wouldn't even take me." 
 
 A score of old shynesses, little quavers of vague fear 
 she had almost forgotten came running back to Mrs. 
 Mirrilies' senses as she looked at Mary. Mary looked so 
 very pretty, but the sun in the room somehow compelled
 
 286 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 confidence. She hurried the prejudices back to their 
 ancestral burrows and smiled at Mary, as safe as she 
 was herself, thank God ! 
 
 " Oh, well, dear. We can't spoil Cousin Ella's day, 
 and Oliver will be in good hands. Don't lose any of this 
 lovely afternoon, but put on your furs. We mustn't forget 
 it's April." 
 
 No one could forget that it was April. All down Crom- 
 well Road even April sang songs in the air. Gleams of 
 burgeoning trees flashed through the openings, young 
 verdure from every tiny plot proclaimed the fact. All 
 the gardens farther on were sweet with April crying her 
 wares, and crooning over her promises. She was written 
 on the willows by the water side, in letters of luminous 
 gold, and deep in the hearts of the two friends she stirred, 
 asking strange questions. 
 
 A haze frosted with crushed opal like a dove's breast 
 hovered above the river, and the young green buds of 
 the bushes seemed to twinkle in its strange lucency. 
 Faint fingers of saffron and rose and lavender spread 
 out beckoning upon the horizon, foreshadowed the quality 
 of the sunset with which the West was preparing to rejoice 
 the world. Things seemed to vie the one with the other 
 in claiming kin with creatures. They came close closer 
 they touched at points. There was a mystic joy as of 
 unification, on earth, in sky and water. The one great 
 Heart was becoming almost audible. 
 
 Mary had no words. She was holding her breath to 
 listen. Nothing seemed impossible this wonderful day, 
 and it was all good. How the next hour went Mary never 
 knew. 
 
 They ate maids of honour, she and Peter Turton, and 
 drank tea, somewhere under the trees in Paradise. So 
 far as she could remember they said nothing. Words 
 would have disturbed the peace, besides they were no 
 longer necessary. The whole world was understanding 
 things together and coming nearer. 
 
 In the park all the birds in the universe seemed to 
 be singing. And the deer with bright, brooding eyes
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 287 
 
 stood still to pause and understand, to take part in the 
 great coming home, the meeting at last, of the divided 
 kin. It was the moment of the whole world and she was 
 in it. The sense of passionate elation in Mary was so 
 intense that it burnt her like a red flame. 
 
 And then she knew. Suddenly she knew that she no 
 longer wanted Oliver. For a second she was pierced 
 by an utterly unprecedented pain. Some warning seemed 
 to have broken into the enveloping radiance of assured 
 joy. Not the ridiculous little pleasant sense of content- 
 ment of every day, but some huge cosmic thing. 
 
 For this one strange moment of check and pause and 
 question, the amazing joy dwindled. It lost in size and 
 consequence, and Mary was back again upon a cramped 
 and difficult earth, separated from all the things in which 
 she had been revelling. The old loneliness was upon her. 
 She wanted human help again. She whose spirit had 
 just been set free in Infinity was a beggar again, craving 
 for help ! 
 
 Still dazed with her vision of limitless power, still with 
 the beating of the great Heart in her ears, she turned in 
 a sort of helpless resentment to Peter Turton. She had 
 forgotten him as a person. He had been part of it, under- 
 standing it all, living it. Now he was Peter Turton pure 
 and simple, and he stood between her and her eerie rapture. 
 
 As she looked, his face gripped her. It was reassuring 
 in its strength and gravity. 
 
 They were going leisurely through some wood. The 
 sunlight sifted in and out of the leaves. The birds sang 
 under their breath. There was a hush as of lonely places 
 about them, and all the colours of all the flowers were 
 gathering in the West. 
 
 " It must be late," she thought languidly, " and where 
 were they ? Surely not in the park now ? She tried 
 to remember what they had passed, some old landmark. 
 But her memory seemed to be all blurred. And what 
 did it matter ? 
 
 In her strange intensity of feeling she was only really 
 conscious of Peter's face. It was steadying itself, holding
 
 288 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 itself still. She could see that. It had lost all its careless 
 good-humour. 
 
 It was very reassuring really, but it frightened her. 
 
 An impulse to ask him to stop, and turn, and tai<e her 
 home made her want to stretch out a detaining hand and 
 lay it on his, and suddenly she found she couldn't. It 
 was all so utterly ridiculous ! She tried to think it out. 
 There was nothing unusual really in anything. 
 
 She had been too happy, perhaps. It was that. The 
 beauty of the day, the singing of the birds, the sense of 
 power, and the wild freedom had always been part of 
 Spring, the warmth from some fire smouldering always 
 in the heart of Spring, but this time it had burst into 
 flame. 
 
 Again she looked at the earnest face that had now gained 
 complete mastery over itself. 
 
 Neither the glory nor its sudden cessation had anything 
 to do with Peter Turton, a hot flush as inexplicable as all 
 the rest, flooded her face. 
 
 It was what had to come. What had come always of 
 late to everything. Things had always ended just as she 
 seemed to be getting into them. She wondered half-scared 
 if it would always be like this. 
 
 It would be too ridiculous to ask him to let her go back 
 by train, to go home at once. How could she possibly 
 explain her sudden change of mind ? 
 
 Suddenly an overwhelming revolt against her loneliness, 
 her helplessness seemed to possess her. Her baffled efforts 
 and desires rose up before her like some barrier. Nothing 
 seemed to happen as she hoped it would. The revelations 
 she had expected from the Lectures, from the boys, 
 had all come to nought. Even Oliver, yes, even Oliver 
 had failed her ! 
 
 She had no right to feel so alone and lost and bereaved. 
 She had everything, and her right in everything. Not 
 ten minutes before she had been revelling in pure joy, and 
 it was her native element. And now to be shivering with 
 cold on the shore of the great warm sea that was hers for 
 the plunge was no place for such as she was, such as she
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 289 
 
 now knew herself all at once to be. She could no longer 
 stand outside things and alone, since she was one with them, 
 and knew it. She no longer longed for the moon. The 
 moon was cold and far away. 
 
 She wanted the fullness of the sunshine upon her, and to 
 live at full pitch as every leaf and flower and blade of grass 
 lived, and the deer and the birds. 
 
 She sighed with the wild effort to recapture her lost joy, 
 and in the end it came running and leaping into her veins. 
 Her brain was afire with it. 
 
 And then, with curious suddenness, it changed in quality. 
 It no longer stimulated and uplifted and filled her with a 
 gay courage, a desire for some infinite enterprise. It no 
 longer ran and leapt like flame. It slid, soft and alluring, 
 like a caress, through all her veins. It wrapped her round, 
 and enclosed her in a lovely peace, all full of easy happiness. 
 It no longer looked out, eager and triumphant, at the 
 world opening its heart to her. 
 
 Not an hour before she could not imagine herself without 
 the world, or the world without her. 
 
 Her desires had narrowed, it would seem. Now the 
 world was too big for her, too full of demand, and only she 
 herself was of supreme importance. She was the burning 
 centre of her own life. 
 
 The shadows were lengthening on the edges of the wood. 
 The bewitching, bewildering scent of young growth slid 
 out from the dim mystery of hidden glades, drawing the 
 man and woman irresistibly into the green world of secret 
 things. 
 
 When Peter Turton pulled up the car and got out, Mary 
 followed him as simply as the children followed the Pied 
 Piper. There was nothing else to do. Everything was now 
 inevitable. 
 
 The amazing silent walk into the confused beauty of the 
 twilight depths shot through with glints of saffron, as they 
 went down the green path to the West, had all been from 
 the beginning. 
 
 Not till long afterwards did either of the two remember 
 at which moment they had taken each other's hands and 
 
 19
 
 290 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 held them warm and close. There was nothing to remember 
 then. It was all quite simple and natural. The only 
 thing to do. 
 
 They were going together to the heart of life, not of the 
 world's life, that was far away out on its own business, but 
 to the heart of their own life, the only life that now 
 throbbed and called to them. 
 
 " You know I love you ? " he said at last. 
 
 " Yes," she said, as a child might in a dream. " I I 
 suppose it's that." 
 
 " And you ? " he asked, stooping to her. 
 
 His eyes kept her silent, struggling to think. After- 
 wards, when she had gathered her senses about her again, 
 and could think, she knew that all of which she had been 
 aware was some great and irreparable loss that must be 
 made good, and her own strange dependence upon Peter 
 Turton : her confiding hope in him. This had come upon 
 her with a strength that seemed to shake her. That was 
 why she trembled and her breath came in gasps as she said 
 almost inaudibly, " I don't know, I don't know." 
 
 He was holding her now, looking into her face, and 
 he made it hot. That, too, she knew, afterwards, and all 
 the time she trembled and shook, and it was all inevitable. 
 
 " Mirrilies is a man, and not a fool ; he must have 
 known what he was about sending you out alone " 
 
 He was hissing it into her ears and holding her tight. 
 She looked up at him with helpless protest. She tried to 
 free herself, but she felt too curiously weak, and and 
 she didn't want to be free. 
 
 This was the first time since she had set out on her wild 
 walk that Mary knew definitely that she did not want to 
 be free. It was the first note in her awakening, perhaps. 
 
 She still, however, stood passive in Peter Turton's hands 
 in a passion of expectation. 
 
 " You were a girl a child, and not a woman " he 
 
 hissed, wildly, justifying himself. This man who had, so 
 far, done violence to no living creature but himself must of 
 necessity justify himself. " He threw you into a world too 
 strong for children with growth to reckon with. With
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 291 
 
 all that to come. With all the dangers of which he knew 
 everything in your path. You you had no defences. I 
 never knew anyone so helpless and defenceless, or, or so 
 ignorant, such a child. He's forfeited all his rights in you. 
 As it happens, you are free now. His rights in you are 
 actually at an end." 
 
 She hardly heard him, she certainly did not understand, 
 she was dazed with desire and anguish. 
 
 " You've come with me now," he said, " as you never 
 came with him, never, never, never," and now he was 
 holding her like a vice, pressing her closer and down upon 
 a bank of moss. She felt her feet slipping on its silken 
 smoothness. 
 
 Until this moment there had been always the cold 
 withholding of extreme intolerant youth in every gift of 
 Mary's. Her proposed ultimate surrender to Oliver 
 even had been all pure close-clipped theory. Now the 
 woman's eternal desire to give was overmastering her. To 
 give, give, give, everything, and lose herself, once for 
 all, in another ! It seemed a great thing to do, an immense 
 thing, the ultimate great thing she had always wanted, 
 the merging of her little hampering self that had never been 
 enough, never satisfied her, in a bigger, thus to unite forces 
 that would then be illimitable. 
 
 She longed and panted to give other things also, hot and 
 terrible things, of which until this moment she had known 
 nothing, but had still, she knew now, always vaguely hated. 
 
 And she wanted things from Peter Turton, and now it 
 was those horrible things she wanted more, a thousand 
 times more, than the great things of five minutes before. 
 
 The things, terrible or not, were sweet beyond any com- 
 pare, she must have them or die. In a frenzy of longing, 
 absolutely unconscious of what she did, she clung to him 
 like any wild woman at the dawn of time. 
 
 The awakening of passion in a big woman must at some 
 one moment get out of her unaccustomed hands. 
 
 And then, moved by some blind instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion, a strangled sob escaped her, and she tried to tear 
 herself away. 
 
 19*
 
 292 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Not that she did not want, what she wanted, in this 
 dreadful way more than ever. She held him for a moment 
 at arm's length trying to understand, to get back her senses. 
 
 He had everything her life wanted. It was madness 
 not to take it. And, if this was sin, the beauty of the 
 whole world shone in sin's face ! 
 
 A passionless woman with a good income and constitu- 
 tionally good-tempered has had so few temptations to 
 help her in her hour of need, and sin being a genius, has 
 learnt the great secret, and can always hide the pain that 
 follows after in unutterable joy. As for the terror behind 
 the eyes of sin it makes for daring ! 
 
 Mary tried to remember things, the old things, the old 
 refuges, the old supports. She snatched at Oliver the Less, 
 hidden in her heart ; but this was no place for a little child ! 
 
 Peter Turton's hands, gentle with love almost as great 
 as passion, drew her softly, nearer, nearer. 
 
 She, she was the giver of everything. It was a great- 
 ness of giving, an immensity, and how intensely she had 
 always hated littleness ! This it was Creation ! 
 
 For one wild moment the ultimate joy of the maker made 
 Mary the woman she wanted to be. 
 
 He waited breathless, watching her, and in the pause 
 Oliver's face in a little circle of light filled Mary's eyes, and 
 at last she understood, everything. 
 
 " I know now," she cried out. " And I'm the wickedest 
 woman in the world." 
 
 But it was too late now. Mary, knowing nothing of men, 
 had ventured too far, and must pay the price of her folly. 
 She had played with fire and must get burnt. 
 
 On that bed of moss in the holy silence of the evening, 
 under the shadow of the wise trees who know all things, 
 the struggle between the man and the woman was as fierce 
 and terrible as the fight of the lion for his mate in the jungle. 
 It was more horrible and primeval. For there the prize 
 stands aside, indifferent as to who shall have her. Here, in 
 a frenzy of shame unspeakable, she fought for herself and 
 for the world. 
 
 The brutality of man and beast mingled in the vile fight.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 293 
 
 There was also something of what the struggles and the 
 sacrifices of time have brought to Eternity, and of the 
 unresentful patience of Infinity. 
 
 But it was Oliver at last who saved Mary, and in spite of 
 her reckless folly, her wilful ignorance, her proud condemna- 
 tion of all she had refused to understand, of her insolent 
 picking and choosing among the inevitable means and 
 methods of Creation, rejecting and accepting as one above 
 it, God did not desert His creature. 
 
 When all her strength was gone, and her heart failing her 
 for fear, again Oliver's eyes looked into hers, and lighted 
 her frightened face with such a sudden radiance, that 
 Peter Turton, who loved her, and who, until this awful 
 moment when passion had burst its bonds, had fought as 
 good a fight as most men for his manhood, saw it, and it 
 filled his eyes just as Oliver was filling Mary's, and it made a 
 man of him again. 
 
 But the fall from man to brute cannot be recovered in a 
 moment. It was the brute who threw the woman from him 
 with cruel violence, bruising her soft shoulder against a 
 tree. 
 
 " Go ! " it snarled. " Go quickly." 
 
 Dry sobs broke out upon the silence as Mary fled through 
 the aisles now grey and grim in the shadows of the evening. 
 She went blind and trembling, finding her way by instinct, 
 but she was young and swift, and her strength was coming 
 back, and Oliver ran by her side. No woman ever ran 
 quicker than Mary that amazing night. 
 
