mmmti " mm
 
 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 
 
 Madame Albanesi 
 
 Drusilla's Point of View 
 
 Marian Sax 
 
 A Question of Quality 
 
 The Strongest of all Tilings 
 
 A Young Man from the Country 
 
 Alice and Claude Askew 
 
 Destiny 
 
 M. E. Braddon 
 
 Dead Love Has Chains 
 
 The White House 
 
 During Her Majesty's Pleasure 
 
 Mrs. B. M. Croker 
 
 Her Own People 
 
 The Youngest Miss Mowbray 
 
 The Company's Servant 
 
 Jessie Fothergill 
 
 Lassies of Leverhouse 
 A March in the Ranks 
 
 Tom Gallon 
 
 Jimmy Quixote 
 
 Cosmo Hamilton 
 
 The Infinite Capacity 
 
 E. W. Hornung 
 
 Peecavi 
 
 " Iota" (Mrs. Mannington Ca(lyn) 
 Dorimla and Her Daughter 
 
 Justin Huntly McCarthy 
 
 The Gorgeous Borgia 
 The King over the Water 
 The God of Love 
 The Illustrious O'Hagau 
 Needles and Pius 
 
 Mary E. Mann 
 
 Moonlight 
 
 Charles Marriott 
 
 The Intruding Angel 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant 
 
 The Ouckoo in the Nest 
 
 It was a Lover and His Lass 
 
 Janet 
 
 Agnes 
 
 William Le Queux 
 
 The Man from Downing Street 
 
 Mrs. Baillie Reynolds 
 The Ides of March 
 
 "Rita" 
 
 The Seventh Dream 
 
 Adeline Sergeant 
 
 Kitty Holden 
 
 A Soul Apart _- 
 
 Jacobi's Wife \ 
 
 *s — 
 
 Beatrice Whitby 
 
 Mary Fenwick's Daughter 
 Bequeathed 
 
 The Awakening of Mary Ken 
 wick 
 
 Percy White 
 
 Colonel Daveron 
 The House of Intrigue 
 
 Mrs. C. N. Williamson 
 
 The Turnstile of Night 
 The Silent Battle 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT'S 
 76. COPYRIGHT NOVELS.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER.
 
 I s " 
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 For a man not much over forty, who had never had 
 a day's illness in his life, and had most of the things 
 that all men desire, Richard Alderson looked very tired 
 that night. 
 
 The heat oppressed him. There was too much 
 delicate comfort about the place for a man with the 
 feeling for the fields always astir in him. 
 
 The carefully shaded lamps, the priceless prints on 
 the walls, the debased lassitude • blatantly visible on 
 the face of a footman, who, nevertheless, would have 
 gone to the stake sooner than yawn, all irrationally 
 annoyed him. 
 
 The air reeked of over-civilization, acquired in- 
 stincts, cultivated needs. The call in his heart was 
 for wide spaces and any adventure in any world that 
 still defied him. 
 
 " Even to be hungry would be a change,'- he said. 
 " If that degenerate giant doesn't clear out I'll be 
 going for him next.' 2 
 
 He watched the man with the half indifferent atten- 
 tion with which he seemed to watch and listen to 
 everything. 
 
 Until he shut him up, and gave him back all his 
 wandering utterances in one sharp synthesis, many a 
 poor fool thought that Richard Alderson had not been 
 listening to a word he said. 
 
 " If one could only let the unfortunate brute loose 
 over there where they can stretch ! "- he thoiight, 
 following with a smouldering compassion the ponderous 
 
 I
 
 2 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 rectitude in the movements of the huge creature. 
 " And then the first thing he'd do would be to get 
 bushed and starve ! Better for him, anyway, than this. 
 — We've rotted the manhood out of our people, and 
 then expect them to be men on their first chance ! "■ 
 
 " Open all the windows that don't give on the 
 street," he said, " and go to bed." 
 
 He stretched out his arms and opened his chest 
 to catch the ghost of a breeze that crept in from the 
 little courtyard of his big house ; but there was no 
 freshness in its spent forces. There was no snap of 
 life left in the dead swelter of the night. 
 ' I wonder if she's awake," he said. 
 
 He put out .the lights and went up the great stair- 
 case into the central corridor, then noiselessly, almost 
 on tip-toe, he turned into a smaller one, and from a 
 door a little ajar there flowed a stream of light. 
 
 " Good ! "• said Richard. " She's up all right." 
 
 The instant he^entered the room he was caught and 
 enveloped in a new air, he walked in a new world. 
 The charm of the change, now as always, fetched him 
 up short. He stood silent with no greeting, but with 
 an odd young laugh in his eyes, looking at a woman, 
 who sat quietly expectant, watching his face. 
 
 What the bond that bound the two was it would 
 have been difficult to guess. There was not a feature 
 in the woman's face that matched his. 
 
 He was tall, lean, straight, so close-knit that he 
 looked a little narrow for his great height. His eyes 
 were too deep-set and indifferent to be keen ; but the 
 lines of one who has looked long and with under- 
 standing into great distances lay like a web of fine 
 lace around them. They belonged to a leisurely past 
 those pleasant lines, and had nothing to do with the 
 hurried pressure of his present life. 
 
 But now as he stood laughing down at her the whole 
 of him seemed to change and go back to the days 
 which had carved the lines. He was plainly enough 
 an Anglo-Saxon, born on the fringes of the Empire 
 and now come home.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 3 
 
 She was different altogether. The secret of the 
 Celt that makes him hard to localize, universal in an 
 elusive way, hung out some unnameable symbol from 
 every point of Mary O'Berne. It was impossible 
 to say where she ha,d been born until she opened 
 her mouth. She also was tall, straight and strong, 
 bountifully strong. She seemed to be full of spare 
 strength. But one forgot it in the soft richness of 
 her deep blue eyes ; in the fine flow of shoulders and 
 hips. 
 
 There was a great dignity about the oval old face 
 framed in its white waves of hair, not in the least out 
 of character with her tip-tilted nose, which, in its 
 turn, went excellently well with two unfaded cheeks 
 and a mouth that by sheer force of its own sweet- 
 ness had kept its youth. 
 
 ' You expected me ? " he said, sitting down. 
 
 " Richie ! Is it to be surprised by you I would be ? - r 
 
 Many an unprepared person had been startled upon 
 first hearing this well-dressed and remarkable gentle- 
 woman speak. Her soft, sonorous brogue full of 
 enticement, might, to be sure, have been heard elsewhere 
 and often, but her language belongs now to a little 
 dwindling people in out-of-the-way hill corners in 
 Ireland. Each year as it grows less it grows dearer 
 to those that speak it and more secret and sacred 
 in their hearts. It is sometimes dragged out into 
 the glare and dust of the world and whipped into a 
 spurious life by some Gaelic enthusiast. But the 
 old people are jealous when they hear it in mouths 
 not born and bred to it, and in books they distrust it 
 altogether. 
 
 Curious anachronisms are heard in the speech of 
 this dwindling people, strange groupings of words, wild 
 twists in the sentences which sometimes bring out 
 a new meaning in an old thought. 
 
 Mary had learnt the English from the Irish. Until 
 she was seventeen she had translated every thought 
 and had never lost the turn it gave her talk. To the 
 unaccustomed, this brought a certain discord into 
 
 I*
 
 4 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 the harmonies of her face and bearing, and jarred 
 upon their sensitive ears. She was herself fully aware of 
 her deficiencies and often deplored them with a laugh. 
 There always seemed to be laughter round and about 
 Mary. 
 
 Richard himself wondered now and then why his 
 mother's accent and mode of speech never troubled 
 him. They were part of her and of him. They 
 seemed to bring her and other things he could as little 
 spare nearer him. They were part of a wild and 
 simple life that was gone. Part of a magical happi- 
 ness hoped for. Part of a great purpose that had 
 not realized itself. Besides, Richard had a loyal habit 
 of mind and she was his mother. 
 
 ' It is vexed you seem to be, Richie ? What 
 troubles do be on ye to-night ? "• she asked. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " No trouble at all, mother. It's too small, smaller 
 than usual, that's all. There's not room enough. 
 You can't get away from it. Someone bangs up against 
 you at every turn. The island isn't big enough for a 
 man to stretch his legs in." 
 
 " 2 Tis myself can believe ye, Richie. It is the big, 
 wide plains the heart in you do be crying out for, and 
 the lines of hills beyond in the blue mist, and the big 
 stretch of heaven up above that do be all yer own. 
 And the paddocks the size of London, and the valleys 
 the length of England, and the bending branches 
 in the great forests, and the furrow it would take a 
 man and a horse to follow from the dawn to the 
 dark before they would come to the end of it. It is 
 the quiet and the power that will abide only in size 
 do be calling to ye, Richard. It is myself knows it.' 1 
 
 " But you don't wish yourself back, do you ? '-'■ 
 
 " Without yourself ? Richard ! Is it myself to 
 be there without you ? But sometimes the heart 
 will be crying out. The nights, Richie ! The nights 
 we sat out fornenst the door seeking rest for a little 
 minute, and your father lying upon the bed of death 
 and we hearing the hoofs of the doctor's horses ten
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 5 
 
 miles off. The comfort that fell upon us straight 
 from hea-ven ! It was not chimney-pots there were 
 out there, nor church steeples higher and prouder 
 and not much cleaner, to come between us and heaven. 
 The help and the comfort they fell like dew upon 
 us, Richie. It was like it was the waters of baptism, 
 lad, upon a young child's head. It was a blessed 
 time it was for all of us, my son, and above all, 
 for the dying man. Thank God, Richie, it was his 
 elegant nose he saw fit to leave you. A nose the 
 like of mine on the face of a man could have done 
 but little for you. As it is " She sighed. 
 
 " Now, mother, don't begin that ! "■ 
 
 " But, Richie, it was only wondering I was why in 
 that place of holy peace, where no man and no thing 
 could get the better of you, that to get my tongue round 
 the little weeny English words never came into my 
 mind at alt at all till 'twas too late it was."- 
 
 " Never mind, mother ; I don't." 
 
 " And, indeed, Richard," she said severely. " It is 
 myself that would like to be catching you at it. It is 
 myself that do be minding, it is. I could have done 
 it very well then, Richie. It is myself could very 
 well have matched yourself, even in the speech, lad. 
 But it do be too late it is now. It is not room enough 
 it is here to begin again. It is inside you you do have 
 to turn your eyes to see anything at all at all." 
 And then she said, her eyes shining with another 
 light altogether : " It is not the English or the Irish 
 that do be bothering you, then. They all speak 
 their own language there, and it is not with words it 
 do be spoken." 
 
 ' You'll be glad to get down to the Towers, 
 mother ? 
 
 ' I will, lad. But the little specks of fields you do 
 have, Richie, and the few little head of deer ! Not 
 to be able to take a little leap for fear of coming 
 up against a fence or a keeper, the poor little 
 creatures ! It is to see ten thousand sheep go past 
 me on a spring morning I would like to see, and a 
 
 It
 
 6 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 thousand pure-bred Short Horns, Richie, and they 
 •with a big country of their own to graze in, and it 
 is the Alderson brand upon the lot my eyes would 
 see ! Oh, Richie ! It is room we do be wanting, the 
 two of us ! — it is not much you get of it, lad, down 
 there in the smoking-room for all the half mile of 
 Turkey carpet spread out on it, and it all stuffed up 
 with the heat of sin." 
 
 ' I say, mother, where 's your charity ? " 
 
 "Did I not see?" she said, her" eyes shining 
 remote and clear. " Charity is one thing, and the 
 truth is another. It is yourself will never be the real 
 thing, Richard, you were reared too decent." 
 
 ' It wasn't the indecency that troubled me to- 
 night, mother, it was the want of wit," he said, 
 laughing. " I've heard better stories round a mining- 
 camp fire three hours after the whisky had run 
 out." 
 
 "It is the want of room again it do be, Richard. 
 It is nothing you can do without it. And under the 
 stars like suns in a velvet sky if they were not witty 
 there sure where would they be ? " 
 
 ' But it wasn't all wit, mother. Far from it." 
 ' Well, then, if it was not, there was room enough 
 to disperse the rest, and no coal smoke to make it 
 blacker. And better for it, sure, to be airing itself 
 out there in the clean breeze than festering down 
 below in a dirty soul." 
 
 ' It's a point of view that has its merits." 
 
 " Tell me, did she look purty to-night, Richard ? '-'- 
 
 Mary always alluded to the Lady Dorinda, Richard's 
 wife, as " she.' 1 
 
 " She looked wonderful," said Richard slowly, and 
 his eyes flashed and widened. There was no want of 
 room at this moment for Richard anywhere. His 
 glance embraced Infinity. He beheld marvels. For 
 he was a poet at heart, this unfortunate financier, 
 and he loved his wife. 
 
 " And Richard. The child ? "- 
 
 " She looked like the crown of her mother. The
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 7 
 
 two together — I wasn't the only one, mother, every- 
 one in the room was talking of them. — You saw Dolly 
 in her presentation dress ? "■ 
 
 " I did, Richie, and it was droll it was. And now, 
 what do I be saying that for ? It was not droll it was 
 at all, but right and natural and proper, "• she said 
 with fine dignity. ' Is it not to see it I did before 
 ever I was certain sure what a presentation dress was 
 like ? Didn't I think it was for her marriage ? " she 
 
 said laughing. " But — but- " She looked down 
 
 at him and slowly some trouble grew up in her happy 
 eyes. 
 
 ' It's come back it is,"- she muttered, pushing back 
 her hair. " And it is the darkness is about your path 
 again ; it is creeping in about it it do be. Are you 
 doing well, Richard ? "■ 
 
 " As to money — good lord ! yes. Money always 
 seems to come to me — too much of it and too easily. 
 There's no fun in money-making unless you have to 
 fight a bit for it. 11 
 
 ' But you would not like to be poor, Richie ? " 
 
 " Poor ! A man can't be poor. The day for that 
 is over." 
 
 " Or idle, lad ? It is not yourself would be idle ? " 
 
 " Nor idle, either. I'm as right as rain, mother.'- 1 
 
 ' Is the place where you do be in the City very 
 confined, Richard ? " 
 
 ' It's pretty sizeable on the whole, as offices go, 11 
 he said laughing. 
 
 ' It is big it would need to be to hold you, Richie. 
 And you like it — in a way, that life there ? " 
 
 ' I like it tremendously. Even if you do hit up 
 against the crowd every minute you're pretty free 
 there. There are big things happening, and you're 
 in with them all. Some of them would never happen 
 if you weren't there. And you'd be missed,' 1 he went 
 on in reply to her anxious face. ' There's no one 
 who could very well fill your place." 
 
 ' That's good, Richie. You have made room over 
 there for yourself. You can stretch a little bit there.
 
 8 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 It is not big enough it is for you, lad, but it is better 
 than nothing." 
 
 " It certainly is ! " 
 
 ' It is more room you have made for yourself here, 
 Richie, than you could have found ready made for 
 you over there beyond ? " she asked, still anxiously 
 watching him. 
 
 " Rather ! I couldn't have lived there always, in 
 spite of the size of the place." 
 
 " And yet it is to shrivel the heart it does here, I 
 do be thinking. It is the poorness of the poor, and 
 what do be kept back in the charity of them that 
 give. For sure, what good do money be without a 
 bit of the good heart that gives it, and the wisdom 
 and the courage and the patience that got it ? It is 
 to give the gold they do, and to forget the good thought 
 that makes the gold to bless and not to curse, and 
 then to be thinking that the bread they will give to 
 the poor will feed them or the fire warm them. Richie ! 
 if you do ever give a penny without a bit of your own 
 spirit to make it work right in the poor hands that 
 take it, it's yourself will be afraid it is not enough you 
 will have, and your power will go from you."- 
 
 " But better men than I ever was are as poor as 
 Lazarus." 
 
 " Lazarus is not one to be lightly mentioned, 
 Richard. It was by reason of Lazarus the rich man 
 fell, and it is through him he must be lifted up. It 
 was the sin of them that knew and did not teach 
 that made Lazarus and his mighty brood. And only 
 for Lazarus and the like of him, what way would the 
 greedy rich ever get near Heaven at all, at all ? 
 
 " It is the fear and the doubt of man in the matter 
 of money it do be that makes the poor. The boldest 
 man is a creaking coward, so he is, with his two eyes 
 glued to gold, or to the want of it. The one is no 
 better than the other. It is enough and to spare for 
 everyone it is if the world would only look beyond 
 the gold or the want of gold, to the wisdom and the 
 courage and the patience of God down there in him-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 9 
 
 self — that will learn him and lead him the way he can 
 always have all he wants for himself and for all them 
 that have not learnt the way. And oh ! my grief ! 
 to be taking the fine, fiery heart out of gold and filling 
 it up with cold fear ! Oh ! Richie ! the grand colour 
 of the little nuggets over there ! It is more of the 
 colour of them we used to be thinking in those old 
 days, your father and me, than it was of the value. 
 
 " The place do be too small," she cried ; " one sees 
 too much of it. It is too close it is. It is to take the 
 air from you it does." 
 
 " You to talk like that who carry your space with 
 you ! " said Richard. " Why, you see more in this 
 room than most of us do in the universe. Good lord ! 
 If only I could see half as far ! '-'- 
 
 ' It is a thankless old woman I do be. But when 
 the foolish heart cries out the foolish tongue will 
 speak. "- 
 
 ' We're a pair of grousers, and you're the worst. 
 When I think of the distances you travel and the 
 depths and heights you explore without moving out 
 of your chair, and the miserable limits of our active 
 lives! " 
 
 " But, Richie, when you do be born with a cowl 
 on your head and the second sight," said Mary, 
 deprecatingly, " it is to see in a dungeon you'd do. 
 Sometimes you would wish you could not, faith.' 1 
 
 " But you're happy, mother ? Is there anything 
 j^ou haven't that you'd like ? " 
 
 He looked round the grand and simple proportions 
 of the room and of its appointments. The suite was 
 one of the largest in the house, and every detail in 
 every room he had himself arranged. 
 
 ' Is there anything at all you want ? I believe there 
 is. I wish you'd tell me."- 
 
 ?vlary blushed like a girl and laughed. 
 ' There is, Richard." She laughed again, half 
 shyly, half amused. " And it is a little grief it has 
 brought on me." 
 
 " Why, mother "
 
 io DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Richie ! It is a longing I do be having for 
 tripe.' 1 
 
 " But why on earth don't you order it ? '-'• 
 
 "Is it to order tripe I would be doing, Richard, 
 and from one of them powdered pelicans ? It is only 
 little you know of kitchen gentlemen, Richie.'-' 
 
 " But nowadays doctors often order tripe." 
 
 ' It is not a footman they would order to eat it, 
 then, whatever they might do to his master, if so be 
 they wanted to hold on to their job in the servants' 
 hall. And what would tripe be, Richard, without 
 yourself ? How long is it, lad, since we had a meal 
 together ? '-'• 
 
 " But whose fault is that ? '-'- 
 
 ' I know. And it is what must be. But it is myself 
 would like one for once, Richard.' 1 
 
 ' That's easily managed. My birthday's on Satur- 
 day, isn't it ? " 
 
 " At seven in the morning it was, forty-and-five 
 years ago," she said dreamily, " and it was in a shaft 
 of light I bore you." 
 
 " Good old mother ! You'd never have done with- 
 out that shaft of light. You couldn't have arranged 
 it better yourself. Well, Dorinda and Dolly are going 
 away for the week-end, so you and I will dine together 
 on tripe. I'll call for you at seven-thirty then, on 
 Saturday." 
 
 " Indeed, Richie, and you will not. It is a cab 
 that will call for me and set me down at the right 
 place. Richard ! " she cried out sharply. "It is to 
 see something I did then ; something not right. Is it 
 honest you are — Richard, honest in the very core 
 of your being and always ? " she demanded solemnly. 
 
 His laugh was as careless and merry as her own 
 had been. 
 
 " Well, yes, I can always get what I want by honest 
 means. As you say yourself, it's only funk that 
 makes fraudulent company promoters. I'm fairly 
 honest, really." 
 
 " Then it is someone close to you who is not," she
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER ir 
 
 said with decision. She frowned and again shaded 
 her eyes. "it will not go, Richie. It is there. It 
 is careful you must be, lad, with watchful eyes. It 
 is not to move it will be doing," she murmured. 
 
 Richard stood for a moment silently looking at 
 her. 
 
 " Could you possibly be mistaken ? " he asked at 
 last. 
 
 " Richard ! Is it to be mistaken I was, ever ? " 
 
 " Well, no," he said laughing. " Never ! Never 
 once." 
 
 " It is not the laughing matter it would be for you, 
 lad, or for me if I ever was." 
 
 " I wonder what the money market would say," 
 he said presently, "if it knew that it was you, who 
 never wrote a cheque in youi life, who so frequently 
 controls it." 
 
 " It is a power of nonsense it would say, so it would, 
 Richie. But this ; it is not to do with money this 
 is. It do be a bitter sadness on me, Richie. It is 
 a darkness about your heart I do be seeing, and a 
 cold and a blighting blast upon it. Richard, where 
 is the dream that was the dream of the night and of 
 the day, the old dream, the big one of all, my son ? " 
 
 ' I cannot tackle that, mother. I can't tackle it 
 alone." 
 
 " Richie ! It is not myself that can put pressure 
 on you in this. It is I must sit still and wait. But 
 it is the days of a man's life when he is as a branch 
 in bloom that the big dreams call for. The day will 
 come when every man must stand aside and serve 
 youth. It is he may stand near the throne in that 
 day, Richard, but never must he sit upon it." 
 
 ' But even to stand near the throne is something, 
 mother." 
 
 ' It is not enough for you it is, Richie, not enough 
 for you, my son. It is God will demand more of the 
 like of you than this." 
 
 " I have no stomach for the fight now, mothei." 
 'It is not blame I am putting on you, Richie, or
 
 12 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 on anyone. But oh ! it is the sorrow it do be keep- 
 ing alive in my heart." Her eyes were far from him 
 and the sorrow in them was immeasurable. 
 
 " I'm sorry, mother, but I'm afraid it must be the 
 second best now." 
 
 " Ah ! — well, go to bed, Richie, and sleep all you 
 can." 
 
 When he had gone she sank back in her pillows, 
 looking tired and discouraged. 
 
 ' To be able to do all I can do for him," she said, 
 " and not the one thing he wants. The one thing that 
 will make a big man of him. Women are bound up in 
 the heart of all things," she said involuntarily aloud. 
 ' The bearers of life and the dressers of death ; the 
 root of good and of evil. Nothing is ever forgiven 
 to woman, or through her to man. And my son 
 to be second best, after all, after all ! My grief, 
 oh ! my grief I And — it is there it is again ! And 
 it will not move. And it is to my prayers I ought to 
 be getting instead of bewildering myself with vain 
 sorrows. — And to be expecting everything from them 
 with only the eyes of the body to light their way, 
 when even the other sight will not bring you straight 
 home to God ! " 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 In the early days of the gold rush to Australia, in 
 that awful struggle for the right to live, to fulfil the 
 eternal desire of man for his proper heritage of abun- 
 dance, every barrier was broken down. The old 
 morality, the old distinctions of caste no longer, ruled. 
 Rich and poor, high and low, strong and weak, rolled 
 on, one over the other, to the tragic goal. Rank, 
 learning, righteousness no longer availed. He who got 
 in first stood for the chief of the tribe. Its liege lord 
 in everything, if he dropped out of the mad march, 
 took rank with the unfittest, with the stragglers, who 
 dangled, a frayed fringe, on the heels of the crowd.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 13 
 
 The right to found a race who should yet bear arms 
 lay in the strength of a man's hands : sometimes in 
 the elasticity of his conscience. 
 
 Woman, however, stood fast and firm on her own 
 ground. Nothing could move her. Not even the 
 cruel swaying crowd which surged on, crushing the 
 weak, driving the nervous to madness, the fearful to 
 despair. But she stood steady — that is, the few of her 
 there were (every camp teemed with the other variety) 
 — and kept her flag ; and even in the mining camps of 
 the forties men were men, and deep down at the back 
 of each man's soiled soul lay the eternal worship of the 
 beauty of purity. 
 
 This was the reason that when Richard Alderson, 
 who stood head and shoulders above the best of 
 them, married Mary O'Berne, the Irish girl, who had 
 nursed him through a long illness, and could neither 
 read nor write, the current society in those parts 
 took it all for granted. Richard Alderson could have 
 been a gentleman, entertained the Governor, and 
 married accordingly if he had cared to do so. Any- 
 thing was possible to him. He came of the best 
 yeoman blood of Cumberland, had had a good grammar 
 school education, and, as far as money was concerned, 
 had scooped the pool. 
 
 Mary had wandered up anyhow in the wake of an 
 uncle, a harmless, feckless creature, who soon dropped 
 out of the breathless rush and was forgotten. A few 
 remembered Mary, indeed, and counselled her to come 
 on with them, since the thing was as good as done ; 
 but Mary stayed behind with her uncle, minded him 
 and buried him, and then came on alone through almost 
 incredible difficulties to the camp, and supported her- 
 self by jobs of nursing. She knew the secrets of the 
 herbs of the fields, and could effect magical cures. So 
 she got a good living and was greatly in demand. 
 
 She was " no class," however. Nothing but Nature 
 seemed to have done anything for her. She was 
 very beautiful. All those not already suited made 
 advances to her, mostly dishonourable ; but Mary,
 
 i 4 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 silent as she was and far away as were her eyes, had 
 a wit of her own when she chose to use it, and her 
 remote eyes could come close home and flash out the 
 fire that scorched. Before long she could have 
 married the whole camp, had she desired it. At any 
 rate, she won her way, and could henceforth walk 
 as one protected through any human sewer. For 
 even in those old days her heart was " fixed." 
 
 So when it became known that Richard Alderson, 
 hardly recovered yet from his fever, intended to pay 
 two hundred pounds to the nearest parson to come 
 up and marry him and Mary under their very noses 
 for fear of any scandal, the whole camp vociferously 
 applauded his action. It conferred a subtle distinction 
 upon the community. The fact of a three weeks' 
 journey lying between the best disposed and legal 
 matrimony, until later, when a paternal Government 
 intervened, frequently made complications in this 
 delicate matter. 
 
 The camp had a three days' carouse to celebrate 
 the event. Each man rolled into the room where the 
 ceremony took place with his present of gold, in 
 dust or nuggets, tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, 
 and cheered to the echo all through the service. 
 It was a notable occasion, and gave to the parson, 
 a new importation from home, a brand new outlook 
 on life, and probably was instrumental in making 
 him in subsequent years a bishop. 
 
 After he had married Mary, Richard took her away. 
 He had a good heart towards the camp, but he knew 
 it only too well, and both Mary and he longed for 
 fresh adventures and for the quiet of the virgin land. 
 
 They wandered, the two lovers, up and down the 
 hills and plains, filling their senses with the sights 
 and sounds and the wild odours of a world still in the 
 making, their souls with the sense of space and har- 
 mony, and, above all, with the power of silence. 
 
 Their wanderings, if desultory in detail, had a 
 definite aim. They meant one day to choose out of 
 the great unclaimed forest lands beside some slow-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 15 
 
 flowing, steep-banked river, a territory big enough to 
 hold their soaring fancies and quickening forces and 
 an illimitable array of cattle and sheep. But there was 
 no hurry. The leisure of Eternity was all about them. 
 
 They might have wandered for ever, had not the 
 most wonderful of all knowledge come one day to 
 Mary and awakened in her another eternal need, the 
 desire for a home. So now the search became definite. 
 Hitherto they had travelled light ; the two together, 
 their horses and a compass, and if the sun was down 
 or hidden, there was that within Mary which led them 
 as true as the sun to the sweet waters and the green 
 shade. 
 
 Now they enlarged the camp ; they took on men, 
 and a Government surveyor who mapped out the 
 way, and on they went, as free of care and of anxiety 
 as ever, for Mary knew that she would find what she 
 wanted, and Richard's faith in her was supreme. 
 
 To find anything upon earth to match the freedom 
 of sky and air was indeed a difficulty, and nothing less 
 could content such swelling hearts. The desire for 
 the illimitable things was born in Mary, and Richard 
 learned at her feet. 
 
 The little farm high up in the mountains of Ireland 
 where she was born was, to be sure, small enough, 
 but there was a crag just beyond the haggart fronx 
 which you could look down on the broad Atlantic 
 and across it, with nothing but an iceberg or so to 
 bar the way to America. Mary, who spent the better 
 part of her childhood on the crag, saw other things 
 also. 
 
 Strange dreams of sad, dead cities and outlandish 
 trees, and plants and the flitting shadows of wistful 
 faces always looking up as though to seek compas- 
 sion because of some forgotten kindness to some 
 mortal when on this mortal earth. And not only in 
 the water did she see them, but sometimes as clear 
 as paint, standing out on the hills against the blue 
 sky. She learned all about the herbs, too, from an 
 old woman who came often to her crag and looked
 
 16 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 out, seeing things of which she never spoke. She told 
 stories, however, of brave men and good women who 
 had lived down there in the lost cities, and died in the 
 end in a most magical odour of sanctity. 
 
 It was a religion which Mary greatly preferred to 
 that expounded to her in Irish, and a Latin not unlike 
 it, in the little turf-built chapel on the hill. There 
 was a breadth and a vigour and a fantasy in it which 
 greatly drew her and turned her in time into a very 
 promising latitudinarian. 
 
 Eventually Richard turned her into what he called 
 a " good Protestant." What she was called, how- 
 ever, troubled Mary very little. So long as she could 
 " see," the other things mattered not at all. 
 
 Richard was different. He liked to spell out the 
 plain brand on people even as he did on his cattle. 
 It saved doubt and confusion. Had Mary remained 
 a Catholic he could never have been quite sure that 
 she was his altogether. To Richard there was a 
 slippery quality in a Catholic not common to other 
 sects. And since what she " saw " as a Catholic, she 
 saw also, without a shadow of turning, as a Protestant, 
 there was no difficulty in the matter to Mary. If 
 once she had " seen," how things might look to other 
 people did not concern her. 
 
 There seemed to her simple mind to be many religions, 
 but only one God and one sort of goodness. 
 
 Never was seen such a conversion ! With an odd 
 little smile Mary stepped from the old religion into 
 the new, carrying the one truth that to herself meant 
 freedom safe in her heart. 
 
 " It's like standing on the old crag and looking, 
 now this way and now that, at the same sky, and 
 the same sea, and the same grass," she said one day, 
 as Richard diffidently questioned her in regard to 
 some notorious theological contention. He never 
 mentioned theology again in her presence, but some- 
 times he found God. At any rate, he was satisfied, 
 and no religious dissensions ever troubled the serenity 
 of his household.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 17 
 
 Every parson who came along beheld some vast 
 and mystic potentiality in Mary, and tried to run it in 
 to his own particular fold. Mary fed him, and listened 
 to him, and with a merry laugh she went her way. 
 
 Whatever her religion may have been, she was very 
 happy in it, which is something in this poor world, 
 in spite of its myriad religions crying out always, 
 night and day, for joy. 
 
 When Mary moved things went quick. The place 
 her heart desired was found at last, and the building 
 of the home began, of rough-hewn pine without and 
 flawless polished pine within. The verandah that 
 encircled it was wide enough to shelter a regiment, 
 the great stacks of roomy stables might have held 
 its horses. There was a rough, straggling garden, 
 which ran out into the boundless sweep of plain and 
 hill and forest : a half-savage immensity which in 
 these first days seemed to throw out a wild menace 
 to the creatures so small and puny who had come to 
 rouse it from its eternal peace. For if man has always 
 hankered after the wilderness, it is clear enough that 
 the wilderness has never hankered after man. There 
 was something so cold and cruel, there was such 
 stupendous sorrow in the watching of her unseen nightly 
 enemies, that Mary often shuddered as she sat on her 
 bare wide verandah before those dark immensities, 
 waiting for Richard. 
 
 Strange forces seemed to come near and to lower 
 upon her, to stretch out gaunt hands to dispossess 
 her and drive her back. They brought a new sadness 
 with them and a new, strange compassion. Mary's 
 heart went out to her dumb upbraiders, to the mute, 
 incomparable sorrow in things. She stretched out 
 her arms to them and to their sorrow, and bent her 
 eyes to see, and her ears to listen. Perhaps eventually 
 she saw and heard, for in time she seemed to grow 
 into the hearts of the speechless creatures, and they 
 were all at peace together. But to wrap herself round, 
 and to protect the little tame things of her own life 
 from such tremendous experiences, she covered her
 
 18 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 verandah with gay creepers, till they hung out a new 
 flag for every month of the year. She filled her garden 
 with flowers, and such a wealth of flowering shrubs 
 as never was seen. And to bring it near and make 
 it one with her, she searched the wide plain for herbs 
 to heal sick men. 
 
 And Richard got rich and richer, a great cattle 
 king, an owner of mines, a disposer of banks, for he 
 never ventured upon any course until Mar}' " saw," 
 and she always saw straight. And then the Ministry 
 begged him to join it, and the Governor asked him 
 to stay with him, and Society wanted him to be its 
 star, and Richard began to wonder if, instead of having 
 taught Mary to read and write English, he had not 
 done better first to have taught her to speak it. 
 However, when he looked at her coming up from a 
 ]ong walk, her hands full of herbs, and her eyes of 
 dreams, and her dress perfect in its kind, he forgot 
 her way of speech, and suggested that they should go 
 down to the great town and take their place in the 
 life of it. 
 
 " And you'll be the handsomest woman at Govern- 
 ment House, or anywhere else either," said Richard. 
 
 I might," said Mary, with high pride. ' That is 
 like enough, so it is. But I think it is to stay here I 
 will be doing, and mind the house, and the baby, to 
 say nothing of yerself, Richard. It is better I will 
 do it here than I could in the noisy streets. It is to 
 go down yerself and see it all you can do, and then 
 to come back and to tell me all about it." 
 
 It seemed cruel to disturb her : she belonged to the 
 place ; he never could see her quite clearly anywhere 
 else. So he went down, and some of her went with 
 him, for in all that he did he prospered. 
 
 Mary herself became rather an alluring mystery to 
 the bustling world of the big, raw town. 
 
 One of the parsons, having failed to convert her, 
 made a better job of painting her, and Richard took 
 the picture down with him. It aroused acute curiosity. 
 Some enterprising ladies fished for invitations to his
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 19 
 
 big station, others fell in love with Richard. Mary- 
 might have had all the youth and beauty of the town 
 up in turns had she chosen to speak the word. But 
 she only laughed when his letters came, and Richard 
 was longing already for silence and some place all to 
 himself, big enough to think things out in. So he eluded 
 the ladies and fled. 
 
 No one could feel more kindly to Society than he ; 
 but, as in the case of the camp, having found out all 
 its secrets, he turned his back upon it for ever. 
 
 Every form of enterprise then known was sure to 
 find its first exponent in Richard ; he could have 
 filled his house with Colonial experiencers, but he 
 preferred to keep his house to himself. And his 
 possessions, vast as they were, lay remote from 
 every place, shut off on one side by a chain of moun- 
 tains, forbidding enough under its heavenly veil of 
 blue. 
 
 Thus it was that Mary, in spite of her remarkable 
 beauty, became a vague mystery, and, in time, was 
 forgotten in the swift Colonial life that counts. But 
 Mary, from the sequestered place of her own choosing, 
 forgot nothing. The distant, throbbing life of which 
 Richard had told her lived itself over again within her 
 with a keener throb. The pain and the joy and the 
 tragedy of it, all made their mark in and on her. 
 Nothing escaped this still, watching woman, and her 
 hand was always stretched out to help. 
 
 It came as easily to Richard to give as to take, but 
 he was careless and happy and secure. It would 
 not have struck him, probably, to give, unless he was 
 asked, and then he would likely enough have given 
 unwisely, but Mary very early in the day took over 
 all the giving herself. And although sometimes 
 Richard laughed at the cheques he wrote for her, he 
 never begrudged them. It was a puzzle to him to 
 the day of his death how it was that Mary so rarely 
 made a mistake, and was practically never taken in. 
 
 ' You never meet anyone, u he said one day. " So 
 how on earth do you know everybody ? M
 
 20 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 "It is not meeting people makes you know them," 
 she said, " it is ' seeing l them.' 1 
 
 Until young Richard was ten years old, and his 
 tutor pronounced a school to be essential for him, 
 the dream went on unbroken. Then suddenly it 
 seemed to be rent in two, and the whole world lost 
 its swinging rhythm and became vulgar prose. Mary 
 " saw " too much for the moment, and she was 
 afraid. 
 
 Richard never forgot the experience, and neither 
 did the boy. 
 
 In an agony of sheer mortality his mother boxed 
 his ears like a common scold. The heavens iell down 
 about them. Even the household quaked in mystic 
 foreboding. 
 
 This was the crisis. 
 
 Richard found her trembling in her room, trying 
 to pack a little bag. 
 
 " Tell them to get out my horse, Richard, and to 
 put three days' rations upon him,' 1 she said. " It 
 is to go away by myself and get myself back again, 
 I must be doing. It is not here I can do it. Ye must 
 not touch me, Richard, nor the boy must not. It 
 was not myself it was hit him. I — I do not know 
 what it was." 
 
 Without a word Richard let her go. Where she 
 found her Gethsemane no one ever knew, but when 
 she came back her round, pink cheeks were hollow 
 and wan. She had made the woman's great sacrifice. 
 She had surrendered the soul of her son to God. She 
 had given over her charge. 
 
 But she did what she could for him always in her 
 own beat. She knew all the details of his life, and 
 the lives of the other boys, as well as she knew Richie. 
 They will never know probably all that she did for 
 them. They never knew her. 
 
 It happened so. Richie asked his friends up often 
 enough, but they always made him come to them 
 instead. And Mary never went down. She could do 
 better in the little things still in her hands where she was.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 21 
 
 Then when the time came for Richie to go to the 
 university, she remembered her accent, and it was 
 too late. His death sickness had fallen upon the first 
 Richard, and the time for change was gone. 
 
 This was the second awakening of Mary, and it was 
 very nearly as hard as the first. She got through it 
 this time by Richard's bed, and his sorrow in the 
 matter deepened hers. 
 
 ,: I will never leave him, Richard, I promise ye, u 
 she said to a sudden sharp question of the dying 
 man ; ' but it is myself will never be a drawback 
 to him. Be easy, man. It is myself will find the 
 way." 
 
 "It is to go home Richard will do," she said pre- 
 sently with far-away eyes. " The call will come, and 
 follow it he must. And it is a great man he will be. 
 And it is myself must be with him, but it is never in 
 his way I will be. Richard ! leave it to me." 
 
 So one day the call came and young Richard stam- 
 mered out his wish. To his immense relief she was 
 calm and prepared, her scheme fixed. 
 
 " Yes, Richie," she said. " I know, lad. Ye must 
 go. It is to put a manager in the station we will do, 
 and to work the rest from over there. And, Richie, 
 it is I will go with you as nurse and foster-mother 
 to ye." 
 
 And to all his shocked, angry, outraged protest she 
 yielded not an inch. 
 
 " It is a command put on me it is. Did 1 not see 
 it, lad, as I sat beside the dying man, and it is not 
 myself or yourself can go against that, and if we could 
 we would not."
 
 22 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Richard had troops of friends, and he could do most 
 things well. Even without his big income his way- 
 was already made clear before him. So far as drawing- 
 rooms went he could have arrived. It was, therefore, 
 odd enough that he should have made his social debut 
 in the one spot in the British Isles where it would 
 strike the inhabitants to sniff at his approach, and 
 mechanically to draw in their petticoats, at the same 
 time delicately disengaging his attentions from their 
 daughters. 
 
 The first country visit he paid was to the father of 
 a man he had known in Melbourne, who had a big 
 property, and no means, in an out-of-the-way region 
 in Ireland. The society consisted of others as bounti- 
 fully endowed with acres as himself, and as poor. 
 For a generation or so poverty had kept them all nailed 
 tight to the soil and family tradition. 
 
 An Australian millionaire, therefore, without a father 
 to speak of, not to say a grandfather, was both an 
 intrusion and a perplexity, which stirred up a thou- 
 sand fine-strung sensibilities and let loose a host of 
 apprehensions. The thin end of the wedge — that 
 legendary saying, so deeply rooted in their minds as 
 applied to Papists, came out yawning, then turned 
 itself slick and now wide-awake on Richard. A flock 
 of disembodied doubts came circling round the sure 
 fortress of fixed opinion common to the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Finally curiosity awoke. They began to contem- 
 plate Richard Alderson in all his bearings, even as 
 man. Meanwhile, D'Arcy Drew, who in his six 
 months 1 trip to the Colonies had become cosmopolitan,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 23 
 
 blatantly sang the praises of Richard, and spoke 
 lusciously of his financial position. 
 
 In a moment of adventure — his wife was away — 
 Lord Dashwood asked him to shoot. " A mere 
 experiment/ 1 so he explained it to himself. " After 
 all, the Colonies are coming to the front, and ought 
 to be encouraged, and the fellow, from what I hear, 
 will get more out of London in a month's time than 
 I've got out of it in forty years, or will be likely to 
 in forty more. 
 
 " Besides, he'll only see Dorinda at luncheon, when 
 he'll be thinking of his p's and q's and not of girls. 
 Besides,' 1 he added, in his subsequent reflections, " in 
 her short skirts she looks like a child. 11 
 
 Lord Dashwood did his best to keep the imperial 
 point of view always uppermost and his own embarrass- 
 ments, and the letters he had just received from Stephen 
 and John in regard to theirs, clean outside the ques- 
 tion. He also excluded young Lance Delamer, who 
 had been a good deal about the house lately — while 
 Dorinda had been looking, as they always look — though 
 the fellow had good enough prospects in India. 
 
 Lord Dashwood made a noble effort. He buried 
 himself in the Empire. 
 
 Nature, however, is too strong for sentiment. He 
 was now padding through a sodden turnip field. 
 There were some coveys of partridges in it, to be 
 sure, and leaves to hide them, but very few turnips. 
 His eye wandered far and wide over his bleak demesne. 
 Beyond the turnip fine he beheld many a good covert 
 for snipe, but precious little else. The outlook, 
 whether within or without, was indeed hopeless, and 
 a passive attitude no longer tenable : activity with 
 nothing to act upon more futile still. 
 
 Lord Dashwood sighed like a grampus. The boys 
 had been leaving him alone now for some little time. 
 He had begun to hope again, for what it would have 
 been hard to say. And now to be tumbled back into 
 the unworthy struggle ! 
 
 He strode proudly on. To contemplate your mis-
 
 24 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 fortunes up to your ankles in damp turnip leaves is 
 sheer waste of a man's best energies. To ward off 
 Fate, small remittances might still come from an aged 
 uncle, who had disgraced himself by trade — remit- 
 tances sufficient for a simple man like himself, already 
 done with life ; but when it came to the complicated 
 necessities of two others still wallowing in it, that was 
 another matter. 
 
 He was a gentleman, a man of race, parts and 
 feeling. He detested coarse situations, and felt sure 
 his heart was groggy ; and, to be sure, to be driven to 
 sordid shifts by two ungrateful devils of sons would 
 outrage any father. 
 
 He fetched up in a furrow ; swept in his own affairs 
 and those of his sons with a gesture, and with another 
 disposed of the lot of them. — He could be quick 
 enough when roused to it, this suffering nobleman. 
 
 ' You can't do more than you can do," he said at 
 last. ' I may as well burn the letters, sit tight, and 
 face the music." 
 
 He tramped on, his face set to tragic fortitude. 
 But nerves all in a ferment do not set so easily if the 
 fight is for life. In Lord Dashwood's case Life meant 
 an unequal struggle with an overdraft ; and it was 
 fixed in the blood. 
 
 The prick to action would not cease. 
 
 " But — but what the deuce ! " he paused, puzzled, 
 glanced askew at a jack-snipe, and swore. " One 
 isn't a vegetable, after all," he added, " and one can't 
 stand still." 
 
 To advance in his own affairs and those of the boys 
 were suicidal. He fell back upon Dorinda's. In 
 ordinary circumstances he had nothing to say against 
 Lance Delamer ; far from it. An excellent fellow, 
 sure to make his mark some day, but in the present 
 pass — unthinkable. 
 
 So he took him, pretensions and prospects, dropped 
 them all into a bog-hole, and went boldly forward 
 upon the Colonial experiment. 
 
 " Poor little Dorinda ! '•' he murmured almost tear-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 25 
 
 fully. " Not even able to give her a bit of a season 
 from the damned state of things." 
 
 He was a kindly man and fastidious ; and was he 
 not a father ? He watched the Colonial production 
 with unsparing rigour, and had he missed one bird, 
 got in the way, or even lunched badly, Lord Dash- 
 wood would have sent him packing, recalled Delamer, 
 and bared his white head to the last storm. If the 
 man had either missed a bird or anything else there 
 he ended. 
 
 It was the way Richard shot and devoured Irish 
 stew that settled Dorinda's fate for her. Nothing 
 short of Heaven had sent the man, and to slap back a 
 boon so unexceptional in the face of Heaven were 
 a discourtesy of which none of his kith and kin were 
 capable. 
 
 There was the simple speed of an older tragedy in 
 the whole affair. 
 
 Not that Dorinda was in any sort of way either 
 a fool or fickle. Young Delamer and she were in the 
 bitter middle of a first quarrel when he went away, 
 she had not heard a word of him for six weeks, and 
 the finality' of Eternity had filtered into the little rift. 
 
 Into the bargain, he had never made the ghost of 
 proper love to her. Neither definite word or touch 
 had come in at all. It was still only magic in the sky 
 above her, and the air about her, and the earth on 
 which she trod. 
 
 The name of Lancelot Delamer, moreover, was 
 carefully excluded from the Great Discussion, and 
 Dorinda was too shy to bring it in. She had been 
 brought up in the maidenliest of traditions. 
 
 She loved him ; with every atom of her she loved 
 him. They belonged to each other immensely, but 
 he had never asked her, never said a word. Ever 
 since she could remember they had sat for hours 
 and days together out in the heather, tramped up 
 and down, scoured mountain and fell, till they knew 
 every bird and beast in every nook and cranny, every 
 blade of grass, every leaf and branch, and every
 
 26 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 thought of Lancelot's heart was in her keeping. 
 Sweeping, tumultuous, magnificent thoughts that 
 rocked through her, vitalized, transformed her. The 
 energy they awoke in her whirled out into speech in 
 silent, serene Dorinda, and her words were as wild 
 and as splendid as Lancelot's thoughts. They made 
 the thoughts real to him : no passing dream, but the 
 one fact in life after Dorinda. The two sketched out 
 stupendous schemes in the dim twilight with the 
 crescent moon rising up over the black bog-holes, and 
 the skirl of a curlew in the sky. They revolutionized 
 society. They made the Empire. The magic of 
 England's name grew in their souls. Their unspoken 
 love was the veriest consecration, a preparation for 
 such a crusade as would certainly amaze the world. 
 They were sincere to the bone, and their simplicity 
 saved them from strenuosity. They could be as gay 
 together as boys over a rare birds'-nest, rejoicing in 
 the future of England safe in their hands. It was 
 only when she was with Lancelot that Dorinda lived 
 at all. The only human being who knew anything 
 at all about Dorinda was Lancelot Delamer. But 
 he had never said a word ! She had no one to fly to, 
 no refuge anywhere. 
 
 Wild thoughts of writing to Lancelot coursed 
 through her brain, but she did not even know his 
 address, and the house was shut up. Besides, to a 
 girl brought up as she had been, to throw herself at 
 Lancelot's head ! She shuddered in the darkness. 
 With the courage of the dawn she knew that she could 
 have got the address with a little finessing easily 
 enough. She actually set out with the letter in her 
 pocket to get it sent, but tradition and the habit of 
 silence that nothing but Lancelot's bodily presence 
 had power to break were too much for her. She fled, 
 sick with silly shame, back to her home, and with 
 the unassuageable anguish of the girl who cannot speak 
 out she burned her boats. She was in the right atmo- 
 sphere for any unpractical folly. 
 
 She knew vaguely that her sacrifice would save all
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 27 
 
 the rest of them ; she had been brought up to self- 
 abnegation. It had always been her mother or her- 
 self, or the other women of the family, who had given 
 up tilings. She believed it to be part of the equip- 
 ment of poor and well-bred women to give up to their 
 men. It was the one virtue cheerfully agreed to 
 and appreciated by everybody. Her promised season 
 had gone for Stephen's debts. Her presentation 
 dress and a visit to rich and delightful relations for 
 Jack's. A thoroughbred — she had begun to hunt at 
 fifteen, and loved, as only fifteen can love, its mount 
 — went for the combined necessities of the three males. 
 And now the blackest mystery of all seemed about 
 to engulf them. She saw it in her mother's meek 
 and frightened eyes. Her father forgot to be dramatic. 
 He looked humble. He filled her with an unspeakable 
 dread. 
 
 For three whole days did the simple girl trust to the 
 mercy .of the universe in the matter of pairing. As 
 she lay trembling in the darkness the three nights of 
 her brief struggle for life she lived over again the 
 unholy vision of her father in his last mad outbreak 
 of deep drinking. A horrible possession in its moment 
 of dire despair, which had formed part of the family 
 secret history for many a generation. Muffled stories 
 had been secretty told her over fires in the twilight by 
 idiotic nurses, who were rather proud, on the whole, of 
 so long standing a family devil with such lurid habits. 
 
 Her mother never once pressed the matter. She 
 tenderly loved both the girl and true love, and her 
 heart was not at ease ; but her eyes were filled with 
 the fear of the secret terror, and they followed Dorinda 
 even into the darkness. Subversive of the best family 
 tradition, it was to her mother's eyes in the end that 
 Dorinda gave up and not to her men. 
 
 Directly she married Richard she crushed Lancelot 
 out of her heart ; but in the process she crushed her 
 heart also, and went on her brilliant way, an imper- 
 turbably good woman. 
 
 If she has never known passion, or slain it young,
 
 28 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 has no petty material annoyances to disturb her 
 temper, ao rakish tendencies to distract her mind, a 
 woman cannot well be anything else. 
 
 But she was more even than a good wife and mother 
 and a charming hostess. She had a distinct vogue. 
 For crystal purity of life and outlook Dorinda stood 
 a little aside from the rest. She was neither prig nor 
 prude, but there was a natural whiteness of soul about 
 her that made an atmosphere. 
 
 From the very beginning Richard's eyes had turned 
 to the girl as the flower to the sun. 
 
 To approach him in more delicate matters turned 
 out to be quite a simple matter. Lord Dashwood 
 found the young Colonial a man of phenomenal penetra- 
 tion. The most secret intentions of his lordship's 
 soul were 'interpreted for him without one coarse or 
 wounding word. A millionaire plainly designed by 
 Providence for an Irish alliance. Lord Dashwood 
 respected the integrity of his daughter and his own 
 pride. Dorinda knew no more than the babe unborn 
 what the price of her ransom had come to. Had she 
 known it, she would have died of the debasement. 
 
 This Richard knew well. He had to pay very 
 dearly for Dorinda, but he paid with a gay and a 
 thankful heart — the more thankful that he could take 
 her out of such need for ever and change life for her. 
 
 Some iron, he could see, had entered already into 
 the child's heart, and that she didn't love him he was 
 well aware. But he had never heard of Lancelot Dela- 
 mer, and doubted if she even knew what love meant. 
 
 And what man has ever had any doubt of his own 
 ability to instruct in this colossal affair ? Even if he 
 has failed in everything else, he can still teach a girl 
 to love him ! 
 
 And Richard had never failed in anything, and 
 never meant to fail ; he had an illimitable outlook, 
 and he was an Anglo-Saxon soaked in the sun. 
 
 Richard, had he been given the chance, would have 
 loved his wife with the passion of a man and the 
 spiritual ecstasy of a visionary. -.- j
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Dolly Alderson was nearly as much interested in 
 her mother as she was in herself. At the delectable 
 age of eighteen it is impossible to leave oneself out 
 altogether, but she could generally reflect with one 
 eye on her mother and the other on herself. 
 
 Perhaps this was only another form of selfishness 
 after all ; for sometimes the mother seemed to the 
 daughter to be the interpreter of herself, and some- 
 times she turned her into a riddle, and both states 
 of mind were fascinating. When it was too hot for 
 games, and she had no one in particular to talk to, 
 Dolly could think of her mother in starts a whole 
 summer's afternoon. 
 
 She was doing it now as she lay against a green 
 terrace in the big garden of their only rich relations : 
 those who were to have presented Dorinda except for 
 the accident of her brother's necessities. It struck 
 her, as it often did, that her mother, save in the most 
 sketchy way, had never told her anything about her 
 old home. This was odd. She wriggled on the cool 
 grass. 
 
 " She's always left out ail the real things," she 
 thought. " I wonder why, when they're all so proud 
 of her, and she must always have been the centre of 
 that queer old bare house and of ail the delightful 
 lunatics hanging round it. I wish to goodness these 
 people who have it now would leave, and that we 
 could go over there. Then I should find out things." 
 
 With the insufficient data at her command, Dolly 
 shut her eyes to think out the thing. 
 
 If Dorinda was silent as to her past, her father was 
 garrulous. And since he had become affluent he had 
 resumed the romantic side of his family history. The
 
 30 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 story of Dorinda's youth as set forth in the fine paternal 
 style of Lord Dashwood was wild and seductive to a 
 degree. A Gaelic idyll. After his first brilliant 
 dramatization of that painful period, directly he began 
 to reproduce it his wife hastily withdrew and wiped 
 the performance from her mind with prayer, which 
 included an inarticulate but earnest petition for the 
 consecration of Dashwood's imagination. 
 
 Thus her grandfather had a free hand with Dolly, 
 and Dolly rejoiced in her mother's girlhood as her 
 mother had certainly never done. Why her mother 
 should practically ignore such blissful years was a 
 mounting puzzle to her. 
 
 A little group of women in varying degrees of idle- 
 ness sat about in the pleasant shade of a huge tulip- 
 tree, the pride of the place. They were all good 
 enough friends not to feel bound to make conversation. 
 Some even sat blatantly out of earshot of the others, 
 absorbed in their own affairs. Mrs. Burgoyne, their 
 hostess, although it was Dolly's right now to be 
 thought of first, was thinking instead of her mother. 
 
 Dorinda looked more serene and beautiful than 
 usual that day. Her cheeks were softly flushed ; her 
 exquisite mouth with its sweet sincerity and the 
 pathetic, almost unnoticeable, weakness in the down- 
 ward curve of the corners engaged her attention. 
 The shafts of sun playing in the dimples, still those 
 of a young girl, increased the sense of elusive in- 
 stability in the tracing of the light lines about the 
 mouth. It disturbed the harmony of the whole 
 face. It was a vague challenge to the almost austere 
 grandeur and nobility of the upper part of the sweet 
 face. And yet to the people who thought about 
 her it formed one of the subtle attractions of Lady 
 Dorinda. It took away the coldness of her calm 
 perfection. It left a question still to be asked and 
 answered, deeper depths still to be explored, expecta- 
 tions still to be fulfilled. It conferred a sense of 
 mutability, of limitlessness, upon what otherwise 
 might have become monotonous.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 31 
 
 " I wonder how it will happen and who will be the 
 cause of it ? " thought Mrs. Burgoyne, with a keen 
 look at her. " And to be wondering that still about 
 Dorinda ! Dear me ! But I must see it. Even 
 if it were to be the death of me I must see it ! 
 Dorinda alive at last, perhaps in the end burning like 
 that unfortunate St. Paul." She paused, amused, 
 angry, regretful. " Such a word to apply to Dorinda! 
 Goodness gracious ! But I've been watching her 
 so long without any result that it makes one say any- 
 thing. One wants to get it over and begin again 
 before Dolly starts. And to think of having a hand 
 in an affair of Dorinda's ! It's horrible and en- 
 trancing. ' ' * 
 
 There was deprecating apology in the tail of her 
 eye as it still sought out Dorinda. 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne was an ample receptacle for every 
 striving emotion. She rejected nothing. 
 
 "They all settle down in their places in the end." 
 she had once explained to Dorinda, " or get crowded 
 out. And if you're always sweeping up your insides, 
 getting ready for angels' visits, it's just as likely the 
 seven devils will slip in and take possession. It seems 
 to me that with all their experience angels have not 
 \"et acquired cosmopolitan minds. They are too fond 
 of waiting for invitations, and picking and choosing. 
 A devil will just slip in uninvited wherever he can 
 find a foothold. Hence his regrettable frequency." 
 She now glanced at Dorinda, serenely smiling at some- 
 thing someone had said. 
 
 " Thirty-eight," she reflected, " and looking twenty- 
 five, and nothing has ever happened to her yet, and 
 Dolly grown up. Neither marriage nor life nor the 
 bearing of children has materially disturbed Dorinda. 
 It is impossible that a woman can go on like this for 
 ever. She might certainly have let things arrange 
 themselves before the girl's turn began. I don't 
 understand Dorinda. I'm sorry for her, all the same, 
 in the most curious way." 
 
 She was genuinely concerned, but her eyes were
 
 32 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 bright. People from whom one might still expect 
 developments powerfully attracted Mrs. Burgoyne. 
 
 ' I suppose it's very wrong," she said aloud in her 
 cheerful voice ; ' but instead of thinking of the 
 domestic felicity, real or assumed, of my wide circle 
 of acquaintances, I often find myself thinking of the 
 domestic tragedy each particular pair might produce 
 between them. It gives variety to one's thoughts." 
 
 " It certainly would," said Dorinda, " and flavour." 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne glanced at Dolly, apparently asleep. 
 
 " One is so handicapped in one's every-day ex- 
 periences," she proceeded. " If from your bringing- 
 up, and being happy and prosperous, and having to 
 be an example, more or less, you're debarred from 
 an experimental knowledge, not merely of the fires 
 that burn, but if you can't so much as play with fire, 
 how on earth are you to know anything of its peculiar 
 tricks or properties ? If you must not think, or feel, 
 or look, or speculate, except in one approved fashion, 
 where are you to get your experience in order to 
 select ? It is a problem, Dorinda. Half the virtue 
 of the ordinary woman consists in the bleak process of 
 exclusion to which she has accustomed herself. Then 
 when the day of herself's test comes, if she's worth 
 one (so many aren't), she finds it doesn't work." 
 
 She glanced at Dorinda, amused and calm. 
 
 " She might have got all this over before Dolly 
 grew up," she said again resentfully. The two to- 
 gether, the mother and daughter, with all their troubles 
 still before them, moved and softened and thrilled 
 her. 
 
 The wild spirit of adventure which generally mani- 
 fested itself in a burning interest in wholesale humanity, 
 and now surged up from some submerged depth, could 
 never have been divined from the face and figure of 
 Mrs. Burgoyne, so bounteous and kind, so eminently 
 trustworthy. An impulse to push Dorinda from her 
 dainty paddlings in shallow safe waters into some 
 tumultuous deep suddenly took her. Dorinda's atti- 
 tude towards life was so ineffectual !
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 33 
 
 She could stare no longer at such folly of serenity 
 in a world like this. 
 
 " Dorinda," she said, " with all the over-fastidious 
 silence of that face of yours, I. believe you'd enjoy a 
 splash into a new element. You'd like any quick 
 motion, so long as it was quick enough. It's in the 
 nature of some people to go softly all their lives, but 
 I've begun to have my doubts if it's in yours. You'd 
 enjoy cleaving the air — and I'd enjoy seeing you." 
 
 " I'm very happy as I am," said Dorinda. " 1 like 
 peace." 
 
 " Perhaps you do," said Mrs. Burgoyne. 
 
 " Peace," she mused, " is very well in its way, but 
 it's never peace that'll alter the shape of Dorinda's 
 mouth, and sort of tone it up. That hint of a weak 
 incapacity to face truth about it' will spoil her as an 
 old woman." 
 
 "It's an odd thing," she said dubiously. "But 
 when you and the child are together, it's you I always 
 think of and not Dolly, when by all the laws of God 
 and man it ought to be Dolly now who takes the field. 
 I'm not blaming you, Dorinda, but it's immoral! 
 Dolly's out now on the Eternal Quest, and it's her 
 progress w r e should be following, and not yours." 
 
 " I don't know what the Eternal Quest is," said 
 Dolly, not so sound asleep seemingly as they had 
 believed her to be ; " but people will always think 
 of mother first when we're together. I do myself. 
 I'm not jealous. Honest injun, I'm not ; but sometimes 
 I don't like it." 
 
 Dolly turned over on her elbows to look at her 
 mother. 
 
 " It confuses you. It's like reading two stories at 
 the same time. One gets the plot and the characters 
 mixed up. Sometimes when I'm arranging something 
 that's to happen to myself, it's mother suddenly who's 
 the leading lady. We seem to be starting out to- 
 gether, we two, somewhere. It's extremely funny with 
 your book composed, finished, and published long 
 ago, mother. Husbands and children stand for the
 
 34 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 publication of the book, don't they, and inventing and 
 making up are just the beginnings." 
 
 " Go on with your own book, Dolly." 
 ' But I want to read yours too. It's because I 
 never have read it that I get confused and keep on 
 running us together. Yours is real, and mine's only 
 in my head, and I want to compare them." 
 
 " Mine's too simple, there is nothing to compare." 
 ' It couldn't have been all simplicity in that queer 
 old house. Things must have happened. There were 
 people about." 
 
 " But I soon left them. I wasn't much older than 
 you when your father married me. I had no time to 
 make history — to make even a short story." 
 
 " But it's not time, is it ? A minute is enough. 
 Something happens, ' and nothing's ever the same 
 again." 
 
 To her own keen astonishment Dorinda blushed. 
 
 " But it did happen," she said, laughing, " and 
 nothing's ever been the same again." 
 
 ' It looks as if it was still to happen," said Dolly 
 doubtfully ; " and it's odd with me here waiting for 
 my own things. The beginning thing is love, isn't 
 it ? " she said with a gay laugh. 
 
 " Dolly ! When I thought you were a child still ! " 
 
 " To blame me ! when it's looking at you that gives 
 me ideas." 
 
 " I hadn't even begun to think of love at your age. 
 And the stories I made up had always a horse for their 
 hero, or myself being tortured or burnt for some great 
 vague cause." 
 
 " It would never strike me to be tortured or burnt 
 for any great vague cause. I'd just hate it. Of course, 
 I've often been on the brink of torture for — oh, well ! — 
 other people, but I always arrange to be saved at the 
 last minute. It's rather nice, don't you think, to end 
 with a sigh of relief." 
 
 " And a trousseau ? " murmured Mrs. Burgoyne. 
 
 Dolly solemnly nodded. 
 
 " And I thought I was bringing up a nice, old-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 35 
 
 fashioned girl ! ' said Dorinda, laughing, " who'd 
 walk straight on and just be good and happy, and 
 take the other things as they come. ■ I wish you 
 wouldn't grow up so quickly and so unexpectedly, 
 Dolly. I won't be able to follow you -soon, and I 
 don't want to be left behind. If you take to running 
 down every lane you meet in search of adventures 
 I 11 never catch you. I'm not used to lanes." 
 
 ' Then it's quite time you were," said Dolly with 
 conviction. ' We'll go exploring together." 
 
 " It's too late. I've gone straight along the good 
 high road all my life, and it's -the best way," said Lady 
 Dorinda with sweet finality. 
 
 "■ I wonder if it is," commented Dolly. " It's all 
 rather confusing. I know one thing. When my book 
 is written and published, I won't look the least like 
 you ; not half so nice, I know that, but more as if 
 I'd finished up everything all right, and the last word 
 was said. You look as if you were still at the begin- 
 ning of the first volume, and were still teeming with 
 information. You said she looked like a debutante, 
 Cousin Alice, when she presented me, and I believe 
 she's like that all over, inside and out. It's fright- 
 fully nice, but I shall look — well, sort of wickeder — 
 rather the way you look yourself, you know— nicely 
 wicked and immensely interesting." 
 
 "Thank you, Dolly. It's delightful to be appre- 
 ciated." 
 
 " I'm glad you asked us down," said Dolly, brushing 
 irony aside. " Ask us often, please." 
 
 Dorinda was laughing, but the oddest storm of 
 protest against Dolly's judgment ran pulsing through 
 her tranquil blood. 
 
 " Cousin Alice, we agree so well together, we two," 
 resumed Dolly, making a grab at a butterfly. " Be- 
 tween us we might make mother look older in time, 
 when I've had a little more time myself to get things 
 properly into me." 
 
 " Never be impatient, Dolly. It does not take 
 long."
 
 36 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' But it's awful to be so young, with so much that 
 must be going on everywhere. If one could stand 
 still and open one's mouth wide and swallow every 
 thing at a gulp, and be eyes all over for ten minutes 
 and see it all ! " 
 
 " And this, after all my care ! " 
 
 ' Leave her alone, Dorinda. Let her talk it off. 
 It will do us both good. We were getting rusty for 
 want of the latest thing in guarded youth." 
 
 ' I think I'd rather die," said Dorinda, for her, 
 rather abruptly, " than know too much. When it's 
 so very difficult to deal with what one does know. 
 I can't understand women wanting to know more." 
 
 She looked slightly transcendental, and annoyed 
 Alice. 
 
 " But," said Dolly thoughtfully, " I've heard that 
 women always have to take their full share in the 
 general unpleasantnesses that come along. So why 
 should they be dumped down in a back seat when 
 just the things they want to be in and know all about 
 are going on ? I don't see it." 
 
 " Alice ! all very well for you to laugh. You like 
 all modern improvements. But for me, when I 
 wouldn't send her to school, or even encourage girls 
 about the house ! Dolly, what did you and Fraulein 
 talk about as a rule ? " 
 
 " Oh, music and the classics originally, but after 
 , we'd been through Goethe's life we began on Love, 
 to give her the opportunity, she said, to explain 
 some surprising things. It wasn't very interesting : 
 Fraulein's knowledge was all theoretical. You couldn't 
 live in it." 
 
 " Didn't Goethe himself help you at all ? " said 
 Mrs. Burgoyne. 
 
 " No ; I think he was a horrible old man, hardly 
 good enough for that silly Charlotte." 
 
 " Oh ! well, we've had the truth for once. And 
 now leave Goethe, dear Dolly, for ten years. It's 
 greatly to the disadvantage of a girl to start life as a 
 Philistine. Time will re-adjust Goethe's claims to
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 37 
 
 immortality and all its privileges to everybody's 
 satisfaction in a mind so inquiring and free of pre- 
 judice as yours. Meanwhile, we'll educate your mother 
 between us." 
 
 " But she's so lovely as she is," said Dolly, lazily 
 stretching out her long legs. 
 
 " Don't look self-conscious, Dorinda. She's only 
 seeing herself in you ! " 
 
 " Oh, but indeed she's not ! " said Dorinda, laughing. 
 
 " You're very like each other, with a difference : 
 the difference that will always keep you friends. 
 You'll never bore each other, as people who are as like 
 as two peas so often do. Dear me, Dorinda, I wish 
 you wouldn't loom so large on the horizon with Dolly 
 about. It's so unlike you, the least self-assertive of 
 women ! Nothing would ever make you look in the 
 least like the wife of a multi-millionaire. It's your 
 diabolical spiritual pride, I believe. You reign secure 
 in your rarefied atmosphere, above every material 
 accident. Remember Lucifer, Dorinda, and don't be 
 too sure. The spirit can be as tricky as the flesh. 
 Bring Richard the next time you come. He'll put 
 you all in your places. We'll be thinking of him then. 
 He is the most splendid gentleman I know." 
 
 " Good ! " said Dolly. 
 
 " And the most exasperating," said Alice cryptically. 
 " He also wants educating." 
 
 Dolly sat up. 
 
 " Father ! " she cried. 
 
 " Your father's too big a subject for so hot a day, 
 Dolly. Rightly considered, he blots you both out. 
 And yet, looking at the two of you, I forgot him. For 
 that I blame you, Dorinda. A woman should be 
 thought of chiefly in connection with her husband. 
 She should carry his astral counterpart about her, and 
 wear it in a general indefinite way in the air : as in 
 a simpler age she wore it all too definitely in a 
 large brooch on her breast. You're very provoking, 
 Dorinda ; nothing will blot you out. You stand 
 rare and alone in the middle of the public path and 
 
 2t
 
 38 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 block the view. Dolly, you'd better be quick and 
 blot out your mother and let us get on." 
 
 ' But — what are you saying ? " said Dolly. ' Why, 
 we'd all come to a dead stop if anything ever blotted 
 out mother ! " 
 
 ' That's right, dear. Stand up for her. But one 
 shouldn't forget a husband and an only daughter in 
 thinking of any woman. It's modern and immoral. 
 Bring Richard the next time, or I'll turn you both 
 from my door. Why Richard ever took to commerce 
 is beyond me," she concluded irrelevantly. 
 
 ' But isn't it his role ? " said Dorinda calmly ; " and 
 surely he shines in it." 
 
 " He should be shining in something bigger." 
 
 ' But — he's made a prett)^ big thing of it ! ' 
 
 " For anyone else, yes ! " 
 
 Dolly was leaning forward watching them both. 
 To Dolly her father was a splendid story-book well 
 told. She never speculated on him. 
 
 " I thought Richard's career had satisfied every- 
 body," said Dorinda primly. 
 
 " It ought to have," admitted Mrs. Burgoyne. 
 " A multi-millionaire and a ripping gentleman — and 
 the son of a northern farmer and an Irish peasant 
 woman," she mentally reflected, " who probably 
 smoked a clay pipe and drank whisky neat. I can 
 see her — in flesh and blood before me. — I can often 
 see people," she pursued aloud. ' I see Richard this 
 minute as a boy in his distant home. I believe I 
 must be — what's the word one can never spell ? — ah, 
 psychical ! The jargon of these people is detestable, 
 but it's a useful gift when properly trained ; it keeps 
 one a little ahead of one's neighbours. Richard's 
 career ought to have satisfied me," said Mrs. Bur- 
 goyne. " But I always seem to see Richard in the 
 high places of the earth, the multi-millionaire partially 
 forgotten." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dorinda without enthusiasm, " Richard 
 has always seemed to me to fit so well into his 
 place."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 39 
 
 " Oh ! ' said Mrs. Burgoyne. She glanced benig- 
 nantly at Dorinda. 
 
 " It's suddenly struck me," she said in the silence 
 of her soul, " that Richard would look very well 
 in a good square tragedy, and whatever direction 
 Dorinda's awakening takes, it'll make hay of him. 
 Richard, developing new and unexpected poten- 
 tialities would be magnificent. Dorinda has a lot 
 in her hands." She looked yearningly at Dorinda, 
 paused and started. " And I supposed to be a good 
 woman ! ' She sighed. " Oh ! the inextricable tangle 
 of life ! " 
 
 As we have seen, when Mrs. Burgoyne arrived at an 
 unusually tough knot she generally undid what she 
 could of it in words in order to air the subject and clear 
 her brain. 
 
 " One would sometimes give worlds," she said, 
 " half one's income even, to spare one's friends, to 
 save them from sin and sorrow and pain. And yet 
 if in the Design of a Higher Power they ought not 
 to be spared, but, so to speak, go the whole hog for 
 their own sakes, and other people's, ought one to set 
 up one's own little feeble strength and judgment in the 
 matter at all ? Ought one to be afraid of any fact or 
 of any issue for oneself or one's friends ? There are 
 so many side issues to every fact, and variety is so 
 fascinating. Talk of straight and sure high-roads, 
 they don't exist, Dorinda ! Every high-road in the 
 Universe is riddled with off-shoots so like itself that 
 no mortal can tell the difference in the twilight — and 
 there they are. They find themselves all at once in 
 a new environment, and a new set of temptations, 
 possibly delightful ones, before they know they've 
 even turned off ! You can't walk to Heaven, it seems 
 to me, like a grenadier, head in air and a compass 
 in your hand. I believe it's meant to be a zig-zag 
 path." 
 
 ' Full of adventures," said Dolly delightedly. 
 
 " Certainly not, Dolly ! Full of lessons, and some 
 of them precious difficult ones ! "
 
 4 o DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Lessons ! " Dolly whistled. " But can we never 
 have a holiday ? " 
 
 " That's the question," murmured the mentor with 
 knitted brows. 
 
 " Who is being immoral now ? " inquired Dorinda. 
 
 " I could talk blatant morality with anyone, Dorinda, 
 if I didn't want to be honest. But the question of 
 asking for holidays or wanting to shirk hard work 
 for yourself or your friends is an extremely difficult 
 one. And sometimes the difference between Christian 
 charity and mawkish cowardice is hard to define ; 
 moreover, Christian charity doesn't always go well 
 with an imagination. They don't dovetail somehow 
 in the kaleidoscope of life." 
 
 " If you gave the imagination its head," suggested 
 Dolly, " couldn't the Christian charity take care of 
 itself ? " 
 
 " Probably. But what one wants to do is to make 
 them fit comfortably into each other's angles, and 
 not to be constantly jarring. To see all and not be 
 afraid would do the trick." She glanced dreamily at 
 the two. " But one wants trained sight for that. 
 We'd better talk of frocks and people, Dolly. It's 
 too hot for this sort of thing. Dear me ! Where's 
 Susan Lorraine scuttling off to ? After her little 
 husband, I suppose. She's like a speckled hen in a 
 perennial state of clacking anxiety over one small 
 chick. And the look of constant surprise is becoming 
 an anxiety to me. I wish she could recover from 
 the shock of her marriage. To be surprised out of 
 old-maidenhood into matrimony is too much for some 
 women. Neither their constitutions nor their points 
 of view can stand it." 
 
 " But surely husbands aren't such startling sur- 
 prises ? " said Dolly with spirit. 
 
 " It depends on the woman ! To some, husbands 
 come as a matter of course ; to some, as a surprise." 
 
 " I wonder how mine'll come." 
 
 "As a matter of course. But he may surprise you 
 later on."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 41 
 
 ' I hope he will. It would be pretty awful to have 
 to give up expecting just because you're married." 
 
 ' Marriage is the beginning of expectation, dear, 
 not always fulfilled." 
 
 I think you're rather horrid, Cousin Alice." 
 
 " I'm not really, Dolly. It's only that my mind is 
 labouring with a question of morality too big for it. 
 We'll leave it and go on with Susan. When a woman 
 of forty-five has to rearrange all her little habits and 
 
 sins " 
 
 ' But at least your sins are your own ? " said Dolly 
 wistfully. 
 
 " Far from it. After marriage a woman must 
 temper her sins to the taste of her husband. And 
 include not only her own comfort, taste and point 
 of view in her little sinnings, but also his. It becomes 
 a twofold job. Your sins take on a human touch they 
 never had before. This should lighten them, but in 
 the case of a mature woman, unused to real humanity, 
 it has often the contrary effect. Her simple load has 
 grown too complex for her carrying powers. She 
 exaggerates its size, and takes too serious a view of 
 her responsibilities ; and if they're complicated with 
 a liver, as in Fred Lorraine's case, matrimony may 
 become too much of a disciplinary process. To see 
 Susan standing about in the neighbourhood of her 
 husband, always recovering from shocks, is becoming 
 a reproach to me. And I thought I was doing the 
 best for both of them in bringing it on. If one could 
 only help one's friends in the right way and look at 
 them from the right point of view ! " 
 
 " Good gracious ! I'd nearly forgotten. I expect 
 a person of importance by this train. I must leave 
 you in a few minutes." 
 
 " Do, Alice ! and then I can breathe. It's too hot 
 for any more education to-day," said Dorinda. 
 
 Education is a process, I fear," said Alice, " that 
 doesn't concern itself with the state of the temperature, 
 once it's started. Dolly, you show just two inches 
 too much of a very shapely ankle."
 
 42 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' I never did that ! " said Dorinda self-righteously. 
 
 ' Do now, dear darling," said her daughter, " and 
 let's see which is the neatest." 
 
 " Dolly ! Don't take my mind off my duties. I'm 
 wondering how I'm to make this visit memorable to 
 my man. He's a lion, Dorinda, and Irish. He did 
 something wonderful for the Indian Government. 
 Then he came in for a lot of money, threw up office, 
 and travelled for his firm — the Empire. He's keen 
 on the Empire. He's an excruciatingly imperial- 
 minded person in a dreamy way, but by no means a 
 mawkish sentimentalist. He's supposed to have a 
 book up his sleeve that'll make the Empire sit up, and 
 there's a mysterious charm about him. He fives a 
 good deal in deserts. I'd like to know what he does 
 there precisely. He had a wife and treated her well. 
 They each went their own way, I believe, and got on 
 all right. He was constant in his attendance at her 
 death-bed. He is a philosopher with an open mind, 
 and has absorbed a lot of Oriental ideas." 
 
 " What's his name ? " said Dolly. 
 
 " His name's the worst of him. It sounds as if it 
 came out of a comic opera. Lancelot Delamer. He's 
 forty-five." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dolly slightingly. " As old as that." 
 
 " The superb insolence of youth ! I wish you to 
 know, Dolly, that it's the age most dangerous to the 
 public in the life of a man." 
 
 " Oh ! And when is the most dangerous age for a 
 woman ? " 
 
 " Thirty-eight or forty. It begins then. When 
 it ends depends on the woman and opportunity." 
 
 " Oh ! And we don't count at all ? " wailed Dolly. 
 ' You count all right, my child ; but, thank God, 
 not dangerously \ You count as a builder up of men, 
 Dolly. If only you know how much you count, what 
 a girl of girls you'd be ! The other force, the thirty- 
 eight or forty force, when it's foolish is a destructive 
 force mostly, a menace to the tribe, a tragedy in a 
 horribly comprehensive way."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 43 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne was caught up suddenly in a vision 
 of memories, and as she shook herself out of it she 
 sighed. 
 
 " Bother imagination ! " she murmured, and aftejr 
 a glance at her watch sailed off to the house. 
 
 Dorinda had been listening to these snippets of 
 wisdom with her usual half-amused, half -incredulous 
 attention, rather wishing that Alice would be more 
 careful in her selection of subjects when Dolly was 
 about. Then the name of Lancelot Delamer rang 
 itself into her and kept on pealing. 
 
 " To see him now after all these quiet years," she 
 thought at last, " and I thought I'd forgotten. But 
 I haven't. I can never have forgotten," she thought 
 slowly, " never for one minute of all these years. I 
 know it now. No matter how hard one tries one never 
 does forget, and yet I've been so sure and for so long 
 a time. I — I wish Dolly would go away." 
 
 She got very white when she realized what she had 
 thought, and knew that her mind had spoken the 
 truth. 
 
 To — to be afraid of Dolly ! To want her to go away ! 
 This seemed to hurt Dorinda in some inner place of 
 peace never before disturbed. And she knew that no 
 matter how strenuous her future life might be, how 
 stern her code of selection in thought and word and 
 deed, she could never unsay the blatant truth her 
 heart had uttered. 
 
 On a sudden uncontrollable impulse she turned to 
 her daughter. 
 
 ' You're sweeter and prettier, Dolly, than ever I 
 was," she said. " I wonder if you're better ? I 
 hope you are, dear. And, after all, lanes are pleasant 
 places, I've been told, and one oughtn't to be afraid 
 of anything ; so run wild in them as much as you 
 like. Only be good all the time. It's the one single 
 thing that matters. Dolly ! We'll always be friends, 
 won't we, we two ? We'll keep together. I couldn't 
 do without you now, not half so easily as when you 
 were a little child."
 
 44 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Dolly rolled over to look at her. A flush had re- 
 placed the whiteness of her mother's face. She was 
 sitting up in her deep chair, her eyes were bright and 
 moved, and expectant. Dolly had never known before 
 how beautiful her mother was. 
 
 The girl was so surprised, so full of new admiration, 
 new interest, that it did not even occur to her to speak, 
 or to go on with the extraordinary conversation. She 
 wanted just to lie still, and listen, and look, and let 
 things happen. She felt them in the air. 
 
 In the silence Dorinda recovered control of herself, 
 and tried to think, to regain her sense of security in 
 herself and in all things. 
 
 It seemed to her that everything about her was 
 altering and being transformed, that the calm she 
 had believed to be permanent and immovable was 
 being broken up, that the armour of defence in which 
 she had sat so safe and fearless was giving at every 
 joint, that the pride which had stood to her so valiantly 
 was suffering some curious change. And when in 
 distracted astonishment she found her own trusty 
 foundations swaying under her feet, she had suddenly 
 been afraid for her daughter ! 
 
 Never before in all her life had she been afraid in 
 this sort of way for Dolly. It was a revelation of horror 
 to this proud fastidious woman. To be afraid for 
 Dolly ! She might have been some common undis- 
 ciplined girl open to all disaster. Until this moment 
 it had seemed to her impossible that Dolly could be 
 anything else but good. She had been born to good- 
 ness. It was hers by divine right, the natural easy 
 course of the normal woman of her own station. And 
 suddenly a stupendous mountain of difficulty had 
 reared itself up between goodness and Dolly ! 
 
 Dorinda seemed to herself as though possessed by 
 a thousand unheard-of apprehensions, unbelievable 
 doubts. Even to have said what she had to Dolly ! 
 To have, as it were, warned her ! It was rather an 
 indignity to both of them. And to be feeling as she 
 had done, to have got white and flushed, to be moved
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 45 
 
 as she was at the sound of a forgotten name, a lived- 
 out, stamped-out, crushed mistake • She could have 
 cried aloud in protest against the whole miserable 
 affair. 
 
 " Of course I'll be good," said Dolly at last easily. 
 " How could I be anything else with everything I 
 can possibly want ? Besides, with you there, one must 
 be good, you know. 
 
 " I say, they're coming, the lion and his keeper. 
 They're making straight for us ! Dear me ! He is 
 quite as old as father. But, after all, what does age 
 matter with you there ? If he was as young as I am 
 he'd look at you first. I never saw anything like 
 you. You're suddenly the most astonishing beauty. 
 
 believe your education must have begun already. 
 If he was a real lion, he would forget your good con- 
 dition in your good looks and make a bad dinner off 
 me. Being only a man, he'll talk the whole time to 
 you, and not even look at me. It's not fair. I wanted 
 to claim him first. After all, age can't count for much 
 in lions." 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " And now," said Mrs. Burgoyne, when Mr. Delamer 
 had sufficiently admired the garden and the view, 
 which were nearly as dear to her heart as humanity, 
 " and now I'm going to take you first to the most 
 charming and interesting mother and daughter I 
 know." 
 
 ' Together ? But are they not better apart ? " 
 
 ' You can decide about that later, but I'd like you 
 to see them first together. It suits them, and it's 
 refreshing and original." 
 
 " And suggestive ? " 
 
 ' The combination is very good. It naturally must 
 be rich in suggestion." 
 
 " Oh ! And where's the husband ? " 
 
 " He doesn't spoil the picture, if that's what you
 
 46 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 mean. He completes it. But for the moment lie's 
 in town making millions." 
 
 " For the charming and suggestive combination 
 to spend ? " 
 
 She paused and laughed. 
 
 ' This is the first time I've ever stopped to think 
 why Richard makes money. It's not for his woman- 
 kind to spend. They're not rapacious. They only 
 want what's natural to women in their position. He 
 makes it, I think, partly for the fun of the thing. 
 He likes playing about with big things. Partly — 
 oh ! well, you can find out the rest for yourself. But 
 he gives with one hand what he makes with the other. 
 He sits lighter than any man I ever met to his 
 possessions." 
 
 " Does he do anything else besides making 
 millions ? " 
 
 ' Well, no ; except to make one feel that while 
 he's about the world we walk on is pretty safe. He 
 belongs — er — to the universe, I think. "- 
 
 " Good, that, for the City. No wonder the un- 
 fortunate ladies have to combine. Shall we start, 
 Mrs. Burgoyne ? I'm anxious to meet them."- 
 
 ' I wonder if it's my fault or yours that I've given 
 you so absolutely false an impression of the three. 
 It's the utter impracticability of conveying impressions. '■'• 
 
 ' Yours are wholly of the spirit, dear lady. I 
 haven't yet attained to such high levels. I need the 
 vulgar testimony of my five senses. 1 ' 
 
 Mr. Delamer admired her enthusiasm, but he had 
 ceased to expect surprises from women. He had 
 outgrown the taste, and the thought of a combina- 
 tion in the sex seemed even less exciting than indi- 
 vidual examples of it. 
 
 After his first disillusion, which put her — all that 
 was left of her, that is — once for all on a moderate, 
 tolerant, easily-accessible plane, he had liked women. 
 He had esteemed himself lucky in his relations with 
 them ; but he was suffering now from a slack time, 
 barren alike of big endeavour and big results. He
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 47 
 
 seemed to have been treading on soft laws and softer 
 carpets for a century. What he wanted of life was 
 a difficulty to be overcome, a riddle to be solved, 
 some mind as strong and indomitable as his own to 
 subdue or convince. He wanted a tougher job than 
 anv woman, single or combined, could offer him. 
 
 As for Love as Love, had he not proved it false 
 from the start ? Once tried and proven, he had had 
 too much else afoot to meddle with it. It was a 
 dream which had brought him little good and much 
 bitterness. Sometimes he wished that he had never 
 dreamed his dream, or that it had gone the way of 
 the other illusions. It had made many a hard fact 
 harder without satisfying one of the desires of his life. 
 
 When he got the letter telling him of the Australian 
 millionaire who had apparently taken Dorinda by 
 storm and saved the family he had laughed. It 
 would have been difficult to do anything else from the 
 way in which the news was broken to him. But 
 Dorinda held too much of him to be lightly taken 
 back. The love he had given her was hot and strong, 
 and young and passionate : he loved her all he knew. 
 But into the bargain, he had given her his hopes and 
 ambitions, his purposes and dreams : all the best of 
 an unsoiled heart. He had given her his Vision 
 Splendid of himself. And to take back this magical 
 gift is not in man's unaided power. Dorinda had 
 had scores of successors, but not one had come to 
 dispossess her. In spite of him or of her, unconsciously 
 to them both, all this part of him was still in her 
 keeping. 
 
 A man may scatter what he is pleased to call his 
 love over the" five continents ; but Himself is another 
 matter. That may refuse either to be redeemed or 
 divided. 
 
 At the same time he had not thought definitely 
 of Dorinda for years, and when he saw her he was 
 quickened and renewed far more by the pellucid 
 beauty and charm of the concrete woman than by 
 any extatic stab out of the Past. He had some vague
 
 48 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 memory, indeed ; but then he had so many memories 
 and they were all vague. 
 
 A further look made him no wiser. He was staring 
 with mounting interest at a stranger, when Dorinda, 
 smiling quietly, looked square at him, with an interest 
 and attention as unmoved as his own. 
 
 ' I waited a minute,"- she said, " to give you the 
 benefit of the doubt. You didn't hear my name, or 
 you'd have known that we were old friends. I'd 
 have known you at once. — Even now you're puzzled ! 
 
 But don't you remember Ireland — and Dash wood " 
 
 " Lady Dorinda ! But — why, of course." He 
 paused to look from her to Dolly. ' What an ass 
 I am ! I ought to have known you — twice over," 
 he said, again looking at Dolly. ' It was that which 
 confused me. A wooden-headed clam, if ever there 
 was one ! If you'd been alone — but two ! It's too 
 much for the slow wits of a man, you see. Have you 
 ever gone back there ? " he asked, sitting down beside 
 her. " Ever seen the bogs again ? " 
 
 " Never. The house has generally been let, and 
 when it wasn't, oh, things happened, and we couldn't 
 go. But I've heard about the place from my father. "■ 
 
 ' Ireland is safe in his hands. Your father was a 
 poet whom time could never touch. There ought 
 to be a sort of eternal spring about your memories." 
 
 " Dorinda, why on earth didn't you tell me you 
 knew Mr. Delamer ? " demanded Alice. 
 
 ' How could I ? ' said Dorinda with unmoved 
 calm. " Had I a chance ? You were giving me a 
 condensed history of Mr. Delamer since the bog period, 
 of which you know nothing, till the last moment. 
 As it was, he must have arrived before you got to 
 the drawing-room." 
 
 " But she never told me either," said Dolly blankly. 
 " It's not fair to either of us. I should have received 
 you with quite differently arranged feelings if I'd 
 known," she said, turning her laughing, protesting 
 face from her mother to Mr. Delamer. ' I was getting 
 ready to meet a lion and be impressed in a new way
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 49 
 
 entirely, with a sort of shivering joy ; now my mother's 
 knowing you before you became a beast of prey makes 
 all the difference." 
 
 As Dolly spoke every claim of her own slipped 
 away. The splendid, handsome, really quite young 
 man, laughing and amused, had nothing to do with 
 her. He was part of the lost story. A missing link 
 in the youth of her mother. She felt quite at home 
 with him, and immensely interested. 
 
 Her eyes made no bones about it. They expressed 
 with great sparkle and brilliancy the keenness of her 
 appreciation of the situation. Delamer's apprecia- 
 tion was somewhat less keen, joyous and impersonal. 
 He who had believed himself to be done with sur- 
 prises was most profoundly surprised, but he took 
 good care not to show it. The girl was both charm- 
 ing and reminiscent, and for the moment easier than 
 the mother. 
 
 ' It's rather unkind of you to deprive me of all 
 the advantages of being a lion in his first season. It's 
 a profession that needs practice, and it's only the 
 young now we've got to depend upon for our train- 
 ing. We've got so common that no one over twenty- 
 five will look at us. Most of my friends in the trade 
 have to go to children's parties and debutantes' balls 
 even to get a dance or two ; no two-season girl will 
 let their names be seen on her card. Are your feelings 
 arranged yet ? If so, may I venture to inquire where 
 I stand ? " 
 
 ' You don't stand exactly anywhere yet," said 
 Dolly, laughing. ' You fill several gaps." 
 
 ' You don't mean to say you've started gaps 
 already ? 
 
 " Not ones of my own, but I've never been at Dash- 
 wood, and I want to fill up things in my grandfather's 
 descriptions — in prose — and I think somehow that 
 you could tell things in prose if you liked." 
 
 He glanced at Dorinda. 
 
 " Can't Lady Dorinda help you ? " he asked, and 
 in asking he felt that in some vague way he was being
 
 50 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 brutal, and yet he could not regret it. She looked 
 too calm and secure, too free from even a trace of 
 cynicism. There was an inhuman freedom from 
 memory or any other human weakness in her perfect 
 poise. 
 
 The man in whom ruthless accumulative strength 
 has beaten down vanity as an ordinary manifestation, 
 rarely knows how the little mean vices hold on to their 
 rights in the background. It had never before struck 
 him even to think cruelly of Dorinda. The fact of her 
 holding so much of him had made him tender towards 
 her. The laugh with which he had received the news 
 of her defection had sweetened his mind. 
 
 She was young for her years, and he knew her 
 family. He was generous to the girl. He had been 
 tricked by fate and not by Dorinda. She had depths 
 of love to lavish and she had loved him. 
 
 Alone in India, before the fullness of life came flood- 
 ing in, he had been immensely sorry when he thought 
 of the probable hardening of her lovely face, of her 
 child's eyes grown cynical, of her perfect trust in pure 
 goodness perverted. He had thought of her perhaps 
 grown wild — a rebel. And all for him ! Sorrow 
 for the deterioration of Dorinda had run as fever in 
 his blood. 
 
 But this Dorinda ! 
 
 She had altered life for him : she had doomed him 
 to a loveless marriage, a chequered record in morality, 
 tainted beliefs, spoilt love ; she had done all she 
 could to undo a man, and here she was herself trans- 
 formed into something great and fine. She was the 
 least unspoilt creature of her years he had ever beheld. 
 Years ! She looked twenty-five, and perfect in her 
 happy beauty ! 
 
 To have been partner in the birth of a woman's 
 soul and to have made no more impression on it than 
 this ! The calm, smiling candour with which she had 
 recalled him to her remembrance ; the unmoved 
 amusement with which she now watched her daughter, 
 who seemed to him to be skating on precious thin ice,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 51 
 
 were a challenge to brutality, to reproach, to any- 
 thing that would break down the icy fortifications 
 of this immaculate lady who had done so extremely 
 well for herself and given him such devilishly bad 
 times of it. 
 
 True, that was all over, past and done with long 
 ago, and he, on his part, had done by no means badly 
 for himself. He was very well satisfied with life, 
 but she could not give him back the years that the 
 locusts had eaten, in which she had left a void that 
 nothing could fill. She had tampered with things 
 which nothing could restore. And she had kept every- 
 thing he had lost. 
 
 She filled him with a thousand resentments : worse 
 than that, with a thousand disturbances he had thought 
 for ever laid to rest. 
 
 Had Dorinda but known and even for one moment 
 looked all that she felt, all would have been well, 
 perhaps. 
 
 Vanity appeased, apology tendered, magnanimity 
 demanded and given : they had both suffered : she 
 had forgotten nothing ; his impression was still intact 
 in her rare soul, and he was the stronger of the two. 
 There was much in the situation to placate a man. 
 
 If Dorinda had not been afraid of her conscience 
 and his sensibility, she could have looked enough 
 to content any man, instead of being beset by a wild 
 doubt as to whether in talking nonsense to Dolly he 
 was not trying to spare her. 
 
 And the unfortunate man thinking all the time 
 of himself ! To spare Dorinda, indeed ; there was 
 nothing apparently from which to spare her ! She had 
 scored right down the line, and she had certainly not 
 spared him. 
 
 If she had paused, hesitated and thrown one lingering 
 intelligent glance to their past together, who knows 
 but that they might both have turned their backs 
 upon it for ever. Men who have lived much in deserts 
 seem to keep sentiment and a sort of primeval kindness 
 greenjn their hearts.
 
 52 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Mother," said Dolly's clear young voice in reply 
 to his last question. ' Why haven't you helped 
 me? I think," she said, turning to Delamer, "it's 
 because she's a poet, too, in secret, and will have 
 nothing to do with the good common prose I want ; 
 and I distrust my grandfather's lyrics. Dear me ! ' 
 
 Dorinda looked more divinely, imperially, prosper- 
 ously calm than ever. 
 
 Delamer laughed. 
 
 " She has never even mentioned my name to anyone 
 apparently," he thought. 
 
 ' I'd just been telling Dolly before you came that 
 I never had any chance of making history at Dash- 
 wood," said Dorinda. ' There wasn't time. And 
 the little everyday story of an impoverished Irish 
 household wouldn't interest you, Dolly, unless you'd 
 been born and bred in the place. When girls have 
 things as a matter of course, they don't see the fun 
 in never having anything. The story of Dashwood 
 without the air, and the bogs, and the mountains, 
 and the wit, with its makeshifts, and its dishonesty 
 — something wanting at every turn, and the horrid 
 little subterfuges and pretences in everybody's ways 
 and manners ; in ours worse than in the servants' 
 — -wouldn't interest you at all. I've always left 
 Dashwood to your grandfather and poetry, and I 
 always will. Nothing will induce me to put it into 
 prose. I think I like it too well," she said, with an 
 odd, light laugh. ' It belongs to poetry. The whole 
 of Ireland belongs to poetry ; when it's made practical 
 and productive it won't be Ireland any more. Then 
 it will be a pleasant memory : the echo of an old story. 
 Please, Mr. Delamer, say that I am right." 
 
 No one but Dorinda, the silent, knew what this 
 long speech cost her. It was a masterly stroke ; 
 especially the way in which she explained matters 
 once for all, and turned to him for corroboration. 
 
 " She's more clever as a woman than she was as a 
 girl," he thought. 
 
 " You're quite right, Lady Dorinda. As I said
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 53 
 
 just now, you couldn't leave Ireland in better hands 
 than in Lord Dashwood's. The country needs the 
 tender handling of a true poet." 
 
 " You might have been on my side/' said Dolly, 
 " but you never will with mother about. Are you 
 tired ? '-' 
 
 " Rather not." 
 
 ' Then we'll leave her to rest and to be sorry she 
 suppressed history/' said Dolly, with wicked eyes, 
 " and I'll take you to see the garden and the ghosts 
 who live in it. They're my ghosts and it's my story. 
 And afterwards we'll talk plain prose in short sen- 
 tences. I do love digging out hidden historical truths." 
 
 " And why on earth did she never say a word of 
 
 having known Mr. Delamer," thought Dolly restively. 
 
 ' I don't understand mother. I don't understand 
 
 anything. I'm suddenly outside every door and — and 
 
 it's not amusing." 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Delamer followed her willingly enough. She added 
 piquancy to the situation. And the more he looked 
 at her the more did his mind become filled with 
 memories, saddening, haunting, tempting, insistent, 
 and in a way exhilarating. 
 
 But the difference between the two ! 
 
 " There's a good deal of the millionaire who be- 
 longs to the universe in the girl," he thought as he 
 listened, so far as his preoccupation permitted, to 
 Dolly's spirited chatter. " Perhaps it's his millions 
 that have lifted her above all the minor woes that 
 man is heir to, and have given her self-confidence. 
 I doubt if this young lady would have slewed round 
 to the other man with the dauntless decorum of her 
 mother. She knows nothing of aristocratic poverty 
 and its devilish demands on character. I doubt if she 
 has any gift for self-sacrifice, and she's a generation
 
 54 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ahead of Dorinda in shrewd common sense. 12 He 
 glanced again. " This girl would have wired to 
 me promptly and demanded my intentions. — The 
 infernal folly of the silence that comes of being born 
 in a bog ! — The girl's chosen the better part all down 
 the line. Besides, Dorinda probably enough hadn't 
 the necessary shilling ! Modesty and want of cash 
 were the disintegrating causes, no doubt. I can for- 
 give all that. I've never been hard on Dorinda. 
 What one can't forgive is the shallowness one thought 
 depth. The fact that one has devoted one's life '-' — 
 he paused with a slight smile — " more or less,' 1 he 
 added, " to an ideal not worth the fag of even partial 
 devotion. "- 
 
 He detached his attention from the past to the 
 present just in time. Dolly was beginning to wonder 
 if her story, only just started, already bored him. 
 She was on the verge of a terrible access of dignified 
 disapproval, when suddenly remembering that he 
 was, after all, a lion, she was suddenly shy, and rather 
 more like the girl he had known nineteen years ago. 
 
 He softened a little towards Dorinda. 
 ' Please,' 1 said Dolly, overcoming her shyness in a 
 way not at all like Dorinda's, " would you like to roar 
 a little ? I'd much rather listen than talk, really. 
 There are plenty of ordinary people to talk to, and 
 one so seldom gets the chance of listening to a lion. 
 You must have a thousand stories ; the one I was 
 just beginning must seem awfully tame to you." 
 
 Delamer laughed. "If it had struck Dorinda that 
 I hadn't been listening to her she'd have blushed, 
 felt hurt, and been silent," he thought. " I like the 
 egoism of the more recent date the better of the two. u 
 
 " Anything that has strength enough to persist and 
 make itself heard and felt and thought of for a few 
 odd centuries in a garden like this, that can even now 
 dominate such flowers and trees as these, couldn't 
 bore anyone. There must be a lot of grit and sincerity 
 in it. One is only bored by the things that haven't the 
 backbone to make any mark at all. Go on with your
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 55 
 
 story, Miss Alderson, and don't consider my natural 
 instincts. I'll roar all right when the weather changes. 
 At present I'm basking in the sun.' 1 His tone ol atten- 
 tive respect greatly pleased Dolly. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so glad you like things that last,' 1 she 
 cried, " that never change ! You'd like my father 
 tremendously. You're about the same age." 
 
 Never in all his life had Delamer felt so small. 
 
 " Don't speak of the mutable things of time," he 
 pleaded. " Let us talk of lovers who never change. 
 Do you think they exist anywhere except disembodied 
 in old gardens amidst the scent of flowers ? " 
 
 " I wonder," said Dolly severely, " if you mean 
 that, or only just say it." 
 
 " I think I'm only asking for information, like Rosa 
 Dartle. Can you give me any ? " 
 
 She was blushing quite in Dorinda's old way. He 
 wondered what on earth for. 
 
 " I can't," she cried laughing, and redder than ever. 
 ' But other people can. Come and see us when we're 
 all at home together, and you'll soon know." 
 
 " An object lesson ? But I'm too old for kinder- 
 gartens." 
 
 ' Then you ought to have known without one." 
 
 Suddenly she laughed again. " But I hope you 
 don't think I'm lion-hunting. I only asked you for 
 your own sake. It must be horrible not to be per- 
 fectly sure of the things one must be sure of, or give 
 up feeling or caring about anything, because nothing's 
 worth it." 
 
 " I'll come with pleasure. In my more serious 
 moments I like object lessons." 
 
 " And the more I look at you," she said, with a 
 dreamy stare, " the more sure I feel that you'll help 
 me later on with my buried story." 
 
 " If she could get her father's age out of her mind," 
 he thought, " one might enjoy oneself more. — And I 
 to be the interpreter of the lost idyll ! " 
 
 " Meanwhile, where's the story of the lovers who 
 could never change ? " he inquired.
 
 56 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' Then please look as if you were listening this 
 time ; otherwise one remembers that you're a lion and 
 one's words seem to dwindle away. One loses interest 
 in them. One loses interest even in oneself. It's 
 very disheartening." 
 
 " One forgets the man, in short, in the brute." 
 
 She laughed merrily. 
 
 " Now that's what comes of being overawed by a 
 {ion into trying to be clever. I don't generally put 
 my foot in it with common men. You just ask Mrs. 
 Burgoyne. But a lion in this garden, which belongs 
 to two dead lovers ! It upsets things. I'll tell you 
 my story and get them right again." 
 
 She told it charmingly, and it was so uncommonly 
 like his own put back three centuries that he began 
 to wonder if the devil were about. 
 
 The ghost girl had also been docile and self-sacri- 
 ficing, the family necessitous, the victorious wooer 
 rich, the other man absent. There was a further 
 similarity. The lady had behaved all through like 
 an angel. She made a perfect wife and mother, and 
 shone in' society. It had never affected her temper. 
 She became year by year more zealous in good works, 
 more beautiful and more silent ; but she never per- 
 mitted herself to look sad. 
 
 Here the similarity ceased. 
 
 The husband was an unspeakable person. His 
 wife suffered unheard of afflictions, and in spite of 
 tlie consolations of religion her passion for her old 
 love never waned. 
 
 Never once since their bitter parting had they met. 
 Then on the eve of an engagement, knowing that he 
 should die, he came to say good-bye in the garden. 
 The husband, a hot-bed of foul suspicions, suspected 
 an elopement, hid behind a bush, plunged out at the 
 right moment, and promptly despatched the defenceless 
 lover. 
 
 ' When he found out what a brick his wife really 
 was, and that she had never intended to run away at 
 all," said Dolly, " he was sorry in his own way, and
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 57 
 
 had masses said for the lover's soul. Lady Teresa said 
 nothing, just went on as usual ; but she died a week 
 afterwards, and now she and the lover haunt the 
 garden." 
 
 " But the husband ? I wonder if he knows or 
 accompanies them in their flights, incognito. If must 
 be pretty bad for him, any way, especially after all the 
 masses cost him." 
 
 " I'm glad I'm not a lion," said Dolly calmly, " and 
 I don't believe that's lion either. I believe it's pure 
 man. I'm not sentimental in the least," she ex- 
 plained with dignity. " I hate sentimental novels, 
 but here and on the very spot and when it is all quite 
 true ! " 
 
 Her face and his memories were irresistible, and he 
 laughed again. 
 
 " I hope," said Dolly, " it was the lion that did that, 
 and not the man." 
 
 " Your story is the oldest story in the world," he said, 
 " and the saddest and the most beautiful, and every 
 time one hears it one sees a dozen new points of view 
 in it. Sometimes some of them are comical, and then 
 the brute in one laughs." 
 
 " Oh ! well, I can't laugh." 
 
 ' That comes with use and the years. There are 
 so many stories like it, and they are all true. And 
 unless you laugh you'll have to cry and spoil your eyes." 
 
 " I wonder if there are so many," said Dolly thought- 
 fully, " and if women now are in the least like Lady 
 Teresa. She never said a word about her awful hus- 
 band. I find it's the women who care for their hus- 
 bands who never say a word about them ; it is those 
 who don't care who say everything. Sometimes it 
 sounds like affection. . . . Women have altered a great 
 deal, I think." 
 
 " So young and yet so wise ! " 
 
 " Being young has some advantages. One gets into 
 the way of listening to — er — wisdom. One has to. 
 They won't listen to yon if you happen to be the only 
 one in the room without a husband."
 
 58 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' You must gather a great deal of information." 
 
 " I do ! " 
 
 The careless merriment of the laughter was good 
 to hear. " But I never laugh here ! '" she said at 
 last. ' Not in this bit of the garden. It's part of 
 her, of everything, of this whole story. It's just 
 exactly as it was then. Nothing's ever been changed. 
 She was an ancestor of the Burgoynes, and they've 
 always left all this part just as it was. Look at the 
 old flowers, and the herb beds, and the bees in their 
 straw hives, and the old fountain, and that clump of 
 blue borage. They're just as the lovers left them." 
 
 In spite of himself he had followed Dolly into the 
 past, into all the scented gardens of the past : into 
 the joy in them, into his past youth, and his sure 
 beliefs. He could laugh at her, but he had to go with 
 her back into the eternal haunts, and live for a moment 
 what he had once thought to be the only life, the life 
 that believes in the eternal constancy of lovers. 
 
 " Almost thou persuadest me," he said half to 
 himself. 
 
 Dolly politely stared, but put the irrelevant remark 
 down to the lion. 
 
 Then he was back again, resenting his lapse. To be 
 disturbed after all these years of hard-won oblivion, 
 to return to the exploded banality of primitive out- 
 lived things, to permit himself now to be twisted by 
 the devils of adolescence, assaulted by enemies pecu- 
 liar to the twenties. At his age to be resurrecting 
 dead pains, dead enemies, or dead devils ! It was 
 unbelievable. And yet not two minutes ago he had 
 been hard at all these things. He looked at Dolly, 
 and suddenly he found himself hoping that her laugh 
 would never either age or falter. 
 
 " I've lost more than I thought," he thought, as he 
 still watched her. " In a way I've lost this too — this 
 amazing pleasure. By Jove ! I must be growing 
 old. One doesn't suffer as a rule from even an inter- 
 mittent passion for paternity. Well, Dorinda might 
 have spared me that, anyway."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 59 
 
 He laughed and hastened to apologize. " It's not 
 irreverence," he explained. " It's several new points 
 of view. In spite of appearances, the lovers have 
 impressed themselves on me in a way I could never 
 have expected. In time I may even assimilate them 
 as completely as you've done yourself." 
 
 " No," said Dolly. " You'll never do that. And if 
 you did you'd change them with a laugh. They 
 wouldn't be my lovers any more." 
 
 ' You change things, too, with a laugh." 
 
 " I could never change lovers— my lovers ! 1 might 
 yours." 
 
 " I'm going to ask you a very impertinent ques- 
 tion. Is this the way in which you generally talk 
 to those — not precisely your father's age ? " 
 
 Dolly paused, stared and laughed. 
 
 ' When I come to think of it, it's not ; I generally 
 stick to dances and horses and theatres. It's — the 
 man who begins about the other things as a rule." 
 
 " And you listen ? " 
 
 " Well,* yes— if I want to ! Why do you ask ? " 
 she inquired. " You know all about that sort of 
 thing. I can tell my father a great deal. For an im- 
 mensely clever man there are a great many things 
 he doesn't know. He doesn't say so — but I can see. I 
 can tell him something after every dance, I think, 
 that he has not heard in the right way ever before. 
 But you — you've been through it all and require no 
 information. And you'll be laughing at me next." 
 
 " I promise you I'll never do that. Now, Miss 
 Alderson," he said, " this is a promise. I'll never 
 laugh at you. But I hope I may sometimes laugh 
 with you." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dolly standing still. 
 
 She was gratified. One likes to be taken seriously 
 by a lion. But could he by any chance be taking her 
 for a prig ? 
 
 Unspeakable alternative ! 
 
 He was the oldest person outside the family she 
 had ever had so long a conversation with ; he was
 
 60 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 certainly the most impressive, and he seemed to her 
 to have a power of varied laughter. It had never 
 before struck her that she could strike a false note, 
 but it did now. It is not a nice effect for a man to 
 have on you, even if he is a lion and your father's age, 
 
 and if the effect is your own fault- ■ She hurried 
 
 to explain. 
 
 ' [ don't mind people's laughing at most things." 
 ' But vou like to choose the subjects for their 
 hilarity." 
 
 " Oh, dear me ! You don't put things nicely." 
 ' But you ought to have more confidence in people 
 and in yourself." 
 
 " I have plenty of confidence in myself," said Dolly 
 with dignity. 
 
 " Then you ought to have no doubt as to your 
 power to govern the lion, or even the jackal and the 
 ass — in human beings of my sex, that is — I can't 
 answer for yours. Besides, after all the dances you've 
 sat out with men, you ought to know something of 
 their vanity. In order to stand well with you, a man 
 will be careful in his choice of the subjects you'd like 
 him to laugh at." 
 
 " It he's as young as I am," said Dolly thoughtfully, 
 " he'll think he'd stand well with me in any case, and 
 he'll consult his own tastes." 
 
 " But if he's a nice boy he'll obey yours without 
 either of you knowing anything about it." 
 
 He spoke in so kind a way that Dolly liked him 
 unconditionally for the first time. 
 
 " It's nice of you to say that," she said, " not 
 one of the boys I know would have said it half so 
 nicely." 
 
 " Ah ! so I remind you again of your father." 
 
 " Yes ! " said Dolly, laughing. " I didn't like to 
 say it ; it sounds rather like boasting, in a way." 
 
 " Don't misjudge me if I don't look as flattered as I 
 feel. As one grows older one is frequently handi- 
 capped in the expression of one's emotions by side 
 issues."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 61 
 
 "It must be heavenly to have a thousand points 
 of view on everv subject." 
 
 " Heavenly is" hardly the word for it, but it gives 
 fullness and varietv to life." 
 
 " Sometimes I wonder if I'll be able to hold it all, 
 and all the points of view by the time I'm twice my 
 own age or more," she concluded with an appealing 
 glance in his direction. 
 
 " Don't be anxious, Miss Alderson. These things 
 arrange themselves." 
 
 " They must," said Dolly, with expectant eyes, 
 " or -" 
 
 " The frail human vessel would burst. That 
 never happens. We can always comfortably hold the 
 residue, all that is left when the fermentation's 
 over." 
 
 " One minute you make me feel as if all the things 
 were already pouring in like a wave ; the next you 
 sweep them all out." 
 
 " This comes of an insane attempt to be a father 
 in a general way, and to try to sort and classify the 
 dreams of youth. One thing must make room for 
 another, don't you see, just as one minute must make 
 room for the next, or else there comes congestion, 
 or a block, and we must call in the surgeon, or the 
 police. You don't want to carry everything along with 
 you, surely, just as it feels and looks now ? Must 
 everything go on changing while your point of view 
 stands still ? There's a mutual " accommodation in 
 all things, or -else God help us all ! Life means going 
 on without a break, but with a constant and judicious 
 shedding of ballast." 
 
 " I still want to hold on to everything." 
 
 " That's how we all begin. We all think at the 
 start that our hold is illimitable. It's a merciful pro- 
 vision of Nature. If we begin to sort out too young 
 we generally throw out the right things and keep the 
 wrong." 
 
 " I shall keep everything I can that's the least 
 nice till I'm, say, thirty-eight, and then have my first
 
 62 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 spring-cleaning. I suppose I can be trusted at that 
 age," she said, with fine scorn. 
 
 ' You can, I think. If you keep all the things that 
 count, more especially the dreams, till then, you'll 
 hardly want the spring-cleaning at all. You must 
 have it all the same, please, Miss Alderson, just to 
 show the rest of us that these things can be kept. Be- 
 sides, if you succeed where we've failed, the things 
 won't belong to you any more then, they'll belong to 
 the hearts of men. They'll have become universal, 
 like someone I heard of just now. I hope I'll be there 
 to share in the treasure. But you mustn't leave your 
 laugh behind you, you know. You must stick to 
 that. Dreams and illusions and follies are all Dead 
 Sea fruit without laughter." 
 
 He was looking at her in an extremely nice way, 
 but there was a laugh behind it. He looked as radically 
 unlike her father as any man could well look. 
 
 In spite of everything, was he even now laughing 
 at her ? Worse still, was he trying not to laugh ? 
 
 She got as. pink as a sea shell, and headed for the 
 tulip tree. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 When Dolly left her the first impulse of Dorinda was 
 to go away alone out of the light, to hide herself in 
 any dark place ; but a rooted dislike to any change 
 in her well-considered thought and simple line of 
 conduct held her to her seat, made her even move it 
 involuntarily nearer the other women and join in their 
 desultory idle conversation. 
 
 Although the charm and sweetness of happy idleness 
 had all gone/ her pride was up in arms. She was 
 suddenly on her defence against herself, against some 
 dim, unnameable fear which had gripped her and 
 seemed to want to bend her to its will. To be afraid 
 of nothing and for no cause was most extraordinary
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 63 
 
 to Dorinda. To want solitude and the darkness on 
 such a day ! To be glad that Dolly was not near 
 her ! 
 
 Dorinda had always faced things with simple straight- 
 forwardness and done the duty nearest her with quiet 
 grace. Her power of silence, if her worst enemy, had 
 sometimes appeared to be her best friend. 
 
 When she had been called upon to renounce an in- 
 tangible dream and accept a tangible fact, she had 
 put her whole mind to it and done it well. The 
 women of her family had often had hard lives, and 
 always clean hands and a pure heart. It had never 
 struck her that she could do anything else but carry 
 on the tradition. So she had forcibly ejected Lance- 
 lot Delamer from her waking thoughts and prayed 
 fervently in regard to her dreams. She had loved her 
 husband to the best of her ability, and uncondition- 
 ally honoured and obeyed him. She went farther : 
 in spite of her unconfessed and deep-rooted scorn for 
 money matters, she admired him in his own realm. 
 She was even proud of his love so far as she 
 understood it. 
 
 When her children came she welcomed them calmly, 
 and to Dolly, the only one who had lived, she had 
 been the best of mothers ; but the passion so inex- 
 orably cast forth had never returned in any form, not 
 even as the passion of motherhood. Love had been 
 pure and serene and constant in Dorinda, a sweet 
 and fructifying well of loving-kindness ; but it had 
 never risen to passion since that day of which she 
 had never permitted herself to think for nineteen 
 years, the day before her marriage. 
 
 Her swift, uncontrollable movement of love towards 
 her daughter as Lancelot Delamer had come to her 
 across the lawn was her only conscious approach to it. 
 
 And now she was resenting this. It was a menace 
 to her fine, well-bred calm of life. An attempt on the 
 part of some far-off, dangerous force, long since dis- 
 possessed and outlived, to reassert itself by an insidious 
 reproduction of itself. It was a wrong to Dolly and
 
 64 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to herself. A stain upon the crystal purity of both of 
 them. 
 
 She glanced back at her life that had been so happy, 
 at her dreams a little bare and austere. She had 
 gone softly all her days, and in spite of Alice's sus- 
 picions she had liked it. It was so peaceful. 
 
 She paused to think. Yes ! She had been safe, 
 and happy, and blessed. 
 
 Dorinda was of another generation in a variety of 
 ways. She thought now with a gleam of true comfort 
 that never, not even on the evening of that day she 
 had cut clean out of her life, had she gone to bed 
 without having been able to say her prayers. 
 
 Her foundations had been so sure. Her house of 
 defence so strong. She had feared no evil. She had 
 found a tranquil joy in her tranquil days ; and it had 
 all become part of her, of her being, of her face and 
 figure, her movements and gestures. 
 
 Even she herself had been rested and refreshed on 
 a hot day full of affairs — for Dorinda was no idler — 
 by the unexpected reflection of her own cool shadowed 
 presence in some passing glass. The almost virginal 
 tranquillity of her bearing and of her eyes had often 
 laid a stilling hand upon some half-conscious, furtive 
 pain in herself. 
 
 She remembered this now, and between her un- 
 emotional consolatory suggestions, and the excited 
 remarks of Mrs. Lorraine, in trouble about her hus- 
 band's digestion, she was surprised at the Dorinda 
 of an hour ago, startled at the present Dorinda ; and 
 well versed in the art of self-observation and fastidious 
 watchfulness, she resented equally the surprise and 
 the startle. 
 
 " If one had ever given way to the vile habits of 
 luxury," wailed Mrs. Lorraine, "or to drinks at odd 
 times, or gone to horrible City dinners, one might 
 understand ; but to think of Freddy— who counts his 
 mouthfuls, and when we are at home, measures out 
 his wine in a medicine glass — suffering as he does is 
 beyond me. It's — it's like the slaughter of the Inno-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 65 
 
 cents, and nothing will ever make me understand 
 the justice of that. I approached the subject with 
 two bishops and a dean, and I might as well have dis- 
 cussed it with my gardener." 
 
 When not occupied with Freddy's internal organs, 
 Mrs. Lorraine loved to dispute stray texts of Scripture 
 with Church dignitaries. 
 
 In benevolence, as in everything else, Mrs. Burgoyne 
 liked to kill two birds with one stone. It was partly 
 in order to spare the clergy that she had married Susan 
 to Freddy. 
 
 " I've always wondered a little about the Innocents 
 myself," said Dorinda, " and been so glad the poor 
 little things were innocents. Vicarious suffering is a 
 part of the world, I suppose, but don't you think we 
 sometimes encourage it ? Perhaps if you didn't feel 
 all the indigestions of your husband so very keenly he 
 might sometimes almost forget them." 
 
 " Even the indifference of a wife, Lady Dorinda, 
 could hardly make my Freddy forget his sufferings." 
 
 " But I didn't suggest indifference, and to you ! 
 I'm not so foolish. But we're all sorry you should be 
 so distressed. And I've always thought the best way of 
 overcoming anything is to refuse to think of it simply. 
 To turn it out of your mind. One can always do that." 
 
 " Not if it's a disordered stomach, Lady Dorinda. 
 The process may answer for sentimental disturbances, 
 but not for organic ones. Fight pain with its own 
 weapons. Only like can conquer like. Thank God, 
 Freddy is now a homoeopath. It's the principle of 
 the future," said Mrs. Lorraine, looking fondly at 
 the one hundred and fifteenth row of a silk sock she 
 had just completed, and murmuring as a sort of after- 
 thought, " and the root of all true religion." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dorinda. 
 
 Dorinda had always kept clear of the latest things 
 in feminine yearnings and fancy religions, but the 
 cant phrase interested her now in the oddest way. 
 It was changing of its own accord in her mind, being 
 transmuted and transformed into new and living
 
 66 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 words. The silly babble that had made them all so 
 tired of Freddy and his disorders was now speaking 
 out in herself with a new significance. 
 
 " Fifty-seven ! "- Mrs. Lorraine did a long calcula- 
 tion under her breath, and then sat up as stiff as a 
 ramrod to convert Dorinda. 
 
 " Like attracts like, the greater overcomes the less. 
 The greatest of all is Love. Love overcomes all." 
 She summed up. , 
 
 " Ah ! "- said Dorinda. She only said it softly to 
 herself, but it seemed to reverberate all round her. 
 It seemed to be a sort of confession to things moi'e 
 acute than Mrs. Lorraine. 
 
 " She's said it, she's said it at last,' 1 she thought 
 sharply. " She's said what I haven't dared even to 
 think. And yet I know, I've known all my life really, 
 nothing but Love can overcome love, and I've never 
 loved anyone but Lancelot Delamer. I — I've only 
 liked all the rest. Oh ! will she never stop ? — I've 
 never loved, not even the dead children, nor my 
 daughter, my beautiful, bewildering Dolly — never 
 — never — never till now." 
 
 " Are you listening, Lady Dorinda ? "• 
 
 " Indeed I am. And I'm being convinced, I think.' 2 
 
 " You can't shut out love," she thought, while 
 Susan babbled. " The — what did Alice call it ? — 
 the bleak process of exclusion is no good. You can't 
 exclude it, or repress it, or kill it. You can only replace 
 it, lose it in a greater love. And nineteen long years 
 are all gone for nothing ! I might as well have thought 
 what I wanted to think, and let my dreams go their 
 own way. I've tried so hard,'- she said, " and failed, 
 after all. I've always wanted so much to be good — 
 to be as good as I look."- 
 
 Dorinda could never be anything but herself. She 
 faced the truth now as she had always tried to face 
 it, simply and without argument. She had never 
 spared herself, and she did not attempt to do so now. 
 What she had thought to be victory was defeat, and 
 she confessed it.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 67 
 
 She had never reproached fate, or anything or 
 anyone else. She did not do so now. She stood 
 alone and defenceless in the midst of her perplexity, 
 and yet she was not at bay. She tried to gather her 
 fugitive senses back into their fold and to recover 
 her self-containedness. 
 
 Mrs. Lorraine buzzed on. 
 
 By this time her religious principles, Freddy's 
 internal organs, and the intellectual darkness of the 
 clergy were mbaed up in one tangled mass. Dorinda 
 was so thankful that an occasional smile was now 
 enough. With even such slight encouragement Mrs. 
 Lorraine could have talked on till dinner-time. 
 
 " How happy she is,"- thought Dorinda, "to be 
 able to talk ! If I had been able to talk — even once 
 — to talk out everything to Richard ! How good he 
 is, how kind ! I can see it now. I seem to be seeing 
 things in a new way altogether. But I've never 
 spoken out all my life, or thought out, or — or felt out 
 — since then, not properly. And now this to come to 
 me ! "- 
 
 She could hear Dolly's laugh in the distance and 
 Delamer's deep voice. 
 
 " It's partly fear," said Mrs. Lorraine, " fear of 
 new knowledge disturbing their old, time-worn 
 ignorance ; partly snobbery. Neither the Pharisee 
 in a frock-coat nor the Pharisee in a cassock will meet 
 a homceopath or a Dissenting minister in honest 
 dispute or at a meal. I ask them both on principle 
 once a month to luncheon." 
 
 This time she looked for some acknowledgment. 
 
 " That's very nice of you," said Dorinda. " Whom 
 do you ask to meet them ? " 
 
 " The curate and my late doctor's assistant : young 
 men, not yet wholly encased in prejudice ; they can 
 see some good in new ways.'* 
 
 " But aren't you undermining authority, dear Mrs. 
 Lorraine ? " 
 
 " Thank God I am ! A few Sundays ago Mr. 
 Halkett preached a sermon that stirred up the whole 
 
 3*
 
 68 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 congregation, and, I believe, deluged the rector with 
 angry 7 correspondence. The new leaven is working. "- 
 
 " Oh ! and was the object lesson equally efficacious 
 in the assistant's case ? " 
 
 " In Dr. Foster's practice pilules are rapidly super- 
 seding rank doses, of the consequences of which no 
 one knows anything." 
 
 " You must have great courage. Are you never 
 afraid of a visit from the rector and the physician ? " 
 
 " Afraid ! Lady Dorinda ! If you do right, you 
 don't know what fear is." 
 
 " Susan ! " piped a querulous voice. 
 
 Susan dropped her knitting, tottered to her feet, and 
 if ever human visage expressed abject fear, hers did. 
 
 " Again, my dear, you have forgotten." 
 
 " Freddy ? Haven't you taken it ? " 
 
 " How could I, my dear ? You didn't remind me." 
 His groan was almost audible. 
 
 The little querulous voice suited to perfection the 
 little, querulous, buff-coloured, lean man, bond slave 
 for many years to profound egoism. 
 
 Susan called it digestion. 
 
 " I suffer from a defective memory," he said, 
 turning plaintively to Dorinda ; "as a rule, my dear 
 wife supplies it : but her occasional lapses are very 
 trying, ve^ trying indeed. This moment — oh, well ! 
 I will spare your kind heart." 
 
 " But couldn't you have taken the — thing," said 
 Dorinda, " when you did remember, and have spared 
 yourself the suffering and Mrs. Lorraine the anxiety ? 
 She does so distress herself." 
 
 " Ah ! I thought that you appreciated her ! Susan 
 is, indeed, the best of wives. If I had not reminded 
 her just now she would have felt it acutely. My 
 only regret is that I did not think of marrying years 
 ago. One becomes cynical, alas ! with the years and 
 an increasing knowledge of life," said Freddy, twirling 
 a small, faded moustache, " and I had been misled. 
 I had learnt to believe in the selfishness of women, 
 their self-absorption. This is false, utterly false, a
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 69 
 
 malignant libel. In thinking of those they love they 
 may, indeed, sometimes forget the material needs 
 of the loved ones, but they are never selfish. " 
 
 " At least, Mrs. Lorraine isn't," said Dorinda. 
 
 With her little hen-like head convulsively thrust 
 out Mrs. Lorraine was now fluttering down the walk, 
 three microscopical bottles in her hand. 
 
 " Freddy," she cried, " it's not ten minutes, really ; 
 it's only seven and a half." 
 
 " My watch does not lose, dear Susan." He paused 
 to contemplate it. " It is now precisely eleven minutes 
 and a half after the time. I am sure you don't often 
 forget," he said with benignant forgiveness. 
 
 " But to forget at all ! " bleated the bride. 
 
 " Freddy ! " said the robust voice of Mrs. Bur- 
 goyne, " make your wife lie down over there in the 
 long chair. Wifely devotion is overdone when it 
 makes a little woman as slight as Susan puff like a 
 grampus ; and turn your back on us while you carry 
 on your unholy rites. One may entertain heretics 
 because they are old friends, but one needn't be witness 
 to their apostasy." 
 
 " Ah ! Mrs. Burgoyne, say what you like. Your 
 acts speak for themselves. I have much, very much 
 to thank you for." 
 
 He took possession, not unkindly, of Susan and 
 minced off with her and the bottles. 
 
 " She must have had plenty of interests in life in 
 revolutionizing society," said Dorinda. " I wonder 
 she had time to marry Freddy." 
 
 " He surprised her into it, as I told you, and she 
 can't recover from the shock. Fortunate in a way. 
 She sees nothing but the unexpected husband, and 
 forgets Freddy. But I hope it won't end in heart 
 disease for her. So the lion carried off Dolly ? "- 
 ' I think Dolby carried off the lion." 
 
 " Dear me ! He must be forty-six. Still, he's made 
 a name for himself in desert places, and is going to 
 continue the process in English politics. He may be 
 the Prime Minister of the future for all we know, and 
 
 3t
 
 70 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 I've just heard that he's heir to an Irish peerage. And, 
 after all "- 
 
 " Alice, don't ! How can you ? And Dolly a child ! '-'■ 
 
 " ' Is visions ' about ? Dolly's a young woman, 
 my dear. You're not looking at yourself nineteen 
 years ago, remember. Dolly has views and a will of 
 her own. And he's at the dangerous age." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't even speak of it." 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne glanced at her. She looked pale 
 and unusual, in grave earnest, possessed by a sort of 
 still excitement. 
 
 Alice, who had never quite outgrown her boyhood, 
 whistled. 
 
 " I wonder if I know you yet," she said, " after all 
 these years of real, proper friendship. I firmly believe 
 there's a volcano hid away in your economy, for all 
 your proud superiority." 
 
 " Don't use that horrid word to me ! " 
 
 " Well, no, you don't deserve it. You're the real, 
 live thing, the genuine article. When I see you in 
 a hot, tired London room, full of pain and sorrow and 
 iniquity, you always cool and restore me. I've often 
 been glad, generally towards the end of the season, 
 that you were made, Dorinda." 
 
 " Alice ! I — I wish you wouldn't. " 
 
 " You'd be precious sorry if I didn't, my dear, 
 although it's the first time I've ever said it. I wonder 
 why you looked like that about Dolly, all the same. 
 One must speculate en these matters now, and not 
 one of the eligibles I've presented to her consideration 
 have impressed her in the very least. Do you know 
 anything against Mr. Delamer ? "- 
 
 " I know nothing at all about him since I was 
 married, except what the papers can tell." 
 
 " Why didn't you keep him safe at your side if you 
 didn't want Dolly to carrv him off." 
 
 " It— it didn't strike me." 
 
 ' Perhaps Dolly regards him as a second father, or 
 will in time. You can accentuate the impression 
 to-night, at dinner, if you like. Of course, he takes
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 71 
 
 you in. That doddering old marquis must fall to 
 me. John wants him about this Carth election, so 
 I must be bored a little longer." 
 
 ' You're nearly as good a wife as Mrs. Lorraine." 
 
 " Small thanks to me with John.' 2 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne plunged into a kind, frank, robust 
 dream, in which, as anyone could see, John figured 
 largely. Dorinda watched her with a queer envy. 
 
 " Alice,' 2 she said, " it's so long ago, you won't mind. 
 Do tell me if you ever really cared for Tommy 
 Wetherby ? '-'- 
 
 " Care ! I should think I did care ! I adored him ! 
 Even now, fat as he is, I do still, but I loved John 
 with my whole heart. One love doesn't cast out 
 any other. It sort of puts each in its right place. 
 It holds them all, you know, just as all the little 
 streams run into the big lake ; and they all live there 
 together ever after in the greatest harmony. I'm 
 glad I love my husband just like an ordinary honest 
 woman, only ever so much more, and that every lover 
 I ever had is an old friend, and as loyal to the king as 
 his poor old queen is." 
 
 She laughed, but her handsome eyes were full of 
 tears, her handsome bust was unaffectedly agitated. 
 
 " One wouldn't say it to anyone else, but I do love 
 John in a most utterly commonplace, old-fashioned 
 way. Perhaps if I didn't, I'd get on better in diplo- 
 matic circles. Sometimes I wish I hadn't been brought 
 up in a simple old house with boys. It's kept me 
 primitive, I think, that and John ; and yet I've never 
 gone boldly through a French novel but I've been glad. 
 It's amazing to me how a people with the real insight of 
 the French, who can see a little stretch of willow- 
 bordered, sluggish stream as they see it, and make it 
 divine, can't do better by Love. I know one who has, 
 though : Victor Hugo did once : 
 
 " ' Aimez done, car tout le proclame, 
 Car l'esprit seul eclaire peu ; 
 Et souvent le cceur d'une femme 
 Est 1'explication de Dieu.'
 
 72 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 To subtle people that poem isn't proper. I wonder 
 how you'd take it, Dorinda, if you read it to yourself 
 and followed its meaning to the end ? To a plain person 
 like me, he's lifted love to its right place, to the white- 
 ness about the throne of God. I say, Dorinda, - ' she 
 said, sitting up with a laugh, " I think I must be 
 mad. Never before in all my life have I spoken like 
 this. Goodness gracious ! If John could hear me 
 he'd remind me promptly of my weight. Do you 
 know, I've put on two stone in eighteen months. But 
 I've been looking at Dolly this time as my own daughter, 
 and it's got to my head. A belated husband isn't 
 the only surprising fact in creation." She was as red 
 now as Dorinda was pale, and violently fanning herself. 
 ' But, Alice," said Dorinda, with a little laugh, 
 ' I'm glad you said it. It's like finding a precious 
 stone on a beautiful well-kept gravel path. It brings 
 remote, rare things down into one's ordinary natural life." 
 
 Alice was now her normal healthy colour. She 
 breathed with her normal regularity. 
 
 " So what's common or garden fact to me is remote 
 and rare to Richard's wife, is it ? " she thought. 
 " And Dolly and my handsome lion coupled together 
 hurts her fastidious taste. And why didn't she speak 
 up about Delamer ? Dorinda's not sly ; she is too 
 well bred. She's happy enough, but I really knew 
 nothing at all about her. I always suspected this, 
 and now I know it. I'll go over Dorinda one day with 
 John : a thing I never did before and never wanted 
 to. But Dorinda's going to be exciting at last. An 
 hour ago I thought there was nothing I'd like better — 
 now I'm not sure." 
 
 " Can one ever be sure of anything, I'd like to 
 know," she said aloud, according to her custom when 
 revolving a mixed matter. " Or is it a statement only 
 for Heaven." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," said Dorinda. 
 
 " Then you ought to, if anyone ever did. You 
 always look like a fixed star. I never saw you heated 
 or out of breath in vour life."-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 73 
 
 " Because I never go quickly enough." 
 
 Alice dubiously watched her. 
 
 ' Is it the ' no hurry in her hands, no hurry in her 
 feet ' business, Dorinda, by any chance ? " 
 
 " I hope not," said Dorinda. " I don't think I'm 
 quite as stagnant as that woman." 
 
 "All the same, I don't grasp Dorinda," mused 
 Mrs. Burgoyne. " That quick, most unexpected, 
 expectant look about her. Could Dorinda possibly 
 be getting ready for a ' bust ' ? " 
 
 " I wonder if I'll feel sometimes exactly like an 
 irreverent schoolboy till the day of my death," she 
 sighed aloud. 
 
 " I hope you will. I didn't know you ever felt like 
 one. But now I know it's that we all like in your eyes. 
 I'd like to feel like a boy for once." 
 
 ' You had brothers. You ought to have learnt 
 the trick." 
 
 But my brothers- 
 
 Dorinda paused. " There were problems, my dear, 
 that early spoilt the boy in them. Not that you ever 
 said so ; you're very loyal, Alice. But sometimes 
 your mother said things. Problems on the domestic 
 hearth are bad for girls brought up to silence. I think 
 myself they're better mentioned in a nice way." 
 
 ' Everything's better mentioned in a nice way/' said 
 Alice, fanning herself vigorously. " It's sure to leak 
 out in the end with less regard to style and setting." 
 
 " But," said Dorinda, " if you can't mention them ? 
 If you're made silent ? " 
 
 " It's difficult for one who has not been made 
 silent to judge. I suppose nature must be considered. 
 That is, if it is Nature, and not an impertinent inter- 
 ference with it. I think the open air is good for every- 
 thing, even for unpleasant memories. It freshens them 
 up, and if there's any sweetness at all in things — and 
 I think there must be in everything that happens — 
 that freshens the stale air." 
 
 " At any rate you do." 
 
 " I wish I'd told her long ago — everything," thought
 
 74 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Dorinda. " But I can't now. A long silence freezes 
 one's words, I think. 11 
 
 ' Here come Una and her lion. They look very 
 well together. Goodness, the likeness between you 
 two, and the difference ! Catch you chaffing the king 
 of beasts at eighteen ! "- 
 
 ' I couldn't have chaffed a mouse at eighteen.'' 
 
 " Oh, well, no wonder you got silent. Never mind, 
 Dorinda. It's a distinguished role and suits you to 
 perfection.' 1 
 
 " I'm glad Dolly can talk.' 5 
 ' You used to be afraid she'd talk too much.' 1 
 ' I'm not now. She's Dolly ! And I — I want her 
 to be extravagantly happy.' 1 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne set her mouth to whistle and suddenly 
 refrained. 
 
 ' It's Dorinda who'll be talking too much next, 11 
 she mused. " I only hope she won't silence me ! 
 Dorinda ! where on earth are you going ? - 
 
 " I'm going to obey Dolly and rest and let you 
 have the lion to yourself a little. I'll have him all 
 through dinner."- 
 
 ' You're painfully considerate, dear.'- 1 
 
 ". She is preparing for something,' 1 reflected Mrs. 
 Burgoyne, watching her fine retreating figure. " And 
 I don't like it at all. Thank Heaven / was never 
 brought up to silence.' 1 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 When Dorinda got to her room she could not rest. 
 She could not even sit still. She had been sitting still, 
 so to speak, for nineteen years, but now she could do 
 nothing but walk to and fro, to and fro. The dis- 
 turbance seemed to spread, to possess and enslave her. 
 The quiet freedom of her mind, so remote from strain 
 or strife or doubt, so sequestered and sure, had deserted 
 her. Misrule was afoot in her well-ordered_Kingdom :
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 70 
 
 choking needs, wild passions, strove and contended 
 where peace had reigned. 
 
 She did not understand. She understood nothing 
 but that she and her whole world had suffered change. 
 With friends all round her — she was desolate : in a 
 friendly country — defenceless against strange foes : 
 stripped and barren, in the midst of abundance. 
 She would have liked to fly to her old refuges, to say 
 her prayers, but she could not ; to read the Imita- 
 tion of Christ, but that was equally impossible. So 
 she turned to look rather lovingly at the thick, white, 
 soft silk laid out for her dressing. It suited her 
 beautifully. It went well with the frock Dolly would 
 wear. It was a joy in its little way, this perfect 
 dress. After a moment's contemplation she set her 
 face, rang, and told her maid to put out a quiet hand- 
 some black lace suitable to any age. 
 
 " I can do that, at least," said she, and turned 
 again to Thomas the Consoler, and again he failed 
 her. Lancelot Delamer came between her and the- 
 wonderful words. 
 
 It was hollow mockery to go on reading, and worse 
 to go on thinking. She tried to bring Dolly in, to 
 crown her mind with Dolly ; but there was no room 
 for Dolly, and it was no place for her. Dolly and its 
 present possessor went no better together than he 
 and the holy Thomas had done. 
 
 In despair Dorinda sat down and wrote to her 
 husband. She had not meant to write till the next 
 day. Every week-end away from home she wrote 
 once to Richard. He liked it, and her one wish had 
 always been to do as he liked. Her letters were as 
 regular as they were charming, but never until this 
 moment the least urgent or necessary to her. 
 
 She could not have used diplomacy in a letter to 
 her husband to save her life ; and since she never had 
 anything of an especially intimate nature to discuss 
 with him, her letters were generally purely descriptive. 
 So now, after speaking of the people he knew, she 
 began straight off with Lancelot Delamer.
 
 76 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " You never met him," she said. " He was away 
 when we were married. Since then he's been in the 
 East and he's never looked us up in all his leaves. 
 I have hardly spoken to him : Dolly carried him off. 
 He's her first lion, and she likes new things, you know. 
 He's to take me in to dinner. Alice is bound to the 
 old Marquis. I wish you had come with us. Alice 
 won't have us again without you. You have never 
 been here with Dolly since she has grown up, and she 
 wants to tell you the story of the lovers who haunt 
 the garden. She has adopted those ghosts, and tells 
 the story in the most charming way. 
 
 " I am so glad that Dolly is not shy, and can think 
 aloud. I don't think I ever used to. I was afraid to 
 talk out my thoughts. It must be a delightful thing 
 to do — it's delightful to listen to " 
 
 The horrible disturbance came running back, and she 
 seemed to be justifying herself to [Richard ! She 
 finished up with a few careless remarks and closed her 
 letter. 
 
 She had half meant to speak of the curious vivid 
 way in which Lancelot Delamer had brought back 
 her girlhood. To say other half articulate things 
 seeking utterance, but suddenly she had shrunk back 
 into the long-established refuge of her silence. Her 
 sensitive mouth quivered. She grew pale in the face 
 of words. She had always been chary of them. 
 But now, when for the first time in all those years 
 they had grown full of mysterious import, of a strange 
 menace to her peace, a peace which had come at last 
 to be hers as by some royal right, the old shy terrors 
 of her girlhood struck her dumb. 
 
 She had been very proud of her serenity, in her un- 
 assuming way, and loyally thankful for it. She had 
 never been able to understand the disordered chaos 
 of many women's minds, or the undisciplined facility 
 with which they permit all the details of their internal 
 anarchy to leak out, and then with eyes lifted to Heaven, 
 call it emotion. There was no cynicism in Dorinda's 
 bearing towards anyone, but she had often been sorry
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 77 
 
 that such things could be, and anxious to hush up the 
 offender before any man should come near. 
 
 And now to have come to something like this her- 
 self ! To be a fermenting vat of things that needed 
 tidying up if ever anything did. 
 
 " I'd better dress," she said, " I'm not fit to think." 
 
 Only the week before Dolly had made her have her 
 hair dressed in a new and entirely satisfactory fashion. 
 She now told her maid to go back to the less striking 
 mode, and tried to feel glad at the difference, and the 
 slightly heavy effect of the dead black against her 
 ethereal shadowiness, which always went best with 
 light shimmering textures. 
 
 Her maid felt her office in a way degraded, and 
 sulked with respectful demureness. 
 
 Dolly, however, who burst in radiant with the pure 
 delight of her own perfection, was less reticent. 
 
 : ' But what has happened ? "- she clamoured. ' You 
 might be just anybody. Some one on the edge of an 
 elderly spread, or a new religion, or anything. You 
 might be hiding a pair of spectacles in your pocket 
 this minute. You're not you at all. You no longer 
 belong to me. Goodness ! Andrews, there's plenty 
 of time to bring back Lady Dorinda. Get out that 
 ivory thing from Julie's." r 
 
 ' I had it out, miss, and her ladyship " 
 
 ' I'm your mistress to-night, Andrews ! Be quick ! 
 I'll do her hair." 
 
 There was no resisting Dolly ; and Dorinda was 
 so tired of unaccustomed sensations, which the 
 funereal gown served only to accentuate, that she 
 was glad to obey, and to sit passive in kind, com- 
 pelling hands. 
 
 As Dolly dressed her, laughing and deriding and 
 chattering at full speed with Andrews— they had 
 played together, been confirmed together and were 
 fast friends — Dorinda's confidence and serenity came 
 slowly back. She was reassured and reinforced. 
 
 It was strange and discomposing. She felt as a 
 scared child might in the recovered presence of his
 
 78 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 mother. With Dolly at hand, nothing could happen 
 to her. She felt careless, and strong enough even to 
 admire the transformation Dolly had wrought in her. 
 She nodded back at the exultant face of Andrews 
 following them downstairs, as gaily as Dolly herself 
 did. 
 
 It was just at this moment that Lancelot Delamer 
 saw her. He saw her as a man only once sees a woman 
 and can never forget. No matter what his previous 
 experiences may have been, or his opinion about them, 
 this is the moment that matters, upon which hangs 
 fate, which can save him from his sins or dig his hell 
 for him. 
 
 The recognition of all this came, as these things 
 do, much later to Delamer. He had not been even 
 thinking of Dorinda. A letter he had received an 
 hour ago filled all his mind. 
 
 What he saw was just two charming heads framed 
 in one halo of ineffable light, two pairs of laughing 
 eyes, two fresh young mouths, a dual innocence un- 
 touched by the world. But the girl, for all her charm, 
 might have been a disembodied spirit, or his daughter. 
 
 " And only half an hour ago I had decided to wipe 
 from her plastic mind the impression of my forty- 
 five years ! Even to go farther, perhaps. '■'- 
 
 He was laughing as he came across to them. 
 
 " The one advantage of being the latest lion,* 4 he 
 said, " is that you may be as impertinent as you like 
 in your little hour. It's short enough, Heaven knows ; 
 the hardest heart couldn't rob it of one of its privileges. 
 Do you come downstairs together to give pleasure 
 to yourselves or to other people ? '-'• 
 
 Dorinda, with unmoved innocence, looked at Dolly. 
 
 " Dolly ! I haven't thought it out. Have you ? " 
 
 " No ! But I know suddenly." She nodded at 
 Delamer. " You told me in a way. We like to 
 share our pleasures with those who have the sense 
 and the niceness to enjoy them ; and if people haven't, 
 it's rather nice, don't you think, to ' larn twoads not 
 to be twoads.' u
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 79 
 
 " Dolly ! "- 
 
 " Mrs. Doughty told old Lady Boone the other 
 night that you use me as inferior women do fans, in 
 order to set off every charm. I was hoping she'd see 
 us just now, and make another witticism out of us. 
 It's the only pleasure the poor old thing has.' 1 
 
 " To listen to such things ! '-'- 
 
 '' But think of not listening, and all you'd lose ! 
 and all the ' twoads ' would lose ! Before I've done 
 with her, I'll make Mrs. Doughty wish to goodness 
 she wasn't so horribly much herself, and be ready to 
 give her poor old eyes to be in the least tiny atom 
 like us." 
 
 ' I have seen Mrs. Doughty and heard her. You'll 
 never bring it through, Miss Alderson," said Delamer. 
 
 " The only thing to do with toads is to avoid them, 
 Dolly," said her mother. 
 
 ' But you must learn Natural History if you've 
 got to deal with Nature. "- 
 
 " There are plenty of nice animals to begin with. 
 You'll not regenerate toads by practising their 
 methods." 
 
 " Oh ! But let us think of men now ! " said Dolly, 
 watching with the frankest interest each one as he 
 came in. " Some one's turned up unexpectedly 
 who's to take me in. I didn't hear his name. He's 
 a very important person, much too good for me ; 
 only there's nobody else. And he requires encourage- 
 ment, not crushing." 
 
 : ' So Alice actually went to your room to warn 
 you," said Dorinda. " What a commentary on his 
 importance and your tendencies ! Who can he be ? '•'- 
 
 " Faunce Cuthbert has just come, and unex- 
 pectedly," said Delamer. ' There was some mistake 
 about a letter. He is a rather important person and 
 his mother expects miraculous things of him.' 1 
 
 " Oh ! You know him,"- said Dolly. " But what's 
 the matter with him himself that he wants encourage- 
 ment' and to be treated differently from everyone 
 else ? '-'■
 
 80 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' But a natural distaste for being crushed doesn't 
 presuppose anything radically wrong or unusual in a 
 man," suggested Delamer. 
 
 " But if a grown-up man wants to be encouraged 
 there must be something unusual about him. I've 
 never been told off to take care of anything bigger 
 than a boy before." 
 