 As soon as she reached the car, not of her own will at all, 
 she fetched up short. And suddenly her mind was clear 
 again. She could think and was no longer afraid. All 
 that was past for ever, left behind. 
 
 To run to the ends of the earth, to hide for ever from the 
 man had been her one conscious purpose in her wild flight. 
 She could never look upon his face again. His presence 
 would be intolerable. All the fires of Hell burnt between 
 him and her. Now, without a moment's warning, she was 
 crying her heart out for him and for herself. She sank 
 weeping on the bank, weeping tears so bitter and burning
 
 294 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 that they scalded her cheeks, they blistered her heart. 
 She knew in this passion of tears that she had never cried 
 before, never loved, never suffered. Above all, that she had 
 never forgiven. She shook and trembled, and all at once 
 she knew that it was not only for herself and Peter Turton 
 she was grieving, it was for everyone else too, for every man 
 and woman and child in the whole world, and for saints as 
 well as sinners, for infinite sorrow knows no gradations in 
 incompleteness. She only knew that we are all very far 
 away, and that the one thing on earth is for us all to pray 
 hand in hand, the one helping the other, the united 
 strength of the world pressing it on to the Light. 
 
 But at last Mary could cry no longer. Her strength was 
 gone, her tears were burnt dry. AncJ with a dull vague 
 throbbing of pain and weariness she knew that this was not 
 all, that there was still something that she must do to help 
 sorrow, the sorrow that she and all the others had brought 
 upon the earth, the bitter cup of which they must all 
 drain, men and women and children until each in his 
 turn has seen life face to face, and through life the face of 
 God, Who made it to be the mirror to reflect His perfect 
 face, not our marred ones. 
 
 " Forgive us all," said Mary at last. " And me more than 
 all the others." 
 
 After twenty odd years of the nightly kneelings and 
 decorous church-goings of a pattern young life, this was 
 Mary's first prayer. 
 
 Peter Turton started when he saw her. He expected her 
 to be at the station half a mile behind them by this time. 
 Her waiting shook and moved him to his depths. When 
 she had fled from him, he had stood, a baffled beast 
 struggling back to humanity, then he had laughed tragically 
 out into the shadows. 
 
 He knew she was safe. Her face had conquered. She 
 could have gone as softly as she had come through the 
 lonely aisles her flying feet made holy. 
 
 And then with his recaptured manhood came man's 
 Gethsemane also for Peter Turton. 
 
 Peter Turton would never be the same man again.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 295 
 
 He left his youth behind him in that garden of agony. 
 And when now he looked at Mary, he knew that her girl- 
 hood lay slain beside it. That was the ultimate pain 
 of pain. No man could bear more and live. 
 
 They stood together and looked in each other's eyes, 
 helpless and speechless, seeing all the sorrow of life. 
 
 " Can you " he said at last, searching in some lost 
 maze of words for the right ones, " Can you forgive ? " 
 
 " But what a word," said Mary with dark, astonished 
 eyes, " between you and me. Perhaps to-morrow one 
 can talk, but now please take me home." 
 
 With a strange and piercing pang of renunciation, he 
 put her into the seat behind. The maddening joy of 
 her presence close and warm beside him was over for 
 ever in a world that was dead. 
 
 As he tucked her in and touched her, with an ache 
 that would ache for ever, " Our last ride together "kept 
 humming in his ears. 
 
 He drove swiftly and carefully away from his forfeited 
 youth, and hers ravaged by his hands. 
 
 He had panted to make a woman of her, ai.d this to 
 be the result of the great adventure !
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 IT was in the end her friendship with honest boys 
 and good women, and her healthy out-of-door life 
 that helped Mary through that fateful night of the " re- 
 adjustment of all values," far more than the trained 
 intelligence which had been her glory. It was these 
 things that saved her from despair, that purged her 
 self-loathing of all bitterness. 
 
 She belittled nothing in the stupendous fact, condoned 
 nothing, slurred over nothing. After hours of blind 
 struggle and futile effort she came at last to her sane 
 self. She faced her own sin, the eternal forces that lie 
 in wait watching their opportunity in all of us who have 
 not yet learnt wisdom, the wild folly that had made the 
 ultimate issue inevitable, as fairly as she would have 
 faced an affair fraught with shame and tragedy of any 
 other ignorant fool. 
 
 But she refused to lie prostrate in the dust bewailing 
 her degradation. " If I once let myself hate myself in 
 the way I could," she said, as she knelt beside the open 
 window, " I'd be hating the other people just as bad as 
 I am, in just the same way, and I'd never get on at all 
 and I'd be keeping the others back too. Now I know 
 the whole awfulness of it, everything's changed for ever, 
 nothing ever can be the same again, the world won't be 
 the same, or my Olivers, or or God, I think, and 
 I'll be sorry all my life. And yet I'm glad to know. 
 What hurts one so horribly to have learnt must be of 
 some inestimable value to everyone. And," she said, 
 
 296
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 297 
 
 " and God was there all that awful time, and He came 
 when I could go on no longer by myself. 
 
 " It's curious," she said after a long pause, " that 
 knowing ourselves, and and all our own terrors, should 
 make us know God too. If one didn't, one would be 
 too terrified I think to go on again, one could never 
 begin again in an entirely new way." 
 
 She stood up at last, when she could move at all, 
 and stood trembling and shaking as though broken by 
 some great sickness. She pulled herself together pre- 
 sently and stole in to see Oliver. For a long time she 
 knelt by his little bed, and the tears her agony had burnt 
 dry began to flow again. 
 
 " And to think that I, with all the traditions, and sacri- 
 fices, and restrictions, and denials, and all the other things 
 that have made women, and all the public opinion of the 
 whole world to support my my pretensions, could have 
 been just as bad as the very worst man, and and have 
 loved it. That I of all people should want such vile 
 things ! And men with no traditions, no memories, no, 
 no, no repulsions, and the habit of generations to lead 
 them on, and nothing to back them up at all ! Oh ! one 
 can't think of it," she cried, hiding her burning face. 
 
 " One daren't. Oh, little Oliver, you've got all that 
 before you, and a mother who has all these awful things 
 in her all the things you'll have to fight against, little 
 son. I'll spend all my life trying to keep you good, you 
 and the other boys, and I'll never judge anyone ever 
 again. One doesn't, little Dearest, when one knows. 
 We'll all try to be good together, and you could never 
 hurt me, dearest dear, as I've hurt myself. But it seems 
 to me," she said sadly, " that in this big fight you've 
 got to stand up against the whole world and every creature 
 in it." 
 
 Mary was very white when she came down next morning. 
 She looked very tired. 
 
 " You went too far yesterday, dear," said Mrs. Mirrilies 
 kindly. " You look so tired, but here are all the Indian 
 letters to rest you."
 
 298 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 It was her weekly joy to hand Mary her husband's letters. 
 
 " He hasn't written to me this week, but I mustn't 
 grumble, he's very good." 
 
 "He's had a slight touch of the sun," said Mary pre- 
 sently, wondering if her voice sounded all right. " That's 
 why he didn't write last week." 
 
 " Oliver a touch of the sun ! I thought he was sun- 
 proof." 
 
 " He was quite well when he wrote." Mary glanced 
 again at her letter. " The rest seems to be all business," 
 she said. " I'll keep it until afterwards." 
 
 She made a pretence of eating, said a few casual things 
 to Miss Caldecott and Fraulein, and the instant she could, 
 escaped to her room. 
 
 For a few minutes she could not see at all, the letters 
 danced before her eyes. She had already seen enough 
 to daze most women. 
 
 When he had told her why he had not written the 
 previous week, quietly, dispassionately, without any 
 preamble whatsoever, Oliver said : 
 
 " I was too ill to write last mail day, and as you will 
 see, could not very well ask anyone to write for me. It 
 was most unfortunate. I hope to God you have not heard 
 what I am about to tell you from anyone else. You have 
 more real courage than any woman I have ever known, 
 and now you will want it ail. 
 
 " I have unspeakably bad news, dear. A fortnight 
 ago to-day, just before I got the touch of sun, Major 
 Quayle served me with a writ making me co-respondent 
 in a suit against his wife. We are both innocent. At 
 the same time, Quayle is too able a man to begin a case 
 unless he's pretty sure of making out a good one, and in 
 my unfortunate illness, out of sheer goodness of heart, 
 Barbara may have been rather foolish. I shall never 
 forget her goodness. She saved my life, but she was 
 never very wise, you know, and I don't suppose I was very
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 299 
 
 wise myself just then. A sick man is at his worst, and 
 will get what he can out of anyone good enough to help 
 him, and Barbara is an incomparable nurse. 
 
 " Since then I have, as you know, been a great deal 
 at the Quayles'. I told you how he had changed in his 
 treatment of his wife, and how insistent he was in his 
 invitations to me. Apparently I've been a fool all round. 
 It's been a put-up job on his part from the beginning, 
 no doubt he can get any amount of native evidence. It 
 seems too that the station has been talking. Quayle 
 wants to marry a woman I believe the fellow cares for in 
 as decent a way as he can, and this is his way out. He'll 
 fight tooth and nail for his freedom. 
 
 " There have been rumours about you which he is 
 making use of, I find now. The usual things. Some 
 woman at St. Moritz wrote to another here about you 
 and Turton, the man you told me about. It appears 
 that Barbara knew this, and not to annoy me, didn't say 
 a word about it. I had a row with her. Wild things 
 were said. I am afraid Barbara gave herself away and 
 Quayle, it appears, was listening. And now he's making 
 the most of it to his own advantage. Had I known when 
 Barbara did, I should have been home now and with 
 you. I gave my assistant leave instead, and am now 
 tied here. 
 
 " If I were at home, I should know exactly how we 
 stand, you and I. I'll fight to the death for both of us 
 and the boy, of course, and also for that unfortunate 
 Barbara, a fool with a broken heart is about as bad a 
 thing to tackle as you can well imagine, and she saved 
 my life, you know. I'll make a good fight. I have 
 everything to fight for. If Quayle wins, everything must 
 go by the board for us. But if you only knew what love 
 was, Mary, I could fight better. 
 
 " It's an awful thing to have brought into your life, 
 child. There is no excuse for folly. I shall never forgive 
 myself. I ought to have known Quayle. 
 
 " I'm telling you all this brutally and bluntly, and 
 yet I can tell it in no other way. I haven't the slightest
 
 3 oo MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 idea, you see, how you will take it. I mean that part of 
 you to which a man always turns in his uttermost need. 
 The shock, moral and mental, will be awful, poor child. 
 I hate to think of you, my splendid, pure, proud Mary, 
 but will that part of you forgive the criminal folly that's 
 brought this catastrophe upon you and our boy ? 
 
 " You are loyal to your soul, my dear. That you'll 
 believe in my innocence and Barbara's I have no doubt. 
 It is a superb thing in this moment to have a wife of such 
 quality as yours ; but it would be easier now if you cared 
 in the way women not fit to tie your shoe-strings seem 
 to be able to care. 
 
 " I have ample time to prepare my defence. The case 
 won't come up for months. Tell my mother as little 
 or as much as you like. I trust you entirely." 
 
 Mary sat for hours, it seemed to her, before she could 
 think. She had no tears now. Yesterday had swallowed 
 all her tears. To-morrow called for sterner things than 
 tears, and her life was now of To-morrow, and not of 
 To-day. 
 
 That song was sung, that story told. 
 
 She sat still, tearless, resolute, striving for the courage 
 that can prevail over Hell itself, for a pure heart, and 
 for a clear understanding. 
 
 " Oliver only knows me as I was," she thought, at last, 
 " and he thinks I can't help him even now. He hasn't 
 asked me to go to him. He thinks I'll sit tight here 
 being moral and shocked, and considering the matter with a 
 well-trained intelligence ! He isn't sure of me. Oh ! 
 Oliver ! Oliver ! Oliver ! My dear ! Oh ! my dear. 
 
 " He doesn't know that after yesterday I could help 
 any man living, no matter how much a man he was or 
 how little, and even if he hadn't been innocent, Oliver's 
 sin would have been mine as much as his, and wouldn't 
 have made one atom of difference." 
 
 She paused and caught her breath : " Or or at least 
 hardly any. And and to dare to say I didn't know 
 how to love ! As if he could say anything else," she said
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 301 
 
 with a small and quavering laugh. " But I'll soon 
 show him ! 
 
 " And I feel so dull and dead and tired, and to-morrow 
 is their wedding-day ! I'll say nothing, and do nothing 
 until it's over," she said after a long pause. " I can 
 catch the boat at Marseilles if necessary, and I can pack 
 in a few hours. At least Miss Caldecott can pack, and 
 Oliver the Less can be a month here, and another at the 
 Vicarage, and oh ! to have to leave him behind ! and 
 we'll come home together Oliver and I ! 
 
 " And to-day to-day I must see Peter Turton. 
 My new life isn't beginning very easily, but I can live 
 it, I think. When one knows everything, one can. 
 
 " And and God did come when I could go on no 
 longer by myself. 
 
 " That other letter's from Barbara," she said, glancing 
 at the envelope. " I won't read it now. Barbara is too 
 little for our To-morrow, Oliver's and mine ! It's too big 
 and awful for her. It will probably swallow her up in 
 the end. 
 
 "Oh, but it mustn't," Mary cried after a moment's 
 pause. " She saved Oliver's life, which is more than 
 ever I did. I'm glad she has that at least to look back 
 to. And oh ! Oh ! I'm gladder that I'm not Barbara. 
 
 " And the wedding to-morrow, and it's got to be such 
 a wedding as never was ! And, and I feel sort of idiotic," 
 she said, tottering to her feet. " This new life wants 
 feeding I think. I'd better go down to luncheon. And 
 I wonder how I look." 
 
 She looked anything but satisfactory, so she pulled 
 down her hair and built up its shining masses in a new 
 way, until the result made her feel more fit to face Peter 
 Turton, and the wedding and the parting with little 
 Oliver, and those endless weeks of silence, and at the end 
 of them what ? 
 
 She put on a new blouse and a pendant with a king 
 sapphire in it for luck, and even Miss Caldecott, whose 
 lynx eyes of love had made her anxious, was satisfied with 
 the luncheon she ate.
 
 302 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " You said we might get the flowers for to-night and 
 to-morrow," said Mary, turning to her mother-in-law. 
 " I meant to get them this morning, but I read letters 
 instead, and slacked and did my hair, and Mr. Turton is 
 coming this afternoon, so will you three, you," she 
 nodded at Miss Caldecott, " and Fraulein and Oliver get 
 the flowers ? " 
 
 " Roses," said Oliver unctuously, " an 1 heaps of 'em." 
 
 " Well, roses an' heaps of them, and then we'll all put 
 them into your most precious china bowls, Mother, just 
 for once, and I'll wash them myself when it's all over, 
 or you will," said Mary, turning with a guilty grin to 
 Miss Caldecott. " It's sure to be you in the end." 
 