 " Cuthbert," said Delamer, " is six feet two in his 
 stockings, with everything else to match. He took a 
 first in Finals, rowed in his College eight, and is very 
 shy and modest and rather fastidious." 
 
 " He's like his mother, always expecting miracu- 
 lous things of himself and everyone else," Dolly went 
 on. ' That means being a prig, doesn't it ? I wish 
 he wasn't going to take me in, I wanted to enjoy myself 
 to-night tremendously." 
 
 " Why, Cuthbert, there you are," said Delamer, 
 turning to, and addressing a young man — a very 
 blushing young man — on the point of flight. " Lady 
 Dorinda, may I present Mr. Cuthbert to you and Miss 
 Alderson ? Lady Dorinda, you know this place ? 
 They say you can see Cummer heights from one of 
 the windows. I wonder which it is." 
 
 It's the west one," said Dorinda, leading the way 
 to it. 
 
 I shouldn't suffer in silence if I were you," he 
 said laughing, as they stood looking out at the craggy 
 peak towering high above its clinging woods. ' I'm 
 quite sure Miss Alderson doesn't." 
 
 " No," said Dorinda, laughing in spite of herself ; 
 " but I wonder if Mr. Cuthbert does." 
 
 ' Very likely. It won't do him any harm, though. 
 Miss Alderson isn't altogether out in her judgment 
 of him. If he tries to alter in the right way, as he 
 probably will, she has a just eye for proportion and 
 likes seeing difficult things well done, I feel sure. So 
 they will both enjoy their dinner." 
 
 " For two minutes after I had seen you together, 
 Lady Dorinda," he said in the same voice, " I was in 
 Ireland again and twenty-four. Two minutes after-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 81 
 
 wards I was back in the centre of civilization with 
 twenty years between. You've given her everything 
 but what you've probably left behind you in Ireland. 
 One has to leave a lot behind one in Ireland if one 
 wants to live in the world." 
 
 " One has," she said quickly. " A great deal. I 
 wonder what becomes of it." 
 
 ' It breeds disaffection, potatoes and poetry. They 
 all run together over there, and it keeps Ireland going, 
 even if we should have starved in it. It — whatever 
 it is — doesn't bear transplantation : it dies in new 
 soil like the shamrock. It's like the air of the place 
 that used to breed as fine men and women on potatoes 
 and buttermilk as ""it takes beef and beer to breed in 
 England." 
 
 He looked from Dorinda to her daughter. 
 
 " Cuthbert has regained his normal colour, and 
 Miss Alderson never lost hers." 
 
 A desire, that for one instant was more pain than 
 pleasure, was upon him to move the woman beside 
 him from her proud self-possession, to make her change 
 colour. 
 
 She was most rare and most desirable. The years 
 had done much for her. What he had seen that 
 moment on the stairs as a whole came back now in 
 flashes. 
 
 Everything he had missed in all the other women 
 he had known were Dorinda's by royal right. Her 
 serenity as of another world, her absorption in the 
 girl, her immovability towards him, disturbed him 
 in a way they had no business to do. He was done 
 with such things ; and yet the fact of not having met 
 since they had been young together might have moved 
 even her. 
 
 He wished dinner was ready. 
 
 Dorinda found herself on her part again hankering 
 wearily after the darkness to hide her pain and her 
 fear, and her curious, scornful wrath with herself. 
 She had been so safe and secure. She was absolutely 
 unprepared for this form of the unexpected. " Dolly
 
 82 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 would manage it better," she thought with a smile 
 in which there was no merriment, " and I could manage 
 the boy better than Dolly does. At least, he'd like 
 it better. Our positions should be reversed. "- 
 
 " Ma)' I take you down ? I hope we'll sit where 
 we can see if Miss Alderson is enjoying herself and 
 permitting Cuthbert to enjoy his dinner. I have no 
 child. Yours, for the first time in my existence, has 
 reminded me that I've lost something. It has been 
 an evening of reminders to me."- 
 
 For a moment she wondered if he knew what he 
 was doing ; if he meant to torture her into betraying 
 herself ? 
 
 A glance reassured her. The* polished impertur- 
 bability of his strong face slightly tinged with amuse- 
 ment, now looking with wholly speculative interest for 
 Dolly, took away all idea of personality. 
 
 Apparently it was his idea of taking life. He sat 
 quietly in the best seat and watched the play. Seeing 
 her had called up forgotten memories : shadows from 
 the old life, and she amongst them, were flitting now 
 across the stage ; Dolly in a way was materializing 
 the distant scenes. 
 
 She wondered with quick, warm sympathy if he 
 had watched with such a face the wife whose death- 
 bed he had so sedulously attended : a face with the 
 amusement on it blotted out in deference to the 
 occasion. The thought half fascinated her. She 
 looked again and secretly shuddered. 
 
 " They're beautifully placed,"- he said. ' Not a 
 flower between us. You don't know his mother ? " 
 
 " No ; but I remember hearing that she is very 
 extraordinary."- 
 
 " She'd call herself a shining example, I think. 
 She devotes her energies, and they're colossal, to 
 rooting vice out of the upper classes. She carries 
 on the most relentless crusade against immorality in 
 high places, and rarely lets her son out of her sight. 
 She gave him and the Dons a time of it at Oxford. 
 She wields a horrible power over the poor fellow from
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 83 
 
 some weird form of heart complaint, which regulates 
 its attacks according to his behaviour. The brutality 
 of the weapon ! To see him here to-night alone is 
 a most unexpected pleasure. He's been beautifully 
 brought up. I'm glad Miss Alderson has got hold 
 of him.' 1 
 
 " Dolly has also been beautifully brought up," said 
 Dorinda superbly. 
 
 " Otherwise, my dear lady, Cuthbert would not 
 have been allowed to be here alone. And why should 
 you protest — to me ? " 
 
 He looked in her face, his unchanged. 
 " It's part of him, part of the play," she thought. 
 " I wish dinner was over." 
 
 " Miss Alderson has escaped a great many dangers, 
 and among them that of puritanical surroundings. 
 She has a plentiful supply of robust common sense. 
 Unjustifiable interference has made Cuthbert shy and 
 touchy ; I believe their meeting was designed by 
 Providence for our amusement and his edification." 
 
 He helped himself thoughtfully to a dish, and ate 
 it with conscious intelligence. He did everything 
 with conscious intelligence, even to the way in which 
 he looked at her. 
 
 It discomposed Dorinda. Everything discomposed 
 her. His looks, his words, the calm possessive way 
 in which he spoke of Dolly, his quiet resumption of 
 what might have been the interrupted friendship of 
 years. Had he forgotten that which had changed 
 her whole life, her whole character ? Or had he never 
 known it as she had known it ? Had he never known 
 her ? Had it all been on her side — the pain, the 
 passion, the regret ? The inexorable repression of 
 them all had robbed her of half her rights in life ! 
 It was a repression of which she was only now fully 
 conscious. 
 
 She knew all this when the passion of motherhood 
 she had never before experienced had sprung to life 
 in her at sight of Delamer. She knew it now as she 
 looked at Dolly, and the passion was, as it were,
 
 84 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 established within her. She knew it because of the 
 desolation of her prosperous life, admitted now for the 
 first time. 
 
 There was not a spark of coquetry in Dorinda as she 
 watched Delamer and readjusted her outlooks. That, 
 too, had been strangled at birth, had gone with the 
 other delights. The wisdom of the young is wise, 
 but not wise enough of itself to save the whole of itself 
 from a great wreck. Dorinda, like many another, 
 had been cast up on the beach safe indeed, but in saving 
 herself she had thrown away many a precious trifle. 
 And it wants the wisdom of another, or her own grown- 
 up, to go out and find again the scattered treasure ; 
 and Dorinda's was still the wisdom of inexperience, for 
 Love had never taught her his. 
 
 So this wonder and speculation and surprise, this 
 chaos of feeling and seeing, was most amazingly new 
 to her. Her relations with men had been calm, cold, 
 kind and simple. To be worshipped as an intangible 
 sort of star had suited her style and her ambitions. 
 She had watched her worshippers from her sequestered 
 place with appreciation, gratitude and pride. No one, 
 she was glad to say, had ever made himself look 
 foolish for her sake. When she looked at the ad- 
 mirers of other women she had found this a con- 
 solation. 
 
 But now 
 
 Lancelot Delamer, it is true, could, under no con- 
 ceivable circumstances, ever look foolish, but, after 
 all these years of silence, of care, of discipline, could 
 there be one in which he might conceivably make 
 her look so ? 
 
 She centred her whole attention upon Dolly. It 
 was a strange dinner. She was glad when it was 
 over. 
 
 Mr. Delamer was sorry. The dinner was excellent. 
 Life had left his appetite untouched. The newness 
 of Dorinda's state of mind, her surprise at her own 
 emotions, her fears, the way in which her heart reached 
 out to IDolly, her loss of her almost stereotyped self-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 85 
 
 control, made her that night more moving than ever she 
 had been in all her cold and perfect life. 
 
 She made the dinner a dream and a poem to Delamer. 
 She renewed his youth without appreciably disturbing 
 his middle age. She was a revelation to one who 
 had exhausted revelation. She brought back young 
 mystery. She was a spur and an incentive. 
 
 She put him again on the lover's lost scent. He 
 was young again, and a hunter of the biggest game 
 of all — the secret that lies in woman ! How much 
 did her quiet face hide, or did it hide anything at all ? 
 Had she lived too much, or had she ever lived at all ? 
 Had she forgotten, or had she never ceased to 
 remember ? 
 
 Anything was possible to this woman, or — nothing ! 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Dolly's dinner was also complicated with untoward 
 emotions. 
 
 Her rule in life was that if one is betrayed into doing 
 a pretty awful thing, the best thing is to undo it as 
 far as possible and to go on. And in this instance 
 there were ameliorations to the situation. Blushing 
 made the young man look younger than he usually 
 did, thus lightening her load of responsibility. It also 
 made her clear voice sound clearer. 
 
 " I can't apologize," she said. " The thing's too 
 perfectly awful. But wouldn't you please forget it 
 and let us start fair ? Just as if nothing had hap- 
 pened." He looked very stiff and unbending. He 
 was plainly holding himself up. She was anything but 
 small, yet he towered above her in a quite unjustifi- 
 able way, by sheer force of moral superiority clearly, 
 and not of inches. 
 
 " It's always a mistake, I think, to start upon a 
 misconception," he said. ' I fear I must claim the 
 right to defend myself before we start at all. If I
 
 86 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 begin as a prig in your mind I am pretty sure to go 
 on as one." He spoke unsmilingly. He chilled her. 
 
 " Oh ! But that surely will depend on yourself." 
 
 " Or on your mental image of me. That will probably 
 be stronger than myself." 
 
 Here, had she but known it, was true humility. 
 But she only saw an argumentative young man who 
 took himself too seriously, and was still very red. 
 
 If a person is superior, he ought not also to be red. 
 Dolly ceased to be sorry and became right-minded. 
 
 " Oh, please do let us take the incident as ended, and 
 begin again with the soup and another subject. There 
 are such thousands of nice ones." 
 
 " And the prig would pervade them all. That 
 would be a matter of indifference to you if the subjects 
 proved absorbing, but I should not like it." 
 
 He was eating his soup all right. Dolly's heart 
 went on hardening. She did not take into considera- 
 tion his youth and an unimpaired digestion. 
 
 " No one," she said severely, " can prove the non- 
 existence of the prig but yourself and the future. 
 And if he doesn't exist you oughtn't to be afraid of 
 him." 
 
 " Every man is afraid of a libel." 
 
 " I should laugh at libels ! " 
 
 " You've never been libelled." 
 
 " Well, no," she said. " Most of the things I've 
 been accused of have been only too true." 
 
 " I can see," he said, pausing sadly over his fish, 
 " that you couldn't see anything from my point of 
 view. It's not to be expected." 
 
 " Why couldn't I ? No one's ever accused me of 
 being dull yet." 
 
 " There are some points of view that must be lived 
 in order to be understood, and I'm always forgetting 
 it." 
 
 There was something rather nice in the abrupt, 
 unconsidered way he finished up, and he was no longer 
 red. She could see him more plainly ; his features 
 were good. He was improving in every way.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 87 
 
 " I'll renounce my claim," he said in the pause. 
 There was a slight tone of renunciation in his pleasant 
 voice. " So choose your subject." 
 
 " Then I'll choose your claim," said Dolly gener- 
 ously, and with lively curiosity. She wanted some 
 explanation of the resigned tone. 
 
 " I haven't any, after all. You see, it's not often 
 a man gets a chance to tell anyone that he's not a prig. 
 The temptation was tremendous, so I yielded to it. 
 Now I find I haven't any defence. At least, I haven't 
 any words to fit the case. I thought I'd found a 
 platform and I haven't. I haven't anything now to 
 hang words on. That's humiliation enough, don't you 
 think, for one dinner ? Won't you come to the rescue, 
 Miss Alderson, with one of the invincible subjects ? " 
 
 " You've taken their power away. I want nothing 
 now but your claim." 
 
 " And nothing but fists and silence can deal with 
 that, as I ought to have known." 
 
 " Is it as serious as that ? " 
 
 " It is to me. You betrayed me into words." 
 
 " I wish I hadn't," she said, after a pause. "_ And, 
 there is something besides fists and silence. You can 
 laugh at the whoii thing. You have a perfect right 
 to laugh, for you're not a prig. And I'm glad, after 
 all, that I did betray you into words, or perhaps I'd 
 never have known you weren't." 
 
 " Then," he said blankly, " appearances are as much 
 against me as that ? " 
 
 " And yet," she sighed, " even without one smile 
 you've overcome them. If you'd laugh once properly 
 you'd never want fists or silence again, but I'm glad 
 you can box, and other people would hear something 
 interesting, and be as happy as they meant to be." 
 
 " I'm sorry I've spoilt your dinner." 
 
 " Oh ! It's not as bad as that. It would take 
 a great deal to spoil my dinner." 
 
 ' I had come in early to — er — look at you before I 
 took you in," he said, with startling suddenness, '.'. and 
 I, too, had meant to be happy."
 
 88 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Here seriousness became him, and the unaccustomed 
 way in which he said it would have melted a stone. 
 
 ' There's still time," she murmured. ' Let us be 
 happy over the strawberries." 
 
 And without further ado she slipped into happiness, 
 like a nightingale into song. 
 
 It made Cuthbert nervous. He was unused either 
 to ease or happiness. He had had as little of either 
 as it is possible to conceive. He had been bond slave 
 to outraged feminine morality and a weak heart from 
 his birth, and even before it. 
 
 His mother, who had only too good reason to know 
 all about them, had spent all his pre-natal existence 
 in praying that he might be delivered from every 
 masculine vice. And his father having been removed 
 by an apoplexy when the boy was three years old, 
 his education was continued on the same lines. To 
 keep Faunce unspotted of the world, Mrs. Cuthbert 
 shut it out. The guarded lamb had the weariest 
 time of it. In spite of a naturally strong will of his 
 own, his mother had an invincible power over him, 
 and used it without mercy, ruthlessly. His slightest 
 protest was enough to bring on a genuine attack of 
 angina pectoris, to which by her >• inexorable decree 
 he was always witness. She had had enough of a 
 feeble distaste for the stern facts of life. 
 
 Being a boy of decent impulses, Faunce had spent 
 his boyhood in desisting. The only real deception he 
 had ever practised on his mother was to read ' ' Tom 
 Brown " in bed. 
 
 That troubled his poor little pampered conscience 
 for weeks, but it left him with an inextinguishable 
 desire to go to school like other boys. From this he 
 suffered bitterly all his school days, which were spent 
 at home hemmed in by tutors. 
 
 They fairly poured learning into his system. It 
 was an unusually receptive one ; besides, he would 
 have gone mad longing for school if he had not absorbed 
 learning at every pore. There was nothing to do but 
 to learn. So he learned all they could teach him,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 89 
 
 only to find it a mill-stone around his neck. He had 
 no one to share it with or compare it with, so as to 
 keep it moving and alive in him. He was fast becoming 
 a mausoleum of dead facts : even the life in the books 
 was beginning to die out, when the family literally 
 stormed his mother's house, and insisted on the boy's 
 going to Oxford. 
 
 The family, according to Mrs. Cuthbert's expert 
 diagnosis, were black sheep to a man ; but since the 
 tutor sided with them, she had to give in and let Faunce 
 go to Oxford. 
 
 He went, accompanied by her and the most clear- 
 sighted amongst the tutors. He swept up all the 
 honours, did all things excellently. In some ways 
 his mother was no fool : he had been well taught — 
 but he won for his pains the widespread reputation of 
 a prig. 
 
 For his poor mind had grown stiff, the laughter in 
 him was still in swaddling-clothes, and he was bitterly 
 shy. 
 
 He was silent, unsmiling, strenuous. He did all 
 things with the air of one who does his duty. He 
 had even failed to win popularity with his fists, but 
 he had shown his college, at least, that he could 
 box. 
 
 He had made howling mistakes at Oxford and but 
 few friends. The constant irritation of his mother, 
 together with his bitter secret disappointment at the 
 result of his baptism of fire, had begun to spoil his 
 natural sweetness of nature. 
 
 He had done himself less than justice, and he was 
 now rapidly finding this out. All the sorrows that 
 fall lightly on the supple pup were descending like a 
 load of bricks on the harder grain of the full-grown dog. 
 And yet even now he could not cast off his mother 
 and be his own man at last ; and if he could, he would 
 not have done it. She was his mother. She had 
 suffered most things. She lived for him. 
 
 Moreover, if he is, so to speak, shut in with an over- 
 whelming woman, bondage becomes a habit with a
 
 9 o DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 man. The only real freedom Faunce ever found was 
 in dreams ; so he spent much of his life dreaming. 
 It was the only pleasure he had. Hunting, fishing, 
 all the things men do, must be done well, of course ; 
 but when you have no friends in any sport, it rathcr 
 spoils them all. 
 
 What Cuthbert suffered out hunting, wishing the 
 fellows would treat him as one of themselves, no one 
 but himself knew. The Hunt considered that since 
 he was the chief member of it, and the hardest rider, 
 the initiative should come from him and not from 
 it, and set up its proud back. That a man with the 
 finest estate in the county and the best horses had 
 never asked one of them inside his house naturally 
 excited fierce resentment. He would have been glad 
 enough to ask all of them for the sheer comfort of 
 companionship, only that his mother was a rabid 
 teetotaller and had sold the contents of the cellars 
 for charity. He could have offered them nothing 
 but barley water. Mrs. Cuthbert was, however, as 
 inexorable in the sacrifice of herself as of his fore- 
 fathers' good wine. 
 
 Having guided him safely through his University 
 career, her next duty was to guide him through the 
 even more dangerous path to matrimony. 
 
 She did not do it lightly. Far from it. The Old 
 Adam gave her infinite trouble. It took her three 
 months of hard praying to accustom her even in a 
 small degree to the thought of a daughter-in-law. But 
 in the end the Lord prevailed ; so she put it. 
 
 It then cost her three months' close inquiry and a 
 voluminous correspondence to find fitting objects for 
 Cuthbert's attentions. 
 
 She was within two minds, indeed, as to whether 
 she should not call the services of Scotland Yard into 
 the matter. She had the poorest opinion of the mar- 
 riageable girl of the day. In the end she left it to 
 the " Lord," and Cuthbert's bringing-up. 
 
 Cuthbert had no desire whatsoever for matrimony, 
 but he liked the opportunity of looking at girls. He
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 91 
 
 had seen so few. He hoped in his heart that he would 
 make a better job of them than he had done of men. 
 
 So far he could not natter himself that he had done 
 so. Two he did not want to talk to, and two did not 
 want to talk to him. He had been a hopeless failure 
 in four distinguished houses. Girls were another 
 disappointment. His dreams were better. But when 
 he ventured out early that evening to look at her in 
 advance, no dream he had ever dreamed could stand 
 up before Dolly. 
 
 And lo ! she had called him a prig ! 
 
 His fall to earth was stupendous, and when, aching 
 in every inch of him, he had attempted a defence she 
 told him practically to be like other fellows. 
 
 He had never met another fellow yet whom he 
 could not have beaten in his own speciality, and yet 
 to be like any other fellow, that seemed to be the one 
 thing he could not do. He glanced with a horrible 
 envy at a young fool who had just failed for Sandhurst 
 for the third time, chattering to a girl, and looking 
 as though he might have just gained Heaven. 
 
 Cuthbert plunged in. He did his best. He struggled 
 hard, but he was too new to the game. To an ordinary 
 observer he might have been no more than a solemn 
 ass. Dolly had to remember not to yawn. 
 
 ' And over such strawberries, and on such a night 
 as this ! " she sighed. To encourage herself she began 
 to talk nonsense. " L'appetit vient en mangeant." 
 She talked fast, faster, more furious. She surprised 
 herself. He was a malign influence. He urged her 
 on. She talked at full speed, and her words grew wild, 
 and now her own excitement was her spur. She for- 
 got him and talked to try her powers. The spirit of 
 adventure was upon her. She was brilliantly, aston- 
 ishingly, ravishingly audacious. 
 
 Of this sort of thing Cuthbert knew nothing at all. 
 He was transfixed. 
 
 Delamer, however, seemed to have an intuition in 
 these matters. He was aware of the state of affairs 
 before Dorinda herself.
 
 92 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Miss Alderson has been thrown back upon herself, 
 I believe," he said. " She's seeing what she can do. 
 Her eyes arc full of enterprise." 
 
 " I — I wish they weren't," said Dorinda impul- 
 sively. 
 
 " It will do him no end of good. She does it 
 superblv." 
 
 " But I'm thinking of Dolly ! " 
 
 " You needn't be," he said in a strangely gentle 
 voice. ,; She's your daughter." 
 
 " But Mr. Cuthbert isn't old enough to know that. 
 He'll be thinking that she's not his mother's " 
 
 " Don't be prejudiced against him, Lady Dorinda. 
 Wait a bit and he'll do splendidly. I pin my faith 
 to Cuthbert. I know something about the fellow." 
 
 " You like him ? " 
 
 " He has a career before him — Ah ! you like that ! 
 You would — naturally." He laughed for no apparent 
 reason, and still with conscious intelligence continued 
 his dinner. 
 
 Dorinda, with a dreadful feeling of guilt, remem- 
 bered that her burning interest in one career had 
 consumed once and for all her interest in any other. 
 It had gone with the other things. That, too, had been 
 one of" the inexorable repressions. " I'm beginning 
 to wonder what's left," she thought sadly. 
 
 " My husband isn't ambitious," she said. " My 
 sympathies with careers are passive, I think. But 
 I believe you're right. I should like to be actively 
 interested in one." 
 
 "Ha!" he thought. " So that's it. A Dorinda 
 without a career to absorb herself in and to make — 
 she could do anything if she were alive — is hard to 
 grasp." 
 
 " I shall watch Mr. Cuthbert from your point of 
 view, or as near as I can get to it," said Dorinda. 
 
 " Can one measure these distances ? " 
 
 " No. But sometimes one can feel them." She 
 glanced at the young man. 
 
 " Just now I could wish that he looked happier."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 93 
 
 " I'm not sure that I could. He's got his career 
 to think of, and one must suffer to be great. By this 
 time he'll have learnt that if he had laughed even once 
 while he ate his strawberries — a good plateful, too — 
 Miss Alderson's confidence in him would have been 
 restored, and she'd have interested herself in him 
 and not in herself, and the situation would have righted 
 itself." 
 
 " I wonder how you know. I can only feel that 
 Dolly is being bored into trying a new game and 
 that she's enjoying it ; but I am not. I've never 
 liked watching any woman's daughter, not to say 
 my own, playing even with sparks." 
 
 " Fire is the most fascinating of all the elements. 
 You must play with it. It's the best part of the game 
 of life and the heart of all the religions." 
 
 " But it's always fire, and a destroyer." 
 
 "Or a test. It's inevitable, at any rate, in some 
 form." 
 
 " One can get all its warmth and all its beauty in 
 its conquered condition behind a grate," she said, with 
 a low laugh. 
 
 " You can," he said, " until you've met it before 
 it's conquered — smelt it in the open." 
 
 " I like it best on hearths, I think. Just as I like the 
 shady sides of streets. I don't want any violent heats." 
 
 " The shady side is ripping," he said, " until you've 
 stood under a vertical sun ; or to rest in, perhaps, 
 while your burns heal." 
 
 " Why should I be tormented by conversations 
 about fire ? " she thought. 
 
 There was a vague inquiry in her face. Delamer 
 was suddenly sorry for her. 
 
 The instant Dolly saw her mother alone she flew to 
 her. 
 
 " I've been rather a beast," she said. 
 " Oh, Dolly, I was afraid you were ! " 
 " But surely I didn't look it ! " 
 
 " You know very well you looked charming. But 
 Mr. Cuthbert looked miserable."
 
 94 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " No wonder. He tempted me and I fell." 
 
 " But not very far, Dolly ? " 
 
 " I don't quite know. When you enjoy a thing 
 tremendously, you can't calculate to a T the amount 
 of wickedness in it. He was superior and sulky, 
 and a bore. He wouldn't take things like a human 
 being and be friends and let me amuse him if he 
 couldn't amuse me, so I tried to amuse myself. And 
 once you begin you go on, in spite of yourself. It's 
 new and sort of fascinating. I really was rather 
 delightful. I was truly, dear darling. I could have 
 said anything. I wonder where I found the things 
 to say, and the way to say them, after being brought 
 up by you ! I believe I could have been an adven- 
 turess if I'd wanted to," she said unctuously. " Such 
 an adventuress as never was, the very latest thing 
 in adventuresses, if I hadn't been lifted above all want." 
 
 " Dolly, if I didn't know you're sorry, and that 
 this is a sort of confession, I'd be horribly dis- 
 appointed in you. As it is, I am a little. I believe you 
 behaved disgracefully to Mr. Cuthbert." 
 
 " I believe," said Dolly thoughtfully, " that Mr. 
 Cuthbert is his own worst enemy, as the rector says 
 of the village drunkards. He must learn to — to cut 
 himself for a while ; to have nothing at all to do with 
 himself. He's an extremely bad companion for him- 
 self, and the sooner he's forced into seeing it the better 
 it will be for him and for everyone else. From the 
 moment the strawberries began, after I gave him 
 his chance, which he did not take, I blotted Mr. Cuth- 
 bert out of his own mind." 
 
 " And in what a character ! " 
 
 " But if it did its work well ? Just think of the 
 relief to his poor overwhelmed mind." 
 
 " It's not the sort of work I want my girl to do," 
 said Dorinda. " It hurts other people, and, what is 
 worse a reat deal, it hurts you. I'll go to speak to 
 Mr. Cuthbert. He won't bore me ! " 
 
 " Now that," said Dolly, as her mother stood up, 
 " is a most malignant snub."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 95 
 
 And presently, in the light of her gracious presence, 
 the real Cuthbert came out into the light of the lamps ; 
 not the badgered, outraged, self-conscious creature 
 crying for the rights he had not the wit to grasp 
 — the creature Dolly had seen shrink off into the 
 night. 
 
 Meanwhile Dolly felt flattened. The lamb had 
 turned, with a vengeance, and no troop of lions ever 
 created could rend her in the way it had done. And 
 to offend a mother like this ! 
 
 " But," thought Dolly, " I don't believe 1 knew till 
 this minute what a brick she is." 
 
 " A penny for your thoughts," said Delamer. He 
 had been watching the by-play with much interest 
 and some understanding. The daughter added in a 
 bewildering way to the haunting allurement of the 
 mother. He hardly begrudged Dorinda to the boy. 
 
 " I was wondering what people with inferior sorts 
 of mothers did," she said. 
 
 ' They have a rank bad time of it sometimes. Wait 
 till you see Cuthbert's mother." 
 
 " I can imagine her," said Dolly, forgetting her 
 aspirations after a higher mind. 
 
 " Even your imagination isn't equal to that." 
 
 " It must be a most unusual family." 
 
 " Well, yes. I know of nothing like it." 
 
 " It must be rather humiliating for a very superior 
 person to be reduced to envying you your own 
 mother." 
 
 " But how do you know he is ? " 
 ' I feel it all over me. And he's wondering how on 
 earth I came by her, or having done so, failed to 
 profit by her example. All the same, if I hadn't 
 dressed her myself to-night, she'd look much more like 
 other people's mothers than she is, and much less 
 like an angel in moonshine." 
 
 ;< So you dressed her, did you ? " 
 
 " I caught her just in time. She meant to come 
 down as a chaperon." 
 
 He had wondered more than once how many
 
 96 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 memories had woven themselves into the shimmer o£ 
 white in which Dorinda sat, or if any. 
 
 There was a moment's silence. 
 
 " She is bringing back even the vanity of ray 
 youth," thought Delamer with some amusement. 
 " One has a right to expect better things from such a 
 presence." 
 
 In spite of them his eyes pursued it, searched it, 
 were on the watch for any new glimmer, half shy, half 
 elusive, of some magical secret attraction. 
 
 This expectation of growth, of novelty, of surprise 
 in anyone so purely aloof and self-contained, so simply 
 certain of all the things with which she ventured to 
 deal, was extraordinarily fascinating. She challenged 
 him to attention as so often ungrown youth does ; 
 and in her the promise was richer, fuller, more com- 
 plete, with no suggestion of the self-absorbed cruelty 
 of youth in it. 
 
 He knew very little of her, less than he did of the 
 girl beside him ; nothing of his power over her. And 
 yet, although he had never undervalued life, it seemed 
 more worth living, by reason of her, than it had done 
 for many a year. He was reinforced, the sense of 
 a fresh start was alive in him. He could admit no 
 drawback to the splendid fight : no issue to any under- 
 taking save victory. The fear of the years, the horror 
 that begins already to haunt the forties, he dismissed 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " What are you laughing at ? " said Dolly. 
 
 " I was glad, I think, that I hadn't outgrown everv- 
 thing." 
 
 "I have also changed my mind," said Dolly. 
 "I'm going to contradict what I said three hours 
 ago. Now I should be sorry I hadn't outgrown some 
 things by forty. And if other people don't out- 
 grow them by then, oh, well ! it's fortunate the world 
 is pretty big ! " 
 
 Her glance barely rested on Cuthbert, but it was 
 expressive. 
 
 " I think Lady Dorinda has done her part by her
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 97 
 
 conscience by this time. I'm going to give you the 
 opportunity to do the same by yours." 
 
 He strolled across the room, and with great charm 
 and tact sent Cuthbert about his business, which was 
 apparently to keep well out of Dolly's way. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The third dinner in the Alderson family was also an 
 important event. There was a scare just then in the 
 money market. The City was in tumult. Fear, 
 revolt, hatred, unrest, doubt, suspicion, greed, choked 
 the air. There was not an inch of blue sky to be seen 
 for the blackness of the thoughts of the money-makers. 
 And even if there were, no man had time to look up. 
 His eyes were where his heart was, glued to the 
 earth. 
 
 Richard Alderson was one of the few sane men left 
 in the grappling, grovelling, pitiful crowd, each man 
 fighting for his divine inheritance — happiness. 
 
 In these, to him, indifferent matters, Richard knew 
 too well how to wait and how to conquer despair. He 
 could sympathize with it, however. His office became, 
 as it always did in any great crisis, a centre for 
 refugees. 
 
 Every well-turned-out, self-possessed man who 
 strolled in that Saturday morning was flying from some 
 dire danger. " And yet the only danger that can 
 do him a penn'orth of harm is himself," thought 
 Richard, " or, rather — the fellow he's got to believe 
 is himself. But you can't preach common sense to 
 a man, and let his wife and children go begging while 
 he absorbs it." 
 
 So Richard kept his morality to himself, and his 
 advice was as practical as it was sound. As for his 
 money, it always seemed natural to him that it should 
 be at the disposal of anyone who wanted it. 
 
 But he was tired of the day before it was over.
 
 98 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 The very sound of money was as ashes upon his teeth, 
 and he looked forward with fresh delight to a tripe 
 dinner with his mother, to following her afterwards 
 into the freer airs of her strange world, and driving 
 home in the evening beside her through the quiet 
 streets. 
 
 He had arranged that they should dine in a little 
 inn on the river. 
 
 ''I'm glad she thought of it," he said, as he dis- 
 missed the cab and walked round to the back. ' I 
 feel like a sucked orange. Ah ! I thought she'd be 
 there ! " 
 
 She was sitting on the balcony, but not watching 
 for him. Her eyes were in some country very far 
 away. She looked as though every atom of her 
 were listening in quiet expectation. He knew the 
 mood and waited until it should have passed. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, coming back with a sigh. " It's 
 you, Richie ! " 
 
 She took him as though he were a child and turned 
 his face to the light. " It's been a hard day," she 
 said, " and it is many have come to you this day for 
 help and ye gave it ; it is tired, lad, you do be. What 
 fools they do be pestering a busy man ; and God so 
 handy and always at leisure. Sit down, Richie. 
 There's a danger near ye, lad ; but so long as it is 
 not in the heart it is, the head can deal with it. But 
 it do be there. It is after coming to me a few minutes 
 ago it did, Richie. It touched me ! It cried to me, and 
 then I thought it must surely be yourself. Who 
 else is it would cry to me ? It was the queerest 
 thing, Richard, new to me entirely. And though I 
 took it to be you, it was a weak little cry it was. 
 You have roared in your time, Richie, both absent 
 and present, but ye never let a wail out of ye yet. 
 And that was a wail if it is anything ever was. But 
 it is to come to me again if it wants me it will be 
 doing, to lead me towards it. Trust it for that ! So 
 now it is to leave it we will do, and enjoy our- 
 selves."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 99 
 
 ' To call that a tripe dinner ? " she said laughing, 
 as they came to the flower-bedecked table set out 
 under a big beech tree. 
 
 " You didn't say only tripe, and I'm famishing. 
 Sit here. That line of silver there will do very well 
 for the old river at home, and you must imagine the 
 hills and the blue haze." 
 
 'It is never very far away they do be, lad, when 
 you and myself are together. It is only when you're 
 too long away, Richard, I feel the confined size of 
 the little place and my breath goes. I think of them 
 over there," she said, pointing to London, " who do 
 not so much as know what size do be, and then, 
 Richie, I come nigh to choking. If one could take 
 them and let them stretch in a big, clean country, 
 if it was only for once it was ! Oh ! Richie, they do 
 put a grief upon me." 
 
 " Don't think of it now." 
 
 " But it is to think of it I have to do, and get it 
 off my mind ! It was down in the courts not ten 
 minutes from the house I was to-day, Richie, and it 
 was the patience of the creatures in them that killed 
 the heart in me entirely. And then to be thinking of 
 the queer, sorrowful God they have set up over there, 
 and they as proud as Punch of Him, without a thought 
 in the minds of them to be after going out in the quiet 
 evening to find some more reasonable and knowledgeable 
 God they could turn to in the distress of their hearts. 
 And even if they had the mind to go seeking, where 
 is it the creatures could find peace and quiet without 
 it was the church ? And that do be shut up, or that 
 choked with the notions of men there is no room for 
 God left." 
 
 " Don't be prejudiced, mother." 
 
 " But, Richie, is it not myself has tried a power 
 av churches and, oh, lad, it is glad I do be for the quiet 
 of the old days, and the mind that would not rest content 
 till it knew. One would as easy find God in some of 
 the churches there as in the middle of a family wash in 
 Laffan's Mews." 
 
 4*
 
 ioo DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' You'll be getting into trouble with your theology. 
 Do you tell them all this ? " 
 
 " Now, Richie, do you do it yerself, my son ? Is it 
 yourself will be telling the college gentlemen when 
 they do come cringing to you for help in their troubles 
 that all that any man wants he holds in his own soul, 
 only it is you had the grace and the courage and the 
 sense and the manners to take it, and they had not ? 
 I do as you do, Richard, I give them God's money put 
 in my hands, and I trust in God to make them see 
 His Son with both His hands full, begging them to take 
 all He has. Faith, it is hard it is to trust. All I can 
 see with my outside eyes is a false content and a God 
 bred in the gutter." 
 
 " The gutter God isn't the worst, I daresay." 
 
 " Like enough, but He is the one I met last, and it 
 is not to get quit of Him in a minnut I can be doing. 
 Oh, lad, let us forget the creatures and their queer 
 inventions and go away out of this, out of the weeds 
 and the thistles over into the clean wheat. I wonder 
 what herself and Dolly do be doing now ? " 
 
 " They're at dinner, but it's not such a dinner as 
 ours ; they haven't any tripe. Are you ready for 
 more ? " 
 
 " Presently, lad. It is white Dolly's frock do be. 
 She showed me all her gowns, Richie. It is glad I 
 am the child's taken to me." 
 
 " How could she do anything else ? " 
 
 Mary looked dubious, but she went on happily with 
 her dinner. 
 
 " I wonder what it is herself will wear ? " 
 
 ' ' White, too, I hope. She is a woman made for 
 white and pearls. She has splendid diamonds of her 
 own, but she never wears them unless she has to, when 
 she goes out in full war-paint. She keeps to the pearls 
 I gave her. Dorinda does beautiful things beautifully." 
 
 "It is a good woman she do be. If I could know 
 your wife, Richard, I would not have one more earthly 
 thing to wish for." 
 
 " Nor I," said Richard, with a quiet laugh.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 101 
 
 "It is myself would like to say something to give 
 hope to you, Richie, but it is hid from me it is. It 
 is a veil there is, a veil between itself and me, and it 
 is not for the like of me to lift. But," said Mary, 
 laughing gently, " when she comes to yourself and 
 afterwards to me, it is not herself must find me asking 
 for more tripe as bold as brass. It is a real lace cap 
 I do be keeping for that blessed day, Richie, and it is 
 my figure I do be keeping for it every bit as much as 
 I do for yourself." 
 
 " You vain old woman ! " 
 
 " It is every bit as glad I am to be handsome, Richie 
 — old as young. It is to thank God I do now for it, 
 as much as I did when I first knew of it. Looking 
 day after day into an ugly face growing uglier with 
 every day would take the heart out of one, so it would. 
 It is a hard task-master the years will be on you, if 
 it is to let them you do. But even without a feature 
 on your face, it is your rights you can squeeze out of 
 them. But with features," she said, with her splendid 
 laugh, "it is nothing to fear you have and nothing to 
 fight for. It is to take the face and the figure as you 
 do the daily bread and to thank God with the same 
 breath for both. It is I would be ashamed fornenst 
 the years," said Mary proudly, "if I didn't get back 
 from them in another way every bit as much as they 
 have taken from me in one way. If God didn't make 
 handsome women for better things than to be doing 
 mischief, it is a queer thing entirely. It is to show 
 off His goodness, I think, He was after making them." 
 
 " What about the ugly ones ? " 
 
 " There do be a power of goodness shut up behind 
 an ugly skin, I don't deny," said Mary with sym- 
 pathy ; " but I do be sorry for the skin, and for the 
 eyes that do be put off looking for the goodness behind 
 it. Sometimes I think if you have the right God inside 
 you, it is He will shine out through your face. It is 
 the feckless Gods, and the foolish ones, and the un- 
 reasonable ones that spoil the faces. For myself I 
 like to see a God that did what he set out to do in the 
 
 4t
 
 102 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 faces of men. God never set out to make ugliness ! 
 It is the ugliness that turns away from God, God help 
 it ! and makes itself." 
 
 " The God in our family must be fairly sound, I 
 think," said Richard. 
 
 " Ah ! It is Himself all right is in it, Richie. But, 
 Richie, is it they can see Him, do you think ? It 
 is to wake up wide one has to do to see God, and it 
 is more it takes than a God-fearing life to do that, 
 for man or woman. If herself had seen God, Richie, 
 I doubt but she would have seen yourself too.' 1 
 " Wheedling old mother ! "- 
 
 ' Richie ! It is glad I am you let me go on talking 
 and let yourself rest. My grief ! If one could never 
 talk out a bit of one's own heart I "■ 
 
 " But you have more chances than most of us and 
 a pleasing variety in your listeners. How many 
 parsons come to see you now and try to gather you 
 into their fold ? " 
 
 "It is the English church man and the curate boys 
 that come, Richie, and three priests, and a teetotaller 
 regular. And I have a Baptist now. It is very hope- 
 ful of having me in his old water-tank he is, Richie, 
 and at my age ! Oh ! it's listening and learning I do 
 be. And it is to die every one of them would, and 
 rejoice in it, for the little difference between his notions 
 and those of the other gentlemen. And it is a good 
 sight rather die he would than live peaceable in the 
 same God, and see with His eyes, and be content not 
 to see at all at all till the sight do come to him, only 
 to wait and to know it is shining there it is behind the 
 darkness for every one of them. And, indeed, it is 
 myself that is the worst of all the lot," she sighed, " to 
 be laughing at them." 
 
 " They certainly take a lot of trouble with you." 
 " They do, faith ! It is hard work they do have." 
 " It's necessary. You must be hopelessly unsound 
 from every man's point of view. By this time I don't 
 suppose there's a sound spot left in you." 
 
 "It is the Baptist young man took the last. It
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 103 
 
 is the priest is the most cheerful as to my latter end, 
 being as I was christened in his church. It is himself 
 gives me some sort of security. But it is a continual 
 annoyance I do be to the whole of them. And yet 
 it is to keep coming to see me they will be. It is 
 great company for me, Richard, and they like the 
 tea, when so be they can drink it one at a time. But 
 with a different God, and a different Bible, and a 
 different world in each man's head and each man's 
 heart, it is myself do get that moithered." 
 
 " I should think they did, too ! '■'- 
 
 ' They do sometimes," she said with an apprecia- 
 tive smile. ' But it is worse for me it is, keeping 
 them apart. It's all right if it do be the rector that 
 strikes the rest. It is he has learnt to hold his feelings 
 in, but if it is one of the curate boys comes upon the 
 Methodist or the Baptist, it is something shines out 
 through all the faces, and faith, it is not God it do 
 be. The priest, knowing himself to be the only true 
 apostle among them, looks always as if butter would 
 not melt in his mouth." 
 
 " Have you always plenty to give to all of them ? " 
 
 " As if I wouldn't ask you, Richard, if I had not. 
 Oh! Richie, I wonder if you could ever get the joy 
 out of your big charities all the world knows of that 
 we do, the two of us, out of these little ones only known 
 to ourselves." 
 
 " Of course I couldn't. And I believe you're a 
 wicked old woman who enjoys setting your parsons by 
 the ears quite as much as you do feeding the hungry.' 1 
 
 " Richie ! I believe I do. And I hope it isn't 
 a sin it is, for I would be hard driven to give it 
 up. ?i 
 
 They were down now by the river watching the play 
 of the moon on the murmuring water, and behind 
 them in the trees the nightingales sang. 
 
 " That is something they have, Richie, that we 
 have not over there beyond, and it is myself could 
 not do without it now. I do often be wondering if the 
 nightingales could have seen the Lord in the Garden
 
 104 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 that night, and if His love and His sorrow could have 
 got into their song for ever. 
 
 "Oh, Richie! " she said suddenly, "I did not tell 
 you. But I had a dream the other night and it was 
 myself I saw pouring out tea for your wife, and there 
 was a look of love upon her face. And it looked so 
 young, Richie, and so sorrowful, and a little afeard. 
 It was not Lady Dorinda, Richie, it was your wife 
 ■come home to the old mother — for help." 
 
 She broke off, paused, and gave a quick, soft cry, 
 a curious primitive sound as of some bird in trouble. 
 
 "It is the danger it is, Richie. It is very close 
 it is. It touches me. It is for you — Oh ! my son, it 
 is for yourself. And it is myself cannot help you or 
 defend you. Richie, let us go home." 
 
 She stopped when they had reached the terrace. 
 
 " And I nearly forgot, Richie, so I did. Is it your- 
 self has to do now with — with — what is the word ? " 
 She shut her eyes to look for it. 
 
 " Ah, yes ! with Allart's mine." 
 
 " Rather ! " 
 
 " Then it is to sell you must do the first thing to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " But, mother "- 
 
 " Richie, it is not contradicting me you do be ? — 
 And save all the people you can. Richie, it is not their 
 fault, it is the fault of them that owns the mine." 
 
 Never had Richard found it so difficult, so insane 
 almost, to obey his mother. But she had never failed 
 him yet. He had no argument to prove the wisdom 
 of his instructions to sell, his advice to others to do 
 the same. He gave his irrational command, his 
 irrational advice without a comment, and saw that 
 both were obeyed. For some days there were queer 
 rumours in regard to Alderson floating round the 
 City. 
 
 Six months later the mine, run by a genius, was 
 proved rotten.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 105 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Faunce Cuthbert had endured many humiliations 
 in his short life, and no doubt deserved them all. The 
 one sure consolation in a hard world seems to be the 
 fact that most of us do deserve all we get, and yet 
 we are sorry for each other. Even the man with the 
 robust conscience is sorry for the midges he hurts in 
 his way to freedom. And when it comes to a man with 
 a woman-bred conscience having to get rid of his 
 mother before he can call his soul his own, the difficulties 
 mount. 
 
 Moreover, nothing on earth damages the energy of 
 youth like tears. Cuthbert had always seen every- 
 thing he had ever wanted through a mist of tears ; 
 so that even if he got it the bloom was all washed off. 
 
 He could not even look back with any pleasure or 
 self-respect to having been an extraordinarily good 
 son. Tear-sodden morality lies heavier on the con- 
 science than honest sin. 
 
 " I never knew before how much I have lost, or 
 how much I want, or how much I could do, or what 
 a blooming ass I look to other people," he thought, 
 as Delamer carried off Lady Dorinda. He glanced 
 round the room. Miss Alderson was lightly occupied 
 with another girl. He could have claimed her if he 
 had wanted to. "I won't," he said. " How dare 
 she treat me as if I were an ass ? It shows she's one 
 herself. "- 
 
 He got furiously red and blundered out through 
 a French window on to the terrace. Then remem- 
 bering his own late summing-up of his general effect, 
 he laughed. 
 
 " But there's some excuse for me,"- he said, " and
 
 io6 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 there's none for her. Women like that ought- to see. 
 Her mother saw all right. And so shall she," he said, 
 after a short fierce smoke. " And if she does — well, 
 then, I won't have any trouble with the rest of the 
 world." 
 
 An odd, unhealthy look of pain altered the young 
 face built for normality. ^ 
 
 "I'm twenty-four," he said, " with more than most 
 men to recommend me, and I have hardly a friend in 
 the world. I know worse fellows who have crowds. 
 It's a rank bad beginning. A man can't do without 
 friends. I know that now. Talking to her told 
 me somehow. You must lead up to women through 
 men. Feeling sore in your own little corner doesn't 
 do much for you. No one seems very anxious to 
 come and poke you out. By Jove ! I believe it's 
 that I've been waiting for ! And it seems you've 
 got to do the job yourself in the end, the best way 
 you can. It will be bad," he said after a long pause, 
 shivering in the way of a sensitive girl. " I haven't 
 got the way of doing things yet like ofher fellows ; 
 but one can. I'll do it in time." 
 
 He threw back his fine head and the tragic touch 
 impressed b) r a woman's folly upon his young face 
 shone out in a shaft of light from the drawing-room. 
 His mother, praying for him that moment, in her 
 gloomy room, knew nothing of it, and was as content 
 with the God of her invention as Mary's patient paupers 
 with theirs. 
 
 "I'll do tilings as the other fellows do them," he 
 said at last, " only better. There's plenty of time. 
 I'll get the best out of life ; and I'll marry her or I'll 
 never marry anyone." 
 
 He threw away his cigarette, went back into the 
 room, and carefully avoided Dolly. 
 
 But his resolution was made and fixed. He looked 
 out at life through a new medium. 
 
 That night he lay awake thinking of Dolly, and 
 then he fell asleep and dreamt of Dorinda. Dolly had 
 waked him into life. Dorinda rocked him to sleep.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 107 
 
 Through the medium of two highly falhble women, a 
 wealth of new simplicity and some subtlety was being 
 poured into Faunce. 
 
 He awoke next morning a lion refreshed. 
 
 " If I'd known there were such people/ 1 he said, as 
 he plunged out of his bath, " I'd have done better at 
 Oxford ; but, never mind, there's plenty of time still.' 5 
 
 He had been drilled into despising carnal comforts 
 by the bleak discipline of his mother's household. 
 He found a new and exhilarating flavour in his food. 
 He ate with the pure joy of a healthy young animal. 
 He was cutting a plate of ham for himself at the side- 
 board when Dolly came in, and the devil of old habit 
 plucked at his courage. He turned his back, and for 
 one instant made as though he did not see her. The 
 next he swung round, and with charming hospitality 
 offered her the plate. 
 
 " But do I look as hungry as that ? " she inquired. 
 The cursed red flew to his cheeks, he very nearly 
 sneaked back defeated. But he overcame the impulse 
 and set the plate imperatively down before her. 
 
 " I cut it for myself as it happened, and meant to 
 cut more later on. That would be nothing to a man 
 of your size. Suppose you tackle it, and see how it 
 works out." 
 
 Still blushing like a girl, he supplied her with mustard 
 and the other things, then attended to his own sup- 
 plies. He wondered when he had gathered in his senses 
 again how on earth he had done it all. Delamer, 
 who had come in after Dolly, watched the young 
 people with interest. 
 
 " Something has happened in the seen or the un- 
 seen, 51 said he to himself, " and woman, as usual, is 
 at the root of it. And here it's a complication of two 
 women. u 
 
 " What's the order of the day ? " he asked. 
 
 " For us ? '-'- said Dolly. " Loafing in the morning 
 and London in the afternoon." 
 
 "And I," said Cuthbert, a shade too glibly, "start 
 at eleven o'clock.- 5
 
 io8 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 He had thought of starting at three, but to strengthen 
 his position and his mind, he was cutting himself out 
 of the mystic possibilities of half a summer's day. 
 He was too bound up in the strenuous life to escape 
 at a moment's notice from its snaky coils. 
 
 " I say ! " said Delamer with some sympathy. " Not 
 even time for a personally conducted tour amongst 
 the spirits. Miss Alderson runs the show daily." 
 
 Dolly, rather thoughtfully eating, now looked up 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " I never bore people with my ghosts," she said. 
 ' It would never strike me that Mr. Cuthbert would 
 be the least interested in such floating feathery sort 
 of things. "- 
 
 " But you thought T should be ! " 
 
 " You ! '■'- she said, laughing. " I could imagine 
 you blowing bubbles when you're tired of being a 
 lion. I wonder if you got out of being serious 
 young." 
 
 '* I did,"- he said, standing up to greet Dorinda. " I 
 was hustled into right-mindedness and a liking for 
 floating feathery things at twenty-four." 
 
 Dorinda had spent a most elevating morning with 
 Thomas a Kempis, and this to be the result of it ! 
 His keen, unemotional face was turned not to her 
 — not even when he handed her things, but to Dolly, 
 and his words might mean anything or nothing. The 
 very way in which her appetite fled made Dorinda 
 feel guilty. 
 
 " I'll be with Richard in four hours," she said. " And 
 I won't ask him to come to see us. It must be Richard 
 who asks him. I'll ask the boy, though." 
 
 " I didn't hear all the beginning," she said, looking 
 across at Cuthbert, ' but I think somebody must 
 have been libelling Dolly's ghosts, and she's had to 
 defend them." 
 
 There was the pause of a moment. 
 
 " Miss Alderson is defending them against me," 
 said Faunce, red but steady. " I didn't attack them, 
 but she felt that I ought to, if she knew anything at
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 109 
 
 all about me. As it happens, I'm not at all superior 
 to ghosts." 
 
 " I'm sorry if you really are interested," Dolly said 
 sweetly, " and I forgot that just now ghosts are 
 very important people. The minds of some of 
 the most serious people I know seem to be fixed on 
 them." 
 
 " But I'm very far from having risen to scientific 
 ghosts. I'd much rather begin with yours." 
 
 " Mine ! But they're common property really, and 
 I must write a letter directly after breakfast, and you 
 go at eleven. But if you really want to, you'll find 
 them in the Italian garden. And the book with the 
 story is on the third shelf, to the left of the statue of 
 Minerva, in the library. Good-bye, everybody ! "• 
 
 She sailed off charmingly, and Delamer strolled 
 over to Lady Dorinda and Cuthbert. 
 
 ' Put off going till the afternoon," said Dorinda 
 to the boy upon some quick impulse of self-preserva- 
 tion, " and I'll show you your first ghost and tell 
 you your first ghost story. I wonder if you know 
 anything at all of frivolous garden ghosts, or frivolous 
 garden fairy-tales ? " 
 
 " Not a word ! I was carefully protected from 
 listening to any." 
 
 ' Then you've got no end of delight before you." 
 
 His early departure vanished like smoke. He 
 followed her as one bewildered. 
 
 " If she wasn't herself, and the girl that she is," 
 reflected Delamer, " she might be a mother-in-law 
 on the war-path.- I wonder how long the letter will 
 take, or if Miss Dolly will' have the decency to prolong 
 it until the time of his departure is past ? I don't 
 suppose for a moment she will. He put her in the 
 wrong and will have to suffer for it. Quite right, 
 Miss Dolly. I wonder when you'll be ready to come 
 out with me." 
 
 She was ready even sooner than he had dared to 
 hope, and he found her, untroubled by a doubt, coming 
 towards him.
 
 no DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 I thought you'd be here," she said. 
 ' The letter was rather short ? " 
 ' It was exactly the right length for such a morning. 
 I did write it." 
 
 " I have no doubt of that. I was only afraid you 
 might have been induced to spin it out." 
 
 She laughed gaily. 
 
 " I haven't your consideration or my mother's ! 
 Besides, he scored off me in the end. It's he 
 who ought to time his departure and spare my 
 feelings." 
 
 ' You haven't given him any especial reason to 
 believe in the existence of them, have you ? " 
 
 ' Well, no. I hope not. He's made me feel, all 
 the same, in a way I won't soon forget. In my efforts 
 to protect him — er — from himself, I've been snubbed 
 in a most unjustifiable way by you and by my mother. 
 He's six foot odd. He is neither a poor relation nor a 
 cripple. Why should everyone be protecting him 
 and snubbing me ? I'll be blushing next and requiring 
 consolation." 
 
 " May I be there to offer my poor services." 
 ' You wouldn't ! You'd deride me as I deserve." 
 
 " Possibly. But Cuthbert doesn't deserve derision." 
 
 " And yet he wants excuses t " 
 
 ' He doesn't at all. He wants a little time and 
 the trick's done. I don't know even if he wants time. 
 These things are done in an instant. It struck me, 
 by the way in which he made you eat that ham, that 
 he might have grown up in the night." 
 
 " And was still blushing with the painful effort. I 
 like things done without all that fuss." 
 
 " Not half so much as the wretch himself would 
 like it. If a man with a fatal gift for blushing is 
 forced tc fight his way back to Nature in the eye of 
 the public, it's a desperate grind. And those of us 
 who aren't angels, or poets, or philanthropists, are 
 apt to get bored." 
 
 " Don't you be any of the three. Be a nice, good- 
 natured lion, and let us forget him."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER in 
 
 " The natural lion has a never- failing appetite for 
 youth and innocence. So what about you ? " 
 
 " No well-conducted lion would eat me. I have 
 an affinity for lions. It would be like eating his own 
 cub." 
 
 " I believe it would," he said with an odd laugh. 
 
 " You'll come to see us quite soon, won't you ? " 
 
 " But may I ? I haven't been asked." 
 
 " But you're asked now. My mother probably 
 took your coming for granted. Ah ! here they are ! 
 Mother ! I've been doing your duty. I've just been 
 asking Mr. Delamer to come to see us." 
 
 " But, Dolly ! Your father will call." 
 
 " And then the lion will be asked to bring in some 
 large and spreading lioness to dinner, and where am 
 I ? Come first as a human being to see me. We'll 
 have nursery tea, and cherry jam, and hot bread, and 
 the others can come in if they like." 
 
 " I'll bring Mr. Cuthbert," said Dorinda. 
 
 " Can you eat hot bread ? " inquired Dolly. 
 
 The wretched boy got scarlet, and by sheer force 
 of habit spoke the simple truth. 
 
 ' I've never eaten it," he said, ' but of course I 
 can." 
 
 " I wish I could," said Delamer mercifully. He had, 
 as it happened, the digestion of an ostrich. 
 
 ' I was brought up with indigestions," said Cuth- 
 bert, making a gallant recovery, " and never saw hot 
 bread except in the shops. But I've dreamed of it. 
 You refused to introduce me to my first ghost, Miss 
 Alderson. You won't deprive me of my first hot 
 bread, will you ? " 
 
 Dolly was generous by nature, and he had a striking 
 face. Suddenly she felt as though she had been hitting 
 some one smaller than herself. 
 
 " I've never led anyone into temptation before," 
 she said. " It will be a new pleasure. Do Come ! 
 To-morrow ? Can we be at home to-morrow, 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Yes. It's the only day this week."
 
 ii2 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' Then do come ! I'll have everything no one- 
 ought to eat. It will be a tea-party of forbidden 
 things ! " 
 
 They were standing on the terrace in the shade of 
 a tree. The clear morning light fell full upon Dorinda, 
 etching out with almost uncanny purity of detail 
 her perfect outlines, the simple directness of her lines, 
 the noble grandeur of her proportions. And it lingered 
 with almost tragic cruelty upon her one defect, upon 
 the weakness of nerve and muscle about her sweet 
 and innocent mouth. 
 
 For an instant Delamer, who was closely watching 
 her, was startled, displeased, disillusioned ; involun- 
 tarily he took a step back and looked again. The 
 second look altered the impression, and moved him 
 as he had not believed himself now capable of being 
 moved. 
 
 A sense of tragedy, of an unassuageable need, and 
 a holy silence, seemed all at once to enclose the weak- 
 ness of this magically pure woman, this virgin mother, 
 and to draw every atom of him, spirit, soul and body, 
 irresistibly towards her. 
 
 He had known most of the struggles that rend the 
 hearts of men. He had fought, and lost, and won, 
 with the best. He thought he had done with struggles. 
 And here in the prime of his years had come the first 
 and the last : the corner-stone and the coping-stone of 
 all the struggles that make man. The eternal struggle 
 in the heart of man, between Mary the Mother of God 
 and that other Mary, before she had looked up and 
 seen herself as God saw her. And here in this woman 
 the two were one. He had thought himself passionate 
 enough ; but ambition, cynicism, and a wife who 
 had taken these things as philosophically as he him- 
 self did, had kept his passions fairly well in check. 
 
 What a man can have cheaply and without danger 
 loses half its value. And he was always more epicure 
 than animal. But this exquisite woman, this altar 
 of slaked fire, this shimmer of mystery, with the 
 entrancing nobility of her simplicity, the appeal of
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 113 
 
 her weakness, sent the blood rocking through his 
 veins. The madness of boyhood was in his heart. 
 He felt ready to steal any fire from Heaven. The 
 superhuman difficulty he had been aching to find 
 was there, not five steps from him ! 
 
 This did not strike him then ; nothing reasonable 
 struck him. He was incapable of sane thought. He 
 was possessed by an invincible power of unreason. 
 
 The primitive passion of mature years and unim- 
 paired health was upon him. And nothing but a 
 sentimental scruple or two — his code of conventional 
 morality was his own — and a fatherly friendship for 
 Dolly to hold him in check. 
 
 ' I want you all," called out Mrs. Burgoyne. " I've 
 been scouring the country for you. Flora has outdone 
 herself. Such pups as never were seen ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Most of us are glad enough to forget, or, at least, to 
 leave behind us, some of the bitter, helpless little 
 tragedies of childhood, and to hurry out into the full 
 strong sun of the young summer. But Dolly never 
 wanted to forget anything, or to hurry anything. 
 She wanted to carry everything along with her. She 
 regretted even her short frocks, and meant from the 
 first that the nurseries should grow up with her. 
 
 They were charming rooms, and she had been 
 gloriously happy in them. She felt forlorn in the 
 exquisite new rooms her mother had prepared for 
 her when she had gone with her governess to the sea. 
 Dolly was grateful and pleased, but she had left a 
 thousand alive things in the old rooms, and she was 
 always wanting them. 
 
 One day Dorinda found her sitting in the dismantled 
 nurseries crying. " I know I'm a beast," said Dolly, 
 with a queer little tremble about her mouth, " but 
 please let me come back."
 
 U4 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 So Dorinda, the sweetest dreamer that ever drew 
 breath, did not even look regretful. But it was only- 
 to-day for the first time, as she came in with Cuthbert, 
 that she felt Dolly to have been justified in her choice. 
 
 The rooms all opened into one another. They were 
 large and low, and full of country quiet. The sun 
 danced through placid plane leaves into all the win- 
 dows. One forgot the ugliness of roof and chimney, 
 and the clotted breath of the city, and remembered 
 nothing but sun, and youth, and Dolly. 
 
 Dorinda had dropped her burthen of responsibility 
 at Richard's feet, as far as she could do so in words, 
 and the rest she had firmly persuaded herself was 
 too shadowy for words. She admitted no reservation. 
 Strong in the protecting vicinity of Richard, she was 
 bent on innocent enjoyment. The bodily presence 
 of Richard was in the city to be sure, but his spirit 
 had made her strorlg. 
 
 She looked very beautiful. 
 
 Delamer, even without the spirit of Richard to 
 sustain him, also promised himself a pleasant afternoon. 
 What a room ! " he said. " And what a tree, 
 and sky, and sun ! It's the youngest sun I've met 
 yet in England. Mrs. Burgoyne's sun was a lusty 
 stripling to it. How do you manage it, Lady 
 Dorinda ? " 
 
 ' 1 don't know. Ask Dolly. The rooms, and the 
 tree, and the sun are all hers. I had got ready much 
 more magnificent rooms for her." 
 
 1 haven't said a word yet," said Faunce to him- 
 self. " And it's more my party than his. It's my 
 insides that have got to be made hay of, and not his." 
 
 A wave of the old defeated soreness was about to 
 break over Faunce, when he remembered himself, 
 and went to the rescue of Dolly and a refractory lamp. 
 
 The arrested flush, the half-masterful determination 
 in the boy, the slightly breathless effort it cost him, 
 made him quite charming. Dorinda felt proud of him. 
 Dolly's ample repast was set out on the table as befitted 
 a nursery.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 115 
 
 " Shall I cut the bread ? " said Cuthbert. 
 
 " Please. And — let me feel to see if it's properly- 
 hot. The butter must soak in in floods, you know." 
 
 " I don't want directions. I've done it in my 
 dreams." 
 
 " But you must have done — done— well, some- 
 thing at school ? " 
 
 " I've never been at school." 
 
 " Oh ! Well, then, at Oxford." 
 
 Again the fatal habit of truth and the accompany- 
 ing blush. 
 
 " I did nothing there either." 
 
 " I'm glad you didn't. You'll have such crowds 
 of new sensations before you." 
 
 " But if one could only strangle his mother and 
 shake him," she thought. " Why can't he tell me 
 to shut up ? — Please get me the matches. They're 
 on the little table in the window two rooms off." 
 
 She turned with frank interest to look at him. 
 
 " I'm behaving in the nicest way," she said, coolly, 
 turning back to Delamer. " But I've never seen any- 
 one learning to walk before. It's confusing, and I 
 have no taste for kindergartens, but I do my best. 
 I don't happen to be my mother." 
 
 " Hardly," he thought, glancing at Dorinda. Dolly, 
 with all her charming youth, was suddenly the limited, 
 unsatisfying, delightful companion of a moment. 
 
 Dorinda was too simple, and single-minded, and 
 unlearned in devious ways to hide the fullness of life 
 that now possessed her behind a mask. Besides, if she 
 would, she could not. The tide was too strong By 
 sheer force of a natural law it poured outwards. The 
 bigger heritage that had fallen on her quiet heart 
 demanded fresh channels. Moreover, it was no longer 
 hers. It belonged to all the world. The life thrilling 
 and swelling within her could never belong to any 
 one person ; it cried for a thousand objects, a thousand 
 aims. She was glad and sorry in a breath about a 
 score of little things she had always passed by with 
 kindly indifference. Her maid's face, as she dressed
 
 n6 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 her that morning, had strangely touched her. A dull 
 look of pain upon the great impassive face of a foot- 
 man had called out from her heart a little ripple of 
 
 Pity- 
 Suddenly she remembered Richard's old foster- 
 mother with an odd pang. She had never been 
 greatly interested in the old woman. Being Dorinda, 
 she had been kind and courteous, of course, but that 
 was all. 
 
 Now she saw her with new eyes. She saw her 
 wonderful old face. An echo of the splendid laugh 
 she had only heard once or twice in the distance came 
 back to her. She thought of her quiet influence in 
 the house and far beyond it ; of her humble, reverent 
 bearing to herself, and the odd, wistful, withheld 
 desire in her eyes. She had never noticed it really, 
 but now that she knew Mary, she realized that it had 
 always been there. 
 
 And a quick impulse towards some act of reparation 
 took her. She thought of Richard and his goodness ; 
 of trivial, sordid, ridiculous things often connected 
 with money — she hated money in an odd, unpractical 
 way, hated Richard's being connected with it — she 
 had always a little scorn for him as nouveau riche — 
 but now she remembered ; and forgetting the money, 
 saw only the large and simple noble freedom in which 
 Richard stood, far above his possessions. 
 
 Such wealth of love and vision took her breath 
 away. She could not speak. She hardly dared move. 
 She sat divinely calm in her white radiance, and 
 Richard, who had just heard of Dolly's party, and 
 had come in to claim his part in it, was arrested on 
 the threshold by the change in his wife. 
 
 At that moment Delamer, who was leaning over 
 her to take her cup, consciously enough touched her 
 shoulder. He, too, saw the change in the woman. 
 With a quick little stab of guilt Dorinda slightly drew 
 back, and they both saw the glory departing from 
 her face. Richard came forward without a pause. 
 " You needn't tell me it's Mr. Delamer, Dorinda.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 117 
 
 Even if you hadn't told me all about him I should 
 have known. I've just seen an excellent likeness of 
 him in the Pall Mall. It was partly in order to call 
 on you that I came home early. I say, Dolly ! Why 
 didn't I get an invitation to this show ? " 
 
 ' But I thought you could not go anywhere on 
 Tuesday afternoon. Besides, I wanted a lion without 
 any rival at my party." 
 
 " Oh ! well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I want 
 some tea. I saw no sign of anyone, so I concluded 
 you were out, and went to get some tea from nurse. 
 She put me on the scent." 
 
 "The old dear!" said Dolly. "When she might 
 have had you all to herself. We have a treasure on 
 the premises," said Dolly to the table at large. " My 
 father's foster-mother. She's a wonderful person to 
 look at and listen to. As handsome as anything, and 
 she speaks the language of the Irish patriarchs. Were 
 there any Irish patriarchs, I wonder ? She learned 
 it up in the mountains looking down on the sea, and 
 it sounds like a translation of an Irish Bible. Then 
 she went to Australia, and seems to have been think- 
 ing so hard about the size and the silence of the great 
 plains and hills, that she forgot to learn common 
 English, and I'm so glad." 
 
 ' That's more than nurse is," said her father. 
 " She's desperately ashamed of her archaic speech." 
 
 ' Her taste ought to be too uncontaminated to be 
 ashamed of anything that goes so well with her re- 
 markable personality," said Dorinda quietly. '' She's 
 like some primitive shepherd queen." 
 
 " I say ! " said Richard. ' Nurse's scoring to-day. 
 You used not to like her decidedly peculiar phraseology." 
 
 ' That's because I didn't like her," said Dorinda, 
 with the sincerest, sweetest smile, " but I do now. 
 I've only just found it out. She belongs to the un- 
 changeable fundamental things. She's quite right 
 not to accommodate herself to modern words." 
 
 Dorinda found herself even speaking from the new 
 point of view. Her words seemed to spring full
 
 n8 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 blown from her lips, so used to delicate, fastidious 
 reticences. And what might not follow ? She seemed 
 to be surging with new ideals all making for freedom. 
 Some over-full reservoir had burst within her, and its 
 waters were flowing to the light. Had Dorinda been 
 made for gasping she would certainly have now 
 gasped hard. To have been so careful, so shy, so 
 chary of words, and now to have a heart full of them ! 
 She longed to rain gentleness upon every creature, 
 but, above all, upon Richard. And all this because 
 Delamer was by her side ! 
 
 The position amazed her. It ought to have shocked 
 her, but it did not. She was so happy and so free 
 with all the currents of her being agog to grip the 
 light. The present was everything. The past 
 nothing. The future a dream. 
 
 There was nothing purely personal in the whole 
 matter. Dorinda was lifted above herself. 
 
 Richard took a less universal view of the situation. 
 He could only guess at the amazing earthquake going 
 on in his wife. With his straightforward, whole- 
 hearted grasp of life, sanctified for him by a pure 
 passion that had grown with life itself, and was founded 
 for the most part on faith, it was inconceivable to him 
 that a woman could spring to life at a bound, and a 
 moment transform her. That she stood unprotected, 
 save by her pride and purity, in a dangerous place, 
 he was already well aware. 
 
 He knew nothing of such ferments of feeling as 
 were changing Dorinda, but that she had illimitable 
 stores of conserved energy he had always known. 
 
 He had been watching and waiting for the children 
 to set them free, but their hands had failed to unloose 
 the bonds that bound their mother. And now some 
 secret hand had cut some secret bond, and ! 
 
 But now Dolly's tea was the thing of which to think. 
 He threw himself headlong into all its interests, and 
 in five minutes everyone of the curiously assorted 
 party was thinking of Richard. Delamer watched 
 him with mounting interest, and for an instant forgot
 
 - 
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 119 
 
 his wife. The next, her impression upon him had 
 become more indelibly fixed. 
 
 That a man like this had left her untouched, inimit- 
 ably increased her attraction for him. The exquisite 
 mystery enveloping this still crystal-pure woman 
 deepened and intensified. It would never have 
 entered into his head to depreciate any rival ; but 
 in a queer way he was proud of Richard. By nature, 
 position and education he was plainly meant to rule, 
 and dominate everything and everyone, and yet this 
 woman still stood alone in her splendid isolation, and 
 Alderson had done nothing, after all, but make money. 
 
 Nevertheless, he could do what he chose to do. 
 There was plenty of time. He would do it still. The 
 more Delamer admitted the predominance of Richard, 
 the more did he desire his wife. 
 
 " And he's had his chance," he said, " he's had 
 his chance. If you give a man twenty years' start 
 and get in first in the end, no one has any right to 
 complain." 
 
 Meanwhile Dorinda was thinking with all her mind 
 that no man was like her husband, or ever could be ; 
 gratitude, respect, appreciation, admiration — all went 
 out to Richard. 
 
 But neither gratitude, respect, appreciation, admira- 
 tion, nor sincere, steadfast and fairly rational religion 
 can open the gates of love. She dared not think either 
 of Richard or of the other man. Her love-filled eyes 
 turned with pathetic relief to Dolly. 
 
 No movement of Dorinda's ever escaped Richard. 
 He saw what had been wanting for all these years 
 shining now upon Dolly, and neither he nor Dolly 
 had anything at all to do with it. 
 
 His mother's vague forebodings of the strange 
 danger near him flashed through Richard. For an 
 instant, a fear of life, of which he had never even 
 believed himself capable, chilled his heart, but he 
 shook it off. 
 
 ' I had a dinner on my own account on Saturday, 
 Dolly,' 1 said he. " It seems nurse has been suffering
 
 6 
 120 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 from an acute longing for tripe, and she didn't like 
 to hurt the susceptibilities of the servants' hall by 
 eating it at home ; so we decided to eat it together 
 down on the river. She met me there. She wouldn't 
 let me drive her down for fear of a scandal among 
 the footmen. It's a circle in which one has to be very 
 careful, it seems. We dined under a big beech look- 
 ing down on the water." 
 
 " Oh, I wish I'd been with you ! " cried Dolly. 
 
 " Oh, we didn't want you ! We preferred our own 
 company. We were engaged in philosophical dis- 
 cussions far above your head." 
 
 " Some day you'll suffer for that snub." 
 
 " But I thought you had a club dinner,"- said 
 Dorinda eagerly. 
 
 "So I had, but by a stroke of genius I got out of 
 it. I had forgotten it was my birthday, but nurse 
 hadn't. She takes a primitive interest in these re- 
 grettable events, and it seemed a good opportunity 
 to let her enjoy herself, unchallenged by the haughty 
 eyes of menials." 
 
 " Richard, I'm so glad you took her. But I wish 
 you'd come with us." 
 