 " I should feel very much happier, dear Mary, if it 
 were," said Mrs. Mirrilies, smiling, and her eyes rested 
 lingeringly, half pleased, half puzzled upon her daughter- 
 in-law. 
 
 There was something different in Mary, something she 
 could not grasp, and could she grasp it, of which she 
 might not at all approve, but she never came nearer to 
 loving Oliver's wife with her whole heart than she did 
 at this moment. 
 
 "I'm going to my room," said Mary lightly, " and when 
 you and Mr. Turton have dealt with mixed farming from 
 every point of view, please send him up to me." 
 
 " Not bad that, for a woman whose husband is just 
 going to be divorced and with the most awful interview 
 of her life before her," said Mary, with a touch of her old 
 vainglory. " And I won't think of it. It's got to be 
 lived, and I'll live it, that's all." 
 
 She tried to nail her eyes to the chaste pages of the 
 Standard, but it was rather too severe a strain for this 
 amateur in real life. " I'll look at the people in the 
 street instead," she said. " They are all busy living I 
 suppose, or perhaps most of them are only just learning 
 to live like me. Still even the deadest is more alive 
 than that awful paper ! " She flung it aside, and knelt 
 on the window-seat to peer. 
 
 quiet indifference of the passing faces became
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 303 
 
 almost as much of a strain upon Mrs. Mirrilies as the 
 Standard, and had apparently as little to do with life. 
 
 " But why on earth don't they let me have just one 
 little look into them," said Mary, wriggling restively, 
 " just to understand, and be sort of friends. Don't 
 they care for anything ? Or are they too proud and 
 haughty, or have they suffered too much to let their 
 faces speak out ? Or is it all just bluff like me ? 
 
 " But it can't be so hard for everyone as it is for me," 
 she cried out on a dry sob. " Oh ! it can't, it can't, or 
 or no more children would ever be born into the world. 
 And what makes me think of that ? I, of all people, 
 who was afraid of children, because they would one day 
 be men and women as foolish as myself. Oh, what have 
 I done ? " she said, " what have I done ? . . . I wish he'd 
 come," she said at last, " and get that part over, and 
 then I could go on with this. I can't do them both 
 together." 
 
 He came soon. 
 
 There was still a faint hope in his heart that he would 
 see her girlhood once more, but his first glance killed that. 
 She was a woman with eyes as sad as they were sweet, and 
 for so fine and fair a creature extraordinarily humble. 
 
 There was nevertheless a grande dame look about her 
 that was strange and arresting, and it widened the distance 
 between them. He fetched up short and stood waiting. 
 
 " But won't you sit down ? " said Mary. 
 
 When he looked again he saw that she was a new 
 creature, fresh from the mint ; the eyes that looked out 
 at him were eyes he had never yet seen only her voice 
 was the old one he knew so well. 
 
 " There must be a great deal for us to say to each other," 
 she said presently, " and yet now you've come words 
 seem so ridiculous don't you think ? Oh ! but let me 
 speak first," she cried. " That's our privilege." He 
 laughed grimly under his breath. There were still points 
 of resemblance, it seemed, between this woman and the 
 woman he had known. 
 
 " I want to tell you that I know now the wrong I did
 
 304 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 you, and my abominable unfairness not only to you, but 
 to every other living man. I know now what you are, 
 and how you feel, and how hard it is to be good for all 
 of us who know. I refused to know, and made myself 
 a woman's world, the world most women live in, and we 
 sit there on tribunals made by ourselves, and judge and 
 condemn the real world of which we know nothing, or 
 only know it all wrong. We want it to be our own 
 world, to live it in our own way, and leave out and put in 
 what way we like. The things we can't leave out, we walk 
 round or look away from, we must humour our estab- 
 lished points of view or die, I think. We'll do anything 
 but face life just as it is." 
 
 " Oh ! I say it so badly," she said. " It's all so new 
 only a day old, and I can't put it rightly ; but do try 
 to understand. One has thought and read and listened 
 to lectures, of course, but it's all nothing till one knows, 
 tiU one has has lived the life one cut so carefully out 
 of all one's calculations." She hid her burning face in her 
 hands. 
 
 Peter Turton sat with bowed head, waiting. She had 
 claimed her dreadful right and she must have it, but his 
 shame burnt deeper than hers. He sat in hell and 
 waited. 
 
 "It's like taking a lighted match into a powder 
 magazine," she said. " Your foundations are all blown 
 up. Your walls are all about your ears, and your curtains 
 and all your decorations in tatters. You've just escaped 
 with your life, that's all. 
 
 " And," she said presently, lifting her head. " What 
 makes yesterday so impossible, so degrading, so unfor- 
 givable to me, is that it's Oliver I love. There's no 
 excuse anywhere for me. It's worse for you now, perhaps, 
 if if anything could be worse, but I'm glad you have 
 some excuse. It's so dreadful having none at all. And 
 and to think of having to say all this to you when we 
 were such friends." 
 
 " We're friends still," he said in a quick harsh voice. 
 
 " But can we be ever again ? " she asked, " with this
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 305 
 
 between us ? Real sin is the most awful thing in the 
 world," she said, shivering. " Do you think it will always 
 come between us ? " She lifted entreating eyes to his 
 pitying remorseful ones. " I don't want it to," she 
 protested ; " you're the only grown-up friend I've ever 
 had, and I want you now immensely. I know I 
 know " she said, looking up at him, " it will be horrible 
 for you, in a way, in the beginning, but but " 
 
 " Now look here, Mrs. Mirrilies," he said steadily. " If 
 a man has made a fool of himself and a beast of himself, 
 that's his look-out, not yours. He's got to live it out, 
 that's all. It's the one thing left for him to do, and you 
 don't want to deprive a man of the job he's earned, do 
 you ? " 
 
 He broke off helplessly. Her eyes silenced him. Her 
 face moved him too deeply for word or protest. 
 
 " That's all over and done with," he said presently. 
 " It will leave its mark on both of us, that's inevitable ; 
 but it's just as inevitable that we must both leave it 
 behind and get on. Neither of us can afford to turn it 
 into an obstacle in our path. And if its first effect was to 
 break a friendship like ours think what it would mean 
 to me, think of the throw-back to everything it would be ? 
 This is the thing to make or mar a man. You have a 
 lot in your hands." 
 
 " It will be horrible for you," she said, with the beautiful 
 eyes of a Mother. 
 
 He winced. 
 
 " Horrible or not, it's all that's left me, and my best 
 incentive to a decent life. I'll play fair, you know." 
 
 " But as if I doubted it ! But, it is an obstacle. 
 It must be, it it blocks the horizon somehow," she 
 said sadly. 
 
 " When I came in you meant to dismiss me for good. 
 Your conscience was pricking you on. You'll be re- 
 organizing that conscience of yours next, Mrs. Mirrilies. 
 It's pretty feminine still. But I never meant to go for 
 good. I'd better tell you at once. You may want a 
 man about the place soon." 
 
 20
 
 306 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 She looked at him and started. She remembered some- 
 thing he had said yesterday. It hadn't struck her then, 
 
 but now She put her hands to her tired head, and 
 
 tried to recall things. Oliver was afraid that someone 
 else might tell her. Could he, by any possibility, have 
 heard ? 
 
 " I do want a man about the place now," she said. 
 " Boys and women aren't enough. Why did you say that 
 to me just now ? " 
 
 " Did you get your Indian letters ? " he asked gently. 
 
 She nodded, dumb and white. 
 
 " Let me help you if I can." 
 
 " What do you know ? " she asked faintly. 
 
 " I believe I know what you do." 
 
 " Yes," she said in an odd dead voice. " You know. 
 I'm going out by the next boat. I'll catch it easily. 
 There's plenty of time. But the wedding must be a 
 success first. You can help me a great deal. I shouldn't 
 have given in to my conscience in the end. I want your 
 help too much." 
 
 " I'll see about your passage at once. And you're 
 right : the wedding must go like cream." 
 
 " Oliver is innocent, as it happens," she said quietly. 
 "But if he weren't, his sin would be mine too, and it 
 wouldn't make one atom of difference. And Oliver's 
 career isn't going to be over at thirty- two. We won't let 
 it. How I haven't an idea, but we won't. What I'm 
 going to do when I get there I haven't an idea. And 
 whether Oliver will want me or not I haven't an idea. 
 He will," she said in a low voice, " before I'm done with 
 him." 
 
 She was as still as marble and as white. 
 
 He took out his watch. 
 
 " There's an hour and a half still to tea. Will you lie 
 down till then ? I'll go and secure your passage at once, 
 and then talk to Mrs. Mirrilies. I meant to cut tea, of 
 course, and grouse in my den, but there's more sense in 
 this. Lie down, for God's sake. You mustn't look like 
 that when they see you. Are you all right about money ? "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 307 
 
 " I have a big balance, I think there's plenty. If not, 
 I'll come to you." 
 
 She paused and turned to look at him. A scarlet flush 
 rushed to her white cheeks. There was a torment of pity 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " If only I'd known," she said simply. " It's too 
 terrible for you. I I have hope, and you have nothing, 
 except the one excuse that counts." 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Mirrilies, worrying yourself to death because 
 you didn't take better care of a man isn't the sort of thing 
 to buck him up, you know. Leave me to make the best 
 of my sins and my sorrows, later on, when I have time. 
 You have enough on your hands without them. That 
 chapter's closed, and what we've got to do is to turn over 
 that page, and begin the next, and to remember that one 
 bad chapter never yet damned any book, and won't now." 
 
 "I'm not thinking of you altogether," said Mary, with 
 a touch of her old spirit. "It's my own horrible part 
 in, in everything." 
 
 " You're much too sensible a woman," said Peter 
 Turton with a wry mouth, " to start a lifelong repentance 
 for what never happened. Lie down, Mrs. Mirrilies, and 
 be ready to meet them, and believe in To-morrow and your 
 own power over it. You have a lot in your hands, you 
 know, the fate of two men, you've got to keep me going 
 as well as Mirrilies, you see, for the rest of my life. You've 
 got enough on your hands to make up for any yesterday ; 
 so have I, for the matter of that. And now, for every- 
 one's sake, get your face right." 
 
 When Peter Turton got outside the door, he fetched up 
 short, and for an instant let go his grip on himself. The 
 sweat stood out on his ruddy face ; he shook like a girl. 
 
 " So this is love," he said grimly " this ! And I'm 
 glad I love her ! And to be lecturing her like that and 
 playing the fool myself ! " he said, as he went down the 
 stairs. 
 
 20*
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 IN Mary's complication of pains and problems, so 
 acutely adult ; all unsolved ; many of them appa- 
 rently beyond solution, the lesser agony of her parting 
 from her boy, was pushed back at first into the back- 
 ground, into some world whose ways were clear, whose 
 paths were plain. 
 
 Even when Oliver and she put the roses into the beau- 
 tiful bowls, and afterwards by their combined gaiety 
 made the bridal pair forget their embarrassment at their 
 own temerity, the parting was still as some external 
 menace, a shadowy dream from some life that had been. 
 It was too young a grief perhaps to find any real fellow- 
 ship with ancient agonies. 
 
 It was later on, in the night, that it slipped into Mary's 
 heart and melted it back to youth. 
 
 Otherwise the awful sense of age that lay with the 
 weight of all the ages upon her, the burden of her participa- 
 tion in the adult life of man, would have broken Mary. 
 
 It would certainly in the end have frustrated her 
 youthful enough efforts to make the eve of the wedding 
 go so trippingly that Miss Gaunt should leave the bitter- 
 ness of inevitable loss behind her for ever, and rock on, 
 in sure and certain bliss, with her Bishop. 
 
 In his deep sympathy with even her unspoken points of 
 view Mary saw perfectly well that the good simple man 
 was being badgered by Miss Gaunt into feeling rather 
 ashamed of himself for his belated venture. He would, 
 had he been permitted, have gladly sneaked off to some 
 obscure church for the ratification of the contract, 
 
 308
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 309 
 
 although in his secret soul he loved the pomp and 
 ceremony of a very distinguished Bishop and two Arch 
 deacons to launch him and his beloved into their life 
 together. 
 
 And even in the fact that the path of Julia should be 
 strewn with flowers and the tables be gay with them in 
 her honour, he could find nothing at all ridiculous. 
 Nothing could be good enough, or sweet enough, or young 
 enough for the woman he had chosen when they had both 
 been young together. The years that had passed between 
 the day he had first loved her and now were as a dream 
 dreamed to this true lover. 
 
 " If she's thinking all the time of the years that the 
 locusts have eaten," said Mary after dinner to Miss 
 Caldecott and Mr. Turton who, coerced by the ironic 
 cynicism inherent in circumstances not only had tea at 
 the house, but also dinner, " she'll be spoiling the Bishop's 
 day out to-morrow, and I believe it will be his first real 
 proper day out since he was in Switzerland how many 
 years ago ? " 
 
 " It will, dear Mary," faltered Miss Caldecott with a 
 sudden sad understanding. " She's so conscientious." 
 
 " Bother her conscience 1 She's got to make that good 
 old man as happy as a boy with the whole of time before 
 him." 
 
 " But the Bishop shall have his To-morrow, "said Mary 
 " if I have to shake all her yesterdays out of Julia. Now, 
 Mr. Turton, bring them all over to us. I have a little 
 surprise for all of you. It's Oliver's secret and mine, 
 but wait, I think we'll show it to you two first." 
 
 She looked round carefully, then opened the door into 
 a little ante-room. A scent as of summer gardens floated 
 out, and for a minute one could see nothing .but carnations, 
 rose and white and yellow, with the tender grey grace of 
 their spiky leaves the one minor note in the pure high 
 key of colour, and in and out amidst the fine bowls of 
 china and the tall, thin glasses were ranged the presents. 
 
 " Oliver and I did it all," said Mary proudly. " First 
 we thought of having spring flowers ; then we decided
 
 310 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 they'd only give rise to morbid regrets, and no one can 
 say that carnations aren't quite grown up." 
 
 " When did you and Oliver do all this ? " inquired Peter 
 Turton imperturbably. 
 
 " Oh, after we'd done the roses," said Mary, and again 
 she flushed painfully. 
 
 " Shall I bring in the victims ? " he asked, " or will 
 you wait for the boys ? " 
 
 Mary paused and listened. " I hear them ! Bring 
 them all in together. The boys are dears. Just look at 
 the books they've given between them. No one could have 
 found out what the Bishop wanted most in the world 
 after his Julia but Hallowes, and it took even him a week." 
 
 Mary turned to lift the head of one carnation and lower 
 that of another, and for some curious reason she held on 
 tight to Oliver's little hand. The horror of the secret 
 between her and Peter Turton seemed to be burning into 
 her. This intimate mutual knowledge that seemed to 
 try, by forcing them apart to keep them together, always 
 together. 
 
 It was an intolerable thing. It spoilt what was so 
 indispensable, and so unspeakably dear, the friendship of 
 this man. Infinitely more calamitous it seemed to divide 
 her from Oliver. "It's a barrier between me and the 
 whole world," she thought sadly, " and yet there are 
 people who can go on like this for their whole lives, or 
 who can't and so do things and no wonder. And how 
 is one to break the awful bond ? It's right, it's the best 
 thing I have just now except Oliver. But oh ! how it 
 hurts ! " 
 
 " Oliver ! " she said hurriedly, " when you and I do 
 things together they always turn out well. Just look 
 at those yellow carnations ! We'll always do things 
 together, darling dear, and even when we go away from 
 each other we'll still pretend we're doing everything 
 together, and so everything will be much easier, and 
 we'U do things much better." 
 
 " But we never go away from each other," said Oliver 
 with unmoved innocence.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 311 
 
 " But we may have to some day. Look at Harry and 
 Jim." 
 
 " They're big men, an' they have you." 
 
 " Yes," said Mary, with another abominable prick. 
 Was her secret coming between her and her boys 
 now ? " Oh, well, I do my best, but I'm not their own 
 mother." 
 
 " No," said Oliver thoughtfully, " but I give 'em all I 
 can spare of you, and they give all they can spare of their 
 own Muwers to us, to you an' me ; we've all got on 
 all right." 
 
 " Until the real sons and the real mothers come together 
 again. And, you know, Oliver, when they have to go away 
 again from their mothers, or their mothers from them, 
 brave men never howl or make a nuisance of themselves, 
 they just make the best of any temporary mother who'll 
 take them on, and do things all the time in their hearts 
 with their own real mothers." 
 
 " Oh," said Oliver, with wide, interested eyes, there 
 was a curious feeling of adventure in the arrangement 
 
 " like you an' the boys and Lasotovitsch and " 
 
 He broke off short some horrible thing had suddenly 
 slipped into the story. 
 
 " But little, little boys can't go lookin' for muvvers ; 
 the muwers mightn't know what 'em was lookin' for." 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, you'd soon show them, and they'd just 
 jump at you, little dear. There are thousands of mothers 
 who haven't any always looking for children, and millions 
 of aunts and " 
 
 " I don't like this story," said Oliver, with a quick 
 scared look, clinging to his mother's hand. " Don't tell 
 
 me any more, darling dear. An' there's the boys an' 
 
 Oh ! I'm glad ! " 
 
 He threw himself with quite unusual fervour upon his 
 friends, and his mother caught a sharp breath. " Oh ! 
 What shall I do ?" she said. " What shall I do ? " 
 
 She was ready, however, to welcome the boys and to 
 show off her wares, and to ignore as long as she could the 
 half-sad, half-humorous protest in Miss Gaunt's eye,
 
 3i2 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 but at last, whilst the others were listening to the Bishop 
 belauding his books, the bride-to-be cornered Mary. 
 
 " You've done me in, after all," said she. 
 
 " Now look here," said Mary. " You may set me lines 
 if you like, or even send me to bed, I don't care ; it 
 wouldn't be the first time, but I'm going to speak the truth 
 or bust. For the most unselfish woman I've ever known, 
 you're being selfish to a degree no smaller human being 
 could ever attain to. You've been grousing in your 
 heart about the lost years, and the lost hair, and the 
 lost waist, and, above all, the lost babies, the things you 
 think you've defrauded that unfortunate angel of, till 
 unless you stop, and that very soon, he'll begin to believe 
 you, and be sorry he didn't marry some creature with all 
 the things you've lost, and be miserable ever after. Can't 
 you let him take what he wants ? If he'd wanted all 
 those things more than he wanted you, he'd have taken 
 them. Women are plenty and Bishops scarce. As for 
 the presents, to rob us of the joy of giving our things 
 when you've taken our hearts is simply ridiculous. Be- 
 sides, remember that your Robert is ours too, and if you 
 spoil to-morrow for him and us, we'll never forgive you, 
 and it will probably end in your Robert's making off 
 with the organist. She's pretty, and young, and has 
 probably a most genteel waist." 
 
 " I never said a word to Robert," said the bride 
 with spirit. 
 
 " As if Robert didn't know." 
 
 " How do you know," demanded Miss Gaunt in quite 
 her old manner. 
 
 " I know a great deal," said Mary. "I'm growing 
 up." 
 
 Miss Gaunt with a quick movement swung her round 
 to the light. 
 
 " You are, child," she said gently. " You're growing 
 up. Was there anything I could have done for you and 
 didn't just lately when I was embedded in old pains that 
 no longer matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing in the world," said Mary, laughing steadily,
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 313 
 
 " except not worrying the Bishop into looking on matri- 
 mony as a penance." 
 
 " And to think your first grown-up act should be to 
 bring my sin home to me ! It's hard on an old governess 
 who's spanked you in her day. You wanted it badly, 
 Mary ; but to think that as near an approach to my 
 own child as is possible in the circumstances, should have 
 caught me napping ! It just brings one's limitations home 
 to one. No imitation can be like the real thing. You'd 
 never have eluded a real mother." 
 
 " You're the realest mother I've ever had, and there 
 was nothing that any mother could help me in. And 
 you've always been swearing at me because I wasn't quite 
 grown-up, you know." 
 
 " I know, at any rate, that you've been hustled into the 
 business, and it needn't have hurt in the fiendish way it 
 has." 
 
 " But it's over and done with," said Mary stoutly, " and 
 I'm glad I'm grown-up. And, I oughtn't to have let 
 you know, and yet I'm glad you do know. It makes 
 you an even more real Mother. But remember it's not 
 going to spoil to-morrow, it's only going to bring me a 
 little more into it, you'll want me there, you and your 
 Bishop. You know you will. And don't ever forget 
 that I'm glad to be grown-up, glad ! glad ! glad ! no 
 matter how much it hurts. And I'm quite to be 
 trusted," said Mary, looking out of her frank sincere 
 eyes into Miss Gaunt's searching ones. " Be just as 
 sure of your daughter, you dearest of old dears, as your 
 daughter is of you. And this is our good-bye ! And now 
 come back to the presents. You haven't half admired 
 Oliver's orange Ruskin cups, and Lasotovitsch's ' Omar 
 Khayyam,' or the boys' books." 
 
 " I'll hug them all before they're much older," said the 
 bride-elect. " Do you think they'd mind ? 
 
 " Come and find out ! " said Mary.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 ' I A HE effect of her new knowledge worked all for good 
 
 1. in Miss Gaunt's case. It gave her a bad night 
 indeed, but that over and done with, she dropped the 
 past like a hot coal, dumped firmly into the present, and 
 butted heroically out into the future. 
 
 Anything properly alive and growing always appealed 
 vigorously to this vigorous lady. It was prowling round 
 amongst perished hopes, kisses unkissed, children she 
 could never mother, that had undone her. Now with 
 good honest sobs she thanked God for her Bishop and 
 other blessings, and resolved that their wedding day, with 
 all its disabilities, should for ever bury the hatchet between 
 her and fate. Besides, since they'd found each other, 
 they had lost nothing really. The past had cost them 
 both infinite things, but all was now paid up, whilst Mary's 
 settling day was all to come. 
 
 Moreover, she decided with spirit, it was her day, not 
 Mary's, and it was for her to make it go. Mary took too 
 much upon herself ! 
 
 Next morning the Bishop, good guileless man, setting 
 convention at defiance, paid an almost indecently early 
 call upon the ladies. Cousin Ella was still in bed preparing 
 for this day of colossal emotion, so he had Julia all to 
 himself. 
 
 " You'll be glad to hear, Robert," she said stoutly, as 
 soon as she had put a substantial breakfast before him, 
 " that I'm leaving the past to bury itself decently. It's 
 robbed both of us of a lot, me more than you, for even 
 the years are harder on women than on men. It's hardly 
 
 314
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 315 
 
 necessary to tell you that I've been feeling like a male- 
 factor for letting you take a basket of fragments when you 
 might have had a whole woman. However, Mary reminded 
 me last night that that's your business, not mine. You've 
 got what you want, and must make the best of it, so 
 much for that ! We'll plant the grave of the past with 
 sweet herbs, Robert, and rue for remembrance, and 
 now for the present ! Eat your bacon, Robert. It seems 
 that Mary has been growing up with a vengeance while 
 I've been grousing and you humouring me, and in the 
 process she nearly fell into some abominable pit, the 
 usual one of course, a man like that isn't always about 
 the place for nothing. Go on with your breakfast ! " she 
 commanded. " That's all over. Mary's safe, but the 
 rest is all to come. And oh ! Robert, Mary and her 
 past, and present, and future, and all her sorrow is our 
 best wedding present, I think. It makes her part and 
 substance of our day. She feels it herself. She said so 
 last night in a way, and to be trying to stick a musty 
 old past like mine into our day and spoil its freshness, 
 with such a daughter ! Mary's coming of age is our 
 wedding day ! 
 
 " There's a tremendous advantage really in plunging 
 slick into the lives of our own children, not having to 
 wait years for things to happen, getting worn out with 
 whooping cough and measles and modern education 
 before things begin to hum ! " 
 
 " That," said the Bishop, " has been precisely my own 
 view now for a long time." 
 
 " I'm glad we agree in something," said the bride-elect. 
 
 " Mary is very peculiarly our child to-day," said the 
 Bishop thoughtfully ; " but Peter Turton is almost as 
 much so surely. Mary is going on. Whatever has 
 happened will only drive her forward on the great march, 
 and her goal is before her. Peter Turton is I fear held 
 up in the rear with no longer any visible goal at all." 
 
 " Well, yes. It's all pretty immoral," she sighed, 
 " and yet I can't blame him. If I do, I'll be blaming Mary 
 too, and one can't to-day."
 
 316 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Nor to-morrow, nor the next day ! One can't blame 
 anyone till one can understand him, and who can under- 
 stand the other ? Besides, then I fancy we shouldn't 
 blame at all." 
 
 " At any rate the poor derelicts who've outlived all 
 their own preoccupations have other fish to fry. We 
 have a fine mixed family, Robert, Mary, and Peter Turton, 
 and little Oliver, and later on his father, and the three 
 boys." 
 
 " Even should we grow bored with each other, we can 
 never be lonely, dear Julia." 
 
 " Or moribund ! We'll always have a sorrow or so 
 to keep us alive. I'm not grousing, Robert. I'm glad 
 we're still alive enough to take our part in all that's passed 
 us by, and to understand, and help in the big things in 
 life. If they're big they hurt. It's the price of size 
 and space. 
 
 " It's a splendid wedding day. It's big with life ! " 
 she said, with tears in her honest eyes. " It's so big that 
 it holds everything. Now go, for goodness sake ! I must 
 rout Ella out of her bed, and put some backbone into her 
 sentiment, and set myself out to the best advantage. I 
 was always as ugly as sin, Robert, but I'm not going to 
 apologize any more. It's a reflection on you, after all, 
 for not having more of an artistic eye." 
 
 Robert being human, slightly shifted his feet, and glanced 
 at the sideboard, and then for the first time she was aware 
 of a beautiful bouquet of flowers. 
 
 " I say, did you bring them ? did Mary " 
 
 " I had Mary's permission, my dear." 
 
 " And do you mean to say you chose them and put 
 them together ? That's no shop bunch. Well I never ! 
 I knew you were a poet in your heart, dear, but I had never 
 suspected you of an artistic eye. How could I, being me ? 
 Oh, go, or I'll never be ready 1 " 
 
 It wasn't the least like the wedding anyone had ever 
 designed or expected, but they all enjoyed it.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 317 
 
 Directly the boys arrived Hallo wes took it over, lock, 
 stock, and barrel, and from that moment it was the 
 youngest wedding on record. 
 
 At first it nearly shocked Cousin Ella to death, but 
 Heron took her in hand, and soon restored her. 
 
 The Bishop and the two Archdeacons had the day of 
 their lives. It seemed to lift hundredweights of vicarious 
 sin from their burdened hearts. They ate astonishing 
 amounts of indigestible substances with impunity, and 
 went home with a fellow feeling for the minor clergy 
 and other irritants that beset the Church Militant they 
 had never before experienced. 
 
 " I don't suppose for a moment that young Russian 
 has any morals at all," said the Bishop, as they all drove 
 back together ; " and were he my son, I should be 
 extremely anxious about the fellow who ran the show, 
 the other is safe enough. The man Turton is plainly 
 head over ears in love with that splendid young married 
 woman, and the bride and bridegroom are aware of 
 everything, and condone it all. Our brother has chosen 
 both his wife and his friends well if not wisely. I think," 
 he said presently, " that we have been serving to-day at 
 the marriage of Cana of Galilee, for surely Christ in His 
 youth was in our midst." 
 
 The Archdeacons, who were his oldest friends and had 
 always thought Thomas rather a hard man, smiled gently 
 out into the twilight. 
 
 Just at the last, before the good-byes were said, the 
 bride enticed her new possession into the little room of 
 carnations and signalled to Hallowes. 
 
 " We want Mary here to ourselves for five minutes. 
 Just manage it." 
 
 " All the old buffers are sitting in her pocket," said 
 Heron, with his usual consideration for the aged. 
 
 " Dislodge them then, and look sharp, or we'll lose the 
 train," said the bride brutally. 
 
 " Now, child," said she, when Heron had carefully shut 
 in Mary. " Tell us everything. We can't go away like 
 this. We must take the whole of you with us. If any-
 
 318 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 thing could spoil our day, it would be for you to refuse 
 us our natural part in your sorrow." 
 
 " But I'll write," said Mary, flushing. " Of course 
 I'll write. Can't you keep to-day all for yourselves ? " 
 
 " And leave you out ? But how could we ? you're 
 part of our day. You can't give an old childless couple 
 yourself, Mary, and deny us your sorrow on such a day 
 as this ? " said the Bishop. 
 
 For an instant Mary was silent. Then with bowed head 
 and as simply as a child and in as few words, she told 
 them everything. Her sin and folly, her sorrow and her 
 tormenting fear. 
 
 " The sins of children don't count," said the bride cheer- 
 fully. " So much for that ! Peter Turton, however, is 
 not a child, far from it ! He must pay up like the man 
 he is, and the rest was all inevitable, the folly and 
 the madness, and the price must be paid in pain. But 
 it's too beautiful a wedding day to be spoilt in the end," 
 she said and paused, and suddenly for one moment her 
 old ugly face was young and beautiful. " I don't believe," 
 she said, " I know that out of our great sorrow shall come 
 great joy. At the same time," she added practically, 
 " there's no use blinking facts, they're serious and malign. 
 And this is now our job. We'll see every divorce specialist 
 in England, and if necessary follow hot on your heels, with 
 every modern instrument for the suppression of Satan 
 in tow." 
 