 Dorinda spoke impulsively. She leaned a little 
 towards him. The involuntary tragedy in the voice, 
 the attitude, so strange to Dorinda, hurt and moved 
 him. In this affair, so exclusively her own, so exclu- 
 sively his, in this, her first real need of him, his own 
 utter impotence struck him hard. 
 
 The terrible loneliness of the individual in all great 
 conflicts, the inviolable right of each to be himself 
 in his victory and in his defeat, hit home with an 
 agonizing intensity of realization. No one but Dorinda 
 could help Dorinda. His whole being revolted from 
 the cruel decree. 
 
 And then the stern, puritan, yeoman pride, deep 
 in the marrow of his bones, cried mutinously against 
 any direct interference. Dorinda was a woman who 
 had lived in an ample and instructive world. None 
 of the limits of a narrow life had bound her faculties or 

 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 121 
 
 her opportunities. All the freedom of race and of 
 position was hers. She had her pride and her purity 
 for a stand-by. A woman whose honour could be 
 dearer to any man than to herself would no longer be 
 Dorinda — Dorinda, the peerless. Even to doubt her 
 ability to fight any battle with anjr foe was an insult 
 to her and to himself. His rule in life had always 
 been to trust in the material with which he dealt, and 
 the results had justified him of his temerity. Was he 
 to fall now before the first shadow of a temptation, 
 and doubt Dorinda's power to withstand hers ? 
 
 His faith in woman had always been too high to 
 believe in the right of man to protect her from her- 
 self. Upon her own sacred platform she must stand 
 supreme, above protection. Infinitely gentle, and 
 infinitely fierce, she guards the purity of the race. 
 
 Perhaps this was Dorinda's test, her baptism of 
 fire which paves the way to the final crown. Perfect 
 as she was, she had not yet won it. 
 
 In our extremity we all fly to that part of us which 
 lies nearest to our hearts, and draws to us the hearts 
 of others ; so Richard had flown to the poet within 
 him. He refused to see in Dorinda anything but a 
 pure soul upon her trial. Beset, but not intimidated ; 
 aware, but not afraid ; with forces greater than human 
 encompassing her about, neither word nor action of 
 his would render her the service his patience and his 
 reverent trust could do. 
 
 An odd, mocking little voice dinned into bis be- 
 wildered ears. " Suppose, after all, that Dorinda 
 is not sufficient unto herself, and the young men in 
 chariots of fire do not flock round ! " 
 
 Then the tough old northern pride thrust down 
 the poet. 
 
 " In that case," said Richard, " I have mistaken 
 my wife. And life is a more bitter business than I 
 had supposed it to be." 
 
 Richard, although in other things a clear-sighted 
 man, had never taken in the weakness of Dorinda's 
 mouth : the sweetness and the truth had charmed
 
 122 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 it all away, and to-day it had melted into a slight 
 note of sadness and a mute appeal. 
 
 He turned to Cuthbert. The boy's face had struck 
 him at once. The native strength of it, and his some- 
 what palpable efforts after ease of manner, interested 
 him. 
 
 " I was no older," he thought, " and fresh from 
 the wilds, when I asked for Dorinda. What's up with 
 the lad, or what's Dolly been doing to him ? Shock- 
 ing him, possibly. She can utter sentiments on occasion 
 that it is not even possible for Dorinda to think. He 
 ought to be of too good a race to be shocked by a girl 
 like Dolly, or to be trying to conciliate her.'- 1 
 
 He looked at the well-built, clean-limbed figure, the 
 keen, thoughtful face, the tormenting blushes. 
 
 ' Dolly's a wonderful person enough, but she ought 
 not to have that effect upon that type of boy. It's 
 not first love. It's a question of restatement. If 
 the old mother didn't speak archaic Irish, or wasn't 
 conscious of the fact, what an elucidator of all 
 mysteries she'd be. If she were abo«t, I could hold 
 my tongue now and think about my own affairs, 
 instead of having to make this chap speak up."- 
 
 With Richard's help he was presently giving a 
 better account of himself than he had ever done in 
 public in the whole course of his life. Dolly listened 
 with real benevolence. Whatever exalted her father 
 in anyone'e eyes always gave her great delight. Cuth- 
 bert scored, it is true, but the triumph of the thing 
 was all with the elder man. 
 
 " I've found my job," thought Delamer. " I've 
 pitted myself against the gods. Shall I fight it out, 
 retire in good order, or fly for my life ? " 
 
 For a minute he did not think at all. He yielded 
 himself to the ineffably soft compulsion of Dorinda. 
 Her effect was becoming each instant more extra- 
 ordinarily strange and seductive to this man of 
 dreams and actions, who for so many years had laid 
 his ideals not unkindly upon a shelf ; who despised 
 conventional morality, and believed in the depths
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 123 
 
 of his unsanctified tameless soul, in the eternal right 
 of the strongest. 
 
 Every fresh proof of the predominance of Richard 
 was as a gout of blood to some splendid brute, and 
 fire from Heaven, when a man has burnt his fingers 
 with fire from hell ! 
 
 The contradictions in the blood of Delamer had 
 been accentuated by his life of adventure, of alone- 
 ness, of rule over subject peoples. He was a born 
 freebooter by descent, inclination, and training. 
 Partly French, partly Spanish, with the fiery greed 
 for conquest of the Norman still undimmed in him by 
 time or by civilization ; and down at the root of all 
 the persistent, unconquerable, untamable, implacable 
 and contagious Celt. 
 
 The strength and the weakness, the wickedness, 
 grandeur and ruthlessness of nations new and old, ran 
 like flame in his blood. And the wonder-working, 
 youth-restoring many-sidedness of the temptation was 
 as tinder to flint. 
 
 The lovely, hallowed room, the girl who had made 
 it hers ; the boy standing at the portals of the en- 
 chanted life still closed to himself — and his life half 
 over ! An apple of discord such as Troy never saw, 
 and a god to contend the prize with — all this helped 
 to the intoxication of Delamer. 
 
 Had the environments of his passion been less to his 
 splendid taste, the smothered violence in his warring 
 nature might have returned to its sullen drowse. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The whole situation was so unreal to Richard, so 
 amazing to his experience, so impossible to subject 
 to the brutal violence of words, even without his in- 
 eradicable instinctive judgment of women behind him for 
 counsel of perfection, that silence seemed the only 
 tiling willi which to face it.
 
 124 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 To be afraid for Dorinda, and for the innumerable 
 company of women who followed in her train, was to 
 doubt the world of which they were the saviours and 
 secret disposers, to doubt God and himself ; and 
 Richard had lived on trust and had lived well. 
 
 It was a subtle matter beyond analysis or control, 
 infinitely beyond word or action of his. 
 
 Dolly had made him promise to come on to a dance 
 after a public dinner, and looking round to find her 
 he saw Dorinda, for a wonder, alone. Her eyes were 
 apparently absorbed in Dolly, anything but alone, 
 hemmed in by a crowd with Cuthbert, like the publican, 
 standing afar off, and almost as reverently afraid to 
 lift up his eyes, perhaps with the same prayer in his 
 longing heart. 
 
 There is nothing like a girl for bringing out all the 
 humility of a man, and all the pride, and sometimes 
 the two floods find a common outlet. They did now 
 in Cuthbert. He was too proud to be one in any 
 crowd, too humble to break through it and claim her ; 
 for he judged, truly enough, that she preferred the crowd. 
 
 ' I feel so old to-night," said Dorinda, looking up 
 at her husband. " And I don't care. Dolly's young 
 enough for both of us. It's her frank, careless, abso- 
 lute joy in life that makes me feel old and dull. I 
 used to be afraid for Dolly. Now I think it's the 
 highest wisdom just to forget the past and the future, 
 and give out all you have to the moment in hand, 
 as Dolly is doing now. It must be an entrancing 
 sort of sensation." 
 
 ' The circle of her admirers find it so, anyway." 
 " All of them except Mr. Cuthbert." 
 
 ' Yes, poor chap ! His moments seem to be rather 
 too strenuous for a right appreciation of Dolly's light 
 hand on time. What do you know about him, 
 Dorinda ? " 
 
 " Nothing except what Alice Burgoyne and Mr. 
 Delamer have told me, and what I've found out for 
 myself. And it's all to his credit, and some of it 
 might bore Dolly."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 125 
 
 " If he's worth anything he'll soon put a stop to her 
 being bored," said Richard. " He doesn't bore Dela- 
 mer, and he's not the man to be interested in a rotter. 
 A man of Delamer's type may claim the privilege of 
 being a law unto himself, for himself or a favoured 
 contemporary or two, but he'll like a boy to be what he 
 had hoped to be himself before the grind choked hirn 
 off, and he became a philosopher. If Delamer thinks 
 well of him, I daresay I shall agree with him, al- 
 though there's not a trace of philosopher in me. A 
 good deal of my time will go from now on, so far as 
 I can see, in looking up young men in order to assuage 
 their feelings. If the suitors are fairly decent chaps 
 I'll give them the best tips the City has to offer. I 
 fear Dolly will be ruthless." 
 
 " I hope she won't." 
 
 " But you hope at the same time that the refusals 
 won't interfere with her radiance. You're no nearer 
 to being a philosopher than I am." 
 
 " No," said Dorinda with a quick, sharp pang. 
 ' I'm not a philosopher. Things have gone too gently 
 and straightforwardly with me ; and then you were 
 there. The women of my acquaintance who tamper 
 with these things have suffered in some, generally 
 rather horrid, way. And I don't think they walk any 
 the more securely in the straight old paths for their 
 half scared incursions into the new. They come 
 back rather bewildered, and extremely bewildering, 
 and with a new set of afflictions to disturb them- 
 selves and their families. They seem more helpless 
 than when they sat down comfortably like other 
 people and grumbled vaguely. It's when you know 
 more or less what you're grumbling about — although 
 you're still pretty vague in explaining it — that you 
 really begin to suffer ; at least that is the way with 
 women. And women with philosophical tendencies so 
 often become declamatory, and suffer from perennial 
 enthusiasms and imaginations, .and they disturb the 
 peace of the afternoon dreadfully." 
 
 I wonder you were never tempted into the path
 
 126 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 yourself. You couldn't declaim or disturb the peace 
 of the afternoon." 
 
 ' I might worry myself with vague speculations 
 and become a bore. It's better for some people, 
 I believe, to think from hand to mouth, as I 
 do." 
 
 "Or to seek peace and ensue it. You've always 
 done it more beautifully than anyone else, Dorinda. 
 It's your speciality." 
 
 " And yet it seems such a small restricted sort of 
 thing to be a specialist," said Dorinda with curious 
 hesitating shyness. " One is only effective in one's 
 own little held. And philosophy is too big. One 
 falls between two stools, I think." 
 
 ' Not when one's line is so peculiarly one's own 
 as yours, Dorinda. The lions moved aside to let Una 
 pass just as the minutes do to let you, but before you 
 pass you impress yourself on each. We can't all 
 expect such processional triumphs as that, and we 
 all envy you. If we want to impress ourselves on 
 a minute we have to hold it by the throat, and get the 
 better of it, and never let it go till we've made it ours 
 and squeezed out all its contents. For us life is 
 a succession of ignoble and unnecessary skirmishes. 
 Often all that we get out of the minutes is a regret. 
 They ought to be at our feet without all that fuss. 
 We're a mob of Marthas to your Mary." 
 
 " But — but, Richard — you haven't to fight ? " 
 
 " Haven't I ! And why should I sit tight while the 
 others do the work ? I can't claim to be a man and 
 yet sit still above the strife. Look at the size of me ! 
 If I hadn't fighting* enough ready made for me on 
 my own premises, I should have to go out and fight 
 the milkman. I needn't apologize for unphilosophical 
 language to you ! And don't look compassionate. I 
 like my job." 
 
 "Compassionate to you!" she cried impulsively. 
 " I— I wish " 
 
 She fetched up short, and he thought that her 
 quiet hands trembled on her fan, or was it the quiver
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 127 
 
 and swing of emotion in himself that set alt being in 
 motion ? 
 
 When his eyes were clear enough to see prosaic truth 
 her hands were as still as her face. 
 
 ' What a curious conversation," she said, " and 
 in a ball-room ! And all about myself ! It's all 
 Dolly's fault, Richard. Oh ! look at her dancing ! 
 She's forgotten everybody and everything but her 
 dance. She's dancing through the minutes if ever 
 anyone did. I just walked straight on, expecting 
 nothing particular but nice macadamized roads and 
 civil people, and I always found them. It seemed the 
 best way for people like us, and I never was the 
 least bit bored. I found everything I set out to find, 
 and I .never upset anyone's arrangements. Dolly 
 upsets all my arrangements already, and she wants 
 adventures and sensations and surprises. I'm not 
 sure that she wouldn't like to break through hedges 
 and rob orchards and poach a little, and even fight 
 if necessary. She's full of wants and curiosities and 
 can never see one thing at a time like me, or just 
 attend to one conscience. She can see a dozen things 
 at a time and — and — dispute with a dozen consciences. 
 And they're all as sweet and true and astonishing 
 as her eyes, and as ready for every emergency. There's 
 not a square inch of specialist in any part of her. And 
 — and — I know myself for a very limited being with 
 Dolly about. Isn't it odd that at my age I should 
 feel so utterly inadequate to the career Dolly pro- 
 poses for herself, and yet trust Dolly wholly ? I 
 think it's because Dolly's more you than me, Richard, 
 and equal to anything. "- 
 
 " You've given her the spirit that conquers/ 1 he said 
 in a low voice, " your sincerity and your purity. 
 Dolly is all right because she is your daughter. Be- 
 cause she's mine we may take it for granted she'll give 
 us plenty of trouble, and some burning of heart.'-' 
 
 " It's better that she should," said Dorinda abruptly. 
 
 ' Then she, and all of us, will know and be ready 
 
 for changes. It's better to plunge into a real world
 
 i 2 8 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 at once and get even with it, and with yourself when 
 you're young. One shouldn't have to find out things 
 through one's daughter. It gives a daughter a rather 
 unfair advantage over you," she said laughing. " It's 
 humiliating." 
 
 She spoke in a half hesitating, half eager way. Her 
 habit of silence seemed to draw her timorously back 
 into herself : some curious compulsion to push her 
 out and on. 
 
 " It's become such a habit among old-fashioned 
 women like me," she said, " just to walk on in a sort 
 of cloud of trust in — I don't know what — one's destiny, 
 or one's race, or one's position, or the protection o: 
 other people. Perhaps it's in a blue mist of ideals 
 one walks. And Dolly naturally would be a surprise, 
 a sort of sudden awakening." 
 
 What could Richard say or leave unsaid ? He 
 paused for a moment. This was all so foreign to their 
 relations, which, although he had failed to win her, 
 had been extraordinarily fine, extraordinarily beauti- 
 ful. 
 
 The look of expectation, half eager, half reluctant, 
 in her calm eyes, the very fluency of her words 
 baffled him. It was perhaps the most intimate con- 
 versation of their life, this halting attempt of hers to 
 put her indefinite mood into definite terms ; and ready 
 as he generally was, he was not ready for this new mani- 
 festation of Dorinda. 
 
 Words had always been of such significance to her, 
 and to him in connection with her. 
 
 To say any of the common words he could think of 
 to this close-curbed, sensitive, blameless woman, so 
 anxiously watchful of her lamps, seemed impossible. 
 
 He could only look at Dorinda and see shining 
 through her lovely flesh that only half-concealed it, 
 her perfect spirit. The experience of nineteen years 
 was too much for him ; he could not regard her as a 
 fallible, loving, human woman wanting his help. He 
 was taken for the first time in his outspoken, effectual 
 life by a dumb devil of ineffectuality. It was not for
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 129 
 
 him to presume upon her absolute right over herself, 
 her delicate defences, her scarcely-articulate appeal. 
 
 Was it an appeal even ? What had Dorinda to 
 do with appeals ? Her inviolable purity was so ground 
 into his consciousness that any new outlook upon truth, 
 definite enough to put into brutal words, eluded his 
 vision. 
 
 There was not a drop of rebel blood in Dorinda, 
 no perversity, and she was the least dramatic of women, 
 and yet strange things happen. Other good and holy 
 women have been hustled out of the tranquillities of a 
 lifetime, enticed from the pellucid simplicities of fine and 
 narrow race-traditions by some moving accident. 
 Some hidden treasure of romance peculiar to Ireland 
 had been broached by some old memory, perhaps, 
 and the influence of Dolly was plainly disturbing. The 
 sophistries of a pronouncedly wide-minded modern 
 might easily become a menace to such peace as that of 
 Dorinda. 
 
 Only the night before he had listened, for some 
 interested hours, to the plainly-spoken comments of 
 Delamer on social ethics. He had become subject 
 in a manner to his fascination. He was in a position 
 to know that Delamer could, if he chose, be a danger 
 to most women. 
 
 " He's a man with authority, who can use it. But 
 if Dorinda permits herself to compare, I would not 
 lose," he said. " And — oh ! well, no man living could 
 know the inexplicable heart of a woman like Dorinda 
 — or bear her ordeal of fire for her : or even stand 
 with her as she faces it. Such women go alone to 
 their sacrifices. If ever in all these strange, sad, intoxi- 
 cating years I had found it possible to chaff Dorinda, 
 if she had loved me, and had let us laugh together 
 over everything — everything," he repeated, " one good 
 laugh would clear the air now. But if a woman can't 
 love a man it's clear she can't laugh with him, and so 
 turn aside suffering for every one." 
 
 They were too immersed in their varying points of 
 view to notice either the silence or the time. Dorinda
 
 130 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 started when a man came up to claim her for a 
 dance. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " I ought to have been looking out 
 for you, oughtn't I ? But I was trying to look at things 
 from a philosophical point of view ; among other 
 things, Dolly." 
 
 He laughed and turned to Richard. He was an old 
 friend about Richard's own age. 
 
 " That's crushing a butterfly, isn't it ? No one 
 wants philosophy until one is slick up against a fence, 
 or at the parting of the roads. Leave Dolly to 
 nature, picking flowers in a meadow, amply body- 
 guarded. I've been watching her, too, and feeling 
 sorry that philosophy and the years have incapacitated 
 me from doing anything but watch her, and hope that 
 it's to philosophy she'll drive those striving youths. 
 However, nature is always prodigal in the alterna- 
 tives she offers. She always gives you a choice of 
 sins." 
 
 " And of compensations. There are other girls." 
 Dorinda spoke with an effort. She felt tired. She 
 wanted to be perfectly passive, and never think again, 
 or speculate, or feel, but just to go on being good by 
 habit. It had served her well all these leisurely years. 
 And now even old words, harmless, dull old words, 
 had power to sting. Everything hurt and woke up 
 other dim and hidden hurts. A host of ghosts were 
 gathering to themselves life and feeling. Her days 
 of quiet dreaming were done. Pain and pleasure 
 grow with consciousness. She appreciated, with a 
 thrill and an uplifting, the secret, sacred joy of serene 
 passivity. 
 
 " This is a dream, too, perhaps," she thought as 
 bitterly as Dorinda could think. And this kind, 
 accustomed man, whom she just liked and valued as 
 Richard's good friend, to be talking of the parting 
 of the roads ! 
 
 As she swept round with him the idle words made 
 her feel cowardly and evasive. She had never 
 flinched before anything, turned aside from any
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 131 
 
 obstacle, evaded anything. She had cut them out ! 
 She had sacrificed limbs and eyes— or she thought 
 she had. She had gone straight on, hoping for 
 ameliorations and getting them. And now her one 
 desire was to fly from fact. She stood helpless, watch- 
 ing the withdrawal of all her securities. She was 
 done with ameliorations and compromise : she was 
 out alone on a hard, unknown road, perhaps already 
 near to some bleak way of parting, and with no sign- 
 post to guide her. 
 
 Dolly's laugh as they passed in the dance shud- 
 dered through her. The girl's fearless, lovely sway- 
 ing figure was a reproach in its careless, invincible, 
 happy security. And, oh ! the horror of being afraid 
 of oneself, of oneself above all people in the world ! 
 If Richard were only capable of fear for her, or for 
 himself ; if it were in him to doubt her courage she 
 could have claimed his protection and tried to explain 
 — the inexplicable ! 
 
 But to expose to his believing, worshipping eyes a 
 creature of other flesh and blood, of different species 
 to the woman he had known, to speak out to Richard 
 the fundamental changes going on in her, so amazing 
 to her incurious mind, became each moment more 
 impossible. 
 
 She had walked so warily, kept so purely aloof 
 from depths or profundities. She had been so 
 simply objective in all her dealings with herself and 
 others. 
 
 If only she could have told anyone ! spoken to any- 
 one ! The most extraordinary, maddening in- 
 decorous desire to cry out her shame, and her fear, 
 and her confusion, in Dolly's arms that night began 
 now to fever her blood. A wild conviction that 
 Dolly could understand and right her lost balance 
 was in her breast. 
 
 But the impossible horror of the thought ! 
 
 Suddenly the one fact of which she had been rather 
 complacently proud became another stinging stain upon 
 her, another insensate folly. 
 
 5*
 
 132 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' ;She had always given everything with both hands 
 to her friends ; the exception was herself. The 
 horrible, unreserved intimacy in the friendships of 
 women had always repelled her. So she had stood 
 beautifully in the doorway and given her gifts and 
 brought her friends into her living-rooms. But none 
 of them had ever gone with her into the secret places 
 of her house, any more than she had gone with them 
 into theirs. She had been called a sympathetic woman ; 
 but she knew now that she had never had any real 
 human sympathy for anyone. She had done no more 
 than wish the world well, at a distance. She had 
 never either touched or handled human life, or become 
 one with it. 
 
 And as for her quiet pride in the manner in which 
 she had faced obstacles ! She had never faced any- 
 thing. She had gone straight on skirting fences, 
 refusing to see ! 
 
 She had trained herself to acceptance, agreement, 
 non-condemnation, and had taken refuge in her pure 
 soul from every hint of impurity. She had kept her 
 eyes carefully turned away from any barred possibility 
 behind any closed door. Now the desire to know 
 sympathy, to share it, to bathe in its entrancing waters, 
 to drink it in, and give it out, seemed to rack her 
 heart. 
 
 She listened with aching envy to Dolly as she talked 
 the wildest nonsense all the way home ; but, as it 
 was all full of the little common warm, eternal 
 attributes of human things, teeming with the life she 
 had never divined, she sat solitary and desolate in 
 her corner. 
 
 " I'm so hungry," said Dolly, when they got home. 
 " My supper was disturbed by sentiment in the 
 wrong place. Let us go to father's room and talk 
 and eat." 
 
 " Oh, Robert ! " she said, turning to the young 
 footman. ' You look so sleepy, but I'm sure you 
 wouldn't like me to go to bed hungry. Do go down 
 to the larder and get me anything you can pick up,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 133 
 
 but especially chicken and cream and salad and things. 
 And don't wake anyone up. I have the dearest little 
 pinafore for your sister's baby." 
 
 Robert blushed embarrassed gratitude and fled. 
 
 " But, Dolly, how do you know about his sister's 
 baby ? 
 
 " I can't live with people without finding out all 
 about them. And what I don't find out for myself, 
 nurse tells me. I'd die sooner than feel a stranger 
 in my own house." 
 
 Another little thrust for poor Dorinda, worshipped 
 as a queen by the very scullery maids ! 
 
 " I'm longing for the day when Robert'll have babies 
 of his own. I'm horribly afraid it may not be in my 
 time. He's engaged seriously at last to Anne, the 
 second housemaid, but he's got into the habit of changing 
 his affections. He can't help it. It's an infirmity, and 
 in his family. I've spoken to him about it, and so 
 has nurse." 
 
 " She will never stand all alone as I do," thought 
 her shivering mother. " She will never feel as I am 
 feeling. She — she belongs to everyone." 
 
 " I wish he'd be quick with the food," said 
 Dolly. 
 
 " He's new to his job, he'll take some time," said 
 her father. " What does he propose to marry on, 
 I'd like to know ? " 
 
 " Love," said Dolly, " and the unaccustomed sensa- 
 tion of keeping faithful to one. It must be rather 
 nice after plenty of change and variety. Robert's 
 wisdom isn't his strong point, but I think his experi- 
 ments have made him less of a fool than he was at first. 
 I think they'll be quite happy, and so does nurse. 
 Anne has also tried experiments and profited by 
 them." 
 
 Again Dorinda should have been shocked, but she 
 was only envious. 
 
 " But, Dolly, when do you get time for your ex- 
 plorations ? " she asked. " I thought, since you left 
 Fraulein, that all your hours were full." 
 
 5t
 
 134 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " But your own people belong to you ; they come 
 into the hours." 
 
 " Dolly," she said, faintly smiling, " do you speak 
 of Robert's love affairs, for instance, to Mr. Cuthbert ? " 
 
 " I forget. Oh ! once I did, and he shut up like 
 an oyster. I never saw a man more easily silenced. 
 You can do it with a look. I must cure him of that. 
 It's so bad for him. And yet it's fascinating, making 
 him do it." 
 
 " Mr. Cuthbert, as he is," said Dorinda, " is very 
 bad for your disposition. He betrays you into trying 
 fiendish experiments on him." 
 
 " Father ! did you ever speak of him to nurse ? " 
 
 " Never ! " 
 
 " That's odd, then, for she's asked him to come 
 to see her, and some day he's coming. She's had 
 some feeling about him, f suppose, or she wouldn't 
 have asked him." 
 
 " In that case you'd better stop shutting him up 
 like an oyster, or you may live to regret it." 
 
 ' That's the worst of it. Whenever I amuse my- 
 self unworthily with Mr. Cuthbert I do regret it. He 
 has that effect on you. It's rather impertinent, I 
 think." 
 
 She looked quite proud and stiff, but melted at sight 
 of Robert, with a tray loaded with delicacies. 
 
 " A whole fat chicken ! " she cried ; " and oysters ! 
 But, Robert, you've cut your hand opening them. 
 You know you were never made to open oysters. 
 Let me look." , 
 
 " Oh, miss ! " wailed Robert. " It's nothing, miss." 
 
 " Come here, Robert, and let me see," said Richard 
 in mercy to the wretched man. " I say, it's a nasty 
 cut. You must bathe it well with warm water and 
 tie it up in a clean handkerchief and show it to Mrs. 
 O'Berne the first thing to-morrow." 
 
 " It was very good of you to think of the oysters, 
 Robert," said Dolly. " We'll all have some. And 
 now you go to bed. I'll wait." 
 
 Richard dismissed him with a nod. Dorinda with
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 135 
 
 her sweet regal smile. She was so lonely as she joined 
 the other two. She had no part in them. She had 
 never had any real part in them. 
 
 " Talk of the jaded appetities of the rich," said Dolly 
 through a mouthful of chicken, " I can't say much 
 for mother, but that's your fourth slice of bread and 
 butter, and you a multi-millionaire ! " 
 
 " My blood's too new to have got vitiated." 
 " It's as old as anyone else's," said Dolly indignantly. 
 " As if I didn't know all about it from nurse ! Only 
 it hasn't been spoilt by idleness and old port. I'm 
 glad half of me is nouveau riche, or nouvelle, which is 
 ft ? I can mix up the simple joys of the poor with 
 the complex ones of the rich and feel at home in all 
 societies. Nothing's too high or too low for me. It's 
 all delightful. When the king spoke to me — all to 
 myself ! — the other night I wanted to tremble, and feel 
 thrills and things, but all I could do was to think him 
 the rippingest man I ever struck." 
 " Did you talk slang to him ? " 
 
 " No ; but if I had, in mother's voice, he wouldn't 
 have minded. Thank you, dear darling, for giving 
 me your voice. One can say the most awful things 
 in it, and nobody minds." 
 
 " I never gave it you for that, Doily ! — The king 
 never spoke to me/' 
 
 " That's because you haven't the honour of being 
 a yeoman's grand-daughter. He's tired of ladies in 
 their own rights." 
 
 " Did you tell nurse about the honour done you ? ' 
 " Rather ! She adores the king and looks sharply 
 after his interests, too. Sometimes they get social 
 democrats in the servants' hall, who talk treason, and 
 she soon finds them out. She smells wrong things, 
 I think. Only a month ago they got an under-footman 
 who was a regular anarchist. He spouted blood and 
 thunder, so nurse gave a tea-party, and kept him after 
 the others, and before he left he was down on his knees 
 praying for himself and his mother and the king, all 
 in one gasp. Now he's a fierce Conservative."
 
 136 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' I believe," said Dorinda suddenly, " that the 
 secret of our household's being the most contented 
 and the most efficient I know, lies in nurse : and I 
 always thought it lay in me." 
 
 Some look in her face moved Richard in the queerest 
 way. 
 
 ' Without you nurse couldn't do much," he said. 
 " It's always co-operation that does the trick." 
 
 " Ours are the nicest people in England," said Dolly. 
 "If I couldn't be wickedly, satanically, boastfully 
 proud of all my belongings I'd die, simply. I'll go to 
 bed in my boots, I think. I'm asleep already." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 It was later than Richard had ever before gone to his 
 mother's room. He felt rather a brute as he turned 
 into the corridor that led to it. Yet he had to go : 
 the impulse he had never disobeyed pushed him 
 on. 
 
 The beauty of the two beloved women swam in 
 his senses ; their magic possessed his brain, their sweet 
 sincerity his heart. He lived in them, and with, and 
 by them. Which part of him was Richard, which 
 Dorinda, or which Dolly, he could not for the moment 
 have said ; and yet his complete isolation and theirs, 
 the desolate aloneness of the human conflict, was 
 never so brutally true to him. He wanted the con- 
 solation his mother alone could give, the strength she 
 alone could supply. And even if he did wake her 
 up, he would only be giving her one more opportunity 
 for fulfilling herself. 
 
 Richard looked upon his mother as other men do 
 upon their wives, and gave her ample opportunity 
 for the attainment of the highest. He chuckled as the 
 thought struck him. 
 
 " Come in," she said. 'It is myself is waiting. 
 It is happy and sad you do be," she said, looking at
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 137 
 
 him. " And it is thinking of you happy and sad I 
 have been. You will be going away soon, my son." 
 
 She paused, and the strange look gathered in her 
 face. 
 
 "It is to go you must, lad. It is the right road, 
 and the hardest you have yet gone. It is yourself 
 must go out alone over the wide waters, Richie. And 
 it is to win you will do in the end. And you will do 
 a power of good to many a one upon the way." 
 
 He was leaning forward, his eyes fixed on her. 
 
 Her lips stopped moving, the low, almost inarticu- 
 late words faded away. He waited in tense expecta- 
 tion, but she only sighed, and lifted her hands with an 
 odd deprecation. Then he saw that she was praying. 
 Her whole being was stretching out voicelessly to 
 God. 
 
 Only twice in all his life had he seen her in this 
 dumb passion of prayer. After his father's death, 
 and before his own confirmation. 
 
 :< Richard," she said, as she opened her eyes at 
 last, " it is myself cannot see the end. All I know is 
 that she, too, must go out alone to find a treasure 
 or to lose it. The matter is beyond my prayer and 
 your help. But your father found God, Richard, and 
 it is yourself is not far from Him. The help will come 
 to you, and it will be in time, I think. I am not sure, 
 Richie, but I think it will. It is not the first time 
 it is for me to come back baffled and afraid, God forgive 
 me, and He to come and set it right." 
 
 Richard looked at her in silence, and drew himself 
 with difficulty from the spell. Her extraordinary 
 influence was stronger to-night than he had ever 
 felt it. 
 
 The practical side of him had always asserted itself 
 against her inexplicable power. He had watched, 
 and analysed, and proven it, and been confounded. 
 Even in the cool judgment of his sound business brain 
 he had to admit her forecasts to be unswervinglj/- 
 correct. She had been an unerring guide in his life. 
 
 But the impulse to dispute and question her decree,
 
 138 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 to free himself from the submission and the conclusions 
 of the past, was also strong to-night, too strong to 
 be resisted. 
 
 ' But I can't go away, mother, not just now." 
 " But you must, lad.' 1 
 " Must ? " 
 
 ' It is not myself wants you to go, Richard. My 
 heart is desolate with you away. The strength of 
 the house will go with you. And — now — -but I see 
 it. The bidding is not from me." 
 
 Richard held his peace. Never except once, when 
 he was nineteen, and as selfish and self-willed and 
 ignorant as other nineteen-years-old, had he put 
 himself in direct conflict with his mother's power, 
 and the consequence of his one revolt he could never 
 forget. 
 
 But here was a matter which he could not discuss 
 with his mother. There were cogent reasons why 
 he could not go away. Mary looked at him, and quietly 
 changed the subject. 
 
 She knew perfectly well that his going was inevit- 
 able ; that it would all arrange itself in the most reason- 
 able and prosaic way ; that Richard would have no 
 choice. It was all so simple and right and sure to 
 her : the one part of life quite clear to her. Her faith 
 in Richard was as sure as her faith in her power to see 
 a little ahead of him, to see events in their making. 
 
 " He looks every bit as obstinate as he looked that 
 day,'- 1 she thought, " but since then love and sorrow 
 have worked their will in Richard and have brought 
 forth wisdom. It is other arguments it is than mine 
 will send him out from us. And it is other words he 
 do be wanting now." 
 
 " Richie, will you be telling me about Dolly ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Dolly's a ripping riddle," he said. 
 
 " And it is many a one that will be striving hard to 
 guess her meaning just now. And most of them do 
 be guessing wrong. 11 
 
 " About as wrong as the guesses she makes at herself."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 139 
 
 " Yes, lad ; but the guesses the young men make, 
 being mostly made up of themselves, do be more 
 wrong." 
 
 "That's likely enough." 
 
 "Tt is yourselves have been playing that game, 
 Richie, since time began. It is a wonder to me how 
 little it is ye know of it. 11 
 
 " Still, what we do know has brought the world up 
 to date." 
 
 Mary sighed. She had her own opinion of material 
 progress. 
 
 " Richie, it is glad I am it is myself will have a hand 
 in Dolly. It is glad I am I did not do what I meant 
 to do before I promised your father and ' saw : ; to 
 stay where I was fittest, out there beyond, with my bad 
 manners and my queer talk. 11 
 
 " If you hadn J t come I'd have gone back and fetched 
 you.' 1 
 
 " No, Richard, not even yourself against that. I 
 never disobeyed it, thank God, or it is not so well it 
 would serve me now. There's only one that concerns 
 Dolly, and it is he is coming to see me. Maybe it is 
 myself will help him with his guesses, but it depends 
 on himself. " 
 
 " But you know pretty well already that he's satis- 
 factory, don^ you ? " 
 
 In spite of himself Richard was acutely anxious. 
 He laughed as he waited, but never in all his life had 
 he watched her with more anxiety. When she looked 
 at him her eyes were young suns of joy and hope, 
 and her beautiful , old mouth trembled and shrank, 
 and she laughed more merrily than Richard. 
 
 " Yes, Richard. I do know a little. And if it was 
 only to be money or the little things it is more I would 
 know ; but when it is mortal man it is you have to see 
 behind, it is very clear the eyes must be. It is Dolly 
 will find the joy in him, maybe, in the end, but she will 
 also find sorrow. It is where my eyes cannot reach 
 to, but it is sorrow full and deep. And it is near and 
 close."
 
 140 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " And yet you say I must go away." 
 
 " Yes, lad, you must. Oh, Richie, if one could but 
 spare the young ! " 
 
 " You can't spare anyone," Richard said suddenly, 
 after a long silence, " when their hour comes. And 
 you only put your foot in it when you try. Dolly has 
 plenty of pluck. I'm not afraid for Dolly." 
 
 " Afraid for Dolly ? It is not a blind bat would 
 think of her and fear together, much less you." 
 
 " If you have to be afraid for a woman her values 
 are lowered. She's already half lost to you. She's 
 no longer supreme," he said. 
 
 She looked at his hardening face. 
 
 " Richie ! that's a hard saying. It is not in your 
 mouth I can like it." 
 
 " It's the truth, I am afraid." 
 
 "It is yourself is merciful enough, Richard, and to 
 fools." 
 
 " That's just it. Mercy is the right of fools." 
 
 " It's the right it is of every human soul." 
 
 " I've never hankered after mercy myself. It's an 
 uglier word as applied to your betters. Absolute faith 
 in anyone must clean cut out mercy. The words 
 can't march together. Don't you see ? " 
 
 "I do not, Richie. I see nothing but the old hard 
 strain in your eyes I have often seen before. Richie, 
 your face is hard, and there do be a look of age in 
 your eyes. The age should never be counted in the 
 eyes of a good man, for it is from the heart age comes, 
 and not from time. It is the devil's reckoning it do 
 be, and not God's. Keep your pride, Richard, but 
 keep it in order. And it is the highest it is sometimes 
 that wants the most mercy, and have not the right of 
 the lowest to cry out for it. A heart do be a poor, 
 foolish, soft thing, even if it is the heart of a queen. 
 It is the tender handling of the wise it do be wanting 
 And yet it is often something as simple as itself that 
 will help it. You are going away, Richie, over the 
 sea. And you will forget hard pride out in the quiet 
 where you can stretch. And the pride was born in 

 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 141 
 
 you, so it was. I wonder, Richie, if myself had had 
 the heart to give you a little beating now and then 
 when you were small if it would have loosened its hold 
 upon you ? But, God forgive me, it was my own pride 
 nourished yours. It is true, Richard, I could give 
 you the good advice, lad, and welcome, from now 
 till this time to-morrow ; but it is not the good advice 
 the pride and the queer temper of a good man will 
 call for. So it is to our beds we will go, the two of 
 us, and I wonder if God will let me dream of Dolly ? 
 It is myself would like to ask Him, but it is not bother- 
 ing Him with little things for oneself one can be, when 
 everyone else do be wanting such a power. That 
 is the worst of the terrible, big, awful wants of this 
 poor little place, Richie ; one has not the heart to be 
 begging for the weeniest little thing for oneself, and 
 sometimes it keeps one longing, so it does." 
 
 Richard went to bed thoughtful. The utter im- 
 possibility of going away now seemed greater than before. 
 True, he could not interfere with Dorinda, but had 
 he any right to desert her at such a moment ? The 
 habit of his presence, the very fact of his being at 
 hand, must make a difference, and yet his mother's 
 certainty of his going disturbed him. He had always 
 done his best to be rational in regard to his mother's 
 gift. He had trodden down superstition, emotion, 
 sentiment, called all the erudition of which he was 
 possessed to his aid. He had discussed the subject 
 with experts both spiritual and scientific. His mind 
 had ranged through pastures green and deserts arid, 
 up hill and down, in search of the elusive truth. And 
 at the end he always came back to lay the sheaves 
 he had gathered in his wanderings at the feet of his own 
 experience. And unlike most vagabonds in those 
 strange and devious paths, Richard's bank-book lived 
 in closest harmony with his inner experience, and 
 could have presented a sound and unanswerable 
 argument to the most carping and exact of 
 scientists. 
 
 Almost in spite of him, Richard's grave and simple
 
 142 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 belief in his mother's power grew and clarified with 
 the years. 
 
 It was becoming more and more a part of him. The 
 thing that is. When baffled and beset by speculation, 
 he gave it kindly, belittling names. He mixed it 
 up with magical memories of his magical youth, with 
 the soul of his mother, which he had seen with his 
 living eyes by the death-bed of his father, and in the 
 other great moments of his life. He speculated, and 
 condoned, and compromised. He delighted his soul 
 and bemused his intelligence warring with philosophies, 
 and believed down to the ground in his mother's still 
 holding the last word. 
 
 He was very thoughtful that night and immensely 
 disturbed. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Lady Dorinda and Dolly, Delamer, Cuthbert, and, 
 above all, Cuthbert's mother, a gloomy cloud above 
 all their heads, were on a leisurely visit to Alice Bur- 
 goyne, and Richard was on the high seas. It had 
 come about quite quietly and inevitably, and he was 
 forced to go. Dorinda would have liked to have gone 
 with him, but she dared not ask, so she was alone, her 
 last defences going. For now her reason could no 
 longer arraign or oppose itself to her new fullness of life. 
 The old wisdom was too poor a thing even to be pitted 
 against the new. 
 
 The intense delicate excitement of her senses, the 
 passionate secrecy of the warm shadows in which she 
 walked, the rich, new variety of life, the growth and 
 light in all things living, the full freshness of flavour 
 in them, had transformed her world. 
 
 She had been suffering all her married life from an 
 unconfessed thirst. Drought had made arid her 
 being. She was satisfied at last : the thirst and the 
 drought ftad gone from her. The sap rose by its own
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 143 
 
 invisible force in every eager atom of her. Her eyes 
 widened to hold the beauty of the world ; her heart 
 to hold the love, her soul to hold the mercy. 
 
 She was more eager than Dolly for her world so 
 untimely discovered. She was all agog for surprises 
 in earth, and sky, and air, above all, in human creatures 
 and things, each with the sacred secret of a heart to 
 render up to her amazed, new demand for fresh know- 
 ledge ; if not for knowledge, at least, that her heart 
 might beat with other hearts, might keep pace with 
 the heart of the world ; with the mystery hid in every 
 poor little mean heart, in every mean street of the 
 whole wide world. 
 
 Love had opened out to Dorinda the big secret. 
 She needed no threshing of weary brain, no burning 
 of weary heart, to force her forward upon the bleak 
 track of other people's opinion about things. She 
 knew the things, she was of the very substance of 
 them. Being part of love, at last she had become part 
 of the world. 
 
 A thousand inexplicable desires arose in her, beautiful 
 desires for the high and wonderful knowledge common 
 mortals only dare faintly to wish for, so high and 
 unattainable is it. The high and unattainable, it 
 seemed, had come quite close and attainable to Dorinda. 
 She thrilled with a passionate desire for it, with a 
 strange certainty of her power to regain it, her right 
 to use it. 
 
 Everything had altered : the old dry, tasteless 
 routine of the difficult days, the beaten path of the 
 busily barren hours. Now with each morning arose 
 new hopes, and a new strength to greet them. She 
 had always liked scenery, art, music, books. Her 
 taste was fine ; but for nineteen years her heart had 
 never run to greet a flower, the rise of dawn, the 
 saffron of the western skies at twilight, the pellucid 
 peace of a mountain-top, the warm and bounteous 
 life of a sleeping valley. Now it sprang to gather them in 
 and hold them and make them hers. And oh ! the rich- 
 ness, and marvel, and limitlessness of her new youth !
 
 144 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 And in the very highest of all she had begun afresh. 
 
 God was Something of which she had never before 
 conceived. Prayer an unfathomable, voiceless emo- 
 tion. She could see with the eyes of love, know with 
 his understanding. The old, unemotional, dutiful 
 devotion, the quiet, reverent church-going were so 
 cold, so inadequate to the new size and marvel and 
 glow in all things. The walls that custom, even in 
 this, had built about her had fallen. The smoulder- 
 ing fires of worship were aflame ! The difference, 
 the world-wide space between then and now ! On 
 her knees in church she could only thank God, and 
 be profoundly, unconditionally, simply grateful. 
 
 Alone in the night, her senses and emotions grew 
 calm, and all the edges of thought became keen and 
 efficient ; she knew then that it was only because of 
 Delamer she was a better woman, greater and nearer 
 to God. 
 
 Dorinda's nightly speculations frequently ended 
 in a passion of bitterest tears. 
 
 The wonderful, inexpressible, awful change ! 
 
 She had always humbly believed herself to be going 
 quietly along some royal road to some heaven peculiar 
 to her, and the like of her, asking little, grateful for 
 all. Now Heaven seemed less heavenly than the 
 rapture, and joy, and uplifting power of earth, and 
 her wants were growing, absorbing, immense. 
 
 She was full of maddening desires. She wanted 
 more life, more light, and joy, and freedom. She wanted 
 to receive and give like the sunshine or the sea. 
 
 Her very ears were awakened to a keener life. 
 Sounds she had never heard swung in silver rhythm 
 through them. Songs to which she had never listened 
 rang out in the silence. 
 
 Her delicate apprehension of perfumes was like a 
 new sense, bringing her new thrills of happiness. 
 
 And all this to be going on in Dorinda, who once 
 was placid ! Her very increased power of reflection 
 filled her with a constant flood of expectation. But 
 she suffered. Oh ! but she suffered. Her naked,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 145 
 
 unprepared mind, so long walled in by tradition, was 
 confronted by a thousand brutal problems, too hard 
 for so fine and unpractised an instrument. 
 
 She had gone with studiously blinkered eyes so long 
 that, now the blinkers were torn off, she shied from the 
 immense range of her own vision, from the unexplored 
 stupendousness of the things she dimly saw. 
 
 And yet she must see them — see them closer and 
 more intimately. She must see things, new things, in 
 the very women of whom she had refused even to 
 think, women she had passed by with half-lifted skirts, 
 and sometimes a half-reluctant little prayer. 
 
 Now she must look, and see, and understand by 
 the light of the duplicate of each in her own heart. 
 There was no standing aloof ever any more for poor 
 Dorinda. She was down in the tumbling, terrible, 
 foreign crowd, part and parcel of it. She had looked 
 for the first time into her own heart, and had found 
 the world. 
 
 And in spite of all — of everything — she was a better 
 woman ! 
 
 So many things were changed ! 
 
 She had grown indolent and detested walking. Now 
 the buoyant life in her limbs cried for exercise, and 
 all the thousand things there were to discover ! 
 
 The prancing youth of a mob of colts in a paddock 
 filled her with delight, the light-hearted chaff of two 
 subalterns from Aldershot with mirth. The light 
 upon the face of a sorrowing mother in church was 
 the divinest thing she had ever seen. 
 
 She had never lived before ! 
 
 She started away from her own mounting beauty. 
 She thought wildly of cutting off her hair, of laying 
 in a supply of ugly clothes. 
 
 Then she knew that her pleasure in her beauty 
 was no selfish passion ; that it belonged to everyone 
 else, no less than to herself, and was something to 
 cherish, and be glad of, and rejoice in. And this 
 miracle of change and transformation was wrought 
 by Dclamer. He it was she loved, and not her husband ;
 
 146 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 and yet she was a better, bigger, nobler woman than 
 in all her dutiful, blameless life she had ever been ! 
 
 And Dolly, Dolly, Dolly ! What Dorinda suffered 
 and thought when Dolly filled her mind and shut 
 out the rest, who can tell ? 
 
 And then, one morning when Dolly was sitting in 
 a window too lazy to move, or think, or read, two dis- 
 ordered voices pierced her like great skewers, and 
 nailed her to her seat. And before she could collect 
 her forces to speak or move, the need was over. The 
 women had carried off the last of their words in their 
 outraged breasts. 
 
 " You're perfectly right, Mrs. Cuthbert," said Mrs. 
 Drake. " The thing is patent. Lady Dorinda has 
 come out in a new and a most startling role. She is as 
 much in love with that man Delamer as her daughter 
 might be. And she looks more exalted than ever. 
 She hasn't swerved an inch from her proud pose of 
 perfection. I could box her ears ! At her age, 
 indeed, and with her record, and her airs, and her 
 unfortunate husband off finding money to lavish on 
 her. He spends nothing on himself. Thank God, 
 I don't understand such women." 
 
 " Thank God," said Mrs. Cuthbert piously, "I do. 
 Women who make a high profession without the root 
 of the matter in them must, sooner or later, fall. It 
 is inevitable. Openly or in secret, some temptation 
 must come, and we know the rest. The Lord may 
 intervene. His mercies are unfathomable. But with 
 the rich hypocrites of place and position I have 
 noticed that He stays His hand. I know — I know too 
 well — the sins of Society." She punctuated her 
 sentences with staccato groans. 
 
 " Think of the daily papers, the plays, the Divorce 
 Court ! " sighed Mrs. Drake. 
 
 " It may not come to the Divorce Court, dear Mrs. 
 Drake. She is too clever and — ahem ! — well-bred a 
 woman to court a public scandal, and she has a mar- 
 riageable daughter to think of. The corruption of 
 the rich is only equalled by their crafty ingenuity in
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 147 
 
 evil. But I saw it at breakfast,'- she paused and 
 coughed apologetically. " Dear friend, I must believe 
 that it was a vision from the Lord, a sign, a warning. 
 I became in a moment aware of His will. Rather 
 than Faunce should marry her daughter — the brood 
 of the serpent — for all her advantages, I could see 
 my only son dead before me." 
 
 " What about Mrs. Burgoyne ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Burgoyne is blinded by worldliness. She 
 sees nothing but the woman's beauty. That cat-like 
 docility of disposition can go a long way before it 
 is found out."- 
 
 With gusty sighs the ladies sailed forth. Dolly fled 
 panting to her room. Behind her locked door, quiver- 
 ing with fierce, primeval fury, she threw herself on 
 the floor, and hid her face in her hands. Such words 
 to be spoken aloud of her mother, and she to listen to 
 them, mute and helpless ! She writhed in her defence- 
 less pain. An insane desire to kill the women burned 
 like a coal in her brain. No tiger could have felt a 
 hotter desire for blood than did Dolly. To be at 
 their fat, traitorous throats. To silence for ever their 
 lying tongues ! 
 
 The centuries slipped back into the mists of their 
 own dawn : Dolly was a savage in a Paris frock. 
 
 The avenging ladies might well thank their stars 
 that even outraged affection cannot put back the 
 clock of time. 
 
 The horrible outrage of the thing. The diabolical 
 hearts of women ! Her mother, who stood above 
 them all ! — to choose her ! It was inconceivable ! 
 
 Her passion wore itself out at last by its sheer 
 strength. Then an odd thing happened. Suddenly 
 her cheeks flamed no longer with honest rage, but 
 with burning shame. A tremble of doubt had entered 
 into her proud security. 
 
 Some horrible confession of fear seemed to be 
 struggling up in her. She began to think painfully, 
 dimly, reluctantly. Trifles lighter than air gained in 
 importance. She began shyly, fearfully, trembling
 
 148 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 all over, to put two and two together and with blood- 
 curdling exactness they came out four. 
 
 By no volition of her own, a panorama of the last 
 few weeks passed before her wincing vision. She saw 
 what until this instant she had only felt, so deep down 
 in her that it was, after all, only a vague half sensa- 
 tion ; the magical blossoming out of her mother, in 
 her face, in her bearing, in the whole of her. But, 
 above all, in the new way in which she loved her — 
 Dolly — and after Jier everything and everyone else. 
 
 And then the quickness and the wonder of it ! The 
 strange, wordless friendship between them, that made 
 for Dolly a better place of the world even than it was 
 before, had grown up in a night. 
 
 Once Dolly loosened the leash of her thoughts, they 
 sprang to the scent like greyhounds. She could not 
 call them in. The transformation in her mother was 
 no longer an enchanting mist in her mind : it was an 
 astonishing fact, closely connected with Mr. Delamer. 
 
 What a friendship that sudden one of hers and her 
 mother's had been before he came between and spoilt 
 everything ! But now she thought of it— it had come 
 in with him. She shuddered and cried out softly. 
 
 Yet in spite of herself he had impressed her too, 
 immensely. He was new and exhilarating. He saw 
 big things, and he showed them to you. She even liked 
 the way in which he regarded Mr. Cuthbert. He put 
 him in amongst the big things and made him big. 
 It was a compensation in an odd way for the regrettable 
 tendency she found in herself to see him little. Mr. 
 Delamer's respectful regard for the young man, his 
 frank belief in him, tended to fix him more firmly in 
 her own mind ; and since he was for the moment the 
 only young man in the house, and as everyone seemed 
 to be looking at him, it might be just as well that she 
 also looked at him now and again. 
 
 But her eyes would go back to Mr. Delamer. There 
 was a sense of largeness and breadth in him of which 
 she knew nothing ; it drew her on to know more. 
 
 She had been used to the simple outlook of a more
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 149 
 
 limited rule. The moral code of her environment 
 was neither rigid nor aggressive, but the legend " So 
 far shalt thou go and no farther " had always been 
 intangibly in the air about her. 
 
 That which Mr. Delamer brought in had seemed 
 just as safe, but wider, fuller, more exhilarating. One 
 breathed deeper in it. It made one believe in one's 
 own capacity to fly. 
 
 And he had a chivalrous regard for the feelings of 
 those who differed from him in age and experience. 
 Being so near her father's age had greatly increased 
 Dolly's regard for Mr. Delamer. 
 
 But now — now ! He was caught up in a mist of 
 silence : something of which one was afraid to think, 
 but, above all, to speak. Everything was choked down 
 in a horrible spell of silence. Dolly, who never in all her 
 life had been silent about anything, longed for the relief 
 of words, for courage to speak them, to go straight off to 
 ask her mother to explain everything — the change, the 
 newness, the astonishing revolution wrought by a man 
 so remote from present emotion, connected only with 
 some dim mystery of an Irish past, and a shadowy 
 question that somehow had slipped in and upset 
 everything. 
 
 The bald truth expressed in Mrs. Cuthbert's accusa- 
 tion had riot yet penetrated into her full consciousness. 
 
 If only she could have said it all out in words ! 
 Every trouble of her life had yielded in the end to 
 words, but there were no words for this sort of thing. 
 The hour of her first silence was upon Dolly ; she 
 could no more have spoken than her mother could. 
 
 Then the luncheon bell, that inexorable leveller, 
 sounded. And the girl, broken and dazed with grief, 
 white with the passion that has made motherhood, 
 was back in the twentieth century, trembling, and at 
 her wit's end. 
 
 Mechanically she smoothed the crumpled softness 
 of her skirt, put right her ruffled hair, and went down 
 to break bread with the traducers, and ply them with 
 fruit instead of daggers.
 
 150 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She sat in horrible nearness to the two. Her mother 
 was opposite her, only a bowl of flowers between them, 
 and, for the first time in her life, she knew what 
 loneliness meant. 
 
 She was alone with her secret, and her passion, and 
 her pain. She had stepped across the dividing line 
 from which there is no return. The first sense of 
 mortal separation had come to Dolly. 
 
 But under the spur of her pride she beat them all 
 at tennis that afternoon, and no one was so gay as 
 she. 
 
 The two women, who had seen her a minute after 
 their conversation running down a corridor, and had 
 experienced a momentary qualm, sank down again 
 into their heavy waists, and devoted themselves to 
 watching Dorinda. The unfortunate women had 
 come to such a pass in social corruption that they 
 had always to be watching someone. 
 
 Dorinda did nothing more than look strangely 
 beautiful, and let her foolish eyes speak out artlessly 
 their new freedom, but she gave them a most enjoy- 
 able afternoon. i 
 
 Then the chattering, laughing tea<. under the tulip- 
 tree, and at last Dolly's chance of escape. She could 
 not sit still in her room, or walk in fche garden ; her 
 room and the garden were both too small. She wanted 
 to be alone, high up in some place .where she could 
 breathe, and think, and sort things out. v. 
 
 So in five minutes she was making at full speed for 
 the highest hill within reach of the house; 
 
 She had never gone there before alone. It was the 
 hill for picnics, and only associated- in her mind with 
 them ; but to-day it seemed to be vher one goal, her 
 one refuge.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 151 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The position was bewilderingly new to Dolly. Out 
 alone in the liberating air, she hardly knew what to 
 make of her first violent revolt. The vague pain that 
 followed upon it filled her with wonder. A dozen words 
 seemed to have changed the world, and yet a million 
 could not change her mother. 
 
 Was she being idiotic ? Might she just as well have 
 laughed at the ridiculous thing, at the abominable 
 old women, and remained dreaming all these hot hours 
 again the green bank ? 
 
 She was so new to outrage, or doubt, or fear, that 
 in the quick motion in the clear airs sorrow only came 
 slipping up behind her, like the dark in the wane of 
 the light on a green wave. 
 
 It was when she paused half-way up, and stood 
 still and got a fresh grip upon her vagrant thought, 
 that the horror of being suddenly alone, suddenly 
 thrust out of everything that is yours by right, into 
 a desolate, unnatural silence, struck Dolly afresh. 
 
 To have to bucket up a hill on a hot day because 
 you daren't even think before other people, because 
 you are afraid of yourself and of everyone else in some 
 indefinable way, for the first time in your life, was 
 a fact with which Dolly could not cope. 
 
 For an instant she forgot the insult to her mother 
 in that to herself. To be changed like this just 
 because of the silly, lying tongues of two wicked old 
 women ! To be at the mercy of such creatures was 
 so inconceivably humiliating. She seemed to have 
 been forced into a cowardly flight by a foe not worth 
 her powder and shot. 
 
 She turned to go down again, and face everything, 
 and find out everything. Then she got irrationally
 
 152 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 red, and trembled in a way utterly unknown to her. 
 Something swung her round and sent her bucketing 
 up to the top. When her head rose about the line 
 of short, sweet, silken grass that crowned the tempest- 
 worn remains of a mass of tumuli, there was Mr. Cuth- 
 bert, lying on his back, staring idly at the sky. 
 
 This to greet her at her journey's end ! She paused, 
 hesitated, and stepped back a few steps. To have 
 walked three miles on a grilling day for this ! She 
 might just as well have been leaning up against the 
 cool green of the bank. 
 
 She turned to fly. 
 
 Then one sentence in the late disturbing conversa- 
 tion i-tood out sharply. 
 
 " She'd rather see him dead than married to me ! 
 Oh, would she ? " said Dolly. " And I daresay she'd 
 even rather see him dead than talking to me up here 
 all by ourselves. 
 
 " Oh, well. That decides it ! " said Doll}', stepping 
 across the border. 
 
 " Dear me ! " she said. " You ! " 
 
 Cuthbert sprang up, crimson with ill-timed felicity. 
 
 ' ' And you ! What luck for me ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh!" said Dolly, carefully choosing a sunsoaked 
 knoll. 
 
 His head was bare. She was struck by the fine 
 balance of it, by the delicate, strong carving of the 
 features ; but the warm human glow in his eyes inter- 
 fered with artistic appreciation. 
 
 She had been terrified in spite of herself by her 
 first taste of loneliness : it chilled her strangely. She 
 was ready — this, too, in spite of herself — to draw 
 near to any, even to an encroaching fire. She could 
 even play a little with fire, but she did not want it to 
 play with her, nor to be scorched by it. 
 
 The air was keen and sweet about them. A patch of 
 white clover sent up incense to the sky. Drowsy bees 
 made soothing music. Three sad-faced sheep, as full 
 of resignation and severity as any Christian, thought 
 poorly of their taste in choosing so bleak a hill-top.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 153 
 
 ' I wonder why you came here," said Dolly. 
 
 ' Like another idler, I wanted to get as near as I 
 could to the sun and as far away from houses and 
 meals and chairs and tables," he said, laughing. 
 
 Yesterday Dolly would slightly have despised him, 
 but to-day she had a fellow feeling. 
 
 " And I've brought them all back," she said, with 
 some sympathy. 
 
 " Oh, no, you haven't ! You don't belong to walls 
 and chairs and tables. The whole of you could never 
 be shut into a house, and you always carry the sun 
 and the other things about with you." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dolly. 
 
 ' It was you who suggested to me to loaf in the 
 sun. Jeffries, the man who knew the sun best, only 
 taught me to addle my brain trying to find out what 
 lies behind him, and behind all the other things. But 
 since I've known you, I only loaf, and keep on ex- 
 pecting, and sometimes things come." 
 
 " What things ? " 
 
 He paused, laughed, and looked at her. " You 
 can't put them into words, and they're not things." 
 
 ' Say them, anyhow," said Dolly. " I'm not parti- 
 cular. I like the shortest words — I like everything 
 but silence." 
 
 " I don't think you'll like — everything or nothing, 
 no matter how they're put: I mean that everything 
 in creation doesn't seem so out of place as it did before, 
 and that now the world doesn't seem so choked up 
 with dust. There doesn't seem to be half the dust 
 there used to be. It's been turned into soil, and 
 grass, and flowers, and things ; and what's left looks 
 well in a sunbeam. I mean, the world's right enough, 
 it was only my eyes that got choked up. It was 
 general idiocy, you know, and preconceived notions." 
 
 Dolly's ingenuous eyes discomposed him. 
 
 I told you I wouldn't interest you." 
 ' You do interest me. Please go on." 
 ' I'll have to speak of myself, and you won't like 
 it. In preparing for my position — these were the
 
 154 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 detestable words — I had to do systematic slumming 
 three times a week under the inexorable eye of an 
 expert. It was all quite right in principle, but even 
 cricket, so fellows who've been to school tell me, bores 
 you to death when it's made compulsory. And when 
 the wrong side of every misery and most vices is held 
 close up to your eyes and nose — oh, well I it gets to 
 your head. An oyster would lose his calm and sprout 
 out into a reforming crank under such a spur. I say, 
 am I boring you ? I believe the sun's got to my 
 head now." 
 
 " Go on, please. You're not boring me. You're 
 filling me with curiosity for the rest." 
 
 11 Most of it consisted in giving me splitting head- 
 aches, digging into modern prophets, who pile up 
 the misery in cartloads on one side, and put all the 
 philosophies in another heap on the other, and then 
 leave you sitting still between them with your eyes 
 glued to the misery. The inextricable confusion and 
 the amazing variety of the philosophers is too much 
 for you." 
 
 " It must be pretty awful ! " 
 
 " It is, but it's not so bad as the things you see 
 when you fly from the books and take to the streets, 
 and begin to wonder what brought hope into the 
 world. I was brought up seriously, as you know, of 
 course, but even if I hadn't been, being soaked in 
 horrible realities you can't get away from makes you 
 forget everything with the sun on it. And winding 
 reforming schemes and model republics out of hard 
 facts, and your own ignorance, makes you forget there 
 ever was a sun. You begin to think there's nothing 
 left of any significance but yourself, to put every- 
 body's wrong right. You are as mad as Hamlet in 
 the end, and nothing like as interesting." 
 
 ' That's an awful picture of a young man," said 
 Dolly, with mounting interest. "Or is it a fairy- 
 tale ? "■ 
 
 " Rather not ! It was I when I met you and your 
 mother. It was your mother more than you," he said,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 155 
 
 flushing a fiery red. " You see, it's not of the girls 
 you think in the mean streets ; you hardly look at 
 them. Your whole mind is fixed on trying to do 
 something for the things they're growing into. The 
 startling fact of the women in these parts blots out 
 everything else. And suddenly your mother was a 
 bigger fact than the women and the sins and the 
 misery all put together, and nearer the ultimate truth, 
 somehow. Your mother — Lady Dorinda — changed 
 everything in the queerest way. You see, it's these 
 slum women being the mothers of the race that makes 
 you sort of cranky. It's they who strangle hope. 
 But your mother changed everything directly I knew 
 her. It only took a few hours. Don't think I pretend 
 to know you ! Good Lord, no ! I'm not that sort of 
 fool at all. But I know her," he paused an instant 
 and the fatal red 'rose; up. " I know her better than 
 she knows herself. She was sprung on me just as 
 the day after I met her the sun was sprung on me. 
 And the extraordinary fact is that she, that revela- 
 tion of a woman, is hid somewhere in every broken, 
 distorted, awful creature in every foul street in 
 London. She changed my life for me, your mother 
 did," he said, now frightfully red, his eyes fixed on 
 the daisies. " Some day I'll do something rather 
 decent, I think, because I know your mother, even," 
 he added boldly, " if evervthing else comes to 
 grief." 
 
 But," said Dolly, hesitating, shy, with a debased 
 tendency to tremble. " But she never goes on com- 
 mittees or things. She has no pet schemes. She's 
 not a public doer of good at all." 
 
 " She brings back the faith you've lost in everything. 
 You go about seeing her in these unspeakable libels on 
 women. With her, these things aren't so bad as they 
 were before. If one woman can be like her, the others 
 can't be so hopeless as they look. It must be partly 
 in the way we look at them. Your mother gets one's 
 eyes into a better focus." 
 
 He had grown up with a vengeance. But — but why
 
 156 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 did he speak like this now ? What did he know ? 
 Had he some plan ? Some purpose ? 
 
 A flood of resentment i"ocked through Dolly. She 
 sat still enough, but her heart was thumping hard. 
 
 There was an odd little silence. Dolly felt dizzy in 
 it. The conversation was one to lead you to distrust 
 words. 
 
 A lark rose up and poured his mounting rapture of 
 melody upon their heads. A grasshopper stilled his 
 shrill note to listen. A bee carried up in a breeze 
 hummed his faint protest. 
 
 His sincerity and frankness were patent enough, 
 and she herself had gone straight at things all her 
 life. The only thing in her present extraordinary 
 moment was to go straight and to face it, and yet she 
 was sheer afraid of it ; and more afraid still to let it 
 pass on and get mixed in with the other moments. 
 
 But the horror of wondering what her question 
 would look like in words took her breath away. And 
 oh ! the joy, and the peace, and the beauty, and the 
 light-heartedness in all the wordless sounds about 
 them, in the keen, sweet air, in the short, sweet grasses, 
 in the distant views ; the moorland heights on the 
 horizoiT, the rolling wooded plain between, the blue 
 mist about the pine clumps ! 
 
 With all these things the paean of praise to her 
 mother went well. If one could only keep all these 
 lovely thoughts about her in a little shrine up here 
 on the hill-top which one could visit on dull days and 
 Sundays, when one wanted bucking up ! 
 
 Yesterday she could have done it, but to-day words 
 had made it impossible, and more words would make 
 it more im possible still, perhaps. 
 
 Yet she had the wildest desire to say them. Mr. 
 Cuthbert was the last person living to whom she 
 could have chosen to say them, yet the fascination 
 of saying them to him was superb. 
 
 Now it was all at once plain to Dolly that the vile 
 outrage in his hands and in his mouth would some- 
 how alter in character. The matter was becoming
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 157 
 
 too difficult for her, and the knives that seemed to be 
 hacking her inside would hurt less if they cut out- 
 wards, perhaps. 
 
 She was half suspicious still, half resentful, but an 
 extraordinary sense of confidence and good-fellowship 
 was growing up in her. He might have been the 
 brother she had so often dreamed of and desired. 
 
 His mother was as remote from him as from her : 
 an accident to be accepted and deplored. 
 
 They were young together in the perfect air. The 
 incense of the" white clover was in their nostrils. Be- 
 wildering gusts of her first passion of grief and loneli- 
 ness wandered in and out of Dolly, so unused to grief 
 and loneliness. The lark and the grasshopper were 
 both silent. The need for human sympathy grew 
 overwhelming. 
 
 " Why do you say all this now ? " she said, leaning 
 towards him from her knoll. 
 
 " Because I want you to know " — he paused for a 
 moment. " I'm a duffer at words. I can never say 
 things ; but in the queerest way you've given me a 
 share in your mother. If you never give me anything 
 else, as you probably won't, you've given me that ; 
 and it's a thing you can't take back, however much 
 you may want to. You've done a great deal for me, 
 altogether against your will. The day you meant to 
 snub me the most you gave me your mother. It's 
 true," he said, laughing. " You haven't been very 
 civil to me, Miss Alderson. You can't say you have." 
 
 " I've repented of that. You might see it, and 
 leave it behind. We've been rather good friends 
 lately." 
 
 " You've done your duty ! " 
 
 " Do you know what your mother and Mrs. Drake 
 said of my mother to-day ? "- she demanded, with 
 startling abruptness. 
 
 " No," he said brief! y. 
 
 " Oh, you can't tell even a half-lie effectively ! 
 You don't know what they said to-day, but you know 
 perfectly well what they said yesterday, or the day
 
 158 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 before. To-day wasn't the first time, I'm quite sure. 
 It's been going on. It's common property with people 
 like Mrs. Drake. And that such things should be 
 said about ray mother, and that you should know 
 them ! And so you spoke to me about her just now 
 in the way you did. I wonder how you dared ! ' 
 
 He stood up and over her. He looked big and 
 singularly unabashed. His confidence seemed to grow 
 as hers waned. 
 
 "So do I, now. What I said I said because I had 
 to. I was thinking of you and your mother and the 
 sun — and the prison — the three of you ; but what 
 your mother, more than all, has just freed me from. 
 And I was thinking of the world you've opened to 
 me ; and the thousand other shadowy worlds you've 
 brought nearer. Then suddenly it struck me that 
 there are things the meanest can do and give ; and 
 what I wanted to do, I think, was to demand my right 
 in your mother, my right to give you the little I've 
 got, in return for what I've got out of you both — and 
 without even a hope of getting any more. 
 
 ' I wish I could explain things. There's a look 
 of refusal on your face already. It's hardening and 
 changing under my very eyes ! And that's just what 
 I don't want. You know as well as I do that it's not 
 your mother I love, but you. That I loved you that 
 first night, in spite of myself — you didn't give me 
 much chance, certainly — and I shall love you always 
 with as little encouragement. The thing puts me in 
 no end of a mess, and you needn't make it more 
 messy by misunderstanding,'- 1 he said almost sternly. 
 ' The feeling I have about your mother would be 
 there even if I only liked you moderately ; even if I 
 disliked you, as I did my best to do. And now I want 
 to claim my right in her — er— whatever happens. 
 It's no use bogging about in words. Love must come 
 or go as it will. It's no use trying to force it. I want 
 you to know once for all that I'll go on loving you as 
 usual, and every day more. I won't say a word about 
 it, or even look more than usually foolish. I'll give
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 159 
 
 up blushing in time, and I shall never expect any- 
 thing. It will be a grind, of course, and it ought to 
 deserve some compensation if you're commonly fair. 
 If I do this, if I go farther and promise that if any- 
 thing ever happened, and some day — any time before 
 we die — you should come to care, then you'll have to 
 tell me. I'll never ask you again. If I promise this, 
 will you let me do any little thing I can that I'd do 
 as a right, if you'd cared for me ? "■ 
 
 Dolly sat rigid. 
 
 " To dare to say all this to me now — now," she said 
 through her teeth, half to herself. 
 
 " It's not what any woman has said that made 
 me say it, 1 ' he said. " It's the new world up here, 
 and down there, and over the hills in the little vile 
 streets, the world your mother showed me, by showing 
 me herself. Perhaps I have been able to say it be- 
 cause of your taking yourself away from me. At any 
 rate, the moment has come, and I have to say it. Let 
 me do anything I can. I'll play quite fair, Miss Alder- 
 son. Let me look after what belongs to me, and to 
 everyone else. One never knows what may happen 
 with tongues about. At least, don't think me im- 
 pertinent," he said, flushing for the first time in many 
 minutes. " It's different altogether from that." 
 
 " I wonder what it's like, then ? '■' said Dolly at last, 
 slowly. " It's unlike anything I ever saw or expected. 
 It's extremely unlike my first proposal." 
 
 " But it's not one. It's a promise never to propose.' 1 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dolly. 
 
 " I'd have said it better if you hadn't been you. 
 I'd have said, perhaps, that I'd make you love me, 
 that I'd win you in the end. Or some of the other 
 things. I could have said the other things five minutes 
 before I spoke, but the moment that made me dare 
 — as you call it — made me see that the only love I 
 could take or you could give must come of itself. 
 They must belong to each other. Your love and mine 
 must be expecting each other, and waiting for each 
 other, and recognizing each other in an instant — if
 
 160 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ever anything is to come of it, that is. And now yours 
 must come out to meet mine. 
 
 " So, Miss Alderson, you're perfectly safe. Neither 
 of us need be the least uneasy. I haven't even given 
 you the fag of refusing me. Give me some credit 
 for that, and let it make you trust my common-sense 
 a little. It would be such a simple compact, yours 
 and mine, and temporary. I'll discharge myself before 
 anyone else has the chance to do it. That's settled. 
 I see it in your face. So now, may I tell anyone that 
 counts, straight off, that you've refused me, but — we 
 remain friends. That sounds so respectable ! " 
 
 ' Your mother said that she'd rather see her only 
 son dead at her feet than married to me. Yes, tell 
 her. She'd like to know." 
 
 " She said that, did she ? Yes, she would like it 
 tremendously. It would simplify my refusal to go to 
 Wiesbaden with her to-morrow." 
 
 " She's asked you ? " 
 
 " No, but she's had my traps packed." 
 
 " But when a man's refused he always shoots birds 
 or himself, or goes abroad. I don't understand you," 
 she said. " Is this love ? Why don't you go ? " 
 
 ' It is, and it's the most amazing stimulant. I can 
 laugh at the world now, when I could only blush at 
 it a week ago. I can even laugh at you." 
 
 " No," said Dolly, " you can't." 
 
 And without a moment's warning she burst into 
 tears. Emotion heaped on emotion, pain upon pain, 
 surprise upon surprise, were too much for her ; and 
 she was alone on a hill-top with the magical essence from 
 which all the tears of all the world have been distilled. 
 
 The void and the nothingness of solitude was in 
 her heart. It was her first flight into the desert, and 
 she had found in it too much and too little. 
 