 " To-morrow 
 
 " That's just like you, Robert. You must always be 
 flying to the help of the afflicted. At our age we must 
 go softly. In any case, any unconsidered action would 
 only embarrass Mary, and there's no hurry. Mary must 
 send us all details before we can move at all. To-morrow 
 we have our honeymoon on our hands. You're not going 
 to do me out of that after waiting so long for it, my good 
 man ! Oh, Mary, having been a fool makes you more 
 our own real child than ever, there's nothing like folly 
 for bringing people together. 
 
 " But when folly has done its worst, wisdom must step
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 319 
 
 in, and there's when Robert will be indispensable. And 
 fortunately I have common sense. Meanwhile having the 
 whole of you in our honeymoon will keep it full to the 
 brim with everything we've always been hankering after. 
 And, you're right, my dear. Your place is with your 
 husband, divorce proceedings or not, even if it was only 
 to keep that poor creature Barbara from further idiocies." 
 " God bless you, my child," was all the Bishop said, his 
 wife having said all the rest.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 IT was not necessary, after all, to catch the boat at 
 Marseilles, and Mary longed for the bitter stimu- 
 lation of the wild Northern seas. So down through the 
 turbid green waters, past the white cliffs, the grim grey 
 coasts, the flat sands opal and pearl as the evening fell, 
 they went, and in the spell of the ruined pasts and the 
 unborn futures of Western Europe in transition, Mary 
 felt at home with her sorrow. For there is great sorrow 
 in all the Western airs, an unquenchable terror, and an 
 infinite desire. 
 
 Hope struggled to her feet in the blue of the Southern 
 seas, for here the sorrow was more ancient, pushed far 
 back into a rock-hewn grave upon which the dawn of the 
 resurrection has not yet arisen. It was a pensive sorrow 
 with which Mary's passionate pain had nothing to do. 
 
 Since it was the wrong season, the passengers consisted 
 chiefly of poor officers and their dependents. Men old 
 before their time, forced all too soon back to duty. Per- 
 manently faded women, silently enduring everything. 
 
 None of them could make out Mary. She neither 
 looked nor dressed as though she ought to be there at all, 
 and offered no explanation whatsoever as to her pre- 
 cipitation into so unaccustomed an atmosphere. Their 
 attitude towards her could hardly be called sympathetic. 
 It was hard, and a little curious. 
 
 The bitterness of insufficient means has an insidious 
 way of hurting souls. It was Mary's first experience of 
 this form of poverty : she knew nothing of the cruel non- 
 human forces which produce the petty vices of the moral 
 
 320
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 321 
 
 and cultured impecunious classes, and she was too selfish 
 and preoccupied herself just then to tackle the unpleasant 
 problem. 
 
 It was all so little, and parting and pain so big, and 
 nothing is much more irritating than to watch passively 
 the things to which humanity will tamely submit : it 
 sometimes made Mary's impatience to get on and out of 
 it almost unbearable. 
 
 And the blue and the beauty of the Southern seas left 
 her as untouched as it did the poor harassed gentlepeople 
 of small means. 
 
 " It's like spending your whole time with Barbara," 
 she said one day, as she watched a group " and to have 
 a writ of divorce served on you on account of a person 
 like Barbara ! " she reflected as she gazed half fascinated. 
 " Not a person at all, Barbara ! only just a chip off a 
 type ! Oh, poor, poor Oliver ! " 
 
 It was too ludicrous. Suddenly she laughed, and 
 laughing, she awoke from the torpor that had fallen 
 upon her. 
 
 " This will never do," she said. " I'm being Barbara 
 all over myself." 
 
 She lifted herself with vigour from her long chair and 
 retired to her cabin for meditation. But first she looked 
 in her glass, and was certain she saw little lines just like 
 those on the faces of the other women cutting up under 
 the smooth surface, and her neck was scraggy ! And 
 now it struck her that she had hardly eaten anything 
 since she had held Oliver's hand on the platform, and 
 caught the last glimpse of Peter Turton going back to 
 his ruined life with Cousin Ella and the little Moth in tow. 
 
 " But it's so exactly like Barbara," she repeated, "and 
 as if one Barbara wasn't enough for Oliver. I'll eat 
 an immense tea, and then I'll talk to the others. I daresay 
 they'll let me. They must be very tired of each other 
 by this time, and they'll be as good, anyway, as psycho- 
 logical lectures, and not half so exhausting to the brain." 
 
 There was a sigh of relief upon the entrance of Mary 
 into the ship's life, the sense of tension had become 
 
 21
 
 322 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 oppressive, and some new freedom was let loose. Although 
 resenting with vague bitterness her possession of everything 
 for which they had always been hoping, they yet welcomed 
 any change. 
 
 To Mary they seemed to be all prisoners together in 
 sordid bonds they could only break in breaking them- 
 selves, and those dearest to them in pieces. The men 
 were doubly in bondage, having each brought some woman 
 into it also. They were hemmed in by limitations, 
 cabined, cribbed, confined, and the awful thing about the 
 men was that they resented the outward and visible 
 signs of captivity in their fellow-captives. 
 
 It was Mary's first intimate association with that 
 poverty with the serpent's tooth. The poverty of those 
 with the spacious mind, and the spacious views, and the 
 right to all the dignity of space that generations of it had 
 conferred upon them, and had unhappily bequeathed 
 nothing but the longing for those things natural to their 
 quality to devastate their souls. 
 
 One man who had left Sandhurst with high hopes 
 and the sword of honour, was bringing out his worn wife 
 at the wrong time that his boy might go to his own old 
 school. Another, a born soldier, at the very moment 
 when things at the Frontier were simmering to the boil, 
 must go over to the Political, that the children at home 
 should have everything that was their just due. 
 
 A faded young mother was bringing out her girl a year 
 too soon, to send the boy, who was a genius, up to Oxford. 
 The boy must not suffer, upon that they were all agreed, 
 but the girl would have lost her bloom before her first 
 season. 
 
 Another fighter by Divine right was going over, with 
 a wry mouth, to the Army Service Corps. 
 
 The men who make the Empire were being driven like 
 dumb beasts to worse than slaughter. It was their 
 dumbness that made Mary outrageous. His own story 
 was never told by one of them. It was always some 
 other woman who told it. Not the immediate sufferer. 
 She never spoke. One of the others did that, and with
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 323 
 
 an air of finality in the story so destroying that Mary 
 always wanted to shake her. 
 
 No woman should dare to speak like that of the career 
 of a man. No woman should ever give up. 
 
 And even if the victim herself didn't speak, she looked 
 dull. 
 
 It seemed to Mrs. Mirrilies, now alive and alert, as 
 she looked up and down the rows of women, that what 
 courage is to man faith is to woman, and that with enough 
 of it, she can move the world. " And even the simplest 
 faith, the tiniest sprout," thought this intolerant young 
 woman, " one can tend and water like a flower until it 
 breaks into everlasting bloom." 
 
 It seemed to Mary, the theorist, a wonderful thing, 
 this faith of woman ! a mighty heritage, that the passive 
 should thus inspire the active, until she " lifts 'em, lifts 
 'em, lifts 'em, to the charge that wins the day ! " 
 
 Mary had still the grace, however, to laugh at herself. 
 
 She, who had been on the very brink of despair, letting 
 everything slip by, the beauty and the sadness of the 
 whole world, and all the splendour and the tragedy of 
 men ! And even now she was blaming sympathetic 
 observers who told things in the wrong way, and silent 
 creatures on the rack who didn't smile. 
 
 She also had forgotten her rights, and her heritage ; 
 above all, she had resented the pains and penalties of 
 being a woman, grudging the price, forsooth, for so great 
 a glory. 
 
 " And now to be finding fault with anyone ! " said 
 Mary. "I'll do what I can, anyway, to make up for it 
 now, and I just wonder how the blind will lead the 
 blind, who're all the time wishing, with blinking half- 
 open eyes, they had blouses like yours, and feeling uneasy 
 about their husbands, if you talk too long to them. I 
 could talk to them for ever, and praise them and admire 
 them until they just swelled with vanity but being a 
 woman has its drawbacks. We must pay in that way 
 too ! " 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 21*
 
 324 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 "I'll have to pay by forcing the poor things on the 
 rack into doing what I'd much rather do myself. I simply 
 adore those men and the futures I see in them. Oh ! 
 I'll stick to the women," she said with a sigh that nearly 
 degenerated into a groan, " with an occasional relapse 
 for recovery. I'll tidy them up and do little things for 
 them, and then, then I'll just say, with a difference, 
 the things I'll be saying all my life to Oliver, if if " 
 she burst out on a sob. " But I won't have any ifs," she 
 said valiantly again after a long pause. " And I love 
 every man living because I I love Oliver in the wonderful 
 way I do, and having been a fool myself," she said with 
 conviction, " I know how to deal with fools." 
 
 So Mary went for the women, and in her immense 
 interest in their husbands, and in their stories, she told 
 them her own somehow, and the voyage in the end was 
 not the terror it might have been. 
 
 Mrs. Mirrilies indeed looked as fresh when she landed 
 as when she had embarked. 
 
 In the fcetid heat of the train, however, her occupation 
 behind her, before her life or death, Mary's mind fell 
 from its temporary expansion, back amidst the little 
 things that make life small, the little inevitable things of 
 every day, her own futile efforts amongst the rest. 
 
 All sorts of petty incidents she could have laughed at 
 a week ago, dogged her mind, spoiling its elasticity. Little 
 jealousies, little spites, little falsities encompassed her 
 and led her captive. She seemed to have fallen into 
 a pit of littlenesses. All the splendid possibilities her 
 eyes had seen on shipboard were now far away, and to 
 pit her puny strength against the invincible microscopical 
 forces that had vanquished giants, Oliver, for instance, 
 with the pot of abominations from which divorces are 
 brewed being emptied this minute about his ears, seemed 
 nothing short of ridiculous. 
 
 It was a doubting and a fearful Mary who sat in that 
 sultry compartment and looked down, not up. And 
 this to be the reaction from her first really practical 
 effort in altruism !
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 325 
 
 " I really did work like a horse," she said, peering up 
 out of the pit, " once I started. All through the Red 
 Sea I never gave in once. And yet I might just as well 
 have lopped like the others. I'll leave the world to improve 
 itself, and just hold on tight to Oliver. 
 
 "My faith has apparently a hole in it. If I leave it 
 alone, something may silt down and plug it and stop 
 further waste. I must nail my mind to a simple thing 
 like a man a man a man that's just what Oliver is, 
 and it's everything." 
 
 This steadied Mary a little. Incessant occupation of 
 an altruistic nature in the Red Sea tries the reins, and 
 the birth of passion in a woman strong of body, brain, 
 and spirit, leaves its mark. 
 
 When Mrs. Mirrilies without warning of letter or tele- 
 gram, reached her station, she was sane again in a measure, 
 but she was changed. She was always changing now, 
 it seemed, always in a state of flux, some nebulous 
 creature never settling down into any mould, like jelly 
 that won't jell. Like anything in the making that will 
 never get made, without something added. 
 
 She was as some being waiting In the mists of Creation's 
 dawn for the magical touch of completion. Things had 
 got beyond her. She would do nothing but hold on to 
 Oliver. She had neither time nor strength to be tracking 
 her own changes. They only mattered to Oliver, after 
 all, and he could do his tracking for himself ! 
 
 When she got out of the train she stood rather lost 
 and helpless amongst her boxes. To be without any 
 attendance at all in India, and with no one to meet you, 
 was an experience curiously annihilating. 
 
 She had brought no maid from England on account of 
 the season and her haste, and it had not struck her to 
 engage one on landing. She had felt quite strong and 
 uplifted enough then to face all the beasts in the jungle 
 single-handed. But now it was another story. 
 
 The furtive inquiry behind commentless eyes, the 
 suavely servile offers of service brought to Mary far-off 
 echoes of the old ample, protected life : a sense of loss,
 
 326 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 of an irreparable loneliness, a lasting regret, fell upon 
 Mary. The years that the locusts had eaten seemed to 
 lift themselves from their graves and to gaze with dim 
 reproachful eyes into hers. 
 
 The meanness in the quality of her return brought 
 her folly home to Mary more than a thousand moral 
 discourses would have done. 
 
 " The prodigal son with the fatted calf left out," said 
 Mary to herself, as she looked after her luggage, " is a 
 low-down role. I feel exactly like a microbe." 
 
 Fortunately, however, this sort of thing did not give 
 Mrs. Mirrilies the usual hang-dog expression. The Mary 
 who stood at last on the verandah, and inquired if the 
 Sahib were at home, looked rather a wickedly dangerous 
 young person. The butler, who was a Burmese and knew 
 everything, was outraged and interested. He prevaricated. 
 
 " I am the wife of the Sahib Captain," said Mary with 
 dignity. 
 
 It wasn't a convincing argument to this astute diplomat, 
 but he salaamed more profoundly than before. The 
 Sahib Captain was not as other men, but he was still a 
 man. 
 
 " I will see if perhaps the Sahib may have returned," 
 he murmured, and glided silently into the gloom. And 
 Mary, taking her courage in both hands, followed hot on 
 his heels. . . . 
 
 She saw him the length of a dim room before he looked 
 up. He was absorbed in his work, his brows were drawn 
 together, he was thin and old. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he said, dropping his pen, immovable on 
 his seat; he recovered himself in a moment, got to his 
 feet and nodded dismissal to his censor, fully satisfied now, 
 yet with a sense of deprivation in his heart. 
 
 Mary took one step forward, then stood stock-still, 
 trembling and shaken, a torment of trouble in her mute 
 young face. This his cool collected magnificent Mary ! 
 
 " Mary ! " he said incredulously, " Mary 1 "
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 327 
 
 It was a dream, a vision. He feared to dispel it. He 
 put out his arms with a great yearning, but he did not 
 dare to touch and take her. 
 
 He had been writing to her, a letter he had never meant 
 to send. It was written with the blood of a man's heart. 
 She would not understand it, but for the easing of a man's 
 soul it had to be written. 
 
 And now this woman he had never known ! 
 
 " But but won't you say you're glad ? " she cried 
 out at last. 
 
 " Glad ! Glad ! My God ! What a word ! " 
 
 But yet he didn't take her. This was another woman. 
 He didn't know her. There was a world of entreaty in 
 Mary's beautiful eyes. She burst into a passion of silent 
 sobs. Never in all his life had Oliver seen Mary cry. 
 The woman he had known had not yet arrived either 
 at tears or laughter. 
 
 He still stood as one bewitched, looking at her, and 
 suddenly he saw her as she was. 
 
 Then he took her in his arms, and at last Mary knew. . . . 
 
 Hours or days or centuries had passed, and they were 
 together on the verandah after dinner. 
 
 Mary vaguely remembered the coolness of her bath, 
 and in a dream Oliver seemed to have fastened her things 
 for her. 
 
 And there was Tea. She poured it out and gave Oliver 
 no sugar. He had to remind her that he always took 
 three lumps ! This wasn't vague at all. It had hurt her 
 horribly. It hurt still. It was in a way something that 
 had come between them, some cold breath from those 
 years that the locusts had eaten. Would the dull benumb- 
 ing echo always be coming back ? 
 
 They had been trying to put things into words, the 
 things that filled their hearts, that had to be said some- 
 how some time. There were lapses into silence. Little 
 broken half-made sentences, but words, after all, were 
 superfluous. They were together, that was the one reality, 
 and the one clear outstanding fact. 
 
 Oliver remembered, in bitter twinges, his own guilt
 
 328 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 in regard to the girl he had sent out alone to her ordeal 
 of fire. He knew nothing except that there was still 
 much to be told. His own part could wait. It was there 
 part of him, for the rest of his life, part of his punish- 
 ment perhaps. And he wanted no explanations from her. 
 now. Being a man, he said to himself, " That must be 
 to-morrow, not to-night." 
 
 Women are different, however. It was the sorrow that 
 gathered in Mary's dancing eyes when suddenly she 
 remembered, the tightening of her hand on his, the quick 
 sob in her laughter, that showed him that the matter must 
 be dealt with now. 
 
 He wanted no assurance from Mary, no explanations ; 
 nothing but Mary herself. She was his his his alto- 
 gether. She had been shaken to her depths. In some 
 way she had been revolutionized into a new creature, 
 and even if she had been outraged into this new conscious- 
 ness ? for a single instant the fiery hand of sex held 
 him as in a vice and shook the very soul out of him, 
 he was an animal at bay, but at last he wrenched 
 himself 'from the burning grip, and was a man 
 again. 
 
 Whatever had happened, it was his guilt, his shame. Her 
 sin, if it were sin, was his sin. Her pain, his pain and 
 his also her condemnation. 
 
 And and what did it all matter ? He had her. 
 She was his. The woman he had chosen above them all. 
 What did anything matter ? He had her ! 
 
 In any riddle of life no matter how solved, or when, or 
 where, they were from henceforth indissolubly one. 
 
 As he had looked down at her before dinner in her 
 sleep of sheer exhaustion, this woman above all women ! 
 he had thought, watching the marvel of her face, that 
 in some woman's way she had made the ultimate sacrifice, 
 she had hurt herself as much as she could be hurt. She 
 had surely hung, too, upon the Cross, else this resurrection 
 could not have taken place. 
 
 And after this to want explanation or assurance ! 
 
 And now she ? covildn't she wait until to-morrow ?
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 329 
 
 Then words would perhaps be no longer necessary ever 
 again. Couldn't she drop Hell into its own pit, and come 
 right off into Heaven as a man would. 
 
 He looked at her and marvelled at the way in which 
 women can heap pain upon pain, in which it appears 
 as though they must, before pain will yield to them its 
 full harvest of joy. 
 
 At any rate he saw clearly enough that she would 
 speak, and he must hear before the splendid moon was 
 over the compound trees ! He knew it by some light 
 in her eyes. A laughing light, sorrowful beyond words, 
 which compelled him to her will. 
 
 " Well, if you must, you must," he said, laughing too. 
 " But we don't want explanations you and I, and if they 
 must be, for myself, I'd rather explain to-morrow. I 
 have plenty to explain. A jolly sight more than you. 
 No matter what happened, child, nothing matters now to 
 us, except what's before us, and we're together to 
 tackle that. But go on if you won't put it off until it's 
 no longer necessary. It's never been necessary ! " 
 
 He looked at her eyes still laughing, still with all the 
 ancient sorrows of women in them. It made her beauty 
 almost unendurable. 
 
 " Ah ! You won't," he muttered. " Well, then, go 
 ahead, You're sure to want to speak first. Go ahead, 
 child, and get it over." 
 
 She put her hand into his. 
 
 " Hold it tight," she said. " I can't say it all alone, 
 and it's all got to be said." 
 
 The story of the birth of passion in the heart, of spirit 
 in the soul, and of the eternal conflict between the two 
 that had rent her being, the desperate conflict that is 
 fighting itself out in the whole world, bringing confusion, 
 doubt and dismay to all ruin and destruction to many 
 had refined itself down to such passionate simplicity in 
 Mary's mind that it spoke itself in words aflame with all 
 the profound and tragic simplicity of life. 
 
 She must have suffered irrevocably, this cool, collected, 
 efficient creature of boundjess courage and an ignorance
 
 330 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 to make one shudder to have learnt what she had learnt, 
 to have become what she now was. 
 
 And the shames and hidden hopes and disintegrating 
 surprises of primeval passion to be put into words by this 
 woman to whom passion had revealed both life and death ! 
 
 Oliver sat frozen to his seat, powerless to help or protest. 
 The thing was above and beyond words for this man, 
 for any man in whom sordid dreams, and the furies, and 
 fears, and pangs of jealousy, and partial defeats, and 
 hard-won victories had been at home for so many years, 
 all part of the pain and the strife and the infinite glory of 
 the common life of man. 
 
 It was told by Mary as the first woman might have told 
 it. There was all the direct force, the splendid crudity, 
 shorn of all superfluities and artificialities of experience 
 in the story. 
 
 Some woman at breaking dawn seemed to look with 
 wide-eyed amazement into the tragic strangeness of life. 
 
 Oliver let her speak on. He was powerless to prevent 
 her, indeed, and his logical controlled wife merged into this 
 superb sentient, chaotic creature, if a revelation of pain 
 unspeakable, was yet enthralling. 
 
 And as he looked and listened, absorbed and expectant, 
 he found that this was no mere emotional outburst. 
 
 She was wild enough, primitive enough, more than 
 once passionately emotional, but never once did she lose 
 her head. She was consistently intelligent throughout, 
 and as logical and reasonable as a beautiful woman need 
 ever be, with a logic and reason all her own, of course, 
 but that to a reasonable man is all-sufficient. 
 
 " Oh, it's true, true, true," said Mary. " I was as near 
 being the usual idiot who gets divorced as I well could be. 
 And yet, Oh ! Oliver, it's more than idiocy. It's 
 it's immense, and it wants more than an idiot to stand up 
 to it. I don't in the least wonder so many go under in the 
 great surprise. And and what's come to us that it 
 should be a great surprise ? When it's part of us, 
 when it's, it must be nearly the biggest thing in life 
 the most invincible, the thing everyone of us ought to have
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 331 
 
 some part in, that we're done out of our rights if we 
 haven't. Oh ! It's impossible to grasp it or to to 
 understand anything." She snatched her hand from 
 his and hid her burning face. 
 
 " When do you propose to let me have my innings ? " 
 said Oliver gently in the long pause. 
 
 " When I've said one other thing," said Mary presently, 
 lifting her head. " I feel a worm just this minute. It's 
 the right attitude and it ought to endure, I suppose, but 
 I feel quite certain it won't. After fighting wild beasts, 
 even if you were fool enough to put yourself in their way, 
 you can't be meek and submissive for very long at a time. 
 You have fought and you have overcome, and it leaves a 
 fierceness behind it. 
 
 " Oliver, if I had fought and hadn't overcome only 
 just found out, and suffered for it ever after, oh ! 
 Oliver, what would have happened ? " She looked straight 
 ahead of her but held on like a vice to his hand. 
 
 " Nothing," said Oliver. " Except that, we'd both 
 have had a hell of a time. You're mine. You could 
 never have belonged in reality, to any other man, and 
 into whatever depths your folly had precipitated you, 
 mine was the leader in the mad enterprise. I sent you 
 out on a job too big for a woman who knew nothing." 
 
 " I ought to have known with you." 
 
 " That you didn't was as much my fault as yours. I 
 knew your strength and your weakness. I ought to have 
 known you" he said gravely, " and made you know 
 know yourself, and all the rest of us. However I didn't, 
 and if you'd made an ultimate fool of yourself, we were 
 fools together, that's all. And even then, what does it 
 matter now ? to us, that is. Thank God for the boy's 
 sake that you didn't. It would perhaps have spoilt even 
 our life together for you." 
 
 They sat silent for a long time, wondering at their 
 happiness and the madness of having risked it. 
 
 It was the woman, of course, who got back first to 
 business. Oliver would have deferred it to a more con- 
 venient occasion, without a stain on his conscience.
 
 332 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " If the worst comes," she asked, "what will it mean ? " 
 
 " Ruin," said Oliver quietly. " I must leave the 
 Service." 
 
 " Yes," said Mary slowly, " and we'll be the laughing- 
 stock of India. After my uppish attitude, my high looks 
 and proud stomach." 
 
 " We'll be together," said Oliver. " But I haven't 
 made my confession yet." 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, not now, not to-night, as if it mattered ! 
 Oliver, I'm glad Barbara saved herself from being an 
 an ultimate idiot, that you didn't do it for her. But how 
 on earth did she do it ? and you the man ? " 
 
 " By being Barbara. And I'm not irresistible, or we 
 shouldn't be now in the hole we are." 
 
 " You are irresistible to Barbara and me, Oliver, your 
 going sick was her one chance. If you'd been well, she'd 
 never have dared " 
 
 " Don't be a woman." 
 
 " It isn't being a woman. It's common sense. Oh, 
 well ! she saved your life. It will be her one comfort in 
 her loneliness." 
 
 " She needn't be lonely if he " 
 
 " He won't, and even if he did, do you think she'd 
 bother with any other man after you ? I'll go and see 
 her to-morrow, and then we'll begin the battle of wits," 
 she said, setting her teeth, " and we'll win." 
 
 " We have won already," said Oliver. " No matter 
 what happens, we've won, hands down."
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 AS was only to be expected, Barbara in this slashing 
 blow to her development, had reverted to type. 
 She did not sleep a wink, and when Mary came in she 
 looked deplorable and cowered, and Mary felt like the 
 ruthless avenger of melodrama. 
 
 This, however, was being as hopeless as Barbara herself, 
 so she set her teeth, fell upon Barbara, and shook her. 
 
 " Barbara," she cried. " To look like that to look as 
 if you were afraid of me of me, when it's up to you and 
 me to save the situation. We're the forlorn hopes, and 
 was ever in all the history of divorces so queer a coalition ? " 
 
 Mary subsided on the sofa and began to laugh. 
 
 " Mary ! " bleated Barbara. 
 
 " It's the only thing to do. Is Major Quayle at 
 home ? " 
 
 " No," said Barbara faintly. 
 
 " That's fortunate. He has a grim sense of humour, 
 and would be sure to think that one of us had gone mad, 
 so he'd score anyway." 
 
 " But, Mary " 
 
 Barbara paused and tottered to her feet. 
 
 " Barbara ! Sit down and stop shaking. It's I who 
 ought to be shaking. That's not the sort of thing to con- 
 vince a jury or anyone else. No one in the world but me 
 who knows you, and knows Oliver, and knows myself, 
 I didn't when I went away but I do now a little would 
 believe in your innocence if they could see you. Except 
 perhaps Major Quayle. He's convinced of it, or he wouldn't 
 have spent a fortune in corrupting the servants. Barbara, 
 
 333
 
 334 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 think of all that depends upon your looking innocent and 
 assured." 
 
 " I know oh ! I know. But that's just it. It's too 
 much for a woman like me," she wailed. 
 
 " Nothing's too much for any woman who wants to 
 help a man." 
 
 " And," said Barbara with blinking frightened eyes, 
 " you, I can't get accustomed to you, you're different 
 altogether." 
 
 " But we've all had enough to make us rather different." 
 
 " But so utterly different. One couldn't expect it." 
 
 Mary laughed. 
 
 " But what on earth's the matter ? Don't I come up 
 to your expectations ? Oh ! never mind ! I'll improve 
 as I go along. One can't think out the correct demeanour 
 for a divorce on your own hearth at a moment's notice." 
 
 " I've always known it would come," said Barbara 
 drearily, " directly Frank cared enough for one of them to 
 marry her." 
 
 Mary's first impulse was to shake Barbara, and this 
 time to some purpose, but the poor twitching, suffering 
 face disarmed her. 
 
 " You mean to say you sat on the verandah when no 
 one was there, and thought it all out, that you've been 
 thinking it out for years ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Barbara simply. " One had to. And now 
 to have it come true, and the man to be, oh, Captain 
 Mirrilies ! " 
 
 " Call him Oliver," said Mary gently. " You saved 
 his life. And, Barbara if I didn't laugh I could never 
 do my best for Oliver, for both my Olivers. And you'll 
 have to laugh too, before we win." 
 
 Barbara's face was in her hands. 
 
 " Well, not laugh," said Mary after a depressed 
 glance. " I don't think your conscience could stand that ; 
 mine's tougher, you know. But you could, at least, look 
 calm and usual. And oh, Barbara, couldn't you do your 
 hair properly, and not get your frocks crumpled ? " 
 
 " Am I dreadful ? " said Barbara, sitting up with some
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 335 
 
 show of alacrity. " And and I'd begun to dress rather 
 decently." 
 
 " So Oliver said," said Mary dryly. " How long would 
 you be changing, Barbara ? " 
 
 " Not ten minutes," said Barbara, who was already 
 making for the door to escape from Mary, and to prepare 
 to meet her. 
 
 " Sex is the terror of terrors," said Mary with a grim 
 mouth. " To think it was that that nearly spoilt every- 
 thing ! " 
 
 She walked restlessly up and down the long room, 
 full of the outward and visible signs of Barbara. She 
 looked half-amused at her books, more closely and curi- 
 ously at one corner bookcase glowing in white paint. 
 
 " These herald in a new era," said Mary. " The others 
 belong to the pre-Oliver period. I wonder how much 
 she understood of these, or how much he explained. No 
 one can explain like Oliver ! and oh ! " 
 
 She threw up her head and turned her back on the 
 bookcase. 
 
 " What does it all matter now anyway ? Barbara 
 
 or the books or . After all," she concluded with brows 
 
 slightly knit, " it was I, not Barbara, To put a lion 
 at the mercy of a mouse and then to be blaming the 
 mouse, it's just like Barbara ! " 
 
 "I'd give my very eyes to get inside Oliver," she said 
 presently with a small chuckle, " and to see Barbara 
 as he did, but the twinniest of twin souls could never 
 do that ! It's the one thing that will make the final 
 union of the two sexes in one transcendent being, the 
 one utter impossibility. 
 