 " For God's sake don't ! '-'- he said, turning very 
 white. " I could never have thought of you crying. 
 It seems too impossible. I must have put my foot 
 in it," he said more robustly, " and you'll be blaming 
 me next, and I daresay I'll deserve it. 1 wish you'd
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 161 
 
 begin to change the subject, Miss Alderson. There's 
 no reason at all yon should be suffering. I know 
 there's not. 
 
 " But there's every reason you should have a friend 
 to look after 3 t ou," he said after a little pause. 
 " Come," he said, lifting her up. She was softly 
 sobbing. " Come away. There's a spell up here. 
 It's the tumuli there, and the druidical remains, and 
 pensive ghosts full of renunciations, and shadowy 
 sorrows. It takes a sun nearly vertical to keep them 
 off, and he's been slipping west all the time, and the 
 sooner we follow him the better. We can talk as we 
 go. We're friends, and between friends words are 
 simple things. You're sad and lonely, and you know 
 so little about sadness and loneliness that you ex- 
 aggerate things. Look here, this is our affair — yours 
 and mine, and we'll pull it through. I'll be a lot better 
 than a maiden aunt. And you're far more fit to face 
 any world suddenly revealed than your mother. 
 You're a born adventuress. You can throw yourself 
 into any life and defy it. You could scandalize it 
 if you liked. If your mother weren't what she is, you'd 
 have done it some day, perhaps, just to try your powers, 
 and pit yourself against something properly big." 
 
 " I never told you " 
 
 " But I know now. I wasn't sure before. You 
 began with me for want of something better. Then 
 I only blushed, and I do still, of course. It's a long 
 established habit, but now I can laugh at you as well, 
 and understand a bit. It's your power to be the fate 
 in any drama that makes you want to go out on ad- 
 ventures. You're always making up plays in your 
 own mind. Couldn't 'you' make up one more, with 
 your mother the daughter, and you the mother, and 
 look at everything from that point of view ? " 
 
 " Wait till I tidy up a little, and perhaps I'll know 
 better what you mean," said Dolly. " Never in all 
 my life have I cried before anyone outside the family 
 till now." 
 
 " I know a great deal about tears. I was partly 
 
 6
 
 162 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 brought up on them. They make you rather a brute. 
 They'd lost their value till I saw yours. I hope you 
 won't often have to cry. You know so well how to 
 laugh. And it will be stimulating, don't you think, to 
 be on guard more or less over a treasure absolutely 
 unconscious of its own content — of what it stands for, 
 you know." 
 
 Dolly went on silently beside him. 
 
 " I don't know anything. I can't be anything, '- 
 she said at last. ' I can't even be angry with you. 
 I'm confused and giddy ; I hate new worlds and new 
 adventures. And I've dreamt all my life of the joy 
 of finding them. Yesterday I could have done any- 
 thing and adventured anything, I was so sure of every- 
 thing. I could have scandalized the universe. To-day 
 I'm sure of nothing and have no enterprise. I couldn't 
 shock a curate. I feel as if I'd lost the best part of 
 me." 
 
 ' I don't think you've lost anything but your head, 
 and that's nothing. It soon rights itself, and all the 
 old habits will come back with a rush." 
 
 ' But to be afraid of yourself and of adventures 
 even for one instant ! To have to think of yourself 
 as dependent on people's toleration ; not to be abso- 
 lutely certain any longer even of the ground you stand 
 on ! There's — there's your mother and the other 
 woman. And your mother's scouring the country with 
 a field-glass. I wonder what I'd better do ? " 
 " Nothing. This is my job." 
 
 ' You — you don't look in the least — oh ! well, as 
 if you'd just refused me." 
 
 ' If I did, I wouldn't feel equal to the present job.'-' 
 
 ' Are my eyes red ? Do I look right ? "• 
 
 ' You look only too right for your audience." He 
 threw a hurried glance at her. " The glass is lowered. 
 They've seen us." 
 
 ' Have they ? This new world makes me see nothing 
 but s'tars." 
 
 " Oh, well ! Stars are all right till the sun comes 
 round again."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 163 
 
 " The way you've grown up ! " 
 
 " If you make it necessary for people to refuse you 
 you must put up with the consequences. I could have 
 
 stayed young for ever if I say, mother, have 
 
 you been looking for me long ? " 
 
 She got puce. 
 
 " I — I thought we might perhaps have met you. 
 Your mother, "Miss Alderson, is anxious about you." 
 
 " My mother anxious ? But I always go for walks 
 alone." 
 
 "Alone ! " 
 
 " I start alone," said Dolly with dignity. 
 
 " I see." 
 
 " I don't think you do, mother. I had the luck 
 to meet Miss Alderson on the top of the hill, and here 
 we are." 
 
 " I hope your walk has been a pleasant one, Miss 
 Alderson," she said sternly, dismissing her with a 
 glance. " And, Faunce, there are a thousand things 
 to arrange for our journey. I have wanted you 
 dreadfully." 
 
 " But Mayne always arranges for your journeys." 
 
 " Scarcely for yours." 
 
 " But I'm not going." 
 
 Mrs. Cuthbert fairly fell together. 
 
 " You never said a word of my going," he said very 
 quietly, leaning over the rim of the car. 
 
 " You knew," she said faintly. 
 
 " The symptoms all pointed to the fact, of course ; 
 but we never argue, }^ou and I. We do things to- 
 gether, or we don't. This time we don't. Shall we 
 finish it at home ? It only concerns ourselves." 
 
 " It — it concerns everybody." 
 
 " No," he said, lowering his voice. " Miss Alderson 
 has just refused me." 
 
 " Faunce ! " 
 
 Faunce's smile touched upon several emotions. 
 
 " So neither Wiesbaden or the governess-cart were 
 necessary, after all." 
 
 She stared dumbly at her son, and an inexplicable 
 
 6*
 
 164 D0R1NDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 new pain crushed out her gratitude to God. She 
 looked bleak and broken, more unutterably, stupidly 
 sad than she had ever looked before. The expression 
 that had driven her husband to the devil beckoned 
 her son away from him. He remembered that the 
 only living person who could possibly put up with her 
 was himself. 
 
 ' You must look cheerful now for both of us,"- he 
 whispered, leaning nearer her, " and keep up the credit 
 of the family. Miss Alderson," he said in his usual 
 voice, " my mother will give us a lift if you like ; but 
 what do you say ? " 
 
 Dolly stepped lightly from under the baleful shade 
 of Mrs. Drake's large person. The poor lady had 
 done her duty nobly. She had engaged Dolly in single 
 combat, while Mrs. Cuthbert dealt with her son. 
 
 " Of course we'll walk," said Dolly. " The pony's 
 half asleep already. If we're a little late, Mrs. Cuthbert, 
 please explain." 
 
 la the oddest way she was sorry for Cuthbert's 
 mother. It seemed suddenly to be hard on her, cruel, 
 horribly unfair that not half an hour ago her son should 
 be saying the haunting, unforgettable things he did 
 about another mother he hardly knew. Upon a quick 
 impulse she said it all aloud. 
 
 " It isn't fair," she concluded. " Nothing's fair 
 any longer. If you have all that to give her." 
 
 " One must give what one can to the one who knows 
 how to take it. It's no one's fault, and I don't think 
 it's unfair. I don't think I've defrauded anyone. 
 The best of the tribe must always be the best loved 
 woman, I think." 
 
 ' There seem to be so many ways of giving or taking 
 love," said Dolly half mutinously. 
 
 " To me there seems to be only one way. I don't 
 think I shall be doing wrong by my mother in going 
 my own way in future. The worst wrong I've ever 
 done her was getting into the way of obeying her 
 tears. If a man does that, he's lost. It's not fair. 
 It takes too much from both sides and spoils friend-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 165 
 
 ship. If I'd known your mother sooner, my mother 
 would have had a better time, I think. She's had a 
 rank bad time all along, just from two men not knowing 
 better." 
 
 " I wish she wasn't glad that you're — sorry. You 
 don't think she'll give up Wiesbaden to go on watch- 
 ing my mother ? "- 
 
 " It wouldn't surprise me." 
 
 " Then I won't be sorry for her any longer." 
 
 " Keep on being sorry, Miss Alderson. It's the one 
 little claim she has on you. My poor mother ! " 
 
 " Let's walk quicker, and we'll be home in time, 
 for her sake. It's easier than being sorry this curious 
 evening." 
 
 " Are you tired ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm tired of new things already, and I've 
 been waiting for them all these years. "- 
 
 " Let us go home," said Mrs. Cuthbert ; "we might 
 as well never have come." 
 
 Something had happened. Mrs. Drake's eyes 
 devoured her. 
 
 " She's refused Faunce," said his mother wearily. 
 
 Mrs. Drake leaped on her seat. The pony wheezed. 
 
 " And, Arabella, not to be thanking God ! "• 
 
 "I do thank Him," said Arabella crossly. " You 
 never had a child, Alicia. You don't understand.'' 
 
 " I certainly don't understand.' 1 There was a power 
 of vindictive meaning in the statement. 
 
 But Arabella did not enlighten her. 
 
 " Drive a little quicker, Alicia," she said. " The 
 pony is half asleep." 
 
 " She's refused him," thought Arabella. " But my 
 son's gone from me. I wonder who has taken him 
 away ? " 
 
 6t
 
 166 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Mrs. Cuthbert was composed altogether of good 
 intentions and violent evangelical tendencies. She had 
 neither brains, wit, tact, nor sense of humour. There 
 was always an indecency in her sufferings. She could 
 always sacrifice her world to a tear. 
 
 She now staggered in upon Mrs. Burgoyne and a little 
 knot of women in laughing conclave in Alice's room. 
 Her eyes were red. She had not even paused to 
 straighten her hat. It hung distractedly from one grey 
 wisp. 
 
 " Miss Alderson has refused my son," she solemnly 
 announced. 
 
 " Oh ! "■ said Alice. " But— sit down— do. I had 
 no idea you'd feel it like this." 
 
 " Feel it ? The refusal, do you mean ? Thank 
 God ! I'd rather see my son dead at my feet than the 
 victim of such an alliance." 
 
 A storm of eager " Ohs ! " battered about her ears. 
 She spread herself weakly on a sofa and the women 
 gathered in about her, angry, amused, curious. 
 
 No one took Mrs. Cuthbert very seriously, but every- 
 body bitterly resented her. She was a fool whom no 
 one could ignore, with a fatal facility for putting care- 
 less, unconsidered thoughts, all open to alteration 
 and modification, into words, and turning them in a 
 flash into a danger to the public. 
 
 Mrs. Cuthbert in travail with a new scandal was 
 as interesting as she was alarming. No one could 
 resist her. They drew in closer, and Alice breathed 
 more quickly. She had begun to be afraid, but the 
 time to silence the oracle was past. 
 
 " The girl's refusing Cuthbert alters nothing," she
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 167 
 
 declaimed. " All the reasons for my objections remain. 
 The time must come when to be silent any longer means 
 cowardice. It means worse : it means treachery 
 to one's high calling.' 1 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Cuthbert "- 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Burgoyne, permit me to do my duty. 12 
 
 " But it's nearly dinner-time. 11 
 
 " Dinner ! "- she murmured, throwing her eyes to 
 heaven. She looked almost sublime. Her husband 
 said her only passable moments were those in which 
 she was preparing to direct her broadsides against his 
 latest infidelity. He made it one of his excuses for 
 their frequency. 
 
 " I am quite aware," said she, " that the world 
 always alludes to culpable reticence as Christian 
 Charity. The Word would call it by a very different 
 name, believe me. She, whom we all hoped stood 
 altogether beyond suspicion, stands now upon the 
 very brink of a precipice. She is going the Way — 
 secretly or in public. She may go to the grave un- 
 detected, or she may get into the papers, almost before 
 we know. She may even make a sermon for a Papist 
 priest at no distant period, or become the heroine of a 
 ribald play. Anything is now possible. 11 
 
 She threw out her hands with a gesture of passionate 
 repudiation. Her pale eyes were dark with indigna- 
 tion, her eyebrows twitched. 
 
 " It's no use pretending to misunderstand you, 
 Mrs. Cuthbert,"- said Mrs. Burgoyne quietly. " You're 
 alluding to Dorinda Alderson. I hardly think that 
 any of us would venture even to think of taking you 
 seriously, or of seeing the remotest necessity for warn- 
 ing or taking care of Dorinda. What do you say ? !S 
 She turned to the others with a laugh. 
 
 " Good gracious ! " they cried with one voice. " The 
 last woman living who wants anyone's interference 1 " 
 
 " What she wants, I fear, is the grace of God, 1 ' said 
 Mrs. Cuthbert hopelessly. " Failing that, the plain- 
 speaking of her so-called friends might effect something ; 
 I, who only know her as she now is, can only pray. 15
 
 168 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " You can also be silent, Mrs. Cuthbert," said Alice. 
 " And while you're in my house, I must ask you not 
 to say another word on this subject." 
 
 There was a sordid, unlovely tragedy in the poor 
 creature's face that somehow touched Alice. Her 
 heart bled for Cuthbert. 
 
 " No words are necessary," she said. " Dorinda 
 could not do any real wrong. But even if there were 
 the most remote danger that she could, don't say 
 anything more, or think any more of such incon- 
 ceivable things, if for no other reason than that she 
 is the dearest friend I have, and because I love your 
 son nearly as much as if he were my own ; I love Dolly 
 one little bit better ; and because I love him I'm 
 immensely sorry for him, and sorrier still for Dolly's 
 folly in refusing him. And — oh ! dearest people, do 
 go, or we'll all be late for dinner ! " 
 
 " She is human," she thought ; " she likes my liking 
 Faunce. And yet 
 
 " And, goodness gracious ! " she thought, when 
 they had all trooped out, " what's come to my tranquil 
 tranquillizer, and all my beautiful plans ? Is all the 
 world gone mad ? 
 
 " To warn Dorinda ! I'd as soon think of warning — 
 the — the Virgin Mary ! 
 
 " Something's making a new thing of life for Dorinda," 
 she mused as her maid dressed her, '' that's plain. 
 And who's to point it out to her ? I'm not mealy- 
 mouthed, thank Heaven ! But Dorinda's face last 
 Sunday in church would silence the biggest scandal- 
 monger in England, if she had eyes to see it. If — if 
 love, or memory, or whatever you like to call it, can 
 lift a woman as high above herself and all the rest of 
 us as that, what's one to do ? One can only long to be 
 like her ! 
 
 " And to think of Dolly's refusing him ! And those 
 awful words that woman's sent wandering about the 
 air. Nothing matters in the least till it's put into 
 words. And — Dorinda in the power of the viperish 
 things, and in my house ! And to have to entertain a
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 169 
 
 big tableful with this on my mind ! " Fortunately for 
 herself and her guests, Mrs. Burgoyne knew nothing 
 at all of the havoc words had already made of Dolly's 
 little world. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 " And even if you did refuse the poor boy, Miss Dolly/' 
 said Mary O' Berne a week later, " it is myself would like 
 to look at him ! It is he of all of them that I must see. 14 
 
 " But he's done with," said Dolly, rather on her 
 defence. She was feeling depressed. If only love 
 had not slipped in, to what heights might not their 
 friendship have soared ! But to be suddenly saddled 
 with a brand new embarrassment which begat a doubt 
 of yourself and of everyone else, to have to think of 
 every step, and order even your looks, spoils your 
 stride and hampers your fancy. 
 
 Dolly would gladly enough have loved him. She 
 made efforts in that direction ; she tried horrid experi- 
 ments, and the boy suffered untold things ; but her 
 heart refused to stir in the matter. 
 
 They were back in town after the Whitsuntide 
 holidays. Mrs. Cuthbert had gone alone to Wiesbaden. 
 Faunce was alone in London. 
 
 It was to be a late season. There were a thousand 
 things to do, a thousand places in which he could see 
 her, and since a silence which neither would break 
 had fallen between mother and daughter, the one aim 
 of both seemed to be to go out, to miss nothing, to be 
 in every place at once. 
 
 Not that the slightest trace of outward hurry dis- 
 turbed the quietude of Dorinda. She looked more 
 unhurried than ever ; but she worked with frantic 
 persistence to escape from herself and avoid the haunted 
 solitude of being alone with Dolly. She did not choose 
 her silence. Every atom of her transformed being cried 
 for the power of speech. 
 
 " If I could begin, if only I could once begin, Dolly 
 would do the rest,'- 1 she thought.
 
 170 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Meanwhile the two, Dorinda and Dolly, turned with 
 eager minds of varying quality to Cuthbert ; and, strive 
 as she would, Dolly could not hate Delamer, or avoid 
 him, or disengage his age from that of her father. 
 
 After five minutes' conversation with him her distrust 
 and her secret sense of danger were blown to the four 
 winds. The strange power of the man was never so 
 apparent as in his dealings with both Dolly and Cuth- 
 bert. No matter what their innate resistance to him 
 might be, their instinctive, deep-seated doubt, their 
 frank, many-sided resentment, the man's will was too 
 much for them. 
 
 He lifted the boy and girl off their feet to some aerial 
 elevation, where the foothold was firmer than on common 
 earth, and he made the best out of them of which they 
 were capable. They returned to earth the better 
 for the jaunt. 
 
 " He does the same with mother," said Dolly one day, 
 in a whisper, when she and Cuthbert were sitting out a 
 dance. She always whispered now when she spoke 
 of her mother. " He changes every feeling one has. 
 We always liked England, but now we adore it ; it's 
 part of us. We think of it as one does of a poem, it 
 makes our hearts beat. You're as bad," she said 
 accusingly. " You know you are, and it's all Mr. 
 Delamer ! Look at his face ! He's old and not so 
 very wonderful. He's just like other people ; but he 
 makes me feel as the children must have felt when they 
 followed the ' Pied Piper.' I never could believe he 
 got them into any real mess, that man. Wherever he 
 brought them must have been beautiful ; and he didn't 
 do it out of revenge, he just wanted to save them from 
 those dull old burghers." 
 
 Her eyes were shining, her lips apart. The glamour 
 of the man was upon Dolly. 
 
 " I like him too," said Cuthbert robustly. " I 
 have a lot to thank him for. He makes tilings clear 
 to you. He puts you right. I haven't the slightest 
 intention of dancing to his piping, though." 
 " Neither have I, but I do it."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 171 
 
 " I wouldn't if I were you.' 1 
 
 " That's just it. If you were me, you would. 
 Besides, you do, you follow his piping in your own 
 way, and you come back changed. Just as I do, as 
 we all do. I wonder if he's Lucifer, the morning star, 
 taking a trip round the world. 11 
 
 " I think he's only Mr. Delamer, with a lot of letters 
 after his name, who knows men and women. 11 
 
 " And we're only the men and women who don't 
 know Mr. Delamer ? '-'- 
 
 " That's about it.' 1 
 
 " But the immense difference of the point of view ! 
 I wish we didn't always have to speak of him,' 1 she 
 shivered a little and leaned nearer to Cuthbert. 
 
 It was hard on the boy. Everything was hard on 
 him. He was learning life in a difficult school. " Oh! 
 Look ! -.she cried softly. " There they are, and they're 
 coming to us.' 1 
 
 " Miss Alderson, this will never do ! " said Cuthbert 
 sternly. " Look — er — cheerful. Call to them. Make 
 room for them. 11 
 
 He moved her chair and shielded her ; he did every- 
 thing for her, and for the situation. In an instant 
 or so nothing seemed more natural than that they 
 should all be sitting together carelessly talking. 
 
 It was a dream to Dolly, a nightmare to her mother, 
 but the conversation went trippingly, and Mrs. Bur- 
 goyne, as she passed with John, whom for days she had 
 been solidly pricking into a state of general suspicion, 
 tried to feel as though her anxiety had been misplaced. 
 
 John looked promptly triumphant. " I told you 
 it was all right enough, Alice. Why, I'd as soon 
 suspect you of an outbreak of illicit affection as I would 
 Dorinda. What if the fellow does fascinate her ; he 
 fascinates us all. When I called on him yesterday the 
 Prime Minister was sitting in his pocket.' 1 
 
 '' So long as he confines himself to Prime Ministers 
 I'm 'quite content.' 1 
 
 " The fellow doesn't pursue her. He's in no sort of 
 way compromised her. 11
 
 172 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Catch him ! He has himself to think of." 
 - " That's not fair, Alice ! '-'- 
 
 " All very well, but — when a man of his power takes 
 to rapidly turning Dorinda into an angel, a throbbing 
 and dangerously-alive angel, it's time to look round 
 you. The man is a wizard or an apostle. Anyway, he's 
 converted Dorinda. She's in the midst of some revo- 
 lutionizing folly, and nearer God than ever she was 
 in her wise days ; and Richard's on the other side of 
 the herring pond ; and I believe Dolly guesses. That 
 unhappy boy who worships both Dolly and her mother 
 does too. A nice game for an angel to be playing under 
 the noses of the children, and growing more angelic 
 at every step. Her silent- building-up power seems 
 greater than ever. And he sees it. He's taking ad- 
 vantage of it. I have no doubt she'll send him to the 
 top of the tree in no time. If only this doubt — it's a 
 devilish doubt — wasn't giving me fits. John ! Did 
 you ever feel as if teeth were being pulled out of your 
 soul without any gas ? "■ 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! I never did." 
 
 " I do, then, often. I hate destroying women," 
 said Alice. " I'm so tired of the creatures. I was so 
 proud of my master-builder, Dorinda." 
 
 " But, Alice," said the harassed John ; "if you feel 
 like this, why in God's name don't you have it out with 
 Dorinda ? " 
 
 " You have a gross mind, John, for all its apparent 
 delicacy. Imagine having it out with Dorinda the 
 Transcendental ! in common English words ! ' 
 
 " Say it in French, then." 
 
 She shuddered. 
 
 " Don't, John ! Dorinda that sort of person — in 
 French ! and Richard on the other side thinking of 
 some wide heaven of which we islanders know nothing, 
 full of colour and light and tremendous transac- 
 tions ! " 
 
 " Now, Alice, this is all nonsense. If Dorinda's 
 lost her head a bit it's all right. She'll soon find it. 
 If it's anything worse, with Richard away, her friends
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 173 
 
 can't keep on indefinitely lying low and letting her 
 go to pieces. If an angel forgets herself so far as to 
 act like a common or garden woman she must expect 
 to be treated accordingly. If you don't tackle Dorinda, 
 I will." 
 
 " John ! What would you say ? How'd you say 
 it ? " 
 
 John forged on with great alacrity. 
 
 " Now, John, just sit down here and tell me.'- 
 
 " Why, I'd tell her what I'd tell any other woman in 
 the same circumstances." 
 
 " But what would you tell any other woman ? " 
 
 •' Good Lord ! what any man in his senses would 
 tell her." 
 
 " That's not enough, John. What would it be ? 
 I'm helpless, craving for information. I've done 
 difficult things in my life. I've never funked a fence. 
 But now I'm flabbergasted ; I know of no words in 
 any language that would say the things that should 
 be said to Dorinda." 
 
 " You're in an exaggerated mood, Alice. Simple 
 directness is all you want. That's within the power 
 of anyone." 
 
 " But that's just what I'm driving at. What would 
 anyone in his full senses say with simple directness to 
 Dorinda, with her face shining as Stephen's must have 
 done on a widely different occasion ? " 
 
 John coughed, wriggled and laughed. 
 
 " There's not a man in England who would tackle 
 the job, my girl, nor a woman but yourself." 
 
 " Dear old John ! And except for the fear of leaving 
 you to shoals of shark-like widows, I'd rather die." 
 
 " John," she said, with some irrelevance, " I could 
 almost wish you died first." 
 
 " If life hasn't divided us, my girl, I don't think 
 death will," he said gently. " Speak to Dorinda 
 soon." 
 
 ' There's black magic in the matter, I believe." 
 
 " Quite likely, if you call black magic the art that'll 
 get you what you want at any cost to anybody."
 
 174 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " I wonder what the handsome old prophetess has 
 to say about it all ? " 
 
 " Nothing half so much to the point as your native 
 wit will tell you when the time comes. Put the matter 
 out of vour head to-day, and to-morrow go in and 
 win." 
 
 " Oh, John, if the transforming passion came to 
 me like a thief in the night and worked havoc " 
 
 " Have as many transforming passions as you like. 
 .They won't interfere with the only one that matters 
 — to either of us." 
 
 " Oh, well, it's stood for twenty-five years, I think 
 it'll last out the rest. And yet Dorinda's been married 
 for nineteen years, and to Richard, and she's an 
 angel." 
 
 " I had the luck to marry a girl who wasn't an angel, 
 but who loved me. That's all the difference " 
 
 ' What a pair they are, Dorinda and Dolly ! " 
 
 " And you've been talking nonsense, Alice. They're 
 as good friends as ever they were." 
 
 ' You've known me all these years, John, it's odd 
 you should know so little of women. The magician 
 who's divided them looks rather sublime to-night, 
 and he's squandering every art he's possessed of upon 
 the boy. The indecency of the exhibition makes me 
 sick. And yet my wicked, wicked heart beats with 
 anticipation. The Way out of the affair is so- impossible 
 to foresee. One's imagination seems at the same time 
 as alert and as swoony as one's head and heart. Every 
 human weakness comes crawling out. One's emotions 
 are in pulp. One's morals half-set jelly. I love 
 three of them so much that I can't hate the fourth. I 
 can even understand Dorinda's loving the instrument 
 of her deliverance. For Delamer has set her free. 
 I've got the word ! That's what he's done. He's 
 set her free, and she knows it. And he knows it. He's 
 beaten Richard, and it's going to be a war of giants." 
 
 John stood up looking rather stiff. 
 
 " Look here, Alice ! What you've got to do is to 
 come straight home. And you must have a glass of
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 175 
 
 whisky and milk directly you're in bed. But I'd 
 advise you to say your prayers first." 
 
 Alice followed both suggestions, but awoke un- 
 refreshed. Her burthen of responsibility seemed 
 to have taken tons to itself in six hours. John again 
 recommended simplicity and common sense, and went 
 golfing. And even the blessed consolation of un- 
 bridled speech was denied her. 
 
 She worked conscientiously through three com- 
 mittees and their complicated finances, and in sheer 
 desperation, remembering a long unredeemed promise, 
 went about five o'clock to have tea with Richard's 
 old nurse. They were only casual acquaintances, 
 really. Dorinda's silent, commentless aloofness from 
 the old woman had unconsciously affected her friend. 
 
 " But I can't 8tand ordinary human beings any 
 longer," she said. " I must try an extraordinary 
 one or ' bust.' And Dorinda's last chance of enjoy- 
 ing the faithful counsel of a friend is gone." 
 
 She found the old woman looking marvellously fine 
 and delicate and beaming with joy, pouring out tea 
 :or Dolly and Cuthbert. 
 
 Her tea-table spoke of the primitive instincts of 
 two continents. The Celtic love of beauty showed 
 iorth in its lavish adornment of flowers, the two- 
 handed bounteousness of the youngest born of all 
 the lands in its bewildering array of scones with strange 
 names, and cakes and cream ; and as Alice had eaten 
 nothing particular since the night before, she was 
 not at all above falling to. No woman living could 
 drop her civilization with greater zest and alacrity 
 than Mrs. Burgoyne when she chose. 
 
 " I came to be comforted, Mrs. O'Berne. I didn't 
 know it was feeding I wanted till I saw your table." 
 
 "It is often enough we do mistake what it is we 
 do be wanting, and looking for the comfort, it is to 
 let the scones get cold we do," said Mary, handing 
 her a steaming plateful. " There is never any hurry 
 with the comfort, it is always warm it will keep, but 
 with scones one does have to think of the clock."
 
 176 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " The comfort you have to give keeps warm, I've 
 been told, but it's another matter out in the world." 
 
 ' You all go so quick out there ! It is the swishing 
 of the coat-tails of the men hasting to be rich, and 
 the skirts of the women hasting to be happy, it is 
 that cools the comfort. I often think when I do go 
 out to look, sometimes it is love they will cool. It 
 is to blow out the fires of life with our faithless hurry 
 we do be doing, instead of fanning them into a steady 
 flame, as we go gently to and fro. And so all of you 
 come at last to the old woman that do be too stiff 
 and tired to go quick any longer, and herself with 
 nothing to do but to keep her small little fires with a live 
 heart in them and the hearth clean. And it is for Miss 
 Dolly and the young gentleman to bring in the quicken- 
 ing of youth. And that do be so quick and alive it 
 need never hurry. And it is itself alone can set fire 
 to the ashes of fires long cold and make the air alive. 
 It is the quickness that wants no whip is in it, and the 
 fire that wants no blowing. It is glad I am that I was 
 born up in the mountains in Ireland and lived in a 
 sizable country, Miss Dolly, with a sky you could see 
 from dark to dawn, where I had time not to hurry, or 
 it is not yourself would be coming so often to see me 
 now and bringing your friends with you. Mr. Cuthbert, 
 the oftener you come it is the better pleased I will 
 be." 
 
 With the warm, impulsive grace that was the charm 
 of Dolly and made her close companionship almost in- 
 tolerable to the wretched boy, she stretched out and 
 caught nurse's hand. 
 
 " Nov/, if you only knew," she said, turning to 
 Cuthbert. " That's your initiation. And it's better 
 than being given the freedom of the City of London." 
 
 ' I do know," said Cuthbert. " I'm not half so 
 dull as you think. I knew the instant I came into 
 this room. It wasn't the scones, Mrs. O'Berne. There 
 were nothing but flowers then." 
 
 " So from this out it is myself will have a double 
 portion of youth to stoke my fires," said Mary, laugh-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 177 
 
 ing. " Miss Dolly it is living for ever I will be on 
 you now with the two of you in and out always." 
 
 Dolly nodded cheerfully. Cuthbert made a valiant 
 effort to rival her nonchalance. 
 
 " In other circumstances I could throttle her," 
 thought Alice. " But this is all such child's play 
 to the other drama. A real proper tragedy makes a 
 clean sweeo of everything. It fills your mind with 
 its foetid gloom." She remembered her immense 
 tea. " I eat," she told her conscience, " in order to 
 tackle Dorinda. 
 
 " And I'm losing even my sense of humour, I believe. 
 I don't wonder that the only tragic poet I ever dined 
 with looked lurid and had a fiery nose. But Dorinda, 
 with her angel's face and her powerless hands, and 
 that mouth of hers, warding off the blandishments 
 of Lucifer up there ! I know the hat was his ; there 
 was an extraordinary halo of iniquity around it ; and 
 that unspeakable John out golfing ! " 
 
 " May I come too, Mrs. O'Berne ? " she inquired, 
 rather humbly. 
 
 'It is not myself will invite you, Mrs. Burgoyne. 
 It is yourself will come when you want me. It is 
 eighteen months I do be waiting for this visit." 
 
 Mary looked square at her, but there was no re- 
 proach in her merry eyes. 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Alice. " But no one could apologize 
 to such a woman as you. You defend one from the 
 commonplaceness of one's own soul, and what's more, 
 yon make one say it out in words. I've lost a great 
 deal in not coming." 
 
 ' It is you have lost nothing, lady. No one comes 
 to see me rill the time comes. Is it not waiting twenty 
 years for one little visit I am ? " she said with a half 
 shy little laugh. 
 
 ' To wait twenty years for anything ! " cried Dolly. 
 
 " And Him above waiting for a glimmer of common 
 sense in the creatures He made for the length of the 
 whole world. So what call have the likes of us to 
 crumble for the matter of a few little vears."
 
 178 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' It's such a big comparison," sighed Alice. 
 
 " But when a thing is sizable, Mrs. Burgoyne, it 
 do seem as if we could handle it better. It is the weeny 
 little things it is slipping in and out unknownst that 
 frustrate us." 
 
 ' Nursey," said Dolly suddenly, " I never saw that 
 lovely cap before, and I thought I knew all your things. 
 Where did you hide it ? And was it in honour of us 
 you wore it to-day ? " 
 
 " No, dear. It is not for you it was." 
 
 She paused, and the oddest change came over her 
 face. She looked as if every atom of her were stand- 
 ing still, listening in some strange silence. When in 
 an instant she had come back, she looked a little baffled 
 and disappointed. 
 
 'It is not certain sure I am, then, why I wear it, 
 Miss Dolly. I never touched it for twenty years till 
 to-day. And then I heard the call to put it on. And, 
 maybe, it is better I would have done to leave it in 
 the little box. I am not sure." 
 
 Her face and manner curiously excited Dolly. She 
 stood up and leaned over the old woman's chair. 
 
 " I'm shivering with curiosity," she said. ' I feel 
 as if I was in the middle of the most exciting story 
 I ever read. I can't finish my tea unless you tell me 
 if the visit and the cap belong to each other, if they 
 are parts of the same thing. Oh ! the lovely old scent 
 of it ! It must have been lying in rose leaves for 
 twenty years." 
 
 " It is a foolish old dream it may be, after all, Miss 
 Dolly," said Mary humbly; " but whatever it do be, 
 they do be part of one another — the visit and the 
 little dream. And so it is yourself can finish yer 
 tea." 
 
 Dolly seemed to be fascinated by the cap. She 
 altered the set of it a little, and touched the white 
 hair under it ; while with the exquisite breeding in- 
 born in her, Mrs. O'Berne again absorbed herself in 
 the happiness of her guests. 
 
 But Dolly was as sensitive as her father to the strange
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 179 
 
 second life of the old woman, and she felt somewhere 
 the vibration of a jarring note. 
 
 " What you feel always does come," said Dolly. 
 " My father says it does. He's been on the look- 
 out all these years and never found you wrong, and 
 you know nothing escapes my father. I'm sure if 
 you felt you ought to put on the cap that you ought, 
 and that it's a thing and not a dream, and that it's 
 going to happen, perhaps when I'm here. Oh ! 
 nursey, if only it would ! At any rate, it's not a foolish 
 old dream. Your dreams are always young and 
 always wise. You mustn't lose confidence in your- 
 self. If you did, or if father did, I'd think the world 
 was coming to an end. I'd never want to eat a scone 
 again. I'd sit in the ashes and think of my sins and 
 what other people say of them. My father would, 
 too — we all would." 
 
 ' There wouldn't be ashes enough for the family, 
 or sins enough," said Mrs. Burgoyne, laughing. 
 
 " No knowing," said Dolly. " If once we began 
 to think of them or to be afraid of them ! It's much 
 nicer to live as if such things didn't exist for you. 
 To be sure of everything and afraid of nothing ! With 
 you here to protect us, nursey, father and I feel always 
 as if everything must straighten out. If you begin 
 to wobble with father away I'll believe in anything 
 awful." 
 
 ' Then I must not, Miss Dolly. It is to put on the 
 cap for something I had to do. It is certain sure of 
 it I do be now again. It need not be for what I meant 
 it, after all. It is not for what we want for ourselves 
 we do be ever quite sure. — I have some new pictures of 
 the old place beyond to show you, Miss Dolly. — It is 
 myself would like to take you there before I die, no 
 one could show it to you like myself." 
 
 ' Take us all there ! " cried Dolly, with a quick flush. 
 
 Nurse turned to her with a lit-up face. 
 
 "It is to bewilder me you do, Miss Dolly, with 
 dreams that cannot come true. That is the danger 
 in it of bringing youth in to stoke the fires of the old."
 
 180 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She picked out several photographs from the pile 
 Cuthbert had brought her. " There," she said, pointing 
 to a wide avenue of blooming magnolias. " That is 
 where yer father rode his first pony, and there on 
 the hill above he got the better of his first buck-jumper, 
 and there it is where he learned to round in cattle." 
 
 She forgot her audience, the anxious present, the 
 doubtful future ; she remembered only the magical 
 youth of her motherhood. She carried her listeners 
 with her over the enchanted ground. The splendour 
 of the wonderful life under the wide skies was in the 
 air. 
 
 Dolly trembled and thrilled in her splendid revela- 
 tion of love that shone from the little quiet story of 
 her father's boyhood. She looked strangely like him, 
 as in the old days he, too, had listened to another 
 story of another life, on an Irish mountain, barren 
 of all things but the sweetness and the purity of high 
 places, and the richness of the spirit. Mary looked 
 at the girl and saw her son ; the years dropped from 
 her, the fragrant incense of eternal youth was in the 
 heart and voice and face of the woman. Her words 
 shone, ripe with mystic light. 
 
 The woman and the girl and the boy, breathless 
 and eager-hearted, felt in a world in which they had 
 never walked. Scenes unvisited by common mortals 
 passed before their enlarged vision. Dorinda, in a 
 hush of amazement, stood immovable in the door-way. 
 
 She had knocked twice unheard, had then gently- 
 opened the door, and her soul, stripped naked from 
 the agony of her passion, saw more than the souls of 
 the innocent. She saw the beauty of love, and the 
 glory of motherhood, and the infinite guilt of the failure 
 of a woman. 
 
 But standing above them all, challenging, rejoicing, 
 demanding, she saw herself set free. She could have 
 seen things as they looked a month ago and laughed 
 a little kindly. Now she saw them as they were ; she 
 saw the immensity of human destiny and the glory of 
 the light upon her awakened nature. Hot upon the
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 181 
 
 vision came that of her own right in the heritage, the 
 inalienable right of magnificent demand. 
 
 And the man who had brought her face to face with 
 consciousness, who had showed her all the kingdoms 
 of the earth and the glory thereof, was Lancelot Delamer. 
 Her twenty years with Richard were "as a tale that 
 is told." 
 
 They had left no impression. Dead, distant, barren 
 were the years. Men, women, even the children she 
 had borne, had been to her as trees walking. 
 
 And now this woman's words transforming Richard ! 
 No— Dorinda in her way was honest with herself! 
 They did not transform him, they set him in the right 
 light, put him with the real things that she had so 
 long missed. The tragedy of their divided life loomed 
 larger. Fate stood cold and sinister and implacable 
 above them both. 
 
 She leant against the lintel and listened to the 
 passionate poem, full of the homely touches that bring 
 hearts together. And for the first time since her 
 awakening Dorinda longed with desperate desire to 
 be back in her cold prison. It had been so safe and 
 sure, and she had learnt her lesson of patience. She 
 could have gone softly in the chill twilight, all her days, 
 if she had never known love. 
 
 Xurse paused, stirred, and turned suddenly to see 
 two sad eyes fixed upon her. 
 
 " Oh ! '" she cried out upon what almost sounded 
 like a little sob ; but in a second she collected herself, 
 put the photographs on the table, and made such 
 a curtsy to Dorinda as never before was seen, so full 
 was it of pride and of humility, and of the fulfilment 
 of a great joy. 
 
 " And it is yourself is come to me, my lady ; and 
 it is the good day entirely it do be for the likes of me." 
 
 " I was lonely and I heard that you were all here 
 together, and so I had to come," said Dorinda, laughing 
 nervously. 
 
 " And so you had to come ! " repeated Mary, her 
 calm face slightly quivering, her eyes fluttering in
 
 1 82 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 their effort to be still. "It is so glad I was, Lady 
 Dorinda, I think I forgot my manners. It is readier 
 I will be the next time, for whoever has to come to see 
 me will come again for sure." 
 
 " But," said Dolly, open-eyed at the effect of her 
 mother on old nurse, " you're really rather horrid. My 
 mother's often been to see you." 
 
 " Often, Miss Dolly. She wouldn't be Lady Dorinda 
 if she had failed in anything. And I do be old and 
 alone, and in a strange land. Many's the time it is 
 she has made me proud and thankful with her visits. 
 But it is to-day she has come home to me." 
 
 Dolly was excited, curious, astonished ; the room 
 was full of floating, elusive romance. 
 
 Suddenly she had an inspiration. 
 
 She swallowed several emotions and glanced signi- 
 ficantly at the cap. All the answer she got was Mary's 
 fadeless blush, and a little gesture beseeching silence. 
 
 Dolly had to say something to someone, so she 
 turned to Cuthbert. 
 
 " Do you understand ? " she said in a low voice. 
 " This is the visit, and the secrets from all the pot 
 pouvri pots in creation seem to be let loose." 
 
 " We both understand a lot, I believe, but you have 
 to put it into words that don't fit it. And I can't 
 put it into words at all." 
 
 " I wish nurse would go on again," she said. " You 
 ask her." 
 
 They seemed to be joined in an odd bond, she and 
 Cuthbert ; to be standing for purposes of protection 
 and illumination in one common youth, shut out from 
 some grim, dim happening, in which youth could have 
 no part. 
 
 Cuthbert was so content to be close to her that 
 he made no move to obey her. 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne, Dorinda, and Mary were talking 
 together. Dolly missed the breath from the wilds, 
 the wonderful presence of her father that not ten 
 minutes before had filled the room. The essential 
 nearness of Cuthbert was very well in its way, but a
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 183 
 
 poor substitute for the thrills and throbs she had so 
 recently been experiencing. The elder group were 
 no doubt also experiencing new sensations, and they 
 looked unusual. 
 
 She could not tell why, but all at once Dolly wanted 
 to bring her father back. The story had made him 
 so alive and urgent and necessary to all of them. 
 
 " Don't you want to hear more yourself ? '■' she 
 snapped half jealously. " Aren't you interested in 
 my father ? " 
 
 " Interested ? Rather ! " 
 
 " I don't believe you appreciate my father in the 
 least. Mother has somehow blotted him out. That's 
 very ridiculous, for they go best together. ' l 
 
 " I had the luck to be taken up by your mother,'-' 
 said the unhappy boy. " There was no reason that 
 your father should take me up too : or — or that I 
 should force myself on his notice. I'd give a great 
 deal to know him properly if only I had the chance." 
 
 Dolly tapped the floor with an impatient toe. 
 
 " I suppose you're blaming me now, in a way." 
 
 " Blaming you ? " 
 
 " Oh, well. Perhaps not. But your greatness in 
 not doing it makes me feel small." 
 
 " To prevent such a catastrophe I'd better sulk a 
 bit." 
 
 "Don't, or I'll think you can't keep on doing what 
 you set out to do. And I'm too wobbly myself to 
 stand wobblers. Just see it out, Mr. Cuthbert, in the 
 nice way you're doing. Don't shatter my belief in 
 human beings. I'm sorry," she said suddenly. ' I 
 
 get sorrier every day I know you better. But it's 
 no good. You can't make it — love— come, or per- 
 haps you can't send it away, or elude it, or escape 
 from it. It must come or go, or forget you, just as it 
 chooses. And the whole world is at the mercy of its 
 touch, or its passing by. It's an extraordinary thing. 
 It makes j^ou feel so insignificant. It's terrifying — 
 love ! — but I don't think I'd like it to pass me by." 
 
 " Neither should I."
 
 1 84 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " That's nice of you." 
 
 ' I may just as well accept the inevitable. It 
 couldn't pass you by. I shall be out in the Colonies 
 probably when it comes. Will you let me know ? 
 We're old friends, so I have a right to ask.' 1 He 
 watched her with a doubt. " Perhaps I'll be a decent 
 enough fellow by that time to come home to see. 
 I'll bring you pearls from Colombo and a long string 
 of amber from Tangiers, a flame in the heart of every 
 bead the exact colour of the ends of your hair." 
 
 " Why do you go to the Colonies ? " 
 
 " Directly I saw your father I thought I should 
 like to go to them. And the story of the beginnings 
 of his life there has decided me. The space and 
 silence of a very voung country or of a very old one 
 are the things a man wants, I believe, if he's going 
 to tackle the littleness and the bigness of England. 
 And I must begin something. I can't keeo on idling 
 much longer." 
 
 " Only for — er — things having happened I'd like 
 to go with you and to take nurse and — to live the 
 whole of some spring in the old place, and pick up 
 the lost bits of that old story. Why couldn't you 
 have cared for some other girl ? " 
 
 ' Even that might have prevented our trip together. 
 Girls have curious fancies." 
 
 ' They need have none about me. I can play tne 
 game. Please choose a broad-minded girl who'll 
 see at once that I can. I can't be shut out, not — 
 not now. If you've lived together through some- 
 thing you can't quite understand, but you both know 
 is rather horrid, it makes you such unusual sort of 
 friends that the most idiotic imagination must — well, 
 be convinced. It's rather like seeing a ghost together 
 in the dark, don't you think ? It's an experience 
 no one else can ever have with you. It puts you 
 beyond commonplace folly." 
 
 ' It does. It's a fine foundation for a lasting friend- 
 ship. But the other girl " 
 
 He broke off — for good apparently.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 185 
 
 ' You can defer the other girl if you like for a little 
 bit," she said indulgently ; " but she must come in 
 — some day. It would be a continual reproach to me 
 if she didn't. And I do want to be happy again, to 
 be as happy as I meant to be. And I can't wait too 
 long. Having to wait at all is pretty awful ; and 
 even with the — er — rest put right — I could never be 
 properly happy if I saw \-ou miserable." 
 
 " I have no intention of being miserable." 
 
 " You will till you get me right in your mind, and 
 nothing but another girl will be the outward and 
 visible sign of that. What a beast I was that first 
 day ! They've forgotten us, those three," she pre- 
 sently went on. " That's always the way. My 
 mother wipes out everyone else. But she mustn't 
 wipe out how my father looked just now." 
 
 Dolly stood up with decision and planked the pile 
 of photographs down again before nurse. 
 
 There was a pause, a start and a laugh, but Dolly's 
 challenge prevailed. Nurse slipped back into her 
 element and the story told itself in words that went 
 well with its primitive magic. It was eight o'clock 
 before they left the room, and they were all late for 
 dinner. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The rest of that astonishing day was a confused dream, 
 to Dorinda. 
 
 There were two large parties that night. She got 
 through her duties valiantly and looked more still and 
 more beautiful than usual. But the distance between 
 her and Dolly had widened a little, and she was too 
 tired to sleep. Such a day to have come to her, above 
 all women on earth ! 
 
 The persistent, paradoxical shock in the whole 
 alluring, repelling affair was so bewildering. She 
 had waited in vague, trembling expectation for this
 
 1 86 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 day, and now that it should have come seemed so 
 amazingly impossible. 
 
 She sat rigid against her pillows until the homely 
 sounds of an awakened household warned her to lie 
 down and pretend to be asleep, and to try to get ready 
 for all the days to come : to face them with courage 
 and dignity wanted everything she had not now to 
 give. 
 
 The intimate silence, the mystery full of mutual 
 understanding, which up to that day had distinguished 
 her relations with Delamer, had helped immensely to 
 stifle and soothe to rest a very considerable part of 
 Dorinda. She had had, it is true, her apprehensions, 
 her agonies of fear and repulsion, the intolerable pain 
 of Dolly, but her delicate nature had not been directly 
 outraged. The vagueness of the affair, the floating, 
 ethereal quality of its romance, even in a way of its 
 swift undercurrent of throbbing human passion, had 
 kept it so far upon those pinnacles of luminous clarity, 
 where love reigns supreme, to which the earth-weighed 
 wings of desire cannot soar. The treachery, if 
 treachery it were, had been so far in the mixture of 
 spirits. It concerned particles with which no man 
 can reckon. 
 
 Dorinda's intense conflict with herself, her stern, 
 puritan mental protest had never dealt at all with 
 the flesh. To her it was all the amazed revolt and 
 resistance of a spirit. It was the unconsciousness, 
 the innocence in the fight of this woman who had half 
 lived her life that so enthralled the keen, all-round, 
 grasping experience of Delamer. He was vividly alive 
 to the best in men and tilings, but it only aroused the 
 whole of his profound impulse to dominate and possess 
 the whole. 
 
 Part of anything, even the best part of it, had never 
 been enough for his insatiable demand. He wanted 
 everything, the best and the worst, everything that 
 goes to round out a woman or an aim, all the contrasts 
 which blend into the harmony that makes perfection. 
 He was afraid of nothing, belittled nothing, could
 
 DORIXDA AND HER DAUGHTER 187 
 
 omit nothing in a woman or in fate. With him it 
 had always been all or nothing. 
 
 And a dream must either manifest itself or pass by. 
 The matter was quite clear in his own mind. He had 
 come that afternoon with the definite purpose of 
 awakening Dorinda to the fine prose of life, and 
 Dorinda, immersed for the first time since her very 
 young dream in the poetry of it, believed that capable 
 of holding the whole of life and all its throbbing life- 
 blood. 
 
 " It's dangerous to look at you," he said. " You 
 make one believe in the impossible." 
 
 '" But what one believes in must be possible — 
 somewhere," she said. 
 
 ' Very likely. But somewhere is too far off. It 
 smacks of Eternity, and we've got to do with time. 
 Do you know, I believe you're suffering from a revul- 
 sion of habit. All your life, until quite lately, you 
 looked unexpectantly and with perfect indifference 
 in that charming, unhurried, apparently sympathetic 
 way of yours — you hadn't any sympathy really, 
 Dorinda, till lately — at each minute as it slipped by, 
 and naturally nothing happened. It never does to 
 the indifferent. But lately, lately, Dorinda, you've 
 begun to hurry, to be eager, to press forward into the 
 beckoning glamour, and outrun the minutes. You 
 haven't faced a minute these three months, you most 
 magical of women, and you've carried me with you. 
 The ignored minutes will have a heavy score against 
 us ! That sort of thing never lets you off." 
 
 " What do you mean, Lancelot ? " 
 
 " I mean to face the next few minutes. Ah ! don't 
 move. Sit in that shaft of sunlight and let me see 
 your wonderful face lit up. You've lived long enough 
 in the shadows, Dorinda. You can never go back 
 to them. I've made that impossible, at least." 
 
 She stirred on her seat ; it was his first direct men- 
 tion of himself in this way. 
 
 ' Lancelot, will you please not say any more'? " 
 she said with difficulty.
 
 188 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Dorinda, why are you afraid of words ? " 
 
 " I — I understand silence better, I think." 
 
 He watched her with the strangest pitying reverence. 
 Everything in the complexity of her being deeply 
 moved him : the closely-curbed, anxious soul, so 
 diffident with the haunting fear of its own frailness, 
 the sequestered mind so full of reserves, of over- 
 sensitiveness : this mind, to whom the treasures of 
 chastity were so dear, that she felt herself unworthy 
 of so great a trust. She would thankfully have yielded 
 it all up to the authorized custody of another guardian, 
 if only she could, if only she could, this woman, 
 whose heart cried for the loving, jealous tyranny of 
 complete possession or a convent ! 
 
 He had a horrible understanding of poor Dorinda ! 
 
 As he watched her, the greatness of the sacrifice 
 he meant to demand fanned the flame of his passion, 
 renewed his youth. The ardours of a boy throbbed 
 in his heart. His was the calm implacability of the 
 man who stands at bitter cost on the pinnacle of 
 attainment, and demands happiness as a right from 
 the force with which he has so long been in conflict. 
 
 He had no petty private quarrel with the force that 
 had denied him. The struggle had been magnificent ; 
 he had never counted the cost or resented the toil. All 
 he wanted was to prevail, to stand even at last with 
 his foe upon the territory he had so hardly won, and 
 demand the right to rule his own kingdom, follow his 
 own leading, crown his life with the best. Above all, 
 to renew his earthly fires with fire from Heaven. 
 
 There was hardly a trace of common sensuality in 
 Delamer as he watched the wonder of her face. An- 
 overwhelming desire to share in and make for ever 
 his own the living, passionate purity of her spirit was 
 upon him. His wild, untamed nature, that scoffed 
 at limits and defied God, suffered a sudden revulsion 
 against itself. The scars of old sins lightly sinned, 
 soon forgotten, stood out in knotted cords before 
 him. The heat of old hells, which at the time had 
 only excited and fascinated him, now burned and
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 189 
 
 scorched. An insensate desire seized him to blot out 
 everything in himself that soiled and offended and 
 upset the balance of things by a plunge into her 
 transcendental life ; to cleanse himself in her inno- 
 cence, restore his faith in hers. He desired with a 
 great desire to be one, once and for ever, with this 
 rare, solitary creature, who had everything to give he 
 had not got, who held the keys to all the mysteries 
 still unknown to him, in her unclaimed hand. 
 
 A woman had been bound in with all his ambitions, 
 and each in turn had failed him. Life, from his point 
 of view, could be run only on these lines, and to try 
 experiments, and while they lasted to put the best 
 of himself into them, was part of life. 
 
 He had had everything from other women except 
 what Dorinda held within the dim and unexplored 
 circle of her own ignorance. 
 
 This thing concerned itself with the ultimate con- 
 quest, the goal of humanity, the union of the soul 
 of the man and of the woman. 
 
 Strange lore he had learnt in the East, words 
 spoken in still nights in the desert by lonely fires 
 flashed like flame into the white-hot brain of Delamer. 
 He felt as the first primeval man who came to con- 
 sciousness might have done. He felt as a god might. 
 He stood above all petty racial bonds ; above 
 morality, conscience, conventions, chivalry, good- 
 fellowship : he was before the tribe began. 
 
 He was himself, and a law unto himself. 
 
 His revolt against limits, his spring to omnipotence 
 gave him an irresistible, ruthless power. His influence 
 was in the air, a tangible thing. 
 
 The weakness of Dorinda's mouth was most pitifully 
 apparent. It touched him as the cry of a child might, 
 or as some hideous hurt to Dolly. She had grown 
 very dear to him, Dolly, as dear as the child who 
 might have been his. 
 
 For one instant she made him pause, whiten, and 
 swerve from his purpose ; but with the magic of her 
 hidden treasures Dorinda drew him back.
 
 igo DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 For the first time in his life he kissed her. The 
 first kiss in all her lonely life with any sense of man- 
 hood or godhood in it. It was like the fierceness of 
 the sun upon snow. Dorinda melted down resist- 
 less into the warm earth. In an instant she was a 
 woman open to all disaster. 
 
 " We don't want words, we two," he said at last. 
 " We haven't from the very beginning. I've never 
 said a word of love to you. I've never said a word 
 that mightn't have been flaunted out on the village'sign- 
 board till to-day. I've never even touched you except 
 as a friend may. By God ! I haven't even touched 
 you, Dorinda ; your magic protected you ! And now 
 it's mine ! It's mine ! I have all of you now even 
 if I were never to see you again. I have all that 
 Alderson never had. Perhaps he didn't even know 
 you had it to give." 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried out faintly. " I know nothing 
 now ! " 
 
 " Poor Dorinda ! I know very little of him ; I 
 only know that not an atom of you belongs to him. 
 That he's failed where I've won. I've made use of 
 no chances, I've used no intrigue ; I've done nothing 
 practically in this matter. I've missed a score of 
 opportunities of meeting you. I have never once 
 appealed to you, Dorinda. What are such things 
 between you and me ? The thing has been inevit- 
 able. We've come to each other because we had to 
 come. We've been bound together from the beginning 
 of time by things of which no one knows anything. 
 Something bound us, perhaps it's the force that draws 
 the earth to the sun and the sun knows ; let the sun 
 be responsible, then ; we're out of the running." 
 
 " But — at the beginning " 
 
 " I acted myself, but only at the beginning. Since 
 then I've followed another leading. Not yours, 
 Dorinda. Don't look like that. It was the other 
 thing that turns the earth and the sunflower to the 
 sun. It's Kismet." 
 
 Dorinda's head dropped into her hands.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 191 
 
 " Dolly ! " she moaned. " Oh, Dolly ! Dolly ! " 
 
 " Ah ! I've thought of Dolly. She might have 
 been mine, Dorinda. We can't hurt Dolly. She 
 mustn't suffer by us ; but even Dolly can't divide 
 us. Nothing can now. Nothing can any longer set a 
 limit to love. Only for Dolly I should defy the world ; 
 I've learnt long ago to despise its verdict. Only 
 for Dolly, I should carry you off this minute, Dorinda." 
 
 She oniv trembled a little more. 
 
 " Dolly"'! " she murmured pitifully. " Oh, Dolly ! " 
 
 ' Whoever suffers," he said slowly and distinctly, 
 " Dolly mustn't. She must not be hurt by you or 
 by me. She must lose neither father nor mother. 
 She must only gain the best friend that ever a woman 
 had." 
 
 She fixed her beseeching eyes on his. She had a 
 thousand arguments, and no strength to speak them. 
 
 " In claiming the whole of you, Dorinda, I only 
 claim what is mine already. What fate has given 
 me. What I've always had. And I have always been 
 ready to pay the price for what is necessary to me. 
 I'm willing now — this instant — to give up everything 
 for you, Dorinda, because I can't do without you, 
 and you're more to me than anything else. I am 
 ready to sacrifice everything, and it's a good deal. 
 I believe I can do most things I set my mind to. I've 
 had a long apprenticeship to empire-making, I know 
 the ropes, and I think I can handle them, and I'm, 
 so to speak, stripped for the start. But I can give 
 it all up for you. I can sacrifice everything but Dolly 
 without regret. If I had never known her, perhaps 
 it would have been different, but one can't hurt what 
 one has come so close to." 
 
 " Not Dolly ! ' : she cried, lifting her white face. 
 " Not Dolly ! " 
 
 " But to save Dolly a great deal must go. Some- 
 thing men call honour must go, but in this case it's 
 only a word " 
 
 " A word " 
 
 ' Whom do you belong to, Dorinda ? " he said in
 
 192 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 a low voice. " To Richard Alderson or to me ? Whom 
 do you dream of by night and think of by day ? Who 
 has brought you to life, Richard Alderson or 1 ? Who 
 
 has made you a mother, Richard Alderson or 1 ? ' 
 
 He stilled her terrified protest with a harsh gesture. 
 
 ' The birth of Dolly was an accident that left you 
 unchanged. Ah ! you know it," he said, stooping 
 towards her frightened face. " It was I who unbound 
 the mother's heart in you, let loose its passion. I 
 gave you to Dolly, Dorinda, and you know it. 1 gave 
 you to your friends. I gave you to the world. You, 
 on your part, can't give all that to a man, Dorinda, 
 and refuse the inevitable rest." 
 
 She shuddered, numb and mute. 
 
 " What have you done for the career of Richard 
 Alderson ? " he demanded. 
 
 She started, paused and stared. 
 
 " Nothing," she said after a long silence, " nothing." 
 
 " And you've made me wait until now for mine. 
 It's been a long waiting, dear. I could not face it 
 alone, Dorinda. Not the career that belongs to me ; 
 that is mine when I choose to claim it. You owe 
 me yourself, Dorinda. Richard Alderson hasn't earned 
 any right in you." 
 
 ' You come between me and God, Lancelot," she 
 said at last. 
 
 " Between you and God — I wonder if I do. If it's 
 a fair accusation. Did you ever pray to God — really 
 — Dorinda, from the time I left your life to the day I 
 came back into it ? Since when has God become 
 personal to you, close, one with you ? The romance 
 of Christianity is alluring. One can't get away from 
 it. Someone once said, and the lines have always 
 fascinated me, ' Nearer to us than breathing, Closer 
 than hands and feet.' Was the God of your belief 
 all that to you, Dorinda, till I came back ? It 
 seems to me that it was I who gave your God to 
 you." 
 
 ' You have no mercy," cried Dorinda despairingly. 
 " You've taken everything " 

 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 193 
 
 " Not everything," he muttered. 
 ' You've taken the best things. You've taken all 
 the secret thoughts I began to think were sacred. 
 You've taken Dolly in a way. If we never hurt her 
 openly, she'll get hurt in my heart — she's not at home 
 in it any longer. She — she can't come in and out 
 as she likes. She has to knock, and some day I might 
 have to shut her out altogether, because I'd be ashamed 
 to let her in. And — it might be the same with — 
 with God. Oh ! Will you go ? " she entreated. 
 " Give me time to think, to look at myself and Dolly, 
 and — and everything ! " 
 
 The desire to rule and dominate and possess her — 
 through her to lift himself to unknown heights, at 
 any sacrifice, at any pain or price, had now over- 
 mastered him. It lifted him above himself. The 
 spirit of evil in him shone with the radiance of the 
 morning star. He had touched her soul, and the 
 alchemy of the spirit that still dwelt there was trans- 
 muting even him. A hideous greed for the fulfilment 
 of the last, the crown of all desire was aflame in him ; 
 he was brutal with passion, and the contending forces 
 of good and evil. Suddenly a swift memory of Dolly's 
 careless, laughing, defiant, strong young face blotted 
 out Dorinda's agonized one, an immense pity for her 
 weakness pleading to his strength took him. He 
 suffered a horrible pain and a wild change of attitude. 
 
 He was afraid of his own pity, compassion, love. 
 But he was afraid a thousand times more that he should 
 lose her. For now the insatiable desire for redemption 
 from any source, at any cost, which lies dormant in 
 the worst of us again stirred tumultuously within 
 him, and the danger of yielding on his own part made 
 him ruthless. Never once had he yielded to woman 
 or fate, and he was not going to begin now. He threw 
 the last scruple to the winds, laughed softly and dan- 
 gerously, and more dangerously caressed her. And a 
 certain concentration of the will he had practised 
 half idly in the East he now used upon Dorinda. 
 He laughed and caressed, and let the mystic forces of
 
 394 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 his will flow like bemusing wine into the depths of her 
 being. 
 
 She felt the danger. She lifted up her feeble hands. 
 Her mind turned to catch hold of God, to catch hold 
 of Dolly. But they had deserted her. Still, good- 
 ness was very dear to Dorinda. She stretched out 
 pitifully after it, but it seemed to have turned away. 
 
 ' What have you done ? " she said. 
 
 ' I've done nothing but love you and give you 
 life." 
 
 ' Yes," she said, speaking in little gasps. ' You've 
 given me life, and Dolly, and my friends and — and — 
 perhaps God. I deny nothing. Love can do every- 
 thing. Will you do one thing more, Lancelot ? Will 
 you go away and never let me see your face again ? " 
 
 " When you're mine — mine in fair fight ? And 
 you — are you ready ? — you with your present powers 
 and passions alive and alert — are you ready to go 
 back to death, dear ? To go back with a guilty con- 
 science ? You have come too far to go back as you 
 came. You would go back stripped even of your 
 innocence, of your courage, of every new-born hope. 
 I can wrap you round with love. I can cherish and 
 protect you, Dorinda. You're only standing on the 
 very threshold of love," he said passionately. ' You 
 know nothing of its depths, its mysteries, its power 
 to change everything— to do everything. Our love, 
 yours and mine, could move worlds. You and I to- 
 gether will make the whole Empire ring. With you 
 I'll bring to pass the impossible. It's what I've wanted 
 to do for twenty years, Dorinda, and what no man 
 can do alone. With you I can do untold things. This 
 is not the usual passion of a man that passes, leaving 
 things untouched. It belongs to things, it's part of 
 them, it's of the bricks and mortar that build them. 
 Who set you in my path ? who gave me the power to 
 transmute you in a moment ? to change your face, 
 your voice, your outlook in a week ? Who gave you 
 the power to make me see in myself the one man that 
 England wants ?
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 195 
 
 ' I have brooded in the desert and been illuminated. 
 I have caught the spirit that lies lurking in silent 
 places, waiting for an interpreter. I have been thrown 
 upon the Force that makes you see things as they are. 
 Out there I have often thought that if any man could 
 save the nation it was I. But there wasn't incentive 
 enough. I had laughed too long at the chaos and 
 folly and misrule of modern England. I'd gone in by 
 too many of her back doors and seen her greed and 
 her manners. I'd watched her, north, south, east 
 and west. Ah ! I shirked the job. But you've 
 changed all that, Dorinda, you and things I learned 
 out there in the East, where one learns to live. There 
 we know that the great work can only be done by the 
 man and the woman made one. It's never been done 
 alone, and it never will be. It's in the nature of things 
 that it must be a dual job." 
 
 His face shone, the brute lay passive, the inevitable 
 Celt had taken the field, and insidious dangers encom- 
 passed Dorinda. He was inspired with the passion 
 of Empire, a new creature. Dorinda sat up panting, 
 and the glory of her face tinged his. 
 
 ' I have money, position, youth. I'll be Prime 
 Minister in five years. I'll move the heart of the 
 ' grey old mother ' at last. She's not in senile decay,'-'- 
 he said with flashing eyes. " She's nodding, but I'll 
 wake up her heart and make it show her the strength 
 of her head. I'll do it if you come to me, Dorinda. -'- 
 
 She was uplifted, inspired. The omnipotence in 
 his bearing, his plea, his demand, awoke every magni- 
 ficent instinct in her. 
 
 Was ever such a compact as yours and mine ? '-'- 
 he said. " And think of the issues involved in it ! ''-'■ 
 He paused and drew his fingers slowly across his eyes. 
 
 ' When I came in to-day this was no more than 
 the dream which has been slowly coming to maturity 
 in me ever since I was a boy, which has carried me 
 out into the desert and back into the street, which 
 has been the uninterrupted undercurrent of my life and 
 has written itself out upon reams of paper that have 
 
 7*
 
 196 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 never seen the light. If I've dreamed a good deal, 
 I've never been idle, Dorinda. I have been waiting 
 for yon to bring the dreams to birth. With you all 
 things are possible. But I must have the whole of 
 you. In my scheme of life and yours, spirit and flesh 
 are inseparable." 
 
 She was beyond the power of words. The magic 
 omnipotence in his face and voice and words domi- 
 nated her. Her shrinking repulsion against the brute 
 in him had vanished in her pure worship of the god. 
 He was a sublime revelation of manhood to her. The 
 frenzy of the great martyr swallowed up her fear. 
 The eternal power of woman, founded upon sacrifice, 
 surged up in her. She gloried in her pain. What 
 she could alone offer to such a man must be priceless. 
 
 She saw every lost power in herself, every faculty 
 soothed to sleep, spring into limitless life in his service. 
 
 She saw the other dreamer who had never come 
 to her for inspiration, firm and strong and self-con- 
 tained, leaving her alone to her barren, unfruitful 
 life. 
 
 ' Richard," she said at last slowly, " can also dream.' 1 
 
 ' Yes : he's dreamt to some purpose too, but I'll 
 beat him even in his dreams. If he'd had you, the 
 whole of you, he'd have gone as far, perhaps, as I shall 
 go — now. He's had his chance, and he has not 
 taken it." 
 
 " Was — was it my fault, I wonder ? " 
 ' It was no one's fault. It was Kismet, or the 
 ' Troll ' — or the other thing. We met, and mixed in 
 a moment where he could never enter in twenty years. 
 The thing was settled before either of us was born. 
 Think of the greatness and the wonder of our secret, 
 Dorinda," he said softly. " The adventure in it ! 
 The coming out into visibility of all the desert dreams ! 
 By God ! such dreams ! And yours the hand that 
 sets the whole vast machinery in motion. What a 
 woman you'll be, and I what a man ! " 
 
 She made a strange little sound. 
 
 " Ah ! the price," he said, a passion of love in his
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 197 
 
 voice. ' The price of an empire, perhaps, and one 
 can't buy these things cheap." 
 
 The greatness and sincerity of the vision kept her 
 silent. She was overpowered with the exaltation of 
 bringing it out into words, into the light of hope, into 
 certainty. Nothing seemed impossible to Dorinda as 
 he looked at her, nor to him as he watched the mysteri- 
 ous unfolding of her virgin mind, as her spirit flashed 
 like a white flame into his. He clean forgot the sordid 
 necessities of the case, and she knew nothing about 
 them. 
 
 He forgot most things, the fair setting of her beauty 
 of Richard's providing, the dull roar of the street, 
 the dull verdict of the man in the street ; Dolly ; the 
 boy with his vague, youthful disapproval ; Dorinda' s 
 want of experience, her immaturity, her nascent 
 desire to know — of his — inspiring, her past of brooding 
 silence ; he forgot all that put her most cruelly at his 
 mercy. He was only conscious of insatiable desire 
 and of powers which nothing but the possession of the 
 woman could set free. 
 
 Upon the very verge of behaving like a cur, Delamer 
 rejoiced in a greatness already in his grasp, a great- 
 ness higher and greater than mortal mind has yet 
 reached to. 
 
 The love he offered her, in spite of him, in spite of 
 everything, was at last great and genuine. 
 
 For an amazing half -hour they stood together above 
 their contemplated sin, and mapped out the salvation 
 of a nation. He poured forth a wealth of secret treasure 
 at her feet. She experienced the highest emotions of 
 an Egeria. 
 
 But after he had left her, the unutterable desolation 
 of her absolute solitude drove her to old Nurse — the 
 gentle inspiration of another dreamer. And now, the 
 sad reality of night brought out all the smaller emotions 
 of a good heart. 
 
 She cried for Dolly, and her inalienable right to her 
 inheritance of innocence, already perhaps forfeited. 
 
 7\
 
 198 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Her conscience, meanwhile, was giving Alice Burgoyne 
 a good deal of trouble, but her John was giving her 
 considerably more. John left most things to his wife, 
 but when he interfered, he did it to some purpose. 
 Although Mrs. Burgoyne's burning interest in the 
 drama now unfolding itself, which moved them both, 
 grew in bounds, her zeal to act as Providence in the 
 matter, did not keep pace with it. Days passed by 
 and she had not yet stirred. John, on the contrary, 
 liked action. He made it his immediate business to 
 cultivate sedulously the acquaintance of Mr. Delamer, 
 and the effect of that gentleman on his own solid 
 common-sense made him extremely apprehensive for 
 Dorinda's, of whose quality he had his doubts. 
 
 He has the mind of a great statesman,"- said John, 
 " and -soars far above scruples. He's lived too long 
 in the East. Heaven only knows what mischief he 
 was up to out there, beyond the salutary reach of 
 Public Opinion." 
 
 ' John, dear, if only you weren't sp -uncompromising 
 a Philistine ! " 
 
 ' It's a good thing for you that I retain that grace 
 at least, with you slipping off at every opportunity 
 into your passion for transcendental drama at any 
 price. , Dorinda's face, as the old woman told what 
 seems r certainly to have been a very pretty story, 
 provesi nothing. One can only be thankful Delamer 
 didn't See it. Just the sort of thing to strengthen the 
 will of such a fellow. He likes insuperable difficulties. 
 And why should she be coming straight from him 
 and bringing that face with her ? What business 
 had she with such a face in Richard's absence ? In
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 199 
 
 common decency, it oughtn't to touch you in the way 
 it does. For my part, I'd like to carry her off on the 
 yacht, and land her, well provisioned, on a desert 
 island till she took a pull and steadied her head. A 
 dreamer with next door to a blasphemous belief in 
 himself and a mind above morals and religion " 
 
 " He knows no end about religion." 
 
 " About religions, you mean. It's always a bad 
 sign. If you catch a man interesting himself in every 
 vagrant faith he meets', you may be sure he'll never 
 stick to one, except to use as an .excuse for doing what 
 he wants. I have no doubt Delamer's leanings towards 
 Mohammedanism are sincere enough." 
 
 " You like him immensely." 
 
 " If I didn't, I wouldn't bother about Dorinda. I 
 like him as I like the devil, or Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 or any other magnificent sin incarnate. He's the 
 makings of the finest politician I ever met. He's just 
 what the country wants and Dorinda doesn't. He's 
 what Richard Alderson might have been." 
 
 " If he hadn't a conscience," she cried eagerly. 
 
 " Or Dorinda," he said gravely. 
 
 ' John," she said in a low voice, ' how could you 
 say it ? I've so often thought it." 
 
 " She's clipped his wings, Alice, and I've never 
 said it before. She's clipped Richard's, and she's 
 making the other fellow's sprout. Dorinda's certainly 
 going it." 
 
 John, when you do take the trouble to speak the 
 truth, it's horribly, brutally true. I never dared to 
 think of this." 
 
 ' I've never bothered myself about it really till 
 now. Richard's right enough as he is, but when one 
 comes to think of it, look at the fellows not fit to tie 
 his shoes he's pushed into place with his money and 
 influence and that queer power of his. He lets the 
 sun and air in on everything, even on party politics. 
 Once he rouses himself he'll sway any crowd, and then 
 stand aside with his queer laugh and let the other man 
 pass him, and go back himself to the City."
 
 200 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' And he doesn't care a rap for money." 
 But making it fills up his time and keeps his brains 
 busy." 
 
 ' He could do better with them. I wonder if he's 
 happy, even in his dreams ? " 
 
 He's too much a man of action to be content with 
 dreams. Catch the other fellow stopping short at 
 dreams, with all his dreaming. And yet there's more 
 of the stuff of which dreams are made in Delamer than 
 in Richard. He's not enough of an Englishman ! — 
 Delamer — to do anything in the East but loaf and 
 get into mischief. There's too much French and Irish 
 in him, and something of the Oriental. There's no 
 end to his pedigree, I hear. Didn't the Phoenicians 
 settle in Ireland once ? " 
 
 John ! You're not going to start an imagination 
 now. Stay practical, for goodness' sake ! I wish 
 Richard had had a son." 
 
 " Ah ! a son might have done the trick. One would 
 like to do the best for a son, but a wife is better, Alice. 
 I wouldn't swop you for a dozen sons." 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears, for she knew that his 
 sorrow in this matter was as deep and strong as his 
 loyalty. 
 
 I've wondered sometimes if God was afraid of 
 our being too happy if we had one, and forgetting 
 Him, John," she said, with a gallant laugh. 
 
 That's beyond me, my girl, but I daresay the 
 people at home, about the place, and in the village, 
 wouldn't have so good a time if I were off hustling for 
 the boy. When are you going to see Dorinda ? " 
 
 ' I'm going after luncheon. And I can't say it in 
 the drawing-room ; that's quite clear." 
 
 ' Take her to her bedroom, then. Women can 
 say anything in their bedrooms, I'm told." 
 
 " / can't. I'll take a tea basket and motor her 
 down to Burnham Beeches, and I'll say it there." 
 
 " There's a good old three- volume novel wrapped 
 up in you, Alice." 
 
 " But, John, trees are such a help."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 201 
 
 " Dorinda'll look too well in them. You'll make 
 a muddle of it." 
 
 " No, I .won't. Just suppose I'd fairly started in 
 the drawing-room, and Lancelot Delamer came in." 
 
 " That would be your opportunity. You might 
 turn your moral artillery on him." 
 
 " I wouldn't. I'd stand with bated breath while 
 he turned his immoral artillery on Dorinda. Oh ! 
 John, you ridiculous old dear ! I'm good just because 
 you're you. But as for theories ! One's interest in 
 life is always swallowing them up. One likes to watch 
 the play and forget the moral, when the play's big 
 enough. I hate immorality in a tea-cup, the little 
 venomous scandals of provincial prejudice. John, 
 you'll give me that much credit. But when Empire- 
 making comes into it — they've both told me more 
 than either of them knows, I think. Think of Dorinda, 
 making dreams incarnate, a regular panorama of 
 sublime dreams ! " 
 
 " And Richard the laughing-stock of the town." 
 
 " John ! You great elephant ! You don't suppose 
 I forget that part because I remember the other, and 
 so can understand Dorinda a little. The dove in 
 Dorinda has suddenly turned into the eagle because 
 she caught sight of her real self in an eagle's eye, and 
 so she feels herself in her natural element, and wants 
 just to flutter about an eagle's nest for a little, to 
 explore." 
 
 " Talk sense, Alice. She's got an eagle of her own 
 already." 
 
 " But he's chained to a perch in the City, and she's got 
 to look at him as one does at other domestic animals. 
 One can respect them, but one can't worship them 
 or die for them, or even make a fool of oneself for them, 
 as one would for a creature of the wilds." 
 
 " If these are your arguments " 
 
 " I haven't any, John. She's a phoenix risen, new 
 born from the ashes of thwarted powers and emotions 
 and instincts, thinking of no one but herself and 
 rejoicing in herself, for the first time in her life, and not
 
 202 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 knowing in the least what to do with the tragic curiosity 
 of a heart only just revealed to her by the power of 
 a magician." 
 " At her age— 
 
 ' Haven't I often told you of its subtle dangers ? ' 
 she sighed. 
 
 ' I detest this modern craze of women for exploring 
 their own insides," said John. " Let them stick to 
 what they know something about. If you say another 
 word, I'll take over the job myself. If we weren't the 
 degenerate curs we are I could call out the fellow and 
 make a clean sweep of the business." 
 
 " And perhaps make a clean sweep of me, and of 
 Dorinda's reputation, and Dolly's chances. Go and 
 play golf, John, and leave women to women." 
 
 ' If you were women ; but it seems to me you're 
 both of you dreams, and one on the verge of turning 
 into a nightmare for all of us." 
 
 ' But we're women in the end," she said ; " and 
 Dolly's Doll}', and Dolly must save us all from the 
 power of the dragon. If Dolly had been mine, I'd 
 ha,ve had more arguments, I think. The birth of a 
 child must let loose no end of wisdom." 
 
 " But Dorinda's got all that at her back." 
 
 " She doesn't look behind her, she's looking out before 
 her at the newest wisdom of all, and the oldest and 
 the deepest. She can see nothing else for the moment. 
 Oh, go ! John, and play, and be most awfully nice to 
 the caddies, and don't damn once for luck ; say a 
 little prayer instead for me, down there, sticking pins 
 in a poor little heart that's only just born, and that's 
 so young and purblind that it's wandered away from 
 its own rich kingdom into forbidden territory." 
 
 ' I trust you to bring it back all right, my girl, at 
 any cost — at any cost, Alice. I hate beating about 
 the bush. Action is better than talk, even if it's moral, 
 which yours isn't. Suppose I come with you, and in 
 case of trouble we can carry her right off to the yacht 
 and put to sea." 
 
 " John ! It would be splendid ! What a headline
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 203 
 
 for the morning papers ! Lady Dorinda Alderson ! 
 And with Faunce's mother and the other harpy at 
 larsie ! You were never made for delicate situations, 
 dear." 
 
 " Take a whisky and Apollinaris at your lunch, 
 Alice, and I hope it'll do you more good than the milk 
 and whisky did. You want bucking up badly. The 
 old-fashioned morals one was brought up with come 
 in best in a tight place, I think." 
 
 Alice dived after his retreating form and kissed the 
 back of his neck. 
 
 " They're there as large as life behind the new, 
 John ; but a woman must understand a woman before 
 she can tell her properly what she thinks of her." 
 
 " And a man may love a woman for twenty years," 
 said John, profoundly sighing, " without knowing a 
 damned thing about her. Good-bye, my girl. I wish 
 you were coming down to Ranelagh with me." 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 " Take me, too," said Dolly, rather wistfully. 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne wondered if Dorinda looked re- 
 lieved. 
 
 " No ! This is going to be a serious picnic, Dolly. 
 We want to be alone for once, to be the one centre 
 of attraction in the neighbourhood, and to be able to 
 claim the vmdivided attention of the trees. I've noticed 
 they've begun to regard me, at least, with less absorbed 
 interest than they once did. We must pause un- 
 disturbed, to recollect how immensely necessary we 
 are to the solidarity of the universe. One wants such 
 a day and hour," she sighed, " when one has been, or 
 ought to have been, pushed aside for an entire season 
 by the young. And youth, in spite of depressing 
 dramatists, doesn't knock at your door ; it bursts in 
 and shoulders you out of the way." 
 
 " Is that you, Alice, or a stranger ? " said Dorinda.
 
 204 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " I'm tired, and I don't want to go for a picnic with 
 a stranger." 
 
 " I'll come back, Dorinda, when the time comes. 
 Meantime I've been enjoying Ibsen — I fished him out 
 from the back of a shelf — and a jaunt into pessimism." 
 
 " Whafs brought you to this, Cousin Alice ? " 
 inquired Dolly. 
 
 " Seeing so much of John makes you lax, I think. 
 You live in a circle of sunlight, and you forget the 
 shadows, and the crimes of youth, and the tricks of 
 destiny. And even though you're passee yourself, 
 and used up, and ought to be retiring from a world 
 that is still so kind and dear, you can't tear yourself 
 away. And you can't believe in sin being so sinful 
 with goodness so good, and so much deeper down in 
 everyone's heart than the sin. And you can't believe 
 in defeat, with victory the possible end of every battle. 
 And you're quite sure that Youth never does knock 
 at your door for nefarious purposes, or burst in to 
 oust you from your own hearthstone, and that the 
 only time you need ever be afraid of youth is when 
 you hurt it. To look at yon, Dolly, and ever after 
 hurt even a puppy ! And when after twenty-five 
 years of his society a man has reduced you to this 
 state of moral pulp, he turns and rends you, and calls 
 you sentimental, and recommends whisky and Apolli- 
 naris, then goes off to his sinful pleasures, leaving 
 you desolate, what can you do but fall into pessimism, 
 and go for a picnic with someone who gives the lie, 
 in her own person, to every pessimist in creation ? 
 
 " Alice ! Will you talk of anyone but me ? " 
 
 " I can't till I've done with you. We all come 
 to your mother, Dolly, when we've fallen into tem- 
 porary ruins, in order to be built up again, and 
 strengthened, and established in the faith." 
 
 Dorinda was laughing, but she looked rather lividly 
 white. Mrs. Burgoyne's heart sank and ached. 
 
 It was an impossible sort of crime to have to doubt 
 and hurt this woman. She represented so much to 
 her, and to others so like and so unlike her.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 205 
 
 And Dolly ? There was the oddest challenging 
 inquiry in Dolly's clear, wide eyes, a vague surprise 
 behind them. A nervous, excited sense of urgency, 
 of the shortness of time, seemed to be driving Alice, 
 always keenly alive to the advantages of spoken over 
 concealed thought, into wild words. She wanted 
 so to speak as to build up again, in the hearts both 
 of mother and daughter, a broken image ; to restore 
 the ideal to its throne before she dared adventure 
 into the horror of levelling fact. She had believed in 
 Dorinda as she must always believe in John. And 
 so she must make the idea, of the best in Dorinda 
 paramount in her own mind, and in Dolly's, and per- 
 haps in Dorinda's, or she might just as well have gone 
 golfing with John. 
 
 She had not meant to say a word of what she was 
 now only too volubly saying. She was quite clear- 
 headed and recognized the flightiness of her methods ; 
 but it seemed as if the things must get themselves said, 
 and in a given time. 
 
 It may have been the memory of Richard in the 
 perfect house he had built to hold his treasure — the 
 mother and the daughter so beautifully fitted the one 
 to the other, and the shadow which divided them ; 
 or the obligation put upon the woman who has never 
 sat for one moment on any throne — " not even on a 
 three-legged stool," said Alice — to see to it that one 
 who had sat on one of pure gold for nearly forty years 
 did not now fall off it. " Even to wobble on it," she 
 thought miserably, " to look as if she could topple 
 over, when we've all been depending on her all these 
 years. It's — it's treachery ! " 
 
 This was a fatal thought. She promptly changed 
 it. 
 
 " Don't look so unappreciative, Dorinda," said she. 
 " Anyone would think I was accusing you of putting 
 on the airs of any one virtue. You're merciful, dear, 
 as you're strong. I don't know of one social move- 
 ment that rings with your name. I'm only trying to 
 say how nice, and restful, and confidence-inspiring you
 
 206 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 are, sitting in your nice, quiet way above the ravages 
 of temperature and the strife of tongues. You restore 
 one's faith in human nature. Oh ! go and dress. To 
 be keeping me talking like this, when we should be 
 already on the road." 
 
 ' What will you do without us, Dolly ? " she inquired, 
 as Dorinda left the room. 
 
 " Oh," said Dolly, coming back with a start from her 
 own thoughts, " I shall be wondering what you are 
 talking about, and watching a polo match. I'm going 
 down with Elizabeth Graham ; her brother is play- 
 ing." 
 
 " Oh ! Alastair ! Do you like him ? " 
 
 " Yes, I like them all, I think, for different things." 
 
 " Differently ! " 
 
 " I don't know. I think there's a family likeness 
 in all the affections," she said, laughing. ' They all 
 seem to be part of the game. One couldn't play 
 properly with less. Being short of a man is always 
 a bore. One could be frightfully happy, Cousin Alice," 
 she said suddenly. 
 
 " But isn't one ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Sometimes one is — and then I'm 
 not sure. It's a wobblier thing than I thought — 
 happiness. I used to think it depended altogether 
 on yourself. I used to think that when people weren't 
 happy when they wanted to be they were rather fools. 
 But now I think it doesn't depend on yourself. It 
 depends on a thousand things, and you can get lost in 
 them. You aren't as necessary to everything as you 
 were when you first began. Sometimes you feel as if 
 everything could go on just as well without you, as if 
 you couldn't make things happen even in yourself ; 
 then how can you expect to make them happen in 
 other people ? It's a horrible feeling." 
 
 ' It's one quite unworthy of you, Dolly." 
 
 " It is pretty low, but I think it's only for a minute. 
 I wish the minute would be quick and get on, and let 
 me get on with it. It's rather like walking after 
 flying, sometimes. Everything looks different when
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 207 
 
 vou're up in the air. There you don't think of these 
 things." 
 
 " Think of nothing but the polo to-day and flying. 
 And you'll soon be on the wing again." 
 
 " Do you think I shall be, really ? " she said, playing 
 with her cousin's chain. " When one stops being 
 sure of — anything, it spoils everything. Oh, Cousin 
 Alice ! ' she cried suddenly, hugging her, with a 
 shimmer of tears behind her eyes. " Things aren't 
 a bit like I meant them to be. They could be ripping, 
 but they're not. Even when the chance comes one 
 is afraid' of being as happy as one could be, because 
 one — one isn't sure. It's like being afraid of ghosts 
 out in the broad sunshine. It's idiotic," she said, 
 laughing. " I think we all want my father at home 
 again. I'm glad you came yesterday, and heard 
 about him. I wish you could make us all fly again, 
 Cousin Alice. I don't think walking dully down in 
 the dust suits us." 
 
 " And it doesn't interest quiet wayfarers like me 
 to watch you, little Dolly. It sets our folded wings 
 pleasantly flapping to see you, and the likes of you, 
 aloft in heights to which we can no longer soar in 
 the present dispensation. Nothing will make me 
 believe that the uses of my wings are lost. I'm cer- 
 tain they're only gone before, like the hymn ; mean- 
 while, you make us believe in them, and disbelieve in 
 age, except as a sort of bridge — a passing-over to a 
 new youth." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dolly, much interested. 
 
 " And it's the business of youth to keep our eyes 
 continually following its flights. The belief in her 
 own potential flying powers that flutters in the bleak 
 breast of the most forlorn old human bird yet invented 
 might die out if she hadn't the flights of youth to keep 
 her eyes turned upwards, and then the world would be 
 like a city of the dead. Try how you will to reverence 
 and feel kindly towards the years, you'll soon hate them 
 like poison unless they carry your youth along with them, 
 and nothing but watching the youth of the day in its
 
 2o8 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 right clement can make one keep on knowing that to 
 be possible. So think of your responsibilities, Dollv, 
 and keep on flying." 
 
 " But if one gets tired ? " 
 
 " One won't if one refuses to. It's bad enough to 
 have one's feet in the dust, but think of your white 
 wings trailing in it, and at your age ! I'm surprised 
 at you, Dolly, and you an eagle ! " 
 
 ' I'm surprised at myself. And I feel more like a 
 dusty hedgerow bird than an eagle." 
 
 " Ranelagh will set all that right. Ah ! Dorinda, 
 there you are ! But " She sprang up, startled. 
 
 Dorinda ran to her and took her hands. 
 
 " It's John, Alice ; he's been hurt. You must 
 go to him, dear." 
 
 " John ! " 
 
 ' It will be all right, I know it will," said Dorinda 
 passionately. " Things must go right with you. 
 Every thought you ever had has been good." 
 
 ' What do you know ? " she said. " Tell me every- 
 thing ! " 
 
 " His taxi was run into somehow, and he's hurt ; 
 no one knows more yet." 
 
 Mrs. Burgoyne felt the strong grasp of Dolly's 
 fingers on her arm as they hurried down the stairs, 
 and a short sob shook the girl. Alice remembered 
 vaguely some other pain now left far behind her. 
 Then she remembered more nearly and clearly. 
 
 ' Keep on flying, Dolly," she" said, her brave lips 
 trembling. " All the other wings are broken for the 
 moment. And never forget that the best thing in all 
 the world is to love the man who belongs to you." 
 
 ' I'm coming with you," said Dorinda, looking 
 terribly white. 
 
 " But surely I may come ? " she cried, as Alice, looking 
 at her, pushed her back. 
 
 " You — you don't look the least fit." 
 
 " I never failed a friend yet," she said bitterly, and 
 with quick repentance, Alice motioned her to the seat 
 teside her.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 209 
 
 It was a bad business. John's head had come against 
 the kerb, and the only possible hope for him lay in an 
 operation. 
 
 Dorinda did what she could beautifully. Her whole 
 heart threw itself into her almost wild desire to help, 
 and to immerse, and absorb herself in some other pain 
 than her own ; some pure, atoning pain, in which one 
 might find the great solution, the great salvation. 
 
 But some horrible spectre rose up in her heart and 
 made a barrier between her and Alice. She felt guilty 
 in the presence of this perfect love of a lifetime and 
 the courage of an untainted soul. 
 
 The words with which she pleaded to stay and help 
 were feeble and timid ; her heart, in spite of its glowing 
 love and longing, hid itself from her friend. A feeling 
 of new isolation, so different from that in which she had 
 gone softly between sheltered hedges, came upon 
 Dorinda. It was the tragic isolation of chosen fate, 
 of chosen sacrifice, a severing of all bonds, a renounce- 
 ment of all affections for the sublime freedom of a 
 limitless love. 
 
 When she drove home, impotent and defeated, no 
 woman ever felt more desolate than Dorinda, more 
 shut off from her kind. Dolly's frank surprise at her 
 return, her impulsive question suddenly cut short, 
 seemed the last little thrust. She could bear no more ; 
 her heart was bursting with pain and sorrow, with 
 the maddening need for love, tenderness and under- 
 standing. 
 
 Ten minutes later Delamer came in and brought 
 her all that she needed. He gave her back to herself, 
 renewed, a liberated creature. Even her sympathy 
 for Alice was a larger, freer, more active force. A 
 thousand wise suggestions, benumbed and nullified in 
 the inner bewilderment that even the most muffled 
 sense of wrongdoing brings to a sensitive nature, now, 
 in the new efflorescence, sprang to consciousness. 
 
 Reinforced, enriched, alive with hope, she went back 
 to Alice, put aside protest and denial, and no woman 
 ever helped another as Dorinda that fateful night
 
 210 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 helped her friend. For she carried with her the illimit- 
 able love of a man and of a woman. Through the 
 throbbing tenseness of the deciding hours she felt the 
 splendid stimulus of a great game with great forces. 
 She was uplifted to a Power that counted. 
 
 When the operation was over and the well-fought 
 fight for John's life practically on the winning side, 
 Alice knew very well that it was not the valiant hope 
 that sprang from her own honest, faithful love which 
 had kept them all going that night ; but that some 
 ardent, unquenchable fire in Dorinda had quickened, 
 not only her, but all the others also. 
 
 And in all the strange and mystic hours never once 
 had Dorinda felt alone. She lived and moved and 
 had her being in the life of Delamer. They willed 
 and acted in all things as one, and they were invincible. 
 But in regard to his bodily presence no man could 
 have behaved with greater discretion. He linked 
 Cuthbert with himself in his mission of service. Never 
 once did he see her without the boy, and he brought 
 him with him to escort her home when she was no 
 longed needed. 
 
 In the intervals of inspiring Dorinda, he bewitched 
 Dolly and Cuthbert. Before three days were over, 
 they hung on his words, and lived a brisker life in 
 his presence. For years he had not experienced so 
 pure a joy. Everything contributed to it. He was 
 genuinely concerned for John Burgoyne, and to make 
 Dorinda sublimely effective was inspiration for gods. 
 Lancelot Delamer could do a number of conflicting 
 chores at the same time, all sincerely, perfectly, and 
 with the exuberant zest of a young man. 
 
 When she came home at last, Dorinda said good- 
 night to Dolly, and beamed upon Cuthbert with the 
 unconditional affection of an earlier period. And as 
 she went upstairs and her maid undressed her as 
 tenderly as a friend might, she was still exultant, thank- 
 ful, at peace with herself, and God, and man. 
 
 But when her maid went, and following the quiet 
 old ways of her patient past, she knelt down to say
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 211 
 
 her prayers, the controlling presence slipped out, and 
 her conscience slipped in. And now she was as little 
 as before she had been great. 
 
 She was very weak and defenceless, and something 
 dim and simple, that laughed a little, stood up between 
 her and Dolly. 
 
 God might turn away, but one must have one's 
 daughter. 
 
 So, still on her knees, she entreated Dolly. But 
 Dolly, too, had left her. After this, she was afraid 
 to turn to Delamer. She had come forth out of her 
 cold isolation to live warmly in warm hearts, and now 
 she must go back to solitude again with all the bitter- 
 ness of knowledge. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Dorinda came down next morning with a splitting 
 headache. The reaction from her previous state of 
 exaltation was almost unbearable. While they were 
 still at breakfast Delamer came in, and shortly after, 
 Cuthbert, eager to be given anything to do for any- 
 body, so that he might forget himself. The difficulty 
 of living in the intimate presence of Dolly and at the 
 same time keeping his head was now becoming stupen- 
 dous. But he gallantly faced it, and was becoming 
 rather a genius in the matter of self-control. 
 
 Delamer in unobtrusive, unapparent ways gave him 
 many a leg-up. He saw in the boy an incipient capacity 
 for affairs, and the makings, in the future, of a first- 
 rate aide-de-camp , and, since the development of qualities 
 not vet apparent to the dull eye of the man in the street 
 was the best game he knew, Delamer played it well. 
 
 He took infinite pains to fire both boy and girl with 
 his own aims, his own ambitions ; and they were 
 both as wax in his hands; He moulded them, and 
 played with the transformations he wrought with 
 immense satisfaction.
 
 212 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 And now, with a glance at Dorinda, he possessed 
 himself of the two and let her rest. She must be 
 passive, and receptive, and quiet the fret of her con- 
 science, before he could do much for her. Dorinda, 
 without a conscience, had been valueless to Delamer, 
 but with one she gave him a great deal of trouble. 
 
 To make a conscience effective, and at the same time 
 suffer it to retain its bloom, must, even to the mind of 
 the diplomat, present serious difficulties. 
 
 Dolly, in her own way, was as indispensable to 
 Delamer as Dorinda 's conscience, and even more of a 
 difficulty. 
 
 He paused for a moment to look, with critical affec- 
 tion, at both his stumbling-blocks, and slightly smiled. 
 
 " Dolly's the worst," he said. " You may divert 
 a woman's conscience into effective channels when 
 you've got the best of her heart — but Dolly ! Dolly's 
 growing most embarrassing." He watched the two 
 for an instant. " I like the boy. To help to immerse 
 two young people in the only life worth calling life 
 could keep one going indefinitely. They're both 
 necessary to everything. They must both be put to 
 the best advantage." 
 
 " And, after all, Dolly's mine — by — er — divine right." 
 
 His will was working steadily upon Dorinda and 
 having the effect he meant it to have. The strain 
 of defeated effort had left her face : peace and confi- 
 dence were returning to her. 
 
 He could now turn his undivided attention upon 
 the young people. Delamer was not base ; he only 
 avoided what was boring, and took always what he 
 wanted. Theoretically, his standard of values was 
 high. He hated anything inferior, except as it made 
 for wholeness. He wanted his rights. He did not 
 care particularly how he got them so long as the methods 
 did not seriously offend his own taste, which he 
 honestly considered to be superior to that of most 
 people. 
 
 He had no especial moral conviction in regard to 
 Dolly, but she was too pretty to hurt, too conformable
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 213 
 
 to his fastidious taste, and to that of the best of her 
 kind, too much his own, to be hurt by him. 
 
 Even in the raw morning hours Mr. Delamer had 
 an imagination full of resource. 
 
 Before five minutes were over he was carrying Dolly 
 and the boy on flaming wings up and down the seven 
 seas, and incorporating them so ravishingly with 
 every forward step of Empire-making that they were 
 both possessed with valorous excitement and a secret 
 conviction of the crucial necessity of each of them to 
 each ponderous throe of the striving Being with which 
 they were one. They were incarnate in England, 
 or England in them ; they were at a loss to know 
 which. 
 
 At any rate they were alive all over in some tre- 
 mendous purpose which was alive also, and nothing 
 was too good to sacrifice, so only that the purpose 
 might grow. He filled them, moreover, with an in- 
 satiable curiosity. He stirred their blood with the 
 lust to know, to experience, and to act. 
 
 They seemed already to be doing things together, 
 doing things always together, and to be necessary 
 to the great scheme together. 
 
 This sent Cuthbert's pulses racing and reminded 
 Dolly that nothing in creation could ever induce her 
 to act in concert with Mr. Cuthbert. She was im- 
 mensely sorry, she liked him sincerely. She paused 
 and sighed. She felt hurt and lonely, and her father 
 slipped in. She remembered to be jealous for him. 
 His dreams, she felt suddenly, with an absolute con- 
 viction, were as big and as far-reaching, and fascina- 
 ting as Mr. Delamer's, and yet what did she know about 
 them ? 
 
 Nothing ! With a quick pang she confessed it. 
 Nothing ! Nothing at all ! And in a flash she felt 
 sure that her mother knew no more. She glanced 
 half fearfully at Dorinda. 
 
 " Her face is shining," she said, looking promptly 
 away. " And mine's as bad. I wish to goodness 
 it wasn't. What on earth is one to do ? He's saying
 
 234 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 all the things father could have said better, and he's 
 done all the things father ought to have done better, 
 and he'll be doing the best things of all before we 
 know where we are. If big things are going one 
 oughtn't to leave them all to other people. If only 
 someone would get in before him and do them first ! ' ; 
 she thought, hostility in her eyes. " If even Mr. 
 Cuthbert would hurry up ! One wants someone 
 belonging to one — in a way — to be in things — and 
 father to be in America making money that no one 
 wants ! I wish Mr. Delamer hadn't made me feel 
 just in the way he did just now." 
 
 Delamer felt antagonism in the air, he lifted his 
 eyes from a book, a romance of Empire, full of maps 
 just come out, that he was showing Cuthbert, and saw 
 Dolly's half-entranced, half-resisting face. 
 
 " I was meant for a stump orator or a Methodist 
 preacher," he said, laughing and shutting the book. 
 " I've bored Miss Dolly. As token of forgiveness, 
 will you — both of you — motor down with me to Ports- 
 mouth this morning ? " 
 
 He showed them two cards. 
 
 " I woke a tremendous swell up out of his first sleep 
 this morning, at three o'clock, to get these." 
 
 His tactics had succeeded. He glanced at Dorinda. 
 She was alive and alert, watching the controversy 
 going on in Dolly's face, her eyes aflame with eagerness, 
 her mouth primmed to refusal. 
 
 " You'll be the only two there besides myself with 
 names still to make," said he. 
 
 The mouth relaxed. Dorinda breathed more freely. 
 So much seemed to hang on the decision. 
 
 " But even to eat at the table with history-makers 
 bucks you up, I think, and gives you an excellent 
 opportunity of seeing why it is often so badly made. 
 A man generally shows what he is as he lunches with 
 the eyes of the world on him, and a lot of reporters 
 interpreting, or misinterpreting, him to himself and 
 others. Well, Miss Dolly, will you come ? Mind, I 
 don't ask you because you're Miss Alderson and
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 215 
 
 charming. I ask you because you — both of you," 
 he said nodding at Cuthbert — -" are of the stuff we 
 want to use." 
 
 Dolly paused, hesitated, and accepted. And Dorinda 
 could at last speak. 
 
 " Shall you ever be ready, Dolly," she said eagerly. 
 " You must wear your very prettiest frock and the 
 new pearls. Shall I help you, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes, please," said Dolly ; " but no," she quickly 
 added. 
 
 Her mother had not helped her for weeks. It 
 would spoil everything. She turned with the oddest 
 sudden little pain. 
 
 "I'm always quickest," she said deprecatingly, 
 " when I choose myself what I shall wear. If you 
 came, I'd never be ready ; we'd be stopping to con- 
 sider. By myself I'll go blind to my nicest things." 
 
 " It's a frock-coat function, I suppose ? I'd better 
 go too," said Cuthbert, chilled with a horrible sense 
 of responsibility as he also prepared to leave the coast 
 clear. 
 
 For what ? 
 
 This was the vile, befouling doubt which hurt and 
 bruised the boy and girl, to whom the thousand things 
 the woman represented were as indispensable as they 
 were inarticulate. 
 
 In the moment of Dolly's quick acceptation and 
 quicker refusal of her help, Dorinda's mind had also 
 curiously changed. 
 
 ' Why did you ask them ? " she demanded almost 
 sternly. 
 
 ' Because we want them," said Delamer. " Also 
 because, as we begin we must go on. The units of a 
 group often fall comfortably into the places prepared 
 for them, and they have a tendency to remain there." 
 
 A slight protest escaped from her lips. 
 
 " And even if the two, Dolly and the boy, weren't 
 necessary to everything," he said in the ineffably 
 tender way he so rarely used with her, " Dolly is as 
 indispensable to me as she is to you. The girl is mine
 
 216 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 by right. She's the child of the youth that was mine, 
 by every law of God and man worth considering." 
 
 " Why — why do you still couple Dolly with Mr. 
 Cuthbert ? " 
 
 " Partly for the sake of the party. Partly because 
 I think fate's half inclined to do it, and I believe in 
 man's power to give the casting vote if fate's not sure. 
 We want them together. It's the oldest story, the 
 oldest creed. The man and the woman for the big 
 job. It's only the lesser chores that get muddled 
 through alone. Cuthbert must have Dolly to fulfil 
 himself, just as I must have you, Dorinda." 
 
 Dorinda shuddered away from his magical touch. 
 
 " It's — it's a horrible compact," she said at last. 
 
 " No. It's an unusual one, I grant. The need is 
 too great, the sacrifice is too great," he said slowly, 
 a strange light, not of earth at all, on his strong and 
 splendid face, " to call it horrible. It's a big venture 
 and a great game. If Dolly is to take her right part 
 in it, she must be placed and backed — and — spared. 
 Ah ! here's Miss Dolly herself. We're to drop Lady 
 Dorinda at Mrs. Burgoyne's," he said, as Dolly came 
 in radiantly aware of his absolute approval of her, 
 and, in spite of herself, blatantly proud of it. " You 
 said three minutes, Lady Dorinda, and two are gone 
 already." 
 
 Dorinda went quickly to her room with a curior.s 
 sense of relinquishment, of inevitableness, almost of 
 relief. The mute, bloodless relief of the beleaguered 
 city, whose last hour of possible resistance beats to 
 an end. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " I wonder if it ever struck you quite seriously, Miss 
 Alderson," said Delamer, " that you're a thundering 
 big heiress, and what that fact might mean to yourself 
 and the country ? " 
 
 Dolly paused, stared, and laughed.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 217 
 
 "Well, no; we've always, as a family, felt nicely 
 about the country," she said, "but we haven't mixed 
 it up with our everyday sensations, I think. You 
 see, our money doesn't come from land, like other 
 people's. I'm glad we're rich, chiefly because you 
 need never be out of things, if you are.' 
 
 " That's one of the advantages, also, of being a 
 true patriot. It brings you a good deal further into 
 things than anv amount of monev can. It carries 
 you to the heart of them. It adds immensely to the 
 pleasure of life to know that a big concern has to 
 reckon with you, and move with you, and be moved 
 in a way by you. It's a mutual business, -of course ; 
 you get as much as you give, but it's extraordinarily 
 exciting, a fine game. You ought to play it well, 
 Miss Alderson, as well as your mother could have 
 played it at your age." 
 
 "My mother ! " 
 
 ' Your mother had a passion for romantic patriotism. 
 Where she picked it up heaven only knows ! They 
 were all sound Conservatives in your grandfather's 
 house, and hated the Papists, but they had no time 
 for abstract passions. Perhaps she found it in some 
 corner of her Celtic heart. Anyway, she found it. 
 We were young together, and we got into the habit of 
 dreaming our dreams aloud. She had a genius for 
 statecraft in those days. She was the most splendid 
 dreamer I ever encountered. Dreams are the wisest 
 things going, and your mother's dreams were wiser 
 than the dreams of all other dreamers. Ail they 
 wanted was money, and you've got that." 
 
 " I — I didn't know " She fetched up short, 
 
 flushing deeply. 
 
 " You didn't know she was a dreamer. Ah ! that's 
 because you never lived in the bogs with her. One 
 leaves all these things behind one in the bogs, when 
 one goes into other countries where people have no 
 use for them, where you have no use for them your- 
 self. You forget them till something happens, and 
 they come up out of the bog-water as fresh as when
 
 218 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 they were dropped into it. You know bog-water 
 keeps the most perishable things fresh for ever, even 
 butter and eggs, so dreams being imperishable, are 
 quite safe in its custody. In this case, Miss Dolly, 
 yon happened. The dreams have all come back as 
 alive as ever. If you choose to make a big adventure 
 of life you could materialize all Lady Dorinda's dreams 
 before you've done." 
 
 Dolly's cheeks were scarlet, her eyes aflame. The 
 story was telling itself at last. Mysteries she had 
 longed to explore were opening out under her eyes. 
 She was possessed of an odd, bewildered excite- 
 ment. 
 
 ' To-day might be a sort of debut for you," he said. 
 ' It will, in a way, be an initiation into an inner circle. 
 If you let the spirit in the life of it get into your blood, 
 the life in you will be doubled, tripled, quadrupled. 
 No dreams you ever dreamed will be a patch on your 
 life. 
 
 " If you only look on you'll come back as you went, 
 an incomparable young lady, who perhaps has missed 
 the best. I wonder how long that splendid young 
 fellow, whom you like with so discreet a moderation, 
 will take to put on his frock-coat? I'm not reproach- 
 ing you, Miss Dolly," he said with a laugh. " We 
 want Cuthbert as he is — he's the most promising fellow 
 I know — to give the whole of him to us. We want 
 the best a man has, and all of it, if we're to get ahead 
 of what's been done already." 
 
 Dolly drove down to Portsmouth in the midst of 
 the richest and most variegated dream of her life. It 
 seemed to be shot with rainbows. It grew all through 
 luncheon in size and colour. She grew in her own 
 estimation. Something had certainly entered into 
 her, something that could never again be cast forth. 
 
 Presumably it was the spirit of the Empire. She 
 hoped it was. But when, after the long, entrancing, 
 tiring day, she knelt down to say her prayers, she 
 sleepily wondered if by any possible chance it could 
 be the devil. She seemed certainly to have been
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 219 
 
 offered all the kingdoms of the world, and to have 
 accepted them. 
 
 But she was too sleepy and happy to inquire keenly 
 into anything, to regret" anything, or to be afraid of 
 anything. 
 
 Such a day to have been through, such a new out- 
 look upon everything, more especially upon oneself, 
 one's own life, one's own consequence as regards 
 everything. To be someone in an illimitable scheme I 
 To be petted, and flattered, and listened to ! 
 
 " They did listen to me," she said drowsily, " and 
 they liked listening. It was a triumph of a day, and 
 I couldn't have believed that Mr. Cuthbert could have 
 gone so well with it. He never once bored me. He 
 was in everything — part of it all— one couldn't have 
 left him out.'' 
 
 She forgot the devil and slept like a top ! 
 
 Meanwhile John Burgoyne had suffered some 
 sudden change. The very stars in their courses seemed 
 to fight against the honest man. Dorinda on that 
 day, and those that followed, worked wonders. At 
 last, when Alice was permitted to carry off into the 
 country what remained of John's huge proportions, 
 Dorinda's state of exalted self-sacrifice struck Mrs. 
 Burgoyne as anything but wholesome. 
 
 " Can't she get tired like human beings any longer ? 
 Is she so uplifted as all that ? " mused Alice. " And 
 I can't even think of her till John's quite safe. And 
 as to telling her what I think of her, after all she's 
 done for me — it's impossible ! " 
 
 " What can I do but make her over to the boy ? ' 
 she said at last thoughtfully, tapping her teeth with 
 her pen. " It's outrageously indecorous and modern 
 — at his age and hers ! — but what's one to do ? " 
 
 " I'm in no condition to deal with such delicate 
 affairs," she said, when Cuthbert came. " Fighting 
 death makes you heavy-handed, I think. In your 
 abject fear of losing the best man God ever gave a 
 woman, you can't tackle another woman to whom 
 Nature has dented the power to appreciate the second
 
 220 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 best. I'm not blaming anyone, Faunce ; please 
 remember that. But they're all hovering on the 
 verge of as pitchy a pit as the vulgarest mind could 
 devise or desire." 
 
 ' But what on earth am / to do ? " said Cuthbert 
 in desperation. 
 
 ' What, indeed ? But you love both the mother 
 and the daughter, and I firmly believe the man also." 
 
 ' I don't believe there's another man in England 
 quite like Delamer." 
 
 ' Neither do I ; and the only trouble is that Dorinda 
 so cordially agrees with us, and doesn't see, as I do, 
 and as you would if you knew him, that he's all that 
 Richard might have been under her inspiration. I'm 
 glad the man who is under it thinks so highly of your 
 power for affairs, Faunce. You love Dorinda and 
 Dolly, I am glad to say, so that I can go back with 
 a relieved mind to John." 
 
 " All very well " protested Faunce. 
 
 " I know, my dear boy. But the thing's got to be 
 done — whatever it is. I don't suggest that you should 
 fight Richard's battles or do Richard's work for a 
 moment, but you must do all that anyone can do till 
 Richard comes back. I'm making over all my re- 
 sponsibilities to you, and I'm going to absorb myself 
 in John. You must trust in yourself and in the old 
 woman, and in God. Otherwise, I have no advice 
 to give." 
 
 " If Mr. Alderson doesn't choose to come ? " said 
 Cuthbert in calm despair. 
 
 " And it's quite likely he won't. Richard is peculiar. 
 He told me once that if a woman wants her husband 
 to look after her, she's not worth looking after. Also, 
 that he would never keep a woman against her will. 
 Also, that if a man can't give a woman what she wants, 
 he deserves to lose her. There's morality for you ! " 
 
 " It's all right, probably, as morality. But I wish 
 you hadn't to absorb yourself in Mr. Burgoyne." 
 
 " So do I, but I can't fight death: — John's any- 
 thing but out of the bush — and the dangerous age
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 221 
 
 too. One big thing is enough for me now. I'm 
 rather tired. 
 
 " It grows as one thinks of it, in a way to make you 
 shudder," she said suddenly. " Lancelot Delamer 
 is a god to Dorinda in her unwholesome state, and not 
 a man at all. He's let loose forces in her that are 
 altogether above any rlesh-and-blood inspiration ; 
 he has transformed her, and she's experiencing a 
 passion of gratitude." 
 
 Cuthbert whistled. 
 
 ' I quite expected that," said she. " I could 
 whistle too. He has splendid schemes afoot, and 
 he won't lightly upset them," she said after a pause. 
 " And he's fond of Dolly. He's very fond of Dolly. 
 It's his best point. At the same time, he'll go through 
 hell and make it look like heaven to. gain her mother. 
 Ah ! how young you are," she cried ; " you're too 
 young to understand. In spite of your love for her, 
 it's Dorinda you're blaming all the time. If a man, 
 not her husband, has given life to a statue at thirty- 
 eight — and such life !■ — think what it means to her. 
 If you'd seen her, as I have all these last dreadful 
 days, infinitely greater than herself at every turn, 
 revelling in her new life, and scattering it broadcast ! 
 I should have caved in but for Dorinda, and then 
 John would certainly have died : he's been most 
 perverse and obstinate ; he's done his best to go 
 out, but no one could die with such freshness of life 
 about the place. Even when he was unconscious, I 
 daresay he was being surprised by Dorinda. Think of 
 beginning to surprise yourself and everyone else after 
 twenty years of uneventful, righteous matrimony. 
 It must be an enthralling sensation," she sighed. 
 
 Cuthbert laughed. 
 
 ' You'd better go," she said. " Nature never 
 designed me for a mentor in serious cases. Trust 
 your youth, and your love, and the old woman. 
 And, remember, I wash my hands of the whole 
 business." 
 
 Cuthbert gave up a good deal that afternoon to
 
 222 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 have tea with old Mary O'Berne. He might have 
 spent the whole of it in the most exalted society 
 with Dolly. Invitations from the wives of the dis- 
 tinguished gentlemen they had both delighted on the 
 day of the great luncheon poured in upon them simul- 
 taneously. Such invitations cannot be disregarded 
 by ambitious youth, but in order to secure a private 
 interview with the one adviser now available to him, 
 he had to go out of a house fairly seething with 
 history, just as Dolly came into it. 
 
 Delamer had been there for some time, the centre 
 of interest, buttonholed by everyone worth knowing. 
 He seemed to live just now in a buzz of expectation. 
 Even Cuthbert, standing on the outside edge of it, 
 was quickened by its vibrations. 
 
 Delamer was becoming a sort of possession to the 
 boy. He could not stand near him without believing 
 himself at core invincible. This was the secret of 
 Delamer's power. He brought a sense of victory 
 into the air. Men's hearts rose to undreamed-of effort 
 directly he appeared. He never spoke to anyone 
 without making him feel himself to be someone. 
 
 To have stood and listened to him all day, at Dolly's 
 side, would have been bliss unutterable to Cuthbert. 
 And yet when the mother and daughter entered in the 
 little hush their presence together always caused, he 
 shrank back from the infatuating presence, and felt 
 an overwhelming desire to carry off both the ladies 
 to some place of safety. 
 
 ' But you're not going just as we've come," said 
 Dorinda. 
 
 " I've got another appointment which won't wait," 
 he said hastily, feeling half traitor and half prig. 
 
 " We'd three which wouldn't wait, but we threw 
 them all over to come here," said Dolly. ' I wonder 
 if the old admiral's forgotten me, or if he'll be as nice 
 as he was at luncheon. I say ! The room's alive. 
 It's thrilling. The admiral's a darling ! and the 
 admiral's wife — no, it's not his wife ! Why, it's Mr. 
 Delamer. I thought he was at Aldershot ! "
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 223 
 
 Dorinda got the slightest shade white. 
 
 " He said he might be back," she said guiltily. 
 
 " Oh, did he ? " said Dolly drily. ' I wonder you 
 can go awav," she said, turning to Cuthbert. 
 
 " So do I, but I've got to." 
 
 " It must be a strong attraction." 
 
 " It's not an attraction." 
 
 " Surely it's not a duty ! " 
 ' It's not that either, but it's got to be done." 
 
 " Shall I help you to do it ? I don't like being a 
 satellite to any sun." 
 
 Cuthbert blushed almost in his old way. 
 ' You couldn't help me. I'll have to do it alone. 
 I'd much rather stay here. Good-bye," he said and 
 fled. 
 
 " Dolly ! I understand you, dear. But do you 
 think Mr. Cuthbert does ? " 
 
 ' He understands very well being a friend." 
 
 " He understands a great deal for so young a man," 
 said Dorinda ; " but being a friend takes some learn- 
 ing as taught by you." 
 
 " Don't I teach nicely ? " 
 
 ' Far too nicely, darling. I'm sorry for the boy." 
 
 ' I am too," said Dolly, after a little pause. "I'm 
 sorry for — everybody, sometimes." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 "I AM sorry for everybody, and very often too. It's 
 just lately," said Dolly in response to her mother's 
 quick, anxious look of inquiry, " and I detest it. You 
 oughtn't to have to be sorry ; you ought to be able 
 to change things till you're glad. And here's Mr. 
 Delamer coming by slow degrees, to make us forget 
 everything but him." 
 
 " And England," said Dorinda quickly. 
 
 " Well, yes. He's taken possession of England
 
 224 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 too. England shouldn't have been let go begging. 
 Father should have got in first and taken it." 
 
 " Your father ? But he has other interests." 
 
 " They're all too small for him." 
 
 " He always says that England's too small," said 
 Dorinda, with a curious appeal in her smile. 
 
 " He must make some excuse for having neglected 
 it so long." 
 
 " You're not the least like yourself, Dolly." 
 
 " I'm not myself. I'm a little asset of England 
 that's going to be put to the best use. I'm a necessary 
 atom in a big scheme, and so's Mr. Cuthbert, and so 
 are you. We're all necessary atoms. And if I were 
 a man," she boldly proceeded, ' I'd also demand 
 everything, and I'd get it, too, for myself and 
 England ! " 
 
 "Is it so much easier to demand everything than 
 to give it, Dolly ? " 
 
 " It's more fascinating, at least. If I'd been 
 father I'd have done all this already." 
 
 " All what ? " said Dorinda, eager and hesitating. 
 
 Dolly's gesture of omnipotence was sublime. 
 
 " Made all these men and women part of England, 
 and me ! An intelligent part, not puppets. I'd have 
 no use for puppets : any more than Mr. Delamer 
 has." 
 
 He was now within earshot. 
 
 " Quite right, Miss Dolly. The day of the puppet, 
 as puppet, is at an end. We've found out that every 
 puppet is a man at heart, and you've got to go for the 
 man and make him effective. You have got to forget 
 even what your proposed coadjutors look Tike ! " 
 
 He glanced with benevolent interest at an immacu- 
 late youth to whom Nature had denied anv vestige 
 of apparent intelligence. 
 
 " It requires a superhuman imagination," said 
 Dolly with conviction. 
 
 " No ; it's quite possible to common humanity 
 with practice." 
 
 " Do you think the admiral has forgotten what I
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 225 
 
 am," inquired Dolly, " and only remembers what I 
 look like ? He hasn't spoken a word to me yet." 
 
 " No ; he's keenly aware of your entire being, and 
 is doing his best not to look bored as he hews his way 
 towards it through that dense undergrowth. He's 
 a great man, the admiral. Look at him now, to all 
 outward seeming absorbed in that wonderful lady 
 with the winged monster on her head. You'd hardly 
 believe, to look at that head, that she has the heart 
 of a hero and the soul of a poet." 
 
 " Well, no ! " 
 
 " I only found it out by chance when I brought 
 her home the details of the death of her only son. 
 He died in Thibet." 
 
 " Does the admiral know about it ? " 
 
 " He -knows something, and thinks it better on 
 the whole that the boy should have died. But he 
 has never laughed at his mother's unswerving belief 
 in him ; and he feels sincerely sorry she should dis- 
 honour her revered head with that unworthy erection." 
 
 Dolly was watching him with intelligent curiosity. 
 
 " Were you glad he died ? " she asked. 
 
 " No. I was sorry. It was hard luck on the fellow. 
 He wanted to give some positive proof that his mother 
 was justified in her faith in him. He needn't have 
 troubled himself. She knew all right, and no one else 
 mattered." 
 
 " You don't believe in the existence either of 
 puppets or of sinners ? " said Dolly thoughtfully. 
 " Then what do you believe in ? " 
 
 "In life, 1 think," he said laughing. "In Life 
 that's alive and conscious of itself." 
 
 " Do you like everyone and everything ? You 
 don't look like a philanthropist. I've met three." 
 
 " Philanthropy doesn't appeal to me. But you 
 can't dislike anything with life in it. You want all 
 the life you can get hold of, to use. It seems waste of 
 energy to hate anything except death and stagnation. 
 They're the only crimes. Here's the admiral, with 
 his nephew in tow. There's self-sacrifice for you. 
 
 8
 
 226 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 He's got into the way of effacing himself for that young 
 man. Thank heaven ! I'm not an uncle ! " 
 
 ' I rather wish you were. I like uncles — but I 
 like nephews too," she added, after a rapid glance. 
 "I'll combine the two." 
 
 In the power of Delamer's presence her sense of 
 security had all come back. She forgot the shock it 
 had received ; the enduring doubt that possessed her. 
 She felt invincible again. Some tight cord had snapped. 
 She was as free as air. 
 
 In five minutes the uncle had forgotten to be 
 diplomatic ; the nephew to be mercenary. They 
 went all three to the refreshment room, and were as 
 happy and greedy and irresponsible as children. 
 
 The joy of being still capable of a primitive vice 
 or so brought back something of the wit of the care- 
 less midshipman to the strenuous, grave old admiral. 
 
 When, after turning his whole attention to three 
 other women, Delamer returned to Dorinda, he carried 
 her off at once to look at the merry party. 
 
 " Dolly must give up being anxious about you," 
 he said, " once and for all. It would spoil her, and 
 spoil her life, and neither must be touched by you 
 or by me." 
 
 Dorinda was dazed with love. She could do nothing 
 now but believe in the omnipotence of Delamer, and 
 her necessity to its continuance. All that he did, and 
 thought, and said was good. Fear, and doubt, and 
 the sense of evil, were all receding from her step by 
 step. Her drugged conscience had ceased from 
 troubling. Her whole being rested softly in his en- 
 compassing power. 
 
 '" You're going to Mrs. Verschoyle's on Thursday," 
 he said, still watching Dolly. 
 
 She was down upon the hard earth again. 
 
 " I — I haven't made up my mind if I shall go at 
 all. I've never been there. She's often asked me. 
 Dolly " 
 
 " Dolly won't suffer. Do you know who will be 
 there ? "
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 227 
 
 " No," she said tonelessly. 
 He mentioned several names. 
 
 " She's a person of importance now, you know, and 
 must be careful. Since his cousin's death, her husband 
 is the heir to the title. She can pick, and choose, 
 and knows how to do it. Cuthbert is going with his 
 mother's full approval." 
 
 Dorinda was very white. She knew already that 
 in any conflict with him she would inevitably be the 
 loser. She could no longer refuse him anything. 
 She had never listened to a scandal ; she knew very 
 little definitely about Mrs. Verschoyle, but by some 
 natural instinct of self-preservation she had per- 
 sistently refused her invitations. She knew, with a 
 curious, vague certainty, that now to accept one 
 would be the first step which practically counted. 
 She felt herself slipping, slipping, slipping. She 
 watched Dolly's careless, innocent mirth as in a 
 dream. A sudden longing for Richard, for his strength, 
 his silence, for the cold security of his unobtrusive 
 presence, seemed to be stabbed into her. 
 
 " Don't speak of it now," she said in a low voice. 
 " I'll think it over to-night and decide. You know 
 what I think about Mrs. Verschoyle. " 
 
 " That was yesterday. All our opinions must alter 
 with her list. It's only common justice. There she 
 is herself — between two of your best friends." 
 Dorinda shrank back. 
 
 " If you like," he said in a low, level voice, " I'll 
 throw up everything and leave England to-morrow. 
 There's plenty of time, and plenty to be done out of 
 England. But for the thing I want it must be 
 all or nothing, Dorinda. Do you wish me to 
 
 go ? '-' 
 
 " I wish — No, Lancelot, I can't." 
 
 " Come to Dolly, then. You want some tea. When 
 you've finished I'll bring Mrs. Verschoyle to you. 11 
 
 She was mute and passive. Her soul seemed to 
 have died ; but words came easily enough. 
 
 The admiral wondered he had not noticed long ago 
 
 8*
 
 228 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 whence Miss Alderson derived her verve and go. 
 Dorinda's words seemed to flow and multiply. 
 
 Mrs. Verschoyle went away triumphant. Her 
 reputation was at last fully restored. 
 
 " She's horrible," said Dolly that night, as, for a 
 wonder, her mother came to her room, " and we've 
 never been there before." 
 
 I don't think any of the people who are going 
 have ever been there before. Lord St. John's death 
 has altered everything. It's altered her," said Dorinda 
 feebly. ' I think she's nicer than she was." 
 
 ' Then she must have been pretty awful before — 
 before she became necessary. Suddenly becoming a 
 necessity to the world by no virtue of your own," said 
 Dolly thoughtfully, " would be rather — ripping, if it 
 didn't make you feel sick."- 
 
 " Being a necessity is the only thing worth living 
 for," said Dorinda impulsively. " I believe I'm glad 
 she likes it so much." 
 
 " But to be dumped into being a necessity just 
 because your husband is going to be a peer ! It's 
 England again, I suppose. England must be in a bad 
 way, don't you think, if it can't get on without Mrs. 
 Verschoyle, and you and me to make her possible ? " 
 
 " Mr. Cuthbert is going." 
 
 " And Mr. Delamer is bringing him to make Mrs. 
 Verschoyle even more urgently necessary than she 
 was before. If Mr. Delamer isn't the Pied Piper, I 
 just wonder who he is, and we and Mrs. Verschoyle 
 and Mr. Cuthbert are all following him blind, and 
 rather liking it. It makes one sort of too common, 
 you know. We're all doing a great deal for Mrs. 
 Verschoyle. I wonder what on earth she's going to 
 do for us." 
 
 Dorinda winced. 
 
 *" I wish we were all down at Cousin Alice's, belong- 
 ing to ourselves as we used to do," said Dolly. " One 
 was so delightfully different from everyone else, as 
 one was. Now one is being absorbed into some- 
 thing else — I think. Something one isn't accustomed
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 229 
 
 to at all — and doesn't want to be. Couldn't we go 
 to New York and pick up father, and find a desert 
 island, and stay there till we recover the sense of our 
 own importance, and forget Mrs. Verschoyle and 
 England's urgent want of her, and her urgent necessity 
 for us to hall-mark her before England can have any- 
 thing at all to do with her ? " 
 
 " Aren't you rather unkind to Mrs. Verschoyle, 
 Dolly ? " 
 
 ' I daresay I am. But one doesn't want to be kind 
 to Mrs. Verschoyle, one wants to throttle her. I 
 wish to goodness we could manage the desert island. 
 It would be pretty hard, of course, to get father to 
 believe in himself properly, but we'd convince him 
 between us, you and I. And then we'd all come back 
 and astonish the nation. Father's always been too 
 busy to look at himself straight in the eye. If I'd 
 been young when he was I'd have shown him. I'd 
 have made myself a glass that he could have looked 
 into and seen himself." 
 
 The moral torpor of Dorinda was being broken into 
 by little stabs. She shrank away from Dolly. 
 
 " Dear me," said Dolly, throwing back the mane 
 of hair she was brushing to glance at her mother. 
 ' You look as if I'd said something horrid. Don't 
 you see, it's so different. No man could look at you 
 and see anything but you. You'd absorb all his 
 attention. He'd always find plenty of room for him- 
 self in me. In sheer self-defence he'd often have to 
 shut me out and let himself in." 
 
 ' Mr. Cuthbert never shuts you out." 
 
 " Mr. Cuthbert always sees what he thinks I am, 
 and shuts out both me and himself. If a man could 
 see himself in you now and then, he certainly could 
 never expect perfection, and a few little disappoint- 
 ments would only increase his sense of good fellow- 
 ship." 
 
 " Oh, Dolly ! If you only knew what it was to love ! "- 
 
 " I'd give anything to know," said Dolly cheerfully. 
 " But it always rather bores me." 
 
 8t
 
 230 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " Yes. It bores you." 
 
 ' And to have to be watching another person, who 
 thinks the thing that bores you the one thing worth 
 living for all your life long, perhaps, might bore you 
 beyond bearing ! It's curious I should feel like this 
 when I've been brought up so well, right in the middle 
 of love." 
 
 Dorinda shivered in the warm air. 
 
 ' I've killed the power of love in Dolly," she said. 
 'I've done that too. Death and stagnation are the 
 only crimes." 
 
 " Dolly ! " she said impulsively. " If you ever love 
 a man, no matter what his position is, or if he hasn't 
 a penny, if he loves you with all the love of his youth, 
 marry him, darling, and bring up your children to 
 love Love." 
 
 ' I'd much rather bring them up to love life." 
 
 ' Life is love, and death is the want of it. Wait 
 and see, Dolly. You can't know till you've tried both 
 life and death. You don't know you've been dead 
 until you've begun to live."- 
 
 " Oh, well ! I'm alive enough as I am," said Dolly, 
 stretching. 
 
 ' Wait and see, child," said her mother, aching with 
 her own burthen of life. 
 
 " But your father," she said presently. The sub- 
 ject forced itself upon her. She could not leave it. 
 " His life is so full and busy, and he is content in it. 
 I have never connected him with public life or with 
 England." 
 
 ' But I haven't either. And I'd never have done 
 it but for Mr. Delamer. I'd never have known he 
 had any part at all in such things. Mr. Delamer's 
 shown me what father is, because in a way he's father 
 himself doing things — not helping other people to 
 do them." 
 
 There flashed before Dorinda's eyes a brand new- 
 side to the guilt that was sapping her life : the failure 
 that had brought to birth in her the relentless reckless- 
 ness of a quiet nature roused.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 231 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A darkness had fallen upon Mary O' Berne, and she 
 was very sad. A great perplexity had got hold of her. 
 For the third time in her life she could not see her 
 way. The Interpreter within her gave no sign. Her 
 power of vision had gone with Richard. The dividing 
 silence, which made barren the rooms she never entered, 
 but knew so well, sank deeper in her heart. She had 
 not seen Dorinda since her memorable visit, nor Dolly 
 for a week. Her loneliness was complete. She made 
 no complaint, not even in her prayers. Still less did 
 she spend her time in idle contemplation. To spend 
 one's days in looking for a glory which will not appear 
 was no part of Mary's notion of the fitness of things. 
 Bone-idleness was her name for that sort of devotional 
 exercise. 
 
 She put on the close-fitting bonnet of gathered 
 silk she had designed for herself on her sixtieth birth- 
 day, and had worn ever since like a queen, and went 
 out to give what she still possessed to creatures who 
 from birth to death never see any celestial light at 
 all. 
 
 " And I wonder what would the sore hearts be 
 doing at all at all, only for the poor," she often said, as 
 she went patiently in and out amongst them these 
 dark days, leaving behind her faint haunting trails of 
 the glory that, though it hid itself from her yearning 
 eyes, yet shone through them out into the darkness. 
 Mary was no pauperizer of the poor, far from it. Her 
 influence was often drastic enough, but she never went 
 empty-handed. And yet, even in the sordid rapacity 
 which comes of want, it was not always for what she 
 brought that her friends welcomed Mary. A stirring
 
 232 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 of hidden live things in a dead heart, some sudden 
 star in a starless night, will yield a deeper satisfaction 
 than even a partially-stayed stomach. 
 
 One looks back with gnawing regret to the modified 
 bliss of the stomach ; but the whisper of life and the 
 gleam of the star go on before us, waiting and beckon- 
 ing out there, somewhere on the other side of the 
 horizon. She gave rest to the weary these days of 
 her blindness, if ever woman did, but she herself was 
 tired. 
 
 To one who has lived in the light as the mote in 
 the sun, the darkness is as death. And when the 
 cause of it is hidden from a woman so that she may 
 not repent and make reparation, it takes the strength 
 from her. 
 
 Mary could hardly be called orthodox ; but she did 
 her duty in this hard matter. She went humbly to 
 her confessor, who unfortunately was away ; and his 
 substitute, a young man full of affairs and very much 
 in a hurry, failed to discern her point of view, men- 
 tioned spiritual presumption, and administered a 
 light penance. 
 
 ' The poor little spalpeen of an earthen vessel, God 
 bless him ! " said Mary, as she went home, " and give 
 him sense and leisure. I will go back to those from 
 whom life has taken all the hurry." 
 
 So she went cheerfully back to them, seeking her 
 lost light. 
 
 It was a distinct shock to Cuthbert to find that 
 when he came, he came as a surprise. 
 
 ' You didn't expect me," he said, laughing, " but 
 I thought you always knew beforehand." 
 
 " It is nothing I know now, and it is nobody I ex- 
 pect," she said. " It is myself do be just like the other 
 people," said Mary, sighing ; " but it is dull it is. 
 How do you live at all, at all ? And my grief ! " 
 
 " Oh, well "- 
 
 " Ah, yes, I know," she said dreamily. " What 
 you never had you cannot miss. Dear me ! It is 
 myself would rather miss it than live without it,' !
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 233 
 
 she said, with a quick, merry laugh. " And the joy 
 of having company to tea with me. Mr. Cuthbert ! 
 It is not one minute I will be." 
 
 ' Just a little light, Lord," she entreated, as she 
 took off her bonnet. " Even if it is only for one little 
 minute it is, and if you take it from me the next. The 
 boy is come for help, and it is so young he is, Lord. 
 And it is a sore trouble of his own on him he do have." 
 She broke off, softly laughing. 
 
 " And myself to be reminding Yourself," she said. 
 ' But when the years do come down on us in the dark- 
 ness," she murmured apologetically, "it is to think 
 the Lord Himself is growing old too we do be after. 
 And to grow old at all, and we living in the life that 
 never changes ! It is foolish we do be ; but when one 
 is as blind as a bat," she sighed, " what can you expect, 
 dear Lord ? " 
 
 Cuthbert had got into the way of relapsing into his 
 own affairs in moments of inaction. His face of de- 
 pression, when Mary came in quietly and caught him 
 unawares, keenly touched her. 
 
 " And for him to be striving to handle a trouble too 
 old for myself and one as young as the dawn in his 
 own heart ! It is fresh and sweet it is, anyway, one 
 can speak of, and we will have a good deal to say after 
 tea that is hard to speak and harder to understand,'' 
 she thought, sitting down beside him. 
 
 ' I know why you've come, Mr. Cuthbert, if it is 
 nothing else I know, but it is yourself I would speak 
 of first. Will you let me, sir ? " 
 
 " As though anyone wouldn't let you say what 
 you like," he said, laughing, and very red. 
 
 " And, indeed, it is very often that they will," she 
 said with some complacence. ' The world is veiy 
 good to me. It is slow to change you do be," she said, 
 looking at him. ' It is happier you would be if you 
 were quicker, but life would not make so good a man 
 out of you. It is the longest job is often the best." 
 
 But the people watching it might possibly get 
 bored," he said with a laugh.
 
 234 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' Those with sense would not. The boy hardening 
 into the man it is only the foolish will mock at. Mr. 
 Cuthbert, even if she will have you, it is not to take 
 her you will be doing till she loves you ? Once I used 
 to think that love is born of love ; that it depends 
 on the size of the love, and the quality, and how it 
 lasts. Now I know different. One man will sow 
 clean wheat and good that another may reap. For 
 the child's sake, Mr. Cuthbert, do not take her till 
 she calls you." 
 
 " I don't intend to. I've told her so. I'll never 
 again ask Dolly to marry me," 
 
 " Some day — maybe, it will never happen, but it 
 is sure I cannot be noiv,"- she said slowly, looking 
 down at her folded hands. 'It is sure of nothing I 
 do be — but some day for you to take Miss Dolly might 
 be very grand and 'fine, Mr. Cuthbert. It might lift 
 her out of grief and shame, and be an offence to your 
 fine friends. But even then, sir, do not take her till 
 love calls out to you out of her two blue eyes. Will 
 3'ou promise me, Mr. Cuthbert ? '■'- 
 
 " But " 
 
 ' It is myself has seen a great evil done innocently, 
 and it is myself helped in it, and it is myself would like 
 to hinder the chance of another like it. I would like 
 you to promise me, Mr. Cuthbert." 
 
 " I think I can safely promise that." 
 
 " And I do, too, but it is sure I would like to be. 
 She was born without the love of the man and the 
 woman round and about and made one in her. She 
 was never steeped in it as in a sea ! It never came to 
 her with every breath, and so it is down too deep it 
 is to find of a sudden. And she has a power of other 
 things to keep her content, and all the time the quick 
 life going on about her, and she in the middle of it, 
 and finding out every day more fine things about her- 
 self, and yourself at hand if she do be wanting any- 
 thing. For one not born in love and to it, Miss Dolly 
 has too much of her own way to come to it quickly. 
 
 " If — if it ever happens that she is driven to you,
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 235 
 
 Air Cuthbert, put her away from you. And if you 
 muS t_P far from her. Keep her safe and sacred 
 in your heart for ever. She'll never hurt your heart, 
 but do not marry her. It is a wrong to her and to 
 yourself, and to them born of you it is. The best you 
 could do, Mr. Cuthbert, is to go away now."- 
 '« I can't, not just yet. 1 '- 
 
 She started, paused, and put her hands quickly 
 before her eyes, and suddenly she trembled. Presently 
 her hands dropped back softly into her lap and she 
 laughed. tt 
 
 "It is come again it is," she said. The sight it 
 come back, so it is. It came in that little minute m 
 the sudden way of it. It is soon you can go now, 
 Mr. Cuthbert. It is not for you or for me to settle. 
 It is for Richard Alderson, and to-day we will send 
 for him, and he will come. He would not till this 
 minute, but now he will come and fight for his 
 own." 
 
 " It will be a long fight, « she said, looking out before 
 her. " Perhaps it will last for two long lives ; perhaps 
 it is he will die not knowing if it is lost or won he has, 
 but it is nigh beaten by another man he do be now, 
 and he must fight till he dies for what is dearer than 
 life." She paused and sighed. " For heavy is the 
 sin of Richard Alderson," she said, with lifted hands. 
 " Because he was denied the one big thing his heart" 
 cried out for, he stood aside and let all the other big 
 things, the great big things God gave him strength to 
 handle, go past him. And she did think it was because 
 they were too big for him ; too big for Richard Aider- 
 son ; she had not the love to bring the size of Heaven 
 into her thoughts of him. Nothing is too small to^ 
 feed love ; but without it, pride grows and thrives in 
 the lonesome heart ; then the years go slow, and the 
 heart grows tired with crying in the cold silence ; and 
 when love is taught by one with victory in his face, 
 it is the bruised, proud heart will go out to him. I 
 is another man has gone before Richard Alderson and 
 taken her heart, and it is upon my son the blame do
 
 236 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 be, and the great evil. It is my son it is Him above 
 will hold guilty." 
 
 " Your son ? " repeated Cuthbert in blank 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, stirring after a long pause. " Is it 
 to say it out loud at last after all these years I did ? " 
 
 " He is your son ? " 
 
 " But Mr. Cuthbert, sir," she said humbly, " yourself 
 knows it was no one to speak of he was." 
 
 " But I didn't know he had you for a mother." 
 Faunce stooped impulsively, and kissed her hands one 
 after the other. " Or that Dolly had you for a grand- 
 mother. Lady Dorinda comes first after Dolly, and 
 always will, in the queerest way she has made a new 
 thing of life for me, but you come next now." 
 
 " It is to love her well you do, sir. It is you could 
 forgive anything for the child's sake." 
 
 You're quite out of it. It's not a case of forgiveness 
 for Dolly's sake. I think she's jolly lucky to have 
 a grandmother like you. Does no one know but me ?" 
 
 " Not one soul, thank God ! " 
 
 " But surely, Mr. Alderson " 
 
 " We understand one another, my son and me. It 
 is Richard has done what he could. It is never 
 ashamed of me my son would be, Mr. Cuthbert, but 
 it is to keep my secret he does, because I wished it, 
 and so must you too. It is well it has worked for 
 many a long year. I can keep watch over him and 
 his as well here as there in the drawing-room. And 
 it is myself has never brought a blush to the cheek of 
 one of them, as I would for sure, sitting up there pre- 
 tending to be what I never was. It is blushing myself 
 would be all day striving to get my tongue round 
 the strange words, and that sorry because I could not. 
 It is very well I do in my own setting, Mr. Cuthbert." 
 
 " You'd do very well in any setting." 
 
 " I might with practice, but it did not seem worth 
 it^in the old times. And now it is yourself would 
 rather have me for Miss Dolly's grandmother here than 
 there," she said, laughing. "It is God Almighty
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 237 
 
 Himself would be laughing at me out there in the 
 world, striving and pretending, and it is to lose the 
 gift I might do." 
 
 " Perhaps you're right. You're very wise, and the 
 world, they say, is made up largely of fools." 
 
 " And, indeed, so it is," said Mary. " It is myself 
 could have learnt to be enough of a lady to content the 
 world and easy, when I was young. But out there 
 beyond in the great big, wide plains under a sky all 
 your own, it was too happy one was to think of it. 
 And it was bigger things it was you had to be doing. 
 It is not to notice one is not a lady one do be after 
 living down there near the heart of things. It is to 
 be thinking, and wondering, and learning a little you 
 do be. And long ago it was no one to remind me there 
 was. And it is the tea has come now, and all the talk 
 is done ! It is not in our hands it do be now, Mr. Cuth- 
 bert. And it is you will take the cablegram for me. 
 And since it could not be Miss Dolly, it is glad I am, sir, 
 it was yourself brought back the light to me." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Considering the curious bond that bound him and 
 his mother, it was perhaps natural that away from 
 her, and from the bewildering yet luminous presence of 
 Dorinda, a darkness should have fallen upon Richard 
 also. 
 
 During the voyage he had too much time on his 
 hands for a man who had lived too long on faith and 
 was still hungry ; moreover, the brilliant demand, 
 which flows from the West, and enables America to 
 take pretty much what she wants, was already in the 
 air, filling him also with self-consciousness, and a sense 
 of urgent and compelling needs. 
 
 When a man with a genuine grievance, who for years 
 has doggedly absorbed himself in anything but himself,
 
 238 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 turns his eyes full upon himself, the grievance is apt 
 to block the view. 
 
 He had trusted in love and in women as few men 
 have trusted in them. He had trusted too much, 
 given too much of himself to his beliefs. He had 
 bartered the strength of Ins youth, and the experience 
 of his manhood for them. 
 
 In the sublime insolence of the winds that swung 
 from the shores of the wonderful land, in the masterful 
 atmosphere, it struck him at last that he had been the 
 slave of a great passion, and not its master. That he 
 had got the least and not the most out of his unassuagc- 
 able sorrow. 
 
 He could have done great tilings, and what had he 
 done but heap up money and help fools ? He had 
 never even tried to show Dorinda — to force her, if 
 necessary, to see him as he was. A sinister contempt 
 for himself embittered his wholesome blood. A 
 strange, insidious resentment against Dorinda inflamed 
 it. The meanest of the many weaknesses of Adam, 
 never before given place to in Ins sound soul, worked up 
 from some hidden source. He blamed the woman for 
 his own defeat. But for Dorinda and the immense 
 disappointment of their life together, what could he 
 not have done ? and after the companionship of twenty 
 years in her incomparably gentle way she still looked 
 upon him merely as a very excellent example of a 
 nouveau riche ! 
 
 Dorinda was the innermost part of him. In hating 
 himself for his failure, he hated her for failing to see 
 him victorious. Time and the man had proved at last 
 that she had eyes to see ; and what had any man that 
 he could not both show and give ? He hated Dorinda 
 for her blindness. , It did not strike him to hate the 
 man. He knew the best when he saw it, and he had 
 taken nothing from him. 
 
 Even now it did not occur to him to think of Dorinda' s 
 honour in the matter at all, or that anyone could even 
 breathe a word against her good name. He was steeped 
 in the soundest and the proudest blood of the nation.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 239 
 
 The best of the Saxon and the best of the Celt made him 
 invulnerable to vulgar suspicion. Women such as 
 Dorinda do not betray a man. 
 
 No bonds can bind love ; but Dorinda was safe 
 in her own hands, and Dolly was with her. All that 
 was left to him now was to see to it that Dorinda 
 no longer remained blind to his power, to his ability 
 to succeed, even without her, in the highest. Dorinda, 
 the sapper of his strength, was now its goad. He 
 defied her ever again either to hold him back, or to 
 misjudge his ability to go forward. The struggle 
 to regain possession of himself was a hard one ; in the 
 throes of it something — perhaps it was the despair 
 he would sooner die than admit to ; he was too des- 
 perate to admit to despair — tore the heart out of him. 
 
 As soon as he got to America, he worked with a 
 strength and a persistence new even to him. There 
 was nothing, as heretofore, to make him laugh and 
 pause and stand aside, restrain or forego himself. He 
 went straight for what he wanted, and got it. He 
 forged ahead on the clean, straight line he had mapped 
 out for himself, intent only on his aim, with quiet 
 implacability, crushing and hurting, because he him- 
 self was being crushed and hurt. 
 
 Men who had known him for years watched him 
 with amazed interest. Of the colossal ability in affairs 
 he now displayed they had hardly believed him capable ; 
 but virtue had gone out of Richard Alderson. His 
 influence had suffered change. What he had come to 
 do was the only thing to be done. It meant the righting 
 of a great wrong touching the interests of two nations. 
 He was saving many a man from ruin, and bringing 
 back a sense of security to a host of harassed minds, but 
 the change in the ways of his going was evident. The 
 want of the heart of the man in all his actions showed 
 now how big a part it had played in them. 
 
 Even in America, the land of size and terror, he 
 stood out big and terrible. Woe be to the man now 
 who stood in his path. For the first time in his life 
 the weak shuddered away from Richard.
 
 240 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 He had practically finished his triumphant rough- 
 ride when his mother's cable came. He knew her 
 too well to disregard her summons, or to make little 
 of its significance. And his heart hardened to Dorinda. 
 
 Although incapable of responding to a love such as 
 his, Dorinda could, it seems, put herself at the mercy of 
 his protection ! He had no pity for such weakness 
 in such a woman, no mercy, no forgiveness. 
 
 It degraded her in his eyes. It made her common. 
 It hurt her most sacred possession, Dolly. It tampered 
 with and revolutionized all his beliefs in traditions and 
 in himself. It did violence to all the tender places in 
 his nature. 
 
 To have lost faith in the invulnerableness of a good 
 woman, to a man like Richard, was disintegrating. 
 In no sort of way was he ignorant of the weakness 
 of defence of the indifferent, vain, small, shallow 
 creatures whom men may dare to pity — but Dorinda ! 
 
 That she should love another man might have been 
 the illimitable tragedy of any pure heart ; but to have 
 to protect Dorinda from vulgar disaster was so incon- 
 ceivable to his every preconceived idea, that to make 
 it conceivable at all his whole scale of values must be 
 completely reorganized. 
 