 " Oh, well it's fortunate perhaps for the Barbaras of 
 this world," said Mary with a superb air. She was still 
 on her perch when Barbara came in, and immensely 
 kind. Barbara felt more crushed than ever, and won- 
 dered if the new way of doing her hair was wrong also. 
 Obsessed by this horrible conviction, Barbara became so 
 impossible that Mary had to forget herself at last, and 
 to remember Barbara and then things went better.
 
 336 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 Barbara was as truthful, with all her terrors, as a child 
 who has never been frightened. 
 
 " Do you really think that the servants' evidence is 
 of such crucial importance ? " Mary inquired, after 
 listening patiently to a bleak, scrupulously accurate 
 statement of tiny facts, as irritating, and as impossible 
 to evade, as midges. Barbara's profound and terrified 
 belief in their significance was evident enough. 
 
 " Frank thinks it is," she faltered. " And so does 
 Captain does Oliver." 
 
 " Oh," said Mary. 
 
 Barbara flushed painfully, but forged on with dauntless 
 assiduity. 
 
 " When he was very ill he only wanted me. He thought 
 I was you." . . . 
 
 All the powers of Heaven couldn't silence a slight 
 mutinous gurgle in Mary's throat. This heightened 
 Barbara's colour, but it did not silence her. 
 
 " He held my hand all the time and would take nothing 
 except from me, and, and I only thought of him 
 then. When I thought he was dying," she said under 
 her held breath, " I neither know what I did, nor what 
 I said. And afterwards he was dazed for days and 
 days. He only knew at intervals." 
 
 " And even when he was better," she said, " there was 
 no one else, and he had to have someone, and I was always 
 there. And, you know probably how Frank was always 
 asking him in, and he always left us alone in the end, 
 and there were eyes and ears everywhere. And, he 
 talked so much of you and little Oliver, and and then 
 his face changed," she said in a low voice, " and his 
 voice." 
 
 It was at that moment that Mary saw Barbara as 
 Oliver had seen her, even though still with the inevitable 
 difference. 
 
 " There's plenty of evidence, I think. And the Station 
 too did talk in the end, it would you know." 
 
 " Barbara," said Mary gently, " you're a good woman, 
 and I'm glad you're my friend and Oliver's. Don't you
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 337 
 
 think it would be rather a good plan if we went together 
 to the Club this afternoon, just as we used to go ? " 
 
 " I I never go now." 
 
 ' That's just it. You ought to." 
 
 " No one would have bothered about me but, but 
 Oliver," said Barbara with a heroic effort. 
 
 " Oh, Barbara, how right you are often ! Much lighter 
 than me. But now it's different. We'll both be banned 
 now in a way, you and I, and we'll bother about each 
 other, under Major Quayle's very nose. Barbara, you 
 poor thing ! " she said suddenly, " I wonder if it would 
 be better for you if you cared for him still." 
 
 " I cared for him for long long years," said Barbara 
 slowly, " and it made no difference to either of us. Living 
 with a man who is wishing you dead all the time somehow 
 deadens everything in you. It's like a slow poison, I 
 think." 
 
 Mary sat silent. She had no words for this poor woman. 
 Even the happiness in her own heart seemed an outrage 
 upon so defenceless a creature whose one power, the 
 power to love, had become her curse, and her salvation. 
 Mary knew too much of love now, not to know this, but 
 it was only sorry consolation as she went slowly home, 
 leaving behind her a life bereft of hope, and pierced to 
 the soul by memory. 
 
 " I don't care," said Mary. " I'll see to it that she 
 gets all the painful enjoyment out of Oliver that's possible 
 in the circumstances." 
 
 " Oliver ! " she said after luncheon, " it's going to 
 be the queerest coalition that ever was, but Barbara's 
 got to come into it. She belongs nowhere now, she's 
 like Mahomet's coffin hanging in mid air. She must be 
 permanently nailed to some earthly fixture, and we're 
 her only chance." 
 
 Mary set forth her plans. 
 
 " There's a touch of comic opera in the arrangement, 
 don't you think ? " said Oliver. 
 
 " That's inevitable. But what's one to do ? We 
 can't leave her floating round for ever, without even a 
 
 22
 
 338 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 fellow sinner in tow. She must simply be made to forget 
 her follies and stiffen into shape again. I wish Major 
 Quayle wouldn't have the pleasure of grinning under 
 his breath at us. Barbara, fortunately perhaps, won't 
 see the obnoxious humour in the affair." 
 
 " Major Quayle will have a certain diffidence in coming 
 to the Club just now." 
 
 " He'll overcome it, on occasion, when I appear on 
 the scene. You would yourself, Oliver, in his case. Oh ! 
 3^ou know you would. It adds a piquant interest to a 
 harassed life. Major Quayle's anxieties must be acute 
 just now. Barbara has always known he'd work Heaven 
 and earth to divorce her as soon as he cared enough for 
 ' one of them ' to marry her ! 
 
 " Oh ! Oliver, to have dragged us all into this pit of 
 slime ! You like to believe that we did it together, you 
 and I you would, you darling ! but / feel the only sinner 
 in the whole sordid business. It was want of love that 
 got us into the pit, while it's love that's plunged in Barbara 
 and Major Quayle, and the worst love is better than 
 none at all. I detest all negations, Oliver ! If you'll 
 love Barbara, well, like a step-sister, you'll really oblige 
 me. Oh ! Oliver, it's such a pit of slimy sorrow we've 
 all got into. There's that other woman too, Major 
 Quayle can be enthralling enough when he likes. I 
 daresay she adores him. It's the most incomprehensible 
 world I ever struck, and all the swelling words of vanity 
 in all the books only make it worse. I wish Oliver the 
 Less and the boys were here. None of them know anything, 
 and so they might tell us something." 
 
 " They've told you a great deal, quite enough for the 
 present. I'm on the whole glad," said Oliver, laughing, 
 " that you learnt it all from boys."
 
 IT was an enthralling delight to Oliver to sit silent 
 and let Mary reveal the self he had never known. 
 His former silent vigils had been chiefly occupied in 
 marvelling at the barrenness of so promising a soil. At 
 the bondage to limitations of so potentially limitless a 
 being. Above all at the calm complacency with which 
 she hugged her chains, and refused to permit any part 
 of her to burst into bloom. The flowing in now of a rich 
 mixed fullness of life to fill the vacant depths he had 
 known with such bitter thoroughness, became an absorbing 
 pursuit, Oliver could have watched for ever had there 
 not been more urgent affairs afoot. 
 
 As for the others, Mary's sudden descent had naturally 
 the effect of an earthquake upon the Community. 
 
 Directly she left her cards visitors poured in upon 
 her, and her frank and commentless acceptance of the 
 situation, as though a divorce, howsoever grave and 
 deplorable, were as everyday an event as typhoid, took 
 away their breath. 
 
 There was in her demeanour a want of the usual furtive 
 approaches to these unsavoury occurrences when they 
 came close home, that gave pause to the observant. 
 
 There were even symptoms of some secret amusement 
 underlying the calm exterior of Mrs. Mirrilies that pro- 
 duced head-shakings on the part of the more thoughtful. 
 They could not quite understand the attitude, and Mrs. 
 Mirrilies did not trouble to explain it. 
 
 Those who did not know Mary, knew all about her, and 
 
 339 22*
 
 340 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 it is natural to the feminine mind to condemn that which 
 it does not understand. 
 
 As for the men they never were so relieved in the whole 
 course of their lives. They had waited with bated breath 
 to ascertain how Mrs. Mirrilies, of all people in the world, 
 would take this. They could not, even those who only 
 knew her from report, imagine her in such a r61e. She 
 confounded the imagination of simple men. 
 
 They were positively grateful to her for the stand she 
 took. It relieved them of no end of embarrassment, 
 for somewhere amidst the chaos of reticences, meannesses, 
 disloyalties, and other unpleasant human traits inseparable 
 from divorces there lurked a laugh that matched their 
 own, an honest laugh untouched of levity. They felt 
 in their bones that if she saw as well or better than they 
 could, the clotted vileness in Major Quayle's method 
 of making-for-righteousness, she saw also nearly as clearly 
 as they, all its sinister humour. 
 
 This made a great bond between them. 
 
 Mary had more ardent well-wishers all agog to help 
 than even she suspected. 
 
 The situation however, was about as grave and ominous 
 as it well could be. Major Quayle was apparently a 
 genius in these matters, and there did not seem to be a 
 loophole of escape for any of his victims. Barbara's 
 diary, of which he had got hold, and her wild folly during 
 Oliver's illness and afterwards, seemed hopeless obstacles 
 to a successful defence, and Major Quayle could easily 
 disprove any plea of collusion. 
 
 Oliver had insisted from the beginning upon the trial's 
 taking place in England. Major Quayle's resistance 
 caused delays and difficulties. The trial could not take 
 place until after the summer vacation, and Oliver was 
 working double time to get his work ready to hand over 
 to a substitute, while the Bishop and his wife, ably lead 
 by Peter Turton, were getting things in train at the 
 other side. 
 
 The outlook however was very black for all of them. 
 To keep Barbara decently upright alone was a big business.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 341 
 
 " Oliver ! " said Mary one day in utter despair, " do 
 you think our consciences would ever let us alone if we 
 persuaded her that her highest duty was to go home." 
 
 " Yours wouldn't, and then you'd never let me alone." 
 
 " She'll have to stay then. I thought better of your 
 conscience, Oliver." 
 
 " Try Barbara with a few whiskies," said Oliver. " She 
 drinks too much tea." 
 
 " If women who really want Dutch courage aren't 
 habituals," snapped Mary, " they always do drink too 
 much tea. They have you in every way, those people ! 
 It would be delightful and exhilarating to apply whiskies 
 to Barbara, but moral suasion is another story. You 
 hate doing it when she has nothing, and you every- 
 thing. The only application that would be really 
 effective, whisky being taboo, is you and you Oh, 
 well you're taboo too. It's all a bit too big for Barbara. 
 It's getting a bit too big for all of us it seems," said 
 Mary, " but I quite agree with you Barbara's utterly 
 and entirely out of place but it would be simply awful if 
 we let her feel it." 
 
 " She never can feel the worm I do anyway," said 
 Oliver. " There are a thousand excuses for women, saints, 
 and sinners, but there are none for deliberate fools. I 
 ought to have got her to go home months ago." 
 
 " As though she'd have moved an inch." 
 
 " Yes she would, if I'd applied the right pressure to 
 her conscience." 
 
 " Oliver ! Oliver ! We can't afford to go back either 
 of us. We've just got to go on somehow, with Barbara 
 in tow." 
 
 " Then she's got to be attached in such a way as not 
 to be a skid upon your every step forward, child. This is a 
 relapse. She had bucked up in an astonishing way." 
 
 " Well, naturally under the one stimulus she needed. 
 I'm the reason of the relapse, the arrest to Barbara's 
 development, and I hate it. One hates to hurt things 
 like Barbara that have been hurt so much already. One 
 ought to be big enough not to. It's awful to have nothing
 
 342 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 and never to have had anything She's done a bigger 
 thing than I've done, Oliver, I'd never have given 
 you up, if I'd had one ghost of a chance of keeping 
 you, and you know she has. Barbara has done one big 
 thing, and yet even that's spoilt. It's humiliated her 
 instead of uplifting her. Everything seems to happen 
 like that for Barbara. Everything's spoilt for her. I'd 
 give anything if she could do just one great thing of which 
 she and all of us could be proud for our whole lives. Any- 
 way, Oliver, do hypnotize her into not being afraid to 
 talk to you before me." 
 
 " Wouldn't that be to hypnotize her into something 
 finer than Barbara ? " 
 
 " What's the matter with you, Oliver ? No it wouldn't. 
 Barbara's already much finer than Barbara in an 
 invisible sort of way that you ought to have seen. But 
 how could she help it, having been so much with you ? " 
 
 " Oh ! for Heaven's sake " 
 
 " Turn round your face Oliver, so that I can see it in 
 that shaft of moonshine You look so frank and open, 
 Oliver," she said slowly, " and yet I know so little of you 
 really. I believe Barbara knows more." 
 
 " Does she ? " 
 
 " She does, I do believe, and that's why she cringes 
 before me. There's always something in everything to 
 make Barbara cringe, to humiliate her. If she did the 
 greatest thing in the world, there'd be a cringe in it, I 
 believe, a miserable sort of bleeding apology." 
 
 " Look here, you've got Barbara on your nerves." 
 
 " I wish to goodness I could feel for five minutes, not a 
 minute longer, just exactly how you feel about being the 
 disputed territory of two such women as Barbara and me." 
 
 " I feel damnable," said Oliver. " I never felt such an 
 ass in my life. A man with an ounce of brains in his head 
 to have got us all into this mess ! " 
 
 " Oliver, no more of that ! We're never going back 
 any more, never, never, never ! What you've got to do 
 is to get us all out of the mess. I came back intending to 
 do it all myself, it's only suddenly struck me : it's the usual
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 343 
 
 thing. It's not standing together properly with our feet 
 planted just as they should be, yours one little inch in 
 advance, just as a symbol of the leader, the eternal Leader 
 with no beginning and no end. Until this very instant 
 I've been wanting to lead myself. Did you know it, 
 Oliver ? " 
 
 " Oh, well, yes. I know you I " said Oliver, laughing. 
 
 " Oh, no, you don't. Not till we get into our exact 
 proper places. Why didn't you put me there, Oliver ? " 
 
 " Jostle for first place ? I ? Perhaps tread on your 
 toes ? " 
 
 " There's no first place and no last really. It's only the 
 way we stand, and look out at the world," said Mary, 
 " that makes all the difference. It makes us more one than 
 ever, and it gives us the power of two. Of some Eternal 
 two, I think," she said slowly, " that can do everything and 
 will make us invincible, later on when we've got into our 
 stride." 
 
 They sat silent and Oliver watched her eyes, seeing 
 strange new things stealing out of them one by one. He 
 dared not look ahead. To look back was only to convict 
 himself of folly, to overweight himself with regret, while 
 nothing past or present or future could rob him of the 
 things he saw in Mary's eyes only just beginning to speak 
 out. 
 
 " We're in such a hole as never was," she said at last. 
 " The servants are corrupted beyond redemption. The 
 law is out of joint. Anyway, it's not Justice. Major 
 Quayle has the devil at his back and enough money to 
 ship home a cloud of witnesses. Nothing could be worse. 
 But we'll win through, Oliver, somehow, for now we're 
 properly placed in the Eternal bond, we were a little 
 dislocated before. And oh ! Oliver ! Marriage is the 
 marvel of all marvels, and I've only just found it out ! 
 And we won't think any more of doubt, or fear, or ever 
 again be bored by Barbara. And the impossible will 
 come to pass ! " 
 
 " It has come to pass," said Oliver. 
 
 " Did you know all this before I did, Oliver ? "
 
 344 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " I knew it in moments, alone on the hills, or when 
 things went badly, -I knew it in a useless theoretical way. 
 You've put it into form, made it the central power of our 
 life, the power that will bring us through everything." 
 
 " Oliver, to-morrow we'll go for a long, long ride. It 
 will be our first day out together. And the ridiculous 
 impossible thing that's going to save us, will be coming 
 nearer ! nearer ! nearer ! the whole time."
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 FROM that day there came a change over Barbara. 
 She grew whiter and whiter, more fragile, and 
 commentless in regard to that which faced them all. She 
 lifted up her willowy bowed back, however, dressed better 
 than Mary could have believed possible, and had her hair 
 done well. 
 
 More than that, she bore herself beyond reproach in the 
 eye of the public. There was a quiet force in Barbara now, 
 a gentle dignity that made Mary watch her with curious 
 interest. There was also an arresting fineness in the frank 
 eager way in which she showed her affection for Mary and 
 her husband, and her simple gratitude for their countenance 
 and protection that must have moved and touched people 
 very much less her friends than were the Mirrilies'. 
 
 Never in all her life had Barbara been more lovable, 
 more sweet and attractive. There was a pleading youthful 
 appeal in her pretty eyes, and sometimes she clung to Mary 
 as though to fortify her weakness with the other's strength 
 for some great enterprise. 
 
 There was plainly some project afoot in Barbara's mind, 
 and Mary felt certain that it was something very big, so 
 big that Barbara was recoiling from the shock of it, and yet 
 resolutely bracing herself to face it boldly. 
 
 In every unspoken unintrusive way she could, Mary 
 tried to help Barbara to her adventure. It seemed to her 
 so splendid that Barbara should bring something through 
 triumphantly, something really big. It would change 
 everything for Barbara, and it would be a most exhilarating 
 joy for her and Oliver to be able to clap her with all their 
 hearts for the deed, whatsoever it might be. 
 
 345
 
 346 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 That was Barbara's affair. Mary was naturally dying 
 of curiosity, but it would never even have struck her to 
 probe or pry. That would have hurt Barbara in so many 
 ways, besides taking away from her the joy and the glory 
 of doing the big thing all by herself, and telling everything 
 in the end in her own words. 
 
 It was a time of profound anxiety and dire forebodings 
 for everyone. Echoes of things greater and more ominous 
 than those that oppress or elate little isolated mortals 
 hung heavy in the air. Men went silent through the 
 streets. Once again the menace of the Balkans had lifted 
 up its sinister head, and this time the teeth of the future 
 were set. The minds of men looked in tense expectation 
 towards the East. 
 
 And then, in the very moment when a moment's delay 
 had become intolerable, some wires far down the Line were 
 mysteriously cut and no news reached the Station at all. 
 
 The very day this happened there came an urgent 
 message calling Oliver away upon a day's journey into the 
 jungle. There was trouble with the coolies ; he had to 
 go. But with mutterings of doom for all the nations in 
 the air, those in the Station knew no more than the man in 
 the wilderness. The inexplicable delay continued. 
 
 During this time of waiting and horror, it was a relief to 
 Mary to watch Barbara still quietly absorbed in her own 
 secret enterprise. So profoundly and utterly did it absorb 
 her that she had no eyes even to see the tribulation that was 
 coming upon the earth. . 
 
 When Oliver returned six hours before he could be 
 reasonably expected worn out with his wild ride, sick with 
 fretting anxiety, to turn his thoughts to something else, 
 Mary had been telling him all about Barbara. 
 
 " I should have gone crazy those two awful days without 
 you," she said, " if I hadn't had Barbara to watch. It's 
 been so curious. I believe she simply made up her mind 
 that I should know her down to the ground, and she's 
 been showing herself to me. And now I believe I do know
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 347 
 
 her. I'm sure I do, in a way. The one thing that still 
 puzzles me is her not standing waiting almost breathless 
 as we all are, not knowing that something " Mary 
 paused with shining eyes " something stupendous is 
 coming, and that we're all fetched up short, to, to face 
 the impossible. ' ' 
 
 She spoke in little jerks in an odd voice. 
 
 " And yet I think," she said at last, " perhaps that I 
 understand even this part of Barbara just a little. What's 
 in Barbara's mind fills it up to the brim, is as big as the 
 world to Barbara, it is the world, and completely blocks the 
 view. She can see nothing else, I suppose. It's Barbara's 
 first great adventure and even if the news doesn't come for 
 hours yet, and we can't bear much more," she paused, and 
 Oliver saw that there were tears in her eyes " let us wish 
 her good luck. Poor Barbara ! I never knew till now 
 how much I care for Barbara," she said, rubbing her eyes 
 against Oliver's sleeve. " And if you had, oh ! you 
 know, I couldn't blame you. -It could never be utterly 
 and entirely idiotic again." 
 
 " Nothing will ever take the utter idiocy out of the thing, 
 or the bitter regret," said Oliver. " But I'm glad we agree 
 about Barbara, dear. And I'm glad she knows it. She 
 will never have a doubt of either of us again, and you've 
 done that, Mary. It's a pretty big thing to do really, 
 you know " 
 
 " Oh ! Oliver ! the papers ! " 
 
 She sprang to get hold of them first, and together they 
 skimmed them, holding their breath. 
 
 " It's war," said Oliver, " war at last." For a minute or 
 two he stood with knitted brows and a bowed head, silent. 
 
 " We ought to be in it," he said at last, in a harsh, 
 strained voice. " That's clear enough and with this 
 Government ! My God ! that men like those over there 
 should be holding our honour in their greased palms." 
 
 He threw up his head, and upon Oliver's face there shone 
 such a light as Mary had never yet seen, familiar as she was 
 to grow with it in the tragedy of the later days. 
 
 " But but we're not prepared ! " she gasped.
 
 348 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 " Prepared ? Was England ever prepared ? We're 
 as much prepared as we ever shall be. France has been 
 forced into this and we can't stand by and see her go under. 
 We can't sneak out of this with a whole skin. And with 
 those fellows at the helm ! " 
 
 He sat down to pore again over the papers. 
 
 " This war will be a sappers' war our war." 
 
 " But, Oliver there's Belgium " 
 
 " Do you think that Belgium or any other obstacle will 
 stop Germany's way to the sea ? Did anyone in his senses 
 ever believe in the honour of Germany where the objective 
 she's been concentrating herself on for forty odd years is 
 concerned ? " 
 
 " There are so many women in the world," said Mary 
 presently. 
 
 " This war is theirs as much as ours," said Oliver. " It's 
 what had to come. It's none of our making, and women as 
 little as men will want to sit tight and desert a friend. 
 The only people in the Empire who'd care to do that is the 
 blighted Government. 
 
 " But they daren't," he said, after another long silence. 
 " By God ! They daren't. There's honour still in 
 England. England, thank Heaven, isn't the Govern- 
 ment. We're only surface-rotten, Mary, ankle-deep in 
 corruption, an affection of the feet and a war will save 
 us. Bad as we are, if it's right to fight we'll fight, 
 Government or no Government." 
 
 " Oh ! Oliver ! Oliver ! " 
 
 Mary stood up to her full height and her face shone. 
 
 Amongst a multitude of other serious things Mary had 
 once been a pacifist, and used to thank her stars that she 
 had married into the Scientific Corps. Now the soldier in 
 her sprang armed cap a pie to meet his mate in Oliver. 
 
 The two bent again to see, if by any chance, they could 
 have missed any word of news. 
 
 " And only a week or so ago I hated to look at a paper," 
 said Mary, with a tremulous laugh. " There was nothing 
 but that horrible Caillaux trial, dragging France so 
 splendid and royal, in the mud."
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 349 
 
 " That's all over and done with, anyway. From now 
 on, France and ourselves will have other fish to fry." 
 
 " The whole world is changed in one little moment," 
 said Mary softly, all her face aglow. " Nothing that 
 mattered everything matters any more now, not even 
 Divorces, or Barbara's little feelings, or mine. Your career 
 doesn't matter, Oliver, and I don't believe Oliver the Less 
 does very much. Nothing matters in the very least except 
 that England shall play the game." 
 
 Oliver laughed softly. 
 
 " And I remember the time- " 
 
 " To dare to remember anything but England now ! 
 Oh, Oliver ! I wish I could pray." 
 
 " You can, dear. We all can at a pinch. It's all we 
 can do now." 
 
 " Oh ! Come out into the night ! " she said. 
 
 They stood together a long, long time in the soft gloom. 
 The moon had sailed away over the low hills. The stars 
 hung lucent in the velvet sky. The silence grew more 
 intense because of the myriad silver sounds of the Indian 
 night. The verandah grew intolerable. It seemed to 
 isolate them, to shut them in, to bar them from some great 
 whole, of which they knew themselves to be very part and 
 substance. Some invincible force which in that moment 
 surged through every heart around the Seven Seas, and in 
 the end must save England from her greatest crime. 
 
 They went instinctively hand in hand down the scented 
 garden, past the great clumps of bushes starred with flowers, 
 across the silver ribbon of a road, out upon the parched 
 plain. 
 
 Here they stood motionless, and as they stood in the 
 solemn hush of the Great Land held by a tiny handful of 
 men, blood-brothers to them, the soul of the little 
 nation that does these things, and yet remains foolish, 
 revealed itself to them. 
 
 They stood in the midst of it, and saw. They stood in 
 the midst of the innumerable company of those who had 
 gone before, and would follow after, who had died or were 
 ready to die that England might live.
 
 350 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 A curious little panting sound coming to them from the 
 road struck in the same moment upon their rapt senses. 
 With a sigh they turned to go home. 
 
 " Oh, Oliver," said Mary, with bowed head, seeing 
 nothing now, and stumbling a little, " we've said our 
 prayers together for the very first time, and I think that 
 God has heard us. 
 
 " England can't disgrace herself," she cried, with sudden 
 intense passion, " while we're alive. We're just ordinary 
 people exactly like all the other millions scattered over the 
 ' map that is half unrolled,' and we're all feeling like this, 
 and it's praying and, and, God will hear. Oh ! He 
 simply must ! " 
 
 A little ghost-like creature came with a curious flutter- 
 ing movement, as though skimming the ground across the 
 arid dryness of the plain. 
 
 " It's it's Barbara's Ayah," said Mary, peering closer. 
 
 " Come ! Come ! Come ! " cried the woman, and fell 
 gasping at their feet. 
 
 Oliver caught her up, a thing as light as a moth. 
 
 " Run for all you're worth," he said. " I'll give her to 
 her own people, telephone for the doctor, and catch you up." 
 
 Mary ran quickly, but Oliver more quickly still. He 
 soon caught her up and lifted her over the ground. They 
 were soon there. 
 
 Barbara in a pretty new frock, neat and unruffled, was 
 lying back in her chair, as she had so often lain before. She 
 was no whiter than she had often been of late, but she 
 was beautiful, which she had never been before. 
 
 There was no trace or sign of melodrama anywhere. 
 
 The book she had been reading was in her lap, the 
 lamp at just the right angle for her eyes. It was heart- 
 failure in every detail. No one could ever possibly attri- 
 bute it to anything else. She had always had a weak heart 
 and they all knew it. 
 
 Barbara had brought through her first great adventure 
 triumphantly.
 
 MARY MIRRILIES 351 
 
 No one would ever have known anything, had each 
 one not known too well ! 
 
 " And now," said Mary in a choked voice, " now, when 
 the whole world is changed. If she'd waited. If only she'd 
 waited ! Oh, Oliver ! Why didn't this ever once strike 
 either of us ? " 
 
 " Quayle," he said dully. " Someone must fetch him." 
 
 " The Major Sahib is already here," said the shivering 
 Butler. 
 
 He came in and stood above her, stiff and rigid, a paper 
 clenched in his fist. 
 
 " And now now " he muttered in Mary's very 
 
 words " when it's all changed, oh ! my God ! " 
 
 " Leave me with her all of you for a minute or so," said 
 the doctor. 
 
 The doctor knew too. Since she had nursed Captain 
 Mirrilies for him he had been immensely sorry for the poor 
 little woman, and in a clumsy, silent way he had been very 
 kind to her. He had seen much sorrow, but none quite so 
 helpless as that of this woman without hope. 
 
 And now, in agonized defiance of her conscience, she 
 had given her little all. 
 
 He shook his head solemnly, and with strong disapproval, 
 and went about his duties in his heavy, methodical way. 
 
 " She's done her job well," he said, " no trace of any- 
 thing. Got something from some native, of course, and 
 that's why she came to me, just ten days ago, complain- 
 ing of shortness of breath. I gave her something, too, 
 but " 
 
 He whistled under his breath. " Oh well, I won't betray 
 her now, poor child. One lie breeds many, that's the worst 
 of lies," he sighed. He was a serious Presbyterian and 
 hated lies. " I hope I'll tell mine in the right way. She 
 trusted me. I'll do my best." 
 
 " She must have been dead some ten or fifteen minutes," 
 he said stolidly. " It's heart failure. I have, as you know, 
 Major Quayle, been always anxious about Mrs. Quayle's 
 heart." 
 
 The doctor went out looking horribly ashamed of himself.
 
 352 MARY MIRRILIES 
 
 The two men and the woman stood together in a dreadful 
 silence, and presently an orderly, who made as though he 
 saw nothing, handed Oliver a paper. 
 
 " It's war, and we're in it," said Oliver under his breath. 
 " We're recalled ! " 
 
 Quayle started, opened his fist and looked with dull, 
 glazed eyes at the crumpled paper in it. 
 
 " So are we," he said foolishly, in a thin, spent voice. 
 
 " She did what she could for all of us. She died for her 
 friends," said Mary, with bowed head. " Barbara's the 
 first of you all to sacrifice herself for what seemed big enough 
 to her." 
 
 Major Quayle looked at her, and his clouded brain seemed 
 to clear. 
 
 " She needn't have done it," he said in a voice more like 
 his own. " I knew that at once. It's all changed." 
 
 " Ah ! Everything always came too late for Barbara. 
 Everything always went wrong for her." Mary's eyes were 
 far away. She was white and trembling. " Barbara's 
 been hurt too much," she said. " And this has hurt her 
 more than all the rest. It has hurt her more than it could 
 ever have hurt any other woman. 
 
 " No one knows but me how much it hurt Barbara to 
 square her conscience," she said softly and simply, 
 " because it would have hurt me in just the same way, I 
 think." 
 
 Mary was unaware of her bitter cruelty to the man who 
 had hurt Barbara too much, but Oliver, being a man, and 
 knowing the weakness and the folly of man, and the price 
 that shall nevertheless be exacted from him, paused as he 
 went out, and gripped Quayle's hand. 
 
 " Look here, Quayle," he said, " there's England 
 still." 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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