 And with his new-found strength, cold and implac- 
 able, he utilized the voyage home in the deadly process. 
 
 But as he looked back upon the gentleness, the 
 purity, the fine atmosphere of integrity in which she 
 had walked, which she diffused, in which he had wor- 
 shipped her, the thing became again inconceivable. 
 He walked up and down in the wild twilight till thinking 
 made for madness. 
 
 His long habit of quiet control had left him, his 
 well-tempered blood ran now like flame in his veins. 
 The whole change of front, of belief, and of stand- 
 point, was too violent. It made havoc of sense and 
 reason. 
 
 It was an evening of pain upon this riddle of an 
 earth. The sea-gulls screamed in the grip of a woe 
 that must have held some humanity, so full of desolation
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 241 
 
 was it. Faint sighings of softest anguish pressed through 
 the blustering breeze into the heart of the roughest 
 sailor. It was very certain that something was sorry for 
 the world and with it, that night of sorrow. 
 
 And suddenly out of the troubled gloom, Dorinda's 
 face, as he had never before seen it, stood up before 
 Richard's eyes. Every smallest detail was visible, 
 and for the first time he knew the weakness that lay 
 about her beautiful mouth. For an instant a gleam 
 of pity, of tenderness, trembled into the congealed 
 bitterness of his pain, and melted a little space, into 
 which, all at once, Dolly slipped. Since the cable 
 came he had thrust Dolly out of the affair, with a 
 shudder. But once in, he could not shut her out again. 
 She came into everything. Into the restless pain of the 
 striving world, the cry of the lonely creatures of the 
 air, the seething complaint of the waters. Like a good 
 thought she flashed on white wings in and out the 
 sorrow, and the revolt, and the muffled demand. 
 
 He had always been immensely proud of Dolly. 
 They were the best of friends, but they knew very 
 little of each other really. A curious reticence had 
 kept them apart. Pride and an odd sense of honour 
 on his part. He had not felt justified in claiming 
 his full share in the daughter, when he had failed to 
 win any share at all in the mother ; and now, this 
 shadowy, winged sentinel that was Dolly was as in- 
 sistent in its demand upon him as all the other things 
 in the beseeching elements. 
 
 In dropping from the centre of it he had, it was 
 plain enough, missed the best m life. 
 
 " I've been a coward, in short," he said at last. 
 " When I saw we could not travel together, I should 
 have gone on alone. Nothing should come between 
 a man and the best he can do. No man should let 
 himself be put back from any project because his wife 
 can't believe in his power to put it through. My 
 God ! but I have been a coward ! And, after all, 
 nothing but love can teach a woman what a man 
 can do. If I'd left her and gone on, perhaps the spur
 
 242 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 of her pride would have sent her after me. No man 
 has the right to leave the woman who belongs to him 
 undisturbed and absolute in the dominion it is his 
 task to make fruitful. 
 
 " I thought I knew all there was to be known about 
 good women, but it seems the best of them is liable to 
 be surprised into life at any age. If I'd accustomed 
 Dorinda to surprises she might be safe now, perhaps. 
 No woman is safe alone in her own passionless heart. 
 As it is, I've lost Dorinda, a' good deal of myself, and 
 some of Dolly." 
 
 " But perhaps there's still time." 
 
 He started abruptly. 
 
 "Time!" he repeated. "My God! To think of 
 it in that way, in connection with Dorinda, and in 
 such a connection ! There must be time ! I've never 
 yet been too late for anything. My luck can't fail 
 me now. My God ! not now ! " he said, turning at 
 the sound of the Captain's voice. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Mrs. Verschoyle was harassed and hard worked, 
 and the result of her labours was anything but satis- 
 factory. Things went heavily. One felt the groaning of 
 the unwilling wheels, and the consciousness of it made 
 further inroads upon the gaiety and lightness of touch 
 which had hitherto carried the lady flying over all 
 obstacles. Her temper was becoming uncertain, her 
 complexion cloudy. She had lost her boundless sense of 
 liberty. She no longer dared to be witty, and was a 
 source of bitter disappointment to her friends. She 
 bored even her enemies. She was one of those unfortu- 
 nately constituted ladies whom respectability, from 
 which there is no escape, demoralizes. 
 
 " She was always horrible in a queer way," said 
 Dolly to her mother, " and altogether different from
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 243 
 
 us ; but I did think she'd be amusing. One expects 
 that from the people England suddenly expects to 
 do their duty because their husband's cousin is dead." 
 
 " She's taking a great deal of trouble to do her best 
 for all of us," said Dorinda. 
 
 " That's just it. She does her best, and one sees 
 it, and it's awful. She must have been frightfully 
 impossible in the days we didn't come to stay with 
 her, to make her efforts to be possible now in a mild 
 way so apparent to the naked eye. I've just been 
 reading a story of a black man who married a white 
 woman, and generally embraced civilization ; and 
 one fatal day he got back among his old friends, and 
 the memory "of the free, old life slipped in, and civiliza- 
 tion slipped out ; and one night his unfortunate wife 
 caught him with nothing at all on, dancing and shouting 
 with the other savages. I believe Mrs. Verschoyle 
 goes out in the moonlight, and does the same." 
 
 "I had no idea you could be so hard on anyone, 
 
 Dolly." 
 
 " She's not anyone. She's just an outsider." 
 
 " You know nothing, at all about Mrs. Verschoyle, 
 Dolly. There's nothing really against her." 
 
 " Perhaps not in newspapers and things, but there's 
 a great deal against her inside me. 1 feel no end. She's 
 pretending like anything all the time, and doing it 
 abominably badly/ If I were that sort of person," 
 said Dolly, visibly brightening. "I'd take care to do 
 it better than that. That she can't even look like 
 us without boring us to death with her creaking efforts 
 shows how limited she is. She might have made her 
 transition so exciting and interesting," sighed Dolly. 
 " One might have given her nice little legs up." 
 
 " When I think of myself at nineteen and you ! ' 
 cried Lady Dorinda. 
 
 Dolly turned to look at her, and the changed beauty 
 of her mother struck her once again in the most extra- 
 ordinary way. She was afraid of it ; she resented it. 
 It hurt her." It had no right to have changed. And 
 her eyes — why should the eyes of one's mother be
 
 244 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 entreating one ? She wriggled on her chair. Her 
 voice was quick and restive. 
 
 " I would do it properly," she said, " if I had to. I'd 
 do it in a way it had never been done before. You'd 
 all be tremendously interested in me." 
 
 " Dolly, you could never, never do anything that 
 made a change of front necessary." 
 
 ' I wonder. I'm not so sure," said Dolly wistfully. 
 " I think I could be anything or do anything. I don't 
 intend to do it ; I mean to go as straight as anything. 
 I've decided to, since I came here, and felt the things 
 I feel about Mrs. Verschoyle. Nothing would induce 
 me to make people feel like that about me. It's too 
 perfectly horrible. At the same time, I'm glad I could 
 do even that sort of thing well. After all, one would 
 have a perfect right to be very much ashamed if one 
 couldn't beat Mrs. Verschoyle in her own role when she 
 makes such a miserably bad shot at ours." 
 
 " Dolly ! I wonder if you know what you're saying," 
 said her mother with curious fear, curious anxiety. 
 She seemed to be standing as she had never yet stood 
 before the judgment seat of her daughter. 
 
 " I know all right, I think, dear darling. I feel 
 sure I could be anything ; but I've made up my mind 
 finally never to have people feeling horrible, cold, slimy, 
 creepy-crawly things inside them about me ! 
 
 " Mother," she said suddenly, " don't think of me 
 at nineteen, or of you at nineteen. Think of yourself 
 as you are now — this minute. It's you everyone's 
 thoughts are hanging round. It's you Mrs. Verschoyle 
 is trying to live up to, and to look good for, and to speak 
 pretty for, and to be as dull as ditch-water for." 
 
 " Dolly, don't " 
 
 " But why ? It's the truth." 
 
 "It is important we should be here, that all the 
 other people who've never been here before should also 
 be here. It's altogether a political party. There's 
 nothing really personal in it at all." 
 
 " It's your party," persisted Dolly. " Mrs. Ver- 
 schoyle's mind is much too small to hold anything
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 245 
 
 but you. It's throbbing with you. She hasn't re- 
 membered which party she's got to play up to since you 
 came. When you're gone, she'll go to bed and pick 
 up he" shattered senses and her political convictions. 
 There's a sort of white wonder about you that absorbs 
 everyone ; but it needn't have made Mrs. Verschoyle 
 shed all her wit ; you ought to have left us that, 
 mother." 
 
 " I wish you were a baby again," said her mother 
 suddenly. " It — it would be different now. I was 
 so young when you came. I was so young when — 
 everything came." 
 
 " You're very young still," said Dolly, stooping im- 
 pulsively to kiss her. " You're too young for this 
 world, I think, and I'll have to take charge of you." 
 
 Dorinda got a little whiter. Her senses swayed and 
 tottered. Her eyes looked out into some darkness. 
 Her breath hardly came at all. She was going out into 
 semi-unconsciousness, and for an instant she was glad. 
 If only it could last for ever, she thought, and save 
 them all. 
 
 A piercing fear of losing herself pricked her back 
 to life. She made a great effort, pulled herself to- 
 gether, and laughed. And as she laughed, she seemed 
 suddenly to see all things more clear. 
 
 Dolly's hand was on her shoulder. Dolly's breath 
 was on her hair. Dolly, baby, child and girl, was in 
 her heart ; and suddenly she felt as Dolly had felt 
 with regard to the other woman, and she started 
 away from herself. She was possessed with a cold, 
 hideous loathing for herself, an indefinable repulsion. 
 She saw herself stained, defiled, changed, another 
 being, with a secret betraying itself at every step, and 
 turning hearts away from her. She felt the uncon- 
 scious shrinking recoil of Dolly, her mute doubt, the 
 terrible persistent question in her clear, inquiring 
 eyes. 
 
 And Dolly herself ? Dolly was part of her, one with 
 her ; their lives were indivisible, and they were both 
 representative. This suddenly was uncompromisingly,
 
 246 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 coldly clear to Dorinda ; no one can stand or 
 fall to himself. Even if one is not indispensable 
 to any one human creature in it, one is indis- 
 pensable to the world ; and suddenly Dolly, her 
 own, her life, stood before her, also stained, defiled, 
 changed, another being, a sharer and a partaker in 
 her sin, a bearer of her burthen. In spite of herself 
 Dorinda shuddered. 
 
 " Are you cold ? " said Dolly. 
 
 " No. Only I saw horrid things. Oh, Dolly ! " 
 she said faintly, " suddenly I saw you — the — sort of 
 person — oh ! you know, different from us." 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! How exciting and horrible ! 
 But did I do it well ? " 
 
 " Oh, Dolly ! It was Oh ! let us forget it." 
 
 But Dolly laughed lightly. 
 
 The oddest thing had happened, and all in an instant. 
 Some spell of strain and stress in her heart and head, 
 and in the air, had suddenly given way, and she felt 
 just as she used to feel before the tongues of two wicked 
 old women had changed the world for her. She felt 
 careless and happy and secure, sure of herself, and of 
 everyone and everything. She seemed to have just 
 come out of some dim nightmare into the light of day. 
 She talked on happily, kicking her heels. A rollicking 
 sense of joy and movement rushed through her. She 
 could not keep still. A whiff of scent from a clump 
 of clove-pinks in an old rockery reminded her of the 
 ghosts' garden and Cuthbert. He was behaving 
 really rather beautifully. There was no denying 
 it. No one in their senses could now despise or deride 
 him, or twit him with his youth. He was now grown 
 up enough for anybody. He was grown-up enough, 
 indeed, to have appeared, and more than once, rather 
 absent-minded in her presence, and always when one 
 of Mrs. Verschoyle's debutantes was about. 
 
 It was odd. She had given him credit — everyone 
 
 gave him credit — for having some tenacity of purpose. 
 
 She wriggled a little. Disappointment in any 
 
 friend comes hard on nineteen ; and any insecurity
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 247 
 
 once experienced will leave the ghost of a shiver behind 
 it. Not a minute ago she had felt as if she could never 
 again in all her life feel insecure about anything, and 
 not to be absolutely sure of Mr. Cuthbert was so 
 amazing. 
 
 ' There must be geese about, I think, seeking whom 
 they may devour. I feel creepy too. I'm going for a 
 tour round the provinces. I'll soon be back. But 
 ■ — you look a bit played out." 
 
 ' I'm not played out," said Dorinda. " On the 
 contrary, I'm rousing myself to a great effort. Be- 
 cause you're an inch taller and an inch and a half 
 broader than I am, and because for one unconsidered 
 instant I wanted you to be a baby again, you're inclined 
 to take advantage of me, I think. You've often taken 
 advantage of me lately, I think, Dolly. You've made 
 me feel so young that — that I've looked up to you a 
 little. No wonder you look surprised. It was very 
 foolish of me. So now I'm going to grow up and 
 turn the tables. Oh, Dolly ! Wish me good luck I 
 It will be rather difficult, I think. Perhaps, who* 
 knows, I shall be taking care of you then. But don't 
 want it, Dolly ; never want that sort of taking care. 
 One shouldn't put off growing-up," she said, forcing her 
 voice not to tremble, " I ought to have done it twenty 
 years ago." 
 
 ' Then you might have been like everyone else. 
 I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad I'll be sort of seeing it. 
 Do grow up, grow up in a night, if you like. You'll 
 do it rippingly. After all, you might have been like 
 Mrs. Colborne with a twenty-seven inch waist, or a 
 very, very old girl like Sophia Mont, if you'd grown 
 up before you knew how to do it properly. I'm glad 
 you're just you. Do you think father will notice any 
 difference when he comes home ? " 
 
 ' I don't know. Perhaps he will." 
 Why should she get white as she said it ? Her 
 mother certainly was puzzling. 
 
 " Men don't notice much really," said Dolly. " He 
 was disappointed the first day I put up my hair, and
 
 248 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 said I ought to have worn a green skirt, and a green 
 leather belt, and a sailor hat with a green ribbon, and 
 considering I was going to Lady Drought's garden- 
 party the next minute ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " said Dorinda. She remembered only too 
 well the skimpy skirt, and the cheap belt, and the 
 little hat she had trimmed herself, and all in con- 
 nection with Lancelot Delamer. " But how shall I 
 begin ? " she thought desperately, " how shall I ever 
 begin ? " 
 
 She had forgotten until Dolly spoke that Richard 
 had first seen her in the poor little things, " I wonder 
 how much he minds," she thought, " if he's minded 
 all the time, and, like me, has said nothing ? To grow 
 up now and begin everything again ! I wonder, oh ! 
 I wonder if I can ! " 
 
 Dolly went off singing. 
 
 ' But even to begin — even to begin," thought her 
 mother. 
 
 She sat and tried to wheel her wild thoughts into 
 line, but for a long time they defied her. All they 
 brought her in their mad circling was overwhelming 
 thoughts of Delamer ; till, driven at last to prayer, 
 she besought not God, but the sin that had shown 
 her God, to show her now some mercy. She cried to 
 the love that had shown her all things, to save and 
 help her. To do the one thing she could never do, 
 to force her to live worthy of so great a marvel, by 
 denying love. 
 
 Dorinda was awake at last, wide awake. She knew 
 her danger and her weakness. Until this minute she 
 had not known how the glamour of the secret that 
 should be hers, the haunting, magical, uplifting secret 
 had enchanted and bemused her. In spite of all the 
 old inherited revolt and repulsion of her heart, the 
 thought of the secret, and the sacrifice, had fired her 
 imagination, moved and touched the very founda- 
 tions of her being : it had become idealized in her. 
 She had been obsessed by the tragic grandeur of it. 
 It dominated and entranced her. It was bound up
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 249 
 
 with all the beauty and the completeness of life ; 
 with love, and service, and sacrifice, wide-spread, 
 fine, universal ; with effectiveness such as she had 
 never known and could r never know alone. It was 
 a magical dream, a dream of dreams. As for the 
 shame and the sin of it, she had been too dazed and 
 bewitched to realize them, as one in her full senses 
 must. 
 
 Delamer, it was plain, knew how to use his influence, 
 and what influence to use, so to have transformed this 
 woman, whose destinv it was to be good. 
 
 " But what have" I done ? " she cried. " What 
 have I become ? I — I didn't know how easy it was 
 to be wicked. Oh ! Dolly ! Dolly ! If I can only 
 keep good, only — even now — even now ! Oh, Love," 
 she prayed, you've done everything for me, you've 
 given me everything ; help me and save me ! Give 
 me strength. Oh ! give me strength ! " A terrible 
 fear of her weakness had come upon her. She could 
 be sure of nothing else. 
 
 She was afraid of his power over her, afraid of him, 
 and she knew that on this day and night hung her 
 fate and the fate of all of them. He had never said 
 a word, never hurt her ears by one hint, but she knew 
 that to-day would decide it. She had felt it dimly 
 all the time, but now she knew. She had been drifting 
 towards it all the time, consenting to it. She had 
 obeyed him, and yielded to him and drifted on, on 
 to the threshold of her doom ; and now one word, one 
 look, one touch would send her over. 
 
 Love had done so much for her, so much, but it had 
 not given her power to oppose her lover. An intense 
 longing for Richard, for home, for the solitude of her 
 old room, seized her. 
 
 "If I could get away from Lancelot and Dolly, 
 alone where I could fight for goodness," she thought 
 wildly. " I can't here." 
 
 She was afraid of the house, of her surroundings. 
 She knew that Delamer 's chief object in bringing her 
 to the house had nothing to do with the thing. That
 
 250 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 she was safe in his hands ; that he would as soon 
 betray her to a woman like Mrs. Verschoyle as she 
 would betray herself ; but a strong feeling took hold 
 of her that a man might do in this house, so foreign to 
 all her instincts, what would be impossible to conceive 
 in any other. She had to face everything, think of 
 everything. All things stood out before her in their 
 order. In no sort of way was her love either changed 
 or deflected. 
 
 It was part of her : the warmth, the life, the fulfil- 
 ment of all things within her. Even then she knew 
 all that it had done for her, and done for Dolly. It 
 had given her to Dolly, and Dolly to her, and enriched 
 both their lives for ever. 
 
 This made her suddenly incredibly precious to her- 
 self, to Dolly, and to the world. Her pride, narco- 
 tized by love and by the subtle influences Delamer had 
 brought to bear on her, awoke to the keenness of her 
 danger, of everybody's danger. She no longer fought 
 for herself, but for everybody. 
 
 She cried to Love to help her. Love was the biggest 
 thing she knew, the greatest, the most wonderful, 
 the only thing that can help a woman ; and if Love 
 did not help her, nothing else could. She must fly 
 as any coward might. She must be alone, and make 
 herself be good. 
 
 She was seized by a terror of the shortness of time, 
 of the lurking dangers of the dreadful house. She 
 trembled and shrank. Her mouth was pitiful. 
 
 " I must go," she said, " but how can I ? Oh ! 
 what a coward I have become ! If Dolly — Dolly could 
 do it ! She'd go if she thought she ought to go, and 
 I to say I would take care of Dolly ! Oh ! what have 
 I done ? What have I become ? What would I 
 become still if he only just came and touched me 
 and looked at me ? I — I would do anything ; for 
 Lancelot has given me everything I have, and the 
 very thought of losing him has taken from me the very 
 strength which he gave me." 
 
 Her life had been so smooth and uneventful ; there
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 251 
 
 had never been any need for enterprise, or adventure, 
 or daring in her quiet life. 
 
 "If I were Dolly," she said, " and had it in me 
 to be anything, I might think of something, think of 
 some way. But to be only alive enough to be sad all 
 these years, and good enough to content people ; and 
 now the strength he gave me is all gone ! " 
 
 " Oh ! but it is contemptible ! " thought Dorinda. 
 A thousand schemes ran wild in her maddened brain, 
 when suddenly she saw Cuthbert hurrying to her. 
 She had neither time nor strength to regain her calm ; 
 perhaps she had not the inclination. A quick, irrational 
 hope seemed to hang on his coming. She was drown- 
 ing, ready to grasp at any straw, and she knew the 
 depth of the boy's affection for her. 
 
 But even then she could not be wholly selfish. 
 
 " Oh ! What is it ? " she cried out to his face. 
 
 " I'm not a brute really," he said with a short laugh. 
 '' It's a summons from my mother, but it's probably 
 only a false alarm. And to-day ! Oh ! You know 
 we were all going to the Falls. It was to be a ripping- 
 day. Oh, well ! I've got to go— But, Lady Dorinda, 
 what's up ? " 
 
 " Are you going now, motoring up ? ,: She was 
 standing up and spoke eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, this minute. One always feels one ought to 
 go directly, you know." 
 
 " Will you take me with you ? I — I — want to 
 think something out alone. I can't do it here. Dolly 
 is all right. I'll come back to-morrow." 
 
 She stood quite still. She even smiled. She had 
 had too long a training in composure not to have re- 
 gained it quickly. The very effort steadied her. 
 
 Cuthbert stared, surprised into silence. 
 
 " You are the best friend I have," she said, " and 
 you love Dolly. It's urgent and necessary, and I'm 
 going partly for her sake. I must go, and be alone to 
 make a decision. I-can't make it here." 
 
 Cuthbert had recovered himself. He saw that the 
 effort to speak had cost her a good deal. In a flash
 
 252 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 he knew that she was right to go. She was the last 
 woman living to do any sudden dramatic thing un- 
 necessarily. 
 
 " Come along, then," he said. " I can wait as long 
 as you like. There's no real hurry." 
 
 " But I — I'm not used to sudden things," she said, 
 with a little laugh. 
 
 ' But everyone else is, here. Until quite lately it's 
 been the habit of the house to be surprised at nothing. 
 It can't have got over the habits of a lifetime in three 
 months." 
 
 " But neither can I in three minutes. What — what 
 shall I say ? " 
 
 ' Wouldn't it be more original to say nothing, but 
 just that you want to run up to town, and are coming 
 with me." 
 
 " I know so little about these occasions." 
 
 " Why should you explain anything to Mrs. Ver- 
 schoyle ? " demanded Faunce magnificently. 
 
 " She might think I was mad." 
 
 ' What does it matter ? What does anything about 
 her matter ? She couldn't think you'd have the bad 
 taste to elope with me." Dorinda laughed unsteadily. 
 
 " You're quite right. I'll tell her I want to go, 
 and we'll just go." 
 
 They were all gathered on the lawn to see Cuthbert 
 off, and were rather taken aback at sight of Lady 
 Dorinda, hooded and cloaked, apparently also for the 
 road. 
 
 " I say ! " said Dolly, running to meet her, " but 
 what's happened ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Dorinda, " except that I must go. 
 I must do something I can't do here. It is just what 
 you would do yourself, Dolly. It is. I think it is 
 only that I am growing-up at last, dear. I'll be back 
 to-morrow, you won't miss me." 
 
 " Mrs. Verschoyle, I should have had to go in an 
 hour," she said, " by myself, and it is so much pleasanter
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 253 
 
 to go with Mr. Cuthbert. You won't want me really 
 to-day, and I'll be back for your luncheon to-morrow. 
 I shouldn't think of going, of course, unless it were 
 quite necessary. I won't say good-bye to anyone," 
 she called out, " I'll be back so soon." 
 
 Dorinda's own heart was too near breaking not to 
 be sorry for Mrs. Verschoyle's discomfiture. She 
 touched her hand in the kindest way and tried to heal 
 the prick. 
 
 " You've done a very sporting thing," said Cuth- 
 bert, as they drove off. " Mrs. Verschoyle is surprised, 
 but she bears no malice. You may not be used to 
 these sudden occasions, but you manage them un- 
 commonly well. And now I must stop talking, for 
 I'm going to drive like blazes, and I must keep my 
 eyes skinned. There, lie back and rest," he said, 
 stopping to arrange the pillows and tuck her in. 
 
 " I wonder if you'll ever belong to me properly ? ' 
 said Dorinda. 
 
 " I don't suppose for a moment that I shall ; but 
 that needn't spoil our friendship, need it ? " 
 
 " How could it ? I only hope it won't spoil my 
 friendship for any other son-in-law." 
 
 " It needn't do that. But he mustn't take my 
 place. After all, sons-in-law don't expect more than 
 common civility, as a rule, from their mothers-in-law, 
 and he'll have what I've lost. I'll stick to first place." 
 
 He drove off at a smart pace, but decided, after a 
 few miles, to slow down. ' It will give her time to 
 think it out," he said, with a glance at her. " She 
 won't know if we're going three miles an hour or fifty. 
 Pity, too, the car runs like cream. I wonder if any- 
 thing bad enough will ever happen to Dolly to make 
 her forget the pace ? — I believe she's going to avoid 
 Delamer. That's right enough, but it's rum to be 
 flying with me. If it was Dolly, she'd see the fun in 
 it even now. People like Lady Dorinda must find 
 things pretty awful when they go wrong a bit." 
 
 Two or three times he paused to do some little thing 
 for her, and his touch might have been that of a
 
 254 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 worshipper at some shrine. By the instinctive goodness 
 of his young heart, he knew something of what she 
 suffered, and of the hardness of the fight. 
 
 " She has Dolly's own pluck," he thought. " I'd 
 follow him to the world's end this minute, and she's 
 going away from him in some way I don't at all under- 
 stand. He's given her something no one else could, 
 just as he's given it to me. I always knew she'd do 
 the right thing in the end. If one could only do any- 
 thing — the smallest thing to help her out," he thought. 
 1 It never struck me it could be very hard for a woman 
 to choose goodness till now," he thought presently, 
 getting very red. " It makes one like them better, I 
 think." 
 
 He would have given more even than he knew to 
 do anything for her, to give her any little service of 
 love, and help, and trust, and something in Dorinda, 
 not herself, knew all about it, and felt stronger. 
 
 Her courage grew with her pain, but as she had 
 never known either laughter or a light heart, no gleam 
 of the youth of the world could slip in to the narrow 
 agony of her fight for herself. In her harsh, un- 
 relieved pain she had no part in youth. But once 
 or twice she was pitiably glad that she had not for- 
 feited its trust for ever, that she could still lift up her 
 head in its presence. Streams, trees, little cottages 
 and great houses, sunny copses, and dark pools, ran 
 merrily past them ; but she saw nothing until a great 
 gaunt workhouse, spoiling a lovely reach of common, 
 struck some chord of memory. 
 
 They had passed it upon one of the few occasions 
 when she had gone out with him in his car. How 
 he had cursed the thing and the system, and the 
 stupid folly of a nation that tolerates the organized 
 horrors of the desolating monster. She thought of 
 his masterly sketch of the new scheme that possessed 
 him. The memory of his wizard words filled her 
 with a glow of love, and of understanding, and of 
 infinite gratitude. She seemed to have slipped with 
 him into the very heart of created things. She loved
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 255 
 
 them all, she who had been kind to people as she had 
 been kind to her dogs. No one was like him. The 
 least democratic of men, he yet could have done most 
 for the people, because he understood them the best 
 and hated injustice. A thousand instances of his 
 influence, of his inspiration rushed to her mind, and 
 in each of them he had changed, and enriched and 
 enlarged her. Her life with him had been one trium- 
 phant procession of growth. She looked back at the 
 immaturity he had mellowed to fruitfulness, and 
 shuddered. 
 
 " And now I am leaving him, and leaving it all 
 behind me," she said. ' England and all," she slowly 
 added. " England has grown so dear, so dear, and it 
 seemed as if I, too, could help her. I'd begun to feel 
 my strength and my necessity. I could have done 
 anything with him. I could have done great good 
 things. The world might have been the better for 
 me. And now nothing's left except to be good. To 
 be good in the usual lifeless way— just as my baker's 
 wife is good. I've been good so long," she said slowly, 
 ' ' and been alive for so short a time ! I might be a 
 living power, a woman who helps to make history, upon 
 whom great events wait." 
 
 " I wonder — ah ! I wonder if it's worth it ? " she 
 thought in great anguish. ' To go back to — death, 
 when one has only just learned to live ! I wonder, 
 I wonder," she said, her face white and hard. " I 
 wonder if it's worth it ? "- 
 
 For a long time she could not think at all ; she 
 could only despair. To renounce so much to gain 
 so little, rang like a dull refrain through her numbed 
 consciousness. The terror of the old death in life 
 came back upon her like a shroud. Nothing touched 
 or moved her now. It seemed to her an evil thing 
 to choose death instead of life — a thing against 
 Nature, and Truth, and all the other high things to 
 which her sick soul had been going out. This was 
 going back and not going forward. It was a cowardice, 
 a betrayal of — something.
 
 256 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 She moved and sighed, and the boy somehow knew. 
 
 " I wonder what's up now ? " he thought. " Could 
 it be getting too hard for a woman ? And yet what's 
 a man to do ? Dolly would pull it off better. Dolly 
 could laugh at the devil himself. What's one to do, 
 anyway, in the beastly business ? ' : He pondered the 
 question in vain. To avoid policemen and pigs was 
 apparently his only share in the affair, and a precious 
 dull one. If he had only known it, he did a good deal 
 for her that day by holding his tongue, and being the 
 good fellow he was. 
 
 Even in her dim despair one little tendril of 
 Dorinda's tortured thought clung on to him for life ; 
 to him, and to Dolly, and to all the other youth, from 
 which she could not bear to be divided. 
 
 " You have a headache," he said accusingly, as he 
 waited till the doors were opened, and she was at 
 home. " I believe Mrs. O' Berne could put it right for 
 you. She puts most things right. She's the best 
 friend I have, after you. I'd like to think of her 
 doing things for you, Lady Dorinda." 
 
 " All I want is quiet." 
 
 " Oh, well ! If you want anything more, think of 
 the old woman, and send for me directly I can do 
 anything. And what about to-morrow ? " 
 
 " My head's too bad. I can't think of to-morrow 
 yet. Good-bye," she smiled, but her smile frightened 
 him. 
 
 The unsurprised faces that confronted her were 
 calming to Dorinda. 
 
 " There are advantages in being rich," she thought, 
 when she had spoken a few words to all of them in her 
 gracious way. " One needn't explain things at length, 
 even to Mrs. Verschovle."-
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Verschoyle was jerking out spas- 
 modically, in a manner to suggest little hope of oratorical 
 triumphs in the future, his views on the political 
 situation, and Delamer, who had only just arrived, 
 looked all sympathetic attention. For some moments, 
 immersed in his own preoccupations, he was only aware 
 that the man was maundering, and must be silenced 
 before he was presented to the public. Then without 
 any preparation to speak of, Jim burst out about his 
 wife and the situation proceeding even then on his 
 own hearthstone ; and Delamer was fully awake. 
 The human side of any affair always interested him, 
 and James Verschoyle's moralities and points of view 
 were of a simple order, and at the command of anyone 
 who would listen to them. 
 
 Being a bore by nature, he detested being bored, 
 and until now Milly had never permitted him to 
 be bored, and although clearly gratified at the dis- 
 tinguished and unaccustomed company his house 
 sheltered, he keenly missed that which for so many 
 years he had deplored with scant restraint. Milly, 
 while pursuing a line of conduct altogether repre- 
 hensible, could create something uncommonly like 
 heaven in the house : it seemed she could also make 
 a houseful her worst enemy couldn't pick a moral 
 hole in more like hell than anything he had yet 
 experienced. 
 
 " Now you've come," said Jim dubiously, " perhaps 
 Ihings will take a pull. The crowd Milly has always 
 chosen to fill the house with was bad enough, but 
 by Jove ! it moved. It kept on going ; I can't say 
 as much tor this. It's important enough, thank
 
 258 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 heaven ! we've got the right people, and we've spared 
 
 neither trouble nor expense, and yet " A large 
 
 and inextinguishable yawn finished his sentence. 
 
 Delamer checked his. 
 
 ' Perhaps Mrs. Verschoyle's a bit too anxious to 
 make things go for your sake." 
 
 " And the country's," said Jim pompously. " Milly 
 has begun to think, Delamer." 
 
 " I guessed as much. But you mustn't let that 
 get in her way. "What we and the country want is 
 Mrs. Verschoyle herself. She's invaluable to us. We 
 want personality, not opinions. The feeling a woman 
 brings into the room with her will exert more in- 
 fluence than all her arguments. With a woman of 
 Mrs. Verschoyle's ability, we can take her arguments 
 for granted. The way in which a woman can be 
 silent in regard to weighty matters shows precisely 
 how well she can speak about them. When a woman, 
 as you say, begins to think, not being the half-hearted 
 creature man is, she does it with a will. Sometimes 
 she thinks at the top of her voice, and when, as the 
 result of thinking or circumstance, a woman who, as 
 a matter of course, has hitherto thrown all her 
 brilliant energies into social affairs, turns them all 
 into some bigger affair — into imperial politics, for 
 instance — she is apt to throw herself too — all that 
 made her a power ; so she becomes for the moment 
 the mere mouthpiece of a man's congested convictions, 
 and thus the cause loses its most valuable asset." 
 
 " You're right," he sighed. • " Milly can talk and 
 talk to some purpose. There's nothing congested 
 about her words, and as for arguing ! — Until now Milly 
 was the life of every room. Things hummed the 
 minute she came in." 
 
 Delamer nodded and passed in review the quality 
 of the life Milly had so lavishly shed, and the check 
 in its genial flow since thinking had set in. 
 
 " It's the amazing humility of women," said Dela 
 rner. " If a woman only knew how invaluable she 
 herself is, she woiild not so lightly become a Cause."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 259 
 
 " Oh ! like the suffragettes ! " said Jim, visibly- 
 alarmed. 
 
 " Have I come to this ? " said Milly, from the door. 
 " Are you comparing me to a suffragette ? " 
 
 " I'm not," said Delan&r ; " but Jim was just saying 
 that the country can't spare you. It would struggle 
 on if all its politicians were dead and buried, but it 
 can't spare its women. You must give us back 
 yourself." 
 
 " With all my sins upon me ? " 
 
 " And all your inimitable way with sinners." 
 
 " There isn't a sinner or a publican in the house," 
 she groaned, " unless you can call a ritualistic brewer 
 one. I've even sorted out the servants' hall. Three 
 suspects went packing on Friday. It was the good 
 looks of one that got her sacked, I think, but when 
 one is cleansing Augean stables some good fodder 
 must go." 
 
 " Look here, Milly I " said Jim. " You have as 
 much sense as ever you had. Can't you see that the 
 house is as dull as a stagnant tank ? 
 
 " See ? Do I see anything else, my good man, or 
 feel it, or squirm under it ? Talk of worms ■"■ 
 
 " Then for God's sake do something." 
 
 She sprang from the sofa on which she had thrown 
 herself. 
 
 " Have I been idle ? No charwoman with seventeen 
 children and a drunken husband ever worked so hard, 
 and this after a life of comparatively cultured leisure ! 
 Politics isn't slave-driving, Jim, and I can't stand 
 much more of this. Apparently other people can't 
 either. Lady Dorinda's just bolted with young 
 Cuthbert, and considering the whole show is run on 
 the new lines for her, it's playing it pretty low down 
 on all of us." 
 
 " Lady Dorinda ! " cried Jim ; " and the girl ? " 
 " The girl's left behind as hostage." 
 " When does she return ? " inquired Delamer. 
 It was the sharpest surprise of his life. It took him 
 a full minute to recover from it. 
 
 9*
 
 260 D0R1NDA AND HEK DAUGHTER 
 
 ' To-morrow. Even virtue, it seems, wilts in this 
 intolerable air of defeated effort after the highest." 
 
 ' Leave effort," said Delamer cheerfully, " and be 
 content to be." 
 
 " Myself, do you mean ? It's the one thing I was 
 warned not to be. I wish to goodness / could boll 
 with someone sensible." 
 
 " Can 1 be of any service ? " 
 You ! No ! You look like Mephistopheles. It 
 might look like a strenuous flight, and people would 
 talk. It's only women like Lady Dorinda who can 
 dare to do anything. Even when / sit and simper 
 like a stuffed image, or declaim like a fish-wife — you 
 should just hear me, Lancelot — either people suspect 
 me or 1 bore them. I wish to goodness }'our people 
 had stayed alive, Jim, until I'd got too old for politics." 
 
 You'll never get too old, Mrs. Verschoyle, even for 
 the malice of the less-richly endowed," said Delamer. 
 ' That is, unless you forget to be yourself, and give 
 us revised editions of yon. A woman can do any- 
 thing but revise herself or a man. Her first impulse 
 is to fly to the shears and cut out everything that 
 made her, or him, supreme, instead of turning the 
 priceless casket of — er — misapplied treasure to its true 
 uses." 
 
 "Go away, Jim! This is the first sensible word 
 I've listened to since my conversion. To be called 
 a casket of even misapplied treasure reminds me of 
 the ripping old times when I was me. Jim ! Will 
 you go ? It gives me wrinkles to look at you. And 
 I can tell you that hags, even if they're draped in 
 virtue, won't help you or your party. And you've 
 seen what an angel on the hearth can do." 
 
 Delamer 's right," said Jim, with heavy apprecia- 
 tion. " What we want is you." 
 
 " But, goodness gracious ! Isn't that what you and 
 your horrible party, and every old woman who rules 
 it, has been warning me against this three months ? 
 Red-handed socialists would have more civility. Oh ! 
 go, Jim, and let me get alive again."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 261 
 
 ' You might certainly have done the trick with- 
 out such remorseless hard work, Mrs. Verschoyle,'' 
 said Delamer, when Jim had gone ; ' but you haven't 
 been ineffective or Lady Dorinda wouldn't have left 
 ber daughter." 
 
 " The young lady can very well look after herself. 
 I wonder if Lady Dorinda, with all her airs, isn't exactly 
 like everyone else." 
 
 " She's entirely unlike the ' everyone else ' you allude 
 to, Mrs. Verschoyle, or you wouldn't have said that." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " It's always a bit of a grind to accept perfection." 
 
 " She's been good so long, she ought to have got 
 used to being bored. I believe it was that, and not 
 perfection, that drove her off with another window 
 saint." 
 
 " I've seen him in very trying situations, and he 
 always looked like a man, and acted like one." 
 
 " Dear me ! I wonder what wilderness they went 
 to, and what they did in it." 
 
 " It's useless for either of us to speculate on the 
 reasons of her flight, or what use she put it to. It's 
 beyond our view or our interpretation. It's written 
 somewhere in another language which only Lady 
 Dorinda can understand. I don't suppose for a 
 moment your creditable efforts after righteousness 
 drove her away. At the same time, my dear lady, 
 you're not doing justice to your own capacity or to 
 my prophetic vision in regard to you. I thought you 
 were going to help us oil our wheels instead of being 
 an eminently discreet skid on them. Couldn't you 
 laugh yourself — well — into respectability, carry all 
 that delighted us before the need for strenuous 
 respectability arose into the new quest, the heightened 
 goal, the clearer vision ? Don't drop an atom of your- 
 self on the road upwards, or I tell you honestly, my 
 charming friend, you'll do us the worst disservice that 
 ever a woman did her party. You'll make us ridiculous, 
 and our enemies yawn." 
 
 " I wonder if you're the devil," said Milly, flushing, 
 
 9t
 
 262 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 with an almost imperceptible tremble of her lip. '"'Or 
 just pure intellect without either a heart or a soul ? 
 
 " No. I'm only an ordinary sort of a man who 
 likes big things, and likes them well done." 
 
 ' I wonder if you ever loved anyone in all your 
 life who wasn't useful to you." 
 
 ' I have loved one woman all my life who has been 
 anything but useful to me." 
 
 " And those who have been useful ? " she asked 
 bitterly. 
 
 I loved them well, too, in the day of those things. 
 1 don't think I fail my friends, Milly. I can appreciate 
 them. T want them just as they are, without any 
 revision, to serve with me, or without me, in hne 
 adventures." 
 
 Milly's eyes were on the tassel . she was teasing ; 
 her lips were steady, but in depths of which no one, 
 perhaps, but Lancelot Delamer knew anything, an 
 unassuageable sorrow, a hope lost for ever, was even 
 then, perhaps, beginning the redemption of Mrs. Ver- 
 schoyle. 
 
 'If I died to-morrow, or cut civilization, Milly, 
 you've got to go on just the same, and do your part 
 in it and get your good out of it." 
 
 For a minute she said nothing, and she did not 
 move at all. Her hands lay idle on the golden tassel. 
 Delamer was immensely sorry for her, sorrier than 
 he could have thought possible. 
 
 It seemed odd to him that an Eternal stroke that 
 might, at any moment, smite himself, which perhaps 
 had already fallen — Dorinda's flight seemed to him 
 strangely ominous — should at the same time shatter 
 a creature so unfitted to anything heavier than the 
 little strokes of Time. 
 
 He could have spoken to her ; kind and tender 
 words were in his throat ; but what was the use of words 
 to either of them when Eternity came in ? He had 
 done for her all he could do. He would go on doing it 
 as long as he had the chance. He felt no compunction 
 in the matter. Milly was not the woman to inspire
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 263 
 
 a man such as he was with compunction, but lie was 
 half sorry that he had ever crossed her light path. 
 
 " And yet, if I hadn't, she would probably have 
 been uncompromisingly mischievous," he thought, 
 ' to the day of her death. As it is, she'll do good 
 service to the country, and do it inimitably." 
 
 I'll do what you tell me," she said at last. ' We 
 all do. I was fool enough to listen to fools, and I 
 made a false start. Now I'll go on the only way I 
 know, or can understand. And you just see ! In 
 the end I'll convince every old woman in England. 
 And make even Jim sit up. Do you think he'll stay 
 upright, or is he too limp ? Oh ! well, he'll always 
 look the part. Perhaps it's my mission to encourage 
 him to a sublime silence. I'll start this very day. 
 I'll make things hum for you with a vengeance ! and 
 astonish all the old cats. See if I don't ! But 'don't 
 die, Lancelot, and don't cut England. We want you. 
 We're tired of painted wood. We want blood and 
 iron. Stay — stay ! We want men ! So stay with 
 us." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 When Dorinda got to her room, the only sensation 
 of which she was at first conscious was one of relief. 
 She could hide herself from all the world and be alone. 
 Then slowly there grew up in her a dreadful sense of 
 incapacity, a cold, persistent contempt for the weak- 
 ness that had made flight necessary, for the self which 
 had betrayed her. 
 
 She had nothing but herself now to fall back upon, 
 and it was not sufficient. Now she was alone she was 
 afraid of the aloneness. Desolating memories of lonely 
 dead years of self-repression thronged the room. 
 
 " And now I know the bitterness of them," she 
 said, " and their unfruitfulness. I satisfied no one. I 
 nlled no one's life. Because 1 looked as I've always
 
 264 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 looked, I carried a certain assurance of passive good- 
 ness about with me. People liked it. It went well 
 with my looks and my clothes — a picture or a re- 
 frigerator could have done as much, and have had 
 none of the temptations of a woman ! 
 
 " And it is to this I must go back ! I can't carry 
 the new life into such a future. I can't," she said, 
 with the passion of a quiet, contained woman forced 
 into revolt, unfettered, yet still in bondage to a 
 thousand subtleties. " I — I must go back as I 
 came. Even Dolly " 
 
 For a long time she could not control one thought. 
 She could only suffer mutely. 
 
 " But one must get through it," she said at last, 
 " and if love is to be shut out, Dolly must go with it. 
 I was never more than a picture mother to Dolly till 
 Lancelot came." 
 
 " It's to be life or death," she said, when she had 
 rested a little. " And is it worth death, I wonder, 
 when one has learnt what death is ? " 
 
 Out in the air, with love and youth cheering her 
 on, it was possible to fight the good fight well, but 
 not here in the old loneliness. It came in upon her 
 like a flood. Her faculties froze in it. The numbness 
 of the approaching death in life crept already through 
 her veins. The room to which she had flown for 
 refuge seemed to hem her in with its chill horrors. 
 The memory of her barren years in it struck at her 
 living soul. 
 
 She caught herself in her clinging, despairing arms to 
 protect herself, her treasures- — the marvels of warmth 
 and life, the powers crying for scope, the needs for 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Dorinda was good by nature, and custom, and con- 
 vention. She had a genius for goodness. It was 
 her one talent, perhaps, and even her revolt against 
 God, her fear of her helplessness, could not altogether 
 paralyse the natural trend of the woman. She still 
 tried hard to fight, to give up everything — this was 
 the argument her rigidly fenced-in moral sense used
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 265 
 
 in the connection — in order to satisfy God and the 
 conscience He had given her for her torment. She 
 could no longer beseech love to help her. Love was 
 too cruel. 
 
 And Dolly— Dolly would know. If no one else in 
 all the world knew, Dolly would feel it all, and only 
 Dolly mattered. 
 
 Dorinda suffered all things. The passion of mother- 
 hood contended for its life with the passion of love, 
 and in that contest all pains meet. 
 
 But the life of the soul of a grown woman is the 
 dearest thing of all, and all the dearer for having come 
 late. It holds everything. It is the source of love 
 and life. It seemed to Dorinda in her wild agony that 
 it was for her living soul she fought, the soul that love 
 had brought to birth, and want of love would kill. 
 
 " If I'd never known," she said, " but — knowing ! 
 When one knows what a dead soul is — to go back to 
 it and to the awful silence ! When one has known ! 
 When one has known ! " 
 
 But Dolly came back, and back, and back again. 
 Dorinda' s heart pulled her desperately towards her 
 daughter ; but love and her soul pulled harder, and 
 so the hours went on. She had not touched her 
 luncheon ; her tea was cold in the next room, and the 
 curse of her poor mouth was working, and the glamour 
 of the twilight was falling upon the earth. The mystic 
 touch of the coming night soothed and bewitched 
 and bewildered her. 
 
 Every atom of her unsatisfied nature, ploughed 
 and harrowed, and enriched by love, rose in revolt 
 against its barren doom. The catastrophic passion 
 of the mature had her in grip. 
 
 Suddenly she understood the tragic, pitiful secrets 
 of the flesh as only a few good women have under- 
 stood them. She understood sin and sinners, and the 
 bitter hardness of life. The mystery of the eternal 
 helplessness of sex was in her heart, sapping her 
 courage, filling her with the cold injustice of things, 
 the meaningless cruelty. Things she had long forgotten
 
 266 DOKINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 came up out of some abyss of woe to chill her 
 blood. A girl's despairing face in the gloom of a. 
 window. A child crying alone and silently in a patch 
 of sun-soaked clover. Tears dropping from the 
 foolish, tender eyes of a cow robbed of her calf. She 
 shuddered and moaned. She seemed to be groping hall 
 blind in a wrack of disorder. The weight of all the 
 past mute griefs of her patient life pressed upon the 
 feverish impatience of the life now astir in her. The 
 pangs of pain and ecstasy beat her to and fro. 
 
 What she had borne before she could not bear now. 
 Never again ! The fever of life had driven out for 
 ever the sluggish crawl of death. To give up all that 
 was good in life for goodness' sake was too big a para- 
 dox for Dorinda. She was not strong enough to work 
 it out alone. 
 
 " I have gone too far," she said. " There are other 
 responsibilities. Another honour. Stagnation and 
 death are the only crimes." 
 
 She stood up and steadied herself, her pitiful mouth 
 trembling. She repeated the words eagerly, full of 
 an insensate excitement, and with the queer black 
 magic of foolish words they brought the wizardry of 
 Delamer's presence into the bleak room. And all 
 the time she arranged her hair and fastened on her 
 hood. 
 
 " They are the only crimes," she said. " And what 
 is goodness if you are dead and live like a shadow 
 on this warm earth, touching nothing, changing no- 
 thing. What have I done until now for anyone ? 
 And to live again with such a self ! I can't do it ! 
 And who dares to judge as to what sin is ? It's only 
 when you have been dead, and are alive at last, that 
 you know that the only sins are death and stagnation." 
 
 She soared upon the wings of the thought far above 
 the sense of sin, or of anything else but a frantic eager- 
 ness to go back to life. The very relief of escaping 
 from a room so full of memories of dead days gave 
 her a false strength. She walked erect, and looked 
 very tine and radiant as she went down the stairs. But
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 267 
 
 neither pride, nor resolve, nor the triumph of having 
 chosen life and not death, could still her trembling 
 mouth. 
 
 It had the mute appeal of Dorinda when she was 
 nineteen, and even then wanting the courage to speak 
 out. 
 
 She had not said when she should return. There 
 was no difficulty. She could order a motor, and if 
 the chauffeur were out, have a taxi. 
 
 As for Mrs. Verschoyle, she did not matter. Nothing 
 mattered now but a living life. 
 
 She walked in a dream, slowly, and with great 
 statehness. But Mary O'Berne, who was coming up 
 the stairs to meet something — she did not yet know 
 what — the call had come in the middle of a fascinating 
 interview with the rector and the priest, and she had 
 left them wrangling, and hurried to obey it — saw 
 nothing but the child-like pathos in the betraying 
 mouth, and it made Dorinda a child all at once to 
 Mary. 
 
 She curtsied in her fine way ; but she did what 
 she had never done before to Richard's grand wife. 
 She laid her hand upon her arm. 
 
 " I did not know yourself had come, my lady." 
 
 " But I only came for a few hours. I'm just going 
 back now." 
 
 Mary's soft old hand closed on the wrist she was 
 well aware passively resisted her pressure, but she 
 knew now that it was in order to hold Richard's wife 
 fast that she had come. 
 
 " It is lonely I do be," she said, " with you all away. 
 Will you come, my lady, and sit down in my room, 
 even if it is not for long it is ? The way it will be like 
 home again for me." 
 
 Her eyes had the strange look Dorinda had never 
 seen, and that no one had ever disregarded — a few 
 minutes could not matter now, and life was so close, 
 and warm, and full, that Dorinda must needs be sorry 
 for the lonely, so she quietly assented. But as she 
 remembered that enthralling, exaggerated, improbable
 
 ^bH DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 story she had heard in the woman's room, she 
 shivered. 
 
 ' I hope she won't speak of Richard," she thought. 
 " If — if one could only forget everything but the one 
 thing. It's fighting for one's life, one ought to be 
 
 able to " she protested, biting her weak lip that 
 
 was now obstinate. 
 
 Mary waited upon her and made her welcome in 
 the most natural way in the world, while a resolve 
 was firmly fixing itself in her indomitable brain. 
 
 ' I think it is to keep her I will," she thought, " by 
 fair means ; but if this cannot be, it is foul I must try. 
 It is to lock her up until Richard comes I must do." 
 
 Her decision made, a fine dignity of motherly 
 authority slid into her voice and look and bearing ; 
 and knowing well the hallowed peace that dwelt in the 
 air about her by reason of hard-fought battles and 
 bitter tears, she left Dorinda alone in it, and went to 
 take off her bonnet. 
 
 " Be with me, Lord," she besought, " and do the 
 work, and mind her Yourself, the way my old self will 
 make no mistakes this time." 
 
 " But I'm afraid I must go," said Dorinda, stirring 
 as though to stand up. "I want to get back before 
 nine o'clock." 
 
 " But it is not to go yet you would be doing, my 
 lady. It is not to go you would, until it is yourself 
 I do be able to feel in the room. It is weakness it 
 is, and tiredness ; it is not yourself at all is here with 
 me. It is not much you have eaten to-day, my lady." 
 
 Dorinda laughed and flushed. 
 
 " I don't think I have. I think I've forgotten." 
 ' Then it is a pity it is. If it is to forget the little 
 common things we do, it is to pay us back in the little 
 common ways that belong to the creatures they will 
 be after. Will you sit back, my lady, and rest a little 
 and forget the time ? It is a. full moon it is this night," 
 said Mary craftily, " and it is a careful man Hone do 
 be. Let me care lor you, my lady, the way the old 
 times will come back to me, when it is enough to care
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 269 
 
 for I had, to keep the lonesomeness at the other side 
 of the house-door." 
 
 Dorinda was tired and faint ; she was really almost 
 beyond thought, and time did not matter now. Her 
 choice was made, and perhaps the drive back in the 
 late evening would cool her burning hands and brain. 
 To lie still and wait seemed to be the nearest and the 
 easiest thing to do. 
 
 The very look of the old woman as she moved to 
 and fro and gave quiet orders at the door, which she 
 left wide open — Dorinda vaguely wondered why she 
 did it — soothed her, and she remembered to be a 
 little afraid of being soothed into inaction with all 
 there was to do. 
 
 " But I've eaten practically nothing all day," she 
 thought, when she found her efforts to rouse herself 
 useless, " and — it's been a hard fight ; one would be 
 tired, naturally — and — it's rather nice to watch her." 
 
 With the light and thrill of life upon all the days 
 to come, an hour's waiting seemed so little after all. 
 
 Vague, incoherent thoughts, with all the bitterness 
 stilled in them, drifted through her fatigued reflec- 
 tions. Never to be afraid again of life or love seemed 
 so curious to her. Her life had been one long pro- 
 cession of fears, of exclusions, of emptyings : days 
 of barrenness. And now in all the wonderful life to 
 come there would not be one fruitless hour to reckon 
 with. 
 
 The curious understanding in the air about Mary 
 drew her tired attention to the old woman. " She 
 lives in a world of her own," thought Dorinda, " and 
 it's full and sufficient to her. It's neither empty nor 
 lonely. She knows nothing of the horror of loneli- 
 ness," she thought rather enviously. " I wonder what 
 she does know ? " 
 
 But when a woman is standing on the threshold of 
 a limitless life she cannot afford to loiter too long. 
 When Dorinda had obediently eaten and drunk what, 
 in Mary's transforming hands, did not taste like food 
 and drink of earth at all, but like the fragrant things
 
 270 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 one dreams of when one is young, she made a definite 
 move to go. 
 
 " But, Lady Dorinda," said Mary, not even unfold- 
 ing her placid hands, "it is to smile at me, and to 
 thank me, and to obey me yourself have done," she 
 said with a laugh, " as only them born to rule can 
 obey ; it is to think once I used to do that it is easy 
 it ought to be to the grand people to do the bidding 
 of God, but it is not so sure I do be now. — It is not to 
 give me any one little bit of yourself you have done 
 yet, my lady, the way it will fill my room and leave 
 the scent of it behind it. It is yourself it is I want 
 to feel, my lady, yourself the great lady entirely, and 
 to feel that myself and the world are the better that 
 she was born. All the other times it is not Lady 
 Dorinda it is we feel at all, at all. It is the pure heart in 
 the pure body, and it is to come out to us it does, 
 because it is a full fountain it is of sweet waters too full 
 to hold back. And it is to be like it, in coarser ways, 
 we do all be after, my lady. So rest one little minute, 
 and let the tiredness go and yourself come back." 
 
 Mary's words vaguely disquieted her, but to save 
 her life Dorinda could not have moved. She was held 
 in a spell, and it was pleasant to rest at last. It was 
 days, weeks — it was almost months since she had really 
 rested. She had been too keenly alive, perhaps. 
 The joy of living is too great, one can't rest ; one 
 can't lose an instant of the wonderful stir. And yet 
 to rest in the presence of this strange old woman was 
 fascinating. So Mary held her with her flattery, that 
 vet was so purposeful, so simple and so sincere, until 
 a sudden sharp fear darted into Dorinda. 
 
 She sat up alert and apprehensive. Could this 
 woman possibly know ? she thought. The serenity 
 of the holy old face reassured her, and the desire to 
 rest again became overwhelming. She sat back and 
 yielded to the spell. " She can know nothing ; no one 
 can," she thought. " With people like us — everything 
 is different." 
 
 It was a bold assertion ; but in certain matters
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 271 
 
 Dorinda was well buttressed by the somewhat in- 
 effectual ramparts of an Irish heredity. Not one 
 breath of Mrs. Cuthbert's opinion of her had ever 
 reached her ears. Every warning of any danger to 
 her reputation had been carefully diverted from her. 
 It did not even now strike her to think that anyone 
 could dare really to suspect her. 
 
 She had alwavs stood fastidiously aside from gossip. 
 She knew nothing of its winding ways. Her belief in 
 herself as above gossip had become fixed. 
 
 She had no sense of humour, and an extremely strong 
 sense of her potentiality to be the one exception in 
 the universe. In spite of her native goodness, her 
 agonies of remorse and horror at the mere thought of 
 Dolly's feeling in the dreadful thing, she was fully 
 convinced by this time that the difference must be 
 fundamental and all-embracing between her and all 
 others. It was a curious conclusion for Dorinda to 
 have come to. 
 
 Perhaps it was the revenge of the Celt in her for 
 having maimed him beyond recognition. — No matter 
 what she did, she could never be like " those who are 
 different from us ! " 
 
 ' I must be different — it's all different to the very 
 core of it. One thing is as great as the other is little." 
 
 The Celt, when he chooses, can lift sin to a high 
 and transcendental plane, where it shines as silver- 
 white as doves in starlight. 
 
 Dorinda lay quiet in the spell of peace, and without 
 any warning at all, Mary slipped off into the story of 
 her young life in a mining camp. She took life as it 
 is, and tenderly and with a great dignity she unfolded 
 it before the astonished Dorinda. 
 
 She veiled nothing, condoned nothing. Things of 
 which even men speak in whispers she spoke out in 
 her sweet, even voice. She had seen them and they 
 were. She had walked with God amongst them, and 
 they could not, be denied. 
 
 Except in the vision which pain gives Dorinda knew 
 nothing. Facts were as vague to her still as they
 
 272 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 always had been. But now she walked with Mary, 
 in and out of the starkest, and the darkest, and the 
 most profoundly human of the passionate mysteries 
 of life. Mary forgot herself and her son. She thought 
 of nothing, and saw nothing but the trembling soul of 
 her son's wife, as God saw it, one with Himself. She 
 did not choose her words, or think of the effect of them. 
 She trusted to God to choose His words, and deliver 
 His message. 
 
 She had entreated that she herself might be left 
 outside it all. And so all the things, in all the ages, 
 that have ever helped in the redemption of a soul, 
 ran to her aid. 
 
 The Celt, from the sadness of Ins gloom, came out, 
 a shining, joyous creature, eternally a child, eternally 
 an ancient of days, king of all simples, and of all 
 subtleties. The peasant who knows the earth, and 
 in spite of the hardness of his heart loves her, came 
 also, for he has watched the secret processes of the 
 seed-time and of the harvest, and, look where he will, 
 has found nothing so good. The poet lent her his 
 silver tongue ; the mother, the invincible power of 
 her heart ; the wife, her divine understanding ; the 
 child, its divine appeal. The orator in her wild 
 ancestry rolled up, and pressed to the service of this 
 woman who had made of herself the tool of God to 
 help a woman. 
 
 Everything contributed. All things thronged in. 
 The sense of space and freedom blew up from the wide 
 distances of the new land. Soft breaths from the 
 hills of the old stole softly after ; the pride that runs 
 in the pure blood of a pure people flowed in. And 
 Christ Himself lent a hand, or even with the best of 
 the universe at her command, Mary could never have 
 spoken as she spoke that day. 
 
 She bared the heart of the world to her breathless 
 listener. She showed her the sin, and the sadness, 
 and the illimitable hope in it. She showed her a man 
 and a woman as they appear, and as God sees them, 
 children of God and own brothers to Christ.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 273 
 
 Above all the sin and the passion and the blackness 
 and cruelty of the debasement of man stood out the 
 ultimate fact that God Himself is his father, and that 
 no man, do what he will, can escape the strain and the 
 stress of his royal descent. King's daughters and 
 King's sons are we until the world's end. 
 
 Words of which Mary had never heard rang through 
 her story into Dorinda's wild brain. The legend of 
 her race, Noblesse oblige, ran as a white flame in her. 
 
 Dorinda remembered her rank at last. The proud 
 majesty of her character had begun at last slowly to 
 lift itself up from the toils into which her weak flesh 
 had betrayed it. 
 
 She had forgotten and forsworn herself. She was 
 brought very low. 
 
 When she had spoken the words given to her to 
 speak, Mary sighed, lay back in her chair, and returned 
 gently to her homely self. 
 
 ' It is great grace was given me," she said presently, 
 " and myself so young and so foolish — and so glad to 
 be the handsomest there ! but it is always to see 
 Christ I could deep down behind the blackness in the 
 blackest heart of that camp. And it is uneasy I would 
 have been in the middle of the great peace I found in 
 the end, if they did not know before I left them that 
 it is myself knew in my heart it is good they all were, 
 in spite of all, because it was Himself was in them. It 
 is a hard thing to remember it was in the camp over 
 there ; and to see it with the eyes of the body was 
 not for man to do, nor for woman. But it is to guess 
 they did, I think. It is God was good to the early camps, 
 for it is to send much sorrow down upon them He did. 
 There was not a man over there, nor a woman, but had 
 a bigger want in the heart than gold could fill, and it 
 is to swell in the big empty land it did. It is in their 
 eyes you could see it when they stood in the dusty track, 
 smoking and swearing under the breath of them at the 
 little dog for diversion, and their eyes turned to the red 
 fire of the sinking sun. And the women would be 
 looking out through the doors of the little tin houses
 
 274 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 with the same grief on their faces. It was too silent 
 a place it was to sin in with any true content. It 
 is used to the silence one must be before one can suffer 
 hard, and how any sin can find a foothold at all at all 
 in a silent heart is wonderful to me," said Mary gently ; 
 " for sometimes it is to hear the sound of His footsteps 
 it must do, for it is in the silence of the listening hearts 
 He do go walking in the evening." 
 
 With an immense effort Dorinda sat up and tried to 
 collect her shattered forces. As long as the old woman 
 was the tool of the unseen wonders she had perforce to 
 hear. But now it was another matter. Her wrappings 
 and her defences were pressing in again to cover her 
 naked soul. The warmth of love was casting out the 
 chill of fear. The red glow of passion licked up the 
 white flame of holiness. The iron of sin had rusted deep 
 into Dorinda, and for a minute or so, Mary, dazed 
 with all she had seen and experienced, had almost 
 forgotten her. 
 
 But if there was a weakness in the blood of Dorinda, 
 there was the strength of many stout fighters also, 
 and she was made to be good. 
 
 " Why do you speak like this ? " she said at last, 
 looking remarkably like the Lady Dorinda. 
 
 The words she had spoken were so direct a revelation 
 to Mary, an inspired message altogether apart from 
 herself, that she could hardly understand how anyone 
 could resist them. She was trembling with the wonder 
 and the cleaving truth she felt were in them. Dorinda' s 
 face and voice struck her with awe and amazement 
 and a little fear. 
 
 However, she was extremely human. Perhaps her 
 pride was aroused also. At any rate, she sat up as 
 finely as Dorinda, and spoke like a primeval queen. 
 
 " Because, my lady, I do be the mother of Richard 
 Alderson, and it is evil Richard Alderson has done. 
 It is to leave his wife to fight too fierce a fight for one 
 so tender and untried, and with a heart too weak with 
 love unsatisfied to fight well, he has done. The call 
 to go came, and go he must indeed, my lady, but it is
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 275 
 
 to tail he did when he trusted to pride to do for him 
 and for yourself what it wants more than all the pride 
 of all the world to face and understand. 
 
 ' It is not to speak to you the words that would be 
 a shield to you in the bitter hour he did. If it is to 
 fail to win your love he did, it was not for him to let 
 you wander alone, and sad and silent, and with but 
 little knowledge into the dark ways of life. It is too 
 long you have walked alone, Lady Dorinda. It is 
 many a year it is I watched you, the way the pain of 
 it do be grown into my heart, too, till now I know, 
 who never suffered it, the pain of a lonesome wife. 
 It is the worst of all the griefs it is, my lady. 
 
 Will you let Richard's mother walk with you, 
 my lady, the next few little steps in this dark night 
 full of great dangers to you. It is greater they are 
 than it is good for you to know. It is little you do 
 know, my lady," she said, with an overwhelming rush 
 of tender compassion ; " it is more Miss Dolly will 
 know. It is not alone you were ever meant to 
 be. 
 
 ' Will you let me come with you, my lady, the little 
 weary bit of the road that do be too hard for you ? It 
 is myself has the best right to — when it is my son 
 Richard 1 s failed you. Will you let me cherish you 
 and tend you till the danger will go past ? And it is 
 never to trouble you again I will do — the sin is mine as 
 well, for it is my son, who never failed God or man, 
 failed you, God forgive him and me, that never helped 
 to save you from the silence too big for you, who knew 
 so little. It is the silence it is has crushed the heart in 
 you and spoilt the courage in you for the big fight. Let 
 me go with you, my lady, if it is only the next few little 
 steps." 
 
 Dorinda was speechless in a fierce conflict of emotion. 
 Death and hell fought within her. She was rent and 
 torn in the strife of her senses. 
 
 Lawful or unlawful, her love was pure and true-. 
 It had all the beauty of the most spotless innocence. 
 All the best of Dorinda was in her love. And now.
 
 276 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 in her last extremity it came to her aid, for the best 
 thing in a woman can never fail her. 
 
 It drew her to the old woman close — closer. The 
 surprise of her relationship to Richard was great, but 
 not a shock ; she had always conscientiously refused to 
 think of Richard's ancestry. On the contrary, it was 
 a bond. It touched deep things in her. The woman's 
 understanding of her loneliness touched her, and her 
 humble offer of help seemed to break down a host of 
 barriers. Every word she had spoken when " in the 
 spirit " rushed through Dorinda's mind. Words that 
 had escaped the thickened ear of her senses stood out 
 now, clear and unmistakable. 
 
 The half-quenched desire for goodness rose slowly 
 above every lesser thing in Dorinda. She must be 
 good, something not herself told her so. Whether 
 the thing was little or big, the obligation remained 
 the same. Even if she were to die for a worthless 
 possession, keep it she must. 
 
 Everything had failed her — pride, patience, per- 
 sistence ; truly, she had tried hard and long ! and 
 love was no better. To have learnt the joy and the 
 rush of life, and the full strength of it, and to have 
 to turn at last for help to an old woman ! 
 
 She laughed faintly in the quiet agony c her utter 
 desertion. A sad resentment moved her against the 
 pride in which she had trusted, that had so betrayed her. 
 Nothing had helped her, neither pride, nor love, nor 
 the marvel of new birth which love had brought to 
 pass. She must turn to someone. She must speak 
 to someone. She must be helped. 
 
 I can do no more," she said at last gently. ' Please 
 help me if you can. But first I must tell you — every- 
 thing. I must speak." 
 
 She hid her face, and in her gentle, fine-bred way, 
 without emphasis or exaggeration, she told the story 
 of the helpless pain of a good woman who had worked 
 well for half a lifetime to kill the best in her, for God's 
 sake. 
 
 She had lived her life so unflinchingly alone that
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 277 
 
 even her prayers had been silent. She had not ven- 
 tured to face real facts even in the presence of God. 
 She had only asked for patience to deal with them. 
 
 The relief of speaking out at last seemed to coin 
 words for Dorinda, to sort and arrange and give them 
 significance. It was not she at all who spoke, it seemed 
 to her, it was the overflow of some hitherto unutterable 
 pain become audible. Mary sat still with folded hands ; 
 she made no sign of sympathy. But Dorinda knew that 
 she was safe in her hands. 
 
 Things no woman could say except to a woman 
 said themselves, and Dorinda sighed in the relief of 
 hearing them set free. A prison within her had opened 
 its gates, and wounded, hurt, and bruised things, 
 things which had begun to fester, came out in the 
 blessed air. Things she had tried to suppress and 
 trample upon till they grew dangerous, things rooted 
 in earth and reaching to heaven, which only those 
 who understand and revere the completed wonder, 
 both God and man, can dare to deal with, came out 
 in the agony and joy of her confession. She could not 
 keep them back. 
 
 She paused for an instant. 
 
 ' I don't want to make excuses for myself," she 
 said. " I've never made excuses. I had enough to 
 make most women more than happy." 
 
 'It is thanking God I do be," said Mary, "it is 
 to stay good so long you did, my lady. To know so 
 little of the flesh and blood you had to deal with, poor 
 lamb, and to be alone with it so long ! It is hurting 
 it, and thwarting it, and maiming it you were, and 
 not learning day by day what it was requiring of you." 
 ' I — I thought I was different in everything." 
 " It is what we all do be thinking, my lady, till the 
 minute that will be finding out if we are comes on us, 
 unless it is one is too small for the big minute to trouble 
 itself with one at all. It is to grow to the minutes one 
 must do before they will take notice of you one way or 
 the other. And it is myself do be thinking, my lady, 
 it is very well disposed God must be towards yourself —
 
 278 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 or it is not Himself would hurt you the way He does. 
 In spite of the sorrow with you and behind you and 
 before you, it is full of a wonderful hope your sore heart 
 should be, for, indeed, it is a power of sorrow God do be 
 asking you to bear for Him and for all of us." 
 
 'I have never hoped for anything since I was a 
 girl," said Dorinda. 
 
 " And how could you ? Alone there with a cold 
 heart ? It is company hope must have, and the sun- 
 shine, to grow strong and sound." 
 
 Dorinda looked hopeless. There was nothing more 
 to say or do. The words were said. The thing was 
 done. 
 
 A curious feeling took hold of her as of having died 
 and done all the things for herself which people do for 
 the dead. So she was no longer wanted and had better 
 get ready to go away and rest somewhere, only she 
 was too tired to move. 
 
 " I can't go back to-night," she said, stirring lan- 
 guidly as though to rise. 
 
 " It is to go to bed you must do, my lady." 
 
 Dorinda shivered. Perhaps Mary understood, for 
 she paused, blushed and hesitated ; then gently 
 stood up. 
 
 ' It is worn out you do be, my lady, and the sick, 
 tired people do always come to me. The house knows 
 me, and will think it only right and natural it is myself 
 should mind you to-night. It is a beautiful room it is 
 Richard gave me, and it is not a minute it will take to 
 change it all. And when I have you in bed, my lady, it 
 is myself can put you to sleep. It is to put people to 
 sleep I could do ever since I was born." 
 
 Dorinda watched her, half dazed. She was dead, 
 after all. What did it matter ? When she was a 
 child in her great disorderly home, a young housemaid 
 she had loved dearly died suddenly. She had been a 
 shy, wild creature from the mountains ; the rollicking 
 life of the servants' -hall had frightened her. She 
 hated the rough attentions of the men, and shrank 
 from the free comments of the women. She was always
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 270, 
 
 longing to be away in the mountains and alone again. 
 And Dorinda and she, being shy and proud together, 
 were fast friends. 
 
 Erratic efforts for little Lady Dorinda's sake were 
 made to hush up her death, but in such a household 
 everything must leak out. In a silent passion of grief 
 Dorinda fled to the little untidy garret where the girl 
 slept. One of her late comrades was shedding copious 
 tears over three little love-letters she had found in 
 Joanna's missal, and two others were " dressing her 
 for the grave," kindly enough, indeed, and reverently 
 enough. They did what they could. They all cried 
 hard, and prayed at the tops of their voices, but the 
 horror of the indignity of their bawling emotion, and 
 their clumsy touchings of this girl who had shrunk so 
 sensitively from any touch, or mention of her dead 
 lover, bade fair to be the death of Dorinda too. 
 
 She got what the local doctor called " the brain 
 fayver," and nearly followed her friend. 
 
 She thought of it all now and softly laughed. 
 ' She's going to dress me for the grave, too, and 
 when I get up to-morrow the present me will be another 
 person, looking out on a new world. But it's better 
 for me to begin again here, and she'll do it all so beauti- 
 fully. It won't be at all like the last dressing of poor 
 Joanna." 
 
 I should like to stay here with you if you will 
 have me," she said at last, without an idea as to the 
 time the pause had lasted. : ' But," she added, rousing 
 herself with an effort, " where will you sleep ? " 
 
 It is fine I will rest, my lady. It is not much 
 sleep the old want. It is hoping for you I will be 
 while yourself sleeps. It is to bring back the hope 
 in the air about you is what I would want. It is nearly 
 enough it is you must have suffered, my lady, it is to 
 hope fine one can be doing." 
 
 ' There's a great deal to hope for," said Dorinda, 
 with a sad smile. 
 
 'It is with the little hopes of the little people the 
 heart do be weak and the voice faint. It is the big
 
 280 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 hope it is will give one the courage to fight. It is for 
 them who are worth all things to God and man that 
 the prayers make themselves, and the big hope shines 
 out. It is the prayers and the hope sure must match 
 the sin. It is never to sin little sins the like of your- 
 self would be doing, my lady, or to suffer little sorrows 
 because of them ; and it is myself learned all the ways 
 of size beyond there in the wide country. And now, 
 my lady, will you leave life alone, and let the thought of 
 sleep slip in ? This night it is myself will do all the 
 fighting and all the sorrowing." 
 
 Mary fought hard and sorrowed harder. It was a 
 night of agony and of a great joy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 When Dorinda awoke and gathered her wits about 
 her, she found that she had already taken the first step 
 back into the silence, and by sheer force of habit, she 
 shivered. Then suddenly she knew that she was no 
 longer alone in it ; that even in the utter desolation of 
 renouncement that lay before her, she would never be 
 alone again in the bitter way of the past. Such sense of 
 companionship as she now felt must be a reinforce- 
 ment and a renewing. It must keep even the torpor 
 of a life in death at bay. 
 
 She gave herself over in silence to the old woman. 
 She accepted her services without a word of thanks, 
 without even a look, which was very unlike Dorinda ; 
 but she was so safe in her hands ! 
 
 Never before had she felt such confidence in any living 
 creature. Compunction, and the sense of duty, had 
 come between her and Richard. The bond that bound 
 her to Delamer, little as she knew it, had been one of 
 slavery. He had done all things for her, given her all 
 that man can give. He had given her love and an in- 
 extinguishable sorrow, and the gates he had thrown
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 281 
 
 open by the help of these magicians could never close 
 again, the lights they lit could never be quenched, 
 nor the fires they kindled be put out, and yet he had 
 neither given her freedom nor perfect trust. 
 
 Through Lancelot she had been reconciled with love, 
 and through love with the world, but she had never 
 in reality been one with him. He had never been with 
 her in her heart to make her sure of herself, to give 
 her a hand in the dark to hold on to, to squeeze in the 
 silence, as a child might. Strong souls are prouder in 
 their loves and friendships. They call for a fine, 
 stalwart give-and-take affair. But Dorinda, with the 
 weakness inherent in her, wanted just this, and now she 
 had it. She had no words to speak about it. It was still 
 all vague in her. But from henceforth, even if the 
 valley of the shadow of death were to be her portion, 
 she should not walk alone through it. She would never 
 be alone again. 
 
 She said nothing of her intentions, nor mentioned 
 her plans. It did not seem necessary. Her course 
 was very straight and simple. She would tell Lance- 
 lot, and when Richard came she would tell him, and 
 then begin again. 
 
 There was nothing now to look forward to. Minute 
 by minute she would just face facts. But as she sat 
 after breakfast wondering if she had not better send 
 word to Mr. Cuthbert, Mary's quiet, attentive eyes 
 reminded her that neither of them had said a word 
 for an unconscionable time. 
 
 She drew her fingers across her eyes, sat up, and 
 laughed gently. 
 
 ' But you do understand," she said, leaning towards 
 Mary, " without words. It will be a difficult day. It 
 is impossible to talk about it ; I don't quite know how 
 I should face it at all if I didn't feel that you would be 
 with me all the time. That you'll never leave me 
 again. You won't leave me, will you ? " .she asked 
 suddenly, in the quick panic of a child : then laughed 
 at her own folly. 
 
 ' 1 wonder how it all grew up in a night," she said
 
 282 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 dreamily, not speaking to or looking at Mary ; ' but 
 it has." 
 
 It is easy to tell that," said Mary. ' It is growing 
 ready for you for twenty years it was, my lady, and 
 the very minute you wanted it, it is to take it over you 
 did. I think that is all it is. Things do be very 
 simple in the end. It is the way to them that do be 
 long and winding." 
 
 " But it's all wrong, don't you see ? " said Dorinda 
 after a pause. " You're Richard's mother. You 
 oughtn't to be calling me my lady. And I don't under- 
 stand. Why did I never know ? " 
 
 She soon understood it all, just as Mary herself 
 did, and paused to consider the odd situation. 
 
 ' I think what you have chosen must be right," 
 said Dorinda at last. ' I wonder if I should like it 
 otherwise. — -I have a mother of my own, and I do 
 love her, but she knows nothing about me, and she 
 has enough to bear without knowing. There were so 
 many things we could never speak about, that we 
 never spoke to each other really at all. — No one but 
 you could give me courage to live now. — It is so 
 awful to have betrayed a trust. I have always hated 
 a traitor to any cause, no matter how much I hated 
 the cause — and even Dolly was not enough to save 
 me. I never even had Dolly until I was ready to 
 sacrifice her." 
 
 " Aye, my lady, to sacrifice her for what gave 
 her to you. The ways of God do be beyond arguing 
 over, and the pains and the wants of youth in a grown 
 woman's heart do be the hardest, and the harshest, 
 and the most bewildering of all the pains and all the 
 wants that be." 
 
 " But I used to think once — I — I rather loved God." 
 
 " And by and by, when it is rested you are, you 
 will know you do. But so as He loves you, dear heart, 
 it is but little it matters. It is that I will be think 
 ing of in my beautiful room with all the trouble 
 passed from me ; and with it all there still in the 
 bleeding heart of yourself. It is a beautiful soul and
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 283 
 
 a heart of gold you will have to give to the world, 
 my lady, when the full price do be paid. It is them 
 he holds in honour and makes ready for it, it is, to 
 call to walk to Him through fire He does. My lady, 
 even now when the fire do be burning the very heart 
 in you, will you be thinking sometimes that it is for 
 the world you do be bearing the pain and crushing 
 the sin. With size and room about you to hold you 
 up, and have a part in it all, it is things you can bear 
 you could never bear for one poor little weary soul. 
 Thanks be to God it was to marry you my son did. 
 For, if it was to fail to win you or to mind you he did, 
 it is a great lady it was he chose for his wife." 
 
 " I didn't know there could ever be such a friend 
 as you are," said Dorinda gently, " and I have always 
 been so proud of my friends." 
 
 Cuthbert came to look for her in Mary's room with 
 rather youthfully wide eyes. He had always known 
 it must be all as right as rain in time, but there was 
 a suddenness in the affair. And as to Lady Dorinda's 
 indisposition, of which he was solemnly informed, 
 he did not believe in it. 
 
 But he was happy, and relieved, and rather excited. 
 He felt himself to be in the middle of a drama of 
 immensely moving life. And to find Mary part and 
 parcel of it gave it a magical touch. 
 
 " I've just had a telephone from Mrs. Verschoyle," 
 he said. " Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne are motoring- 
 over to luncheon. They went to see Surf Castle yester- 
 day, and kept the real picnic for us. So that's all 
 right. Are you well enough to come ? " he asked, 
 remembering Dorinda's doubt and his own. 
 
 " I'm quite well enough. I was very tired, and 
 Mrs. O' Berne rested me. She made me sleep. I'll 
 get ready while you two talk." 
 
 " I wonder how I shall tell him, or when ? " she 
 thought. ' Perhaps at the picnic they've kept for 
 us — I'll not think, it's no use ! I'll talk to the boy 
 and think of Dolly. Even sorrow — such sorrow as 
 mine— is an injury to the young. Even in this they
 
 284 D0R1NDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 must not feel anything that could hurt or silence them. 
 All the hopes and the gladness should be for them 
 now. And to be feeling the centre of all sorrow and 
 all sacrifice and all shame and all regret, as I am 
 doing, is an injury to them. It isn't fair. They 
 will be feeling it. I must do my very best," she said, 
 with a white, tired face, " never to hurt them again, 
 never to hurt anyone again. I have hurt so many- 
 people ! It — it all gets worse, more awful — every 
 minute. The unfairness of it never struck me as it 
 does now. It's trespassing on their privileges, it's 
 robbing them of their rights. They want all one's 
 affections and all one's feelings and hopes and sorrows 
 to help them on their way. It's — all a disgrace to 
 one's own age, and an offence to theirs. It's a betrayal 
 of the trust they have in you. And — it can't be all 
 ridiculous and sinful and treacherous," she whispered 
 passionately. " Such pain as this must have some 
 value, it must do something for someone besides 
 oneself. — I hadn't forgotten altogether ; I did hope 
 that I should be ready by this time to give the best 
 1 had to give to other people — to Dolly — to Richard — 
 to everyone. Ah ! I can't even think of Richard till 
 I'm faithful to him again. It must help, it must 
 help ! " she repeated with tragic simplicity. " And 
 there must be help somewhere, and a little pity for 
 so unutterable a calamity to a woman like me." 
 
 She turned resolutely from herself, and hurried to 
 the door. 
 
 The sun, and the air, and presently the quiet trees, 
 gave her strength, and even if she were driving down 
 through the hazy lanes to her doom and Lancelot's, 
 she was doing what she could for both of them— the 
 last service. 
 
 She roused herself with a great effort. 
 
 " And this is the way I am talking to the boy," 
 she thought. " You haven't told me a word of your- 
 self for weeks," she said, turning to him. 
 
 ' There hasn't been anything to tell," 
 
 " Will you stand for your county ? "
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 285 
 
 " No, not yet." 
 
 ' But I thought Mr. Delamer wanted you to." 
 
 " He does, and I want to myself. I don't want 
 to go away in the least. It's partly your fault that 
 J must go. Since I've got to know you and Miss 
 Alderson I think somehow 1 look less of an ass than 
 1 did, and act less like one, and people here are be- 
 ginning to notice it, and are beginning to think 1 
 could do all they expect me to do without turning a 
 hair. I have my suspicions, so I want to find out 
 how people who know nothing at all of my position 
 think about it. I want to find out just how much 
 1 am worth really. And what the people who could 
 find no place in England and who were probably 
 starved out, think of her and of me. I think one 
 could do better for a country one was away from a 
 bit, and could think of and look at in the distance. 
 Besides, since I've known Mrs. O 'Berne I want to 
 feel what size is like." 
 
 "So do I, I think. She's my friend, now, too. 
 You and Dolly must go shares in her with me." 
 
 ' There's plenty of her for all of us. I want to 
 go out where she lived, and see the things she saw. 
 When one is with her one feels the ripping lot of 
 things there are to see if only one could get one's 
 eyes up to the mark, and if there are good things to 
 be got anywhere, one wants to have a try for them. 
 The county can wait, and so can Mr. Delamer, and 
 no one else wants me here just now. So it's a good 
 opportunity to make myself a bit more valuable than 
 I am at present. I'm not thinking of Miss Alderson 
 in going," he said, with a quick flush, " I've come 
 a bad cropper there, but one can't keep on falling, 
 and one must fill the time with something better than 
 regrets. Besides, it would only hamper her, don't 
 you think ? to have me hanging round indefinitely. 
 In a place the size of England, we must be always 
 crossing each other's paths. I like her to feel free, 
 you sec, and I don't like to be looked on as a, 
 permanent embarrassment."
 
 286 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' Dolly," said her mother, " is not easily em- 
 barrassed." 
 
 ' She's the best pal going. But there are circum- 
 stances in which she'd like me better out of her way, 
 and making my own at the same time. She'll know 
 I'm all right, and doing the best thing I can do for 
 everyone, even for my mother," he said, with an odd 
 little pull in of his lips. " I don't want much of a 
 trousseau, and I'm not going to bring a man ; I'll 
 travel light, so I can start when I want to. Please, 
 Lady Dorinda, don't say anything about it, even to 
 Miss Alderson." 
 
 " I'll miss you more than I can say. You're my 
 son in a way, even if you'll never be my son-in-law. 
 Will you write to me ? " 
 
 " Rather ! You gave me my first start, my love 
 for you and for Dolly began the same day, and will 
 last always." 
 
 She looked at him with a quick suspicion, and got 
 deadly white. When she could speak, she turned to 
 him and said quietly, but with grave command : 
 
 " You stayed here all these weeks because you 
 thought you might be of use to me ? Please tell 
 me. 
 
 ' Yes," he said, after a long pause. 
 
 It was the bitterest moment of her humiliation, 
 but she spoke steadily. 
 
 'It is wonderful to have a son," she said slowly. 
 " I am glad you stayed. You have done more for 
 me than you will ever know." 
 
 " I've done nothing really. Women like you do 
 all the things for themselves, and for everyone else. 
 In spite of hard luck to start with, I ought to be 
 jolly glad to have all I've got. Two great ladies to 
 serve for the rest of my life, and a little country that 
 hasn't its equal on the face of the earth." 
 
 Some magic seems sometimes to spring into dead 
 words and to make them alive ever after. 
 
 " This morning Mrs. O' Berne called me a ' great 
 lady,' too," said Dorinda, after a long pause. " I'm
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 287 
 
 glad that such a woman and such a man should still 
 think me one." 
 
 " Isn't that Mrs. Burgoyne," said Cuthbert, by this 
 time as red as a lobster, " waiting to waylay you ? 
 Is it come to an end, our last ride together ? ' 
 
 ' It's not our last. I want you so much to belong 
 to us — -altogether. It can't be our last ! I should 
 hate you to be any other woman's son-in-law." 
 
 ' I'm not going to be any other woman's son-in- 
 law. But, Lady Dorinda, I want to ask you in no 
 sort of way to interfere. I won't have Dolly pushed 
 towards me, even by you. She's too much to me 
 altogether. Will you promise ? " 
 
 " I must, I suppose. But you can't prevent me 
 from hoping." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Alice was waiting at her ease on a stump by the 
 wayside. 
 
 " I felt in my bones you'd be coming about this time 
 if you came at all," she said. 
 
 " How is John ? " 
 
 " John is a good deal spoilt. A long convalescence 
 is ruinous to a man's moral tone. You're the centre 
 of a simmer of surprised curiosity, Dorinda, tempered 
 with awe. And Mr. Delamer has been coaching Mrs. 
 Verschoyle. She's nearly as witty as usual. Dolly 
 said that until he came ditchwater wasn't in it with 
 her. And she looks at him as a neophyte at his 
 priest. I wonder — no, I don't. If you begin to 
 wonder about Lancelot Delamer, heaven only knows 
 where you'll end ! One accepts him and hopes for 
 the best. Luncheon won't be till two. Let us stroll 
 round by the beech-copse. How cool and calm you 
 look ! Not even dusty. 1 wonder if even as a child 
 you ever had a dirty face ? And yet the queer thing 
 is that not one of us has ever been jealous of you.
 
 288 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 You have a sort of right to be our silent spokesman, 
 and to look it. And, after all, it's something to be the 
 head of the tribe, even if the tribe has its little failings." 
 
 " Alice ! If only you'd speak of something reason- 
 able." 
 
 ' I had so much time to think of you and of the 
 pains and penalties of greatness while John was getting 
 well. — Choose something reasonable, shall I ? Shall 
 we try Mrs. Verschoyle ? Think of her being hustled 
 into respectability by circumstances over which she 
 had no control ! It has been hard on her. But I'm 
 shot if I'd turn out all my old friends to make my 
 house possible for the new. The price of going off 
 the line even in our effete civilization is precious high. 
 I doubt if it's worth it. It was just like you to fly 
 with Faunce Cuthbert, Dorinda, without even an 
 effort at a lie." 
 
 " If I wanted to go, why should I lie ? ' 
 
 " To Mrs. Verschoyle ? Oh ! well, perhaps not. Her 
 deb' 't in the new role hardly proved her even worthy 
 of a decent lie. I'm bursting with curiosity, but 
 [ won't know a thing. I refuse to listen ! I only 
 want you to know, Dorinda, that you're the woman 
 1 love best on earth, and trust the most, and hope 
 the most for. You've hardly begun yet, I believe, 
 for I hope just as much for you as I do for Dolly ; 
 and if you can still hope in that preposterous way 
 for people, anything may happen to them. So if 
 you've ever got to bear the unbearable, and do the 
 impossible, we depend on you to do it, mind, not for 
 Dolly and the others, but for every one of us, past, 
 present and to come. 
 
 ' Is that Dolly ? " she said, hurriedly changing the 
 subject, " with three adorers, each perfect of his 
 kind ? Mrs. Verschoyle has chosen very well. Dolly 
 doesn't care a rap for one of them, and yet it doesn't 
 make her care a rap more tor that nice boy you ran 
 away with." 
 
 ' I am not the least what you think me, Alice, but 
 I think you may depend on me," said Dorinda quietly.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 289 
 
 " Do you think that when you were helping me to 
 save John, fighting side by side with me for what I 
 love so much, I didn't see you exactly as you are ? 
 You've got to fare like your peers, Dorinda, and see 
 it through, and you will. Life, as you were living 
 it, was impossible to a woman like you. Big people 
 can't expect little destinies. They must know and 
 bear the things the little ones are not fit to know and 
 bear. No woman can escape her doom. — There they 
 are, all trooping in, and here's Dolly running to us. 
 No one I know can run like Dolly, except you." 
 
 ' How many years is it since I've run ? ' 
 
 ' Too many. You gave it up too young. I'm a 
 beast, Dorinda. I used to look forward with a sort 
 of fiendish glee to some full revelation of life to you. 
 And — now — -ah ! Dolly ! Have you seen John ? " 
 
 ' He's on the terrace trying to look as if he agreed 
 with Mr. Verschoyle, who says one of his yearlings will 
 be a Derby winner. Knowing that England expects 
 every man to do his duty, and with Mr. Detainer's 
 eyes on him, Mr. Burgoyne won't say anything, but 
 he won't last out much longer. Why does Mr. 
 Burgoyne revolt from the power of that stupendous 
 eye ? I've seen him." 
 
 " It's the first impulse of every honest Englishman 
 to revolt from what he can't understand, or that his 
 wife won't explain to him." 
 
 " Have you found out why my mother ratted ? It 
 was ratting. Only that Mr. Delamer galvanized them 
 back to life they'd have been lying prostrate and 
 open-mouthed until now. Can't people like us ever 
 surprise people when they want to ? And now Mrs. 
 Verschoyle is alive again, too, and rather fun. Mr. 
 Delamer has set everything right. And no one has 
 told me yet why my mother ran away." 
 
 I know why," said Alice quickly. " There was 
 something that had to be done, and only she could 
 do it. So she went away to do it, and went without 
 lie or excuse. It was so like your mother ! I don't 
 know anyone else who would have dared to do so 
 
 10
 
 290 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 absolutely straight and simple a thing, just because 
 it was the only right thing to do. It wasn't at all 
 pleasant, any of it, even the omission of the lie. Don't 
 worry her, Dolly. It's done and over. And we 
 have just as much right to surprise people as anyone 
 else has, thank God ! and I hope we'll do it till the 
 world's end ; only we'll follow your mother's example 
 and do it well." 
 
 " Dolly," said her mother, after a second's pause, 
 " Mis. O' Berne met me on the stairs in the evening, 
 and made me come into her room. I was very, very 
 tired, and she was so good to me. She belongs to me 
 now as much as she does to you." 
 
 ' I say, that's ripping ! And won't she be glad, 
 just ! There will be no holding her. It will be nice 
 to go home." 
 
 Everything seemed to be settling down in Dolly's 
 mind as she walked beside her mother. Her half 
 fears and half suspicions were now like a foolish 
 dream, the old bounding confidence in herself and 
 the world came rocking back. 
 
 There was a proud and charming exultation in 
 Dolly's face and bearing. 
 
 Delamer was watching the two from the library 
 steps. 
 
 " Something's happened," he said, " and — I believe 
 it's over between us." 
 
 " My God ! have pity on me ! " he said presently. 
 " No man ever loved a woman as I love her, or could 
 make love so great a thing for both of us. Morality 
 be damned ! There has not been one mean drop 
 in our love, nor ever could be." 
 
 Alice was lucky enough to have one minute with 
 her John. 
 
 " Oh, John ! John ! She hasn't told me a word, 
 but I know everything. She went away to save 
 herself and us. And she'll tell him to-day, and I'm 
 glad. If the devil was ever standing straight up 
 in anyone it's in Lancelot Delamer, and, goodness, 
 how my heart bleeds for him ! She's done it all
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 291 
 
 herself, without any help from anyone, and it will 
 teach Richard a lesson. Anyway, he'll adore her 
 in future in a very different way, and the change 
 may buck her up. She'll not be able to stand mono- 
 tony in future, that's quite clear. Lancelot has put 
 an end to that for ever." 
 
 " Will nothing teach you common decency, Alice ? " 
 
 " Nothing, thank God ! Oh ! John, to think of 
 Dorinda — Dorinda ! having to fight for the common 
 goodness you expect from your gardener's wife is 
 enough to upset 01^' s ideas of everything. After 
 this I'll know that every human woman I know, or 
 refuse to know, is own sister to me ; those others don't 
 exist. We're one, the lot of us, and every woman's 
 heart ought to be able to hold every other woman 
 who ever loved : take her in, and all her sins with her, 
 and wheel them into line — women and sins." 
 
 " Come in and eat your luncheon, Alice. I wonder 
 what in God's name you said to Dorinda ? " 
 
 '-' Nothing of this. I'm not a fool, anyway, my good 
 John. Don't you trust me in anything ? " 
 
 " If I didn't trust you down to the ground, good 
 lord ! where should I be? Come along. Mrs. Ver- 
 schoyle's doing it all very well. Jolly little woman, 
 after all." 
 
 " Until Lancelot came she went simpering round 
 sort of treading on eggs, and was hopeless. I thought 
 better of her. I thought she would have been able 
 to ' change her leg ' unassisted and ' go again ' with- 
 out boring her first consignment of the respectable 
 classes to death." 
 
 John whistled. 
 
 " You needn't be malicious, John. It doesn't suit 
 you." 
 
 10"
 
 292 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 Dorinda knew very well that with his power of con- 
 centrated vision nothing could be hidden from Delamer, 
 and in the one swift glance that flashed between them, 
 she made no effort after concealment. It was, perhaps, 
 her good-bye to him. After that her one conscious 
 desire was to make their parting worthy of their love. 
 Even Delamer, staggering under his own blow, smiled 
 as he watched her. 
 
 " And she owes it all to me," he thought, " and Dolly 
 owes her mother to me, and her country owes Dorinda, 
 a finished patriot, to me. I have taught her the game 
 of life, and now I've been chucked out of it, and she goes 
 back like a lamb to the sacrifice. She could have done 
 anything with me. I wonder what she'll do without 
 me ? Oh ! well, we'll see. Meanwhile I'd better 
 look to my laurels, or she'll be beating me at the game 
 I taught her." 
 
 After that things went trippingly. A glance and 
 a glow set off the delicate, gracious dignity of Dorinda. 
 Even her growing sense of the injury she had done 
 Delamer, her immeasurable responsibility in the whole 
 matter, which her new joy in life and love had glossed 
 over, could not stay her on the path of restitution she 
 had at last chosen. She thrust herself aside, and was 
 more than herself, and the rest of the table vied with 
 her, until Freddy, whose wife had brought him over, 
 and who was fully charged with matter entirely his own, 
 burst into the middle of a witticism of Mrs. Verschoyle's, 
 and startled the table into attending to him. 
 
 "As I was saying," said Freddy, " deep breathing 
 means everything. It means the only true religion, 
 the only true philosophy. I do it every morning at 
 an open window after my bath."
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 293 
 
 " Freddy thinks the future of England lies in deep 
 breathing, and not in party politics," bleated his wife. 
 
 " I'm inclined to agree with him," said Delamer. 
 
 " Ah ! Mr. Delamer," cried Freddy, " I felt sure 
 you would. Man is at his highest, universal ; at his 
 lowest, a partisan." 
 
 " But by deep breathing couldn't a partisan,* by 
 any chance, become universal ? " sweetly suggested 
 the hostess. 
 
 " It depends," said Freddy, " upon his development. 
 How far he is instructed with regard to his solar 
 plexus, and the view he takes of it." 
 
 The term sounded unfamiliar, if not indecent. 
 Several silver tongues ran to the rescue. Freddy 
 would have been promptly smothered in chiffons had 
 not Mrs. Freddy intervened. 
 
 " Freddy does not intend in future to record his 
 votes," she announced. " He believes in Universal 
 Brotherhood." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Freddy took the field. 
 
 " Who are we," said he, " to dare to deny, for 
 instance, self-government to the Hindus, the direct 
 descendants of the only true white race, the Brahmans, 
 while we, what are we but the degenerate descendants 
 of a remote branch of them, ruthless tyrants, driven 
 forth from the tribe on account of their abominable 
 depredations ! All truth comes from the East." 
 
 " And goes back to it," said Delamer. " You have 
 thrown light on several dark points. In re-taking 
 India, after all, we only claimed our own. Having 
 expiated our piratical and other nefarious tendencies, 
 and learnt something, above all the art of governing, 
 from the other wild peoples we hobnobbed with, who 
 accompanied us, in one capacity or another, to our 
 little island — the Babylonians, Phoenicians, Greeks, 
 Romans, Huns, Franks, and so on ; and having learnt 
 all we could, we brought it all back in due course 
 to our eastern brethren. It was the tie of blood 
 that drew us, after all, and gratitude for having been 
 chivied out of passive contemplation into practical 
 
 lot
 
 294 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 morality ; and not, as I used to think, the greed and 
 covetousness of a little parcel of merchants, mostly 
 Scotch, and the inextinguishable cry for adventure 
 in the heart of a sea-born people. I'm immensely 
 interested in India, Mr. Lorraine, having lived there 
 for twenty years and knowing little or nothing about 
 the amazing place." 
 
 "Freddy thinks of going to India, and lecturing on 
 Universal Brotherhood, and showing how it appeals 
 to the best Western minds, you know," said his in- 
 exorable wife. 
 
 " I would not think of undertaking such a task," 
 said Freddy modestly, " but for the invaluable aid of 
 a Swami, a man among men, a genius and a prophet. 
 He will accompany us." 
 
 " I wonder, Mr. Delamer," said Freddy's wife, 
 leaning across the table with an uplifted expression, 
 " I wonder if you would allow my husband to quote 
 you ? .You're so well known." 
 
 " But, Mrs. Lorraine, the proposed compliment is so 
 very sudden, one must think it over. Possibly the men- 
 tion of my name might interfere with Mr. Lorraine's 
 mission. I fear I cannot boast of being universally 
 popular. Suppose I were to see the Swami first ? I 
 may know him. It is quite likely, and we could talk 
 it over." 
 
 " I was thinking," she said in a chilled manner, 
 " of the preliminary advertisements. As a rule, 
 Freddy distrusts the governing classes in India." 
 
 " I can quite understand his doing so." 
 
 " But I felt sure you would be sympathetic." 
 
 " I hope you do not do me more than justice, Mrs. 
 Lorraine. When I have had the pleasure of meeting 
 your Swami — I'm going to ask you for his address 
 after luncheon — perhaps I in my poor way could also 
 give you a hint or so." 
 
 " Freddy's case seems rather urgent," said Delamer, 
 in a low voice that only reached his hostess's ear. 
 " Will you take him over yourself, or give him to Mrs. 
 Burgoyne ? "
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 295 
 
 " I'll keep him," she said viciously. " Mrs. Bur- 
 goyne has too kind a heart. She married the other 
 little fool to Freddy to save the clergy from invidious 
 attacks." 
 
 " It's hardly possible to believe that little ass could 
 influence opinion in India. But he's just the sort 
 the Swamis like to exploit. He has a name and money, 
 he's a fool, and docile, and credulous. What better 
 mouthpiece for seditious genius would you want ? 
 That Swami knows what he is about. He'll need 
 some finessing. I daresay I shall love him before I'm 
 done with him ; that I shall stand amazed before his 
 subtle wits, and his sincerity, and purity of heart — and 
 soul. But he's got to be shut up, for all that. Freddy 
 won't be the easy job you think ; he's an obstinate 
 fool, with a peculiarly wriggly maggot in his brain. 
 I thought he was safe amongst patent pills and 
 vegetables." 
 
 " His wife led him on into new religions and sandals, 
 and then the Swami came." 
 
 " The usual course. But he must go back to vege- 
 tables and some new religion, wholly of the West. 
 Vegetables and bombs don't go together, as a rule ; 
 whereas Swamis and bombs do. I hope you like hard 
 work, Mrs. Verschoyle, you'll have plenty of it." 
 
 " I like anything that keeps me from thinking." 
 
 " You can't get out of thinking, my dear lady, 
 or Heaven help the country, and we don't want any 
 more unemployed. I find that thinking for ail you're 
 worth of the matter in hand does the trick." 
 
 " How could any human woman think for all she's 
 worth of Freddy ? " 
 
 " His wife does." 
 
 " She's not human." 
 
 " Well, no, perhaps, she's his wife." 
 
 " When are you going to Ireland ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not at all. I'm not sure yet that I'm 
 ready for England. Perhaps I'd better go to protect 
 India from the little man." 
 
 Milly got very white.
 
 296 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " But you can't go." 
 
 " But I can. I'm under no pledge. If it struck 
 me to go to-morrow, there's nothing to keep me back." 
 " Do you think it will strike you ? " she said 
 presently. 
 
 " There's no knowing. That miserable little cat's- 
 paw there with his solar plexus and his Swami has 
 Drought back the breath of the East into my nostrils." 
 He glanced at her. ' You'll have plenty to do before 
 I come back, Mrs. Verschoyle, if I go," he said, laughing. 
 " I'll keep you informed." 
 
 " I wonder how many other people you'll also keep 
 informed ? " she inquired. 
 
 " As many as my limitations will allow, and they're 
 all too many, worse luck ! " 
 
 ".You'd like to sit in some desert, I believe, with 
 all the wires of Empire in your hands, and just pull 
 them and laugh, as we all dance to your measure." 
 
 " You have it, Mrs. Verschoyle. You have my 
 secret." 
 
 " You don't want human companionship. You 
 want power, and a terrible isolation." 
 
 " You wrong me. I love my fellow-beings." 
 " To use ? " 
 
 " And enjoy and make effective." 
 " When are you going to be effective yourself ? 
 We're all waiting." 
 
 " Ah ! There you have me. It does look like a 
 continually receding prospect. I haven't made up my 
 mind as yet whether I shall let it become permanent 
 or not." 
 
 " You do believe still, then, that it is in your own 
 hands." 
 
 "In a manner, yes. One can become effective 
 enough in other people's judgment entirely on one's 
 own. A man's private standard of values is his own 
 affair." 
 
 " To keep the nose of the public on the grindstone 
 without let-up or respite is also your affair, it seems," 
 she said impatiently. " To work as I've worked
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 297 
 
 this last desolating week for a receding prospect isn't 
 good enough. One wants some more definite assur- 
 ance of earthly reward. I could work till I dropped for 
 the most potentially effective man I've ever known," 
 she said, suddenly grave, " but one wants to see the 
 thing. One can't live on faith for ever. I hate 
 Radicals, and I think the Irish Members should be 
 whipped or sent to school, or to bed ; but the strongest, 
 saddest, most heart-breaking tragedy of the whole 
 nineteenth century was Mr. Parnell's effectuality and 
 unparalleled potentialities being brought to nought." 
 
 11 I should be a proud man if I could venture to 
 compare myself with what that amazing and pre- 
 posterous genius might have done or been," said 
 Delamer ; ' but at least I can promise you I should 
 never court hopeless disaster as he courted it." 
 
 ' You'll never court disaster for man or woman ! I 
 wonder how honour would come in. I wonder how you 
 would look upon that ! How little one knows of you ! ' 
 
 " I'm not fond of punctilio, or of defining it. My 
 notion of honour consists in being as effective as I can, 
 and in making others as effective. In opening dams 
 for the sake of the public, one can't always stop to 
 think whose dams they are. What one wanted to do 
 is done, and only oneself is responsible." 
 
 " It's impossible to find out what you think. I know 
 there's a woman in it," she said bitterly, " but you'll 
 keep her in her right place there. Still, I know you 
 as well as anyone else does, Lancelot ; and remember, 
 I think that you're bound in honour to prove your 
 effectuality up to the hilt before you die or retire, and 
 become an Eastern adept, or a Plymouth Brother, or 
 a monk of Mount Carmel." 
 
 " I'll do my best not to disappoint you, Mrs. Ver- 
 schoyle." 
 
 " Will you drive Lady Dorinda this afternoon ? " 
 
 " Certainly. Anything you arrange."
 
 298 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 (1IAPTER XXXIII 
 
 In the end it happened by some shuffling of fate that 
 he drove Dolly. In an odd way he was glad. He 
 knew the full extent of his defeat. The detailed accurate 
 knowledge of the end of his enchanting dream of con- 
 quest was a question of an hour, and he loved the girl. 
 His love for her was the simplest and the purest part of 
 him : a fine thing in its way. 
 
 And now, with no longer any shadowy ghost of a 
 barrier to keep them apart, Dolly accepted all he had 
 to give her, and gave him back all she, for her part, 
 had to give. 
 
 ' He laughed as he thought of the profound way in 
 which the gift of her girlish trust and friendship moved 
 him, of his sincere, almost humble, gratitude to Dolly. 
 To escape being given what he now found of such rare 
 worth had generally been his attitude of mind. It 
 was a novel situation ; and the more he thought of 
 it the better he liked it. He was sorry, in a way no 
 man of his own age could be sorry, for Cuthbert's dis- 
 comfiture, and proud in the same degree of his own 
 success. 
 
 "I'm sorry for the boy," he thought, as he looked 
 at the girl. " He's failed at his first round. And if 
 you suffer more at forty-six than at twenty-four, 
 you're more fit to face it, you've got over crying out 
 at the injustice of heaven ; you've played your own 
 game to win or lose, and if, after all, one leaves life 
 behind one and not destruction it's — a little. If I 
 had killed one good thing in Dorinda, I'd cut my 
 throat this minute. As it is, I can say good-bye to 
 her daughter, who is half mine, without a qualm, 
 except for myself. It's the first time in my life I've
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 299 
 
 got the worst of the game, but I've saved something 
 at least. 
 
 " I've done something if I've outraged morality. 
 I've taken the napkin off a talent. I've saved her 
 from the deadliest sin of all, the meanest, wickedest, 
 most unhuman iniquity of the lot — the sin of the meek 
 and innocent ; and it beats all the vices of the bold and 
 bad, hands down." 
 
 " It's the first time you've driven me," said Dolly. 
 ' We've done everything together now. We've rowed, 
 and motored, and ridden, and driven, and walked, and 
 watched for ghosts together, and quarrelled and made 
 friends, and everything we've done has gone rippingly. 
 I ought to feel grateful, oughtn't I ? and you a lion ! 
 But I only feel it's somehow my right. You make us 
 all feel ready for everything, and fit for anything, 
 even lions. I wonder how people got on at all before 
 you came, and what they'll do when you go." 
 
 " Precisely as if I had never existed." 
 
 " Now, you don't believe that, you know you don't ! 
 You've changed everything. Nothing can ever be 
 again just as it was. You've put England and the 
 world — everything right down in the middle of us, 
 all alive oh ! as alive as we are, and as much a part 
 of our very own selves, and it makes one feel so nice 
 and important, and as glad as anything that one is 
 rich and can do things, and make other people do them. 
 I don't feel as if I could ever be lost in a crowd again. 
 The crowd belongs to me. I must always be visible 
 in it, wherever I am. A few weeks ago I got a horrid 
 fit of — humility, I think it was. I rather wanted the 
 crowd to cover me I But — never again ! ' 
 
 ' Would you mind telling me why you gave way 
 to so debased a state of mind." 
 
 " I don't know. I — I got afraid. I felt wormy — 
 and I even thought I might look it. That people would 
 see ! For a few days I believe I wanted* to avoid 
 people's eyes ! I wonder if, in all your life, you ever 
 felt like that ! " 
 
 " Never. I have a hardened conscience. It has
 
 300 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 a way of looking at things in the wrong way, perhaps, 
 but it saves me from the sin of worminess." 
 
 " And knowing you will save me from it. I am sure 
 it's a bad sin. 1 hate so much having committed it." 
 
 "Don't be too sure. There's something s of the 
 natural man in that pronounced distaste." 
 
 " The natural man doesn't feel wormy, and he does 
 enjoy himself, and makes other people enjoy them- 
 selves, ft was before Mrs. Verschoyle became natural 
 man that she bored us and herself to death. You did 
 that, too. You showed her the way." 
 
 " Pardon me ! I shouldn't presume to show any 
 lady the way except over a fence. A man can do 
 no more than show a woman how charming she is, and 
 the enormous amount she can do for him, and the like 
 of him." 
 
 " Yes. That's just part of what you do for all of 
 us. You give us confidence. You make us ready 
 for some great wonder you know all about. You 
 play on your pipes, and we're all ready to follow you, 
 for we all know you'd lead us to some delightful secret 
 thing we couldn't find alone. You know where to 
 find the pot of gold under the rainbow, and the Phil- 
 osopher's Stone and the Blue Bird, and where the Pied 
 Piper took the children ! I used to call you the Pied 
 Piper." 
 
 " You did, did you ? " he said quietly. " I don't 
 for one moment pretend to know any of these things. 
 But to know that you have weighed me in the balance 
 and not found me wanting is the best and the purest 
 pleasure of my life. Certainly, it's the pleasure that 
 interests me the most. I shall do my best to live 
 up to it, and I'm glad that you'll never feel wormy 
 again, and very certainly not on my account. But 
 the pot of gold, and where the children went, and the 
 Blue Bird, and all the other wonders at the back of 
 your braiii, are tucked away somewhere in yourself. 
 You want no Pied Piper to find them for you. If you 
 let love in he'll soon root them out for you," he said, 
 laughing.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 301 
 
 " Everyone recommends love for everything. It's 
 like a patent medicine, a cure for every ill. Even 
 without love life's rather nice. Look at that hill, 
 with the light on it ! Take out your pipes," she said 
 with her pretty heart-free laugh, " and pipe me to it." 
 
 ' That's a challenge, and some day I may take it 
 up." 
 
 " Meanwhile it's a lovely drive, and I'm glad it 
 was you who drove me," she said mischievously, 
 glancing at Cuthbert bowling on before them without 
 one look behind. 
 
 You won't always be glad. I don't want you 
 to. I know my place. But I shall always claim 
 my right to drive you now and then. For thiee 
 reasons : First, because your mother is the oldest 
 friend I have, and the best woman I have ever known ; 
 secondly, because you are her daughter, and think 
 better of me than anyone else has done, so far ; 
 thirdly, because the man whose true and life-long 
 friendship I most desire loves you. With all my sins 
 upon me I've never hurt either of you and I never 
 shall. And so here we are, friends for life ; com- 
 rades, perhaps, some day — a trio, a quartet, a quintet 
 of them — who knows ? " he said with a laugh as he 
 lifted her down. " Nothing but Heaven itself knows 
 what is in store for us. There's your mother. I'll 
 go and tell her of our compact and hear what con- 
 ditions she may suggest." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 Mrs. Verschoyle looked as though she were sur- 
 veying a flock of men and baskets with a dominant 
 eye and wheeling them all into line. But she had not 
 a thought for the success of her picnic. That was 
 already assured. It amused her to look absorbed in 
 housewifely affairs, which she could always manage to 
 perfection without any absorption ; she was wondering,
 
 302 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 with all her might, if she had at last found the woman, 
 and if it was the likeness or the unlikeness of Lady 
 Dorinda to everyone else that attracted him. 
 
 " He does not believe in God as a maker of man, 
 or in man as a maker of laws. He has no faith in 
 conventions ; he thinks he believes in nothing but 
 himself and the country. A man must have more 
 than himself and a country to believe in. He may 
 have buried his beliefs and things in some woman's 
 grave, but I doubt it. He's too much alive to have 
 buried anything." 
 
 She turned to look at Dorinda. ' I believe it's the 
 difference between her and us, after all," she said. 
 " I wonder if I'd been different if he would have be- 
 lieved in me. As it is, no one believes in me very 
 much, unless it's James. Poor James ! He believes 
 and trembles like the devils. I don't mind the 
 trembling, but the belief of confiding young things 
 like James does rather hurt one sometimes. I don't 
 think I'll ever let him see again how much he bores 
 me." 
 
 " Mrs. Burgoyne looks benevolent," she said to 
 Delamer, who came up to her for a minute. " I 
 wonder what James is saying to her." 
 
 " Something kind and honest, no doubt." 
 
 " Yes. And he says it with such nice, laboured 
 zeal. He's so anxious to oblige people he wants to 
 like me and approve of me. I wonder how on earth 
 I'm going to express the thousand and one things 
 that are being hustled into being in me by you and 
 others, through James." 
 
 " Through James ? " 
 
 " You don't suppose I'm going to let James express 
 himself ? And if a woman has to write her husband's 
 speeches it's her duty to write them so that people 
 will listen to him saying them. James will look very 
 well as an earnest politician, and my mouth-piece ! 
 Oh ! well ! What a good thing for James he didn't 
 marry a fool who could say nothing, or a suffragette 
 who'd want to be saying all the things herself. Go
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 303 
 
 and speak to Lady Dorinda. There she is — Why 
 did you drive Dolly ? " 
 
 " James and destiny decreed that I should, and I 
 thought you were looking on." 
 
 I wasn't. I was immersed in the rector's mother- 
 in-law. She announced lately at a large sewing-party 
 that sooner than accept a cup of cold water from me 
 she'd rather die, and now she's going to eat my foie 
 gras sandwiches. If one of them choked her how 
 delightful it would be ! " 
 
 ' It would indeed be an unconditional enjoyment." 
 
 ' Well, now go and try a conditional one, and talk 
 to Lady Dorinda. I'm going to try another, and 
 talk to James." 
 
 'I've twice the wit and resource of Lady Dorinda," 
 she thought gloomily. ' It's she herself one thinks 
 of, and not her words. No one in his senses would 
 ever quote her, but plenty, in the same condition, 
 would dream of her. He's often quoted me, but I 
 wonder how often Lancelot has^dreamed of me ? That's 
 all the difference between us. The only one who ever 
 dreamt of me in all his life was James. Poor James ! " 
 
 " Come here, James ! " she called out. " What's 
 the matter ? I say — tell me what it is." 
 
 ' It's the rector," he said fussily. " He's just been 
 asking me if Delamer isn't a Buddhist ; and when I 
 told him that, on the contrary, he was just going to 
 squash a seditious rascal of a Swami, if he didn't start 
 off on Christian atrocities, and Chinese Labour. I 
 forgot the fellow was an infernal Radical." 
 
 ' James ! Leave the rector to me, and you stick 
 to Mrs. Burgoyne. Stick close, mind. Don't leave her 
 for the day. She's ever so much more important 
 than the rector, and has the first claim on your atten- 
 tion. I'll look after the smaller fry." 
 
 James obeyed with alacrity. It struck him that 
 Milly, if she searched England, couldn't find — in a 
 few years, of course — a model more congenial to his 
 mind than Mrs. Burgoyne, and he never grudged hard 
 labour in a good cause.
 
 304 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Milly chuckled. 
 I've paid her oft with interest," she said, " and 
 now for the rector and the other undesirables. But 
 they're as good as desirables, and expect less from 
 you. They'll be more hopeful of my ultimate salva- 
 tion if I'm dull. The others want everything, not 
 only your ultimate salvation, but all the things about 
 you that imperilled it. They'll let you off nothing ! 
 It strikes me that ours is an extremely difficult world 
 to be more or less good in." She turned to look at 
 Delamer and Lady Dorinda. ' I wonder what they 
 talk about," she said wearily. " It must be rather 
 like a mystery-play, I should think." She turned 
 abruptly from the retreating figures. 
 
 I wish the day was over," she said ; " and one 
 could go to sleep." 
 
 Delamer saw that Dorinda stood quietly waiting 
 for him. 
 
 " It's so like her," he thought. " Her straightness 
 and simplicity come out through everything." 
 
 " Shall we sit or walk ? " he said. ' Tea will be 
 over there by the river, but it's only four. You must 
 see the ruins. It's to see them we've come. But 
 they'll wait. It's the makers of ruins as a rule who 
 prefer not to wait — who like to get it over. Is that 
 what it all means, Dorinda ? You've decided to throw 
 me over ? " 
 
 ' I can't do it, Lancelot," she said in a low voice. 
 
 " Would you mind telling me what altered every- 
 thing — if you know ? That egregious mother-in-law 
 is rumbling into sight. Will you smile at her ? She'll 
 soon thunder past." 
 
 ' What a view it is," he said, in a far-reaching voice 
 of enthusiasm. '■' Mrs. Verschoyle does everything 
 well, and all nature obeys her. There's not even a 
 fly to get into our ointment — Phew ! That's over ! 
 Can you tell me, Dorinda, or will you ? " 
 
 " Yesterday Dolly was speaking of things here," 
 said Dorinda slowly in a low voice, " and thedifference 
 that divides people from her. She said * that one
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 305 
 
 doesn't want to know anything, that one just feels 
 it, and that you can never come quite close again to 
 the person who is divided from you in this sort of way. 
 It seemed so little. It altered nothing. I'd known 
 it all before, really. But Dolly's sayings it as she did 
 —we were out together under the plane-tree — half- 
 carelessly as if she just stated a fact, made the — thing 
 impossible. I could never be divided from Dolly for 
 ever. So — so I simply went away." 
 
 Yes ! You went away. That was very like you, 
 Dorinda. But it was cruel, which is unlike you." 
 
 ' Yes. I have been very cruel. I did not know 
 how cruel I had been till yesterday when I got home. 
 And when I knew I had nearly to come back again." 
 
 The profundity of pain in her quiet face was a 
 challenge to his strength, to his mercy, to every decent 
 thing in him. 
 
 " Don't speak till you can," he said. " Time doesn't 
 matter now. When you can, will you tell me why 
 you could not come back ? " 
 
 "As I was coming downstairs on my way back," 
 she said, after a long pause, " the old nurse met me, 
 and she made me come to her room. And — I don't 
 know how it happened, but she spoke of things I have 
 never heard spoken of, — we spoke as I have never 
 spoken to anyone, not even to you, Lancelot. I had 
 to speak. It had come to that. And as we spoke 
 things changed. Everything but my love for you 
 changed — but even that I saw differently ! I did not 
 even know what purity was, Lancelot, till I saw what 
 my love for you was. But I had betrayed everything, 
 and everybody, you, and Richard, and Dolly — and 
 now I was just going to betray — the greatest thing I had 
 ever known — and I couldn't. It's too great ; too 
 precious, and pure and good. It's changed the world 
 and myself too much to — to do evil to it. I love you 
 so utterly, Lancelot, that I must be as good a woman 
 as I can — after this." 
 
 ' That's your standard of goodness, then. It's a 
 narrow one."
 
 306 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 ' I don't know," she said slowly. ' I don't know 
 how right or how wrong the judgment of the world is. 
 My decision has nothing to do with the world, I think. 
 It's a personal matter. I can't hurt love, and I can't 
 hurt Dolly. I didn't think of Richard," she said 
 sadly, " even in this I seem to have failed him." 
 
 Then you have courage to go back to your life 
 alone ? " 
 
 " Courage ! You may well ask." She paused and 
 pushed back her bright, heavy hair. ' I wonder if 
 anyone in all the world was ever such a coward as I 
 have been. Afraid of words, of action, of fact. I was 
 afraid of every human emotion until you came and 
 gave me courage. Oh ! Lancelot, what have you not 
 given me ! How could I have done the evil I have 
 to you and to everybody with all you've given me ? 
 
 " My dear ! My dear"! For God's sake, don't ! " 
 
 ' Yes," she said at last. ' I have courage, the 
 courage you've given me is enough for that. Yester- 
 day I thought that when we parted you would take 
 away all that you had given me, and that I should 
 go back to what was death to me, to those years of 
 starvation and thirst, to being just what I was when 
 you came to me. And I could not bear it, so 1 was 
 coming back. But now I know that what you have 
 given you have given, and I must keep, and live by, 
 and think by, and repent by, and atone to you, and 
 to everyone by. Such things as you have given can't 
 be taken back, or what should I do, Lancelot ? Oh ! 
 Lancelot, how can I thank you, or atone to you ? ' 
 
 " Don't bother about thanks or atonement." 
 ' But aren't you at least glad that you gave me 
 life," she entreated. "It is so much to have done 
 for so dead a woman. And — I — I have only been a 
 coward, and a traitor to you." 
 
 " You have been everything to me, Dorinda, and 
 will never cease to be. But " 
 
 " Ah ! I know ! I know ! " 
 
 A long silence fell on them. A thrush sang in a 
 bush behind them. Young laughing voices rippled
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 307 
 
 out from the ruins. The river flowed below. And 
 the whole of love rose up in a vision before Delamer's 
 eyes. For an instant he saw, as Dorinda saw ; the 
 full glory of the power " that drives the sun and stars 
 along " shone out upon him. It clouded again, as it 
 does always in the rough lives of men. But he who 
 has seen it, has seen it, and will never be quite the 
 same again. 
 
 . " God must be rational," she said presently, " and 
 He must be kind. I don't think He would ask His 
 people to bear such pain as we must bear for some- 
 thing not worth doing. If it hadn't been worth it I 
 don't think I could have done it," she said faintly. 
 
 ' It must be worth it ! It must be worth it ! " 
 
 It is worth it to you," he said, standing up and 
 walking slowly up and down in silence. ' Women have 
 the key and know the path to havens of rest denied 
 to us," he said at last. " A woman knows many 
 a thing that we have forgotten. One of my hopes 
 was that one day you would give me the freedom of 
 some of these havens and bring back my remembrance 
 of the other mysteries. I'm afraid I can't claim any 
 share in your consolation. It doesn't seem to me 
 to touch the fringe of the reality. It's a curious con- 
 solation, a curious point of view. As I see it, this 
 has been the biggest and most real reality of my life 
 and yours, and the most august, and only made greater 
 by passion," he said, whitening. " Asceticism is a 
 fall from heaven and not an ascent, and morality 
 consists in life and not in death. Asceticism is a base 
 barter with the rights of humanity, the lowest concep- 
 tion of a purely commercial contract with God I know 
 of, and they're all pretty bad. 
 
 " I thought we could have been as gods, we two, 
 and done god-like things together. That we could 
 have been the United Life the world is waiting for, 
 the Dual Power — but perhaps you're right. Perhaps 
 all this, and all that must come of it, is worth it. The 
 thing you've done, if there's justice in heaven or earth, 
 must be priceless. I'm glad you have any consolation,
 
 308 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 Dorinda. God knows you want something to carry 
 you on." 
 
 ' You haven't reproached me once," she said at 
 last. 
 
 " Reproach you ! You white ' Sister of Sorrow ' ? 
 I haven't come to that yet, Dorinda. Oh, well, come 
 to tea! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 The next day Richard came back. He came straight 
 to the small octagon room she generally sat in after 
 luncheon. The door was ajar. -She sat in the window 
 with folded hands, and a waiting stillness in her face.„ 
 There was nothing languid or listless or indifferent in 
 her attitude, nothing of the cold, gracious indifference 
 of the past, of the carefully practised patience of a 
 repressed life. Hers was the quietness of a live woman 
 and the sorrow of one. 
 
 He paused for an instant. Then — he had not seen 
 her for some weeks — he came, by force of habit, to kiss 
 her forehead. 
 
 She had only returned herself an hour ago. She 
 had dropped Dolly at a friend's house, and was now 
 expecting Delamer. There must be something still 
 to be said. The last silence could not have fallen yet 
 upon such a life together. There must be some other 
 word, some other touch, some other look left behind 
 to hold on to, while each went his separate way. She 
 stood up, and her recoil from him was almost violent. 
 
 ' Don't ! " she cried, shivering back into her seat. 
 
 " But," he said at last with difficulty. " I'm not 
 too late ? " 
 
 ' You're not too late to save me from — that," she 
 said. " But it seems so little now, with all that has 
 gone before — that is irretrievable, that you can never 
 save me from. Nothing can ever save — any of us — 
 from all that I have done. Will you sit down ? " 
 she said in a low, tired voice. " And I'll tell you
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 309 
 
 everything — I don't think one sees the sin and the 
 horror, and the extraordinary commonness of it all, 
 until one has to make the final choice, and — save 
 oneself. 
 
 " Perhaps it was inevitable," she said slowly, pushing 
 back her hair. ' I know now I could not have gone 
 on living as I lived then, but it needn't have grown 
 — common. I ought to have been able to save it 
 from that. I didn't know women were so horribly 
 alike," she said, shuddering. ' What one has saved 
 of oneself from the wreck seems hardly worth saving, 
 I think, but one would like to do the best one can for 
 the other lives." 
 
 " Don't begin by reproaching yourself," he said 
 gently. " Before you've done, I think we'll find that 
 it's two men who are chiefly implicated in this affair. 
 Tell me what you wish to tell me, Dorinda, and you 
 know something of love at last, so remember that 
 I've loved you for twenty years. It oughtn't to be 
 so hard for you to tell me." 
 
 Her story was short, his comments shorter. But 
 in that brief half-hour of broken, halting words they 
 learned to know more of each other than either of 
 them had ever thought possible. 
 
 Dorinda emerged from her passionate confession 
 witn a steadiness of temper ready to face all things. 
 Her white, beautiful, aged face — it had lost for ever 
 its virginal youth — was set towards the sun. 
 
 ' I thought I should have had to go back to the 
 dead life," she said, " but I think I shall have to 
 live more than I have ever lived before, to prove 
 I can live rightly. I wonder if I shall be able 
 to ? " 
 
 " I'll help you all I know, Dorinda. I wish, when 
 you want help, you'd just get to the horses at once. 
 I've stood aside so long and given you so perfectly 
 free a hand, I've got out of the way. Just say what 
 you want and I'll do it. It doesn't do to stand aside 
 in this — this infernal compact of marriage as it's 
 generally run. It's a mutual business, one must supply
 
 310 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 what the other wants. Neither party can stand 
 aside ; one must try to make some sort of a whole 
 out of the parts. — For God's sake, Dorinda, don't 
 get any whiter. I don't expect anything from you, 
 really, that you can't give. I should have started 
 that other game twenty years ago. One can't expect 
 to pick up threads broken so long. 
 
 " But we must make the best thing we can of 
 what's left to us, you and I. Thank God you've 
 done this, Dorinda — played the game. If you hadn't 
 you'd have had the hell of a time. My God ! when I 
 think of you — you — made as you are, without possi- 
 bility of fundamental change, no matter what you 
 did — at the mercy of your own implacable, incor- 
 ruptible heart and conscience. No wonder a woman 
 who loves a man can be so pitiless to everyone else, 
 when she's so pitiless to herself ! And Delamer knew 
 this as well as I do." 
 
 " We both — forgot — everything," she said, with 
 sorrowful humility. 
 
 It was his first fellowship with her in humiliation, 
 and it was almost more than he could bear. But it 
 had got to be accepted with the rest. Dorinda woidd 
 be consistent in her remorse, or she would fail to be 
 Dorinda, and he wanted no one else. He wanted no 
 shadow of turning or change in her. He only wanted 
 her. He watched her with infinite tenderness and 
 desperate grief. 
 
 " What a price you're paying, Dorinda ! My God ! 
 what a price ! But it's worth it all to all of us, no 
 matter how it turns out for any of us. You've done 
 what you could, my poor girl ! And, as you say, 
 perhaps it was inevitable, living as we lived, or rather 
 did not live." 
 
 They spoke no more. Dorinda looked quietly out 
 into the quiet street of well-dressed people, and each 
 heart as it passed on seemed to open itself to her, 
 and to empty its sorrow into hers. Life came nearer, 
 more close. It was a burthen monstrous beyond 
 apprehension, but it held all things, and was the key
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 311 
 
 to all. And once accepted, it could never again be 
 laid down. 
 
 Richard thought of that painter who had also built 
 himself a house to be so gay with. And presently 
 Delamer came in, and to give him his due, was in no 
 sort of way taken aback. This was no common 
 matter. The other man no negligible quantity in his 
 amazing throw with fate. 
 
 He had meant to see Richard alone. Yet perhaps 
 for all their sakes the thing would work itself to a 
 better issue with all three together. It was hard on 
 Dorinda, but everything was hard on her. ' There 
 is nothing to soften the tragedy of a woman like 
 Dorinda," he thought. " It must be as great as her 
 destiny might have been." 
 
 " I didn't know you had arrived," he said, " but I'm 
 glad you're here." 
 
 " So am I," said Richard grimly. " And as this 
 is a man's work now, Dorinda, and rough at that, 
 wouldn't it be better if you left us ? " 
 
 " Since I am the cause of it all," she said gently, 
 " I think I had rather stay." 
 
 For the first time there were tears in her sad eyes. 
 The pathos in her face and bearing struck deep into 
 both the men. It touched the best and the worst in 
 Delamer. 
 
 " I came back after twenty years," he said, turning 
 to Richard, " to find that woman, in her fear of life, 
 in her instinctive knowledge of what it might bring 
 her, recoiling from it step by step, dying by inches. 
 The best part of her was dead, the rest going. To me 
 death is the one crime, and to bring life out of death 
 the one code of honour. And what you had let die 
 I brought to life. That seems to be the truth of it. 
 You had your chance." 
 
 ' I had and I lost it. Of the three, perhaps my 
 sin is the meanest ; it has certainly been the least far- 
 seeing. But in no sort of way does it excuse yours." 
 
 " I don't want to excuse it any more than nature 
 does when she sets an earthquake to disclose a vein
 
 312 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 of pure gold. Things suiter in the rending of the 
 earth, but the hidden, ineffective gold belongs to the 
 world. 1 saw life a vein of pure gold, if ever there 
 was one, gcing out in the darkness, and I broke through 
 everything to fetch it back into the light. Then I 
 claimed it for ,ny own, and its own — purity, perhaps, 
 possibly its own folly and prejudice— who knows ? — 
 saved it from me. As for honour, it's as many-sided 
 as truth, and our code as disputable and elusive. For 
 my part, I believe that the man who can do it has 
 the same right to save a woman from moral and 
 mental extinction as he would have from physical. 
 The immorality lies in letting the best of her die." 
 
 "It is plain I can't throw stones," said Richard ; 
 ' but supposing my wife had not had the strength 
 and the greatness to save herself from you, do you 
 think the only compensation you could offer her 
 sufficient ? You asked everything. What had you 
 to give ? " 
 
 . " Everything she wanted, for want of which she 
 had nearly died." 
 
 " Everything but one moment's happiness. It's 
 only the woman with a robust conscience who should 
 be called upon by any man to suffer all things for 
 him. To bring a woman to life that she may suffer is 
 hardly the work of a man who has proved himself one 
 in more creditable affairs." 
 
 " You should have taken care of your own. Even 
 if a man can't win a woman's love he can feed her 
 imagination and make her indispensable to his interests. 
 No woman with any possibilities can walk alone. 
 Motherhood isn't enough for her, if she's big enough 
 for all things. It's only a part of the whole, and some 
 women must have the whole." 
 
 " My time was full. I had plenty of interests," said 
 Dorinda quickly. 
 
 " And what interest did you take in them ? " 
 
 " As little as I took in anything else, and that was 
 my fault, not Richard's. Need we go back, any of 
 us ? Would it not be better just to go on as well as
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 313 
 
 we all can ? " she pleaded. " I had everything other 
 women wanted. Look at the millions who are good 
 on less than the crumbs that fell from my table ! " 
 
 Delamer came close to her. 
 
 " Good ! I'm beginning to hate the sound of the 
 word," he said vehemently. " You can't be good or 
 bad until you're alive. You consciously chose death 
 on the very verge of life, and you were permitted to 
 choose it. It's the business of a man who knows 
 what life is to keep his wife in the middle of it, side by 
 side with him. Even if a woman can't love a man 
 she can live in his life. That's the wonder of her — 
 her utter unselfishness. She'll probablv hate the 
 grind, but if she sacrifices herself for him she is safe, 
 and a man should know it. Chivalrous non-inter- 
 ference is, to me, rank insanity. It's when a woman 
 feels herself of no mortal use to her husband that 
 she suffers as only women suffer, and he forfeits his 
 rights in her. She's in the falsest of all positions, and 
 I refuse to believe that she alone of all creatures 
 should be cut off from rescue by force or by subtlety. 
 I'm sorry, Dorinda, for this plain speaking, but even 
 now I can't pretend to any morality that seems to 
 me to make for ineffectuality." 
 
 ' It's a nice question," said Richard, with grim 
 serenity. " One that would have been better settled 
 by force, I think, than by subtlety, only for our ill- 
 luck in living now. But even from the man you 
 want to shoot you needn't be too proud to learn. Mr. 
 Delamer is right, Dorinda. I ought to have let 3^011 
 know how necessary you were to me ; how without 
 you I have practically failed. Money-making isn't 
 very firing to an imagination like yours. I doubt if 
 you would ever have found a mission in it, and safety. 
 But, as it happens, we had enough. It wasn't neces- 
 sary to make any more. It was a coward's resource 
 on my- part. What I have always wanted was some 
 big tiling to tackle. My dream, as Delamer's, has 
 always been to help to make England a solid whole, 
 to gather in the over-seas countries about her, and
 
 314 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 show the little garden of a place her real size, and her 
 real value, and help her to get rid of her piled-up 
 stacks of fictitious conceits. I thought I saw every- 
 thing I wanted to make me go on — venture, stake 
 everything on my dream, in you — and I found you as 
 perfect as you were indifferent. So I was a fool and 
 a coward, and I have rather a belief in freedom of 
 choice in everyone, and so I left you alone and took 
 to the City." 
 
 Dorinda stood up slowly ; she was very tall, not 
 more than a few inches less than the tall men, and her 
 delicate, shimmering frailness appealed deeply to both 
 of them. She was so essentially a woman to be 
 saved from the hardness of life by men, and here she 
 was in the thick of it by reason of them, and now 
 she was trembling. 
 
 ' You wanted this ? ' she said. " And you gave 
 it up because of me ? But I thought you preferred the 
 City to everything else, and that you were so content 
 with your life." 
 
 " If a man for any cause at all drops the best for 
 the second-best, and does that well, he's mean enough 
 to get content more or less in time. The very facility 
 of the step down encourages him to content. There's 
 a good lot of base content latent in all our minds, I 
 think." 
 
 " And because " 
 
 " Because I thought you didn't care, I was fool and 
 cur enough to do nothing worth the doing. A man 
 should wait for no one, not even for his wife." 
 
 " I wonder if any other woman has ever failed as 
 I've failed ? ' Dorinda said slowly. " I've failed you 
 both, and Dolly, and myself." 
 
 Her hands were loosely clasped, her eyes were on 
 the ground, but her lips were still. They no longer 
 trembled weakly, for her weakness had gone with 
 her youth. The vehement hand of the Potter was 
 changing even the outward form of His clay. No 
 one spoke. Richard, with quiet, dominant hands, 
 put her back in her seat.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 315 
 
 " We've all failed a bit," he said ; " it's no use 
 bilking the fact. On the whole, I believe I'm the 
 worst failure of all. But one can start fair again, 
 there's nothing to prevent that. Thank Heaven you've 
 made that possible for us, Dorinda, and there's time 
 on our side — on yours and mine — there's time to do 
 all or nearly all I meant to do at twenty-four. I 
 mean to have a shot at it. I want nothing from you 
 but vour official help, Dorinda, and I know I can 
 count on that. You like courage and strength and 
 determination, and the clash and clang of life. I think 
 I can give you something of all these. There will be 
 no time for despair in the life I now offer you, Dorinda. 
 And you have Dolly." 
 
 ' And it is for Dolly's sake," said Delamer gene- 
 rously, " that I'm leaving England to-morrow for 
 two years, Dorinda. I love the girl, and she likes me. 
 And in spite of everything, I want to be permitted 
 to keep her friendship. I told you yesterday in a 
 mean moment that I was leaving because I could not 
 make the best of life here without you. It's been the 
 case in the past, it may be the case in the future, but 
 it's a thing a man should neither say nor give in to. 
 I'm going for Dolly's sake, lest she should feel — Dolly's 
 feelings have come a good deal into this affair — that 
 I had no right here, that I was a snake in the grass, 
 and distrust me, and renounce my friendship. Forget 
 all I said yesterday, Dorinda. I'm better on the 
 whole than that moment. In two years I shall return, 
 Alderson. Your honour, for all it is worth, is safe ; 
 but I shall hold to her love till she hands it back to 
 me. It's the one thing I have ever known worth 
 fighting for. I shall fight hard for it. It will be hand 
 to hand, brain to brain, enterprise to enterprise with 
 us, and whoever wins her will win all things. My 
 God ! but I'll fight for what I have." 
 
 " And I will fight for my own," said Richard. 
 
 " Ah ! but I know her," said Delamer brutally, 
 " and you don't." His eyes were bloodshot, his lips 
 pale.
 
 316 DORTNDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 " You don't know me yet, any more than my wife 
 does," said Richard. ' It will be a duel to the death 
 for one of us." 
 
 " And to be the cause of it ! to be the cause of it ! " 
 said Dorinda, in a sharp voice of agony. 
 
 " You've played the game, Dorinda, and so will we. 
 You've made a fair game possible. My wife has had 
 about enough of this, Delamer ; will you go now ? " 
 
 " I don't want to be spared," said Dorinda. " I've 
 spared no one. I can never be passive again. I 
 must fight too. But for what ? " she said sadly. " I 
 hardly know, but I think mine will be the hardest 
 fight of all." 
 
 " Perhaps it will," said Richard gently. ' You're 
 the greatest of the three." 
 
 " That hurts me more than anything ! Don't say- 
 it again, please — please till — till I've done something 
 for some of you. Let me prove myself a little." 
 
 " Well, I'm going," said Delamer. " For two 
 years. We're both virtually alone — Alderson — you 
 and I. We can only see what a man can do alone. 
 How far he can go alone. Whoever wins her will 
 win everything." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 When he left her, Delamer felt more like a broken 
 man than he could have believed possible. It was 
 the blow of his life, it is true, but the sense of omni- 
 potence he had so long fostered had until now served 
 him well. Now he recoiled from the shock. 
 
 " This won't do," he said, " with a man like that to 
 contend with, and for such a woman. Good Lord ! 
 when one thinks of her, and what her demands will 
 be when she settles down and starts again. As he 
 stands Alderson is a pretty tough customer, but when 
 he's begun to answer to her demands, Heaven help 
 me ! I don't think Dorinda will scruple even to hustle 
 when she finds her bearings. Were ever two men
 
 DORTNDA AND HER DAUGHTER 317 
 
 out together on such a foray ? We've got a strenuous 
 life before us, Alderson and I." 
 
 He glanced at a sea of masked, imperturbable faces 
 behind their newspapers. 
 
 " And this isn't the place to map it out in. I'd 
 better attend to the flesh first," he reflected, " and 
 get that in order before I tackle the rest." 
 
 So he rowed from Putney to Twickenham on the 
 sultriest day of the summer, and eased off at last under 
 a big willow. 
 
 " It takes it out of you," he said, " but it's better 
 than cursing God and dying." 
 
 For an hour or so he lay on the grass, calling in his 
 mutinous senses, and reclaiming his reason, and then 
 he went back to his last night in London. 
 
 He had never been bound by public opinion, or 
 offered excuses for his appearances or disappearances. 
 He was under no pledge to any party. 
 
 " I shall go and come back, that's all," he said, 
 " and while I'm away I can still be making myself 
 indispensable, chaining them all to my car. It's a 
 bad time to leave you, my poor England, in the state 
 you are, but it can't be helped. And, after all, per- 
 haps a man can handle you better when he's away 
 from you — irom ' the magic that runs in your grass ' 
 and — other things. 
 
 ' There's young Cuthbert. A ' cheila ' is useful on 
 occasion. Suppose I take him with me ? It will help 
 to make up Miss Dolly's mind for her. Hanging about 
 hankering after her and putting up her back won't 
 do the trick." 
 
 Cuthbert looked frankly unhappy. His vow of 
 silence was galling badly, and yet he had no hope 
 in speech. Life pressed hard on the boy. He had 
 done so badly in his first venture, that he was begin- 
 ning to be distrustful of any other. As he an- 
 nounced his proposed trip to the Colonies to Lady 
 Dorinda, it had sounded and felt a very fine thing ; 
 but the glamour seemed to have dropped off with a 
 thud. If he wasn't taking his life in his hands he was,
 
 318 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 at any rate, taking his reputation, and what was he 
 going to do with it out there alone in the Colonies ? 
 
 ' From what one hears, England's a doddering old 
 idiot compared with the infernal place. You've got 
 to keep your eyes skinned night and day to prevent 
 them seeing what an ass you really are, they're all so 
 deuced sharp out there ! And to go to cut your 
 teeth in a place like that, when you've failed to do 
 it here ! Perhaps I'd better go play croquet at a 
 Swiss hotel." 
 
 Once a man begins to feel a worm, the process goes 
 on of itself. By the time Delamer had written a 
 letter or two, glanced reflectively more than once at 
 the miserable lad, and spoken to a friend, the condition 
 of Faunce might have moved a stone. He sat up 
 dully, and looked resentfully at Delamer. 
 
 What the devil business had anyone to disturb his 
 reverie ? It was unpleasant enough, but human 
 companionship was more unpleasant still. 
 
 Delamer took no notice of his morbid state. His 
 potential use as a " cheila " grew in importance, and 
 the sooner he was taken in hand and put in training 
 the better. So he talked of a dozen things till the 
 dullness of eye and heart and brain slipped away, 
 and the boy, deadened with bitter hopelessness, was 
 alive again. Then in the same careless way Delamer 
 told him he was leaving England next day for two 
 years. And Cuthbert knew in a flash that a very 
 tumultuous chapter in both their lives was at an end. 
 " If only we could get through the next together ! " 
 he thought on a sudden inspiration. He stood up in 
 his absorption, and for several seconds stared square 
 at Delamer. 
 
 " Let me go with you ? " he said at last. 
 
 " For two years ? It's a long time. Are you game 
 for it ? " 
 
 " It would be shorter out there with you than any- 
 where else, and I have nothing to keep me here," N 
 
 " Nothing ? " 
 
 Cuthbert reddened.
 
 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 319 
 
 " No," he said, " nothing. And I could find out a 
 bit how you do things, and know things, and under- 
 stand men. I don't like everything about you. You 
 couldn't expect me to," said Cuthbert, with his 
 deepest blush ; " but, for all that, I never met anyone 
 who came near you, and I'll never be in the way. If 
 I know nothing else," he said grimly, " I know how 
 to clear out when I'm not wanted, anyway." 
 
 "I'd like nothing better," said Delamer, genuinely 
 moved. " It's the pluckiest thing you could do, and 
 the thing that suits me down to the ground. We'll 
 never bore one another. If any hint of boredom 
 should crop up, we'll talk of two good women we've 
 known together, and mean to serve for the rest of our 
 lives, s'elp's God ! When can you start ? " 
 
 " To-morrow. I've got to see my mother, that's all. 
 It's hard on her, but the sooner it's over the better." 
 
 " I'll send a line to the papers now. Will you take 
 a man ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Right you are ! They're a nuisance sometimes. 
 They're too anxious for you when you get into a tight 
 place. A faithful valet is a luxury best reserved for a 
 state of stable civilization. And he's always getting 
 jealous of the natives. Besides, it's as well to remain 
 an inscrutable mystery to your valet. If he sees 
 too much of you as a man, he can't very well worship 
 you as a god, and it's good for the national character 
 that someone should. No country can live without its 
 illusions, England least of all. Then to-morrow by 
 the evening train. We can decide, when we've started, 
 where we'll go first. —It doesn't leave you much time 
 for good-byes." 
 
 " I have only to say good-bye to my mother." 
 
 " Miss Dolly is at Mrs. Burgoyne's." 
 ' I know. I shall see Lady Dorinda. But I said 
 good-bye to her yesterday practically. " 
 
 " Yesterday ? " 
 ' I knew then that I should be going — somewhere." 
 
 " Oh ! I suspected as much. I have a great
 
 320 DORINDA AND HER DAUGHTER 
 
 curiosity to know, Cuthbert — if your — er — interven- 
 tion had become necessary, what you had proposed to 
 do ? " 
 
 " I knew all the time it would never be necessary, 
 really," he spluttered at last. " There's never been a 
 woman like her." 
 
 " Never, and never will. That ought to explain a 
 good deal to you." 
 
 " On the contrary, it makes things more difficult 
 to explain." 
 
 " Wait till you know something of the passion for 
 combined effort, combined action — and more of some 
 other passions. But if that which you never believed 
 in should have forced itself upon your unbelieving 
 mind ? Then " 
 
 " Oh ! Then," the boy blushed as he had never 
 blushed before, and all the passions of the ages were 
 in his honest eyes, " then I should have killed you." 
 
 " And as it is, you're coming to the ends of the 
 earth with me, to learn the little my experience can 
 teach you. Ah, well," he said slowly. " Perhaps it's 
 better." 
 
 Dorinda did not mention the hurried departure of 
 the travellers, and no one had happened to see the 
 notice of it in the papers, so when Dolly came back 
 the day after, she found that some vague want was 
 in the air, and suddenly asked where Cuthbert was. 
 The want had nothing earthly to do with him, but 
 still ■ ! 
 
 And then she heard the story, and hummed a little 
 tune. And presently she went out of the room, still 
 humming it, and so all up the stairs. But the melody 
 ceased as soon as she had shut her door, and with what 
 she did behind it we have nothing to do. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILI" 
 
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